Category: Blog

Stargate Atlantis Legacy: The Furies

SGA #19

ISBN: 9781905586578

And we are back!

I’d like to talk about Wraith babies, as promised from last week, but also about relationships and taboos and such in general concerning the Wraith.

No doubt, considering a later book, I’ll do another Wraith relationship one later on, but for now ‘The Furies’ has some interesting pieces in it to explore.

I haven’t watched all of the deleted scenes or behind the scenes stuff so it’s possible some of my curiosity will be assuaged once I do. Now, however, I have theories and questions and observations.

Of course, it’s entirely possible the answers are in the books I just didn’t see it the first time.

In any case.

A conversation between Guide and Keller got me thinking about it because something he said seemed strange to me.

It’s been mentioned that Wraith babies grow within wombs on the ship, I’m guessing it’s not too different from an incubation chamber you’d see in a sci-fi movie, and so I thought that the Wraith didn’t actually procreate like humans did but used genetic engineering.

Seems logical right? It’s what they do for the Drones after all and we know that the majority of the Wraith males were bred specifically for certain traits during the war.

I am now of the thought that this is not true.

Guide tells Keller that he had sired a daughter once. Apparently to be chosen to sire a child at all was a great honor and then, in his mind, he was derisive about humans for not having a care in their choosing when it came to such things.

So, I’m going to say that the Wraith still do the whole ‘breeding for certain traits’ thing. It might just be a holdover from the war years or it could be that the Queens are simply selective, naturally, about such things in the hopes they have a daughter.

Not necessarily a bad thing, humans do the same to a certain extent.

Now, I’m guessing that at a point after conception the fetus is moved into the shipwomb to grow until, apparently, it’s time for them to be weaned.

We saw in the episode where Guide and his crew had cancer from the retrovirus, that their hibernation chambers feed them nutrients and such while they sleep (pretty sure it’s been stated or insinuated in any case). It’s not a stretch at all to understand that a shipwomb for babies would do the same.

It’s interesting to think about because if the Wraith procreate like humans do than they can also, presumably, carry to term.

So why don’t they?

Guide, while thinking about this during the conversation with Keller, also thinks about the fact that the babies in the shipwomb ‘learn’ from the constant hum of the hive.

I’ll go out on the limb here and say he doesn’t mean the ship itself, but the Wraith as a whole on whichever hive the baby is on.

Then again, it could also literally be that the baby learns from the ship until the point that the baby can learn in a more traditional manner.

I’m going to stop here cause this has gotten long.

Until later!

Stargate Atlantis Legacy: The Furies

SGA #19

ISBN: 9781905586578

Alrighty!

So last week I let ya’ll know that I had finished my 3^rd reading of ‘The Furies’.

That doesn’t mean that the posts for that book are done though, don’t worry, it just means that I am onto the next book.

There is still a whole bunch of stuff I want to talk about for this one.

Let’s start with more Wraith things for this post and we’ll see what happens shall we?

We all know how Wraith get their names and how they can evolve over time as the person does. One particular Wraith we meet briefly is called Heedless.

Heedless is apparently quite fond of explosives and has, several times, blown fingers off that had to regenerate. Twice his entire off-hand fell victim to his experiments and he’s now forbidden to do such research while on a Hive.

I like this entire exchange between Rodney and Heedless because it once again makes us see the Wraith as people.

Rodney notes that Heedless, as the conversation goes on, is obviously embarrassed as he tells his story and, had he been human, probably would have been very red at certain points.

Heedless is obviously passionate about his work to have gone through so many regenerations and continued. Showing that the Wraith can be just as determined to succeed as humans.

Technically a group for this next one, but it’s pretty dang funny.

Teyla, as Steelflower, joins Guide and his men when they go to meet with Death near the end of the book.

(We all know it’s a trap, but the good guys are planning on trapping the trappers.)

When Teyla first arrives on a planet to be taken up to the Hiveship, she’s met by an Honor Guard.

Being Teyla she plays her part well and one of the Wraith, Swiftripen, manages to get himself an invitation to sit next to her on the way to the Hive. What’s funny is that one of his brothers-in-arms, Gamester, rolls his eyes behind Swift’s back and another, Sable, grimaces.

Apparently it’s a very Swift thing to do and the others are used to it.

