After a long drawn out argument in chat tonight with Seastallion I decided to post a thread about this and see what everyone thinks. Ok, here goes....are there more tok'ra queens than just Egeria? It was my understanding that all tok'ra were children of the one origional queen. And because of this there race is currently dying. Plus the few remaining tok'ra have trouble finding hosts because they won't take an unwilling host. I'll let Seastallion state his side of the case for you now and you can let us know what you think....

Before SeaStallion posts what he was saying in the chatrooom, ill say for the record what ive already said.

SeaStallion, on a tv program such as stargate, speculation can be done as much as possible. However, you cant just state things as if they were fact (a fact being something which has been said or done on stargate, not implied) when in actual fact you are reading between the lines, second guessing and speculating. Its been said on the show that Eygeria and Eygeria only has been the queen who spawned the tokra. Sorted

In response to Gatefreak:

In the eps. where the Tok'ra were originally introduced, it was explained that the reason the Tok'ra could not grow beyond where they were, was because of the difficulty in finding host for their members, since they would not force anyone to be a host. Later we learned that because Tok'ra do not use sarcophugi, that they generally only live to be about 800 or 900 years, taking multiple host, which live to be about 200 years old each, assuming they survive that long. Eygeria WAS the founder of the Tok'ra race, but she herself produced more queen type symbiotes to spread her offspring farther than she alone was able. Eygeria was captured for about 2000 years, in which time at least 2 generations of Tok'ra were born without her, at least from the original generation Eygeria herself spawned. ALL Tok'ra are the descendents of Eygeria, but not all Tok'ra are directly her children. In fact none, of the original generation that Eygeria spawned are alive, since they don't use the Sarcophagus technology because of its side effects, namely causing the user to go mad. I believe the lifespan of the Goa'uld and Tok'ra without a sarcophagus was mentioned in the eps. about Seth. So, while the Tok'ra have severe trouble finding host, they are not dying because of the lack of the ability to procreate.

Seastallion LOL...j/k...

Respectfully Seastallion, I have to disagree. While there is nothing to contradict the fact that there might have been a daughter or grandaughter of Egeria - I can't think of any ep where it was stated and nothing in the show implies that it would have been an absolute requirement.

In Tok'ra 1 and 2 the Tok'ra tell SG-1 that a symbiote can double a normal lifespan and Seroush tells Jacob that she is almost 200 years old - however, that only implies that the native lifespan of Seroush was 100 years. Our human lifespan is estimated to currently be somewhere around 120 (having been somewhere between 40 and 60 in the middle ages ) and some scientists have tentatively placed it as high as 200. If Seroush was already older when Selmak Blended with her, they may have lost decades of potential life due to the fact an older body would have a lot more cummulative damage done to it. Who is to say? This fits with the the apparant contradiction in the ep Seth where Jacob told SG-1 that Seth could survive not having a sarcophagus by taking a new host every 400 years.

I'm not sure where you are getting the fact that Tok'ra only live 800-900 years. There is nothing that suggests that they could not all be original spawn from 2000-3000 years ago-especially since we have no idea how many years Egeria was spawning Tok'ra. It could have happened over centuries. It was stated that Goa'uld hosts could live 1000 years or more (Seth) with access to the sarcophagus, but that is a limit on the host, not the symbiote. From Need, we know that a human using the sarcophagus without a symbiote lives about 700 years. We know that Goa'uld live 10,000 years and longer (the Movie, Ra) and that most of the System Lords are at least 3000 years old since they were around when Ra was kicked off earth.

Considering that the Tok'ra have access to a sophisticated stasis technology - and both The Cure and The Curse prove that the Goa'uld had that technology in a working form back when the Tok'ra movement was born, unless they specifically stated that Egeria spawned a couple queens, you can't assume it would be a biological requirement. Any extra larvae could have been placed in stasis.

Personally, I think spawning a couple daughters would have been a priority for her- but I don't believe that the show ever substantiated that it actually happened. The thousands of symbiotes that the Pangarens possessed after 60 years - even accounting for the ones used in the processing of the Tretonin - proves that she would not have needed to have daughters to spawn enough Tok'ra to leave several hundred alive 2000 years later even with attrition.

Even if she did have daughters- the Tok'ra don't have any queens now as evidenced by Malek's reference to the fact that the Tok'ra were dying due to the lack of a queen in The Cure.

