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marbleglove ([personal profile] marbleglove) wrote2010-02-10 06:58 pm

Plot-bunny: Highlander / Stargate (2 of 3)

When I wrote A Square Peg in a Round Hole, I had a whole set of ideas for how to get Methos in contact with the SGC crew. At request, I’m posting what ideas I had at the time that I didn’t go forward with. Of them all, this was the closest second. I almost went with it a number of times and it wound up being more random chance than any particular reason that I went with Square Peg instead. .

The second of three Methos/Stargate plot-bunnies:



The bar was closed to the public but full of Watchers. They were all trading stories and just generally debreifing each other as they did every couple of weeks. When you had a secret life it was important to find some time to speak freely.

When teh phone rang, Joe Dawson, bar owner and area supervisor, delegated the task of answering it to one of his subordinates both in watcher training and in bar tending. He didn’t even think much of it until the young watcher put his hand over the mouthpiece and called out, “Guys? It’s someone calling for Methos.”

Dead silence.

Joe gave an agonized look at Adam Pierson whom he alone, of all the watchers, knew to be both immortal and that most elusive of the immortals, Methos. But everyone was looking around, confused and worried. Was Methos here? Did someone know they were watchers? Were they in danger? What should they do?

Finally Adam stood up. “Unless someone here is going to admit to being immortal, being my immortal...?” He paused and looked at each person in turn, studying them for some sign. “I’m going to answer and see what I can learn.”

There were nods of comprehension and approval and a few mouthed “good idea”s but everyone sat silent as he took the phone. “Yes?”

The Watchers watched and listened, straining to hear every word.

----------------

The Watchers milled around the bar quietly unhappy. The fact that Adam Pierson was fluent in multiple otherwise-dead languages had never before been so frustrating. Only two watchers, who had had previous assignments in Egypt, stayed still and focused near the bar, trying to understand a language that was like and yet unlike that which they knew.

But everyone perked up again when ADam spoek loudly in English. “If you harm him in any way before I get there I will personally skin you alive with a red hot spoon!”

The Watchers were pretty evenly split between looking appalled at the normally mild and gentle researcher’s threat and looking greatly impressed by it.

The phone back in its cradle, Adam slumped on a stool with his head in his hands. One of the more impatient of the Watchers finally said, “Well?”

Adam’s eyes were tired and his smile weak. “False alarm as far as Methos goes. A contact of mine wanted to get through to me without giving away my name. He doesn’t know who or what Methos is, just that its a word I keep track of, that I would respond to. He’s been arrested by the US military and is slated for execution.”

“I’m sorry, Adam.”

“Harsh.”

“But due process!”

“Who was your contact?”

“Why does a researcher have a contact?”

The responses came more or less at the same time, but the last one had a few of them puzzled. Active watchers might have “contacts” to get them past security checkpoints or into places they couldn’t get on their own but researchers stayed in libraries, right? Occasionally traveled to see the sights but not following dangerous individuals.

“Black market antique rings and tomb raiders. Smuggling weapons on the side. Occasional forgery.”

Adam rubbed his eyes again and they all remembered that it was late at night (or early in the morning, as the case may be) and they'd all been drinking. “The military was almost certainly monitoring that line so the security of this bar has been compromised. I’m sorry, Joe.”

“Don’t worry. It’s not the first time I’ve been investigated and I doubt it’ll be the last.”

“Be careful. That goes for all of you. Something screwy is going on. He had some of the best security I’ve seen but they caught him anyway. And they were just waiting to shoot.”

“Uh-huh,” Joe agreed warily. “And what about you?”

“The name Methos is used in a mysterious situation... I’ll investigate it, of course,” Adam spoke in mock surprise.

“You said it had nothing to do with Methos.”

“Yeah. But it does have to do with my friends and its still a mysterious situation.”

----------------

The SGC agents looked up from Daniels translation of what their most recent prisoner had said on the phone before they had managed to subdue him.

“Seriously?”

“That’s the translation.” Daniel shrugged with some bemusement of his own. “That’s what was said.”

“He is a goa’uld, isn’t he?” Jack asked.

It was a serious question. Sure, their prisoner had the goa’uld voice and the flashing eyes, but still… “the host called his dad?”

-------------------

The plot is that Methos had a son some two or three thousand years ago. He did not want him to die. And he was friends with a goa’uld. So for the last couple of thousand of years Methos has had a friend and a son who are immortal but not part of The Game. He loves having an immortal family and now someone is threatening that.

