“You want Vice-Commander Asuna in charge. Believe me.”
“Says the girl who just drew on her face,” Jack snarked back.
“And why will cost you ten thousand col,” Argo stated, unfazed. “But I’ll give you this for free, Doctor. A shower’s probably a good idea for everyone. One thing NervGear can’t get right is the feel of running water.”
“So it should help get people reoriented to reality. Thank you,” Janet said honestly.
“Not to mention,” Klein tugged fingers through his red mop of hair, “six thousand cases of bed head. That’s enough to make everyone snarly right there.”
“Ma’am,” Colonel O’Neill put in, not smiling.
Klein raised a questioning eyebrow. “Huh?”
“And that would be, huh, sir,” the colonel went on. “Corporal.”
Sam looked dubious. Teal’c’s face was suspiciously neutral. And Daniel, Janet saw with a quick glance at the one man she’d expected to object, looked like he reluctantly agreed with Colonel O’Neill on this one. Why?
Brown eyes narrowed, and Klein shook his head. “I don’t see ID. I don’t see any orders. Comes down to it, I don’t even have any proof I’m in America. All I know, right now, is we’re out of Aincrad. And you’re not the one who got us out.” He inclined his head; nothing like a salute. “Maybe you could bring a newspaper next time. Or, I don’t know, maybe let us make a phone call. To our families.”
A knock at the door, and Ellen opened it. “Dr. Fraiser? Do you know where Colonel O’Neill – oh. Sir. There’s a call for you and your team in the conference room, from the Mountain. The general-”
The colonel gave her a look. Ellen cut herself off, an indignant flush rising in her face.
O’Neill turned back to Klein. “Phone calls are going to have to wait.”
“Why’m I not surprised,” Klein muttered.
Agil touched his shoulder, with a not now shake of his head. “Might as well get back to Fuurinkazan. If that’s Cheyenne Mountain… they’re going to be a while.”
“Cheyenne?” Klein echoed, confused. “That’s NORAD. Why-?”
“That’s NORAD,” Agil agreed, giving them all a weighing look. “Got people from them in our cafe all the time. Deep space radar telemetry, they said.” He headed for the door, nudging Klein along. “This is going to be interesting.”
Argo lingered at the doorway a moment longer, a casual rearguard. “Another piece of advice, Doctor. Anyone tied up is trouble. Anyone who’s tied up so tight they can’t move….” Her finger made a circling motion near her temple. “They’re out and out derentis. Keep your eyes open. They kill people.”
Crossover Queen's Creative Chaos 
Oh good, looks like they managed to subdue most of the red players. Though I doubt they got them all.
>O’Neill turned back to Klein. “Phone calls are going to have to wait.”
“Why’m I not surprised,” Klein muttered.>
And Jack just shot the trust-gaining aspects of this in the foot, big time. Good news is that he’s leaving and potentially common sense (IE Janet) can straighten things out without him ‘helping’.
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*Snrk* Part of the problem is Jack thinks it’s obvious they’re the good guys already. They’ve housed people, taken care of them, and now they’re putting up with the questions, right?
…Not so much.
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Agil is a local?
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In this AU, yes.
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>In this AU, yes.>
Ah so he used to live near Cheyenne but moved to Japan at some point.
>They’ve housed people, taken care of them, and now they’re putting up with the questions, right? >
And at the same time they are not performing certain actions that they really should be.
Seriously does he think that basically saying “No you don’t get to contact your family, we don’t need to give you any info, you don’t even get proof that we are who we say we are. You just sit there and do what we tell you.” is going to be accepted without question?
I suspect when he gets the reports in the aftermath of this SNAFU, Hammond is going to force Jack to take some mandatory time off to try and screw his head back on straight.
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“And at the same time they are not performing certain actions that they really should be.”
Janet should be after them with her penlight. I have a feeling that would have turned out badly after Asuna demanded where they were.
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The penlight OF DOOM!
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I moved the Dicey Café. There are reasons. 😉
Unfortunately this whole mess fell into the cracks of the fact that the SGC is terribly overworked, and tends to be lurching from crisis to weekly crisis. Kayaba knew this. That’s part of why he did… several things. 😉
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>Unfortunately this whole mess fell into the cracks of the fact that the SGC is terribly overworked, and tends to be lurching from crisis to weekly crisis. Kayaba knew this. That’s part of why he did… several things. 😉>
Kayaba: “I’m helping!” 8^)
SGC: “Stop helping!” 😡
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Indeed!
