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Who: John Sheppard, Ianto Jones & TJ!
What: ~~Florida~~ California Man introduces air-force medic to his roommate
When: Early in the month, when the new folk are waking up!
Where: Mess hall!
Warning(s): N/A

John had deferred the giant mech adventure for now -- since TJ was new and all, and it seemed like there was probably a lot of context and... general local information that might be beneficial to go over before plunging down in a time-frozen dystopia to tidy up after a dragon.

He's been evasive, which he feels a little bad about but overall he's not... quite sure he wants to open with 'oh, yeah, I was a branch of the US military which did space travel' right off the bat. It's meant to be classified, and sure he's... reasonably sure all that stuff no longer applies when Earth, New Lantea and probably all the other off-world bases have been eaten by the storm but --

But it's just such a long conversation, and people ask questions and he's tired and just wants to be normal for five minutes. So he's briefly mentioned Antarctica, Afghanistan, a vague summary of how he's flown in every continent and is currently idly going through 'my first adventure with the Natha' over a cup of tea and a plate of cheesy fries.

"So they finally beam us down to the planet," John is saying, "And this guy Voss is giving this twenty minute speech on how the Light of Thesa is a blessing or something and Thesa is a goddess who watches over them -- and I'm pretty sure the light is the teleport. But -- we're not meant to say, right? We've got to blend in. Pretend we're just local refugees even if we're all mismatched and weird. So --"

He pauses to take a sip of his drink, then something in his expression changes and he begins waving at someone behind TJ.

"Hey! There you are! TJ, this is Ianto Jones! Ianto, First Lieutenant Tamara Johansen -- Air Force. I was just giving her the delightful story of our first adventure out on the surface." Which was... definitely memorable, but John hasn't actually gone over all the more memorable bits and was probably planning to skip those. He glances back at TJ and flicks an idle smile. "Ianto's my roommate, he's in charge of telling me no. Ianto, sit!"

Apparently the 'no' part doesn't apply to things like diet choices. So Ianto should join them and eat more cheesy fries! They're in the middle of the table for a reason.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He meets John’s questioning glance and offers him a little shrug of his own. Miniature though, really? “We’re all home-world, where I’m from. For the most part anyway,” he has to amend, because well the Doctor stealing off the odd traveler here and there should hardly count.

“Anyway that’s besides the point,” he continues. “I know something about Atlantis but what’s Icarus then?” He glances between the pair of them again. Is he allowed to talk about what you do now, John? After a lead-in like that, he hopes so, because he’s going to go on to ask, “Don’t tell me you’ve got another flying city out there somewhere.”

John may have failed to explain some of the basics of Stargate operations to Ianto so far. Like the gates themselves for example.

TJ's enemy of, well not choice, but still. It's the Lucian Alliance. They're the baddies.

When Ianto says he knows something about Atlantis, that means that John trusts him enough to tell him what he does and, as he's the de facto boss, that means that TJ can trust him, too. So, the question about Icarus isn't unexpected and TJ nods as she tosses John a quick glance for approval before smiling and nodding.

"Not a flying city. It doesn't even exist anymore, actually. There's a group, the Lucian Alliance, and the planet the base was on..." She stops there and takes a breath. "It blew up. It was volatile and the gate there, it was meant to be used to dial a nine-chevron address. That's what our scientist did instead of dialing Earth and." She shrugs and spreads her hands open. "We've spent the last two years stranded on a ship moving billions of miles away from Earth."

Unfortunately, her assumption is that if John's talking about Atlantis, he's talking about the gates, too.

Ah, the Lucian Alliance. John nods, frowning as he tries to recall what he knows about them. What might motivate them to... blow up a planet entirely.

He squints at her, pressing his lips together.

"They had a lot of Naquadria there," he says finally, half glancing between TJ and Ianto. "That's pretty explosive. How many did they manage to evacuate?"

Maybe everyone, but John isn't expecting that. It's why he asks how many instead. He can feel Ianto's curiosity welling up beside him and shoots him an idly quelling look -- yes, he knows you have a hundred questions Ianto. They'll get there.

