Goa'uld inventions!

[malfunction]

Derived from the Reetou wasn't it? But yes, she developed it. I think it's fair to say the Goa'uld develop technology well, but the initial concept and design is rarely theirs.

I don't think it can be. If the Reetou were out of phase how would one be captured to be studied? Her cloak was most likely the opposite technology of the weapon that made the Reetou visible, where that emitted radiation that made them visible to the human eye, her cloak probably emitted radiation that made her invisible to the human eye.

I think the root problem is anthropomorphism - Goa'uld are not human, hell, they aren't even humanoid, so that, combined with their parasitic nature almost certainly means their psychology works very, very differently to humans. Therefore ascribing human attributes to the Goa'uld doesn't work. They may do things that seem bizarre to us, but make perfect sense to them because of their biology.

For example: the Goa'uld are naturally long lived, even longer lived with the assistance of technology, and come from a hostile world. Unas probably attacked and killed any other Unas that they believed to have been taken over by a Goa'uld.

As intelligent internal parasites, staying undetected is probably a powerful biological drive - Goa'uld are the ultimate infiltrators, after all. Just as we modern humans still have drives that are largely unchanged from when we lived in caves, so the Goa'uld probably still have the same basic parasitic drives despite ten thousand years plus of advanced civilisation. For them, change is bad. Change means you stick out, it means potential predators or competitors can detect you. So while stagnation and using the same tech for thousands of years is bad or odd from our point of view, to a Goa'uld it probably makes perfect sense.

Certain Goa'uld technology has been around for a very long time i.e. the sarcophagus but this is because it is almost a perfected technology and the Goa’uld don’t care about its negative effects so they don’t want to improve it. Their technology is all advanced, they probably have nothing new to invent except for inter-dimensional and temporal technology and the Asgard only have time dilation fields, they couldn’t travel in time either. We know that the Goa’uld have been spreading across the galaxy for more than ten thousand years, to do this they would need faster and faster ships to reach all of the galaxy. To achieve this they would have to create superior power generation which would also make the shields, weapons and any other systems on their ships more advanced. The technology stays the same but its effective has to be increased, the idea that it would stay exactly the same just isn’t logical.

Well said. Same species, different biological classification. It always annoyed me when a Goa'uld was referred to as a symbiote. Only the Tok'ra are symbiotic. System Lords are parasites and should have been named as such - not least because most humans have an innate revulsion towards the very idea of parasitism.

I'm not sure that a System Lord was ever referred to as a symbiote, young Goa'uld that the Jaffa used are symbiotic. The Goa'uld and the Jaffa cannot live without each other, this is far more symbiotic than the relationship between Tok'Ra and host.

[magictrick]

I think someone earlier in the thread said it best. The Goa'uld find technology and they redesign it or they add their own twist to it, but at the end of the day, they don't create any of it. They just build on what's already there.

As for the comparison to Earth, I think the NID is the best comparison to the Goa'uld. They had the whole "get new technology at all costs". Whereas the SGC were always about negotiating for new technology. And guess what? In the end they are awarded the entire repository of knowledge of the Asgard. Definitely worth it.

I always thought the Goa'uld brainwashing techniques were uniquely theirs. But I think they answer that question in one of the episodes where Ba'al tries to brainwash Teal'c. We see that he uses one of those memory devices that's probably not made by the Goa'uld anyway.

[lordofseas]

I don't think it can be. If the Reetou were out of phase how would one be captured to be studied? Her cloak was most likely the opposite technology of the weapon that made the Reetou visible, where that emitted radiation that made them visible to the human eye, her cloak probably emitted radiation that made her invisible to the human eye.



