They should have used the Attero device to win the war.

[FallenAngelII]

Then what should be done if Keller's modification works and Wraith can be made to digest normal food yet some refuse? Should they be allowed to kill sentients because they choose to? They wouldn't have to to survive, they would choose to.

If it worked with absolutely no side effects (such as, say, taking away their longevity, which would in essence be killing them. Would you choose to stop eating meat if your body was dependent on it and not doing so would limit your lifespan to 10 years?), then it'd be perfectly morally acceptable to kill the Wraith who, after negotiations and attempts to convince them persist.

This would take time, however. You can't just drop a galaxy-shattering bomb like this and expect everyone to agree to it overnight. If diplomatic talks to try to win them over failed after several months if not a year, then they're free game.

This isn't just a change in their diet, it's a change in their entire culture. Up until the Atlantis expedition arrived, they'd spent millions years doing the following:
* Feed
* Fly around for a bit
* Hibernate

That was their culture. This changed to:
* Feed
* Fly around for a bit
* Civil war and warring with the Lanteans

With this new change, it'd change to:
* Fly around for a bit

And that's it. Their entire raison d'être would change, their culture would change, they'd have to find a new purpose in life. This is not to say their current purpose is all peachy but it's a change to pretty much all there is to being a Wraith.

So you can't just go "Here, take it now or die!". You have to negotiate over a period of time.

This like Arcturus was a failure. The first one destroyed a solar system, this one will destroy more . The Ancients liked big bangs .

A Stargate exploding is the equivalent of 12 nuclear bombs. It's enough to blow up a large chunk of a planet or quite possibly an entire planet, but not enough to blow up an entire solar system or even 3/5ths of one.

[Xaeden]

If "goodness" is detected, your consciousness will either be overwritten or you will be hunted down and killed (as we were told last season). There were also only a small number of dissidents, which we were also told last season. Thus, the number of those who opposed the war against humanity was small and classifiable as collateral damage.

We must be watching a different show. They never were shown resetting Asurans just because "goodness" was detected. They reset Niam because he betrayed them and the reason they hunted down the good ones was never well established but I suspect it's a simple case of them not wanting their own kind to break off on their own. However, they were never shown going after their own kind just for having different opinions. So long as they kept in line there didn't seem to be an issue. Thus Niam's people were able to be out in the open about their beliefs and had a voice until they decided that they weren't going to get anywhere. So, there's no reason others couldn't have had a range of beliefs as well that was more than just black and white. Many could've been opposed to the tactics they were using, but they weren't willing to try to run off on their own over it where they would be hunted down. We don't know.

It's not a perfect world, we cannot just ask them "Which ones disagree" and trust them to be truthful.

I agree, that's my point about the Wraith actually.

I'm sorry, in what alternate reality have we seen, read or heard about the Ancients flying around blasting random Hives out of the sky simply for existing?

They were at war. If they spotted a Wraith ship off on their own do you think they wouldn't have attacked it? If they spotted a Wraith ship culling a Human world do you think they would've stopped and asked if they were feeding just because they had to or also because they wanted to gather their strength to help their kind attack the Ancients?

And crippled how? I mean, they're at civil war. They want the others to die. So tons of Wraith would die just because they didn't know and used their hyperdrives.

Crippled in the sense that their hyperdrive engines wouldn't work and so once they wised up they couldn't get anywhere important.

And who would tell the others and how? Once your ship is blown out of the sky, you're dead. Those left surviving in other ships, how are they to tell others through space? By going to a gated planet, gating somewhere close to another Hive (by guessing their location) and telling them to not use their Hyperdrives?

Communication in space is limited in range. Tons of Wraith will have died before the Wraith even wised up.

Well technically they could use Dr. Lee's approach and let all the Wraith in on it by telling the Hives within its range which could tell the Hives within its range. But, of course a lot of Wraith would die off the bat. However, lots of Wraith dying is the goal of winning with military force. My point is that there's not really much of a difference between winning with this device and winning by overwhelming your enemy other than the fact that it's less personal and you're not putting your forces in as much danger. Either way you're not going to be able to kill off the entire Wraith population (there will always be those who survive by hiding in remote locations) and the goal would hopefully be to get the Wraith to surrender (which they're not going to do unless lots of them die). So if it's wrong to win by using the device, then it should be wrong to win by gathering a massive fleet and combating their ships head on.

This coupled with the fact that the Lanteans are currently working with several Wraith hives on a peaceful solution. To then just go "Oops, you're dead" and betray their entire race, that's not kosher.

Well I was talking about the Ancients who didn't have a peaceful solution available to them, but since you brought it up, Earth's plan still involves lots of Wraith deaths. What they're hoping is that they will give Todd an edge to win the civil war by killing so many of his own kind that they unite under him and they are then hoping that he could convince all of them to take the treatment (which I firmly believe cannot be done). With the Attero device a lot of Wraith die off the bat as opposed to after a long and bloody civil war, but you can be assured that the Humans of the galaxy really won't have to worry about them anymore as they could force terms of surrender on them before agreeing to turn off the device. Which includes all Wraith agreeing to take the treatment and the turning over of Wraith knowledge and military capabilities to be sure they don't decide that they want to go after Humans for other reasons and do so without such fierce population restrictions.