Edited (when you click the wrong icon somehow and the mood is super wrong) 2018-08-13 21:17 (UTC)

A gate with a nine-chevron address. Dialing? Naquadria... He tries to sort through what he can understand at least. That the base blew up -- the planet it was on blew up -- was blown up by some group known as the Lucian Alliance? And now she and whatever survivors are now stranded on a ship that seems to be moving in the wrong direction.

He catches that look from John and shoots him a look in return. Listen, he really doesn't want to interrupt this important information exchange between the pair of you either but. Throw him a line. You're not even explaining the things you're saying now.

Restraining himself as best he can, Ianto takes another sip of his coffee before asking, "Was there some particular reason that this Lucian Alliance was targeting you, then, or...?"

"By dialing the gate." She does her best to explain the basics without throwing a certain someone under the bus too much, no matter how she feels about the situation. "Rush, the guy in charge of trying to dial the ninth chevron, was told to dial Earth and he didn't. He decided to take the one chance he had to dial the address he had and..."

TJ trails off and looks at Ianto. "They wanted control of the planet and the gate that was on it. Dialing that address would have given them control of the ship we ended up on and, eventually, they found a way onto it from another entrance point. They tried to take it over with someone from the SGC's help."

She doesn't want to talk about it, really, and so she goes back to John's last question. "Around eighty of us made it to the ship. The Destiny. It was an Ancient ship." And then, because she honestly doesn't know how much Ianto knows, she clarifies. "The aliens, not the time frame."

"The stuff my gene works on," John adds, "Like the little scanner." Then he turns to squint at TJ. "Guess it must have been a pretty special ship if the Lucian Alliance went to all that trouble. Did you have a carrier with you? To get it working, I mean. Or someone who had been given the gene therapy?"

Since presumably on an Ancient ship you'd... need someone with the gene to be able to get into the systems and take control? Unless it was, weirdly, all activated already? John has been on mostly-abandoned ancient ships before, even if they were nothing like Destiny he's still picturing it like that. Like the Aurora or something. Brightly lit, with cryo-chambers maybe. If they'd been dialled into some bigger version of that with it's own gate then... well, presumably they'd be aiming to take control and grind it to a halt so they could re-synchronise the gate and dial back, right? Or at least turn it around and begin making jumps to somewhere they could dial back from.

The Ancients. Right. Ianto understands that John's ability isn't supposed to work on more all the technology that it does. Ancient technology. A carrier? That must be what they call John, then. He's doing his best to follow along but all this talk of dialing gates and chevrons has his head spinning. At least he can deduce that it must be -- some method of traveling? Getting the address right, she had said after all. Dialing the address. Ending up on a ship.

"Must be pretty big ship then too, to fit eighty people on board," he hazards, glancing aside at John. Looking to him for assistance. What is a gate, anyway? He really should have asked more questions about the logistics of John's research mission than he has, come to think of it.

"Actually," she tells Ianto, eyes widening, "the ship could have comfortably held another hundred or more people. It was huge. There were parts of it we never got to explore because they were damaged. The hull was open to space and the shields were down. That kind of thing."

Taking a breath, she tips her head to the side and contemplates John. "You're a carrier of the ATA gene?" Shaking her head, she takes a drink from her cup. "The ship worked as soon as we started touching things, really. It didn't matter who or what, though I'm guessing that most of the people that were known carriers of the gene had already been shipped off to, uh." She glances at Ianto before looking back at John. "With you guys. With us, it didn't matter. We had to survive with what we could get through the gate - people, supplies, anything we could get our hands on - while the Lucian Alliance was attacking. We had six minutes."

She lifts her shoulders and sighs. "We lost a lot of personnel before we got on board and lost a few more over the last year and a half. Now this. I'm not sure what's next."

"Actually we only had like two carriers to begin with and apparently I was the prettiest or something, so things liked me better. We stole one or two more later, so if that was all of them then sorry about that. I only have so many hands to make things light up with."

He takes a deep breath, squints around the table, at TJ then sideways at Ianto.

"Got a pencil and paper?"

This seems like a pencil and paper sort of situation.

Ianto meets John's eyes with a questioning expression that also seems to say oh ye of little faith before he sets down his coffee and reaches into the light jacket that he's wearing to produce a small notebook and, yes, a pencil.

