Though he didn’t enjoy the pain of having his cybernetics implanted, he couldn’t argue that they did not work, in fact, they worked even better than intended. Just last year he was given a chance to finally be able to use his magic without having to resort to painful guidance and agonizingly slow response. The plan was he would stay in Canterlot for a year and be trained by Princess Celestia herself to help him gain control of his magic, unfortunately, he had to be taught in a different way as his mana would gather too much and cause the spell to either fizzle or sometimes violently discharge. As far as Celestia knew, only her and her sister had to be taught in this special training, but that was due to them being alicorns, not because their magic was unpredictable and highly unstable. That little tidbit had given him a queasy feeling inside, and to top it off when she took a sample of his blood they found that it contained a living, liquid version of the same material the stargate was made of, and it was feeding off his energy and multiplying like crazy, on top of that, the organism accelerated it’s multiplying tenfold when near an active stargate, leaving him with excruciating pain in his back and muscles the longer he is near one. To numb the pain, Plasma Stream was given a series of cybernetic replacements in his body to administer stimulants and painkillers when he goes on his first off-world mission, and upon her personal request, was given a multitude of other implants with which to further enhance his body or hide a useful, but compact, tool, hence the Cybernetic Stargate program began. The first few enhancements were centered in and on his head, replacing his normal eyes with 360 degree sensors able to translate their data into optical, thermal, electromagnetic, and ultraviolet light, but due to the unsettling appearance of having no eyes, they added in an eyeball-like scanner to replace his left eye and replaced his right one with a similar-looking cutting beam. His arm and leg muscles were replaced with synthetic derivatives, hydraulic jacks and electrical servos, which brought on the need for stronger materials to replace his bones. For this, they replaced his entire bone structure with a titanide-diamond composite reinforced with a titanium brace and had a core of moonstone, aka mythril. His index and middle fingers were hollowed out to make room for a canister of high-explosive aerosol held under extremely high pressure, his ring fingers were equipped with tiny cutting/welding torches and his pinkie fingers had small emergency charges in them in case his main power source was brought offline. At this moment, he was practicing some of the more advanced spells Celestia had taught him, while using the tricks he had learned himself and gained through careful attention to Celestia’s teachings, one of them was to limit how much mana he used in spells. This allowed him to figure out how much magic he would use in the spell and portion it out in spoonfulls, the downside is that he has to use a special draining spell to keep his mana kept within his body every two weeks, otherwise it has some extremely unsettling and destructive side effects. As a thanks to his effort, he managed to temper his body to be able to withhold it’s mana for another two weeks. Months felt like weeks, weeks felt like days, he was growing more and more patient each day thanks to his self-training in meditation and puzzles that require a patient, scrutinizing gaze to complete, however his excitement was slowly undoing the careful training. This excitement stems from going on his first off-world mission, which also happened to be the day the first Equestrian Stargate Team would be sent through, and by soon it would be tomorrow. Also coming through the gate with him are twins Mecha and Slugga, See Four, Deadshot, Boom Stick, and Twilight Sparkle, the first five augmented in their respective fields. With the big day in his head, he stopped for the night, undressed and clambered into bed for some sleep…
Though the alarm clock he had made one of the worst sounds and he had to wake up at 4am, his autonomous regeneration sequencer helped with any maintenance his body had to go through, leaving the only thing that had to recuperate was his mind, which needed at least a 4 hour break from all sensory input. Getting out of bed and taking a quick shower, he recalled the words she told him when he accepted her offer, “your team will make history and bring changes to equestrian society that makes the uniting of the three pony tribes look like foal’s play” and finished his shower. With that goal in his mind, he stepped out and took a look at some of the most recent implants; his body shone with a silvery sheen that gave away their cybernetic make, but the fur was growing back, and the sides of his head had a series of gray lines running from the back of his skull to his forehead, most of them were covered by his mane but the millions of micro-emitters could translate what was covered by it. He grabbed a spare uniform from the closet and put it on with practiced speed and jogged to Stargate Command, passing Twilight along the way, but she seemed engrossed in something obviously interesting enough to not notice him. He continued on until he came upon the control room, where he found his teammates, minus Twilight, were with Princesses Celestia and Luna looking down into the gate-room, the two sisters looking anxiously at the gate, and then turning to face him. Luna looked at him with a giddy excitement, while Celestia looked with at him with a certain apprehensiveness, which is understandable, as she is throwing both of her students into the fire without any safety lines to save them should things go south. Looking over to Luna, Stream asked “why do you look like a foal being dropped into a candy store with 100 bits?”
