Ha'tak

"It is a Goa'uld attack vessel."

- Teal'c

The Ha'tak is a Goa'uld spaceship and the mainstay of their fleet. It serves a dual role as a mothership and a heavy attack vessel. The Ha'tak is one of the most powerful ships in the Goa'uld fleet, only second to the larger and quite rare flagships employed by System Lords. However, compared to other capital vessels such as those of the Asgard, Ancients, Ori, and the Asgard-upgraded Tau'ri fleet, they are rather underpowered. As with most Goa'uld technology, Ha'taks are also used by the Free Jaffa Nation and the Lucian Alliance. The Tok'ra rarely make use of them, as such a conspicuous vessel is not in keeping with their methods.

Overview
The Ha'tak consists of two sections: the main section is a golden tetrahedron built into the center of the vessel, evocative of an Egyptian pyramid, containing the majority of the primary systems as well as the command areas and glider bay. Built around the pyramid is a much larger, triangle-shaped superstructure, which wraps around the center of the pyramid. The outer structure houses the vessel's weapons. The oldest class of Ha'taks, such as those used by the Goa'uld Ra, was ten thousand years old.

A Ha'tak's armament is vast, possessing 60 high-power staff cannons scattered around the superstructure. These can be used for ship to ship combat or orbital bombardment. It can also house a large compliment of Death Gliders for use as a fighter screen or other tactical maneuvers. It is equipped with powerful shields and a hyperdrive of superior performance to anything else in the Goa'uld fleet.

A Ha'tak can land on virtually any type of terrain, though the Goa'uld seem to prefer the use of pyramids as landing platforms (mountains will apparently do in their absence). The variant used by Ra, in addition to lacking the larger superstructure around the pyramid itself, seemed to be dependent on the pyramid landing platform, given its hollow design.

Pel'tak
The pel'tak is the bridge of a Goa'uld Ha'tak vessel, built into the pyramid core and positioned slightly above the superstructure to avoid obstructing the view into space. This designates the "front" of the vessel. Though the design varies from ship to ship (size being the primary difference), the common elements include an ornate captain's chair, usually built in the style of the Goa'uld to whom the ship belongs, and two control consoles. The primary control console, located near the front of the bridge, controls every major system aside from weapons. It is usually built directly in front of the main window, which doubles as a viewscreen for communication and a HUD in combat. The weapons console is usually concealed beneath the floor and raised when necessary.

Engine room
The engine room contains all the necessary equipment for the vessel to function. The power core and hyperdrive are in this room, as well as the control crystals for every major system on the ship. A single set of backup crystals is kept on hand for emergencies.

Glider bays
The glider bays is located on the same side of the pyramid as the pel'tak. When not in use, Death Gliders are stored in racks to save space. When deploying them becomes necessary, they are dropped below the racks to the runway, where they are then "shot" out of launchers that send them out at high speeds. Although the design of such bays can change significantly from one class of Ha'tak to another, all Death Gliders come out from an aperture at the base of the pyramid core, underneath the superstructure

The glider bays make use of a force field to contain the vessel's atmosphere, allowing gliders to be launched without the need for depressurization. This field, while holding the air in, also repels foreign elements like water and possibly interstellar gas. This feature allowed SG-1 to escape in a glider from a Ha'tak submerged deep under water.

Cargo room
The cargo rooms of Ha'taks hold cases filled with weapons, riches, naquadah, or whatever else a Goa'uld may need to transport. They are large enough to carry an entire Stargate (several, if need be) and the accompanying DHD. While useless in space, this can allow a Ha'tak orbiting a planet to dial elsewhere if need be.

Naquadah reactor
Little is known about the details of a Ha'tak's power core. At the very least, it is naquadah-based, as is most of their technology.

Sublight engines
Ha'taks use an advanced form of propulsion which circumvents the need for chemical rockets or ion thrusters of any sort, allowing them to achieve great accelerations. These invisible systems, apparently able to manipulate inertia along given vectors, can easily take a Ha'tak to 5% of lightspeed and velocities where planets come in and out of view within a few minutes, and are most likely the system used to keep them at a stable altitude within gravitational fields. These engines are also used to slow the ship down when exiting hyperspace.

Hyperdrive
A standard Ha'tak hyperdrive can propel a Ha'tak through hyperspace at 32,000 times the speed of light. A Ha'tak is incapable of intergalactic travel; it would take over 125 years for a Ha'tak to move from the Ida galaxy and return to the Milky Way galaxy. This can be circumvented by various means, such as unexpected hyperspace disruption by the blast wave of a supernova or the addition of a substantial amount of energy.

Shields
Ha'tak vessels make use of defensive shields to protect them from damage. They can withstand extended fire from other Ha'tak vessels, as well the radiation and heat of the corona of a blue star for ten hours. A naquadah-enhanced Mark 12A Minuteman nuclear weapon (estimated at 1 gigaton of explosive force) had no apparent affect. They have been shown to be overwhelmed by Asgard, Tollan, Ori, and later Tau'ri weaponry.

The generator is located far below the vessel at the very bowels of the ship, inside a very large shaft. It is usually heavily guarded, but is quite susceptible to sabotage by explosives dropped from above.

Cloaking Device
Though most Ha'taks do not possess a cloak, a fleet under the control of Apophis was outfitted with such devices. They were used during a meeting with Heru'ur at the cite of an alien minefield. They eluded detection and when a mine exploded against Apophis's shields, it was believed to be a trap set by Heru'ur and Apophis's fleet sacrificed themselves to protect Apophis's mothership from the mines, while Apophis destroyed Heru'ur's Ha'tak and Heru'ur along with it.

