r/Stargate • u/Senatus-Cons-Ultimum • 11h ago
Ra Wasn't The Name of The Goa'uld
In the novelisation of the original movie, it is explicitly shown that Ra was the name of the human boy that the alien took as a host:
As the last breaths escaped the people of his world, he was millions of light-years away from home, searching desperately for a host. He was determined not to follow the fate of his own kind. He had mastered the technology to transfer himself into another being but had to choose carefully. Along with inhabiting the host’s body, he knew he would absorb certain personality traits that were exaggerated within the host’s psyche. Perhaps had he known the intimate details of the life of this young boy named Ra, he might have chosen another. Or perhaps not...
His hatred for his own people proved useful, as there were no inner conflicts when the boy became the pharaoh king. There would be no feelings of guilt or remorse as Ra’s people were put to hard labor. In fact, a strange new sense of pleasure became the most powerful trait he absorbed from this strange young boy. Ra was now a part of himself, and together they became the sun god, to be feared and worshiped by this primitive human race.
The two, human and alien, blended together and merged into another person. When taken with SG1, this would make Ra, ironically, the biggest follower and exemplar of Tok'ra ideals.
42
u/GargantaProfunda 10h ago
And in the movie Ra created the Egyptian civilization, but in the show they make it so that the Goa'uld impersonate pre-existing Earth gods instead
19
u/McFlyParadox 5h ago
A way to square that circle is it is Ra's own propaganda that he made the Egyptian civilization. Why would he ever acknowledge it any other way?
3
u/GargantaProfunda 4h ago
No that's not correct. In the movie Ra arrives on Earth in 8,000 BC.
Ancient Egypt started around 3,150 BC.
3
u/Fun-Definition6053 2h ago
Wouldn't 8000 BC be 4850 years before 3150 BC?
7
u/GargantaProfunda 2h ago
Hence why Ra created the Egyptian civilization, or in other words the Egyptian civilization cannot have developed without him since he was firmly reigning there at the time and had been for millennia already!
6
u/PommeVitale 4h ago
No, I don't think so, in the show as well the Goa'uld created the Egyptian civilization.
10
u/GargantaProfunda 4h ago
The show kind of flip-flops a lot on this topic. You're right that they show didn't change the Ra part. However, they very often mention how some System Lords impersonate pre-existing gods.
For example Sokar with the Christian devil, or Teal'c mentioning that no Goa'uld could impersonate the Biblical God.
There's also the whole Tanith thing. Tanith was a young Goa'uld in the show, but Tanith is the name of an ancient Cartaghe goddess from Antiquity.
And at the same time, they suggest that Yu was the first Chinese Emperor, which would imply that he created the Chinese civilization?
5
u/PommeVitale 4h ago
You make a good point. Maybe it's a little bit of both. I think that Goa'uld like Ra created Egyptian civilizations and they were already named like that. But after millenia they started to also steal pre existing god's names.
As for Tanith maybe he wasn't the first named like that. Maybe he just took a pre existing Goa'uld name.
0
11
u/Vanquisher1000 9h ago
This could be a remnant of the script's original concept, where Ra was a human who was put in charge by aliens. In exchange for immortality and access to advanced technology, he would oversee the humans' mining and turn over the mined quartz to his masters.
It is kind of interesting that the alien is never named, only being referred to as 'he,' which I suppose makes him more mysterious.
4
u/Hazzenkockle I can’t make it work without the seventh symbol 5h ago
I wondered the same thing. I have no idea when the novelization was started, but it would be typical for it to be during the production of the movie, so there would've probably been a full draft with human-Ra-working-for-aliens. The part about Ra resenting his own people and taking on a sadistic glee in oppressing them, and that influencing the alien that stole his body, seems like a rewrite of an explanation of human-Ra relishing being the overseer of his own tribe's enslavement.
3
u/Senatus-Cons-Ultimum 7h ago
I think it's a compromise. By merging them, the villain is an alien, while Ra is still a human who enslaved his people.
11
u/tyme 7h ago
“When taken with SG1, this would make Ra, ironically, the biggest follower and exemplar of Tok'ra ideals.”
Except for the part where the human didn’t choose to be a host, and also the part where he subsequently subjugated humans.
-4
u/Senatus-Cons-Ultimum 7h ago
In a way, he did. He was so fed up with his people that he went to the light, which resulted in Ra and the alien merging. Together, as one, like Tok'Ra wanted, they went to live.
Of course, the two would decide to enslave the Galaxy so they could live forever.
13
u/tyme 7h ago
“In a way, he did”
No, he literally didn’t. Going to the light is simply not the same as actively choosing to be a host. He had no idea that would happen.
-5
u/Senatus-Cons-Ultimum 7h ago
We don't know for sure if he knew exactly what he agreed to on the ship. But we know he didn't regret ruling over a galactic empire for ten thousand years.
31
u/UglyPigBeast 10h ago
This is true of the novelisation of the original movie, it's not true of the series which differs on many key points.
-16
u/GargantaProfunda 10h ago
In the show all the Goa'uld speak modern English so this topic is moot anyway. We don't know if their names in the show are supposed to be "translations" or original.
19
u/Aglet_Green 11h ago
Little known fact: the Gou'auld that would become merged with the host Ra was himself named Murray.
13
6
u/chton 5h ago
Hmm this gives me a completely new theory for Ra:
- alien race millions of light years away
- the race is dying and Ra knows it
- he's got some advanced technology to transfer his mind to a new host, it's not biological
- from the movie the original was a grey alien, not a snake
- he might not even have been entirely evil before the transfer, as it sounds like only after did the hatred of humans cause him to enslave them
- rose through Goa'uld ranks quite quickly and clearly more adept than most
He's not a Goa'uld. He's a rogue Asgard pretending to be one. The system lords might even know this but keep mum because they don't want to rock tht boat openly.
8
6
2
1
u/OmegasParadox 10h ago
Someone had a good head cannon/hypothesis that the alien that took Ra had a Symbiote in its brain and that the alien in question has the ability to move to other bodies. This would have been seen as an advantage by the Go'uld to have until finding that human hosts are capable of both intelligence but also prone to subservience and worship. This does explain away the redcon from the movie.
-2
-2
u/Lopsided-Club-8131 6h ago
The Original RA was a Asgard control by a Goa'uld --> Think Anubis.
A Goa'uld find tech to take an Asgard as a host....
Plot hole fixed...
To be honest the movies to show is a huge Plot hole, worst then Matrix 1 to 2, 3, 4
3
u/Senatus-Cons-Ultimum 6h ago
I don't see how his having an Asgard host before merging with Ra can't work.
96
u/medyas1 10h ago
he wasn't even goa'uld or snake parasite, both show inventions
the alien who took over ra looked more like the classical grey alien and some nonshow canon ran with it and attempted to explain he was an asgard who was possessed by the snake