Known Great Powers of the Milky Way as of Nineteen-Ninety-Eight

Introduction:

The Milky Way Galaxy may appear to be almost completely dominated by the Goa'uld Empire, but this is not actually the case. While they certainly control a majority of worlds situated along the Stargate Network, the Network of Stargates makes up only a fraction of worlds in the Milky Way. For instance, the closest Stargate in terms of Light Years to Earth is actually on a world known as Heliopolis, a planet near Gliese Eight-oh-nine some forty LY distant from Earth. It is in these pockets of off-network space that most of the other larger powers of the Milky Way Exist. There are a number of more powerful civilizations out in the Milky Way that could if pressed, challenge any of the Major System Lords of the Goa'uld. These Regional Powers tend to avoid invasion from opportunistic System Lords through the Pirhana Principle. That is the fact that the necessity of moving the requisite number of ships and Jaffa it would take to successfully conquer them away from borders with Rival System Lords would leave those who would attempt to do so vulnerable to attack while preoccupied by said rivals.

Regional Powers are not, however, the sole challengers to the Goa'uld in the depths of Off-Network Space. There are a scant few Great Powers who could fight a war on equal footing with the Goa'uld Empire. Such powers tend to be either highly militaristic, highly technologically advanced, or a combination of the two. Most, if not all, are highly centralized, unlike the Goa'uld who would break down into infighting in any unified front against a peer opponent, as happened during the last war with the Asgard and the War with the Triceraton Republic eighty years ago. These Great Powers are some of the Go'auld's chief rivals for colony worlds and resources, and their sheer power had led to the incentivization of Goa'uld to seize planets from other Goa'uld rather than attempt a large undertaking against a peer power for new colonies. Ironically this perpetuates the cycle of treachery that would preclude any lasting Goa'uld advance against any of the other Great Powers to begin with.

There are others that are simply too insignificant and too difficult a conquest to be worth bothering for the Goa'uld. These Minor Powers tend to have a dozen or fewer planets to their names but possess various extenuating circumstances, such as inconvenient placement, poor resources, high technological bases, or a developed and well-funded defense force that make them unattractive targets for conquest. These include the Tollan Council and the Confederation of Antar, both of which have small populations and territories but a highly developed technological base and well-equipped defense forces. Both have also adopted isolationist policies as a defense mechanism against Goa'uld Expansion.

I will attempt to list the known powers of the Milky Way as of Nineteen-Ninety-Eight by level, beginning with the Great Powers. There may be others, but these are the ones currently known of at this time. Regional Powers and Minor Powers will be detailed in separate reports.

Great Powers:

Divine Goa'uld Empire: The Divine Goa'uld Empire is, to paraphrase a quote from Voltaire, neither divine nor truly an empire. The Goa'uld once ruled large swathes of Earth in the ancient past, before a major revolt kicked them off the planet. In the time they ruled Earth, however, they took a liking to using their advanced technologies to mimic the powers of Gods and taking breeding populations of slaves off-world to populate their empire. While no surviving records exist as to how they were finally booted off Earth, there is a high likelihood that Earth being one of the more mystically active places in the Milky Way had something to do with it. Regardless, the descendants of the slave populations they took off Earth during their reign remain held in bondage on worlds all along the Stargate Network. Accordingly, the Goa'uld keep the facade of using their advanced technology to mimic Gods going in order to keep these populations of slaves under their thumbs. They are not the Gods they pretend to be, however, and instead are a sort of Eel-like Allien Symbiote that can suppress the consciousness of any host bodies that they enter, with some notable exceptions, and puppet them around.

That put paid to the lie of being Divine, but as to being an Empire, for one of the dominant powers in the Milky Way, the Goa'uld are remarkably fragmented. The best that the Special Forces can tell, even the last so-called Emperor of the Goa'uld, a being known as Ra who was killed by the detonation of an atomic weapon placed on his flagship by Colonel Jack O'Neill of the US Air Force during the inaugural mission of Project: Blue Book, wasn't truly a member of the Imperial House of the Go'auld, but a former Regent who took power after the last real Emperor, a Goa'uld known as Apep, perished during a three-hundred-year war with a Goa'uld that none of the records recovered by Project: Blue Books Staff has been able to retrieve will actually name. Ra ruled as Supreme System Lord, a title that is technically first among equals in Goa'uld Society but was in practice an Imperial Title in all but name. However, with Ra's death a few years ago, the Empire has begun to fracture as the fifteen Major System Lords begin jockeying for power amongst themselves. Project: Blue Book staff currently estimates total collapse into Civil War to be inevitable within the next year or two.

Technologically, the Goa'uld are both remarkably advanced and simultaneously remarkably backward. They utilize plasma weaponry, FTL-capable warships, trinium alloy armor, crystal-based computing technology, and advanced medical technology regularly. However, all this technology must by necessity be easy enough to assemble that the human slaves toiling away in workshops for the glory of their Goa'uld overlords can assemble it all without even being able to read. This has led to certain aspects of technology falling by the wayside even as their technology remains technologically advanced. For instance, the Primary Weapon of the Jaffa Caste of Near-Human Slave Soldiers is the Ma'Tok Staff Weapon, a plasma rifle designed more like a spear than a properly ergonomic rifle. Ergonomics are not the only sacrifice to the expediency of having a slave workforce, as the power system has been simplified enough that most staff weapons fire slowly, one bolt of plasma at a time. This, plus the poor ergonomics, results in a Military Force that has difficulty aiming their slow-firing weapons, allowing opposing Jaffa forces to close to Melee range. This also has the unintended benefit of making Jaffa revolts easy to crush by their Goa'uld Masters, who naturally have access to better equipment.