I have to wonder if Teyla was keeping track of their thoughts and had to try and not laugh at this. It’s a very normal team thing to do and SGA-1 acts like that on occasion too.

Every time we get to see a tiny snippet more about the Wraith, the more I like them.

Now, before I sign off, I should mention that I think the next book delves deeper into the origins of the Wraith. ‘The Furies’ tantalizes us with an idea of how they came to be, and for those reading along you’ve probably figured it out by now too, but the pleasure is in the telling and so we read on!

I’ll see everyone next week where I think I’ll talk about Wraith babies…

Good news is, I finished ‘The Furies’.

Bad news is, it’s late and I have an appointment in the morning.

What does this mean for y’all?

No Atlantis this week.

I am so sorry!

I slept a lot this week (catching up, no doubt) and worked a little on a craft project. Which is why I didn’t get something typed up!

It also doesn’t help that there’s SO much I want to talk about with these books that it’s hard to just pick one thing.

Ya know?

Anyways, I’ve got to get some sleep, but be assured that the next few weeks will be Atlantis related.

Until then!

Here’s the resin update!

These are the finished product. I’m not exactly unhappy with them I’m just not too enthused either.

The pieces are all malleable and apparently will stick together a little if left touching. I obviously did something wrong (added a tad too much hardener or not enough) because otherwise they’d be like the finished works online I’ve seen…

Unless those people cut that part out and showed the pieces they’d already treated with a coat of sealer.

I honestly don’t know. I’ll be adding a layer of UV resin to them to see if that’ll fix the bendable aspect of them and also to close up the bubble holes. Another thing I wasn’t enthused about is that where there were bubbles there are now holes or breaks in the pieces. I was under the impression the bubbles rose to the top of pieces.

Well, you live you learn.

I’ll be trying out a few tricks for the next kit to see if I can fix what I did wrong here so I’ll let y’all know.

In other news!

I have the week off from my second job. Hours had to be cut because we’ve been slow and since it’s not the job that pays the bills I told my supervisor she could take my hrs so that someone else could keep theirs.

I am incredibly blessed to be able to work a part time that’s been doing serious damage to my debt, but I’ll get it paid off either way and it’s the only job for some of my coworkers. Not a hard choice to make.

However! That means that for this entire week I’ll have time to catch up on some reading and I’m hoping to be able to get through ‘The Furies’ and onto the next book for y’all!

So keep an eye out because next week will be another Stargate Atlantis review!!

Till then!

Not the kind you drink though!

This week will be part crafty and part Wraithy! Mostly because it’s late and I’m super tired but also because I’ve had a thought in my head that won’t work for a full post so I thought I’d add it to a crafty post.

First-

So!

I’m still not sure about 2-part resin. I can see the benefits but it was also really annoying and kind of stressful trying to work with so much resin that was getting tacky quickly.

I followed the instructions and made 2oz of resin that should have filled up the entire flat mold once. However, some of the shapes aren’t to my personal liking which is why I used some of my other molds.

The flat mold on the left came with the kit and the others were part of a set I bought the same day because I’ve always enjoyed the videos where people used those types.

Instructions said to leave it for 72hrs so you’ll get to see what they look like next week.

I’m pretty excited about it! Maybe next time I’ll make far less and have more fun without the time constraint.

Second –

There’s a scene in the episode where Todd and his crew get cancer from Dr. Keller’s retrovirus that’s been bothering me because of ‘The Furies’.

In the scene, Todd (Guide, of course) is sitting in a cell when Sheppard comes and asks for his help keeping the Hive from being destroyed in reentry. Guide would be allowed to leave Atlantis, if they all survived, as a thank you for his help.

Guide asks about his crew and Sheppard tells him they’re dead.

I always felt that Guide was being himself and testing Sheppard. Already knowing that Shepard did something and wanting to know if he’d answer honestly or not.

However, in ‘The Furies’, Guide asks Sheppard how he would like being left without the ability to experience intimacy (the conversation is pretty long and vastly interesting but you’ll have to read it for yourselves!) and Teyla has to explain that the Wraith telepathy is how the Wraith form emotional bonds (there’s way more to it but essentially and for this posts’ purposes we’ll leave it at that).

Without that ability, they’re adrift.

Guide couldn’t feel his men when they died that day.

