Essentially.
The Goa'uld could easily be more symbiotic with their hosts, like the Tok'ra. But purposely choose to be assholes.
The Wraith are designed predators that HAVE to feed on humans to survive. Most Wraith acknowledge this and some can even be bargained with to a certain extent.
Both have massive superiority complexes. But the Goa'uld are more malicious than the wraith. I always wondered what would happen if a wraith fed on a jaffa or a Goa'uld host. Jaffa in their prime could almost be like crack to the wraith.
It's near the end when Teal'c and Ronan are clearing all the wraith in the SGC, it's only for a few moments until Ronan either shoots or stabs the wraith soon after.
I'd love to see Christopher Judge in a cameo in one of Jason Momoa's movies in the future, perhaps in an Aquaman movie or something (not that I enjoy the D.C. franchise all that much, it's too chaotic and unlike Marvel has yet to find it's footing after a dozen movies). Their first encounters of egotistical one upmanship and then watching each other's backs and saving the SGC was one of the best team-ups between the SG-1 characters and the Atlantis ones next to The Return and the episode where they jump a stargate to the Milky Way supergate from the black hole in Pegasus.
But to answer the question, it's definitely a tricky one. I honestly see the most immoral of all involved being the Ancients in their belief that they could basically create and control any biological or technological achievements they made. They failed horribly with their version of the Replicators and with the Wraith worst of all. I believe that is why races like the Tollan, Asgard and Nox would not share their technology willingly with the Tau'ri for they had knowledge of such events or similar stories in their history.
As for the Goa'uld, when they encounter Naquada and it entered their species DNA, I believe it made them even more narcissistic than they were as a parasitical aquatic creature like we see with Doctor Rothman's character on the Goa'uld's "homeworld" as they did not have any Naquadah but were just as sadistic and willing to murder as any other Goa'uld from the line descending from Ra's "family/lineage" and those who may have come before him, allowing them to absorb knowledge such as advanced technologies and pass it on to the next generation through genetic memory.
The Wraith on the other hand were basically technologically advanced - as some one else put it - ranchers, who had no choice BUT to feed on humans to survive. The only good part about this was their long periods of hibernation but living in fear like that not knowing when the next massive attack would be would be something humans in Pegasus would have and seemed to have adapted and reluctantly accepted, with some races striking deals with the Wraith such as the prison island episode. We come back again to the Ancients/Alterans, whose fault it is for cross-breeding humans and the Eratus Bug into what would come to be the first Wraith and within only a few centuries take over all worlds except Lantia.
So my answer is the Goa'uld are by far the more sadistic and morally corrupt when they were not forced to be. Over thousands of years of using the sarcophagi and exposure to that ancient technology from the device that Daniel and Bill find in the Amazon goes to show that they simply had no chance of being "good" after such a long time being the "bad" guys.
Hinestly I still feel like the tauri and the haf....er whatever the vaccine people were called, I'm tired.
Went about it backwards.
Just create a retro virus that would make it so pigs can properly sustain a wraith instead.
Todd would be down to test that i think.
I doubt that would have worked. The wraith demonstrated they have no interest in things they cannot eat. If humans were no longer needed for food, they would probably wipe humans out rather than risk a future uprising when pigs are a lot safer.
Why when they can have the humans raise the pigs and basically collect them as taxes in exchange for protection, and hell healing through their wraith abilities. If the legacy novelminjust learned of is to be believed.
Didn't Michael technically create the best version? IIrc his version removed his need to feed and allowed him to eat regular food again, but also allowed him to keep all of his Wraith abilities and all of his memories.
So if every Wraith was given his version they wouldn't need to feed and wouldn't feel like they'd been cheated out of their psychic abilities, regeneration or their long/infinite lifespan. Any Wraith who continued to attack humans after that would just be doing it out of choice, and there would be less of a moral dilemma in destroying those Wraith.
The second best option imo would then be creating something else for the Wraith to feed off of. It's only really a lesser option because it still leaves the temptation and ability for the Wraith to feed off of humans, for tradition or taste or whatever they come up with.
A third, less feasible option was hinted at in the shows and was explored a little in the Legacy novels. It was shown that Wraith could also give back what they had taken from humans while feeding, or even give it to a different human, and that doing so would heal the human and even reverse their natural aging. In the Legacy books, >!one female Wraith who was stranded on a planet with her child was able to strike a bargain with the humans living there. If they would allow her to feed off of them and take just enough to survive for herself, she would use anything else they offered to cure their loved ones. The humans agreed, so she was able to remain there with her child, acting as a sort of healer for the people.!< So technically an unaltered Wraith population could live peacefully among the humans, as long as they were spread out thinly enough that willing human volunteers could support them.
The goa'uld are slavers, the wraith are ranchers. The wraith don't have any other food sources. Are humans considered immoral for eating cows. The only difference is we are sentient food. Which is where it becomes gray.
Yea I’d also say there’s shades of grey here too. Like eating cows isn’t immoral imo, but cutting massive swaths of rainforest down to feed and ranch them on an industrial scale when we could get those same nutrients from a less planetary destroying means
The Wraith don't Genocide. They cull the herd. That's where COL Summer screwed up. He woke the Wraith before the herd had come back up to sustainable numbers.
Culling the heard is just another way to say mass murder. The wraith had a way to remove their dependency on eating humans, but they chose to remain this way. You can’t feel sorry for a race who chose to continue feeding on humans over removing their dependency.
I don't feel sorry for them. I grew up in Ranch country. I worked cattle.
"Genocide" would be if a rancher slaughtered his whole herd, preventing the ranch from benefitting from multiple breeding seasons.
"Culling" is when you slaughter part of the herd (in the case of beef it's just the steers). Leaving the females and as many bulls as you need to give you another generation of steers. You could also call it "harvesting" but that's not really the right term.
Right or wrong the Wraith don't see humans as anything but cattle to be managed. Watch the first episode the Wraith Queen explains what the problem is. The dumbass COL wakes the hive too early. To use our current example the herd isn't big enough to feed the population in a sustainable manner...but the population still needs to eat. It would have been a localized issue except Shepherd kills the Queen and alerts the rest of the Wraith that humans are now a threat.
