What makes Mikey so special?

[Ouroboros]

Ok so Mikey started out life as just another average Wraith goon scientist that SGA abducted and tortured and somehow he became the biggest threat in Pegasus and beat down everybody in this episode.

How?

What makes Mikey so special? Let's look at the facts here. Mikey, as already mentioned, was just a Wraith scientist type like any number of others. He wasn't some sort of super scientist, he didn't have his own hive he didn't invent deadly super weapons in his spare time and he didn't go abroad to get a degree and wankology from Asgard university. He's pretty much the cloesest thing the Wraith would have to just a regular average working stiff.

Being that he's just a regular average guy though, who ended up and outcast, how did he suddenly learn how to fight galactic scale campaigns of conquest and do all this fancy cutting edge science nobody ever thought of before? He cloned Beckett for one thing. That must be new because I have a hard time beliving that the Wraith would still be *****ing constantly about food shortages if they had tech to easily clone adult humans at will with next to no resources. Since Mikey's just a regular guy and he can do all this stuff though then wouldn't it follow logically that a lot of other Wraith regular guys are also going to have similar or better skills than him? How then does he get the better of them all, even those ancient hivekeepers they talked about briefly who know more about Wraith tech and what not than any other Wraith?

So what's the deal with Mikey. How come when you take him out of Wraith society and take away all his resources he becomes superman but when he was in he sucked, just like all the other regular Wraith guys like him that also apparently suck?

I'm thinking inverse ninja law.

[Zamboni]

Because when you mix human with wraith, you get a 455% boost in intelligence, 264% boost in cunning, 317% boost in evilness, and 1,000% boost in luck...

It's all been well documented... Didn't you watch the various episodes of SG1?

I mean, even a stupid idea from a random human could result in the demise of races that are technologically superior with overwhelming forces.

[artbrann]

he was working for the crap boss who stole all his ideas and sold them as his own
I am sure we've all had one of those bosses

[dragos]

Interesting thought. Could be due to the actual experiance he has gone through being outcast and all, this could have sparked a major insentive to do amazing things. Losing everthin you ever had could be enough to drive you that extra light year in your efforts.

Also he could have stolen loads of other wraith research and just applied his own smarts to it, who knows the potential genetic intelligence ability of a single.

[Cory Holmes]

We now know that the Wraith do have cloning technology, as seen in Spoils of War. It's not such a leap of thought to imagine that it would work on humans as well as Wraith.

As for why they didn't do it at all... perhaps the Wraith are just as arrogant as the Ancients that proceeded them. Why waste their time and energy creating clones when they can just sit back and let a mostly-culled world repopulate itself?

As for Mikey... well, he's a very angry person, and angry people have a way of pushing themselves into doing weird things. Also, Mikey did mention that he had help making this superweapon.

[Ouroboros]

Because when you mix human with wraith, you get a 455% boost in intelligence, 264% boost in cunning, 317% boost in evilness, and 1,000% boost in luck...

It's all been well documented... Didn't you watch the various episodes of SG1?

I mean, even a stupid idea from a random human could result in the demise of races that are technologically superior with overwhelming forces.

I made this thread to see if anyone else can come up with anything other than "he got some of the Earth wank in his DNA" as that's my own personal running theory as well. Either that or some sort of space time anomaly caused by thaty wormhole transferring Sheppard's character shields and plot protection to him somehow.

As for why they didn't do it at all... perhaps the Wraith are just as arrogant as the Ancients that proceeded them. Why waste their time and energy creating clones when they can just sit back and let a mostly-culled world repopulate itself?

Because right now a lot of them are kinda starving to death and resorting to civil war because there's not enough humans to go around. Even before that they had to hibernate for hundreds of years at a time because there still really weren't enough humans around to sustain them all full time.

Having Michael, an average Wraith scientist, be able to create an adult clone of Beckett with such limited resources opened a brutal gaping and infected around the edges plothole in the series. Introducing this into the picture made the whole notion of Wraith starvation and civil war due to lack of food effectively impossible. It also makes the whole idea of them hibernating look like nothing other than either intentional generosity or shocking species wide stupidity on their part. If one guy working alone with next to nothing for resources can make adult clones of people in a very short timeframe then surely hivequeens with ships and whole swarms of scientists just like Mikey working for them could make clones as well, entire batches of them.

Even if it is something Mikey came up with all on his own through some absurd stroke of genius no one else thought of in 10,000 years it would allow him to rule the galaxy already, just by itself. "Hey all you other Wraith. I can feed anyone who joins up under me unlimited amounts of humans. So how you like me now?"

[PG15]

Well, it's more than just power. After his ordeal, Michael didn't want to be either Wraith nor Human, and he hated them both, so he created his own identity, and then some.

[Avenger]

Just because Michael was able to clone a human doesn't mean that any of the other Wraith can. Maybe the fact that the clones break down, as we saw with Carson, without the injection Michael gave him prevents the clone from being a viable food source. Regardless, it's not a plot hole.

[Prior_of_the_Ori]

For Mikey? Well I think the Wraith follow a Hive-like structure with the lower ranking members showing little in the form of ambition except if they have been separated from their Hive through some event (Todd and Michael being examples of this). Once this happens, I think they begin to take the initiative more and perhaps value their lives even more so then normal considering that most Wraith when captured are quite willing to kill themselves through the use of explosives strapped to their bodies. Tactical thinking might more have to do with simple aspects of survival.. Michael would have known that if he left any clue of his existence to Humans or Wraith then he would be killed so its a bit simple for him to be more cautious.

