Why did SGA create the Wraith

[Xaeden]

The retrovirus makes a return in season 5's mid-season finale. Todd is in the same episode. I can tell you more if you don't mind being spoiled.

[Davey]

No problem about being spoiled to learn of the fate of Todd, Michael, Replicator Elizabeth and even what's her name, the replicator on Earth in Outcast.......

[Xaeden]

The replicator from Outcast...

Spoiler:

you will not see again.

Elizabeth will return...

Spoiler:

one final time in season 5, episode 5. Sort of, kind of: She's played by the actor who portrayed Fran, not Torri Higgenson.

Michael returns in...

Spoiler:

two episodes toward the end of season 4.

Todd discusses with the team a plan to use...

Spoiler:

a modified version of the retrovirus to remove the Wraith's need to feed without otherwise changing them. The updated retrovirus is derived from Michael's research. It is mentioned another time later toward the end of season 5 when consequences ensue.

[Davey]

I'd love to see a story Arc of episodes of Wraith who struggle to use the retrovirus to get rid of the need to feed, and the struggle of mean goa'uld to become Tok'ra.....

[Davey]

The way the Wraith story is presented in the last two episodes of Season 4 is really very good, along with cloned Beckett. It creates a certain "humanity" potential for the Wraith through both Michael and Todd. I just wonder what Beckett's mother will be told once Carson is restored from the stasis pod since Sam promised to deliver a letter to her.

[Davey]

What is the relationship between hive ships and the Wraith home planet? What kind of life do they have in the hives and home planet when they aren't culling and hibernating? Where do they get the enormous resources to build hive ships?

[WraithRichard]

What is the relationship between hive ships and the Wraith home planet? What kind of life do they have in the hives and home planet when they aren't culling and hibernating? Where do they get the enormous resources to build hive ships?

I've actually wondered this myself.

They are obviously a warrior culture and they seem to base everything around space travel. Being on the ground seems to be something they don't really account for much beyond 'sneak up on food, then return home'.

At best, I'd say hives absorb energy from pretty much anything, beign the equivalent of a massive zpm themself (converting matter directly to energy without thermodynics getting in the way).

Spoiler:

I'm ignoring the books, whihc change a lot of facts. They go against SGA canon in a mjor way, plus they failed worldbuilding 101

[Davey]

I meant where do they get the money and matériel to build the ships and darts, and what do Wraith back home do?
And in the ships do their children go to school? Do they have sports? What do the adults everywhere do in their spare time? Apparently they have no names, so how do they refer to each other?

[Xaeden]

How Wraith ships come into being is revealed in the second episode of season 5. If you don't want to wait, the Wraith have organic ships, which are...

Spoiler:

grown, not built. That's the genius of it. While the Ancients had to collect resources and design shipyards to construct their spaceships, the Wraith could grow one or a handful of ships on individual worlds all at the same time (all they needed was a power source, which they could've brought through a gate or they could have leeched off power sources on conquered planets). This means the Wraith were immune from attacks on their production capabilities, and the Wraith would have been able to target shipyards, mining operations, and various aspects of the Ancient's infrastructure with impunity. Taking out a Hive as it's being grown is small peanuts if the Wraith have hundreds of them being grown at different locations at once. In contrast, taking out an Ancient shipyard, not only wipes out all the in progress ships that were being built there, it also sets the Ancients back the months it would require to rebuild the shipyard somewhere else and start anew. That's the true under discussed reason behind their victory over the Ancients.

What the Wraith do in their spare time has not been addressed. Some people think that they create runners as a form of sport, but that activity appears to be isolated to a single Hive that may be rogue since it was in operation during the Wraith's hibernation period. As to their not having names, my purely speculative answer is that they may not need them because they identify themselves to each other through their telepathy.

[WraithRichard]

How Wraith ships come into being is revealed in the second episode of season 5. If you don't want to wait, the Wraith have organic ships, which are...

Spoiler:

grown, not built. That's the genius of it. While the Ancients had to collect resources and design shipyards to construct their spaceships, the Wraith could grow one or a handful of ships on individual worlds all at the same time (all they needed was a power source, which they could've brought through a gate or they could have leeched off power sources on conquered planets). This means the Wraith were immune from attacks on their production capabilities, and the Wraith would have been able to target shipyards, mining operations, and various aspects of the Ancient's infrastructure with impunity. Taking out a Hive as it's being grown is small peanuts if the Wraith have hundreds of them being grown at different locations at once. In contrast, taking out an Ancient shipyard, not only wipes out all the in progress ships that were being built there, it also sets the Ancients back the months it would require to rebuild the shipyard somewhere else and start anew. That's the true under discussed reason behind their victory over the Ancients.

What the Wraith do in their spare time has not been addressed. Some people think that they create runners as a form of sport, but that activity appears to be isolated to a single Hive that may be rogue since it was in operation during the Wraith's hibernation period. As to their not having names, my purely speculative answer is that they may not need them because they identify themselves to each other through their telepathy.

The telepathy thing makes the most sense, since it's their main mode of communication. For several wraith, verbal skills are something purely for humans or a cargo cult at best.

I too wonder what wraith do in their spare time. Anyone notice that scene when Micheal approaches the queen? He seems to have interrupted something because the queen and some other commander were doing something, supposedly telepathic, and the commander runs off immediately when Micheal shows up.

[iliescu]

The Wraith are very cool and intelligent. The species enriches Stargate Atlantis as it even has its own alphabet. The Wraith hive ships can shoot out some of the best Federation ships too and the white and black fighter ships are a force to recon with as well.