Stellar Reich (AU Stargate TL)

[Patupi]

August-July 1969

Horus was annoyed to say the least. He'd already been beleaguered and assaulted by rival Goa'ulds for a century or two, but the last decade, after he gave his allegiance to Ra, his fortunes had started to rise. Then this upstart had attacked!

When troops had attacked his Naquadah mine he had assumed it was a rival Goa'uld. However the later repelled attack of his on another world where similar troops were in evidence (where he barely escaped with his life), had some unknown, disk shaped ships involved as well as an odd Hatak. Could some Goa'uld be experimenting? Perhaps, but later when he reviewed the records of the battle he saw a lot of seemingly low tech repairs to the Hatak. It seemed it was the other way around. Some lesser race had salvaged an Hatak and was using it against him! Well, he knew how to handle that!

Horus immediately began setting 'safeguard' protocols on all his Hatak and smaller ships, so if used without regular checks from a signal, given by a system he placed, these ships would automatically attempt to head home to his Throne world by the fastest means they could and shut down all other systems, sealing all bulkheads and cutting off life-support. His ships would return to him and the occupants would die. If a few Jaffa died if the system engaged accidentally, so be it. But no more ships would fall to this unknown!

This technique had been used before by the Goa'uld, whenever an upstart race started using their own ships. The only time it had failed was against the hated Tok'ra who had seemed to be able to find ways around whatever hidden systems the Goa'uld put into their ships. Thankfully their numbers were few and were little threat to the System Lords these days. He doubted they even had a mothership of their own.

This new threat was small, but Horus' forces were not strong right now. Besides he had other troubles to deal with right now. He'd get back to those mortals when he could build up some more ships. He certainly would not admit to any rivals that any non-Goa'uld could attack his forces and win! No, better to rely on Ra's good graces and keep biting his tongue every time he had to debase himself in front of that... child! With Ra's support he could defend himself against the local Goa'ulds at least, and when he had enough forces he could strike at this new foe!

Then the battle at Isseum happened. Most of his few remaining Hataks were blasted to rubble, his forces attacked, unknown ground troops reported cutting a swathe through his Jaffa on the ground. Later he learned that in that one day he lost half a dozen of his worlds to the enemy, only keeping hold of one fortified world, four Naquadah mines, a couple of miscellaneous mining worlds, and a few food planets.

To say that Horus was mad would have been an understatement. He almost, almost, simply went to Ra and told him what was happening, but the thought of that ancient child sneering at him for losing to a lesser race was unbearable. Instead he did the best he could.

He contacted Baal.

The two had never had good friends or allies, with many battles between them and one or two full blown wars over the eons, but with Horus' low standing at current the annoyingly grinning System Lord was very eager to see him after his week long voyage.

"So, how goes your little empire." The dark haired 'god' said, preening from his throne.

Horus gnashed his teeth, but maintained his calm.

"Great Lord Baal, unfortunately my forces have hit an unknown foe, a group of humans who wield considerable power. I beg your indulgence to aid me in fighting these pests."

"You wish me to assist you?" He said, raising his eyebrows. "Tell me, I was fairly certain you had alliance with... oh, now who was it again?" He snapped his fingers "Oh yes, Ra. Tell me, could not the great Lord Ra help you with these 'Pests'?"

Again Horus managed to bite back an unwise comment and simply responded as best he could.

"I have not... deigned to bring this to the great Lord's attention. It is beneath such as his notice."

"But not beneath mine?" He laughed. "What possible reason could I have for aiding you in this idiotic quest?"

"New technology. The enemy has adapted a mid range Hatak into a fearsome assault ship. One of these ships has defeated two of my Hatak easily, and with a fleet of smaller vessels of their own they laid siege to Isseum and bested my fleet and my Jaffa."

To admit to such defeats to someone who once was an opponent across the System Lord Council was galling, but necessary if he was to survive.

"Well, perhaps we will see what this new enemy does when facing a true System Lord. They only have one modified Hatak? Hardly a challenge, no matter how much they have upgraded it." He waved a hand to his subordinates. "My first prime will take you to quarters... befitting your rank." A smirk flashed across Baal's face once more, further irritating Horus. "After that I'll see about fielding a small fleet. Say twenty Hatak? I think that sounds about right."

Horus did smile at that and the laughter of Baal filled the chamber.

 

[Patupi]

July 1969

After the battle Grunwald immediately ordered an increase in production of the Rapier-7 and Rapier-7N missiles from back home. They had proven more reliable than expected for a cutting edge technology, though recent versions with their high yield blasts hardly did the name 'Rapier' justice any more. Perhaps they should rename them Budgeons? He doubted that would go down well with the Fuhrer.

Production was increased slightly, focusing on the more easily assembled, pure fusion warhead Rapier-7. Although Naquadah was no longer in short supply it was still more difficult to work with in fabrication. Falke Fighters had already been produced in large numbers in recent years, and mostly were all the new 'Falke-960' model that had a ceiling of over 20km cruise, carried three medium deathray cannons and a single small plasma beam cannon, and also could mount four of the old Rapier-5 missiles with the NECE warheads. Such fighters could easily engage ships in low orbit with their missiles and even deathrays, though plasma weapons were too short range in an atmosphere to strike such targets.

However at Isseum effort was mostly put to bringing the space fighters in. They couldn't fly through the gate and had to be carried in on trucks, then the wings unfolded ready for use. Work was still progressing with the boosters, but also one of the Carrier transports had been disassembled on Spelk, carried through the gate to Isseum, then reassembled. That would loft sixteen of the Jaegers to orbit when necessary, and there was talk of stationing it on Isseum's moon with a heavy transport landed nearby stocked with all they needed to keep the fighters in working condition. A second Carrier was being disassembled as work was finished on rebuilding the first. Hopefully 32 Jaegers on the moon, another 60 mounted on boosters near the citadel on Isseum, a further 100 that had to get to orbit without boosters, plus the four destroyers and the Reichstern would be enough. The Cruiser Ullr had already headed out from Icross, the military base captured there, and was carrying the other five destroyers with it. It was heading for nearby Spelk where some of the orbital defense stations were being fitted with jury rigged hyperdrives to keep them intact for the journey. The Cruiser would carry them back to Isseum in it's wake, giving the planet nine destroyers, a cruiser, a mothership and (hopefully, if they survived hyper transit) four defense stations. The smaller defense satellites could be sent through the gate and were already being launched into orbit of Isseum.

All in all building the defense of Isseum looked to be going well. Grunwald just hoped it would all come together in time.

By July 21st the Ullr had returned with the destroyers and the first four defense stations. It then headed for Teutonia where it would pick up another four stations being upgraded for transit now, plus four hyper transport disks that were carrying a total of 120 Jaegers as cargo. They couldn't be launched into battle normally, but the pilots were carried on the transports and would help ferry the fighters down to the surface. It was proving more time consuming to shuttle the fighters through the gate and other equipment (including the parts to shield the gate) was taking gate time.

On July 28th when it reached Teutonia one more destroyer had been rushed to completion (at the cost of delaying the other two under construction) and joined the rest heading back to Isseum. Some work still carried on during the voyage but it was ship shape long before it reached the ex-Goa'uld Throne world.

August 1969

Long before the Ullr was due back from Teutonia the detection satellites around Isseum sent out the alarm that a hyperwindow had opened out near Isseum's moon. The fighters already stationed there scrambled immediately, the fleet got to battle readiness, and Grunwald rushed into the command bridge on the Reichstern and stood by the repeater console. He, along with everyone else, was surprised to see a single Hatak orbiting the moon... apparently doing nothing. On standing orders the fighters swarmed the ship and started to batter it with plasma and deathray fire... and the ship completely failed to respond as it's shields weakened.

Grunwald ordered the fighters to pull back as he closed in the Reichstern. Still the ship did nothing. He closed to within a kilometer of the vessel and ordered a careful barrage to bring the shields down without harming the hull, then troops went to the ring system to board the ship... and couldn't get a lock on the rings aboard the vessel. In fact it was hard to get readings, but most of the unknown vessel's power levels were either low or non-existent. A transport vessel that did have rings was sent over and docked, and troops boarded, to find that air was stagnant and barely breathable, and gravity was turned off. The using airtanks connected to their helmets the troops boarded once more and found the ship full of dead Jaffa, seemingly dead of asphyxiation mostly. The ship had apparently turned it's life support off and jumped to hyperspace and killed it's crew. They'd lasted a while as the huge volume of air in the spacious vessel kept the thousand Jaffa alive for a while, but the ship had been in flight for over three days and the air had not lasted that long.

Emergency life support units and power systems were brought up while technicians attempted to restart other systems. It seemed though that every computer system was shut down and they had very little luck at bypassing whatever command had done this. However they had had experience at replacing computer systems, so carefully the crystals were removed for later analysis and Reich's own Crystronic (still not as effective as Goa'uld systems) control systems were put in place to get the power systems, life support, gravity and eventually the drives back up and running. The ship, with it's old crystals in storage, was sent back to Teutonia for analysis. Perhaps the scientists there could reprogram the old crystals and get the ship up to it's full capacity once more.

The captured vessel took some time for all this repair work to be done prior to being sent back to Teutonia, and the defense crew expected the Ullr to arrive before it left. Unfortunately not though, and soon it had vanished into hyperspace on it's way home. Shortly after it's departure the scan sats detected another hyperwindow and the defense crew came to alert again, though expecting the Ullr to be coming home.

Instead twenty two Hatak jumped into high orbit around Isseum and the alert continued to sound, fighters scrambling once more and the fleet readying in orbit.

Baal had arrived.

 

[Patupi]

August 1969

In high orbit, on the other side of the planet from this world's moon, Baal studied the enemy. They certainly had quite a few ships, though no where near as many as he did. He doubted this would take long.

“Contact the planet.” Baal said, luxuriating in his throne, and watched his first prime operate the controls of his Pel'tak.

On the screen a few moments later a human appeared wearing some odd black uniform he'd never seen before. Curiously though there were a few Jaffa in the background among other humans... but the armor they wore was definitely not standard issue Jaffa! Interesting.

“Greetings,” Baal said, smiling wolfishly at the screen, “I welcome you to this part of space. I understand some congratulations are in order? Conquest of Goa'uld worlds. Quite an achievement.” His smile faded and his eyes glowed briefly. “Though I'm afraid you won't be able to keep your conquests.”

The man on the screen shook his head and smiled back.

“I see. Fascinating. Tell me, who am I speaking to? Is this some underling of Horus or has he taken on another form? Maybe we injured you more than you let on last time? If so the the Reich humbly apologizes for any minor personal injury on your part. Perhaps we can remedy this error and make it a more permanent injury instead?”

Baal's features contorted as the insufferable human of this 'Reich' insulted him.

“I am Baal, your new god. If you are very quick in your servitude and bow down to me I will let most of you live. Probably.”

The fool actually laughed at him. LAUGHED!

“Baal, hah, yes I believe I have heard of you. Our legends speak very... highly of you. I think we won't be surrendering or... bowing before you, any time soon Herr Baal. Tell me, is Horus with your fleet. Perhaps you can point out his flagship so we can properly thank him for bringing us so illustrious a 'god' to our presence?”

This was getting annoying and Baal was seriously beginning to dislike this Reich.

“If you will not offer your allegiance to your god, then you will die. Prepare yourselves, as much as you can, mortals.”

“Allegiance? To a Goa'uld? Your kind do not understand the meaning of the word. We do, and you most certainly do not deserve it.”

And the man actually cut off communications before Baal could retort!

The Jaffa winced slightly as their god's fist slammed into the throne armrest. This would not be pretty.

“Jaffa, organize the fleet. We will sweep down and destroy these interlopers.”

As Baal watched the enemy ships arrayed in orbit seemed to sweep around in an odd dance, diving up away from the planet, then down again, ending congregated near the limb of the world from his viewpoint, almost over the horizon on the right. His fleet swept in, rapidly closing the distance, even as the enemy fleet began to crawl slowly around behind the planet. There were only ten vessels in evidence and as Baal's fleet swept in, dodging tumbling wreckage that presumably was left over from the battle with Horus, the enemy ships continued to attempt to keep the planet between them and him. Their slow speed proved that would not work and Baal let a feral grin creep across his face. This would be all too eas...

“My lord, energy signatures from the wreckage! It's...”

The ship shook as bright energy beams lashed the The hataks, the 'wreckage' suddenly stopping it's tumble and powering up shields and weapons. Dozens of small satellites and several larger ones were flaring energy weapons of varying types, and as his ships rounded to fight this new threat, the ships over the horizon suddenly turned about and accelerated at much higher speeds than they had shown till now, straight towards him!

“Enemy weapons rising from the surface!” His First Prime stated, showing traces climbing from the planet towards them on the main display.

“Divert power to shields, defensive fire. Focus most of the weapons on those satellites.”

Baal could see now why Horus had had trouble with these Reich. They were a tricky foe, even outnumbered. He watched as numerous small drive signatures rose towards him up out of the atmosphere, and his expression grew fierce as one of his Hatak's shields flickered and died from fire from the satellites, then a barrage of similar weapons to those from the surface were launched from the satellites and struck the unprotected ship. Small explosions peppered the vessel and it tumbled from battle, a shattered hulk. It seems those weapons are designed to deliver the finishing blow. He ordered his forces to pull away slowly, attempting to finish these satellites off before those homing projectiles from the surface or the fleet arcing toward him could reach him.

The Satellites were dying by the dozen, mostly unprotected, but the four larger units had surprisingly strong shields and maintained fire. He leaned forwards in his throne as the surface launched projectiles closed, wondering if they would be any use at all on a fully shielded Hatak. Although, these ones seemed slightly larger than...

Three Hataks vanished as dozens of the weapons struck the shields simultaneously and familiar thermonuclear fireballs rolled across them. Two others had their shields seriously weakened and one of the missiles struck his own ship, rocking the Pel'tak. He had yet to face the enemy ships and he was down four of his vessels! This was intolerable. Then he noticed that the oncoming fleet had separated into two groups. Seven of the smaller ships had accelerated while he was distracted with the battle here and were already at high speed, not decelerating to do battle as he had expected, and as the other fleet ships were doing.

“Turn towards the enemy fleet. Bring the weapo...”

Again he was not quick enough and the fleet shuddered as the seven ships flashed past at high passing speed. Amazingly even at that high speed their shots were accurate, focusing fire on two of his ships. Shields failed and the three remaining enemy stations launched their projectiles, pulverizing the Hataks into wreckage. Four of his forces managed to fire on the enemy ships, and one of the rapidly moving craft seemed damaged, it's weak shields no match for Hatak weapons fire that close in, but they all swept quickly out of range, his ships almost automatically turning to engage them as they passed.

“All ships, turn to the other enemy fleet. The Hatak is the primary target!”

Even as his ships did as ordered the enemy came into range and more of the homing projectiles were launched from it, and from the surface of the planet. Those latter weapons would take minutes to reach the battle, but the others were right on top of them. He saw barely five such weapons close on one of his Hatak... and a blazing inferno gripped it. Naquadah enhanced weapons!

This was impossible! As he watched another of his Hataks died. Even as his ships fired on the enemy, cutting into his shields, he realized things were too untenable this close to the planet. That huge wave of missiles rising from the planet, if there were Naquadah enhanced warheads among them, even if he defeated this fleet his entire force could be gutted!

“Pull back, sweep around the planet and out. Put the moon between us and the fleet!”

His Jaffa were stunned as their god ordered them to withdraw, but they did as they were bid, and as two more Hatak died, his forces leaped away at high speed, twisting around the planet and then outwards towards the rocky world.

Two ships did not obey his command however, and vanished into hyperspace instead. Horus had left him, without even bothering to gloat over this victory. This was obviously a trap by him, his forces staying at the rear of the battle and had been virtually untouched. Now his remaining ten ships were fleeing to the moon. Fleeing. HIM!

Seething on his throne he planned. If he could draw the enemy away from the planet perhaps he could fight them. He frowned as the ships were following, including two newer ships that had risen from the planet to join them. He ordered his forces to slow, pulling into an orbit between the moon and the planet, waiting for the enemy to come to him. He still outnumbered him, even after the other forces that had swept past him had rejoined their companions. One of those smaller ships was out of the battle it seemed, and two of them had been destroyed in the brief firefight, despite him focusing most of his fleets fire on the central Hatak. Curiously it's shields seemed to not have weakened as much as he would have expected during that bombardment, even at long range.

Still, those small ships were not equal to his Hataks and his ten forces against six of them plus one Hatak? Hardly worth... Then numerous small fighters launched, waves of ships from the two new craft... and from the moon behind him! He'd been tricked!

“Launch gliders! Intercept those insects. I do not want them interfering in the battle.”

Poring over the tactical display he saw they were planning on enveloping him with the two flights of fighters, both sweeping his fleet simultaneously, shortly followed by their fleet, but it seemed from their gathering of forces that they weren't planning on sweeping past this time. The smaller vessels were arrayed carefully in a pattern around the enemy Hatak, like a giant circle.

“Expect homing projectiles ahead of the fighters and fleet. I want our gliders to intercept them, sacrificing themselves if needed.”

His First Prime nodded, passing orders to the flight decks as the Death Gliders launched.

Surprisingly the expected missiles did not launch well ahead of the attack, despite the ones from the planet proving they had quite a long range. Instead the fighters closed on his Death Gliders, outnumbered two hundred to five hundred. They would be ravaged and he paid them little attention.

Then the swarms of fighters met, curiously less than half engaging the Deathgliders, the rest sweeping past and on to the Hataks. It soon became clear why. The fleet little craft dodged and dove, energy weapons and small homing projectiles, decimating his own flights of ships. A force of a hundred enemy fighters in the two groups fore and aft, were completely destroying his own force of five hundred Death Gliders. They did not seem over powered, but were much nimbler and far more accurate at range. The few projectile weapons the fighters had also gave them a slight advantage, but these were the smaller weapons, similar to those deployed from the satellites. Powerful but hardly on a par with the atomic or Naquadah enhanced weapons he'd seen.

Instead he focused on the fleet closing on him, the seven ships still bearing down as if they could defeat his force of ten Hataks. He paused. They had proven canny in battle so far. What was he missing? Why were they so confident of a success here? Those ships could not carry many of those homing projectile weapons. It would be nasty, but not decisive.

He swept his eyes across the display and saw the fighters that had dodged past his Death Gliders... and cursed. He waved a hand, zooming the sensors in on one of the tiny ships. These were not armed with four of the smaller weapons, but with one large weapon beneath it! The distinctive trace of Naquadah showed on the scanner! There were almost a hundred fighters closing on him!

“All ships, engage hyperdrives!” He yelled as the fighters closed, releasing their deadly cargo.

Projectiles swept towards him as his ships diverted power to their hyperdrives. It was not quick enough and nuclear fires swept across his fleet. Fire from his Hataks struck back, wiping dozens of the little fighters from the sky, but four of his ships were blasted to dust before they could leave. It was only when the remaining six ships had vanished into hyperspace that he realized those projectiles had not all been Naquadah enhanced. About two thirds had been 'mere' fusion warheads. Otherwise his fleet would have suffered far worse.

Cursing at the enemy's success Baal sat back in his throne and his Jaffa dreaded his response. Some of them would likely not live the day after this defeat, no matter who was to blame. After all, it could hardly be their god at fault could it?

 

[Patupi]

September 1969

The aftermath of the battle at Isseum was far better than Grunwald had expected. They'd won, and had not lost too many vessels. Most of the defense satellites had been destroyed and the bays on the surface of Isseum were dry of missile ordinance. They still had two functional stations in orbit, and one undergoing repair... then a day later the Ullr arrived with four more stations to bolster the defense and one destroyer.

Examination of the areas around the citadel on Isseum found some records regarding gate codes, but little information on where they went. These 'records' were listed as battle victories, some ancient, from Horus' forces against other Goa'ulds, all emblazoned upon the walls of a great temple outside the Jaffa city. Cameras began to record these codes and hopefully determine where they may lead to in future.