He honestly didn’t know that they were all dead until Sheppard told him. He may have suspected but I’ll bet you anything he didn’t actual know because he couldn’t feel them.

With those stakes, it’s no wonder he isn’t keen on going the same route and instead went a way neither the humans or the other Wraith did.

That’s all for this week, it’s not really late except that I work tomorrow so have a VERY early morning. I will see everyone later, stay safe and bright!

Unfortunately there won’t be an actual post this week. I slept through 3 alarms and was two hours late to my part time job on Friday. I’ll be changing how I do things though so hopefully I won’t be that tired again, and I have Thursday completely off.

After an appointment I’ll be working on scheduling some reviews and also playing with my new resin kits!

Can’t wait for Thursday, and praying I won’t simply sleep all day because I’m too tired again.

Y’all have a good week!

Yay! We celebrated Christmas last Friday and I wanted to show everyone what I got!

As you can see I received a ton of books and crafty things.

Initially I had far more books on my list but my siblings complained that that’s all they get me so I added crafty things too.

The two ‘Tiny World’ craft kits are for soap and crochet this time. I know the polymer clay one was extremely fun to do and I adored the outcome so I’m really looking forward to making these.

Now, the eraser one is a little different. I’m intrigued by the concept and have been for some time (since I saw them at work), however, I’ve heard that the fumes are really bad. I’ll probably wait to do that one until it’s warmer outside and I have one of those toaster ovens that I can plug into an extension cord and use on the porch.

The books seem to be an even match between ones I needed to complete series’ I love and new books I haven’t read yet!

You’ll notice the two Stargate novellas on top. I’ll be doing posts on them even though they aren’t Atlantis based. Unless I’ve missed something they should be the last of the novellas I needed.

I will be working that lovely galaxy puzzle with my mama and it’s a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. We’d started a 2000 piece wolf one but didn’t get too far. It was much larger than we’d worked on before and started to become a chore and not fun so hopefully this one will be more exciting!

Of course, you’ve all noticed the care items (Kleenex, toothpaste, etc…) they are mostly small and I am so happy I got them because I’ve been meaning to make a car box of such things for emergencies. God willing I won’t have any emergencies outside of bad breath, but I like small things and this gives me an excuse to splurge while also being helpful.

Last but not least! Resin!!

I received a heat gun (for popping those pesky bubbles without burning the silicone), 2 bottles of 100grams UV resin (considering all I made with a 20gram bottle you understand why I’m excited about these titans!), a new UV light which is supposed to be a higher wattage so hopefully it’ll cure faster, and 2 really cool kits I saw at Hobby Lobby!

One is for a bullet journal and the other is for charms and pendents. The molds that come with them are a big reason I wanted the kits. They were only $20 a piece and since they came with resin, pigments, and utensils for the making of, it was a far better deal than buying separately.

I LOVE using UV resin but I’m new so haven’t figured out exactly what I like making with it so these will help, I think, figuring out if I’m a big project person or small…

Probably small.

The only thing is that the kits use 2 part resin but that’s a good thing too since I’ll get to see how that works and how difficult it is compared to UV.

That’s all for this week. I’m incredibly tired from work and noticed that I will have worked 19 days in a row between my full and part time jobs. This Tuesday will be the 19th day and depending on if you count an overnight that ends at 1:30am to be a work day, then the count goes ever higher.

Next week, back to Atlantis and probably the first week in April I’ll do my KOSAL review because y’all! That book was SO good!!

Until then, keep shining!

Stargate Atlantis Legacy: The Furies

SGA #19

ISBN: 9781905586578

All the feels this post!

I briefly mentioned in part 2 that Guide set Sheppard up a little when he asked about Carter. Guide thought that Sheppard was Carter’s Consort and was simply playing Carter and Teyla against each other.

This is the part I was referencing.

Teyla and Sheppard are obviously a thing so it’s a little weird that the Wraith wouldn’t pick up on that when they’ve picked up on Carter and O’Neill.

Only thing I can think is that Teyla shields so well they’d only be able to get Sheppard’s side. Considering how many times he’s encountered Wraith Queen’s I can see him building a type of shield or tolerance to the mental aspect, but it’s also likely that he and Teyla practice together.

That’s not the feels part though (at least not the one I’m wanting to discuss a tiny bit).

