Sg-1: Paradox
by Dark Apostle
Copyright© 2025 by Dark Apostle
Fan Fiction Story: Another one shot, I want off my hard drive. Edited by 'Steven' and expanded over time. All dialogue is mine: They found him, standing in the gate room, a strange man, wearing a strange uniform, from a far distant future. Protocols exist for temporal causalities, but then, where's the fun in that?
The klaxon had only just stopped blaring when the room filled like a breach—soldiers swarming in from every entry point, boots hammering down against reinforced steel, their uniforms crisp with the starch of readiness and paranoia. A dozen P90s locked on target, their operators forming a tight semicircle around the platform’s base. The Stargate loomed behind them, inert for now, its great ring silent but no less oppressive in its presence. Cold light from overhead fluorescents bathed the room in sterile white light, and the only sound that remained was the low, ceaseless mechanical hum of base machinery—ventilation, gate systems idling, the faint crackle of radios in standby.
At the room’s center stood the intruder.
He was human—at least, he looked human. No armor. No weapons. His clothes were strange: plain, subtly textured like they were made of fabric not from Earth, but not outlandish enough to be alien. His feet were bare. His eyes, pale gray and unsettlingly calm, tracked upward—ignoring the firearms trained on him entirely.
He was looking toward the glass observation window two stories above. Inside the control room, shadowy figures could be seen clustered near consoles, hands frozen over blinking keys. The light from the monitors colored their faces blue and green, painting a surreal aura over their confusion. Rows of computers blinked with idle protocols and diagnostic checks, unaware they were the silent witnesses to a breach of the most secure room in the mountain.
He hadn’t spoke. He wasn’t resisting. He simply stared at the control room, not with alarm, not with awe—but with an expression close to ... recognition. His lips parted slightly, though he said nothing. It was as though he’d expected this. Or had experienced it before.
Tension coiled in the air. Fingers twitched along triggers. No one dared move. The science team was already scrambling through surveillance feeds and gate diagnostics—no sign of activity on the Stargate, no indication of beaming tech. He hadn’t walked in. He hadn’t come through the gate. He had simply appeared in front of the idle stargate.
The corridor to the left groaned open with a pneumatic hiss, and a ripple of acknowledgment passed through the soldiers. A figure entered—tall, broad, wearing an Air Force uniform with full general insignia. His presence sucked the air out of the room. Even before his boots had fully cleared the threshold, voices snapped silent.
He was older, gruff. His balding crown shone faintly under the lights, sweat already gathering despite the mountain’s chill. He didn’t look at the intruder first—his eyes went to the soldiers, then up to the control room, and only then did he turn his attention to the barefoot man in the center of the room.
His voice lashed out like a gunshot.
“What in the name of the Seven Hells is going on?”
No one answered. No one could.
The man at the center simply continued to stare at the glass, as though the words hadn’t been spoken at all.
A bead of sweat traced a slow path down the commanding officer’s temple. His jaw clenched.
“Son,” the man barked, “Identify yourself.”
The young man paused. The first sign of acknowledgment flickered across his features—faint irritation, or perhaps confusion. He turned his head slowly, gray eyes settling on the aging officer below. His brow creased in a frown, brief, almost imperceptible, and then his gaze slid upward again, returning to the glass, to the glowing, silent watchers above.
“Where am I?”
“Earth, Cheyenne Mountain.”
There was a quiet moment. The hum of ventilation systems filled it. A blink of red light passed over one of the overhead monitors, unnoticed. The intruder’s lips barely moved.
“Earth,” he muttered.
His right hand moved—smooth, practiced. A collective intake of breath ran through the soldiers. P90s twitched.
Instead of drawing a weapon, he tapped a panel embedded in a metallic cuff on his wrist. With a faint whirring chirp, a soft blue light shimmered to life above it, coalescing into a translucent, three-dimensional keyboard. Keys glowed in mid-air, flickering faintly with each rapid press as he typed. His fingers moved faster than seemed possible, like he wasn’t entering data so much as unlocking something long-forgotten.
The gate room lit with soft purple light.
