SGA Legacy Book Series

[ciannwn]

Just my own thoughts on what was and wasn't said in SGA. Everything was left very vague - McKay isn't sure about Wraith reproduction while Beckett was never really sure about how the feeding process works. I'm guessing TPTB didn't go into details so they weren't committed to anything in particular. This allowed them to add in whatever suited a future plot.

We saw the 'Spoils Of War' Queen secreting genetic material into pods and the end result was male masked warriors. There are two possibilities here -

1: Wraith have a haplodiploid sex-determination system.

2: A male Wraith was involved somewhere in the process of producing warriors - McKay didn't get the chance to learn how, though.

If there had been a 6th season TPTB could have decided on one or the other possibility if a plot required it.

[Ouroboros]

As I have cited with reference material above, this was supported for the masked warrior caste (aka drones) only. There was never any information on the faced male caste. If you know of a transcript that states how faced males are reproduced, please find it and cite it here. With no such transcript, the authors are free to go either way on the issue of faced male reproduction because of this lack of information.

So why not build on what we already know about their reproduction? I already made a post showing how easy it would be to do just that.

Why throw out Mckay's quote completely when it's literally the best info available on the topic?

As I have cited with reference material above, McKay had a full season to get up to speed and still didn't know. Speculating that the team did read about Wraith reproduction and shared it with McKay is not factual, documented information from the show. If you can find in a transcript that this occurred, please cite it here.

So, not factually documented information from the show and thus not valid. You do remember what you're going through all this trouble defending right?

Making the leap that a head scientist would be kept informed by his subordinates as to their work is a much shorter and safer one than leaping to the assumption that the same head scientist must be wrong in the one and only concrete statement he made about Wraith reproduction because.... why exactly?

This is not how two of the authors in posts 7 and 11 described the process. Jo told us, "There is not one comma in Homecoming that has not been specifically approved by MGM."

http://forum.gateworld.net/showthrea...1#post12409657

Again, if you can back up your statement with a contrary citation from MGM, please point to it.

I don't see where the conflict is here. All I'm saying is that I don't think MGM is going to care enough to mess with an authors take on something like this. The fact it passed their screening process would seem to prove that accurate enough.

What are you after here exactly? An admission that it was actually MGM and not the author that decided that this is the way the Wraith reproduced all along, and thus it wasn't just something that was made up for these books?

Or do you just not like the fact that I don't like it and want to jump up and down on the "but MGM said it was ok so it's official like it or not" button like that's going to give me cause to consider it great somehow.

I'll let you in on a secret. MGM signed off on all the actual SGA episodes I didn't like to.

Didn't make me like them any more. And it certainly didn't stop me from criticizing them. I've been downright gentle in this thread compared to some of the things I said about certain episodes during the series run, mainly because I've not had occasion to actually read the books in question personally so it wouldn't be very fair to go hog wild trashing things based just on the OP's descriptions.

[padr49904]

If people don't want to wait Barnes and Noble has them for download, really great if you have a nook or just want to read on a computer. And thanks to the person in the other thread that said you have to type in SGA or SG1 to find them.

And the first book is great so far, only part of the way in. Really like the O'Neill/Torren thing with him watching the baby.

Got in a couple more chapters to Woolsey's chat with the president, and why do they keep calling him Dick it is a nickname but they rarely use it. Are they trying to imply that the president he is talking to is Obama, there are some subtle hints to some of the crazy stuff online about Obama and the president in the book mentioned one of them, i.e. the antichrist thing.

[WraithTech]

You do remember what you're going through all this trouble defending right?

Yes, I am defending the authors' rights to chose which directions they wanted to take in the books (for names, reproduction, knowledge transfer, and so forth), based on lack of concrete facts presented in the show, which I have cited.

That is the crux of the reason so many canon-aware people have a sudden interest in this thread, isn't it, to challenge what it canon for their Wikis? Sorry, but that is off-topic here.

[Leeta]

I have an idea. Those coming in here telling us what is 'canon', when this thread is about the wraith names in the book, make YOUR own thread and express your views in there. I got some topic names you can use...


