The Lost Boys (210)

[Purpleyin]

What to say about the ep? Well I still prefer S1's The Storm but Lost Boys was pretty good. I like how they made it more intense and darker with Ford and his gang. The enzyme is obviously still making them a little unreasonable but obviously they can't tell. Poor delusional boys.

Loved seeing Wraith tech, yay for the dart. I'm presuming the sniffy thing and why he could fly it were Conversion related stuff and the interest would also be with ATA - they had the necklace beacon from Rising so it'd make sense if their tech had ATA alerting abilities. Wonder if they can detect beamed up ATA people and what they do with such people? Anyway...

If the enzyme enhances mental abilities too, i.e. with Jace, will it have enhanced Teyla's wraithy abilities too - could see that being a key to escape - she's more aggressive on the drug too, so maybe she can go one to one with a Wraith mind now - and not get taken over.

Bothered by the inconsistances of Wraith strength. I know that they seem to have a hierarchy and the facehugger ones die easier but they only took one stun to get down in the flashbacks to the gang capturing some Wraith, and SuperFord didn't even go down with one stun in Siege 3! Plus the flash grenade, how does that work on a facehugger guard? I'm presuming the mask must be a bit like the dart canopy and though it looks like it's just covering maybe it takes sensory input, explaining why the guard could still get overcome with the stun.

Loved the sniffing Rodney thing too, I suppose he's unappetising for whatever reason they've yet to explain - the natural immunity that seems to have hinted at but not explored by the Atlanteans. Otherwise why was he a runner? I'm presuming its the they can't eat him thing. No wonder Steve's brother wasn't pleased to see him, like having fake food in a cell - looks the same but no munchies.

And I don't quite believe the sudden beaming people down/murdering half the team will be the last we hear of them - but wow on the unexpectedness there. The 'no one could possibly survive that' just screams of 'oh but they can and they will because they will rescue them'! I could be wrong but I figure it may very well not be the last we see of Jace and co who took that fateful fall. After all it's a ship with artificial gravity, maybe they can come right back round. Or there might be a safety procedure, the Wraith surely wouldn't want the food wasted trying to fall to their death or the like.

The keeper - so sad not to see bright blue hair or something. Fanfic spoilt me there. But yay for women being at the top in Wraith society, at least I'm hoping, they seem to have the best powers and I can't wait to see if we get told/shown just what they are capable of because there must be more than just the pithy shadow thing the Wraith usually do. So far its shadows and taking over Teyla but not much else. I really expect to see more in The Hive, or I'll be sad - need baddies to have good superpowers after all and so far they only have scary tendancy to suck life and regenerate related to that. Looking into his memories etc would be interesting...

And yay for Wraith alarms being just how I imagined. Granted it's probably obvious what theyd be like but it made me happy watching the episode.

Lastly, Lorne was so cute here!

[Vee]

Similarly, there’s the whole situation on the Wraith hiveship. All things being equal, none of them should survive, least of all Sheppard. But the fact is that we all know the regulars will survive, so the tension of the moment is somewhat mitigated.

An excellent point. It's really a perpetual problem in the show and in many other shows, though. Ultimately when you put main characters in these types of situations you know they'll survive. I felt that the tension in this particular situation comes from the question of what, if anything, the wraith will find out from their captives. I have mixed feelings. Atlantis has had a number of close encounters with the Wraith since the apparent "destruction" of the city. It's getting a tad redundant. On the one hand, I feel the Wraith should be getting quite suspicious soon. On the other hand, I don't want to see a repeat of the Siege.

At any rate, I agree that the plot isn't nearly as suspenseful as it could be with the knowledge that Shep and company will triumph. Still, who knows if it will be a cut and dry victory? It may get messy.

[SnoggingPicard]

I wonder if Weir will give Sheppard another hug when he returns to Atlantis. If she does, let's hope she also hugs Teyla and Ronan. And ESPECIALLY McKay. She needs to be an equal opportunity hugger.

Heehee! I like this!

[Blue007]

Well, Shep forced himself on Teyla when he was under the influence of alien DNA, and Ford forced his drug on the team when he was under the influence of a psychotropic Wraith drug. Can't we both agree that neither Shep nor Ford would do those things if they truely have a choice in the matter?

Everyone is so quick to call Ford a b@stard and Shep a sexual predator, when the fact of the matter is that they were not fully in control of their actions when they committed those acts. The only person that has actually committed an atrocity completely of his own free will is Ronon, and there was hardly a titter about that.