Re: Oh I do wish you would write this one

[identity profile] marbleglove.livejournal.com 2010-03-06 10:01 pm (UTC)(link)
I somehow missed Hysteria entirely, but it sounds like a lot of fun. And I think you're right: Methos would be an awesome writer for the show. Because someone came up with the great idea of basing a children's cartoon off of Methos' adventures but then came across the problem of that most of those adventures aren't exactly kid friendly. Who better than Methos, though, to find the bits that can be sanitized?

Re: Oh I do wish you would write this one

[identity profile] mountainelement.livejournal.com 2010-03-07 01:00 am (UTC)(link)
Referring to your post about the story with Cleopatra and third-graders, are you sure that Methos has a good enough handle on modern-day kid-friendliness? :) Maybe he writes the main ideas for each show and someone else vets them for anything objectionable?

As for Hysteria, I remember it coming on before school. I was probably above the targeted age range, but in my family, all the kids ended up watching the same shows and movies. As the oldest, I was watching kids shows long after I probably should have grown out of them, and the younger kids were allowed to watch higher-rated shows and movies at younger ages than I remember being allowed to watch such things (though probably at older ages than most kids these days). The show would pick a topic and explain in easy-to-remember ways with lots of songs about historical figures. It also included a lot of potty humor, as one of the main characters was a baby who'd frequently mess up his diaper. Unfortunately, I've forgotten most of the details of this show.

Re: Oh I do wish you would write this one

[identity profile] lita-of-jupiter.livejournal.com 2010-03-08 05:18 am (UTC)(link)
dont forget the animaniacas crashing the parties

and how every main historical character was played by the main ones
also kind of lke wishbones

well, now that im thinking about this, methos would likely try to flood the infomational venus so that he couldnt be tracked through the journals

maybe releasing some journals of other immortals and copies of supposedely lost works such as socrates and archimedes
this way thelinguists who could help translate his works are mostly busy with ther more important things... except the idiots online who keep creating memes and scanlating the journals into the gutenberg project

Re: Oh I do wish you would write this one

[identity profile] mountainelement.livejournal.com 2010-03-09 09:02 pm (UTC)(link)
Good idea. I'm not sure he'd want to release the journals of other immortals, as they might lead to other ways of tracking him and tick off more immortals, but he could release "lost" works from his collection. He'd have to hide how he's doing it though. Maybe he sets up a group to "accidentally" find the works in a new location that he isn't connected to?

Re: Oh I do wish you would write this one

[identity profile] marbleglove.livejournal.com 2010-03-10 12:11 am (UTC)(link)
Or, what if he did release some other journal but everyone sneers at it and says that it's an obvious fake? It wasn't found with the rest of the journals, after all.

Re: Oh I do wish you would write this one

[identity profile] lita-of-jupiter.livejournal.com 2010-03-10 02:51 am (UTC)(link)
yeas, make sure an ancient map to one of his caches is discovered, or maybe one from some other lost immortal that he knows...

he can use his minions to do that... I am firm beliver in Methos having minions,

Re: Oh I do wish you would write this one

[identity profile] mountainelement.livejournal.com 2010-03-10 12:59 pm (UTC)(link)
I think he has a few students that he hasn't told anyone about and that he trusts as much as he can another Immortal. He asks them to help him out on occasion and gives them help when they need it. He's helped each of them plan escape routes from their current situations and hiding places, both to use if needed. A particularly trusted student might be given plans to use in certain circumstances. An example might be if the Watchers (as in the majority of the organization) have started killing Immortals again and the Watchers don't look like they can be salvaged.

Re: Oh I do wish you would write this one

[identity profile] marbleglove.livejournal.com 2010-03-10 03:21 pm (UTC)(link)
I have this idea that Methos doesn't take regular students. He did that and got bored with it millenia ago. So now he takes students that no one else would think to train.

I have this idea that there's some apparently-60-year-old matronly woman who's a librarian in the same small town she grew up in. It's just that she's been the librarian there for as long as anyone can remember, and she's training in sword-fighting of all things with that nice young man who comes through once a month.

And maybe there's this one large mafia family that the police are always investigating in one way or another. But there are a couple of oddities. One of them is that they do weapons smuggling, but it's almost all small-scale. And odd weapons, like swords and daggers and things. And one branch of the family is almost always fostering a preteen girl. There's always some girl, somewhere in the family, who didn't grow up from an infant and doesn't go on to grow up into an adult. Why is this mafia family always opening themselves up to strangers in the house? And her "tutor" is someone no one has been able to track.

