Wraith Defenders Club

[Shanthaia]

*goes THUNK over the Todd pic*

[MCH]

*goes THUNK over the Todd pic*

Another one bits the dust

Spoiler:

THUNK.....

Cue mattress, drool bucket and reserved place in gutter......

Well that GoSpikey Shanthaia and me, better hurry up or all the best place will be taken.......
MCH

[GoSpikey]

So, think that...

Spoiler:

It is indeed Kenny that betrayed Todd, and now he's going to help Shep get down the Wraith fleet?

Maybe Todd will shoot Kenny, and Shep and Rodney will go all: "OMG, you b@st@rd, you killed Kenny!" on him...

Or how else would that line fit in there?

[Wraith Cake]

If they are another race, they why are they referred to as 'it'? I've always considered them a separate species - if you go by evolution standards - humans (which would include the Ancients, Earthlings, Athosians, Satedans, etc) evolved from apes, whereas the Wraith have evolved from insects. They can't be homo sapien, therefore, they would be a different species, not simply a different race (which would imply that they are human, when they are, in fact, a different 'kind'. If they were human, then feeding on people, not just fellow Wraith, would be cannibalism).

Ah...but we will never see eye-to-eye on this one, so let's not nitpick it to death.

das

But you see this is where everything breaks down, and how I feel that the writers have grossly under-estimated the intellect of its audience. The wraith themselves refer to their people as another "race", the humans refer to them as another "race", yet you have Carson Beckett saying they evolved from the iratus bug. They're either one thing or another. Perhaps we should try to force the issue with JM...actually on second thought does it really matter? I just thought it was an interesting contradiction, and I liked your rant, which I totally endorse.

WK

[Todds worshipper]

Oh my god, if you read about an earthquake in Australia, that was my *THUNKING*.
He is so beautiful....brings tears to my eyes.
Curse them for making him wear a black t-shirt underneath!!!!
They could've skipped that and left some of the buttons undone...oh my I can't breathe!!!

[Wraith Cake]

And to that I have to give a big Scooby "Huuuhhh?"
So does that make gorillas and chimpanzees a "race" of human because of our certain percentage of commonalities and similar DNA? Wraith have insect DNA intermingled with theirs and if we're to believe Dr. Carson Beckett (or at least the writer that was speaking through Carson for that episode back in, what, Season 1?) the Wraith have more DNA in common with their Iratus bug ancestors than their Ancient ancestors. I STILL have a hard time believing this, though I guess he said it so it's canon too.
Good gawd, they've got physicists to make sure their formulas written on their prop white boards make sense, can't they occassionally consult a geneticist and a bio-engineer occassionally? *grumble*

@das - I loved in your rant how you said you loved Santuary because it was everything SGA wasn't. I literally said out loud, "Ooohhh, girrrrrl! You tell 'im!"

mfw

Ya, sorry this is more of what I meant: that the writers really have underestimated our intellect, and put all types of contradictions, I didn't mean to nit pick I was more poking fun at the writers. Which leads me to believe, that once again they write on the fly....

WK

[Todds worshipper]

Possible dialogue for the pic?

Spoiler:

[Todds worshipper]

YAY! I just worked out how to paste a picture instead of just a link! I'm so proud of myself....

[Lythisrose]

Re the picture, maybe Shep took a reverse antidote and is now trying to feed on Todd?

[Todds worshipper]

Re the picture, maybe Shep took a reverse antidote and is now trying to feed on Todd?

* Throwing myself in front of Todd *
If anyone's gonna feed on him it's me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Wraith Cake]

All very interesting. But about the cloning - the Wraith we saw 'birthed' was not a clone, as far as I can tell. Alan McCullough touched on this when he answered my questions...clarifying what the Wraith said in the episode.

Wraith: "You have done well. The second batch of warriors is flawless [the one we saw birthed]. We now have a suitable genetic template with which to proceed to the next phase [cloning]."

I think the confusion occurs because of the lack of understanding of how cloning works. A clone can only be made from a mature original, not a zygote which is a fertilized egg.

You are assuming that the queen (sitting on her throne) is creating zygotes (fertilized eggs) and from those zygotes clones are made.

A cloned egg cannot be fertilized first, ever. The eggs must be extracted, tinkered with then placed back into the female to distribute them as is natural to her species.

Additionally, it would not make any sense for the queen to create a “warrior” original, then use that recently birthed warrior wraith’s DNA to create copies when there are plenty of wraith warriors walking around the facility—why go to all the trouble and waist the time? All that is required is a skin sample, or a blood sample—any cell will do, of course except a reproductive cell.

