"We greet you, Lord Tsatekh," the remaining elite of the city bowed before me. The fury of the local population was so great that within ten hours all the asuras were dead. Glider strikes were of considerable assistance, cutting several passages through the palace, allowing the defensive fortifications to be bypassed. Then came a bloody assault on the palace; Jaffa corpses lay everywhere, and some weapons were seized by the rebels.
"Are all Vritra's servants dead?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good, you have served your goddess Indra well. Now I can leave, my task is complete. All rituals must be performed according to the laws of the gods: you are forbidden from carrying staffs. Only the god's Jaffa have the right to do so, so bring back all the weapons and armor of the fallen Jaffa. Afterwards, you can burn them, fulfilling the divine laws, and I will depart."
They bowed to me, and I left, not wanting to linger in case Vritra sent a ship. Whether she was sending a signal to the gate, I had no idea, as it was constantly blocked. I'd move the gate to the center of the city—it's simply easier for logistics if I plan to trade with them, and, if they're smart, for defense as well.
I'll still be taking the high-tech devices with me, along with the Jaffa gear, the Matoks, the heavy guns, the Zetas, and their armor. A significant savings on uniforms for my future warriors. Sure, many people died, their corpses littering the city, but that's the price of freedom. I can remotely disable all the Intars and simply leave, contacting them later using the intelligence I've acquired here. Through the gate, I'll be able to determine whether Vritra or Indra has returned. If not, then I can start hiring people for various jobs. Right now, the spoils seem quite extensive: 50-70 thousand Matoks (and I'll still check the fortresses burned by napalm)—that's already a serious arsenal, at least for a "homeless person" like me. According to the official ranks, the lowest rank of lord is "small lord." Technically, it's a Goa'uld controlling a single planet/moon. However, with my thousand Jaffa and Cheops, I don't even reach that honorable title. Three Alkesh could practically take it apart. Ah, so that's the use of old Cheops, or do you think gliders are only for driving peasants across the fields? So, some Ra governors wield considerable power, and a governor isn't a small lord. Objectively speaking, in Vritra, the commander of a single rural fortress had more power than I did. That means my status is lower than that of a Jaffa, which, frankly, is a shame in itself. So, expansion requires resources that can be easily captured, so the enemy garrison commander went to the sarcophagus to find out the addresses of Vritra's planets. Because the technology is already being tested.
Personally, I'll stay here for a couple more hours, and Krel will handle the rest of the routine work. The task is complete, and theoretically, nothing can go wrong with collecting the trophies, so the gliders were dismantled and moved back to base, as was the entire technical staff. By the way, I found out what Vritra was looking for: the workers said she was looking for a warehouse. At least, that's what the Asura said. Basically, she's crazy. If she was looking for the Ancients' warehouse, then she's doubly stupid! No scanner can detect their warehouse, I've already confirmed this with Merlin's warehouse. Plus, the humans don't have any proper equipment to determine where it is, how far away or close. Basically, she's mobilized a huge force for this nonsense. Incidentally, the enemy commander was a Jaffa with a silver tattoo on his forehead. This indicated he was a high-ranking commander, something like a major general, an honorary position. And most importantly, each Goa'uld usually has only a few of these. Of course, it depends on the territory, but it's logical: a single Lord has 50-150 planets under his personal control or through vassals. Even those who only formally control planets are allowed to own them. I'm sure Tagria is also Heruur's, even though he hasn't seen it in 300 years. Or they already have military potential, which usually starts with the number of ships: 30 Hattaks—and congratulations, you're a Lord. Not a System Lord, just a Lord. To become a System Lord, you need to reach a couple more ranks. Then you need to reach the level of Senior Lord, then System Lord, Senior System Lord, Supreme Lord of the Systems.
