Goa'uld versus the Wraith

[Baal]

Lets look at the two primary foes of the Stargate universe. How do these two foes match up against each other?

The Wraith have it in the scary department. Draining the life out of you through their hand with excrutiating pain is probably more scary then being possessed by a Symbiote who makes you live centuries while watching your body do horrible things.

Weapons though its harder to say. The Wraith seem to be more limited in ground combat. They have a large stunner weapon while the Jaffa use Staff Weapons, Zats, grenades, crew serviced weapons, and depending on the time period a weapon that I dont think the Wraith could hurt at all in the Kull Warriors.

So let us say that by some fluke both exist on opposite sides of the same galaxy and through growth of empires both collide against each other at the height of their power.

Who takes it? It appears to me that Go'uld ships have superior shields and weapons to Wraith. Earth ships appear to hagve an easier time against Wraith ships. Also nukes appear to be a viable weapon against the Wraith if you can get them close enough while the shields on a Go'uld mothership mean even naquada enhanced nukes just bounce off with a shrug.

The two dont appear to have any real advantage in small ships. Both sides fighters probably can take out the other. Though I dont know what the Wraith have to oppose the Go'uld mid range bomber. Also we know the Go'uld possess cloaking technology which works very well against the Wraith.

The Wraith fighters ability to vacuum people up off the ground will give them an edge which they will need to keep from being completely whipped by the Jaffa on the ground.

Also vacuuming them up would probably be the only way the Wraith could do anything to stop the Kull. But this may cost them a Hive Ship or two when they vacuum up a Kull and before they know what they have they reform it in a Hive Ship. At that point in my opinion the Wraith will have effectively lost the Hive Ship as the Kull then easily walks through everything the Wraith try to throw at it in defense.

So what is everyone elses opinion? Overall I think the Go'uld were a greater foe power wise but the fear factor of the Wraith life-draining make them appear to be scarier to the average human.

[NecronLord]

The Wraith have it in the scary department. Draining the life out of you through their hand with excrutiating pain is probably more scary then being possessed by a Symbiote who makes you live centuries while watching your body do horrible things.

Errr. Really? Think about that for a moment. A few minutes of pain, compared to a hundred lifetimes of pain whenever a capricious spoilt child controlling you feels like it.

[Baal]

The Wraith have it in the scary department. Draining the life out of you through their hand with excrutiating pain is probably more scary then being possessed by a Symbiote who makes you live centuries while watching your body do horrible things.

Errr. Really? Think about that for a moment. A few minutes of pain, compared to a hundred lifetimes of pain whenever a capricious spoilt child controlling you feels like it.

More scary cause it happens alot more often. Every Wraith can drain you painfully.

Maybe one in a million humans get to be a symbiote house.

[Soontir C'boath]

Also vacuuming them up would probably be the only way the Wraith could do anything to stop the Kull. But this may cost them a Hive Ship or two when they vacuum up a Kull and before they know what they have they reform it in a Hive Ship. At that point in my opinion the Wraith will have effectively lost the Hive Ship as the Kull then easily walks through everything the Wraith try to throw at it in defense.

Why reform them on a Hive ship? Just override the safety feature (if there is any) and eject them in space.

[NecronLord]

Maybe one in a million humans get to be a symbiote house.

And the rest of them are made to live brutal lives of toil under hawk-headed overseers.

[NecronLord]

Also vacuuming them up would probably be the only way the Wraith could do anything to stop the Kull. But this may cost them a Hive Ship or two when they vacuum up a Kull and before they know what they have they reform it in a Hive Ship. At that point in my opinion the Wraith will have effectively lost the Hive Ship as the Kull then easily walks through everything the Wraith try to throw at it in defense.

Why reform them on a Hive ship? Just override the safety feature (if there is any) and eject them in space.

Not that it matters. The Goa'uld had at least 400 odd ha'taks, against 60 odd Hive Ships and their escorts. Given that ha'taks seem considerably more formidable.

If we want to be really sadistic, each Ha'tak is capable of lifting a similar or greater mass to that of Atlantis' from a planet, indicating that they all have power output similar to at least one ZPM...

[Block]

I'm thinking it's the wraith and it's not even close. They beat the Ancients, something the snakes could even consider on their best day.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Not that it matters. The Goa'uld had at least 400 odd ha'taks, against 60 odd Hive Ships and their escorts. Given that ha'taks seem considerably more formidable.