Certain Goa'uld technology has been around for a very long time i.e. the sarcophagus but this is because it is almost a perfected technology and the Goa’uld don’t care about its negative effects so they don’t want to improve it. Their technology is all advanced, they probably have nothing new to invent except for inter-dimensional and temporal technology and the Asgard only have time dilation fields, they couldn’t travel in time either. We know that the Goa’uld have been spreading across the galaxy for more than ten thousand years, to do this they would need faster and faster ships to reach all of the galaxy. To achieve this they would have to create superior power generation which would also make the shields, weapons and any other systems on their ships more advanced. The technology stays the same but its effective has to be increased, the idea that it would stay exactly the same just isn’t logical.




I'm not sure that a System Lord was ever referred to as a symbiote, young Goa'uld that the Jaffa used are symbiotic. The Goa'uld and the Jaffa cannot live without each other, this is far more symbiotic than the relationship between Tok'Ra and host.

Tretonin.

[Sealurk]

I don't think it can be. If the Reetou were out of phase how would one be captured to be studied? Her cloak was most likely the opposite technology of the weapon that made the Reetou visible, where that emitted radiation that made them visible to the human eye, her cloak probably emitted radiation that made her invisible to the human eye.

Capture isn't automatically required - it just makes things easier. Observation with the same Transphase radiation tech may have yielded enough clues to reproduce the effect with technology. Besides, wasn't it actually referenced in an ep that Nirrti's cloak was Reetou derived? I might be wrong though, I haven't watched SG-1 in a while cos I'm planning to rewatch the entire series in the New Year.

Certain Goa'uld technology has been around for a very long time i.e. the sarcophagus but this is because it is almost a perfected technology and the Goa’uld don’t care about its negative effects so they don’t want to improve it. Their technology is all advanced, they probably have nothing new to invent except for inter-dimensional and temporal technology and the Asgard only have time dilation fields, they couldn’t travel in time either. We know that the Goa’uld have been spreading across the galaxy for more than ten thousand years, to do this they would need faster and faster ships to reach all of the galaxy. To achieve this they would have to create superior power generation which would also make the shields, weapons and any other systems on their ships more advanced. The technology stays the same but its effective has to be increased, the idea that it would stay exactly the same just isn’t logical.

I don't buy the 'nothing left to develop' idea, and as for not logical...it may not be logical for humans, but as I said, I don't think you can automatically ascribe the same reasons for doing or not doing anything to aliens, especially a race as alien as the Goa'uld. If your natural life span is thousands of years, and your enhanced lifespan is tens of thousands of years, maybe you don't want things to change too often. Maybe Goa'uld have a different set of priorities to us, and technological progress just isn't as important.

I'm not sure that a System Lord was ever referred to as a symbiote, young Goa'uld that the Jaffa used are symbiotic. The Goa'uld and the Jaffa cannot live without each other, this is far more symbiotic than the relationship between Tok'Ra and host.

I'm pretty sure I heard snakes being called symbiotes without it necessarily referring to a Jaffa's primtah (good call on that BTW, I'd forgotten about them), but I could be wrong. Still, System Lords are parasites, Tok'ra are symbiotes.

[malfunction]

Tretonin.

Obviously I was referring to Jaffa that still have a Goa'uld in their pouch, without each other they will die. Tretonin would only keep the Jaffa alive.

I don't buy the 'nothing left to develop' idea, and as for not logical...it may not be logical for humans, but as I said, I don't think you can automatically ascribe the same reasons for doing or not doing anything to aliens, especially a race as alien as the Goa'uld. If your natural life span is thousands of years, and your enhanced lifespan is tens of thousands of years, maybe you don't want things to change too often. Maybe Goa'uld have a different set of priorities to us, and technological progress just isn't as important.

Except they did have a reason to keep advancing, the Asgard. The Goa'uld did not enjoy being told what to do by them, which was stated in 'Summit' or 'Last Stand.' They would eventually want to surpass the Asgard and defeat them so they could do what ever they wanted in their own galaxy.

