The Hive (211)

[Lt.Colonel John Sheppard]

This Episode was Cool I especially like the part where Mckay Just beats the living dog-poop outta the two guards and he goes nuts thanks to the enzyme.

[SGalisa]

back to thoughts on Ronon and his knives... ack! he's been stealing and hording the kitchen silverware!!

Lt.Ford... if he survives, somehow I doubt if he'll truly get weaned off the wraith enzyme, based on his last boost of energy swig in this episode. He seems overly determined to stay on it, at all costs -even at the risk of losing his own life forever. Family will continue to only be important, if he *proves* his heroism because of how the drug gave him new sources of energy and skills. Wonder how his family would react not to the heroism aspect, but to his obsessive addiction of this new (illicit?) Wraith wonder drug (given via injections only, too).

Okay, new theory on Shep and his clowns comment...

Originally posted by TOA:
about the clowns.... in volkswagons no less... Truely a terrifying foe..
(btw they really did describe clowns as a terrible enemy.... )

I guess you had to be there.

Originally posted by Melyanna:
...Sheppard was babbling to a girl about how on Earth there aren't any Wraith, but there are clowns tumbling out of Volkswagens. The girl doesn't get that he's trying to insert some levity, obviously.

Originally posted by unknownterra:
Ferris wheels, clowns. Maybe he has some childhood related complexity where something happened at an amusemet park?

Now that I've finally seen the ep, I think Shep was both making a joke out of this (to which Neera was clueless), and he may have been using the term "clown" as an adjective ~ meaning not a literal *clown* with colorful makeup, costume, and humongous shoes -that of course, would be utterly funny watching -as several overdressed *clowns* stumble their way over each other and out of little volkswagons...

It may also be a reference to a school class clown, or wise-guy con-artist.
Ever hear anyone say: "Oh man!! Who are these *clowns* showing up, now?"
(It's not a literal circus or amusement park reference, either... might seem like one, but it isn't.)

Considering Shep's mysterious past for potential rescue missions, perhaps even bullies wearing face masks and tooting guns, etc, in enemy territory. Or maybe even a bunch of guys who scared the baa-geebees outta Shep on rescuing him from enemy territory... There, while providing some sort of continuity, now maybe (possibly??) TPTB have something more tangible to work with...?

[FireCat]

This was an average episode. Not the best, not the worst. Would have been fun to see more banter between Sheppard and the Queen, maybe learn a bit more about females in the Wraith society, and why they seem to be in charge.

I'm still waiting for that really cool recurring Wraith that I can love to hate (i.e, Apophis, Ba'al, Anubis).

Was also concerned about Sheppard's lack of concern regarding McKay. He had no idea that McKay was safe. Nothing like monstrous plot holes.

[Quartzman]

Hellooooo Evrybuddy!

Look at me - Virgin post on this board and I'm starting with this: a Special Effects miss...

End of "The Hive" - Gate goes active, whooshes behind the force field and the tech tells Weir it's Sheppard...

THEN - Weir walks past teh tech and in the background is the gate - fully DOWN - you can actually see the "grey screen" fabric in the center of the circle!

OK - its not actually VERY obvious - but it's a big miss for a special effects group working so hard to make CGI water look realistic...

[SophieTucker]

I think Shep didn't ask about Rodney because, clever guy that he is, he would know the only way the Daedalus could have found him and his team is because Rodney told them where to look.

I thought that Sheppard's line about "they keep sending them in" referring to the clowns was a real groaner - I don't know how he kept a straight face - does anybody remember that song "Send in the Clowns"?

I was soooo glad Shep figured out the girl was a spy? Maybe he learned his lesson in Sanctuary.

I just loved Carson in this. And McKay was his usual delightful self as well.

But the prospects of seeing Ford again seem remote - even though he annoyed me I felt sad for him. I thought it was interesting that Rodney was the one who said "I think I understand what Ford has been going through"

[Yeade]

I, er, watched the US airing (twice even!) and have a couple new thoughts on the Wraith and Wraith worshippers.

