SGA ficlet
This was going to be part of a '5 times Rodney had to deal with science that wasn't math or astrophysics' fic, but the challenge came and went, so, oh well.
linguistics
This is so stupid. It is the stupidest thing McKay has had to deal with this week, and given the scientists he's been working with, that's really saying quite a lot. He has the panel right here. He has a diagram of the small pod he's trying to open, right here, on the panel. He has what are presumably directions on how to operate the pod, right here.
Unfortunately, it's all written in Wraith.
"Ford!" he hollers.
Ford trots over obediently. People with big guns respond to his peremptory demands in this galaxy. They're still so new to this whole situation that McKay is secretly thrilled every time it happens.
He snaps his fingers, not at Ford, just in a thinking-with-gestures kind of way. "Lieutenant. Do we have anyone who reads Wraith?"
"No sir. I thought maybe you did, sir."
McKay sighs. Just because he can wow some Marines who barely know him with a few good repairs and some fancy math, they think he knows everything in the entire Universe. Multiverse. Whateververse. "No, Lieutenant, I don't read Wraith. I read Ancient, because there were a lot of samples of it back on Earth. Also, Dr. Jackson basically has a lesson plan drawn up for it. We didn't have any Wraith artifacts at the SGC."
Ford shifts his weight back and forth, thinking, hands resting casually on his P-90 as though it's not an incredibly deadly and efficient weapon. "Maybe Teyla? I think Dr. Weir was studying it. The linguists haven't gotten around to it yet, I don't think. They're still working on all the Ancient writing around the City."
Teyla is busy arbitrating some incomprehensible provincial Athosian argument. Difference of intention, she'd called it, and McKay had stopped listening right there. "Dial Atlantis. We're going to have to send this through as a video transmission and hope Dr. Weir can understand it."
"But Dr. McKay, if you can't figure out how to open it, how would Dr. Weir..."
"I'm not asking her to do the science!" McKay snaps, already swinging the video camera up to the panel, scrolling through the pages that seem to relate to the pod schematic. "I'm not even asking her to understand simple mechanical principles. If she can translate the words-- if she can get close-- I can do the rest. These little pictures are all very wonderful but they don't tell me enough to work from and as much as it may seem like it, I can't actually pull brilliant Nobel-Prize-worthy solutions out of nowhere. I need something to go on."
"If you say so, Doc." The grin Ford gives him makes it clear that he has not done anything to dim the faith. McKay isn't sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, so he merely grunts in a vaguely irritated kind of way, snaps the camera sidescreen shut and stomps over to the DHD to watch Ford dial.
Dr. Weir makes a lot of thoughtful noises when he sends the video through. Eventually the Stargate flickers out, their 38 minute window up, and they have to dial again. And again.
McKay starts to feel bad, so he leaves Ford at the 'gate and sits down next to the pod. He pats its side awkwardly. "Well," he says, "I'm sorry about this. I know it's not very fun or exciting or, well, anything good, really, but we're doing the best we can as fast as we can. If we were doing this my way things would be getting done a lot faster, you know, but we had to bring Dr. Weir in because the instruction manual to this thing is written in Wraith and she's the only one who knows any Wraith-- don't ask about Teyla, you know very well she's busy being a warrior princess leader of her people right now and as much as this sucks for you it's not actually a big enough emergency to interrupt that." He sighs. "Still, if I was doing this, we'd be off this stupid planet by now. Apparently Dr. Weir is very... deliberate when it comes to her translation."
The Stargate flickers out again. Ford glances back guiltily, gives McKay a very unconvincing thumbs up, and redials.
"Lieutenant Ford thinks she's making good progress," McKay says, leaning his head on the side of the pod and drawing his knees up, resting a datapad on them and poking at it in a desultory way. "I'm sorry we couldn't get you closer to the 'gate, but really you should consider yourself lucky that we managed to drag you all the way out here. Do you have any idea how heavy this thing is? I'm pretty sure I threw my back out, so you'd better appreciate it." He pauses for the inevitable interruption before remembering that it's not going to come. "Pudding cups. Or Jello. The blue Jello, as you should know by now. Those are acceptable tokens of thanks. I also wouldn't say no to some real coffee, although if you've been hoarding coffee after all the times I've saved the entire City you're really a very sick man."
Three more Stargate cycles later-- McKay, taking advantage of the pod-imposed silence, is in the middle of explaining his theory that the Universe is not shaped like a sphere or a saddle or a hypertorus but is, in fact, a kind of three-dimensional spiral fractal-- Dr. Weir sends through her best efforts at translation. Ford trots over with the transmission on a datapad and McKay breaks off his explanation of the effect of fractal recursion on black hole gravitational fields in order to study it.
The translation is far from perfect. The Snake of the Shrieking Winds turns out to be a small tube containing a combination of excited noble gases. Laying claws upon the left elbow turns out to mean that you have to twist the leftmost knob-thing as far as it will go. He hadn't been lying to Ford when he said that Dr. Weir only had to give him something to work on, though, and he gets the pod open after about ten minutes with the translation.
Sheppard sort of oozes out of the pod and collapses on the ground, panting hard, legs curled up with what must be really awful cramps.
"How are you feeling?" McKay asks, torn between hovering nervously over Sheppard and hovering nervously over the pod.
