Standing on The Anvil's main observation deck, I gazed through the transparent hull segment at four newly completed battleships—a perfect match for The Phoenix. Each spanned 1.3 kilometers, all bristling with advanced weaponry and shield emitters designed to surpass most known adversaries. The polished exteriors gleamed under distant starlight.
This was the foundation of my budding Alteran Empire: a fleet large enough to tackle multiple fronts at once. Yet memories of my Sokar battle lingered. Even with the best technology, a cunning enemy could exploit the AI-based targeting of my droids. Human (or living) pilots were more flexible, less predictable than lines of code.
So I made a tough call. "Halt production on the next four battleships," I told Helia (my AI). "We need to upgrade our station first and figure out who exactly will captain these new vessels."
"Confirmed," Helia replied, her voice resonating softly in the deck's speakers.
While it stung to postpone building an even larger fleet, I had other priorities. For one, I'd decided to expand The Anvil from a two-kilometer to a ten-kilometer ring, tripling its thickness. That meant more forging arrays, more gas storage, and a manufacturing base that dwarfed anything I'd dreamed of so far. If estimates held true, a year's worth of heavy construction would multiply my production capacity by a hundred.
Toward an Actual Alteran Empire
With the basics of my cosmic industry in order, a personal matter rose to the surface: companionship. I was, after all, a solitary Ancient in a galaxy dominated by lesser races, from the Goa'uld to humans to the Asgard. Ideally, I'd build an actual Alteran civilization—new people who shared my genes, technology, and ethos. Possibly someone I could connect with on a personal level. But I knew I couldn't snap my fingers and conjure a society of Lanteans.
The seeds of my empire would lie in Atlantis, the crown jewel of Ancient design. Rumor from Earth's records said that the city-ship slumbered somewhere in the Pegasus Galaxy. Luckily, the addresses in Merlin's repository had helped me pinpoint the city's gate location, though I needed a working ZPM to reactivate it safely.
Breaching Atlantis' Gate
I decided to act. Using The Phoenix's power reserves, I dialed the Atlantis Stargate from The Anvil. At the apex of the wormhole's activation, I sent a caravan of several hundred droids scuttling through, each carrying specialized salvage and scanning equipment. One particularly large, spider-like unit cradled my single precious ZPM in a protective harness.
Through my control link, I watched the droids spread out into a dormant control room. Atlantis thrummed faintly under emergency power, but it needed the ZPM to fully awaken. The spider droid plugged the module into a central interface, and a hum of raw energy pulsed through the city. I glimpsed readouts that indicated shield emitters coming online, life support reactivating in quarantined areas. Then, as planned, the droids broke into squads—some to patch up structural damage, others to stand guard or decontaminate labs rumored to harbor nasty biological or nanite hazards. Let them do the grunt work first.
I closed the gate after about ten minutes, letting them restore Atlantis in peace. My own recollections (and the show's storyline) suggested that even stepping foot inside the city at this stage could be hazardous. Baffling booby traps, potential rogue systems, maybe even leftover Wraith infections. Far better to let the mechanical cohorts handle it while I monitored progress from afar.
Twenty-four hours later, I dialed back in for a status update. The droids had stabilized the city, collected reams of data, and best of all, discovered a functioning Replicator Manufacturing Table in a sealed lab. This was Ancient technology that predated the Pegasus Replicators, allowing the Lanteans to design or generate nanite-based constructs. The droids also found coordinates to the Aurora, a legendary Lantean warship drifting somewhere in Pegasus. A crucial find.
Excited, I told Helia, "Prepare The Phoenix for a long jump to Pegasus. We'll salvage the Aurora next."
The Aurora Salvage
It took a day in hyperspace, even with my advanced Asgard-enhanced drive. I emerged near a battered hull floating among scattered asteroids—a once-majestic cruiser with a front section torn clean off. Right away, construction drones poured out of The Phoenix's hangar, latching onto the Aurora's shattered edges. They sealed breaches, replaced entire hull segments, and re-established a half-functioning engine module. It was like watching thousands of metal ants repair a giant's fallen body.
While they worked, I turned my attention to the new replicator table from Atlantis. My plan was bold and perhaps a little reckless: create "Nanite Valkyries"—Replicators reprogrammed not for hostility, but loyalty, with a built-in imperative to protect me. As insurance, I'd remove their usual aggression subroutines, limit their capacity for self-replication, and embed "emotional triggers" that made them respond to me as a revered figure. Possibly even love me. I need real companions, I told myself. But I can't risk them turning on me. This was step one: forging a new wave of Lanteans… or something close to them.
The First Valkyrie
Carefully, I keyed in the data. I altered the standard Ancient replicator code to reduce latent hostility, introduced protective instincts, and shaped the physical blueprint into a flawlessly beautiful humanoid body. My readouts showed each "shell" would have the strength, regenerative capacity, and near-immortality of a Replicator—yet hopefully none of the rebellious hunger for assimilation.
Once done, I hit "Fabricate." In the corner of the lab, a shimmering metallic blob swelled, then coalesced into an athletic, golden-haired woman. She lay motionless for five seconds, eyes empty. Then life flickered into them, and she blinked, rolling onto her side. "Hello, Creator," she said, voice soft, as though exploring it for the first time. "What do you need from me?"
Despite the swirl of complicated feelings in my chest—I'd literally "built" her—I mustered a professional tone. "Your name is Lilith. Go to the Aurora and oversee final repairs. Ensure the warship becomes flightworthy. I'll join you once I finish a few tasks here."
She rose with fluid grace, made a small bow, and walked off to the transport bay. I took a moment to exhale, letting the adrenaline fade. The process had worked—I had created life. Perhaps not a natural living being, but something close enough that I felt a twinge of paternal pride.
