Application for Doctor Daniel Jackson (Stargate SG-1)

[a-good-man.livejournal.com]

‘Behind, through the low, shingled front gates, there is nothing. Not mist, or darkness. Just...nothing.’

And then, suddenly, there is something. A large something that very much resembles a splash of water, save for the fact that it shoots out horizontally instead of splashing upwards. Almost immediately it recedes back into the nothing, leaving behind what looks like a gently shimmering vertical pool.

With a noise not unlike pulling something out of mud the pool disgorges a man onto the street just inside the gate. He is dressed in a green and black uniform that says ‘military’ very clearly, even to those unfamiliar with the United States Army/Airforce circa the late 1990’s, and he carries a very large, heavy-looking black pack and a strange looking crooked gun in a holster on his leg. Despite his garb, however, his appearance does not really say ‘soldier’- perhaps because of the glasses on his nose or the way his hands move in enthusiastic punctuation as he speaks. He was already in mid-sentence when he stepped out of the pool.



“… and of course you can see the implications of that. I mean, it’s not really my area of expertise, I do wish I could have had more time for research, and Jack, I really think that we need to get an expert on Sarmatian culture; we don’t have any one at the base right now with more than a preliminary understanding of the Sarmatians or the Marcomanni prior to the barbarization of the late Roman army…”

Daniel stops suddenly and looks around. Then he turns and looks behind him, seeing only the rippling event horizon, sitting in space without benefit of a ring or any other device to hold it in place. There is a gate behind it, but it is the ordinary, earth kind with hinges, not the Stargate.

Even as he watches the wormhole closes, leaving him staring at nothing. He blinks.

“Jack?” he says quietly, his voice catching a bit in his throat. He clears it and tries again, louder. “Jack? Sam? Teal’c?”

There is no answer. He is alone.

Daniel turns back around, his eyebrows doing an uncertain little dance as he looks at the face created by the flowers and buildings beyond it. He recognizes this place.

“Dorothy,” he says softly, “This is definitely not P3X587.” Unless it is P3X587, and his mind, or something else, is playing tricks on him. He takes off his glasses and rubs them on his shirt, then puts them back on and looks around. Nothing has changed.

The original of the smiling face comes bustling up, wearing huge, yellow shoes and red shorts with two large white buttons. He's beaming. "Ha-hi there! I'm Mickey. Gosh, it's great to meet you!" He holds out one spotless white glove, to be shaken. "Welcome to the Happiest Place on Earth!"

Daniel stares. Mickey Mouse. He is looking at Mickey Mouse, and it’s not some person in a costume either; this is the actual cartoon brought to life (and life-size) right in front of his eyes.

He's mad, you know," comes a voice from a nearby tree. "So am I, of course." It belongs to a large cat, which has seemingly materialized to peer down interestedly at the new arrival, with a wide grin showing rather a lot of sharp teeth.

"That's the Cheshire Cat," explains Mickey cheerfully. "Funny fella, but," he switches to a bad stage whisper, "kinda strange sometimes."

"We're all mad here," the Cat goes on, conversationally. "I'm mad. He's mad. You must be mad, or you wouldn't have come here."

“Oh God.” Daniel isn’t sure if he says it out loud or not. He’s feeling slightly panicky and he makes himself take two deep breaths and swallow carefully.

This isn’t Machello, he tells himself firmly. Those hallucinations had all been at least somewhat situated in his actual surroundings; he’d seen wormholes in his closet and corpses coming through the gate but he hadn’t ever thought himself to be anywhere else then where he actually was. Besides, Machello’s device is gone- it went into Teal’c and they used Sam’s blood to save him.* It’s okay. He isn’t crazy anymore.

He’d never been crazy.

Maybe he’s been captured. Perhaps this is some sort of virtual reality, like the Keeper’s, or an elaborate hoax like the one Hathor had tried to use on his team not long ago. Daniel doesn’t know what to think.

His attention returns to Mickey Mouse just as the cartoon-brought-to-life says something about asking him questions.

Mickey coughs theatrically. "What is your name?"

“Uh…” Jack would tell him not to say anything, maybe, but Daniel doesn’t work like that. “I’m, um… I’m Doctor Daniel Jackson. We… er, I am an explorer.” He wants to add ‘from the planet Earth’ but doesn’t. Given where he currently appears to be standing, it seems too ridiculous.