The Jaffa warriors on Isseum had mostly been defeated in battle when it was captured, but the planet was home to the Jaffa, and many women and children lived in the city there still. The Reich were not too pleased for them to be present in such numbers on a world they intended to colonize so highly in future, given the pleasant environment and the large quantity of Goa'uld tech to examine and reverse engineer, so slowly they were shipped off world, often at gunpoint as they were none too friendly to 'the invaders'. The site on New Siberia would be too remote and was too awkward to ship so many to on short notice so a settlement on Icross where other Jaffa once serving Horus lived was expanded and the families shipped there over the next month or two.

At present the fleet would have to remain at Isseum until the defenses were increased, though at least the Fuhrer did agree that they would not deplete the other conquered worlds to bolster Isseum's defense. The Fleet there should be enough to dissuade enemy forces.

Most of the effort in defense shipment to the conquered worlds had gone to Icross, missile batteries and orbital defense satellites. After that to the single Trinium mine world they had captured and were gradually colonizing and modernizing the mining techniques for. The deposits there were not quite as extensive as on New Siberia, but far more easily extracted given the conditions. Launchers were shipped through and slowly they set up what was needed to launch a single orbital defense station, though that would take some time without larger transports to ferry it up to orbit in one go. The single Naquadah mine was next on the list, but by that time things had started to happen.

Baal's strikes had begun.

The fleet of six Hataks emerged high above the captured farming world, and after pausing only a short duration swept in and began bombardment. The troops stationed there dialed the Stargate quickly, and the small number of defense satellites present engaged Baals fleet, but they couldn't even damage his craft before being wiped out. The battalion of infantry there got out mostly intact before the bombardment got too intense, and Baal had 'acquired' one of Horus' old worlds.

Next, before much time had passed, his fleet entered high orbit around the second military base captured. Reich forces here readied defenses, but they were scarcely more than on the farming world... and the gate was dialed from off world before they could attempt to dial out! The battalion there was caught and shattered from orbit and then Jaffa poured through the gate to seize the world. No Reich forces escaped that day.

It was obvious the Reich had seriously under-estimated Baal, and without mobile forces the missiles and satellites couldn't defeat him if he stayed in higher orbits. Not without far larger numbers than they could install in so short a time. They didn't believe he'd strike at Isseum, so sent the Ullr with three destroyers to Icross and spread all the remaining fighters and missiles equally between the Naquadah and Trinium mining worlds via the gate.

When Baal arrived at the Naquadah mining planet Rengar a few days later over a hundred Jaegers rose to meet him, firing missiles. Baal retreated, though one of his Hatak's was severely damaged and drifted in orbit. He did not return.

Immediately a small transport was dismantled on Teutonia and shipped through the gate, reassembled and sent up to the ruined Hatak. A few Jaffa on board were attempting to repair it, but seemingly with little luck. They had tasks their gods had instructed them to try, learned by rote, when damage was dealt to their ships, but complex work was done by the Goa'uld themselves, usually minor Goa'uld 'technicians'. The few Jaffa left aboard were dealt with and Reich technicians began to install their own replacement components and attempt to repair the main drive. If it could be landed on the planet they could repair the outside hull and armor. At present conducting repairs in space was a very time consuming and dangerous task with Reich tech, though they were learning the art.

October 1969

Repairs to the Hatak above the Naquadah mining world of Rengar were slow, but they did manage to get the drive functional, though the landing was rough. Soon engineers were flooding through the gate and a frame was built around the Hatak to complete repairs. It would take some time and meanwhile more fighters were brought through to further defend the planet.

Raids by Al'kesh began days later on several planets, slipping past fighters and bombarding worlds. They took heavy losses against Jaeger and Falkes, but managed to impede the work on the Hatak, as well as the defense build up on the Trinium mine. On Icross they were fought back by the Ullr and destroyers with fighter support. The disk destroyers seemed particularly adept at hunting the Al'kesh as they dodged around near a planet, though they did not have the acceleration to maintain pursuit further away.

Distant hyperspace windows were detected further out near Icross later in the month, and a day later two thousand gliders and a force of Al'kesh descended on the military outpost. The smaller rapid firing heatrays on the destroyers proved effective, but the fighter force was severely depleted as they defended the world, and the planet took damage.

On Isseum as they 'fed' materials to the two growing Hatak they studied what was occurring. It seemed the Eurondans had been right all those years ago. The Goa'uld did use tiny version of Mu machines, and seemingly used them to build ships! However there was some kind of safeguard involved, and before the ships were complete the tiny machines shut down. Reich scientists studied them, managing to find ways to take samples back for study, seeing what they were and if they could be reactivated, but they were far more advanced than anything they had studied before.

They, when the Reich started attempts to finish the construction with their own tech... things went awry.

The ships started to dissolve from the inside out, systems failing, and desperate scientists realized that the tiny sub mu machines were actually eating the ships, breaking them down. It must be a safeguard if the Goa'uld did not complete the work on the ships themselves. A final effort with electromagnetic pulses disabled the tiny machines, but the Reich had it's work cut out to repair the damage done. It seems they would not have two Hataks handed to them on a plate, though luckily it seemed most of the damage the little machines had done had been stopped before it had critically damaged the ships.

November 1969

Attacks by Baal's smaller forces, gliders and Al'kesh, continued for two more weeks, damaging structures on Icross and Rengar. But in early November the attacks stopped. It seems the heavy losses Baal was taking had pressured him to withdraw his assaults for the moment. The Reich now at least had kept hold of four of the captured worlds including the Naquadah mine Rengar and the Trinium mine Wo'kem. This helped resource influx a great deal and efforts to increase the mining facilities on those worlds were increased as well as improving orbital defenses.

The decision came from the Fuhrer, the plans for attacking the other worlds of Horus, let alone retaking the two lost to Baal, were cancelled. All further efforts were to be spent improving defenses. Flights from the captured worlds to Teutonia were halted, any further ships there staying for the defense of the homeworld. The next batch of ships at Spelk would soon be ready and once ready would stay there to defend the world along with it's orbital defenses.

Some effort in recent months had been made to take what had been learned during the battles with the Goa'uld to improve the destroyers. A second generation prototype was being assembled at Teutonia, but was having some difficulties with the advanced systems. The new ship (named the 'Sturmreiter' class of destroyer) when ready, would actually be slightly smaller than the old destroyers, but a lot of this was due to the rotating disk drives being a much smaller percentage of the hull size, allowing the shield to close in tighter and provide stronger defense. The drives would actually provide slightly higher acceleration, partly due to lighter materials in the disk systems but partly due to practice with the system and gradual improvements with the technology.

Weapons were being altered slightly. The Sturmreiter destroyers were seen as a fast, hard hitting strike craft. Armor on the the ship was improved, especially internal armor around certain sections of the interior, but main effort was given to a more powerful weapon loadout on the upgraded vessel. With the new pure fusion warheads entering mass production (though the Naquadah warheads were having difficulties in such large scale construction orders) the ships were fitted with a novel forward cannon. Based loosely on the plasma weapons' accelerator coils the device threw high caliber shells at incredibly speeds, using quite considerable energy in the process. The shells reached mach 20 relative to the firing vessel, and attempts were made to make the shells difficult to scan. This was particularly hard as the shells standard load was for a single fusion warhead. A cannon that fired four megaton shells was nothing to be sneezed at! Even if accuracy at normal ranges was not perfect, the shells could be rigged to detonate at either proximity (not terribly useful in space versus shields as damage dropped off drastically further from the center of the blast) or on a timer. Standard operational procedure was to feed scanner data on the range of the target into the shells and have them detonate at either impact or slightly beyond the target's range if they missed. This could be adjusted from the bridge or the weapon's control station fairly easily, but mostly wasn't required.

Other standard weaponry on the disk was an increased number of smaller heatrays to deal with fighters and missiles (should Baal ever attempt to use such weapons), the two standard plasma beam weapons already on the old destroyers, and a slight increase in heavier deathray turrets. Missile racks were limited to just two smaller forward firing mounts, but these could be reloaded (though not easily) from a small store internally. The limited space on such a small vessel made such mechanism problematic, but the slow, partially manual, loading system employed seemed pretty reliable. Plus with the forward Coil Cannon having heavy hitting fusion warheads, even if the range was not as great as the missiles, it lessened the need for such batteries on such craft.

The hyperdrive was something that engineers had been working on a lot. With several wrecked Goa'uld samples brought back from combat they had learned a bit. The new drives had increased speed drastically, though it seemed this was close to the limit for current Reich tech. The 2nd gen destroyers would be able to manage about two lightyears a day, compared to twenty five lightyears a day for Goa'uld drives they'd seen, a vast improvement over the old four to five light years a year they had on old drives till now. Slowly the 1st gen destroyers' drives would be upgraded, but that would take a lot of work. Some tweaking also managed to lift the Ullr up to match the Reichstern's fifteen lightyears a day, but couldn't get better than that. The only way it was suspected the Reich could increase their own hyperdrive's speed was to take components from Goa'uld ships and install them within their own drives. With the experience they'd had with the Ullr and Reichstern they suspected they did not need too much of this to get up to 15ltyrs/day. With the salvage they had they begun construction of a second Cruiser to match the Ullr on Spelk.

January 1970

The captured Hatak that had conveniently arrived at Isseum prior to the recent battle had been worked on at Teutonia for some time. There was no battle damage done to the ship, but they had trouble getting the computer systems cleared out. After two months on the project they had managed to get the programming on the crystals working right for the power systems and the hyperdrive and re-installed the older components. The rest of the ship was still on Reich replacements and had slightly under par effectiveness over all. To fix this work was started on replacing the weapon linkages with Reich systems to connect better with their own controls, as well as bolstering the armor, installing the secondary fusion reactor similar to the Riechstern, and secondary weapons. The Pel'tak was of course replaced with a proper bridge as well.

At the same time the first trials of a new secondary shield system was installed. Reich scientists had finally managed to stop the interactions between the system when it was on standby with the primary Goa'uld shield matrix. Thus when the main shield collapsed the secondary shield instantly flashed up, protecting the ship while the primary regenerated it's systems. The secondary shield was half the strength of the first and drew more power, but it was thought to drastically lengthen the lifespan of such a craft. This on top of the extra armor, the twelve deathray turrets installed on external turrets, and the Rapier-7N missile racks mounted on her.

Naming the new ship went to the Fuhrer this time, and the ceremony on January the 27th was impressive outside Volksburg. The 'Großer Hund' or Great Dog, was named for the constellation, given that the Goa'uld seemed so infatuated with constellations it seemed suitable for a captured Hatak.

At present this ship stayed around Teutonia, but soon was planned to head to Isseum as Teutonia's orbital defenses were, by now, quite considerable. With a few destroyers and fighter squadrons it was believed to be able to resist an attack on the scale of Baal's assault on Isseum quite well.

From the wrecks in orbit around Isseum the Reich engineers did think that some might be salvageable in future, but they would have to be extensively worked on in orbit and this would delay matters considerably. The Ullr headed back to Spelk and brought a transport disk back with it to Isseum equipped with the latest Reich orbital engineering equipment and work commenced with the repairs. It wasn't known how many could be saved, but the attempt would be made, plus with such a ship doing the repair work they could leave fairly quickly if the planet came under attack.

Records of the gate codes from the temple on Isseum had proven to give the coordinates to over four hundred stars to the Reich. True, they were almost all Goa'uld planets, but some were from a very long time ago. It was possible they had been abandoned or the Goa'uld that lived there defeated, and were open for colonization. At present given the huge industrial effort needed to defend their worlds no attempt to scout these worlds was made, but plans were set aside for doing so once the immediate danger was over.

Over the next few weeks arguments began to arise between the lower ranks of the Wehrmacht, SS and Nazi Jaffa forces over guessing who was going to be picked for the honor of such duties. In the end a mix of forces was planned, led by a Wehrmacht officer, with SS adjutant and a mix of Jaffa, SS and Wehrmacht troops among those deployed. At first it was thought merely a team of four to six troops would suffice, attempting sneak onto Goa'uld worlds and explore, but in the end the standard group that was decided on was a twelve man squad. That way there would be room for a few specialists to examine any alien technology or ruins that might explain the history of the Goa'uld better.

For the moment though this was just an organizational dream, though one, the first Stargate Exploration Squad (SES-01) was set up and began training. No gate travel was yet authorized, but they hoped exploration would commence soon.

 

[Patupi]

February 1970

Troubles on Thent had died down somewhat over the last three years, the conquered state of Ivanri still had some issues with dissidents and the occasional riot, but overall the people were coming to appreciate the large scale improvements in their lot. Getting the people better educated would take time, but schools were being built, mandatory attendance for all children, but at least the schools were paid for by the state.

The higher taxes were something the locals were not keen on, but as roadways were built and shops to sell Reich goods to improve the local level of technology, things gradually adapted. Other nations nearby were definitely noticing it, the improvements and advances sending shivers down the locals spines as they feared attack from Ivanri. So far the Reich was being peaceful however, and it's client state followed the Party line faithfully. Slowly, bit by bit, Ivanri improved and pressure among the populations nearby pushed those states to follow in the Reich's footsteps.

Heschel had been somewhat calm, the king of Irent at least somewhat under control now, but deals were being made and economies shifted. There too the Reich seemed to be getting it's way, though the nobles were not happy. Irent seemed the only one of the Center States that was actually being held back from the reforms it wanted. The rest... simmered, reluctant to shift even close to what the Reich wanted, and rumors of peasant rebellions further afield did not help matters.

However, back on Teutonia medical science was picking up the pace. Analysis of the Goa'uld devices had improved scanning technology considerably. Medical scanner beds were now common in most well equipped hospitals, and new techniques at scanning blood could detect and identify most pathogens fairly quickly. Different versions of healing wands could perform different duties. Some simply fixed wounds or removed scars. Some boosted the immune system against specific diseases. Other could repair deep tissue and organs, though that was somewhat cutting edge technology.

These developments had a knock on effect to other medical research, and finally a working device that would operate more or less indefinitely (with maintenance) to replace a symbiote had been developed. A variant of the healing wand it was carefully 'installed' in a Jaffa's pouch against major arteries. The device cleansed the blood there as it went through and acted as the Jaffa's immune system.

Already twenty Jaffas had taken the device, but it was still not a complete replacement. It did not perform some of the complex biological functions the baby symbiotes did... however that seemed only round the corner. Soon a mechanical system to replace symbiotes and keep Jaffa's biological advantages would be achieved. At least so the Teutonia Advanced Medical Institute insisted. When they did it was likely a lesser version could be implanted in regular troops. Jaffa were designed by the Goa'uld to handle the symbiotes and their abilities, where-as normal troops were not, but something should be possible. Perhaps slightly enhanced healing and improved endurance. Time would tell.

March 1970

Production of the massive numbers of fusion Rapier-7 missiles now began to slow as efforts switched to ship building once more. Defense on the four worlds the Reich had captured was considered heavy enough for the moment. Now ships were required to extend the Reich's influence.

Again at this time the commander of the SES demanded permission to begin exploration of the gate codes he had acquired. Reluctantly permission was given and scouting of Goa'uld (or ex-Goa'uld) worlds began. At first it was tentative. One code checked a day at best, and efforts to maintain contact with the team on a regular basis. The first week of travels let 'Himmler's Gate Scouts', as they dubbed themselves, explore five worlds, three of which were Goa'uld held planets. Firefights ensued, but so far the planets seemed poorly guarded, and the other two planets were inhabited by primitives. So far little contact was made with these as they had enough trouble with Heschel and Thent, but their positions were noted and future possibilities for official contact were considered.

May 1970

All existing destroyers had their hyperdrives upgraded by now. Up till now they had merely been termed 'Disks' as their class, but with the new 2nd generation destroyers coming out of the slips named 'Sturmreiter' class (storm rider) the old models were given a name as well. Zephr class.

The differences in design were too great to convert Zephrs to the new Sturmreiter class, but all new construction was switched to the Sturmreiter and armament and drives on the older ships could be upgraded somewhat. In the end Zephrs became slightly faster than Sturmreiters but less than half the shield strength and slightly less weaponry. They did have larger missile bays, but lack of reloading ability on them limited them to 'one shot' tactics and barrage fire.

Designs of cruisers based on the Ullr were progressing. The larger ships (half the mass of an Hatak, if about the same diameter) were powerful, and the newer versions were likely a match, one on one, to the Goa'uld motherships. While the Hataks massed more and were more advanced, the Ullrs were more dedicated to warfare, having little to no cargo space or hangers. A battlecruiser, slightly larger, slightly faster, with slightly fewer weapons but with a small, dedicated fighter hanger, was planned but wouldn't be constructed for a while.

The first two entirely Reich built cruisers, the Thor and Njordr, were completed. Using Goa'uld components salvaged from the Isseum battle their hyperdrives were capable of 15ltyrs/day, similar to the Reichstern or Ullr. Unfortunately since the rest of the ships were entirely Reich built the shields and weapons were slightly underclassed compared to the Ullr.

June 1970

After considerable work the two ships 'grown' on Isseum were finished by Reich engineers. Similar to the Reichstern in design, these ships had the double shield system, but minimized the extra energy and extra weapons. Instead only the cargo bays were removed, the hangers instead modified to hold 80 Jaeger-950 fighters with service equipment. These two ships, the Wassermann (Aquarius) and Steinbock (Capricorn) went into service as the fleet's main interstellar carriers.

Work on the wrecks in orbit was far slower, though currently engineers thought that three may eventually be salvaged.

A fleet began patrolling the area, consisting of the Thor as flagship, Wassermann, and eight Zephr destroyers. Mostly they checked up on Reich held systems, but they did begin raids into Goa'uld territory, mostly Horus or Baal systems. So far little was done with this, merely testing the waters, and little damage was taken on either side. It did begin to get the Reich noticed more however and the 'Second Fleet' began to gain a reputation among the Jaffa operating Baal and Horus' ships. So far the secret was kept, but it couldn't be for much longer. Sooner or later other Goa'ulds would learn of this new threat.

Baal meanwhile planned and developed, aiming to strike back at those that had hurt him.

 

[Patupi]

September 1970

During patrols around Horus held worlds in the vicinity the 2nd Fleet had begun to plot the fleet movements of Horus. This, combined with satellites that watched for hyperwindow footprints, allowed them to estimate his fleet strength at about five Hataks in the territory they surveyed. This may not have been his whole fleet however as they were not quite certain of the extent of Horus space. As they mapped it further they slowly got a better picture. It seemed smaller than Baal's territory did (mostly from odd comments on the Temple walls that mentioned Baal regarding recent battles) and yet again some within the Raumflotte began to plan a possible strike to seize territory from the minor Goa'uld.

The Fuhrer, when he heard of such plans, outright banned it. He felt they still needed to bolster defenses, and the Reich's ability to hold enemy worlds was limited.

December 1970

A revolutions on Heschel, outside the Center States, overthrew two minor kingdoms and put in power a dictator to a new combined nation he called 'Feldon'. Immediately he sent a representative to the Reich and claimed he was 'for the people' and wanted Feldon to join the glorious Reich. This did not sit well with most of the Kings of the Center States, but they could do little but bluster about it, and within a week the Reich had, at first, recognized the nation, then actually begun talks for them to join the Reich.

At this time Both Irent's King and a Queen of a neighboring Center State again met secretly with the Reich ambassadors and asked about assistance with their nations reducing the Nobles power and joining the Reich formally. Things were starting to spiral out of control on Heschel and numerous rumors of revolts and suppressed rebellions in the Center States began to crop up. The Fuhrer began to get private notifications that the Wehrmacht suspected the SS were fomenting revolution in these states on purpose but couldn't prove it. Curiously these notifications were not from Wehrmacht officers but SS officers. And they were not discounting the rumors either.

Yet again it seemed that the SS had fragmented, though this time it did not seem that a section was working against the Fuhrer himself. He ordered elements of the Gestapo to find all responsible for any dissent and bring the details to him personally.