The Ancients would only engage Wraith in self-defense. If a Hive was doing nothing but existing, the Ancients wouldn't have hunted them down and blown them out of the sky.

I'm sorry, but that's what Earth does, not what the Ancients did. The Ancients were fighting a war where they utilized both offensive and defensive tactics. Take how they lost those ZPMs used to power the cloning facility, for example - The Ancients were pushing deeper and deeper into Wraith controlled space, not to sit around and wait for the Wraith to attack them, but as part of an offensive assault.

It's genocide for what I just said. It'd take the death of many Wraith before word got out enough so that no Wraith ship would engage their Hyperdrives.

And that's if enough Wraith are even alive to know about the Attero device. Not everyone would immediately recognize its effects, I'm sure.

Are we back to talking about if Earth activates the device because my point was that it was not genocide since all Wraith ships were persumably military targets for the Ancients? You seem to jump around between the situation 10,000 years ago the situation now a few times in your reply.

And I'm sorry, what would the Wraith surrender to, exactly? To surrender to the Ancients would've meant certain death through starvation. The Ancients didn't have magical retroviri to transform the Wraith. The only two choices would be:
a) Quick and essentially painless death through explosions
b) Slow and painful death through starvation

What I would've done is made them agree to forced hibernation until such a time as when the Ancients could find a way to correct their need to feed, but with the promise that the Ancients would put their best people on working on only that. However, that would be up to them. What would they have done if the Wraith didn't win with overwhelming numbers, but instead the Ancients took out the bulk of their fleet and had them backed into a corner? Would they have done what I would've done, would they have pushed on until every Wraith was dead, would they have tried to find some terms for surrender where the Wraith were stripped of their space faring capabilities and forced to only feed on their own kind, or would they have come up with another option (possibly involving mindless clones)? Clearly, they weren't planning to lose the war and retreat back to Earth with a fraction of their population still alive, they were planning to win. So whatever they would've done in that scenario, I don't see why they could not have done the same thing in the case of winning with the Attero device. Again, it has the same exact effect, it's just faster and with less of a cost to your own kind.

[Integrabyte]

A Stargate exploding is the equivalent of 12 nuclear bombs. It's enough to blow up a large chunk of a planet or quite possibly an entire planet, but not enough to blow up an entire solar system or even 3/5ths of one.

See the larger picture. ATM, every gate in the PG dialed will overload. Do the maths.

[Stormtrooper]

You're going around in a circle. They're not stupid, they made their decision based on moral grounds, morality is relative, and like I've said you can't apply our morals to a group of aliens. For them maybe killing is a worse crime than allowing people to be killed, we'd probably disagree, but neither of us would be right because in the grand scheme of things there is no such thing a good and evil/right and wrong, it's just an abstract construct.

Why the drones and the warships then? To me, the Ancients, as they are currently written, are cowards. They cut and run. They fled the Ori, the plague and whoever unleashed it on them, the Wraith, and God knows who else. Even the Asgard, who were pretty much pacifists, stood their ground against the Replicators, while protecting several Milky Way worlds from the Goa'uld in the process. The Ancients, nope. They cut and run.

[FallenAngelII]

Stuff.

Wait, what? They hunted down and killed those who thought otherwise but only if they didn't "stay in line"?

What would "staying in line" entail? Not pursuing Ascension? So it's OK to be different as long as you don't act on it and do exactly what the collective wants you to?

Niam also specifically said that there is only a small number who share his view. So again, it's still sacrificing a few for the good of millions.

I agree, that's my point about the Wraith actually.

What justification do we have to kill off all Wraith?

Because they feed? They have to for survival. It's especially mucky now that we've devised a tentative cure to their problem. So we're not even giving them the choice to "repent". We're killing them right off.

They were at war. If they spotted a Wraith ship off on their own do you think they wouldn't have attacked it? If they spotted a Wraith ship culling a Human world do you think they would've stopped and asked if they were feeding just because they had to or also because they wanted to gather their strength to help their kind attack the Ancients?

It's the Ancients. The people who eventually Ascended and became the Ascended Ancients with their code of non-interference. The Ancients who left the Wraith alone long enough for them to ever pose a threat to them and eventually win the war.

Yes, I do believe they wouldn't attack a Wraith ship unprovoked. Pray tell, would you kill an Iraqi on the street if you encountered one as the U.S. is currently at war with Iraqi (no matter what the Republicans say, the war is not yet over)?

Crippled in the sense that their hyperdrive engines wouldn't work and so once they wised up they couldn't get anywhere important.

And the thing is: How would they know this unless they used their hyperdrives?

Well technically they could use Dr. Lee's approach and let all the Wraith in on it by telling the Hives within its range which could tell the Hives within its range.

This takes time. During this time, many ships would go all 'splody.

But, of course a lot of Wraith would die off the bat. However, lots of Wraith dying is the goal of winning with military force.

And still, what would they gain from surrendering? If the Ancients flied around demanding surrender, what would the Wraith have to gain from it other than death? There was no magical cure to the feeding problem. They would essentially only be choosing between quick and painless death and slow and painful death.

My point is that there's not really much of a difference between winning with this device and winning by overwhelming your enemy other than the fact that it's less personal and you're not putting your forces in as much danger.