[T]he Wraith followers? Has anyone considered that the Wraith view them more as pets? Humans keep all sorts of highly intelligent animals as pets, and the Wraith consider humans to be not much more than farm animals. Maybe some of them like the idea of having little pets and stuff, and from time to time they become useful.

That's pretty much exactly what I thought. The Wraith of higher caste--the male commander types and the females--take a certain interest in playing with their food, and I could definitely see hive queens keeping humans as servants for their own amusement. Oddly enough, I think the Wraith would be somewhat bemused over the whole situation, even as they degrade these people in some sadistic (and yet also practical) search for human limits.

As for the humans, they obviously get the (dubious) boon of being the last eaten, but why invent a religion? Either Neera and the others are faking it to better cement their position with the Wraith or there's been some serious mind games.

For instance, suppose the Wraith were surprised to get offers of service in exchange for being spared and got it in mind to see how far people would be willing to go to live. So they agreed to those offers of service, and they set the most contrary mentality they could think of--worship us as we kill you--then shaved years off the lives of a few unfortunate examples. How many would it take? Would the humans who broke be permanently conditioned? All fascinating questions, yes?

I have to admit I was a bit squicked when the queen let "do my bidding" hang in the air while she trailed a finger down Neera's cheek before finally continuing with "and I let them live." Maybe it's just me, but my head goes all sorts of bad places when the Wraith females caress the faces of the humans at their mercy. I start thinking about how the Wraith and humans had a common lineage, how similar Wraith anatomy still is to human, and whether the Wraith hunger extends quite that far... Ugh. Anyways, that was a nice and understated creepy moment.

Um. Moving on to a lighter topic, it finally occurred to me to wonder whether the hive queen had connected Sheppard and the others with Earth. Or if she even knew of Earth, period.

I know, I know. The first thing everyone's going to point out is that Neera was fishing for information about Earth. Only, you see, she wasn't. Neera was questioning Sheppard about his homeworld, and she gave no indication that she had the slightest inkling that this planet would be in another galaxy entirely and had never suffered a Wraith culling. OTOH, asking Sheppard where he and the others came from falls perfectly in line with the hive queen wanting to know where they'd gotten the dart.

I think Shep didn't ask about Rodney because, clever guy that he is, he would know the only way the Daedalus could have found him and his team is because Rodney told them where to look.

I'm not sure Sheppard knew the Deddy was there though.

This was some pages back, I think, but my favorite theory for this is that the planet Sheppard dialed to ditch the dart and rematerialize Teyla and Ronon was Ford's little hideout. (In fact, that and whatever planet the hive was stopped at in "The Lost Boys" might have been the only two gate addresses Sheppard had memorized besides Atlantis.) Then he waited anxiously around for Ronon and Teyla to shake off the effects of the culling beam before all three of them metaphorically kicked down the door of Ford's cave, intent on rescuing McKay and beating the snot out of whoever was holding him captive.

Only to find Rodney had already rescued himself and returned to Atlantis, lol.

I can almost see Sheppard, Teyla, and Ronon getting the good news--some priceless faces there--from those two goons who, once they regained consciousness, probably went back to playing checkers or whatever. (And doesn't that just say everything about SGA? Two musclebound men doped up on crazy steroids do nothing but play checkers. )

[Ouroboros]

I have to admit I was a bit squicked when the queen let "do my bidding" hang in the air while she trailed a finger down Neera's cheek before finally continuing with "and I let them live." Maybe it's just me, but my head goes all sorts of bad places when the Wraith females caress the faces of the humans at their mercy. I start thinking about how the Wraith and humans had a common lineage, how similar Wraith anatomy still is to human, and whether the Wraith hunger extends quite that far... Ugh. Anyways, that was a nice and understated creepy moment.

