I did in fact add the Stargate SG-1 novels to my Christmas list this year because I would like to read them. I don’t know if I’ll be doing the same thing as with Atlantis though. I think for SG-1, because it’s so huge, I’ll just read the books and do reviews for them.
However!
There are apparently audiobook original stories?!
I also put those on my list and my mama said she’d buy some of them for me!
Now the problem is finding the others that aren’t being sold for $50 or so…
Anyways, for this week I’ll be talking about the Wraith!
We know the theory of where the Wraith came from couldn’t be true because of the timing itself and because of conversations throughout the Legacy series. In ‘Secrets’ we find out the truth and dang y’all. Just dang.
As if we couldn’t despise the Alterans enough already for what they’ve done to our peeps and the others in the galaxy, they went and tortured humans and changed them into Wraith.
The ‘Old One’ who serves Death was one of the original. His name used to be Kairos and he was an Athosian until he went to serve the Ancestors and found himself helping in the experiments and inevitably becoming one of the subjects himself.
Newly named Ashes, he is the first Master of Sciences, though I believe he had to be of both biological and physical as he tried to figure out exactly what they could and could not do and what had been done to them that let them survive when so many others didn’t.
After running for a time from the Alterans, the new Wraith go to Athos where Ashes’ ex-wife (don’t forget the Athosians view marriage differently so they had parted on good terms) still lives. He believes she will either help them or at least listen to what he has to say concerning what the Alterans did to him and the others.
What’s so heartbreaking here is that his former wife, Rissa, doesn’t listen. At all.
In fact, she blindly believes what the Alterans told her about Kairos/Ashes being a demon despite being a woman of science herself. She doesn’t listen, not really, to what Ashes tells her and the whole thing is a setup.
Alterans are outside waiting. No doubt they had patrols stationed throughout the galaxy where their victims families lived to try and catch the Wraith when they tried to go home.
Ashes is devastated at the betrayal, who wouldn’t be, but it isn’t until Rissa shoots him that he attacks and feeds on her.
This is where his hatred of humans comes from. Not just the Alterans, but ALL humans.
Because Rissa saw that it was him. She recognized him, but instead of questioning what the Alterans had told her, now that the evidence was literally staring at her face, she shoots her former husband and friend.
I think the Wraith and humans’ story would have been a lot different if Rissa had just asked one question.
But she didn’t and so the story continued until Atlantis came into Earth human hands and we forged the friendships and relationships that should have existed with the Wraith’s human families all along.
What makes this a particularly hard scene is that Ashes is crying as they escape the Alterans and Athos. Something he had noted not long before that he hadn’t known Wraith could do.
Can you imagine being surprised that you can cry?
That’s how badly the Alterans screwed with them. They literally thought they were so far removed from what they had been that they were surprised they could cry.
The Wraith we know are a direct result of being thrown away by their families and loved ones, because you can’t convince me that others didn’t try to contact their families after that. Wanting to see their children and spouses, their moms, dads and siblings.
The Alterans didn’t want anyone to question them so they lied and started a war instead that cost countless lives.
I’ll end it here because otherwise I’ll want to talk about their progression as a people and we don’t really have time for THAT long of a post… I also want to read one, if not both, of the novellas I got for Christmas (we celebrated in March if you recall).
See ya’ll!
The Dark Library 