"What is your quest?" asks the Cat. It's perched, suddenly, on the roof of one of the gate-stiles.

Daniel jumps.

“My quest? Well, to learn. About…” this place, wherever it was, “people. Other cultures, other civilizations. To share knowledge.”

"'What is the average w..?'" Mickey frowns down at the notebook. "You know, I don't really see why that's important." He flips a page. "'If you could be granted three wishes, what would they be?'"

Daniel balks at this one- it’s too much mind game for his taste.

“Look,” he says, “I don’t mean to be rude, but… where am I? I mean, this place looks like Disneyland…” Or is it Disney World? Or one of the other ones? Daniel doesn’t know much about theme parks. “And who are you? Where are my friends- the others who came with me? Are they here somewhere?”

He was the first one to step through the wormhole in the ‘Gateroom, but he knows that doesn’t mean anything. For all he knows this entire thing could be one big virtual reality. Or a dream.

Or a hallucination.

"Or," the Cat says, examining its tail with interest, "if you were a genie and someone you were trying to give three wishes to was trying to trick you into giving him more, what would you say?"

This one catches Daniel’s attention, distracting him from his own questions and his sudden, slightly hysterical impulse to correct the Cheshire Cat’sgrammar.

“Well, you know, the concept of a genie living in a lamp and giving only three wishes is a very limited Western viewpoint of the Islamic jinn. There’s more than one version of the Aladdin story, and the number of wishes granted actually varies. Anyway, the idea of controlling a jinn magically by binding it to an object is accurate but it’s only a very small portion of what the jinn are considered to be.

“The jinn are said to be creatures with free will,” he continues, warming to the subject, “made of smokeless fire by God much in the same way humans were made of the metaphorical clay. In fact, according to the majority of Islamic scholars, clear evidence exists in the Qur'an that the Devil was not an angel as is thought by Christians, but a jinn...”

He pauses, suddenly fancying he sees a slight glassiness in Mickey’s cartoon-bright eyes, and feeling very awkward he drops his head and mumbles, “I’d tell him to be grateful for what he has. I’d give a lot to have my three wishes come true.” He’s not saying what they are, though.

Mickey looks rather nonplused at the next, but reads, "'When the revolution comes, what skills will you be able to barter for food?'"

“Well, I um, I dunno,” Daniel says, equally bewildered. “What revolution? I mean, it would depend… Look, I don’t even know what planet I’m on. If you could just tell me what’s going on here… I swear, I mean you no any harm, like I said, I’m an explorer and…”

The Cat rolls its eyes in a friendly (and rather disconcertingly out-of-sync) way, and asks, "Milk, dark, or white chocolate?"

Daniel’s aware that the look on his face is probably a mix of extreme confusion and utter aggravation. “All three?” he says lamely.

"'Choose the two coolest: robots, pirates, fairies, bears, ninjas, monkeys, vampires, or humans,'" says Mickey, giggling a bit as he goes through the list. "'Explain.'"

“Look, I…” Daniel’s shoulders slump suddenly and he sighs and closes his eyes. “I like fairies,” he answers. “But I tend to think of them in terms of the more ancient idea, you know, the fae of Celtic mythology, before Shakespeare introduced the modern view of pixies as tiny winged people who live in flowers and stuff. And ninjas are pretty fascinating too, if we’re talking the traditional agents of espionage and assassination which served rulers in feudal Japan.” He pauses. “Well, I guess I’d have to say humans in there… I am an archeologists after all, it’s kinda my thing.” He opens his eyes and gives a weak grin. “So humans and ninjas, I guess.”

"Great!" Mickey flips through the blank pages of the notebook at top, cartoon-y speed. "Well, I think that's just about it! Oh, and I'm supposed to ask, 'for your safety: are you carrying anything sharp?'"

“Well, I have some tools,” Daniel says slowly. “For excavating. They’re not weapons or anything. I told you, I’m not here to harm anyone, I just want to learn about your culture, your people….” he pauses. “You know, I feel really, really ridiculous trying to explain all this to a cartoon mouse.”

((*Daniel was accidentally infected with a device designed to kill Goa’uld; since he was not a host at the time the device instead caused him to experience symptoms like those of schizophrenia. He was committed to an institution before he was able to convince his friends that he was not actually crazy.))

