Stargate Atlantis Legacy: Allegiance
SGA #18
ISBN: 9781905586561
This is going to be a hodgepodge of a review this week because there are a couple smaller things that I wanted to dissect and discuss but that wouldn’t, on their own, make a very long post.
Which I really should stop doing cause people have lives, but you are here so you must enjoy spending time in The Dark Library.
Thank you for that!
Onto the review!
Wraith board games are a thing?!
We’ve seen in this book alone that they have a dedicated (probably more considering the size of a hiveship) room for games and social gathering (the Wraith would never have to worry about COVID either so bonus points to them!).
Some games have to do with stones and others with game pieces that sound like it’s along the lines of chess though maybe not since they call it ‘towers’. Possibly like Jenga?
The ones with stones may be a type of prophecy or fortune telling game because Guide is playing with some when he returns to his hive after Earth and isn’t happy with the faces’ they show him.
It would be awesome if the creators actually had rules for the games and I’ll have to look into that and see. I’ll let ya’ll know what I find.
Speaking of chess like games though. I feel like chess would be an incredibly easy game for the Wraith to play. I’m not a fan myself, more into checkers, but the planning ahead multiple moves would probably mean the game went on for a lot longer than any human game would. No doubt they’d change the rules or add things to make it more interesting for them, but on its own I don’t see chess being too difficult for them.
Monopoly now, that would be hilarious!
Cards against Humanity may be funny too if the cards were Pegasus galaxy and Wraith specific.
What do ya’ll think?
The idea that the Wraith would have something as normal as games is not one the humans would consider in the beginning, but what about after a few encounters with Todd? Would Sheppard think about that? After Ellia and Michael there was no way they couldn’t see the Wraith as just the enemy, so did they ever stop and have one of those random thoughts about if Wraith played games? Or if they had hobbies?
I’m sure, since they were still at war at the time, that if they did have those thoughts, they were quickly squished for self-preservation reasons.
Now for the second thing I wanted to bring up but the post wouldn’t have been very long.
Michael.
Ya’ll know how I feel about the whole Michael situation and my feelings are simply reinforced when we get to this book.
Guide gives Quicksilver a name to conjure with. Something to help him remember who he is without getting himself killed and it works (though he stays in denial throughout this book).
Not finding too much on Michael in the Hive database, Quicksilver asks Ember to tell him about Michael and what happened.
We know from our perspective what happened, but for the Wraith, Lastlight (Michael) was a well-respected blade and a beloved leader within his Hive. Ember says he was “a blade with the heart of a cleverman”, which apparently is common amongst the Stormdark Queens (I figure Stormdark is a clan type like Night Clan is).
When Lastlight’s queen sent him to force the Lanteans off their feeding grounds he was instead captured when he stayed behind to make sure his men got away safely.
The Wraith who recalled the story to Ember wept for what happened next because he and the others felt it was their fault what happened to Lastlight.
We know the next part. About how Lastlight was renamed Michael, was lied to, and how his memory came back and such.
When he escaped the first time, the Hive he came across wasn’t his and they treated him like a lesser thing. They didn’t care that he had been experimented on against his will and that he had sacrificed himself for his men. He was less.
Unfortunately, his helping the Lanteans kill that Queen meant that when he escaped the second time and found his way back to his Hive, his Queen branded him regicide and banished him.
I can’t believe that it was a decision made lightly and how Ember tells the story makes me think that Queen Highcloud would have taken him back had he not helped kill Queen Nightwind.
We saw in the series how awful it was for Lastlight/Michael when he was on Nightwind’s hive. How the others treated him because of the experiments but knowing this makes it worse somehow.
He had friends. A family in his Hivemates. Beloved by his Queen and men.
It would be interesting to know what Guide would have done if he’d been free during Michael’s time. If he’d known about Michael would he have helped him? Not necessarily create cross-breed monstrosities, but help him return to Wraith fully?
Considering Guide has already killed one Primary Queen I don’t see him being too concerned about someone branded with regicide. Having been a prisoner of the Lanteans himself, and after making an agreement to help them, Guide probably would have been far more understanding of Lastlight than anyone else. The two of them may have even found a solution to the feeding problem or found their way to Earth successfully.
Anyways, it’s not something we’ll ever have an answer too.
I must end things here for now, but will see ya’ll next week!
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