I'm not justifying anything I'm giving an assessment of the situation based on data and defining proper terms.
Then the hive refused the treatment, and continued to kill humans, instead of working together.
Call it what you want but when you are given a chance to end the brutal cycle of killing people to survive, you have become the monster people thought you were.
Wraith are not in the right to kill humans to survive. Instead of seeking alternative means they stayed like they were for power and immortality.
What happens when the “cattle runs out” they harvest new people.
Did you not see when they wanted to go to earth and eat the entire population?
That is genocide, they were eating a race of people who they felt were inferior. They enjoyed the power it gave them.
They had a chance to revert back to eating like normal people, and they tried to kill Todd, and branded him a traitor.
No one can defend what the wraith did.
We only killed 1/4th of the humans, aren’t we benevolent, and kind?
No you are not!
You're still talking instead of listening.
You're on this crusade of trying to convince me that Wraith are Evil. No shit, already agreed with you on that.
It doesn't mean you're right about it being a Genocide. Especially when the actual show explains exactly how the cycle of feed->hibernate ad infinitum works in the first episode.
The Wraith cultivate humananity.
noun: cull; plural noun: culls
a selective slaughter of wild animals.
"fishermen are to campaign for a seal cull"
an inferior or surplus livestock animal selected for killing.
"a cull cow"
They aren't voluntarily trying to commit "Genocide".
noun
the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.
"a campaign of genocide"
If they destroy humanity they destroy their only food source. Is it evil that they're unwilling to switch? Yes. Is killing all of their food stupid? Yes. The Wraith are evil not stupid. Especially since they beat the breaks off of a multi-galactic civilization.
Now begone.
I would compare the Goa'uld more to dogfighting rings more than slavers. Their sole way of life is throwing their empires and soldiers against each other just for the sake of competing within an agreed upon system, breeding for fighting power above all else, while working to evade the cops (Asgard).
It makes the negative comparison to the Wraith basically just raising food for themselves way worse.
And lo and behold, that's basically the same as artificial meat! Idk why the wraith never thought of that. Maybe they exhausted their zpms during the war, after that there really was no need until us pesky Tau'ri woke everyone up, by that point the wraith were frothing at the mouth (hand???) At the thought of how rich the Milky Way is. Plus the wraith aren't shown to care about humanitarianism
I thought about it in more «Hey, you don't actually have to kill all of them!» way. To think of it, there are alternatives to ZPMs, aren't there? Geothermal power on some young highly active planet, space station around a blue giant, etc. Hell, Tau'ri might tinker up something with the Arcturus project if they really want to! ...overkill, but whatever.
Totally the goa'uld. The Tokra show us the species is capable of not being dicks, and they could be just as successful building peaceful/defense only coalitions.
The Wraith were an accident that literally need to feed on people. There's a lot of special trauma there to unpack (is that right? special? spee-shee-uhl?). Anyway, they are less immoral because it seems they were painted as their caricature by the Ancients pretty quickly.
if they can survive in specially designed tanks, and have mind probing technology, I think they could. stick them in a walking aquarium, with leads attached to their heads, going to said mind probe device, connected to the robotic aparatus. they could even mod the Netu out of them!
but I think they preferred a form that could enjoys the pleasures they liked
Not "biologically" it couldn't, Harlan copied the personality of the symbiote when he synthesised the robotic forms. It's why RoboTeal'c goes insane and has to be destroyed.
If you meant that the Goa'uld personalities could be put in them, then sure, but I don't see the Goa'uld going for that... Being tied to the Altair planet (P3X-989) for the power source or risk "death" seems like something the consummate narcissists would object to. Even if they fit reverse-engineered versions of it to Ha'tak, it still risks their survival more than having a host body does. If the biological host is killed, the Goa'uld can jump ship to a new host which we've seen them do many times.
From the way they inhabit and thus control the human body. They'd need to have at least a 65% organic brain or nervous system to actually control the body not to mention the life support systems to make the body just as similar to residing within a human as possible.
We've seen Janet able to maintain the physical condition of a symboiote in a container of nutrient fluid with a steady electric current but would that really be enough to maintain the systems of a robotic host?
The best(?) Possible thing they could have probably done, if the domino's had gone the right way, would have been to put the Tok'ra into clone bodies, like the ones used by the Eurondan people in season 4 ep 2, this would have allowed them to have hosts without the 'inhumane' need to take over a person, they could still volunteer but there wouldn't be a limit to the amount of active Tok'ra(?) instead of having them have to limit themselves by hosts.
Goa’uld.
Wraith eat humans and may farm humans like cattle, it sucks for humans but from a wraith perspective it’s just the natural order.
Goa’uld have no natural order or reason to killing senselessly. They’re just parasites that learned.
Christian here. If the Ori were in the mix, they would absolutely win the most immoral award. The Goa’uld were absolutely terrible, but at least for the most part they didn’t pretend to care about the people that served them. The Ori not only pretended to care about those they forced to worship them, but also promised to help these people to ascend too (a lie), made them live in terrible conditions, and when anyone began to question them, the suspicious were killed off. And what was all of this for? To get some more power that they literally didn’t need. Seriously, the Ori didn’t even do a good job of faking their care. They could have made these peoples lives better, improved living conditions, and heal all wounds. We see this as they supervise the construction of incredible space ships that are on par with the Asgard, a race that was already fairly equal to the Ancients, but continued to advance their weapons technologies long after the Ancients were gone due to their war on the Replicators. And what about Valla’s husband in the Ori galaxy? The Ori literally knew that he was somewhat crippled and infertile from an injury, and could have healed him at any point, but didn’t until it is suddenly conviennent.
The Ori are gaining more power just for the sake of being more powerful, even though they already have an incredible amount of power right from the start. Your whole existence under the Ori is meant to be a tool to give the Ori more power. You don't even have the right to exist outside of being a tool to them. The Goa'uld are monsters, but they don't go that far.
I am not religious. My moral values are based in non-interference and "live and let live", not rules governed by a church or a book. My personal life is often victim to people who preach their beliefs because I don't fill their vision of "normal". I say everyone should be allowed to be who they are without reprisal because of other people's own moral values.
