North: all I know is that it is iconian in origin. Other wise my knowledge on the object is next to nothing.

Hampton leaves his desk and walks to the observation lounge where he sits down and takes a moment to clear his head.

Sam: That was more than I expected. I wouldn't have recognised it if I hadn't read the briefing.

It's an Iconian Gateway. We think it's one of the original Gates, before the Iconians were able to open portals to anywhere they wanted.

It works like a Transwarp Conduit, forming a network. The key difference is that this is a lot quicker, uses a lot more power, and is a lot more stable. The Iconians probably used it to move supplies and munitions from one world to the next.

John DeFalco: WRONG!

*Runs down the stairwell into the Gate room to address the three.*

I've been studying the markings that the Rebels unearthed. This was a Vassal World of the Iconians. That gate was probably used to ferry civilians and supplies between worlds, like the Gate Jean Luc Picard found on Iconia over 150 years ago.

Sam: "Vassal World"?

John: Voluntary. There's a whole library here!

Sam: "Voluntary"? Like Earth?

John: No. The Iconians made an offer of goodwill and the Planet's inhabitants asked to become a protectorate.

Vulcan was a show of force. They seem to be treating the Federation as Allies, not subjects. At least, from what I can tell from long range probes.

Sam: The Gate, John.

John: Right. This gate was part of network. The Iconians probably abandoned the Gates instead of dismantling them in case they had to be used again.

Sam: To that end, we're going to try and jump-start the Gate's last Dial-out to test if the network's still intact.

John: If it works, we'll be able to send a signal through the Gate to bring all the other Gates to idle status, giving us their positions through the Gate.

Sam: We'll be able to discover Ancient Iconian Outposts and, hopefully, find technology that we can use against them.

The test is in a few minutes. Follow me. *Sam and John lead them into the Control Room as the crevices in the Gate begin to glow blue.*

Dial out.

*The techs tap a few controls on the Republic Consoles they'd hooked up, and the holo-display shows a blue diagram of the gate. The gate fully glows blue as a series of symbols along the rim flash in series clock-wise. The Gate stops on one, generators at the top and the "4-o'clock position" glow blue, the top one disengaging as the flashing switches direction, stopping on another symbol and turning the top generator and "8-O'clock" generator on.*

Tech: Beacon-group 2 registered.

*As the Gate continues to work outside, Sam turns to North.*

Sam: Near as we can tell, the Network uses Beacons in each Gateway Quadrant to specify which Gate is being activated, narrowing down the target until only one is left. There are 5 digits in each Gate-ID, meaning the Gate has to register and lock-on to several Beacons to find one Gate. There seem to be beacons built into each Gate, so the fact that we got this far suggests that there are atleast a few Gates of this type still intact.

*The Gate locks in the Fifth Symbol*

Tech: Beacon 5 registered and locked-in.

*The generators send five pulses into the centre of the gate and a portal opens, showing a stone path leading through a forest.*

Sam: Send the activation signal.

Tech: Sending signal.

*Sam walks over to a holo-map as several hundred blips show up across the Galaxy.*

Sam: Well... I guess we got the size of the Iconian Empire wrong.

John: Actually, *Walks over* that just tells us how many gates the Iconians left, not how big the Empire was. Like the Galactic Transwarp Net; It spans a quarter of the Galaxy but serves hundreds of nations.

Sam: Well, that's a lot of planets the Iconians visited.

Admiral North: well I must say I'm impressed by what you've managed to decipher. This is incredible.

Nice sg1

OOC: lol... was I that obvious?

It's a great concept, and was so similar to the Iconian Gateways I couldn't resist!

I admit I may have taken a little inspiration from Stargate...

Ooc: that's cool. I loved sg1. I've been using halo for my self.

Sam: With any luck, we should be able to at least move onto some of these worlds.

Best case scenario, we're able to fight back.

So, you in?

North: of course we are.

Forrester: The Excalibur can take you back to Proxima XII any time you're ready, unless you can speak to Hampton over subspace?

North: we can use subspace. That will be fine.