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

Chapter 24

To answer many of you, no I have not forgotten about Anubis.

The Wraith and Ori will be making appearances as well, but things will get concluded a lot faster than they did with the Goa'uld. A lot of that is due to the fact that the Empire is already established and powerful and some of it is simply because there is a lot less wiggle room for any politicking with those two factions.

I think I've answered all non-plot related questions through PM's already, though I have a feeling I've missed something.

Well, onwards with the chapter!

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With the death of the System Lords and the subsequent collapse of the Goa'uld Hegemony, things began to progress swiftly.

The Celestial Empire found itself at peace for the first time in its existence. This didn't really impact the civilians since the war against the Goa'uld had never touched them, but the military found itself undergoing some changes.

Pacifist groups began to lobby for the Empire to demilitarize, citing the lack of need for the large army it currently fielded.

Naruto and Xanna agreed to do so once all of Creation was explored and deemed to be empty of threats, spawning equal amounts of laughter and outrage, depending on who you asked.

Still, with no enemies to fight at the moment, the focus was shifted towards exploration and uplifting/assimilating the scattered tribes of humanity that dotted the galaxy. As there was no threat of attack from the Goa'uld, the Empire no longer tried to coerce people to leave their homeworlds and resettle on an already established imperial world. That only still happened with particularly belligerent populations that operated under stupid and /or barbaric laws and were deemed to be in need of an attitude adjustment.

Over a dozen bases were built on otherwise empty worlds that were meant to serve the purpose of using the stargates to explore the galaxy in the same manner as the SGC. This caused a sudden upswing in the need for explorers, ambassadors, diplomats and orators. The roles were filled quickly, as there had been many people waiting impatiently for the Goa'uld problem to be removed so that they could get to it. Only people that made themselves useful got access to the Empire's best stuff, so there was never any shortage of manpower for the various projects that Naruto and Xanna had going. Large portions of the Black Clan joined these bases as well, eager for adventure and excitement as they were now that there were no more Goa'uld to kill.

On the Earth front, the SGC found itself encountering the Celestial Empire more and more often with every passing day. No longer kept occupied by the war against the Goa'uld, the Empire put all of its resources into exploration and assimilation. Seeing as they had every stargate address that the SGC did and then some as well as some actual intelligence on the state of the galaxy, it started becoming a rarity for SGC personnel to visit a planet that hadn't yet been visited by the Empire and even if they did, it usually didn't take long for them to show up.

This was very frustrating for both the SGC and their superiors in Washington, but they could hardly tell the Empire to back off and stop exploring. For one thing, they didn't want to antagonize them and for another, they would definitely be ignored.

As a result of both that and the defeat of the Goa'uld , the Senate Appropriations Committee finally had the excuse they needed to make massive cuts to their budget, though they hadn't managed to shut the whole program down. The number of SG teams were reduced and the amount of trips through the gate greatly lowered.

On a more personal note, Teal'c also left SG-1 to return to his family and people. Carter spent more and more time on the science part of the job and Jack unsuccessfully tried to help Hammond convince the Washington bean counters to increase their budget again. SG-1 wasn't officially disbanded, but they didn't really go on missions together anymore.