FlynnTaggart wrote: ↑Thu Sep 24, 2020 8:57 pm
If it was even possible, the Wraith are stealing life force after all kinda like Mathilda May but less attractive (catfish elf vampires just aren't my thing) so I'm not sure how someone can be fed on without killing beyond forcing people to give up years of their lives, its still not an appealing outcome because it still has humans being cattle but instead of being outright killed they are instead being "milked". Peace won't be achieved because the Wraith still have to use people to eat and despite what vampire media has taught us I don't think most people would volunteer to get fed on even if it doesn't kill them.
I mentioned this briefly in another post, but what I'm suggesting is that humans might be modified to reduce the effects of being fed on by wraith, or even nullify them entirely. I don't think this is unreasonable given how nebulous the whole "life force" explanation is, and the fact that in the actual show they pull the equally silly trick of turning Wraiths human. Also, if I knew there was an entire race of people who would die without draining humans of their energy, I would absolutely allow myself to be fed on if there were a way to do so without a danger to myself. I would even trade years of my life, if the exchange rate were high enough. Honestly, even if it were as low as 1:2 I'd consider donating a year or two.
Now, the wraith, as they are, do not fit into these conditions. They take your entire life, and it seems like they need to feed quite often when they're not in stasis. But if there were a way to inoculate ourselves to the lifespan-shortening effects of the Wraith, and there were Wraith who sought peace with us, I don't think it would be unreasonable to make the try.
And I bring up vampires from other media because this is a review, coming from someone who has been exposed to popular culture, and it was a relevant comparison. Like... I don't think the Wraith ought to behave exactly like other vampires, because that's such a broad category that I wouldn't even know what that would mean. But also... You almost sound like you're saying "These aren't like your books, these are REAL vampires!" I mean, I'm sure you're fully aware of the difference between reality and fiction... but Stargate is just as fictional as any other T.V. show. The Wraith could have been any which way the writers thought of. They could have been deathly afraid of crossing water, or compulsively counted any sets of tiny objects they came across. It's all equal. I'm saying this as something that could have been in the story, I'm not saying that it was.
FlynnTaggart wrote: ↑Thu Sep 24, 2020 8:57 pm
Like the System Lords its not so much that they kill people but also the fact they enslave them for whatever reason. Both the Wraith and Go'uld keep humans in a state of a primitiveness to for their purposes, does not consider humans their equal and certainly doesn't give them any rights or autonomy. Changing it so Wraith don't kill when they feed only alters one of the causes of the problem, Wraith domination of humans, without actually solving it and potentially making it worse.
The humans of the Pegasus galaxy are like a wild herd of animals that occasionally hunters have to go cull in order to keep their numbers down, they kill some to eat but leave the rest more or less alone to get back up in numbers. To "milk" humans instead if killing would make the Wraith have a more active hand in "raising their herd" to make human cattle more productive and find ways to fatten them up, all the worst trends of industrialized farming mixed with slavery.
Though certainly it might help in the short term, less killing but long term its no good solution. Any solution that has sapient beings enslaved by others is never a good one.
Right, this is why I said it wouldn't magically solve everything. And something else I said in another post was that, as a solution, it is no better or worse than changing the Wraith to be able to survive without feeding on humans. They are very different approaches, but both fail to address the core issue.
The wraith are just so fucking boring - I mean, not interested in peace. They don't value human life other than as something to be used. If they didn't need to feed on humans, they could just wipe them all out and never have to think about the possibility of uprising again. I mean, they would probably enslave everyone instead, for their own pleasure rather than as food. And if humans could negate the effects with some kind of super science, then they would just keep on keeping on, maybe killing the person they fed on anyway, just for the funsies. Though it would be a valuable tool for fighting them.
But hypothetically, with a more interesting version of the Wraith, it could have led to a story about trying to make peace with the things that go bump in the night. Which we only partially got in the show. There were some attempts, but other than Michael, the show is basically of the position that it was pure optimism, and that you have to kill the baddies even if sometimes it's hard and blah blah blah. Typical 2000s action show rhetoric.
Don't get me wrong, the conflict with the Wraith enables some great character work for the heroes at points, and some cool stand-alone stories, and at least they weren't boring
and invincible like the Ori. But I wish we could have gotten more out of the actual villains.