Re: Oh I do wish you would write this one

[identity profile] mountainelement.livejournal.com 2010-03-10 10:33 pm (UTC)(link)
Plus, there can be a kid that Methos sometimes sends on infiltration missions. He can't do it too often because the deaths of children are investigated pretty thoroughly and the situation has to be just right, but sometimes the best way to get information is to have the kid get adopted and then snoop around. The kid has an advantage in being chosen for adoption because he/she can pretend to be a prodigy in whatever field is interesting to the couple.

Re: Oh I do wish you would write this one

[identity profile] marbleglove.livejournal.com 2010-03-10 11:29 pm (UTC)(link)
A difficult con to pull: the set-up is long and complex and the exit strategy is problematic.

On the other hand: I've never actually watched Gundam Wing but the fandom at least shows these kids being huge military assets because they can be in place and running missions at night while no one suspects the transfer kid at the local high school.

The kid could actually make a good living in industrial espionage, and no one would ever know. (After all, the only contact his employers have is with some kid. The FBI is having a really hard time finding how the kid contacts the criminal.)

Re: Oh I do wish you would write this one

[identity profile] mountainelement.livejournal.com 2010-03-11 02:29 am (UTC)(link)
I have to admit that the idea of an Immortal kid being adopted actually came to me sometime after I read "Square Peg". Then the idea was that the SGC and the NID have a basic idea of the Immortal life-cycle, but the possibility of Immortals stuck as children forever hadn't occurred to them yet. So the NID decides that the best way to get loyal Immortals in the long term that no one can really object to is to have the top brass adopt pre-Immortal children and to raise them so that they are mentally conditioned to be loyal to their family and the family's beliefs. They manage to find an Immortal who seems to be willing to do anything for money and/or heads and convince him to point out pre-Immortal children. Only, the Immortal is actually trying to get information and/or control the NID (possibly one of his students was taken by them?) and might be one of Methos's students. So the Immortal recruits children who are already Immortal to be adopted and spy on the NID, gathering information about important contacts and locations and about how to take down the NID if necessary. The con couldn't last long because the children wouldn't grow any older, but they'd want to get out before the NID finds out about Kenny and others like him anyway. Depending on the personalities of the Immortal kids and how dangerous the NID are, the kids could plant explosives at the homes to kill everyone and place the blame on an enemy of the NID. (Does the NID have enemies other than the SGC?)

Re: Oh I do wish you would write this one

[identity profile] lita-of-jupiter.livejournal.com 2010-03-11 02:07 pm (UTC)(link)
the NID likely has enemies everywhere, nobody likes them!

i like the idea Methos would only take on very challenging and
smart students that in some way pr another impressed him and intrigued
him enough for him to devote himself and become a true teacher.

such as Byron's genius for example

Re: Oh I do wish you would write this one

[identity profile] marbleglove.livejournal.com 2010-03-11 03:27 pm (UTC)(link)
Sure the NID and the SGC are enemies, but the NID are not necessarily evil. They're an oversight group that's supposed to catch super-secret government groups before they go overboard. The problem with the SGC is that they routinely have to go overboard in order to save the world.

Vathara wrote a wonderful fic sometime back: Hearts on Barbed Wire
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2013341/1/Hearts_on_Barbed_Wire
It points out that, yes, the SGC are good guys; yes, they save the world, but unfortunately, yes, they are committing treason. They are running a private war without the knowledge of the people. The President is committing treason by ordering them to do so, they are committing treason by following those orders. There are checks and balances in place for a reason.
Actually, it's part of a series, Urban Legends, which is really fabulous in a whole variety of ways and which I definitely recommend.

Re: Oh I do wish you would write this one

[identity profile] marbleglove.livejournal.com 2010-03-11 03:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Back again, with a defense of the NID:

I have this idea for a crossover with Buffy. The scoobie gang really doesn't like the US military after the whole Initiative thing. Various stargate-buffy crossovers have made use of this dislike by saying the Initiative was run by the NID and thus the scoobie gang and the SGC are natural allies in fighting the NID.

But the NID don't run military projects like that. They do oversight. So what if the Scoobies don't like the military because the military does secret projects, and supports the NID, because they do oversee those projects and tries to stop them. Sure, it didn't work on the Initiative, but maybe this time the NID can stop things, before the SGC gets completely out of control? After all, Colonel O'Neill is already half-way to making a personal alliance with the Asguard that would essentially make him the planetary ruler.

