Wraith

Wraith Keeper

Wraith

Wraith Hive

Summary

The Wraith are an alien race encountered by the Atlantis Expedition Team when they went on their first off-world mission in search of a power source for the city-ship Atlantis in the Pegasus Galaxy. They were introduced in the series premiere of Stargate Atlantis, "Rising".

Stargate References

The Wraith are an insect-human hybrid who live in a hive, hybernating for long periods of time. The Wraith have suction organs in their palms which they use to consume the life force from their food source, the humans of the Pegasus Galaxy. The Ancients who seeded the Pegasus Galaxy with humans and built a network of Stargates were overwhelmed by the Wraith 10,000 years ago and fled through the Stargate back to Earth after submerging the city-ship, hoping that one day they would return. Ironically, it was during the Ancients' seeding of the Pegasus Galaxy millions of years ago that the Wraith were created (somehow the DNA of the humans combined with that of a life-sucking bug).

When the Atlantis Expedition Team realized that they needed more Zero Point Modules (ZPMs) to power the city-ship and the Stargate to return back to Earth, they started sending out teams to various planets in the Stargate network. Their first off-world mission resulted in being captured by the Wraith during one of their "cullings" (picking out of humans for food).

Because they are a hive-based race, the Wraith have telepathic links with each other. They also have the ability to connect with human minds for interrogation, as well as to fool them with false phanthom-like images. The Wraith have amazing self-healing abilities and are nearly impossible to kill with conventional weapons. They are technologically advanced and managed to overpower the highly developed Ancient race, driving them to abandon their great city-ship through the Stargate to Earth.

While they hybernate (sometimes for centuries), the Wraith are watched over by a Keeper. If the Keeper dies during their hybernation, they will awaken. This was what unfortunately happened when Maj. John Sheppard killed the Keeper of the hive on the Wraith's homeworld where many of his teammates had been taken. It was during this imprisonment that the military leader of the Expedition, Col. Marshall Sumner, was killed by Maj. Sheppard in an act of mercy while the Keeper was painfully draining his life and searching for more information about Earth.

The Wraith are now awakened out of their usual slumber and they are hungry. They have been ravaging planets once again throughout the Pegasus Galaxy.

They sent three of their sophisticated hive ships to lay siege on Atlantis in order to gain access to the Stargate, the only one which can connect to Earth, and the massive Ancient database. Knowing of the approach of these ships, Dr. Elizabeth Weir approved the use of the precious power of the naquadah generators to establish a brief wormhole with Earth to tell them of the Wraith and that the Wraith were eager to find Earth in order to feast.

Members of the Expedition were successful at destroying one of these massive ships from a remote satellite before the Wraith fleet arrived. Then, Col. Dillon Everett and his Marine troops arrived through the Stargate from Earth, powered by a newly-discovered fully-charged ZPM (discovered in the episodes, 8.19 "Moebius Part 1" and 8.20 "Moebius Part 2"). Gen. Jack O'Neill sent him with orders to assume command and lead in the fight for the city at all costs. Not only were the lives of the Expedition Team at stake, but also the immense database of Ancient knowledge stored in the city-ship's computers. In addition to the Marines, Earth sent their newest battle cruiser, the Daedalus, with the hope that this heavily-armed spaceship would help defeat the Wraith who had already begun their siege of Atlantis.

The Daedalus, under the command of Col. Steven Caldwell, arrived in time to help defend the city, but the Wraith sent even more ships afterwards. To prevent the Wraith from continuing their onslaught, the Atlantis Team detonated a bomb above the city and then cloaked the city to fool the Wraith into thinking that they had lost all hope and self-destructed. This strategy bought them some time, but the Wraith are a very persistent race and their hunger for technology is just as strong as their hunger for the life forces of human beings.

For a little while, Atlantis was safe, but that all changed when the Expedition began experimenting on a retrovirus which would convert a Wraith into a human being. They experimented on a Wraith and named him Michael Kenmore, but Michael soon discovered his true identity and escaped. Without daily injections, Michael began his conversion back into a Wraith, but the process stopped somewhere in between. Michael used his connection with the people of Atlantis to forge an alliance based on the use of the retrovirus on his hive's Wraith competition. All the Wraith were now awake and hungry and fighting amongst themselves for their human food. Michael's hive, however, double crossed the Expedition and cleverly obtained all of the addresses in their computer systems — including those of Earth and other planets of the Milky Way. The Wraith also gained hyperdrive information which will enable them to reach Earth just as easily as the Daedalus.

Notable Characters

• Keeper - The Keeper of the hybernating hive appears to be a female of the species. Once she dies, the hive awakens and they are usually quite hungry.
• Michael Kenmore - He was a Wraith which the Expedition converted into a human by using Dr. Beckett's retrovirus. Now, he is a stuck as not quite human and not quite Wraith and is basically an outcast in both societies.

Alliances

• A false alliance with the Expedition ended in betrayal as the Wraith obtained valuable technical information about hyperdrive engines and the location of Earth in the Milky Way.

Enemies

• Humans of both the Pegasus Galaxy and the Milky Way Galaxy are now at risk because the Wraith are extremely hungry and are looking for new feeding grounds. The over six billion lives on Earth are incredibly tempting for them. The Atlantis Expedition Team and the SGC have led in the fight against the Wraith in the Pegasus Galaxy, hoping to keep the location of Earth a secret.

Episodes

• Stargate Atlantis

Related Articles

Characters

• Gen. Jack O'Neill
• Dr. Carson Beckett
• Col. Steven Caldwell
• Col. Dillon Everett
• Maj. John Sheppard
• Col. Marshall Sumner
• Dr. Elizabeth Weir

Keywords

• Ancients
• Atlantis
• Atlantis Expedition Team
• Daedalus
• Naquadah
• Stargate
• Stargate Command (SGC)
• Zero Point Module (ZPM)

Other

• 8.19 "Moebius Part 1"
• 8.20 "Moebius Part 2"

---

--DeeKayP 20:18, 5 Apr 2005 (PDT)