Goa'uld life cycle.

[JustinZZR600]

I've been a long time fan and although its not relevant to understanding the Goauld any more, I've wondered about their life cycle. So this is what I understand:

A queen(s?) births junior symbiotes. They get implanted into Jaffa. At some time they mature and take full control of the host, or choose a new host. From which they join the Goauld ranks somewhere.

Now, I remember Hathor birthing simbiotes, so she is a queen? There be many other queens?

Not all mature Goauld get hosts? Primitive Goauld continue to live in lakes until an unlucky host happens nearby. Some Goaulds don't get hosts and may be killed/eaten by higher ranking Goaulds.

Goaulds naturally have naquada in their blood. They have undetermined life spans, eons(?) Does continued sarcophogus use also negatively effect the goauld inside? In all, do goauld have large life spans without the aid of technology?

Goauld queens pass knowledge and memory to the offspring. You could say that a newborn is only as smart as it's mother? So after many eons either the mother is taught new things to pass on to the offspring, or new queens are born with the latest updates? hehe

That's about all I can recall about them.

[nugglebugget]

In the ep "The First Ones",where we meet "Chacka",I think there was a difference in the primative symbiotes swimming around in the lake & a lack of naquada in their system.As I can remember 2 people actually got taken over by them,but Carter commented that she hadn't been able to detect their presence,possibly because the might not have had the mineral in their systems.I can't remember exactly,but i think that's how it went.

If that's the case,I wonder why the difference.It'd be interestig to find out.

BTW,your "sig" cracks me up

[SGSlugger]

Spoilers from various seasons.....

Now, I remember Hathor birthing simbiotes, so she is a queen? There be many other queens?

Yes, there are many other queens. Ergeria was a queen that spawned the Tok'ra resistance movement, and in Evolution Part 2 Anubis had a queen birthing blank slate Goa'ulds to be implanted in his Kull Warriors.

Goaulds naturally have naquada in their blood. They have undetermined life spans, eons(?) Does continued sarcophogus use also negatively effect the goauld inside? In all, do goauld have large life spans without the aid of technology?

The Goa'uld system lords naturally have naquadah in their blood, but the Goolds swimming around in the ep from The First Ones did not have naquadah. Daniel theorised that they some how got naquadah into their blood system later. Goa'ulds can sustain a human host body for a very long time. Yu has been around for over 1,000 years, although now the symbiote is incapable of taking another host. If you recall, the sarc steals away a person's soul, and the Tok'ra (they don't use them) believe that is why the System Lords are so evil.

Goauld queens pass knowledge and memory to the offspring. You could say that a newborn is only as smart as it's mother? So after many eons either the mother is taught new things to pass on to the offspring, or new queens are born with the latest updates? hehe

Goa'uld queens pass on genetic memory to their children. I think that it's the entire bloodline that gets passed on. So theorectially they could remember stuff from the very first queen, if they are of that bloodline. (I think it's the bloodline.) The queen also has the choice not to pass on the memories.

[Newbie]

Now I have related question...
So i was watching "Tok'ra" and it came to me...so Tok'ra's host can live for 200 years, beacuse of total symbitoc relationship, so how long do the snakes thenselfs live? Now, Ra lived for a long time like 1000s years or something and Apophis too, right, how long, anyone? So same question here, how long do hosts/snakes live in Gou'ld? Concidering that they use sarcophagus...whatever the spell is

[KorbenDirewolf]

If I recall correctly, the Tok'ra movement started about 2000 years ago. So I would guess that Selmak, being one of the oldest Tok'ra is somewhere around that age. Its kinda hard to tell, sometimes it seems the newer information cancels what has been said in older episodes.

[Mr Prophet]

Even if we ignore the fact that Ra in the movie was fifteen-thousand years old plus, Apophis had been in the same host for at least three thousand and it was still going strong. Yu must be older than that then.

If we factor in some of the information from the film, then we can speculate that the Goa'uld can extend their lifespan considerably by taking a host. The number of young spawned at a shot by the Queen suggests that they have a short life-expectancy, but their seven-to-eight year infancy argues against that. It's about half that of a human so we could presume that a Goa'uld without a host would have about the same ratio of overall lifespan; some thirty-five years, give or take.

Of course, they appear reptilian, in which case they could live for a very long time indeed. Reptiles tend to just keep on getting bigger, rather than dying.

[Crazy Chicken]

It’s very odd that they have never explained the cycle. At the moment we have queens who have babies and thats it. There is no explanation for where the queen comes from. If there like bee's I suppose they need a queen to create the queen, which give little hope for the tocra (spelling!). There is also no male that makes little sense. I would really like them to complete it because it really annoys me.

