Tok'ra

"We are not Goa'uld."

- Garshaw

The Tok'ra are a resistance group of symbiotes who resist the cruel ways of the Goa'uld and more specifically, the System Lords, deriving their name from the Goa'uld words "tok", meaning "against" and the name of the Supreme System Lord, the deceased Ra who was killed by Jack O'Neill and Daniel Jackson on Abydos.

Creation
"There is an old legend among the Jaffa for them to speak of concerning a group of Goa'uld who opposed the ways of the System Lords."

- Teal'c

The Tok'ra were first spawned by Egeria, a Goa'uld Queen and former mate of Ra. She had come to conclude that the Goa'uld Empire was too evil to continue, and sired the Tok'ra with her mental imprint of compassion, and a belief that they should only take willing hosts. She would sire several broods of her children to take the fight against the evil of her race. In a final act of spite, the group was named the "Tok'ra" which meant "against Ra".

Ra would later contract the Ashrak with hunting the rogue queen down which they managed to accomplish. They would remove the symbiote from her host and ensured that the Tok'ras numbers would never increase to such magnitudes again. This would be a traumatic time the movement whose loss of their queen would impede on their organization. Dozens of Tok'ra symbiotes would be captured and killed by the Goa'uld and almost spelt the end of their kind. Luckily, the eldest brood of Egeria led their kind into hiding where they managed to survive.

After taking stock over their situation, the Tok'ra realized they were unable to acquire military forces sufficient to counter the System Lords and thus they adopted strategies of subterfuge.

Sworn Enemies of the System Lords
"I learned a lot from Jolinar. Enough to know that we could be good friends."

- Major Samantha Carter

Eventually, the Tok'ra came into an alliance with the Tau'ri, when the Tok'ra Selmak took Jacob Carter as a host. However, this caused some concern among the Tok'ra, as many felt the Tau'ri were too independent and reckless for Tok'ra liking. However, the alliance continued. The base on Vorash would be discovered by a Goa'uld spy within the Tok'ra ranks and Cronus would dispatch two motherships to destroy the base. The Tok'ra, however, managed to successfully evacuate before they could be destroyed.

The Tok'ra were nearly wiped out with the return of Anubis. He ordered his underling Zipacna to attack the Tok'ra base of Revanna. Having lost so many people, the Tok'ra decided to limit their contact with the Tau'ri. However, they still shared intelligence with each other by the time Ba'al rose to prominence.

Later Years
With the fall of the System Lords, the Tok'ra have begun assisting the Tau'ri and the Free Jaffa Nation against the Ori.

The Tau'ri called upon the Tok'ras aid in the removal of the cloned symbiote of the System Lord Ba'al that had infested Adria's body. A Tok'ra doctor and his aides were successful in the operation and managed to remove the symbiote from its unwilling host.

After the Ori crusade ended, the final clone of Ba'al had been captured and was escorted to the Tok'ra homeworld where the Extraction Ceremony was performed on the Goa'uld thus ending the reign of the last of the System Lords.

Society
"Goa'uld take hosts. Ours wish to be so."

- Garshaw

The Tok'ra take much pride in saying that they do not take hosts, but rather, their host chose to be hosts. When blending with a host, the Tok'ra typically enter through the mouth, as they find the entry mark unsightly.

The Tok'ra are ruled by the Tok'ra High Council. It is unknown how membership is chosen but their decisions are binding on the rest of the Tok'ra.

When speaking, the Tok'ra use the symbiote voice as a method of differentiating between the symbiote and the host. The host will speak in the normal voice, while the symbiote will speak in the symbiote voice.

The Tok'ra believe that their greatest weapon against the Goa'uld was their secrecy. At the time, they believed that anything that was not beneficial to them did not warrant a breach in their security procedures. The only thing beneficial to them in form's of an alliance were either host's or advanced technology. This made them quite practical in their way of thinking.

The Tok'ra consists of hundreds of symbiotes who were all devoted to the fall of the Goa'uld empire. However, among them, there were several different generations of Goa'uld broods. The eldest of which are few in number after succumbing to old age and natural deaths. These older symbiotes, such as Selmak, were respected, loved, admired and revered by the younger Tok'ra.

Furthermore, the lack of a queen sympathetic to their cause means that the Tok'ra suffer from zero to negative population growth and the loss of any one of their number was a staggering blow. There were the rare few occasions where defecting Goa'uld would be accepted into their ranks who would be the most infamous of the movement. These rebel Goa'uld would gain a title based on the battle where they revealed their betrayal.

One of the key aspects of the Tok'ra culture are the Extraction Ceremony's which was where a Goa'uld System Lord was captured and faced the extraction of the symbiote itself. This begins with the captured Goa'uld placed in stasis while the Tok'ra leaders begin chanting in their own language which states a list of crimes the accused had committed. Depending on the Goa'uld in question, this ceremony can last upto three hours long. Once complete, the accused was released from stasis and allowed their final words. After which, they are placed in the Symbiote extractor. The ymbiote was then removed from the host body and placed in a cylinder whereupon a leader of the Tok'ra shatters it on the floor as everyone watches the Goa'uld whither and die without a host.

Technology
The Tok'ra have developed several technologies, many of which are based off Goa'uld design, and others that have been created in conjunction with the Tau'ri. Tok'ra technology is based primarily around the use of naquadah, a substance that the Tok'ra secrete into the bloodstream of their hosts. Naquadah is also used as a sort of interface initializer to interact with their most valuable technology, such as the hand device and healing device, similar to the Ancient Technology Activation Gene.

List of known Tok'ra

 * 1) Egeria
 * 2) Garshaw
 * 3) Selmak
 * 4) Anise
 * 5) Lantash
 * 6) Jolinar
 * 7) Korra
 * 8) Aldwin
 * 9) Torran
 * 10) Kanan
 * 11) Khonsu
 * 12) Sina
 * 13) Malek

Related

 * Tok'ra and Goa'uld biology