Goa'uld No Match for Wraith?

[rck01]

Hi, New Guy Here!

I'm finding the various Pegasus vs. Milky Way bad guy match-up discussions to be most intriguing. However, when people speak of Ha'tak's taking on the wraith they seem to be forgetting that we've already seen the outcome of a similar match-up courtesy of SG-1. I'm speaking of the episode "It's Good to Be the King" during which a single puddle jumper takes out an entire Ha'tak with just a few squid shots. If this is any indication of the potential disparity between Pegasus and Milky Way weapons potency then I'm inclined to believe that the wraith would mop the floor with the Goa'uld, and that the Daedelus' upcoming misadventures in the Pegasus galaxy will be short lived indeed.

Thoughts?

RCK

[Darth Buddha]

Do we know that the fleeing Goa'uld vessel (of a minor system lord who had just gotten his ass handed to him by Baal's forces) was in fact not previously damaged? If I'm fleeing battle with my tail between my legs, the odds that I'm going to arrive in good shape, with my sheilds at full capacity, aren't all that good.

Was this time travel capable puddle jumper the same model as those in Atlantis, or a far later, upgraded model? After all, the time travel device clearly isn't standard issue.

[Cronus]

Welcome to Gateworld.

Personally I think the wraith would beat the Goa'uld because:

a)The wraith beat the ancients (technically the ancients retreated-still undefeated)
b) When Anubis had ancient knowledge he could takeover the entire System Lords fleets pretty easily
c) therefore if Anubis with ancient knowledge can beat Goa'uld then the Wraith that beat the ancients into submission should be able to beat the Goa'uld hands down.

Just my opinions but ... feel free to pick apart my ideas.

[Darth Buddha]

Consider relative sizes of empires.

The Pegasus Galaxy is a minor galaxy in comparison to the Milky Way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Group

The Goa'uld dominate the Milky Way, and actively occupy a large part of them, rather than just visiting them from time to time

So just as the wraith drastically outnumbered the Ancients, it would be reasonable to assume that the Goa'uld drastically outnumber the Wraith.

[Erik Bloodaxe]

Do we know that the fleeing Goa'uld vessel (of a minor system lord who had just gotten his ass handed to him by Baal's forces) was in fact not previously damaged? If I'm fleeing battle with my tail between my legs, the odds that I'm going to arrive in good shape, with my sheilds at full capacity, aren't all that good.

Was this time travel capable puddle jumper the same model as those in Atlantis, or a far later, upgraded model? After all, the time travel device clearly isn't standard issue.

It's also not just what weapon was used, but also that they were essentially snaking through the ship and ripping it apart in that fashion; this is implied by the fact that there are several explosions in various locations before the very big one, and also consistent w/ how those drones (or death squids, if you prefer ) could do that.

Still, given that the Wraith were able to take on the Ancients, they likely would be able to take on the goa'uld pretty handily too, if only because the goa'uld are also outnumbered and overconfident, and don't have the best strategy anyway.

-Bloodaxe

[Spimman]

I wonder if a Goa'uld could take a wraith as a host? What then, sounds like one tough cookie...ofcourse the other wraith might kill him too.

[Darth Buddha]

Still, given that the Wraith were able to take on the Ancients, they likely would be able to take on the goa'uld pretty handily too, if only because the goa'uld are also outnumbered and overconfident, and don't have the best strategy anyway.

-Bloodaxe

I'll give you that the Goa'uld as of season 8 could not take the Wraith. After all, a bunch of technologically backwards humans and jaffa are able to beat on them after they'd been decimated by the replicators (the EVIL LEGO CREATURES... wow, scary, huh?).

But let's go to Season 1 Goa'uld vs. the Wraith. Compare the basis for power: the Wraith simply feed on humans. The Goa'uld enslave them and use them as their power base.

But the bottom line is, we are both talking out of our asses. There is no way to know how the writers would treat the Goa'uld vs. the Wraith. You could write it that the Goauld can infest a wraith, in which case, Goa'uld win. You could write it that the Wraith aren't that superior to Goa'uld tech, in which case, Goa'uld win. If you write it that the Goa'uld are WAY behind the Wraith then the Wraith win (remember, neither show has given us reason to believe that the Goa'uld are that far behind... even the Asgard have had a ship destroyed by the Goa'uld, and they are clearly the most advanced "non ascended" race we've seen bar none).

