Chapter 2

The experiments continued. Ra took more subjects to the planet to be implanted. By now, he and his guards had managed to capture several of the eel-creatures as specimens and kept them in the bowels of his ship.

Keeping the newly implanted humans for observation, he noted that in addition to their eyes glowing, the pitch of their voices changed. Not only that, they were also somewhat stronger and more resilient than a typical human. Their glowing eyes, he surmised, were based on the eel secreting some sort of short-lived bioluminescent chemical into the host's circulation, while the vocal changes seemed to be the result of changes to the way the eel controlled the vocal cords. Likewise, their strength and healing abilities were also the result of chemicals secreted by the eels.

Despite their continued devotion to him and recognition of him as their god, he noted that they soon began to want more for themselves. Arrogant, avaricious, and aggressive as they were, they were also capable of cunning, more so than most normal humans.

They could be dangerous… and yet useful at the same time.

Finally, he decided to harness this intelligence. They would be his new enforcers, answerable to him.

All of the implanted humans assembled in the great throne room, flanked by numerous Horus and Sebek guards as they knelt before the raised throne. Ra sat at his throne, looking down on the assembly.

In making this declaration, Ra made it painfully clear to these people that they owed their new existences to him; without his divine intervention, they would still be unintelligent animals, swimming in lakes. They understood this; it had been drilled into them since the beginning, when they were taken before Ra after implantation. Setting a bloody example, Anubis promptly killed one of them, then cut the eel-creature from his neck and threw it on the floor. It writhed on the floor, squealing, until Anubis crushed it under his heel. The assembly of implanted people recoiled in a mixture of revulsion and dread, just as Ra had hoped.

Some of them took on the names of the gods for themselves, but it was understood that they were extensions of the guards Ra had by his side. So it was that the implanted humans known as Anubis, Sebek, and Heru-ur arose.

Attending to Ra at first, they watched as he ruled over his dominion, but before long, as a sort of test of their abilities, Ra sent some of them to govern other human settlements on Earth, largely untouched by his presence and far from where he had established his Earthly empire. They were quick to subjugate the local populations, some of them appropriating the local mythology, others creating names for themselves to be known to the local populations by. Nearly all of them declared themselves gods, as Ra himself had done. Unlike himself, however, they had no qualms showing their human faces to their people, using their glowing eyes to intimidate.

He created a new name for them as a collective: the Goa'uld, the children of the gods. As members of Ra's 'family,' it was understood that they, too were divine. Being a god, he was among them, but in name only; he was a breed apart, separate, special.

As his empire grew, Ra entrusted the Goa'uld with enforcing whole colonies on other planets. Being his minions, they too needed power and technology to enforce his will, and so, with increasing stocks of the quartz his colonies were mining, he gave them weapons like those he armed his own guards with.

Some of the Goa'uld were curious, disassembling weapons in an effort to determine how they worked. Indulging this curiosity, Ra watched as they used the limited technology he provided to fashion new devices for themselves.

As it happened, the Goa'uld's arrogance and vanity extended to their weapons: they even fashioned a weapon seemingly in their own image, the zat'nik'tel. Ra was impressed with the Goa'uld ingenuity shown in fashioning a new weapon based on his technology, but he was disinterested in it.

Eventually, he even gave them the means to build ships, and build them they did: the winged scarab, the udajeet, or glider, was produced in large quantities. Using his own pyramid ship as a base, they built variations on the design, with one, the hatak, becoming a standard. New designs were eventually developed and fielded: the teltak, a small cargo ship, and the alkesh, a cruiser, were among them.

Ra would soon find that the Goa'uld were soon establishing colonies and dominions of their own without his approval. Ra cared little for it; none were in a position to challenge him directly. He would let them carry on – for now.

Some of them even returned to their home world. Apparently, some of them left their human hosts and took on the ungainly, leathery bipeds as hosts, seemingly preferring their size, strength, resilience, and intimidating looks. They certainly left an impression on the human slaves when they returned to the colonies they policed.

They even gave the creatures a name: Unas.

Again, Ra cared little for it.

In time, the Goa'uld themselves experimented on humans, as Ra had experimented on them. Seeking to increase their number, they created a warrior race for themselves called the Jaffa. These otherwise normal humans were modified to possess pouches for infant eel-creatures to grow in. It was, Ra thought, quite ingenious; these new warriors were literally dependent on the Goa'uld to live, while providing a relatively safe place for them to grow. However, Ra also thought it stupid that the Goa'uld would indirectly send their own young into battle inside these warriors when they were trying to increase their number.

Despite their superiority to normal humans, Ra himself had no desire to add Jaffa soldiers to his ranks; he wanted his humans pure, unsullied by Goa'uld tampering. If the other Goa'uld wanted to play with their subjects in this manner, so be it: he wanted none of it.