Stargate Atlantis - Wraith question

[paladin]

How often would a Wraith need to feed on a human under normal circumstances? I couldn't find anything that said if what the Wraith feeding interval was.

[Lonestar]

How often would a Wraith need to feed on a human under normal circumstances? I couldn't find anything that said if what the Wraith feeding interval was.

Todd the Wraith has gone quite a while(weeks, months?) without feeding on a human, IIRC.

[Darksider]

I don't know if it's canon or not, but in the Atlantis continuation novels they need to put Todd in stasis after several weeks or months or else he'll starve.

[Ahriman238]

I generally figured that humans served as an analogue for food to the wraith, and they're humanoids roughly so our size, so maybe three weeks without.

Keep in mind they needed more for their 'super-regeneration' trick.

[Alyeska]

Wraith are not human by any real extent. Their long life rather shows this. Multiple Wraith encountered in SGA happened to be 10,000 years old.

[Ahriman238]

Wraith are not human by any real extent. Their long life rather shows this. Multiple Wraith encountered in SGA happened to be 10,000 years old.

I'm well aware that the space-vampires are ageless, and not entirely human. But their metabolic needs should be largely similar to ours, since they have largely similar bodies that do largely similar things. Also, the Wraith are some sort of hybrid between humans and the Iratus bug, their having human-like biological qualities is not unlikely.

[NecronLord]

The canon answer from Season Two's Instinct

GORAN: It took its first victim that very night. We tried to hunt it down, but we couldn't find it. It's been out there ever since.

[Quick cut back to the present evening.]

GORAN: It feeds three, four times a year, takes two or three people each time. [Cut to McKay having a very hard time hearing this.] Two years after the crash, it took my own son.

It should be noted that this was one adult and one young female wraith who started feeding later on, so divide that by two.

[Alyeska]

Wraith are not human by any real extent. Their long life rather shows this. Multiple Wraith encountered in SGA happened to be 10,000 years old.

I'm well aware that the space-vampires are ageless, and not entirely human. But their metabolic needs should be largely similar to ours, since they have largely similar bodies that do largely similar things. Also, the Wraith are some sort of hybrid between humans and the Iratus bug, their having human-like biological qualities is not unlikely.

Long life usually means a significantly slower metabolism.

[Sithking Zero]

I suppose what would help is knowing exactly how the Wraith feed, and what, exactly, they feed on. I mean, all we know is that they slam their hands into a person, then, the next scene, they look like mummies. Also, what do they use from us as food? Do they feed on the iron, do they take our fat and moisture, are they carbohydrate lovers, what?

We don't know enough about the Wraith to know how long they can go between feedings. I do know that some types of earth bugs can go into long-term hibernation (see also: 17 year cicadas,) so maybe they do that frequently? The point is, until we know what it is that they take from us, and what they do with it resource-wise, we don't really have a leg to stand on. All we can do is make pointless speculation that will ultimately get us no closer to the truth.

[NecronLord]

We don't know enough about the Wraith to know how long they can go between feedings.

Read up. Three to four months between feedings while active. That's a quote from an episode.

I do know that some types of earth bugs can go into long-term hibernation (see also: 17 year cicadas,) so maybe they do that frequently?

See episode one? They can and do hibernate over long periods.

[Sithking Zero]

We don't know enough about the Wraith to know how long they can go between feedings.

Read up. Three to four months between feedings while active. That's a quote from an episode.

I do know that some types of earth bugs can go into long-term hibernation (see also: 17 year cicadas,) so maybe they do that frequently?

See episode one? They can and do hibernate over long periods.

Yes, I get that, but what I meant is, "Can they do that on their own, or do they require special "Sleep Pods," like we saw in episode 1/2?" That was what I was trying to say by that. I was aware that they hibernated for 10K years, but could they do that on a more limited basis? Could they do it, say, in a cave?

[NecronLord]

No, they can't, or Todd would presumably have done so while captured by the Genii.

[Broomstick]

I do know that some types of earth bugs can go into long-term hibernation (see also: 17 year cicadas,) so maybe they do that frequently?

[nitpick] 17 year cicadas do not hibernate - during those 17 years they exist in larval form, sucking the juices out of tree roots while living underground.[/nitpick]

[Ahriman238]

Yes, I get that, but what I meant is, "Can they do that on their own, or do they require special "Sleep Pods," like we saw in episode 1/2?" That was what I was trying to say by that. I was aware that they hibernated for 10K years, but could they do that on a more limited basis? Could they do it, say, in a cave?

No, they can't, or Todd would presumably have done so while captured by the Genii.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't a Wraith do exactly that in 'the Defiant One?' Hibernate without technological aid?

[NecronLord]

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't a Wraith do exactly that in 'the Defiant One?' Hibernate without technological aid?

He was on a semi-functioning starship. Remember, the wraith aboard that ship were able to keep the on-board humans in stasis for a long time, and it was still putting out a distress signal (rather sadly for the wraith, after ten thousand years of waiting, the wraith would be back in orbit and able to hear it in seven episodes time, but he doesn't make it...).

[Sithking Zero]

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't a Wraith do exactly that in 'the Defiant One?' Hibernate without technological aid?

