Wraith Defenders Club

[Solla]

As I have stated in my conspiracy theory, lol, the Ancients created the wraith in order to find a way to cheat death for their own people. They probably kept some of the wraith experiments around and taught them language, math, and other skills to make sure that their new creations were smart and could adapt well. It is kind of how we try to teach animals (chimpanzees, parrots, dogs, dolphins, etc.) how to communicate and such to test their intellectual ability. After they figured that the wraith were dangerous, they just abandoned them somewhere (or the wraith escaped), but the wraith still remembered the language and skills that they were taught. After a while, the new language shifted so that it became a variant of ancient, like all languages change over time.

Am I the only stargate fan who can't stand the Ancients? lol

Yes, it seems that our beloved Ancients were great experts in such tricks. It would make sense then that they run their own experiments on themselves, they were egoistic and self-assured after all. Perhaps they were so proud of their achievements, so enthusiastic about first results that decided to separate from their fellows and continue their superman games. They found a colony, started their families... Or perhaps they experimented on prisoners. In either case they screwed up and we got the wraith. And it would explain a language problem.
Also Iratus bugs are not a constant, they have been evolving too. Perhaps prehistoric bugs were not so dangerous and could infect humans with their DNA during feeding.

[Solla]

No. Not at all. As I said elsewhere, they were the first evolution of mankind, with all the mistakes, hits and misses included. They were able to ascend but they were nor divine nor perfect.

This brings me to another question: would the Wraith be interested in Ascension? I feel they have some kind of spirituality but they seem to be such an " here and now" culture. I am not sure about it.

As long as their life is focused on feeding they have no need to ascend. They already have gigantic life-span and perfect health. Sounds tempting but on second thought, it is a kind of spiritual stasis. No interaction with other species, no need to see them as equal but yet so different, no stimulus to change themselves, their thinking and their society or explore another states of Existence (or whatever spirituality means). A rather vulnerable position for your inner self, IMHO.

[ciannwn]

The thing is, if the Wraith evolved the way we have been told that they do, then they would continue to absorb human DNA each time they fed, since this is how the iratus bugs feed.

In spoilers because it includes Season Five info.

Spoiler:

MICHAEL (voiceover): The timing of the feeding was critical -- ensuring that the bug laid its next egg quickly, before the genetic material could filter out of its body.

MICHAEL (voiceover): The embryo then contained enough human D.N.A. for me to manipulate

This suggests that Iratus bugs aren't affected by DNA absorbed during feeding - they filter it out of their bodies. Timing being critical also suggests that Iratus bug queens don't usually pass foreign DNA into their eggs either. If bug queens had always passed lunch DNA into their eggs all the original bugs would have started various lines of evolution and there would be no Iratus bugs left in Pegasus. This indicates that passing human DNA into an embryo would have been a very rare occurrence.(I'm guessing TPTB realised that there would have to a reason why Iratus bugs are still around so they invented filtering and critical timing as a way of explaining it.)

If a bug queen's offspring with extra DNA was a male which never got the chance to mate it wouldn't have passed the extra DNA to the next generation. If bug society is like Wraith society there are hundreds or even thousands of males to every female. The odds against a male with extra DNA getting to mate would, therefore, have been very high. The only way that extra DNA was likely to be passed on to future generations was if the affected egg hatched a queen or, perhaps, a male mated before all the DNA from lunch had filtered from his system. Filtering and critical timing throughout Wraith evolution would have ensured that they didn't acquire more and more human DNA over the generations. It might have happened on very rare occasions but not every single time.

We learn something very interesting in 'Infection'.

TODD: As you know, healthy Wraith have an inherent ability to heal themselves of almost any ailment, but this has not always been the case. Hundreds of thousands of years ago there was a treatment of last resort.

TODD: A terminally ill Wraith could occasionally restore himself to perfect health if he allowed an iratus bug, as you call them – specifically a queen – to feed on him.

What could have happened here?

BECKETT: These cells have none of the normal human inhibiting proteins whatsoever. That gives them an incredible ability to regenerate.

'Human inhibiting proteins' are just babble but I'll have to go along with it because it's canon. Evolving Wraith lost the ancestral bug's incredible ability to regenerate because their cells acquired those pesky human inhibiting proteins. This wasn't a big disaster in evolutionary terms, though, because life on real Earth has flourished in spite of organisms not being able to regenerate like Iratus bugs. The same is true for the Stargate universe and the Tau'ri. Humans would rather not die of injury or illness, however, so they developed medical treatment.

