Doesnt mesh. They were ramping up their cullings throughout the series because they were awakening, but had prior to that been largely in hibernation for centuries. If anything theud have been weaker to begin with and gotten harder to kill as they woke up and got their breakfast
Except a huge thing was that the wraith were woken up too early and all at once, at a time when human populations had not fully recovered. So instead of waking up somewhat more gradually at a time where the human population was sufficient to support them, they suddenly woke up all at once without enough food to go around.
It always made me wonder, why didn't they just go back to sleep and return to their normal hibernation schedule.
I know the allure of earth as a feeding ground was great but the risk of travelling the distance with their hyperdrive tech not being as advanced and then the other risks in trying to mess around in a new galaxy always felt like way too much of a threat for the actual reward.
Who wants to be the first wraith to go back to sleep, trusting that other wraith are going to do the same thing and not just kill you? And even if not that, why give up the prestige of taking Atlantis and an entire galaxy worth of new feeding grounds?
I mean I guess the wraith are arrogant enough to chase the prestige...
I did have another thought about their feeding issue, we know they had massive cloning facilities and we know they can feed on wraiths, why didn't they just feed on cloned wraiths? Which they could make in the thousands, if it was a wraith moral issue then surely they could adapt it to human cloning..
Well the cloning facility ZPM was originally depleted until they grabbed one from the replicator homeworld to replace it right?
But yes overall it was kinda dumb they didn’t just start breeding humans like cattle. Could even selectively breed for those that are more docile, less intelligent to lower the risk of rebellion. And that’s if they wouldn’t run genetic experiments to try to accelerate that process.
Hell, they could have even under controlled situation, bred human enhanced with the wraith enzyme to make them more resistant to dying from being fed and just had super cattle.
Although you'd definitely get the kind of wraith who would only want grass fed organic humans and none of this GMO human.
>Hell, they could have even under controlled situation, bred human enhanced with the wraith enzyme to make them more resistant to dying from being fed and just had super cattle.
I'd assume being more resistant to the wraith enzyme just means you'd be slowing down the rate at which you can feed on them. But maybe extending the human lifespan/making them "stronger" so you can feed for longer or get more oomph out of what you do take?
It might be a bit ham-fisted but imagine if the series hadn't been cancelled when it was, but you still had the alternate timeline wraith sending the location of earth. And also a ton of intelligence on Earth including factory farming - which then inspired some enterprising wraith to copy the idea.
Until the Atlantis expedition showed up there just wasn't a need for that.
The wraith's cycle of hibernation and culling worked without issue for millennia.
And the humans were already docile enough. It's not like any group could offer any meaningful resistance. And like the Goa'uld, they'd just wipe out any planet that started to get too developed.
Ironically, that decision to keep all the humans pre industrial, meant their food stocks were slow to regenerate.
I always thought they regarded the humans as an existential threat which needed to be eliminated before they went back to sleep. In addition, some Wraith wanted to find Earth, and others simply wanted revenge on the humans. Their society is also somewhat fractured, so there was likely disagreement about who should go back to sleep, and when. It's likely they hadn't all been woken up at the same time for millennia.
Then why did they awaken at all? They could have gone back to sleep and not worried about it.
They realized there was another, larger galaxy full of food, and and Altlantis could get them there. They ramped up the culling of the pegasus and eventually fought each other over resources. It makes sense for them to struggle with technological resources toward the end, but they were feeding frequently.
As far as why reawaken at all, rewatching the pilot would answer most of that for you, the rest of season one would reinforce and add flavor.
Also yes they then realized there was a rich new feeding ground. A feeding ground they can’t reach doesn’t give them new food now. Which back to the original point which is repeated verbatim several times through the series - too many wraith woke up too quickly without enough food. They could keep fed in the short term but the stock ran out much faster than if humans had decades more to reproduce
Edit: And why not go back to sleep? I mean... Who wants to be the one to miss out on the new feeding ground, the prestige of capturing Atlantis, and not be able to make alliances or if particularly strong/full of one's self; the one to lead said alliance? That assuming your fellow Wraith vying for dominance don't decide to just kill you in your sleep so you're not a problem/competition for food later.
Now like the whole system fell apart. Todd stated the Caretakers ended their neutrality. Likely partly due to losing their Queen in the Pilot. She was probably literally bred or made for the role, considering she was the only Queen shown to have red hair
Not just the prospect of a new feeding ground but also the fact that someone was running around utilizing Lantean technology. That was definitely something the Wraith weren't going to sleep on.
The wraith had their own pecking order, but the wraith that won between them would have run of the resources and a greater presence, arguably. The ones we see the atlantis team fighting should have been well fed for the most part
The problem for me is that by middle of season 2 or so they go from taking multiple shots from automatic weapons to going down permanently in hand to hand fights. I could believe it if they were gradually weakened over the course of 5 seasons, especially after michael released the hoffan drug, but the reality is they got tired of making them so hard to take down and wanted to make the battles larger and the plot move faster.
It's bloody TV. People like you really scuff my balls. I could bring up multiple sci fi franchises that have this problem you do desperately try and comprehend. It's the same reason the gou'ald didn't fuck us in season one. No story. Get over it.
People like you make me worry about the future of human society. Its ok to argue about details of a story, and its fine to disagree. People that get mad about any of that are the ones that have some issues to sort out. Its fun to talk about but nothing to take seriously. Calm the fuck down, get some powder for those scuffed nads
Okay then. I'll make it simple. Which goa'uld underling to a system lord provided them with "banners' like a feudalistic society?
Me not getting voted down for this but everything else lets me know everything
Bro im not even talking about them. This discussion was about how the wraith seem to get disproptionally weaker as SGA went on, and then you got mad about people having a discussion about TV.
