My boots touched down on a sea of glittering dust—the final remains of the Asuran Replicators—and I couldn't stop a twinge of unease from dancing along my spine. Even though I'd meticulously scanned for survivors, the planet's silence felt ominous, as though one false move might reawaken billions of metallic nightmares. Yet the scans were conclusive: the anti-Replicator pulses had obliterated everything.
The Phoenix and Aurora, newly arrived in orbit, made for a surreal backdrop. I'd carefully salvaged the Aurora's stasis-bound Lanteans, but unfreezing them raised complicated questions. Could I persuade them to join my cause without upending my entire plan to restore the Alteran Empire? The solution: they'd remain asleep—for now.
Instead, I turned my attention to the real treasure: the Asurans' city-ships. Towering spires, minimalistic yet grand, dominated the horizon. Massive data banks, starship assembly lines, and best of all, a trove of 3,000+ ZPMs lay hidden in vaults across a continent-sized metropolis. If I wanted to rebuild the Alterans, I'd need more than raw power. I'd need time—lots of it. Time the rest of the galaxy might not give me. Thankfully, I had a plan for that.
Installing the Time-Dilation Field
From an obscure corner of Asgard knowledge (and a few dusty references in Merlin's repository), I'd pieced together a working time-dilation device. The original Ancients had tested similar technology, but never quite harnessed it on such a massive scale. My new version, however, could envelop an entire city-ship—or even multiple city-ships—in a stable subspace bubble. Inside that bubble, time would flow far more quickly than outside.
I reconfigured one city-ship's shield emitters, splicing them with the device to project a near-spherical boundary around two of the largest Asuran city-ships. Then I spent hours calibrating the ratio: for every second that passed outside, a month would elapse inside. That meant a single day outside would net me nearly 2,592 years of accelerated development. The ratio was absurdly high, but necessary.
Any miscalculation, of course, risked catastrophic subspace instabilities—time fracturing, or releasing an uncontrollable temporal shockwave. So I quadruple-checked my math, enlisted Helia's help (my caretaker AI), and carefully tested the device at minimal power. When I was convinced it wouldn't blow the planet in half, I set it in motion.
The shimmering boundary rose around the two city-ships, creating a kaleidoscopic distortion of the skyline. Beyond that invisible barrier, I had a blank slate—a pocket dimension, in effect—where I could orchestrate years of empire-building while mere minutes passed in the outside galaxy.
Sealing Myself Inside
Before flipping the final switch, I ensured everything else was set:
Morgan, Amelia, and Lilith (my replicator Valkyries) formed the administrative council who would assist me inside the bubble.Sarah would remain outside in The Phoenix, monitoring for external threats. She'd see hardly any time pass, but if a Goa'uld scout or Wraith expedition stumbled upon us, she'd raise the alarm.Vast stores of raw materials—fabrication plates, droids, and enough food for me to personally survive eons—were stockpiled in the city-ships. (The replicators needed no food, obviously.)
When I signaled readiness, Amelia tapped a final command. The time-dilation field flared to life, a brief flash of subspace fluctuations, and then everything outside vanished behind a shimmering haze. Inside, the local environment stabilized almost instantly. I checked a chronometer: the ratio was good—one second outside to about a month in here. The galaxy beyond would see me vanish for mere moments, while I'd have all the time I needed.
A Decade (or More) of Work in Hours
I'd always planned to build a new Alteran civilization. Now, thanks to the time-dilation bubble, I could do so in a fraction of real-time.
Clone Army Creation: Using Asgard cloning pods, plus Aurora's stasis-bound Lanteans as genetic templates, I set up a sprawling hatchery in one city-ship tower. Thousands of pods lined the walls, each connected to a neural interface that would "train" the future clones in a meticulously crafted VR environment. In real time, I might spend ten years carefully growing them, but outside… maybe minutes, if that.
Resurrecting the Aurora: The battered warship had only minimal damage left to fix. With the help of my replicator assistants, we overhauled every system, from sublight drives to life support. Meanwhile, I kept the sleeping Aurora crew sealed away in specialized labs, slowly sampling their DNA while ensuring they wouldn't awaken prematurely.
Research & Development: The Asurans had compiled thousands of blueprints—improved city-ship segments, advanced nanite factories, starship hull alloys, you name it. I locked myself in the city's central lab with Lilith, sifting through data banks. We refined forging processes, developed new weapons and defenses, and even tested prototypes of city-ship modifications that could hamper the Wraith or Goa'uld.
Societal Engineering: The new "people" I was creating needed a cohesive culture. Borrowing from Mandalorian lore (and other legendary warrior societies), I laid out a structured code of honor: respect, loyalty to me (the "Emperor"), teamwork, and a sense of communal identity as neo-Alterans. Over the next "years" inside the bubble, my replicator aides supervised the clones' VR education, simulating thousands of scenarios to instill discipline.
All told, from my inside perspective, a decade or so passed. Droids built factories. Replicators oversaw the city's reconstruction. I personally spent months at a time learning new fields of knowledge—filling the gap left by the original Lanteans, who had centuries to refine their empire. My Ancient genetics, near-immortality, and the replicator Valkyries' tirelessness helped me handle the unending workloads.
Outside, we believed, only a handful of hours were ticking by. Every so often, I'd check a special quantum-locked communicator with Sarah, verifying that no major crisis awaited us on the other side of the bubble. Everything was quiet.
The Moment of Emergence
At last, the day came when our tasks were done:
We'd fully stabilized both city-ships, christening them with new names (one, ironically, we called New Atlantia, the other Terra Pax).We'd grown and trained 20,000 clones, each physically in their twenties and psychologically shaped by a decade of VR experiences.My replicator administrators had sorted through the Asurans' vault, systematically forging or refining advanced gear, from personal shields to starship components.
With the stroke of a button, I powered down the time-dilation device. The city-spanning shield flickered, then collapsed into normal space. For me, it felt as if ten years had genuinely passed. In the outside universe, maybe a few hours. Possibly less.
Sarah's voice crackled over comms, sounding almost unchanged. "Marty, I'm reading stable conditions. No sign of intrusion. Did… everything go well in there?"
I let out a long breath, smiling. "Better than I hoped."
A New Army, A New Empire
The clones—my new "neo-Alterans"—assembled in the vast courtyard of Terra Pax. They wore sleek armor reminiscent of the Mandalorian style I'd integrated, but with Ancient design motifs: swirling lines, geometric highlights, partial translucence under certain frequencies. They marched in perfect unison, not from mindless obedience but from a carefully nurtured sense of discipline and pride.
I took a skybridge to address them, flanked by Morgan and Amelia, both replicators clad in shimmering black. With a single hand gesture, a hush fell across thousands of soldiers. My heart pounded. I'd effectively fathered an entire civilization in what felt like a blink of galactic time—decades for me, but mere hours beyond the bubble.
"People of the Alteran Empire," I began, my voice echoing via integrated comms. "Long ago, our ancestors fell to the Wraith and other threats. Today, we stand reborn, stronger than ever, ready to defend our birthright and bring order to a chaotic galaxy. You, the first generation of new Lanteans, will be the vanguard. Serve with honor. Serve with wisdom. And stand by me—your Emperor."
A thunderous cheer erupted. "For the Empire! For the Emperor!"
Watching them, I felt both pride and a flicker of apprehension. I'd shaped them to be loyal, but would they remain content after experiencing real adversity? Time would tell. For now, I had a 20,000-strong population of genetically Alteran soldiers, each with the skill and tech to man starships and hold territory.