Stargate Problem

[Xon]

Jaffa do tend to take casualties when assaulting SGC teams, but they also have a very different level of acceptable casualities. The Goa'uld just don't care if the odd few thousand of the Jaffa die, as there are more Jaffa around that the entire SG-Earth would have military forces. Potentially by a few orders of magntiude.

[doom3607]

Ah, the Goa'uld never seemed to have that many Jaffa. A ha'tak carries a thousand, and we know they have, in total, 2-300 of those, so 2-300,000 Jaffa. Assuming that's 10% of their forces, which is not that unreasonable, we get a total figure, for all the Goa'uld, everywhere, of no more than three million Jaffa. Given their demonstrated incompetence against American light infantry, I think it's a fairly good bet the USA could have fairly easily kicked the crap out of the Jaffa on the ground with no issues at all. The ships are a different issue...

[Metahive]

There are various occasions when their ground forces do suck enormously, and the humans quite often beat them. But this is toned down in later seasons, at least against Anubis' forces, who're made of sterner stuff than those they mow down, it seems.

In the first two seasons alone there's actually only one episode where the Ta'uri eek out a clear victory against attacking Ja'far by themselves, and that's Cor'ai (and even there they had lightly armed villagers supporting them). All other engagements either have them on the retreat once the fighting starts or getting rescued via plot contrivance (point in case Thor's Chariot and the first season finale). doom3607 asserting that the Ja'far lose every single infantery engagement with Earth is a complete falsehood.
Also, it's the "Stormtroopers must suck because they don't clearly defeat Luke, Leia and Han"- argument all over again and it's as wrong-headed as ever.

And of course, infantry engagements include kull warriors, who required a ludicrous plot contrivance to beat.

To be fair, the Kull Warrior's armor was wanked out to the extreme as well.

Ah, the Goa'uld never seemed to have that many Jaffa. A ha'tak carries a thousand, and we know they have, in total, 2-300 of those, so 2-300,000 Jaffa. Assuming that's 10% of their forces, which is not that unreasonable, we get a total figure, for all the Goa'uld, everywhere, of no more than three million Jaffa.

Do you also measure the amount of total US troops by how many soldiers they can fit on their aircraft carriers and missile cruisers? What do you think Tel'taks, Al'kesh and the Stargate network are good for? Back to the drawing board you go.

Given their demonstrated incompetence against American light infantry, I think it's a fairly good bet the USA could have fairly easily kicked the crap out of the Jaffa on the ground with no issues at all. The ships are a different issue...

Wank wank wank.

And of course the ships are a different issue. All that ground power is for no good when the enemy can rain down death and destruction from above with impunity. How else do you think the US won their easy victories in the two Gulf Wars? Certainly not because of the US marine's esprit du corps.

[Xon]

Ah, the Goa'uld never seemed to have that many Jaffa

The Goa'uld spans thousands to hundred of thousands of planets across the Milkyway, and where they go Humanity and the Jaffa also go. The SGC has explicitly ignored Goa'uld throne worlds, and rarely visits Jaffa homeworlds so we aren't going to see masisve concentrations at any one time.

This is also ignoring we have seen a few Goa'uld worlds with massive industralization spanning a significant amount of the planet, that alone is enough to blow your number completely out of the water.

[NecronLord]

Ah, the Goa'uld never seemed to have that many Jaffa. A ha'tak carries a thousand, and we know they have, in total, 2-300 of those,

No, they can project a force to Earth of two hundred ha'tak. They may have far more.

so 2-300,000 Jaffa. Assuming that's 10% of their forces, which is not that unreasonable,

Why?

we get a total figure, for all the Goa'uld, everywhere, of no more than three million Jaffa. Given their demonstrated incompetence against American light infantry, I think it's a fairly good bet the USA could have fairly easily kicked the crap out of the Jaffa on the ground with no issues at all.

Err. A thousand jaffa is the standing crew not its use as a troopship. Never mind that you're assuming a stargate power would transport its armies by starship and thus have to feed them in the field etc, when they don't have to.

The ships are a different issue...

And if someone were talking about the US military you'd bitch and scream about someone denying them the use of combined arms. In short, the ships are the same issue, and that issue is goa'uld attack.

[NecronLord]

To be fair, the Kull Warrior's armor was wanked out to the extreme as well.

Inapplicable; something is only a contrivance in literature if it helps the protagonists, because our suspension of disbelief balks at the good, not the evil.

To use a Star Wars example, it's not a plot contrivance when the Emperor reveals that the Second Death Star is "fully armed and operational" but it would be if Ackbar had unvieled a comparable secret weapon.

The Kull warriors may be 'wanked out' but that's not the same thing at all, and I'd say it's not wank at all, so much as a sensible application of technology already shown to exist.