He hands both over, quirking an eyebrow at the other man in curiosity before he reaches for another fry. Pretty sure that there's nothing incriminating in this particular book for John to come across as he flips to find a fresh page, at least.

"Really, it didn't matter. The ship worked fine without you. Them." Though, it might have worked better with someone who was a natural with it. There was really no way to tell.

Watching Ianto's reaction, TJ gets the impression that he's been told some things, but not others, and she feels bad that she's jumped in with a giant part of her life story without backstory to go along with it. It's the expression on the man's face that causes her to grin again, the way he tells Colonel Sheppard without words that his question is, well. If not stupid, then something he shouldn't need to ask.

"What are we writing down?" 'We' as a group, obviously.

"We're having a quick lesson on gate addressing."

John flips open the notebook at the back to the last blank page, begins sketching out two concentric circles.

"So, you know how in Cardiff you have your rift that things go in and out of. Well, the Ancients liked to build big things and that didn't just stop at big fancy ships. They built a network of devices that you could basically use to connect to each other with a wormhole, kinda like your rift only imagine you can direct it to spit you out somewhere specific every time you use it. So, we refer to these things as Stargates because the addressing system works with star constellations. You dial an address, it locks and opens a passage for you, then it closes behind you and you have to dial home when you want to head back."

He begins quickly drawing all the constellations around the circle, and nine lock points.

"But, how does addressing work? You don't need the gene to use these, just to know where you're going. Think of it like your zip code going into a GPS. There are six constellations you pick, then a seventh is the last one you plug in which says where you're coming from. It kinda finalises the address. It's spacially like a cube --"

He flips over another page and begins roughly drawing one, then drawing six dots and joining them in criss-crossing lines.

"Where all these lines cross is your destination, and then the seventh tells you the direction you're coming in."

John draws a seventh dot, then connects it through into the centre.

"But getting the order is important. Six symbols? You've got seven hundred and twenty possible permutations of the address, so random dialling doesn't get you far. It's better if you know where you're going. Especially since, what, there's thirty eight symbols on a Milky Way gate and one point of origin? That's nearly two billion possible address, divided by seven hundred and twenty is like -- over two and a half million plausible addresses. There's thirty six symbols on a Pegasus gate, and one is a point of origin, so that's like -- over one and a half million possible working addresses give or take."

He squints a second, calculating, then flips back to the gate picture.

"Anyway, the six plus point of origin rule keeps you within the same galaxy. If you want to jump further out, for example from the Milky Way to the Pegasus Galaxy where Atlantis is, you need an extra symbol to help it make the distance calculation before you put in the point of origin. Now, a nine symbol address is what TJ says they dialled. There are enough lock points on all the gates for that, but we've never had a nine symbol address before. So! If eight symbols adjusts to dial another galaxy, what's the ninth do? Another distance adjustment? A longer jump? We weren't part of that project, though I think I remember McKay complaining about it once, so honestly -- I don't know."

But maybe TJ can explain that better. He glances at Ianto to make sure his brain hasn't melted, then up at TJ curiously.

Ianto sits forward to watch John draw and to listen to his explanation. Picking his coffee up again to have something to do with his hands so that he's not just quietly gaping instead. It's not so much the gates themselves that catch him up, really. It's John's explanation. He's never really done this sort of instructional affair in front of Ianto before and he's -- impressed. Has he really just done those equations in his head in the moment? Does he really understand these gates as well as he sounds like he does? All this talk of constellations and -- space as a cube. It is a little difficult to wrap your head around, and John's always so. Not that Ianto doesn't think he has it in him, it's just that between all the Deadpool jokes and pop culture references, this math lesson he's just spouted is something else, and it's very...

He takes a long, slow sip of his coffee to give himself time to collect his thoughts.

"Our Rift is a naturally occurring, unpredictable phenomenon," he points out, just in case that hadn't been clear from the start. "We got ourselves into a lot of trouble when we went mucking about, trying to use it for our own purposes." He glances up at John. "But I've heard of other devices that do the same thing. Roughly. Jack had one, he. A vortex manipulator, he called it. I think it worked using the same idea, dialing in an address. Using numbers, though, on his wrist strap. I'm not quite sure, it didn't work anymore..."

