montauk_1_allende_18

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 04:33:57 GMT

OOC:
Name: Pyraven
Personal DW: kaviiq
Email: maddening [dot] gale [at] gmail [dot] com
Timezone: Central US (GMT -06:00)
AIM/Plurk: pyraven [AIM] / Kaviiq [Plurk]

( we are all the children of the Ancients )

comments

Space Vampires

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 06:15:14 GMT

I tend to throw around the phrase 'space vampire' a lot when describing Todd and other Wraith. It's a quick and easy off-the-cuff way to sum up the Wraith, but it seems to cause a bit of confusion for anyone who hasn't seen Stargate Atlantis.

In truth, the Wraith are not mythological creatures of any sort. They may have inspired part of the vampire mythos in the world of Stargate, which is not an uncommon occurrence. The Goa'uld either inspired or assumed the roles of various classical gods - primarily the gods of ancient Egypt - while the Norse gods took their names and some of their personality from the Roswell Grey-like Asgard. The wizard Merlin began as Moros, the last high councilor of Atlantis, and Ganos Lal, a Lantean scientist, is better known as Morgan le Fey. Whether it's fair or not to suggest that aliens played a role in shaping mythologies, it is how Stargate has operated since the Roland Emmerich film.

The Wraith are not vampires. Their exact origins are muddled, but they are flesh-and-blood, living creatures, a hybrid species that the Lanteans accidentally created after introducing humans to a world populated by the Iratus, a spider-like animal. In the TV series, it's suggested that the Wraith evolved after the Iratus fed upon the human population and inadvertently absorbed some human DNA. In the Legacy series of follow-up novels, it's suggested that the Lanteans sought out a way to prevent the Iratus from feeding on the humans they protected, but that their experiment gave rise to the Wraith instead. Either way, modern humans and Wraith share a common ancestor - they're so closely related, in fact, that with the Iratus part of their genetic code deactivated, the Wraith are nigh-indistinguishable from modern humans.

As going on about the Wraith's origin is a bit tedious, it's easy to fall into the habit of calling them 'space vampires'. However, while they may have inspired the myth (canon is unclear on that fact), several parts of the vampire mythos - the traditional vampire's strengths and weaknesses - are not applicable.

( Mythos Busting )

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derigo

montauk_1_allende_18

Space Vampires