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The Wraith are intelligent humanoids who are genetically close to insects, though they are predominantly human. They evolved in the Pegasus galaxy after a human population seeded by the Ancients was fed upon by an insect called the iratus bug, which has the ability to draw upon a human's life to heal itself. As they fed, the bugs incorporated human DNA into themselves, giving rise to the Wraith.[1] The Wraith too feed on humans, treating them akin to livestock and regarding the act of feeding as nothing more than natural predation.[2]

Some ten thousand years ago, the Wraith went to war with the Ancients (whom they knew as the Lanteans) over control of the galaxy. With their superior technology, the Ancients believed themselves invincible and became careless, sending their ships deeper into Wraith territory in an attempt to weed them out. The Wraith managed to capture three Ancient warships along with their ZPMs, which they used to power cloning facilities that increased the size of their army a hundredfold.[3] Vastly outnumbered, the Ancients sent a delegation protected by their most powerful warships to sue for peace, but they were wiped out.[4] The Wraith steadily pushed back the Ancients until only Atlantis remained. The war with the Ancients lasted for over 100 years, until the Ancients decided to submerge the city and return to Earth.[2] Now the undisputed masters of the galaxy, the Wraith hives entered a cycle of hibernation and feeding, emerging every few centuries to cull their "human herd".[2]

The Atlantis Expedition first encounters the Wraith in the series premiere "Rising", in which a number of personnel are captured by Wraith darts while scouting the planet Athos. They are brought back to a Wraith hive ship, where the hibernating Wraith are being watched over by the "Keeper". The Keeper telepathically probes Colonel Marshall Sumner's mind and learns of a "new feeding ground" richer than any the Wraith have ever known: Earth. Major John Sheppard kills the Keeper during his rescue mission, but her death awakens all the others from hibernation.[2] Soon, hive ships appear all over the galaxy, exacting a devastating toll on the Pegasus human population.[5] In "Poisoning the Well", the Hoffan drug is introduced as a means to make humans poisonous to the Wraith, albeit with an extremely high mortality rate.[6] At the end of season 1, it becomes apparent that the ultimate goal of the Wraith is Atlantis, which contains the only Pegasus Stargate capable of connecting to Earth as well as intergalactic hyperdrive technology.[7] Atlantis destroys the first three hive ships with help from Earth reinforcements and the Genii, but another twelve hive ships soon follow. The Atlantis team manages to fool the Wraith into believing that they have enacted the city's self-destruct, by converting the city's shield into a cloaking device and using a judiciously timed nuclear explosion.[8]

In the second season, it is revealed that due to their waking early, there are not enough humans in the Pegasus galaxy to sustain all of the Wraith.[9] Tensions between hives rise over the limited food supply, and in "The Hive" Sheppard is able to incite two hives into firing on one another. Meanwhile, Dr. Carson Beckett develops a retrovirus designed to suppress the iratus bug DNA in the Wraith genome, hopefully transforming them into humans.[10] In the episode "Michael", Atlantis personnel test the virus on a Wraith subject they name "Michael Kenmore", only to have the experiment backfire disastrously when Michael reverts back into a Wraith and returns to his people with knowledge of Atlantis' continued existence. This information leads to Atlantis being coerced into working with a Wraith hive ship in the season 2 finale "Allies", to weaponize the retrovirus for the hive to use against other Wraith. However, this turns out to be a ploy to steal hyperdrive technology from Atlantis' database so as to reach Earth. The Daedalus and the Orion battle the two hive ships at the edge of the Pegasus galaxy, destroying one and converting the crew of the other into humans.[11] Once again, the effect of the retrovirus is less lasting than is hoped, forcing the Atlantis team to destroy the transformed Wraith to keep them from informing others of Atlantis' survival.[12]