Apparently you've missed some threads because there has been alot of backlash about things Ronon has done. And your right about Ford and Shep, people a very quick to jump and judge really fast. Shep is trying to help his friend that he cares about. Ford is not himself, he is on a mission to destroy the Warith and it seems to be at any cost, but Ford is not thinking clearly most of the time, and Shep will not and has not given up on Ford.

[Blue007]

Fair one...but then, Ford actually had more of a conscious choice to put that drug in their food, and to make a whole group of people addicts, regardless of his intoxication...Shep didn't even know what he was doing a lot of the time, not in the sense of actually being anything but an animal and running / acting instinctually...

And you are quite right about Ronon...no-one actually seemed to say anything about him murdering a man in cold blood...though I'd say it was a crime more than an atrocity.

Not true Ronon got alot of backlash for killing his task master...

[Purpleyin]

I'm not convinced that the "I want to go home" WAS an act. Ford's personality is a little bit fractured, now, and I think that might have been part of the "real Ford" showing through... and then SuperFord took over again and dismissed it all as a ploy. With what info we have right now, it's hard to say either way, but it makes ME feel better to know that somewhere deep down, Ford's still the bright-eyed do-gooder with strong familiar ties. *sigh*

Same here. Best lies come from the truth. He probably wants to go home but if people aren't likely to accept him on Atlantis, his refusal to give up the proving himself and go back there is probably fueled by the fact he knows he can't go back to either Earth nor Atlantis anyway. He's tied to Pegasus and the Wraith forevermore if he wants to carry on being SuperFord. Those family ties are going to have to be overwhelming to be able to overcome the need for the enzyme and it doesn't look like that motivation is winning right now. But it could, maybe, hopefully, sometime...

In some way his dependance on the ezyme makes me wonder if he has ulterior motives (or rather could have if he survives this encounter), that he desn't want to destroy them ultimately, merely enslave them as a way to defeat the rest and improve all us weak humans. Could make for any interesting later storyline possibly.

Still, I do wonder just how Shep thought he could sell Ford being able to go home? Just how are they going to coverup the reason for the black eye, he'd have to wear a patch... Although the eye seemed to me to be less black, could just have been a contact lenses slipping moment but I though I saw some white... made me wonder if it was an unavoidable mistake with the makeup/prosthetics (or whatever that comes under) or if it was meant to be showing he was somehow healing slowly. Hmm, probably not.

Back in "Siege" our friend Bob told Sheppard that the others would know what he had done. I figured the "Queen" Wraith was checking out his mind/memories. . they will probably want to do something "special" to our dear Sheppard after that.

I think though not much has been on the show the Skiffy site or something officialish (but no canon per se) had a bit about how Wraith can access memories when feeding, so I'm presuming with Sumner it was partially him talking about it before he got the idea it was bad and then the original keeper learnt more (just how much more?) through the feeding. So not only was it good Shep put Sumner out his misery but he could have stopped the Wraith garnering more info from the guy.

Makes me wonder if any info was gathered from anyone on Atlantis during the Siege, if anyone apart from ford was fed on... the ships were close enough that the telepathic link should have been possible.

How does Ellia fit into this theory? She wasn't found on a downed hive ship, are they not important until they are adults?

It is odd but maybe keeper isn't the only occupation female wraith's have. We've not seen much of the Wraith apart from Hive ships and darts and other combat vessels. Maybe there are other ships Hive ships provide food for, where Wraith live. We haven't really seen much of Wraith awake, the Hive ships even seem to be silent, and there were also few Wraith around on the transport ship in The Defiant One - but how can a society function when they are all asleep? They must have some kind of habitable ships and labs etc, places to raise the little Wraith (though they might not be that common if there's a food shortage and Wraith live so long).

They show mostly male wraith (maybe it's a costuming thing, who knows) but "Instinct" showed that the wraith are sorta human before they go totally suck-the-life-out-of you in puberty.

Considering they're mostly human until puberty, I must wonder what happens (or even if) you had a Wraith teen pregnancy - could you get a 1/2 Wraith?

Would be kind of ironic that McKay opens a can of woopass on his guards by using his brain to escape.

Suddenly my mind is overcome with the mental image of a spork but I doubt McKay could escape alone when he's supposedly having reduced dosage and there are 2 supped up guards. Still it would be interesting to see brains triumph over brawn. That or Lorne turn up to the rescue and McKay snark that he had it sorted out himself and was just about to do something so amazingly clever...