He was on a semi-functioning starship. Remember, the wraith aboard that ship were able to keep the on-board humans in stasis for a long time, and it was still putting out a distress signal (rather sadly for the wraith, after ten thousand years of waiting, the wraith would be back in orbit and able to hear it in seven episodes time, but he doesn't make it...).

Hmm, that's what I thought, but it still doesn't answer the question of personal hibernation. Would it be a good idea, though? I'd think that even if they were capable of it, they still wouldn't do it. Look at Mass Effect, with the Reapers. They hibernate in Dark Space (the intergalactic void) between their "cullings," so that they remain safe and untouched. And that's when the races of the galaxy don't even know that they exist. The Wraith, well, to put it kindly, do not have the most stellar reputation (no pun intended). If people found wraith hibernating, they would probably kill them all on sight. I mean, that'd be like finding Dracula asleep in his coffin, which is conveniently located next to a bandolier of wooden stakes of monomolecular sharpness. Those stakes, by the way, would have been carved from a wooden cross, whose wood came from a tree that was only watered with holy water.

Prime, number one target, guys.

So I think that even if they can hibernate, they wouldn't... outside of secure, safe, spaceships.

[NecronLord]

Occam's Razor. The explanation that invokes the least unknown terms is usually correct.

The wraith are only seen to hibernate in stasis pods.

Therefore we have no reason to prefer any hypothesis that they can do so anywhere else.

The only suggestive evidence of that is in Submergence where the idea is speculated that the Wraith Queen might have been hibernating aboard the drilling platform. But later it's found that she had done so on her ship.

[Sithking Zero]

Occam's Razor. The explanation that invokes the least unknown terms is usually correct.

The wraith are only seen to hibernate in stasis pods.

Therefore we have no reason to prefer any hypothesis that they can do so anywhere else.

The only suggestive evidence of that is in Submergence where the idea is speculated that the Wraith Queen might have been hibernating aboard the drilling platform. But later it's found that she had done so on her ship.

So for the time being, we should presume that all hibernation takes place aboard their ships. That simplifies matters, as it resets how long they need to go between feedings as every three or four months... we think.

[Ahriman238]

He was on a semi-functioning starship. Remember, the wraith aboard that ship were able to keep the on-board humans in stasis for a long time, and it was still putting out a distress signal (rather sadly for the wraith, after ten thousand years of waiting, the wraith would be back in orbit and able to hear it in seven episodes time, but he doesn't make it...).

But there wasn't a pod like any we've seen. IIRC the Wraith comes out of a sort of cocoon on the ceiling. And the human prisoners died long ago and the Wraith started eating each other after that, until the last survior went into hibernation.

[Ahriman238]

Alright, I have a Wraith question. Over the course of the show, the Wraith are shown to have some fairly impressive cloning tech. They beat the Ancients by drowning them in bodies created this way, and Michael even clones Beckett, and the clone has all of his memories.

So why don't the Wraith, please forgive how this sounds, grow their own food? Even if they weren't previously willing to expend a lot of man-hours on 'agriculture' before, how about when they wake up and there's not enough to go around? Or when humanity becomes randomly poisoned to them?

[Themightytom]

Alright, I have a Wraith question. Over the course of the show, the Wraith are shown to have some fairly impressive cloning tech. They beat the Ancients by drowning them in bodies created this way, and Michael even clones Beckett, and the clone has all of his memories.

So why don't the Wraith, please forgive how this sounds, grow their own food? Even if they weren't previously willing to expend a lot of man-hours on 'agriculture' before, how about when they wake up and there's not enough to go around? Or when humanity becomes randomly poisoned to them?

The wraith had a cloning facility, it wasn't that they could do it anywhere or any time, and for some reason they needed a ZPM to power it. Michael's clone of Beckett could have been a one off, that the others could not necessarily have reproduced. he was certainly depicted as interested in biology.

[JME2]

It's a perfectly valid question.

IIRC, out of universe the facility was used to establish that the Wraith had cloning tech and to setup the Beckett clone's apperance.

More likely, by the time the Wraith-Lantean War concluded, the ZPMs they used to power it were certainly drained -- hence its inactivity and Todd's theft during the Battle of Asuras.

It's also possible that the facility was keyed only towards Wraith cloning -- Michael may have simply adapted the technology on a smaller scale for Beckett.

[Ahriman238]

Ah, but they only needed the ZPM for the massive facility that makes billions of Wraith in a very short time, yes? We regularly see clones in SG-verse created within an hour or two. While there's no indication that the Wraith can produce them that fast, I suspect from the episode with the cloning facility they can do it even faster (though that might have been typical Tim Taylor shit.)
So, let's say two hours. If a hive ship had just a hundred of those cloning chambers, that's 1200 humans a day, which is hell of a lot more than they get from raiding small villages and towns once a week or so. Even if it's not enough to make a Hive self-sufficient (we still have no idea how many Wraith in a Hive do we?) that's a pretty generous step in the right direction, for what should be a trvial amount of power and space aboard one of those behemoths.

[JME2]

That or the Lanteans were killing them in large numbers at a regular rate, necessitating massive cloning.

This is a valid question; I might post it on Joe Mallozzi's blog and see what his take is.

[NecronLord]

It may well be that whatever makes humans different from animals and able to feed them is either not as tasty or simply not present in mass produced clones. That seems unlikely, but it has been implied on some occasions that the process involves 'life force' rather than mere biology.