Botom line is, this discussion is pure fanwank. I'm spinning ideas for fun, and/or playing devil's advocate (also fun). But I konw better than to think there is a "right" answer.

[Erik Bloodaxe]

But the bottom line is, we are both talking out of our asses. There is no way to know how the writers would treat the Goa'uld vs. the Wraith. You could write it that the Goauld can infest a wraith, in which case, Goa'uld win. You could write it that the Wraith aren't that superior to Goa'uld tech, in which case, Goa'uld win. If you write it that the Goa'uld are WAY behind the Wraith then the Wraith win (remember, neither show has given us reason to believe that the Goa'uld are that far behind... even the Asgard have had a ship destroyed by the Goa'uld, and they are clearly the most advanced "non ascended" race we've seen bar none).

Excellent point; yeah, they could have the goa'uld be able to infest the Wraith, in which case it could be quite a drawn-out battle indeed. And yeah, I was going by the season 8 goa'uld who've lost an awful lot of their power base w/ the Jaffa rebelling; the season 1 goa'uld or the goa'uld resorting to using their human slaves as their soldiers could put things on even terms again. Still, you're right that it is pure speculation and we're unlikely to get the answer at any point, unless somehow the Wraith manage to find their way to the Milky Way at some point during the series, but it's likely the writers would have the goa'uld going up against them lose in the end since SG-1 will have a new enemy anyway and it'd beef up the Wraith. OTOH, the goa'uld involved could be playing a role in actually helping to push them back out of the galaxy, so... yeah, it really is too early to say.

-Bloodaxe

[Freyrs]

I would tend to believe that the Wraith are more powerful than the Goa'uld. Based on the fact that the Asgard could beat the Goa'uld before S6. And the asgard are supposed to not be as superior as the Ancients. So there I would conclude that the Wraith >= Ancients > Asgard > Goa'uld ... so Wraith > Goa'uld.

[Darth Buddha]

I would tend to believe that the Wraith are more powerful than the Goa'uld. Based on the fact that the Asgard could beat the Goa'uld before S6. And the asgard are supposed to not be as superior as the Ancients. So there I would conclude that the Wraith >= Ancients > Asgard > Goa'uld ... so Wraith > Goa'uld.

Sorry. Just when did the Asgard "beat" the Goa'uld? They beat them in a few fights, but they negotiated with them, because they had their own numbers problem, in the form of the replicators. So apparently, the Asgard couldn't take out the Goa'uld. In fact, they weren't even able to defend the protected planets around Season 6.

You folks try too hard to put these things into nice inequalities when even by the simplistic standards of the Stargate universe, it is written to be a bit more complicated than that.

[KingofAquitaine]

seem to be forgetting that after some gou'ld get 'new' shields thanks to anubis' knowledge (jst as anubis is about to come on the scene, season 7 or 8) they "can no longer be certain of defeatling the goul'd is single ship confrontation" - thor (or words to that effect) obviouly they now have some ancient-esque shields. My point?, well we know the wraith had great difficulty with the lantians ability with shields, so now the Gou'ld (+free jaffa) have similar tech the fight is far less straight forward

[rck01]

Well this conversation certainly shifted off-topic rather quickly.

Again, I was focusing more on tech - given the "insect" origins of the wraith I'm skeptical that the Goa'uld would be able to inhabit one. Even the Unas seems to be closer to human evolutionary form than the wraith (but then again, there *was* that "spider" creature in season 6's "The Tomb").

So assuming it's simply a straight battle, and that the Ha'tak in IGTBTK was not somehow "flawed" (i.e. damaged or compromised in some way), and that the PJ in IGTBTK was no more powerful than the ships of Atlantis (albeit with a time travel device), I still think that the aforementioned demonstration of a single PJ's effectiveness against a Goa'uld mothership speaks volumes about the disparity in tech between the galaxies. After all, this same PJ (assuming no "super-PJ" modification unique tot he SG-1 version) is no match for a hive ship, hence my assertion that the wraith tech is superior.