[Metahive]

I disagree. Wanked out, overpowered villains are as detrimental to SOD as wanked out, overpowered heroes since defeating such villains believably takes some writing skills and those are not always a given. The Kull warriors were rendered defeatable (to the heroes at least), what, just two episodes after their introduction? A better use would have been to make them the prime threat of the season and a hard earned victory over them the season finale.

[NecronLord]

I disagree. Wanked out, overpowered villains are as detrimental to SOD

Another issue. Neither Kull Warriors not the example I gave, the Emperor of the OT, are overpowered within the contexts of their setting.

as wanked out, overpowered heroes since defeating such villains believably takes some writing skills and those are not always a given. The Kull warriors were rendered defeatable (to the heroes at least), what, just two episodes after their introduction? A better use would have been to make them the prime threat of the season and a hard earned victory over them the season finale.

That's part of why I call the thing they used to get rid of them a rediculous contrivance.

[Metahive]

The only other example of armor that can shrug off anything (including a missile in the face) but a wonky technobabble raygun are the human-form Replicators...which I'd call an example of overpowered villains as well. So yeah, it's "in-setting" wank in a way, but wank nonetheless since all that protective power can apparently be condensed in a few inches of black spandex and plastic (o yeah, and ugly albino corpses).

That's part of why I call the thing they used to get rid of them a rediculous contrivance.

Find the source of the energy that imparts life onto them and, uh, reverse the polarity. The Doctor would be proud.

[NecronLord]

The goa'uld had the same kind of shields as of The Nox, they just didn't employ them so intelligently. You will notice that the kull warrior was also vulnerable to slow projectiles (darts). The invulnerable armour didn't introduce anything new, it just used it in conjunction with an engineered host and better weapons.

[Metahive]

I don't recall a shielded Goa'uld ever being exposed to the sort of punishment the one Kull Warrior takes in Evolution Part One, that is staff weapon fire, submachineguns, SAWs and shaped charges. Isn't it more probable that Anubis recreated a version of the ancient-tech personal shield that's also seen twice on Atlantis?

[Xon]

Anubis was fundmentally limited by the fact he didn't trust the Kull Warriors. It's amazing he made them as dangerous as he did, and more of a sign of how desperate he was to gain control at any cost.

[Metahive]

What? The Kull Warriors were specifically created to be absolutely loyal minions and they lived up to it unlike the Ja'far which they were made to replace. When Anubis finally "died" they were completely devastated and unable to even defend themselves.

[Xon]

I don't recall a shielded Goa'uld ever being exposed to the sort of punishment the one Kull Warrior takes in Evolution Part One, that is staff weapon fire, submachineguns, SAWs and shaped charges. Isn't it more probable that Anubis recreated a version of the ancient-tech personal shield that's also seen twice on Atlantis?

Most of the special sause for the Kull Warrior can be described as an advanced application of inertia dampening tech. We see bullets strike and outstreched arm and the arm doesn't move, or flipping an adult Jaffa over the Kull Warrior's shoulder with an outstretched arm which again doesn't have any leverage to pull that feat off.

SGA explicitly states you can make stuff 'heavier' or 'lighter' by fiddling with inertia dampeners, and on the personal scale you can pull a lot off with the ability to play with inertia if only to a limited extend.

[Metahive]

Which would however mean that it is indeed different tech from the Goa'uld personal shields as Necron Lord proposed.

[Xon]

What? The Kull Warriors were specifically created to be absolutely loyal minions and they lived up to it unlike the Ja'far which they were made to replace. When Anubis finally "died" they were completely devastated and unable to even defend themselves.

Yes, he created them as absolutely loyal minions(by making removing as many memories granted to them by thier queen as possible), made them worship him and engineered a very shot lifespan while leaving a massive gap in how the host body was create that allowed you to insta-kill them.

Even then, the Kull Warriors where nothing more than disposable footsoliders till Anubis could engineer a new batch of disposable footsoliders to fight the Ascended.

Which would however mean that it is indeed different tech from the Goa'uld personal shields as Necron Lord proposed.

It's still just a creative adaption of tech they have had for at least a tens of thousands of years that they never needed to use before. Miniturization, power and computer control would probably be an issue, but they would have had time to work on it if they had deamed it an important application.

Strapping a personal shield or cloaking device would definitely improve the utility of them as soliders. Better yet, subspace coms which mask themselves in background noise to permit FTL communication and dedicated analysys teams to monitor and provide recommended actions. But the Kull Warriors where not soliders with actual lives and wants, but disposable minions.

[NecronLord]

I don't recall a shielded Goa'uld ever being exposed to the sort of punishment the one Kull Warrior takes in Evolution Part One, that is staff weapon fire, submachineguns, SAWs and shaped charges.

We rarely saw the goa'uld personal shield at all.

Isn't it more probable that Anubis recreated a version of the ancient-tech personal shield that's also seen twice on Atlantis?

No. That one protected against punches, and would have protected against the dart that the shot the kull warrior with in Evolution Pt 1.

