Wraith technology in Stargate
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Wraith technology is highly advanced but did not surpass that of the Ancients; according to the records in Atlantis, the Ancients won almost every battle with the Wraith, but due to the Wraith's simply massive numbers, they eventually managed to cause the Ancients to fall back to Atlantis and eventually leave the Pegasus Galaxy. Wraith technology is unique in that much of it is organic.
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[edit] Data storage device
A device similar to a portable flash drive, the devices are capable of storing massive amounts of data, usually star charts and reports.
The Genii had recovered one of these devices from a Dart that had been shot down. After a time, the Genii were able to fashion a visual interface to access the device, locating a Wraith hive-ship which had been used by a Genii/Atlantis expedition strike force to access the hive-ship's computer system. The intelligence recovered from this endeavor yielded that 60 operational Wraith hive-ships existed in the Pegasus galaxy.
[edit] Grenade
The Wraith grenade, first seen in the season 1 episode "The Defiant One", appears to be a typical explosive, only of Wraith design. It is rarely used since a dead human is of no use to the Wraith; only living humans can have the life sucked out of them. Evidence suggests it was heavily used in the war with the Ancients, and it appears that Wraith do use the grenade when hunting Runners; it is possible that Runners are unpalatable and hence there is no harm in killing them. Also the wraith use them to damage structures as seen in the siege of Atlantis.
They are activated by pulling the two halves apart, twisting 1/4 turn and pushing back together. After activation, there is first a ticking sound of increasing frequency for a few seconds while the crystals on the side glow steadily, this is replaced with a slower ticking (about 3-4 per second) with the crystals flash at the same rate. shortly thereafter the device explodes with a force similar to a human hand grenade.
The device can also be used as a mine, by activating it, and then bury it in the ground so all the crystals on the sides are covered, and one crystal is level with the ground, and something the target is likely to pick up covering it. When this crystal is uncovered, the grenade explodes shortly thereafter.
[edit] Goggles
Wraith goggles have been observed only once. They are presumed to be linked to the screen the wraith leader was watching while his troops hunted down Ronon. He uses the goggles on a dead wraith to deliver an ultimatum to the wraith leader. When the wraith wearing them took off the goggles, his eyes started glowing and he was able to 'see' Ronon in the dark. It is possible that the ability to see in the dark was unique to this wraith (or indeed that he represents a sub-species of Wraith with this ability) and that the goggles are instead light-limiting (as eyes attuned to see in the dark would be dazzled by normal earth-like light levels). This would make sense as all Wraith vessels and habitats seen previously have been much darker and gloomier than earth normal, and so wraiths with this ability would not need to wear goggles there, possibly expaining why they have not been seen before.
[edit] Hallucination generator
Though they already possess powerful telepathic abilities to make their prey hallucinate, the Wraith built a special generator to help them improve this ability even further. The generator emits energy similar to the kind Wraith emit to fool prey, though it is far more powerful. Rather than having vague ghosts hanging around the edge of a victim's vision, the generator can make the victim experience a completely false but convincing delusion. The effects of this ability depend on the individual. Some are more resistant to other's, and humans possessing Wraith DNA (such as Teyla) are apparently immune. The depths of its hallucinations vary from person to person, from simple altered views of the current surrounding to total imersion in an hallucinatory world. Ronon merely mistook Sheppard for a Wraith, whereas Sheppard relived a traumatic moment during his time in Afghanistan (namely, a helicopter crash near Kandahar during Operation Enduring Freedom). McKay thought the generator would explode, seeing incorrect data on his laptop, and Beckett continued interacting with a dead soldier, believing him to still be alive.
[edit] Probe
A small ball-like device which is used by the Wraith to scan planets and things on them. Such a probe was seen in the first Season episode "Childhood's End", where it scanned the area where Sheppard's team was and also their Puddle Jumper. Recently, in the episode "Sateda" these probes were shown to work in conjunction with Wraith hunting parties when they sought to kill runners. Whether this was a normal use for the probe or whether it was a special case is unknown. From the episode, it is also known that the probe beams information directly to the Wraith allowing them to observe the hunts.
