My Top Five Favorite Stargate AUs
Finding my favorite five AUs was both very easy and very difficult. There are so many good ones! So I tried to mix it up a little...One is an AU of a canon AU, one's historical, one is sci-fi, one's an apocafic, and one is set in what could be a canon-ish future. There's also a mix of humor and dark.
Title: The Pirate's Prisoner
Creator’s Name: rhymer23
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing: SGA; Gen with undercurrents (haha) of Sheppard/McKay, team, plus lots of other cast
Word Count: 42,000
Warnings: None
Why I chose this: Pirate fic! It's written old-fashioned-y and has illustrations! So funny and spot on in a fantastic setting. A must-read of AUs.
Excerpt:
"So what do you want to berate me about this time?" Sheppard asked. "You desire perfumes for your shirts? Your ink is too thick? The cook refused to give you a second bowl of broth?"
"I…" Rodney's mind went blank. He was a prisoner on a pirate ship, and his whole existence was a catalogue of complaints, but in that moment, he couldn't hunt down a single one. "How do you get your hair to do that?" he blurted out. "It looks as if you've tied it back without a thought, but it stays like that. When I try it, it all falls apart."
"My hair." Sheppard looked incredulous. "You approach the lion in his lair because you want to ask him about his hair?"
"You should say 'mane', really, to maintain the metaphor." He stopped - Stupid, Rodney. Stupid - then opened his mouth to apologise, or perhaps to beg for his life, but then he saw movement in the silver path of the moon. "Dolphins!" he cried.
Sheppard looked the way Rodney was pointing. "Dolphins," he said, and smiled.
Title: The Dirt Of Sowing and Reaping
Creator’s Name: Salieri
Rating: NC-17
Character/Pairing: SG-1; Daniel/Sam/Jack, Teal'c, OMC
Word Count: 42,000
Warnings: Apocafic, dark (but not terribly so)
Why I chose this: The language in this fic is beautiful and haunting, as is the apocalyptic post-Goa'uld defeated Earth that is its setting. It's heartbreaking because of SG-1's helplessness, but there's as happy an ending as there can be.
Excerpt:
Jack's body was leaner than when he'd left, with a kind of sharpness at the wrists, the hips, the cheekbones, ribs that showed, the spaces between them wide enough for Daniel's fingers to lie there comfortably. Within the blurred contours of his fatigue there was a tightly coiled wire of tension his body wouldn't give up, as though it were giving him shape, as essential as bone.
Title: The Tragic, Doomed, and Epic Life and Loves of Elizabeth Jean McKay, Plus Other Interesting Stuff
Creator’s Name: captanddeastar
Rating: PG
Character/Pairing: SGA; McKay/Sheppard, Lorne/Parrish, pretty much the entire cast
Word Count: 13,500
Warnings: Kidfic
Why I chose this: It took me a long time to get around to reading this, because kidfic. But it's so well done I couldn't help but love it. This story is told from the POV of John and Rodney's teenage daughter Elizabeth, who is obsessed with being tragically in love. And finding her dads the perfect present.
Excerpt:
The actual training is not very exciting - how to punch, kick, fall down, take a hit, read somebody's body language. It's actually a lot like Tegan's stick training, or Aunt Laura's dance lessons. But Elizabeth still finds it at least a little exciting because first, it gives her a really good excuse to look at Lorne all the time without being creepy, and second, J-Dad said that when Lorne gives her the okay, Elizabeth can go off-world on a real mission for the first time! Of course, Daddy says that won't happen until she's twenty, but Daddy is a worrywart.
"Good lesson," Lorne says when they're done, sliding down the wall until he's sitting down with his knees almost to his chin.
Elizabeth asks every time.
"No, you're not ready to go on a mission yet," Lorne says. Elizabeth pouts. Lorne is unmoved.
Title: Penguins & Sparrows & Stars
Creator’s Name: bluflamingo
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing: SGA; McKay/Sheppard, Lorne/Parrish, Brown/Cadman, plus Ronon, Teyla, Zelenka, and others.