That moment felt more like a brick in the head than understated to me really. Rising with Sumner was understated, this was a shovel to the face for anyone who didn't pick up on it in Rising.

You wouldn't think the only woman on a ship of 3000 men would be that horney but, whoomp dere it is.

In any case the exitence of human worshippers and their easy access to the all important horney hive queens opens up all sorts of kickass options for assassinations, freako alien quickies and abductions/interrogations for us good guys.

I wonder if you could infiltrate and entire commando team as worshippers, maybe even with guns and torture implements blatently displayed and Earth badges glued all over them. If hivequeens will buy BSing on the level of what Shep used at the end here then my vote goes to yes.

[Yeade]

That moment felt more like a brick in the head than understated to me really. [snip] You wouldn't think the only woman on a ship of 3000 men would be that horney but, whoomp dere it is.

I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but sometimes I wonder why you're still watching SGA, Ouroboros.

Seriously though, you don't seem to get much out of the characters and aren't pleased with many of the plot and production choices. What's the draw for you? Please understand that I'm asking not to offend but because I'm genuinely curious.

At any rate, I tend to think the hive queen doesn't sleep around (or whatever the Wraith equivalent would be). Nope, she maintains control over her hive by being desirable but forever unattainable. Besides, I'm not so sure that she's the only female in the hive or that all those drones are sexual creatures (remember the Keeper looking one over in "Rising"?). That's neither here nor there though.

In any case the exitence of human worshippers and their easy access to the all important horney hive queens opens up all sorts of kickass options for assassinations, freako alien quickies and abductions/interrogations for us good guys.

There is that, yeah.

Hives probably don't react well to having their queen killed or taken. I'm not sure how you'd go about interrogating a queen though--since their psychic abilities seem to outclass those of the male Wraith. It wouldn't do to find the tables turned on you mid-interrogation.

Well, maybe that won't happen. I never could figure out whether the queens need to be that close to people to exert any psychic influence or if that's what pleases them. In addition, some may be more powerful than others. Hm.

[entil2001]

Of the three “Sci-Fi Friday” series currently on the air, I was least satisfied with the first half of the season for “Stargate: Atlantis”. I felt that the writers weren’t capitalizing on the strength of the concepts and characters nearly enough, and in general, the series was in a slump. This conclusion to the mid-season cliffhanger has a number of the same problems that plagued the first half of the season, as well as the same relative potential strengths.

One thing I was happy to see (and hear) again was a full opening credit sequence and theme. I love the opening theme for this series and missed it terribly during the first half of the season. It gives the series an epic tone that I think it wants to achieve. Of course, it helps when the story hangs together better than this episode did.

It struck me, throughout the episode, that while some moments were rather clever (if a little predictable), like the enabled escape attempt and the concept of Wraith-worshipping humans, the final act of the episode relied on a number of vague assumptions and several plot conveniences. Sheppard manages to create an effective civil war between two hiveships far too easily, especially since the Daedalus was a juicy target already under fire.

The writers never explained how McKay recovered so quickly, after putting him in immediate jeopardy, and likewise, they never explained how Sheppard managed to get his hands on a Dart in the middle of a crowded hanger bay during an alert condition. Sure, they mentioned that the Wraith are becoming territorial to the point of insanity, but that doesn’t cut it when the conflict erupts in such an abrupt fashion.

Equally egregious was the overwrought manner of Sheppard’s survival. There was no chance that the three main cast members would die in the firefight, so the entire mess felt needlessly manipulative. The fact that it didn’t work made it even worse. The writers found such an unlikely way for the characters to survive long enough to escape in the Dart that it would have been ridiculous for them to die within reach of freedom.

The writers needed to preserve the safety of Atlantis while wrapping up the mid-season finale with some semblance of logic. As entertaining as it was, once the plot conveniences started filing in at a rapid pace, the quality of the episode suffered proportionally. That said, there were some good points. It was interesting to see the effect of withdrawal from the enzyme, Ford’s apparent heroics, the Cute Exposition Wraith-Worshipper, and there were some great comedic moments (that bit about clowns was inspired). And Ronon continues to be a fun character to watch.