[edit] Self-Destruct Device
A Wraith warrior's armor includes a device built into the chestplate (or wristguard depending on the type of Wraith) that, when depressed, will create an explosion capable of vaporizing its body. This makes it next to impossible to take a Wraith hostage. However, it often is not able to destroy the Wraith's weapon, allowing it to be recovered by another Wraith or a member of the Atlantis team.
[edit] Starships
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It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Wraith starships in Stargate. (Discuss) |
The Wraith fleet is made up of at least five known types of ships.
[edit] Cruiser
Not much is known about the Wraith cruiser. They appear to be used as interstellar scouts to locations with no known Stargate, as transports for the victims of a culling and escorts for hive-ships. They are capable of attaching to the hive ships and be carried through hyperspace, but they are also capable of independent hyperspace travel. Typically, the cruisers are used to flank a Wraith attack squadron, as seen by Major Sheppard in a reconnaissance mission.
They appear to be armed with a number of wraith energy weapons similar if not identical to those of the hive-ships granting them great firepower. The cruisers appear longer than the Daedalus.
A wraith cruiser was shot down over Atlantis home world 10,000 years ago into the ocean with the queen of a great alliance and her crew.The queen fed upon her crew and when she sensed Teyla approaching she activated the self destruct device of her cruiser and swam to the ancient drilling platform.The ship was presumed salvageable and may even be repaired.
Season 4 will see the introduction of a new class of Wraith Cruiser according to showrunner Joe Mallozzi's blog.
[edit] Dart
The Wraith Dart is a small vessel used mostly for culling. A culling beam sweeps along the ground and turns human life into energy, much like the Stargate, saving the humans to be rematerialized in an incapacitated state and fed upon later. The culling beam can also be used to transport Wraith soldiers when adapted, beaming them down while the dart is still in motion, as seen in "The Siege (Part 2)." Darts are stored in a Wraith Hive-Ship and are capable of incredible speeds. In the event that the Dart's Wraith Hive-Ship is destroyed, the Dart will make a kamikaze run, as in "The Siege (Part 3)." The Dart has a built-in DHD like the Puddle Jumper to be able to dial and power the orbital Stargates; this technology was stolen from the Ancients. A Dart can be identified from a distance by the loud humming noise it makes.
The ceiling of a Dart's cockpit is actually an opaque forcefield, acting as a Head-Up Display for the pilot ("The Lost Boys").
[edit] Hive-ship
The Wraith hive-ship is one of the largest known spacecraft and the centerpiece of Wraith civilization. The ships themselves have powerful energy weapons capable of destroying medium-sized unshielded targets, such as defense platforms.
Despite their mass, hive-ships can land on planets. It has been evidenced that hive-ships can remain buried under forest growth and act as a colony ship, where the Wraith hibernate for generations to centuries at a time.
Each hive vessel has been demonstrated to act as a carrier vessel, and functions as a base of operations for three cruisers and hundreds of Wraith Darts. The hive-ships are hyperspace capable, though their hyperspace technology is not as advanced as the Ancients or Asgard, requiring them to make only short jumps through hyperspace. The Daedalus, for instance, has a more efficient hyperspace drive; due to the Asgard hyperdrive, the Daedalus traversed the distance between the Earth and the Pegasus galaxy in eighteen days, something that a hive-ship would take centuries to do. This limitation in their hyperspace drives is what has confined the Wraith to the Pegasus galaxy for ten thousand years. Yet in No Man's Land, after the Wraith capture the knowledge for faster hyperspace engines from Atlantis' computers, Dr. Zelenka states that the hive ships still need to take breaks from hyperspace travel so that the organic parts of the ship can recover from hyperspace radiation.
When the Atlantis expedition arrived there were 21 hive-ships in Atlantis' quadrant of the pegasus galaxy, over 60 total are in the Pegasus galaxy. This number, however, has been reduced over time.
