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abyssinia4077, who turns 26 today! In honor of this momentous event, sg_fignewton organized a whole ficlet-a-thon! In record time she got fics from 20+ authors to compile Sam Carter, A to Z. It was great fun; I snagged E and also K. Thanks sg_fignewton for setting all this up, and again, have a wonderful Birthday Abyssis!
E is for Entropic Cascade Failure (300 words)
It was unexplainable. The more Sam thought about it, spending quality time with her alternate self, the harder it was to ignore. It was more than just the longer hair, or the non-military career choice or the . . . well, frankly non-sensical marital choice . . . that set them apart. Physically, at the basic level of atoms and molecules, they were not the same person.
The sheer volume of random coincidences needed to preserve enough equivalent molecules to explain entropic cascade failure of the alternate's body in the presence of Sam's was patently, statistically and scientifically ridiculous. The human body was a matter-energy machine, constantly changing. They would have had to have lived in exactly the same places, eaten exactly the same food, with a similar enough metabolic rate and schedule over the course of a lifetime to keep the same molecules as they grew.
And yet, flying in the face of these staggering odds, her double still convulsed, her body tearing itself apart for no good reason other than that she was Sam Carter, and in this universe that role was already taken. If she thought too hard about it, Sam was sure that the notion would go past intriguing and straight to terrifying. She took solace in science, not souls.
Some people had God, some had Buddha, karma or the collective unconsciousness. Sam had Carl Sagan, and a revelation of five words.
"We are made of star-stuff."
She remembered staring up at pinprick flickers in the sky as a teenager, wondering which one her molecules had come from, and where they would go after she died. To this day she had no idea what the pastor had said at her mother's funeral. She didn't ask Samantha what she remembered in her timeline; after all, they did have a universe to save.
****
K is for Kelowna (200 words)
Even with security blocking their path, Sam saw the med-tech instruct Daniel in bandaging his own hand before ushering him away. After that, while the Kelownans postured, the Colonel impugned and Teal'c loomed, Sam sat on a hard chair outside a haphazard office, notebook on her knees, and did the math.
For a moment her world was a magnification of constituent pieces-- the paper bright white, blue lines washed out in the glare, black ink scrawled in trembling, hasty script. But the number reasserted itself, and numbers didn't lie.
Oh, Daniel, she thought briefly. Then she caught Tomis' gaze lingering on her before sliding away as he argued across the table with the Colonel, and a white-hot fury took hold inside her.
He knew. He knew, he was counting on the fact that they didn't, and by God, Daniel deserved better than that.
In two steps she was across the room, cauterizing the conversation with the slap of notebook hitting table. She saw the flash of hope sour in the Colonel's eyes as he read her face.
"Compassionate grounds," she said, unleashing the mute rage of that calculation on the Kelownan. "Or do I have to explain this to you?"
abyssinia4077, who turns 26 today! In honor of this momentous event, sg_fignewton organized a whole ficlet-a-thon! In record time she got fics from 20+ authors to compile Sam Carter, A to Z. It was great fun; I snagged E and also K. Thanks sg_fignewton for setting all this up, and again, have a wonderful Birthday Abyssis!E is for Entropic Cascade Failure (300 words)
It was unexplainable. The more Sam thought about it, spending quality time with her alternate self, the harder it was to ignore. It was more than just the longer hair, or the non-military career choice or the . . . well, frankly non-sensical marital choice . . . that set them apart. Physically, at the basic level of atoms and molecules, they were not the same person.
The sheer volume of random coincidences needed to preserve enough equivalent molecules to explain entropic cascade failure of the alternate's body in the presence of Sam's was patently, statistically and scientifically ridiculous. The human body was a matter-energy machine, constantly changing. They would have had to have lived in exactly the same places, eaten exactly the same food, with a similar enough metabolic rate and schedule over the course of a lifetime to keep the same molecules as they grew.
And yet, flying in the face of these staggering odds, her double still convulsed, her body tearing itself apart for no good reason other than that she was Sam Carter, and in this universe that role was already taken. If she thought too hard about it, Sam was sure that the notion would go past intriguing and straight to terrifying. She took solace in science, not souls.
Some people had God, some had Buddha, karma or the collective unconsciousness. Sam had Carl Sagan, and a revelation of five words.
"We are made of star-stuff."
She remembered staring up at pinprick flickers in the sky as a teenager, wondering which one her molecules had come from, and where they would go after she died. To this day she had no idea what the pastor had said at her mother's funeral. She didn't ask Samantha what she remembered in her timeline; after all, they did have a universe to save.
****
K is for Kelowna (200 words)
Even with security blocking their path, Sam saw the med-tech instruct Daniel in bandaging his own hand before ushering him away. After that, while the Kelownans postured, the Colonel impugned and Teal'c loomed, Sam sat on a hard chair outside a haphazard office, notebook on her knees, and did the math.
For a moment her world was a magnification of constituent pieces-- the paper bright white, blue lines washed out in the glare, black ink scrawled in trembling, hasty script. But the number reasserted itself, and numbers didn't lie.
Oh, Daniel, she thought briefly. Then she caught Tomis' gaze lingering on her before sliding away as he argued across the table with the Colonel, and a white-hot fury took hold inside her.
He knew. He knew, he was counting on the fact that they didn't, and by God, Daniel deserved better than that.
In two steps she was across the room, cauterizing the conversation with the slap of notebook hitting table. She saw the flash of hope sour in the Colonel's eyes as he read her face.
"Compassionate grounds," she said, unleashing the mute rage of that calculation on the Kelownan. "Or do I have to explain this to you?"