I’m just looking for this series to bring back some of the storytelling richness and depth that was present in the first season. It’s possible that I’m missing some of the context without the second half of the season, but it still feels like the series is finding its own voice. There’s still a lot of time to turn things around, especially with a third season already in the works, but for now, I’m still worried about where the series is heading.

[spg_1983]

In that instance she was actively trying to get into his mind. She's never had a takeover issue when she was simply sensing their presence.

She wasn't just sensing presences, she knew what the Wraith lady was feeling, thats more than just sensing they were there. Also if she was overwhelmed by one Wraith when she opened herself up to him, don't you think she might be a little overwhelmed by hundreds of wraith in very close proximity? Even if she wasn't opening up to them? The wraith know for a fact that Teyla has their telepathic ability, hence the reason they are restricting communications via telepathy between hive ships. The wraith are desperate for information about the whereabouts of the Atlantis team and their intentions. So just a quick recap before I get to the point: The Wraith KNOW they can get into Teyla's mind. The Wraith are desperate for information. The Wraith have Teyla locked up on board a hive ships at their mercy. Regardless of whether she opens up willingly or not, WHY THE FRAK DON'T THEY FORCE THEMSELVES INTO HER BRAIN AND TAKE THE INFORMATION? No. Instead they have to go for the "Kirk" method of information extraction and have the pretty girl try to seduce Sheppard. God this show gets stupider and stupider the more I think about it. I am definately sticking to the "Monkey ****" Theory.

[spg_1983]

It wasn't that soon after he took that he started to feel the side effects. I figure 10 minutes or so from the time he took the enzyme to the time he gated back to Atlantis. Rather poor analogy coming up but I can take like 3 shots of tequlia in 10 minutes and not really feel anything for about 20 minutes, well 10 minutes if its been a while since I ate something. Just as with anything entering the body via needle, breathed or ingested it takes time for it to spread throughout the system. Now the fact that he got the super strength right away is rather suspect because it should have taken some time to get into his system and then he should have gotten the other side effects at the same time but then that wouldn't make for much of a good scene.

The Point is that that much enzyme at once, cold turkey should have killed him or incapacitated him as soon as it spread through his blood stream. Yes it made for a more exciting scene, but whats the point if its all a bunch of BS?

Well as far as the Queen on the first ship, the follwers of the queen from the other ship just shot her, so maybe she wasn't accepting any calls and then a dart from the first queen started firing on the second queen and the 2nd queen was like the hell with you, your not talking to me and now your firing on me so all of the 2nd queen's dart's started firing on the dart's from first queen and things esclated from there. At least thats what I took away from the scene.

Sheppards dart from the first ship peeled off from the rest and he straffed the second ship causing some damage but for the size of the hive ship it was minimal. The Wraith lady from the second ship is sitting in her control room and see's this one single lone dart attacking her ship, unprovoked, but causing minimal damage and her response os to immediately turn all her forces against the first hive ship with out asking why? I could see if many darts from the first ship started the attack, but one single dart attacks while the rest continue towards the surface for the culling and it doesnt seem odd to either wraith? Thats just lazy writing. Why come up with a creative solution to get the hive ships to fight and be destroyed when you can just pick the most ridiculous, idiotic, impossible way of starting them fighting?

[watcher652]

What we saw:

GATEROOM TECHINICIAN: Offworld activation!
WEIR: Who is it?
TECHNICIAN: We have an IDC. It’s Colonel Sheppard’s code!
WEIR: Let them in!
(The tech presses the control to lower the Gate shield. Weir runs down the Gateroom steps. Dex, Sheppard and Teyla walk thru the gate. Sheppard motions to the marines guarding the Gate to lower their weapons. Weir walks quickly across the Gateroom floor to greet the three team members. Sheppard gives Weir an acknowledging nod.)
SHEPPARD: Sorry we’re late.
(Weir gives them all a smile.)