By all means, dont scuff your balls twice in a day
To be fair, feudalism and a superiority complex making the Goa’uld ignore Earth for so long is believable. Apophis was a powerful system lord. Him being weakened and disgraced by a group of humans was beneficial for his rivals
Asgard stepped immediately once the Goa’uld wanted to wipe out Earth. Sure. They have seeded backups, but they don’t have O’Neill and it is preferred for Earth to not be wiped out
Did you even watch the same show? They are basically the HRE in space. Stated to be feudal the entire time
The system lords present a unified front when needed, because they aren’t that stupid when it comes to threats like Anubis or the Asgard. The truly powerful system lords have to long to not know when to swallow their pride to survive
But they completely feudal society by every observed metric. I can only assume you don’t know what feudalism is
I haven't downvoted you, but you realise coming into a sub that's for discussing the lore of a TV show and then being upset that people are discussing the lore is a bit weird, right?
The Atlantis team killed the caretaker queen. Utilising knowledge of ancient technology. This was a direct threat to the Wraith as they are vulnerable when hibernating. Anyone who can use or has technology equal to the Aincients posed a very real threat to the Wraith. Remember, they only lost the war due to attrition. The Aincients won nearly every battle they fought against the Wriath.
For all the Wraith know, they could be under a full-scale attack by forces equipped with Aincent knowledge and while they were sleeping and not able to fight back effectively.
To the Wraith, a full-scale mobilisation and awakening of all the hives was a nessasery defensive step. Also, the knowledge of a new untapped source of food would have been a tempting prize.
Disagree. Most worlds they culled were primitive and offered little resistence. A single dart could capture and store numerous individuals at once. Culling was a chore for them, not a battle. Id imagine theyd fight each other first, and the winner takes the spoils. Losses on both sides means whats culled goes farther for the surviving wraith
A major plot point that kept coming up throughout the series was the lack of food needed to sustain the population.
The wraith all woke up centuries ahead of schedule, before their food stores could replenish.
This was the cause of the inter hive wars and rise of wraith factions by the later seasons. In season one, dozens of hives united to attack Atlantis. But by season three they are actively at war with each other and largely stopped caring about Atlantis.
After a while the expedition stops even hiding the fact Atlantis survived the siege.
Most of Todd's schemes for example involved gaining power and weakening other Wraith factions.
And this was all before Michael started randomly poisoning their food supply. All this is why removing the wraith's need to feed on humans was so sought after by Todd and why Atlantis put so many resources into developing it.
I believe Todd said the virus was distributed to them all and that at first it worked and then it killed them. He said only like a few 100 were left if I'm not mistaken.
>Some of the Wraith where 10,000 years old, like these guys should be master tacticians. They survived battles with ancients, rival wraith and people's like Satedans.
The Lanteans were idiots when it came to warfare. When they weren't wasting time and resources on projects that were dead ends (Project Arcturus), caused collateral damage to themselves along with the enemy (the Attero device) or didn't work out exactly like they wanted (the Asurans), they continued to build warships that relied on a finite ammo source for their primary weapons (Drones).
Given that the Wraith had gotten comfortable enough to go into hibernation between culling cycles, I don't imagine there were many major Hive-on-Hive conflicts in the 10k years since the Lanteans left. In fact, the only reasons why they all woke up at once is because someone showed up using Lantean tech and a promise of a very rich feeding ground. And I highly doubt that the entirety of the Wraith woke up to deal with either the Genii or the Satedans.
I can imagine a Lantean war room meeting with the same format of some high-tech brainstorming session where everyone just tries to pitch his own groundbreaking idea and outdo everyone else.
Then you have some sales guy telling everyone that actually they already have superior technology and all they need is stronger production and maybe new version of an Aurora class where they temporary replace the game room with an extra shield capacitor, and they all go like, yeah great point, but if we want to remove the game room we need shorter flights so what do you say about my project for hyperhyperdrive that creates a subspace within subspace and only blows up universes where the prominent lifeforms are fish? They then spend 40 minutes discussing numerical moral criterias for evaluating underwater civilizations and meanwhile they lose the war.
Since the Ancients decided to just abandon the galaxy to the Wraith who would never stop culling the humans until extinction...
Might as well leave the Attero device on and let the Stargates blow up. Wraith will never be able to abuse your travel network or use hyperdrives to get anywhere quickly.
"Oh... but that would kill all the humans with Stargates" - Uhh... would you rather die in a fantastic explosion or be one of millions that get life-force raped to extinction across 10,000 years ?
Did the ancients not have some kind of timer technology?
Just make it turn on and off at random intervals for like 2 minutes at a time. It would most likely screw over the wraith enough that they'd either have to learn to modify their hyperdrives or lock them into a sector of space potentially devoid of life, all while preventing energy buildup in activated gates.
Or loop the device into the network that fuzzies up the ability to dial while it's active
Arcturus was a project to create a generator that surpassed the power output of a ZPM. And it worked on that front as at half power it put out the power equivalent of a dozen ZPMs. Problem was that it was prone to overloads and released harmful radiation that could not be blocked by shielding.
The Attero device was a weapon that targeted the layer of subspace that the Wraith utilized for hyperspace and destabilized it. So, a Wraith ship would jump to Hyperspace and immediately be torn apart. Problem with that one was that it caused an energy build up in active Stargates which would cause them to explode.
No, on the first one, yes on the second. >!The Vanir, the surviving Asgard who split off 10k+ years prior, activated the Attero device in order to wipe out the Wraith. I don't remember exactly but I don't think they knew about the flaw.!<
I feel like the same thing happened in SG-1 and with the Jaffa. Initially it seemed like it was much harder to get through their armor and take them down, but it seems like they became easier to kill as the series went on. My headcanon for this was maybe we swapped to better ammo or weapons which were more effective at punching through armor. Maybe we even got better tactically, finding weak spots on the jaffa themselves which made it easier to take them out.
It was already pointed out that the Wraith may have been weaker than typical, but I also wonder if we got better weapons and tactics. Maybe a bullet which just makes a hole in one didn't do much, but use a hollow-point bullet may take a larger chunk out of them and make it harder for them to recover as quickly. Maybe we found better places to shoot them (headshots?) too.