After they leave Waterlight’s Hive, Guide, Sheppard and Teyla start a conversation that leads to some interesting places. Teyla sees that they have to work together, in truth, to defeat Death. Not these partial alliances that generally leave both sides unhappy and having lost something.

Guide isn’t so keen on trusting them considering how many times he’s been burned by their agreements before.

He’s also not happy about the fact that Teyla has put his men and himself in danger by playing her games.

The Wraith Cruiser she’s using?

One of Death’s from that big battle not too long ago.

And with her making waves concerning alliances with other Queen’s, Guide is definitely in trouble when Death finds out.

And we don’t doubt that she will.

For now though, we get to the feels.

After Teyla asks him to meet them at different coordinates, Guide makes an excuse to step away. Not far enough that he can’t hear them talking but enough that they don’t know he can still hear them.

He doesn’t trust them and wants to know what they’re planning…preferably before he becomes an unwilling guest of Atlantis again, and this is what he hears.

Sheppard telling Teyla he didn’t expect her to come rescue him and Teyla replying, “did you think that I would ever leave you?”.

The feels aren’t from them though, but from the fact that Queen Snow and Guide had a similar encounter long ago and he remembers it now.

I’ve talked about it quite a bit (and will no doubt continue cause why not) but I think it’s really important that we get to see some of what made Guide who he is.

The death of his True Queen is one of the defining moments we know about that made him who he is now and that’s the person that’s willing to do a heck of a lot that’s considered out of the norm for the Wraith.

We’re getting closer to the really good parts of the Legacy series, which is saying something because it’s all the really good parts!

For now, I shall let y’ll go.

Next week will be about what presents I got for Christmas because my Christmas was postponed due to reasons. Lots of books, I’m sure!

Until then, stay safe and I’ll see everyone later!

Stargate Atlantis Legacy: The Furies

SGA #19

ISBN: 9781905586578

Yay, I’m back part two!

I’m pretty excited about this considering how tired I am (worked 4-11am today on five hours of sleep and God bless everyone who does that normally!!) and wanted to update on things to come.

More StALeR, of course, but there will be a few interruptions because one of my all time favorite authors has the last in a series coming out next Tuesday! (2-23-2021)

If you haven’t read Karen Marie Moning’s ‘Fever’ series you should go do that. It’s a dark fantasy series but is shelved in romance because before this series she wrote a Highlander romance series (that is actually a small part of the ‘Fever’ series) and so the publishers felt it would sell better if marketed to her current fanbase…which is now much bigger!

Having said all that, I will be writing up a review or more about the book (KOSAL= Kingdom of Shadow and Light) and maybe the series as a whole and scheduling them for late March or early April in consideration of the spoiler ban that will be in place. The ban is generally only two weeks long, but there’s no reason to post the reviews so early anyways because I’m not sure if they will be extra posts for the week or taking the StALeR review’s place for the week.

Exciting things to look forward to!

But now to what you came back for…

More Guide!

Initially, I was going to talk about Waterlight and Steelflower’s interaction and how Waterlight didn’t just bow down to Teyla because she was stronger. I really liked how Waterlight didn’t throw her father under the bus when Steelflower asked if he spoke for her, instead, she simply confirmed that he was still Consort.

This insinuated (at least to me) that he can speak for her on certain things but she is still Queen and has final say. It’s one of those tactful things to say when you don’t want to show weakness to a stronger entity. Not a lie but it does leave things open to interpretation later on.

I’ll most likely bring it up later because of what happens with Guide and all that, but it would be a spoiler for anyone who hasn’t read the whole series right now.

So!

This week we talk about Guide coming to the rescue!

Immediately after what happened last week, Teyla talks to Waterlight and calls her sister. Claiming a kinship to the Osprey Wraith line (which Thorn notes is an old way of doing things) Teyla makes it clear that she is willing to stand against Death and will happily call anyone kin who stands with her.

A ship then comes out of hyperspace and Thorn (I’m really liking him and would love a scene where he and Guide just go off with their dry humor!) says that Teyla can prove her claims now.

Of course she doesn’t have to because it’s Guide and the two play along with each other as if he were a concerned Consort and arrived before he was supposed to.

Here’s the thing.

We know better.