February 1971

Fleet maneuvers had by now mapped what they thought was the full extent of Horus territories and shown a slight increase in ships present to seven Hataks. The odd conflict had cost the fleet some damage and two destroyers lost in battle. They had inflicted at least one Hatak losses on the enemy as well, but more caution in the mapping missions was called for.

However, over the month of February they saw an odd trend. Among the worlds they seeded hyper satellites to so they could map ship movements, there was an initial increase, then drop off of hyper windows. Patrols of the systems gradually gave a picture of less ships nearby. With more caution in their missions they were less certain of the current number but it seemed like only three Hataks were present. Then in one mission on the 19th February the 2nd Fleet came into the Horus system of Palus only to immediately read a massive hyperfootprint of ships leaving. Well over ten Hataks by the size of the footprint. Two Hataks and over thirty Al'kesh were still in system so the Fleet did not stick around, however it was worrying. That level of ships suggested a huge build up for the Minor Goa'uld. Not only that Palus was not too far from Reich held planets, especially Icross.

By this time Reich forces were four modified Hataks, three cruisers (including the overpowered Ullr), ten Zephr destroyers, eight Sturmreiter destroyers, and four carriers. The carriers were a modification to the hyper transport to give full fighter support to the ships, though they had minimal weaponry on the large vessels they did have strong shields and each held over a hundred Jaegers and larger bays of ordinance. Apart from the Hataks and cruisers which could do 15ltyrs/day, all ships could manage 2ltyrs/day now as standard. The work on the three wrecked Hataks in Isseum orbit still was continuing and hoped that at least one would be completed soon.

With this level of firepower, and the increased defensive systems on all Reich worlds, fighting back at Horus was no longer a pipe dream, and fears he was planning to assault the Reich with the ships detected leaving Palus began to surface.

Details from the Gestapo did uncover a plot within the SS to overthrow Heschelian nations, but it seems that actual events on Heschel had gone ahead of what they had planned, them having very little to do with the incidents on that world. The Fuhrer ordered those responsible demoted for fomenting dissent on a Reich ally and left it at that for the moment, hoping things would stabilize. However it looked as if it was getting out of control on the planet.

March 1971

Alerts rang out as a hyper window was detected at Isseum and a single Hatak was spotted a million miles from the planet. The cruiser Njordr was on station and it and two Zephr destroyers immediately were sent to investigate as the defenses powered up.

Before they could reach the target a broadcast came. A broadcast with a familiar face.

Baal.

“Greetings to the Forth Reich. I come under a flag of truce. There are matters we need to discuss.”

The Reich ships closed, but did not engage. The Captain of the Njordr, under orders from Grunwald on the Reichstern back in Isseum low orbit, opened communications.

It seems Baal was having difficulties with Horus, but curiously hadn't been severely attacked, despite seeing a significant build up in the other's forces. Upon investigation he said he had found that Horus planned on attacking the Reich first, capturing their technology and adapting it for themselves, then using that to strike at Baal.

Since Baal's fateful attack on the Reich his forces were limited and Horus had the ear of Ra. He could not attack him directly. However the Reich could. Baal had located Horus' fleet and suggested that the Reich assault it directly. This would benefit both Baal and the Reich. Horus' fleet had been moved far away recently (though Baal apparently did not know it was due to the Reich's patrols discovering it), and the planet Mubastas it orbited was far from Reich influence. Baal had several worlds in that area though and said that, in exchange for him holding the world after the battle the Reich could strike the fleet and keep any Hataks they captured.

To say the the Reich distrusted Baal would be an understatement, but his speech matched what their own patrols had warned them of. It seemed their data that Horus was massing a fleet was correct, and if Baal knew where it had gone to perhaps it was worth attacking it?

This was bumped up to Schmidt, then to the Fuhrer, and the discussions were fierce. In the end the Reich decided to agree to Baal's plan.

May 1971

To be certain they would succeed the Fuhrer ordered the newly created 3rd Fleet to be larger than was needed to deal with those craft, containing most of the Reich's ships. All five Hataks (one of the wrecks had finally been repaired and named the Lowe (Leo) ), two Cruisers (one was the newly finished Baldr, the other the Thor), three Carriers, three Zephr destroyers, and all eight Sturmreiter destroyers formed in the fleet. The total fighter loadout for the fleet with carriers and two of the Hatak's was slightly over five hundred Jaegers. It was thought this would be able to destroy twenty Hataks, let alone the ten Baal insisted were present, though probably with significant casualties.

Preparations were made for an assault on the system given to them by Baal. They even had a gate code for that planet and, despite what they'd agreed to, they prepared Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe forces for a gate assault simultaneously to the fleet attack. With at least a small fleet positioned there in future they thought they could hold the world, despite it's distance from the Reich, until they built up it's defenses.

3rd Fleet readied itself and agreements were made with Baal, though they did not intend to hold to them, or expect Baal to either. In late June the Reich would strike.

 

[Patupi]

June 1971

The trip to Mubastas took 3rd Fleet over two weeks and considerable preparations were made, along with continual training. But with a flash of energy the fleet arrived high above the planet... and no vessels were found.

Closing to low orbit the fleet found debris, remains of five Hataks, broken and ruined, floating around Mubastas and proceeded to scan them. One was known, one of the two ships that fled Baal's fleet during his attack on Isseum. It was suspected at the time that these were Horus' vessels, and dead Jaffa on the vessels all seemed to have Horus' sigils.

However, while they were checking the wrecks (seemingly far too badly damaged to ever hope to repair) they checked the planet out. It seemed that a citadel was on the planet, though it had suffered damage from bombardment, and Jaffa camps had also been struck. They landed a small transport and dialed the gate to let Urwald know it was safe to send the troops and aircraft there through. Soon a defensive position was mounted around the gate from any Jaffa present and Falkes swept onto the planet. Shortly afterwards both troops and cargoes of Jaegers were brought in, the latter slowly readied for flight. If the rest of Horus' fleet did show up they would be ready!

That was when the hypersensors went off, a huge fleet jumping in behind the Reich forces. A force of Hataks, easily thirty in number, massed before them, far larger than they anticipated. However, rather than simply attacking the enemy fleet hailed the Reich forces.

“I am the god Ra.” The child-like being on the screen stated. “Supreme System Lord. Who are you and why do you dare strike at your gods?”

Grunwald, in charge of the fleet, talked to Ra as the fleets targeted each other, and found that this world was of the Goa'uld Bastet, not Horus, though Horus had been here to sign a treaty with her. He'd then been attacked by an unknown foe, who'd also assaulted Bastet's Citadel. She had escaped through the gate to gain reinforcements and the combined forces present of Ra, Bastet and Horus were the result.

Baal had tricked them.

However, Ra could discern the Reich forces were powerful and was unsure of victory in a direct battle. The Reich felt that, with the ground based fighters they were amassing (Those and the fleet numbering now over a thousand), they could defeat this force, but at heavy losses. Too heavy for a fleet comprising most of the Reich's assault strength. It was doubtful many capital ships would survive the fight. So, carefully, biting back comments from dealing with these scum, both sides talked.

The situation was tense, one over active trigger finger could have resulted in huge death and destruction, but the hour long discussions left both grudgingly accepting that something was amiss here. Ra did not believe the Reich's claims that Baal was behind the attack on Horus' ships and Bastet's base, but knew he may have manipulated the exchange. The Reich demanded the System Lords acknowledge the Reich as a stellar power (mostly using this as a bargaining chip and a delay tactic as more Jaegers were brought through the gate) and laid claim to the captured worlds of Horus.

Needless to say Horus, also present, was not happy at that, but Ra silenced him rather abruptly. In the end an agreement was made, although the Reich held little faith that the System Lords would uphold it, to agree to those worlds belonging to the Reich (though not Mubastas), but that Reich forces would not be allowed beyond those territories in any fleet strength. Grunwald pushed for, and managed to get acquiescence for, patrols of four ships or less allowed beyond their territory, but that was as much as the Goa'uld would allow.

In the end, somewhat nervously, 3rd Fleet pulled to high orbit, then waited while the Reich ground forces withdrew, then jumped to hyperspace heading for Isseum.

The fleet had survived it's first meeting with Ra, but now they were known, and they hardly felt the System Lords would allow them to survive for very long.

July 1971

The fleet arrived back at Isseum and prepared a defense, just in case. Meanwhile desperate efforts to increase production on Spelk and Teutonia got three more Sturmreiter destroyers and a carrier completed. More transports were sent to aid in the work on the two remaining wrecked Hataks in Isseum orbit and they hoped to have them completed by the end of the month. The experience gained from such orbital labors was already having a knock on effect on the ability of the Reich to assemble orbital defenses and a large central defense station with long range, huge plasma beam weapons as well as numerous deathray weaponry was started in orbit of Isseum. It would likely not be finished for some time, but the base would be the size of an Hatak when completed and have very strong shields and devastating firepower. A second such station was planned on the other side of the planet, and once completed similar stations for Spelk and Teutonia were ordered.

The Reich knew that they were on the cusp of being overrun if the Goa'uld reneged on their deal and tensions rose, military preparedness on the highest level as they waited and hoped.

August 1971

While tensions in the Reich as a whole were high little attention was given to Heschel and it was with considerable surprise when two rebellions and a war broke out among the Center States. Chaos ensued as sides were picked and several of the rebellious States asked for Reich assistance. Reluctant to get drawn into such a conflict at first as they prepared for battle with the Goa'uld the Reich did not answer the calls, but as one after another 'Noble' kingdoms fell to internal and external fighting they eventually did join in, aiding Irent and Eekata, the two nations that had previously wanted to limit Nobles power, and calling for an end to the violence.

September 1971

While the brutal warfare on Heschel continued Reich efforts to improve their forces carried on apace. Mumaker was being pushed harder and harder to create fighters and fusion missiles, but worries were beginning to be felt by the use of the Mu machines to extract minerals from below the Fabrication plants. They were already starting to loose contact with some of the micro machines, and worries that some of the minor quakes felt recently might be a result of the Mu machines tunneling through the rock beneath them. The Reich could not afford however to limit production now and orders from the planet continued to rise.

Total fighter strength in the Reich now stood at over two thousand Felke fighters and one thousand five hundred Jaegers. A new version of the Jaeger was being tested, the Jaeger-1050, that used hover jets to fly in atmosphere and could carry itself to high altitude more easily before switching it it's plasma rockets. These fighters were thought to no longer need boosters to get to orbit and keep enough fuel for significant maneuvers, though tests would prove that or not soon enough. However, factories on Teutonia and Spelk were needed as the advanced technology in the new Jaegers was thought to be beyond Mumaker's abilities.

By the end of September though still no contact with the Goa'uld was found, though patrols had been limited to 2nd fleet and the newly made forth fleet, both being cut back to one Cruiser and two Zephr destroyers to ensure the 3rd fleet at Isseum was powerful enough to counter any strike. Tensions continued to rise.

November 1971

The troubles on Heschel finally abated, the Center States mostly under new management, and almost all asking to join the Reich. Fighting did break out sporadically over the next month among several surrounding territories, but things started to get back to a peaceful feel once more.

Treaties were signed, and slowly individual states joined the Reich one by one. The Fuhrer made use of those contacts that elements within the SS had made (those that still were alive) to strengthen the ties to the new Center States, and persuade those that were not certain that they should join the Reich. It was hoped that within a year all the Center States and some of the surrounding territories would be part of the Reich.

Then on November 19th a single hyperfootprint was detected entering Isseum high orbit and the 3rd fleet went on high alert. The ship was larger than an Hatak by a considerable margin, but made no offensive maneuvers. Then a subspace communication was received.

“Greetings, I am Supreme Commander Thor of the Asgard. We wish to meet to discuss your treaties with the Goa'uld.”

 

[Patupi]

December 1971

Gehlen straightened his collar on his jacket. He had been told 'Formal military dress'. That left him enough play, given his many roles he'd played in the Third and Fourth Reichs, to chose his own dress code and he'd opted for a minimal dress uniform and cap for the occasion, rather than the full Waffenrock that had come back into style of late (well, the current Nazified version of it anyway). He hated to over dress, and that long sleeved coat just plain itched!

“Brigadier! You made it, I was beginning to wonder.” Gehlen managed a weak smile as Field Marshal Schmidt came up and shook his hand “I believe we are all present now. Come, I believe you know Al'dar, yes?”

The Jaffa stood at attention, wearing his armor proudly. Frankly Gehlen was at a loss as to why the Jaffa liked the darned things so much even on formal occasions. They must weigh a ton! He smiled and shook Al'dar's hand none the less.

“Oh yes. We've met a time or two over the decades.” He turned to Al'dar and cocked his head. “Is Il'kar still bitching about his new command?”

A faint smile crossed the Jaffa's face.

“I believe he has not stopped... commenting on his position. I think the words he used were 'dishonorable Mikta role'. I do not think he likes scouting.”

Both Schmidt and Gahlen, familiar enough with Goa'uld tongue for that translation, winced at Al'dar's comments. Gahlen shook his head.

“Ah, well I'm sure he'll get over it. The SES is a very prominent position. Head of the lead team is nothing to be sneezed at. Especially with gate activities on the rise... Well, I hope so.” Gehlen said, looking across the room, past the gun posts and barricades to the gate.

“We don't have a choice Reinhart but to agree to this meeting.” Schmidt said softly to Gehlen. “Besides there are other problems. You know if we don't make sure the Treaty with Ra holds he is just going to gather a few hundred Hataks and wipe the floor with us eventually. I wish they hadn't become aware of us this early, but hopefully these new aliens will help somewhat. They obviously have dealt with the Goa'uld before and lived to tell the tale.”

There was a cough from behind Schmidt and he jumped.

“Ah, yes. My apologies Werner. I'm sure you all know Professor Heisenberg?”

The dark haired man smiled and fiddled with his tie. Although he looked more like fifty than his actual age of seventy (not uncommon nowadays with Reich medical science) he still somehow managed to carry an air of almost an elder statesman. Though his perpetual smile always seemed to carry through.

“I believe I may have heard... something... somewhere.” Gehlen managed, squinting at Heisenberg and holding back a grin.

“I would not worry yourself Brigadier. There is not much to see here.”

“Hardly Werner! I dread to think the state the Reich would be in without you!”

“Stargate! External activation!” Came a call over the tannoy. The group turned to watch as the gate rotated on it's mounting, the shield snapping up just to be certain.

Heisenberg leaned over towards Schmidt and whispered, just loud enough for all three of them to hear.

“I see Friedrich didn't make it?”

Schmidt rolled his eyes.

“No Werner. The Fuhrer did not believe it was wise for all of us to be present. We still know so little about these Asgard. Grunwald's report was... sparing.”

A flash of light flickered across the gate as the shield absorbed the flush of energy as the gate connected. Schmidt looked across to the slit of the armored observation port behind the gate. A voice came across the tannoy in response.

“We are receiving the agreed code. It is the Asgard.”

“Lower the gate and give the all clear code.” Schmidt said into a hand comm.

The flickering waves of energy across the gate faded away and the rippling energy of the gate itself was all that was left. For several seconds nothing moved, then a single figure emerged. Small, grey and with somewhat spindly arms and legs. Not what Gehlen had imagined for a Norse God! He would love to see the faces of those idiots in the SS when they saw the reports on this!

Schmidt strode ahead of the small group and gave the being a nod of a salute with a practiced click of his heels.

“Welcome to Spelk, Thor was it?” Schmidt asked courteously.

“Supreme Commander Thor of the Asgard fleet, yes.” Came the low toned voice.

Gehlen smiled, hearing the self assured tones of the being while Schmidt continued the introductions.

“My apologies, Supreme Commander Thor. My name is Field Marshal Viktor Schmidt, head of the Wehrmacht and organizational leader of the Reich forces. This is Brigadier Reinhart Gehlen, and Professor Werner Heisenberg.”

“None of these titles denotes a supreme leader of your people. These negotiations are extremely important for your race Field Marshal. I was expecting your... Fuhrer was it?”

“With due respect Thor you really expect us to bring our Fuhrer into a meeting with a race we have just met? The only alien race we have known till now was the Goa'uld. That may give you some idea of our instincts when you arrived in Isseum.”

“I see.” Thor said simply. “Very well, this will do for now. However arrangements must be made.”

Schmidt blinked.

“Arrangements? This is a meeting to share knowledge of our current treaty I thought? Perhaps share knowledge on the Goa'uld?”

“Hardly Field Marshal.” Thor said patronizingly. “This is a meeting to save your species from destruction. Shall we retire to a more comfortable room for further discussion?”

Various looks of confusion, irritation and fear went between the three men as they escorted the small grey alien into the base.

***

Sitting around a large, polished Pine table the three men and one Asgard were joined by a couple of others.

“Supreme Commander Thor, this is Admiral Grunwald. I believe you have already talked before?” Both nodded to each other politely. “And this is Director Slen, head of the civilian side of this facility.”

“Indeed, and this too is something that needs to be discussed Field Marshal. This facility is not on your homeworld. The Treaty will need to be signed there, not on a colony planet. The Goa'uld, especially Ra, are very specific about such details.”

“Treaty?” Gehlen asked.

“Yes Brigadier. Your species only has an agreement with Ra at present. An agreement he feels no obligation to conform to. If you do not iron out a permanent treaty with them they will destroy you as they have many other races. From what I have seen you have mustered considerable strength in a short time but the Goa'uld control a large percentage of the galaxy. Your forces would be no match for a concerted effort on their part. I am here to facilitate a more lasting treaty.”

Gehlen sighed and drummed his finger idly on the table.

“Not to sound too distrusting Herr Thor, but why do you wish to help us in this manner? So far we have not aided your race in any way, that I am aware of anyway.”

“Perhaps not, but your position as a significant minor power in the galaxy acts as a small counter to the Goa'uld.” Schmidt grated his teeth at 'minor power' and 'small counter'. It was galling to be discounted to readily. “We are always looking for ways to counter the drive of the Goa'uld. Our own laws forbid us from simply attacking them without reason, and indeed a major campaign against them would be incredibly dangerous for the large human population of the galaxy.”

Gehlen wondered how that was better than that 'large human population' being enslaved by the Goa'uld for millenia?

“However,” Thor continued, “limiting the Goa'uld's reach is always something we strive for. In that vein we have long since formed the Protected Planets Treaty with the Goa'uld, trading certain rites in exchange for the Goa'uld vowing to not harm certain worlds we deem 'protected'. The System Lords uphold their part in the bargain, though not all minor Goa'ulds do. For the Protected worlds we must enforce this deal to ensure all abide by it. In your case it seems you can withstand a strike by any single Goa'uld System lord at this time and so can uphold such a deal by yourselves against a single, minor Goa'uld, as long as we enforce the deal with the System Lords. However you should be aware personal forces the Goa'uld have varied widely over time. A few centuries ago Goa'ulds fielded fleets of over forty Hataks quite regularly until dissent within the Goa'uld forced Ra to limit their production of vessels. He strongly dislikes the System Lords massacring each other.”

“I... see.” Gehlen said slowly. “I take it you are not too keen on them 'dissenting' with other races either?”

“Indeed.”

“Excuse me...” Grunwald said, standing up dramatically, fixing his hands firmly behind his back. “... Thor, but I do not quite understand. You enforce a treaty with them by force of arms, yes? Surely you can get them to do whatever you wish? I would have thought such treaty negotiations would not be at the whim of these Eels. From your statements it seems how the Treaty is set up at very least will be determined by them.”

Thor paused, staring at Grunwald for a few seconds.

“There are complications with our relationship with the Goa'uld.” He said finally. “The Goa'uld is not our only foe and this Galaxy is not the only environment we explore. Suffice to say that in recent centuries we have been slightly distracted by other matters and deals with the Goa'uld have been strained as a result.”

Glances were exchanged around the table as they considered that four hundred thousand million stars were merely another playing field for the Asgard.

“Very well,” Schmidt said, taking over once more, “perhaps we should discuss the details then. Assuming the Fuhrer agrees to this Treaty negotiation.”

