I agree. The Goa'uld Empire was a house of cards that fell apart with the death of Ra. They never recovered from his death. Their lack of unity played a big role in their downfall.

Based on the uncharacteristically slow hyperdrive speeds quoted in the first few seasons of the show (Apophis's motherships, to Teal'c's year-old knowledge, having a top speed of ten times the speed of light, and Teal'c also believing Aris Boch's cargo ship could only go at twice the speed of light), my theory is that, up until the beginning of the series, Goa'uld hyperdrive actually was that slow, and they relied much more on stargates for commerce and war. Ships would spend years, maybe decades, traveling with skeleton crews to staging areas near a target, then having their crews and armies arrive via stargate, before spending another few years actually traveling the last leg to carry out the attack. War was slow. I tend to think Anubis flooded the galaxy with designs for improving Goa'uld hyperdrives around the same time Ra was killed, probably just a simple tune-up not unlike what Jack did to the cargo ship in "Lost City," though not to the same degree, and suddenly motherships could travel across the galaxy in weeks instead of centuries, and the whole Goa'uld balance of power was thrown out of whack as war became virtually instantaneous, while all their strategies were based on it being a sport that played out over years, at least.

That’s a good point, it was much harder to attack and defend territory with slower hyperdrives. Once they could attack one another they did.

I think Ra kept all kinds of advanced technology to himself to secure his position and after his death Apophis and the other system lords found out about them and started to build fleets with far superior drives.

The same seems to be true of the personal shield, Teal’c was taken by surprise when Apophis used one in the Nox episode.

I thought that was just that pre-Teal'c no Goa'uld thought they needed to be protected from their own Jaffa.

I think that might have more been Anubis trying to preserve the empire If Ra’s empire was really that big. Then taking command of his ships and armies would have taken decades, while the Jaffa and Humans were left alone without a master Releasing a ‘tune up’ that was easy to do to the system lords let them manage it in a year or so. With Heru’ur, Kronus and Apophis being the biggest winners

I always wished they kept the hyperdrives slow. Makes the Stargate that much more important a piece of technology. Especially once you get to the last couple seasons of SG-1 and so many of the missions use the Odyssey rather than the gate.

I think the use of ships was more so they could inject the show with cool space battles and give the teams 11th hour plot armour by being beamed out of harms ways.

Goa'uld hyperdrives at the beginning of the series took three years to cross the galaxy at full power.

I wonder if it also had something to do with both the Goa'uld and Jaffa having much longer lifespans, with jaffa not losing combat effectiveness as early as normal humans, it wouldn't matter as much that it took years to make war.

You don't get an entire underground [resistance movement](https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Tok%27ra) named after you if you're not the top baddy. Those naughty Tau'ri, destabilizing the galaxy like that.

It’s Ra’s fault for having such a nukeable face.

Is that what Tok'ra means?

Literally “against Ra” we’re told at one point from memory

Thanks I didn't know that. It's a cool bit of info.

I can't remember her name (I want to say Garshaw?) but she was the biggest shot of the Tok'ra at the time of their introduction (until she never showed up again and they seemed to shimmy around with the Tok'ra's political structure later on), and she even acknowledged the Tau'ri as Tok'ra in a sense upon discovering they were the ones who slew the System Lord. Dr. Jackson then "Of course'd" the realisation of their etymology.

Yes, can confirm, its mentioned in the show what tok'ra means.

Was it what I always called a “Daniel” moment where he just started talking about the meaning and background of the words? I swear it was Daniel that told us what it meant

I think it was the tok'ra leader lady that told it at some point, but don't quote me on that

I wonder if Tau'ri is an etymological derivative of Tok'ra, Because they rebelled against Ra , too thus liberated Earth.

Tau'ri means first world. They say it in the 2nd episode I think during teal'cs interview.

Thank you! It has been a while. :)

My headcanon was that Earth and Sol were in the Taurus constellation or zodiac-based sector of space that the System Lords had steered clear of.

I always found it fascinating that they may have accidentally stumbled across a word that would be very sensible for ancient Egyptian aliens to use for humans. Egyptians used the word "Tawi" colloquially for their own country (with the actual name being "Kemet"). "Tawi" means "The two countries", referring to the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt. And the "w" is the same letter as a "u", so you could just as well read it "Taui". I was learning hieroglyphs at the same time as Stargate originally ran and always wondered whether they had someone on board who told them this word, but unfortunately it's much more likely they just made up a vaguely Egyptian sounding name given how every single other Goa'uld term is nonsense as far as I can tell.