((Dr. Daniel Jackson from the TV series “Stargate SG-1”. He’s an archeologist/anthropologist/philologist working as a civilian consultant to the U.S. Airforce on a top-secret government project. The Stargate is a large metal ring, built by an ancient civilization of aliens, which creates a wormhole between the ‘gate on Earth and those settled on other planets, allowing interstellar travel between the two points in a matter of moments. Daniel serves on SG-1, a first contact team, working as a cultural expert and liaison between Earth and the many strange people they meet on the other side of the wormhole.

One type of alien that the team has encountered are the Goa’uld, a parasitic race which lives by taking over the body of a ‘host’ (humans being preferred over other species).

Stargate is currently in its tenth season, but I am taking Daniel from early season three, right after the episode “Legacy”. For more information, see the profile.))

((For those of you from NO, I play Shadow. Also, I’m really sorry this is so long))

Comments

[always-confuzed.livejournal.com]

"We all feel ridiculous trying to do that," John says from somwhere on the side, lightly. He's been listening to this man's responses to everything and...

"Smart guy," he appraises. "We could use someone like you around here." Unfortunately, John had missed the wormhole that had caused Daniel's entrance. If he hadn't, he probably would have gotten a little hysterical.

He holds out a hand for Daniel to shake if he feels inclined. "I'm John Crichton. And I take it that you, like most of us, hadn't been planning on getting dropped off here."

[a-good-man.livejournal.com]

"Um, no. No I really didn't." Daniel answers, in the tone of voice of a man pondering a deep philosophical question. "I was expecting to end up somewhere very different." He doesn't know if he is where he intended to be or not, but the MALP had shown them a large plain with what Daniel believed to be Sarmatian style dwellings from perhaps the second or third century A.D. There is nothing the least bit Sarmatian, or second century, about this place that Daniel can see.

It's nice to see a face that at least appears un-hallucinated. Daniel gives the man a wry grimace.

"Where is 'here', exactly?"

Please don't be mad - I hope I'm not breaking any rules...

[hidden-paw.livejournal.com]

"There's a fair few theories on that." Remarks Macavity, from behind him. He walks around into the man line of vision, counting off the points on his claws as he goes. "Firstly, and most likely, we've somehow all somehow been selected and stolen from our respective worlds into a kind of pocket dimension, secondly, that we've all died and this is some rather odd version of limbo or hell, and thirdly that we're all completely insane and this is some bizarre collective dream that the cat and rat have contructed to keep us mad. As I said, the first one appears to be most likely...."

He looks up, green eyes glinting slyly. "What do you think?"

No worries!

[a-good-man.livejournal.com]

Daniel realizes belatedly that the man, John Crichton, has offered his hand and is about to shake it when the strange cat creature comes up behind him and starts talking. He jumps just a bit.

He watches the creature curiously as it speaks, fascinated by this new being.

“Well, it doesn’t resemble any kind of limbo I’ve every read about,” he answers thoughtfully, “and there are quite a few. I wouldn’t imagine limbo would be this… specific to Earth, either, if you know what I mean. A collective madness or dream seems unlikely... it could be a collective illusion I suppose, but if you want to talk insanity I think it would make more sense that one of us is crazy and all the others, including them” he waves his hand vaguely to indicate Mickey and the Cat, “are simply figments of that one person’s imagination.”

He shrugs.

“I’ve experienced some pretty impressive virtual realities before… powerful enough to recreate memories and allow many people to interact and influence events. But I’ve also experienced alternate dimensions… so either seems plausible.”

As long as he takes the scholarly approach he’s okay; as long as he doesn’t think about the implications of his theories, he won’t panic. instead He squints at the cat-man.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what type of being are you?”

[always-confuzed.livejournal.com]

"He's a Catman," John says with an easy dismissiveness, as though it's the most obvious thing in the world. He knew that Macavity wasn't, but he didn't know if he should overwork the poor guy with words like 'Jellicle' at the moment. The new guest is clearly someone who does a lot of thinking about every little detail, and he might overload the genius. John is not at all offended that Doctor Jackson doesn't shake his hand. Guy looks like he's on his last leg as far as sanity is concerned, and he can relate.

