Daniel Jackson's Journal
August 15, 2003
Hak'tyl

Karen Greim Mullian
©January 2004

I spoke with Nesa this afternoon, Nieth's younger sister. She asked me about my glasses, and I let her try them on. She thinks I'm "in need of a symbiote." When I declined the recommendation, she thought it was because I disapprove of the Hak'tyl women using symbiotes for healing. I could only tell her that it's far more complicated than that.

The very fact that she was born female means that she's lucky to be alive at all. She is a sweet young girl who deserves every chance to grow up free and strong. I wanted to tell her why it's important that she not be implanted with a Gould, but she's much too young to understand. And to be honest, I'm not sure it's my place. She should be permitted to make up her own mind. I do know that to see yet another young life turned into a Gould junkie, for lack of a better expression, sickens me.

While Sha're was alive, while there was still a hope we might find her, I fought the Gould relentlessly to save her. After Sha're's death and her son's ascension, I came to believe I had failed in my mission. I hadn't saved my wife, I couldn't protect Shifu. When all was said and done, I had accomplished nothing with my life. That was why I was content to follow Oma Desala. I thought I had a chance to do more. But the rules were too hard for me to live up to, and my friends continued to fight without me. At the time all I could do was be there for them, but I know now that the path I chose was never really open to me. The battle raged around me, and I was powerless to do anything more than comfort those in distress –– no small thing, to be sure, but I know I was meant to do more than that.

This ongoing war against the enemies of Earth and the galaxy holds less personal gain for me now, yet is no less significant because of that. Every time we prevent a larval Gould from being implanted in a child, every time we save a host from being blended, it is yet another preemptive strike against the Gould. It is so hard to make those who believe themselves dependent on the Gould for their very survival realize that there is a way for them to be free. The things I have seen done by innocent hosts and by Jaffa in the name of their false gods, the atrocities I can only imagine that Sha're had to participate in make me sick to my stomach. I rage in impotence at the violence and destruction caused for the sake of unending power.

There remain so many of them, and there are so few of us. Even knowing that the Gould are not gods has brought few Jaffa into the fight. They believe that the Tau'ri would rob them of their strength –– of life itself –– by denying them symbiotes. The Tok'ra grow fewer everyday. Soon it will be only the Tau'ri who are left to do battle with the Gould. The nightmare that haunts me almost every night is that I myself will be taken and made unwillingly to go to war against those I love. I sleep constantly with Iron Shirt's bone necklace under my pillow or in my backpack. I know it's irrational, but keeping it nearby makes me feel somehow protected.

Jack thinks Anubis is the greatest threat we've ever faced, but I have this nagging feeling that we will have little to fear from him in the end. I can't explain, but I know –– I just know –– that the Gould are simply sitting back waiting for us to be preoccupied with Anubis. And when we least expect it, when our resources are depleted from fighting his Super Soldier, as Sam has dubbed it, then, like The Conqueror in 1066, some new powerful Gould will rear its ugly head and attack us when we are too vulnerable to strike back. I've tried to tell Jack that we have to think beyond this battle, that there's something even worse out there just waiting like a jackal to finish us off, and all he can say is, "And you know this how?" Trouble is, I don't know how I know. I just do.

All I do know is that if I can find some way to convince Nesa that taking a symbiote isn't the only way to become a great warrior, then I have to try. And if I can stop this blind obedience in the soul of one child, then it really doesn't matter what else might happen to me.