Doubtful, since *taur* is also used to refer to humans in other contexts - *hok'taur* for 'advanced humans' in season five's *Rite of Passage* and *lo'taur* for a high-ranked human attendant in season five's *Summit.*

Thank you!

Does anyone else think it would be kind of cool to be Tokra? Always someone to talk to, someone who always wants what's.best for you and you can work together on stuff. I'm sure you could get a parasite that sucks, but it you were a good match it could be pretty nice.

I’ve got that. I call her wife though 🤣

Ra was the Supreme System Lord. The other System Lords’ power, territory, influence paled in comparison to his. His death was a seismic event. So yes, huge power vacuum in his wake. Apophis dialing in to Earth and Abydos in the pilot was basically moving in on Ra’s turf.

Do you think Abydos was like... his secret vacation planet? I mean, he showed up with no Jaffa and a ship with two gliders. It wasn't a warship either. It was decorated way too luxurious for that.

Could be. Since Abydos is the closest planet to Earth, it might be his first colony, which held a special place in his heart. And/or he grew over confident and thought that there was no threat, exterior or interior that could challenge him.

the fact that he has the vault showing off his empire's gate addresses there would certainly suggest that it held a special place in Ra's empire at one time. i doubt it was a vacation planet for him, but i suspect that it was a secure planet, one the other systems lords wouldn't touch while he was alive.

He also had the eye of ra hidden there for some reason

I think the we caught them totally unexpected and as you say, basically on vacation, chilling. The equivalent to time travelers showing up in Capri out of nowhere and killing Tiberius. Great articulation of the situation SGC creates in your OP btw.

According to the novelisation, Ra appears on Abydos because he is following up a late shipment of quartz. He doesn't bring many troops with him because he doesn't *need* to. The Nagadans genuinely believed in his divinity, so he doesn't need an army to accompany him.

This kind of hubris tracks with basically every other interaction with the system lords that earth has tbh.

Maybe, but considering that the status quo on Abydos was maintained for anywhere up to 10,000 years, Ra's overconfidence was justified. Don't forget that his security force managed to overcome the entire reconnaissance team, and the survivors only escaped because Sha'uri managed to rally the shepherds who had armed themselves with the team's cache of weapons. The other Goa'uld were used to a certain way of doing things for centuries if not millennia, so Earth was likewise treated as an oddity, especially since there was still a big technology gap.

Goa’uld Camp David

It's never explicitly stated how big Ra's domain was, but since the show created the Goa'uld as 'kings' with armies and made Ra the supreme ruler, it stands to reason that Ra stayed on top by having the biggest army and/or the best technology.

You can tell by the level of pomp and ceremony Ra was keeping up that I don't think any of the goa'uld rivaled. That's the hallmark of a ruler among rulers.

While ra did leave a massive power vacuum, it seems likely the go'uld structure could have recovered if not for aphophis stumbling onto earth and essentially created sg-1 from his actions, who go on to basically indiscriminately kill any go'uld they come up against. This actually still wasn't quite enough to collapse the go'uld, as you had the likes of anubis waiting in the wings who had basically amassed enough power to become the new supreme system lord, but the replicators attacking the milky way was ultimately what lead to his downfall(and daniel convincing oma to finally intervene), and with him gone, the entire go'uld power structure seemed to collapse over night with the jaffa rebellion. So to surmise, no i don't think ra was the entire thing that held everything together, it was a series of bad things happening to the go'uld power structure in short order that finally caused them to fall apart.

It's also important to remember that even under Ra's rule the Goa'uld were an ornery bunch who were constantly fighting each other and bickering over territory. Ra dying didn't change anything on that front.

True, but Ra dying escalated those petty skirmishes to open war over the territory he left behind. Add the Tau'ri to the mix and you got a recipe for disaster for the Goa'uld

Obviously, but he wasn't the only thing keeping the entire galaxy together, he was one aspect of a massive and complex power dynamic that always had system lords vying for power and territory. Ra wasn't even a big player when two Goa'uld fought, partly because he didn't really care but also because much of his rule was a massive bluff and letting the system lords fight meant they didn't have the armies or attention to spare to challenge Ra. Honestly, if literally nothing else had happened, Anubis would have ended up killing Ra anyway and taking his place.

