directions, solutions, and dismissing Pegasus natives

[tielan]

I've just been reading through the script of the S1 episode Poisoning The Well.

I'm sure someone picked up on this long ago, but Perna says to Carson:

"His journals tell of one man who survived an encounter with the Wraith. Ferrel and his team discovered that this man possessed a unique protein, one that enabled him to resist the chemical released by the Wraith to precipitate draining of life from their victims."

...doesn't this describe Ronon? In The Runner, we see Ronon captured by the Wraith and a Wraith attempting to feed on him before stopping and being confused.

It would be, to me, the ultimate storytelling irony, if the solution to the situation in Pegasus (regarding the Wraith) has lived alongside the Atlantis expedition for years, and they were just too dismissive of anything and anyone not from Earth to realise it was there all along: Teyla as prevention (awareness of the Wraith), Ronon as cure (immunity from the Wraith).

Too much subtlety for TPTB? Probably. Still, it's a nice thought. Balanced, symmetrical, and I love both the circumstance and the irony of it.

*gets out the shotgun* The plotbunnies are a-comin'!

Comments

[allisnow.livejournal.com]

It's a very interesting idea, although one I sorta hope Carson would have thought to test at some point...

[tielan]

Well, since nobody's so much as mentioned Ronon's immunity to the Wraith, one has to presume that it hasn't been noticed.

Because I think that immunity to Wraith draining would be considered a rather big discovery in the expedition, yes?

[ubiquitous-girl.livejournal.com]

My memory is a bit fuzzy, but wasn't that the whole thing of Poisoning the Well?? And that there were issues with administering it??

Although that is an interesting explanation on why the Runners come to be.

[tielan]

The issue in Poisoning The Well was that they were trying for something that would make these people immune to the Wraith, but ended up making something that actually killed the Wraith.

I think the argument went that if these people were immune they might be spared, but if it actually went back on the Wraith and killed the feeder, then there'd be repercussions.

And, instead of sticking around and trying to modify the drug so it made people immune, Atlantis decided to withdraw from the Hoffans.

Actually, I was more thinking that being a Runner was independant of having this protein - rather more that Ronon became a Runner because they couldn't feed off and yet he was young and healthy and had spirit.

[madjm.livejournal.com]

I never got the idea that the Wraith couldn't feed on Ronon. I just got the impression that Ronon's defiant attitude and the fact that he didn't show fear made the Wraith think that he'd be good prey to play with.

But that would be cool if that's what it turned out a Runner really was: someone the Wraith couldn't feed on. That would explain why there are so few of them that Teyla thought they were just a story.

[tielan]

Actually, I didn't mean that Runners are people who can't be fed on - just that Ronon became one because he couldn't be fed on.

It's entirely possible that random people were used as sport for the Wraith in their "Running Man" games and not just these people who were immune to the Wraith feeding.

But I like the idea of Ronon being immune.

[vaberella.livejournal.com]

Tielan needs to come to GW more often. This was talked about when Runner first aired. There are several threads mentioning and dedicated to this talk. Shoot, I was one of the biggest advocates that Ronon had the chromosome.

Sorry, but this is nothing new!! But it would be a great story if you'd write it. I was hoping that it would be brought up in S3, I even remember saying that about Sateda, when the spoilers come out that we'll find out about the chromosome. I think it came up for discussion for Reunion as well on GW.

[tielan]

*wryly*

Tielan barely has time to read her f-list, let alone wade through GW!

Reunion is an S4 ep, right? (no spoilers, please, just 'yes/no')

[vaberella.livejournal.com]

Sorry! :D

I answered your question on the difference between black and african-american. You should go to the online link, cause I had to re-edit and it turned into a Pt. 1 and Pt. 2. Enjoy!

[vaberella.livejournal.com]

Oops, I brain-farted.

YES!

[loveconquers14.livejournal.com]

I can't believe I never noticed that before! I've often speculated on Ronon's seeming immunity to the wraith and when we would learn more about it, but never made the connection to PTW. Great catch and a very intriguing idea! I for one would love to see a fic around that! :)

[tielan]

I haven't re-watched the S1 eps that much, to be honest. I only vaguely recalled that they were seeking something that would repel the Wraith feeding, and that it seemed as though the Wraith couldn't feed on Ronon.

2+2...

As for a fic... Hm. I'm not sure I have time right now.

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I never really understood why the main medical plot was "Turn the Wraith into humans" instead of "Make everyone like Ronon...well, at least when it comes to that protein." I mean, it didn't work in "Poisoning the Well", but I am sure that Carson could come up with SOMETHING, especially when he had Ronon around.

My fanwanked explanation for this was that the Wraith would just kill everyone instead of eating them and it would take longer for them all to die, but given how they know a)there are not enough humans to eat, b) the Wraith are already fighting one another and c) the Michael thing didn't exactly turn out rosy and everyone felt really bad about it, the explanation kind of wears thin.

So...if you're writing anyway, you could give us a scene where Carson suggests this and then gets strongarmed into going the other way. :)

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love that a LOT a LOT.

[darkrosetiger.livejournal.com]

That's something that's bugged me ever since I saw "Runner". The wraith has his hand on Ronon's chest, and is feeding--and then he stops, with an expression of consternation on his face. It seemed obvious to me that something about Ronon stopped him...but does anyone ever say, "Hey, we should look into that!" Of course not! That would require silly things like continuity and maybe even good writing!