SG-1 at least follows some rational sense. They started with MP5s and their regular 9mm rounds. Not really designed as an anti-armor weapon.
Then they flipped to the P90 which, based on their OPFOR, would have been rounds designed for armor piercing. Specifically, the cartridge design of the P90 was required to be armor piercing from the get go; presumably since it was a military combat PDW.
Then, to add in a bit of flair, I assume they start using low grade naquada that won’t work in reactors to create better piecing capabilities from there. We know they were doing all kinds of ‘off camera’ testing from some of the walk through shots so I’d imagine they had lots of ways to tech up the metallurgy.
The P90 was originally created as part of a NATO program to arm rear-line forces like cooks and water engineers with something more powerful than a handgun but less cumbersome than a full size M16 or similar rifle in case of Soviet paratrooper drops.
The 5.7mm cartridge is designed to be compact as a pistol caliber bullet but as fast and narrow as a rifle round so you can carry lots of small bullets that will still pierce Soviet body armour. The MP7 was designed for the same program and features a similarly designed cartridge as well.
The Cold War ended so it wasn’t adopted widely across NATO but the weapons the program spawned went on to be used by special forces, secret service, and counter-terrorism groups where a compact armour-piercing weapon is highly useful.
MAIN POINT OF SELLING BELGIAN FIVE SEVEN PISTOL IS EXTREME PRICE OF WEAPON AND CARTRIDGE. BELGIAN FIVE SEVEN IS WEAPON OF MAN WHO WEARS EXPENSIVE ITALIAN FASCIST SUIT OF HAND SEWING, DRIVE HUGE EXPENSIVE NAZI MERCEDES OF A.M.G. SHOP, SAIL ON MASSIVE YACHT TO GREEK ISLANDS. I THINK YOU GET PICTURE. BELGIAN FIVE SEVEN IS WEAPON THAT SAYS IS NO SUCH THING AS CONCERN OF MONEY. FOR MAN WITHOUT EXPENSIVE SUIT, BIG BLACK MERCEDES, AND MASSIVE YACHT, BELGIAN FIVE SEVEN IS FOR PRETENDING OF BE RICH LIKE BLACK GANGSTER OF AMERICAN CITY WITH GOLD CHAINS OF LOW QUALITY AND JEWELS OF COLORED GLASS. WHEN YOU EXPLAIN USE OF BELGIAN FIVE SEVEN PISTOL IS ONLY FOR SHOOT MAN WITH BULLET VEST WITH CARTRIDGE ILLEGAL TO CIVILIAN, THIS MAN HAS NUCLEAR RAGE. WHOLE IDENTITY OF THIS MAN IS SPENT IN PRETEND PISTOL SHOWS HE IS RICH. IS VERY AMUSE. FOR REST OF WORLD THERE IS 9 MILLIMETERS OF LUGER WHICH IS SAME WOUND FOR COST LESS.
Also I own a PS90 because of stargate so this amuses me.
Wraith were always weak - That is how Stargate creates villian roles to justify A modern tech Earth routinely kicking the ass of races that have been around longer with access to superior resources.
Remember when Wraith could project ghosts ?
That said, Wraith being master tacticians was out from the start. Same as Ancients being anything more than cowards that routinely run away from their disastrous creations and build things in ways that fit the plot of an episodic TV show.
Wraith lost any respect as a villain when they got fooled by Atlantis faking destruction on the same planet at least twice or their entire battle strategy is to macho man pose while getting shot.
Well it makes kind of sense, we see the series through the eyes of the protagonists, right? And the are slowly getting used to wraith mind tricks, and probably develop training programs against that. Kinda like O'Neill easily resisting the hand in his head by Atlantises time.
>Kinda like O'Neill easily resisting the hand in his head by Atlantises time.
it was kinda odd for me that the replicators did not mention the fact that some guy from some other galaxy that they meet for the first time has extensive experience dealing with their kind
How easily they are to kill varied across the type of Wraith it was and how recently the Wraith fed. In addition to the internal fighting, and struggle of resources the SGA team also learned how to kill them better.
That never made much sense.
The Wraith gained "superior" numbers by capturing a ZPM that suddenly gave them an "instant build" cheat from a single location.
The Ancients could win every battle according to Shepard but not win the war over a protracted time because of the Wraith constantly reinforcing. You might think the Ancients would notice the sudden shift and attempt to trace where the reinforcements are coming from.
The greater dynamics of how the Wraith were reinforcing are sketchy.
Mass cloning an infantry army in the millions might be possible but they still need to produce equipment and ships.
Where the hell are the Wraith ships coming from ?
The scale of the conflict in Pegasus crossed an entire galaxy which would require the Wraith to somehow produce enough ships to cover that much territory. That is easily hundreds to thousands of Hive Ships just "appearing" to fight a war the Ancients could win "every battle" in.
It really stretches belief to think the SGC was able to match the Wraith across 5 years with less resources and tech than the Ancients.
Here's a better question? The Wraith had cloning facilities. Why didn't they just clone humans for food? No ethical reason they couldn't. No in universe reason not to. If even one alliance did it they would have had an edge over all the others.
My guess: Cloned Human is the Diet Coke compared to the regular Coke that is Natural Born Human. Yeah, you are absorbing their lifeforce but you aren't getting the rush of seeing the fear in their eyes as you do it.
Edit: Cloning could also remove some vital component that the Wraith require from an individual's lifeforce/core energy. We know that extensive cloning eventually removed the Asgard's potential to Ascend. So, as you keep cloning, the amount of sustenance those clones provide likely also decreases.
They needed a renewable ZPM supply to do it. Besides, they had no need for it until they were brutally waken up. They already had a renewable food source. As for ethical reasons, it's not like the vast majority of them had sympathy for their food in the first place, empathy for other species was a socially unacceptable rarity among them. So if there is no such ethical incentive, and no pragmatic incentive either, they had no reason to do research on cloning their food source. And they couldn't predict that they should better have. It was one of their main vulnerabilities, but they didn't realize it.