If the writers are writing with even the faintest notion of cloning science in mind, the wraith warrior we saw birthed was probably a “dry run” clone to see if the process with ZPMs would even still work. After all, the wraith hadn’t used that facility in thousands of years. This would be the “template” granny wraith was talking about – how the clones would ultimately “look”.

To add to this, because wraith are “mass cloning at a fast rate” in this episode whether she lays eggs or gives birth to them or hatches them in a heart shaped tin (I’m just being silly here), right now they have to mature fast and on mass, therefore these “clones” would have to be put into pods—regardless of how she naturally reproduces.

Getting back to my original point on “what is required to clone”: egg/eggs of a female must be extracted first. We know for certain this is happening in this episode, because it is stated several times. What is ambiguous is the condition this genetic material is in. Is it ova, or zygotes? When Rodney says, the queen deposits genetic material bla bla bla”, he can only be referring to her gametes—her reproductive cells.

There needs to be an ova in order for a clone to gestate. In essence, what cloning is doing is replacing the nucleus of an ovum that has fifty percent genetic material, with a nucleus from a non-gamete cell that has one hundred percent of the person’s DNA—genetic material.

This is why Carson Beckett and all of the Asgard are having difficulty living very long—because they are clones from an older original copy—as Keller was explaining to Carson his telomere are thirty percent shorter. The original being has to have fully developed cells otherwise the genetic material cannot be drawn on to use for the purposes of cloning.

That would mean that the Wraith are born from pods. Now, does that only apply to warriors, or to faced Wraith as well?

Actually, it doesn’t mean the wraith are born from pods. All this episode shows us is that the wraith are cloning in pods, they are cloning at a fast rate, and they are cloning at this facility using ZPMs. I’m not saying you’re wrong in your understanding of what the writers intended, what I’m saying is that there isn't any evidence for it.

By looking at the episode itself, there is nothing in it that implies the wraith give birth “naturally” in pods. It does indicated that they cloned this way, because of their hurried requirements. Do you see what I’m saying?

Michael's words in S&R seem to indicate the carrying a child in utero is something foreign to Wraith: "I can't imagine carrying a child inside of you is very comfortable." [/quote]

Or was Michael speaking from a male perspective, which I've heard many a man say the same thing in not so polite terms.

The fact he pointed out that - not just carrying a child isn't comfortable - but doing so INSIDE isn't comfortable. Just the wording there suggests that in utero pregnancies are not natural to Wraith. He had to modify the ultrasound for Teyla, again...suggesting that their ultrasounds are not used to detect a child in the uterus. The Wraith Queen in SoW didn't automatically know where Teyla's baby was, but had to search for his consciousness. When the Lanteans saw the pods in Vengeance, they thought maybe the Wraith were making more Wraith. Everything points to Wraith being unfamiliar with in utero pregnancies, and very familiar with pod births.

I would disagree here, because the queen in SOW didn't know the "source" of Tayla's strength. Thus, because she didn’t know the source, it doesn’t mean that she didn’t understand where the source comes from. Put it this way. All creatures—All creatures carry their eggs in their uterus, insects included. The difference between species is not whether they carry their eggs in their uterus, it is whether or not they give “live” birth. We know the queen produces her gametes in her belly, in the same place Tayla’s eggs are created, get fertilized and gestate. So, she wouldn’t have any problem knowing where to look, if she knew what she was looking for. And it is curious that she did eventually find it.


[/quote]
Of course, we may never know what the creators have in mind, but they have given very strong suggestions that all Wraith are pod-born. I'm cool with that - IF I could have had children that way, maybe I'd have kids today!! I've never been a fan of the concept of human pregnancy...only the seed-planting part, but NOT the 'carrying the watermelon and then pushing it out' part.

das[/QUOTE]

The writers it seems are leaving this intentionally ambiguous. It seems they're doing this because they like the idea of the ambiguousness, and they don't want to risk alienating (pun intended) viewers who would stop believing in the credibility of the show. The trick is to create an original alien, while at the same time making sure the alien is not too unrealistic.

So, I’m not disagreeing with your belief in what the writers intend, as you have said we really don’t know. What I’m stating is that SOW does not indicate how the wraith reproduce—naturally.

WK

[Sparrow_hawk]

@ Laura Dove: I love that picture of Todd. It was mentioned today on JM's blog and I'm afraid I posted something silly about it. But I agree

Spoiler:

it looks like prison coveralls.

The question is -- why?

@das: I read your post on JM's blog and I don't see anything offensive about your comment. Sanctuary is clearly about tolerance of those who are different, but that was never the message in SGA. But maybe part of the SGA problem is the whole military mission vs. civilian exploration of space issue.

Kar, thanks for posting the Geneva convention rules -- maybe we should send them to the SGA writers as well!