What we didn't see:

SHEPPARD: We have to get a team together to rescue McKay. He's...
WEIR: He's safely on the Daedalus, on his way back from seeing two Hive ships destroy each other.
SHEPPARD: He is?
WEIR: Yes, he is. Rodney managed to free himself from Ford's guards and make his way back here.
SHEPPARD: Oh, he did, did he? Good for him!
(Weir gives Dex and Teyla concerned look.)
WEIR: I think your team should make a visit to the Infirmary. Why don't we talk on the way down?
SHEPPARD: Sure, ok.
(Weir, Sheppard, Dex and Teyla leave the Gateroom and make their way to the Infirmary.)

How's that?

A decided improvement. So can you quit your current job, move to Vancouver, and start writing scripts....today? SGA needs you!

Aw, thanks! Well, I think everyone can write the "how come they didn't..." scenes themselves. I've had lots of practice while watching all the incarnations of Star Trek! It's easy to come in after the fact and think, "why didn't they cut out a couple of Dart passes and give us a few more lines of dialog?".

It's a hard thing to balance action, scientific discovery and character growth. While most people were probably interested in what was happening on the hive ship, I was interested in McKay's decision to take the enzyme when he was so afraid of it. Just taking a lower dose of the enzyme made McKay unable to think his way out and made him think he had to resort to brute force. The poor guy was on an emotional rollercoster the whole episode. Isn't that at least the sixth time McKay had to think, at least for a second, that Sheppard must be dead or as good as dead? I'm counting Thirty Eight Minutes, Hot Zone, The Siege, Intruder and Conversion.

[watcher652]

I think Shep didn't ask about Rodney because, clever guy that he is, he would know the only way the Daedalus could have found him and his team is because Rodney told them where to look.

I don't think Sheppard knew the Daedalus was out there. Remember, he can't see out of the opaque canopy. I'm not certain he could get his sensors to see that far away. It looks like he could only see the hive ships and the other darts around him. Also, Sheppard didn't indicate in the infirmary that he knew the Daedalus was out there at the same time he was.

I thought it was interesting that Rodney was the one who said "I think I understand what Ford has been going through"

Rodney had good reason to be upset (to put it mildly) with Ford. Ford nearly kills him on the planet where they found Ronon. Ford fed Rodney the enzyme without his knowledge. McKay actually called Ford a punk, he was so angry at Ford for doing that. But now Rodney can see how messed up Ford's head is and so can be a little more understanding.

[Ouroboros]

I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but sometimes I wonder why you're still watching SGA, Ouroboros.

Seriously though, you don't seem to get much out of the characters and aren't pleased with many of the plot and production choices. What's the draw for you? Please understand that I'm asking not to offend but because I'm genuinely curious.

Don't worry about it, it's a good question when it's not asked with a "git off ma board rrargh" undertone, so good infact that I've been asking it to myself a lot recently as well.

I think it's pretty much just because other than BSG stargate is the only spaceships and aliens kind of sci-fi out there right now. I also really liked early SG-1 with O'neil and all back when it was cool so I guess some of it is loyalty. Atlantis has been a real frustration for me because it could be a very cool show. The premise is great, the cast is a decent enough bunch of folks, the villians are potentially very interesting and yet it's just letdown after letdown from the writing. I mean just look, the hive had plotholes in it so big you could have flown both of those hiveships through them side by side. Deus ex machinas and cliches abound, it's madness, madness I say.

Maybe when you watch shows like Galactica, Farscape, Firefly, Sheild, Sopranos, Six Feet under, Lost etc you start to develop a violent alergy to stuff like that?