'We know what's canon. We're right and you're wrong.'
'People who read the books and/or comics are traitors.'
'Visit my 'canon' wiki because only I know what's correct.'
'I don't care what the author(s) says. I am right and all knowing on canon and how things work in the business.'

Take those ideas and leave us alone so we can discuss the wraith names in our 'silly, non-canon' books.

Spoiler:

Yes I know I said I wasn't going to say anything else about things regarding 'canon'.

[ciannwn]

Examples of 'canon' from SGA where reproduction is concerned. From 'Spoils Of War' -

http://www.gateworld.net/atlantis/s4...ipts/412.shtml

McKAY: ....The Queen secretes genetic material which gets distributed through the structure into those pods. Presto – new-born Wraith.

SHEPPARD: Nice(!)

McKAY: Yeah, I know. It sounds disgusting. But it actually makes sense. I mean, you've gotta remember – they're descended from insects, right?

Yes, that definitely explains it. Look in any beehive, ant nest or termite nest and you'll see a queen sitting in a chair and secreting genetic material into pods via cables.

From 'Vengeance'

http://www.gateworld.net/atlantis/s3...ipts/319.shtml

DEX: So, what? They’re tryin’ to create more Wraith?

SHEPPARD: That doesn’t make any more sense. If they wanted to create more Wraith, wouldn’t it be easier to get a male and female to, you know, get a room?

McKAY: It doesn’t work that way with the Wraith, alright? At least, we don’t think it does. We’re not entirely sure as to the Wraiths’ reproductive methods.

The way I see it, McKay's uncertainty left an opening for TPTB to say that a male and female Wraith get a room in order to (a) produce faced males or new queens or (b) just new queens if it suited a particular plot. After all, we've only seen warriors and Michael's super cockroaches hatching out of pods.

If it had been up to me to decide how Wraith reproduce I'd have made them a species with a haplodiploid sex-determination system. Queens would mate only for producing female offspring so the faced males are sexually dormant for most of their lives. Warriors are produced as adults by secreting genetic material into pods but faced males and females are produced as infants by laying eggs in pods. If Michael can get a fully grown super cockroach from an Iratus bug egg in a pod I'm sure Wraith could get a baby out of a Wraith egg in a pod. Wraith babies could be born at a stage more advanced than human babies too because the size of the head etc wouldn't be dictated by the mother's anatomy.

The above doesn't mean I'm right, of course. We have no idea what TPTB would have decided if they'd had another season or two for SGA on TV. They might even have sidestepped the issue altogether on the grounds that Wraith mating habits aren't suitable material for a family viewing show.

[Isolde]

Examples of 'canon' from SGA where reproduction is concerned. From 'Spoils Of War' -

http://www.gateworld.net/atlantis/s4...ipts/412.shtml



Yes, that definitely explains it. Look in any beehive, ant nest or termite nest and you'll see a queen sitting in a chair and secreting genetic material into pods via cables.

From 'Vengeance'

http://www.gateworld.net/atlantis/s3...ipts/319.shtml



The way I see it, McKay's uncertainty left an opening for TPTB to say that a male and female Wraith get a room in order to (a) produce faced males or new queens or (b) just new queens if it suited a particular plot. After all, we've only seen warriors and Michael's super cockroaches hatching out of pods.

If it had been up to me to decide how Wraith reproduce I'd have made them a species with a haplodiploid sex-determination system. Queens would mate only for producing female offspring so the faced males are sexually dormant for most of their lives. Warriors are produced as adults by secreting genetic material into pods but faced males and females are produced as infants by laying eggs in pods. If Michael can get a fully grown super cockroach from an Iratus bug egg in a pod I'm sure Wraith could get a baby out of a Wraith egg in a pod. Wraith babies could be born at a stage more advanced than human babies too because the size of the head etc wouldn't be dictated by the mother's anatomy.

The above doesn't mean I'm right, of course. We have no idea what TPTB would have decided if they'd had another season or two for SGA on TV. They might even have sidestepped the issue altogether on the grounds that Wraith mating habits aren't suitable material for a family viewing show.

