How Advanced are the Goa'uld?

[fugiman]

I remember the day when a single Ha'tak would make Earth wet its pants but now we have some technology that is so much more advanced then the Goa'uld so my question is are the Goa'uld really that advanced? I mean the Tollan, Asgard, Ancinets, Ori, Replicators etc... are so much more advanced then the Goa'uld so what happened? Did the writers just make them less powerful as to make the show more intresting or what? I mean does anyone else miss the Goa'uld technology being a threat to Earth?

Finally how powerful were the Goa'uld in means of technology? Also does anyone have a rough estimate of how many ships the Goa'uld had?

[ManiacMike]

I think at one time there were around 22-25 system lords in power, so add up on average 50 ships to each system lord, that makes 1250 ships out there.

Now, there maybe more to each SL or less, it depends on how much power they had.

[Lord of Nightmares]

Personally, I suspect that Sokar and Anubis alone each probably had at least a thousand Ha'taks based on what's been implied, if not far more. As was shown in 'Reckoning', the System Lords had Ha'taks distributed across a significant portion of the galaxy, and that's just those which were tagged by the Tok'ra. As a comparison, the Galactic Empire from Star Wars had approximately 25,000 Star Destroyers patrolling its territories in the Star Wars galaxy at the height of its power, and even then their forces were pretty thinly spread and there were numerous sectors not under Imperial rule like the Unknown Regions.

So yeah, I'd say that combined, the Goa'uld probably had at least a couple of thousand Ha'taks combined at the very least in order to effectively maintain order throughout their regions of space, which appeared to be the majority of the Milky Way. Even then, this might be a gross underestimation based on what I mentioned above with regards to the Galactic Empire.

As to how advanced the Goa'uld were, bear in mind that they primarily scavenged their technology from whatever advanced races they came across, while hardly creating anything original of their own. Even so, they were able to steal some of the technologies from several of the most advanced races in the known universe such as the Ancients and the Asgard, and were given a significant tech boost once Anubis returned. At the very least, they were advanced enough to be the first race targeted by the Replicators when they invaded the Milky Way, and were still an extremely powerful threat in the grand scheme of things as was shown by the size of their combined armadas in 'Reckoning' before the Reps started tearing through them like tissue paper.

[Jimbo-DR]

The Goa'uld really have not changed at all in technology level since the show began, we've just been introduced to some much bigger fish since we first met the Goa'uld.

[Heaven]

I remember circa season 6 that they estimated the goauld were about 500 years ahead of us technologically.
realistically though I imagine it's more like 900 years at the very least.

it's true that the goauld stole most of their technology but they still managed to develop and understand some pretty impressive technology, and you have to remember we stole most of our technology as well.
when you think about it I doubt anyone on earth can match the goauld intellect with their genetic memory, it's probably more than you can learn in a lifetime
I mean even the smartest people on earth only master a few degrees while the goauld hold enormous knowledge in anything from architecture to medicine.

[TKG]

Consider one thing, it seems everyone and their grandmother seems to be flying their ships...even the lucian alliance is using their tech... which means their real numbers may be much larger then we realize. I takes a lot of influence to get everyonet o default to your ships.

[Cap116]

After watching "Reckoning, Pt. 1" based on all the ships that the Tok'ra had tagged before the Replicators started taking them over. I would say that the ships, Ha'Taks, number in the thousands. But since the Ori have such an easy time taking them out, no telling how many are out there now.

[Mister Oragahn]

Number of ships

Estimations I ran from Reckonings.
The conclusion is that it's impossible to get a conservative figure that would be low enough to fit with the rest of Stargate, unless you completely blatantly alter the meaning of Jacob's words and ignore what's on screen, and the blips (blip = one ha'tak lost).
Eventually, with lots of twisting, you could pretend that the Tok'ra tagged many ships, in fact a vast majority of ships, which were not motherships.
Those could be troop transports, al'keshes and tel'taks.
So eventually, we could have something like a thousand ha'taks in total, which already appears big, and tens of thousands of smaller ships.

If I actually push the numbers from the thread I linked to, that is, 80,640 ships, and then I consider the exponential nature of the conflict and domination rate of the Replicators, as they'd gain or destroy more and more ships even faster, the total of Goa'uld ships, regardless of their class, and spread across the Milky Way, would be several times 80,640. Double or triple that.
I pretty much doubt the Tok'ra had any interest in tagging non FTL capable ships, such as Death Gliders for example.

