The Goa'uld.
A race of sentient parasitic beings that take over hosts and use them to further their goals…or rather their goal: all Goa'uld's evolved from predators after all and with that came a certain greed and territorial behavior. All of this swiftly became worse when the first Unas were taken as hosts on the home planet of the Goa'uld race. Those large and powerful creatures were organized in primitive tribal systems and had a social hierarchy, which….the parasites took as their own, just as they took over the body and knowledge of those first hosts.
Formerly restricted to their wet abodes in the seas and lakes of this world, they were now able to travel the land and communicate not only with each other but also with those free Unas, as the Goa'uld took the concepts of reign and superiority from the chieftains of those tribes they also took over the tribes themselves, starting to create their own territories and reigns, using the superior functions an symbiont gives the bodies once belonging to the hosts, to carve their path forward with no regards to anyone else.
It was this singled minded quest for power which drove the Goa'uld forward and through the portal an ancient, ring shaped, device formed for them: taking them towards new planets where they found the scraps and remnants of an ancient precursor race on which they based all of their future technology.
For the next ten thousand years the Goa'uld spread through the network of ring devices, which they named chapai and indulged in their own national sport: civil war and backstabbing.
Only after another round of patricide and ritualistic cannibalism, as well as the banishment of the Lord of Death….something which must have been louder and more violent than current Goa'uld society as they Unas were more of a….blunt tool than anything else.
Ohhh yes, current Goa'uld society, I can only be happy that I joined it after Ra found another possible host species: one coming from a solar system with five planets, two gas giants and a sun far away enough to allow live to prosper on the third planet.
The small ball of blue and green hanging in the dark of space was the cradle of a bipedal and only roughly unaoid species. While terribly primitive compared to other species the Goa'uld had assimilated and/or exterminated in the past, their biology had a certain….charm, enough to be kindling Ra's curiosity at least.
This discovery was, speaking in a sense of time fitting for the Goa'uld dynasties, just after the last big war between the systemlords, in which Ra was able to get a position of superiority over his "family".
So maybe it was just a wish to have a change of scenery when one of the mightiest beings in the galaxy landed his ship not far away from a tent village and took the first human to ever become a host for my proud species.
Proud or simply hedonistic?
I would say it might have been a mixture of both: Pride because the taking of humans as hosts gave them a whole new idea about their regimes: instead of the slave armies of Unas which the gua'old had used to conquer their way through the galaxy till now, a twisted mirror of their hosts once tribal structure in which the strong ruled, they were now starting not only to appear but also to think of themselves as the gods of those primitive humans: after all: what other words did they have to describe their new masters?
Housed in new, far more hedonistic and cruel bodies, something which came from taking over human hosts with governmental experience in that time, the Goa'ld set out to conquer or at least settle the rest of the galaxy, taking the new slave race with them and seeding them on a variety of planets all over the milky way, forming the core of their later domains.
In that time of peace through the hegemony of Ra, the Goa'uld started to assimilate the technology of the various races they met….shortly before annihilating them.
Starting to see all non-human races as either a threat or an abomination, shedding quite some light on the way Goa'uld start to see their hosts bodies as their own: also taking over their beauty ideals, the Goa'uld set out to eradicate every other species which could possible threaten their rule.
That this mostly worked out could be seen everywhere: I dare you to simply enter one of the Ha'taks and take a guided tour by a Goa'uld….or rather try it with a Tokra, they might have less memories of how we got each different technology you can see and cobbled it together into a pyramid formed ship…but they wouldn't smear you across the next bulkhead for entering the ship…I guess.
On the other hand it wasn't like there were no dark points in our history that we would like to forget, the ultimate way to stop a party is by leading the conversation towards the first naval engagement between Goa'uld and Asgard….one sided does not describe it and thanks to the genetic memory each and every symbiont born after this time remembers she outrage and shame when attack after attack was swatted aside without even a hit on the Asgard ships.
Today many of the younger Goa'uld call the Asgards cowards and weaklings, believing that their sparse appearances is a sign of their fear from us. There's a reason why they usually do not get promoted very far.
