The Wraith Tattoo And Hair Project (Contains Spoilers)

[ciannwn]

Is there any significance to Wraith tattoos and hairstyles? When did we first see Wraith with tattoos? If nothing else, this will help pass the time until Season Five.

Edit: Am now putting things in order by season and episode. Whatever you see in this post is where I've got to so far.

NOTE: Risem found a French site with a tattoo/marking project. See -

http://hiveship.wifeo.com/tatouages.php#menton

I'll refer to it as the 'Tatoo Site' in this list.

NOTE: In Post 40 of this topic Shanthaia provided some pics of Wraith writing. Anyone who is interested can compare these symbols to markings and see if some markings have any connection to writing.

More Wraith writing from Icarium in Post 43

Season One

Rising - Female Caretaker ( a hive Queen?) - No markings. Faced male companion - No marking, long flowing hair.

Suspicion/Poisoning The Well - Steve (leading a patrol) - No markings, long, flowing hair.

The Defiant One - Survivor (Captain of a supply ship during the Lantean war?) - No marking, dreadlocks.

The Gift - Wraith in Teyla's nightmare - First Wraith with a marking - has to be Bob who beamed into Atlantis in 'The Brotherhood'. Male on hive - seems to have a marking, long flowing hair.

The Seige Part One - Just Bob.

The Seige Part Two - See Part Three for details as we're shown the story so far.


Season Two

The Seige Part ThreeWraith who fed on Everett. (Commander?) -Marking, long, flowing hair.
Two Wraith who beam down with warriors. (Commanders?). Don't appear to have markings, dreadlocks.

Duet - Dart pilot - Marking on his chin (The 'Tattoo Site' has a good pic of it). Dreadlocks.

Instinct Ellia. (See the 'Tattoo Site') There's a pic showing the infant Ellia with quite an elaborate marking on her left cheek. I can't find any evidence of this marking on the older Ellia, though. Wraith stranded with her on planet - marking, dreadlocks.

Condemned - Food eating Wraith (Could have commanded that cruiser.) No marking, long, flowing hair.

Allies - Queen - very elaborate marking (face and down her neck to upper chest) but she doesn't have it in 'No Man's Land'. The Scientist - marking, long flowing hair.

Season Three

Sateda Hunt leader (hive commander?) Markings on head and chest. Bald except for one long sidelock. Hunter with goggles - no marking, long flowing hair. Hunter with tracking device - no marking, long flowing hair with a long, thin pigtail.

Common Ground - Todd. (Scientist?, had high standing in Wraith society). Marking, hair in various states of untidyness in every episode he's been in. No need to mention him again in this list.

Submersion Queen (of a great alliance during Lantean war). A marking on her right cheek. (Thanks to wraithlord for finding it.)

[ciannwn]

Once we've got more I'll go back and edit the opening post. I'll divide it up into seasons and episodes in order.

Sateda - faced male with tracking device. No tattoo, long flowing hair and one long, thin pigtail. Function - hunter?

[Icarium]

The very first one with the tattoo, I think it was Bob. Maybe we shouldn't refer to them as tattoos but markings?

Wraith King in Sateda had many tattoos all over his head (he was part-bald I think) - function - trophies from his huntings? He also had a pony tail(?) at one side of his head.

Icarium

P.S. There's one more wraith with a marking. We've seen him in The Siege:
Spoilered for size

Spoiler:

Function - warrior/military commander?

[jenks]

Do we know that they're even tattoos at all?

[Icarium]

Do we know that they're even tattoos at all?

We don't that's why I would go with markings. Carter also referred to them as markings.

Icarium

[nebulan]

Personally, I think it's based on Hive Preference.

hmm... here's my sister's attempt at a comprehensive all non-masked-wraith list (except ford's but he was worth mentioning):

Spoiler:

It doesn't include the Broken Ties wraith and I can update it to have the other information we're keeping track of? I'll do that and see which is easier to read.

------
there are actually 3 Hive/lostboys Wraiths and they all have the same "marking"

very short split beard
longer un-split beard
Short-Sleeved, Laid-back, long braided split beard

--------
Here is the boy's tattoos, I made this while I was at work (lol!)... (I didn't make the girls tattoos because my sister had some awesome ones she already made for her wraith!sims. I've only got good pictures for submersion queen and allies queen, I'll get Hive Queen when I can)

(most of these are exaggerated, hey, I made it in paint! lol!)

Spoiler:

question marks are for the ones I couldn't find a clear picture of. the initials are who I believe the actor for that character is, even tho I used the same base for all of them.