He's grateful that Mac gave Daniel the list of possibilities, since he hasn't heard them all himself. "And the first possibility does seem most likely, unless you like believing that limbo has roller coasters and chocolate, or you hallucinate people you've never met before." Which would be strange in his book. His delusions tended to hit rather close to home. Like Crais dressed in a cop uniform and heels with a tiny white dog...

[a-good-man.livejournal.com]

A Catman? The comment is so O’Neill-like that Daniel gives him the ‘Jack-I’m-trying-to-be-serious-and-you’re-not-helping’ look before he even realizes he’s done it. He nods at the rest of what John says, however.

“But if we’ve all been selected and brought here, then the question remains as to ‘how’ and ‘why’. I mean, I think I was in the midst of going somewhere else and somehow got… er, re-routed here.” This is assuming, of course, that he hasn’t gone crazy and isn’t being manipulated in some way and that the people and things around him are ‘real’ in the basic sense of the word. “But… I really don’t see how that’s possible…”

He takes off his glasses and squinches his eyes shut, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“I wish Sam were here,” he says, more to himself than to the others. “She’d at least have some theories or something…”

[bestdigger.livejournal.com]

An archaeologist! Wonderful! Indy would be very pleased. Sallah bows. "Greetings, sir. My name is Sallah. It is a pleasure to meet a colleague in the field of archaeology."

[a-good-man.livejournal.com]

Daniel turns to look at the man. His clothes are not modern (1940's or '50's, Daniel guesses) but the accent is unmistakable. "Hello," he says, and then, smoothly in Arabic, "I am pleased to meet you, Sallah. Where are you from?"

The language is familiar and comforting, reminding him, as it always does, of his childhood and of post-graduate digs. He's missed it these past four years.

[bestdigger.livejournal.com]

Sallah looks astonished at first, then grins broadly. "How wonderful!" he exclaims, also in Arabic. "It is a joy to hear my native language spoken once again. I am from Cairo. Have you spent time there, then?"

[a-good-man.livejournal.com]

Daniel finds himself smiling too; the man’s good humor is rather infectious, in spite of the situation.

“I was born in Cairo,” he exclaims. “My parents were both archeologists… we lived all over Egypt until I was seven and they decided to move back to the United States so that I could go to school there. I’ve always rather thought of Egypt as home.” At least until Abydos. He smiles, more wistfully than he realizes. “I miss it.”

“But you said you were also in archeology?” he continues, returning to the original subject.

[bestdigger.livejournal.com]

Sallah's practically bouncing. "Your parents? What are their names? I may know of them. I am an excavator, and have worked with quite a few archaeologists on many a site."

And of course, he knows almost anything and anyone worth knowing in the archaeology and antiquities business in Egypt in the 1930s, but he's not enough of a braggart to announce that fact. At least not right away.

[a-good-man.livejournal.com]

Sometimes, Daniel is required to do a lot of fast thinking. This is one of those times.

Taking things at face value, he appears to have been thrown in with a bunch of different people… beings… from various places and various times. Sallah probably is from the forties.

But the man has now found himself in a replica of Disney Land surrounded by humans from all different eras (apparently) and beings that are very clearly not human as long as he doesn’t tell Sallah about specific future events that could change they way he would otherwise have acted, Daniel doesn’t think he can do much more damage than has already been done. And they’d told Hammond that they were from the future.

“I um, don’t think they were there in your time…” he says slowly. “I’m pretty sure my Dad started his own work in 1955, and my met my mom a year or two after that… They probably didn’t get really established until almost the sixties.” He winces a little and waits for a reaction.

[goes-lightly.livejournal.com]

Holly blinks and leans in close, looking very curious indeed. "Our people?" she echoes. "I think we're all different kinds of people, darling. It's really the strangest thing! There are so many different sorts here, you wouldn't believe it."

[a-good-man.livejournal.com]

"Oh, I um... yeah, I'm beginning to understand that," Daniel replies. "I wasn't sure where I was, at first." Actually, I still have no idea.

He has a million questions and can think of hardly any plausible answers. These people seem human except for the one cat-like being, their clothes are from several different eras, and yet they all appear at least somewhat comfortable with each other and their situation. He wishes he knew what planet he is on.

Also, this woman looks exactly like Audrey Hepburn. He tries not to think about it.