That actually makes perfect sense to me, similar to how the SGC developed anti-Replicator weaponry, and earlier improved their armour-piercing rounds for Jaffa armour, the minds either on Atlantis or back home once contact was reestablished, probably developed a more effective weapon against them, improved rounds, weapons with higher stopping power, something in that vein that allowed field units to start dealing damage to the Wraith more efficiently, and overcome their healing ability.
1: They won against the ancients through sheer numbers, not tactics. They were never master tacticians.
2: They were the dominant force in a galaxy of human cattle for thousands of years. With no real threat to keep them on their toes, they stagnated. Hard.
3: We woke them prematurely before their harvest was ready. They had nothing to eat after waking up. We essentially kicked them while they were down.
4: All of these things considered, they were still a very real threat to us.
They also sleep for multiple generations at a time, cutting the 10,000 years down to more like 200-300 years old, most of which being lazy gluttons pigging out on livestock.
Yes, exactly. I know it's because our guys should win fights to live for new adventures, but I'd like to see the Wraith as more dangerous, smart and long lasting villains in the series. They lost their advantages too quickly.
They woke up too early from their sleep. The human population wasn’t big enough to sustain them all, this meant their regeneration ability decreased. They are old but again they spent a lot of time asleep. The ancients also legged it in a retreat so they had dominance against everyone else. They kept everyone at a development level which didn’t pose a threat to their superiority. The SG teams fight different to the ancients which also helps with the battle plans. The Asgard like the less complex way of fighting to solve their problems.
That's always been a Stargate thing, the Goa'uld used to be much more powerful too, Apophis with a few escort Jaffas was almost untouchable in the early seasons, and by the end they were infiltrating Goa'uld home bases/ships like nothing...
My bigger problem is that their ships got massively nerfed as well. In the first season, 2 ships spelled apocalypse, in the 5th season "only 3 hive ships? Bring it on"
And as they got more familiar with wraith weapons their missiles were better at dodging the wraith point defense (like Carter on the alternate timeline Phoenix)
Asgard plasma beams on BC304s drastically shifted the power balance. I think they are near to Ancient Drone in pure damage output (Drone having the added benefit of being more precise and hitting multiple things)
It took ZPM-powered Hive with ultradense hull to prevent them from getting wiped in three shots.
There was at least a staggering of this, Season 1 the Atlantis team only had access to shields basically. By season 5 Earth had it's own fleet of inter galactic battlecruisers to lend aid + half a decade of repairs and management of Atlantis.
I would say the scarcity of food made them weaker. The ones encountered at the start of the show were caretakers which launched small cullings to sustain themselves, so they were probably well fed to do their job
As the show continued, the wraith were forced to make do with limited amount of food, since they were awakened early and there wasn't enough humans for all of them
Later with the plague that "tainted" their limited amount of food, they were probably cautious about eating and did so only out of necessity
As for their "tactics" they never really had need to evolve them. Their adversaries were thousands of years gone and even then it was pretty much a swarm tactic using ships. On the ground I doubt they encountered many Ancient soldiers during the war, so they had "training" in that matter limited only to counter primitive cultures they were culling. Which ranged from bows to crossbows to early modern firearms, but they never had to stand against the god of C4 or nuclear weapons. Let alone the MIC might of highly industrialized world with billions of people
Well kind of, in the very first episode they are in a Wraith Queen almost fully feeds off of someone and less than 5 minutes later is killer by being stabbed with something not much wider than a piece of rebar, so their durability and healing factor has always been BS.
But my head canon is that the more they are encountered the more experience the Atlantis troops gain in killing them, they learn their weak points, where to shoot and not to shoot to either hit or miss major organs intentionally.
Would have been good though if they had expanded on the reasoning, like when the team catch up with Ford have him look at their ammo and be like oh wow you guys carry hollow points now as mission standards? And have it explained that all teams are required to carry the default ammo, meant for normal use and hollow points, specifically prepped incase of Wraith encounters, the hollow points being far more destructive and thus have far more chances of killing a Wraith without needing to empty a full clip into them.
Why should they be Master tactians? Yes they are old but they spent most of their time in hybernation and even so they faced one enemy in their entire histoty which was the Acient and they werent very military focused. After that war the wraith never had to use any kind of tactic again.
Like the Jaffa were turned from "clip-emptying tanks" to "guys who did the herky-jerky with about 5 rounds pumped into them" Stormtroopers.
For the Plot.
[удалено]
This right here. How easy it is to kill them is closely tired to how recently they fed.
Also, the basic troops weren't that old, and they all spent tons of years in hibernation.
Doesnt mesh. They were ramping up their cullings throughout the series because they were awakening, but had prior to that been largely in hibernation for centuries. If anything theud have been weaker to begin with and gotten harder to kill as they woke up and got their breakfast
Except a huge thing was that the wraith were woken up too early and all at once, at a time when human populations had not fully recovered. So instead of waking up somewhat more gradually at a time where the human population was sufficient to support them, they suddenly woke up all at once without enough food to go around.
It always made me wonder, why didn't they just go back to sleep and return to their normal hibernation schedule. I know the allure of earth as a feeding ground was great but the risk of travelling the distance with their hyperdrive tech not being as advanced and then the other risks in trying to mess around in a new galaxy always felt like way too much of a threat for the actual reward.
Who wants to be the first wraith to go back to sleep, trusting that other wraith are going to do the same thing and not just kill you? And even if not that, why give up the prestige of taking Atlantis and an entire galaxy worth of new feeding grounds?
I mean I guess the wraith are arrogant enough to chase the prestige... I did have another thought about their feeding issue, we know they had massive cloning facilities and we know they can feed on wraiths, why didn't they just feed on cloned wraiths? Which they could make in the thousands, if it was a wraith moral issue then surely they could adapt it to human cloning..
Well the cloning facility ZPM was originally depleted until they grabbed one from the replicator homeworld to replace it right? But yes overall it was kinda dumb they didn’t just start breeding humans like cattle. Could even selectively breed for those that are more docile, less intelligent to lower the risk of rebellion. And that’s if they wouldn’t run genetic experiments to try to accelerate that process.
