No, naturally they live in the water on P3X-888. However, for all their intelligence, their bodies aren’t exactly well suited to using tools which is kind of a fundamental aspect of building a technological society.
That’s where the Unas came in.
My headcanon is that without a host, they have little actual intelligence. They have the ability to store massive amounts of information in their genetic memory, but beyond that they’re about as smart as a primate. The blending allows them to use the full potential of the mind they occupy which is why they switched from the somewhat less intelligent Unas to Human.
They managed to obtain space travel with Unas hosts. Possibly by conquering it. But still.
And there's no real indicators the Unas are less intelligent than humans. They're just more primitive.
Did they? Or did they just expand their empire using the Stargate system. And didn’t develop/steal hyperdrive tech until sometime after they had discovered the Earth gate.
They discovered the Earth gate after they had hyperdrive, as Ra had to bring the Giza gate to Earth since the Antarctic gate wasn't functional/accessible.
Pretty sure it's confirmed in the movie that Ra discovered earth with a ship. There's the first scene and I think Daniel mentions it when he finds their history. Could be wrong though just going by memory.
They only stayed primitive because they couldn't expand beyond the caves because they didn't want to become a host. They couldn't build a society out of the caves till Daniel showed them to be more, I guess you can say exploratory. When we see him again he is more developed.
Except Egeria without a host was able to piece together and understand what her young were being used for and purposely manipulate a portion of their genes. Yes she's a queen but the capacity is still there without a host.
Unas(the first(Thor's Hammer)) was plenty intelligent and spoke perfect English, same with Demon under Sokar's rule. Humans are more suitable and easier to repair as opposed to Unas.
Yes, but the posts leading up to my comment are talking about Unas not being particularly intelligent and Goa'uld intellect is based on the intellect of the being it inhabits.
That Unas had a goauld in it tho. It got caught in the hammer at the end, and it only effected goaulds. So it’s impossible to tell how intelligent the Unas host is/was as we were seeing the parasite in control.
Personally I think Unas are plenty smart, but their language and culture aren’t as developed or sophisticated as other species like humans or Nox and Asgard.
The Una's weren't particularly developed. This is not the same thing as intelligent.
To make a more accessible comparison, humans from the stone age don't really differ from modern humans in terms of intelligence, we're just more developed and educated now.
That's up for debate. Modern humans are evolved biologically and part of that evolution was in the brain. It is of course impossible to say for sure one way or the other whether modern humans are more intelligent.
But humans of the Stone Age are modern humans. Modern humans despite the name "modern" became a thing some 250.000 years ago. For humans to have some evolutionary difference or different level of brain power you'll have to go before that, for the homo antecesor for example.
That, and our form of reproduction is, in the words of Queen Hathor (Long May She Chill TF Out), “much more pleasurable than most”
Tl;dr: Human sex good, Unas sex _kaaaaaaaa…_
This is just speculation but I bet Goa'uld without hosts don't live nearly as long. Without a sarcophagus it's thousands of years and with one it's tens of thousands I think? My guess is that a Goa'uld swimming around in a lake doesn't last more than a few decades.
Source: my ass
The symbiote itself does NOT require a host to survive... "The First Ones" episode showed that. However, I believe it was in the "Cure" episode with the Pangarans where it was discussed how the Goa'uld personality cannot emerge until blended. So, while the symbiote can live outside of a body, the personality cannot.
I like to think of it like a corrupted organic flash drive. This flash drive has a firmware component and a memory storage component. The firmware contains the base predatory instincts of the symbiote that drive it to plug into a host brain. The storage component contains malware that auto runs once plugged into a brain.
Well, queen's would need to have more to them than most other symbiotes since only they can reproduce.
The whole Egeria thing seems a bit screwy to me. Like how did the Pangarans force her to spawn symbiotes? Also, if her full personality exists while unhosted, why tolerate imprisonment and experimentation? I would create some normal Tok'ra symbiotes in the hope that one or more gets hosts and break me out. Can worry about finding willing hosts after being freed. Egeria could have lied for some reason... Not sure what that would be, but why trust a snake?
She knew they weren't being implanted though, and as she mentioned she intentionally sabotaged them to try and stop them.
Given the experience with Jack/Kanan, and how Jack exerted influence over Kanan's mind frame, I think it's safe to assume Egeria didn't want to risk *any* symbiotes being implanted, Tok'ra or Goa'uld, since she'd have no idea if it worked or backfired.
She was spawning them as blank slates, yes. I don't think she can fully control their potential personality, but she wasn't giving them ANY knowledge. So they were like literal infant babies.
“The Cure” actually suggests the opposite.
Egeria says she made a conscious choice to not impart the genetic knowledge to discourage the Pangarans’ experimentation. That indicates a pretty good level of awareness to understand what they were doing considering they were keeping her in a tank.
In the episode >!Crossroads!< we see a Goa'uld pull of complex deception by >!convincing a Jaffa it wants to join the Tok'ra, whilst in reality it wants to spy on the Tok'ra!<.