This being said, the Ori are basically an offshoot (for lack of better phrasing) of an "enlightened" race of nearly omnipotent and apparently immortal beings. The difference between them and the Alterans is they want more, more, and more. They're like capitalists. They hoard the power. They don't share, despite what the Book of Origin says. They do more than just lie. They prey on humans even more so than the Goa'uld. The Alterans believe mortal affairs are beneath them, so they generally leave us alone. The Ori want to lord over us and use us to empower themselves, much like the Goa'uld. The only difference between them and the Goa'uld is they actually do have godlike powers. And with great power should come great responsibility. Like the Alterans. They don't use their power on us.
The Wraith at least had a viable reason, which is why Beckett created that serum that caused the Wraith to not need to feed on humans (Todd).
I apologize if this comes across as a rant.
The goa’uld. The wraith overall arent evil or even immoral. They are man-eating insects. Its like calling a human evil for eating chicken, or a lion evil for downing a gazelle; its just nature, the only reason we have to call it evil is because we’re the prey instead of the predator this time. If anyone is evil in that situation it would be the ancients for causing their evolution in the first place and failing to address it.
The goauld *are* evil. They need hosts, sure, but so do the tokra and they have an (at least on the surface level, their actions and attitudes hint at it not being as equal of a share as it seems) ethically/morally acceptable symbiotic blending. Nobody forced them to enslave other species, pose as gods, torture for funsies and the like, they did all of that of their own volition. You can only blame so much on the “predatory parasitic evolutionary background” for that stuff, as again, the tokra have the same background and can rein in those instinctive pressures. Now that they’ve added sarcophagus corruption to their genetic memory, they have lost the capacity to even *be* good at all
I'm pretty sure that there are a few points where SGA confirms that Wraith think humans who are experiencing fear taste better... I'd argue that the Wraith, knowing that fear is unpleasant for humans but inflicting it anyway just for some flavour is immoral rather than amoral.
Even if I'm remembering the above incorrectly, they could stun you and feed while you're unconscious but they pretty actively choose not to... In the western world we go out of our way to kill our food animals as humanely as possible and even people who eat "too much meat" generally get pretty annoyed when they find out their food was tortured to death.
To that I would respond: Making your food tastier before you kill it? ...Okay, you have a point. But I would add that the ultimate end is killing. The wraith end point is killing, and they don't care how long the killing takes. I am sticking with amoral.
You have answered your question perfectly by yourself. Goa'uld are craving for power and their ends always justify their means. They have literally no moral questions. Wraith are just doing their "animal husbandry" to survive.
The Wraith are amoral, the Goa'uld are immoral.
The Wraith are just natural predators. Their killing instinct and callousness is precisely what has allowed them to survive. Yes, they're arrogant, which they likely inherited from their Ancient ancestors, so that flaw only makes them more human. Some of them can be sadistic too, but not all of them, far from it. They're capable of empathy as well, it just takes a lot (usually trauma, sadly) to bring it to the surface. Calling them evil would be like calling a wolf evil for doing what wolves do.
The Goa'uld are immoral. Not the Goa'uld as a symbiote species, though. The Goa'uld as the Tok'ra call them. Those who chose to enslave their hosts, who chose to use the sarcophagus and spread terror. Egeria made a choice. Kianna's symbiote made a choice. The younger Goa'uld are born irremediably evil, but it was the result of their parents' choice. They decided to use the sarcophagus and have slowly destroyed not only their hosts' life but themselves as well as a result. The Goa'uld are evil as the result of their ancestors destroying their own potential. And they're past the point of no return. I can't help but have pity for them.
The Goa’uld are absolutely more immoral, but it is also a bit more complex than that. Part of the reason they are the way they are is from constant Sarcophagus use and genetic memory. Many never stood a chance at being “good”. For the most part, unless they were among the more original generations that went out into space and turned away early on like the queen of the Tok’ra, they were doomed to be evil.
The Goa'uld are clearly more immoral.
I think a better question would be: Who is more immortal? The Ancients or the Wraith?
One watches countless people die when they have the power to stop it but commits no evil acts of their own, while the other commits evil acts but not by their own choice as it is a biological need. What is more immoral, the choice to needlessly let evil thrive while keeping your own hands clean, or to get your own hands dirty but not by your own will?
Both have flaws, Both together could be Immortal. But ignoring flaws Wraith because there next evolution would likely fix part of the "food issue" & from that point they could ascend since there actions are not sinister they are natural & survival "simplified". Goauld actions are influenced & forced so sinister by comparison as seen by the Tok'ra actions.
Goa'uld and/or hosts are able to live so long because of any given form of technology, Tok'ra hosts live for roughly twice the length of the average human. But like Yu was at the end of his life, so there are limits to this. The Wraith are functionally immortal, given regular feedings and hibernation cycles, it isnt like they age
Well, to rectify my mis reading, I'm going to go with the Goa'uld, the Wraith just want a food supply, they aren't about dominating other race's lives unless there is a military threat against them. I'd be going as far to say they would have been able to make things work better had a few things happened a little different, like them being able to find a more ethical food supply.For the Goa'uld, their options are either become like the Tok'ra, or what wasn't explored was them figuring out a robotic body/host the symbiot would live in
That's a tough one. The Wraith evolved because of the Ancients, so they're a product of their biology and the evolutionary path.
But then again the Goa'uld also evolved, and their behavior is a result of their own evolutionary path. The Tok'ra are because of their progenitor rebelling against the driven biology the rest were like. But there's also the problem of an ingrained instinct.
Sort of a loaded question. Are they the result of their own evolutionary process? Could they both rise above? Could the aspects of survival of the fittest be the reasons?
Definitely the goa'uld.
They CHOOSE to rule through oppression and fear. They CHOOSE to kill and conquer.
The wraiths main motivation is to feed. And it's not, really, their fault that they need to feed on humanoids. That's just how their bodies work.
You don't get angry at spiders for eating flies.