It is this preoccupation with internal security that, though necessary given the fractious nature of the System Lords, seems to have lost the Goa'uld multiple wars against peer opponents, most recently against the Triceraton Republic over worlds on the border between the Republic and the former territories of the Imperial House which had belonged to Ra at the time, but currently are split between Apophis and Herur'ur. These worlds just to the southeast of the Galactic Core are rich in Naquadah, a mineral that powers most Goa'uld Technology. Unfortunately, the System Lord Osiris perished in the fighting and both Herur'ur and Apophis turned on each other trying to annex those recently Lordless Worlds, which spiraled into a major spat among the wider unified front and allowed the Triceratons to invade and occupy the worlds of Gesy, former Underlord of Osiris, just across the border, prompting the Goa'uld to sue for peace to sort out their internal squabbles.

Triceaton Republic: The Triceraton Republic is, oddly enough, ruled by a Humanoid Ceratopsian Species known as the Triceratons. While they are technically a Republic, they are a republic in the Ancient Roman Sense, with their Prime Leader being a dictator in the same mold as Julius Caesar of Ancient Rome. Aggressive and expansionistic, even despite the fact that they are herbivores, the Triceraton Republic was, until very recently, engaged in an ongoing series of conflicts with an unknown Human Civilization in the Galactic South known only as the Federation, itself ruled by a Military Junta and not actually under a federal system at all. Unfortunately, this was all that Project: Blue Book Staff could get on the subject from salvaged Triceraton Computer Banks in the aftermath of the Skirmish on Zau between the crew of a crashed Triceraton Gunship and the Inhabitants of Zau, a forgotten people descended from ancient Nubians that had since been abandoned by the Goa'uld after the Trinium Mines on the planet ran dry.

Speaking of the Skirmish on Zau, Project: Blue Book Staff were engaged as a priority even over the native guerillas of the jungle world by the Triceratons. The teams sent to Zau would have suffered almost total casualties if not for the new Laser Carbines and Ablative Composite Armor supplied by Triarchy Industries to the Special Forces. Triceraton Weapons Technology is roughly on par with that of the Go'auld, but the ergonomics of their plasma blaster weapons make them far better shots than the Jaffa with their Ma'Tok Staff Weapons. Unfortunately, Project: Blue Book Teams could not retrieve more than a handful of salvaged technology and data from the Triceratons before the gunship's self-destruct activated, wiping any remaining salvage out in a fusion reactor meltdown.

What has been salvaged paints a picture of an advanced, hyper-aggressive, militaristic, race that seems to possess a deep hatred of humans owing to their centuries-long series of conflicts with the Federation to their south. They seem to utilize tailored microbial cocktails to be capable of surviving on any number of worlds while possessing plasma weaponry, hyper-efficient fusion reactors, FTL Capability, and even use monomolecular bladed bayonets and some form of advanced ballistic weaponry as well, though the crashed Triceratons seemed to rely on their plasma blasters instead of any Auto-Guns, as the partial data dump from the Gunship Computer suggested. Using that Partial Data Dump, Project: Blue Book staff have marked out a large section of worlds to the South of the Galactic Core believed to be Triceraton Territory. This section has been labeled a no-go zone at present, and it is unclear as to whether that status will change any time soon.

Human Federation: A Society only partially known of thanks to the partial dump of a Triceraton Computer Core, it appears that the Human Federation lies somewhere to the Galactic South, along the Rim of the Milky Way. What is known is that their Technology is roughly on par with that of the Triceraton Republic, though they utilize ablative ceramic body armor whereas the Triceratons prefer to trust in their textile armor and thick skin to shrug off damage. Likely this was the reason for the attack on Project: Blue Book Teams at Zau. It is also known that the Federation is dabbling in Robotics and Teleportation Technology, two fields that the Triceraton Republic does not fund, though the Goa'uld have their own teleportation technology.

The Human Federation, according to the Triceraton Computer Dump, is actually slightly larger than the Triceraton Republic by area of space, however, if the Triceraton computer core is to be believed, much of that excess space is made of stars with no planetary bodies orbiting them. Likewise, the Human Federation is actually a highly centralized Military Junta under the control of a cabal of Federal Generals if the Computer core can be believed. Until such a time as this can be verified by Project: Blue Book Staff, however, such things are likely to remain speculation. The data dump did come from a computer core belonging to the Federation's perennial enemies, after all.

Asgard High Council: Not much is known of this enigmatic race, though from what Project: Blue Book Staff has been able to gather, they are more advanced than any of the other Great Powers, possessing actual intergalactic FTL Capability, as well as a form of Beam Weaponry that is more capable than anything in the Arsenals of the Triceraton Republic, Goa'uld Empire, or Human Federation, and advanced command of genetic sciences and cloning technologies far in excess of any of the other powers. However, the Asgard have only maintained a small presence outside of their home galaxy on a few independent worlds, such as Cimmeria. They have not come out in force for a thousand years.

However, it is known that the last time they did so, they managed to crush a Major Warfleet of the Goa'uld Empire with a single ship. Ever since then, the Goa'uld have been forced to abide by a treaty declaring certain worlds under Asgard protection as off-limits. This Protected Planets Treaty covers worlds such as Cimmeria and Project: Blue Book Staff have pushed for contact with the Asgard in order to sign up to the treaty and potentially bypass the threat of Goa'uld attack altogether. Tentative Contact was made by Project: Blue Book Staff with the Asgard Supreme Commander Thor on the World of Cimmeria earlier in the year, proving the existence of the Asgard. Unfortunately, no treaty negotiations took place.