Staff cannons
A Ha'tak possesses 60 staff cannons for ship to ship combat and orbital bombardment. Despite their size, they are extremely fast and maneuverable. They are placed around the superstructure that surrounds the pyramid. The cannons are placed on diametrically opposed sides of the domes present on the scaffolding structure, along the slope of each arm, making it a total of two cannons per dome, and therefore twelve cannons covering the upper side, with an equal amount of domes, and thus cannons, on the underside. Therefore, their optimal position and hemispherical arc of fire allows a Ha'tak to hit any target with a balanced amount of fire, from any position. The various observed levels of firepower, rates of fire, and even projectile ejection speeds indicate that these weapons can be recalibrated at will. The maximum observed range thus far has been orbital, and their maximum firepower is unknown, but indirect evidence would put them at least at 200 megatons per bolt, if not more (based on engagements between Ha'taks and their estimated shield capacities).

Several point defense lighter cannons are notably present around the base of the pyramid core. On Sokar's Ha'taks, such cannons could even fire homing projectiles. How this was achieved is unknown. Considering the nature of the projectiles, it's likely that their trajectory was altered by ranged systems on the Ha'taks, possibly a form of advanced electromagnetic fields (which would provide an explanation as to how Goa'uld ships could capture drifting objects if they had to).

Bombs
Some Ha'taks also seem to come with a small complement of roughly two feet high spherical bombs. As Samantha Carter was deploring the lack of nukes that could be beamed onto an Ori mothership to destroy it, Cameron Mitchell asked Teal'c if there were any "fancy Jaffa bombs", to which he replied that they had "explosives that should be effective."

Communications
Ha'taks in general possess the capacity to transmit and receive high quality subspace communications over interstellar distances.

Sensors
Like many ships, Ha'taks come with a variety of passive and active sensors. They can scan entire solar systems for activity, as well as detect vessels moments before exiting hyperspace. Sensors are also capable of picking up and engaging targets immediately upon exiting hyperspace.

In general, a Ha'tak cannot detect a cloaked vessel, except by using roundabout methods such as disruptions caused by the vessel's presence (heat buildup during reentry, for example). However, upgrades made by Anubis to his own fleet enabled his Ha'taks to notice the presence of cloaked ships such as tel'taks. Other conditions that may blind a Ha'tak are heavily ionized regions or beneath the corona of a star. Sensors obey line of sight principles, since planets, moons and suns are all capable of masking the presence of ships to a Ha'tak's attention.

Goa'uld
The Ha'tak was the mainstay vessel of the Goa'uld Empire due to their strength, especially in large numbers. The Goa'uld System Lords typically invaded planets using small numbers of such ships, and counted on orbital supremacy to constrain generally inferior civilizations into rendition. They would rarely wipe them out unless absolutely necessary. More than anything else, the Ha'taks would be used as a demonstration of the Goa'uld's power. However, in a handful of cases, certain battles to be fought could only be won with larger fleets.

Free Jaffa Nation
With the fall of the Goa'uld, a number of Ha'taks were absorbed into the Free Jaffa Nation. The number of Ha'taks were initially minimal, but their numbers kept growing over time, despite the increasing threat of the Ori, Lucian Alliance and Ba'al. By 2006, the Jaffa had at least 13 Ha'taks.

Lucian Alliance
The fall of the Goa'uld also saw part of the missing power to be handed to the Lucian Alliance, who had already started to take control of various Goa'uld technologies in 2005. The fall of the Goa'uld presented further opportunities for the acquisition of more Ha'tak vessels, beyond the commodities of Al'keshes.

Tau'ri
Acquiring technology to fight against the Goa'uld and other threats was a major goal for humans with the Stargate program. One of the greatest goals was to acquire a Ha'tak class vessel. This goal has been achieved twice, with assistance of the Tok'ra, but each time the acquired vessel was destroyed in short order.

Replicators
After taking Goa'uld motherships and upgrading their weapons to surpass even the Asgard, these ships were used against the Goa'uld fleet and the Asgard. They were also used in a failed attack on the Dakara superweapon.

Goa'uld Ha'taks

 * Anubis' Ha'tak
 * Apophis' Ha'tak
 * Ares' Ha'tak
 * Ba'al's Ha'tak
 * Cronus' Ha'tak
 * Heru'ur's Ha'tak
 * Klorel's Ha'tak
 * Nirrti's Ha'tak
 * Sokar's Ha'tak
 * Tanith's Ha'tak
 * Zipacna's Ha'tak

Free Jaffa Ha'taks

 * Bra'tac's Ha'tak
 * Cha'ra's Ha'tak
 * Gerak's Ha'tak
 * Teal'c Ha'tak
 * Yat'Yir's Ha'tak

Lucian Ha'taks

 * Netan's Ha'tak
 * Anateo's Ha'tak
 * Tenat's Ha'tak

Behind the scenes
It has been implied by both the Stargate Universe series and by Joseph Mallozzi in his blog that the Lucian Alliance Ha'taks have been upgraded to better match the improved abilities of Tau'ri ships, with at least one main focus being on their beam weapons to which they can now resist, albeit to an unknown degree. It is unknown in what other areas, such as weapons and engines, the ships may have been upgraded.