As for why the Wraith don't simply clone Humans, good question really since we have seen them use the technology already. Perhaps Wraith physiology can withstand the degradation process of mass cloning more so then a Human or Asgard? If thats the case then the clones might become defective or suffer the same problems like the Asgard did so while it might not be an apparent problem, it could be a future one. Not proof, just speculating here.

Tech wise, well remember that the retrovirus is not really his creation; it was Becketts. He has simply exploited it for his own use, same thing with the Hoffan drug. He is simply using the research of others and has combined it with his own to create a weapon against all his enemies. Also we know little of Michael's past, Teyla and Rodney speculated that he might very well have been the 'Rodney' of the Wraith in "Vengeance", we just don't know. Sure he might not have made any superweapons or stuff but the Wraith seem to have been pretty stagnant technological wise over the centuries with little reason to develop anything new.

[Integrabyte]

Q:What makes Mikey so special?

A: Minnie Mouse...

[ciannwn]

Ok so Mikey started out life as just another average Wraith goon scientist that SGA abducted and tortured and somehow he became the biggest threat in Pegasus and beat down everybody in this episode.

We have no idea what he was before Sheppard and co. captured him and they don't know either. From 'Vengeance' after they've discovered he's been working on his super bugs.

TEYLA: ... I’ve often wondered what he left behind when he was captured by us. We know nothing of his past other than that he was a Wraith.

McKAY: A very smart Wraith.

TEYLA: Perhaps he was a scientist.

McKAY (a little distracted): Huh. Sure. Probably. Why not? One of their very best, I’d wager.

This indicates that they didn't capture him while he was working in a laboratory otherwise they'd have known he was a scientist from the start. So where and how was he captured? We don't know that either. This suggests that, by sheer coincidence, they happened to find a top Wraith scientist while he was away from his lab or any faced male can turn into a top scientist if the plot requires it.

[Ouroboros]

Yeah, and he was also playing second fiddle to a minor hivequeen when they next meet him in Allies. Nothing about hm really points to him being any kind of a bigshot. If he was a technological/scientific big shot he would be a hivekeeper or associated with them. He would have at least had someone to pick him up/help him who wasn't going to treat him like a walking joke because of what had been done to him.

The cloning thing was the worst though. As someone pointed out yes the clones do degrade and die like Beckett clone but if they're only going to be created to be fed on it doesn't even matter. Sure maybe they won't taste as good as the real deal but they're certainly preferable to starvation.

[PG15]

Yeah, and he was also playing second fiddle to a minor hivequeen when they next meet him in Allies. Nothing about hm really points to him being any kind of a bigshot. If he was a technological/scientific big shot he would be a hivekeeper or associated with them. He would have at least had someone to pick him up/help him who wasn't going to treat him like a walking joke because of what had been done to him.

I don't know...the Wraith don't seem like buddies to each other most of the time. At least, I don't remember any of that.

The cloning thing was the worst though. As someone pointed out yes the clones do degrade and die like Beckett clone but if they're only going to be created to be fed on it doesn't even matter. Sure maybe they won't taste as good as the real deal but they're certainly preferable to starvation.

You sure? How do you know how badly they'll taste? How do you even know they're filling? How do you know what standards the Wraith have for their food?

[DefiantOne]

A few options are possible

The fact is we do not know what Michael's original ranking or expertise was before capture and experimentation.

We do know that the first time he returned to the wraith he was taken on by a Queen albeit seemingly reluctantly and left out of some of their plans because the wraith did not really trust him, but the first batch that got him were obviously smart enough to exploit him as a resource to strike at the Atlantis humans.

The second time he returned to the wraith he was not so welcome as he indicated in vengeance

Those two experiences coupled with the two experiences of being captured and changed by the same group of humans has left him very bittered and determined.

As we have seen in The Defiant One and Common Ground, wraith left to fend for themselves have an extreme survival extinct which manifests in different ways. the Defiant One was not only hard to kill but he had enough mental resources to create a real challenge, his demise was due more to the fact that he extended all of his energy in adrenaline style survival ie using more brute force then cunning. Whereas "Todd" used his intellect and reasoning to survive being held prisoner for so long and form a brief alliance with someone who normally would not register as anything more then a common house cat.

The point being individual wraith can be extremely adaptable just like humans overcoming adversity to survive, accomplishing things that in their normal circumstances would not be possible.

Its like McKay is always saying he works best under pressure especially when there is only a few minutes to live.

So perhaps Michael feeling angry, abandoned, persecuted and certainly under constant threat has pushed his mental abilities to their limits finding in himself a depth of knowledge and understanding he might not have previously posessed because his survival did not depend on it.

or it could just be he was really that damn smart and we just didn't know it.

On the question as to why the Wraith did not stop his capture or atempt to retrieve him, does not indicate that he was not important or an advanced scientist. The wraith are self preservationists and do not appear to be concerned when one of their number is captured as with Steve and Bob. The attitude of both wraith under capture indicates that they are very unlikely to give up too much information and so the wraith are simply not worried.

Now, if a Queen was captured, would this be different? it would be an interesting storyline and give us a valuable insight into the wraith.

Unfortunately I think the Wraith have not been properly explored. There have been a few tantilising moments and characters who give us a little glimpse of the their true natures and their culture. The replicator nonsense, unfortunately, took valuable episode time away from the Wraith.

[JSPuddlejumper]

very simple!

He starred in STAR TREK ENTERPRISE.

All that Federation knowledge and tech is really helping him out.

And if he needs any help, he can call in Captain Archer.


SGA has no chance