The Dirt of Sowing and Reaping

Fanfiction
Title:	The Dirt of Sowing and Reaping
Author(s):	Salieri
Date(s):	2004
Length:
Genre:
Fandom:	Stargate: SG-1
External Links:	The Dirt of Sowing and Reaping
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The Dirt of Sowing and Reaping is a Jack/Daniel/Sam Carter story by Salieri.

Reactions and Reviews

Best FF That Reminds Us of Humanity's Most Enduring Traits: Fortitude, Duplicity, and Really Inventive Obscenities. The Dirt of Sowing and Reaping, by Salieri, aka troyswann. Stargate SG-1, Jack O'Neill/Daniel Jackson/Sam Carter.

Remember how I said there would be happiness and buoyancy and just a hint of baby vomit? Well, this doesn't have the baby vomit, but it does have the happy ending; you just have to get through the destruction of the world at the beginning. But you know what? So worth it. I think one of the reasons SG1 writers like to destroy the world/strand their characters/otherwise introduce a downer note is that they like to play with the characters outside the very restrictive trappings of their canonical life. The uniforms are shiny, yes, and so is the naquadah, but it all comes with regulations and ethics and responsibilities and duties. Turns out it's hard to make a happy ending for a relationship without destroying all that first. (Don't take that to mean that world destruction guarantees a happy ending in this fandom, either; I'm only saying that you usually have to go through the pain to get to the pleasure, not that the pleasure isn't sometimes, um, strictly artistic.) So sometimes the world has to take one for the team, or the team have to get off the world, and that is of course tragic and all that. But in this story - well. Remember how I've said I came to FF from SF? One of the reasons I stick with Stargate is that so often I read the stories and think, "That could've been in Analog." Well, this story made me think, "This could've been in The Year's Best Science Fiction," because it is just that good and multi-layered and wonderfully written and science fictiony. Brilliant characterizations, amazingly authentic city and culture and world, descriptions like pictures in your head. Isn't a story like that worth a teeny, offscreen, Goa'uld-intensive apocalypse? No, you say? Well, but Salieri also throws in the world's least likely kid, a kid that could only exist in SG, and then somehow makes him seem so very real. Still not enough? Sam, Jack, and Daniel make marvelous parents, and are so very much themselves. The world ended, but they just got - distilled. And apparently raising a child is one more thing they do best as a team, and raising this child is one more saving-the-world-by-the-skin-of-their-asses challenge that no one could pull off but them. Still not enough? Well, did I mention the sex?

A mysterious small boy appears in the gateroom and SG-1 finds themselves four days in the future, on a roadside in a Goa'uld-decimated Earth with the boy at their sides. Soon Teal'c is forced to offer his services to the local Goa'uld-approved warlord in exchange for tretonin while Jack, Sam and Daniel, along with the boy, pose as a family unit and try to survive. But it's SG-1, so they can't stop trying to overthrow the Goa'uld powers that have taken over Earth. Meet Michael, a boy who only grows stranger as he ages and who SG-1 is devoted to protecting as one of their own. In an intricately created post-apocalyptic world SG-1's survival skills shine and Michael is the most visible of a handful of original characters created for this tightly plotted story. The final reveal of Michael's origins makes the story that much more powerful. Read this for the complex world Salieri creates, for SG-1 bonding tightly to each other, for Jack's resistance, Daniel's attempts to preserve writing and the past, Sam's engineering and Teal'c's loyalty. And read it for Salieri's breath-taking use of language and for a wonderful look at how far SG-1 will go for those they care about and to save the world.

The language in this fic is beautiful and haunting, as is the apocalyptic post-Goa'uld defeated Earth that is its setting. It's heartbreaking because of SG-1's helplessness, but there's as happy an ending as there can be.