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

[randomfreshink.livejournal.com]

That's where this gets into what does make a personality -- for that, I fall on the side that there are core traits that come out not due to expereience, but to a core personality. My experience has been that you are who you are, even if you forget most of what you know (knowledge shapes the personality, but doesn't make it).

And to me it's key that Merrin is shown before the transformation learning about art (about drawing), and that's what she's doing even afterwords (drawing).

Machello's bugs left you with memories, but bent and distorted them -- to me, that's a far worse hell (I'd rather lose stuff and keep the core, and not have it all screwed with).

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

The question is, though, how much the core can grow to become something. Anything.

I agree that the two situations have very basic differences. OTOH, they do share one very stark similarity: watching a brilliant mind distorted and warped and disappearing, whether it's under a cloud of drugs and dopamine levels or by being vacuumed out for the benefit of others.