Ha'tak (mothership)

The Ha'tak motherships, known as Cheops class in early fandom, are the mainstay of the Goa'uld fleets. Although several slightly different sub-classes have been observed, all of them have conserved the same highly distinctive profile: a three sided pyramid incrusted in a flat structure with several short 'arms'. Roughly half a mile wide and some three hundred meters tall, Ha'taks are the largest Goa'uld vessels excluding the exceedingly rare 'superships'. Their size and high power generation makes them the choice vessel for long range campaigns and planetary invasions.

Mothership design can be considered a compromise between the many different roles they must play, making Ha'taks a prime example of the 'jack of all trades' syndrome. They are carriers and troopships, moving a large number of Death Gliders and landing whole Jaffa armies for the conquest of the primitive societies the Goa'uld prey on. Space castles may actually be a decent description, considering the feudal society of the System Lords. However, the motherships also double as ships of the line against other starships, as the limited Goa'uld fleets don't include dedicated combat ships.

In spite of these shortcomings, those who may consider motherships to be feeble craft are sorely mistaken. They keep in line hundreds of worlds within the Goa'uld domains with their power and their arrival has been the end for many civilizations over the centuries. For years, the motherships did pose a very real threat for Earth and Apophis, sworn enemy of the Stargate Command and the Goa'uld with the most knowledge about Earth, considered two of them to be enough to try to conquer our planet.

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Sensors: Ha'taks have FTL sensors that can detect ships in hyperspace from light years of distance. In spite of this, the high energy environment of a star's cromosphere can mask a starship from detection.

Offensive capabilities: In spite of their odd profile, Ha'taks seem to have a good enough weapon coverage without glaring blind spots that an enemy may exploit. Heavy weapon emplacements show variable yields and modes of use, from the use of a single emplacement to launch powerful bolts with a slow rate of fire, to many of them unleashing at the same time a veritable rain of weak bolts. Goa'uld attacks have been stated (but not actually seen) to wipe out whole planetary civilizations and to blast through the crust of very large moons, suggesting firepower in the high megaton/low gigaton figures. Although the bolts are clearly sublight, they are coherent enough for use in orbital bombardment, putting their range in the thousands of kilometers.

Defensive capabilities: A mothership has many light weapon emplacements with considerable rates of fire for use against enemy light craft, making enemy attack runs a very risky prospect indeed. In addition to this, they sport powerful shields and a heavily armored hull that can survive with light damage impact after an uncontrolled orbital entry or stay for hours in low orbit above a giant star. In the other hand, Goa'uld seem to have no electronic warfare equipment (or even an understanding of electronic warfare).

Propulsion:
-Faster than light: Motherships have hyperdrives that allow them to cross the galaxy in a matter of months. High end sustained hyperspace speeds have been stated to be in the tens of thousands of times the speed of light. Some early statements suggesting much lower speeds can be safely discarded as Jaffa ignorance.
-Sublight: Motherships have anti-gravity generators allowing them to float above the ground and move through realspace, as well as advanced inertia compensation systems. It is likely that they have also mass lightening devices matching those of Death Gliders, allowing them to reach great accelerations, calculated in the tens of kilogravities (or hundreds of kilometers per squared second).
*It is believed that the combination of FTL sensors, sublight weapon speeds, high accelerative capabilities and pinpoint accuracy in hyperjumps explains the short ranges observed in all engagements to date.

Crew: Just a few individuals are needed to operate a Ha'tak, although the battle perfomance of a mothership with such a reduced crew is substantially poorer. If present, a Goa'uld might operate the starship on his own from the Pel'tak (bridge) located in the tip of the pyramid, but Jaffa technicians have been seen as well. In addition to this, a ha'tak can carry many thousands of Jaffa troops

Auxiliary craft: The number of Death Gliders carried by a ha'tak is an unknown quantity. RPG sources suggest tens of them, but considering the size of a mothership a number in the hundreds is clearly possible. Sometimes, a Ha'tak will carry other craft such as Tel'tac scoutships or even Al'kesh bombers.

Notes: Ha'taks employed by Apophis (and probably Sokar) used cloaking devices, although it is stated quite clearly that it was a recent development and no weapons were fired while cloaked by those motherships. No other Goa'uld is known to use this technology.

Record 1190 - vehicle/ship class - Last update 28 Mar 2007, 23:09:52

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