Looking for help with a Criminal Minds/SG-1 casefic

[beatrice_otter]

So I have a Criminal Minds/SG-1 fic I'm writing, and there's a case, and I need the Criminal Minds characters read into (at least a tiny bit of) the Stargate Program because Plot.

Why, that is easy! you say.  Have the SGC need the BAU to do a profile!  Except that, in the story as written, all the SGC needs is the case file.  Once they have that, they can look through properties belonging to corporations and people suspected of Trust ties until they find the right one.  And, in canon, they just call up to their friends in the White House and the FBI/Police/ATF/Whoever has to bend and spread 'em.  I need something more involved where, to find the Trust base, they need BAU help.

I would love someone to read what I've got and suggest ideas, or even just bounce ideas here on DW.

Casefic stuff as written in the current draft: the police figures out there's something weird going on in some deaths of junkies, and asks for a BAU consult.  BAU figures there's something weird going on but can't figure out what it means.  (The Trust is kidnapping homeless women, getting them clean, and implanting them with fertilized eggs with the Ancient gene, so they can experiment on them later and breed for stronger genes.  When the surrogates prove troublesome, they stage an overdose on the street.)  The SGC, independently, has figured out the Trust is Up To Something, and is sending out feelers, and caught wind of this and thinks it's connected.  They get the information from the BAU, then check places in the area where corporations with Trust connections have "empty" buildings, find the one that's not empty, and raid it.  I need the BAU to be in on the raid and aware of the genetic experimenting/forced surrogacy.  But I can't come up with a complication that works and would realistically need BAU help enough that the SGC would be willing to brief them in on even a little piece of the story.

Comments

[muccamukk]

Which BAU team? I can actually see Gideon stonewalling until they cough up some information. Just flat out refusing to share files, and I don't care if the President calls. I can't see Hotch or Rossi doing that as much though.

[beatrice_otter]

It's actually just Rossi and Morgan, trying to figure out if there's enough of a case to justify bringing the rest of the BAU in. (They know there's something there, this pattern is weird. They just can't get a handle on it.)

[muccamukk]

Okay. I can't see either of them stonewalling like that. Hmmmm.

There's no way the BAU could pick up on the pregnancy angle at least just from the autopsies? If they found consistently pregnant "junkies," maybe they'd start to work out that something was up, possibly that they were being abducted and impregnated.

Presumably it's the pattern of where the women go missing and then are dumped that leads to an unsub profile and tips off the location.

But if all the information the BAU have is the women themselves, and they think it's women being abducted for regular serial killer purposes, then it would be a pretty different profile. Like, a serial killer with a pregnancy fetish would act really differently than a secret organisation doing gametic experiments. Maybe in order to complete the profile properly, they need to know that part of the information?

[beatrice_otter]

The pregnancy angle was what tipped them off something was weird. Like, okay, junkies die of overdoses all the time. Junkies dying of overdoses after they look like they've been clean for a while/off the streets happens also (they go to rehab, they get clean, they get back out and there desperate but their tolerance has lowered so they overdose accidentally). Female junkies who died of overdose who gave birth recently and you can't figure out where the baby is ... that's weird. Particularly when it keeps happening.

Some bright young cop saw that, knew his department didn't have the resources to "waste" on it, and sent it on to the BAU for a consult on the order of "is it just me, or is something weird going on, and if so, do you have any suggestions?"

Rossi and Morgan go "no, this is seriously weird, but we can't figure out any kind of a victim profile besides "female homeless people/junkies" and no geographic profile besides "Detroit" so honestly we're kinda stumped."

Then Major Davis comes in and gets the casefile from the local PD, figures out that "yep, this must be where the Trust is doing their creepy experiments" and has his people look at properties the Trust could be using in the city, which turns out to be a matter of looking for "empty" buildings that belong to corporations that might have Trust ties until they find one that ... isn't empty.

Although, if it turned out to not be that easy, and the SGC couldn't find it that way, then if they still thought Detroit was where the experiments were being done they might ask Rossi and Morgan to figure out where.

Which means I need to figure out "how could the BAU figure out where the facility is." But that's at least a step closer, thank you.

What they really need to be profiling, I think, is the Trust.

I was hoping I was going to get out of this fic without having to do any actual profiling, darn it, because it's by far the hardest thing to write believably in a CM fic.