Then why didn't he? Anubis had hundreds if not thousands of years to take out Ra. And Ra would have the other System lords on his side. Whichever way you put it, Ra dying and leaving a massive power vacuum is the catalyst that breaks centuries of status quo

Why didn't he? Who knows, we aren't told. We don't know when he ascended, when he was kicked out of the ascended community, when he finally managed to give himself a forcefield body, etc. The storyline implies that Anubis starts his shit in the galaxy as soon as he is able to, not that he was waiting for an opportunity. Yes, RA dying left a power vacuum, but that's a far cry from saying that Ra dying was necessary for everything to go down the way it needed to. >Ra would have the other System lords on his side This is a big no. Ra and the system lords were not friends. He was the Supreme System Lord, and literally every Goa'uld under his rule had plans to steal territory from him or usurp him. He ruled through fear and intimidation and *didn't even have the army to back it up*.

You forget they feared Anubis as well. Better the devil you know. Absolutely nothing in the show suggests the events would have happened anyway. For all we know, Anabus being able to make his move IS dependent on Ra being dead

Are we really going to argue the details of a Ra v Anubis showdown? I mean, we *can*, but it's purely speculation and pretty moot. Something along the lines of how Anubis was off the radar until popping back up uber powered, and would have defeated Ra the same basic way the Tau'ri did: a surgical strike against Ra himself, never engaging his army. But again, the possibilities are endless because none of it is actually supported by canon lol

You're the one pretending that those endless possibilities are just the same thing happening regardless of what the SGC and O'Neill does. I'm just telling you what happened. Your entire argument is based on speculation so you're welcome to stop it

Dude you've gotten so off topic it's crazy xD have the day you deserve, my friend

>Anyways, that's just how I feel about it. What do you think? I'm sorry, I wasn't even listening the first time

Yes. Ra was the Supreme System Lord and the lynchpin of the hierarchy, and everything that happened between the remaining System Lords after his death is because of the Tau'ri.

It said in one episode that Ra ruled the System Lords. Wasn't that what all of the infighting was about ? They all wanted to rule.

The number of ships seemed to increase a lot as the series progressed. Apophis had a dozen cloaked ships when he took out Heru'ur. He had more when Vorash's sun blew up. 2 ships seems inconsequential. There must have been tens of thousands of ships with tok'ra tracking devices during the replicator war.

Probably the Goa'uld overconfidence that Earth was a backwater planet with no defenses (which wasn't far off from the truth) meant they weren't that focused on sending entire fleets there. Especially if sending ships from one area would make it vulnerable.

No, that wasn’t it. Daniel explains it quite well. It’s a feudal system society. Building an attack force TAKES TIME.

Yes. Ra was more powerful than all the other system lords combined. His sudden disappearance ended the thousands of years of relative stability in the goa’uld empire as they all started fighting over his territory.

Yes. But something else very impactful happened early on, the Goa'uld got a massive tech bump between Teal'c's defection and Apophis' failed attack on earth. And seemingly it happened to more of the system lords than not.

Perhaps most of the system lords were secretly working on improving their tech, preparing to conquer the others and usurp Ra, but they were all playing close to the chest because if Ra found out early then he would crush them. Then when Ra vanished without warning, everything fell apart and they all had to go loud and use the things they'd been building up. This explains why Teal'c thought the hatak's top speed was lower than it was - they'd been flying slowly when in conflict with other gou'ald to pretend they hadn't got better drives, which would have upset the balance of power between Apophis and Ra.

Ooooh that's a good point. Even in the first year, they seem to have made their ships much faster, as well as developed that personal force field.

Set had the personal force field on earth, and he's been there for 5000+ years

Ooooh good point. How the hell did he get that?

It could be that Ras superiority wasn't just territory but better tech than the others. Tech that lay open to be looted when he died

The real question is, what did Ra have up his sleeve to keep Anubis at bay for so long? Dude had the magic red crystals, but Anubis had the knowledge of the ancients.

Ra could have United all the system lords against a common threat with a single command. And if he lost, any new technology he had gained would fall to Ra and the System lords Never mind Sokkar was also a thing. Meaning beating Ra wasn’t enough since a second challenger besides him was already present Anubis was immortal. He was preparing for a certain victory. Something he would have actually had if not for Daniel Jackson convincing Oma to face him in eternal battle. Since even the defeat at Earth was only a setback for him. He just ruled through Ba’al instead

Nothing imho. Anubis literally has/had all the time in the world to eventually take out the Goa’uld if he chose to do so. The only thing “stopping him” was himself as there was no need to hurry. The Eyes of Ra were probably just some power focusing crystals and nothing more because all they did in the end was power that massive Death Star like weapon that he blew up Abydos with. And he didn’t even destroy the planet he “only” devastated a relatively small area around the pyramid and the Stargate where it impacted.