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Jack, you need to build trust with these people if you want answers. And you aren’t going to get it by smelling of BS. These people almost died because of someone’s lies and manipulations. Thus they are very sensitive to that smell and react negatively to it. Very negatively.
And Klein does have a point about that he only has O’Neill’s word that he is actually in Colorado and that O’Neill is who he says he is. And Klein has no reason to take you at your word. And you are doing very little to make him think he should.
Just being follow military ain’t going to cut it – after all, he hasn’t been relying just on other milt people to watch his back for the last two years. Also since they are in different branches, unless Klein was assigned to Stargate Command or something, he might only be obligated to obey O’Neill’s orders as a courtesy. Yes, O’Neill’s higher rank. But he’s Air Force higher rank, not the Marine Corp higher rank, and Klein might not be under his command, Now as I understand it, they usually do obey higher rank, regardless of which branch it belongs to, but it may be a courtesy thing, not a have to thing.
Of course, I might be misremembering or totally off base. If so, ignore me.
Through I assume Danny has some reason for agreeing even reluctantly with something that undermining their attempts to establish some kind of trust with the players.
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It is said that the foremost enemy of a portion of the US military is other portions of the US military. Budget wars on the one hand, and specific bad blood on the other. There’s apparently a difference between the Army and the Marines that goes back to WWII, and the Air Force did split from the Army after WWII. I dunno.
Lawful orders from one’s chain of command trump seniority. Else guards couldn’t restrict an area to a short specific list of people. It seems to come down to a judgement call on the politics of whether one’s bosses would want such compliance, and what specific instructions they have left to that effect.
Here, it feels right to me. I hardly have a very discerning eye for the military, but it feels right.
What are the terms of Klein’s enlistment, and how much more trouble could he get in? He’s already in a little trouble, unless his command is really happy with him. He hasn’t yet done anything to get himself into a lot of trouble.
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>What are the terms of Klein’s enlistment, and how much more trouble could he get in? He’s already in a little trouble, unless his command is really happy with him. He hasn’t yet done anything to get himself into a lot of trouble.>
We have to remember that he hasn’t been Corporal Ryoutarou Tsuboi for basically two years. Instead he’s been Klein, guild-leader of Fuurinkazan and Clearer.
To quote Vathara:
>Klein went off the rails shortly after he realized a 14-year-old kid’s training is the only reason he and his guys survived this long.>
If he’d tried to keep being the Marine Corporal, he’d get his people killed. And the lives of his crew were more important then military protocol.
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Yeah, I thought about trying to address that, but the time and thought I had was not sufficient. Right now, worried about his brothers in arms, he doesn’t give a fig for his prospects for promotion.
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Yep. His guild, Kirito, Asuna, some other people he knows. Until he’s sure they’re really out of danger, they come first.
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So long as Klein doesn’t actually assault someone, the poor guy probably couldn’t get in much more trouble ATM. He’s already been sort-of AWOL for two years! Klein can guess he’s in for medical rehab at best, and the lawyers might have an interesting time arguing he’s already past his date to re-enlist. Put that together with the SGC mess…. Oo boy.
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Klein’s definitely not under his command. There are very specific things that should have been right at his bed, and weren’t, and he is one cranky former Marine.
…Jack has a history with Marines, unfortunately….
Danny does have a reason. Janet will not be happy with it.
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Danny does have a reason.
*nods* Daniel doesn’t do stuff like that for the heck of it.
I’m sure he’ll explain to the others in his group once they are out of ear shot.
Janet will not be happy with it.
Someone might be getting both the penlight and the cold probes at his next check-up. Which knowing SG-1 and Daniel, she probably won’t have to wait long.
Through knowing the luck of SGC, none of them are probably going to be happy with it.
Sam looked dubious. Teal’c’s face was suspiciously neutral. And Daniel, Janet saw with a quick glance at the one man she’d expected to object, looked like he reluctantly agreed with Colonel O’Neill on this one.
Given how observant the SAO players are, I bet they noticed that by-play between them.
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*EG* Bet you can already guess who the players are going to try and approach for real info….
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Next on the list of stupid things to do: untie everyone who is tied up! Because after all, since we’re clearly not listening to the players when they don’t tell us what we want to hear, why not? Let’s go for the hat trick!
