Quarters

[Vampyr]

Devin's heart skipped a beat and he had to stifle a cry of suprise. Taking a moment to ensure that his heart was still beating he said, "Ah, ooh. What was that... Being? That's pretty vague, can you tell what kind of being, corporeal, non-corporeal, sentient, non-sentient? What?"

[JacksonMiracle]

"All it says is, or roughly, 'Beware the Beings of that other place'. Place most likly refers to Pegasus. I would assume it means sentient, as well as corporeal beings, but you can never tell. Ancient is very nonspecific that way, and there are parts that simply don't translate at all. There is nothing else mentioned about them. Perhaps the Ancients assumed that the other races would know more about what they were talking about and would take the proper precautions. In fact, since it doesn't tell how to defeat the Beings, then I would think that the Ancients didn't know, or had already eliminated most of the threat, and posted the warning as a pre-emptive move just in case the beings ever appeared again. Most likely, the other races already had some knowledge of the Beings and would know how to take the warning. The Ancients obviously didn't foresee anyone trying to come back multithousands of years later to attempt to figure it out. It was written for a specific audience. It just occured to me that perhaps P8T-113 is like some kind of giant mail room. Non-specific messages, but intended only for certain people to convey only praticular bits of information. And that would certaintly counteract the early assumptions of it being more like Stonehenge." Kylie had been talking close to a hundred miles a minute, and paused now to take a deep breath. She had started using her hands to gesture and emphasize parts of her speech, but the hands now stilled as she came to an end. This was way better than coffee.

[Vampyr]

"No, no, no, no, no." Devin muttered rapidly, looking at Kylie's notes. "It doesn't mean place at all. From what I can tell here in this particular context it means 'belief'.", Devin said, a note of fear in his voice, he continued, at a lower tone. "And there's only one group that could be called 'the other belief'. The Ori. I think I know why it's a column, the Ancients who returned met some sort of advanced scout, a prior perhaps, but we'll never know. Though it does mean that the Ori've been making incursions into this galaxy for a much longer time than we've known. It's obvious the Ancients put it up as a warning. 'The Ori are coming'."

[JacksonMiracle]

Kylie rechecked her notes, and cringed when she noticed that Devin had been right. She had made a very amatuer mistake that would have been glaringly obvious to any other linguist, but for a nonlinguist to discover it was pushing embarasment. Devin's presence was comforting, but she had to focus more on her work, than on him. She gasped at the implications that the new interrpretation brought. "The Ori. But that would mean that the, now keep in mind it's just a theory and probably totally crazy and wrong, but could it be that the Ancients first started learning to ascend as a means to level out to the Ori. As long as they were both on the same plane of existence, then the playing field was equalized. Maybe they didn't always have a noninterference rule. Or maybe that rule came as a direct result of the conflicts with the Ori. Maybe the Ancients didn't want to seem like failures. Maybe the first encounter with the Ori, as foreshadowed here inspired ascention. This is incredible! And maybe it was the Ori, and not the Goa'uld that forced the spiltting up of the four races." Kylie's assumptions and mouth were running faster than the logical part of her brain, she knew she was going out on a limb with some of them, and she was probably forgetting something critical that would disprove her theory.

[Vampyr]

"No, it probably happened more like this. At first the Alterans are one cohesive society, but when the first of them start to ascend, a philosophical rift starts to form between two factions. Now we have here," Devin said, motioning to one hand, "The Ori, who want to pose as gods to protect the 'lowers' of this (and other) galaxy. And we have," Devin motioned to his other hand, "The Ancients, are the people we know, the ones who don't believe in interference, in cultural contamination, to borrow a Star Trek phrase. Now the Ancients and the Ori are battling over who's right while more of them ascend. Until one day, the Ori attack the Ancients, which probably accounts for the plague they fled from. The few remaining Ancients pack up into Atlantis and fly to Pegasus, while the Ori dispatch hunters to kill off the rest of the Ancients who didn't flee. When it became apparent that this galaxy no longer had any life left worth conquering, the Ori left to their own galaxy to create their own followers.", He took a breath, flustered from such a long speech without a breath.