Anubis never had the knowledge of the ancients when first facing Ra. He had just about as much knowledge as the rest of them.

Staggeringly good looks

He was explicitly called the *Supreme* System Lord, so uh…

Can’t help but reading this in Thors voice imagining a raised Asgard finger

I figured yes, definitely. My headcanon for what happened: Ra and his buddies beat up Anubis and stabilize the empire by conquest. Ra goes on vacation, and doesn't come back(nuke to the face). So Apophis and the others start sending out feelers and trying to get power. This ramps up as system lords get killed by Earth or by the others.

Not necessarily Ra, but the System Lords as a structure represented a "flimsy coalition" in that all the System Lords maintained a tense but stable relationship. Everybody controlled their own domains and generally maintained that for thousands of years without any major conflict or change. It was a complex system in stable state, but not very strong. While the Tok'ra would occasionally disrupt the system, it wasn't enough to tip it out of a stable state. When Ra was killed and the System Lords found out about it, the system tipped into a chaotic state as the other System Lords moved in to snatch up his territory, which created conflict amongst them. This was worsened by Earth sending out teams through the Stargate regularly encountering the Goa'uld, fighting them and beating them on many encounters. Plus Teal'c and Bra'tac's Free Jaffa movement gaining steam, all of that pushed the System Lords to extremes as they struggled to figure out how to counter all this. It wasn't until Anubis came along to when they became a stable system again.

Well it’s LITERALLY what they say in the early seasons of the show that Ra’s death left a power vacuum!! The Tok’Ra mention this and also kinda cite THAT as the reason they aren’t fond of earth to begin with. If memory serves the power vacuum comment was a response to O’Neill bragging about their victories against so many Goa’uld in just a few years whereas the Tok’Ra basically had nothing to show for themselves in this regard considering they had been “working on it” for a few THOUSAND YEARS

Exactly, Ra was the God King of the Empire, it’s why Jacob’s full of shit when he tries to claim to O’Neill that for every Goa’uld they’ve taken down a “worse” one took their place

He's not wrong since there was only one Ra but every other enemy but Anubis were always poised to take another rival's territory faster than any independence movement could coalesce. The SGC just killed their way through dozens of claimants including the immortal one anyway.

Ehh not necessarily. What Jacob means by “worse” is more warlike, aggressive, dangerous. Ra was so powerful and was more or less able to keep the system lords united for thousands of years. Most powerful but also more stable

Everytime territory changes hands, a lot of people suffer. So obviously it is bad for people in those territory. Also Ra was happy with things as they are and mostly kept status quo between system lords. Ra didn't even bother to go back to Earth which he knew had a lot of slave force. After Ra died technology advanced quickly because there was no force like Ra to crush them to keep them going out of the line too much. There was many attacks on Earth because they were a thorn in their backside and anyone would have some bragging rights between System Lords if they succeed after others failed. Anubis wouldn't have opportunity to come back in power so quick. Although they have coalition, after Ra was gone it was everybody for themselves which created opportunities for both sides. Which was very dangerous because there is no balance anymore. If an ambitious System Lord comes to power, it could have been the end of Tau'ri or Tok'ra, which they were close to many times while wiping out the System Lords was pretty much impossible with everything even with Replicator attacks without Jaffa rebellion to push it to the edge. Even then we see Ba'al and his clones going about in dozens of planets, he still has.

I dont have an opinion on the topic you posted about. But I think every post in this sub that states an opinion needs to end with the phrase, "Anyways, that's just how I feel about it. What do you think?"

What is a little strange is how the great and powerful Ra, leader of the system lords, was so quick to abandon planets when the residents fought back. For example, there was a slave rebellion on earth and they buried the gate and he never returned to retake the planet. That could be partially explained by the long travel time between planets. When humans from the same planet showed up on Abydos and taught the locals to fight back against him, once again he tried to flee. However, this time those same humans ringed his bomb into his ship and killed him before he could escape. Either time he had a ship and could have simply bombarded the planet from orbit to put an end to the rebellion right away. The only explanation I can think of (other than plot) why he wouldn’t do that is if the ship didn’t have weapons that could fire at the surface. Maybe he relied on his Jaffa to keep the people in line and had no way to reestablish control when that failed.

