Atumite Military Reforms
Background
As part of the project called The Flowering, by those familiar with it, the supreme overlord of the Hundred Worlds of Atum has created a significant military build-up in recent years. Spurred on by the longstanding war against an aggressive species called the Wraith in the Pegasus galaxy, these reforms have consisted of comprehensive design and deployment of many types of of potent new weapons.
The details of this arms buildup are largely unknown to the Milky Way galaxy, and most serious tests have been against local enemies within the Messier 15 Galactic Cluster or in the Pegasus Galaxy, with much of the Atumite domain still relying on older generations of goa’uld technology and un-reformed legions.
A substantial driving force of these reforms has been the recent increase in intellectual capital of the Hundred Worlds, which has drastically increased the population of the goa’uld species, as well as the alliance of with a number of foreign cultures, such as the Bedrosians, Travelers, Vanir, Athosians and others, challenging long-held practices.
Some within the goa’uld hierarchy speculate that the true goal of these reforms is less to fight the wraith, however, and to provide a military capable of defending against increasingly developed and threatening human realms within the Milky Way galaxy.
This page covers some of the most notable elements of these reforms, detailing technologies being produced on Delmak and other industrialized goa’uld worlds.
Totemic Helmets
The totemic helmet of the goa’uld, first popularised by the second dynasty and used extensively by the imperial house, is one of the most emblematic symbols of Atumite rule. Produced in a wide variety of forms, the armies of the Supreme System Lord and his immediate retainers are required to provide these devices for their troops. Some goa’uld domains have historically made limited versions of these, or reserved them for elite troops, but these were one of the first priorities of the Atumite armaments regime.
The current procurement requirement for these helms requires a neural interface that allows the wearer to see through the eyes of the helmet without the risk of flash or strobe weapons affecting their nerves, an integrated magnification, night-vision/light amplification, and infra-red ability, multi-channel encrypted radios for squad and long range communication, and a filtered air supply with at least twenty minutes internal scrubbing capacity. More sophisticated variants have additional features, such as the ability to extract oxygen from water and energy pattern assessment or pheromone-tracking systems, depending on the specialty of the troops involved and lavishness of their lord.
Staff Weapons
For thousands of years the weapon of the jaffa warrior has largely been unchanged, a staff-weapon following a design of alteran origin using a naquadah power cell to energize a plasma bolt, the staff weapon is deeply entrenched in tradition among the jaffa warrior caste. Although the weapon presents several challenges for use in battle, its imposing nature and the utility of the underlying technology within the staff meant that it was favoured for retention as the main battle arm of the jaffa; incremental improvements have included gyro-stabilization and boresight sighting mechanisms linked to jaffa helms to offset the ergonomic disadvantages of the weapon and while this is not wholly effective compared to a ground-up redesign of the weapon with more stabilization, it has improved accuracy notably.
Notable variations are also now produced, most formidable of these are the $goauld (lit. Lightning scepter) $goauld (lit. barrage staff) enhanced blast-staves which produce a sustained beam of energy, fulfilling the role of a squad automatic weapon, these staves use an enhanced energy creation channel that is considerably more robust than the standard and additional power cells that cycle, containing five times as many naquadah power cells as the standard staff.
The weapons in use by the Atumite New Army also include $goauld (lit. Blast-Spear) enhanced melee staves, some of which generate intense kinetic fields on a strike, while others are surrounded by a power field that can melt metal or burst rock, allowing them to be used as potent stabbing weapons. These are popular favorites with the troops, and designed at the request of troops engaged in regular battle with the physically fearsome wraith.
Others include $goauld (lit. thunderclap staves) that generate a sonic blast that shreds the senses of enemies, these weapons are used only with the aural buffers in jaffa helmets and are used as a weapon for shock troops, these weapons are not strictly a new development, but they have been brought into more regular use in the wraith conflict.
Most feared and least desired among the soldiers of Atum are $goauld (lit. Curse-staves), which generate a pulse of radiation that can kill a target immediately within their line of fire but also in glancing or near hits result in radiation poisoning, designed as a weapon of particular cruelty these are chiefly valued for their ability to counteract the remarkable resilience of wraith soldiers who can heal conventional burns quickly, but are a simple to produce offshoot of energy weapons technology.