So instead of engaging Saddam's armies in combat, the U.S. should've tactically nuked parts of Iraq 'til Saddam surrendered for fear of other nukes?

Either way you're not going to be able to kill off the entire Wraith population (there will always be those who survive by hiding in remote locations) and the goal would hopefully be to get the Wraith to surrender (which they're not going to do unless lots of them die). So if it's wrong to win by using the device, then it should be wrong to win by gathering a massive fleet and combating their ships head on.

And the question remains: What would they face once they surrendered? That's right, death.

Well I was talking about the Ancients who didn't have a peaceful solution opened to them, but since you brought it up, Earth's plan still involves lots of Wraith deaths. What they're hoping is that they will give Todd an edge to win the civil war by killing so many of his own kind that they unite under him and they are then hoping that he could convince all of them to take the treatment (which I firmly believe cannot be done).

At least we wouldn't be the ones to engage in genocide. And it wouldn't even be genocide, it would be civil war. The Wraith already at war with each other. It's not like Todd would randomly embark on a campaign of murder.

The war is already raging. We would be providing one faction with a solution to their problems to they can gain the upper hand and hopefully convince the others to accept the solution.

If we don't do it, many Wraith will still die at the cost of many humans and at the end, it'll still be the same. The Wraith might even go back to how they used to be and no one would win.

This is just a possible solution. Implementing it will not cost either side extra casualties. In fact, both sides stand to gain from this

With the Attero device a lot of Wraith die off the bat as opposed to after a long and bloody civil war, but you can be assured that the Humans of the galaxy really won't have to worry about them anymore as they could force terms of surrender on them before agreeing to turn off the device.

I was arguing two points: Whether it's morally acceptable to this now and whether it was morally acceptable for the Ancients to do it. For one thing, surrender meant death.

For the Ancients, it's clearly immoral. For us, it's also immoral.

Which includes all Wraith agreeing to take the treatment and the turning over of Wraith knowledge and military capabilities to be sure they don't decide that they want to go after Humans for other reasons and do so without such fierce population restrictions.

We don't even know if the cure works. For all we know, it could have fatal side effects a few months or years down the line. Or they could lose their longevity, thus limiting their lifespans from "forever" to "X number of years", which is pretty bad as well.

Not to mention the moral implications of forcing someone to do as you say. Just because we think our solution is the best doesn't mean it is the best. Neither is it morally acceptable to give your opponents only two choices: Do it or die!

Especially not when it's such a huge choice. Such a change in their entire way of being requires negotiations and diplomatic talks if you want to implement it on a wide scale.

I'm sorry, but that's what Earth does, not what the Ancients did. The Ancients were fighting a war where they utilized both offensive and defensive tactics. Take how they lost those ZPMs used to power the cloning facility, for example - The Ancients were pushing deeper and deeper into Wraith controlled space, not to sit around and wait for the Wraith to attack them, but as part of an offensive assault.

Or the Wraith simply stole them from defeated outposts and/or ships? I mean, your proof of the Ancients running around killing any Wraith they see is that the Wraith got their hands on ZPMs somehow?

Great logic.

Are we back to talking about if Earth activates the device because my point was that it was not genocide since all Wraith ships were persumably military targets for the Ancients? You seem to jump around between the situation 10,000 years ago the situation now a few times in your reply.

Yes, because we're discussing both scenarios in this thread. And you're making the assumptions that the Ancients treated every single Wraith as fair game when there is absolutely no evidence of that while there's actually evidence of the opposite.

What I would've done is made them agree to forced hibernation until such a time as when the Ancients could find a way to correct their need to feed, but with the promise that the Ancients would put their best people on working on only that.

"Go into eternal sleep until we find a solution, now! Why? Because we like the people you feed on!"

This with no guaranteed solution in sight and the fact that they can't hibernate forever, they'll have to eventually go out of hibernation and feed.

Since there were 60 Hives around in 2004 and more planets than that, yet each planet gets culled approximately once every 3 generations, we have to assume that the Wraith can only go without feeding for, say, 50-100 years at a time, max.

And that's not considering that that's no way of living. Eternal sleep with infrequent bouts of feeding just to stay alive and then more sleep with no guaranteed solution.

However, that would be up to them. What would they have done if the Wraith didn't win with overwhelming numbers, but instead the Ancients took out the bulk of their fleet and had them backed into a corner?

At least it'd be victory through outright war. Not genocide.

Tell me, if the government of China declared war on the U.S. tomorrow, would you, as President of the United States, sanction the nuking of several parts of China to force a surrender out of them?

Would they have done what I would've done, would they have pushed on until every Wraith was dead, would they have tried to find some terms for surrender where the Wraith were stripped of their space faring capabilities and forced to only feed on their own kind, or would they have come up with another option (possibly involving mindless clones)?

What kind of selfish solutions are those? You're blinded by the fact that we're talking about humans as food. If this was some non-humanoid, yet sentient race, would you be so quick as to suggest these ludicrous "solutions"?

Forced cannibalism? Yes, very moral of you. Stripping them of their space faring abilities is condemning many of them to certain death since they'd be stuck in space without food. Unless all Hives were to start orbiting inhabited planets.

