After a brief silence following this sad news, I offered to give Isara a ride to the planet's major cities. She would personally brief the governors on the impending changes in the power structure, negotiate with local elites—all the usual things required in such cases. Luckily, I had a Teltak ready—I could act as a taxi driver for a while, while also providing her with all the necessary technological equipment: a satellite phone, a computer, a printer. I also included my Jaffa escort, as well as detailed manuals in Goa'uldish explaining how everything worked and how to use it.
I admit, I'm no programming genius, even with my knowledge of snake language. I copied the operating system haphazardly, adding a few familiar programs—a file manager, Word and Excel equivalents. Admittedly, it wasn't perfect; I'm sure it's full of bugs. I also moved some of the programs from the "neural" interface to a holographic display, as LCD screens are unfamiliar to me, and satellite phones use holograms. For example, the calculator. To save energy, the phones were equipped with only an address book and a search engine. It would be ironic if they conspired to destroy me using my own satellites.
"Master, why are you so lenient towards slaves?" my "first warrior" asked me, though it was more of a joke. Only System Lords are allowed to hold such titles, and I'm a pathetic nobody. This is my eldest Jaffa, twenty years old.
"Because it's effective. Cruelty can yield impressive results, but three great emotions rule the world: Loyalty, Greed, and Fear. You serve me out of loyalty, carry my banner, and guard my secrets. For your loyalty, I reward you. Greed is the desire to possess ever greater quantities of wondrous resources; a person, having obtained what he desires, experiences joy. Fear is a powerful emotion, but it dulls over time. A slave who toils for months in the quarries loses the fear of death. However, Loyalty and Greed are much closer than it seems. The key factor in both is reward for effort. Without proper compensation, the miners would be impossible to pull out of the quarries, even without overseers. The main thing is to provide this reward. My Goa'uld brothers do not care about this, for they have countless planets and an infinite number of slaves. My resources are limited."
Krel nodded. We didn't usually interact much. I'd tasked him with training my troops, divided into ten companies, who were constantly refining their skills on the ship using my latest technology. Their regimen was the same as that of Warhammer's Space Marines: 90% of the time they were either eating or preparing for war. I had no hypnotic training, so they mostly practiced ship assaults and close combat in confined spaces. This gave me plenty of data for improving the helmets.
"We must complete Lord Ra's task. The end justifies any means."
"This woman forced you to marry her," Krel noted.
"So what? If this calms the population, it's an unnaturally small sacrifice. The last 'god' ruled them five hundred years ago, and they need to get used to the new reality. Ra sent me here not to restore the population's faith in the gods, but to obtain naquadah. That's all that matters."
We sat in the Teltak's cockpit. Isara left to speak with yet another governor, and the locals eyed our spaceship with curiosity. The Queen, to avoid unnecessary complications—which would mostly involve the Jaffa—ordered the stunned garrison to guard the landing site. It's worth noting that I'd had time to study the local law enforcement system. There was no military in the traditional sense; it was primarily made up of national guardsmen, who maintained order and hunted down bandits on the roads. Units of these troops were constantly moving throughout the kingdom to prevent local governors from colluding with the "military." Given this system, cities had a fully-fledged police force to maintain order. The "national guardsmen" acted as patrolmen, their officers commanded these patrols, and standardized laws ensured uniform responsibilities in each province. A typical unit of this army numbered a thousand men. Cavalry was present, but these branches of the military were more like state police, responsible for numerous villages surrounding the cities. Overall, I think this is a sound system for a planet devoid of armed conflict. The primary weapons of such an army in the cities were clubs and shields, while outside, bows and swords were used. Thus, over the course of their service, a soldier developed into a robust generalist, not viewing his own people as an enemy, which often happens when a real army is used for such tasks. Units were staffed by men from across the kingdom. The likelihood of incidents was reduced, since there was a 100% guarantee that the "legion" would include people from the region. They could stand up for their fellow countrymen. This reduced the threat from internal troops, and prevented the development of a reputation for some units as saints and others as demons. At the same time, soldiers helped put out fires and participated in evacuations during natural disasters.
