Goa'uld Society versus Tok'ra

[Dave2]

We see that Tok'ra blended people are not just leaders buf everyday people. Aside from someone like Adrian Conrad, are there goa'uld who are just your average goa'uld on the street or do they all have to be bigshots lording over humans and Jaffa?

[jelgate]

All bigshots. Goa'uld desire to have power

[escyos]

They all desire power but will align themselves with someone more powerful for protection etc....until they get the chance to take everything from them.

[Reseph(Shed)]

There are the rare cases of Ga'ould that actually defect to the Tokra (I believe this applied to both Jolinar of Malkshur and Garshaw of Belote). For some reason they grew past their genetic memory and joined the Tok'ra. There is also a third case somewhat a little later in the show that I won't talk about. They didn't join the Tok'ra but I still think the decisions this particular Ga'ould made was pretty out of character for one of their race.

[SF_and_Coffee]

We don't actually get to see "regular folks" Goa'uld on the show, but then again, we don't see a lot of "regular folks" humans in the Earth scenes either... yet we know that regular Earth humans exist in the Stargateverse. So, since no society can be made up entirely of bigshots, I'd say it's a fairly safe bet that "regular" Goa'uld exist, too.

[Quizziard]

So, since no society can be made up entirely of bigshots, I'd say it's a fairly safe bet that "regular" Goa'uld exist, too.

I'm not sure that's true of the Goa'uld. As we saw of Daniel in "Need", excessive use of the sarcophagus instills arrogance and self-focus. As escyos says above, the Goa'uld tendency is for power, power and more power. The main exception is when they ally with even more powerful one in the interim, as a toady or as (e.g. Neru) a scientist.

[SF_and_Coffee]

I'm not sure that's true of the Goa'uld. As we saw of Daniel in "Need", excessive use of the sarcophagus instills arrogance and self-focus. As escyos says above, the Goa'uld tendency is for power, power and more power. The main exception is when they ally with even more powerful one in the interim, as a toady or as (e.g. Neru) a scientist.

I wasn't saying that it isn't possible for most Goa'uld to have megalomaniacal tendencies. What I was saying is that no society can be all chiefs and no Indians. With as many Goa'uld as must obviously reach mature adulthood (given the number of Jaffa in existence, each of whom brings a larval symbiote to maturity roughly every seven years or so), they simply can't ALL be in charge of planets, or in power over others. Some must be simple overseers of slave gangs, assistants to the assistant administrators of Goa'uld worlds, mere functionaries in charge of making sure the correct amount of Jaffa armor gets manufactured, engineers and technicians in charge of building or repairing Goa'uld ships or other technology, etc. Someone is obviously doing these things, and I'm pretty sure it's neither the Jaffa nor the human slaves, at least not in all cases.

[fems]

We also don't know which of the Goa'uld have access to a sarcophagus. Not every one we met had one, so perhaps it's only for those who can afford, steal or conquer it and they are probably the more powerful Goa'uld. It's the same for the ribbon devices, not every Goa'uld we see seems to have one.

[Dave2]

So Tanith is taking a big risk affiliating with his new master who doesn't trust him anyway and should have killed him for the failure with the Tollan.

[Skadi]

I agree with SF_and_Coffee - there MUST be some minor Goa'uld, doing more everyday work. Yes, they could kill those extra Goa'uld that are maturing and which have no position, but that does not change the fact that there must be fairly many jobs that the Goa'uld does not wish to entrust a human or Jaffa with, but which is not a prestigious job.

Oh, and I remembered this story, which does feature some very ordinary Goa'uld Beware that it is R, for violence.

Brothers in Arms. O'Neill finds himself in desperate circumstances with the Tok'ra Malek. Imprisoned in Osiris' lair on a Goa'uld world, they must escape from behind enemy lines. Action/Adventure, Angst. R
Link goes to author's page - fic is near the bottom: http://www.fanfiction.net/u/342508/BuckeyeBelle

[Dave2]

How did the producers create the symbiotes that appear so realistic??

The agenda of the goa'uld symbiotes is to acquire power. If the Tok'ra ever defeated the goa'uld according to their own Tok'ra agenda, what would happen to the remaining living symbiotes who have not been destroyed as system lords, etc.?? And assuming that tretonine was not available to everyone, including the free Jaffa who I assume would be allied with the Tok'ra, what would be the ultimate end in a situation where neither the Tok'ra nor the Jaffa could maintain their populations?

[QuantumIguana]

The Gou'ald aren't really a society, they are the top of a larger society. Their society is something like that in Plato's Republic. The Gou'ald are the leaders, with the Jaffa as the military caste, and the human workers making up the vast majority. You might see Gou'ald as the equivalent of middle management, but you aren't going to see Gou'ald sweeping the floors. Think of it as a very rigid caste system - a low-ranking Gou'ald will outrank the other classes. A Jaffa may have more actual power than some Gou'ald, but that is merely their master's power extended.

[SF_and_Coffee]

The Gou'ald aren't really a society, they are the top of a larger society. Their society is something like that in Plato's Republic. The Gou'ald are the leaders, with the Jaffa as the military caste, and the human workers making up the vast majority. You might see Gou'ald as the equivalent of middle management, but you aren't going to see Gou'ald sweeping the floors. Think of it as a very rigid caste system - a low-ranking Gou'ald will outrank the other classes. A Jaffa may have more actual power than some Gou'ald, but that is merely their master's power extended.

The Goa'uld are their own society, in control of other societies. While you may not see Goa'uld sweeping the floors (although I think some could be rather close), they aren't all high leaders. And while we saw plenty of high-tech stuff in Goa'uld possession, few if any humans in Goa'uld-controlled cultures would ever be technicians, engineers, scientists, etc. because the Goa'uld generally don't allow their human slaves to really learn the technology or have the education and knowledge for that. They don't appear to allow this to their Jaffa either, yet this stuff can't just be appearing out of nowhere, either, and we've been told in canon that the Goa'uld themselves have developed and refined tech, rather than getting it only from Ancient sources. So obviously someone has to be serving in those roles rather than as management. Who else but other Goa'uld?

[Dave2]

And the realism of the symbiotes swimming around and being inserted?? How did the producers do that?!

[QuantumIguana]

They really aren't their own society, any more than European nobility is its own society. They Gou'ald are a caste in a larger society. Not everyone in European nobility is a person of great power either. They may reserve some things for themselves, but being an engineer isn't a lowly endeavor.