"Gnnnrggn," Sheppard says.
Ford nods crisply and trots off to redial the 'gate.
linguistics
This is so stupid. It is the stupidest thing McKay has had to deal with this week, and given the scientists he's been working with, that's really saying quite a lot. He has the panel right here. He has a diagram of the small pod he's trying to open, right here, on the panel. He has what are presumably directions on how to operate the pod, right here.
Unfortunately, it's all written in Wraith.
"Ford!" he hollers.
Ford trots over obediently. People with big guns respond to his peremptory demands in this galaxy. They're still so new to this whole situation that McKay is secretly thrilled every time it happens.
He snaps his fingers, not at Ford, just in a thinking-with-gestures kind of way. "Lieutenant. Do we have anyone who reads Wraith?"
"No sir. I thought maybe you did, sir."
McKay sighs. Just because he can wow some Marines who barely know him with a few good repairs and some fancy math, they think he knows everything in the entire Universe. Multiverse. Whateververse. "No, Lieutenant, I don't read Wraith. I read Ancient, because there were a lot of samples of it back on Earth. Also, Dr. Jackson basically has a lesson plan drawn up for it. We didn't have any Wraith artifacts at the SGC."
Ford shifts his weight back and forth, thinking, hands resting casually on his P-90 as though it's not an incredibly deadly and efficient weapon. "Maybe Teyla? I think Dr. Weir was studying it. The linguists haven't gotten around to it yet, I don't think. They're still working on all the Ancient writing around the City."
Teyla is busy arbitrating some incomprehensible provincial Athosian argument. Difference of intention, she'd called it, and McKay had stopped listening right there. "Dial Atlantis. We're going to have to send this through as a video transmission and hope Dr. Weir can understand it."
"But Dr. McKay, if you can't figure out how to open it, how would Dr. Weir..."
"I'm not asking her to do the science!" McKay snaps, already swinging the video camera up to the panel, scrolling through the pages that seem to relate to the pod schematic. "I'm not even asking her to understand simple mechanical principles. If she can translate the words-- if she can get close-- I can do the rest. These little pictures are all very wonderful but they don't tell me enough to work from and as much as it may seem like it, I can't actually pull brilliant Nobel-Prize-worthy solutions out of nowhere. I need something to go on."
"If you say so, Doc." The grin Ford gives him makes it clear that he has not done anything to dim the faith. McKay isn't sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, so he merely grunts in a vaguely irritated kind of way, snaps the camera sidescreen shut and stomps over to the DHD to watch Ford dial.
Dr. Weir makes a lot of thoughtful noises when he sends the video through. Eventually the Stargate flickers out, their 38 minute window up, and they have to dial again. And again.
McKay starts to feel bad, so he leaves Ford at the 'gate and sits down next to the pod. He pats its side awkwardly. "Well," he says, "I'm sorry about this. I know it's not very fun or exciting or, well, anything good, really, but we're doing the best we can as fast as we can. If we were doing this my way things would be getting done a lot faster, you know, but we had to bring Dr. Weir in because the instruction manual to this thing is written in Wraith and she's the only one who knows any Wraith-- don't ask about Teyla, you know very well she's busy being a warrior princess leader of her people right now and as much as this sucks for you it's not actually a big enough emergency to interrupt that." He sighs. "Still, if I was doing this, we'd be off this stupid planet by now. Apparently Dr. Weir is very... deliberate when it comes to her translation."
The Stargate flickers out again. Ford glances back guiltily, gives McKay a very unconvincing thumbs up, and redials.
"Lieutenant Ford thinks she's making good progress," McKay says, leaning his head on the side of the pod and drawing his knees up, resting a datapad on them and poking at it in a desultory way. "I'm sorry we couldn't get you closer to the 'gate, but really you should consider yourself lucky that we managed to drag you all the way out here. Do you have any idea how heavy this thing is? I'm pretty sure I threw my back out, so you'd better appreciate it." He pauses for the inevitable interruption before remembering that it's not going to come. "Pudding cups. Or Jello. The blue Jello, as you should know by now. Those are acceptable tokens of thanks. I also wouldn't say no to some real coffee, although if you've been hoarding coffee after all the times I've saved the entire City you're really a very sick man."
Three more Stargate cycles later-- McKay, taking advantage of the pod-imposed silence, is in the middle of explaining his theory that the Universe is not shaped like a sphere or a saddle or a hypertorus but is, in fact, a kind of three-dimensional spiral fractal-- Dr. Weir sends through her best efforts at translation. Ford trots over with the transmission on a datapad and McKay breaks off his explanation of the effect of fractal recursion on black hole gravitational fields in order to study it.
The translation is far from perfect. The Snake of the Shrieking Winds turns out to be a small tube containing a combination of excited noble gases. Laying claws upon the left elbow turns out to mean that you have to twist the leftmost knob-thing as far as it will go. He hadn't been lying to Ford when he said that Dr. Weir only had to give him something to work on, though, and he gets the pod open after about ten minutes with the translation.
Sheppard sort of oozes out of the pod and collapses on the ground, panting hard, legs curled up with what must be really awful cramps.
"How are you feeling?" McKay asks, torn between hovering nervously over Sheppard and hovering nervously over the pod.
"Gnnnrggn," Sheppard says.
Ford nods crisply and trots off to redial the 'gate.