Wraith had discovered that a bug queen could cure a terminally ill Wraith by feeding on him but it was still something of a folk remedy during this period of their history. So what could have happened after that? It's logical to assume that, as their scientific knowledge increased, they were able to identify that mysterious ingredient produced by Iratus bug queens and develop an effective medical treatment from it. We know they have geneticists so maybe the next step was a bit of genetic engineering with bug DNA so they regained the ancestral bug's incredible healing ability. While all this was going on they'd have figured out how human DNA had been passed on in the first place. Making it common knowledge would have been a sensible precaution.if they didn't want their species becoming ever more human. Queens (and mating males as well if males had had anything to do with it) would have known about timing so they could ensure there were no more accidents.

Todd has a lot of technical knowledge but this doesn't automatically mean that he's an expert on Wraith genetics let alone medical treatments which Wraith wouldn't have needed to use for thousands of years. If he had been such an expert he could have helped Keller to develop an effective treatment very quickly. Even though she was present when he talked about the feeding treatment he couldn't have had enough time left for her to find a queen bug, identify the magic ingredient and develop a new treatment because he chose to try the usually fatal folk remedy. After all, it's not the kind of thing a sensible being would do if there was a safer alternative. As he'd used Keller's remedy on himself so he could stop feeding on humans he might have preferred a treatment which didn't restore his need to feed but he didn't have this option.

I've just had a hopeful thought for Todd's future. Wraith eating normal food would benefit humans. Todd would have ensured that he was fed before going to Atlantis so he could be able to go into hibernation until Beckett and Keller develop a better therapy. (What does healthy Todd have that sick Todd was missing for example.) The alternative is a stasis chamber because they put the Beckett clone in one until Keller could come up with a treatment for his problem. If TPTB wanted to go that route the chamber would either be suitable already or clever little Rodney and Zelenka could find a way of adjusting things for Wraith. Clever little Rodney and Zelenka can perform miracles whenever the writers want them to so the same would apply here. There could even be guest appearances by Carter and Bill Lee too if TPTB thought that adapting a stasis chamber was a sufficient excuse to bring them in.

[Sparrow_hawk]

There has been a lot of very detailed and well-reasoned, if contradictory, discussion of Wraith evolution contributed to by ciannwn, Wraith Cake, das, Mariellelita and others. I've enjoyed reading it and don't really have any scientific evidence to add. But I thought I would add a couple of comments to portions das's recent post. I won't quote it all to conserve space, only the parts to which I'm replying.

I'm just gonna step in here a minute, and try to...well...put some of the 'evolution of the Wraith' in perspective.

First, I must reveal that I believe in creation (and God), with maybe a 'programmed' little evolution thrown in. And even though I don't buy into pure evolution, I can comprehend the evolution of the Wraith.

My personal belief has always been along the lines of "programmed evolution" for what happened here on Earth, so I guess I would have to extend it to the Wraith as well, for the sake of consistency.

First, the evolutionary process would be dependent on the elements in the location where the evolution takes place. It's about adaptation, right? So, first and foremost, we do not know how Iratus bugs process their food. They are not bugs that evolved on earth, but on a different planet in a different galaxy. Who says they can't absorb human DNA? Even with evolution here on earth scientists must work on theories, since there is even disagreement in the scientific world as to how life began, and how it got from point A, to point B. They can explain JUMPS in evolution, but not the gradual transition.

This is a really important point. Experts are still debating evolution on Earth and have differing opinions many of which are well-supported by scientific observation. If that is the case, how can we expect to arrive at a single, unified theory of Wraith evolution with very little data to go on and, in some instances, conflicting information from writers?

So, who's to say that, in the Pegasus galaxy on a bug-infested planet, the iratus bug didn't develop the ability to absorb the DNA of the prey it fed upon? No one. No one can say it's impossible because no one has the ability to study how things might have evolved in the Pegasus galaxy - they can only explain how it might have happened here.

I agree. It follows from my comment above.

So. let's say that the iratus bug absorbs DNA from the things it feeds upon. Who says that - at first - it only fed on humans? Undoubtedly, before the planet was seeded with humans it had to feed on SOMETHING. Big cats (thus the cat eyes)? Reptiles (might explain the sensory pits, exposed or raised 'scales' along the spine, and crocodilian teeth)? And, of course, the human characteristics. So, if by nature, the iratus bug can absorb DNA and then adapt to what is most useful (sharp teeth, keen night vision, large brain, etc), then that can explain why there have characteristics of more than one species. They take what suits them best, and 'disgard' the rest...like genetic scavengers. This makes sense, because they do something similar with their technology - they take or steal what can be of use to them.