The Wraith have a diminished presence in the third season and fourth seasons, with the introduction of the Asurans, a hostile race of Replicator nanites,[13] and the return of Michael as a now-separate threat from the Wraith.[14] In the season 4 episode "Lifeline", Dr. Rodney McKay activates the Wraith attack command in the Replicator base code. The Wraith once dealt with the Replicator threat by using a computer virus to deactivate the command, but due to McKay's meddling this is no longer effective.[15] The war takes on a new dimension when the Replicators begin annihilating human worlds to deprive the Wraith of their food supply, forcing the Wraith and Atlantis into a reluctant alliance to find a way to defeat them.[16] In "Be All My Sins Remember'd", seven hive ships fight alongside Earth and Traveler forces over Asuras to eliminate the Replicators once and for all. At the end of season 4, the Wraith suffer another blow at the hands of Michael, who distributes the Hoffan drug to random human populations, making them poisonous to the Wraith but exacting a great toll on human lives in the process.[17] According to Stargate Atlantis writer Carl Binder, the Wraith have been weakened by these conflicts, leading to "a new order to the galaxy" that will be explored in season 5.[18]

The Wraith are defined by their need to feed on humans; they have a feeding organ on the palm which is applied to the chest of the victim near the heart, drawing out their "life-force". The effect of this in humans is akin to aging, and the act of feeding is sometimes said to "take away years". Eventually, only a desiccated husk remains.[2] In addition to humans, the Wraith can also feed on each other.[19] The Wraith are driven by their hunger, which they describe as akin to being burned alive.[20] Adult Wraith are capable of eating and drinking, but it provides no nourishment.[9] The act of feeding is so traumatic that it would normally cause immediate death; the Wraith inject an enzyme into their victims throughout the process to strengthen them and ensure that the heart continues to beat for as long as possible.[8] If taken by a human in high doses, the Wraith enzyme enhances strength, speed, and resilience, though it also heightens aggression and impairs judgement. The enzyme is also addictive and a person taking it may die from withdrawal if suddenly deprived.[21][22] A Wraith can return the life taken from a human; this "gift of life" is performed only for their most devout worshipers and their brothers.[20]

Wraith are biologically immortal and do not possess the life-inhibiting proteins that cause aging.[2] They are stronger than humans,[23] with some individuals being strong enough to hurl an adult human a considerable distance with minimal effort.[24] They are also extremely agile, able to leap up several meters from a standing start.[19] Wraith bodies are highly resilient, able to survive oceanic pressures that would crush a human,[25] and possess remarkable regenerative abilities. Their regeneration is directly related to how recently they have fed; a fully fed Wraith can heal multiple bullet wounds in seconds.[2][19] In dire circumstances, a Wraith can allow a queen iratus bug to feed on them, potentially healing all their injuries; the practice has long since been abandoned because of the high risk of death it poses.[26] Although the Wraith are capable of speech, their primary means of communication with each other is telepathic. Due to an ancient Wraith experiment to splice Wraith genes into humans, a few humans such as Teyla Emmagan are also capable of accessing the Wraith telepathic network.[1] The Wraith can share each other's perceptions,[10] and a group working together can send a telepathic signal over light-years of distance.[12] The Wraith are also capable of projecting fleeting hallucinations into the minds of their prey in order to confuse and distract.[2]

Three types of Wraith can be distinguished in the series.[2] The most numerous are the warriors, basic foot soldiers who have well-defined musculature and masks that entirely cover their faces. A scene in "Spoils of War" suggests that these masks also allow them to breathe more easily. The warriors also possess the ability to activate a self-destruct mechanism. According to Michael in "Misbegotten", the warriors are "unimaginative" and have "rigid thought patterns". No warrior has ever been shown to speak in the series. The second type of male Wraith is slimmer and more intelligent, and appears in more sophisticated roles. The females are the least frequently seen; apart from Elia, an adolescent Wraith in "Instinct", all the female Wraith on the show have been adult Queens. The Wraith Queens command hive ships[22] and are the only Wraith capable of reproduction.[27] The episode "Instinct" shows that young female Wraith eat and grow in the same way as humans, until in adolescence their digestive systems become non-functional and they develop the need to feed on humans. In "Spoils of War", a Wraith Queen is shown providing genetic material to produce Warriors, which quickly grow to maturity inside pods. The same episode establishes that while large numbers of Wraith Warriors can be grown through cloning, the cloning process requires a ZPM to meet its immense power requirements. Female Wraith have the strongest telepathic ability of all Wraith; they can force most humans into submission through the power of suggestion, and draw information from them against their will.[2][22] In "Submersion", a Wraith Queen takes complete control of Teyla's body, although Teyla is able to accomplish the reverse in "Spoils of War" when her telepathy is being bolstered by that of her unborn child.