Word Count: 10,000
Warnings: None
Why I chose this: THIS. This is possibly the funniest AU I've read. Yes, more pirates. SPACE pirates. Plus a whole big cast of perfect characters, wacky hijinks, and great pairings.
Excerpt:
He’s just thinking about setting the autopilot and going to bed the next night when his comm taps on and Zelenka’s voice says, “I think you should come see this.”
Lorne throws the autopilot on with a lot more force than is either necessary or wise, and stomps off the bridge and down to the kitchen. “All right, no,” he says, when Zelenka opens his mouth to say something. “No. We’re supposed to go across the galaxy, get Sheppard’s mind back in his body and go about our business. Instead, we’ve been chased by the SF, run off a planet at gun point, prostituted Cadman and Katie for a fuel line, and been run across the sky by a trader. This trip has had more than it’s fair share of problems. I refuse to have any more.”
Title: More Than We Are
Creator’s Name: surreallis
Rating: NC-17
Character/Pairing: SG-1; Sam/Daniel/Jack
Word Count: Very long
Warnings: Threesome, graphic sex
Why I chose this: A wonderful Moebius AU--what if Jack, Sam, and Daniel hadn't used the ship to travel back in time (again)? What if they were stuck in the alternate universe, when they KNEW it was the wrong one? This is broken into parts, so I've linked to the main page that has all of the parts labeled and linked.
Excerpt:
“Jack, you know why we have to do this.” Daniel had apparently had enough time to pout. “We can’t fight the Goa’uld with the weapons we have right now.”
“But we never would have met the Go… Go-ah-oold-“ Jack fumbled the last little bit and plundered on. “-in the first place if we hadn’t found that damn stargate, right? So… let’s just leave it the hell alone and go on with our lives. No gate, no Guh… slimy aliens trying to steal our bodies.” Jack held a hand up and gave them both a look as if he couldn’t understand why they weren’t getting it.
“We can’t do that, Jack.” Daniel’s voice was tight, and he looked at Jack with hard eyes, brown tendrils of hair caught up on his glasses again.
Title: The Pirate's Prisoner
Creator’s Name: rhymer23
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing: SGA; Gen with undercurrents (haha) of Sheppard/McKay, team, plus lots of other cast
Word Count: 42,000
Warnings: None
Why I chose this: Pirate fic! It's written old-fashioned-y and has illustrations! So funny and spot on in a fantastic setting. A must-read of AUs.
Excerpt:
"So what do you want to berate me about this time?" Sheppard asked. "You desire perfumes for your shirts? Your ink is too thick? The cook refused to give you a second bowl of broth?"
"I…" Rodney's mind went blank. He was a prisoner on a pirate ship, and his whole existence was a catalogue of complaints, but in that moment, he couldn't hunt down a single one. "How do you get your hair to do that?" he blurted out. "It looks as if you've tied it back without a thought, but it stays like that. When I try it, it all falls apart."
"My hair." Sheppard looked incredulous. "You approach the lion in his lair because you want to ask him about his hair?"
"You should say 'mane', really, to maintain the metaphor." He stopped - Stupid, Rodney. Stupid - then opened his mouth to apologise, or perhaps to beg for his life, but then he saw movement in the silver path of the moon. "Dolphins!" he cried.
Sheppard looked the way Rodney was pointing. "Dolphins," he said, and smiled.
Title: The Dirt Of Sowing and Reaping
Creator’s Name: Salieri
Rating: NC-17
Character/Pairing: SG-1; Daniel/Sam/Jack, Teal'c, OMC
Word Count: 42,000
Warnings: Apocafic, dark (but not terribly so)
Why I chose this: The language in this fic is beautiful and haunting, as is the apocalyptic post-Goa'uld defeated Earth that is its setting. It's heartbreaking because of SG-1's helplessness, but there's as happy an ending as there can be.