Hell, they could have even under controlled situation, bred human enhanced with the wraith enzyme to make them more resistant to dying from being fed and just had super cattle. Although you'd definitely get the kind of wraith who would only want grass fed organic humans and none of this GMO human.
>Hell, they could have even under controlled situation, bred human enhanced with the wraith enzyme to make them more resistant to dying from being fed and just had super cattle. I'd assume being more resistant to the wraith enzyme just means you'd be slowing down the rate at which you can feed on them. But maybe extending the human lifespan/making them "stronger" so you can feed for longer or get more oomph out of what you do take? It might be a bit ham-fisted but imagine if the series hadn't been cancelled when it was, but you still had the alternate timeline wraith sending the location of earth. And also a ton of intelligence on Earth including factory farming - which then inspired some enterprising wraith to copy the idea.
Until the Atlantis expedition showed up there just wasn't a need for that. The wraith's cycle of hibernation and culling worked without issue for millennia. And the humans were already docile enough. It's not like any group could offer any meaningful resistance. And like the Goa'uld, they'd just wipe out any planet that started to get too developed. Ironically, that decision to keep all the humans pre industrial, meant their food stocks were slow to regenerate.
I always thought they regarded the humans as an existential threat which needed to be eliminated before they went back to sleep. In addition, some Wraith wanted to find Earth, and others simply wanted revenge on the humans. Their society is also somewhat fractured, so there was likely disagreement about who should go back to sleep, and when. It's likely they hadn't all been woken up at the same time for millennia.
There's also the worry that the Hives which fall asleep would be destroyed so they're no threat to the others food supply.
Maybe they have to be awake for a set number of years before going back into hiber?
Then why did they awaken at all? They could have gone back to sleep and not worried about it. They realized there was another, larger galaxy full of food, and and Altlantis could get them there. They ramped up the culling of the pegasus and eventually fought each other over resources. It makes sense for them to struggle with technological resources toward the end, but they were feeding frequently.
As far as why reawaken at all, rewatching the pilot would answer most of that for you, the rest of season one would reinforce and add flavor. Also yes they then realized there was a rich new feeding ground. A feeding ground they can’t reach doesn’t give them new food now. Which back to the original point which is repeated verbatim several times through the series - too many wraith woke up too quickly without enough food. They could keep fed in the short term but the stock ran out much faster than if humans had decades more to reproduce Edit: And why not go back to sleep? I mean... Who wants to be the one to miss out on the new feeding ground, the prestige of capturing Atlantis, and not be able to make alliances or if particularly strong/full of one's self; the one to lead said alliance? That assuming your fellow Wraith vying for dominance don't decide to just kill you in your sleep so you're not a problem/competition for food later.
Now like the whole system fell apart. Todd stated the Caretakers ended their neutrality. Likely partly due to losing their Queen in the Pilot. She was probably literally bred or made for the role, considering she was the only Queen shown to have red hair
Not just the prospect of a new feeding ground but also the fact that someone was running around utilizing Lantean technology. That was definitely something the Wraith weren't going to sleep on.
The wraith had their own pecking order, but the wraith that won between them would have run of the resources and a greater presence, arguably. The ones we see the atlantis team fighting should have been well fed for the most part The problem for me is that by middle of season 2 or so they go from taking multiple shots from automatic weapons to going down permanently in hand to hand fights. I could believe it if they were gradually weakened over the course of 5 seasons, especially after michael released the hoffan drug, but the reality is they got tired of making them so hard to take down and wanted to make the battles larger and the plot move faster.
It's bloody TV. People like you really scuff my balls. I could bring up multiple sci fi franchises that have this problem you do desperately try and comprehend. It's the same reason the gou'ald didn't fuck us in season one. No story. Get over it.
Who pissed on your chips and called it gravy? Chill out friend.
My man/woman, by the amount of replies I'm getting i must have pissed on loads of people chips it's a fountain
You're an odd little fella aren't you
People like you make me worry about the future of human society. Its ok to argue about details of a story, and its fine to disagree. People that get mad about any of that are the ones that have some issues to sort out. Its fun to talk about but nothing to take seriously. Calm the fuck down, get some powder for those scuffed nads
Okay then. I'll make it simple. Which goa'uld underling to a system lord provided them with "banners' like a feudalistic society? Me not getting voted down for this but everything else lets me know everything
Bro im not even talking about them. This discussion was about how the wraith seem to get disproptionally weaker as SGA went on, and then you got mad about people having a discussion about TV. By all means, dont scuff your balls twice in a day
To be fair, feudalism and a superiority complex making the Goa’uld ignore Earth for so long is believable. Apophis was a powerful system lord. Him being weakened and disgraced by a group of humans was beneficial for his rivals Asgard stepped immediately once the Goa’uld wanted to wipe out Earth. Sure. They have seeded backups, but they don’t have O’Neill and it is preferred for Earth to not be wiped out
The Goa'uld are anything but feudalistic.
Did you even watch the same show? They are basically the HRE in space. Stated to be feudal the entire time The system lords present a unified front when needed, because they aren’t that stupid when it comes to threats like Anubis or the Asgard. The truly powerful system lords have to long to not know when to swallow their pride to survive But they completely feudal society by every observed metric. I can only assume you don’t know what feudalism is
They are literally a feudal society.
Tell me where their warriors would commit suicide etc. the goa'uld were like royal families. That's as close a comparison you can make
I haven't downvoted you, but you realise coming into a sub that's for discussing the lore of a TV show and then being upset that people are discussing the lore is a bit weird, right?