[muccamukk]

That mostly holds together, I think, though I'm not sure about the step where they connect with the BAU, because it's such a leap, when they usually use alien tech or just throw man power at it. However, finding a specific abandoned building in Detroit might just up the difficulty enough for them to ask for help. You'll have to come up with a reason they can't just scan for it with the Prometheus or something.

Well, if it helps, the profiling on the show is pretty handwavy a lot of the time. I'm pretty sure they backward plot it like you're doing, rather than actually knowing anything about profiling. There's probably a writers' bible with techie words in it.

ETA: Having the team's record of Finding The Thing come up would probably be good (especially if you could canon reference this for Morgan and/or Rossi specifically), and I imagine there'd be some pretty good NDAs going on.

[beatrice_otter]

Actually, I think I've figured out a different way! The SGC swooping in and getting the files is enough to get Morgan and Rossi to make the jump from "serial killer" to "evil corporation mad science." (JJ knows Davis from her time in the Pentagon, she knows he's connected to a lot of weird stuff and weird science research stuff. What would some Air Force science division care about dead junkies in a city where they don't even have a base in the same state? They wouldn't, that's local PD's jurisdiction. So, once the SGC has shown up, Morgan and Rossi know there has to be something more to it.)

With the right profile, they find the building the Trust is using, interrogate one of the workers (low-level person who thinks it's a perfectly legitimate daycare), and are ready to swoop in with the cops on charges of tax fraud (they can't get proof it's connected to the dead women and missing babies, but they can damn sure prove that the building is supposed to be unoccupied) and do so right as the SGC is swooping in with ... whoever the hell they swoop in with, they're not supposed to be running ops like this on US soil, it's against posse commitatus! That mess and the resulting three-way turf fight (PD, BAU, SGC) and constitutional brangle is enough to get Morgan and Rossi read in on (the terrestrial parts of) what the Trust was actually trying to do.

[muccamukk]

It seems like that would work. Though I never understood why Davis didn't pretend to be the NSA or someone less conspicuous, though I suppose he could be, and JJ could be like LYING weird science air force guy!

Who did they use in that episode with Jonas in Washington State? Or when they rescued Vala in Momento Mori? (which has a similar plot from the SGC's PoV).

I haven't watched either SG-1 or CM in a while.

[beatrice_otter]

They mostly used SG1. I'd have to look up the Jonas ep, but in the Vala ep they send Carter and Teal'c to get her out of the police station, avoid further police, and have SG-1 lead the SGC peeps on search and rescue and storming the Trust building.

Because nothing says "covert" like an Air Force colonel interfering in police business while wearing civvies but still using Air Force credentials (which is what they did).

BTW, thank you for your help!

[muccamukk]

Oh, why at the point that they hit massive government conspiracy levels, don't Morgan and Rossi call the rest of the gang in?

Maybe they have another case?

[beatrice_otter]

Maybe they will, but I don't think there's need or time. Their goal isn't to bring down the Trust, it's to figure out what happened to the dead women. They find the operation, there's no more need of investigation--at that point, it becomes a jurisdictional fight between the Air Force and the local PD as the local PD finds out just how big an operation has been run on their turf, with the Bureau kibbitzing. There's no case for them to investigate anymore.

And at the time they make the leap that "maybe there's a big operation" they still don't have the proof that there's enough going on to warrant the whole team. It's more of a conspiracy theory than anything. The proof the conspiracy exists comes when they find the operation. At which point, their job is done.

[muccamukk]

Missing children is the FBI's turf though, isn't it? It just feels like once Morgan starts to get an idea that the babies might be somewhere, and possibly in danger, he'd want all hands on deck, proof or no. Because babies!

[melannen]

When I was playing with SG1 crossovers a lot and really needed the other team clued in, sometimes I would just go with "someone on the other team is already clued in, because reasons". There would have to be a fair amount of people in various government agencies who had been told at least bits and pieces. Especially after the season where it came out that there was a protocol to evacuate chosen people if the Earth was in danger of total destruction, and the protocol was actually activated at least once, iirc, so if it's set after that event, and the team has super-special genius people on it, there's a chance someone on the team's even been offworld already.

IDK if that could help with your story, though?

Alternatively you could do the version where the BAU is actually investigating independently of the Stargate program, and happen to interrupt the Stargate raid with their own investigation, and at that point have to be read in at least a little bit because they've seen too much, and if you have to read them in a little bit, you might as well read in enough that they can be helpful...

