Spoils of War is episode 12 of season 4 of Stargate Atlantis, first aired in 2007.
Todd has disappeared with sensitive equipment, and his hive is drifting, silent: aboard, the team discovers the Wraith postwar world, starving clones, a dead queen... and military cloning vats. The key to the Wraith revival is a relic of the great war: a Lantean ZPM stolen long ago, capable of restarting soldier production indefinitely.
Why it matters to the mythology
The Wraith's demographic secret sheds light on ten thousand years of history: their victory over the Ancients was a matter of industrial cloning.
The review
A hive exploration episode that cashes in on the previous victory: the war over, only the rubble remains, and the starving Wraith are almost pitiful in it. The revelation of mass cloning elegantly rewrites the fall of the Ancients, drowned in biomass rather than defeated. A pregnant Teyla taking mental control of an entire hive crosses a power threshold that worries even her friends. Rich worldbuilding against a backdrop of clammy corridors. Very decent.
Written by Sebastian
Founder and editor-in-chief of Stargate Initiative
Gallery · 3
Stills from the episode, via TMDb.
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