Plot-bunny: Stargate / Highlander

[marbleglove]

I had a thought which is that Cassandra of the Highlander universe has The Voice. It's deeper than her natural voice, with unearthly reverberations and she can command obedience when she uses it. (People like Methos or any of the other horsemen can withstand it fairly easily, but they're uber powerful and she's scared of them anyway, so.) I wanted her to come in contact with a Goa'uld and command the Goa'uld to leave its host. And it does.

The SGC is stunned.

So is the goa'uld.

Anyway, I started to think about how to set up a scenario in which this happens.

I'm thinking General O'Neill is working in the Pentagon when somehow The Trust force a goa'uld into him. He rants and raves but there is nothing he can do about it. He curses his own maverick nature because as oddly as the goa'uld behaves using him, everyone thinks that it's just O'Neill doing something crazy. Everyone on his side trusts him implicitly, everyone on the other side realizes he's been compromised, and there's nothing he can do about it.

Then there's a meeting with that one woman with the NID. (The NID is an oversight group, and is actually an important group to have. It sucks majorly that there was so much conflict with the SGC, and the rogue element is definitely bad, but having checks and balances on a military base is vital.) He doesn't like Cassandra Troy who is arrogant and demanding, smart and capable, but he does respect her. She's also beautiful enough for a goa'uld to want her as a host, and in a position of enough power that it would be a good move for the goa'uld to do so.

She comes into the meeting. The goa'uld who is controlling O'Neill reveals himself and tells her that he is a god and she should bow down to him, yadda-yadda.

O'Neill wants to scream at her to run but she doesn't even have the wits to look scared. Instead she raises an eyebrow and says that, while yes, she's willing to accept his claim of being a god, he should know that she really hates petty gods such as he. She has no intention of bowing down to him... she hasn't bowed down to a god like that since she was quite a bit younger.

Various minions of the goa'uld try to attack her but she uses The Voice to tell them to stop. They obey.

O'Neill is beginning to wonder if she should be scared of her rather than for her.

She then explains that she's been keeping tabs on the fight between the mortals and the gods in the heavens. As long as the fight remains distant, then she's willing to leave it to the mortals. But if the goa'uld ever win enough to bring the battle to the Earth, then they'll find that other gods have grown up in the ten thousand years since they were there last. And those gods will fight. And Cassandra really does not want those gods to be reawakened. Death stopped riding his white horse three millennium ago. She, Cassandra, had a vision that says if the Gods in the Heavens attack the Mortals on the Ground, then the Solstice Child will ride to war against them and Death will follow after.  And Cassandra will do her best to make damn sure that never happens.

Then she summons the goa'uld out of O'Neill, hands the wiggling thing to one of the minions who is still frozen where he stood, and tells them to leave and take her warning with them.

I think she probably leaves after that and O'Neill is stuck (a) trying to track Cassandra down, (b) trying to figure out how to duplicate whatever it was that Cassandra did in order to get the goa'uld out of him, (c) trying to track the goa'uld down, (d) trying to fix all the things that the goa'uld did while in possession of his body, and (e) wondering exactly who the Solstice Child and Death are.

I'm not sure if this is a one-shot or the start of something, but whatever it is, the main Highlander character is definitely Cassandra, because I would like more stories in which she is developed fully as a character.

Comments

[lita-of-jupiter.livejournal.com]

that would be an awesome fic, she really is nderused as a character and I am quie sure she would be so full of scathing remarks about death and the goauld to make the conversation with o neil and the alien really funny... maybe even throw in a comment or two about the ancients what petty immitators the goa ul are...

[marbleglove.livejournal.com]

Probably not about The Ancients of Atlantis since they left Earth even before the goa'uld arrived, didn't they? I think the time-line is the Goa'uld left Earth ten thousand years ago. So Cassandra wouldn't have any person experience with any aliens. But given her experience with Methos and just with the world (think industrial revolution), she's used to adapting to change quickly. If she's been with the NID, she's known about aliens for a couple of years, knows they think they're gods, and just really doesn't like them.

I wonder if she was one of the driving forces behind the NID wanting to experiment on Teal'c? After all, she probably didn't know in advance if The Voice would even work on the goa'uld. It didn't work on the last beings she interacted with who called themselves gods.

I love putting characters into conflicting positions where they're both right: O'Neill protected Teal'c, Cassandra needed access to Teal'c, and they both dislike each other for the conflict.

[lita-of-jupiter.livejournal.com]

that would be a great idea to throw around she definetely would want to know what kind of threat these slavering gods might pose to earth...

if she had a vision... also she might the Cassandra of the greek myths... so whe would know who ever inspired that pantheon as well... might have been some aliens...


maybe Metho's bastard goau'ld son...

