Why don't the wraith clone?

Shrykull · Post by **Shrykull** » 2007-10-20 07:48am

I've been wondering this. Not only would they not have to go from planet to planet for food, they wouldn't even need to hiberate.

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2007-10-20 08:29am

Then what? Put the clones in kennels? Then the Wraith would have to grow food for the clones, right? Growing food for your own food might be an offensive concept to the Wraith.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2007-10-20 09:22am

Why don't we clone our food?

Patrick Ogaard · Post by **Patrick Ogaard** » 2007-10-20 10:40am

Shrykull wrote:I've been wondering this. Not only would they not have to go from planet to planet for food, they wouldn't even need to hiberate.

The Wraith would still have to maintain extensive infrastructure to keep the clones viable, healthy, tended, fed, occupied, etc. from birth until harvesting. (That is, unless the Wraith have access to Star Trek-style magic cloning to adulthood from a cell sample in hours or days.) Barring instant cloning, that would be quite a lot of work, and would require about twenty years from cell sample to adult. Thus, somehow, the Wraith would have to keep themselves taken care of for up to a quarter century until the first crop of clones is ripe to be murdered. Since the Wraith aren't likely to be farmers, they would have to maintain trained slaves and an industrial base to carry out farming duties to keep the clone ranches supplied with food.

Another factor could be that the Wraith give the appearance of enjoying, possibly even biologically needing, their victims experiencing intense pain and fear during the Wraith's feeding. Mass-produced clones brought up in an unstimulating environment may just not have the mental and emotional development that makes "free range" humans tasty.

In terms of logistics, having entire worlds, or at least specialized hive ships, devoted to clone-ranching would have been an Achilles heel for the Wraith in their conflict with the Ancients. With their faster hyperdrives, the Ancients could (barring typical Ancient ineptitude) have struck at the ranches, destroying the logistical support base of the Wraith. Relying on free range humans allowed the Wraith to "live off the galaxy" much in the manner of Napoleon's armies, meaning that the Ancients would have had to resort to a scorched earth policy of wiping all planets not under Ancient control clean of life in order to eliminate the Wraith food supply.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2007-10-20 10:51am

Cruelty.

They are villains, Y'know.

Zor · Post by **Zor** » 2007-10-20 02:51pm

Personally, instead of 'free range' humans or cloning, i have a far darker idea on how the wraith should work.

Their are planets, populated by two classes of people. The first are the farmers, who work on pastoral lands producing grain (or whatever) on parcells of land. The wraith supply them with mass produced tools and sometimes recreational drugs and take a good precentage of their harvest.

Said harvest goes to massive building where humans are raised in very large numbers in squalled conditions, all they do is eat, sleep and reproduce. A good precentage of those, every year is shipped off to hive ships for consumpion. Basicially human factory farming.

Zor

Teleros · Post by **Teleros** » 2007-10-20 02:53pm

You could probably automate the farms you know, or even have hydroponics to better control the conditions.