If we want to be really sadistic, each Ha'tak is capable of lifting a similar or greater mass to that of Atlantis' from a planet, indicating that they all have power output similar to at least one ZPM...

How are they more powerful? The impression I get is that the Wraith inherited lots of Ancient technology, though they seem to be inferior.

[NecronLord]

How are they more powerful? The impression I get is that the Wraith inherited lots of Ancient technology, though they seem to be inferior.

Err... Like what? Almost everything the wraith use is biological in some way. We've not seen that from the Ancients, though there are many millions of years unaccounted for in Lantean history. The Wraith ships are shieldless, and despite having truly staggering volume (hive ships are reputedly 11 Km long) they are unable to swat BC-303s out of the sky with the casual ease.

The goa'uld, on the other hand, are explicitly stated to use some technologies based off those of the Ancients. The goa'uld have seared worlds (witness Netu), have ships capable of operating in a much larger galaxy, have shown 'super-ships' capable of destroying ha'taks in single shots, and have a wealth of other technologies (cloaked ha'taks, for exampe, biological weapons, implanted nuclear-equivalent bombs... The list goes on) that can be used.

Part of this may just be that we've not yet seen the full extent of what the Wraith have...

[SCRawl]

I'm thinking it's the wraith and it's not even close. They beat the Ancients, something the snakes could even consider on their best day.

Yeah, but they did it by overwhelming them with sheer numbers. This isn't to totally dismiss the accomplishment, but it isn't as though, under normal circumstances, they would be playing in the same league as the Ancients.

[NecronLord]

I'm thinking it's the wraith and it's not even close. They beat the Ancients, something the snakes could even consider on their best day.

They beat what seems to be one (well, we've seen two others, but they insist on reffering to it as Lantean civilisation) city of Ancients. By sheer numbers. Losing every battle as they did so. What makes you think, given the sheer incompetance of the Ancients, and what, centuries to go about it, the Goa'uld couldn't manage similar?

This is the same kind of attitude as 'The Ancients were more advanced than the Asgard are... Just because!'

These are the same Ancients who managed to be there for millions of years in advance and still managed to lose to a race who actually evolved while the Ancients were busy manufacturing plot devices or whatever it is they did to pass the time in peacetime. The Ancients managed to miss the development of a ruthless and agressive power under their nose utterly until it was strong and numerous enough to defeat them. I think unilaterally saying the goa'uld couldn't exploit this stupidity is a little unfair.

[NecronLord]

Not that it matters. The Goa'uld had at least 400 odd ha'taks, against 60 odd Hive Ships and their escorts. Given that ha'taks seem considerably more formidable.

Addendum: Unless of course, by 'at the height' of the Wraith, one means when they commenced their war. At which point, presumably they had many more ships, quite possibly enough to destroy the goa'uld.

Also, corrected the spelling in the thread title.

[Baal]

Sure the Ancients were defeated but it appears that was due to them being overly peaceful and only fighting as a last resort.

So we dont know how hard a fight it was for the Wraith or if they just caught the Ancients on the defensive and never let up.

Just like we really do not know what the total strength of the Wraith were. If we take the Wraith at their height then its only fair to do the same with the Goa'uld which means when Anubis was at his height.

[Baal]

Also vacuuming them up would probably be the only way the Wraith could do anything to stop the Kull. But this may cost them a Hive Ship or two when they vacuum up a Kull and before they know what they have they reform it in a Hive Ship. At that point in my opinion the Wraith will have effectively lost the Hive Ship as the Kull then easily walks through everything the Wraith try to throw at it in defense.

Why reform them on a Hive ship? Just override the safety feature (if there is any) and eject them in space.

That is assuming that the Wraith know what they have caught and can act accordingly. Since every dart can vacuum up foes they might not be able to easily keep track of who was caught where. Also since the Wraith need to keep prisoners for food sake they cannot just dump everyone they catch or they wont be collecting any food.

That is another point against the Wraith. The Goa'uld and their Jaffa armies can operate for much longer periods of time and with less material support. The Wraith on the other hand need living humans to feed off on a regular basis. Which means the Wraith have a much more expensive food source that fights back and cannot be stored for too long since it needs to be fed.