The names I have here are what my sister and I refer to them as, generally it's something easy to remember the episode as.

well, hair I think is personal preference, but tattoo... notice that Bob's hive all their tattoos are around the eye? And then maybe the Hive Queen is pick about all her boys having the same tattoo... we already know she's territorial.

But then... I was very irritated to discover that Midway/SpoilsOfWar wraith had the same tattoo as Reunion... and as far as I know there's no relation between the two, not the same hive and not the same job either. they're even played by the same actor!!

btw, can we name the actors for all of these? I've been very curious to see how many are actually played by which actors... I have my own spreadsheet for that around here somewhere... but it's very incomplete...

here are the girl's tattoos that of my sister's that I do have:

Spoiler:

(and just for fun, if you haven't seen my sister's stuff before because I like to post them at other threads, here are the others she's done, I keep bugging her about doing a spoils of war one)

Spoiler:

(you can see a bit of the tattoo...)

w00t!!

[naamiaiset]

there are actually 3 Hive/lostboys Wraiths and they all have the same "marking"

very short split beard
longer un-split beard
Short-Sleeved, Laid-back, long braided split beard

I thought there were three also, but I think the make-up/costume people just messed up with the beard and there's only two.

[Icarium]

I like this idea.

I copied the name list. anything with a question I couldn't figure out. any guesses?

Steve could be a military commander. Bob - a commando. Karl - leader but in SoW also scientist or commander. Or maybe a person who transfers orders directly from the queen to other commanders/scientist etc. Short/long sleeved from The Hive - prison supervisors/food supply supervisors.
Wild guesses, I know

Icarium

[nebulan]

I thought there were three also, but I think the make-up/costume people just messed up with the beard and there's only two.

lol! maybe. because the two longsleeve have basically the same outfit, don't they?

I could make a long list of outfits too, but those can change, lol! and so does hair. Are "Markings" subject to change? I remember reading in Joe Mallozzi's blog that the spoils of war wraiths and the midway wraiths weren't the same wraiths, but I still think that's wrong, lol! you don't take two wraiths, played by the same actors, with the same basic appearance, same tattoos and all related to Todd in some way and call them different characters! Hey, I think it's nice to have reoccurring wraith once in a while! I guess we only have two reoccurring wraiths that don't die the second time we meet them (like Steve, hehe).

[ciannwn]

Do we know that they're even tattoos at all?

Markings would be a better word I suppose seeing as the 'Allies' Queen's markings had vanished in 'No Man's Land'. If they're painted on, though, how did Todd's markings stay unfaded after all those years in the Genii prison?

Maybe Wraith have options - tattoos or tattoo transfers if they can't make their minds up about which designs they want.

Did any of the humanised Wraith in 'Misbegotten' have markings? If not, perhaps they never had any to start with or the retrovirus gets rid of them.

[Icarium]

Perhaps they have both tattoos and markings, depending on their preference. Or females have painted markings and males tattoos?
People in NML don't have them probably because it would be very difficult to tell them they are humans and explain their tattoos at the same time

Icarium

[ciannwn]

People in NML don't have them probably because it would be very difficult to tell them they are humans and explain their tattoos at the same time

So Beckett cleverly designed his retrovirus to be a tattoo/marking remover as well. He forgot to add something to change their hair colour, though, because they all have long white hair.

[nebulan]

Markings would be a better word I suppose seeing as the 'Allies' Queen's markings had vanished in 'No Man's Land'. If they're painted on, though, how did Todd's markings stay unfaded after all those years in the Genii prison?

Maybe Wraith have options - tattoos or tattoo transfers if they can't make their minds up about which designs they want.

Did any of the humanised Wraith in 'Misbegotten' have markings? If not, perhaps they never had any to start with or the retrovirus gets rid of them.

well hey, the retrovirus changes michael's hair color but non of the other's.
She doesn't have Marking in No Man's Land?? really? I never noticed!

hmm, hard to tell but I think you're right
http://www.stargatecaps.com/sga/s3/3...l/nml0151.html

maybe they are permanent but they have little easy-removal devices...

[nebulan]

People in NML don't have them probably because it would be very difficult to tell them they are humans and explain their tattoos at the same time

Icarium

I think that's the reason Michael didn't have tattoos. Tho I think it wouldn't have been hard to explain to the Misbegotten humans that it was a cultural thing since they already said their people had a disease and so we're trying to convince them they were part of the atlantis expedition like michael, right?

[Icarium]

maybe they are permanent but they have little easy-removal devices...

I think that with Wraith regeneration abilities, removing tattoos without leaving any trace shouldn't be difficult. Which makes me wonder again why Wraith Kind had scars? Were his wounds so severe to leave them or face is more delicate and for this reason scars can appear there

Icarium