…yeah, I know SG1 isn’t that stupid, and I know Jack is hedging because there’s so many things he simply *can’t* tell these people because they’re so classified that he could be thrown in a dark hole forever if the wrong people get a hold of them, but he could at least admit that Klein’s concerns are legitimate. Showing these people some newspapers and coughing up some identification wouldn’t breach secrecy now, would it? And it would at least show that they’re willing to share info when they can, but no. More alpha dog posturing and shenanigans. I admit that I’m completely ignorant about how the military works but it seems to me that Klein is completely justified in pushing back a little against Jack. I also have no clue what’s going on in Daniel’s headspace right now, and am looking forward to his take on this mess.
Now shoo, Jack, shoo! Let Janet and the medical staff handle this mess. Go be buried in bureaucracy and political backbiting for a while, you kinda deserve it…
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*Snrk*
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I like the take on red players that that’s less well they’re just evil. I mean you put people into a computer game and tell them now its real and everyone who dies dies for real- and some people, some people are going to crack and keep playing the game like its a game. I also think metal break due to incompatibility with nanites is a fun explanation for red players.
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It looked more like “this is an explanation these people might accept without immediately thinking we’re lying”. After all, Asuna’s already seen that Jack and the others don’t really seem to understand what they went through (even in the best case scenario, where they’re not active badguys), so which is more likely to get at least tentatively accepted long enough for more explanation to be given: “these guys are evil murderers who will go killing again as soon as they get a chance”, or “these guys are a bit crazy and might be dangerous to themselves and others, let’s keep them safe and unable to harm anyone until the doctors can check them out”? Especially considering how Jack, at least, appears to be the sort to push back against any suggestion that “we know better”.
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Keep them contained first! Details later. *Nod*
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oh that’s true- I guess I sometimes forget that the SGC had no access to what was happening in game which is going to make them alot slower/stupider on the uptake then they need to be for the sanity and safety of all
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They’re going to start getting filled in. Which will cause its own set of problems. 😉
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Some were just evil. But they were all a bit crazy.
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I agree you always end up with one or tow who were consciously and deliberately evil- but then there’s always alot of fringe types who followed because there was one convincing person who did it first
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*Nod*
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Just had an interesting thought. Are there cultural shades that mean Argo used ‘derentis’ because ‘crazy’ isn’t a good translation or it looses something in it? Why else use a word that they might not know with a sign that they would? My basic premise of information brokers is everything they say and do or don’t say and do means something.
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There are indeed, and yes, Daniel caught that.
He is very, very worried. With good reason.
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>He is very, very worried. With good reason.>
Well considering the last time somebody in the SGC involuntarily started speaking Latin (or pseudo-Latin) they needed to go to another galaxy and get their brain drained by the Asgard, he is justified here.
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That just crossed his mind, yes.
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K so i did some door to door sales(no i am not the devil incarnate). That is all based on trust. Maybe Jack dhould learn a thing or two from a GOOD(IE…NOT a pushy car sales man but one you don’t even notice you are being sold something from) salesman. How to build trust 101.
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He so could….
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Klein could have gone all “Name, rank, serial number.” Still might.
Actually, being unconscious due to a medical condition is definitely not going AWOL. And it does count towards pay and towards fulfilling his service obligation, unless he received a medical discharge. Which Klein apparently did not.
The good news is that he is rolling in back pay.
The bad news is that he is behind on taxes, unless somebody paid them for him. (And they probably would arrange for that. Chaplains are very good at making sure families get stuff done.)
The semi-bad news is that Colorado is not the cheapest state to live in.
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Long-term, all of those will need to be considered, yep.
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Re the thing with Danny… there’s also another aspect here that I can’t remember whether I tossed to Vathara when she was first writing these.
This is happening, as per the conversation in the first scene, about nine months to a year after the ep “A Hundred Days”. Translation: This is happening after “Shades of Grey”. This is happening in Season 4.
If things for the SGC went fairly as canon during that period…. SG-1 is breaking apart, and Jack (starting with “Shades of Grey”) is the cause for a lot of it. And Danny is getting a lot of the fallout.
So yeah, I know what Danny’s seeing (one of Vathara’s betas), but he’s also not in the best headspace from SoG onwards to the end of S5 (and maybe even througout most of S6, given the Alteran/Ancient mindgames). That’s likely affecting his reactions to what’s going on.
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It definitely is affecting how Daniel sees things. Ooooouch.
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