As for the Hippocratic Oath, I see that issue a little differently. Even though I was sorry to see the Wraith commander die in pain from the Hoffan drug, there was really no doctor - patient relationship between the Commander and Beckett and I'm not sure what Beckett did was truly a violation of the Hippocratic Oath. Doctors are still people and Beckett was acting, not as a doctor, but as an individual to aid his own people the only way he could think of. I agree that it was not nice; but killing someone, even an enemy, never is. Just my thoughts on the subject.

I took the little color quiz, too. I was not terribly surprised by the results :

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

[StarOcean]

I want both - to take the therapy, but NOT to lose the ability or desire to feed, much like an alcoholic always craves a drink, even if he's gone sober.

I want them do gene therapy on animals. How come no one has tried that yet? *grumps*

Possible dialogue for the pic?

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Ha! Good explanation for Sheppard's weird hand position as any! And it looks like they've flipped the scene again. I don't see Todd's tat.

Also, didn't notice this before, but the smaller size helps but... that doesn't look like Atlantis architect, does it? Is Todd on one of the Earth ships or being held on Earth?

And speculating on Infection, I wonder if maybe Kenny or whomever betrays Todd and forces the therapy on him as punishment?

first, put your wraith sympathy aside (if possible ). if you were carson and being ordered to create an antidote that would allow for hundreds of humans (possibly more) to die, you would've done it? think about it, killing one wraith vs. creating an antidote, thereby granting wraith the power to consequently kill many, many more. from a doctor's perspective, I think carson chose the lesser of two evils. he shouldn't have to harbour the guilt/so on of being responsible for the deaths of many. I don't see what he did as "unjust" or as betraying his medical oaths, it was a preventitive measure to stall the deaths of far more humans... which is what a doctor's primary concern should be.

there were two scenarios that could've unfolded. 1) carson created the cure, wraith kill hundreds, 2) he refused and spared hundreds, if just for a little while.

in choosing option two, carson was thinking with the heart/mind of a doctor in that he didn't sentence innocent people to death. of course, that's just my opinion.

*edit
thought I'd add this. where michael/the retrovirus is concered, carson was in the wrong in that situation, but again, he was acting out of the well-being of his race. I don't agree with the method.

I disagree somewhat with Carson acting out of the well-being for his race. While I think that's one of the reasons, I think he was mostly fueled by the idea that the Wraith are unnatural (his words) and that he would be doing good *unto* them and redeeming them by turning them human.

Adding my two cents again (because I think I may be repeating myself here, but how can I resist bashing on Carson?): Spoiler cut for those who don't want to read:

Spoiler:

If Carson wasn't so holier-than-thou, I wouldn't have such a huge problem with Carson's actions in how to save lives. The problem is that he's an egoist about it. And if you make saving lives all about yourself or some personal ideal, you're going to make critical decision-making mistakes. Because you won't take account of other people's situation, welfare, beliefs, culture, etc. Instead, you're "best medical judgement" will be short-sighted because it revolves around *you* and *your beliefs.* And you're unlikely to consider that other people are capable of helping themselves and don't need you to save them. (Ex: Whispers, where he told the soldier what to do, and then ran off to save her after being told to stay put.) He's patronizing. (Ex: Kindred II, chiding Keller for being shocked and dismissing her trauma that this man caused her, publically)

I'll take Keller over Carson any day. At least she's AWARE that they're taking advantage of the PG natives, mining PG for Earth, and that the Lanteans aren't quite letting them know they have rights. (Ex: The Seer, "Just so we're clear. Are we taking him back to study him or to help him?" And her showing frustration that Woolsey took Davo's medical scans without permission.) While Carson is all, "Yay! Freedom from restriction medical regulations and a chance to do good!"

Got a question for everyone: Would you rather see Todd dead than a living specimen to be studied and violated?

[Noir]

Got a question for everyone: Would you rather see Todd dead than a living specimen to be studied and violated?

I can answer that question without thinking about it: I would rather see him dead than so much humiliated - him and every other Wraith in this galaxy.

[MyFavoriteWraith]

Ok, I am so unnerved by that picture. It made my stomach flip. Follow that link to andreas' webpage and tell me what you feel when you see that pic surrounded by all the other pics - ESPECIALLY that first one!

Spoiler:

Atlantis gets the "hero pic", all glowy and looking-contentedly-off-into-the-sunset/sunrise pic while Todd either gets to go to prison or Shep gets him a job at an oil-change shop! W-T-F!?!?! (And less importantly, McKay and Keller make me want to vomit. And what's up with Ronon? Are they hauling him off to the psych ward?)

I gotta go to bed. This has been a really crappy day.
G'night all.

mfw

EDIT: to answer your question quickly StarOcean, I'd rather they gave Todd a glorious death than a humiliated life.