All the more reason to fear the possibility of them *ever* gaining access to the Milky Way - and also why I'll be disappointed if, when the Daedelus shows up in Pegasus, it cleans their clocks. It would be an inconsistency of Enterprise proportions.

RCK

[LordAnubis]

Welcome to Gateworld.

Personally I think the wraith would beat the Goa'uld because:

a)The wraith beat the ancients (technically the ancients retreated-still undefeated)
b) When Anubis had ancient knowledge he could takeover the entire System Lords fleets pretty easily
c) therefore if Anubis with ancient knowledge can beat Goa'uld then the Wraith that beat the ancients into submission should be able to beat the Goa'uld hands down.

Just my opinions but ... feel free to pick apart my ideas.

You could not have said it any better dude. Great logic and I agree 100%.

[Giantevilhead]

It all depends on how effectively the Goa’uld can penetrate Wraith shields and vice versa. The ships of SG depend on their shields, which are incredibly powerful and advanced races are able to beat the Goa’uld by penetrating their shields. The Tollan ion cannons blew up Goa’uld ships by penetrating their shields, Asgard weapons penetrates Goa’uld shields (until nuby altered the shields), and the Ancient squids blew away nuby's fleet by going through the shields.

[Ouroboros]

I think the Goa'uld would get their little snaky butts kicked for a few reasons.

The Goa'uld only seem to have somewhere around 200 Ha'tak:It was said by the Tok'ra in one episode that the system lords would be capable of launching an attack 100 times more powerful than the one Apophis launched on Earth in the early seasons. Apophis' attack was two Ha'Tak ships.

Even if we assume the 60 Wraith hiveships the Atlantis team became aware of from hacking that one Wraith device represent the entire Wraith fleet in Pegasus it still gives them nearly a third of the Goa'uld numbers just in hiveships. What becomes important here is that the Wraith also have cruisers which were not mentioned in the 60 hiveships quote. In letters from Peagasus there seemed to be about 3-4 cruisers for every hiveship in the small Wraith armada shown. Assuming this is a typical fleet composiition and taking the three that gives them 180 cruisers plus the 60 hiveships that Atlantis is aware of. The Wraith also have hordes af darts on board their ships, far more than we've ever seen the Goa'uld deploy at a time from a single ship. Goa'uld attack craft numbers only reached the sorts of amounts shown in seige pt2 with Anubis' entire fleet launching.

You'll notice I didn't even mention the possability of Wraith tech being potentially superior, it's not necessary. They have all they need to whup up on the snakeheads even if it isn't just in numbers.

I will however also drag out again that the Wraith were a species able to go from primatives holding one planet to a true Galaxy controlling empire destroying the ancients in less than 100 years. That speaks to some impressive ability to not only learn and apply new concepts but also to create sheer numbers of new ships and soldiers. Unlike the Goa'uld they also seemed to hold every planet in their galaxy, small as it may be, if the ancient map from the Seige charting their expanshion is to be trusted.

Jaffa are stupid enough to fall for the illusion trick over and over: I don't really need to explain this one. The vast majority of Jaffa have never been what could be considered quick witted so they're going to get duped by this Wraith trick constantly and repeatedly. The only reason Shep's people were able to eventually ignore it was because they got info from Teyla that it was just a trick. Before that they were freaking out and firing all over the place, these were trained US marines not Jaffa.

Wraith warrors aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer either but this psi-trick will be enough to let them defeat Jaffa ground armies. Their effectivness agaisnt Kull warriors will depend on whether or not the stunner weapons will work on them. Since they are a Goa'uld in a human host and thus still have a human nervous system I'm inclinded to think it will, though possibly with reduced effect.

Resitence to implantation: I don't believe for a moment that a Goa'uld symbiote would be able to take a Wraith host. It would probably succeed in the actual implantation and take over of that individual but after that it's going to be telepathically killed, or at the very least detected by the species wide mindlink the Wraith share.

Spoiler:

Teyla was detected as an intruder within mere moments of "logging in" in "the gift" and she wasn't trying to do anything other than look around and stay quiet

. This obviously removes a lot of the options for infiltration and intelligence gathering the Goa'uld would otherwise enjoy.

So in the end it's got to go to the Wraith I think. They're perhaps not as impressive as a lot of us were expecting, myself included, but they should still squash the Goa'uld without any real fear of loosing.