Re: Oh I do wish you would write this one

[identity profile] marbleglove.livejournal.com 2010-03-11 03:20 pm (UTC)(link)
The thing is, the child immortals wouldn't be any more loyal to their immortal recruiter than they would be to the NID. And some of them, at least, would probably be very open to working for the NID. After all, here's an organization that may well accept them for who they are rather than making them play kids all the time.

There's a reason why immortals don't gang up very often. They are each other's natural and mortal enemies. Maybe the horseman managed to stay together but it was only four people and they had plenty of others to kill. You're not going to get anything like a regular chain of command when it's all immortals.

Plus, I don't like blanket statements of: everyone in some organization is evil and deserves to die; they and their families.

Re: Oh I do wish you would write this one

[identity profile] marbleglove.livejournal.com 2010-03-10 03:25 pm (UTC)(link)
But do they know that they're his minions? Maybe it's a Kaiser Soze type of deal. Maybe you know someone who knows someone who once worked for him, but...

I also waiver or whether or not the Watchers are in fact Methos' minions. What are your thoughts?

Re: Oh I do wish you would write this one

[identity profile] lita-of-jupiter.livejournal.com 2010-03-10 05:45 pm (UTC)(link)
well i like the Kaiser Soze deal, quite a bit...


minion wise i think the Students would be the one with immortal plans but he also has safeguards in place within other organizations...

have your ever seen La femme nikita?
there is a great x-over which kind of has my point of methos in it

http://www.thesplitpersonality.net/lfn/writers/stories/rita009.htm
by Rita
though he kind of is a terciary character there

Re: Oh I do wish you would write this one

[identity profile] marbleglove.livejournal.com 2010-03-10 08:12 pm (UTC)(link)
I thought the movie and the remake were both good, but the tv show got on my nerves. Too many plots within plots and not enough people to cut through the crap. I sort of see Methos as the type who would have a very hands-off approach to large conspiracies: let the minions do the detail work, and he'd keep his eye on the big picture and make sure it winds up going where he wants it to eventually.

Re: Oh I do wish you would write this one

[identity profile] lita-of-jupiter.livejournal.com 2010-03-11 01:56 pm (UTC)(link)
which is what he does there, he is the major ultimate boss but only gets involved when certain triggers and situations are occoring

or when he needs to reestructure management

Re: Oh I do wish you would write this one

[identity profile] mountainelement.livejournal.com 2010-03-10 10:46 pm (UTC)(link)
I like the idea of Methos being like Kaiser Soze. There's a lot of possibilities for the Watchers. For example, maybe the Watchers started on their own (it's a bit much to think that the Immortals could have hidden themselves so well that only an Immortal could have revealed them and started the Watchers), but Methos stumbled across them early on. Not suspecting the immense technological advances in communications to come, he encourages them and helps instruct them while making sure that his appearance isn't recorded. He thinks that they can gather information for him, and he can always hide in some other part of the world if they should turn violent. Of course, we now have the Internet and faster travel so that won't work so well any more.

Re: Oh I do wish you would write this one

[identity profile] marbleglove.livejournal.com 2010-03-10 11:22 pm (UTC)(link)
I like it. He didn't start them but he's more than willing to take advantage of them. And nobody foresaw the internet.

Re: Oh I do wish you would write this one

[identity profile] lita-of-jupiter.livejournal.com 2010-03-11 02:06 pm (UTC)(link)
or maybe he did, andthought dammit... now i have to go do damage control!

Re: Oh I do wish you would write this one

[identity profile] marbleglove.livejournal.com 2010-03-08 03:38 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm guessing that he keeps fairly good track of kids educations just so that he knows what sort of history his next persona will have.

Can't you just see him watching kids' cartoons and being mocked by Duncan? Then he explains that he needs to know this for when he changes identities. Mac is struck by the sense of it, so he starts watching it. Then Dawson comes in, sees them both watching cartoons, and nearly falls over he's laughing so hard.

Re: Oh I do wish you would write this one

[identity profile] mountainelement.livejournal.com 2010-03-09 09:54 pm (UTC)(link)
That makes sense. And then, while everyone is talking about all the contributions he could theoretically make to history, sociology, psychology, etc., he releases an article of the history of kids' cartoons, preferably under his own name if it's not too revealing.

Re: Oh I do wish you would write this one

[identity profile] lita-of-jupiter.livejournal.com 2010-03-10 02:54 am (UTC)(link)
and how pop culture changes and remains the same all througth the globe and human history