I think this is a very entertaining theory. I'm not sure how scientifically accurate or reasonable it is, but I like it. There are bacteria that mutate based on DNA and RNA absorbed from bacterial phages, so I guess it is not totally out of the question that it could happen in larger more complex organisms like fictional Iratus bugs and Wraith.

The interesting thing is that they also took things that are not necessarily to their advantage - the hair and human facial features, for instance. It makes me think that - as the Wraith evolved - they began to appreciate beauty, and therefore encouraged some of the more attractive human human characteristics, probably through selective mating. It's why I see the drones as an earlier stage in Wraith evolution, but since they are so long-lived, the evolutionary stages exist at the same time.

Maybe. Actually, it probably is just because those traits are what the creators of the Wraith characters wanted them to have. But in real life, individuals with useful or attractive characteristics are more likely to get mates.

To me, Wraith evolution is easily explained. To continue to reproduce through pods makes sense - a queen can produced hundreds, maybe thousands, of young through one mating - and she doesn't have to inconvenience herself with an in utero pregnancy.

There are plenty of sci-fi stories where humans stop using in-utero pregancies because of the inconvenience and potential for complications (like Lois McMaster Bujold's Barrayar stories). So I find this perfectly reasonable. And the Wraith have insect traits so they probably kept the most efficient method of reproduction.

The Wraith are efficient, they take the easiest route to acheive their goals...so it would make sense that they do the same genetically, and if anything, their higher evolution would have come from their own experimentation on themselves, with nothing to do with the Ancients.

The Wraith do seem very adept at stealing and using technology to build their power base, so it is likely that they would play around with genetic engineering, too.

As I said before, I doubt that we will ever get a full discussion of the Wraith that will answer all of our questions. And if we did, we would no doubt find plenty of points that we didn't like, agree with, or find logical. And I'm fine with that. I'm glad Robert Cooper was able to answer a few of our questions. I will be thrilled if they decide to build a bit more on the Wraith culture and Todd's back-story in the upcoming movie.

There, that should make up for my recent lack of posts!

[Sparrow_hawk]

This brings me to another question: would the Wraith be interested in Ascension? I feel they have some kind of spirituality but they seem to be such an " here and now" culture. I am not sure about it.

As long as their life is focused on feeding they have no need to ascend. They already have gigantic life-span and perfect health. Sounds tempting but on second thought, it is a kind of spiritual stasis. No interaction with other species, no need to see them as equal but yet so different, no stimulus to change themselves, their thinking and their society or explore another states of Existence (or whatever spirituality means). A rather vulnerable position for your inner self, IMHO.

I agree with both comments. The Wraith are all about the here and now. At least, that's what I would conclude from what we have seen of them so far. At the moment, I don't think they are interested in Ascension. But if Wraith like Todd are able to change and learn from other species, that might change. Maybe someday in the distant future, they will aspire to Ascend. I don't recall who said it, but one of the writers or producer's commented that all intelligent beings are capable of Ascension -- and that would include the Wraith.

[dasNdanger]

There, that should make up for my recent lack of posts!

Yeah, but you didn't give me any feedback on my idea of Wraith tattoo orgies!!!!




das

[Sparrow_hawk]

Yeah, but you didn't give me any feedback on my idea of Wraith tattoo orgies!!!!




das

Oh, that! Well, I would be happy to hold Todd's hand and comfort/distract him when he get's his next tattoo.

Actually, I think options 1 and 2 are likely scenarios. Hmmm. Not sure Wraith are into orgies. I would think they would be too worried about someone taking advantage of the situation to stab them in the back to be able to enjoy a nice orgy.

But the image is appealing!

[dasNdanger]

Oh, that! Well, I would be happy to hold Todd's hand and comfort/distract him when he get's his next tattoo.

Actually, I think options 1 and 2 are likely scenarios. Hmmm. Not sure Wraith are into orgies. I would think they would be too worried about someone taking advantage of the situation to stab them in the back to be able to enjoy a nice orgy.

But the image is appealing!

I, too, think #1 & 2 are the most likely, based on what we've seen. But I agree, the image of a bunch'a half-naked Wraith mulling around, getting tattoos (and maybe engaging in other grooming habits) is a nice image.


das

[MCH]

Congrats on 17,000 replies, WDC!

And we have 851 pages too..



(that pages upto 17,000 posts)
MCH

[Shanthaia]

I think this is a very entertaining theory. I'm not sure how scientifically accurate or reasonable it is, but I like it. There are bacteria that mutate based on DNA and RNA absorbed from bacterial phages, so I guess it is not totally out of the question that it could happen in larger more complex organisms like fictional Iratus bugs and Wraith.

that is not limited to bacteria

there is actually a snail (Edit: it is called Elysia chlorotica) that eats algea...steals their chloroplasts (cell organell that is used for photosynthesis = energy from CO2, water and sunlight) and can therefor live for a year without feeding the animal way and soley rely on photosynthesis. It has also incooperated some genes for photosynthesis in its genom so that it can supply the chloroplasts with neccassary proteins.