Gah.

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

But what if they ("they" being the rest of the cast) don't even *know*? I mean, Ronon is so close-mouthed about his past that he never even told Sheppard, the person who's probably his closest friend, that he used to be married until he'd known him for a year and a half. Given that Ronon is not much for analyzing Wraith motives even on a good day, why would he bother mentioning what was probably, to him, just another example of strange and psychotic Wraith behavior? And this is assuming that he'd even noticed it at the time, considering that he was probably half out of his mind with grief and fury.

This isn't to say that the writers haven't kind of dropped the ball on following up on that. And I really would like to have *seen* some follow-up; I've generally assumed, ever since Runner, that the runners become that way because they're immune to feeding, though I'd never taken the extra step and connected it to Hoff. But it makes perfect sense to me, in the context of the show, that Ronon either wouldn't have noticed precisely why the Wraith let him go, or wouldn't have thought of mentioning it to any of the others. In fact, it seems unlikely that the rest of the cast ever *would* find out, unless they actually saw a Wraith try to feed on him and fail (which almost happened during Sateda, but not quite).

[darkrosetiger.livejournal.com]

But what if they ("they" being the rest of the cast) don't even *know*?

Except that Ronon tells John and Teyla when they first meet that "I was captured during a culling on my planet. I was taken to a ship. A Wraith started to feed on me....Something made him stop." I would think that would spark something with either John or Teyla, if not right that moment, then when they were back on Atlantis and trying to figure out what to do with Ronon.

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

I know, but I just don't think it's unreasonable that they wouldn't have drawn the right conclusion from his bare-bones description. There are a lot of possible scenarios you could get from "something made him stop", only one of which is *right* -- but they don't really have enough information to know that he meant something other than the Wraith getting interrupted or ordered to quit feeding. And since Wraith immunity has only been documented once in the history of the Pegasus Galaxy, it's far from the most likely scenario that would spring to mind.

Of course, in real life it's infinitely more likely that the writers meant, at the time, to do something with that plot point and then dropped it, but in context of the show, it *does* make sense, at least to me, that they would have misunderstood what he meant -- at least, I find it equally reasonable that it would have gone that way rather than the other way.

[darkrosetiger.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's unreasonable that they wouldn't have gotten it immediately, but the fact that in over a year, they never asked? No one ever said, "Hey, didn't you say that the Wraith tried to feed on you and then stopped for some reason? Why was that, do you think?" If in the context of the show it never occurred to anyone--John, Teyla, or Carson--at least, to dig any further, then that's an incredibly out-of-character lapse in curiosity for a group of scientists and explorers. It's like saying, "this guy was going to shoot me, and he pulled the trigger and I felt an impact, but then nothing." I'd sure as hell want to know what edge you had, especially if I knew there were a bunch of guys with guns on the other side of the door.

For me, there's just no way to rationalize dropping that plot point in the show; it only makes sense as yet another instance of the writers not caring about continuity when they can have more stuff blow up. This just happens to be a bigger deal for me than the fact that in flashbacks, Ronon refers to the Stargate, but when he meets John and Teyla he says he's only ever heard it called the "Ring of the Ancestors".

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

It's like saying, "this guy was going to shoot me, and he pulled the trigger and I felt an impact, but then nothing." I'd sure as hell want to know what edge you had, especially if I knew there were a bunch of guys with guns on the other side of the door.

See, given the amount of information that he actually gave them (which wasn't much), I'd say it'd be more like saying "This guy shot me, but I survived." Now, from that, you could deduce that the speaker is immortal or has super-fast healing capabilities -- but, based on real-world experience, you're a lot more likely to think that he means he was shot in a non-fatal location or was wearing body armor, even though he didn't actually SAY so. And even if you were the person getting shot and you suspected you'd been hit in a fatal location but were under a lot of stress and weren't really sure and didn't really have a chance to check until later, wouldn't you be likely to rationalize it away as "Oh, it must have been a flesh wound" because you KNOW that people don't get shot in the heart and survive?

It just strikes me as much more that type of situation than a clear-cut case of Ronon obviously being immune to Wraith and knowing it, and this being equally evident to the other characters. It's all very fuzzy and unclear. He *could* be immune, or the Wraith could have gotten a message from its hive mind to let that human go for some reason. He *could* have meant he was immune, but it's not by any means the most likely thing that John and Teyla would have thought he meant based on what he said (at least I don't think so).

I guess it's a "your mileage may vary" type of thing, though, because that particular plot hole is incredibly easy for me to explain away to myself, whereas others bug the shit out of me -- but that happens not to be one of them. (I never noticed the Stargate/Ring thing that you mention, but, see, THAT's the sort of thing that drives me crazy, the little specific factual details that directly contradict each other, like the wonky behavior of the personal shield in "Irresponsible". Missing plot points are a lot easier to ignore or explain because there are a hell of a lot of possible behind-the-scenes ways to explain it -- and yeah, I know it's total fanwanking to say "Oh, Carson investigated Ronon's Wraith immunity off-camera and we just didn't see it", but it *could* have happened, whereas there's no possible way to explain away a factual error in similar terms.)