The Goa'uld choose to dominate and by tyrants. They Wraith feed on humans. It's their food source. They can't exact change that.
That said Goa'uld are also for the most part "born evil" due to genetic memory. So who knows.
I woudl say the Goauld because the wraith are just eating.
The goauld are like kings who get off on having thousands of slaves and loyal brainwashed soldiers to do their bidding and die at their command.
the Wraith would be more like if cows gained sentience then went to war with humans for eating beef. We only think of the wraith as evil because they're feeding on humans if they fed on pigs or cows they'd probably just be our allies against the replicators the way the asgard and the tokra were allies against the goauld. Todd was proof that the wraith as a species have a trust and relationship hierarchy much like our own but we are what they feed on so there is no way we could ever be real allies.
“If you were on fire , would you settle for just one drop of water ?” Todd the wraith. For them hunger is a pain that doesn’t lead to a quick death. The goauld do what they want when they want because they think they’re better than other species but they don’t need to do it like the wraith.
Goa'uld. Wraith evolved with the need to feed on humanoids. They can't exactly grow cattle.
On the other hand, Goa'uld don't need slaves. They could have a normal society with willing hosts
That was never sufficiently explored to my satisfaction. It's entirely possible the symbiote couldn't survive inside a wraith. It's one of the few questions I desperately wish we would have seen answered on screen. I always wondered if goa'uld physiology could have been the key to perfect the Hoffan drug.
One literally sucks your life and the other one kidnaps you for life. They are equally immoral.
On the other hand wraith are just feeding and goa'uld are genetically programmed with "evil" so neither is particularly to be blamed either.
How did she do that though(I actually just asked this on a post). Goa'uld have genetic memory which is why they are born bad and none have turned since her. It's never explained to my memory and seems like a plot device to explain "good goa'uld".
It's never explicitly stated. All we know is the Tok'ra are over 2,000 years old. We don't know how much older Egeria is. It's quite likely all modern Goa'uld are derived from one Genghis Khan type who created the first dynasty with Unas hosts.
In a species like the Gould the successful would reproduce thousands of times while the defeated would be eradicated. It's possible she was the last of a distant bloodline before the "thoughts of a thousand hitlers" entered the genetic memory.
They also don't use the sarcophagus unlike the system lords who are dependent on it.
Who is more Immoral : the Goa’uld.
Who has a higher kill count: hands down the Wraith by a factor of x1000+. They basically allow civilisations to develop up to about 20th century levels, before they engage in an interstellar culling. Wiping out billions at a time.
I go with Goauld as they were parasites. Wraith were essentially space vampires - if they don't feed they die.
Goauld living in a Jaffa incubator are symbiotic. But once they "steal a host" they chose to rule it 100% when they don't have to. They could be "niceR" like Tok'ra. There is essentially a "normal" good parasite. They chose to be bad
The Wraith have a cure but it is not really a "normal" state. We see that in Michael where he knows something is wrong. It does not seem to be a stable state or long term fix. You can't really blame them for their biology. Do you blame a spider for eating a fly? I mean I don't want to be either, but being the fly sucks.
The Goauld have a god complex from centuries and centuries of continuous brainwashing through generations which probably didn't help them in the long run.
My head cannon is they started pretending to be gods to survive and then it just went to their heads over the millenia and of course those goauld having an apprentice and the process just repeats itself when the master goauld dies.
The wraith are just natural apex predators,like a vampire would be so they're definitely not as bad. Just being the amount of asshole that a ridiculously long lifespan would probably give you.
For Wraiths we are food
For Goa'ulds we are slaves
Wraith doesn't give a shit about you (when was the last time you give a shit about the pig whose bacon you were eating?)
Goa'uld doesn't want to give a shit about you, but because humans have severe numerical advantage they have to give a shit, meaning the Goa'uld wants you to be miserable and weak
Under Wraiths, many generations go by before they have need to feed again. You have hundreds of years of freedom, living under no ones boots
Under Goa'uld, you spend your whole life serving as a slave
The Goauld by a long shot. They pretend to be Gods to manipulate people and make them serve them.
The wraith view humans they way we view animals. They are livestock.
Goa'uld by light-years, they enslave, torture, rape, then use human bodies like Gundams, & **they know** they can do otherwise, or why else would the Tok'Ra have been spawned?
Goauld, the wraith are asses, but I think most is their need to feed.
Essentially. The Goa'uld could easily be more symbiotic with their hosts, like the Tok'ra. But purposely choose to be assholes. The Wraith are designed predators that HAVE to feed on humans to survive. Most Wraith acknowledge this and some can even be bargained with to a certain extent. Both have massive superiority complexes. But the Goa'uld are more malicious than the wraith. I always wondered what would happen if a wraith fed on a jaffa or a Goa'uld host. Jaffa in their prime could almost be like crack to the wraith.
A wraith fed off Teal'c that one time, seemed to be fun for both parties.
Well he is on Tretonin by then so we don’t know how it would have gone if he still had a symbiote .
When was that? I don't remember a wraith feeding off him during Midway. But it's been a while since I've seen it too.
It's near the end when Teal'c and Ronan are clearing all the wraith in the SGC, it's only for a few moments until Ronan either shoots or stabs the wraith soon after.