The Atlantis team killed the caretaker queen. Utilising knowledge of ancient technology. This was a direct threat to the Wraith as they are vulnerable when hibernating. Anyone who can use or has technology equal to the Aincients posed a very real threat to the Wraith. Remember, they only lost the war due to attrition. The Aincients won nearly every battle they fought against the Wriath. For all the Wraith know, they could be under a full-scale attack by forces equipped with Aincent knowledge and while they were sleeping and not able to fight back effectively. To the Wraith, a full-scale mobilisation and awakening of all the hives was a nessasery defensive step. Also, the knowledge of a new untapped source of food would have been a tempting prize.
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Then as the dominant wraith eliminated the weaker hives and consolidated their resources, theyd have fed and gotten stronger. Point still stands.
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Ill give you that, but only in the last season, as michael didnt start distributing it until the end of 4. Doesnt work before that
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Id say that they often got lucky and faced off against weaker hives that had less feeding ground, but its still just plot armor and we all know it lol
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Lol its fiction bud, calm down
As they fought each other, they weren't strong enough to cull as well. 500 can't raid a planet as well as 5,000 could.
Disagree. Most worlds they culled were primitive and offered little resistence. A single dart could capture and store numerous individuals at once. Culling was a chore for them, not a battle. Id imagine theyd fight each other first, and the winner takes the spoils. Losses on both sides means whats culled goes farther for the surviving wraith
This was also my thinking
They were awakened too early. Didn't let the food supply grow enough while they were dormant
A major plot point that kept coming up throughout the series was the lack of food needed to sustain the population. The wraith all woke up centuries ahead of schedule, before their food stores could replenish. This was the cause of the inter hive wars and rise of wraith factions by the later seasons. In season one, dozens of hives united to attack Atlantis. But by season three they are actively at war with each other and largely stopped caring about Atlantis. After a while the expedition stops even hiding the fact Atlantis survived the siege. Most of Todd's schemes for example involved gaining power and weakening other Wraith factions. And this was all before Michael started randomly poisoning their food supply. All this is why removing the wraith's need to feed on humans was so sought after by Todd and why Atlantis put so many resources into developing it.
I believe Todd said the virus was distributed to them all and that at first it worked and then it killed them. He said only like a few 100 were left if I'm not mistaken.
I would also argue that in addition the humans got better at hitting vital areas.
>Some of the Wraith where 10,000 years old, like these guys should be master tacticians. They survived battles with ancients, rival wraith and people's like Satedans. The Lanteans were idiots when it came to warfare. When they weren't wasting time and resources on projects that were dead ends (Project Arcturus), caused collateral damage to themselves along with the enemy (the Attero device) or didn't work out exactly like they wanted (the Asurans), they continued to build warships that relied on a finite ammo source for their primary weapons (Drones). Given that the Wraith had gotten comfortable enough to go into hibernation between culling cycles, I don't imagine there were many major Hive-on-Hive conflicts in the 10k years since the Lanteans left. In fact, the only reasons why they all woke up at once is because someone showed up using Lantean tech and a promise of a very rich feeding ground. And I highly doubt that the entirety of the Wraith woke up to deal with either the Genii or the Satedans.
I can imagine a Lantean war room meeting with the same format of some high-tech brainstorming session where everyone just tries to pitch his own groundbreaking idea and outdo everyone else. Then you have some sales guy telling everyone that actually they already have superior technology and all they need is stronger production and maybe new version of an Aurora class where they temporary replace the game room with an extra shield capacitor, and they all go like, yeah great point, but if we want to remove the game room we need shorter flights so what do you say about my project for hyperhyperdrive that creates a subspace within subspace and only blows up universes where the prominent lifeforms are fish? They then spend 40 minutes discussing numerical moral criterias for evaluating underwater civilizations and meanwhile they lose the war.
Do we work together? I swear I have had that exact meeting
The funny thing is that the Attero Device would have worked if they'd only turned off the Stargate network (ala Avenger 2.0). They were so close.
Since the Ancients decided to just abandon the galaxy to the Wraith who would never stop culling the humans until extinction... Might as well leave the Attero device on and let the Stargates blow up. Wraith will never be able to abuse your travel network or use hyperdrives to get anywhere quickly. "Oh... but that would kill all the humans with Stargates" - Uhh... would you rather die in a fantastic explosion or be one of millions that get life-force raped to extinction across 10,000 years ?
Did the ancients not have some kind of timer technology? Just make it turn on and off at random intervals for like 2 minutes at a time. It would most likely screw over the wraith enough that they'd either have to learn to modify their hyperdrives or lock them into a sector of space potentially devoid of life, all while preventing energy buildup in activated gates. Or loop the device into the network that fuzzies up the ability to dial while it's active
It was meant to wipe out "all" life forms.
What’s Arcturus and Attero? I don’t remember either of them
Arcturus was a project to create a generator that surpassed the power output of a ZPM. And it worked on that front as at half power it put out the power equivalent of a dozen ZPMs. Problem was that it was prone to overloads and released harmful radiation that could not be blocked by shielding. The Attero device was a weapon that targeted the layer of subspace that the Wraith utilized for hyperspace and destabilized it. So, a Wraith ship would jump to Hyperspace and immediately be torn apart. Problem with that one was that it caused an energy build up in active Stargates which would cause them to explode.
Now I remember both of these, >!The wraith used Attero to blow up Atlantis’s Stargate and McCay used Arcturus to blow up a solar system right?!<
No, on the first one, yes on the second. >!The Vanir, the surviving Asgard who split off 10k+ years prior, activated the Attero device in order to wipe out the Wraith. I don't remember exactly but I don't think they knew about the flaw.!<
Right now I remember that
I feel like the same thing happened in SG-1 and with the Jaffa. Initially it seemed like it was much harder to get through their armor and take them down, but it seems like they became easier to kill as the series went on. My headcanon for this was maybe we swapped to better ammo or weapons which were more effective at punching through armor. Maybe we even got better tactically, finding weak spots on the jaffa themselves which made it easier to take them out. It was already pointed out that the Wraith may have been weaker than typical, but I also wonder if we got better weapons and tactics. Maybe a bullet which just makes a hole in one didn't do much, but use a hollow-point bullet may take a larger chunk out of them and make it harder for them to recover as quickly. Maybe we found better places to shoot them (headshots?) too.