[beatrice_otter]

I can see someone in the BAU being clued in about the SGC--probably JJ, from her time at the Pentagon--but what I actually need them to know is not the SGC itself, or even the Trust (the bad guys for the story), but the specific nefarious scheme the Trust is involved in in the story. Because my end goal is Morgan's reaction to that, not the actual case itself. The case is how I'm getting there.*

After reading muccamukk's comments, I think I need to make it harder to find the Trust's sooper-sekrit research facility, requiring the SGC to ask the BAU to find it for them. (I figure, it would be easier to get clearance to tell them about the terrestrial-only research project (with some fudging about what the gene in question actually does) than it would be to get clearance to spill the whole shebang.)

The BAU actually is investigating independent of the SG program; in fact, it's their investigation that clues the SGC in that this is where the Trust is probably operating. (They have, through other sources, caught wind of a big project, but they can't find it, and this investigation sounds like it might be connected, so they swoop in and get the case files from the BAU.)

*(Okay, confession time. Derek Morgan looks SO CUTE holding a baby, he's great with kids, there's this one episode where he holds a baby (either Jack or Henry, don't remember which) and it is SO ADORABLE and I wanted to write kidfic for it, but it was hiding in the back of my brain and over the years it got tangled up with an SG-fic about the Trust wanting more ATA people and trying to breed their own. And scenes of this fic have been sitting in my brain for YEARS, and NOT GOING AWAY, and I have finally given in and am writing it.)

[lilacsigil]

I think if the SGC has independently worked out that something's going on, they're not going to bring in the BAU at all. So what about the BAU works out the whole thing about the surrogates, though not why? Pathology should show that the women who are or very recently were pregnant (even if it didn't go to term), and this wouldn't be an unusual test to do in the case of a dead woman of child-bearing age. To be doing IVF, you need specific skills and a lot of specific equipment and drugs, so the BAU could track down the Trust facility that way.

Then the SGC could have been tipped off by someone in the FBI pathology labs (maybe a forensic examiner who has also worked for the SGC while they were in the military?) and they show up right as the raid is going ahead, because they can't let the BAU go in without warning, but by then the BAU isn't going to be stonewalled.

[beatrice_otter]

Oh, it was never going to be the SGC bringing the BAU in, it was always going to be the BAU investigating something and the SGC coming in to take away all their information, I just need a reason for Derek Morgan in particular to stay involved.

The local PD caught the pregnancy thing, that's what tipped them off that something was weird and they called in the BAU, because they couldn't find the babies. But the thing is, the BAU sees dead people they think "serial killer" not "evil corporation experimenting on people." It's kind of a big jump to make. I don't think they can do it plausibly without the SG project reading them in on why they're suspicious of Trust activity and think this is connected (namely, they caught the Trust stealing DNA samples of Ancient-gene-positive people). And the profile for "serial killer" (of whatever variety) is quite different from "evil corporation experimenting on people." So I don't think they can find the Trust lair without that tipoff.

Either I need to make the Trust lair harder to find so the SGC can't do it and ask Morgan and Rossi for help, or I need to have a way for Morgan and Rossi to figure out that they should be looking for "evil corporation mad science" instead of "serial killer." In either case, I have to figure out how to do a location profile, and I was really hoping to get out of this fic without having to have my profilers actually, you know, profile anything, but it looks like that's not going to work.

The BAU doesn't often use Bureau pathology labs; it's usually local PD because that's who call them in. I mean, maybe if they need something to be double checked? But in any case, we're handwaving how the SGC got wind of the investigation. This story is all from Derek Morgan and Rossi's POV, and the SGC never says.

[beatrice_otter]

Huh. The SGC swooping in to get the case files might be enough, actually--because what would some Air Force science division care about dead junkies in a city where they don't even have a base in the same state? They wouldn't, that's local PD's jurisdiction. So, once the SGC has shown up, Morgan and Rossi know there has to be something more to it. And JJ knows Davis from her time in the Pentagon, she knows he's connected to a lot of weird stuff and weird science research stuff, and that kicks the thought processes over from "torturing pregnant women" to "experimenting on pregnant women."

They find the building the Trust is using, interrogate one of the workers (low-level person who thinks it's a perfectly legitimate daycare), and are ready to swoop in with the cops on charges of tax fraud (they can't get proof it's connected to the dead women and missing babies, but they can damn sure prove that the building is supposed to be unoccupied) and do so right as the SGC is swooping in with ... whoever the hell they swoop in with, they're not supposed to be running ops like this on US soil, it's against posse commitatus!