I'll add a link to more information the very moment I find it

EDIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysia_chlorotica

[Starry Waters]

that is not limited to bacteria

there is actually a snail (Edit: it is called Elysia chlorotica) that eats algea...steals their chloroplasts (cell organell that is used for photosynthesis = energy from CO2, water and sunlight) and can therefor live for a year without feeding the animal way and soley rely on photosynthesis. It has also incooperated some genes for photosynthesis in its genom so that it can supply the chloroplasts with neccassary proteins.

I'll add a link to more information the very moment I find it

EDIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysia_chlorotica

Love the siggie!!!

[Shanthaia]

Love the siggie!!!

thanks you, thank you *bows*

this one is by far not new, but as the server experiences problems again I dug it out again

[Mariellelita]

I don't think the Wraith would have lasted very long if the Ancients created them and then decided they were dangerous. They created the Asurans too and look what happened there -

http://www.gateworld.net/atlantis/s3...ipts/305.shtml

NIAM: The aggression programmed into our core remained, fuelling a rage we could not contain. We implored them to have this violent nature removed from our programming, but the Ancients wanted a weapon, and since their scientists included a directive prohibiting us from ever harming them, they continued the experiment. When the Ancients concluded that the experiment had gone too far -- that we would never become the weapon they desired to create -- they decided to end it.

NIAM: And so they chose to destroy us, to leave no trace of us behind.

The Ancients had no regard for the fact that their creations had evolved sentience at this point so I can't see them having any regard for sentient Wraith creations either. They wouldn't have just abandoned them.after teaching them language, math and other skills. They'd probably have tracked escaped Wraith down as well because these Wraith would have had to use stargates to get around.

I still don't see why Wraith couldn't have evolved without the Ancients taking an active part in their emergence as a species. Ancients recreated life in the Milky Way and seeded Pegasus with humans but they originated in the Ori galaxy. They must have evolved naturally unless an even earlier super-race created them. If so, how did that earlier super-race get there? From what we've heard the Asgard seemed to have originated in the Ida galaxy all by themselves. SGU also promises us completely new non-human aliens because the Ancients never got round to visiting the stargate seeded galaxies in person.

Some Asurans escaped. Maybe the wraith were good at hiding.

The wraith had to have evolved from the Ancients activities directly or indirectly b/c they seeded the galaxy with humans. So, they had a hand in it.


I still blame the ancients, because all evidence points to them. Most of the time when bad stuff happens, it is because of them. And they never came back to fix their messes.

[Mariellelita]

thanks you, thank you *bows*

this one is by far not new, but as the server experiences problems again I dug it out again

Shanthaia, are you planning on making a funny valentine one, or are you done with making siggies because the series has ended?

[Isolde]

Good to see that someone is as interested in the biology of these ace suckers as me, and I have one or two theories I wanted to check out against those better informed than myself. I have to say that I'm a bit of a geek when it comes to insects (having kept ants when I was a kid, much to my mother's irritation) and am therefore having a few probs with the whole queen thing. After all, in ant, wasp and bee society (if we are to take them as an analogy), there are more sterile females in a nest/hive than there ever will be males. Males are only produced at the end of the feeding season, and die immediately after mating - they are also winged so that they can get to other areas and mate with non-related females.

Am I correct in assuming that there are very few female Wraith? If so, would it not be in a hive's best interest to attempt to breed with compatible humans, given that their lineage is extremely similar?

When I posted this silliness earlier, it was pointed out that Wraith queens are highly territorial and unlikely to tolerate another queen within their territory, and while I can appreciate that, I still don't buy the whole "one reproductive female" unless they are more like termites and she swells up to the size of a small building and is merely an ovum producer - if ya gets my drift. So far, all the Wraith gals look pretty svelte to me, with no sign of a hormonal overload, and by gum, you'd think after she'd popped out all of those guys there might be a bit of sag? Perhaps?

As for finding humans repugnant... I rather think they do protest too much. I feel certain that there have been more than a few forays into forbidden territory, even if it was merely scientific curiosity.

Hell... we'd be jumping... possibly leaping at the chance for some empirical evidence, methinks.

Hey ho, I guess that we all have our ideas on what is going on, and though I may not be canon, I am having a germ of an idea for a fic. Hmmm...

Flaming accepted...