[Purpleyin]

maybe it's like bugs, some female can became queen and other not, those who can create a new hive and a new colony, in this case, male "serve" the queen, in fact they serve the hive, and in bug's society the queen is the hive, if she die, the hive die... but since we know nothing about their reproduction we can't really say how important is a queen, it could be cool to see a queen layer (like the one in alien vs predator ) (i'm not sure the last sentence is easly understood.. it's late in France lol i'm numb)

Interesting. (and your English is mostly good, so don't worry)

I'm intrigued by the credits calling Lost Boys female the queen. The Rising one was just credited as a keeper, right? It would fit if we're talking territorial as Jace told McKay. Having one queen per hiveship wouldn't make sense unless one hive ship equalled one faction and I don't think that's too likely somehow given the previous information on Wraith ships in the area of Pegasus near Atlantis (from the Genii data device). It would make alot more sense if Hive ships had a keeper (at least when its in hibernation mode like the one in rising was initially) and there was a queen on each faction that led it - with Ford, Shep and co just happening to be unlucky enough to have hitched a ride on the Hiveship with the female for this region of space... If females were keepers and queens it would be interesting, showing they had positions of responsibilty. wonder what other positions the females might have if that's the case.

[mgbland]

Giving that the wraith look more human to start with, I wonder if the humans and the wraiths can interbreed. That could create some alarming situations for the prisoners.

If wraiths got everything from the feeding process, there would have been no reason for the Keeper to interrogate Sumner. She was better at it, because she could mentally coerce them to speak. From the way Sumner's eyes widened after he mentioned "Earth," it's doubtful he meant to devulge that piece of information.

Still, depending on what the not so sweet wraith hag gets out of Sheppard, the hive ship may have to be destroyed.

Just a quick question. Where was the C4? With the dart or with the strike force?

Edited to add:

On earth we have . . . Ant FARMS, Hornet's NESTS, and Bee HIVES. Are they comparing wraith to bees?

[mgbland]

Still, I do wonder just how Shep thought he could sell Ford being able to go home? Just how are they going to coverup the reason for the black eye, he'd have to wear a patch... Although the eye seemed to me to be less black, could just have been a contact lenses slipping moment but I though I saw some white... made me wonder if it was an unavoidable mistake with the makeup/prosthetics (or whatever that comes under) or if it was meant to be showing he was somehow healing slowly. Hmm, probably not.

I wondered he same thing myself. Maybe a patch or a contact lense. Also, they'd have to explain why one side of his face looks so much different than the other. But with a patch, they can just say he lost his eye while he was a POW and most would believe it. I wonder if the weird eye will revert to normal Ford stops the enzyme.

[Purpleyin]

I wondered he same thing myself. Maybe a patch or a contact lense. Also, they'd have to explain why one side of his face looks so much different than the other. But with a patch, they can just say he lost his eye while he was a POW and most would believe it. I wonder if the weird eye will revert to normal Ford stops the enzyme.

Though better yet why has he got the weird eye? TPTB have already explained it's not a Wraith DNA thing, but it can't simply be the enzyme since no other people on it have the same problem. Must be specific for the circumstanes leading up/causing Ford's addiction but it still isn't explained adequately. Probably because it's one of those makeup/costuming things done to look cool and show the difference, rather than having been though out.

Lucky for all involved that Wraith tech doesn't have the same lockout mechanism that Ancient tech does. Although I imagine it never occurred to them that the Ancients- or anyone else- would ever try to steal their ships.

I think not only would they not imagine any human would ever get to use a dart but they'd not lock out ATA because I'm sure they want to be able to use Atlantean tech themselves one day, and should they be able to get artifical ATA like Beckett managed, it wouldn't be so great to be locked out of their own tech.

Not to say they would be working towards that but I imagine it'd be helpful to the Wraith to get ATA stuff to work and therefore it's possible. I'm thinking their scientists must be working on something and they might like Shep for that reason... who knows how many PJ's are out there that the Wraith might have found but can't use - just study. It's possible (given that Greg could enter a PJ without harm) that the Wraith have reverse engineered much technology already - like the autopilot maybe and obviously the beaming being related to stargate technology. There maybe be more they can't scavenge because it needs to be activated.

Well, technically, Ford has been "slaughtering" Wraith left and right. We simply don't have a problem with him doing it.

