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kerravonsenThe Highlander/Stargate Methos amnesia story promised to a zine and ought to have been given up on by now:
Jack: Daniel's missing and we had to take on another geek called Adam.
Jack: Ooops, we've been captured!
Adam: Hello, I have amnesia; who are you?
Jack: Jack. Let's escape.
Adam: Okay. (Adam kicks butt)
(they all escape, even Sam and Teal'c)
Everyone: Yay -- oops, we've been captured! (by another lot)
Jack: Adam's behaving strangely -- I think he's a goa'uld.
Sam: No he isn't.
Tribesman: Go over here.
Jack: Hey, it's Daniel!
Everyone: Yay!
Daniel: Hey, what's my old friend Adam doing here?
Jack: You were missing, and by the way he has amnesia.
(Adam kicks butt and gets them adopted)
Jack: How come you can kick butt? You're supposed to be a geek.
Adam: Don't ask me, I've got amnesia.
Jack: Adam's behaving strangely -- I think he's a Russian spy.
Daniel: No he isn't. Um, probably not.
Tribal shaman: Tell me about your childhood.
Adam: I herded goats. I was a foundling.
Daniel: I didn't know you were an orphan.
Adam: You seem vaguely familiar, Daniel.
Daniel: Yay! Let's goss.
Adam: Strange things are happening -- I think I'm an alien.
Sam: No you're not, you're immortal.
Me: Darn, now I've run out of fun bits, and I still have to get them back home. I'm sick of this story...
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Date: 2004-05-13 06:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-13 02:19 pm (UTC)Which, in this case, I am stuck on, waaaah!
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Date: 2004-05-13 05:09 pm (UTC)And he sees Adam trip over something in low light and get skewered? He then tackles the Immortal as he gets ready to behead Adam (just as Daniel and Jack decide to come outside, too), and they take the young Immortal into custody (everybody's ripped about the murder), and then Adam wakes up and they drag them both back to base and Jack (with Teal'c in tow) gets nasty on the young Immortal, trying to drag a reason for the attack out of him, while Daniel and Sam start trying to figure out what's up with Adam. Things aren't going so well, and then a Tok'ra scientist shows up, on schedule, to check up on an experiment she's got running on the other side of the base, and when she gets near the interrogation room, her symbiote starts going crazy, demanding that "the murderer be brought to justice!" but she's yelling at the passing Daniel and Adam, which makes no sense at all. She dashes over and tries to knife Adam. They manage to fend off her crazy attack and Jack comes out of the interrogation room to see what's going on. When she catches sight of the young Immortal in the interrogation, she tries to get to the Gate Room to escape. She only manages to send a message to the Tok'ra before they restrain her. They intercept the message but don't manage to stop it. Daniel translates it: "TAURII (sp?) COMPROMISED, TERMINATE ALL CONTACT" and everybody goes into an uproar. They try to contact the Tok'ra while she refuses to explain herself. Everyone is viewing Adam with a great deal of distrust and suspicion. Until the Tok'ra scientist (who none of them really liked anyway) explains herself, they are reluctant to imprison him: innocent until proven guilty and all that. Daniel argues for his freedom, and vouches for him, saying that he'll be Adam's escort until this is resolved. Neither of the interrogations are getting anywhere, and all that they know is that all sorts of people seem to want to kill him. And he keeps healing way too rapidly to be normal. Sam hasn't been able to find anything specifically non-human about him yet, though, besides an insanely-elevated and energy-efficient metabolism.
General Hammond has been asking through channels about whether Adam might be a missing secret agent from a research program, but no one is confirming anything. The situation is starting to get tense for the General, since his discrete inquiries are starting to tip off people who want to get their hands on Adam. For fear of giving him up only to be killed or worse, Hammond is stalling. The Tok'ra have opened an incoming wormhole and are bombarding the iris in an attempt to destroy the Taurii Gate. Now the SG command is up to their ears keeping their own government away and trying to contact the Tok'ra through the barrage.
(cont'd next comment)
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Date: 2004-05-13 05:10 pm (UTC)That's when the surface patrols pick up two people lurking around the base: a woman and a man. When questioned, they mention Adam and the name of the young Immortal, and the surface guards call down with this information. Hammond decides to have them questioned, but he doesn't have time for it now, so he sends Daniel to do it (and Adam to watch outside), since Sam is watching the Gate, and O'Neill and Teal'c are still working on the two prisoners. It turns out that the two people are Watchers: the woman is Adam's (he recognizes her, but doesn't know why--she's Joe's daughter, Amy), and the man is the other Immortal's. They're so scared that they're a little bit willing to talk.
Various events ensue, as the Watchers explain a bit here or there. The plot unravels and some lines get tied off and some stay hanging and frustrated. Political resolution, not a big sword-fighting thing...
Um. I hadn't planned on writing anything more than a couple of sentences...
...wooo, I haven't written fanfic in ages! It's practically bubbling out of my ears...
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Date: 2004-05-13 08:08 pm (UTC)...wooo, I haven't written fanfic in ages! It's practically bubbling out of my ears...
LOL!
