Right, after watching "Stargate" for the first time in a few years, and re starting on SG-1, I'm a little unclear on something. In the movie (at least the way I interpreted it), an alien, whose name was Ra and whose culture had pyramids and hieroglyphics came to Earth about 6,000 BC and enslaved the primitive (i.e. pre-civilisation nomadic style) humans of the Nile river basin. He assumed the identity of a living god and forced them to adopt his culture and worship him as such. So, the culture of ancient Egypt that we are familiar with (pyramids, Sphinxes, the pantheon of gods) came from the aliens. No matter whatever else, Ra was responsible for giving human beings advancements like writing, mathematics, agriculture etc. That's the movie.
Now, in the series, it implies that an alien came upon Earth, and found the Egyptian culture already established (so humans had developed these things on their own) and were already worshiping a pantheon of gods, and in this scenario, the alien took on the identity of the sun god Ra and adopted the trappings of the Earth's Egyptian culture (made his spaceships look like pyramids, used hieroglyphics etc). So , in this case, as well as being a tyrant and oppressor, he's also a complete con man.
This raises another headscratcher for me, according to the back-story, Ra (who in the series is revealed to be a Goa'uld System Lord) allowed the other System Lords to harvest humans from Earth, and each in turn assumed the identity of some god worshiped by an ancient people (Cronus: Greek, Camulus: Celtic, Lord Yu: Chinese, Anubis, Apophis, Osiris, Isis: all Egyptian). So, did each of these Goa'uld happily adopt the culture of whatever primitive tribe they enslaved, as opposed to the primitive humans adopting the cultures of the conquering aliens. Does that fit with the ego centric mindset of the goa'uld?
Right, after watching "Stargate" for the first time in a few years, and re starting on SG-1, I'm a little unclear on something. In the movie (at least the way I interpreted it), an alien, whose name was Ra and whose culture had pyramids and hieroglyphics came to Earth about 6,000 BC and enslaved the primitive (i.e. pre-civilisation nomadic style) humans of the Nile river basin. He assumed the identity of a living god and forced them to adopt his culture and worship him as such. So, the culture of ancient Egypt that we are familiar with (pyramids, Sphinxes, the pantheon of gods) came from the aliens. No matter whatever else, Ra was responsible for giving human beings advancements like writing, mathematics, agriculture etc. That's the movie.
Now, in the series, it implies that an alien came upon Earth, and found the Egyptian culture already established (so humans had developed these things on their own) and were already worshiping a pantheon of gods, and in this scenario, the alien took on the identity of the sun god Ra and adopted the trappings of the Earth's Egyptian culture (made his spaceships look like pyramids, used hieroglyphics etc). So , in this case, as well as being a tyrant and oppressor, he's also a complete con man.
This raises another headscratcher for me, according to the back-story, Ra (who in the series is revealed to be a Goa'uld System Lord) allowed the other System Lords to harvest humans from Earth, and each in turn assumed the identity of some god worshiped by an ancient people (Cronus: Greek, Camulus: Celtic, Lord Yu: Chinese, Anubis, Apophis, Osiris, Isis: all Egyptian). So, did each of these Goa'uld happily adopt the culture of whatever primitive tribe they enslaved, as opposed to the primitive humans adopting the cultures of the conquering aliens. Does that fit with the ego centric mindset of the goa'uld?