WRAITH RIGHTS!!! j/k
Seriously, I can sort of see an issue here. They're the enemy but he's not just going out there to fight, he's a renegade enslaving and killing random ones, not necessarly soldiers. Of course no one cares because it's the Wraith (and Ford doing it - we can forgive him really) but...

It's not likely SGA would ever get into issues like that very far, unlike BSG and cyclons. Still it's not that much of an issue on the show and they don't even look very human so viewers aren't going to have much sympathy except possibly in episodes where things are handled closer to us, like Instinct and

Spoiler:

Michael

And now he's keeping them as livestock. Interesting situation there. Does the milk cow have a better life than the steer bound for slaughter? What would a sentient milk cow think of the dairy farm? At what point is the sentient adversary so evil that such treatment is justified?

It's less of an issue because like Shep said the Wraith wouldn't exactly abide by the Geneva convention. Still, it isn't so good to lower ourselves to their standards of enslavement/herding - just that in a war where you're vastly outnumbered it seems merely questionable rather than outright immoral.

Giving that the wraith look more human to start with, I wonder if the humans and the wraiths can interbreed. That could create some alarming situations for the prisoners.

If wraiths got everything from the feeding process, there would have been no reason for the Keeper to interrogate Sumner. She was better at it, because she could mentally coerce them to speak. From the way Sumner's eyes widened after he mentioned "Earth," it's doubtful he meant to devulge that piece of information.

Still, depending on what the not so sweet wraith hag gets out of Sheppard, the hive ship may have to be destroyed.

Well I was mainly proposing that when female wraith are still humanlike they might be able to breed with humans, but it'd depend on just how much like humans they are i.e. how they breed and if they ovulate like human females. As for the other way round and prisoners. I don't think Wraith would be too fond of playing with food like that... Though I can think of one situation they might consider it good, if they wanted a human with ATA/wraith crossbreed. But its not too likely they could breed, except for the talk of prongs on the DVD extras...

And I wasn't suggesting they could get everything by feeding, the comment only came from reading a possibly incorrect thing from Skiffy. I'd imagine the best they could get was reading surface thoughts and prominent memories - but either could be telling unless the person had a very strong will. The Wraith need something going for them but nothing that good.

[mgbland]

Well I was mainly proposing that when female wraith are still humanlike they might be able to breed with humans, but it'd depend on just how much like humans they are i.e. how they breed and if they ovulate like human females. As for the other way round and prisoners. I don't think Wraith would be too fond of playing with food like that... Though I can think of one situation they might conider it good, if they wanted a human with ATA/wraith crossbreed. But its not too likely they could breed, except for the talk of prongs on the DVD extras...

I wonder if it was Sheppard's Ancient Gene the wraith was smelling. Pretty horrific if the female wraith wants to mate with Sheppard. Or, if that's not possible get enough of Sheppard's DNA to bioengineer a ATA/wraith hybrid.

[mindfire]

I wonder if it was Sheppard's Ancient Gene the wraith was smelling.

That would be something a wraith being able to tell who is ancient and who is just a regular human.

[Jeffer]

you guys got a 2 be continued on TMN in Canada it cut out when they were still fighting i didn't get a 2 be continued GOD DAMN IT i saw no female Wraith

OMG THIS IS BS CANADA DIDN'T GET TO SEE THE ENTIRE EP

[birdieey]

<snip>Pissedoff!McKay rocks my socks. “I was drugged against my will, ya little punk!” I loved that. Oh, how I loved that. I seriously thought at some points during this episode that he was just going to haul off and punch someone. It was a refreshing change from scared-out-of-his-mind McKay.</snip>

I sooo agree, this is the Rodney I "loved to hate" from Season 1. I especially loved the line "I would have thought of that myself, before I became a drug addict." More please...

BTW - Is it just me or has the tone of this forum gotten a little "frosty" over the last couple episodes. I didn't even get halfway through the Conversion thread before I had to give up due to frustration...

[Universal Nexus]

I agree with the redemption part, but other than that your analogy doesn't fit. Ford hasn't killed (or really even harmed) anyone other than Wraith, so comparing him to a First Prime is a bit of a stretch.

Erm, sorry, my wording wasn't so good. It was more an attempt to question the wisdom of those thinking Ford is "beyond redemption", since if one can forgive Teal'c -- who did far, far worse things than Ford has ever done -- then one surely should be able to forgive Lieutenant were he to do a turn around.