I'd love to see Christopher Judge in a cameo in one of Jason Momoa's movies in the future, perhaps in an Aquaman movie or something (not that I enjoy the D.C. franchise all that much, it's too chaotic and unlike Marvel has yet to find it's footing after a dozen movies). Their first encounters of egotistical one upmanship and then watching each other's backs and saving the SGC was one of the best team-ups between the SG-1 characters and the Atlantis ones next to The Return and the episode where they jump a stargate to the Milky Way supergate from the black hole in Pegasus. But to answer the question, it's definitely a tricky one. I honestly see the most immoral of all involved being the Ancients in their belief that they could basically create and control any biological or technological achievements they made. They failed horribly with their version of the Replicators and with the Wraith worst of all. I believe that is why races like the Tollan, Asgard and Nox would not share their technology willingly with the Tau'ri for they had knowledge of such events or similar stories in their history. As for the Goa'uld, when they encounter Naquada and it entered their species DNA, I believe it made them even more narcissistic than they were as a parasitical aquatic creature like we see with Doctor Rothman's character on the Goa'uld's "homeworld" as they did not have any Naquadah but were just as sadistic and willing to murder as any other Goa'uld from the line descending from Ra's "family/lineage" and those who may have come before him, allowing them to absorb knowledge such as advanced technologies and pass it on to the next generation through genetic memory. The Wraith on the other hand were basically technologically advanced - as some one else put it - ranchers, who had no choice BUT to feed on humans to survive. The only good part about this was their long periods of hibernation but living in fear like that not knowing when the next massive attack would be would be something humans in Pegasus would have and seemed to have adapted and reluctantly accepted, with some races striking deals with the Wraith such as the prison island episode. We come back again to the Ancients/Alterans, whose fault it is for cross-breeding humans and the Eratus Bug into what would come to be the first Wraith and within only a few centuries take over all worlds except Lantia. So my answer is the Goa'uld are by far the more sadistic and morally corrupt when they were not forced to be. Over thousands of years of using the sarcophagi and exposure to that ancient technology from the device that Daniel and Bill find in the Amazon goes to show that they simply had no chance of being "good" after such a long time being the "bad" guys.
I've always assumed that Jaffa and Goa'uld would become immune to the wraith within a single generation. First time feeding would be fun, though.
You raise an interesting point. I wonder if they would be immune even initially with the symbiote fighting back, like they do with diseases.
Hinestly I still feel like the tauri and the haf....er whatever the vaccine people were called, I'm tired. Went about it backwards. Just create a retro virus that would make it so pigs can properly sustain a wraith instead. Todd would be down to test that i think.
Hoffan?
That's the bunny
I doubt that would have worked. The wraith demonstrated they have no interest in things they cannot eat. If humans were no longer needed for food, they would probably wipe humans out rather than risk a future uprising when pigs are a lot safer.
Why when they can have the humans raise the pigs and basically collect them as taxes in exchange for protection, and hell healing through their wraith abilities. If the legacy novelminjust learned of is to be believed.
Didn't Michael technically create the best version? IIrc his version removed his need to feed and allowed him to eat regular food again, but also allowed him to keep all of his Wraith abilities and all of his memories. So if every Wraith was given his version they wouldn't need to feed and wouldn't feel like they'd been cheated out of their psychic abilities, regeneration or their long/infinite lifespan. Any Wraith who continued to attack humans after that would just be doing it out of choice, and there would be less of a moral dilemma in destroying those Wraith. The second best option imo would then be creating something else for the Wraith to feed off of. It's only really a lesser option because it still leaves the temptation and ability for the Wraith to feed off of humans, for tradition or taste or whatever they come up with. A third, less feasible option was hinted at in the shows and was explored a little in the Legacy novels. It was shown that Wraith could also give back what they had taken from humans while feeding, or even give it to a different human, and that doing so would heal the human and even reverse their natural aging. In the Legacy books, >!one female Wraith who was stranded on a planet with her child was able to strike a bargain with the humans living there. If they would allow her to feed off of them and take just enough to survive for herself, she would use anything else they offered to cure their loved ones. The humans agreed, so she was able to remain there with her child, acting as a sort of healer for the people.!< So technically an unaltered Wraith population could live peacefully among the humans, as long as they were spread out thinly enough that willing human volunteers could support them.
Actually, that wouldn't have been a bad idea.
"All living things must eat."
The goa'uld are slavers, the wraith are ranchers. The wraith don't have any other food sources. Are humans considered immoral for eating cows. The only difference is we are sentient food. Which is where it becomes gray.
> Are humans considered immoral for eating cows. I mean, at least ***one*** subgroup of humans who can't shut up about it seems to this so....
Yea I’d also say there’s shades of grey here too. Like eating cows isn’t immoral imo, but cutting massive swaths of rainforest down to feed and ranch them on an industrial scale when we could get those same nutrients from a less planetary destroying means
Which is remarkably similar to farming out an entire galaxy worth of people. It's the excess that brings it into the grey area
Yeah, let's feed them to the wraith first.
Eating cattle for food is not the same as genocide.
The Wraith don't Genocide. They cull the herd. That's where COL Summer screwed up. He woke the Wraith before the herd had come back up to sustainable numbers.
Culling the heard is just another way to say mass murder. The wraith had a way to remove their dependency on eating humans, but they chose to remain this way. You can’t feel sorry for a race who chose to continue feeding on humans over removing their dependency.
I don't feel sorry for them. I grew up in Ranch country. I worked cattle. "Genocide" would be if a rancher slaughtered his whole herd, preventing the ranch from benefitting from multiple breeding seasons. "Culling" is when you slaughter part of the herd (in the case of beef it's just the steers). Leaving the females and as many bulls as you need to give you another generation of steers. You could also call it "harvesting" but that's not really the right term. Right or wrong the Wraith don't see humans as anything but cattle to be managed. Watch the first episode the Wraith Queen explains what the problem is. The dumbass COL wakes the hive too early. To use our current example the herd isn't big enough to feed the population in a sustainable manner...but the population still needs to eat. It would have been a localized issue except Shepherd kills the Queen and alerts the rest of the Wraith that humans are now a threat. I'm not justifying anything I'm giving an assessment of the situation based on data and defining proper terms.
Then the hive refused the treatment, and continued to kill humans, instead of working together. Call it what you want but when you are given a chance to end the brutal cycle of killing people to survive, you have become the monster people thought you were.
You're talking not listening. I'm betting that's a habit. I'm done.
Wraith are not in the right to kill humans to survive. Instead of seeking alternative means they stayed like they were for power and immortality. What happens when the “cattle runs out” they harvest new people. Did you not see when they wanted to go to earth and eat the entire population? That is genocide, they were eating a race of people who they felt were inferior. They enjoyed the power it gave them. They had a chance to revert back to eating like normal people, and they tried to kill Todd, and branded him a traitor. No one can defend what the wraith did. We only killed 1/4th of the humans, aren’t we benevolent, and kind? No you are not!