Most people are already reaching for the mind bleach, c.

[Draco-Stellaris]

@ciannwn: I wanted to green you for the brilliant post but GW won't let me, so have
BIG MENTAL GREENS.

[WraithTech]

Yes, that definitely explains it. Look in any beehive, ant nest or termite nest and you'll see a queen sitting in a chair and secreting genetic material into pods via cables.

The above doesn't mean I'm right, of course. We have no idea what TPTB would have decided if they'd had another season or two for SGA on TV. They might even have sidestepped the issue altogether on the grounds that Wraith mating habits aren't suitable material for a family viewing show.

Thanks for sharing, this post was well-researched and inclusively-written. I can easily discern what is transcript, what is fan speculation, and what is fan rationale for the speculation. Most importantly, the post is written so that fan speculation and pre-established facts from the show are not conflated to preclude the speculations the book authors.

[WraithTech]

Most people are already reaching for the mind bleach, c.

The show kind of already went there with Teyla and Kanaan.

[JoGraham]

We have no idea what TPTB would have decided if they'd had another season or two for SGA on TV. They might even have sidestepped the issue altogether on the grounds that Wraith mating habits aren't suitable material for a family viewing show.

We weren't given any information at all about this and were told there was no showrunner's "bible" for us to see. So all we can do is extrapolate from what we see on the screen, the same as you can. We were told to regard canon as what we see in a filmed, released scene, either that aired or as a DVD extra, and to disregard interviews, commentary, things said at cons, things in scripts that weren't filmed, etc on the grounds that those were conflicting and often not final. What we have to work with is what's on teh DVD sets, and that's it.

[Isolde]

The show kind of already went there with Teyla and Kanaan.

*shudders* True, true...

[ciannwn]

@ciannwn: I wanted to green you for the brilliant post but GW won't let me, so have
BIG MENTAL GREENS.

Thanks for sharing, this post was well-researched and inclusively-written. I can easily discern what is transcript, what is fan speculation, and what is fan rationale for the speculation. Most importantly, the post is written so that fan speculation and pre-established facts from the show are not conflated to preclude the speculations the book authors.

Thank you.

I think the problem with TPTB's vagueness is that it left infinite room for fans to speculate and come up with various theories. If the writers had gone into detail in a future series the result would have conflicted with some fans' favourite theory.

[ciannwn]

We weren't given any information at all about this and were told there was no showrunner's "bible" for us to see.

I've always had the impression that TPTB made things up as they went along - maybe they couldn't supply the information because they hadn't thought about it in advance. My impression was strengthened by this explanation Joseph Mallozzi supplied concerning the Travellers.

http://www.gateworld.net/atlantis/s4/405.shtml

One of the nice things about SG-1, for instance, is that we'd be able to go off-world and encounter technologically advanced people as well as low-tech people. But the problem with Atlantis in the Pegasus Galaxy is we said that whenever a race would get technologically advanced the Wraith would come in and wipe them out. So there was never opportunity for a race to reach that level.

"So we decided, actually there is a way: We'll just put them in ships. And so there's an armada of ships that go from planet to planet. They come down and scavenge the leftovers of societies that have been culled by the Wraith.

We don't get much of a history -

http://www.gateworld.net/atlantis/s4...ipts/405.shtml

LARRIN: Sheppard, listen to me. Our fleet is old. There was a time when we had the resources to build new ships, but now we don't.

Was this before the Wraith took over Pegasus or after? If it was after, how did the Wraith manage to overlook all this ship building? A fleet isn't the same thing as a shuttle such as the one which turned up in 'The Ark'.

[Draco-Stellaris]

Maybe the Travelers started out by picking abandoned Ancient ships and scavenging from Ancient cities to maintain their ships. Over the years these resources became scarce.

Elizabeth in her pseudo-ascended replicator form told the Lanteans there are civilisation in Pegasus that are technologically advanced. These may also be a source of tech for the Travelers.