The mindless clones solution is the only valid solution. And I can't understand why neither side has ever entertained such an idea other than through bad writing.

Clearly, they weren't planning to lose the war and retreat back to Earth with a fraction of their population still alive, they were planning to win.

But not through genocide.

So whatever they would've done in that scenario, I don't see why they could not have done the same thing in the case of winning with the Attero device. Again, it has the same exact effect, it's just faster and with less of a cost to your own kind.

Only the Attero device kills unsuspected and unknowing Wraith merely for wanting to travel in space. Not every single Wraith were at war with the Ancients. And none of your solutions are valid, not if you're a Wraith!

They only people to have anything to gain and not lots to lose from these "solutions" are the humans (or Ancients at war with the Wraith). The Wraith have everything to lose, including their very lives, with no guaranteed solution in sight.

If every single one of them came beating at Atlantis' shield, the battle wouldn't have lasted 100 years, it would've been over within a decade or two, especially since they were able to churn out new Wraith and Hives so quickly.

[FallenAngelII]

See the larger picture. ATM, every gate in the PG dialed will overload. Do the maths.

Yes, and the math doesn't add up. Maybe if you strategically placed 12 Stargates throughout a single galaxy. Stargates light years apart will not affect each other. It will just be single Stargates exploding and taking parts of planets with them.

Why the drones and the warships then? To me, the Ancients, as they are currently written, are cowards. They cut and run. They fled the Ori, the plague and whoever unleashed it on them, the Wraith, and God knows who else. Even the Asgard, who were pretty much pacifists, stood their ground against the Replicators, while protecting several Milky Way worlds from the Goa'uld in the process. The Ancients, nope. They cut and run.

The Ancients were the ultimate pacifists, fight only when absolutely necessary.

They didn't cut and run because of cowardice. They cut and run because there was no conceivable victory in sight. The Ori probably outnumbered them and we all know why the Ancients fled the Wraith.

[Xaeden]

Wait, what? They hunted down and killed those who thought otherwise but only if they didn't "stay in line"?

What would "staying in line" entail? Not pursuing Ascension? So it's OK to be different as long as you don't act on it and do exactly what the collective wants you to?

They hunted down those who went to pursue their own agenda by breaking off on their own. Staying in line meant staying on Asura and not betraying the others. Niam's people were allowed to try to achieve ascension within the confines of the city. They were even allowed to study the Humans when they said they thought it would help them. As I see it, the reason they eventually left was because they viewed the war with the Wraith as counterproductive to their efforts since they thought violence was what was stopping them for ascending. There was no mention of them being forced to flee because they were going to be reset for thinking differently.

Niam also specifically said that there is only a small number who share his view. So again, it's still sacrificing a few for the good of millions.

Yes, and I keep talking a middle ground of replicators who's views weren't necessary as black and white as Oberoth and Niam were. The people trying to achieve ascension through non-violence may have been small, but we don't know that there weren't a lot of others who weren't as bad as Oberoth, but weren't as pure and noble as Niam because they wanted to ascend. That doesn't make them bad and deserving of being wiped out though - If given a chance they may be very reasonable.

What justification do we have to kill off all Wraith?

Because they feed? They have to for survival. It's especially mucky now that we've devised a tentative cure to their problem. So we're not even giving them the choice to "repent". We're killing them right off.

I've said several times now that I do not agree with killing off all the Wraith. I'm only saying that I do not believe there is the possibility for victory unless the Wraith suffer many losses first.

The people who eventually Ascended and became the Ascended Ancients with their code of non-interference. The Ancients who left the Wraith alone long enough for them to ever pose a threat to them and eventually win the war.

Nothing that has been said about the Ancients suggests that they had a rule of non-interference as morals. The reason the ascended beings did so was because they realized that there powers were so great that there was a temptation to abuse them if they interfered and become like the Ori. The mortal Ancients, meanwhile, created Human life, experimented on them like lab rats, set up testing facilities on a Human world where they seemed to be very friendly with the people there, bred with Humans, and who knows what else.

Meanwhile, how exactly the Wraith came to power was never established, but I doubt it was because the Ancients just sat on their hands and watched them feast on Human worlds.

Yes, I do believe they wouldn't attack a Wraith ship unprovoked. Pray tell, would you kill an Iraqi on the street if you encountered one as the U.S. is currently at war with Iraqi (no matter what the Republicans say, the war is not yet over)?

That's a bad example. A proper example is would you attack a Japanese ship during WWII after war was declared? There are tactical reasons why you might not, but you're not going to sit there and wait for them to fire on you first. After an official delcaration of war any clear military targets are more than fair game. With the Wraith, there are no civilians that we know about and either every ship or 99% of ships are a military target if they were anything like the Wraith of today.

So instead of engaging Saddam's armies in combat, the U.S. should've tactically nuked parts of Iraq 'til Saddam surrendered for fear of other nukes?

Again, two different things. Nuking parts of Iraq hurts civilian populations. Going after heavily armored vessels that would be out to get you if they saw you is a different matter entirely.

At least we wouldn't be the ones to engage in genocide. And it wouldn't even be genocide, it would be civil war. The Wraith already at war with each other. It's not like Todd would randomly embark on a campaign of murder.