I'm afraid none of the above would fit with this one, though, since all of the action of this story takes place on an alien planet. Oh, and the tribe they've been captured by happen to worship the Four Horsemen, because the Horsemen managed to kill the gou'ald, Khepry, that they once were slaves to (only none of the Horsemen remembered the event because Khepry's last-ditch weapon against them ended up wiping their memories as well as temporarily killing them). And he's supposed to get inconveniently killed, the tribesmen see him wake up, they go ga-ga, and then everyone gets home.
I've just realized why I hate this story. It's a Methos-Sue story. Its only purpose is to show how cool Methos is. Ugh! Ugh! How could I have done such a thing! Ugh!
Except what I wanted was to have a bunch of people thinking "Hey, now that Adam's got amnesia, he's behaving really strangely..." and thinking of every possible explanation except the truth. And also to toss in a bit of angst about the Horsemen, and to say, hey, maybe they did something right, once.
But, unfortunately, the SG1 folks have just ended up being cyphers. Ugh.
I hate this story. Maybe I should just give up on it, rip it to bits.
Or start again from scratch, rewriting it from a different PoV.
(sigh)
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Date: 2004-05-14 06:38 am (UTC)So how would the Horsemen have managed to get themselves to another planet?
And why does Methos have amnesia? I think Immortal/Go'auld incompatibility could be an interesting plot device.
And Methos is cool...you'd be hard-pressed to make him look stupid and still keep him in character. I just don't think he'd mesh well with military life. They'd keep him on as a civilian translator, maybe, but unless they coerced him into signing up, I doubt he'd do it.
And...I'm a little skeptical of original plot idea possibilities after Ecolea's work. Sure, she dragged a little bit too much in the Uber-Jack-and-Methos-are-buddies, let's-cypher-everyone-else department, but the central ideas were surprisingly good.
Sorry about the useless dribbling. :)
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Date: 2004-05-14 10:28 pm (UTC)Oh, no, they killed Khepry on Earth, when Earth was still a multi-gou'ald dominon.
And why does Methos have amnesia?
A bump on the head plus he doesn't want to remember his Immortal life because he's over-angsted about the whole Horsemen thing.
I think Immortal/Go'auld incompatibility could be an interesting plot device.
I figure there's a number of possibilities (choose one):
a) that Immortals are completely immune to gou'ald takeover (I read one where the gou'ald managed to overcome the normal Immortal response with an implant of some sort)
b) that Immortals are just as suceptable to gou'ald takeover as any human
c) that Immortals are suceptable to gou'ald takeover, but temporary death of sufficiently long/violent degree frees them from the goa'uld
(c-1) and also that a quickening disrupts the system enough that the gou'ald gets killed
d) that goa'uld have problems taking over immortals but its possible (your suggestion)
I actually have a story idea which uses (c) and (c-1) -- maybe I should just give up on this story and go and write that one, which I think will be more fun.
I just don't think he'd mesh well with military life. They'd keep him on as a civilian translator, maybe, but unless they coerced him into signing up, I doubt he'd do it.
I figure that Methos would want to hide his origins, but that he would be happy to work with them as a civilian translator -- he'd want to fight the gou'ald threat (after all, Earth is his home) but to be able to do that while sitting safely in a bunker translating ancient texts would probably be his ideal job!
And...I'm a little skeptical of original plot idea possibilities after Ecolea's work. Sure, she dragged a little bit too much in the Uber-Jack-and-Methos-are-buddies, let's-cypher-everyone-else department, but the central ideas were surprisingly good.
That clinches it. I can too write a Highlander/Stargate crossover just as good as she can!
I'll forget about this stupid story and go back to my other Methos/Stargate story, where Methos was an ex-host and joined the Horsemen after he got free, doing the Horseman things because he was never going to be a slave again... only this comes out in the course of a present-day story where he stumbles upon a gou'ald spy infiltration, doesn't know about the SGC, but knows enough about the Stargate to contact Catherine Langford...
Except I just realized that I'm again in immanent danger of making that a Methos-Sue story too. Havta think of good things for the other characters to do. What?
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Date: 2004-05-17 06:45 am (UTC)Methos is not Methos-Sue because he doesn't want to talk, doesn't want to be helpful, wants to be left alone, doesn't trust any of them because he doesn't know if they're just go'auld trying to extract information from him. He is totally unimpressed with the military types, and regards their current lone-ranger status as telltale of their mission not being completely approved of by their superiors. (Because, as it turns out, the go'auld inflitration has managed to get into power levels above Hammond: senators and such people.)
Methos never completely saves the day, even after they manage to get him reluctantly on-board. He has a slightly different agenda than they do anyway: he wants to rout the go'auld out of the Immortal population, because a go'auld-infested Immortal has a significant advantage over a normal Immortal. Methos barely escaped that fight with the Immortal that SG-1 first saw him with, because he was fighting with all of the psychological tricks at his disposal, not just with sword skill. He has no desire to tangle with another one, especially an ancient Immortal hosting a go'auld. You could end up infesting someone really interesting with a go'auld (my little muse is shouting, "Cassandra as a senatorial aide! No one can tell if she's been willingly infested, or unwillingly!"), and having Methos wage a slow political battle trying to identify this person, and once they've been found, trying to determine if he should just axe them, or try to convince them to do what he did and excise the go'auld (which Immortals can do if they really want to?). Jack and Hammond, et al., are dealing with inflitration in the higher ranks and among their own people. They're all trying to follow clues and Methos is a loose canon. When Hammond discovers that Methos knows that an active Stargate must exist somewhere (Methos has still not been down to SG command--he's a civilian at best), he has him brought down and they try to extract as much information from him that they can about post-host-hood and how Immortals could have the ability to reject the parasite.
