Common Ground (307)

[HogWldFLTR]

Watched this for the first time; loved the character development on the Wraith. Reminds me a lot of Cowboys and Indians themes.

[garhkal]

I think "todd the wraith" was some of Christopher Heyerdahl's best acting.

[min min light]

I think so too, he managed to make me care more about a Wraith than I did many of the 'good guys.'

[iheartshep]

"John Shhhheppppparrrrddddd" - gotta love Todd.

[The Flyattractor]

My fav little part is when Todd is inspecting the gun and inadvertently points it at John cause his reaction is great.

[losernerdfriend]

First time watching!

THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY IS MY FRIEND. I really loved this episode. I have to say, it was nice to see Kolya again -- I love to hate him. Also, I was especially pleased with the character development of the Wraith. I thought his and John's interactions were wonderfully done and I like the bond they developed. I'm assuming we'll see him in the future from all the, "if we meet again, all bets are off" hints they kept dropping. Interested to see what happens next.

[garhkal]

You are in for a treat much later on!

[Davey]

If the prison area of Kolya did not have any prisoners other than the Wraith, how did the wraith stay alive all the years that the Genii had him imprisoned? Can a Wraith feed on animals? On other Wraiths? What happens to the Wraith and its human victim if a Wraith gave back too much life force?

[Platschu]

I have just rewatched the episode.

Wraith can survive much longer with starving and that is what Todd said. His nickname was not revealed here, but he will be a recurring Wraith buddy of Sheppard.

I don't know what happens if somebody gains back too much life force. Babality?

I couldn't understand why was Todd not feeding on EVERY guard in their little prison break. Just because Sheppard shot a few men, they could have been offered freshly to Todd. The double-drain scenes was still shocking.

The lake is also a regular shooting location for Atlantis. But this is the same planet what they have used in SG-1 "The Other Guys". Even the stargates were standing at the same place.

And they should definately bring real rocks to the episodes. Those fake ones were pretty bad in the opening scene.

[Xaeden]

If the prison area of Kolya did not have any prisoners other than the Wraith, how did the wraith stay alive all the years that the Genii had him imprisoned? Can a Wraith feed on animals? On other Wraiths? What happens to the Wraith and its human victim if a Wraith gave back too much life force?

They may not have other prisoners there at the time, but they had fed him before:

KOLYA: We've found that a minimum of three hours between feeding sessions is crucial to ensure the body has sufficient time to recover from the trauma. That's the time you have to decide. Three hours.

The Wraith can go months between feedings, with a normal Wraith feeding an average of 3-4 times per year and a Wraith brought to the point of starvation being able to stretch it a little further. Therefore the Genii didn't need to keep prisoners on hand to be fed on; they just needed to find a new one within that several month window. Sheppard was the latest to fill that void.

I don't want to spoil anything for you, but there's another prisoner Wraith storyline coming up in season 4 that will deal with the struggle to keep that Wraith alive.

[AleksisMi]

they are the genii, they are constantly backstabbing people and betraying them it seems, though its debatable, whether they were prepared for subterfuge or planning to betray them all along the first time

[Davey]

I just can't imagine a storyline that doesn't have some Wraith thinking of the need for an alternative to a lifestyle that requires feeding on humans. Surely they could have raised sheep, monkeys, fish, dogs, horses, whatever and used them. Or perhaps even other Wraiths?

[Platschu]

No "vegetarian" Wraith... Or shall we call them "humanitarian"?

[Xaeden]

I just can't imagine a storyline that doesn't have some Wraith thinking of the need for an alternative to a lifestyle that requires feeding on humans. Surely they could have raised sheep, monkeys, fish, dogs, horses, whatever and used them. Or perhaps even other Wraiths?

The hybridization process seems to have made them dependent on similar lifeforms (humans or other Wraith) to survive. Obviously if they could feed on some random animal, their solution to their human shortage wouldn't be to sleep for a few hundred years at a time and engage in destructive civil wars when not enough humans are around. A scientific workaround that would allow them to sustain themselves off the life force of another living being would probably require them to radically alter their genetic structure and repeated feeding may alter their genetic structure further.

The iratus bugs, after all, transformed into the Wraith by successively feeding on humans and passing human DNA into their offspring and, although not specifically addressed, it appears that the Wraith are continuing to become ever more human the more they feed on humans. That would explain why when we meet Wraith who are 10,000 years old and have survived by a mix of feeding off other Wraith and hibernation, they're stronger than all known Wraith today save the one who Ronon fought in "Sateda." The older ones could also be outliers, but it seems unlikely that two extraordinarily powerful Wraith just happened to be on two crashed ships. More likely is that there were lots like them at the time.

As to other solutions: They probably did try to come up with some. They have maybe a hundred Hives when Earth found its way to the Pegasus galaxy. This is nothing compared to how massive their numbers must have been when they defeated the Ancients 10,000 years ago. Overfeeding and the infighting that would come from it obviously got them to the point where they have enough numbers to be a problem for Earth, but are no longer the overwhelming mass that they were once were. The problem is that by 2004, the best solution that they came up with to deal with this problem involved lengthy periods of hibernation, giving human populations time to recover, so we don't know much of what they tried in the 10,000 years that preceded this. We do know of one attempt, however, and that involved incorporating Wraith DNA into humans to make them stronger and thus a better food source. It was abandoned because this couldn't be done without the humans developing Wraith telepathic abilities.

As for feeding on other Wraith; each Wraith needs to eat 3-4 times of a year. Although their natural reproductive method isn't something we know much about, it seems evident that these feeding demands far outweighs the frequency with which they can reproduce. I can't say too much more about this without spoiling something from season 4, but there may have been a time when technology provided a workaround to this problem.

There's also some upcoming stuff about a scientific solution to their feeding woes that gets some play later on, but I will refrain from talking about it until you catch-up.

[Davey]

There was that one genii leader who I was sure was Leonard Nimoy when I saw it a couple of years ago. He looked like him and had the same voice.