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POV: Arthur Sinclair
I took a seat at the back of the room and waited. Just two days prior, the Manassas had completed its first successful jump in more than 30 years. Now everyone was ready to begin the negotiations.
Here at the back of the room along with me were Egeria, who had stated her interest in viewing the negotiations, as well as Echo, the Centurion.
The crew of the Daedalus had two representatives; Eleni Maros, one of the ship's doctors, and Orion Valic, one of the surviving marines and a priest in training before the war. The Dendredans had Ma'chello, as well as several others, all representing larger groups who'd managed to survive in hiding.
Ma'chello and I would only be here for the start of the conference, our expertise was needed for engineering, and while these negotiations were important to all of us, we wouldn't be forgetting about everything else that we needed to be doing.
As the last person filed into the room, the door shut behind them, Ma'chello stood up and walked to the front of the room. "This is the first meeting on Kaelastrum. Our purpose here is to ensure that everyone who comes to live on this world is fairly and equally represented. Does anyone have any questions they'd like to ask before they start?"
Orion Valic, coughed once and spoke in a slightly stunted and highly accented English. "I would like to inquire why Cylon is here."
Ma'chello raised an eyebrow and turned to look at Elder James who stood up. "It has requested to take part in the meeting as an official observer."
The Priest narrowed his eyes. "Are we sure there is Cylons left? Under what… authority is staying."
Ma'chello nodded. "That gets us into our first topic. The reason that Arktos, James, and myself pushed to begin this. All of you are likely aware of Arthur in the back. He has some unique abilities."
Elder James took over from there. He spent about ten minutes explaining the forge, and another ten explaining my metaknowledge. Most of that time was spent explaining the things that had already been proven true; the System's Commonwealth, the Cybrex, and the existence of numerous Goa'uld System Lords that we had only known about due to them being listed in Ares' datacore.
Orion nodded. "How this… relevant?"
Elder James continued. "Arthur has knowledge on the current state of the Twelve Colonies."
The Colonial seemed to freeze once he understood what Elder James had said. As he continued, the Elder began to stand up and pass around a set of folders. "As far as we are aware, the Colonials and the Cylons signed an armistice after ten years of war. Assuming that your vessel did not experience some form of Hyperspace Stasis, that would have been almost twenty five years ago now."
The Colonial quickly grabbed the folder and started skimming through all of it. Finally, it was on the third page that he seemed to freeze. "You said that war ended 25 years ago?"
Elder James nodded once in response before Orion continued. "Why is date here beyond 25 years?"
Elder James nodded once more, his face becoming much more serious. "We believe that Arthur's knowledge is from an alternate timeline. Though it is also possible that the Daedalus experienced some form of Hyperspace Stasis which may have led to your ship being stuck mid-jump for an extended period."
Orion, as well as everyone else in the room, quickly finished reading through the folders. As they finally reached the end, Ma'chello gestured to one of the tables where several more stacks of folders were waiting. "The Colonies are not the only group that we have information on. Also of note is the so-called Inner Sphere, the Tollan, the Asgard, and the Cybrex."
The Colonial representative took a deep breath and nodded. "Alright, what this have to do with the Cylon?"
Elder James nodded. "About ten years into the war, the Cylons and the Colonies signed an armistice. Echo has confirmed that the Cylons have never engaged in hostilities with the descendents of Terra, the Jaffa, or the people of Dendred, and that they are willing to abide by what limited terms we are aware of under the armistice."
It was at this that Orion seemed to become very confused, the doctor to his right was the same.
Ma'chello nodded. "Echo has stated that it will be open for questions at a later date. While this information is vital for any future decisions we make, there is something much more important. The Celestial Forge. It was this ability that gave us the opportunity to neutralize all of Ares' fleet. Without that, we would not have been able to defeat him."
Elder James nodded. "The issue is that Arthur cannot use his ability on something which he, or the group that he is a part of, does not own. Which is the main driving force of these negotiations. Arthur can give us access to a complete understanding of Goa'uld, Colonial, Dendredan, and even Inner Sphere technology. All we have to do for that is come together."
The doctor sitting beside Orion, Eleni turned to me at this moment, and spoke directly in standard Caprican. "Are you willing to freely share your knowledge with all of us, if you are given access."
I nodded and responded in my own heavily accented Caprican. "I am. As long as all of you can come to a fair agreement, everything I know will be shared."
Elder James coughed once, and I quickly repeated my words in English for everyone to hear.
Ma'chello nodded at me in thanks. "Now, while none of us want this conference to extend indefinitely, that does not mean we should rush to put anything to paper. We have a lot of ground to cover during this conference."
So, it began. I had no doubt that this entire thing would extend for at least a couple of weeks, likely even longer.
To begin with, it was agreed that I would have to be one of the main signatories, just because the main impetus of these negotiations was my existence.
Once the signatories had been determined, the meeting turned to how many signatories would be required to ratify the final document.