Excerpt:
Jack's body was leaner than when he'd left, with a kind of sharpness at the wrists, the hips, the cheekbones, ribs that showed, the spaces between them wide enough for Daniel's fingers to lie there comfortably. Within the blurred contours of his fatigue there was a tightly coiled wire of tension his body wouldn't give up, as though it were giving him shape, as essential as bone.
Title: The Tragic, Doomed, and Epic Life and Loves of Elizabeth Jean McKay, Plus Other Interesting Stuff
Creator’s Name: captanddeastar
Rating: PG
Character/Pairing: SGA; McKay/Sheppard, Lorne/Parrish, pretty much the entire cast
Word Count: 13,500
Warnings: Kidfic
Why I chose this: It took me a long time to get around to reading this, because kidfic. But it's so well done I couldn't help but love it. This story is told from the POV of John and Rodney's teenage daughter Elizabeth, who is obsessed with being tragically in love. And finding her dads the perfect present.
Excerpt:
The actual training is not very exciting - how to punch, kick, fall down, take a hit, read somebody's body language. It's actually a lot like Tegan's stick training, or Aunt Laura's dance lessons. But Elizabeth still finds it at least a little exciting because first, it gives her a really good excuse to look at Lorne all the time without being creepy, and second, J-Dad said that when Lorne gives her the okay, Elizabeth can go off-world on a real mission for the first time! Of course, Daddy says that won't happen until she's twenty, but Daddy is a worrywart.
"Good lesson," Lorne says when they're done, sliding down the wall until he's sitting down with his knees almost to his chin.
Elizabeth asks every time.
"No, you're not ready to go on a mission yet," Lorne says. Elizabeth pouts. Lorne is unmoved.
Title: Penguins & Sparrows & Stars
Creator’s Name: bluflamingo
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing: SGA; McKay/Sheppard, Lorne/Parrish, Brown/Cadman, plus Ronon, Teyla, Zelenka, and others.
Word Count: 10,000
Warnings: None
Why I chose this: THIS. This is possibly the funniest AU I've read. Yes, more pirates. SPACE pirates. Plus a whole big cast of perfect characters, wacky hijinks, and great pairings.
Excerpt:
He’s just thinking about setting the autopilot and going to bed the next night when his comm taps on and Zelenka’s voice says, “I think you should come see this.”
Lorne throws the autopilot on with a lot more force than is either necessary or wise, and stomps off the bridge and down to the kitchen. “All right, no,” he says, when Zelenka opens his mouth to say something. “No. We’re supposed to go across the galaxy, get Sheppard’s mind back in his body and go about our business. Instead, we’ve been chased by the SF, run off a planet at gun point, prostituted Cadman and Katie for a fuel line, and been run across the sky by a trader. This trip has had more than it’s fair share of problems. I refuse to have any more.”
Title: More Than We Are
Creator’s Name: surreallis
Rating: NC-17
Character/Pairing: SG-1; Sam/Daniel/Jack
Word Count: Very long
Warnings: Threesome, graphic sex
Why I chose this: A wonderful Moebius AU--what if Jack, Sam, and Daniel hadn't used the ship to travel back in time (again)? What if they were stuck in the alternate universe, when they KNEW it was the wrong one? This is broken into parts, so I've linked to the main page that has all of the parts labeled and linked.
Excerpt:
“Jack, you know why we have to do this.” Daniel had apparently had enough time to pout. “We can’t fight the Goa’uld with the weapons we have right now.”
“But we never would have met the Go… Go-ah-oold-“ Jack fumbled the last little bit and plundered on. “-in the first place if we hadn’t found that damn stargate, right? So… let’s just leave it the hell alone and go on with our lives. No gate, no Guh… slimy aliens trying to steal our bodies.” Jack held a hand up and gave them both a look as if he couldn’t understand why they weren’t getting it.
“We can’t do that, Jack.” Daniel’s voice was tight, and he looked at Jack with hard eyes, brown tendrils of hair caught up on his glasses again.