This post has been edited by SGCbearcub: Oct 28th 2003, 10:16 AM

I'm sorry, but as Boo says there has been no evidence on the show to support the fact that there was more than one Tok'ra Queen so we must assume Egeria was the only one. The reason the Tok'ra are dying is because they have no Queen to spawn new symbiotes and they must change hosts every 200 years or so and hosts are hard to come by. There have not been any Goa'uld switch sides to their cause in centuries either, so they can't increase in numbers this way.,

To my knowledge, it does not say anywhere on the show does it say that the Tok'ra only have a life span of 800-900 years. If you can prove me wrong with a quote from an episode, please feel free to do so, but until you do the lack of evidence to support this fact makes your whole argument fall to pieces. If you can prove it to be true then you would have a pretty strong case here. It has however been mentioned how long Goa'uld and Tok'ra can live in one host (I think both with and without a sarcophagus), but to my knowledge never the total lifespan of a Tok'ra.

All of the Tok'ra are at least 1000 years old because this is approximately how long ago it was since Egeria was trapped in the stasis jar by Ra (it could be more, but it doesn't really make much difference to this argument).

This post has been edited by Aesir: Oct 28th 2003, 11:13 AM

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the Tok'Ra should just have Harsiesis (sp?) kids.

They're not evil, having been born with "good" knowledge by the tok'ra queen, so the kids will be just fine to continue the rebellion. They've got nothing to lose and everything to gain from this.

They'd still have all the current living Tok'Ra... plus however many kids 2,000 years of breeding generates. Just do it on some secret backwater planet and the gou'ald would never figure it out. Tok'Ra to do infiltration ops, Harsiesises to build ships and weapons and act as an army. The gou'ald can't possibly match this because of their ban on the process, and I'm sure that by now the Tok'Ra would outnumber the gou'ald (real gou'ald, not Jaffa and slaves, there are lots and lots of those). Then if you can pull off a Jaffa rebellion, some slave uprisings and you're set.

It is hard to say there isnt much info on queens i would assume that there are some born from a queen. Perhaps there is one on the planet they found Egeri(sp)
and the Tok'ra can be restored.

on that note. didn't the tok'ra want to get tanith to join them for "new blood" - i could be wrong, i haven't seen the episode in a while. surely that would mean that the tok'ra don't have any queens. plus in "the tokra" - part 1/2. didn't daniel say that the tok'ra have 0 to negative popluation growth?

It's true that the Tok'ra having Harsesis children is practically a lot safer than the Goa'uld doing it... Yes the children would in theory be born with good genetic memory, but they would still have the problem of them leaking information (whether accidental or not) - they would be children after all. This may not be a viable solution anyway though because we don't know for sure if a child of two Harsesis' would retain the genetic memory. There is a separate thread about this kind of stuff HERE if anyone is interested. If the knowledge is not passed on then it would only preserve the Tok'ra for one human generation anyway.

I didn't think it was the 'new blood' they wanted, but they just wanted him to reveal the secrets of the Goa'uld to them. After all, in most areas, the Tok'ra are centuries behind the Goa'uld in terms of technology. He would also have been a source of intel on Goa'uld fleet strengths, positions etc..

This post has been edited by Aesir: Oct 29th 2003, 3:36 PM

Forget what I posted originally, if you saw it. Okay, Hathor, who was a Goa'uld queen, said that there were other Goa'uld queens, like her. Well, since the Tok'ra are nothing more than a break away group of the Goa'uld then logic would dictate that there's a very high probability that there could be other Tok'ra queens, who would be descended from Egeria.

This post has been edited by I AM SCI-FI: Oct 29th 2003, 7:27 PM

How do you come to the point that Hathor is descended from Egeria? Explain that a little more, cause I am not following your line of thought.

This post has been edited by DougieBoy: Oct 29th 2003, 7:19 PM

I think that because there are multiple Goa'uld queens, there must also be multiple Tok'ra queens because they are essentially the same life form, their beliefs aside. Unless of course, Egeria was the only queen to rebel against Ra and the other system lords and it was her alone who started to produce Tok'ra. But then couldn't she have produced another queen?
As for Hathor being a descendant, I'm not sure- Egeria would program her offspring to believe as the Tok'ra wouldn't she? Therefore the Goa'uld Hathor couldn't be a descendant because she doesn't believe in the same way. Hathor might be related to Egeria as sort of a sister thing or something or maybe not even be related at all, but I would say Egeria and Hathor would be about the same age, rather than Hathor being a descendant.

Just because there are several Goa'uld Queens doesn't mean that more than one opposed the ways of the Goa'uld (Ra in particular). I think we are given the impression that Egeria was one of the oldest Goa'uld and in 'Cure', the Tok'ra say she is extremely old. When you think about it, with each generation of Goa'uld the chances of them aligning with the Tok'ra become less and less as more and more (evil) genetic memory is passed onto them... So, it would make sense that Egeria was one of the first and had fewer genetic memories influencing her.