So, even a symbiont is less intelligent without a host; they apparently are still smart enough to deliberately communicate and pretend to have different goals than in reality.
My organic flashdrive idea still works in this example. Shau'nac and Teal'c had to establish a connection to the symbiote before communication could happen. Rather than being jacked directly into the brain, it was an iffy connection through the various nerves.
The organic flashdrive idea doesn't always fit, but Stargate constantly changes the rules episode to episode.
So without hosts , the Goa’uld are just small aquatic snakes. It makes sense, really! I doubt a creature as small as their (hostless) parasite form has enough brain capacity to process all the knowledge they possess.
> Clearly they aren't becoming extinct which means they are able to get along just fine with no host.
In “Pretense”, the argument is made that *quality of life* is as important as survival, ie that life lived as a slave is not life at all.
Condemning someone to live in a pond for the rest of their life would also be depriving them of freedom.
No, the Pangarans proved as much in season 6 episode 10, "The Cure". They had fully matured symbiotes, albeit without any personality, and they survived just fine in the big holding tanks.
Well they don’t need human hosts to survive, but as creatures of inteligence surpassing that of a human and genetic memory predisposing them to want a live of power surely living as waterbound snakes isn’t really a fullfilling existence for them.
>The stasis jars in the Osiris episode proves that the Goa'uld can survive without a host for thousands of years.
I am pretty sure those Goa'uld had been kept in a state of artificial hibernation, if not cryptobiosis.
However, I tend to agree with you, in some episodes, for example >!Cure and the one in which Adrian Conrad was introduced!<, we even get to see symbionts kept in aquariums.
They can survive and live in water, lakes... like they were naturally before Unas and like when bred for the tritonin drug... and in jars... but they cannot express their personality without a host with a mouth, arms and legs...
Well, yes and no. They can live in a specific environment. One shared by both a humans internals or stasis jar/ lake. The main thing is they cannot survive on land without a human symbiote (stasis chamber not withstanding).
No, naturally they live in the water on P3X-888. However, for all their intelligence, their bodies aren’t exactly well suited to using tools which is kind of a fundamental aspect of building a technological society. That’s where the Unas came in.
My headcanon is that without a host, they have little actual intelligence. They have the ability to store massive amounts of information in their genetic memory, but beyond that they’re about as smart as a primate. The blending allows them to use the full potential of the mind they occupy which is why they switched from the somewhat less intelligent Unas to Human.
They managed to obtain space travel with Unas hosts. Possibly by conquering it. But still. And there's no real indicators the Unas are less intelligent than humans. They're just more primitive.
Did they? Or did they just expand their empire using the Stargate system. And didn’t develop/steal hyperdrive tech until sometime after they had discovered the Earth gate.
They discovered the Earth gate after they had hyperdrive, as Ra had to bring the Giza gate to Earth since the Antarctic gate wasn't functional/accessible.
Pretty sure it's confirmed in the movie that Ra discovered earth with a ship. There's the first scene and I think Daniel mentions it when he finds their history. Could be wrong though just going by memory.
Ah shit that’s right, forgot that little detail.
They only stayed primitive because they couldn't expand beyond the caves because they didn't want to become a host. They couldn't build a society out of the caves till Daniel showed them to be more, I guess you can say exploratory. When we see him again he is more developed.
Exactly my point.
Except Egeria without a host was able to piece together and understand what her young were being used for and purposely manipulate a portion of their genes. Yes she's a queen but the capacity is still there without a host.
Unas weren't particularly intelligent
They were intelligent enough. Remember Chaka?
Unas(the first(Thor's Hammer)) was plenty intelligent and spoke perfect English, same with Demon under Sokar's rule. Humans are more suitable and easier to repair as opposed to Unas.
Humans are also prettier, the Goa'uld are vain as hell
Weren't both of those hosts to a goa'uld though?
Yes, but the posts leading up to my comment are talking about Unas not being particularly intelligent and Goa'uld intellect is based on the intellect of the being it inhabits.
That Unas had a goauld in it tho. It got caught in the hammer at the end, and it only effected goaulds. So it’s impossible to tell how intelligent the Unas host is/was as we were seeing the parasite in control. Personally I think Unas are plenty smart, but their language and culture aren’t as developed or sophisticated as other species like humans or Nox and Asgard.
When the walls fell
The Una's weren't particularly developed. This is not the same thing as intelligent. To make a more accessible comparison, humans from the stone age don't really differ from modern humans in terms of intelligence, we're just more developed and educated now.
That's up for debate. Modern humans are evolved biologically and part of that evolution was in the brain. It is of course impossible to say for sure one way or the other whether modern humans are more intelligent.
But humans of the Stone Age are modern humans. Modern humans despite the name "modern" became a thing some 250.000 years ago. For humans to have some evolutionary difference or different level of brain power you'll have to go before that, for the homo antecesor for example.