[marbleglove.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Good point. I'd been thinking she had a vision, but even that... as I recall Cassandra of Greek mythology was given her ability as a seer by Apollo who was her lover. Then, after she dumped him, he made sure no one would ever believe her. So maybe there was another alien group (not goa'uld and not asgaurd) who were the Greek pantheon. Are they good or bad or just annoying? Whichever they are, they've made sure that Cassandra does not want random gods wandering around. And the SGC will probably have to track them down to see if they're potential allies or future enemies.

[lita-of-jupiter.livejournal.com]

it would be interesting if they were just kind of annoying and petty but not specially evil or good... which maybe is where the image that the gods were similar to humans came from

[marbleglove.livejournal.com]

Ha! So the SGC isn't really sure what to do about them.

And maybe make them completely terrestrial. They're powered by faith, but they're not exactly conquerors and they're not from other planets.

[lita-of-jupiter.livejournal.com]

they are just really annoying.... thankfully these days they keep to themselves...

[marbleglove.livejournal.com]

Yup. But a few sociologist are confused by why there are modern day villages that seem to have such utter faith in the existence of the old gods while not actually being religious. Heh.

[lita-of-jupiter.livejournal.com]

heh... think Percy Jackson...style? they are around but not really and the belief is now powered by hollywood and films to get their power...

[marbleglove.livejournal.com]

Ooh. I wonder how that changes their personalities? And you've reminded me that I really do need to read one of the Percy Jackson books some time.

[bookchan.livejournal.com]

This sounds neat! I'm usually not really a fan of how I've seen Cassandra portrayed and this is an awesome way to let her be her and fully fleshsed.

[marbleglove.livejournal.com]

Writers often make her pure victim, forever twisted by her experience three thousand years ago, ignoring the intervening years. But I think she has a lot of potential.

[mountainelement.livejournal.com]

One thing that I've been wondering about since "Square Peg" is how similar is Cassandra to Hathor? From what I've read, I've gathered that Hathor can control men with her voice(?). I haven't read much about her so maybe I've gotten it wrong.

Also, I wanted to recommend "Forever, Not Long At All" by Mede. http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6131084/1/Forever_Not_Long_At_All#
It's a Labyrinth one-shot which reminds me a bit of yours, in that it's more "thinking" instead of just pure romance.

[marbleglove.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I just went and read "Forever, Not Long At All" and it is fabulous! I always like romances that have some reasoned logic behind them, where the people are not just blinded by emotions. Thanks for the great rec.

As for Hathor and Cassandra, I don't actually know. Here's my horrible confession: I don't actually enjoy the Stargate TV show. I think the universe is fabulous, I love the fandom, the characters, etc, but the actors mostly annoy me. For Highlander, I've watched (and own) most of canon. For Stargate, most of what I know is from fandom, and wiki. There's occasional mention that she seduces men into being love-sick idiots by her very presence, but I wasn't sure of the canon for that...

[mountainelement.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. :)

I've just looked at wikipedia and it says, "She was imprisoned in a sarcophagus in Mexico and after being freed by archaeologists, she travels to the SGC and takes over the male population of the base using a weaker version of the brainwashing drug nish'ta." After searching for nish'ta, I found on StargateWiki, "Nish'ta is a biological compound that, once inhaled, infects all tissue in a person's body, including the brain" and "Hathor was able to excrete a similar mist directly from her body (1.14 "Hathor")."

So I guess that Hathor's ability has nothing to do with the Voice.

I can understand about not watching the tv series. I don't usually watch tv these days myself, though for me it's more because I'm too impatient to sit through all of the episodes. Plus, I find reading to be more interesting than tv. Given the choice, I prefer reading fanfiction for a series rather than actually watching the series.

[marbleglove.livejournal.com]

Nifty about Hathor.

And yeah, I tend to like written more than visual media. And fanfiction, especially collectively, just has depth that tends to be missing from most canon.

[lita-of-jupiter.livejournal.com]

oooohhh
do you have more recs?
i loved it

[mountainelement.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, I don't watch the Labyrinth fanfiction lists, as most of the stories are too focused on romance for me to be interested. I only saw this story because I'm watching the author's Harry Potter fics. If I find any more, I'll try to post something about it. Please let me know if you find any!

[marbleglove.livejournal.com]

A couple of my favorite Labyrinth stories (which are both long and complete) are:

Into the Rose Garden
by Dryad13
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1903586/1/Into_the_Rose_Garden

The Sharp Edge of Dreams
by SGCbearcub
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2792634/1/The_Sharp_Edge_of_Dreams

[mountainelement.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the recommendations! I haven't read them yet, but I'm looking forward to doing so.

[lita-of-jupiter.livejournal.com]

I have read them... I usually troll marble's delicious listings and fanfictio.net recs...