Society
Wraith civilization centers around massive hive ships, of which there are over sixty in the Pegasus galaxy.[28] Most hive ships are ruled by Queens, although Todd mentions in "Be All My Sins Remember'd" that after years of conflict many hives are now without Queens and cannot replenish their numbers. The Wraith perform mass human cullings once every few centuries; the rest of the time they hibernate within their hive ships on the surface of planets, guarded by a small force of soldiers and the Keeper (of those who sleep). This hibernation allows the human population of Pegasus to replenish its numbers.[2] During cullings, Wraith hive ships unleash hundreds of darts to scour the surface of the target planet, and dial the planet's Stargate to prevent escape.[5] If given the opportunity, individual Wraith will self-destruct rather than be captured, using a powerful explosive device built into their armor.[23][29] Wraith warriors are also equipped with homing beacons to signal for reinforcements if required.[30] The Wraith wipe out all civilizations that advance enough in technology to present a threat, such as the Hoffans[31] and the Satedans.[32] They regard the Asurans as "abominations" because they are machines.[15] they also attacked the Asgard population in Pegasus, destroying their intergalactic ships and forcing them to hide in a toxic planet. This planet is growing more and more toxic, forcing the Asgard to venture back out into the galaxy, and in danger of being destroyed by the Wraith.

The Wraith have a strong territorial instinct and the various hives are largely autonomous from one another,[22] cooperating only against a common enemy such as the Ancients or the Atlantis Expedition.[7] In the later seasons of Stargate Atlantis, the Wraith hives engage in fierce competition over an inadequate human food supply, with civil war breaking out as multiple factions jostle for advantage.[3][9][33] The Wraith language is a derivative of Ancient.[1] A few Atlantis episodes have added complexity to the Wraith, particularly in the character of "Todd", who shows an appreciation for beauty, a personal code of honor,[20] and even a sense of humor.[16] In "Condemned", a Wraith states that some of his kind still enjoy "the finer things", human food and drink.

Runners
A few exceptional humans, such as Ronon Dex, are turned into "Runners" rather than being fed upon. The Wraith implant them with subspace tracking devices, and set them loose to be hunted as a form of sport.[32] As of "Sateda", there are seven Runner tracking devices active in the galaxy, although it is not known if all seven were implanted in Runners. In that episode, the Wraith recapture Ronon and stage a new hunt for him on his ruined homeworld of Sateda. They send successively larger waves of Wraith warriors after him, and monitor the entire event from their hive ship. Another Runner, named Kiryk, is featured in the fifth season of Atlantis.

[edit] Worshippers
The existence of humans who worship the Wraith is first revealed in "The Hive", where a Wraith Queen states that thousands have come to serve them in exchange for sparing their lives. A Wraith worshiper, Neera, mentions the "prophecy of the Great Awakening" and the "end of days". In "Common Ground", Todd notes that the act of returning a person's life is performed only for their most devout worshipers and their brothers. Some Wraith worshipers are assigned as infiltrators to collect information,[34] while others act as mercenaries.[15] In "Reunion" and "Broken Ties", the Wraith are shown to be able to create worshipers out of even the most implacable enemies by feeding on them and then returning that life over and over again. The repeated infusions of feeding enzyme has an addictive effect and bends the victim to the Wraith's will, though only the strongest survive the process. The Wraith used this technique to convert a number of Satedan soldiers after the fall of Sateda, and eventually do the same to Ronon Dex. The conditioning will break if the individual is deprived of enzyme for long enough, although the withdrawal symptoms are severe.[15][35]

Technology
Main articles: Wraith technology and Wraith starships
Although not as advanced as their enemies, the Ancients, the Wraith were able to drive them out of the Pegasus galaxy by virtue of superior numbers,[2] made possible by cloning technology powered by stolen ZPMs.[3] The Wraith have been shown to be tactically and technologically adaptable,[7][19][36] being able to quickly develop a countermeasure to Asgard beaming technology,[8] and creating highly sophisticated computer viruses for use against the Daedalus[37] and the Asurans.[15] The Wraith also operate an extensive network of transmitters and relay devices throughout Pegasus that allow them to respond rapidly to events of interest.[23][30] Many pieces of Wraith technology, including their ships, are a hybrid of organic and mechanical parts with the ability to heal damage.[38] Significant Wraith technologies include culling beams and stunners, both of which primarily function to capture human prey.[2]