Again, just because you're killing off a portion of their hostile forces all at once does not make it genocide. If you created a new type of bomber at a time when there was nothing that could reach it at how high it could fly and you sent a whole bunch of them to drop bombs on perhaps hundreds of military bases in a matter of days, that is basically the same thing and that isn't genocide either. It's murder for sure, but all wars are massive campaigns of murder. There's a difference, though, fighting a war and genocide and the Attero device, itself, does not cross the line. What you decide to do after is what will make it genocide or not.

The war is already raging. We would be providing one faction with a solution to their problems to they can gain the upper hand and hopefully convince the others to accept the solution.

And if they don't, then the person who came up with this plan is responsible for the deaths of many more as the Wraith go on to continue to kill Humanity. There are too many lives that would be gambled on that flimsey plan. The Attero device potentially does not kill anymore Wraith than would've died by their own hands and can be used to assure that nobody has to continue suffering. In a perfect world, the Wraith will agree to this treatment and go off into the sunset to live peaceful and productive lives, but it's a complete and utter gamble and the odds are against you.

For the Ancients, it's clearly immoral. For us, it's also immoral.

One could argue that fighting any war is immoral, but the Ancients shouldn't be ashamed of themselves for winning just because a lot of their enemies have to die in order to not lose.

Not to mention the moral implications of forcing someone to do as you say. Just because we think our solution is the best doesn't mean it is the best. Neither is it morally acceptable to give your opponents only two choices: Do it or die!

Again, there's moral issues with anything involved in war. It's all about levels of immorality and not crossing a line into too much of an extreme and nothing with that is anything that is really beyond that generally accepted line. It's awful that we have to do that, but the only other option is to sit back and let yourself be killed in many situations.

Especially not when it's such a huge choice. Such a change in their entire way of being requires negotiations and diplomatic talks if you want to implement it on a wide scale.

What about the Wraith makes you think that's ever going to be an option?

Or the Wraith simply stole them from defeated outposts and/or ships? I mean, your proof of the Ancients running around killing any Wraith they see is that the Wraith got their hands on ZPMs somehow?

No, my proof is that Todd specifically said that they fought their way deeper and deeper into Wraith territory with the intention of "weeding them out." Unless you're going to argue that Todd was lying, then we know this for a fact. Here's the line from "Spoilers of War:"

McKAY: There's one thing I don't understand. Back when you defeated the Ancients, how did you get your hands on a ZedP.M?

TODD: The Lanteans were powerful but careless. Believing their ships were unbeatable, they sent them deeper and deeper into Wraith-controlled territory, trying to weed us out. It took months, but eventually we were able to capture three of them, each one powered by a ZeeP.M.

He's clearly talking about an offensive assault on the part of the Ancients here.

This with no guaranteed solution in sight and the fact that they can't hibernate forever, they'll have to eventually go out of hibernation and feed.

Since there were 60 Hives around in 2004 and more planets than that, yet each planet gets culled approximately once every 3 generations, we have to assume that the Wraith can only go without feeding for, say, 50-100 years at a time, max.

And that's not considering that that's no way of living. Eternal sleep with infrequent bouts of feeding just to stay alive and then more sleep with no guaranteed solution.

I'm assuming that the Ancients can figure it out in that amount of time. They just had no reason to do so before because they preoccupied with developing things that could help them kill off the Wraith. But with a few years of pouring all their resources into studying that I don't see why it would have to take anywhere near 50-100 years.

What kind of selfish solutions are those? You're blinded by the fact that we're talking about humans as food. If this was some non-humanoid, yet sentient race, would you be so quick as to suggest these ludicrous "solutions"?

Actually, yes. I put more value over non-Human life on a personal level, but that's neither here nor here. In the case of the Wraith, those solutions are not meant to be pretty. They're meant to be necessary. The Wraith allowed their population to grow to massive numbers so they could only feed themselves on a galaxy wide population, then they launched a war against the Ancients. Either the Ancients can pack up and leave from the get go while telling everyone to have a nice life or they can fight with the hope of winning.

Forced cannibalism? Yes, very moral of you. Stripping them of their space faring abilities is condemning many of them to certain death since they'd be stuck in space without food. Unless all Hives were to start orbiting inhabited planets.

I didn't say I would do that. I said that's what the Ancients may have been forced to do to put an end to war. My point was that if they were going to do it anyway should they have won, then there's nothing worse about winning trhough using the Attero device.

The mindless clones solution is the only valid solution. And I can't understand why neither side has ever entertained such an idea other than through bad writing.

Because through Wraith history they have shown no signs of stopping their aggression. If you gave them an ulimitated food supply at any point they would've grown to massive numbers. But if you only entertain such a notion after the Wraith have been beaten back and you've stripped them of their military capabilities then you are in a position to use clones to keep their population under controlable levels.

Only the Attero device kills unsuspected and unknowing Wraith merely for wanting to travel in space. Not every single Wraith were at war with the Ancients. And none of your solutions are valid, not if you're a Wraith!

How do you know that? Have you seen any Wraith today that are just wanting to travel in space and wouldn't destroy a Human ship if they were in a position to win?