"Um, my name's Daniel," he finally says, offering his hand uncertainly.

[goes-lightly.livejournal.com]

"Oh, neither was I," says Holly, somewhat understandingly. "I just walked into my apartment and then here I was. It was the absolute oddest thing, darling."

When he offers his hand, Holly takes it and grips it daintily, giving it a little shake. "Pleased to meet you," she purrs. "I'm Holly. Holly Golightly."

[a-good-man.livejournal.com]

"Sure," Daniel says vaguely in response to her 'pleased to meet you,' his mind already preoccupied with what she said before.

"So you were just here?" he asks. "You didn't, um, walk through anything or see uh, a flash of light or some sort of strange object? A mirror maybe?"

In his head he's going through all the ways he knows of to accidentally end up somewhere you didn't intend to be, but he's uncertain how much he should say to this woman. She could be an innocent bystander of a large plot, in which case she probably shouldn't talk to much about alien technology, or she might be an enemy of some sort trying to get information from him, in which case he needed to be careful not to reveal any information that might jeopardize the SGC and Earth.

[goes-lightly.livejournal.com]

"That's right," Holly tells him, smiling. "It was rather frightening at first, really, but..." For someone who'd been frightened, she didn't sound unhappy. "I just opened a door and stepped inside and I was here. And Cat was here with me, although he's wandered off somewhere right now." She craned her head around, looking for Cat, before turning back to Daniel.

"How did you get here?"

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

((Yay Shadow! *squee* ahem. :D))

"It's the original Disneyland," drawls Crowley from his usual spot, leaning comfortably against a wall. "Or a replica thereof. Unless Anaheim was eaten by the Nothing. Can't rule anything out, I guess."

[a-good-man.livejournal.com]

(Hiya!)

Okay, so maybe it doesn’t matter in the large scheme of things whether his hallucinations are based off of a park in California or one in Florida, but Daniel’s irrationally grateful for the information anyway.

“I thought it was Disney Land,” he says weakly, “but I wasn’t sure. You know, I did my undergraduate studies at UCLA and never managed to make it to Disney Land.”

He blinks, and then asks; "the... Nothing?"

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

Crowley smiles and stands. "All work and no play, etcetera. But I hope you're not a dull boy."

He shrugs. "Yeah, the Nothing. It's from a crappy movie that came out a few years ago. It was an... anti-entity, I guess you could say, that absorbed and destroyed a whole world. But don't worry about it. We're probably not dealing with the same thing here. Not that much has disappeared since I arrived."

[a-good-man.livejournal.com]

“Well, that would depend upon what one considers dull, I suppose,” Daniel says mildly. It isn't the first time he's had that particular saying quoted at him.

He nods his head at the man's explanation, then suddenly his eyes widen.

“Oh! Wait, I think I know that one. The Never Ending Story, right?” He’d read the book, Die Unendliche Geschichte a few years after it came out, during his first summer at college while he was teaching himself German. He’d forgotten it had been turned into a movie... now he thinks he remembers hearing that Michael Ende had been quite disappointed in it.

He’s pretty sure the movie came out in the mid eighties, though…

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

"Indeed it would. Everything is relative, of course."

Crowley nods. "That's the one. Special effects were all right. Nothing compared to that new one, though. Terminator 2." He grins. He likes that movie.

[mickey-mous.livejournal.com]

"Well, all righty, Daniel. Do ya know what excitin' land you'd like to live in?" asks Mickey cheerfully.

[a-good-man.livejournal.com]

"No, not really," Daniel says forlornly. All he really wants is to end up somewhere that doesn't make him question his sanity every time he opens his eyes in the morning. He wonders if that is too much to ask.

A sudden thought occurs to him.

"Maybe... Adventureland?" He knows Sallah lives there, anyway, and Sallah is friendly and in archeology and Daniel hasn't threatened to shoot him or any of his friends.

Of course feel free to put him wherever you like, lol. Though I’m pretty sure Toontown would break his brain.

[mickey-mous.livejournal.com]

((Toon Town breaks everyone's brain. Except Mickey's, of course. :D))

Mickey considers this for a moment. "Okie-dokie. You're our newest resident of Adventureland, then. Your mail will go to Daniel (http://community.livejournal.com/dizzy_land/tag/daniel). Welcome to the Happiest Place on Earth!"