#s:2022

[dearophelia]

it's done it's done it's done! 18 pages of formatted worldbuilding for the Stargate franchise!

When the Tok'ra approach Sam about going undercover, they're at least kind enough to provide her with a briefing book.

→Read as PDF←

→Read on AO3←

This started out as a story that I just couldn't write. I couldn't find a plot for it, not after months of banging my head against it. I started writing the briefing book so a) I didn't have to worldbuild on the go, and b) as a Procrastination Activity. Maybe if I just wrote enough about this world I was creating, a plot would come flying in through the window and hit me in the head with inspiration.

Reader, it did not.

After a month, I realized that the more interesting exercise (for me) was Writing The Briefing Book. And so here it is. You can read it in PDF format (here) or you can read it on AO3 (here) with the images of the book's pages embedded in the plaintext.

This is written as if it were an actual briefing book; the "author" - a junior Tok'ra researcher named Nyala - occasionally pops in to give her opinion on matters.

[dearophelia]

strange is the night where black stars rise

A Stargate malfunction strands Sam on a hostile planet that desperately wants her to stay.

Stargate | Rated T for violence | Sam Carter | 10k words

This is horror! I finally did the thing! Keeping that in mind, a few content notes: isolationism, starvation, being hunted (by monsters), a low creeping sense of doom, reality warping, old forgotten things beyond our comprehension, time blindness, there's only one instance of body horror but it doesn't happen to Sam, and like two sentences of mild gore

Thank you to @vhenadahls for the beta and cheerleading 💖

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She’s thrown out of the wormhole. By sheer luck, her shoulder, not her head, slams into the stone steps. Sam protectively tucks her head down as far as she can and she comes to a rolling stop on the dry, dead grass.

The wormhole closes.

Thunder rumbles across the dark, cloudy sky overhead. Harsh wind whips around her. There’s a high-pitched ringing in her ears and Sam takes a moment to breathe, steadying herself before she sits up and looks around.

She’s alone.

She hadn’t gone into the wormhole alone.

“Sir?” she calls into the empty area around the gate.

No response.

“Daniel? Teal’c?”

Sam stands and repeats the calls into her radio. Silence.

MALP video had shown sunny sandy desert, not storm-darkened forest with billowing smoky clouds above. Sam locates the DHD easily enough, but there’s no MALP beside it. Her stomach sinks.

Her team isn’t missing.

She’s the one who’s missing.

Wind rips through the brittle bare trees, clacking sticks and branches together like a mockery of applause. Cold wind stings sharply against her cheeks and the first raindrops dampen her skin as she rushes to the DHD.

She puts in Earth’s address, but hesitates after the first six symbols. She doesn’t know the point of origin of this planet. There are eight symbols on the DHD she doesn’t recognize. Any one of them could be the point of origin. A flash of green lightning and a clap of thunder yank her away from the impending logic puzzle and she pushes one of the unknown symbols at random and then the center crystal.

No joy. Not even a failed connection. The gate sits there, as if expecting more from her.

read the rest on AO3