They only people to have anything to gain and not lots to lose from these "solutions" are the humans (or Ancients at war with the Wraith). The Wraith have everything to lose, including their very lives, with no guaranteed solution in sight.

Of course, that's why these are forced solutions at the end of a war when they are completely and utterly beaten back. The Ancients even tried to talk peace with the Wraith, but they layed a trap and destroyed the last of their fleet. They don't want to find a solution when they are on top - They are only interested now because they are forced to fight amongst themselves to avoid starvation.

[FallenAngelII]

They hunted down those who went to pursue their own agenda by breaking off on their own. Staying in line meant staying on Asura and not betraying the others. Niam's people were allowed to try to achieve ascension within the confines of the city. They were even allowed to study the Humans when they said they thought it would help them. As I see it, the reason they eventually left was because they viewed the war with the Wraith as counterproductive to their efforts since they thought violence was what was stopping them for ascending. There was no mention of them being forced to flee because they were going to be reset for thinking differently.

Fine. This doesn't refute the bigger point, though. Also, either commit genocide with the others or die?

Yes, and I keep talking a middle ground of replicators who's views weren't necessary as black and white as Oberoth and Niam were. The people trying to achieve ascension through non-violence may have been small, but we don't know that there weren't a lot of others who weren't as bad as Oberoth, but weren't as pure and noble as Niam because they wanted to ascend. That doesn't make them bad and deserving of being wiped out though - If given a chance they may be very reasonable.

Oberoth is only one Asuran. If so many opposed his views, why was he allowed to reign and go to war against the humans?

I've said several times now that I do not agree with killing off all the Wraith. I'm only saying that I do not believe there is the possibility for victory unless the Wraith suffer many losses first.

And I'm saying there is. Or at least we can try. Activating it now or the Ancients activating it back when wouldn't have been morally acceptable.

Nothing that has been said about the Ancients suggests that they had a rule of non-interference as morals. The reason the ascended beings did so was because they realized that there powers were so great that there was a temptation to abuse them if they interfered and become like the Ori. The mortal Ancients, meanwhile, created Human life, experimented on them like lab rats, set up testing facilities on a Human world where they seemed to be very friendly with the people there, bred with Humans, and who knows what else.

They believed in free will, even as mortals. This is why, among other things, they chose not to activate the Ark of Truth.

Meanwhile, how exactly the Wraith came to power was never established, but I doubt it was because the Ancients just sat on their hands and watched them feast on Human worlds.

They chose not to just blow them out of the sky without peaceful diplomatic deliberations first (as the hologram stated).

That's a bad example. A proper example is would you attack a Japanese ship during WWII after war was declared? There are tactical reasons why you might not, but you're not going to sit there and wait for them to fire on you first. After an official delcaration of war any clear military targets are more than fair game. With the Wraith, there are no civilians that we know about and either every ship or 99% of ships are a military target if they were anything like the Wraith of today.

The Wraith do not have planets to live on! The ships double as transport and living space! Wraith ships are not automatically military targets merely because they can be used as weapons.

I doubt the Ancients went around patrolling for Hives they could shoot down. Now if they happened to come upon one, then they might take the first shot. But to actively seek out "peaceful" Hives is not morally acceptable, even in times of war.

Especially when Wraith Hives double as colonies.

Again, two different things. Nuking parts of Iraq hurts civilian populations. Going after heavily armored vessels that would be out to get you if they saw you is a different matter entirely.

Heavily armored vessels with tons of civilians on them.

Again, just because you're killing off a portion of their hostile forces all at once does not make it genocide.

Hostile because they live on ships? Or hostile for feeding for survival?

Stuff.

See above.

And if they don't, then the person who came up with this plan is responsible for the deaths of many more as the Wraith go on to continue to kill Humanity.

For survival. They do not kill for fun (except hunters who hunt single individuals for fun). They kill for survival.

There are too many lives that would be gambled on that flimsey plan. The Attero device potentially does not kill anymore Wraith than would've died by their own hands and can be used to assure that nobody has to continue suffering.

This is such a copout and you know it. "Of course no hostile Wraith would've died from it!". They should be given a choice.

In a perfect world, the Wraith will agree to this treatment and go off into the sunset to live peaceful and productive lives, but it's a complete and utter gamble and the odds are against you.

Yes, they would. And? It's not if it happens that matters, it's how it happens.

One could argue that fighting any war is immoral, but the Ancients shouldn't be ashamed of themselves for winning just because a lot of their enemies have to die in order to not lose.

It's not just waging war, it's how you wage war.

Again, there's moral issues with anything involved in war. It's all about levels of immorality and not crossing a line into too much of an extreme and nothing with that is anything that is really beyond that generally accepted line. It's awful that we have to do that, but the only other option is to sit back and let yourself be killed in many situations.

Just because something is slightly immoral doesn't mean it's ok to do something extremely immoral.

What about the Wraith makes you think that's ever going to be an option?

Because not trying to and giving them only the choice of "Do what we say or you die!" makes us no different than the Ori and their forces! We're pushing our beliefs onto others and giving them only the choice of following us blindly without knowing the full scope of what will happen or death.

No, my proof is that Todd specifically said that they fought their way deeper and deeper into Wraith territory with the intention of "weeding them out." Unless you're going to argue that Todd was lying, then we know this for a fact. Here's the line from "Spoilers of War:"

This equates to "They actively sought out Wraith, no matter what they were doing, and killed them all" how?