Thankfully the systemlords know what the price of provoking the Asgard would and as no one wants one of the grey ones appear in orbit of their palace, the Protected Planet Treaty gets enforced ruthlessly. The danger of a blue beam of doom carving your palace and consequently you from the face of existence seems to be quite motivating.
Of course every few hundred years a new treat seemed to rear its head at one side of the galaxy or another, but usually Ra was able to gather all of his "families" armies under his banner and then set of into a new crusade of galaxy saving and territory settling.
Somewhere in the back of my memory I remember Ra once leading such a fleet to fight a giant gas anomaly which was sucking away the radiation of stars and later one farting it out in a far more deadly form.
Yes, that's us, the snakes which stand between the galaxy and certain doom, screw those Asgard, they have their own problems.
Not that ours didn't pop up from time to time, more often than necessary foul eggs left behind by our more ill-advised brethren: cannibalistic spores, hair eating lice…..you can name it and one mad scientist or another dabbled into it at one point or another, usually just before the local Lord had to call in orbital bombardment for damage control.
That does not mean that plain old incompetence wasn't just as disastrous: people went and settled their humans somewhere, only to be kicked off by a slave revolt or simply leaving those behind when the mines were worked empty. A few thousand years later the rest of the Goa'uld had to fight with strange foreign ships appearing at their borders and annoying them while they should be busy backstabbing each other to gain Ra's favor.
But after the cases of advanced human civilizations cropping up every few hundred years became too much to bear: diverting much needed resources from the systemlords own petty planet grabbing plots, Ra set down quite easy rules:
1. No human civilization shall reach the technological level to become a danger to the Goa'uld.
2. Every Goa'uld, who's responsible for letting them advance past the needed threshold is to be persecuted by the system lords.
That's of course only an abstract, I can assure you that the copies of the originals I saw on Chulak were multiple meters long on golden tablets and filled with lots of titles and oaths.
That the description of what in particular was awaiting the offender was far longer and very graphic, goes without saying I presume.
Chulak.
More or less my home world, next to Earth that is. But not this Earth to be precise, I wouldn`t want to imagine what the reaction of them would be if I would turn up with a Ha`tak above their orbit…
These thoughts were far funnier when I was simply a human on a boringly normal Earth in which Goa'uld simply were the cardboard villains of a TV series and some movies.
But maybe I shouldn`t start to lay out my fears for the future, a genetic memory full of awfully painful torture methods and images if death did quite animate your creativity if you continued down barely imagined memories of your fathers favorite sci-fi series and suddenly found yourself inside of it as a villain…
I`m getting of the tracks again: as I was saying I`m not really from around here and how I ended up as an alien parasite in a fictional universe isn`t something I can answer till today and sadly no ascended being or similar stepped forward to take responsibility for displacing me.
But maybe I should start in a more orderly manner: as I was saying: Chulak, my home world and the birthing place of…well "me". So let`s start there, right at the beginning there was….
….screeching, lots of screeching, the noises were hammering into my being and my fins flared out as my agile long body darted to the side, newly born muscles shoving me through the water and away from my agitated "siblings". Letting out a screech of my own I, or rather that which was going to be me, opened its maw with sharp fangs and warned two more predatory conspecifics off, their body darting towards me in the hot water which fit perfectly to our still tender skin.
Lashing out on instinct, knowing that there could be no going back or working it out as some part of my mind which wasn`t submerged by the genetic instinct demanded, my fangs sunk into the closest to them using my agility to hit the other with the back of my tail fins, screeching only louder as it sunk its fangs into me, the blood of both my prey and me gushing out into the water.
Before our struggle could continue something grabbed me just below my head, pushing my fins forward uncomfortably and making me struggle as good as I could with two rivals connected to me. Whatever was grabbing me -a hand my memory suggested- seemed to see the predicament and another one of this brown colored appendages was untangling us and for a moment I felt triumph as my own victim floating to the button of our bubbling pond, its eyes dull and fins only moving sluggishly: soon it would fall victim to the others of that I was sure.
Only as the fangs in my flesh also retreated I was beginning to panic as the hand lifted me up and I was forced out of my safe and comfortable watery territory…something I had defended against two rivals and the hand was pulling me away!
