THE TOK’RA
An ally of Earth for 10 years now, the Tok’ra functioned as an underground resistance movement within the Goa’uld ranks for some 2,000 years. Unlike the Goa’uld, these symbiotic beings take willing hosts and share their bodies.
Like the Jaffa, the Tok’ra have dreamed of the day when the Goa’uld would be no more. They fought the Goa’uld surreptitiously for many centuries, hiding in the ranks of the System Lords as spies. Always moving from place to place because they were vigorously hunted, the Tok’ra have never had a place to call home — not for very long, anyway (“The Tok’ra, Part 2,” “Exodus,” “Last Stand”).
The Tok’ra played a role in the final downfall of the Goa’uld empire, which has allowed them to finally settle down and establish a long-term homeworld for themselves. They believe it is their role and duty to bring the Goa’uld to account for their millennia of atrocities. They have devoted their efforts to tracking down the last of Baal’s surviving clones — and now believe they have found the last one.
Thanks to their knowledge of symbiote physiology and the Goa’uld’s control over its symbiote, they are also virtually the only ones in the galaxy who can extract a symbiote and save the host body. Typically, the Goa’uld has the ability to kill its host (by releasing a toxin). But the Tok’ra extraction process — while difficult and extremely painful for both host and symbiote — saves the host and returns control of his or her body. (It is this process which saved Vala from her Goa’uld, Qetesh.)
The Tok’ra are planning an extraction ceremony (rescuing the cloned host body) which will end with the execution of Baal, last of the System Lords (“Search and Rescue”).