Fic: Apocrypha
Title: Apocrypha
Summary: The repercussions of SG-1’s interference in the galaxy linger for a very, very long time.
Season: Future. No, really. Way, way in the future.
Rating: G
Disclaimer: If I explain yet again that Stargate isn’t mine, will you all exonerate me for this?
ooo
Popular History and Archaeology
Special Issue: Updates in Theories on Pre-Chaos America
Editors’ Introduction
The notion that the peoples of earth were at one time capable of interplanetary or even interstellar travel, while generating a great deal of popular interest, has long been considered apocryphal within scholarly circles; new evidence, however, has begun to emerge in support of this once-ridiculed theory. We devote much of this special issue to exploration and discussion of these surprising developments.
Earlier this year, a discovery made several years ago in the long-devastated region known in the Pre-Chaos era as the American Southwest re-ignited both popular and scholarly interest in such theories; historians were forced to reconsider their long-held positions on these issues. Excavation has revealed a variety of fragments, dated at several thousand years old and made up of various metals, including some of unknown composition. The fragments, spread out over an apparent large debris field, were subjected to years of investigation and analysis by a large interdisciplinary team, leading to the stunning press conference at which the expedition leadership announced their belief that these artifacts once comprised a space-faring vessel, most likely destroyed in a high-impact crash (see Reconstructing Goliath, p. 22).
These developments on their own changed the face of an entire field of historical understanding; it is, however, a different event, once that evokes a feeling of almost religious significance, which has received the majority of the public’s attention. Among the most widely disparaged theories of interstellar travel is one that alleges such travel was once accomplished not only by ships but also via some unknown means of instantaneous transportation. This theory, if true, would be of considerable interest; given the depletion of metal resources on earth, it is unlikely that space travel via ship is in earth’s future.
Those who have long subscribed to this instantaneous transport theory include a number of once-respected scholars in several disparate fields, many of whom posit that the peoples of earth were once an influential force throughout the galaxy. Through the study of the remnants of documents from the Pre-Chaos era (see Trail of a Starburst, p. 30), these individuals identified the approximate location and timing of the appearance of the light of a supernova believed to have been artificially caused by explorers from our planet. Mainstream historians ridiculed this prediction, calling it a wishful hope based on an old children’s tale, supported only by questionable translations of and faulty correlations between the documents in the library in question.
The anticipated date of the event, falling approximately two months prior to the publication of this journal, was widely publicized; readers will recall the flurry of media attention in the days leading up to the supposed phenomenon. This date, however, passed without event. Weeks went by without any evidence of the predicted celestial phenomenon, and those who had forecast it, along with all of their other assertions, now garnered as much ridicule in the mainstream media as they had interest in the days prior.
In point of fact, nearly a month after the date on which the occurrence was originally looked for, a new star did appear in almost precisely the location pinpointed, and the accuracy of this claim lends weight to others put forward by the same individuals.
Rumors have begun to circulate of renewed political interest in the excavation of the Coloradan Plateau (see Political Landscapes, p. 42). Several military bases have been uncovered in this vicinity and subjected to cursory examination; however, funding for digs in this area was diverted many years ago to the exploration of the Manhattan Supercity after the development of new methods of underwater excavation. New soil analyses from the Coloradan plateau, however, have shown trace amounts of the same unidentified metals found in the Goliath excavation; combined with the assertion, once considered myth, that this area was a major base for earth’s military operations elsewhere in the galaxy, has certainly raised the priority of these sites.
Also in this issue the reader will find: an update on the excavation of the Capitol Basin (see Old Washington’s Glory, p. 52); current theories on Pre-Chaos American politics (see Strength and Peril in the Capitalist Democracy, p. 60); and a review of excavations of military installations (see Mighty Eagle, p. 68).
Certainly these recent events must cause us all, scholar and layman alike, to re-evaluate our understanding of the history that led us to where we are today.
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A/N: See Season 4, Exodus. I blame this piece in its entirety on the Crab Nebula, which showed up elsewhere while I was writing and got me thinking. I just couldn’t resist the notion of how much earth might have changed by the time the supernova of Vorash’s sun was visible there. Yeah, there are some blatant assumptions here, but allow me a little creative latitude, please? And, yeah, I might be just a bit nuts.