Similar to the Atlantean Puddle Jumper, only a Wraith can fly the hive ship using a neural interface. As seen in Misbeggotten Teyla was able to fly the hive ship as she has Wraith DNA in her genetic make up.
[edit] Scout
Not much is known about the Wraith scout. They are larger than the darts but much smaller than the cruisers, serving as short-range transport vessels. They are carried by hive-ships, but do function independently ("Aurora") suggesting that they have hyperdrives.
It is possible that the small Wraith transport ship that was used to in season 2 finale episode was a Wraith scoutship however this is simple speculation. Concept art at the MGM website has an appearance of a scout ship which appeared as a bat winged space craft.
[edit] Supply ship
Used by the Wraith in the Ancient war, these ships carried hundreds, possibly thousands of Wraith victims, to be fed on at a later date. The crashed wreckage of one was seen in "The Defiant One", but the lack of an appearance of one since then seems to support McKay's theory that that model has been discontinued.
It is comparable in size to a Wraith Cruiser.
[edit] Stunner
Wraith hand-weapons are called "Stunners," designed not to kill a target, but to temporarily paralyze them for later culling. Although in the episode 'Sateda' it showed wraith hand weapons killing their victims. This shows a possible kill setting.
Stunners are roughly the size of a Shoulder-Launched Multipurpose Assault Weapon, with a bayonet type point protruding from the aft, requiring that the operator use two hands for proper use. The bayonet-type point can be used to kill targets, including the Wraith. The beam that comes from a Wraith Stunner looks remarkably like the Ancient disruptor weapon used against the Replicators (which in turn is a low-power variant of the Dakara Superweapon), suggesting reverse engineering.
The Wraith are also susceptible to this weapon, although they have the ability to recover from a discharge faster than a human, depending on how recently the Wraith has fed. People who have been injected with a large dose of Wraith Enzyme (e.g., Ford) are also immune to stunners, though the immunity wears off as the enzyme leaves their bodies.
There is also a similar sized but slimmer rifle type version that lacks the bayonet but slightly resembles a club, possibly implying that it too has use as a melee weapon. This weapon is identical in design to a weapon used in an episode of stargate SG-1.
There is a pistol version of the stunner, which is used as a sidearm. After recovering the pistol stunners, Atlantis teams use them more often than the larger stunners.
By killing many Wraith (The Siege part 1), the Atlantis team is now in possession of many stunners, of all three models.
[edit] Stun bomb
Introduced in season 4's "Midway" episode, these are organic looking spherical devices that are the size of a Human chest. When activated, the device begins to emit a blueish electrical field that surrounds itself. The device is then simply rolled into a location whereupon it activates and firing a blue energy away around a location which stuns any target that it hits. Walls and barriers seem to have no effect in dampening the device which was capable of knocking out everyone within the SGC. Once this is accomplished, the device shuts down.
[edit] Tracker
A small, organic tracking device that the Wraith can use to track a target from far away. One such device was surgically implanted into Ronon Dex's vertebrae. This allowed the Wraith to track him from over a star system away, so they were able to follow him even if he went through the Stargate. This made him a Runner. It has been established that more Runners are out in the Pegasus galaxy being hunted by the Wraith using these devices.
[edit] Transporter
The Wraith transporter (also called a "culling beam") is installed in the Wraith Darts so that a single Wraith in a vessel small enough to pass through a Stargate can cull many humans for the hive-ship. It takes the form of a shining surface; anything that enters the surface is dematerialized and stored in the rear of the Dart. Upon returning to the hive-ship, the victims are rematerialized for feeding or long-term storage. It can also be used offensively as seen during 'The Brotherhood' and 'The Siege' in which multiple Wraith were beamed down by Darts directly into the city. This device's aesthetic characteristics strongly resemble those of the en mass Asgard beaming technology as seen in the Stargate SG-1 episode 'Thor's Chariot'
These devices also appear to be used in Wraith facilities and used as a method of transporting across their bases in a similar manner to the teleportation booths on Atlantis.
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