How are the wraith bred???

[josh]

Hey, ive watched all the eps of atlantis, but i still cant piece together how they are bred/born whatever... i understand that they evolved from the eratus bug that eventually took on characteristics of the people they where feeding off, but how are they actually bred

[Lord of Nightmares]

Right now, it's assumed that female Wraith give birth to live young, unlike their iratus bug relatives which are oviparus. This is based off the fact that young Wraith (as far as is known thus far) very much resemble human children and only deveop more and more of the iratus bugs' characteristics as they approach adolescence. Of course, it's also unknown as to whether or not the Queen is the biological mother of all the younger Wraith onboard a hiveship, or whether there's a specific, unseen-to-date caste of Wraith females whose specific role is to give birth to more Wraith and thus continue populating the hiveship and to establish new hives. Or even what their gestation period is like for that matter.

[Anubis-]

I think that they does not increase a lot. Because Beckett says, they never died. And that means, if the got lot of increase, hive ships must be more then 67, whitch they recognize. Because after when Ancients left about 10 000 years ago, in Pegasus are no one who killed them. Eccept Chaya, but I think, that Wraith are leave that planet a long.

[Jonzey]

It could be vampiric- like they only partially suck someone's life force and inject them with something which Wraithifies them (Wouldn't it be cool if it turned out Sumner was Wraithified instead of killed? So they have a Wraith with Earth military training and intelligence- would do a lot to give the Wraith more of a face, like Michael).

Of course the other possibility is having 200 Wraith grunts/soldiers/scientists all on one queen, and I don't like that image...

[Syera]

I don't know how wraith breed, but I can assure you that wraith toddlers are the cutest li'l things.

But seriously, considering that they don't die and wouldn't need to replace their numbers too often, I'd have to lean toward live, single births. Of course, we'll probably find out that they lay a grizbillion eggs and the new wraith fight each other to the death or something.

[BackStageJim]

Interesting idea. We did see the young girl who was Wraith growing up with a human Father until she came of age, and got hungry. Now two weeks ago, the Wraith Queen on Michael ship commented on how much he stank of the human, which I took to be his looks. Now, if the children are human like till puberty, then it must be very interesting as they change. Perhaps the writers will depart from standard story lines and give a detail look to the Wraith social order outside the hive ship of Queen/Drones.

Also, are there three classes of Wraith? Queen, Science (Michael types) and Solider (big guys)

[Lord of Nightmares]

If you group Michael as being part of a Science/Research caste, then there's also the Elite/Commander caste (the skinnier males with black robes who normally direct a squad of Soldiers/Grunts) and the Keepers. There're probably other castes that haven't been revealed yet.

[RedGuard]

There could also be a Wraith homeworld. We know they grow like human children until they can no longer live on food, so they must cultivate food in some degree for their young. And that girl had only been on that planet for what, 10-20 years or so. So they must still be having children. Maybe when they board hive ships they become more territorial and that hive ship is a specific community or country so to speak.

I would love to see how the writers deal with this.

[Syera]

Alternatively, maybe they also raid the humans' food supply when they cull.

[josh]

I don't know how wraith breed, but I can assure you that wraith toddlers are the cutest li'l things.

kinda weird

[Metonic]

they lack women... so im gonna throw the whole Queen poppin out a kid all the time thing a negative because these queens dont appear pregenent... Unless ofcourse when the queen has babies, she has 10 to 50... but im gonna go with they either hatch out of cabbage or vampiric.

[Frunk]

they lack women... so im gonna throw the whole Queen poppin out a kid all the time thing a negative because these queens dont appear pregenent... Unless ofcourse when the queen has babies, she has 10 to 50... but im gonna go with they either hatch out of cabbage or vampiric.

Vampiric would kick butt, and although it'd be the last nail in the coffin for the ''space vampires'' case, it would add to the creepiness. One of the reasons the Goa'uld were so good at being bad was that a good character that we loved could become one of them overnight.

I'd imagine the masked warriors to be turned humans and the unmasked wraith to be pureblood human-style bred wraith.

Third theory... they actually use humans to carry their young, but giving birth to a wraith kills the mother.

[the fifth man]

No offense to the Wraith, but I have no interest in how they breed. That would be one nasty sight to have to view.

[Frunk]

No offense to the Wraith, but I have no interest in how they breed. That would be one nasty sight to have to view.

Even if it's about feeding on a human until his hair turns white and then injecting him with a wraith retro-retrovirus?

[the fifth man]

Even if it's about feeding on a human until his hair turns white and then injecting him with a wraith retro-retrovirus?

That might be a little less nasty. I think you know the breeding I meant.