Fic rec, and some meta

[fignewton]

In case you've missed it, night_spear1287 has been posting Brotherhood, the third novel in her Daniel of Abydos series.

If you haven't been following it, Nightspear's fantastic AU begins with Translations, which I talked about with some other Daniel recs, and continues with Diplomacy which I discussed in detail here. Brotherhood, the current story, runs roughly parallel to our S3, and has Daniel finally becoming an official member of SG-1.

The premise: Drs. Melburn and Claire Jackson opened the Stargate back in 1982; Captain O'Neill was a member of the team at the time. By the time the equivalent of CotG is over, Mel and Claire are dead, and their son Daniel - 15 by Tau'ri standards, but nearly an adult by Abydon years - is stuck on Earth until the Gate on Abydos is reopened. Nightspear does a stunning job of characterization, making this younger Daniel an integral part of the SGC without shoehorning a teenager into places where he doesn't belong. The Jack and Daniel friendship is stellar, and the Sam and Daniel friendship is warm, but the Teal'c and Daniel friendship will absolutely take your breath away. My adoration for this AU may be a tad excessive :) but I assure you, it isn't misplaced!

Personal favorite bits: when an adult Dr. Daniel Jackson comes through the quantum mirror in this world's version of TBFTGOG; the combination of Secrets and Thor's Chariot; the entire Fifth Race section, which is somehow better than the show's; Daniel and Teal'c talking in the aftermath of Serpent's Song; the entertaining beginning to Brotherhood, which I won't detail and spoil you, but you'll figure out pretty quickly yourself; the twists and turns of Seth, where Daniel is the same age as most of the other brainwashed teenagers; and most recently, Nightspear's superb descent into poor Daniel's mind as he suffers from Machello's booby trap in Legacy, and the excellent chapter that deals with the repercussions. Teal'c grounding Daniel with his sheer calm presence is nothing short of awesome.

And that leads to the meta, because Nightspear always includes a sentence or two from the upcoming chapter, and I suddenly realized, for the first time, that Learning Curve comes right after Legacy.

How in the world did Daniel face the idea of children literally losing their minds so calmly, in the face of what he'd just undergone himself? How much of Jack's fury at what was happening (and Teal'c's distress, too) hinge on the horror of watching a brilliant mind disintegrate again?

I don't want to even begin to take away from the episode-contained moral dilemmas (we discussed those back when redial_the_gate did Learning Curve, and I very much enjoyed reading all the comments again). But I do think the sequence of episodes lends even greater impact to the tragedy of Orban, and I'd love to see additional meta (or fic, heh) that addresses it.

"Anyway, I'm sorry, but that just happens to be how I feel about it. What do you think?"

Comments

[samantilles.livejournal.com]

Learning Curve comes right after Legacy.
I never even thought of that. To be honest, whenever I watched the episode, I couldn't help but think that they finally gave Daniel a nice "get away from everyone else in the SGC who betrayed him" assignment on Orban. It looked like he'd been there a while and not returning to the SGC everyday. but I never did think of the basis of the story, just the opening sequence.
Huh...
(I might come back and comment again after thinking about this rather than doing actual work...)

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Yes, that was my reaction too - Whoa! Never thought of that! ...and now I want to think about it. :)

Much as we love to talk about it in fanfic, I very much doubt Jack or George could rearrange missions to make things easier for this or that team member when they've had a rough time. But I love the beginning of Learning Curve with Daniel's smudged face and his total happiness in being utterly in his element, yes. As you say, isn't it a nice change after Legacy...? Until it suddenly isn't.

[samantilles.livejournal.com]

I can imagine the headache George would be getting as he tried to accomodate every SG member who had a broken leg (like finding a stargate pedistal without stairs (just a ramp) or who was suffering PMS (sending them to Goa'uld homeworlds for some behind-kicking) but it also seemed that at the beginning of Learning Curve that it wasn't a normal SG-1 mission, but rather the beginnings of a long term assignment (i'm thinking closer to "The First Ones" where Daniel goes off for an extended period of time without all of his teammates)

And legacy left us with such big holes at the end--we didn't see any of the fallout at all from what occured (as much as fanfic writers love to write legacy tags)

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Never mind the fallout - what about all the plotholes? :)

Seriously, check out Nightspear's story. It takes two weeks before they exhaust all the other possibilities and hospitalize Daniel.

[samantilles.livejournal.com]

I'll be the first to admit that Legacy (and the lack of a good outcome) was what got me into reading stargate fanfic (any fanfic actually--never did in any of my previous fandoms!) in the first place (and I've never looked back!)

and I read just about anything you rec--I would have never started down nightspear's story on my own because I'm not the biggest fan into AUs, but I did peek ahead earlier and find the legacy portions...

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

The thing that always makes me hesitate with AUs is the question of characterization. I have no interest in "elseworlds," where Daniel is, say, a helicopter pilot and Sam is his mechanic and Teal'c runs the business and Jack is their regular customer. I just made that up. If such a fic exists, I don't want to know. :) But Nightspear's fic has such superb characterization - despite that single difference, that Daniel begins his contact with the SGC as a 15-year-old, everyone - including Daniel, are marvelously themselves.

Thank you for your compliment on my recs! But if you're going to choose one, this would be it. This series has definitely become my "make everyone sit down and read it" fic. :)

[samantilles.livejournal.com]

the "elseworlds" are precisely what I don't touch--its really rare at all I've even opened one, let alone read through it. In general if the term AU is in the title, I'm skeptical. When they say "totally an AU", well... yeah. But you're right, characterization is key-it really makes or breaks a story for me.

[sg-betty.livejournal.com]

I think you'd like this one, Sam. You know me and canon, and I find it just dandy. I don't find most AU's believable, and they seem (often) to exist only to allow more blatant 'ship, or some kind of 'unusual' characterization. This one is very believable and well done. It's more of an exploration into characterization 'what if' than wish-fulfillment.