Next to him, a figure shimmered into existence—not transported, not beamed, but projected, light and data arranged in perfect mimicry of flesh. A woman, tall and radiant, with sharp cheekbones, glowing lavender eyes, and skin the color of midnight tinted by starlight. She wore something like armor, though it flowed more like cloth—smooth metallic folds that shifted with her motion.
“Boss?”
Her voice was a low, rich timbre, unmistakably digital and unmistakably feminine.
“Where am I?”
She blinked—oddly delayed. Then her expression clouded with the same confusion. Her eyes scanned the room, her head tilting minutely as if processing a thousand unseen data streams. When she spoke, her voice glitched, just for a heartbeat, like a corrupted file skipping a frame.
“The man is correct, this is Earth.”
“But?”
She paused again. Her eyes locked on the man who had spoken, brow furrowing. She leaned forward a fraction, gaze dropping to the insignia on his chest—four silver stars glinting against the fabric.
“Judging by the uniform,” she said slowly, “that’s a United States General.”
She turned to the man beside her, voice softer now, tense with unease.
“What is the year?”
The General hesitated. His mouth was a grim line, his voice edged with disbelief.
“1997.”
She drew back slightly. Her posture shifted, her shoulders tightening. For the first time, the woman seemed unnerved.
“Oh dear.”
She looked at the man—James—her brows knitting as she put it together.
“James,” she said, more urgently now, “Do you have any idea how far back we’ve travelled?”
He glanced around again—at the control room above, at the soldiers frozen mid-step, mid-breath. He looked older than he had a moment ago, the weight of knowledge dragging the lines of his face down.
“200 years,” he said at last, “Give or take.”
She nodded, slowly, almost as if confirming a gut instinct she’d been trying to deny.
“Fuck, this could be a problem.”
He laughed, dry and humorless, the sound echoing in the still room like a dare.
“You think?”
“James, we can’t,” she said after a beat.
A silence followed—not from lack of sound, but from a sharp dip in the room’s pressure, like the collective breath of the present holding itself in place. The purple woman’s holographic projection flickered subtly, light wavering around her fingers as she stepped closer, her boots making no sound against the deck plating.
James tilted his head toward her, that same roguish grin stretching over his face.
“Why not?”
“There are protocols in place for this...”
Her voice trailed, tight with restraint. Not fear, precisely—something more precise. A calculation in her tone. Like a machine that wanted to feel worry but could only simulate it through logic trees.
He blinked once, just once, letting her words turn over in his mind like a stone skipped across a lake. The grin didn’t falter, but his gaze sharpened.
“Really?”
The question wasn’t sarcastic. He was genuinely curious.
She nodded, glitching again—just slightly, like a nervous twitch rendered through corrupted rendering code. “You think you’re the only one to travel in time?”
He raised both brows at that, let out a low whistle.
“Well, now I don’t.”
She crossed her arms over her chest—an odd gesture for something without a body, but it carried weight nonetheless. Her form dimmed, for half a heartbeat, as if her emitter was fighting ambient interference.
“If you do, you could drastically change things.”
James tilted his head slightly, the grin returning with that same insufferable charm.
“Maybe for the better,” he said. “Get the ball rolling.”
In the corner of the room, a throat cleared, sharp and pointed.
The General coughed. He’d remained silent long enough, measuring everything—the technology, the terminology, the quiet confidence that came from someone completely unconcerned about being surrounded by a dozen heavily armed soldiers.
“We’re going to need to take you in for questioning.”
The woman’s head turned sharply toward James.
“James, the protocols.”
James didn’t even look at her. The grin was gone now, but something deeper had replaced it—an intensity, like a fire barely banked beneath the ice.
“By being here, we’ve already altered the future,” he said. “They’re aware of us, of it, why not change shit?”
She sighed, the sound synthesized but surprisingly human. “If we collapse the timeline, you get an I told you so.”
He laughed, short and genuine.
Then, slowly, with the ease of someone long familiar with diplomacy under duress, he turned to face the General. He raised both hands in a nonthreatening gesture, palms outward, movements unhurried.
“My name is James, William Smith, Spartan of the UNSC, and I officially surrender.”
There was a long silence. No one in the room moved. The soldiers didn’t lower their weapons, not yet, but the tension in the room began to bleed out by degrees.
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