He's clearly talking about an offensive assault on the part of the Ancients here.

I never stated that the Ancients didn't seek the Wraith out. Just that they didn't deliberate seek out random peaceful Hives doing nothing but existing (and feeding). Hives part of the alliance against the Ancients, that's a different matter altogether.

I'm assuming that the Ancients can figure it out in that amount of time. They just had no reason to do so before because they preoccupied with developing things that could help them kill off the Wraith. But with a few years of pouring all their resources into studying that I don't see why it would have to take anywhere near 50-100 years.

The Ancients had over 100 years to try to come up with something like that. What makes you think they didn't once try to develop such a solution but just scrapped it?

Actually, yes. I put more value over non-Human life on a personal level, but that's neither here nor here. In the case of the Wraith, those solutions are not meant to be pretty. They're meant to be necessary. The Wraith allowed their population to grow to massive numbers so they could only feed themselves on a galaxy wide population, then they launched a war against the Ancients. Either the Ancients can pack up and leave from the get go while telling everyone to have a nice life or they can fight with the hope of winning.

Umm... go back to the episode you just quoted. The Wraith grew in numbers, then the Ancients attacked, then they got ZPMs and cloned themselves to build an army.

They didn't randomly spring up in the millions overnight.

I didn't say I would do that. I said that's what the Ancients may have been forced to do to put an end to war. My point was that if they were going to do it anyway should they have won, then there's nothing worse about winning trhough using the Attero device.

Because the Ancients believe in free will and the right to exist for any race?

Because through Wraith history they have shown no signs of stopping their aggression. If you gave them an ulimitated food supply at any point they would've grown to massive numbers.

Proof? No, really, what is your proof for this? The only reason they reached 60 Hives was because they fought a war and needed troops. There is nothing to suggest they breed for fun and would grow to accommodate their food supply.

But if you only entertain such a notion after the Wraith have been beaten back and you've stripped them of their military capabilities then you are in a position to use clones to keep their population under controlable levels.

How about we just give them the damn clones? "Feed on these clones, it'll make no difference to you. No one will be hurt, no one will have to fight". But you're probably right. The Wraith just like war, they probably wouldn't even have entertained that plan!

How do you know that? Have you seen any Wraith today that are just wanting to travel in space and wouldn't destroy a Human ship if they were in a position to win?

No, but would they actively seek out human ships for the mere sake of destroying them for fun? The two factions are at war. If they encounter each other, they fight. But the Wraith don't actively seek the expedition out to blast them out of the sky.

For the most part, they're just engaging in civil war and doing nothing.

Of course, that's why these are forced solutions at the end of a war when they are completely and utterly beaten back. The Ancients even tried to talk peace with the Wraith, but they layed a trap and destroyed the last of their fleet. They don't want to find a solution when they are on top - They are only interested now because they are forced to fight amongst themselves to avoid starvation.

What peace were the Ancients offering? They didn't have a solution to their feeding problem!

We do. A tentative one, but it's better than "Stop feeding and die!".

[Jeffala]

There is no such thing as a "peaceful" hive as long as that hive attacks human planets and feeds on the humans there.

If they are required to feed on humans to live then they should choose to die.

[FallenAngelII]

There is no such thing as a "peaceful" hive as long as that hive attacks human planets and feeds on the humans there.

If they are required to feed on humans to live then they should choose to die.

Yes, because you would obviously do that if you were a Wraith. Why live when it comes at the cost of lesser evolved "animals"? You're a vegan who never wears animal products too, I bet.

And you make sure no animals were ever hurt in the process of making anything you as much as look like, I presume. Talk is cheap, where's your PETA membership and refusal to touch anything made from animals?

[Bboyce109]

IMO not at the cost of exploding stargates, it would be to much damage and the wraith could actually use it as a weapon, one wraith dart dials a space stargate that connects to a planet with thousands of ancients on it and they all die they could have dialed atlantis and could of destroyed it.

[Jeffala]

Yes, because you would obviously do that if you were a Wraith. Why live when it comes at the cost of lesser evolved "animals"? You're a vegan who never wears animal products too, I bet.

And you make sure no animals were ever hurt in the process of making anything you as much as look like, I presume. Talk is cheap, where's your PETA membership and refusal to touch anything made from animals?

None of the animals that I eat are sentient. Your argument's logic doesn't hold.

[FallenAngelII]

None of the animals that I eat are sentient. Your argument's logic doesn't hold.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience
http://aolsvc.merriam-webster.aol.co...onary/sentient
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/sentience
Too bad the world doesn't seem to agree.

Also, if you were born into a society which is vastly superior to a sentient race on all accounts besides their dependency on one kind of nourishment, would you rather commit suicide than feed on lower animals?

Humans are but lower level animals to the Wraith. The Wraith are biologically superior to humans in every way (at least on paper). It's the equivalent of humans waking up tomorrow dependent on feeding off of, I don't know, dolphins.

[Xaeden]

Oberoth is only one Asuran. If so many opposed his views, why was he allowed to reign and go to war against the humans?