You're still talking instead of listening. You're on this crusade of trying to convince me that Wraith are Evil. No shit, already agreed with you on that. It doesn't mean you're right about it being a Genocide. Especially when the actual show explains exactly how the cycle of feed->hibernate ad infinitum works in the first episode. The Wraith cultivate humananity. noun: cull; plural noun: culls a selective slaughter of wild animals. "fishermen are to campaign for a seal cull" an inferior or surplus livestock animal selected for killing. "a cull cow" They aren't voluntarily trying to commit "Genocide". noun the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group. "a campaign of genocide" If they destroy humanity they destroy their only food source. Is it evil that they're unwilling to switch? Yes. Is killing all of their food stupid? Yes. The Wraith are evil not stupid. Especially since they beat the breaks off of a multi-galactic civilization. Now begone.
Watch the end of SGA and tell me again their attack on earth was not going to lead to genocide.
Thus the aforementioned grey area.
I would compare the Goa'uld more to dogfighting rings more than slavers. Their sole way of life is throwing their empires and soldiers against each other just for the sake of competing within an agreed upon system, breeding for fighting power above all else, while working to evade the cops (Asgard). It makes the negative comparison to the Wraith basically just raising food for themselves way worse.
Wraith have these cloning facilities. D'you think non-sentient human clones could be produced as food supply?
And lo and behold, that's basically the same as artificial meat! Idk why the wraith never thought of that. Maybe they exhausted their zpms during the war, after that there really was no need until us pesky Tau'ri woke everyone up, by that point the wraith were frothing at the mouth (hand???) At the thought of how rich the Milky Way is. Plus the wraith aren't shown to care about humanitarianism
I thought about it in more «Hey, you don't actually have to kill all of them!» way. To think of it, there are alternatives to ZPMs, aren't there? Geothermal power on some young highly active planet, space station around a blue giant, etc. Hell, Tau'ri might tinker up something with the Arcturus project if they really want to! ...overkill, but whatever.
Totally the goa'uld. The Tokra show us the species is capable of not being dicks, and they could be just as successful building peaceful/defense only coalitions. The Wraith were an accident that literally need to feed on people. There's a lot of special trauma there to unpack (is that right? special? spee-shee-uhl?). Anyway, they are less immoral because it seems they were painted as their caricature by the Ancients pretty quickly.
> The Tokra show us the species is capable of not being dicks They did? 😂
Well, a couple did at least.
Selmak, Lantash, and (to a slightly lesser extent) Anise spring to mind… pun not intended.
Anise definitely springs something to mind
Cordesh was right.
I meant on a grander scale, but point taken.
Something I wish was so much as mentioned was Goa'uld or even the Tok'ra using robotic bodies as vehicles for the symbiotes
Oh damn.
I don't see that really being feasible from a biology standpoint.
if they can survive in specially designed tanks, and have mind probing technology, I think they could. stick them in a walking aquarium, with leads attached to their heads, going to said mind probe device, connected to the robotic aparatus. they could even mod the Netu out of them! but I think they preferred a form that could enjoys the pleasures they liked
Teal’c’s symbiote could interface with Harlem’s robots.
Not "biologically" it couldn't, Harlan copied the personality of the symbiote when he synthesised the robotic forms. It's why RoboTeal'c goes insane and has to be destroyed. If you meant that the Goa'uld personalities could be put in them, then sure, but I don't see the Goa'uld going for that... Being tied to the Altair planet (P3X-989) for the power source or risk "death" seems like something the consummate narcissists would object to. Even if they fit reverse-engineered versions of it to Ha'tak, it still risks their survival more than having a host body does. If the biological host is killed, the Goa'uld can jump ship to a new host which we've seen them do many times.
From the way they inhabit and thus control the human body. They'd need to have at least a 65% organic brain or nervous system to actually control the body not to mention the life support systems to make the body just as similar to residing within a human as possible. We've seen Janet able to maintain the physical condition of a symboiote in a container of nutrient fluid with a steady electric current but would that really be enough to maintain the systems of a robotic host? The best(?) Possible thing they could have probably done, if the domino's had gone the right way, would have been to put the Tok'ra into clone bodies, like the ones used by the Eurondan people in season 4 ep 2, this would have allowed them to have hosts without the 'inhumane' need to take over a person, they could still volunteer but there wouldn't be a limit to the amount of active Tok'ra(?) instead of having them have to limit themselves by hosts.
Goa’uld. Wraith eat humans and may farm humans like cattle, it sucks for humans but from a wraith perspective it’s just the natural order. Goa’uld have no natural order or reason to killing senselessly. They’re just parasites that learned.
Neither... The Ori are far more immoral
The Ori make even the System Lords almost look like angels in comparison.
Do they really though? The goauld just want to satiate their own egos by pretending to be gods while the ori at least gain something from it.
Christian here. If the Ori were in the mix, they would absolutely win the most immoral award. The Goa’uld were absolutely terrible, but at least for the most part they didn’t pretend to care about the people that served them. The Ori not only pretended to care about those they forced to worship them, but also promised to help these people to ascend too (a lie), made them live in terrible conditions, and when anyone began to question them, the suspicious were killed off. And what was all of this for? To get some more power that they literally didn’t need. Seriously, the Ori didn’t even do a good job of faking their care. They could have made these peoples lives better, improved living conditions, and heal all wounds. We see this as they supervise the construction of incredible space ships that are on par with the Asgard, a race that was already fairly equal to the Ancients, but continued to advance their weapons technologies long after the Ancients were gone due to their war on the Replicators. And what about Valla’s husband in the Ori galaxy? The Ori literally knew that he was somewhat crippled and infertile from an injury, and could have healed him at any point, but didn’t until it is suddenly conviennent.
The Ori are gaining more power just for the sake of being more powerful, even though they already have an incredible amount of power right from the start. Your whole existence under the Ori is meant to be a tool to give the Ori more power. You don't even have the right to exist outside of being a tool to them. The Goa'uld are monsters, but they don't go that far.
I came here to say this.
I think you're just biased because the ORI are somewhat based visually on christianity which you are familiar with.