“Agreed. As I have stated the Treaty meeting will need to take place on your homeworld. Also all Reich planets will need to be included in the Treaty for your own safety.”

Gehlen coughed, not liking where this was going.

“I am uncertain this is the wisest course of action.” He said carefully. “We have kept several worlds hidden from the Goa'uld on purpose. Now suddenly we expose them to attack? You've already said individual Goa'ulds may ignore the Treaty in the future. Even an unsuccessful strike could kill millions of Aryans.”

Thor seemed to sigh without making a sound, slumping slightly. It seemed he had expected such comments.

“A fleet maneuver would be unlikely to be mounted by such a rogue. Ra would easily notice such a build up of forces, at least enough to bypass such defenses as we have detected around Isseum, and restrict them. He at least tends to uphold Treaties once signed, though hardly for any altruistic reasons. He fears us, and more specifically fears what we may do to the Goa'uld as a species. Any strike from a rogue Goa'uld is more likely to be a strike through the stargate. As long as you defend all of your stargates well I do not see much problem as things stand in the galaxy at present.”

“Oh, of course.” Gehlen said with a chuckle. “And the advanced Goa'uld will just open the gate and send troops indefinitely as their only assault? I hardly think so. There are many ways to use a gate to strike at a planet. Honestly I'm surprised they have not struck hard at Isseum already.”

“I'm sure your shields will be sufficient. The Goa'uld are hardly unaware of the tactic of placing a barrier close enough to the event horizon of the stargate to stop matter from materializing from subatomic particles and doubtless presume that any major world will be thus protected.”

Schmidt and Heisenberg share look and Gehlen managed to hold the shock from his face. So that was how the Goa'uld used such a weak shield on Isseum to hold back enemy forces!

“Of course.” Gehlen said carefully, working out things in his head quickly. “But any such advanced race could easily build weapons to strike through such defenses. A simple high energy weapon fired continuously through the gate would produce such high numbers of those particles to overwhelm such defenses, yes?”

Thor nodded.

“True. Is that why your gate has such large shield generators?” Gehlen merely nodded in reply. “However the Goa'uld have rarely resorted to such tactics, and in general are not quite as advanced as you may think. They have gained most of their technology from other races they have conquered over the centuries and the level they have achieved is thus somewhat haphazard. I have seen Sokar and Ra himself use such gate assault tactics successfully a handful of times in the past only, and with your scientific understanding I believe you should be able to hold against such offenses. Are there any other objections?”

Heisenberg frowned.

“It is galling to be so open to an obviously inimical enemy force. You understand that decades of mistrust is not easy to overcome?”

“Perhaps, but other races have had to overcome centuries of such distrust to join the Treaty. You are not the first to enter this situation.”

Schmidt raised an eyebrow and coughed to get Thor's attention.

“Would any of these other races wish open communications with the Reich? We would be grateful if such lines could be forwarded.”

“Some, though most you would consider worthwhile would likely wish to remain anonymous.”

“Worthwhile meaning...?”

“Technologically advanced.” Thor added helpfully. “The vast majority of races in the Treaty are races that the Asgard is protecting because they are vastly inferior to the Goa'uld in scientific and technological capabilities.”

Schmidt nodded, sighing regretfully.

“I assumed as much. The galaxy seems to have been turned into a very distrusting place by the Goa'uld.”

“True Field Marshal.” Thor panned his gaze over the members here slowly, Slen still keeping quiet.

As a civilian and non-Aryan Slen always felt somewhat overwhelmed in such meetings... not that meetings with advanced alien civilizations occurred every day!

Thor's gaze fixed on Schmidt once more.

“Do we then have an agreement? If a Treaty will be founded we are willing to act as a neutral party to the discourse. The Goa'uld will however want, as I stated, this Treaty to be signed on your Homeworld, and the discussion between you and the System Lords should take place there. Certain insurances of safety of all parties must be ratified. Indeed, any of the Goa'uld members being harmed during Treaty negotiation will enable Ra to gather a huge retaliation strike against your people quite rapidly from the other System Lords.”

“Understood, and I will check with the Fuhrer, but I believe we have an agreement.”

“Very well.” Thor said, standing once more. “If you will escort me to the gate I will begin preparations.”

Gehlen raised an eyebrow once more.

“Surely there is not that much of a rush?”

Thor fixed him with his cold gaze.

“At this very minute Ra is finishing gathering a strike of over one hundred Hatak to strike at Isseum. If this Treaty negotiation is not prepared soon you will loose that world. You must also be prepared to grant the Goa'uld something in return for this Treaty. They will not relent without something from both you and the Asgard in return for your worlds security.”

As Thor waited to be escorted back the gait Gehlen fixed Schmidt with a knowing stare. The Fuhrer would not be pleased at these developments.

 

[Patupi]

December 1971-January 1972

The Treaty talks on Teutonia last approximately ten days, and are rather hellish for all involved. The Goa'uld (Ra, Chronos, Baal and Bastet are the representatives) are infuriated with having to deal with such a minor race. The Reich chafe at the heavy penalties they seem forced to deal with during the negotiations. The Asgard, well, things go somewhat awry midway through the talks and are not too happy either.

Initial negotiations deal with matters that all can (reluctantly) agree on. Despite posturing and some odd claims that soon get quashed, the borders of the Reich are the planets they now own and a border ten light years beyond the exterior of those worlds. At first the Goa'uld claim that the Reich only have the worlds they inhabit, and have no right to any worlds between, but eventually (with concessions from the Asgard relating to allowed rights of passage in other parts of the Galaxy and access to a couple of worlds they hold) they concede for the most part. A second sticking point was Horus' Throne world, but eventually this was ceded for concessions on the size of the border around Reich worlds. Unfortunately a couple of Reich planets are considerably outside this border. Leere is one, though that is near enough that an 'access corridor' is allowed, but Heschel is over five hundred light years distant from the rest of Reich space. In the end they insist on banning all armed vessels from transiting between the two zones, but allow a five light year border around that planet on it's own.

In exchange for this the Goa'uld begin to demand many things. At first regular shipments of hosts, which the Reich vehemently reject, almost breaking down talks at that point. When reconvened (and the Goa'uld's sensibilities are suitably soothed) alternatives are considered. Complete access to all the Reich's technology is proposed... and denied, though this time negotiators keep their cool and they merely take a break to 'clear the air'. After a few other similarly ridiculous exchange suggestions an agreement is made. Although the suggested 'complete ban on all Reich ship and gate transfer outside their space' was too much they manage to talk the Goa'uld down to merely all ship transfers, allowing gate transits outside Reich territory. The Reich negotiators suspect this is only allowed as it would be almost impossible to enforce a ban anyway.

Towards the end of the treaty the worlds the Reich have recently explored (and claimed) also crops up, the Goa'uld claiming these are rightfully theirs, often stating treaties (now defunct) from thousands of years ago. Much to the Asgard's disquiet the Reich suggest a proposal to let them keep these few worlds (such as Mumaker and Urwald and a few others they have 'claimed' during their short gate exploration of late) that lay just outside their borders, actually stretching the borders accordingly. In return? The Reich suggest that they take over protecting people's already covered in the Protected Planet's Treaty, and that the populations are moved to these worlds the Reich governs, giving the then empty worlds to the Goa'uld. At first the Asgard immediately refuse such a deal. Most of the races under the PPT are primitive and are kept isolated to ensure natural development without contact with other space faring cultures. The Reich suggest those that have contacted space faring cultures might be more willing to shift to a Reich owned planet. The Goa'uld seem happy with this, and it is the Asgard that stall the talks. In part it seems the Goa'uld seem more keen to see divisiveness between the Reich and the Asgard.

In private talks between Schmidt and Thor he stresses this, stating that this is something that can make the Goa'uld actually eager to deal. Thor finds the thought of putting any of the PPT peoples under the yolk of the Reich unconscionable. He is in two minds about the Reich people at present. At first they appear to be honorable from what little he has seen, but their government and ruling style is somewhat harsh to his way of thinking, and imposing that by force on another race? He is not happy with the idea.

Schmidt counters that many cultures they have met are far harsher in their own dealings among themselves, perhaps a few cultures could be found that would voluntarily join the Reich? Of course that would delay the talks too much, and the Asgard do not want that either. Longer talks give the Goa'uld time to demand yet more concessions and create even more of an untenable position for the Asgard in this galaxy. Thor is beginning to regret stepping in to aid the Reich by setting up these talks.

In the end a compromise is met, and two such worlds are proposed, limiting the Reich to keeping Urwald and one other planet they have explored they have named Angenehmland. The Asgard demand certain restrictions on the developments of the cultures on these worlds and that they will handle the moving of the populations. In return the Reich demand that open borders through gate or ship between these worlds and other Reich planets be allowed and 'supervision' of the local governments by Reich advisers is also allowed. The Goa'uld in the end gain two planets once covered in the PPT and the surrounding territory. They do not deign to say which Goa'uld would gain governance over these worlds.

Which worlds are offered is delayed while Thor sends a message back to his people. There it no time to contact all of them to find candidates that are willing, but the best fit is found, two planets that the Asgard feel would most accept transfer to a new planet and new 'owners'. Governance is still deemed to be the people's choice, not the Reich's and the Asgard will vet any technological innovation that the Reich wish to instill on these people, not wishing to push them too far too fast.

On January 3rd 1972 the talks finish and all parties sign. It is called the Il'keera Treaty (named after the Goa'uld name for the region of space). The Goa'uld depart somewhat pleased with the result, especially seeing the obvious distaste Thor has for these humans now. Thor leaves, but first warns that the Asgard will not tolerate any more such attempts to interfere on the peoples covered under the PPT.

During the negotiations the Reich made sure to show indifference or annoyance with the Treaty's conditions, but now, privately, they feel this is something they can live with, as long as the Goa'uld live up to their end of the deal. With the territory they have now and the additional manpower coming from the two PPT populations (even if it may take a while to tempt people from under those governments to join the Reich) they should expand within that territory considerably. Already the experience on Leere proves the Reich can live on an airless world and there are plenty of them around, although lacking gates. Mining on such planets should not be a significant problem, as well as research outposts like Leere. Space based industries also are increasing in capabilities, especially after the experience rebuilding Hataks in Isseum orbit. Plans to begin mining small moons and asteroids in the Teutonia and Spelk star systems is already being planned, and efforts further afield may be possible.

Things are looking up.

August 1972

Conditions on Mumaker begin to become untenable. Quakes are almost constant now, and the ferocity is increasing. Reich science seems unable to stop the Mu machines deep within the planet from functioning and replicating. It is suspected though that random errors and problems will reduce their ability to replicate fairly quickly, but this will not be quick enough to save the planet. When the last attempt to control the Mu machines underground fails the Fuhrer orders the evacuation of the planet, most of the workforce being sent back to Teutonia and shipped out to a new facility being constructed far to the West of Volksburg. A new town begins to grow alongside it, named Muburg by the people... this though is not prophetic. The Fuhrer bans such Mu intensive construction techniques in future, instead opting for the limited Mu machine usage that Teutonia and Spelk use in their factories. This allows more advanced mechanisms to be built, but productivity is way down. It will be a many years before the Falke, Jaeger and Rapier missile production reach the heights they achieved in late 1971 and the Reich hope the Goa'uld have no way to determine this and see it as a weakness. With the Treaty at least they have the hope that the Asgard will maintain their enforcement of it, defending the Reich if Goa'uld do attack.

At this time the Reich are scrupulous in keeping to the treaty, though they do research better long range sensor satellites, hoping to place them at the edge of their territories to scan further afield while keeping to the letter of the Treaty.

November 1972

A few further talks with the Asgard during the relocation of the two cultures to Reich held worlds seems to calm ruffled feathers, and the Reich also make sure to not interfere with the planets either, simply maintaining a base around the gate on both worlds only, with ships and defense satellites in orbit to defend them. A new 'overdrive' method of hyperdrive allows short spurts of high speed, in excess of 30ltyrs/day for at most three days before they would burn out, and a few destroyers are build using this technology. They are used to patrol Reich held worlds that are near major bases or fleet outposts. That way they can call for help if the gate is cut off, although at this time the Reich is finally starting to develop crude subspace communication technology. So far nothing practical has been developed.

February 1973

Conditions finally calm down on Heschel and the Reich now has five of the six Center States firmly part of the Reich, and also three that were well outside of the Center States. Holding back any forceful tactics they rely now on making sure those that have joined the Reich appreciate it and encourage others to do so as well. The hope is that within five years all of Heschel will join. Thent is another matter and apart from Ivanri and the Western Accord there seems little interest in joining, though there has been some illegal immigrants crossing borders into Reich territory of late. Perhaps they can simply draw more of the people in till Ivanri is more populous than the rest of the planet?

Technology on Spelk is currently equivalent to about 1940s technology, though the scientific base is a little weak and they do often need specialists from Teutonia for certain projects. With the boost in education this is thought will stabilize soon, and hopefully they can catch up to the Reich completely in ten years. Heschel is slowly catching up, maybe being early to mid Victorian technology at present, but Thent is mostly the same, with a few innovations here and there. The Western accord also is jumping ahead though, reaching levels that Spelk was at prior to contact with the Reich. They still are wary of fully joining the Reich, but are certainly a close ally.

 

[Patupi]

May 1973

Work on Leere perfects a form of accelerated negative particle drive based loosely on the EM drives disk ships use. This is effectively a low tech Ion drive (and I may as well use the same name). Unfortunately the version the Reich develop is not truly functional in an atmosphere but develops quite high thrust, more than current EM drives, and has far higher efficiency on fuel. The engines themselves tend to be rather large and power hungry, but given the small fuel tanks needed the result often ends up with a drive having higher acceleration than EM drives. Current high end gravrider drives still outperform them considerably in vertical motion near a planet, but further out such Ion drives will be a significant boon to Reich ships. The systems are too different from existing propulsion to retrofit to destroyers or cruisers (The Ullr does not need it, having an Al'kesh grav drive as it's secondary propulsion) but new ships are designed with the Ion drives as standard from now on, and it is suspected that the old EM craft will be used on low threat tasks until they are retired once enough of the new ships are complete.

There is also some work on improving the gravrider's lateral propulsion, making it more maneuverable beyond up and down motion. So far this is not terribly effective, the current prototype drives can exert force without tipping the drive and loosing efficiency, but the lateral thrust they can produce is low. The team hope to improve this soon. for the 3rd generation of destroyers and cruisers. The cruisers technically would be 2nd gen, but the Ullr is technically considered '1st gen' even though it was mostly based on Goa'uld equipment.

August 1973

Mumaker is labelled as uninhabitable as volcanoes begin to erupt in the vicinity. An FTL transport arrives quickly and takes acquisition of the gate and pedestal before it can be destroyed by volcanism. A small fleet of a few military ships and civilian vessels heads out to explore new possible worlds for the gate. They are careful to stay within Reich territory, and initial surveys do not find a suitable inhabited planet, but several with either no, or thin atmospheres that they can work with. Towards the end of August they stumble across a very interesting mineral world. Thin CO2 atmosphere, fairly cold but not unduly so, but very high mineral deposits of many kinds readily available. The gate is set down and attempts begun to establish a base surrounding it. It is named Ruhrland and soon personnel start to spread through the gate to work on the planet.

September 1973

Final work the new gravrider drives find a curious mechanism by which to strengthen lateral thrust, and indeed thrust overall. By elongating the design vertically into two counter rotating cylinders, the system can under go a form of rapid procession, which, while stressing to the mechanism, can generate considerable thrust. The units produced are somewhat unstable, and have a tendency to simply stop working due to charge build up in the systems. Simply shutting them down and then restarting works every time, but it does represent a problem. One engineer manages to install a temporary fix, connecting a large Superconduction matrix to the drive, sinking the charge, but after a while it still builds up and causes shut down. The drive has well over four times the thrust of a conventional gravrider system, and automated systems mean it can be tipped in any direction and still maintain thrust. Acceleration when pointing laterally to the gravity field is still slightly lower than up and down acceleration, but is not significantly.

The first 'grav drives' are installed in pods on a small test rig, and it's maneuverability, while not as good as a Jaeger, is considerable, and has slightly higher acceleration when close to a planet. Given it needs no fuel, except that for the power systems it is a very good fighter drive. The possibility of a new type of fighter using gravitic propulsion opens up, but the instability issues mean the drive can only operate for an hour before it needs to shut down for at least ten minutes before further use. Preliminary suggestions for a fighter design use NCGs to power it, having fuel for only an hour, however recent work on fusion reactors has been reducing their size somewhat. Although it will be a while before fighter sized reactors are available, something slightly smaller than an Al'kesh could be built using fusion power and the new grav drives.

While the work on grav drives progresses enhancements to existing plasma drives make deciding between the two awkward. A new version of the Jaeger, with an upgraded plasma drive, would be able to out accelerate a glider, and the new vectored thrust engines with plasma diversion maneuver thrusters connected to them mean they can accelerate sideways or in reverse about half as fast as they can forwards. This means they can hover on straight plasma rocket and wouldn't require jets to do so. With slight improvements in fuel efficiency they also would be able to reach orbit and still have the fuel for combat.

The two proposed designs for the next Reich fighter, one using grav drives and one using vectored thrust plasma drives, have slightly different capabilities.

The plasma drives give higher acceleration than Reich grav drives (except very close to a planet, such as in an atmosphere, where the grav drive out performs the plasma rockets), but the vectored thrust system on the plasma drive is not quite as agile as the grav fighter engines. Also although the plasma rockets do draw power, it is not where near as much as the grav drives do, and on-board power systems will last far longer, and be able to power better energy weapons on the plasma powered craft than the grav powered craft. The new grav drive still generate thrust proportional to the local gravity field, so the further from a planet you get the lower the thrust.

In the end both designs are accepted. The Jaeger-1120VT uses the vectored plasma engines, and the Raubvogel-150 (Meaning Raptor) uses grav engine pods. The latter is rather experimental and probably won't be put into mass production this year.

The two aircraft are seen as having slightly different roles, with the Raubvogel aimed at being the equivalent of a fighter bomber, with a heavy missile, rocket or bomb payload with smaller energy armament for it's size. The Jaeger 1120VT is a conventional interceptor, instead relying more on a mix of two Deathrays and a short range plasma beam with a standard Jaeger missile load. Neither of the new craft have wings any more, though the Jaeger has stubwings, similar to the Falke, to mount missiles to and have better control at high speeds in atmosphere.

With the Jaeger-1120VT ready for production it surpasses the 1050 model that came out a couple of years ago. That version, not mass produced at Mumaker due to component issues, is not available in large quantities at present and soon the Reich decide to switch production to the 1120VT on both Teutonia and Spelk. There still are over 2000 Jaeger-950s around the Reich and they will form the backbone of space fighter defense for a while. At present the joint production plants on Spelk are all busy with production of the larger ships, but newer facilities, mostly Spelkan in nature, are working on aircraft. They are too low tech to produce complete hulls for the new Jaeger-1120VTs, but can produce some parts and assemble the planes from the rest of the components shipped from Teutonia.

Combining this with existing research towards the 3rd gen gravrider systems should improve conventional capital ship drives, though to avoid the instability reduces the overall thrust considerably, and the dual ring drive that gives ships the 'disk' appearance is still the most effective shape. The disk drives still have the reduced thrust when the whole ship tips off axis, but can deliver thrust without tipping which does not reduce such lateral thrust to much less than maximum vertical thrust. This should mean that close to a planet they should no longer be so reliant on reaction engines.

January 1974

The first 20 Jaeger 1120VTs roll off the lines on Teutonia, first going to an elite SS Luftwaffe squadron based in orbit on a new space station.

March 1974

A meeting with Thor occurs again in March, though there is still distrust between Reich and Asgard. Suggestions of future trade with them fall on deaf ears. The Asgard are however satisfied with the way the people on the two new worlds are being treated. IE, left to their own for government and organization. The Reich has provided food and water until they were set up properly, but otherwise has left things be, but kept communications open. Thor departs but warns them to not trust the Goa'uld blindly... not that the Reich had any intention of doing so.

