The Fallacy of Wraith Evolution

[Guldkatt]

Which raises an interesting question. I never saw a single Wraith lavatory on those hive ships...

Well young wraiths can eat food and gain nourishment from it, though I'm not sure if this means they can't use their hands for feeding during the same time.
But if that would be the case... well... then they should have some sort of bathrooms there.

[The Flyattractor]

Well young wraiths can eat food and gain nourishment from it, though I'm not sure if this means they can't use their hands for feeding during the same time.
But if that would be the case... well... then they should have some sort of bathrooms there.

Now thats it been mentioned...we never saw one on Atlantis either?

Which might explain why so many Aincents were so jerky....

[Guldkatt]

Now thats it been mentioned...we never saw one on Atlantis either?

Which might explain why so many Aincents were so jerky....

Maybe they decided to go low- tech on the toilettes and just do a hole in the floor. Should be easy to hide away?
Surely they should have some area where they just couldn't bother with anything advanced?

[thekillman]

On the subject of Wraith feeding, I think it's a little more complex than just one organ. (....) Something akin to the lymph node only in reverse, perhaps.

Well, those tech journals from a while back, well they back up your theory. It shows "energy ducts". It seems Wraith feeding is similar to how spiders do it, except the Wraith do not need to liquefy their victims, they just suck whatever it is they suck out of you and use it straight for their own body. They also seem to dump their
bodily waste into their victim (Vegas), so it does seem to be the way it works.

Which raises an interesting question. I never saw a single Wraith lavatory on those hive ships...

i see absolutely no reason for the Writers to include that. Anyway, based upon Vegas, i'd say the Wraith do not need to excrete waste the way we do.

As to why the Wraith CAN chew food: Their feeding system seems to supply them with energy. However, anyone who studied even a bit of biology knows that the human body processes a lot of food, and uses it for both building and energy.

The wraith would get mainly energy from their feeding process, which likely means that their young would not be able to grow much on feeding. In essence, the regular digestive system is used to accumulate mass.

[Perelandra]

Has anyone in here read the books? Are they cocidered canon? Because if the are then there is a theory put forth about Wraith origins in them.

Spoiler:

Carson thinks that they were kind of an accident from the Ancients trying to make humans immune to the irratiious bug .I've read through the thread and I think that he came o the same conclusions that have been put forth here.

Haven't read the books but I like that theory and one that makes the most sense to me.

[Gormagon]

I have only read the first two Legacy books but also lots of other Stargate A/ SG-1 books. But it is a good theory.

[Asteriê]

I don't know that much about genetics - it's actually things like their wearing heels, of all things, and dresses, etc. that make Beckett's "they were bugs!" idea so unlikely to me. They seem more like humans that were experimented upon than insectoid creatures that happened to copy some DNA and practical habits to gain an advantage over their prey. I mean seriously. The Asgard are more alien in their behaviour . Why would they wear clothes at all? Or have a sense of humor understandable to humans?

If I remember the show correctly, they're supposed to originate from iratus bugs, right? Not humans changing after some sort of infection like Sheppard did but actually an evolution of the bugs themselves. Correct me if I'm wrong. Considering their behaviour, I find that a little unbelievable. They do of course have some more insect-characteristics, but the human treats they have just don't seem practical - more like a leftovers from having been human to start with. A sense of fashion is not essential to survival. Nor are breasts. Insects with boobs, really? In one scene with Michael on the hive we even see he actually has something suspiciously bed-shaped in his room. I just feel it is more likely it was a transition from human to wraith to start with. That would also explain how they could survive. They would have evolved amongst their prey with a network of stargates in place in case things got a little meagre. Unlike their human foodsource, they don't need to spend a lot of time on, for example farming. They have plenty of free time and superior intellect. Of course they start building spaceships. Just an idea.