As soon as air rushed into my mouth I loud out a piercing screech and my dull eyes tried to see what was happening, only to be blinded by the light around me, already missing the water I belonged into dearly. Hands belonged to humans –hosts/servants/slaves- my memory whispered into my mind and I wriggled in the grasp I was held in, trying to jump out and claim to body but then….I felt the presence before me as pheromones flushed through my system and I meekly curled up…in the presence of my Queen.
She conversed with a near -Jaffa- and he bowed –as he should before his gods- stepping closer and pulling a smaller Jaffa with himself, one of female gender if my eyes could see correctly in this bothersome surroundings.
The female thing was nervous and nearly bowed down to the ground as she saw the Queen in all her glory, only then noticing me and simply staring for a moment. The male Jaffa shook her lightly at which point she bowed and he pulled aside the linen dress covering her stomach, exposing the pouch of which I know it was going to be my future home.
The Queen brought me up one last time and I felt the pheromones caress over my receptors before I was lowered down again, the Queen herself leaning out of her bath and giving the Jaffa a glimpse at the physical perfectness she had chosen as body.
But for me it was a dive forward into what my genetic memory could only describe as: boredom, utter boredom in a perfectly fine and comfortable surrounding: simply waiting 7-9 planetary cycles to mature and be able take a host without problem.
With a last screech of barely suppressed protest I led myself be lead forward and into the pouch, my last image the grimacing face of the girl as the Queens hand entered her and deposited me inside, my form curling up and remaining motionless inside of her as my natural…or rather genetic instinct told me that non distracted incubators were incubators which would stay alive and give me a better chance to get a body of my own.
What followed was…
… Boredom, utter bored with a hint of solitary confinement which I think might play a part in my race preference for huge and open buildings…additionally to the delusion of grandeur and megalomania of course.
I do not want to describe the following eight years: that would make quite a bland read and would have no use for you, sufficiently to say that a far more important change happened to in this time.
To make it easier to understand: when "I" was born I was simply another prim'ta born from a Queen of Apophis, there was not much else than the genetic memory and instinct compelling me to do things and slowly form a personality outside of these preplaced borders.
But I already claimed I was born on Earth, a human, which I can see by your look is a claim you don't believe and find ridiculous.
I can understand that, it's a story no one would believe without prove, but let me continue and at the end you might decide to believe me…or not.
As I was saying: as I matured inside the Jaffa I was entrusted with I started to remember things, not much, compared to my genetic memory, and not very clearly, it was all rather blurred and it took me all the eight years to make a sense out of it and piece myself together again thanks to what I had learned from my "other" memories.
Let's just say I'm thankful it was a time consuming process, it left me quite some time after each new revelation to calm down and digest the information's again, the personality which you are not talking with being created in small steps, influences carrying me further and further when I tried to stretch between my Goa'uld instincts and the new ideas and moralities my memories showed to me.
I won't get into my early existence crisis at this point and simply say that knowing too many human philosophers from Plato to Feyerabend is a sure receipt for headaches when trying to make them somewhat fit with my new mentality….short answer: it mostly does not work.
At this point I have to emphasize, this was only the beginning of my problems and they were already threatening to push me into depressions or madness, it changed on some day, I can't even say which it was, I was simply…
…lying in my pouch, the goo inside of it keeping me all hydrated and comfortable as my incubator did her things, not that I had any idea what she was doing, it must have been six years ago that I was implanted and when the visions of the "other" human me weren't driving me crazy, it was the stirring restlessness inside of me as I matured.
My incubator seemed to notice it as well, which might have been thanks to me moving more than usual inside her belly, a fact which became strangely…discomforting to me the longer I was exposed to the "other" me, whose memories were having some kind of impact on me.
It's not only shocking but also quite depressing to "wake up" one day and notice that you find your own existence as snake like parasite not only disgusting on a terrible kind of way, which of course also reached over to the suddenly not so comfortable and instead sickening pouch I was resting in.
This might be one of the earliest times when the Goa'uld genetic memory really came into handy, because you simply do not curl up and die: instead you should hurl thundering speeches at your enemy and look up into the blinding lights of the plasma cannon turning on you.