Like Ianto, TJ has leaned into the conversation and, as John goes on, she becomes impressed. She's gone through different gates on different missions on many different occasions and she's heard the basics several times before. Everyone who gets assigned to the SGC has either heard it in person (thank you, Daniel), or by instructional video (from Daniel), but the way John just... rattled it off? Wow.

"Yeah, I mean. Colonel Sheppard's right." What can she add to that? "Dialing the ninth chevron required a lot of power, which is why they built Icarus where they did." Explosive planet. "They weren't sure they'd be able to dial it, even after the sequencing was put together. I don't know all details, but it took months and something about a code hidden in a video game-"

That's how Eli ended up with them, she knew that much.

When Ianto talks about the Rift, she gives him her own curious look. "So, do you guys just walk into it like." She points to the drawings John's made. "If you don't know where you're going or what's happening, how can you control it?"

John glances between the two of them as he leans back from the drawing and, after a hesitant second, frowns a little uncomfortably before focusing on Ianto. It's a little weird having such close, focused attention on himself explaining something from both of them. John's usually not the explainer, and he feels oddly like a fraud.

"Even dialling Pegasus required extra power," he adds, and mulls over the thought. A nine-chevron address, and something about a... code in a video game? The additional power requirement was probably huge, especially if they were using Icarus Base. Still -- the question to Ianto has John turning toward him -- closing his notebook and sliding it back to him with his pencil.

"That will now self-destruct in five seconds," he adds softly, and twitches a smile before leaning back with his tea to let Ianto take over.

Ianto quirks an eyebrow at John's comment, along with the hint of a smile of his own and carefully, pointedly, tucks the little notebook back into his pocket. Nice try, John, but he's definitely saving that little Stargate sketch to study more carefully later, hopefully when John isn't watching although the pair of them being roommates, who can say for certain.

"Ehm," he says, trying to field TJ's question in the best way he can. "Well, technically we just monitor the Rift. It does a lot of spitting things out, from other places, other times." He glances at the pair of them warily. Technically, the rest of this is classified, even by Torchwood standards, but he doesn't really see the harm in sharing, considering. "And it sucks things up and sends them away." Sometimes it takes people. He's nearly said as much to John before, but he's not certain the other man's really understood what it meant before.

"Like I said, we can't really control it. We can't really even predict it. We just sort of..." He shrugs. "Deal with the fallout, I suppose." He glances aside at the pair of them. "The only time we tried to do anything specifically it sort of. Fractured time itself, a little. Which we fixed," he corrects quickly, "but I'm not sure it's really meant to be. Used. Not in the way that your gates are, anyway."

Observing the byplay between the two men, TJ keeps her tiny smile to herself as much as she can before clearing her throat lightly and focusing on what Ianto has to say. While it doesn't sound like the Rift he's describing is the same as the Stargate system in most ways, she hears a few similarities - namely that most things go one way - and nods along to indicate that she's listening and understand the words that are coming out of his mouth.

Clearly, the things he's saying aren't supposed to be shared with just anyone, but if he's keeping the notebook with Colonel Sheppard's sketch, TJ figures it doesn't hurt if he talks about his day job from back home.

"So, when you say it sucks things up and sends them away, are you talking like... out of thin air?" She throws a glance at John to make sure he's following, too, before adding, "Because you said the one time you tried to do something specific you fractured time. What does that mean, exactly?"

It made sense that they weren't necessarily from the same place, but Earth was Earth and TJ was curious what this meant for Ianto and the people he knew.

John shrugs at the glance, looks over to Ianto and gestures for him to take the floor. He's done enough talking for a while, he can step back.

"If it helps," he adds, "I've broken lots of things in my time. McKay once destroyed a solar system. Uninhabited."

He takes a sip of his tea calmly, flashes Ianto a casual smile. So, you know, fracturing time a bit might sound bad but... on the SGC scale of things, probably not the worst thing that has happened.

Uninhabited. It might have been a highly destructive mistake, but it hadn't killed people. If Jack hadn't faced off against Abaddon...

He meets John's eyes for a brief moment, hoping that whatever he's about to say won't reflect too terribly on him, in retrospect, before he continues to explain himself a little further.