The rest of the meeting was lengthy, and I only managed to stay awake the whole day through sheer force of will. Even by the end of the day, everyone had somehow failed to come to an initial agreement, though they were close. When the end of the first day was called, rather than leave, food was brought in for everyone to eat and I was given a chair at the front of the room.
Everyone, whether that be the Colonials, or the Serkha spent hours questioning me for information. I remained as coherent as I could, but by the end I was absolutely exhausted. Despite that everyone left the first day with a pep in their step, so to say. There was a palpable excitement in the air.
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Fifteen Days Later.
I stared out the window of the Colonial Raptor. After a month of work, we had finally completed our first fully in-house constructed Jump Drive. Making sure it was actually ready for testing had taken three days, but we had checked everything we could think of.
Now, there was nothing left to do but test. So, we had built a small hull around the engine, added a tank for the Tylium fuel, and strapped it to the bottom of a Raptor.
As I sat behind the Raptor pilot, I pressed the button. In a flash, the tube-shaped object disappeared. I took a deep breath and nodded to the pilot, in heavily accented caprican, I spoke. "Alright, you're good to initiate the jump."
She nodded back to me, and with a few button presses, the world flashed. The next thing I knew, the planet below us was gone, and all that was visible was the twinkling of stars and the black of space. I looked at the pilot curiously who was busy looking down at a screen. "I have it on DRADIS."
She turned her vision away from the screen, grabbed the Joystick, and turned the ship. I once more caught sight of Kaelastrum, though we were on the dark side of the world this time.
After a few moments of gentle acceleration, the tube came into view.
I breathed a sigh of relief. From the outside at least, it looked to be in order. "Alright. Can you grab it, or do I have to EVA?"
"I should be able to grab it, sir." the pilot replied.
There it was again, the 'sir.' Pursing my lips, I spoke while the pilot slowly maneuvered the Raptor into position over the missile-shaped device. "You don't have to call me sir."
The pilot didn't respond until I felt a heavy clunk make its way up my legs. "Sorry, habit on my part. It's just…"
I raised an eyebrow, "It's just what?"
I couldn't see her face, but she hesitated for a moment. "Well… I expected to be in Elysium. Instead, I woke up to find that I had been dead for twenty years. I don't really know what I'm supposed to be doing."
I sat back a bit as she turned the ship around and began to accelerate. It would be about twenty minutes before we got back to the ground. "What were you doing before the war?"
She chuckled. "I was finishing school. Then I got conscripted."
"Well, what did you want to do after that?" I asked.
"I was expecting to spend the rest of my life on the family farm."
I shrugged. "Well, I'd recommend that you join the academy."
The academy was a rather new idea. It had been brought up on the fifth day of the conference. For everyone to have equal access to the technology that I, and everyone else would be providing, necessitated an organization to actually distribute that knowledge.
Alongside this was the awareness that people had to be trained in the use of new tools and weapons, and so the idea had come to life. At first, it had been recommended that academy access should be purchased. This was quickly shot down due to the fact that this would hamper several groups from gaining access to the provided techniques, and the fact that we currently didn't have an actual currency.
The village had been small enough and close enough knit where everyone just did what they were supposed to. The Serkha just… didn't use money; the goa'uld didn't allow the Jaffa personal possessions, and they didn't quite seem to understand the implications of what it meant to be free, just yet anyway.
Even the Dendredans had basically had to give up currency and resort to barter due to Ares' arrival, and they had yet to agree on a single currency for them to use.
She chuckled. "Already going to be one of the flight instructors. Can't have that fighter jock of yours… I believe her name was Ruth Mitchel… show us up, now can I."
I shook my head. "Thats not what I meant. You should see about maybe trying for the engineering school. We're struggling as it is, taking just about everyone we can at the moment."
She seemed rather taken aback, as far as I could tell. "Really? I figured engineering would be flush with recruits."
I smiled bitterly. "Everyone who isn't trying to become a mech warrior is trying to get into the flight school. For some reason that is totally beyond me, we are rather low on people interested in being engineers."
The ship was silent for the rest of the trip to the ground. The Raptor landing pad was blinking as we came in. Slowly and carefully, the pilot released the payload before taking off and moving over so that the Raptor was landed just out of the way.
With a hiss, the door came open and I took off my helmet. The pilot exited the ship and I turned, making sure to check her nametag, and offered her my hand. "Thank you for your time, Miss Keats."
She took my hand and shook it. "Thank you for your advice regarding the academy. I'll consider it."
I nodded. "The engineering division isn't the only group that is wanting for members. Both the History and the Political Science division have really struggled to get anyone properly interested in joining."
She raised an eyebrow as she moved to take off her helmet. "That I'm not surprised by. Who would want to be a historian in these sorts of times?"
I shrugged. "I wouldn't say that History is as important to us at the moment as engineering, but it is still important, 'those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it', after all."
The colonial seemed to freeze, before she chuckled lightly. "All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again."
I shook my head. "If I have anything to say about it, then that won't come to pass."
She nodded. "Have a good evening, Mr. Sinclair."
With that she left, and I followed the missile back inside the hangar.