You get shown that it doesn't have to be that way, that you don't need to settle for "Ford gets pulled out of a writer's ass to save the day" as an actual plot resolution. Maybe my standards are too high but I never had this type of "wow that was weak" reaction to SG-1. Even now when a lot of people think it sucks apparently, I still don't get really bothered by it. I actually like the Ori to, and I really liked them before they gave them such an obvious "evil side". Maybe it's because I know SG-1 has already had its time when it was awesome and thus it doesn't bother me as much that some of the newer episodes aren't quite living up to what once was. With Atlantis though it's like there's so much cool stuff just waiting in the wings and none of it ever gets put on the actual screen. Instead we get lesbian hivequeen sexslaves and wait until you see the renaissance fair episode.

It's like everytime I watch an Atlantis ep now I feel like I'm being asked to shut down 90% of my higher brain functions. 50% I can handle but 90 is a bit much to ask, even for a sci-fi show about life sucking bug people. There's no reason for example why they couldn't have come up with something better than "Ford comes out of nowhere to save Shep when he was about to die a minute ago". That's just full stop lame and lazy, there's no getting around it. The lesbian hivekeeper thing also, lame pandering to teenboys and done in such a clumsy and overt way.

The show has also slipped a bit in the second season. Instinct was probably the best written episode we got this year but it was really hurt by the stupid forced ending. It could so easily have been a fantastic episode, probably the best one in Atlantis. Instead though they resolve the complex moral issue of a Wraith, who does not want to kill people yet must to survive and feels horrible about it by turning her into a slathering mindless monster so Shep can shoot her without dealing with any of the massive moral and character consequences of him doing it when she was normal.

Cheap way out as usual. I think that's the core of what bugs me about atlantis. Their writers love taking the cheap way out. It doesn't matter if it's a last minute invention, some oh so conveinient turn of plot or somebody jsut appearing to save the day it always happens to cheat the story out of having to resolve a situation in a less than perfect but much more realistic and dare I say interesting manner.

Think about the Ellia situation. If she hadn't dosed up into a killing machine how do you resolve the situation? That's a hell of a hard one isn't it? Yeah and I wanted to see it real real bad to.

At any rate, I tend to think the hive queen doesn't sleep around (or whatever the Wraith equivalent would be). Nope, she maintains control over her hive by being desirable but forever unattainable. Besides, I'm not so sure that she's the only female in the hive or that all those drones are sexual creatures (remember the Keeper looking one over in "Rising"?). That's neither here nor there though.

When it's 3000 vs 1 I don't know if teasing them all would be the best idea really. She can probably directly control them to some degree with her powers I'd say. If she can make a human move involuntarily she can probably do a lot more to someone she has a direct mind link with. The drones probably aren't sexual. To be quite honest none of them probably are. I can't see them getting the kind of numbers they have doing it the old fashioned way with the kind of male female ratios we've seen. I'm laying it on incubation tubes in the living ships or something like that.

Getting back to what you said about Rising, perfect example of how the show's slipped.

Compare the way the Rising hivequeen was handled with the way the hivequeen was handled here. In Rising there was a sort of creepy sexual undertone to the way she was playing with Sumner, the way she moved, her expressions the whole bit. She even looks directly into the camera more than once to creep the audience. It was all an undertone though, a lot of people might not have even noticed it. It was either good acting, good directing or both that made it work but it worked.

Now you've got the hive and you've got the same sexual behavior in the hivequeen only now it's presented in baseball bat to the head style. Dumbed down if you will. I mean lesbian slavegirls? Really? They actually walk her out and have the queen pet her to. Why did the queen bring her out, there was no reason to show her to Shep again since he knows who she was and even told the hivequeen he knew what she was doing himself! The only reason to bring her out was because the writers wanted to make sure even the dimmest bulb in the row got the OMG Wraith SECKS! thing they were shooting for.

Hives probably don't react well to having their queen killed or taken. I'm not sure how you'd go about interrogating a queen though---since their psychic abilities seem to outclass those of the male Wraith. It wouldn't do to find the tables turned on you mid-interrogation.