December 1974

The first regenerator tube is built, copying Goa'uld symbiote healing abilities given to Jaffas. Basically anyone placed in the tube will be put into a deep sleep and heal rapidly while within. The system offers the first insight into how the ability could be added to a Jaffa's 'mechanical symbiote' to allow them to retain that ability at least. Still the institute is saying such advancements are 'just around the corner'. Since introduction barely two percent of Jaffa use the Mechanical symbiote, but the number is beginning to rise.

Regenerators are not a panacea, but do provide better protection verses disease and toxins while within, and heal most types of injuries, including broken bones. Dead will not be brought back to life, and certain damage cannot be healed, such as necrotizing tissue, cells destroyed by chemical effect, or radiation damage.

February 1975

Akelsbarg on Heschel grows to over 200,000 people, most of those immigrants from Teutonia, Hescehlian Center States and beyond, though even some from Spelk have moved there. So far no-one from Thent cares to. Those on Thent that wish to join the Reich tend to head to Ivanri on Thent itself. Akelsbarg has a ceremony and now renames itself a city. It is perhaps overstating things, though a lot of 'cities' on Heschel smaller in population.

Akelsbarg started as more of an agrarian, mining and trading community, but recently has evolved into a more diverse layout. Trade hubs, farming land, mining facilities, chemical plants, production facilities all grow at varying locations around Akelsbarg and the structure is the most advanced, non-Aryan society around. Several of the Reich Center States form very close ties with the city and this helps development of the technology and social structure considerably.

However, dissent among other areas on Hechel continues, if not as bad as before. Most of the populations that were eager (against their leaders) to join the Reich have done so in one form or another. Most of the dissent seen is against contact with the Reich from nations that want to have things the old way. So far such troubles are minor and Heschel seems far more tractable than Thent. It is hoped it will stay that way.

By now Teutonia's population has risen to roughly 1,100,000, though Volksburg population has not risen much, reaching barely 650,000. Various settlements around Teutonia now house the rest and the Reich is already beginning to improve the benefits of immigration to Teutonia. An adoption scheme to give parent-less children homes with Aryan families on Teutonia is growing, along with propaganda and TV pieces promoting such adoptions. Of course Spelk is preferred as a source for these children as the Nordic background best suits the Aryan people, but some from other worlds also work into the scheme as it grows.

April 1975

Ruhrland grows to a large facility, though hardly a population center. It focuses on resource mining and some limited production. Plans of building ship construction slips are devised, perhaps even a new larger slip for heavier craft. So far manufacturing facilities are minor, enough to build and repair the numerous mining vehicles to remote mine the various seams of metals in the vicinity.

An outpost is build on the inner of the two moons of Teutonia, at first as a small mining facility and as a sensor outpost. This moon is slightly larger than the outer one and tidally locked, thus putting the base on the farside allows astronomical observations to be made without 'Teutonic light' interfering. Unfortunately the second moon is quite bright and half the time it is above the horizon. Without an atmosphere this does not limit observation too much however.

 

[Patupi]

June 1975

During another visit to Urwald by the Asgard (to install a 'Vakasteinne', some kind of stone like sensor device near the gate to keep tabs on the Reich and the PPT people on the planet) Grunwald attempts once more to converse with the Asgard present, Skadi, hoping to make peace after the awkward negotiations during the Treaty talks. Skadi seems slightly more open than Thor, but she is still cool towards Grunwald. During idle conversation Grunwald asks how long Asgard live for on average. When told 'millenia' he ponders aloud that their sarcophagi must be more efficient than the Goa'uld's.

Skadi gives him a very long, cold stare.

“You are aware of the Goa'uld's sarcophagi cumulative negative effects are you not?”

She proceeds to instruct him that repeated use of the device impedes creation of certain brain hormones and disrupts neurochemical balance in general, resulting in focused self interest, aggression and other behavioral traits. She hopes that the Reich is not in the habit of using these devices heavily. He placates her, telling her this is not the case. Reich medical science is already highly advanced in such matters, though revival is currently not possible such as with a sarcophagus.

Grunwald did however notice that Skadi carefully skipped over the question of Asgard medical technology. It seems most such queries over Asgard technology get carefully ignored. They do not wish to share such information with the Reich it seems.

After Skadi's mission is over Grunwald wastes no time in disseminating this new information about the sarcophagus and Reich scientists begin new trials on the remains of the one in their possession attempting to determine how such effects come about.

August 1975

A prototype of the Raubvogel-150 enters testing phase and so far seems to be working well. Efforts to get the new grav drive working in a practical vessel have been held up till now due to some resonance issues with existing power systems. This seems to be fixed now and it is expected to enter into production and service early in '76.

Some research recently has indicated a possible upgrade to plasma beam weapons. It seems possible in the lab to initiate a short 'uberpulse', over stressing the mechanism and pouring power in at high levels for a short duration beam, at most a second or two. Such short beams would be far more powerful than existing plasma beam shots but the hardware to avoid vibration issues in numerous subsystems pushes the minimum size for such a weapon up considerably. A 4cm model, the size used on Destroyers, seems the smallest that could be fitted with such an upgrade at present. So far this is pure research, but it is hoped to test some practical versions of the device soon.

November 1975-February 1976

With the Fuhrer in his late 70s and still in power, some pressure is felt from those high in the Nazi party to look again at the '50 year' position. Perhaps this should be back-rated to begin when the current Fuhrer began his reign? Some even suggest shortening the duration to less than fifty years. So far this is not well received by the majority of the party. Himmler is too popular within the NSDAP for such thoughts to progress far, but Himmler gets the message and personally organizes a private and very secret committee consisting of Gestapo, Wehrmacht, bureaucrats and scientists to analyze the workings of top government and determine if improvements can be made. This group only reports to him and is impressed that ANY method thought of should be submitted to him if they deem it worthy, including if they find that the Fuhrer should step down.

The organization of the Nazi party and the governmental structure had evolved over the years from the paramilitary organization of Hitler's political corps (any differentiation between Nazi party officials and local government officials had been lost shortly after the dislocation from Earth) to something more akin to a conventional bureaucracy. Appointment was still by higher party officials and eventually the Fuhrer himself. No elections or similar functions had ever been set or even proposed on Teutonia, seen as detracting from governmental efficiency and impeding the work they did. Some more radical leanings in the party with a scientific bent had been suggesting a meritocratic means of appointment within the government of late, but so far this had not been taken to heart by the party faithful. However it certainly was not thought of as impossible. The resurfacing of this idea was one factor that came out in the Fuhrer's government reform report which was completed in early '76. Traditional scholastic ratings were not deemed accurate enough to gauge whether someone was proficient at governmental posts, and the committee suggested new tests and practices should be devised scientifically to determine how fit someone was to be part of the government.

Further committees were arranged by the Fuhrer to privately work out how such changes might be carried out in future, but so far all such research was very blue sky and likely would be many years before any were implemented.

March 1976

After much work the first of the new 3rd generation destroyers is completed with the new gravrider drive. At the moment the new uberbeamers have not entered practical deployment yet, but the 3rd gen 'Taifun' class (typhoon) destroyer is fitted out with slightly oversized conventional plasma beams and designed so they can be retrofitted when the new beam weapons become available. The rest of the weaponry is a fairly conventional mix of deathrays and two missile launchers. The newer launchers are a four tube rack system that rapidly reloads from an internal magazine, such mechanisms now refined for space use now with heavy automation on the loading mechanisms.

The new gravrider propulsion means that close to a planet the destroyers can probably match the speeds that an Hatak can manage, though special 'acceleration tanks' are fitted for such maneuvers to avoid crews blacking out during such maneuvers. These tanks are not well received among crew, though they have been tested for some considerable time, as getting in and out of such tanks is awkward and controlling shipboard functions while within one is tricky to say the least. Further attempts to duplicate the Goa'uld's inertial compensator systems have been ongoing but have stumped engineers. However recent developments suggest they are near getting a practical version. This will be well received among destroyer crews as it would do away with the need for acceleration tanks.

Shielding on the new destroyers is standard, similar to the Sturmreiter class, but some interesting developments have occurred in armor. Rather than the conventional Trinium, Carbon, Steel alloy used for many years a new ablative complex ceramic material is fitted, much better at resisting plasma and concussion damage, but fragmenting away to carry the energies of the attack with the debris. Spare plates are carried aboard the ship and an experimental robot can replace such plates fairly quickly. There is even talk of mounting a form of reprocessing system that can recycle old burned out ablative armor plates back into new plates on Cruiser or larger class ships, though this will take some development time to get functional. There are several different sizes and shapes of plate needed for a Cruiser and the system is fairly complex. In theory such systems would allow a Cruiser to repair a destroyers armor, or at least supply the plates so a destroyer can fix itself, however more molds would be required for some different shapes of plate and this might not fit in the proposed engineering bay.

For the last year work on Teutonia has built the first ship of the new battlecruisers, a combined warship/carrier. It is slightly larger than a cruiser, slightly lower weapon compliment, but has a flight of 30 Jaegers aboard. Shield systems are if anything slightly better than a Cruiser, and the new Ablative armor is fitted (though not the proposed recycling equipment for the plates which is not ready yet) but a lot of stress is placed on beefing up the drives, using a slightly larger gravrider system and a larger variation of the new ion drives. There is consideration to refitting the Ullr with one of the Ion drives instead of it's current Al'kesh grav system. Currently it is left as it as the change would require a major refit, and though it would increase speed slightly the new drive system would be much bulkier and would likely force the removal of nearby weapons on the rear section to make space.

The new Jaeger-1120VT fighters are now produced in enough quantity to support all current five carriers, the two converted Hataks and the single new battlecruiser. Old Jaeger-950s are more or less relegated to defensive work from now on.

May 1976

A Zehpyr patrol group catches a Hatak scouting a lightyear inside the coreward border of Reich territory and give chase. The four destroyers inflict damage to the ship before it leaves, but one of them also suffers large damage as a result. A perfunctory hand written (in Goa'uld) report is sent through the gate to a known Ra controlled world notifying them of the occurrence, stating the repulse of the single Hatak and noting that the Reich assumes Ra will deal with the 'Rogue' according to the treaty. The Reich does not expect a response.

Efforts to expand the hyper sensor net around the border worlds of Reich territory continue, but the net is not complete yet and ships could still sneak by. Patrols of Zephyrs and Sturmreiters continue to ensure such vessels are detected. Recent detection systems suggest they can detect a ship in hyperspace... just, but the system required would be massive and short ranged. If it can be shrunk somewhat such devices could be built into outposts on moons around the edge of Reich space, but that would be expensive. So far the hyperwindow detector is the main detection system the Reich employ and it's detection range is now extended to approximately half a lightyear. This requires seeding satellites between star systems to make sure the net is secure and this has slowed the system from being completed. All such satellites are a little larger than the older versions, primarily because they need to include the new Reich subspace communicator which is also rather bulky. The subspace comms are also very low data rate currently and the satellites mainly use the comms to notify whether everything is OK, or slow transmission of coordinates if something is detected. (Consider it the equivalent of the Submarine VLF band radio for subs, though two way)

Current estimates suggest that the satellite detection net should be complete in late '77. Patrols of destroyers will regularly check on the net to make sure they are not compromised, but it should drastically improve border controls.

 

[Patupi]

August 1976

A group within the upper Reich government put a plan before the Fuhrer, aiming at bluffing the Goa'uld in the long term. This involves limiting any border patrols along the Reich frontier to current vehicles, even after more advanced ships are developed, and also limiting equipment used by personnel travelling through the gate. Nazi Jaffa would use either captured staff weapons or the old Beamer rifle (also derived from Staff weapons), and Wehrmacht or SS personnel would be equipped with the standard Assault rifle, even when the new MR-12 (a combination deathray, plasma weapon) comes into use. This should let the Goa'uld give in to their natural superiority complex, assuming the Reich remains behind them technologically.

The risk of course is if any gate teams or patrol ship crew get captured and reveal the plan. The Fuhrer suggests a gradual upgrade. Perhaps in ten years deploying the current state of the art third generation of destroyers along the border, and similarly upgrading gate troop weapons with a similar delay. This way the Goa'uld will get that there is some development, but misjudge the level of the advancement.

December 1976

After many years of study Heisenberg's team finally manage to duplicate the Goa'uld's Inertial Damper system. The prototype is somewhat bulky, but functions. They believe that a variant of the system could also provide the internal gravity that all Goa'uld ships use. Dampers should reduce perceived acceleration on Reich ships and allow drives to be pushed faster without more stress on the crew. Crew on the newer ships are relieved that the crew acceleration tanks will soon be put to rest.

February 1977

Another patrol of five Sturmreiter destroyers intercept an Hatak mothership along the border. This time a pitched battle ensues and Two destroyers are left drifting hulks, with a third severely damaged, but the Hatak is driven off, itself taking very high damage. It is suspected the Hatak was almost destroyed during the battle.

Border patrols now are increased to six per group, often a mix of Zephr and Sturmreiters, the new Taifuns will be kept to defend the core worlds when enough are constructed. As a fifth 2nd gen Cruiser, the Baldur, is completed the possibility of using a mix of one cruiser and four destroyers for future patrols is considered. So far a pure destroyer mix is retained, but as the construction slips switch to the newer 3rd gen Cruisers and Battlecruisers it is considered to use the older 2nd gen cruisers in this manner.

March 1977

The first destroyer equipped with an inertial compensator (but no internal gravity yet) is built, and the systems for it seem able to be retrofitted into the other 3rd gen destroyers. At present the system is too large at minimum size to fit into fighters, but the component size is shrinking fast. The technology seems more compatible with electronic rather than crystronic systems, and an adapted substrate electrical system is being developed.

June 1977

Some developmental work by Heisenberg boosts shield capability considerably, matching the shield strength (though not quite the efficiency) of Goa'uld designs. With more power required, and the slightly bulkier fusion plants compared to Naquadah plants, Reich ships using these new shields will still be slightly weaker in shield strength to an equivalent size of Goa'uld ship, but not by much. Estimates are around 90% or slightly less.

These shields will be installed on all new 3rd gen ships, though one slip at Spelk is retained for construction of the older 1st and 2nd gen destroyers with the older shield design (and other equipment) to keep the border patrols supplied according to the new plan. The equipment here should also be able to keep the 2nd gen cruisers operational, even if it can't build new ones.

November 1977

SES-01, the prime gate exploration team led by Il'kar, encounters a primitive planet, similar to a few others they've encountered, but while there Jaffa, led by a minor Goa'uld Sa'for (serving Sokar) attacks, collecting hosts. The Reich forces initially kill most of the Jaffa, though Sa'for has a personal shield and is difficult to strike, even with grenades. He calls for reserve Jaffa through the gate and keeps it open to stop the Reich from calling for assistance.

Il'kar manages to get a few hundred of the locals to rise up against the Goa'uld with his squad of 12 men covering, by promising them sanctuary on a Reich planet after. The battle is fierce, but they manage to secure the gate. Shortly afterwards Il'kar gets to finish off this 'False God' rather graphically in front of the remainder of the enemy Jaffa by jamming his staff weapon through the god's shield and relieving him of his head by use of hot plasma. The remainder surrender and both Jaffa and the people of the planet are evacuated to Teutonia until the Jaffa can be sorted into those that will join the Reich and those that won't. The native humans are helped to settle in a farming camp north of Volksburg.

February 1978

Finally, after some problems with deployment, the sensor net is complete and a secondary net is begun a light year behind it as a backup. This is done more leisurely and with more overlap between the satellites to provide better coverage if individual satellites are taken out. It is expected the second layer will take five years to complete.

The first layer proves it's worth almost immediately as a force of two Hataks is spotted emerging from hyperspace at world on the edge of Reich space. Before an intercept can be made they skip to an adjoining system, then another, creeping across the edge of Reich territory without heading deeper inside. A trap is suspected so a full fleet of three cruisers, ten destroyers and a couple of carriers, accompanied by a scout fleet of one cruiser and five destroyers, is sent to the next system they expect the Goa'uld to arrive at. The scout fleet engages, and is surprised. However the expected 'Huge fleet' does not arrive, but instead two more Hataks. All four are significantly upgraded, mounting far larger shields (sacrificing cargo etc), more weapons and significantly different types of weapon. A beam weapon is detected, some kind of particle beam, but it seems somewhat weaker than standard Plasma cannons.

It's purpose is discovered when the main fleet swoops in to engage. As cruisers and destroyers engage the enemy, Jaeger-950 fighters are launched from the carriers and sweep around in a pincer movement... only to be heavily damaged by the rapid fire particle beams. It appears that they are an anti-fighter weapon this Goa'uld has developed. The ships leave almost immediately after the fighters engage only taking minor damage to two ships. It obviously was a test of these weapons, though why they would waste the surprise of it is a mystery to the Reich. The best guess is that who ever this is still considers the Reich to be a minor player and was using them merely to test the new weapon so they can eventually use them against other foe, probably a Goa'uld that relies heavily on Al'kesh or gliders.

Analysis of the data of the mission makes a tentative match to one of the Hataks, though it has been heavily modified, as a survivor of the battle at Isseum. It seems this was a Baal ploy.

May 1978

The Jaeger 1150VT enters production. It is almost identical to the 1120VT, though using slightly less powerful plasma beam weapons, the space is used to mount a new, lighter, inertial damper field, allowing the ships sharp maneuvers to not affect the pilot as much. It is a cut back device to fit on a fighter, not completely cancelling the pilot's inertia, but in a way this is perceived as a good thing. This way the pilot can still 'feel' the movement as he flies.

Not all new production is given over to the 1150VT, as it has not been proved to be more effective than the 1120VT with it's higher, short range firepower. A new model, the 1200, begins design studies as a heavier fighter/bomber. Also using inertial dampers, but sacrificing the vectored thrust mode to get higher acceleration at the cost of maneuverability, the 1200 has a larger missile loadout, similar to the Raubvogel-150, and both Deathray and plasma beam armament is uprated significantly. The 1200 should be able to outpace a deathglider in a straight run now, the acceleration quite high for such a craft, and it relies on the inertial damper quite a lot. As a fighter it is not as effective, but should be able to win in a one on one with a deathglider.

It is not certain when the Jaeger-1200 will enter production as there are some issues with the power systems that need to be ironed out.

It is expected that inertial dampers will be mounted in the next version of the Raubvogel as well as the grav drive improves.

 

[Patupi]

July 1978

The new 3rd gen cruisers have been held up in construction lately due to Heisenberg continuously stating he is 'nearly ready' for the new power plant design he has been working on. In July the prototype is finally ready. This is a heavily uprated fusion plant with a mix of Tritium, Deuterium and Naquadah as a fuel source. It requires a small shield system internal to protect the inner systems from the intense radiation the reactions produce. The result is a high level reactor equivalent to the NCGs still in use and the tests prove the reactor can actually out produce the Goa'uld's Naquadah plants by sacrificing fuel efficiency. Where as a the reactor on an Hatak could last for centuries of use on it's internal liquid Naquadah tank, a Naquadah fusion reactor would barely last a year, but have over double the power output.

At the same time Heisenberg's team has been working on reproducing the Naquadah plants themselves, and has managed to create working models, though not as high power as the Goa'uld systems. While the new NF (Naquadah Fusion) plants are limited to very large reactors at present (cruiser at smallest at the moment) the Naquadah reactors' technology can be miniturized fairly easily. Small Naquadah reactors could soon replace NCGs in fighters and other small craft.

The team believe working versions of the NF plants will take a couple of months to produce for the two 3rd gen cruisers on hold. After that production of the new reactors should speed up somewhat with experience.

October 1978

On schedule the first two 3rd gen cruisers launch into the skies of Spelk and Teutonia. The new ships are slightly larger than existing cruisers, and are much more effective. One such craft is easily more than a match for a standard Hatak they believe, and it's shields especially with the extra power from the new power plants, are extremely tough. That combined with the new ablative armor make them a fearsome... if expensive to build, vessel. Destroyers are at present too small to use the new power plants so the 3rd gen still use the conventional fusion plants.

