System Lords

[Bhousden]

Given the feudal nature of the goa'uld and their lust for power it's hard for to imagine how they can agree on anything, much less a "governing body" such as the system lords. So I would like to know this came to be. More importantly how is it than no goa'uld had ever managed to gain supremacy over the galaxy and taken complete control of all goa'uld in the 10's of thousands of years since they became the dominant race in the galaxy. Granted few have tried, Ra, Sokar, Anubis, etc. but none ever succeeded, how?

[Skydiver]

Well we know Anubis tried and was kicked out because he went too far.

I'm going to guess that the surviving system lords agreed that the galaxy was a large place and plenty of room for them to co-exist. and that may also be part of the issue, dozens of system lords, more space than we can comprehend in the universe and only so many resources. Plenty of room for them to sprawl and exist without having to fight each other all the time.

[garhkal]

Plus who's to say that in the beginning with them, there WASN'T some sort of overarching king like figure who did keep them all in line, till Ra took that role over.

[StargateMillennium]

This lust for power is actually what causes all this. Chaos causes the order.

They're power hungry but not stupid. If a single Goa'uld is gaining too much power, then the others will want to put him down before he gets too strong. They'll team up and take him down; otherwise they lose power. So cooperating benefits them. Once he is put down, balance is achieved and things go back to normal.

Then there is the governing body you talked about. It's a nice way to establish a food chain to maintain one's power especially in the event of one specific Goa'uld gaining too much power. If you were a nice and powerful Goa'uld but you know there is a possibility that one of the others Goa'uld might get more power and overtake all the others. You decide you will acknowledge the other Goa'uld near your level of power. You all acknowledge each other, slap on a title so you can gloat to the lesser Goa'uld, and now you know if something goes wrong you guys will take it down to make sure no one threatens your status. In other words, the System Lords are an overglorified club that they made simply to make themselves feel good and have a list of Goa'uld to call for help if they realize any one was getting too powerful.

Also, by grouping up and turning into a governing body, your less likely to get revolted against. Challenge one and you challenge all.

Short version is: no one goa'uld too charge because any time one got too powerful, everyone else would make sure he got dragged back down. And the reason they did stuff like form governing bodies is because it helps them rise without being dragged down.

[Skydiver]

They all wanted to lead and the only way they could all lead is if NONE of them were really in charge. They kinda did what the allies did after world war 2, sat down at a table, carved out territories and states and nations and divided up the power, so no one country got too much (not an intro to discuss the trials and tribulations of post WWII europe)

As the millennia went on they tried to one up each other now and then, but as said, never crossed that line to have too much power to draw the attention that would mean they'd need to be smacked down.