Teal’c tilted his head, considering the situation. “What is the second assumption, Daniel Jackson?”
The archaeologist slumped, and waved out at the deceptively innocent countryside. “If any of the Hunters had said no… what makes you think Biba would have kept them on his hayajiro?” He paused. “As humans.”
Oh. There went Jack’s neck-hairs again, getting their morning workout. Joy.
When we get back, I’m putting in for R&R. Someplace with no hurricanes. Utah, maybe? High and dry and no chance of floods of radioactive zombies.
Sam had her gaze fixed on Daniel, even as she shuddered. “I would have said no.”
“I hope I would have, too.” Daniel pulled out a notebook. “But when you’re between a rock and a hard place, sometimes… sometimes you do things you regret.”
Especially when you’re a teenager that never got trained on when you tell the guy in charge not just no, but hell no. Jack grimaced, thinking of too-young eyes under that defiant shock of silver hair. If Uryuu ever had deliberately infected another human being with the Kabane virus, that was a horror he just couldn’t ignore-
But damn it, there was a reason American military training hammered in “you only obey lawful orders”, with explicit examples on what was and wasn’t legal, moral, and ethical in the awful confusion that was war. When you were trying to stay alive, when you were trying to keep all the guys around you alive, when everything in sight was trying its best to kill you, and the guy you trusted in charge said do this….
Most people would do it. Wouldn’t even hesitate.
And that was Americans. Who were constitutionally allergic to doing what they were told at the best of times.
A kid raised on Tenka? From what Jack had seen so far, respect your elders and bushi and lords are in charge was taken as a given. Like breathing. Going against that – well. You’d have to be as boneheaded stubborn and flat-out desperate as Ikoma, and look where that’d gotten the steamsmith. Dumped into quarantine for trying to get the samples he needed to figure out how to kill Kabane. And at that he’d been lucky not to just be shot.
A/N: Poor Jack. He has no idea yet just how far Ikoma’s stubborn has gotten him.
Crossover Queen's Creative Chaos 
Hopefully, when Jack realizes how deep the rabbit hole goes, he’ll recall that without Ikoma-tier stubbornness, the Kotetsujo and all its crew and passengers wouldn’t have survived to get out of Aragane Station.
-Albert
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I really can’t wait until they find out. It’s going to be so much fun!
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How late in SG canon are we in this fic, again?
I remember by season 5 or so, Stargate Command was allies with a small handful of aliens and they went the extra mile to keep them happy, even when maybe they shouldn’t have (looking at you, Tok’ra). As long as they make it clear that Typhoid Ikoma can’t ever go to Earth…
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Late season 3. And frankly, at this point Hammond would ban ANY locals from coming to Earth. Just in case.
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*Evil cackles* Jack: “I always knew engineers weren’t human….”
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I apologize for the bad quality but this is the best one I could find. Rather fitting I believe.
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Not too mention, that whole discussion still to come about what the consequences are when your society is built around the concept of “your superior’s word is literally law”, when that ultimate superior makes “suboptimal” strategic decisions, and there is no “opposition”, loyal or otherwise, to gain say him.
That might ordinarily have been the religious leaders in Keishi, who probably could have still exerted “soft power” by influencing lords and the populace by means of “spiritual advice”, shading the interpretation of oracles/fortune telling (I assume they have something like the I-Ching/ Tarot/etc). But hey, they were in Z-Poc Central, Ground Zero even…
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Thing is, I’m not sure how successful State Shinto was in centralizing instruction for the operation of Shinto shrines. Because I somehow have the impression of a more distributed system with family inheritance.
No certainty what model Hi-No-Moto has, and might’ve been pretty close to the bone for letting many people opt in to the clerical life.
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Well, considering that Hinomoto was at one point ruled by a Goa’uld, I think that there would have been fairly strong centralization of the religious hierarchy.
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Animistic types of religions seem to develop naturally when you do not have another type of religion occupying a central niche in people’s lives. It is possible that the tradition centered in Keishi was a post Goa’uld development that is only similar to Shinto.
Of course, the gate speaks to the religion drawing from something practiced at the same time as Goa’uld rule.
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Oh yes. Later on SG-1’s going to talk to Uryuu. It will be eye-opening.
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One other factor in Jack’s evaluation process here: The American Uniform Code of Military Justice literally *requires* disobedience of an illegal order. And, b/c no military can function when soldiers are constantly rules-lawyering their officers, lays out very explicit and detailed guidelines for determining what orders breach legality.
That’s a *new thing*, historically speaking. The majority of human history has hewn closer to the model Tenka is running on right now. And *without* the kind of legal Thou Shalt Not that the UCMJ provides, for some random spear-carrier to try objecting to his superior’s orders on moral, ethical, or legal grounds, might as well be suicide. B/c it’ll likely be treated as bald-faced treason.
And even *with* the UCMJ essentially providing Higher Authority, it’s still a seriously hard thing to do, outside situations where the illegal order is *really* blatantly, obviously, illegal. The “grey areas” are broad and deep, despite the UCMJ’s efforts to minimize them.
Not to mention, Biba was *effective.* He seems to have collected a *lot* of people who had been cast aside or abandoned by Tenka society at large, gave them a place, and showed them *how to kill Kabane.* No one in “regular” society was doing more than huddling behind walls and maintaining a doomed status quo.
So Biba had the Great Savior thing going on one hand, and “he may be doing really nasty things, but dammit, he’s Getting The Job Done!” on the other. Makes it easy for people following him to fall into a “society isn’t effective, Biba is, therefore society is wrong and Biba is right, and society needs to go” mindset. Especially since Biba seems to have started out (looking like?) more of a Well-Intentioned Extremist, and only jumped the shark into mustache-twirling villainy fairly recently.
When you’ve been loyal to someone for a long time, it’s *hard* to see, or accept, that they’re not who you thought they were — either b/c you were wrong, or because one of you changed.
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*Nod* All of this is going to come up. Jack is not a happy colonel.
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Honestly, can’t wait until our heroes learn how old our Kabaneri protagonists are. I’m absolutely waiting for how they will react, especially Jack.
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It’s going to take them a while to realize that. Mumei is obviously “teenager who jumps before thinking” sometimes, but the rest of them have managed to tamp that down. Mostly.
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Am I correct in thinking SG1 is downwind of Ayame’s group? Both because that gives them privacy, and because shooting upwind on a moving train has got to be harder then video games makes it appear. But if they are, that means the Kabenari are probably not discreetly eavesdropping.
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We have no reason to believe Kabaneri have enhanced hearing, anyway.
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