[NecronLord]

Which would however mean that it is indeed different tech from the Goa'uld personal shields as Necron Lord proposed.

Goa'uld capital ships let alone their smallcraft, have demonstrated thirty two times the accelleration of Lantean puddle jumpers. They have inertial damping tech too.

[Metahive]

No. That one protected against punches, and would have protected against the dart that the shot the kull warrior with in Evolution Pt 1.

A watered down derivate then.

We rarely saw the goa'uld personal shield at all.

Every time we saw it was a visible energy field though. Those shields could also be modified to stop slow projectiles as well (Deadman Switch).

Goa'uld capital ships let alone their smallcraft, have demonstrated thirty two times the accelleration of Lantean puddle jumpers. They have inertial damping tech too.

Never disputed that. But Goa'uld shield tech and inertial dampening tech are still two distinct technologies which was my whole point.

[NecronLord]

What you're basically reaching for is that it must be ancient somehow, despite being a recombination of goa'uld technologies... because... what?

The Ancients' stuff is shinier?

True, but there's no reason to assume, given that it can be done with existing goa'uld devices,

Your point about a visual effect is meaningless, the ancient personal shield also had a different one to what the kull warriors had.

[NecronLord]

This is becoming something of a hijack, but I'm loath to seperate this discussion as we've enough stargate threads at present. I suppose the thread's topic is 'gripe about stargate' after a fashion anyway.

Strapping a personal shield or cloaking device would definitely improve the utility of them as soliders. Better yet, subspace coms which mask themselves in background noise to permit FTL communication and dedicated analysys teams to monitor and provide recommended actions.

I like your ideas, though they did have a personal cloak in SGC simulations, so it's possible that the goa'uld may have used them with that too.

Now, for my future fanfic purpouses, any more good ideas like the analysis teams?

[Metahive]

Well, if you want to be precise it's ancient tech one way or another since the Goa'uld scavenged their technology largely from them. I will however concede the issue since I don't think that this is that interesting a debate.

[Revy]

No. That one protected against punches, and would have protected against the dart that the shot the kull warrior with in Evolution Pt 1.

Err ... no. See, the reason the dart worked was because the soft fabric part of the armour had a fabric weave similar to kevlar, and like kevlar a blade or dart can slip through the fibers. If the armour incorporates shield tech to charge the armour material somehow, it still wouldn't stop a blade or dart slipping through the kevlar like fabric.

Also, the ancient shield Rodney used in Atlantis did have inertial dampening tech. We know this because Sheppard shoves Rodney off a balcony and then someone punches him, and he claims he didn't feel a thing in either case. He also claimed that Sheppard shot him in the leg and he didn't get hurt. He even claims "It must have inertial dampening properties, 'cause I didn't feel a thing!".

So it's not impossible Anubis used his Ancient knowledge of personal force shields to make some kind of advanced armour for the Kull warriors.

Oh, and someone earlier mentioned Baal using Stargates to clone himself, however we know he didn't, or at least not all the time. When the Jaffa chase after Baal and execute him, Tealc returns to Earth and Carter tells Tealc that they found one of Baal's labs, which contained cloning technology, implying that the Baal the Jaffa executed may have been a clone. So he did use some kind of identifiable cloning tech for at least some of his clones it seems.

Didn't some Kull warriors use personal cloaks in the video game simulation episode?

[NecronLord]

Err ... no. See, the reason the dart worked was because the soft fabric part of the armour had a fabric weave similar to kevlar, and like kevlar a blade or dart can slip through the fibers. If the armour incorporates shield tech to charge the armour material somehow, it still wouldn't stop a blade or dart slipping through the kevlar like fabric.

The armour was explicitly stated to have a shield, and peforms feats basically impossible without. yes, I know it was stated that the material was 'kevlar like' but it implicitly also means the dart penetrated the shield. The shield that shows every time they get hit with a staff weapon.

And yes, I know the Ancient personal shield has inertial damping, nowhere not once not ever did I say or imply otherwise.

Didn't some Kull warriors use personal cloaks in the video game simulation episode?

Yes.

[Revy]

The armour was explicitly stated to have a shield,

Really? When? All I remember was Carter going on about how it can absorb energy weapons fire. They describe the armour as a 'technology', but I don't remember anyone saying it had shield tech.

yes, I know it was stated that the material was 'kevlar like' but it implicitly also means the dart penetrated the shield. The shield that shows every time they get hit with a staff weapon.

Can someone quote the scene where Carter talks about using a dart on the armour? I'm pretty sure she specifically says that the dart will work because the dart can slip through the fibers, not because darts have been shown to defeat Goa'uld shields.

And yes, I know the Ancient personal shield has inertial damping, nowhere not once not ever did I say or imply otherwise.

Sorry, I thought someone said Anubis likely developed the Kull armour from the Ancient shield tech seen in Atlantis, and someone argued against this because shields and inertial dampening are two different technologies - though Ancient personal shields clearly use both.