Battlecruisers will also in future use the NF plants and should improve their defenses considerably. Meanwhile a new construction slip on Teutonia is arranged for a mammoth craft, slightly larger than an existing Hatak. The new Battleship line will take considerable effort to build, and likely not many will be constructed, but they should be very powerful. The ship is a conventional disk in shape, but houses a very large experimental version of the Uberbeamer along it's lateral axis, between the disks, as it's primary weapon. This large gun is believed to have highly superior shield penetration capabilities. Talking to the few Jaffa that had seen incidents between Asgard and Goa'uld the Reich as become aware that shields stronger than conventional Goa'uld types are around, and they hope to field something that could function even if, for example, a Goa'uld manages to reverse engineer a Asgard shield... or if the Asgard should ever become an enemy someday.

Secondary weapons on the battleship are turreted conventional plasma beam weapons and deathrays, with four sixpack, reloadable launchers. A small hanger for fighters and two small shuttles is included in the design for more general purpose use. The vessel does have two small fusion reactors as backup in case the main NF plant fails, but these are underpowered and would have difficulty running any main system at a fraction of their full power, let alone multiple such systems.

January 1979

The new MR-12 goes into full use in the non-SES armed forces, with a cut-down MR-11 as an SMG style variant as a 'sidearm' for naval personnel in the Raumflotte.

The weapon employs a 4mm, deathray as the main weapon which is overpowered against unarmored foes, doing incredible damage to 'soft' targets. It is not that effective against hard targets, though concentrated fire can burn through armor. However under the main barrel is a grenade-launcher style addition, which is a Reich constructed, low rate of fire, pulse plasma weapon, similar in power and range to an Ma'Tok staff weapon. The MR-11 misses the plasma addition and down rates the Deathray main weapon to a 3.5mm weapon.

The original design of the weapon was to have used energy cells recharged by a cell from a Staff weapon, but the recent development of Naquadah reactors means a Reich designed power source is now available. This allows the weapon to work in the field without any ammunition required. Service is still needed from time to time, but taking the Goa'uld weapons as examples they aim to increase reliability and durability as much as feasible, for a long use standard weapon that should hold the Riech in good stead for a long time to come.

Armor is now a mix of a thin Trinium carbon steel alloy substrate with a thick ablative layer on it. It can withstand at least three direct blasts from a staff weapon, but the armor is in plates and there are weakpoints that a blast could get through during combat. The standard suit is a chestplate, front and rear, arm braces and leg braces with a helmet particularly well armored and with a flip up faceplate, also armored with camera systems for vision. It is expected the faceplate system will mostly not be used as even with the sensor systems in it it's field of vision is less than normal, despite access to infra red and some HUD overlay systems.

Tanks, AFVs and Infantry vehicles have also been upgraded, mostly with plasma beam weapons and some NECE warhead missiles which can deal with most unshielded targets with one shot. Armor is mostly an advanced variant of the Trinium carbon steel alloy at present, though upgrading to the ablative armor is being considered. Although the Trinium armor is less protective it is more durable. Although vs larger weapons like the Goa'uld plasma cannons and glider weapons the ablative weapons would be better, the Trinium protects better verses staff blasts and smaller energy weapons. It's likely that only the Tanks will later get upgraded to the ablative armor.

The Nazi Jaffa have slowly been upgrading their equipment as well. They currently are on the Mk IV Beamer rifle, now entirely Reich built, and this is the standard weapon of the Jaffa, too heavy for normal troops except as a support weapon. The SES is the only force that still fields unmodified Ma'Tok staffs and the old MkI Beamer rifles that are partially built from Ma'Tok components. The armor didn't change much until the advance of ablative armor, where a new, jet black version of their standard suit (the old one was a dark grey/silver finish) came out. A solid Trinium alloy was compared with the new ablative armor, but for AP use it is difficult to field a Trinium alloy thick enough to stop a staff plasma bolt, so the ablative armor comes out on top over all. Jaffa ablative armor suits are comparable to Wehrmacht armor, but covering the entire body (including head with the eagle style helmet) and somewhat thicker. This reduces the problems with weakpoints found on Wehrmacht armor.

Their symbiotes have also mostly gone by the way side. Since the medical tech for the 'mechanical symbiotes' was a gradual process the eradication of the symbiotes was also rather gradual, but by now over 80% of the Nazi Jaffa have switched to the mechanical versions. Current models have recently completed a crude, slightly less effective version of the regeneration system as well as some improvements in overall strength of the Jaffa who use it. It does not quite bring back the healing ability they once had, but close, and the medical staff are still improving that along with the strength boost, as well as beginning to get to grips with other enhancements the symbiotes gave to the Jaffa.

So far no version of the mechanical symbiotes are compatible with normal humans, but doctors think an implant designed for humans could work, although likely be scaled down, to grant some of the Jaffa's abilities. How risky such implants would be for humans is unknown at present.

April 1979

The forty year celebrations at Volksburg are impressive to say the least, including a flight of dirigibles and disk transports, fighter air shows and even an overpass by the Ullr. the center of the city is almost completely taken over by the celebrations, fairs and parades occurring daily for almost a week. At the height of the celebrations a full turnout of SES, Wehrmacht and SS troops parade through the center of the City, showing the might of the third Reich's ground forces amply.

It is a day long remembered my the people of the city as it reinforces the belief that the Reich can not just survive but triumph over the hated enemy.

Efforts to inspire adoption, immigration, and increased sizes of families of late have all left Teutonia with an increased population growth, on average over 5%, far higher than previously. Currently the population is slightly over 1,400,000, with almost 850,000 in Volksburg alone. This growth may be untenable in the long term, but it bodes well for the Reich for now.

 

[Patupi]

June 1979

During a standard check of a gate code on their list they see several Jaffa, seemingly just leaving the gate area by their disarray. It seems the gate activation surprised them. Thinking they were there to attack some primitive people on the planet Commander Al'dar sends SES-1 and 2 through to engage the Jaffa. Il'kar leads his force in, but discovers a battle between two rival Goa'ulds, the Jaffa they caught being merely the rear guard in an assault force. Sensing an opportunity Il'kar attacks the force that came from the gate, killing over forty Jaffa before meeting the other, defending Jaffa and their god.

The Jaffa curiously do not attack, and in fact their leader, the lord 'Yu', manages (in a half hearted manner at least) to thank them for assisting him. Well, he doesn't actually use the words 'thank you', but comes close to implying it. Ill at ease with so many enemy nearby and with Goa'uld forces not attacking them, Il'kar simply accepts the compliment (such as it was) and, since the Goa'uld already know of the gate code for Teutonia, gives Yu the code and suggests a meeting.

When he gets back this is not well received. It seems Il'kar was thinking of keeping talks going and trying to get information from Yu on the state of the galaxy and the Goa'uld, not any serious deals. Still, his superiors are not happy with him handing out such information and INVITING a Goa'uld to Teutonia! Al'dar manages to use his influence to avoid any serious repercussions, but Il'kar is not the most popular Jaffa at the Urwald base right now.

An emissary of Yu, a Chen Wu, a minor Goa'uld, demands permission to visit through the gate a week later. It is grudgingly agreed upon, and all more advanced equipment is removed from the vicinity prior to his arrival. He is more obstreperous, seemingly disinterested in anything Reich made, and more aloof than Yu... pretty much a normal Goa'uld. Things are tense but no obvious disasters occur (other than two SS officers who insist their flaying knives need practice... in earshot of Chen Wu) and it seems the minor god is simply following orders from his lord to see if these primitives are worthy to deal with in future.

Nothing is arranged, but about a day after Chen Wu leaves the gate dials again and a radio message states that Yu is 'satisfied' with the Reich's accommodations, and may deign to grace them with his presence... some time in the future. Curiously it seems as if Yu is not averse to further contact, though he states that the Reich should contact him only on a matter of dire importance to the Goa'uld and these matters are far too menial to bother other gods with. IE, 'don't tell anyone we're talking'.

SES Command is confused. No Goa'uld they have had contact with has ever acted this way. They question their Jaffa on any information on Yu and find he deals in exactly the same treatment of slaves and wars and petty intrigue that other Goa'uld do, though he does have a slightly better reputation when dealing with Jaffa and 'lesser beings'. It seems he trusts them slightly more than other 'gods'. Just not very much.

The consensus from the military is at first to not take this too far. Perhaps they can trick this 'god' into letting on information, but certainly not attempt any deals with them. The treaty they have is quite enough thank you! However word comes from the Fuhrer that he wishes further contact, and is also not averse to meeting this Yu in person, should the chance arise. The General Staff is shocked and appalled, dreading what may happen if this comes to pass, but put messages out that Yu and messengers from him should be dealt with courteously, not matter how galling it may be.

December 1979

Defense positions on Teutonia, Isseum, Spelk, Heschel, Leese and even Thent are up to what the Reich consider 'standard'. This consists of three orbital base stations that house forty fighters a piece as well as some defensive weapons, six defense stations with hefty long range missile and energy ordinance (both deathray and plasma beam), twelve smaller control stations, the smallest that is shielded, with plasma beam and deathray weapons, but no missiles, that are used to control the smaller satellites of which there are two hundred, each armed with one plasma beam and two deathrays and a single missile rack armed with Rapier-7 missiles (a few with Rapier-7N). Newer planets like Urwald, Icross, and others have at most half this strength, but often have a fleet patrolling nearby.

A significant colonization effort has been made on Isseum in the last few years, with a central group initially from Teutonia, later strengthened by people from Spelk and Heschel (mostly from Spelk), growing to a population of 50,000 in a fairly crude town build atop the remains of the Jaffa city there from before named Lessec. Experiments with a shielding system to prevent bombardment against the town from orbit is being tested here, but so far the limitations of operating a shield in an atmosphere are making things hard. Twelve large generators around the edge of the town project an umbrella over the town, but tests prove it would not last long under fire. They are attempting to tune the shield to work better only in an atmosphere, but it is not going too well currently.

March 1980

One of the captured Hataks is stationed at Isseum and tests on the bombardment shield occasionally warrant a low power test of the weapons to see if an improvement on the shield has done anything. During one of these tests one of the engineer curses, saying he wished they could just stop them higher up, maybe shoot the damned balls of light down before they hit. This idea makes the chief engineer of the project rather interested and he looks into seeing if a deathray can 'shoot down' a plasma bolt. Initial tests are not very satisfying and it seems to take an awful lot light energy to destabilize the containment of such huge bolts. They are designed to collapse against physical targets.

That is when an idea occurs to him. If it were possible to project a small shield accurately over a distance could the bolts be blocked higher up? Keep the main shield in case anything got through, but attempt to stop such firepower from getting to the shield in the first place? He begins work attempting to project a small shield bubble far from a generator but finds severe problems with such long range effects. The shield weakens enormously and is useless. He keeps working on the problem.

August 1980

Another contact with an Hatak on the border of Reich space meets with a force of a Cruiser and six Zephyr destroyers and does not do well. It seems whoever they were they did not have any experience in dealing with the Reich and spread their return fire among the destroyers, in the end not doing any damage befor the Hatak succumbed to it's fate. An orbital engineering ship is sent for to examine the wreck.

October 1980

Now over 75% of Hechel has officially joined the Reich, not just the six main Center State nations. The society is undergoing a transformation, but slowly, with Reich 'Nobles' (the Nazi party elite) regularly visiting and attempting to 'inspire' the high society of the planet while government officials work with the existing structure to build some form of bureaucracy to organised the new states and begin to connect them more firmly with Reich doctrine and each other's actions. Technology is beginning to catch up as well here, with them already well into a steam age society and using quite a few fully modern Reich pieces of technology, especially medical systems, though currently the Reich is not 'wasting' the latest systems on such a backwater planet. Those are kept for Teutonia and Spelk, seen as the main worlds of the Reich.

Some dissent is still present in Heschel, sometimes more so, sometimes less. Reich troops keep on hand for riot duty on occasion in the outlaying towns and cities (if a 10,000 population area can be called a 'city'). Regular dirigible routes link the main areas to Akelsbarg, the muli-cultural city that the Reich set up some time ago. A lot of 'favor' from the Nazis to this newer city is annoying to the Nobles, and some talk of making it an organizational capital does rankle feathers at courts in the Center States.

However, overall the people are seeing an upturn in their standard of living, and even the Nobles agree they (those that invested in the new industries anyway) are seeing considerable profits from the endeavor.

January 1981

Continued work on the 'Mobile Shield Bombardment Defense' project has not borne much fruit. It seems the reason the Goa'uld have never deployed such a system is that it is practically impossible to project a shield far from a generator. Maybe when the Reich advances much further than it is technologically the system could be practical, but for now it is not. Some effort in a point defense projectile weapon to destabilize plasma bolts is worked on (the solid shells having an explosive effect on plasma bolts), but accuracy with a relatively slow moving projectile to hit a very fast moving plasma bolt proves intractable. Even using newer coilgun systems does not solve the issue, though they do in the process develop a large, rapid fire coilgun that might prove useful to the military in other ways.

In the end though a different branch of the project does start to bear fruit. An attempt to put a small shield generator in a missile warhead, get the missile more or less in the path of the bolt, then expand a shield for a fairly wide area for a short period of time (burning out the weak shield generator) seems to be feasible... in principle. A shield that large does not need the accuracy that the other parts of the project do. Of course it means expending munition to defend against an enemy weapon that uses no ammo. Not a tenable long term solution. Tests prove the device works in very controlled environment though, and given further research it could become a practical defense system... in five or ten years.

But even with the project not really succeeding in it's aim the results of the research prove a significant boon to other areas. While the disposable, overloaded units they test would not be really useful else where, the principles developed during making them mean a slightly larger, more stable shield generator might be possible. This would mean a shield system might be workable in a fighter class ship!

The designs are moved to Leese where work on a new class of fighter built around such a generator are started.

May 1981

Another contact from Yu comes through the gate, giving them, almost in passing, the information that Bastet was responsible for the recent attack on Reich territory. She had organised it through a minor Goa'uld that she can blame the whole incident on if it got out, but so far the other System Lords do not seem to know the event occurred. With Bastet finding the results of the encounter less than satisfying she certainly isn't telling anyone about it.

In return for this 'favored information' Yu demands the Reich assist him in a ground assault on a facility of Camulus. It seems the celtic god assaulted one of Yu's worlds and he wants it back, but his forces are mostly bottled up elsewhere. If the 'minor forces of the Reich wish to share in the glory of such a conquest then we will continue to assist them where we can with further such information'

The Reich is not keen on a 'Information in exchange for mercenaries' offer, but consider this a test of Yu's sincerity. Nazi Jaffa wearing standard Jaffa Goa'uld armor and using Ma'tok staff weapons, join Yu's forces in an attack... that actually goes precisely as planned. The SES is amazed that Yu did not trick them. They had two whole battalions of troops on standby just in case of such an occurrence, but the assault works, and the planet is returned to Yu. No thanks are given (or expected) but matters between them are left cordial (as cordial as you can get with a scum sucking Eel with delusions of godhood)

June 1981

Deutchland, the Reich's first battleship is completed and launches into orbit around Teutonia to much celebrations. The ship is put through considerable trials in orbit as no vessel of this size has been constructed before. Some problems are found with harmonic resonance in the disk systems, but nothing critical as yet. The weaponry and defense, especially the Uberbeamer, seem to perform well and the Reich begin to put resources and money aside for a second battleship to be started soon.

However, the economy is starting to slow military ship construction in favor of expansion of the civilian industries. This is due to worrying reports form various economic studies and they want to stave off a potential disaster that may lay in the near future. They plan on restarting the building program in the future, but current ship building is cut back to a quarter of it's late '70s levels for the moment.

September 1981

SES command locates a Trinium rich world, but it is well outside the Reich's borders. A base facility (including a nasty Naquadah Fusion self-destruct mechanism) is built around the gate and mobile, temporary mining it started. If challenged they will withdraw, but this is too good to pass up.

February 1982

Major General West crossed his arms as he watched the huge, ring shaped artifact lowered into the testing rig assembled in the so called clean room, which at the moment was anything but clean.

"Well general, do you think I can get my team on it soon?"

Major General West grimaced and turned back to the woman staring at him. Catherine was a formidable person, and had been connected with the gateway project for many years. Certainly before he'd been part of it. Now with them having permission to begin testing the damned thing to try and find out what it was for she had somehow used her connections to gain control of the whole shebang. At least the scientific side of it.

"It's Major General, Miss Langford. And yes I think it should be ready for the initial study group. Do you think that area has enough space for your equipment? I've seen the request forms and some of this stuff is... well, bulky to put it mildly."

Catherine smiled.

"Oh, I think we'll manage." She slapped him lightly on the shoulder as she stepped over to the window, overlooking the work in the clean room. "Soon we'll figure this out. I'd like to meet the guys who made this thing... or rather their great great great grandchildren."

"Unless they're immortal?" West murmured.

"Please, this may be full of Egyptian mythology, but I think we can ignore the god parts of the tale. This is solid technology. Beyond our level perhaps, but not magic. No, no gods are involved in this thing Major."

"I hope you're right Miss Langford, I hope you're right."

 

[Patupi]

August 1982

A new missile is tested, the Rapier-8 and Rapier-8N. Breaking a standing tradition this is not larger than the Rapier-7 and can be fitted into racks for those weapons. However more efficient grav drives are fitted, with a smaller plasma rocket for use beyond planetary gravity fields. It has a significantly larger and more efficient warhead, both the fusion version and the Naquadah/fusion version, and delivers three times the explosive power, 12megatons for the Rapier-8 and 110megatons for the Rapier-8N. This leaves a weapon that is considerably more powerful than the Mark 7 version, and vastly superior near a planet in acceleration, and about the same acceleration in interplanetary space, though shorter ranged.

The Rapier-7 and 7N are still used, and indeed are present in huge numbers from the production runs from Mumaker, but now stockpiles of the new Mark 8 and 8N are begun, slowly building a reserve of the new weapons. Production for the new missiles is mostly on Spelk with some work in Akelsbarg with the new industries there.

December 1982

A specialist project on Leese finally produces a working prototype. A disk destroyer where the entire hull, shape, material, powered emitters, all is designed to distort the advanced scanners of the Goa'uld and make it very difficult to spot at ranges beyond about 100,000km. This is compromised if the ship uses it's hyperdrive or ion drives, but the gravrider drive is very 'quiet' to sensors. Effectively this is a standard third generation destroyer, with slightly less weaponry to make space for the other equipment. Initial trials in Leese orbit prove very successful in evading captured Hatak's sensors.

The initial concept for the project was to install the systems on a fighter craft, but the smallest the equipment can currently be shrunk to is a destroyer sized vessel. The craft is considerably more expensive than current destroyers and is not planned for full deployment yet. A small group will be build over time however for special uses. They have a small cargo bay sufficient to hold several sensor satellites for deployment around an enemy position. Some of the passive anti-sensor systems are used on the satellites, though without the active systems the sats still need to be deployed a long way out from a system to not be detected.

A project is begun to attempt a 'slow' hyper window formation to reduce the detectable energy signature from entering and leaving hyperspace, but the development seems a slow process.

February 1983

Yu demands entrance to Teutonia through the gate to talk with very little preamble. He, Chen Wu and four Jaffa tromp into the base and tensions rise. Chen Wu is incensed that the Wehrmacht troops stay during the talks, with weapons, after Yu's Jaffa have been removed of their weapons. Schmidt is not shifting in this and simply says he can leave if he would rather.

Talks are tense for most, but Yu seems curiously removed, barely speaking and not showing much expression at all. Chen Wu obviously hate the Aryans and things progress he seems under certain orders, but does not enjoy dealing with such as the Reich.

The purpose of the talks are difficult to judge at first, Chen Wu talking of the original Treaty and it's points, then onto the signing members and warning of Bastet and Baal's treachery. The Reich begin to suspect this whole talk is a load of nothing.

Then, about half an hour into the meeting Yu interrupts Chen Wu in mid rant with a raised hand and leans forward.