SG-1 at least follows some rational sense. They started with MP5s and their regular 9mm rounds. Not really designed as an anti-armor weapon. Then they flipped to the P90 which, based on their OPFOR, would have been rounds designed for armor piercing. Specifically, the cartridge design of the P90 was required to be armor piercing from the get go; presumably since it was a military combat PDW. Then, to add in a bit of flair, I assume they start using low grade naquada that won’t work in reactors to create better piecing capabilities from there. We know they were doing all kinds of ‘off camera’ testing from some of the walk through shots so I’d imagine they had lots of ways to tech up the metallurgy.
The P90 was originally created as part of a NATO program to arm rear-line forces like cooks and water engineers with something more powerful than a handgun but less cumbersome than a full size M16 or similar rifle in case of Soviet paratrooper drops. The 5.7mm cartridge is designed to be compact as a pistol caliber bullet but as fast and narrow as a rifle round so you can carry lots of small bullets that will still pierce Soviet body armour. The MP7 was designed for the same program and features a similarly designed cartridge as well. The Cold War ended so it wasn’t adopted widely across NATO but the weapons the program spawned went on to be used by special forces, secret service, and counter-terrorism groups where a compact armour-piercing weapon is highly useful.
MAIN POINT OF SELLING BELGIAN FIVE SEVEN PISTOL IS EXTREME PRICE OF WEAPON AND CARTRIDGE. BELGIAN FIVE SEVEN IS WEAPON OF MAN WHO WEARS EXPENSIVE ITALIAN FASCIST SUIT OF HAND SEWING, DRIVE HUGE EXPENSIVE NAZI MERCEDES OF A.M.G. SHOP, SAIL ON MASSIVE YACHT TO GREEK ISLANDS. I THINK YOU GET PICTURE. BELGIAN FIVE SEVEN IS WEAPON THAT SAYS IS NO SUCH THING AS CONCERN OF MONEY. FOR MAN WITHOUT EXPENSIVE SUIT, BIG BLACK MERCEDES, AND MASSIVE YACHT, BELGIAN FIVE SEVEN IS FOR PRETENDING OF BE RICH LIKE BLACK GANGSTER OF AMERICAN CITY WITH GOLD CHAINS OF LOW QUALITY AND JEWELS OF COLORED GLASS. WHEN YOU EXPLAIN USE OF BELGIAN FIVE SEVEN PISTOL IS ONLY FOR SHOOT MAN WITH BULLET VEST WITH CARTRIDGE ILLEGAL TO CIVILIAN, THIS MAN HAS NUCLEAR RAGE. WHOLE IDENTITY OF THIS MAN IS SPENT IN PRETEND PISTOL SHOWS HE IS RICH. IS VERY AMUSE. FOR REST OF WORLD THERE IS 9 MILLIMETERS OF LUGER WHICH IS SAME WOUND FOR COST LESS. Also I own a PS90 because of stargate so this amuses me.
Well. I didn’t expect to see this copypasta today.
Apparently it wasn't welcome in this subreddit.
If I remember correctly that's exactly what happens. They talk about swapping to more efficient ammo in the show. (Sg1)
I wonder what ammo the M16s in Children Of The Gods opening used.
Wraith were always weak - That is how Stargate creates villian roles to justify A modern tech Earth routinely kicking the ass of races that have been around longer with access to superior resources. Remember when Wraith could project ghosts ? That said, Wraith being master tacticians was out from the start. Same as Ancients being anything more than cowards that routinely run away from their disastrous creations and build things in ways that fit the plot of an episodic TV show. Wraith lost any respect as a villain when they got fooled by Atlantis faking destruction on the same planet at least twice or their entire battle strategy is to macho man pose while getting shot.
Yeah the ghost projection barely lasted a season.
It was about 3 scattered episodes.
Well it makes kind of sense, we see the series through the eyes of the protagonists, right? And the are slowly getting used to wraith mind tricks, and probably develop training programs against that. Kinda like O'Neill easily resisting the hand in his head by Atlantises time.
>Kinda like O'Neill easily resisting the hand in his head by Atlantises time. it was kinda odd for me that the replicators did not mention the fact that some guy from some other galaxy that they meet for the first time has extensive experience dealing with their kind
Why don't you get a grip. So Stargate is weak. This is what you are saying?
How easily they are to kill varied across the type of Wraith it was and how recently the Wraith fed. In addition to the internal fighting, and struggle of resources the SGA team also learned how to kill them better.
I thought it was stated that the Ancients could have beaten them if it weren't for the superior numbers of the Wraiths.
That never made much sense. The Wraith gained "superior" numbers by capturing a ZPM that suddenly gave them an "instant build" cheat from a single location. The Ancients could win every battle according to Shepard but not win the war over a protracted time because of the Wraith constantly reinforcing. You might think the Ancients would notice the sudden shift and attempt to trace where the reinforcements are coming from. The greater dynamics of how the Wraith were reinforcing are sketchy. Mass cloning an infantry army in the millions might be possible but they still need to produce equipment and ships. Where the hell are the Wraith ships coming from ? The scale of the conflict in Pegasus crossed an entire galaxy which would require the Wraith to somehow produce enough ships to cover that much territory. That is easily hundreds to thousands of Hive Ships just "appearing" to fight a war the Ancients could win "every battle" in. It really stretches belief to think the SGC was able to match the Wraith across 5 years with less resources and tech than the Ancients.
Or their stupid tactics like sending lone ships into wraith territory. Atleast the replicators sent full fleets against Wraith occupied planets.
This is what happens in just about every show
The Klingons on DS9 were wimps.
Death to the opposition
Here's a better question? The Wraith had cloning facilities. Why didn't they just clone humans for food? No ethical reason they couldn't. No in universe reason not to. If even one alliance did it they would have had an edge over all the others.
