"Well that's something," he says, though he says it so dryly that it sounds less genuine than it is. If there's an omnipotent rate messing around with people and pulling them into alternate universes, then at least it doesn't know everything that's going on.

It just doesn't make any sense with anything Jonas knows, and ... sure, he doesn't know everything, but he thought he knew a fair bit, after his time spent studying up on SGC mission reports.

Actually, it's all more confronting than he's willing to admit.

Before he can say anything else, though, the man keeps talking, and what he says makes Jonas's brows crease in concentration. Astria Porta. He's never heard the Stargates called that before, but he knows the words, has read them somewhere, and for a moment, he doesn't reply, concentrating instead on the words.

Doctor Jackson's notebooks.

That's where he's seen those words before.

"Astria Porta. That's ... Ancient, isn't it? You think you can come up with a way to use it even without one in this dimension?"