[clwaurie]

I'm not sure but I was positive in one of first episodes involving the To'kra (probably the episode Tok’ra) it was mentioned that Selmak was only several hundred years old or was that in reference to how long he had been blended to his previous host? If the situation is that he was created after Ergeria was imprisoned by Ra then was he created by a different symbiote queen, or was he cloned from an existing Tok’ra symbiote?

[alz0rz]

I've been a long time fan and although its not relevant to understanding the Goauld any more, I've wondered about their life cycle. So this is what I understand:

A queen(s?) births junior symbiotes. They get implanted into Jaffa. At some time they mature and take full control of the host, or choose a new host. From which they join the Goauld ranks somewhere.

Now, I remember Hathor birthing simbiotes, so she is a queen? There be many other queens?

Not all mature Goauld get hosts? Primitive Goauld continue to live in lakes until an unlucky host happens nearby. Some Goaulds don't get hosts and may be killed/eaten by higher ranking Goaulds.

Goaulds naturally have naquada in their blood. They have undetermined life spans, eons(?) Does continued sarcophogus use also negatively effect the goauld inside? In all, do goauld have large life spans without the aid of technology?

Goauld queens pass knowledge and memory to the offspring. You could say that a newborn is only as smart as it's mother? So after many eons either the mother is taught new things to pass on to the offspring, or new queens are born with the latest updates? hehe

That's about all I can recall about them.

The goa'uld symbiote that is in a Jaffa can't take over that host..

[Ptah]

In 1969 Teal'c says that if they stay there he will eventually be taken over by his mature symbiote.

[Lexx]

I'm not sure but I was positive in one of first episodes involving the To'kra (probably the episode Tok’ra) it was mentioned that Selmak was only several hundred years old or was that in reference to how long he had been blended to his previous host? If the situation is that he was created after Ergeria was imprisoned by Ra then was he created by a different symbiote queen, or was he cloned from an existing Tok’ra symbiote?

In one of "The Tok'ra" episodes it was said that Selmak had been in his current host for around 200 years. Then that host said to Jacob that as Selmak's new host, he'll feel Selmak's pain of losing her, as well as the host before her, and presumably so on.

As for Selmak's overall age, it's a bit confusing. The Tok'ra apparently have a negative population growth. That implies that there is no Tok'ra Queen. We know Egeria was imprisoned by Ra, so any other Queens she might've spawned must've been killed somehow since then. So either Selmak is one of the original Tok'ra spawned by Egeria two thousand years ago, or he was among one of the batches spawned by any other possible Tok'ra Queens. So his age range could stretch from either 2000+ years or somewhere between 200-400 (assuming the host before the female one we saw in "The Tok'ra" was his first).

In 1969 Teal'c says that if they stay there he will eventually be taken over by his mature symbiote.

But since then it's been stated that it's impossible for a Jaffa to be used as a host. This is one of those cases where a future episode overwrites a past one, and it's up to the fans to fanwank an explanation. So here's mine: This was one of Teal'c's early attempts at human humor. It didn't go over too well.

[Unas]

But since then it's been stated that it's impossible for a Jaffa to be used as a host.

A Jaffa cant be a host if it has a symbiote in its pouch. Whats to stop a symbiote jumping from the pouch to the neck? The rule is only one symbiote in a body. So an empty Jaffa can be a host.

Here's what I collected on lifespans:
Jaffa: 140 years (larva reject old Jaffa)
Tokra host (no sarc and usually terminally ill): 200 years (Tok'ra part1)
Goa'uld host without sarc (usually perfect health): 400 years (Seth)
Human with sarc: 700 years (Need)
Symbiote without sarc: undetermined but more than 2000 years
Symbiote with sarc: 10,000+ years

To the first poster: it takes 7-9 years for a larva to mature. Hathor is a queen but they are rare. Most symbiotes never get hosts, they either die in their Jaffa or are killed/eaten by others.

[Crazy Chicken]

No one seems to have addressed my question. Does anyone know where a queen comes from?

[Mr Prophet]

No one seems to have addressed my question. Does anyone know where a queen comes from?

Queens must come from the usual place - that is, other queens. As Egeria apparently never spawned a daughter-queen to replace her if she was captured, we can conjecture that a queen can not by will produce another queen, but that they just turn up every so often.

Alternatively, they can by will produce a new queen, but any that Egeria spawned either rejected the Tok'ra creed, were captured or were killed. In this case, you might expect there to be more queens, but given the option would you freely churn out your own replacements?

[Crazy Chicken]

As far as I can tell though there is no direct relation to where queens come from. Just another one of those SG holes I suppose.

It would be nice to properly know though.