“Your race mines Naquadah in significant quantities. What will you take in exchange for this?”

The Reich are stunned. This is all about trade? Up till then they had not heard of any Goa'uld ever trading with a 'lesser race'

The talks slow as, frankly, there isn't that much from the Goa'uld that the Reich want. Gliders? Too primitive. Components to repair their captured Hataks? Perhaps the hyperdrives, but the rest they can either build themselves or build alternatives. Even a few Hataks are mentioned, and there is interest in this, but it is denied. They are already starting to build battleships (though they certainly don't tell Yu this!)

Through an idle point a compromise crops up. People. Yu governs hundreds of worlds where humans are present in large numbers. The trade is agreed on, a thousand human slaves freed to the Reich in exchange for 10 tons of Naquadah ore. The Reich assume there will be attempts at mind control or other 'messing around' with the slaves and intend to set up a medical facility on Urwald to deal with the incoming before shipping them to Ivanri on Thent to join the population there.

Chen Wu seems incensed by the deal, considering the humans 'valuable hosts' not to be simply thrown away like this, but Yu has decided and he reluctantly goes along with it.

The deal is in small increments. One such trade being done every six months. The amount of Naquadah traded seems small to the Reich, but Schmidt attempts to behave as if it is a significant percentage of their mining output, seemingly worried over the loss in material. Do the Goa'uld with their vast empires really mine so inefficiently? The Reich knows they use slaves for mining, but even on such huge scales? It is odd.

One further piece of information is gathered by the time Yu leaves. Against orders, a scientist wanting to get up to date information installed medical information on such an ancient Goa'uld, had installed advanced medical sensors in the corridor leading from the gate room. As Yu came to the meeting, and when he left, he was scanned by the best systems the Reich had. Schmidt is furious when the scientist tells him this. Schmidt's orders were that all advanced tech was to be isolated from the base so the Goa'uld would have no clue of the level of Reich technology. But the results are interesting.

Yu is dying.

Medical scans prove that the symbiote in Yu is degrading and has been for nearly a hundred years. It seems from the scans that he may be unable to safely leave this host and take another, which might extend his life if able. The host is also wearing somewhat from extended Sarcophagus healing (maybe over thousands of years). They believe if this is not remedied Yu has less than a century of life left.

It seems that the Goa'uld are not unaging after all.

May 1984

An incoming gate at Urwald surprises the SES as it is Yu demanding the Reich send ships to his world now! Amazed the Reich listen and find that Yu has had a revolt, Chen Wu turning on him and seizing three worlds already, a fleet of Hataks traveling from world to world in Yu's empire, seizing planets and moving on, attempting to rapidly take planets and keeping Yu off guard, even if he can retake some through the gate network.

Yu is not entirely rational, ordering the Reich to attack these worlds, and catch this fleet, while at the same time rejecting any consideration of giving any relief on the Treaty, which forbids any Reich hyper capable ships from leaving Reich space. It seems he is slightly unhinged mentally and Reich doctors suspect this may be something to do with his medical problems.

Then the transmission is interrupted as Chen Wu attacks the world Yu is on.

The Reich is torn. They certainly can't send ships, it would break the Treaty and leave them open to attack from any Goa'uld and though they are strong, they don't think they could defeat a multi-System Lord alliance yet. They do want to maintain the deal they have with Yu, if just to keep the talks going as a useful means of gaining information on the inner workings of the System Lord Council. They could easily dump the 'trade deal' if they want to, but a semi-friendly Goa'uld they can pump for information? Not something they want to throw away just now.

There is only one way to help Yu right now, and it would be costly to the Reich. However if done in sufficient numbers it might work.

Schmidt on Teutonia dials Yu's planet as his forces prepare and radios Yu. Yu seems incensed to be distracted like this, but when Schmidt asks how well defended the gate area is and what the direct, straightline access out of the gate area is like he seems interested. As fire rains down on his position he agrees to the Reich plan, holding his shields on over his base, but clearing the area in front of the gate and opening all doors leading out.

A probe is sent through to maintain visual feed, then the Luftwaffe launches.

At first Falke-1700s pour through the gate, dealing with gliders in the area and soaring up to unleash high altitude missile strikes against the Hataks in orbit. They take heavy casualties from the enemy warships, the ships relying on their maneuverability to attempt to avoid battle while they clear the skies. Then the Jaeger-950s begin to pour through. At first the Hataks maintain fire on the Falke's flying at high altitude, the fleet fighters still sending the odd Rapier-5 missile up against the motherships, then a flight of over four hundred Jaegers soar up from the planet where they've been collecting and engage the Hataks while more pour through the gate.

Chen Wu is taken by surprise, expecting more atmospheric fighters, and one of his ships is destroyed in the first pass by massed plasma beam and missile strikes. As he pulls back, gaining altitude, the Jaegers press the attack... and then a single Hatak of Yu's jumps in behind them and destroys another of Chen Wu's ships. He begins to charge his hyperdrives to flee, but concentrated fire from Reich fighters and Yu's ship destroys the remaining ships before they can jump to hyperspace.

Yu is 'satisfied' with the Reich's performance. They hardly expected thanks from him, and watch for any tricks while the Luftwaffe dial back to Teutonia and the ships fly back through the gate. Thankfully Yu seems too busy planning to hunt Chen Wu's forces down and deal with his treachery to consider double-crossing the Riech and the fighters return home safely.

The battle was won, but at cost. Over a hundred Falke fighters and almost seventy Jaegers were lost in the battle, with more than two hundred craft damaged. The Falke's cannot survive much damage, though Jaegers are more sturdy and take a glancing blow from a Goa'uld plasma bolt and not instantly disintegrate. A direct hit is still never survivable.

At present no contact with Yu follows and the Reich are not sure where they stand with him and what he'll think of all this. Will he just be pleased they can help? Unlikely. He could be more worried that the Reich are this powerful. He could drop the deal and turn on them simply because they are more powerful than he expected.

June 1984

Finally contact is made with Yu and he seems calm and collected as normal. After a brief message saying the traitor Chen Wu has been dealt with he notifies the Reich that the first delivery of Naquadah will be expected on July twentieth and warns them to not be late. He does not wait for a return communique.

It seems the deal is still on.

July 1984

The exchange on Urwald is made through the gate, ten tons of Naquadah for ten thousand slaves, arriving in disheveled condition, but somewhat healthy. The medical staff get to work on them and are surprised that no bombs or obvious traps are found. The people sent are not strong or healthy, probably the weakest members of a tribe of Yu's that he can spare. It seems he is merely making the best of the deal rather than attempting to trick them. Again, odd treatment from a Goa'uld.

The doctors spend over three weeks making absolutely sure of the ex-slaves before beginning to send them on to Thent where they are found homes, tought the basics of surviving in the Reich, and schooling is arranged. Some speak languages no Reich staff understand and a new facility is set up to work with them to learn these new languages.

 

[Patupi]

October 1984

After decades of effort and research Reich doctors finally are able to remove the Symbiote from the aging Baumgaertner. He survives, the symbiote Kel'kesh does not. They are satisfied with this result, even though it takes some considerable medical effort to get fifty five year old Baumgaertner back into shape after the deterioration his body endured all this time. It's still a risky procedure, but with modern Reich medicine the ex-hosts should be able to recover completely afterward such removal... if they survive the operation. Estimated success rate at the moment is about 90%.

Baumgaertner unfortunately was not aware of any Goa'uld secrets afterwards, given his short time awake with the Goa'uld (he was kept in sedation or medical coma for the vast majority of the time he was worked on by the medical staff). Still, the SS are glad to have their officer back after over twenty years, and hail him as a surviving hero.

Schmidt personally thinks the man was an idiot for getting that close to the Goa'uld in the first place, but doesn't say so publicly.

November 1984

Following on from the introduction of the Rapier-8 the Rapier-9 is developed, a long planned replacement for the smaller, fighter launched, Rapier-5 missile. Now fusion warheads have been shrunk enough they can replace the older NECE Naquadah enhanced chemical warheads, though the more complicated Naquadah fusion warheads are still to bulky to mount in such small missiles. Compared to the 10kt of the Rapier-5 NECE warheads, the new Rapier-9 fusion explosives pack a 250kt blast. This means even the anti-fighter missiles on the four light pylons of fighters can threaten a Goa'uld Hatak's shields now, rather than only if the fighters mount a single Rapier-8 on the heavy hardpoint instead of the four lighter missiles. The heavy missiles are still better overall against the larger targets, but at least fighters can have a more general purpose loadout for fighter/mothership strikes.

The new light missiles come in two models 9a and 9b. The 9a uses grav drives and is the fastest missile yet produced by the Reich, easily out accelerating any Goa'uld they have seen by a very high margin. The 9b is an enhanced plasma drive missile, for use beyond a planet's gravity well. It is not quite as fast as the 9a, but can be used anywhere and still has a slightly higher acceleration than any Goa'uld ship they have encountered. Strafing runs to give missiles a 'running start' to catch enemy ships are no longer required (though it still helps) and long range engagements are more effective now.

March 1985

The SES encounter a society (called the Hemriar on the planet Wentrus) through the gate at roughly Victorian level of technology, that has been under attack from Camulus recently. He has been raiding the planet for about ten years through the gate, and occasionally by an Hatak from orbit, taking thousands of people away and bombing whole cities to ruin. However he has not destroyed the civilization, seemingly wanting them to keep surviving so he has a ready source of hosts from the populous planet. In the last year however his ships have arrived twice in orbit and things are getting dire for two of the three nations on the world, the remaining nation, the Hemriar, have been spared this heavier assault, 'merely' being raided by armies of Jaffa for hosts through the gate. It's possible they are only being spared this as they are around the gate thus easier for Camulus to strike through that instead.

Surviving slightly better than the other two nations Hemriar has attempted to send humanitarian aid to the others, but recent bombings have severely damaged their economies and tensions were high. War between the other, harried nations broke out a few months ago and even more damage has been done as the armies slug it out on the blasted fields between them.

The Reich first offer medical aid and techniques for fighting Jaffa, but the Hemriar are desperate and beg for aid from Reich ships to deal with Hataks in orbit. This however is tricky. They could send fighters through, which would not violate the treaty per se, but if they fortify this world the Goa'uld would likely take affront to it and demand they return it. Plus fighter assaults are costly affairs, even with modern Reich technology. Against one Hatak they could probably win with little loss, but too many would mean the deaths of many Reich pilots.

For the moment they offer to strike at any ships in orbit with fighters for a short time but only if the Hemriar agree to move their population through the gate to a world that is within the Reich treaty boundaries that they can defend successfully. Talks begin as to where this planet would be and no immediate answer comes, but they do agree in principle and a fighter base is assembled outside the main city and Jaeger fighters begin to head through the gate to the base.

Various worlds the Reich have explored are considered for the relocation, including Ruhrland the mineral rich world with the thin, unbreathable atmosphere that the Mumaker gate was sent to. That would hardly be a good fit however, as Hemriar technology can't readily build habitats in such a hostile environment, let alone build air processing facilities. This would mean the Reich spending huge amounts of money to house, and then maintain, habitats for the Hemriar people.

However there is another possibility. A planet within a lightyear of Ruhrland is suggested. There is no gate there, but it is close enough that a cruiser led fleet could get there in about an hour if needed and the possibility of a Reich built orbital defense network is put forwards (although a less expensive network, not as expansive as on major Reich worlds). The planet is hardly prime real estate, mostly desert with areas close to the poles being habitable and it having little in the way of minerals the Reich is interested in, but it would be a world the Hemriar could live on.

Talks on the issues involved and the practicality of shipping over forty million of the Hemriar through the gate, then through space to the new world are talked about. It would be a significant challenge if attempted. Other worlds are easier with direct gate access, but they are either more hostile or are outside the Reich's borders so they cannot risk setting up a defense of that world on a permanent basis.

Tentatively, by the end of March the deal is agreed, but only if the Reich is allowed full access to the people after the move, with emigration to Reich territory unhindered, and a Nazi party is allowed to join the group of democratic parties that form governments on the new world.

The other two nations on Wentrus have been shaken by orbital assault, Goa'uld raids, and their own warfare so that they violently shun any contact with the Reich and reject any offers of aid, instead hell bent on each other's destruction. Their population on the continent on the far side of the planet is likely not to survive too many more Camulus raids, or their own predations. The Reich decide to leave them to their fate.

April 1985

In late April Camulus sends a Jaffa force through the gate and is beaten back by a mix of fighters and Wehrmacht troops. It's a large force though, and some Jaffa do manage to dial the gate out though and a few survive to tell Camulus what is happening. It's not known if the survivors recognized any Reich fighters or troops. It was a pretty chaotic situation and Hemriari troops were mixed with Wehrmact ones in the battle.

Hemriar is in an uproar, dreading what will happen, some blaming their leaders for siding with the Reich and risking the backlash of Camulus. Before they raided and took some people. Now he may wipe them out for them daring to fight back! Despite this the government finally agrees to the Reich plan and begins to organize the best and brightest to head through the gate to Ruhrland as the Reich begin to organize shipping to head from there to the new world, named 'Ventus' (wind) by the Latin cultured Hemriar. The first shipment of sixteen thousand people traipse through the gate (they can just get them through in the 38min window), is loaded onto eight transport vessels and are shipped to Ventus. They set up a crude city on the far north of the main continent while a Reich construction ship arrives in orbit to build defense satellites. Conditions are very basic on the new world, but with the construction ship in orbit to give some assist to building materials (though it doesn't shift much from it's main task of constructing defenses) they manage to get some start on improving their lot.

Organizing the regular shipments of people is tricky. The ships take less than three hours to get there and back, but with extra time for loading and off loading, and the problems getting the people back on Hemriar to organize, it ends up as more like eight hours to ferry 16,000 people to Ventus.

May 1985

Riots begin in the capital in Hemriar, some people demanding the leaders send apologies to Camulus and beg forgiveness, while other rioters seem to want to take the fight to the Goa'uld, to strike back at him, and beg the Reich to give them gate codes of any of his worlds they know. Things begin to get rather chaotic. The shipments now have sent over half a million to the new planet. The growing city is named Spero or 'Hope', though 'city' is rather an optimistic name for the settlement. Farmers begin to figure out how to farm crops in the harsh land, Reich supplying limited shipments of food from orbital drops and beginning to land cheap prefab buildings for the newer settlers.

In return for this aid the Reich begin to ask for goods and machinery. The people sent to Ventus leave a lot behind and though it is low tech it could assist some of the Reich's less developed worlds. This is not well received, as the Hemriar assumed the Reich was doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, but seeing the scale of the task of moving so many people does make it sink in that this is a massive undertaking by the Reich. Tools, materials, books and other items are transferred through the gate in huge numbers to other Reich worlds, mostly Heschel to improve that planet's development in outer areas that haven't taken to Reich control yet. Any valuable materials in the supplies are routed to Teutonia or Spelk to put into the various industries present there.

At the end of May over 1,500,000 have gone through. The throughput on Ruhrland is not easy, let alone amassing them in Hemriar, and some riots break out as the people are manhandled into the transports. So far no fatalities yet, though quite a few injuries.

June 1985

By mid June over 2,500,000 have landed on Ventus, though the 'city' is a mess of disorganized people, struggling to get things set up. The Reich have landed a second construction ship nearby to help with such things and are beginning to take charge of the construction in some places. The Hemriari here aren't sure what to make of that, but so far it seems benign enough.

Back on Hemriar things are starting to degenerate, and a Hemriari army has joined a mob in one outlying city and is moving towards the Capital where the gate is, to force entry through the gate rather than those chosen by the government. Wehrmacht troops stop the mob, but at heavy cost to the Hemriari. Over nine thousand die in a pitched battle on the streets of the city and the city irrupts in panic.

Furious fighting comes and goes and the economy starts to break down, the rulers of the city demanding to be taken through the gate with the current batch. As the next load heads through, with the streets still in chaos, two Hataks appear in orbit.

The Reich did not want this to happen now, and had been planning on ending this shipment soon, but they can't evacuate their own personnel quickly enough to not be scanned by the Hataks in orbit. They will know who was here!

The transfer is stopped, dialed again from Teutonia and as the fighters on the planet launch more swoop through from the homeworld. They assume (if the Goa'uld have any sense) that they don't know who is here or they would have brought more ships. Although with Goa'uld conceit and self importance you never know. Still, the best bet they have is to destroy both ships quickly and then get the hell out of here and leave no trace behind.

More advanced Jaeger-1120vt fighters from Teutonia join the 950s already on planet and they engage the Hataks, over a thousand attacking both ships simultaneously, hoping to overwhelm them. It works, both ships succumbing quickly, hopefully before they got any transmissions out. Reich losses are fairly light given the rapidity of battle, but quite a few shots from the Hataks hit the city, and even more panic irrupts.

Two Raubvogel fighters spend a couple of hours slowly pushing the Hatak wrecks into deteriorating orbits to burn up in the atmosphere to ensure there are no weapons signatures to identify. Hopefully this will just be a mystery to Camulus.

Fighters swoop down and leave via the gate and two battalions of troops guard it, with another battalion guarding the fighter base (a crude layout that is dismantled fairly quickly), where anything identifiably Reich is being removed and shipped back to Teutonia. Some fighters remain to provide air support to the troops against the rioters and things get very rough. In preparation Reich trucks have been slowly shipping several hundred tons of fertilizer from the docks into buildings around the gate and have planted Naquadah in the stinking mass, with hundreds of tiny, crude timed explosives (locally made) in the piles all set to go off at the same time. Guards on the buildings stop any locals from checking them out ahead of time, but thankfully it was finished in time.

With the city in flames, still millions panicking, the Reich head out through the gate, leaving as little trace they were there as possible.... and then the Naquadah enhanced fertilizer bomb goes off.

The blast is over two megatons in size, amplified by the Naquadah. Not enough to destroy the gate, but it is buried in molten rock as the city is obliterated, removing all trace the Reich was there, and killing most who knew they were there. Hopefully that will be enough. They could have simply used a fusion bomb, but were not sure that Goa'uld technology would have been able to tell what kind of bomb did the damage.

The 'Venturans' on their new world are stunned by what has happened, both thankful to the Reich for saving them, but also horrified that they killed so many of their own people in the panic at the end (they don't know about the bomb, but assume those left behind will die from the chaos, or from another attack by Camulus). Most seem to understand that it was necessary, but there is a lingering distrust and hate below the surface. The Reich leadership realize it would probably be best to treat contact here with care in future but they are already heavily involved in the organization of the new city and surrounding settlements, with a final population just under three million. The Hemriari haven't got farming set up properly yet, and still require food shipments, a LOT of food shipments. The Reich are wondering if this whole deal was such a good idea after all.

July 1985

As things slowly stabilize on the new world the Nazis become integral in the new government, and though there are calls for a return to democracy the people do seem to agree that the harsh conditions mean they can wait till later for that and the almost military leadership situation currently employed should stay for now. The government starts as a mix of Hemriari and Reich, but gradually shifts to more Reich personnel as the orderly, more advanced people seem to know more about organizing such a mess. Pragmatism leads this shift, but doesn't stop some mistrust in this shift in government from spreading to the people.

Slowly the planet seems to be turning into an outpost of the Reich. It may take a long time to stabilize though.

 

[Patupi]

January 1986

Over the last five years the Reich has been attempting to expand in the Teutonia, and to a lesser extent in the Spelk, systems to attempt to build bases off world on planets and moons nearby. Asteroid mining, lunar mining and various other systems are slowly taking off. Hyper shipment of cargoes back to the main planet on FTL transports helps a lot with such endeavors, and with the cut back in military spending of late this shifts a lot of the mining process of base metals and minerals off Teutonia.

In the last year an orbital station has been established around a moon of an outer gas giant in the Teutonia system, hoped to eventually house over 40,000 people and help man the mining efforts in other moons around that gas giant planet. At present only a skeleton crew of a thousand man it, but slowly the personnel are expanding.