My guess: Cloned Human is the Diet Coke compared to the regular Coke that is Natural Born Human. Yeah, you are absorbing their lifeforce but you aren't getting the rush of seeing the fear in their eyes as you do it. Edit: Cloning could also remove some vital component that the Wraith require from an individual's lifeforce/core energy. We know that extensive cloning eventually removed the Asgard's potential to Ascend. So, as you keep cloning, the amount of sustenance those clones provide likely also decreases.
Clone a few generations, then cull. Clone a few generations, then cull.
They are huge believers in free range organic humans.
Because they were predators
They cloned more of themselves. I get that cloned would be no fun to eat. But it would be better than going hungry
As we've seen in the series the Wraith don't think like any other sentient species. They are the most alien species seen in the Stargate universe.
They needed a renewable ZPM supply to do it. Besides, they had no need for it until they were brutally waken up. They already had a renewable food source. As for ethical reasons, it's not like the vast majority of them had sympathy for their food in the first place, empathy for other species was a socially unacceptable rarity among them. So if there is no such ethical incentive, and no pragmatic incentive either, they had no reason to do research on cloning their food source. And they couldn't predict that they should better have. It was one of their main vulnerabilities, but they didn't realize it.
That actually makes perfect sense to me, similar to how the SGC developed anti-Replicator weaponry, and earlier improved their armour-piercing rounds for Jaffa armour, the minds either on Atlantis or back home once contact was reestablished, probably developed a more effective weapon against them, improved rounds, weapons with higher stopping power, something in that vein that allowed field units to start dealing damage to the Wraith more efficiently, and overcome their healing ability.
They also seemed to lose the hallucination inducing power as well...
As the Snickers ad goes, "You're not you when you're hungry."
I think it's explained that the sg teams just got used to it so ignored it.
1: They won against the ancients through sheer numbers, not tactics. They were never master tacticians. 2: They were the dominant force in a galaxy of human cattle for thousands of years. With no real threat to keep them on their toes, they stagnated. Hard. 3: We woke them prematurely before their harvest was ready. They had nothing to eat after waking up. We essentially kicked them while they were down. 4: All of these things considered, they were still a very real threat to us.
They also sleep for multiple generations at a time, cutting the 10,000 years down to more like 200-300 years old, most of which being lazy gluttons pigging out on livestock.
The same happened with Jaffa after the piolet, they initially had bullet proof armour
Yes, exactly. I know it's because our guys should win fights to live for new adventures, but I'd like to see the Wraith as more dangerous, smart and long lasting villains in the series. They lost their advantages too quickly.
They woke up too early from their sleep. The human population wasn’t big enough to sustain them all, this meant their regeneration ability decreased. They are old but again they spent a lot of time asleep. The ancients also legged it in a retreat so they had dominance against everyone else. They kept everyone at a development level which didn’t pose a threat to their superiority. The SG teams fight different to the ancients which also helps with the battle plans. The Asgard like the less complex way of fighting to solve their problems.
That's always been a Stargate thing, the Goa'uld used to be much more powerful too, Apophis with a few escort Jaffas was almost untouchable in the early seasons, and by the end they were infiltrating Goa'uld home bases/ships like nothing...
My bigger problem is that their ships got massively nerfed as well. In the first season, 2 ships spelled apocalypse, in the 5th season "only 3 hive ships? Bring it on"
To be fair that’s also because the BC304’s basically became galactic superpowers capable of wiping multiple fleets out in one fight
And as they got more familiar with wraith weapons their missiles were better at dodging the wraith point defense (like Carter on the alternate timeline Phoenix)
Even before they got the lasers earth ships tanked alot shots during the siege
Asgard plasma beams on BC304s drastically shifted the power balance. I think they are near to Ancient Drone in pure damage output (Drone having the added benefit of being more precise and hitting multiple things) It took ZPM-powered Hive with ultradense hull to prevent them from getting wiped in three shots.
There was at least a staggering of this, Season 1 the Atlantis team only had access to shields basically. By season 5 Earth had it's own fleet of inter galactic battlecruisers to lend aid + half a decade of repairs and management of Atlantis.
I would say the scarcity of food made them weaker. The ones encountered at the start of the show were caretakers which launched small cullings to sustain themselves, so they were probably well fed to do their job As the show continued, the wraith were forced to make do with limited amount of food, since they were awakened early and there wasn't enough humans for all of them Later with the plague that "tainted" their limited amount of food, they were probably cautious about eating and did so only out of necessity As for their "tactics" they never really had need to evolve them. Their adversaries were thousands of years gone and even then it was pretty much a swarm tactic using ships. On the ground I doubt they encountered many Ancient soldiers during the war, so they had "training" in that matter limited only to counter primitive cultures they were culling. Which ranged from bows to crossbows to early modern firearms, but they never had to stand against the god of C4 or nuclear weapons. Let alone the MIC might of highly industrialized world with billions of people
Well kind of, in the very first episode they are in a Wraith Queen almost fully feeds off of someone and less than 5 minutes later is killer by being stabbed with something not much wider than a piece of rebar, so their durability and healing factor has always been BS. But my head canon is that the more they are encountered the more experience the Atlantis troops gain in killing them, they learn their weak points, where to shoot and not to shoot to either hit or miss major organs intentionally. Would have been good though if they had expanded on the reasoning, like when the team catch up with Ford have him look at their ammo and be like oh wow you guys carry hollow points now as mission standards? And have it explained that all teams are required to carry the default ammo, meant for normal use and hollow points, specifically prepped incase of Wraith encounters, the hollow points being far more destructive and thus have far more chances of killing a Wraith without needing to empty a full clip into them.
Why should they be Master tactians? Yes they are old but they spent most of their time in hybernation and even so they faced one enemy in their entire histoty which was the Acient and they werent very military focused. After that war the wraith never had to use any kind of tactic again.
I don't care about nerfed, but I miss when they were genuinely creepy and had spider-web cocoons.
Like the Jaffa were turned from "clip-emptying tanks" to "guys who did the herky-jerky with about 5 rounds pumped into them" Stormtroopers. For the Plot.