I was not even really out into the world and I had already started to think about simply slipping out of the pouch and killing myself by wriggling outside as long as possible….it staid by thinking because that already was the first thing I did when my memories started to set in again and I couldn't endure it any longer: I burst out of the pouch, not minding the shrieks and cries of the Jaffa around me and tried to wriggle under a furniture or something to be left alone until I dry out and die.
Sadly for me I only hit cold stone floor and was unable to find anything, my head swiftly hurting as some kind of incense filled my little parasite lungs and I had the faint hopes of dying by suffocation even if the only furniture I was around me was some kind of altar…
Screeching and hissing I curled up even as I started to feel unwell and sicker, my mind soaring with hope as I was coming closer to finish off my cursed existence and still none of the Jaffa was daring to approach me, some even falling over to pray…
It was quite a moment of content…I mean….my memories said that Goa'uld were terrible and after looking at the memories of my predecessors with a more "human" point of view I could only agree full heartily which steeled my resolve as I fought down the natural and nearly overwhelming survival urges of my Goa'uld self. The images of the past and the images of the "future" my human-self had seen mixed together in those moments: planetary bombardments, public execution, ordering, leading and defending from Jaffa charges…..Ha'taks exchanging plasma fire over verdant blue planets and Al'kesh bombers laying waste to artfully crated cities.
If I wouldn't be stuck with this malicious fangs I might have smiled, after all this was only a sane solution: getting rid of myself before the Goa'uld memories influenced me too much and I might become a danger for the future of this galaxy….and the other one…yes…super gates…
I might have giggled if it wasn't for my alien body…landing in a TV show like this….it should have been better….I might have meet someone import….
I froze as a hand closed around my neck and pulled me up, I looked at the female Jaffa….my incubator….her dress torn and her skin sickly if I could take a guess, it wasn't the same dark color as those around her had but even then: the genetic memory wasn't really helpful in that regard.
In this situation I should have trashed, tried to wriggle my way out and searched for the death I was trying to give myself…in the hope to end this farce or nightmare, but… I recognized the face…I couldn't put a name on it but…..that was bad.
More like: Oh Deus! I might kill someone important! Which would be terrible because there was no way the Goa'uld could stop Apophis….or Sokar….or Anubis….even Baal with their tech….ohhh…..replicators…..and not to forget the crusaders from another galaxy.
I can proudly say that I proved at this moment that it was indeed possible for a Goa'uld to hyperventilate. Did I just break the universe? What if she gets ill….or gets shot and has no symbionts to heal her….or if fleeing symbionts are seen as a sign of scorn by their gods….so me….I….
At this I want to point out: Goa'uld to not faint, not even if Asgard pop out of hyperspace above your palace and a three foot high Norse warrior with hammer introduces himself as Supreme Commander Thor. No: we simply to leave our bodies to concentrate all of our being on higher tasks and simply vacate our body for some time: we are simply thinking.
So as the realizations crashed onto me I fain-uhmmm… I mean I….I…you know….engaged the floor in mortal combat….not even noticing how the priestess picked me up and gently carried me into her pouch again.
Why are you looking at me like that? Hey! I'm not making this up, do you think I would lie to you?
…Ouch.
You know that was a rhetorical question? Ok ok, that's no fun….can't I bribe you with a jelly dessert thingie? How should I know what they are called like, I can list you hundreds of torture methods on the spot but no, this dessert is not in my voca…..uhhh….I shouldn't have said that, or?
Riiiight…..back to me trying to tell my story? Ok, it was like this, I now knew that…
… whoever I was inside was someone important, in one way or another, or I wouldn't have known her face from the series….except if she would have been someone like the two sergeants in the SGC but…..female jaffa? Who could that be? Tealcs wife? Can't fit…maybe one of the amazon knock offs….nope we are on Chulak.
Honestly: after one year I wasn't a step closer to guess whose belly I was sharing and that was simply driving me nuts: not as much as the whole memory thing but bad enough to make she shifty and agitated. Something which seemed to have some effect on her as I sometimes felt a hand pressing against my pouch from outside which was quite…..alien….I mean: was that what babies felt in their mother's belly?
There I was again: me the baby monster. Joy!