Clearly, he has a lot of supporters. The point is that there is no reason that there can't be a healthy percent of the population which aren't all that bad.

And I'm saying there is. Or at least we can try. Activating it now or the Ancients activating it back when wouldn't have been morally acceptable.

Well I respectfully disagree/

They believed in free will, even as mortals. This is why, among other things, they chose not to activate the Ark of Truth.

Free will and non-interference are two different things. Mind control is one of those lines that would generally be deemed unacceptable to cross. But it doesn't mean that they wouldn't interfere with others.

They chose not to just blow them out of the sky without peaceful diplomatic deliberations first (as the hologram stated).

Actually, this was said in "Before I Sleep" and it seems that they decided to be diplomatic after the Wraith were already overrunning them - Weir said that they sent a delegation with their most powerful warships guarding it and after the Wraith won that battle it was only a matter of time.

The Wraith do not have planets to live on! The ships double as transport and living space! Wraith ships are not automatically military targets merely because they can be used as weapons.

Lifeline:

McKAY: That’s a Wraith planet! The attack command must have been activated. (He smiles.) What do you know? It worked!

What that means we still don't know.

I doubt the Ancients went around patrolling for Hives they could shoot down. Now if they happened to come upon one, then they might take the first shot. But to actively seek out "peaceful" Hives is not morally acceptable, even in times of war.

Which haven't been proven to exist.

Heavily armored vessels with tons of civilians on them.

What civilians? The large population of drones which blindly take orders, the queen, or the males leaders/scientists? The only Wraith that we've seen which would be considered a civilian is the female child. With how few non-drones we've seen there probably aren't many of them running around. Although, that was probably less true when their food supply wasn't running so thin. Still, attacking a military target with civilians unboard and attacking a civilian target are two different things. They can't not fight the Wraith because the Wraith insist on putting their own in harms way anymore than they can't not fight them because they have Humans in storage. The Wraith are the ones morally at fault if they put children on these ships which they send into battle. You can say they double for homes, but there is no need to raise their children on Hives (which we don't know for sure they do) when they can find a nice safe planet for them instead.

Hostile because they live on ships? Or hostile for feeding for survival?

They're on heavily armored and heavily gunned enemy ships. If they want nothing to do with the war, A) I don't see the other Wraith allowing them to get away with that (they're using up resources) and B) They either shouldn't be on ships if they want to remain out of it or they need to go out of their way to make sure the Ancients agree that specially marked ships are to remain neutral. In Earth history, we had a little tradition of telling the difference between ships with the type of flag they flew - If these supposed neutral Wraith insist on running around in ships that look exactly like the ones used in the war and they don't do anything to distuigish themselves, its their own fault.

It's not just waging war, it's how you wage war.

Yes, but unless they find a way to peacefully get the Wraith to consider another solution you are not allowing any way for the Ancients to win.

Just because something is slightly immoral doesn't mean it's ok to do something extremely immoral.

It's not okay, but it can sometimes be necessary as in war.

The Ancients had over 100 years to try to come up with something like that. What makes you think they didn't once try to develop such a solution but just scrapped it?

Because, as I said, such plans would not help them win the war. It would only help to make the Wraith more unstoppable. Their use is to help the Wraith remain alive once you have beaten them and can control their population.

Umm... go back to the episode you just quoted. The Wraith grew in numbers, then the Ancients attacked, then they got ZPMs and cloned themselves to build an army.

Any chance you can provide a quote because I see no such reference to it saying the Ancients attacked them as they were growing in numbers?

They didn't randomly spring up in the millions overnight.

No of course not. My theory is that this started with them infesting the gate network on foot and like bugs, couldn't be killed because there were always some on another planet that they didn't know about. Then they gathered Human and Ancient technology and developed their own to get into space. But, of course, since they never explained it we don't know.

Proof? No, really, what is your proof for this? The only reason they reached 60 Hives was because they fought a war and needed troops. There is nothing to suggest they breed for fun and would grow to accommodate their food supply.

They're bugs, it's what they do.

No, but would they actively seek out human ships for the mere sake of destroying them for fun? The two factions are at war. If they encounter each other, they fight. But the Wraith don't actively seek the expedition out to blast them out of the sky.

Because they can't find the expedition unless they run into each other. If they could track Earth ships, though, I find it doubtful that they wouldn't actively go after them. Although, they have a lot of interest in getting Earth ships what with them potentially being able to lead them back to Atlantis/Earth. The Travelers are probably a better example - They don't like advanced races existing out there, so they take a proactive approach and destroy them on the assumption that they will otherwise become a threat to them because they're Human. That's the very reason they have to live on ships rather than starting a civilization on some planet.

What peace were the Ancients offering? They didn't have a solution to their feeding problem!

Maybe they were offering the promise to work on one. Maybe they were just willing to let the Wraith do what they wanted so long as the Wraith stopped attacking them. Who knows.

[jenks]

The Wraith cull for survival. The Asurans killed because they liked it (or whatever). The Wraith are not a current threat to either the expedition or to the worlds they cull (unless you're gonna kill someone simply for their inability to survive on anything other than a certain kind of food you'd prefer be left alone).

Interesting choice of words, if somewhat dishonest. How exactly can you consider killing and consuming someone not to be a threat to them?