Wraith Toy Boy

Q: "How is it determined whether a Wraith child grows up to be a blade or a cleverman? Is it through education and socialisation or is there a genetic component and the children are educated according to their talents?"A: It's based on their inclination and talents. An infant boy may grow up to be either blade or cleverman. It's an educational caste, not genetic. Except of course in the way that intelligence and temperament are genetic! Of course queen's inclinations are different too. In Secrets we'll meet a queen who, as she says, has the mind and interests of a cleverman, who would have chosen to study the Subcorporia if it did not interfere with her duties, sort of a Wraith Sam Carter! (A comparison Teyla does make!)

Q: "If it had something to do with genetics that would raise another question. If the Queen never mates with clevermen that would eventually result in the extinction of this caste and only the fierce and brave blades would survive. In that case, does the Queen have a means of control over her unborn children? Can she influence what disposition her children get?"A: Queens do mate with clevermen if they wish, though it's less common. It's extremely rare for a cleverman to become Consort however, as one of the Consort's duties is to physically protect the queen.

Q: "I'm asking this because in 'Homecoming' on page 34 there's a sentence that caught my attention for its interesting choice of words: 'She had honored him with a son, and then, as his utility had grown, with a daughter, …' If I'm reading this correctly it implies that Snow had indeed control of the gender of her children. I'm just thinking out loud now: we know female Wraith are very rare and no one knows why.”A: Without being too spoilery -- nine out of ten female embryos are inviable. The chances of a Wraith queen naturally conceiving and bearing a healthy daughter are very small. To that end most daughters are conceived by in vitro fertilization. Eggs and sperm are combined in the laboratory and the zygotes are allowed to begin their first divisions. They can then be tested and examined, and if the queen is trying to conceive a daughter, then only a healthy and viable embryo is implanted, while the nine out of ten that weren't viable are discarded. Otherwise a queen might miscarry nine times to bear a single daughter, a tremendous toll both physically and emotionally. The male embryos are more stable, and some sons are conceived naturally, while other queens opt for all their pregnancies to be in vitro, as the male embryos are still inviable at a much greater rate than for humans. Also, it allows queens who have a settled Consort and who do not wish to take a lover to vary the genetic material of their children. A particularly brilliant cleverman or a blade of a certain lineage may be selected to pass on their genes. Certainly it's incredibly unusual for more than two of a queen's children to have the same genetic father. It's far too important to manage the fragile gene pool.

Q. Do blades and clevermen get to interact much when off-duty?A. It depends on the individuals and the hive. Some do, some don't. Whether there are clevermen among the favorites of the zenana depends on the queen. It's up to her to admit whomever she wants. In The Lost, we see Dust and Quicksilver, who are both clevermen, in the zenana among the blades. And Michael (Lastlight) was high in his queen's confidence. But some hives don't value clevermen as much. The problem with that, of course, is that males can move from one hive to another, and a queen who treats clevermen badly will find it hard to keep competent engineers, healers, etc!

Q. Why are the clevermen beyond taking binding oaths? Does their independent thought preclude them from it?A. They aren't supposed to take part in combat, and so cannot be oathsworn to defend. Now, in real life there are clevermen who fight, as we saw with Michael! In The Lost we'll also see that Dust is armed, though he is emphatically not supposed to be! (And of course there are blades who do know something about the sciences, like Guide. Again, Guide and Sheppard. John's not a scientist, but he's no dummy either!)

Q. Cleverman Ember was singled out to be tested by Queen Death. Do Queens have a sense of an independent thought alarm, wary of Wraith who will not be so quick to fall in line with their rule, like Todd mentioned in The Queen?