[HICHE] A Different Kind of Pegasus Device: The Movie…or something

Following the cancellation of SG-1 after 10 seasons, the show held on for two more follow-up movies. SGA was supposed to have a movie after its 5-season run, but it and any later SG-1 movies were shelved in favor of another spinoff series, Stargate Universe…that put drama before adventure and lasted only two seasons. Of all the Stargate traditions I ended up carrying on, why’d this have to be one? Welcome, friends, to the unsorted aftermath of “A Different Kind of Pegasus Device”.

[G-Docs Chapter Link – (Untitled Epilogue Movie)]

After completing the episode lineup for the story, I realized I still had a few stray ideas and untouched plotlines left, so I threw them into a blender. And never got around to turning the blender on. I never even decided if it was meant to be just a 27th episode, but it’s probably feature-length if all the ideas end up getting used; at least its draft is slightly longer than “Dissension”. What follows is basically just the draft itself, listing ideas, events, and setup in some semblance of an order. There really is no story or resolution, it’s just there to get me thinking, and now you can envision your own post-finale movie for the story. If you come up with anything, please post it below and I may just canonize some of it if I like it.

We start on “A Hop, Skip, and a Jumper” with an extended recap of the story so far, before the Spectral Shadow emerges over Gaia, and we break the tension by stealing the “colonels” scene from SGA’s “Be All My Sins Remember’d”. It’s been a time skip, and Twilight managed to pilot the Shadow out of subspace at some point, Autumn Gem working on repairing it at Atlantis for the past while. She didn’t follow Twilight here, though, as she’s working on implementing a pet project, an accelerated dialing program to trim down the time it takes to dial common addresses by another few seconds. And the first test goes completely wrong, sending a Jumper (with undecided crew, probably random familiar faces) through a chain of Stargates to emerge at a Spacegate that had been dragged beyond the edge of the Pegasus Galaxy, so far out it has no valid Point of Origin and can’t dial back. (sigh) (deep breath) H-whooooooops!!! But who put it here in the first place? Maybe that dormant Wraith Hive floating just over there has the answer.

But they’re not just out of range of the Gate network, they’re outside the bubble of influence from the Princess Ponies’ Heart of Magic, meaning magic out here is its unstable primordial form, and spells are difficult and can malfunction, fail, or backfire randomly. They also find a larger cluster of Wraith ships out here, likely gathered after the Flutter Valley mechanism’s wave from the stragglers who survived their ships’ wraths. And at the same time, Kimono (remember her?) contacts Atlantis from the remnants of G3 Ponyville to report an unsettling discovery: a hidden Wraith lab behind the waterfall near town. An investigation will reveal that the Wraith’s warrior caste were genetic mutations of G3 earth ponies (as hinted at back in “Harmony Under Pressure”’s summary) designed by the Wraith Queens and/or Commanders, whose origin dates back farther to another planet with the parasitic Iratus bug.

And that’s it for actual ordered events. A smattering of threads envisioned include an investigation of the original Wraith homeworld, discovering large aggressive flying insects called Nui Rama (taken from LEGO Bionicle) that are a likely relative of the Wraith Dart, naturally leading to an aerial battle between the two at some point. If there’s room, the changelings may (or may not) be revealed to have a connection to the Iratus bug, which blended with the DNA syphoned from ponies of its world to become the Wraith (as in SGA). The Wraith fleet is currently in hibernation, but will likely awaken during the Jumper team’s investigations; whether they’re discovered or not (and hiding onboard either way), the fleet will head into the galaxy again. They’re probably aiming for Atlantis this time, though may be taking a detour to investigate another G1 world chunk we missed: Midnight Castle, home to the original (or perhaps our familiar) Tirek and Skorpan, but more importantly to the Wraith, the Rainbow of Darkness, likely related to the dark magic entity from “Harmony Under Pressure”, to use against the Crystal Ponies. The Expedition now has the Shadow, so they’re using it for something, but they may also get another ship, following a lead on the long-missing Aurora-class Hipparion, the ship that drove away Tambelon long ago.

I’m not sure what order these events would go in. Is the climax a battle above Atlantis, Midnight Castle, the Wraith home planet, or a combination? What might be used to counter the Rainbow of Darkness, or do we just stop the Wraith from getting it? Can we use this new knowledge of Wraith biology to purge the Iratus bug and leave only pony? (because that worked so well in SGA…cough-cough “Michael”, et al) And does the Expedition manage to save either of their ships from Stargate’s curse of broken new toys?

As I said, this is the point where you can decide for yourselves, because on my end, the book is finally closed on the over-ambitious venture that was, is, and will always be, “A Different Kind of Pegasus Device”. It’s been fun, it’s been real, and it has most certainly been real fun. Taking months between each of the last few summaries was down to distraction and lacking inspiration to focus on the project, but while this is the end of this story, it’s not the end of my efforts for How It Could Have Ended. I still have more unfinished stories to tell, and next time (whenever that is), we fall into the time vortex with a raggedy brown stallion and impossible companion as we begin to tackle a Doctor Whooves tale, “The Wild Fire Saga”.