The(questionable) burdens of leadership of a troll Emperor by Noodlehammer

Chapter 9

Thor, Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet was...intrigued.

He hadn't known what to expect from this planet, but this was not it.

For one, the population of the planet below him(named Erius according to his databanks), was smaller than he had thought it would be, numbering at just under two million. That was an astonishingly low number for a civilization that was willing to make enemies of the Goa'uld. Stranger still, the large variety of skin pigmentations they sported clearly indicated that much of this number had come from the raiding that had brought him here in the first place, which meant that the population had been absurdly tiny when the whole thing had started.

Even stranger, they were very technologically primitive. Too primitive to have managed to strike at the Goa'uld so effectively and for so long without detection. Too primitive to have even learned how to work the stargate really.

This was the point that intrigued Thor so much actually. He observed several instances of Goa'uld technology being used in an almost cavalier fashion, as if was not at all odd for an agrarian society to have plasma and disruptor weaponry. Soldiers trained their accuracy with zat'nik'tel disruptors while others nearby trained with blades, a most bizzare juxtaposition. Even stranger had been the sight of a soldier helping a group of farmers clear land with a ma'tok staff weapon.

Certainly a new use for the weapon.

Clearly those in power were not concerning themselves with hoarding the advanced weaponry they had no doubt looted from the Goa'uld, nor were they bothering to keep up the lie about there being anything magical about the technology. It was the only thing that could explain such widespread usage of it.

They were hoarding other things though. Near the stargate, his ship's sensors had detected a large building full of raw naquadah ore, discarded suits of Jaffa armor, the cut up remains of ship hulls and various other odds and ends that they had no immediate use for.

There was only one item on the entire planet that could have been used to cut those hulls apart and it left Thor baffled.

Judging by it's dimensions it was a curved sword sharpened to a mono-molecular edge. It was in the possession of a female soldier, obviously a ranking officer of some sort based on her positioning in front of the others. But that didn't make any sense, as the sword itself seemed to be made of a fairly unremarkable steel alloy. Any blade sharpened so finely would become easily damaged unless the material it was made of was of incredible durability, yet this was not the case. According to his sensors, the blade was in pristine condition, as if newly made. In fact, it was so perfect that Thor doubted if even the Asgard could have managed to do it any better.

How such a weapon could have been made on a planet where they still used hammers, tongs and anvils to shape metal was beyond his understanding. He supposed that it could have been apropriated elsewhere, but then how was it maintained?

There were also several other things that did not add up in his mind. Though primitive, there were signs of rapid development. Too rapid.

Left to their own devices, humans tended to advance very slowly at first, but once it gained momentum, it would continue getting faster. This would also bring about a more reasonable and mature outlook on the world, form which would follow advancement in social structure.

What he saw here was a good example of a human culture that had just barely started advancing technologically, but had too many characteristics of a more socially advanced civilization to be natural.

Societies at this level of development should have seen children as free labor, yet he clearly saw them going to what were no doubt schools, which could only mean that education was compulsory. That was a trait that belonged to a far more advanced society.