[JacksonMiracle]

Kylie pondered Devin's theory for several moments. She could see his points and it did sound historically similar to many of the things that had happened to Earth cultures. "Pretty analogous to the Great Schism. I could see that happening. Then that brings us the question of, what do we do about it? Do we attempt to learn more about how the split occured in the first place? What drove the Ori to become so power hungry and controling? Why the Ancients didn't see a need to gain further power? Or do we concentrate on the motivations, the timeline of the Ancients actions?"

[Vampyr]

"Well both would make the most sense. But then again we're one linguist short of following up on both translations. So," Devin gave a shrug, "which ever one you determine is the most important."

((Well, gotta go for tonight.))

[JacksonMiracle]

Kylie thought for a second or two, "Well, the timeline is the most important. You can't learn much about motivations without knowing the context." She considered the next words carefully before she said them, "I have a feeling there's a lot more going on here than either one of us understand. Something that isn't written down, and if it is, then it isn't on this column. Now the older ancient mostly talks about the premonition that soon the known order would melt into chaos. That there would be 'a time of division, unity transforming to a plausable tension, giving rise to disagreement.' Perhaps the split had already begun to occur. The column goes on to say that the Ancients would continue to develop technologies until such a time. Although, there seems to be slightly more caution envoked. How the designing of the 'Gate fit into all that is uncertain. Any thoughts?" While she was speaking she had brought up the image of the older ancient column on her laptop.

((Good Night))

[Vampyr]

"I'm sorry, what?" Devin said, clearly puzzled. "That last bit didn't make any sense to me. If you're asking how I fit into the picture, I could say you need someone who has a fair understanding of Ancient technology, the ATA gene and weapons operation."

[JacksonMiracle]

((I think I was half asleep when I wrote that last night because now I don't even know where I was headed with it. ))

"What? Oh, ah, sorry, I have no idea what I just said or where I was going with it, I was thinking out loud, and rambling. That's what happens when I go without coffee for too long. Although, the idea of getting an Ancient technology weapns specialist in on this wouldn't be a bad idea. Either way, if I don't finish these translations soon then there's no way we're going to learn anything else." Kylie turned her attention back to work in front of her. Maybe I could call the mess and have someone bring me some coffee.

[Vampyr]

"Score two for Jaa'nik. Ding ding." Devin joked, "But I've found that if I'm falling asleep, sugar helps. On most of the all-nighter projects I've done, I've had some sort of sugary food item around to snack on to keep me awake, and to be perfectly honest, coffee's never been something I liked. Never liked the way it scalds my tounge."

[JacksonMiracle]

Devin's words barely registered with Kylie as she continued to work. "Sugar has always made me too hyper to concentrate on work." She squinted at some of the markings that had started to fade and continued with the translation. She absently pulled open a desk drawer to reveal a personal treasure trove of chocolate and other assorted candies. She chose a pack of Nerds(c) and started to chew on the small sugar candies as she continued her work.

((Sorry, I bailed last night, but I was falling asleep sitting at the computer. But I'm all caught up on zzz's for now. ))

[Vampyr]

((S'alright? S'alright.))

Devin looked at the candy drawer, his mouth open and a small bit of drool running down his chin. "Duuude..." He droned, as if in a trance, "Candyyyy..." Wiping the drool off his face, he shook his head, "Sorry about that. I'm quite the connessiuer, 'specially with anything that has sugar in it."

[JacksonMiracle]

"Help yourself." Kylie said as she gestured vaguely to the candy drawer. She mumbled a few words of ancient, ate anoter mouthful of Nerds(c), scribbled something in her notes, and passed the notes to Devin. "Here's what I have so far, what do you think? You can probably read it for yourself a lot quicker than I could explain it."

[Vampyr]

"Thanks." Devin mumbled, already munching on a chocolate bar. Accepting the notes he looked them over, "Mmmrrmmph..." Devin said, trying to speak past a mouthful of chocolate. Swallowing it, he tried again, "This is good, much more organized and coherent than my own notes. Wonder if we'll be allowed to head to P8T to check this out?"