Stargate SG-1: Escape

Supplement to Initial Report - D. Jackson, PhD

... and can find no evidence that the Goa'uld have ever visited P309.

We knew this city was large, but further discussions have confirmed that its scale is beyond comprehension. Given what we now know, this single, metallic city would easily cover the states of New York, Pennsylvania, and parts of the surrounding states. According to the inhabitants, the city is bound on one side by a large body of water. The other sides of the city are bound by inhospitable desert. So far I have not been able to learn why such a city was built. Constructing and maintaining such a city would use considerable resources. Maybe I and the others on the team will eventually be able to determine what internal or external forces led to the construction of such a massive city.

Though this massive city could easily hold over three hundred million people, equivalent to the population of the United States, most of it appears to be abandoned. They are tight-lipped about the reasons for this or what happened to so many people. Whatever the reason, their society seems to have collapsed. Several large dead zones within the city, devoid of humanity, have resulted from this collapse. The stargate lies a short distance within the largest dead zone. This is why initial contact occurred so long after the first visit. The population resides in what I call city-states spread throughout the city. Most of these city-states, at last count at least two dozen, are independent of each other, though alliances have been created between some of them. Since resources are extremely limited, a great deal of tension and in some cases outright hostility exists between many of these city-states. Alliances between these city-states are constantly forming and reforming.

Many of the people we have met so far are hesitant to provide much detail about their respective city-state. I have to assume they are afraid this information could be used by an enemy. They know little about the world outside of their own city centers, let alone outside the boundaries of this metal city.

The people are fairly homogeneous in appearance, fairly light skinned; their average height a few inches shorter than ours. They might be from Earth, but without genetic testing I won't know for sure, and I don't dare suggest that, at least not yet. Their language seems to be a dialect of the Ancients' language. The pronunciation was difficult to understand initially, but I'm doing much better. Dr. Killian and I have been exchanging notes about the differences and similarities between this and the Ancients' language. We can start officially documenting this derivation once Killian's current assignment is complete.

In the short time since first contact, we have developed friendly relations with several of the city-states. One city, Dah'lek, has actually invited us to observe ongoing negotiations between the various city-states and their alliances. One such alliance, its name loosely translates as 'Federation', believes we have come to their world to seize power. The Dah'lek ambassador of course denies this, but I think he and other cities secretly wish that were true. If they could ally with an outside force it might break the stranglehold on resources that the Federation and other powerful alliances have maintained for decades.

Intermittent power failures have been making the negotiations more difficult. If it's not the lights going out, it's the air conditioning not being able to keep the buildings cool. Colonel O'Neill believes the city must be located in a tropical area since he keeps saying....