But there were worse things and I don't use these words as an empty phrase: it still runs a shudder down my snaky spine when I think of somethings the genetic memories show you. But the worst thing was that I was….enjoying them, watching lesser beings in pain and feeling myself so far above them: a god between primitive savages
It sometimes made me sick of myself, while on other days I simply accepted it as normal it was terrible. But then I noticed a shift in my incubator….in Her….and quickly calmed down as much as possible: thanks to me being part of Her body, I could monitor her functions from my little pouch: mostly it was there to know when to leave the sinking ship.
But in this case I picked up something else: SHE was going to meditate.
Her heartbeats were slowing down and her breathing became more and more controlled, the pouch around me stopping to shift as she stood still. I'm quite sure there was some name to this but…I had not forgotten -Kelno'reem- now I should hopefully have some peace of my own, I mean: let's continue with my eternal bored—
I stopped as music slowly drifted through my mind. It wasn't much compared to some other examples my genetic memory shifted to the forefront of my mind as it reasserted itself into its usual kill joy function, but it was the first music I had heard.
It was a song, a hymn of some kind, only slowly the words were becoming audible and it was like I was hearing it from the neighboring room through a thick wall: muffled and unclear but still there.
I strained myself to listen, my body quivered in strain as I reached out to the music, it was becoming louder….a bit at least…someone was singing? My incubator? Did Jaffa sing while meditating?
I wasn't sure what to think of it, I mean this shouldn't be possible or? Teal'c never said anything about talking to his symbiont or? I just remember the colonel calling it junior through the first few seasons.
Whatever I was hearing it was…beautiful: simply because I and not some distance memory was hearing it, a soothing and at the same time prideful tune, its words muffled and incomprehensible. But nonetheless I found myself relaxing at it, simply closing my eyes, not seeing the fleshy pouches insides and instead I simply moved my head from side to side with the music.
I can't say how long it continued: only that I enjoyed every last moment of it and was nearly crushed as it stopped and She stood up again, her hearth beating faster and her breathing returning to normal again, the wobbling starting again as she walked off to somewhere else but the singing simply wouldn't leave my head anymore, it was as if…
…it had struck a chord inside of me.
Now don't look that shocked at me and don't you dare to call me junior! I'm mature, the definition of it! Ohh…which song…I…I don't know and I didn't get to ask her before…..you know.
Anyway: the songs might have been what gave me the inner peace to continue for the last year of my maturing, the pouch becoming more and more of a prison the closer the day of freedom came.
It even got a little thigh in there and after maybe eight or nine years I was finally ready to leave my baby pouch, so to speak.
Let's see, you know that the Goa'uld gather potential hosts and then test them for compatibility while trying to find the best in physical and mental fitness, so a symbiont can take good care of the potential?
There are of course other cases like infiltration, a boon for a loyal servant or an accident which simply makes the Goa'uld take the next available host without thinking about it for too long.
As for my host, I saw her only once when…
…the day for my implantation had come: my incubator was kneeling on the floor and her had arms demurely at her sides as the Queen herself reached down and pulled me out of my pouch, my screeches once again filling the air as I was suddenly blinded by light which I hadn't seen for years: not that Goa'uld eyes were made to see without darkness or water around them.
I could see bright colors all around me, schemes in gold and red: silver jaffa at the walls….I was getting the mother of all headaches.
Trying to keep my eyes closed I didn't hear what the Queen was telling my incubator, it wasn't as if my ears were made to understand human language anyway, so it wasn't much of a loose.
As the Queen stopped her praise…I hope it was that…she stepped around and I felt myself pushed or pulled through the air and as I opened my eyes again I was looking into the faint contours of a face, one with wide eyes and an open mouth, screaming something…not nice.
My host.
The person whose body I would steal, who I would damn to be locked in and see the world through her own eyes while I steered her arms and choose the destiny I would take on her costs.
Till this point I was sure: I could try to keep her as partner, symbiosis like the Tok'ra….a way to do the right thing….while doing a terrible thing but….
There were no instinct on how to share a body and I felt a deeply settled fear and disguist in myself as I thought of sharing my bod with someone….it was quite ironic that the Goa'uld really feared and despised the concept.