Besides, it has never been said exactly how Goa'uld Queens come to exist. It may be that there were only a set number of them in the beginning when the Goa'uld left their planet of origin with Unas as hosts. Alternatively, a Goa'uld Queen may be able to spawn another Goa'uld Queen or a normal Goa'uld may be able to develop into a Queen at a later date. Until we know the answer to the question of how Goa'uld Queens come into existence we can't speculate much further on this.

But basically, I think the chances of there being another Goa'uld Queen that was sympathetic to the Tok'ra is EXTREMELY low unless Egeria spawned a Queen. In any case, it hasn't been even hinted upon on the show and everything points to there being only one therefore the conclusion to this question has to be 'no'.

This post has been edited by Aesir: Oct 31st 2003, 7:40 AM

Hey, um, has anyone considered this...

Skaara was abducted to be host of Klorel, Apophis *son*.
Now, Martouf (?) said that a queen can reproduce asexually...which means by herself. As Apohphis had a son, wouldn't that imply that symbiotes can reproduce sexually? Like, two create some, not just queens??
And teal'c said that they chose hosts for their children in cotg....
So, maybe somene could tell the Tok'ra...

But the Goa'uld have no gender. Their are holes in the story that the writters need to patch.

Um, snails have no gender either, but there are a heck of a lot of snails....
Maybe...they do snail stuff??? inject and take roles??? (role playing...kinky...)

There are species that are capable of reproducing both sexually and asexually depending on the environmental conditions. However, there are multiple methods of asexual - or unisexual -reproduction.

Malek said that the process was 'essentially' asexual, but he also said that the queen is capable of fertilizing her own eggs - which suggests that she's hermaphroditic (having both male and female) sexual organs rather than using parthenogenesis - which is a form of cloning her own cells and does not involve sperm. Personally, I think the hermaphroditic solution is more plausible considering the amount of genetic control the species seems to have over their own DNA.

If some Goa'uld are born hermaphrodites(Queens) and others are born without reproductive abilities (or are all male), that would explain how the species could be capable of sexual reproduction while still being essentially genderless.

Which raises an interesting point - Jack joked in the Cure that maybe sex was the reason the Goa'uld took hosts. It occurs to me that if the Goa'uld acquired the Unas/human desire to have children from their hosts, the only way a non-hermaphrodite like Apophis could become a "father" would be by blending with a host in a bi-sexual species. That would allow him to alter the DNA of the host's sperm (also explaining Harsesis children) and thus giving him the transmission medium he probably lacks in his natural form.

This post has been edited by SGCbearcub: Nov 1st 2003, 8:37 AM

It has been pretty widely accepted that Klo'rel wasn't actually Apophis' biological son... just like he called Amonet his 'Queen', but there is not really much evidence to suggest she was a real Goa'uld Queen (he might have meant in the King/Queen sense). It's all in the interpretation of the wording...

What reasons were used?

This is a great discussion group! What fun!

Some comments, suggestions, and questions:

I have a variety of questions for the writers on the subject of reproduction among the Goa'uld and their hosts. Perhaps there is some way the viewers can suggest plot lines to them? Does anyone know if this is possilbe?

As to genetic memory - if the bisexual child (let's assume all hosts are bisexual for the moment) of two possessed (infected?) persons inherit half the DNA form each, then the genetic memeory should be incomplete in some. A child might inherit the SAME memories from both parents, rather than both halves of a whole. If the offspring is the result of cloning, then it (asexual) should have the whole memory.

Egeria seems to have been the only Tok'ra queen in the stories, but I agree that, if I had had beenin her position, I would have made producing a new queen a priority.

Hathor required the "code of life" from a donor to assure compatibility between the symbiote and the intended host species. She made a comment that the method used in the case of Daniel Jackson's species was more fun than that used to obtain the same information from other species.

So far, I've seen humans, the Unas (apparently now abandoned), and the unspecified species who's wife was taken by Ba'al in 4000 BC Babylonia. Are there other species being used as hosts?

Hathor then produced snakes from her apparently human body. Egeria was producing snakes without having a host body. So where is the orifice through which these children emerged? What biologic material was used?

Could/can Egeria's children take any species as a host (bering in mind that they insist on a willing one)? Even though she did NOT have the "code of life" provided before producing the offspring?

On a similar note - is the "code of life" required to produce a Jaffa incubator? Biology would seem to insist on some basic similarities - oxygen breathing, carbon based, etc.

Also - we have seen that the Goa'uld use the Jaffa incubators are cannon fodder, which seems really stupid. We have also seen Goa'uld cannibalism, which seems to go against the precepts that the race lives by.

I want to see a much fuller discussion of this topic in the plots aired. Can we communicate this to the production staff?