As an aside does anyone else feel that the entire Wraith threat could be annihilated by convincing Thor (when he was alive) to take his O'Neil class battleship to the Pegasus galaxy and start kicking ass? The firepower of the Wraith are not very impressive, shields seem to be very weak, and their ships are dirst shit slow compared to Asgard ships.

[NecronLord]

That is another point against the Wraith. The Goa'uld and their Jaffa armies can operate for much longer periods of time and with less material support.

Err... Wraith need to 'eat' once a month. Jaffa need to eat twice or thrice a day to support a warrior's metabolism, as far as we know. I think the Wraith logistics chain would be considerably shorter.

The Wraith on the other hand need living humans to feed off on a regular basis. Which means the Wraith have a much more expensive food source that fights back and cannot be stored for too long since it needs to be fed.

Except they can be stored, we've seen this, and even seen a Wraith transport ship.

As an aside does anyone else feel that the entire Wraith threat could be annihilated by convincing Thor (when he was alive) to take his O'Neil class battleship to the Pegasus galaxy and start kicking ass? The firepower of the Wraith are not very impressive, shields seem to be very weak, and their ships are dirst shit slow compared to Asgard ships.

Yes. But then, the Asgard could fix most problems once they'd had time to regroup away from Replicator threats.

[Baal]

That is another point against the Wraith. The Goa'uld and their Jaffa armies can operate for much longer periods of time and with less material support.

Err... Wraith need to 'eat' once a month. Jaffa need to eat twice or thrice a day to support a warrior's metabolism, as far as we know. I think the Wraith logistics chain would be considerably shorter.

The Wraith on the other hand need living humans to feed off on a regular basis. Which means the Wraith have a much more expensive food source that fights back and cannot be stored for too long since it needs to be fed.

Except they can be stored, we've seen this, and even seen a Wraith transport ship.

As an aside does anyone else feel that the entire Wraith threat could be annihilated by convincing Thor (when he was alive) to take his O'Neil class battleship to the Pegasus galaxy and start kicking ass? The firepower of the Wraith are not very impressive, shields seem to be very weak, and their ships are dirst shit slow compared to Asgard ships.

Yes. But then, the Asgard could fix most problems once they'd had time to regroup away from Replicator threats.

Wraith though seem to get rather cranky when they feed that rarely. Probably why they are so quick to turn on each other.

I must have missed the epsiode with the transport ship. Were they keeping the humans in some form of stasis?

[NecronLord]

Unknown. They certainly appear to have that technology. Later, when they coocoon people, they just tend to leave them there.

[defanatic]

I must have missed the epsiode with the transport ship. Were they keeping the humans in some form of stasis?

Presumably. There was one wraith who lived for (apparently) 10,000 years by feeding on humans in stasis and fellow wraith. Apparently, regenerative abilities are better as they get older. The wraith in "The Defiant One" (the episode he is talking about) survived half a P90 magazine, a grenade, and two pistol magazines before being blown up by one of the puddle jumper missile things.

[Baal]

I must have missed the epsiode with the transport ship. Were they keeping the humans in some form of stasis?

Presumably. There was one wraith who lived for (apparently) 10,000 years by feeding on humans in stasis and fellow wraith. Apparently, regenerative abilities are better as they get older. The wraith in "The Defiant One" (the episode he is talking about) survived half a P90 magazine, a grenade, and two pistol magazines before being blown up by one of the puddle jumper missile things.

Would it not also make sense that the last Wraith in question was himself cryo sleeping as much time as possible with system set to wake him the instant any ships are detected within sensor range?

[Crown]

If we go via hyperbole; Wraith (defeated the Ancients, RAR!). If we go by demonstrated abilities; Goa'uld. Ergo, Goa'uld.




(Yes, that hurt me a little to say it out load.)

[Crazedwraith]

I must have missed the epsiode with the transport ship. Were they keeping the humans in some form of stasis?

Presumably. There was one wraith who lived for (apparently) 10,000 years by feeding on humans in stasis and fellow wraith. Apparently, regenerative abilities are better as they get older. The wraith in "The Defiant One" (the episode he is talking about) survived half a P90 magazine, a grenade, and two pistol magazines before being blown up by one of the puddle jumper missile things.

It doesn't increase with age, its amount of life they have recently consumed, as explicitly stated in the episode. The Defiant One had just eaten two people in a matter of minutes and thus had lots and lots of life to regenerate itself with.