When the Jaffa stepped forward and hold the hosts mouth wide open instincts simply took over: I was Goa'uld and that was a host, a barely intelligent animal with whose body I could so much more than it could comprehend.
Coiling up I got ready to jump and as soon as the Queens hand loosened and the muscles in my thin and long body did what they evolved for: I jumped straight at my hosts mouth, entering its body through it burrowing myself into its flesh, not minding the pain and hate I felt as soon as I connected to her, my host was female.
The Jaffa stepped back as I wrestled for control with my host, my mind clouded with the experiences of hundreds of possessions, the anger the hate, the joy the triumph, I was sucking all of this up like a sponge in the water: my mind lashing out and pushing the host backwards, severing her control, stopping her influence over her own body and finally pushing her back into the furthest back of her own mind, giving her blissful unconsciousness for now.
On one hand I should have felt appalled: even horrified at what I had just done but: it felt so wonderful and flooded my whole being with euphoria as I opened my eyes.
Eyes, real eyes, not the tiny little buds my symbiont body has and which are nearly half blind: large, round human eyes, blinking in the light and able to perceive even small details in the furthest corner of the room.
Willing my eyes to glow golden, just as natural as the whole body was becoming to me in only a few moments, I stood up, the Jaffa formerly holding my host had retired quickly as my eyes glowed and now kneeled submissively around the table I had laid one.
Looking down I stared at the….rather surprisingly light complexion of my hands: flexing them as I noticed the soft palms and fingers: whoever my host had been she was no peasant, maybe she was...
Only as the Queen spoke to me I snapped out of the connection I had with my host, her memories already being added to mine as I quickly kneeled down in the rags I was currently wearing, my mind quickly taking offense to their poor state: but right now my survival instinct rater the Queen as more important:
"You did well my child, your control is firm and your mind sharp. You shall find a place in our palace. Ata'suf you needed a new scribe?",
She said, my eyes only moving upwards to take her looks in: she was….was without blemish and beautiful as one could expect of a Queen having free choice of what body to take. Her body fit better to the general skin color of the Jaffa around us, but even with them it wasn't that uniform.
Her clothing seemed to consist of a what one could call a golden metal bikini, together with colorful silk fabric and a one shouldered cape of the same material falling over her back.
I found myself strangely…. jealous? Great, not even a minute since I had a body and I was already becoming vain.
Before I could think further the said Ata'suf stepped closer, his thin body wrapped in a long grey robe, the arrogance his face was oozing typically normal even as he kneeled down before the Queen:
"Yes my Queen, one of the local Junior scribes was send to a new fief, I would need a replacement.",
That he didn't wish the ex-scribe the best of luck was already known, after all who would be happy to be ignored by such an opportunity: being only one quick murder away from your own fiefdom.
He didn't even deem me a glance as he reached into his robes and pulled out a grey table, throwing the trapezial formed device into my lap and leaving me with a turning stone to use it.
Taking it and looking at the first page I shook my head, doing my best not to laugh out aloud while the jaffa were still around me. Instead I kept my face impassive and turned to face them:
"Jaffa, Cree!",
I cried and watched pleased how they looked up from the kneeling position and awaited my orders, maybe I should one or two with me? No….as scribe I had no use for them and as such didn't get any before I would get any ideas.
Speaking in the booming echoing voice was slightly off putting at first but I think I got used to it rather well, so I simply went to my point:
"Jaffa, lead me to the guest quarters and sent in the palace servants."
Acknowledging my command they stood up with deep bows and walked towards the door, opening it and allowing me through before they moved before me again and lead the way.
Which of course wasn't needed: but right now it allowed me to smirk without them seeing such an expression on a face of their "god", or at least a minor one.
I simply couldn't help but grin as I stared at the tablet…
…and I don't think I felt so amused in the last years, when I finally sunk into the bath and soaking in with a loud laugh at my situation.
What was written on it? Just the instruction for the third minor scribe, in the Dazai plain region, tax reports from the settlement of Da'lamar.
Ohhh you do not get it yet?
What's the scribe system of the Goa'uld: a rather basic bureaucratic system: a system in which each single bureaucrat has a god complex.
Sounds familiar or?
[End of the record, Interrogation of the Goa'uld Anai, SGC, xx-xx-2006]