Those queens are used to living protected lives where they're always in control and never in danger. Just look at how the one in Rising freaked out and froze when Ford started shooting. Hive queens are not used to recieving abuse like that. They're used to lounging around and having everyone else polish their toenails and the like.

This being the case you could probably scare one pretty easily with a bit of rough handling and few screaming gun-threats from some hardcore Ermey style marine dude. If that didn't work and you actually had to start beating/torturing her I doubt it would take much. Regeneration doesn't do you any favours when they want you to stay alive and cohearant so they can hurt you more. You could even point that fact out to her.

Well, maybe that won't happen. I never could figure out whether the queens need to be that close to people to exert any psychic influence or if that's what pleases them. In addition, some may be more powerful than others. Hm.

The one in rising seemed to have an edge on this one in the hive since she couldn't force Shep to answer questions the way the redhead one could. I'd also pick Sumner as a tougher prospect than Shep to force into any of it. The one in Rising also wasn't so shockingly stupid or gullible as a 5 year old.

[Yeade]

Don't worry about it, it's a good question when it's not asked with a "git off ma board rrargh" undertone, so good infact that I've been asking it to myself a lot recently as well.

Whew. I always get a bit nervous asking stuff like that. Glad we're cool.

Maybe when you watch shows like Galactica, Farscape, Firefly, Sheild, Sopranos, Six Feet under, Lost etc you start to develop a violent alergy to stuff like that?

Well, I've seen Firefly and--I hope you'll be glad to hear, lol--finally got around to watching BSG. Only the first few episodes of Farscape though, I'm afraid, and none of the others, though I've watched quite a bit of 24. I suppose I tend to take a more relaxed view of plotholes because I can usually retcon things and, simply put, because I see SGA as such a different show that it's difficult to make comparisons or hold it to the same expectations as I do other shows.

So, while I understand and share some of your frustrations about the sloppy plotting and unfulfilled potential, I don't mind it so much. So long as SGA continues to be about the characters I love--which I'm guessing isn't quite as important to you.

When it's 3000 vs 1 I don't know if teasing them all would be the best idea really. She can probably directly control them to some degree with her powers I'd say. If she can make a human move involuntarily she can probably do a lot more to someone she has a direct mind link with.

Considerably more than 3,000 probably, lol. I've always thought that figure referred to the dart complement of a hive ship rather than the population.

Anyways, yes, I agree. Any social inhibitions aside, the hive queen can probably directly influence and control the members of her hive provided they're within range of her psychic abilities.

The drones probably aren't sexual. To be quite honest none of them probably are. I can't see them getting the kind of numbers they have doing it the old fashioned way with the kind of male female ratios we've seen.

The way I see it, the drones are either not sexual--assuming they're not meant to be entirely sexless--or there are sterile females. Not to say that's how I think baby Wraith are made, but my pet crack theory about that is too long and off-topic for this thread.

Besides, I figure the drones wouldn't be much trouble for the hive queen; so far as canon goes, the drones seem to only have enough psychic ability to access the hive mind, which would work in favor of the queen. About the only male Wraith the queen would have to control are the male commander types, who are more skilled and individual, and I think she has more than enough power for that.

I, er, don't really want to get into another debate over the merits of various forms of torture, so I'm just going to write a quick reply to this one thing. Yes, yes. I'm chickening out.

The [Keeper] in rising seemed to have an edge on this one in the hive since she couldn't force Shep to answer questions the way the redhead one could.

It should be noted that the queen in "The Hive" was pursuing a line of questioning that Sheppard genuinely didn't know the answer to. She wanted to know where Sheppard had gotten the dart and, honestly, he had no idea how Ford pulled that one off. She was putting the same kind of mental pressure on Sheppard as the Keeper put on Sumner though, but it was harder to tell without those echoing voice effects. Possibly her compulsion was the reason why Sheppard started rambling on about all he knew of the darts (and he didn't know much, did he?). It's also possible the Keeper was older and thus more powerful or that her position had more perks than hair dye.