He had no idea what she and Atlantis were planning (more on that next week) which means that he was coming to try and negotiate to get Shepard himself.

He would have done one of two main things (we all know he would have had plans within plans) which are to pretend to have been sent by Death to pickup the human or get them to join his alliance.

Either way, I very much doubt that Shepard would have been left with Waterlight and her Hive.

I honestly don’t think Guide would have killed Shepard as a ‘last resort’ if he hadn’t been able to convince them to hand him over because Shepard is far too valuable alive. Guide isn’t stupid and no doubt knows that the only reason Atlantis has ever dealt with him is because of Shepard.

Would he have succeeded in getting Shepard?

Absolutely.

He has far more men so if only by sheer number would he have been able to get Shepard back. He doesn’t have to because of Teyla, but it is interesting to theorize what he would have done.

I can see Shepard being a guest of Guide’s for a while.

At least until he could negotiate for more favorable terms with Atlantis on several fronts.

Would he have kept him prisoner?

Nah.

Again, it would be stupid to do so and Guide isn’t stupid. Keeping Shepard on his Hive would be a great risk because he would have to answer whenever Death called (as much as it galls him to do so for anyone claiming to be his Queen) and the entire point is to keep Shepard, and anyone else with knowledge of his dealings with the humans, away from Death and other like-minded Wraith.

The conversations and interactions between Shepard and Guide would have been hilarious I imagine since they’re so much alike.

And that is all for this week because this is much bigger than intended due to the KOSAL info.

Ya’ll have a wonderful week and I’ll see ya next time!

Stargate Atlantis Legacy: The Furies

SGA #19

ISBN: 9781905586578

I’m back!

Okay, one of the funniest scenes we are going to talk about today is the one where Teyla/Steelflower goes to rescue Shepard from Waterlight.

Those two are cute and they work very well together. We know both of these things from the series’ (TV and book). What makes this particular scene so dang funny is just how bad it really is!

When I first read through the book I cringed at how bad the dialog was, but this second/third time through (I’ve lost count) I realized something.

Their acting is very similar to old, cheesy, movies where the acting was over the top because that was the ‘thing’ back then. Not that it’s a bad thing, just not the more realistic acting we’re familiar with these days.

If you’ve ever watched Star Trek Voyager, you may recall the episodes where Tom Paris and Kim Harry use the holodeck to play Captain Proton (and more memorably where Captain Janeway has to play Queen Arachnia to save the day!).

This scene is not unlike that!

When Teyla calls John a ‘puny human’ (this is where I cringed the first time) it’s cringe worthy because of how over the top bad guy it is.

Noone talks like that.

We knew that Shepard would play along the moment he saw it was Teyla, but the amount of bad acting was spectacular in its cringey-ness.

At one point, Teyla tells one of the younger Blades that he’s pretty but not too smart (paraphrasing here) and Jo Graham (the author if I haven’t mentioned before) makes a point to mention that Shepard makes a strangled noise here.

We ALL know he’s doing everything he can not to laugh out loud and ruin it because I have no doubt that if he started laughing then Teyla wouldn’t be able to keep up the pretense any longer either.

Whether she would laugh out loud too or simply give him one of those amused looks I can’t actually say, but the jig would have been up.

Outside of the bad acting where Shepard pretends like he’s taken over by Teyla/Steelflower and falls to his knees before her, he also has to pretend to be enthralled or under her power. As such, back to the over-the-top thing, he kisses her boot.

I seriously can’t stop laughing at the imagery!

Think about it ya’ll!

Shepard had to have shown Teyla all sorts of movies and I can completely see the two watching the older ones with this kind of bad acting. They could have gone a different way here, but this was the quickest and they, correctly, figured the Wraith wouldn’t be able to tell they were acting so long as Teyla kept her mind shielded from them.

After they get home, and to safety, I can see them having a good laugh recounting this to people. Rodney would find it hilarious, though I’m not sure about Ronon.

Something else to consider.

I’m sure the incident is relayed and gossiped about amongst the Wraith after the fact and Guide no doubt will eventually hear about it. I’m guessing he’d get a pretty good laugh out of it too.

He and Shepard have the same kind of humor after all.

Alrighty!

Thank you for checking in this week and I hope that this post made up for last weeks.

Be bright and don’t let the world dim you.

Until next week!