[Thermi]

But the Goa'uld were constantly at war with one another, so there was a need for new weapons, shields, hyperdrives all of the time. If a Goa'uld was increasing the empire by any sizeable amount they would need faster ships to reach the furthest parts of their empire and better shields and weapons to defend their now larger borders with their enemies. It doesn’t take much to make a better version of what you already have, each new version of a technology would be more effective and has got rid of some of the problems of the previous version.

The fact that Teal’c said that he wasn’t aware how fast that Goa’uld ships can travel is the main reason people believe the Goa’uld only advance when they need too, Teal’c would never have been told about the full ability of the Goa’uld. On a side note how would Teal’c know what the speed of light is? And how it relates to the amount of time it takes to travel between stars? The Goa’uld most likely never tell their Jaffa exactly what their ships are capable of, so when a situation arises that needs more than the ship is capable of in the Jaffa minds the Goa’uld can call it a miracle when they destroy an enemy ship, or arrive at their destintation quicker than expected.

Certain Goa’uld were definitely more advanced than the others, at one point Yu was defending himself against all of the System Lords who had sided with Anubis against him. He may have had a large fleet and armies, but all of that would have been no match for the combined might of the System Lords. His ships had to have been able to attack and destroy ships in superior numbers, the only way this could have been the case is that he was always researching advancements in his technology.



Note
]Those were actually invented by the Goa’uld and the Tok’Ra stole them and reversed engineered their own version of the weapon.

Well the Goa'uld relied on their numbers. In the later series of SG1 where the replicators were taking over and Ba'al was facing them Jacob Carter said that Ba'al was using a typical Goa'uld tactic which was meet numbers with numbers. Which suggest's that Goa'uld very rarely relied on advancement of tech rather they relied on the numbers.
Because if you take into account, other than the asgard, the only technically advanced race able to beat the Goa'uld was another Goa'uld. So all they did was capture more territories to increase their resources and thus increase their armies, which means anyone with the bigger army had the advantage.

It wasn't until SG1 started to cause havok and the balance of power was greatly shifted was it that the Goa'uld needed to advance their tech.

And I think it was stated that the Jafa knew that it was advanced tech that was allowing them to fly and stuff, but it was the Knowledge of a "God" that made it, because Teal'c says in the an epp of season 1 "That is a force field as glass would not be able to stand the forces put upon it when the ship enters hyperspeed" or something similar.

But what i was getting at is. That as long as no greater power comes about, the Goa'uld are quite happy to sit their and grow their numbers without advancing their tech.

Note: Oh, i knew they had them lol

Just a clarifying point, the Tok'ra are not parasites. They live in a symbiotic relationship with their host, benefiting both host and symbiote. The Goa'uld are parasites, as they live at the expense of the host.

Yeah i know, i was just referring to something i had read earlier in the post's.

1Derived from the Reetou wasn't it? But yes, she developed it. I think it's fair to say the Goa'uld develop technology well, but the initial concept and design is rarely theirs.

2Forgive me if I'm wrong...but wasn't that an Ancient artefact?

3I think the root problem is anthropomorphism - Goa'uld are not human, hell, they aren't even humanoid, so that, combined with their parasitic nature almost certainly means their psychology works very, very differently to humans. Therefore ascribing human attributes to the Goa'uld doesn't work. They may do things that seem bizarre to us, but make perfect sense to them because of their biology.

For example: the Goa'uld are naturally long lived, even longer lived with the assistance of technology, and come from a hostile world. Unas probably attacked and killed any other Unas that they believed to have been taken over by a Goa'uld.

4As intelligent internal parasites, staying undetected is probably a powerful biological drive - Goa'uld are the ultimate infiltrators, after all. Just as we modern humans still have drives that are largely unchanged from when we lived in caves, so the Goa'uld probably still have the same basic parasitic drives despite ten thousand years plus of advanced civilisation. For them, change is bad. Change means you stick out, it means potential predators or competitors can detect you. So while stagnation and using the same tech for thousands of years is bad or odd from our point of view, to a Goa'uld it probably makes perfect sense.