Women served here too, and here's why. Gangs had arisen under my predecessor, so women farmers had to fend for themselves. The Jaffa, however, didn't interfere unless the gangs touched cargo destined for their god. And then this became a recognition of the equality of all before the law. Slavery was greatly disliked here, so any form of it on this planet was punishable by death. Ironically, this is precisely why Isara is so keen to present everything as a Union, rather than the return of the "god" and, therefore, slavery. She can even present technological gifts as an attempt to "open negotiations." She went to great lengths to prevent the people from rebelling, so that I wouldn't have to resort to arms. I didn't want to do that. Yes, it wasn't crucial to my survival, but this planet offers the opportunity to overthrow the entire Goa'uld system of rule. Remote from the core worlds of the System Lords, it could become a springboard for their return and their destruction. I'm sure Anubis is sitting on a similarly remote planet, doing the same. I can escape through the gate and wander the planets as long as I want, but that won't end the rule of the System Lords. However, to prevent the Lucian Union from arising, there must be a superstate capable of holding everyone accountable when necessary. Earth won't do that. It's even laughable. The Fifth Race proved incapable of anything. All its enemies were defeated by Deus Ex Machina. The Asgard perished while passing on their knowledge to these single-celled beings, and several years after passing on the knowledge to a race classified as a Type III on the Kardashev Scale, Earth was still a dump. In the end, they were nearly blown up by the Lucian Alliance, which proved stronger than the Asgard's heirs. Shameful.
It's lucky that there's a single unitary state here. If this were Quinn's homeland, where three countries were constantly at war with each other, that would be a real headache.
A very important technology that's obviously present on Harlan is wireless power transmission. It can do anything. Essentially, you could do without wires, using only power relay technology. This would greatly simplify many processes and save time when deploying anything on any territory or planet. For example, there are other naquadah deposits on another continent, but the previous Goa'uld didn't exploit them due to obvious logistical problems. He had to send a ship at the end of each month to deliver the metal to the gate, and he didn't care about providing the people with all the necessary infrastructure. Speaking of naquadah, Cimmeria clearly has it; Heruur conquered it, after all. So, it's entirely possible to attract locals to mine it for economic reasons. And no, I'm not a crazy idiot who would fly to Cimmeria and end up in jail. It's better to use the locals as proxies who will conduct trade. While I'm at it, I might as well check the screaming for regular jackhammers and naquadah batteries, as well as the Asgard scanners that didn't detect the INVASION. I think the "grays" have a problem with logic, since they must know the Goa'uld have fanatical followers among humans. Like, for example, that idiot I'm currently in.
In this world, naquadah is a key resource. The more people mine it, the more powerful a System Lord becomes. There are obvious ways around this, but those same ships will require it, and access to "black naquadah" will allow me to disrupt Ra's plans, for example, in terms of the speed of my development. I don't know if I have spies. In theory, they might, but Ra is too busy with the war with Apophis right now. However, I shouldn't relax. The Gate should be placed, for example, in the mountain range in the northeast, setting up a bunker there with a fully functional checkpoint where every atom can be scanned. However, unlike the SGC, I have no reason to be stupid. I can create a multi-level bunker, placing the Gate on an elevator, for example. The lower level is for exploring other planets, the middle one is for deploying troops, and the upper one is for trade. I could even build a railway there. This would optimize many of my ideas. Another downside is that I'll have to travel the planets myself as a diplomat. Trusting diplomacy to the Jaffa? That's the worst idea in the universe, worse only than the creation of replicators. The Jaffa are raised as warriors, with a sense of superiority over everyone. They are a perfect representation of how the colonists controlled any colony: the Jaffa are colonial troops, recruited from various planets, who have completely rejected the culture into which they were born. Trusting them with anything other than combat is foolish. Teal'c, for example, had no initiative, and the SGC had no one to question him about his knowledge. Which, by the way, is rather strange. But that's not so important now.