Now, there were a couple of revelations I'll have to find back. But basically, I think one said that the fleet Anubis sent at Earth only was a small portion of his, and something similar was said about the fleet that attacked Dakara.

Yet, even with those advantages, and even with the possession of a super ship, Yu constantly managed to balance the situation, nevermind if he was actually pretty much alone against Anubis and the other System Lords who joined him since season 5.



Level of technology

Quite high in several domains. Let's focus on what most of them have for sure.
They have powerful capital ship weapons and shields, they have impressive FTL drives, they can replicate zat guns and transport rings as much as needed, they can actually transform naqahdah into various alternative forms (safe naqahdria), which still requires tremendous levels of energy, if only to actually melt naqahdah to make hulls out of it, they also manage to put cloaking shields on cargo ships and bombers.
They have sarcophagi and many other healing devices.
Their sensors are not particularily inferior to other sensors, as they can pick ships which are approaching in hyperspace, and may even be able to pick ships in normal space while in hyperspace (Lost City Pt. II).

Coupled to goa'uld genetic memory, the pool of knowledge must actually be awesome.

[garhkal]

Add to that, that unlike us, not only do they know how to use said tech they took from the ancients, but like gates, rings and other stuff seem to know how to make them/repair them etc.

[TKG]

all that tech and they still dont evne get close to the asgard...how ironic.
In the end measuring one race is useless it is when you start comparing them to others in their respective galaxy and or universe that things start to get interesting.

[Master_Templar]

I think the Goa'uld are highly advance. Take Apophis, he built his supership in no time and it single handedly gave him an extreme advantage over any other Ha'tak, entirely bypassing Heru'urs shields. I think the issue with the Goa'uld is their feudal nature, not allowing any significant technological advances, as anything new just ends up been destroyed (Anubsis's ships, Apophis's ship etc).

[Lord of Nightmares]

Now, there were a couple of revelations I'll have to find back. But basically, I think one said that the fleet Anubis sent at Earth only was a small portion of his, and something similar was said about the fleet that attacked Dakara.

I believe that was in 'New Order Part II', where Oshu revealed to SG-1 that the fleet of 40+ or so Ha'taks (not to mention the massive mothership) which Anubis sent to attack Earth in 'Lost City' was comparatively small, with Anubis having held back the bulk of his forces in order to properly defend his borders. Although this is in direct contradiction to what Bra'tac claimed in 'Lost City part 1' about how Anubis was marshalling the entirety of his forces to launch a strike against Earth, but I either chalk it down to the old dude severely underestimating Anubis's true might coupled with faulty intel, or TPTB deciding to significantly up the stakes for the 8th season when they realized that roughly 40 ships was an extremely small force for a would-be galactic conqueror. This is where I drew the conclusion that Anubis had to have had at least a thousand if not more Ha'taks in total considering the fact that he was powerful enough to keep the combined might of the other System Lords at bay.

There was also that bit in 'Reckoning part 1' when the Replicators were well into their invasion of the Milky Way and Anubis ordered Baal to 'take the remainder of his fleets to Dakara' in order to wipe out the Jaffa insurgents and the Replicators. From what I saw, the size of Baal's 'remaining forces' probably numbered somewhat more than the number of ships which Anubis used to attack Earth, and that was despite the fact that he'd already lost the bulk of his ships to the Replicators and even kept at least a small handful in reserve for contingencies (such as we saw in the 9th season onwards).

[TKG]

I think the issue with the Goa'uld is their feudal nature, not allowing any significant technological advances, as anything new just ends up been destroyed (Anubsis's ships, Apophis's ship etc).

I absolutely agree, a nation divided cannot easily advance itself, a nation beset by revolution also is int he same predicament. Give it time and they'll start making leaps and bounds.

[Jimbo-DR]

Keep in mind also that the Goa'uld have no reason to want to advance themselves. They are perfectly content with what they have because they are only trying to keep down people who can't even use electricity. Granted, they want to outdo each other, but for the most part they seem happy with what they have. Anubis is really one of the first to make truly huge advanced in Goa'uld technology. He managed to upgrade several of his ships with Ancient technology, one supership capable of knocking out at least 8 or so Ha'taks at once, and one regular Ha'tak that managed to take down a Beliskner class, however old and ****ty it may have been.