Flipping the Script: Stargate

[Spike]

I've been re-watching SG-1 recently and had an interesting thought about midway through season 3 that I'd like to share.

We are constantly told about the System Lords, this feudal society of Goa'uld, presumably hundreds of them, covering much of our galaxy.  

Now think about the ten seasons (and one movie, though really we should count 10,000 BC, so Two Movies...) of SG-1 (no reason to count Atlantis, as I believe the Goa'uld never really featured in that show/galaxy), from the perspective of the System Lords.

Some two thousand years ago they abandoned Earth (I'll use the SL term for the rest of this post, teh Tau'ri), having scattered human slave-stock all over the galaxy but finding the native population on Earth just a little too truculent to be bothered with.  

Then one day, out of the blue, Ra is killed.

Who is Ra to the System Lords?  Its difficult to say exactly, but given how many OTHER System Lords fall under him dynastically, he could very well be the SL equivalent to the old Holy Roman Emperor. Never mind that Abydos appears to be a fairly major planet, for all it looks like it has a populations of literally dozens of people. Its Ra's personal Dacha planet, and it houses a significant Nahquada mine.  And suddenly Abydos is 'in play' for the other System Lords, only... because the Tau'ri had the Star Gate buried when they left, no one can claim it, or even really investigate what's going on.

After about a year Apophis, Ra's main Heir, but not really a true contender for such a vaunted place, runs into a group of humans claiming to be the Tau'ri. They're primative, but not quite as primitive as the System Lords prefer. They claim credit for killing Ra and freeing the people of Abydos... then they somehow convince his own First Prime to turn traitor. Seeing as Chulak is, or at least appears to be, a major 'homeworld' for the Jaffa, not just for Apophis but also the Jaffa of other System Lords, the stirrings of rebellion on Chulak as a result of this are dire indeed.

Then Apophis loses not one, but TWO ships (System Lord fleets appear to be relatively small. Apophis burns through less than a dozen in Season 4, and this is at such a height of power that he threatens the status quo...) in a retalitory invasion. How many ships do the Tau'ri have? Zero. Zero fucking ships.

Then Hathor, and later Osiris, show back up after two thousand years of exile, only to wind up dead. In Hathor's case literally only a month or two after she has made her presence known again!   Cronus, an old, respected and powerful System Lord winds up dead, Apophis falls, only to rise again (with the Tau'ri popping up in all the cases) and to die, resulting in the death of Heru'ur, then considered one of the military powers of the System Lords, and Sokar, who was himself on the verge of conquering the entire System Lords.  Also among the slain were Apophis's wife, Ammanuet and heir Klorel (suspected, last seen removed from host by the Tollans).

That is merely the first five years or so since the Tau'ri, a primative backwater people discovered stargates, and it isn't even all.

Consider that the Tok'ra had been in rebellion against the Goa'uld for over two thousand years themselves over a matter of ethical philosophy. In that time the best they could claim to have accomplished was to keep the System Lords from uniting under a single power, but upon making an alliance with the Tau'ri, they suddenly are a major player again, participating in the deaths of Sokar and Apophis. Slave worlds all over the 'Empire' are going into revolt, Star Gates are being buried left right and in-between, and Chulak is almost entirely in revolt, with 'heresy' spreading through the Jaffa ranks of every System Lord.

Plus there is the matter of the Asgard, who have largely retreated to their own galaxy for presumably hundreds of years suddenly taking an interest in the System Lords once more, and even providing technology to the Tau'ri.  Or the Tollan, who went from an even more backwater world (if far more advanced than the Tau'ri), suddenly are holding some prime real estate in System Lord territory, and who have defense systems capable of wiping out fleets of ships (as evidenced by the fact that the Goa'uld are shown to be constantly probing Tollan defenses on their new homeworld, while their old homeworld appears to have been completely isolated).

Oh, and suddenly the Tau'ri and the Tok'ra are able to synthesize a drug that allows Jaffa to live without a Symbiote?

By the end of a mere decade the System Lords entire empire has collapsed. The list of casualties KNOWS to have fallen to the Tau'ri, or as results of their interference, represents more or less the decapitation of the entire ruling class of Goa'uld.   The Tau'ri suddenly have ships and technology superior to the Goa'uld.  The Jaffa are in entirely open, militant rebellion...

There are undoubtedly System Lords that have taken naps longer than ten years!  Hell, we can point to a few ourself, with Hathor and Osiris being two of them.

Imagine what that's like. One day you come back from a trip with your loyal Jaffa, maybe a safari to an exotic world, only to find out that almost every one of your peers are dead, the Jaffa are in open rebellion and have trashed your palaces, and when you ask 'who has done this?' the answer you get is... 'that homeless fucker that camps under hte over-pass'.