“Because this is our chance to test out some new pieces of equipment we have been testing!”
“Such as?”
“Lots of things, we have developed a unique type of transport that does not require a pair of guards to hook themselves up to make it work, and it comes equipped with several new technologies, some of them are for surveillance, some are more… warlike”
“Please explain what you mean by ‘warlike’”
“We will admit that there are weapons aboard the vehicle”
“How many weapons?”
“It’s not how many, but what weapons are in here”
“Alright, what weapons did you put into it?”
“We have put two heavy weapons, both fire very large caliber slugs from a magnetic rail system incorporated into the barrel, however, one has multiple barrels and is optimized for anti-personnel duties, while the other fires a single, very fast slug, and is most useful against vehicles that do not have armor thicker than a meter and are shield less.”
“So, basically one tears apart lightly armored targets while the other makes a really deep and wide hole”
“Yes”
“Anything else?”
“Yes, there are three other types of weapons, one fires a plasma shotgun, which is for your CQC specialist, another is a sniper rifle that fires with an equal amount of force as the anti-armor weapon, and the final one, well, two, are assault rifles, they fire 1200 rounds per minute and have a ninety round clip, but what really makes them shine are their ability to be taken apart and put back together, like those plastic bricks the foals like to play with so much”
“Ah, those things, sounds like I could tailor them into anything I’d like”
“You would be correct, the weapons are part of a series called X”
“Why call it X?”
“X was a codename for Experimental, as we have never developed weapons of this grade, we do not know how they will work in the field”
“Oh, great, first the scientists stuff me full of experimental tech then they give me X series weapons”
“Should you bring back any technology, anything whatsoever, we will grant you access to the first reverse-engineered items of its type, if they work as intended, they will be sent to other Gate Teams”
“So I take it we’re GT-1?”
“That is correct, Colonel”
“Woah, woah, hold on there a second, Colonel?”
“Yes, We thought Celestia discussed this with you”
“She never mentioned I would be put in military ranks though”
“You’re not; you’re in a new branch of the government we classified as ‘System Exploration and Defense’”
“Defense, from what?”
“Have you heard of a race called the Goa’uld?”
“Yes, I remember them fondly when they entered my house and killed my father”
“Those weren’t Goa’uld themselves, they call themselves Jaffa, which for the Saddle-Arabians, means Slave or Servant, so they were forced to work for the Goa’uld”
“Might I ask what Goa’uld menas?”
“Goa’uld means Children of the gods, or simply God”
“Ah, great, sound like a lovely bunch”
“Stop being sarcastic, they are no laughing matter”
“Really?”
“Yes, they killed 400 residents in one hour, but us and our sister managed to repel them before they could do any more damage”
“So if they were beaten once, why haven’t they returned?”
“We do not know, that is why we want you and your team to find out”
“So, you want me to go into enemy territory and find out what they’re planning to do with us or find some tech that can help us against them?”
“Correct”
“Why do I get the feeling this is a suicide mission…”
“Because it is extremely likely they will recognize you and attempt to capture you for study”
“I would love to see them try”
“They have weapons so advanced we cannot even discern how to take them apart yet, so far all that we learned is from field-use of them by the Jaffa, who used them to great effectiveness when they came from the sky”
“What kind of weapons are we talking about here?”
“They have staffs that seem to fire balls of unstable energy that emit large amounts of heat when they make contact with an object, such as you or a piece of metal, and we do not know what the other one does”
“Ouch”
“Yeah, We would not advise you to get hit by either of them”
“Well, the more we piss around here the more likely the Goa’uld will be prepared to attack this place”
“Right, ah, Twilight Sparkle, you’re finally here, go get ready Plasma, we will introduce your team to your transportation in ten minutes”
“Right, you heard the lady people, let’s move!”
