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| Goa'uld agriculture. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| The Goa'uld are a paracytic race with a tradition of keeping their subject races poor and primitive so that there is little chance of rebellion. However a primitive society can't produce a large enough agricultural surplus to support the kind of wealth and power that the Goa'uld are accustomed to. An investigation of the agricultural productivity of Goa'uld worlds reveals several tricks that the Goa'uld have developed. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Genetics. Some goa'uld are adept at genetic engineering. The key technology they use may be captured from the ancients or other civilisations. With this technology plants and animals can be modified to make them immune to disease and pests. There are several interesting examples. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Axe weed. A modified paracytic plant. Sown on a field of grass or crops, axe weed grows with alien speed draining the sap from the plants that it's wiry climbing vines contact. It kills the grass or crop by dissolving them cell by cell and draining their sugars back to the vine leaving only the roots intact. In three weeks the crop is destroyed and there is nothing remaining but the wiry mesh of entangled vines and triangular axe shaped pods. Each pod has three to seven protein rich beans/ Fruit about the size of a mans thumb. Axe weed must be harvested by hand but the Tau'ri are working with the free Jaffa to develop a mechanical harvester. The farmed land that the axe weed has grown on will recover in about a year if the weed is burned off. Pods lie dormant for several years to allow grasses etc to recover | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Boor Bat. A warm blooded flying animal that hunts in packs of ten or more. A wild Boor bat resembles a fox sized bat with pig like tusks. The Jaffa consider these beasts to be both good hunting and fine eating. The Boor bat has been engineered in two ways. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Some are now big and flightless meat animals; the equivalent of a pig or chicken but dangerously aggressive and cunning. The domestic beasts are kept in pits and fed scraps, axe weed pods, and the occasional careless slave. They grow with an alien speed maturing in two months to about 50 lb (25 kg), the size of an average dog. Another modification has added venom glands allowing a pack of 5 or less to bring down a large animal. Released on a planet with lots of suitable livestock these creatures proliferate to plague proportions becoming huge deadly swarms. The Goa'uld then harvest them with zats. Single wide-angle shot can drop a dozen Boor bats. |
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| Boor bats, including the wild kind, are found on many worlds. The venomous variety is still released irregularly by the Lucian Alliance. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Plaad The Goa'uld are amphibious parasites. While the Unus were the first sentient creatures paractized; the Plaad may be their very first host. It is an aquatic monotreme about 100lb (50 kg) when mature. These have been engineered into 340lb (170 kg) monsters and are now found on several worlds. Some Goa'uld consider these creatures pets others use them as hosts as part of a strange sport come ritual where the Goa'uld transfer from human host to a Plaad and hunt other marine animals for a few weeks before returning to take a new, carefully prepared, human host. Plaad resemble sea lions but with a Goa'uld in control they can be extremely dangerous. It is believed that when the Replicators hit several Goa'uld worlds the few goa'uld that survived retreated to the seas in their Plaad hosts. They may be still out there | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The zat or zat'nik'tel can be used for pest control. Jaffa and occasionally a minor Goa'uld lord will respond to a crop crisis by systematically zating the field. This kills all insect pests. Some Goa'uld have also developed a larger device similar to a Zat grenade but large enough to be mounted on smaller ships in their fleet. These are used to bomb whole valleys killing all pests and stunning any unwary livestock or farmers. This zat can subdue a village in seconds if needed. The zat bomb must be retrieved after use. Reportedly the zat bomb has been used to harvest large herds of semi-wild livestock on some worlds. There is also a report of a tethered zat bomb being used to gather fish on the large scale. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bottomless Jars. Some Goa'uld distribute large metal Jars one metre in diameter and half a metre high. Food, grain or ore can be shovelled into these for hours with out them ever becoming full. A quick examination of one reveals a medium range teleportation unit similar to a small rings system that teleports the contents to a point close to the planets stargate. At that point the food or ore seems to rain from a chandelier. The range of these jars appears to be about 1000 miles (1700km).This eliminates the major limits on crop transport imposed by a low technology base. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wesley Bruce | None of this is cannon but it should be fun. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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