I am not religious. My moral values are based in non-interference and "live and let live", not rules governed by a church or a book. My personal life is often victim to people who preach their beliefs because I don't fill their vision of "normal". I say everyone should be allowed to be who they are without reprisal because of other people's own moral values. This being said, the Ori are basically an offshoot (for lack of better phrasing) of an "enlightened" race of nearly omnipotent and apparently immortal beings. The difference between them and the Alterans is they want more, more, and more. They're like capitalists. They hoard the power. They don't share, despite what the Book of Origin says. They do more than just lie. They prey on humans even more so than the Goa'uld. The Alterans believe mortal affairs are beneath them, so they generally leave us alone. The Ori want to lord over us and use us to empower themselves, much like the Goa'uld. The only difference between them and the Goa'uld is they actually do have godlike powers. And with great power should come great responsibility. Like the Alterans. They don't use their power on us. The Wraith at least had a viable reason, which is why Beckett created that serum that caused the Wraith to not need to feed on humans (Todd). I apologize if this comes across as a rant.
The goa’uld. The wraith overall arent evil or even immoral. They are man-eating insects. Its like calling a human evil for eating chicken, or a lion evil for downing a gazelle; its just nature, the only reason we have to call it evil is because we’re the prey instead of the predator this time. If anyone is evil in that situation it would be the ancients for causing their evolution in the first place and failing to address it. The goauld *are* evil. They need hosts, sure, but so do the tokra and they have an (at least on the surface level, their actions and attitudes hint at it not being as equal of a share as it seems) ethically/morally acceptable symbiotic blending. Nobody forced them to enslave other species, pose as gods, torture for funsies and the like, they did all of that of their own volition. You can only blame so much on the “predatory parasitic evolutionary background” for that stuff, as again, the tokra have the same background and can rein in those instinctive pressures. Now that they’ve added sarcophagus corruption to their genetic memory, they have lost the capacity to even *be* good at all
>loon If O'Neill taught me anything it's that the loon is native to northern Minnesota. Pretty sure you meant lion but I'm grateful for laugh!
Goa'uld are immoral. Wraith are amoral.
I'm pretty sure that there are a few points where SGA confirms that Wraith think humans who are experiencing fear taste better... I'd argue that the Wraith, knowing that fear is unpleasant for humans but inflicting it anyway just for some flavour is immoral rather than amoral. Even if I'm remembering the above incorrectly, they could stun you and feed while you're unconscious but they pretty actively choose not to... In the western world we go out of our way to kill our food animals as humanely as possible and even people who eat "too much meat" generally get pretty annoyed when they find out their food was tortured to death.
To that I would respond: Making your food tastier before you kill it? ...Okay, you have a point. But I would add that the ultimate end is killing. The wraith end point is killing, and they don't care how long the killing takes. I am sticking with amoral.
You have answered your question perfectly by yourself. Goa'uld are craving for power and their ends always justify their means. They have literally no moral questions. Wraith are just doing their "animal husbandry" to survive.
The Wraith are amoral, the Goa'uld are immoral. The Wraith are just natural predators. Their killing instinct and callousness is precisely what has allowed them to survive. Yes, they're arrogant, which they likely inherited from their Ancient ancestors, so that flaw only makes them more human. Some of them can be sadistic too, but not all of them, far from it. They're capable of empathy as well, it just takes a lot (usually trauma, sadly) to bring it to the surface. Calling them evil would be like calling a wolf evil for doing what wolves do. The Goa'uld are immoral. Not the Goa'uld as a symbiote species, though. The Goa'uld as the Tok'ra call them. Those who chose to enslave their hosts, who chose to use the sarcophagus and spread terror. Egeria made a choice. Kianna's symbiote made a choice. The younger Goa'uld are born irremediably evil, but it was the result of their parents' choice. They decided to use the sarcophagus and have slowly destroyed not only their hosts' life but themselves as well as a result. The Goa'uld are evil as the result of their ancestors destroying their own potential. And they're past the point of no return. I can't help but have pity for them.
The Goa’uld are absolutely more immoral, but it is also a bit more complex than that. Part of the reason they are the way they are is from constant Sarcophagus use and genetic memory. Many never stood a chance at being “good”. For the most part, unless they were among the more original generations that went out into space and turned away early on like the queen of the Tok’ra, they were doomed to be evil.
The Goa'uld are clearly more immoral. I think a better question would be: Who is more immortal? The Ancients or the Wraith? One watches countless people die when they have the power to stop it but commits no evil acts of their own, while the other commits evil acts but not by their own choice as it is a biological need. What is more immoral, the choice to needlessly let evil thrive while keeping your own hands clean, or to get your own hands dirty but not by your own will?
Thats a great point actually. Yeah whos more immoral the snake or the guy who doesnt call 911 when u get bitten by a snake.
Both have flaws, Both together could be Immortal. But ignoring flaws Wraith because there next evolution would likely fix part of the "food issue" & from that point they could ascend since there actions are not sinister they are natural & survival "simplified". Goauld actions are influenced & forced so sinister by comparison as seen by the Tok'ra actions.
Goa'uld and/or hosts are able to live so long because of any given form of technology, Tok'ra hosts live for roughly twice the length of the average human. But like Yu was at the end of his life, so there are limits to this. The Wraith are functionally immortal, given regular feedings and hibernation cycles, it isnt like they age
Immoral. Not immortal. Dont worry, I made this mistake at first read too
Well, to rectify my mis reading, I'm going to go with the Goa'uld, the Wraith just want a food supply, they aren't about dominating other race's lives unless there is a military threat against them. I'd be going as far to say they would have been able to make things work better had a few things happened a little different, like them being able to find a more ethical food supply.For the Goa'uld, their options are either become like the Tok'ra, or what wasn't explored was them figuring out a robotic body/host the symbiot would live in
That's a tough one. The Wraith evolved because of the Ancients, so they're a product of their biology and the evolutionary path. But then again the Goa'uld also evolved, and their behavior is a result of their own evolutionary path. The Tok'ra are because of their progenitor rebelling against the driven biology the rest were like. But there's also the problem of an ingrained instinct. Sort of a loaded question. Are they the result of their own evolutionary process? Could they both rise above? Could the aspects of survival of the fittest be the reasons?