Armour
The keystone of the Flowering’s military redesign programme is an ambitious project to equip the most loyal corps of jaffa warriors with powered armour, that enhances physical strength and provides complete protection against the elements. Created initially on Delmak at the personal orders of the Supreme System Lord, this project was difficult until greatly shortened with the alliance of the Vanir of the pegasus galaxy and the launch of the Discovery Expedition, both f whose use of mid-Alteran designed armoured exoskeletons provided a substantial impetus. Powered by a compact power cell, this armour greatly enhances the wearer’s physical abilities, and can project a force-barrier which provides resistance against smallarms, usually by the gesture-control of a gesture mimicking raising a shield.
Ground vehicles
The biggest departure from goa’uld orthodoxy in the New Programme is the procurement of dedicated ground-combat vehicles. The Atumite domain remains the most significant goa’uld polity with the possible exception of the domain of Ba'al, and their operatives have studied the techniques used by rival states in battle.
Two key vehicles were chosen as the most important required vehicles, though others also exist, they correspond to widely known definitions of Infantry Fighting Vehicles and Tanks, though the Atumites have largely taken to using the Imerian terminology in translation, calling tanks ‘Armoured Track Layers’ and Fighting Vehicles ‘Tracklayer-Carriers.’ The fact that these vehicles have no capacity to lay any sort of railway track is apparently no barrier to this nomenclature.
Both types of vehicles contain core similarities, using reactionless drive systems to propel them, allowing various flight profiles in upper and lower atmosphere, naquadah power cells to generate power for their systems, and energy shields to provide a protective aura that can deflect most threat-forces weapons, and a single vehicle of either type can easily resist dozens or hundreds of Mode-Terran (”MT”) enemy vehicles indefinitely while inflicting decisive kills in return. Both of these primary combat vehicles are designed to mimic Lantean gate-ships and their largest axis is calibrated to be able to pass through all three designs of stargate thus far discovered by the Atumites.
Khepra
The Khepra type tracklayer is a single ovoid shell with an energy projector similar to a staff weapon mounted in a solar dish on the forward part of the vehicle, this requires it to rotate to target anything outside of a cone in its forward arc, but it can accelerate, like most goa’uld vehicles, entirely independently of its actual facing, a feature that has been calibrated particularly in emulation of Menelmacari military technologies which have been extensively studied. The forward part of the Khepra is also equipped with missile launchers, shielded from view in its normal operation by the heavily armoured forward panels, these may be slid back to reveal launchers. These launchers are designed to be future-fitted to be compatible with Lantean drone systems though they use more mundane missiles in their current application as the Atumite domain has not mastered the reproduction of Lantean attack drones. The missiles in current use are optimised for either engagement of beyond-the-horizon threat vehicles or light aircraft, with their primary antagonists being wraith darts.
Pylon
The Pylon type tracklayer-carrier is similar to its more heavily armed cousin, but instead of optimizing its design for shield-dynamics with an ovoid shape, it is built to carry jaffa or kull warriors into combat in safety. The kull-warrior version contains extensive regeneration apparatus to ensure peak performance of these warriors; the Pylon can extend its force-barriers around itself when deploying troops, to protect them from enemy fire. These barriers are normally permeable to allow troops to step through them, but can be ‘hardened’ to become impassable, while, when troops are embarked, operate to allow the Pylon to drive through many barriers and many models feature ‘battering rams,’ as their operators have become quite fond of using the shielded vehicles to enter structures at speed. The Pylon carries less missiles than the Khepra, and is studded with several automated weapons that can attack assilants on all sides.
Drones
A reaction to encountering automated drones used by the Wraith, the goa’uld have sought their own answer to this crucial advantage, and several designs of automated escort have been deployed, named hawks or scarabs, they are intentionally given some degree of animal behaviour to facilitate bonding with the troops they support, who react more positively due to drones with relate able characteristics. Primarily armed with anti-infantry weapons, goa’uld drones are rarely deployed alone, but instead used as a force-multiplier, there are no plans to replace organic soldiers with machines, however, though. Drones typically carry light shields and are used in scouting and patrol duties.