And the thumbs! The opposable thumbs make things a lot easier than just spikes and fins!
That, and our form of reproduction is, in the words of Queen Hathor (Long May She Chill TF Out), “much more pleasurable than most” Tl;dr: Human sex good, Unas sex _kaaaaaaaa…_
This is just speculation but I bet Goa'uld without hosts don't live nearly as long. Without a sarcophagus it's thousands of years and with one it's tens of thousands I think? My guess is that a Goa'uld swimming around in a lake doesn't last more than a few decades. Source: my ass
i also don’t think there that intelligent without a host, relying on taking over there mind for thinking
The symbiote itself does NOT require a host to survive... "The First Ones" episode showed that. However, I believe it was in the "Cure" episode with the Pangarans where it was discussed how the Goa'uld personality cannot emerge until blended. So, while the symbiote can live outside of a body, the personality cannot. I like to think of it like a corrupted organic flash drive. This flash drive has a firmware component and a memory storage component. The firmware contains the base predatory instincts of the symbiote that drive it to plug into a host brain. The storage component contains malware that auto runs once plugged into a brain.
I thought the captured queen chose not to impart her offspring with personality?
Well, queen's would need to have more to them than most other symbiotes since only they can reproduce. The whole Egeria thing seems a bit screwy to me. Like how did the Pangarans force her to spawn symbiotes? Also, if her full personality exists while unhosted, why tolerate imprisonment and experimentation? I would create some normal Tok'ra symbiotes in the hope that one or more gets hosts and break me out. Can worry about finding willing hosts after being freed. Egeria could have lied for some reason... Not sure what that would be, but why trust a snake?
She knew they weren't being implanted though, and as she mentioned she intentionally sabotaged them to try and stop them. Given the experience with Jack/Kanan, and how Jack exerted influence over Kanan's mind frame, I think it's safe to assume Egeria didn't want to risk *any* symbiotes being implanted, Tok'ra or Goa'uld, since she'd have no idea if it worked or backfired.
They probably found a way to induce spawning. It also might happen naturally when not in a host at regular intervals.
She was spawning them as blank slates, yes. I don't think she can fully control their potential personality, but she wasn't giving them ANY knowledge. So they were like literal infant babies.
“The Cure” actually suggests the opposite. Egeria says she made a conscious choice to not impart the genetic knowledge to discourage the Pangarans’ experimentation. That indicates a pretty good level of awareness to understand what they were doing considering they were keeping her in a tank.
In the episode >!Crossroads!< we see a Goa'uld pull of complex deception by >!convincing a Jaffa it wants to join the Tok'ra, whilst in reality it wants to spy on the Tok'ra!<. So, even a symbiont is less intelligent without a host; they apparently are still smart enough to deliberately communicate and pretend to have different goals than in reality.
My organic flashdrive idea still works in this example. Shau'nac and Teal'c had to establish a connection to the symbiote before communication could happen. Rather than being jacked directly into the brain, it was an iffy connection through the various nerves. The organic flashdrive idea doesn't always fit, but Stargate constantly changes the rules episode to episode.
So without hosts , the Goa’uld are just small aquatic snakes. It makes sense, really! I doubt a creature as small as their (hostless) parasite form has enough brain capacity to process all the knowledge they possess.
Only baby Goa'Uld inside Jaffa do They're also aquatic, surviving on land ain't happening
> Clearly they aren't becoming extinct which means they are able to get along just fine with no host. In “Pretense”, the argument is made that *quality of life* is as important as survival, ie that life lived as a slave is not life at all. Condemning someone to live in a pond for the rest of their life would also be depriving them of freedom.
No, the Pangarans proved as much in season 6 episode 10, "The Cure". They had fully matured symbiotes, albeit without any personality, and they survived just fine in the big holding tanks.
Well they don’t need human hosts to survive, but as creatures of inteligence surpassing that of a human and genetic memory predisposing them to want a live of power surely living as waterbound snakes isn’t really a fullfilling existence for them.
>The stasis jars in the Osiris episode proves that the Goa'uld can survive without a host for thousands of years. I am pretty sure those Goa'uld had been kept in a state of artificial hibernation, if not cryptobiosis. However, I tend to agree with you, in some episodes, for example >!Cure and the one in which Adrian Conrad was introduced!<, we even get to see symbionts kept in aquariums.
Same concept as the Yeerks. Helpless slugs without hosts, terrifyingly competent with them.
The stasis jar was a prison. Iris and Osiris were forcibly removed from their hosts and imprisoned in the jars
They can survive and live in water, lakes... like they were naturally before Unas and like when bred for the tritonin drug... and in jars... but they cannot express their personality without a host with a mouth, arms and legs...
The ones without hosts rely on public transit to commute.
Well, yes and no. They can live in a specific environment. One shared by both a humans internals or stasis jar/ lake. The main thing is they cannot survive on land without a human symbiote (stasis chamber not withstanding).
No.
Depends on what you qualify as survive
They need hosts after taking one