Industrial output from 1980 to 1985 has shifted off world to quite an extent, orbital factories beginning to take shape, primarily for specialized processes that make advantage of zero gravity, and the first orbital shipyard is being constructed at the moment for the next battleship planned to be built. Military construction is still done rather slowly at the moment, not huge funding for such things while the treaty holds. Instead they hope to bolster the economy, increase the capability to build ships in the future, and then expand such forces in five or ten years. Whether the Goa'uld will allow them such a reprieve and keep to the treaty is unknown.

March 1986

The Hemriari on Ventus have drained a lot of resources from the Reich in food and construction material to get their new civilization off the ground, but farming seems to be working now, the first crops coming in with Reich-built semi-automated agricultural techniques helping a lot. The planet's population, while torn between wanting to rebuild themselves, and wanting the Reich's more advanced technology, has let things slide, the Reich practically taking over the rebuilding effort. Hemriari are taught by a few Reich engineers spread around to operate Reich equipment, schools are started by Reich teachers to help people understand the new machinery, and the society is beginning to bear little resemblance to Hemriari culture. However, on the whole the people seem to have accepted this. It's obvious the Reich spent an awful lot of money helping the Hemriari, and they were saved from Camulus (those that got through) and they attempt to fit into the new culture.

Some settlements further away from the main city try to hold to older traditions and equipment, and the Reich do not attempt to force them to adhere to their new ways. Schooling and general education is open to all though (of course focusing on German language) and some of these areas request smaller schools set up in their areas.

June 1986

The first working artificial gravity systems come online at Leere, with the actual actuation plate pairs being fairly small, though power hungry. It is definitely possible to retro fit existing ships with these systems. The work on these systems has also improved inertial dampers so production of the Jaeger-1150VT is stopped, and the new, smaller dampers fitted to the Jaeger-1120VT. Jaeger-1200s and the Raubvogel-150s off the production lines are also fitted with inertial dampers at this time, and slowly the already built versions are upgraded.

With the tech in place for the lighter dampers work on an 'intercepter' with higher acceleration and limited weaponry begins work, with the inertial dampers necessary to avoid killing the pilot now. It is likely it will only have mounts for two missiles and a single light plasma beam weapon, but out-fly any craft built or seen operating by other races up till now. Probably the project will take some time to complete

November 1986

In November the Reich called Yu for the first time. The next 6 month trade was coming up and the Reich wanted to shift the deal slightly. They called for a personal meeting and, after some suitable delays in conversation, he agreed. He seemed somewhat surprised at the request.

In return for the stated 1 ton of Naquadah, instead of slaves the Reich wanted... a gate. The Reich was banned from leaving their space by the Treaty, but they had one planet without a gate that was being used (they didn't go into details) but had some issues with. They were dealing with them, but doing so via gate would be vastly superior than the current transport mechanism. They were fine if Yu took this from an enemy of his, or even if it came without a pedestal (though they'd prefer it came with one). They could probably knock up a replacement if need be.

Yu seemed impressed, and worried at the same time. The Reich negotiators present were not exactly sure exactly what he was worried over, but could make a few guesses. However, after retiring from the talks to consider the situation he did acquiesce... for four tons of Naquadah, not one, in return for a Stargate plus Pedestal.

For the Reich this would not be a huge deal, but they had expected something like this and acted out being indignant over the 'huge costs' this would entail. In the end they forced an extension, delaying the trade after this for a year before returning to the six month deal. If this made Yu underestimate them all the better.

It was delivered within the month to the arranged spot (Ruhrland), though when it arrived Yu gruffly stated things had not transpired as he expected, and no pedestal was coming. After some hasty conferring and heated debate the Reich and Yu agreed on three tons of Naquadah for the gate alone. For some reason Yu seemed to be more interested in the proceedings than usual, perhaps merely focusing on the Reich negotiators more.

The gate was loaded on a transport and shipped to Ventus along with the pedestal from Ruhrland. A more rapid build up at Ventus was considered more vital than the barren mining world, and for the moment manual dials were sufficient on Ruhrland, and they slowly began to construct their own pedestal... though it was considerably larger than the older model... and better armored.

There was another aspect to this whole affair. The negotiators wouldn't have been too disappointed if Yu had turned down the whole deal from the start, as the main purpose was not to get the gate. It was a bonus, and would improve matters on Ventus to be sure, but the main purpose was to scan Yu more closely. Highly advanced, complex medical systems were put in place to scan the Goa'uld carefully during the whole proceedings and the results were rather interesting. His condition was nasty, partially due to a hasty melding last time he took a host, partially due to his excessive age, but also seemed to have been exacerbated by repeated Sarcophagus use. Although they did not have a working model to test their theories on, it was thought that a combination of Reich medical techniques and a heavily modified sarcophagus might be able to reverse the damage and heal the Goa'uld.

This was something they kept to themselves, but worked on carefully. They hoped to get a working sarcophagus to test on, and they went to Icross' Jaffa population to find one of the last Jaffa with a Symbiote there to gain a sample, exchanging it for a mechanical variant. It would take time to make sure the process worked, but the doctors were certain it could be done.

When Yu's condition began to get serious he would be desperate. What would a dying Goa'uld be willing to give for another millenium or so of life? The thought boggled the mind. All they had to do was wait.

 

[Patupi]

February 1987

Influx of materials to Ventus had begun to reduce, as local mining and manufacturing got underway. By Reich standards things were still crude, but the ramshackle city was beginning to look fairly solid around the center, and more construction was seen all the time. Influx of loyal Reich citizens (not just from Teutonia, but from other Reich planets as well) helped the growing civilization and aided the knowledge base for schooling and training in general. The Reich was fairly strict about who went to Ventus, hoping to foster better understanding of the Reich by making sure those that went were sympathetic to Reich interests. It slowly seemed to be working, but there was a growing group of people on the world starting to put together the old political parties for the time when democracy would once again rule the planet.

It was hoped that the planet would join the Reich fully, and covert to Fascism as Spelk had done, but as yet it was too early to be sure how it would go. For now the costs to the Reich were dropping off but the planet owed them a significant debt and tallies were being kept. They certainly weren't going to overplay their hand, but they were not going to delay Ventus paying them back indefinitely.

April 1987

Medical technology continued apace, with hospitals routinely dealing with most injuries fairly easily on advanced worlds. The large, expensive equipment needed for regeneration and advanced healing were less available on the newer or smaller colonies, but the technology gradually got easier, smaller and cheaper. It was hoped that soon the whole Reich civilization would benefit from such techniques in a five years or so.

Meanwhile the advances had already improved the Mechanical Symbiotes (now nicknamed False False Gods by the Jaffa) to produce all of the advantages of the symbiote, though the regeneration still lagged somewhat behind the organic effects of symbiotes. Also some newer mechanisms were beginning to get some implants with limited effects of these for normal humans. They were less effective, and there was some risk during the implantation and first few days, but anti-rejection systems in the Reich worked pretty well after the initial reaction from the body. New SS Ubermensch Battalions were already being created, though since they already were slightly inferior to Jaffa in strength, endurance and regenerative ability, not a lot of fuss was being made over this. No-one wanted it to be pointed out the Goa'uld had done it better before them!

There was another aspect to healing that had recently been developed. Although medical systems could regenerate damage fairly well, some conditions were resistant to such effects (especially radiation damage) and efforts had been made to produce clone bodies of a subject, then rapidly age it to adulthood so the parts could be used by the original donor to replace body parts that could not be healed. It had taken some considerable time to fix problems with cloning from already aged cells, but using stem cells and some of the Reich's advanced regeneration systems on the cells, they were able to clone bodies with no defects that weren't repairable by other means. In April the first successful treatment using this technique was made in Volksburg Central Medical and the patient seemed to be doing fine. The clone made had his brain functions purposely retarded so it would not be a problem (even if they had not been it would have had the mind of a child) during growth and 'processing' of the body, and the patient received his arm from the clone without issue. The rest of the clone body was successfully saved for future use in a form of medical hibernation, using techniques to slow metabolism down and maintain the body for long periods.

This however had other effects. People's body parts could be replaced that were not damaged, but aged. Slowly, most of the body could be replaced by younger parts, effectively making the person young again. At the moment this was an expensive process, and not completely without risk, but workable. The brain of course remained aged, but a lot of research now was focused on regenerating brain tissue without deteriorating the neural pathways. Hopefully the process would be perfected soon, then people in the Reich (or at least those that could afford it) could live almost forever!

The people doing this research were very careful to make absolutely no comparisons to the Goa'uld in their papers with this. That would have killed their research very quickly!

May 1987

Ventus was gradually turning into an agricultural center. Although the planet overall was poor conditions, the northern plains where the city of Spero had been built had quite verdant conditions. Farms began to spread from that central hub, as the large numbers of farmers in the Ventus population attempted to learn the more modern methods of farming the Reich taught. This might in the end turn Ventus into a farming planet, particularly as the mineral deposits here were not good. No Naquadah. No Trinium. No heavy elements. Even iron, copper, tin and bauxite were in short supply, so while a few minimal mines were set up for certain materials, very little was focused in that area. Manufacturing at first was high, attempting to build the society, but it several manufacturing plants failed as influxes of products from the Reich superseded their wares and apart from what was needed to build the cities things quietened down on that front for a while. The costs of shipping in materials, building goods, then selling it on made Riech goods far more viable for the most part.

However the orbital factory that was assembling the defense net over Ventus did do basic scans of the system and at one point a destroyer ran a scouting mission in system. The results were promising and some work on Ventus to produce a small ship construction slip to build mining vessels began to take shape. This heavily involved a lot of Aryans from Teutonia of course, Rocket Science (or perhaps gravrider science?) was not something the Hemriari had any experience with. This did give hope that the Ventus system might in future be a more broad civilization, dealing with more than just farming. The Reich was keen on this, not liking relying on the gate network too heavily. They still did not truly understand how the gates did what they did, and were beginning to think the Goa'uld did not understand it either. Who built the gates if the Goa'uld didn't do it?

For the moment the farming on Ventus continued growing apace but at least the potential for wider growth was there and the Reich concentrated on their own growth.

December 1987

It had been over eight years since the Reich had started to slow their military construction and focus more on industrial and economic growth, the majority of this effort starting about six years ago. By now Teutonia and Spelk showed considerable promise, having new industrial centers springing up around transport areas on major continents, older cities and towns improved in their manufacting zones, and some work on orbital engineering and space mining. The latter was still ongoing, but ground based industries were expanding well, and the Reich felt it was time to start to slightly improve military spending once more.

A new Battleship was started, and the first two cruisers in many years begun Destroyers had been built of late, though slowly, but here too construction was picked up a little. Manufacturing was still slower than the boom years of the sixties and early seventies, but the Reich was being cautious in how it expanded. They did not want to outstrip their resources this time.

Mumachines helped a lot, some of the problems with earlier models having been finally solved with mirco-crystronic systems. Small lenses of crystals were integrated with some innovative work in some germanium substrates. The results were slightly larger than the old Mumachines but had more internal processing power, were more resistant to radiation or similar destabilizing elements, and were better at communicating with a base control unit. Their on board programming was also spruced up, forcing them to return if losing communications for too long, and reducing the risk of such programming code being corrupted. These mechanisms were still not employed for mining as they had been on Mumaker, but in a controlled environment could build most machines from the inside out as one unit. This was mostly limited to items less than a couple of meters wide, so whole ships could not be assembled at once just yet, but they were working on it and some of the more advanced technology was still beyond the Mumachines capabilities. Sooner or later they would match the Goa'uld's efforts in that area too.

 

[Patupi]

Machinery hummed, long tubes of viscous fluid dripped with icky squelching noises and steam sprayed with violent hisses from the chamber. Reich scientists gathered close, but all with worry written on their face. Would this work? Could it? What would the consequences be if they got it wrong?

One last gout of steam issued from the chamber and the lid cracked with an echoing 'clunk'. Slowly, ponderously, it swung upwards, the polished steel cylinder revealing the Chinese face within wearing the ornamental headdress that he had carried down through the generations. His eyes flickered and he abruptly sat up, shocking the surrounding scientists who stood back quickly.

"I... I..." he muttered, his eyes glancing around the room with confusion for a moment. Then, amazingly a look of pure joy began to flood across Yu's face, a smile the like of which no-one had seen in years broke the crusty visage of the Goa'uld "I feel good! I feel amazing! This is fantastic, the sensations the... I want to do so much. Give so much! We should sign a treaty, to ensure all Goa'uld gain this advantage, that they should all feel this way! But there is so much more. I can...offer to defend the Reich against all her foes, to join forces to bring many people into the purity and right that is the Reich. To cleanse worlds of the ravages of the Goa'uld mining and warfare, to give puppies and lollipops to the children of the Galaxy!"

***

Schmidt woke abruptly in a cold sweat, that sickeningly sweet face of Yu's burned into his brain. He just knew it'd take weeks to forget that horrible visage!

God he was getting a lot of nightmares of late.

 

[Patupi]

January 1988

As more confidence was gained in the Raumflotte in defeating a concerted attack by the Goa'uld the SES was given higher gate time, expanding their search parameters. By the dawn of 1988 numerous worlds had been scouted, often with contacts with Jaffa. Mostly this resulted in minor skirmishes, almost entirely won by Reich forces. They resisted the urge to stomp bases they found, and instead restricted themselves to the light exploration with their existing small scouting groups. There was no way the Goa'uld would not be aware of these battles, but if the Reich did not make too much of a nuisance of themselves they hoped they could avoid any demands to revise the Treaty. Contact with more of Camulus' worlds was made, and another region of Horus' space, as well as some more of Baal's. Planets belonging to new Goa'uld were encountered as well, belonging to Sokar, Apothis and others. Care was taken in general with all of these planets, though they certainly did not stint on defending themselves when confronted with enemy Jaffa.

Other, non-Goa'uld held, worlds were also found, though the vast majority they encountered were sparsely inhabited, very low tech or both. They were constantly on the look out for an advanced nations, like the Eurondans, that could assist the Reich, and perhaps join them. Hemriar with it's steam engine level of technology had been a boon, more able to pick up Reich tech and run with it than more primitive cultures, but they really wanted contact with a like minded society with an existing, space faring culture. Surely some others fought against the Goa'uld?

February 1988

Finally one gate contact did find an advanced culture, though not directly. On arriving at a barren desert like planet the SES team received some static on their subspace communicators and attempted to tune them, thinking they were picking up faint transmissions from Goa'uld ships nearby. Reich portable subspace comms were crude to say the least at this time, requiring fairly large devices for decent long range communications. These transmissions were not from the Goa'uld however. Instead, a garbled transmission, in a language not unlike Eurondan, seemed to come from a type of vessel that had stopped briefly in the system. Unfortunately it re-entered hyperspace before better comms equipment could be brought in to identify the coding techniques used and contact it. An outpost was established here with comms and sensor systems to make contact with such a ship if it passed by here again in the future. Whoever it was was definitely not Goa'uld and had FTL travel. That alone made the Reich very interested in meeting them!

Numerous efforts to establish dialogue with the Asgard were tried over the years, and although a few individuals on the Asgard people seemed to like the Reich, overall they seemed to distrust them. They were willing to do business with the Asgard relating to the Goa'uld, but that seemed about all they'd do as a people. They certainly were not willing to trade with the Reich or to 'join forces to wipe the Goa'uld out' as one over-zealous SS man asked Thor one time. Thor had rebutted by asking if the Reich intended to manage the tens of thousands of Goa'uld held worlds, govern the ex-slave cultures and manage the numerous other Goa'uld controlled mandates on trade in the galaxy. It would probably only take a few hundred capital ships to keep things ticking over. Five hundred perhaps. Could the Reich spare that many? Or perhaps the Reich could could field about ten thousand or so negotiators to organize things through the gate with these parties? A conservative estimate to be sure.

Most in the Reich would be perfectly happy to just leaving the ex-slaves to govern themselves after the Goa'uld were dealt with, but thought the Asgard would look down on such a view. There was one race they did not want to anger, and didn't account for the perception the public had that the Asgard were somehow connected to the ancient Aryan history.

March 1988

After one 'regular' trade deal in November '87 where the ex-slaves were transported to re-education camps (not those kind of re-education camps!) yet again the Reich decided to change the deal. This time a large shipment of food was to be shipped to Ventus. Given what those people had been through the Reich decided against Yu shipping his goods directly there. The sight of Jaffa carrying such stuff to them might be a little stressful for the people on Ventus. The local government (which was still an ad hoc military set up at present, with mostly Reich personnel) carefully arranged the shipment, and oversaw checking it with modern Reich medical scanners to be sure no poisons were in there. They didn't think Yu would do that, but a) they wanted to be sure, and b) they worried that a rival Goa'uld would sabotage any such shipments out of sheer spite.

This food trade would not be needed long, as Ventus's agriculture was improving fairly quickly, but still the hit the Reich had taken to food reserves was hefty, and the Hemriari still weren't quite feeding themselves. Two shipments over the next year should see them through and allow them to feed themselves, and the Naquadah at least was easy to mine.

Consideration as to what they might need from Yu in the future (and what he would be willing to give) was thought of, and some possibilities brought up.

One was fighting for Yu. This was the least likely of any that the Reich would consider. True, it would mean fighting against another Goa'uld which they would do quite happily, but fighting under the order of Yu would likely anger the other System Lords if found out.

Another was mapping information and gate codes. Yu was one of the elder 'gods' (in fact the eldest known to them) and would likely know many codes to planets that other Goa'uld would not. That could be a very valuable resource!

Yet another was something more in line with the Treaty. If the Treaty banned the Reich from attacking the System Lords and their associated minor Goa'ulds, knowing who wasn't on that proscribed list would be good. Of course it was a given that any such names Yu provided would be enemies of his as well, but doing gate raids on 'safe' targets that the System Lords did not care if the Reich struck at would be handy.

So far they left it for the moment. Perhaps after the food deal was over in a year they would re-consider a trade for one or more of these.

August 1988

In Teutonia orbit, two constructions were finished. The first was an orbital Construction frame (a true Space Dock) capable of building either civilian or military ships up to battleship size with parts shipped up from the planet. The second orbital project was a mobile ship construction and repair yard. The latter could only handle destroyers at this time, but was a large, mobile ship, capable of hyperspace travel at 8ltyrs/day (current Reich best speed) and could repair, or even build a complete destroyer using raw materials. It could even do minor repair work on larger ships if need be, with numerous robotic maintenance units that could conduct external repairs. The manufacturing systems were heavily Mumachine dependent, and were a good deal slower than the industrial complexes and construction slips planet side, but the system could build or repair destroyers in the field, build or repair defenses without the supplies of components that the conventional construction ships needed, and could even build fighters should a location require it (ie, it had no gate to bring fighters in through).

Only one of the huge ships had been built so far, the ship more than twice the size of a Battleship, though with no weapons, minimal armor and a rather weak shield. At least one more was planned to be constructed, and these mobile yards would be escorted by cruiser and destroyer vessels in most situations. If they encountered alien technology they should be ideally suited to analyze such systems and attempt to duplicate them.

September 1988

By now the fleet had been upgraded with the new artificial gravity systems. This was not merely the installation of the grav plates, but also re-organization of the internal layout for use in gravity rather than in free fall which made a huge difference. In addition, the new fighter/interceptor using a high powered grav plate assisted plasma rocket started testing. Using grav plates to help accelerate the plasma was more efficient than electromagnetic systems, and increased the thrust of the ship dramatically. The ship could not accelerate at it's maximum thrust safely without the inertial damper system active.

Tentative name for the new interceptor was the Sturmvogel-250VT, which had only a single forward plasma beam and two light missiles mounted on the sides. This ship had vectored thrust (as denoted by it's name) and was very agile and high in acceleration, able to out turn and out fly any ship the Reich have yet encountered. It was not a very tough craft, taking less damage to destroy it than any other Reich fighter, the damage it could inflict was less than other craft, and it's range was also poor, but for orbital range intercept of light fighters and bombers (including the Al'kesh) the craft excelled.

It likely would be a while before testing was complete and production started but the Luftwaffe was eager to try the new craft.