Three More Creations
I repeated the procedure three more times, each time adjusting the code for slight variations—hair color, personality traits, finer physical details. I gave them names: Morgan, Amelia, and Sarah. Every one of them possessed almost inhuman beauty: toned forms, bright eyes, luxurious hair, and, well… I had included certain "attractive" proportions. I was still a teenage Ancient with certain impulses, after all, though I tried to keep my mind from drifting toward anything inappropriate.
Morgan and Amelia I assigned as personal guards, instructing them to don specialized armor that integrated repulsors and personal shield generators. Sarah, more calm and cerebral in my preliminary tests, I entrusted with the captaincy of The Phoenix in my absence. If the AI or the droids weren't enough, I wanted a humanoid presence at the top, someone who could adapt to unexpected circumstances.
My logic was straightforward: droids and AIs were predictable. A handful of carefully minted replicators, with their near-human unpredictability, might be exactly what I needed to protect me from the galaxy's cunning warlords.
Scanning for the Asuran Homeworld
While the Aurora's repairs progressed, I got to work charting Pegasus for the Asurans—the advanced, city-building replicators that had once menaced the Lanteans. I found them. The scans indicated a planet teeming with metallic spires, large as entire continents, harboring millions—if not billions—of nanite forms. They'd built at least three city-ships on the surface, an echo of Lantean design.
I loaded five Pulse Wave Generators onto a smaller transport, each bomb capable of unleashing the multi-stage subspace disruptor that destroyed Replicators at every level. Enough to sterilize an entire planet from orbit, if used correctly. Leaving Morgan and Amelia behind to secure the Aurora, I boarded the transport alone. Cloaked, we slipped from The Phoenix's hangar, the jump taking only a few hours with our advanced FTL.
Arrival at the Asuran World
Upon exiting hyperspace, I drifted in near silence, scanning the surface. As the data reeled in, I marveled (and shuddered) at the scale: the Asurans had built spires that soared kilometers above the ocean, each thrumming with energy. Sizable amounts of starship construction were underway. If I let them continue, they'd soon be unstoppable, even for me.
I launched a series of sensor drones into orbit, confirming no large craft were inbound or outbound. Perfect. Then, in a carefully orchestrated pattern, I spaced out the five Pulse Wave Generators along geostationary orbits, each one cloaked and drifting. The plan: to envelop the entire planet in a synchronized shockwave.
"Helia," I whispered over the transport's link. "Double-check planetary data. I want zero chance of any Asuran ships escaping."
"All stable, Marty. No significant warp traces," Helia replied, her calm tone reassuring.
I braced myself. "Activating the bombs."
Detonation
One by one, each generator lit up with a subspace cascade. My heads-up display showed swirling rings of energy expanding outward like cosmic ripples in a pond. They converged, overlapping in a net around the planet. On the surface, tiny flickers—billions of them—snapped off the grid. The Asurans disintegrated at subatomic levels, undone by their own subspace reliance. There was no cataclysmic explosion—just a dull, all-encompassing flash that left the planet beneath eerily silent.
My stomach churned at the quiet devastation. I'd effectively committed genocide on a civilization. But they weren't truly a race; they were lethal machines ready to exterminate or enslave. Still, part of me felt uneasy. The Lanteans had created these beings, and now I'd undone them. Was it justice or something darker?
Helia's voice cut in. "Sensors confirm no replicator signals remain. Planet is lifeless in terms of nanite-based activity. However, the structural integrity of the cities remains intact."
I exhaled slowly, letting tension drain from my shoulders. "Cloak the bombs and set them for remote retrieval. We'll salvage the Asurans' architecture—there may be data or technology that could prove beneficial."
As the last pulses of the wave dissipated, I realized the scale of my action. I'd just destroyed the Asurans in a single blow, something the Ancients had never achieved. Perhaps that meant I was forging a new path, bridging the gap between the old Lantean mindset and the necessity of raw power in the modern galaxy.
"Helia," I murmured, "take us back to The Phoenix. Then we'll handle whatever remains on the surface with a ground team—my replicator Valkyries might help in analyzing it."
"Yes, Marty," she replied. "Plotting course."
Looking Ahead
In the coming days, I would dispatch more droids (and perhaps Lilith or Sarah) to explore the lifeless Asuran cities, gleaning advanced nanite research or city-ship designs the Asurans might have improved upon. Meanwhile, the Aurora's crew—still stuck in stasis pods if they hadn't disintegrated—remained a priority. If my droids could restore them, I'd have actual living Lanteans for the first time in eons.
And what of Atlantis itself? My mechanical workforce was already expanding the city's systems. Maybe I could repopulate it with volunteer humans from Earth, or new "synthetic" Lanteans I shaped through safer replicator code. Or maybe—just maybe—I'd find some other survivors out there, more pieces of a puzzle that ended with a genuine Alteran rebirth.
But that was tomorrow's problem. As I soared away from a planet I'd just sterilized, I couldn't ignore the swirl of contradictory emotions. Pride in my new empire. Guilt for wiping out an entire species—albeit mechanical, but conscious nonetheless. Hope that my newly minted Valkyries might fill the solitude in my life. And fear that my unstoppable expansion might someday transform me into the very tyrant I despised.
For now, though, I focused on the immediate tasks: reclaiming the Aurora, finishing Atlantis' cleanup, and forging an empire that blended Ancient wisdom with my own ruthless practicality. Step by step, I was building the Alteran Empire I'd always dreamed of—a dream that sparkled as bright as any star in the Pegasus sky.