"We opened the Rift to save some of the members of our team who had been -- kidnapped through time," he explains. "But it didn't really -- close after that. People started to fall through the Rift into our time. Through time. Romans. Soldiers from the Civil War -- the English one, that is. Carriers of the Bubonic Plague. There was an outbreak, and we. The only way we had to send them all back was to open it up again. And in doing that we released. I don't know. A demon, who had been imprisoned in the Rift. Abaddon, it was called. The Great Devourer. And in doing so." He presses his lips together. "A lot of people died before we could destroy it. Like I said. It's not really something that we'd ever want to chance repeating again..."

TJ almost asks how they knew the entire solar system was uninhabited, then decides she doesn't want to know.

Hearing Ianto discuss his past helps TJ truly understand that not everyone comes from the same place or time. Earth it may have been, but this was something else. Something she'd never heard of and, clearly, it was something that had affected Ianto's every day life, much like the SGC had affected her day to day decisions and John's-- well, the same.

She gives the man an encouraging smile and nods her head. "It sounds like it was a lot to handle a lot of the time." She doesn't want to give platitudes or sound patronizing.

TJ might be giving her best supportive mom smile, but John -- who had been trying to follow along with this by giving his best I'm Genuinely Listening face -- falters somewhere toward the end. He's squinting at Ianto, who looks... genuinely uneasy, and it sounds bad but -- okay, is it just him? Shooting a look over at TJ reveals that yes, she is managing an encouraging smile. Maybe just him.

He looks back at Ianto and tries to press down on the urge to ask, twitches and presses his lips together. It's fine, he can --

No, unfortunately he can't.

"I'm sorry," he says finally, and he leans forward onto the table with a wince. "Did you say The Great Devourer?"

Was this version of Cardiff actually in Sunnydale, Ianto?

Look, this wasn't the usual but things like this did happen from time to time. Blame Billis Manger, alright? Ianto's still not even sure what the man had been, other than ridiculous and creepy.

He glances aside to TJ, as if to apologize in advance for this conversation -- and for John for that matter, he knew he was going to ask about this as soon as he saw that look on the other man's face -- before he turns back to the other man to respond.

"The Great Devourer. Son of the Great Beast," he continues. As if the rest of it weren't enough. "Cast out before time." He pauses a moment, before raising his eyebrows and explaining, "It's in the Bible, it's not like I'm just coming up with this stuff on my own."

Edited (html) 2018-08-20 03:01 (UTC)

It wasn't that TJ didn't have questions. She did. She could have sat there and asked a lot of questions, but it seemed like Ianto hadn't wanted to answer them, or elaborate on what he'd already said, so she'd gone with her supportive nod and smile routine instead. She was trying to make friends and forcing them to relieve a painful past didn't seem like the best way to do it.

Thanks, John.

She lifts a shoulder in solidarity when Ianto looks at her, but the truth is... she's curious. "I've read the Bible and, not that I'd call it fiction, you know, necessarily." She doesn't want to offend in case either man is particularly religious. "I just. Wasn't sure that the things mentioned inside were still." Looking at John for help, she finishes lamely. "Real."

Don't give him that look, Ianto, you know exactly why they're confused.

"No," John says, "I'm sorry but I'm with TJ on this. I thought you were miniature home-world security -- you know, alien threats. So did you name an alien after a biblical threat or are you also The Slayer part time and the rift is a hell-mouth?"

This is something you should have mentioned, Ianto! Demons! Demons are absolutely worth mentioning! There is no way John can just let go of demonic things suddenly being part of your job!

Ianto makes a face that may as well be described as pained. He didn't come up with this stuff either, you know!

"Listen, I'm. Look, I'm pretty sure it inspired the Biblical threat, I mean it definitely existed before then," he says. "But I'm not an expert. I barely even knew about Abaddon myself until we ran into it first-hand. I'm not talking heaven and hell, John. I mean -- real, ancient creatures. Beings capable of existing outside of time and space, I mean. So, yes, they called it a demon when they were figuring out how to classify it. I mean. It's not like it came from space. Not everything we dealt with came from space, there were. The cannibals? And the -- fairies?"

In retrospect that one is going to need a bit of explanation too.

Edited (clarification) 2018-08-20 17:57 (UTC)

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