It's important to distinguish between personal and vassal forces when conducting an analysis. I'll give you an example: personal forces are those that belong solely to you, such as their Jaffa or Goa'uld captains, who are truly well paid. These forces form the backbone of your dominion, and their numbers determine whether vassals flock to you or flee. Vassals pursue their own interests, but if someone with 100 Hattaks wants you to pay them taxes, you pay them. Let's say Yu and Kronos are fighting Apophis, each having contributed 20 Hattaks and a certain number of Jaffa. And they're having fun. Yu and Kronos' vassals might be fighting at this point, let's say they're lords. And the smaller lords among the squabbling lords might ally themselves to fight the equally small Lord Sokar. Can you imagine the tax burden now? Question: Can Kronos summon all his vassals, and they summon their vassals, to battle, thereby obtaining the 500 khattaks that are present in his domain? Counter-question: is it possible to get 100% of the voters in a normal democracy? It's the same thing. Some will say they're sick (yeah, a Goa'uld), others will say that Sokar's vile vassal will attack his domain, and that he's currently at war and can only offer good wishes. A third will even cite a poor connection. Taxes are a different matter; failure to pay them can result in a slap on the wrist from your overlord's shock troops. Fortunately, there are stargates to pay these taxes and the ability to conduct inspections. Therefore, Goa'uld society constantly rages, but does not develop.
My unique position is guaranteed by the fact that no one can simply fly up to me and tell me to become their vassal. If I hadn't pulled off such a trick, I would have, like a proper Goa'uld, a ton of bosses. A small lord is still a good status, but I could have been a scribe somewhere. A scribe, really, who would be counting the number of livestock among humans and chairing a beauty contest among human slaves to determine who would be sent to become masters for equally low-ranking Goa'uld, expendable commodities. I was lucky because I literally gave Ra a stable income from one planet, so he most likely thought I had brains, and counting sheep was clearly beneath me, since I managed to outsmart the rest of my brethren. And I'm heavily in debt, so it'll take me 200 years to pay off the loan.
But the question arises: how does career advancement work under such conditions? How can you go from being an unknown junior lord to becoming a System Lord? The short answer: you can't. The long answer: build enough ships, gather armies, crush your competitors—and you're a System Lord. Who's going to give it to you? Unless you're Anubis and I, sitting somewhere, you have a multitude of leadership stages—Goa'uld, who are interested in their own power and maintain a balance of power and interests. So you become too powerful, and a conflict arises with a neighbor, resulting in the explosion of a khattak that took five years to build. Valuable specialists are killed, and you have to start over. And so you can try to rise in the world forever. To do this, you need to be cunning and unscrupulous, as well as a good diplomat, able to unite with other junior lords around some project. The goal is to kill the Senior Lord and seize his power, suppress his vassals, and congratulations, you're now a Lord. You also have to make sure another Lord doesn't do the same. But usually the Senior Lord is the one who keeps an eye on this, as he doesn't want his vassal to gain additional power. A couple of times, local conflicts have sparked civil wars that lasted a couple of decades, with everything blown up. And if you survive those, you rise through the ranks. Congratulations. You need to survive enough civil wars to rise through the ranks, and then one day you're a Senior Lord and thinking about how to kill the System Lord. And the System Lord is thinking about how to use you, and don't forget that the common lords want to kill you. The price of power is that a significant number of people want to kill you. I can tell you who was the last to become a System Lord—Baal. Baal became a System Lord 3,000 years ago; he was the last to become a System Lord. Now, I hope it's clear what a cunning bastard it takes to go from a minor lord to a System Lord. In three thousand years, not a single Goa'uld has become a System Lord. So, why were they planning to destroy Earth? In three thousand years, not a single System Lord died. And then, within a few years, Ra, Apophis (which could be considered an assassination attempt), Set, and Hathor died. Yeah, that's enough to worry anyone. And so the most powerful Goa'uld, seeing themselves being killed in industrial quantities (for Goa'uld, that's industrial quantities), decided that the Earthlings had something, especially after the explosions of the two Hattaks, and decided to deal with the problem.
The only way to become a System Lord is to choose the path of Anubis, so I peeked at an older comrade—someone so clever he'd somehow tricked an Ascended being—and found one of the most distant planets on the map. I flew there, to Urvashi, so no one would even remember me. Then I could show up with a fleet of Hattak ships and steamroller every System Lord planet, liberating the peoples who had become slaves. I wanted to free people from the rule of ineffective, constantly squabbling parasites. And just now, I'd taken the first step.