Capital Ships
Motherships
Hok'tak
The first designed successor to the standard Ha'tak vessels of most goa'uld domains, the Hok'tak's name literally means advanced ship, and it is distinctly future-proofed, designed with a more heavily armoured frame than other vessels it makes up for deficiencies of the design by simply being the same vessel but more, boasting more advanced shields and a more potent reactor, it is becoming the standard vessel of the Atumite domain, used at first as a flotilla flagship, it is now beginning to phase out older vessels; its initial deployment was complicated by two of the initial twelve being stolen by mutinous crews who defected to the tok'atem resistance.
Capable of engaging and defeating a Wraith cruiser in a one-on-one engagement the Hok'tak has seen battle on numerous occasions and has a good reputation among crews for being an updated form of a traditional vessel, and it is expected to be in continuous production for the foreseeable future.
Mel'tak
Of all the variants of the venerable ha'tak motherships, the Mel'tak is by far the most promising, boasting an armament profile substantially greater than its rivals and adding a second support frame one hundred and eighty degrees rotated from the original, containing secondary power generators and drive units, it makes space for six large launch trenches in ventral and dorsal positions, the ship integrates substantial Alteran and Lantean precursor technologies, it also integrates internal arrangements and drive-system geometries from another reactionless-drive capable race, believed by some expert observers to be Cylon in origin; the ship carries an armament greater than three conventional ha'taks even upgraded to the same underlying technologies, and has six silos for the use of Lantean drones, as well as extensive hangars.
It is equipped with an intergalactic hyperdrive, but all tests for this system have thus far showed that while the technology works its stabilization programs are as yet poorly understood, with two experimental vessels having torn themselves to pieces in hyperspace, and another having failed in its deceleration cycle causing it to plunge through the heart of a star at sixty percent light-speed, rendering the (fortunately unpopulated) destination system uninhabitable and at least one other having been lost in a distant galaxy.
Despite their hyperdrive problems, the Mel'tak's superior role as an assault ship and carrier capable of successfully engaging and defeating most projected hostile vessels has caused it to win the favour of the Supreme Lord, as its hyperdrives can still operate without significant irregularities approaching speeds of half a megalight over distances approaching half the galactic disk, comparing favourably to the pre-Atumite hyperdrives that were only able to function at sustained speeds of thirty two megalights.
Paraherwemenef
The Paraherwemenef-class is amongst the most radical of departures from goa'uld orthodoxy currently in production, designed for no concern other than speed, it is projected to be the fastest ship in the goa'uld arsenal save the current generation of battleships, and unlike most vessels, it does not use a hyperdrive but a close conformal warp-drive similar to early Alteran ships, with the discovery of the relic-vessel Destiny the goa'uld attempted to ambitiously retro-engineer this vessel to integrate this drive system, a project which failed miserably and resulted in one test vessel catapulting itself apart in the outer reaches of the Sebet-Sweru system, and others simply suffering catastrophic systems failure; the highly hull conformal design shape offered some hyperdrive benefits however and the vessel was put into limited production as an advance vessel intended for rapid response duties. Despite its unusual shape it is similar to 'standard' ha'tak vessels in armament and capabilities, and is only notable for being substantially faster than Mel'tak vessels.
Most ha'tak vessels can use docking clamps around their extremities to 'mate' with larger vessels and be enclosed within their hyperdrive fields, such as battlecruisers and citadel ships, although this would normally be grounds to rule out the design as a limitation on logistics, the Paraherwemenef is faster than any potential host vessel so this was not considered an essential feature.
Ha'tel
The Ha'tel is a ship that would not have been designed without the express command of the Sole Lord, a Ha'tak variant without additional defensive or offensive capacities, though integrating the same advances in drive technologies, it is intended not to provide more military power, but instead to perform a quite different task, and one that is stereo-typically rare among goa'uld, a research vessel, it is host to a nest of sensors and probes using Lantean technology, ranging from long range subspace sensors capable of detecting vessels moving in hyperspace from vast distances, to those capable of penetrating many military cloaking technologies, and discerning phase-shifted enemies, since their first construction, Ha'tel vessels have found a home in defensive patrols and exploration missions alike.