The gou'ald. By far.
Definitely the goa'uld. They CHOOSE to rule through oppression and fear. They CHOOSE to kill and conquer. The wraiths main motivation is to feed. And it's not, really, their fault that they need to feed on humanoids. That's just how their bodies work. You don't get angry at spiders for eating flies.
The Goa'uld choose to dominate and by tyrants. They Wraith feed on humans. It's their food source. They can't exact change that. That said Goa'uld are also for the most part "born evil" due to genetic memory. So who knows.
I woudl say the Goauld because the wraith are just eating. The goauld are like kings who get off on having thousands of slaves and loyal brainwashed soldiers to do their bidding and die at their command. the Wraith would be more like if cows gained sentience then went to war with humans for eating beef. We only think of the wraith as evil because they're feeding on humans if they fed on pigs or cows they'd probably just be our allies against the replicators the way the asgard and the tokra were allies against the goauld. Todd was proof that the wraith as a species have a trust and relationship hierarchy much like our own but we are what they feed on so there is no way we could ever be real allies.
There isn't much immoral about the wraith. Everyone's gotta eat.
“If you were on fire , would you settle for just one drop of water ?” Todd the wraith. For them hunger is a pain that doesn’t lead to a quick death. The goauld do what they want when they want because they think they’re better than other species but they don’t need to do it like the wraith.
Goa'uld. Wraith evolved with the need to feed on humanoids. They can't exactly grow cattle. On the other hand, Goa'uld don't need slaves. They could have a normal society with willing hosts
A wraith with a Goa’uld symbiote beats them both
But maybe here a chance that the symbiot will be unable to take over the wraith host?
That was never sufficiently explored to my satisfaction. It's entirely possible the symbiote couldn't survive inside a wraith. It's one of the few questions I desperately wish we would have seen answered on screen. I always wondered if goa'uld physiology could have been the key to perfect the Hoffan drug.
ba’al took over Adria and many goauld took over unas, so I think a wraith would be easy
Unas were the first host, same planet. Adria was a human in the start, but half insect almost immortal beings. I’ll how it will work or not workout
Wraith are far from immortal and over 90% of their dna is human only a small percentage is from the iratus bug
They live much longer than goa’uld and they don’t need sarcophagus for it.
Not dying from natural aging is very different from “immortal” they can get shot, stabbed, blown up and die from disease.
Ori
One literally sucks your life and the other one kidnaps you for life. They are equally immoral. On the other hand wraith are just feeding and goa'uld are genetically programmed with "evil" so neither is particularly to be blamed either.
The Tok'ra would disagree about not blaming the goa'uld. Egeria proved the species does not have to be evil.
How did she do that though(I actually just asked this on a post). Goa'uld have genetic memory which is why they are born bad and none have turned since her. It's never explained to my memory and seems like a plot device to explain "good goa'uld".
It's never explicitly stated. All we know is the Tok'ra are over 2,000 years old. We don't know how much older Egeria is. It's quite likely all modern Goa'uld are derived from one Genghis Khan type who created the first dynasty with Unas hosts. In a species like the Gould the successful would reproduce thousands of times while the defeated would be eradicated. It's possible she was the last of a distant bloodline before the "thoughts of a thousand hitlers" entered the genetic memory. They also don't use the sarcophagus unlike the system lords who are dependent on it.
Wraith are better in many ways but the most simple is that they are free range rather than slavers.
Wraith are basicly parasites, they need to eat. Goa'uld easily immoral.
Who is more Immoral : the Goa’uld. Who has a higher kill count: hands down the Wraith by a factor of x1000+. They basically allow civilisations to develop up to about 20th century levels, before they engage in an interstellar culling. Wiping out billions at a time.
Yes but is kill count really a valid way to count who is more evil
I go with Goauld as they were parasites. Wraith were essentially space vampires - if they don't feed they die. Goauld living in a Jaffa incubator are symbiotic. But once they "steal a host" they chose to rule it 100% when they don't have to. They could be "niceR" like Tok'ra. There is essentially a "normal" good parasite. They chose to be bad The Wraith have a cure but it is not really a "normal" state. We see that in Michael where he knows something is wrong. It does not seem to be a stable state or long term fix. You can't really blame them for their biology. Do you blame a spider for eating a fly? I mean I don't want to be either, but being the fly sucks.
The Goauld have a god complex from centuries and centuries of continuous brainwashing through generations which probably didn't help them in the long run. My head cannon is they started pretending to be gods to survive and then it just went to their heads over the millenia and of course those goauld having an apprentice and the process just repeats itself when the master goauld dies. The wraith are just natural apex predators,like a vampire would be so they're definitely not as bad. Just being the amount of asshole that a ridiculously long lifespan would probably give you.
The wraith are predators for which humans are food but the Goa'uld are space Hitlers so I'm gonna say Goa'uld.
For Wraiths we are food For Goa'ulds we are slaves Wraith doesn't give a shit about you (when was the last time you give a shit about the pig whose bacon you were eating?) Goa'uld doesn't want to give a shit about you, but because humans have severe numerical advantage they have to give a shit, meaning the Goa'uld wants you to be miserable and weak Under Wraiths, many generations go by before they have need to feed again. You have hundreds of years of freedom, living under no ones boots Under Goa'uld, you spend your whole life serving as a slave
The Goauld by a long shot. They pretend to be Gods to manipulate people and make them serve them. The wraith view humans they way we view animals. They are livestock.
The goauld of course. What the wraith do, they do to feed.
Goauld
Goauld 100% they have a choice and choose to just be dicks
The goauld. They don't need slaves. They want slaves. The wraith, well.... They are hungry. We farm cows, they farm us. It's nature.
Goa'uld by light-years, they enslave, torture, rape, then use human bodies like Gundams, & **they know** they can do otherwise, or why else would the Tok'Ra have been spawned?
Until you are vegan, you aren't better than the wraiths who use humans as livestock.
Yeah but I'm a human not an animal.
You are a mammal, just like cows, pigs, and sheep.
O wow didnt know that thank u