Methos is also extremely annoyed that the military infrastructure has learned about the Immortals and he doesn't want to help them because he doesn't want the government treating Immortals like tools...
Ohhh...I could keep going, so many issues, Daniel fascinated by the living history and scholarship that Methos represents, Sam able to discuss post-host-hood with him, Teal'c identifying with the outsider, not-quite-human status (all of the humans regard Methos with a certain degree of repulsion), and Jack interested in the psychological fighting tactics that Methos used so skillfully. Nobody really gets buddy-buddy with him, but all of them interact with him privately for some reason or another, including Hammond and Dr. Frasier.
They don't even magically solve everything at the end. What would the ending be? Convincing Methos to join them and facing the long rode of routing and of incorporating Immortals into the operation? Maybe the finale is managing to get one major go'auld-infested Immortal political higher-up finished off/rescued from slavery within their own body...
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Date: 2004-05-17 03:18 pm (UTC)I also feel that, actually, Methos would be less likely to get into a fight with another Immortal if he could help it, and that Duncan is more likely to get caught. But this idea could still be done more or less from the same starting point as I have right now (I don't want to lose my opening scenes, because I think they build up the tension nicely). And in this scenario, Methos and Duncan are working together (because I wanted Duncan involved, so that he would find out about Methos being an ex-host -- and *misunderstand* about its connection with the Horsemen).
You wanna co-write this? (grin)
I'll email you the start part of the story, see what you think...
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Date: 2004-05-18 06:55 am (UTC)I think I need to brush up on my SG-1, I haven't seen the last two seasons yet. Are you doing present-day timeline or somewhere earlier in the SG-1 timeline?
It would be hard to kill a senatorial aide, that would be a challenge.
I could see SG-1 catching Duncan fighting a youngish go'auld-infested Immortal and winning (with Methos watching?), and so they think Methos is mostly a bookish, smart advisor/friend to Duncan, not realizing that Methos can fight, too? He doesn't whip out any weapons until the finale with the ancient go'auld-infested Immortal (Cassandra?)
Having Duncan misunderstanding (and thus distrusting?) Methos could provide some more fun tension.
Having a temporary death free an Immortal from a go'auld would be great for dramatic purposes (I can just see the scene unfolding right now!), but I think it might be useful to establish some motivation for why the go'auld would want to make a point of infesting Immortals. Go'auld are not exactly a dime a dozen. If they wanted to inflitrate governments, I'd think they'd want to pick "hardier" hosts who could survive being killed. We've seen that go'auld can live on for a few minutes after their host has died, and that window is more than enough for an Immortal to recover. However, I *do* think that being within the radius of a Quickening would fry a go'auld. (This could possibly lead to: Methos trying to figure out how to free Cassandra; trying to determine if she even wants to be freed; Methos realizing that he'd have to let Cassandra kill him and get his Quickening in order to free her from her parasite; searching for another way without just trying to send an Immortal lamb to the slaughter; talking to Sam and Dr. Frasier and realizing that he might be able to free her if he can keep her dead for long enough; finally realizing that *he* was freed by Kronos because Kronos had sadistically repeatedly murdered him--knowingly or not knowingly killing the parasite?--remembering that he woke up from the long go'auld-infested nightmare and was grateful to Kronos for freeing him and wholeheartedly decided to join the Horsemen; kidnapping Cassandra (I have an idea for that); trying to convince her of his good intentions despite his heinous method and not being sure if he's talking to the go'auld or to her, because they'd both be spitting hate at him; arguing with Duncan about killing her over and over until the parasite is dead; arguing with everyone else about doing that; arguing with himself about doing that; having this personal quest going on while everyone is trying to keep the senators and the Tok'ra (who would *love* to get their hands on hosts who live indefinitely and recover from mortal wounds!) and the military higher-ups at bay...)
Once an Immortal has been infested and has been freed, they cannot be re-infested. An on-board go'auld gives them a subtle advantage (slightly more energy), plus access to a limited number of pieces of go'auld technology. In most cases, the host and the parasite strike a deal to share control of the body by switching back and forth in order to maximize effectiveness (e.g., go'auld don't have a clue about sword-fighting techniques), but in some cases with people in particularly desirable political positions (i.e. Cassandra), they might simply come in and take control. They trade technology for a host body.
Oh, and Methos is NOT the main character. He's just one of many tied up in this. I don't want to see him in all or even in an overwhelming number of the scenes. I don't think he's been so guilted by long-past angst over the Horsemen to give himself amnesia (which is a thin plot device at best.)
I'll go read what you sent me...
no subject
Date: 2004-05-18 03:08 pm (UTC)