this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2024
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What sort of air defenses should Jaffa have? (sopuli.xyz)
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Yes, this is your standard 'overthinking-stargate' post.

But given that the main rival to Jaffa and Goa'uld forces would traditionally be other Jaffa and Goa'uld, the primary (or secondary, second to policing civilians) threat would come from air assault and assorting air-support, given that Ha'tak could land, or bring gliders or both, and Al'kesh could show up independently of Ha'taks and gliders, you'd think that Jaffa would have ample air defenses. But as far as we've seen in the show, they don't.

What would complete the setting in that regard? Should they have had some sort of MANPADs? The ring-threading round gliders seem like the obvious choice, but they do not apparently make them as they once did, for some reason.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I like that we don't see a lot of defense in Goa'uld technology. They believe that the only threats to them will come through the gate network that they (until recently) control completely.

Their weapons are purpose built to oppress slaves.

Their chief forms of defense, when truly threatened, are retreat and burying a wormhole.

It makes Stargate one of the most plausible "humanity resists advanced aliens" plots - because the Goa'uld are caught on their heels, tactically by Earth's wormhole being activated by humans who shouldn't have found it and (the Goloa'uld thought) shouldn't have had the wits to activate it.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (2 children)

And things get strange as the Tau'ri are strangely good at war for having such a relative disadvantage regarding technology. Tau'ri weapons and tactics at the start of the series should not be effective and the development of Tau'ri technology is shockingly rapid and produces novel results.

The Goa'uld keep bringing knives to a gun fight while the Tau'ri started with a BB Gun but keep bringing better guns.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

We'd been killing eachother by the millions for thousands of years 8)

nowhere else could you find so many people who'd butcher eachother like that

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

In S1E2, teal'c and O'Neill fail to sufficiently damage a glider with staff weapons, but a well placed stinger takes it out.

Presumably a tower based staff cannot can take out a glider, but the Taur'i came prepared with stingers, claymores, C4, and a boatload of tenacity and guerilla tactics.

Their use of manoeuvring and deception is one of their most valuable traits, easily beating muchvstronger Jaffa forces, which rely on force and numbers.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)

2 things come to mind.

The staff weapons have taken down gliders a couple times with enough shots. The other is a couple times there have been oversized staff weapons on a pedestal which can work as ground and air defence against larger ships.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

True, but the staff-cannon-things don't seem like a great alternative, given that they're usually fired from breast-hip height and seem to lack optics. And even if they did have optics, you'd think gliders and especially Al'kesh would already have engaged you.

Staff weapons against gliders, sure, but that just touches more on the cinema-cool element, where advanced aerospace-fighters are taken down by weapons that shouldn't hold a candle to that sort of platform. Another example is Shepard shooting down a wraith dart with an M249 (which he was carrying for whatever reason).

Stingers and AT-4's I can understand, but I feel like more realistically they'd be on the far edge of what could defend against gliders and darts.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

I would assume that any air defence would be neutralized during the initial planetary bombardment after the attacking snake has dealt with any space based defence group.

The other option is anything cargo ship or higher have shields making ground based defence pointless.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

Given the egotistical nature of the Goauld I wouldn't put it past them to have a sort of "gentleman's agreement" to keep war mostly ground based to help limit the ability of the jaffa to rebel. We never see any Goauld weaponry that can track its target for instance. Everything just shoots in a straight line until it hits something. They want "war" to be up close and messy to help control their subjects. Given that, air defense as we understand it would defeat the purpose of fighting in the first place for them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Well given that the Jaffa operate strategically pretty much the same as the Goa'uld their main air defence is what you already showed in your OP: the glider. And beyond that any other Goa'uld ship they can get their hands on.

But yeah, in the show we see MANPADs, air-to-air missiles, and even an unguided rocket launcher being successfully used against gliders and other small to medium ships. So deploying them Patriot batteries to Dakara would have been a good idea probably. Also those AA railguns (?) that get used at the battle for Atlantis at the end of season 1.

Ancient drones would of course be king if you could get a production chain for ammunition and a launch platform going, those things just shred any Goa'uld ship (or other ship for that matter) if you have enough. In lieu of that Asgard/Tolan energy weapons should be the most effective air defence, save for the nastier opponents smart enough to adapt shields on the fly like Replicators and whatnot.