Another idea! When the Ancients first encountered them, the whole 'a dark world where a terrible enemy slept' thing, they didn't have human form. The iratus bugs first fed off some native Pegasus creature. Probably something horrible and Lovecraftian looking but definitely intelligent. The Ancients woke them up when doing some research, which made them hungry. The wraith then gained their current form by feeding on Ancients and humans. To keep their new, practical form similar to Ancient/human, they fed only on them or in case of emergency each other for such a long time they have now become entirely dependent on one food source and couldn't switch to, say, elephants even if they wanted to.

[QuantumIguana]

The Wraith didn't evolve from bugs, but instead from humans whose DNA was altered by the Iratus bug. This is probably the Iratus bug's feeding mechanism gone awry. The Iratus bug must alter the DNA of its food source for some reason. One possibility is that the Iratus bug alters the DNA to make the prey more edible. This might be effective if much of the potential prey was inedible for the Iratus bug. If they could alter it to something that was more edible, it expands the food source. But when it infected humans, the result wasn't food for the Iratus bug, but something inbetween, a chimera of Human and Iratus. These chimera were able to reproduce. As such, the Wraith have a mix of Human and Iratus traits. They still have the genes for breasts, so the Wraith have breasts. Chickens still have the DNA for teeth, but the teeth DNA is inactive.

[Dave2]

I have always understood that it was the BUGS who became humanoid, NOT that they altered the humanness of the humans. And if the bugs were eating their victims, where did the ability to draw the life force come from?

[Asteriê]

The Wraith didn't evolve from bugs, but instead from humans whose DNA was altered by the Iratus bug. This is probably the Iratus bug's feeding mechanism gone awry. The Iratus bug must alter the DNA of its food source for some reason. One possibility is that the Iratus bug alters the DNA to make the prey more edible. This might be effective if much of the potential prey was inedible for the Iratus bug. If they could alter it to something that was more edible, it expands the food source. But when it infected humans, the result wasn't food for the Iratus bug, but something inbetween, a chimera of Human and Iratus. These chimera were able to reproduce. As such, the Wraith have a mix of Human and Iratus traits. They still have the genes for breasts, so the Wraith have breasts. Chickens still have the DNA for teeth, but the teeth DNA is inactive.

That's a very nice theory, but do you have an actual quote from the show on that? I'm pretty sure they said the wraith originally were Iratus bugs. Not that it makes any sense at all, haha. Though I was looking more at what we've seen of their culture, I basically came to the same conclusion in my post above. It is definitely more logical for them to have started out as humans. But unless my memory is tricking me, they did say wraith came from Iratus.

Stargate wikia;

One of the planets held a creature called the Iratus bug, which began feeding on the humans. Eventually, they began to take on advantageous human characteristics, such as larger brain mass, bipedal locomotion, and opposable digits.

I don't know how accurate that site is exactly, but that is also what I remember from the show. It annoyed me back then already because it just doesn't seem to make any sense but oh well...that's the stargate writers for you...

[Dave2]

Who taught those evolving Humabugs how to construct intergalactic ships and weapons?? At some stage they must have been as primitive as the Unas.
The idea of relying on human feeding and hibernating while being so advanced technologically hardly compares with bears. Presumably if humans are in such short supply either than can feed off of other creatures or eat normally.

After all, as they were evolving they must have consumed whatever was handy around them.

I think the use of the term culling is incorrect. The proper term would be "harvesting." Culling means to kill off creatures who are diseased or reproducing too much.

[The Flyattractor]

I still like to think that the Wraith were already a technilogically advanced race before the Atlantieans showed up and then started feeding on the seeded human worlds and this somehow brought a round an evolutionary change.

[xineohpinakc]

My guess was the same as the books mentioned without even reading them. I think the ancients were tampering with the iradus bug and incorporating human/ancient dna and it became one of those failed projects they were famous for.

[The Flyattractor]

My guess was the same as the books mentioned without even reading them. I think the ancients were tampering with the iradus bug and incorporating human/ancient dna and it became one of those failed projects they were famous for.

Or it could have been the Wraith were a very alien species and the Ancients messes with their dna and thats where they got their human aspect and only being able to feed on humans.
That way its still a Ancient skrew up.