5Well said. Same species, different biological classification. It always annoyed me when a Goa'uld was referred to as a symbiote. Only the Tok'ra are symbiotic. System Lords are parasites and should have been named as such - not least because most humans have an innate revulsion towards the very idea of parasitism.

1:I think it was, cus it was countered by the same tech that countered the reetou. I just know that she had made something the others didn't have a clue about

2:I could have been, but at that point all we knew about the Ancients was that they made the Stargates, so not much else about their tech was revealed until later season and SG:A

3: Correct me if i am wrong but. A fully grown adult symbiote has the ability to control the actions of a person, however not their mind. The mind of the person is still there. But when a Paracite enters a body (RL and SciFi) it cannot act independently, it has to mimic the host in some way. And if i remember rightly in the episode where O'niel is captured after "Blending" the Tok'ra that he is with only goes back for that women because of jack's strong feelings of "We never leave a person behind". Basically what i am getting at is that the Goa'uld take part of their host, which means if they blend with a human some of their "nature" will become part of the symbiote.

4: I agree

5: I have a similar hatred. Because only the Tok'ra and Goa'uld Larva achive symbiosis. The Goa'uld enslave the body of their host

[malfunction]

Well the Goa'uld relied on their numbers. In the later series of SG1 where the replicators were taking over and Ba'al was facing them Jacob Carter said that Ba'al was using a typical Goa'uld tactic which was meet numbers with numbers. Which suggest's that Goa'uld very rarely relied on advancement of tech rather they relied on the numbers.
Because if you take into account, other than the asgard, the only technically advanced race able to beat the Goa'uld was another Goa'uld. So all they did was capture more territories to increase their resources and thus increase their armies, which means anyone with the bigger army had the advantage.

It wasn't until SG1 started to cause havok and the balance of power was greatly shifted was it that the Goa'uld needed to advance their tech.

But what i was getting at is. That as long as no greater power comes about, the Goa'uld are quite happy to sit their and grow their numbers without advancing their tech.

Both Anubis and Apophis built a ship that was as powerful as a fleet of hat'ak ships for the sole purpose of conquering the other Goa'uld, they both had huge fleets already and didn‘t need this advantage. In 'The Serpent's Venom' we learnt that the fleet that Sokar had built and Apophis used was enough to defeat all the Goa'uld except for Heru-ur (who had the next biggest fleet.) So Apophis built that ship to render the hat'ak an obsolete ship, so the size of his fleet wouldn't matter. His new ship would take the place of his fleet, Anubis did the same thing with his ship, he may have been an ascended being but he was still a Goa'uld and that ship was designed with Goa'uld technology.

Both these ships would have been able to destroy a Beliskner class vessel, they were probably designed with the purpose of conquering this galaxy and then fighting the Asgard, which in their mind was the likely consequence of their actions.

Certain Goa'uld are more logical than others, remember that both Heru-ur and Zipacna sent ships to Tollana that had no chance of destroying that world and they were defeated. Anubis only dared to enter their space once he knew that his ships could defend themselves against the ion canons. The more tactical and logical Goa'uld sought technology as an answer, rather than sheer numbers. The System Lords used their numbers to insure a victory with no chance of defeat, if they had deemed a race dangerous to their empire they would also assume that if they only sent a small fleet to destroy their world there was a chance they could lose. If they sent a fleet that numbered in the dozens of ships, there was no chance for defeat.

Also it wasn't Ba'als tactics he was being commanded by Anubis. He used the Replicators to get as many as the rebel Jaffa back on his side and give enough time for the device at Dakara to be discovered so he could use it. Anubis knew what was happening all over the galaxy, it is the reason he was so successful against the System Lords before he revealed himself to them, he always knew their weak points. In 'Summit' Bastet said one of her ships was able to board one of Anubis's ships and she was the only to gain a victory against Anubis at that point.