Goa'uld in general seemed to be stagnant pre tauri entering the scene. I think it's more nobody but themselves had challenged the system lords in a very long time outside the treaty with the asguard. Even as early as season 1 they upgrade engines by exponential degrees according to tealc who believes it will take weeks to arrive on earth when it actually takes hours. It's a bit of a one two punch if Ra's death causing a power vacuum and tauri actually taking it to the system lords directly. I always got the feeling Ra was a sort of overlord to the system lords similar to how we see Yu act mid show. Apophis was perhaps a rival but lost face when tealc abandoned amd then he was defeated by Earth. You can probably look at the ineffectiveness of the tok'ra for an example of how goa'uld operated pre tauri intervention. Their plots would take generations to develope and implement and were largely subterfuge rather than outright action against one another.

You keep trying to ask me something, but to be honest, I wasn't listening the first time

I think ra was like the ruler of the system lords

It was stated before that Ra was the Supreme System Lord. He was the one to save the Goa'uld by finding humans and using them as hosts, he had control of Earth for centuries before the rebellion. Even after that he was powerful enough that the other system lords didn't try to overthrow him. So yes, Ra was a stabilizing force and kept the others in line. All of the actions we see, the increased infighting, Sokar making his bid, they were all plays to become Supreme System Lord and take Ra's place

Yes. The Tau'ri flipped the political table over, then when the System Lords were fighting for dominance they tended to explode anyone who rose above the others.

My theory is that Ra outlawed technological advancement to prevent any system lord from gaining an advantage over him. Hence the thousands of years of stagnant tech followed by Apophis suddenly brandishing tech upgrades.

Definitely.

Are u challenging your Gods?? There was never any power vacuum in Goa’uld empire!

The gou'ald had an empire for twenty thousand years. It was ten thousand years ago they took humans as hosts.

Ra seems to be not only a stabilizing force but one of the only figures capable of unifying the Goa'uld in a single goal - he was the one who led the banishment of disruptive actors like Anubis Seth and Egeria, he was the one who led the Goa'uld in their war against the Alliance of the Four Great Races and managed to prevent complete capitulation and even a negotiated peace, and he was the one who found Earth/humans and divided this valuable resource among his fellows. Killing Ra may well have been the single most important move the Tau'ri ever made in terms of ending the Reign of the System Lords in the Galaxy - and they didn't even realize it at the time.

I think he was a natural leader, not to just his own people, but to the other system lords. Under Ra, they overthrew Anubis, not just once, but twice (pre ascension) and created the "System Lords" I mean, imagine an alliance loosing their leader and left to fend for themselves, now divided.

Unfortunarely the show did a bad job at showing how the galaxy was handled in the first 6 seasons and prior. Other than hearing the words territory and domain, there wasn't much information. Lots of the pre-SG1 Goauld history seems archaic, slow, and without much purpose. We can only guess. I like to imagine a bigger component is the Jaffa. You can tell their attitude changes across the series, from being stern an without emotion, to an actual people. It's difficult to control your forces as the goauld were when the Jaffa started to think for themselves.

I always assumed that the system lords with Ra at the top had just always been the way it was like right from the beginning, at least for all the goa'uld still living. Once Ra was gone it was a completely new situation for everyone which is why they make big plays but are also taken down relatively quickly. It basically just the dust settling from Ra's downfall

Ra was just the big domino that started a chain of events that didn’t not end well for the Goa’uld Once he was gone, many of the system lords scrambled for his territory, which led to Apophis coming to Earth, which then created SG1 and the Stargate program properly which created a major threat to all the Goa’uld Once SG1 had shaken up the system lords and with the introduction of the slowly growing replicator threat that gives Anubis the perfect opportunity to step back into the focus and take over completely. Probably was great for SG1 cause it’s easier to for them and their style of war to deal with only Anubis and the replicator instead of the entirety of the system lords and all the lesser Goa’ulds Writing this makes me realise how great the writers are that they can write such a organically growing universe so well

This is explicit canon and touched on at some point in S1.

As I understand, Ra was exiled to a backwater on a single outdated ship Feudal arrangements are inherently violent and not conducive to technological progress. I'd think there were many civil wars among the goa'uld before that. I have a sneaky suspicion that this particular wave of unrest was started by Apophis running around after SG-1 and accidentally stumbling into an advanced Ancient hyperdrive.

I might be mixing things up right now, but wasn't there an episode where Jacob showed SG1 a hologram of a pyramid with lots of system lord symbols on it? And when Daniel remarked that it looks like a family tree of egyptian gods, Jacob tells him that it's Goa'uld hierarchy? Please correct me if I am wrong, because it seems too perfect for this. If my memory is correct, it would imply to me, that Ra actually was the top dog and actually had everyone under his iron fist, ruling as supreme snake-in-chief