Hutchy

Well mostly because the only way he could be his biological son would be if Amonet (his Queen / mate) spawned Klo'rel. Even then it wouldn't really be his son because he would have no bearing on her spawning the symbiote (there's not even real any evidence to prove that Amonet was a real Goa'uld Queen anyway as I've said).

In the pilot we see Amonet come from a Jaffa who was incubating her, so she couldn't have spawned Klo'rel as the symbiote would take 7 years to mature before it could take a host. I guess it's possible that she lost her host and was put in a Jaffa temporarily, but I'm not sure a mature symbiote can even live in a Jaffa after it has matured for more than a very very short time. All in all it just seems very unlikely.

Are you referring to the biological child of two hosts? I don't really see what you mean otherwise. Anyway, it's very unclear exactly how the passing of genetic memory works and what gets passed on and what doesn't.

Yes, you would think so, but then we don't know for sure that a Queen can spawn a Queen like that or has any choice in the matter - we just don't know how it works. Maybe the Queens were the first of their race and no more can be created? Alternatively maybe random symbiotes develop into Queens as they mature. In either case, Egeria may not have control over her production of Queens.

It is a little of an inconsistency, but I believe she needed Daniel's DNA to guarantee a successful blending, but it wasn't absolutely essential. Maybe it was because she thought humans had changed so much over the thousands of years she'd been 'asleep'. Basically though, I don't think a Goa'uld doesn't NEEDS to be spawned with the intention of having a particular kind of host. One example is that Marduk took that creature as a host in 'The Tomb'... admittedly though we don't know if he blended successfully or had full control - he might have died shortly after.

Only that creature I just mentioned. Certainly the only races we've heard of the Goa'uld regularly taking as hosts are Unas and Humans.

Yes this is interesting, but Hathor might have had something similar to the 'birthing sac' (for lack of a better description) that Egeria had under the water. Since she was a woman I'm guessing it came from the same place her host would give birth which brings up an interesting question of if a Queen can take a male host and spawn symbiotes and indeed what happened when they have Unas as hosts.

It's not very clear... they certainly can't take ANY species, but I would guess that they could blend with most humanoids. It's only speculation though

It seems a little weird at first, but when you really think about it, the Goa'uld are thirsty for power and fight amongst their own. The fewer symbiotes that mature, the fewer rivals they would have. The eating of symbiotes seemed ritualistic, but it might be that they only do this at such Goa'uld Summits (which are probably quite rare).

This is all very fascinating. I love how you folks who know more about genetics are bringing in your knowledge (which is exactly why I'd be afraid to write any serious fanfic -- people would be spotting all kinds of plot holes!).

Anyway, I agree with Aesir that Klo'rel was never actually Apophis' biological son -- he was to be presented as the King's son to the people of the world they were dominating. The same would be true of Amaunet -- "she" was not his acutual mate, but was his cermonial queen. They were creating a royal family of hosts. At least that was my understanding. It was interesting that Apophis and Amaunet decided to mate (or let their hosts mate or whatever) if that was so forbidden. I think I understand correctly that Apophis hoped to get all the knowledge of the goa'uld (from the child whom he was planning to take as host) so he could be more powerful. Odd, though, that Sha're didn't try to contact Daniel and see what could be done about ridding herself of Amaunet in the meantime, but that's another subject.

The gouald (tokra) queen Egeria was a massive symbiote and did not require a host to produce its young.

However, Hathor had a host, but did she have the reproduction organs (needed for producing goualds) embedded inside her womb or something? How is a gouald queen formed, anyway?

Well, there's nothing to say that Amonet wasn't a replacement queen. Klor'el took Skaara in the Children of the Gods - so he could have been born 5 to 7 years earlier.

Since having a queen goa'uld would be essential to controlling the Jaffa, if Apophis had lost his queen, that might explain why his power was so diminished by Rules of Engagement and why he was so anxious in children of the Gods.

As for Amonet, Apophis obviously went to a lot of trouble to find a host that pleased her (to the extent that he came to Earth himself). He also didn't throw a hissy fit when she lost the Harcesis child.

To be honest, I don't see any evidence at all that Amonet was some ceremonial queen.

As for Klo'rel not being his biological son - I don't think that can be assumed either. The fact that a Harcesis child can be produced at all means that the Goa'uld is capable of altering the host DNA. Hathor's whole "code of life" think with Daniel certainly suggests that it's possible. Although given the number of symbiotes likely produced I think its likely that Apophis would then officially recognize a limited number of his children as officially his.

On the other hand, given that the Jaffa (and their symbiotes) number in the millions and the Goa'uld only in the thousands, maybe they do recognize all of their children that survive to find hosts.