Am I the only one who hates the Ancients?

The Ancients didn't create humans. In the canon of the show, we are the second evolution of this particular life form. So yeah, I think if you have innocent beings, and you've created a monstrous weapon that is wiping those beings out, you have a responsibility to stop your weapon that you created from killing the innocents.

Humans are the second evolution of the human form because the Ancients put into place the groundwork for humans to evolve on Earth after the plague. So, yes, the Ancients are as responsible for the destruction caused by humans as they are by the destruction caused by the Asurans.

Further, the Ancients in some way seeded human life throughout the Pegasus galaxy, (whether through the same directed evolution approach or otherwise is unknown) directed the technological development of an unknown number of them, and helped humans on Earth develop early forms of civilization. So they didn't just create humans, they artificially advanced them and spread their population throughout an entire galaxy.

As to how the Ancients would do it, they could destroy every single Replicator cell in the Pegasus galaxy with a single thought.

They do have the power to destroy them without impediment, but not in a single thought. An ascended being's power is localized and they take time to travel from place to place.

In any case, you're still advocating mass genocide of one sapient being over another without providing any justification for why the Asurans should be destroyed for wanting to wipe out humans when humans shouldn't be destroyed for wanting to wipe out all Asurans.

Also, I would point out that the Asurans weren't actually interested in wiping out humanity. That was how their programming rationalized a directive (to wipe out the Wraith) that was forced on them by the Ancients and reactivated by humans after the Wraith figured out how to deactivate it. So they're victims of the equivalent of mass brain washing. They had been able to attack humans for 10,000 years and largely left them alone prior to Mckay's tampering. The only thing they did prior to that (that we know about) is to try to take Atlantis from humans with the threat of force, but if they all deserve to die for that does that mean the Genii all deserve to be eradicated?

You are quite right that as ascended beings out of harm's way they have no stake in the battle. If they were as morally advanced as they were technologically advanced, they would have an incentive to help, the incentive of pure compassion for innocents being slaughtered, and they would have an incentive to clean up the mess they created by making the Replicators in the first place, but lacking all compassion and decency, it is quite true they don't have to bother.

Again, I maintain that we're talking about two groups capable of slaughter and if you're going to say it's moral for them to get involved in stopping the Asurans, then you can't stop there by saying it's not okay for them to then get involved in stopping human violence. However, as I explained previously, that cannot be accomplished without also ridding the universe of them or both restricting their free will and putting ascended beings in a position where abuse of power is likely.

There is no need to be rude.

I'm not sure why you perceived that as rude, but I can tell you that it was not intended as such.

The Wraith are part human and part bug. Making them all human would simply continue an evolutionary process that began long ago.

The Wraith are likely to lose their ability to feed on humans long before becoming fully human and it's feeding on humans which makes them more like them. The final result should be something along what the hybrids looked like, at best, or at worst, they should still mostly look like they do now just without the suckers.

However, even if what you said were true, let's say the Asgard represented human's evolutionary future. Forget that they look like that because of cloning. Let's, for arguments sake, say that the Ancients knew that humans were going to naturally evolve into that form. Would it be okay for them to turn all humans into that to pacify them? How would you like to wake up one day in a frail, weak body that you did not identify as your own?

I notice you haven't come up with any solution, unless your idea is to just let things go on as they are, the Wraith culling humans, the humans living in fear, so many lives being lost, and the Pegasus galaxy being a place where no one, not the Wraiths nor the humans, can really advance themselves.

I find it curious that you thought it was possible that I was arguing for anything other than them doing nothing. But, yes, that's my position. I agree that they screwed up, but at this point I do think they need to step back and let these groups work things out for themselves. Interventionism comes from a good place, but it doesn't work. We've seen that in our own history. People say they want to help the native group. They want to stop them from killing each other, they want to educate them, bring them into European society, and so on. However, it leads to devastation, slavery, and loss of culture. That's why, today, the idea of leaving alone the last "untouched" tribes in remote parts of the world is so valued.

My argument has therefore been that this type of no-win scenario is the position that the Ancients are in. They've become too powerful to try to intercede without some number of them abusing their power, which would lead to even to worse atrocities, and there's no viable solution for ending conflict that doesn't involve genocide, loss of identity, and/or loss of free will.

Remember, humans have something that is of value to ascended beings so it's not just about their actions leading to worse consequence. That is a concern and it is something they are susceptible to as seen by how Orlin's efforts to try to help humans defend themselves lead to their own destruction. Meaning, they don't know if what they try to do will lead to a better outcome and they can easily get stuck into a endless cycle where they intervene to try to fix past interventions leading to an ultimately worse future than if they did nothing. However, their biggest concern is that intervention is a stepping stone to exploitation. Their position may seem harsh, but they know that there are those among them who would not be able to then resist justifying doing to humans what the Ori do, and that's something I think we can all agree needs to be avoided.

You keep saying that they should do this or that, but you don't address how they can avoid abuse by taking that step. The problem, for me, is that I don't think it's possible. Telling them to go in and just do this, this, and that is like telling the Europeans, during the Age of Exploitation, to go the New World and only offer help to native populations. That wouldn't happen. Once you allow contact, people will see that they have gold and begin to exploit them for it. As evolved as ascended beings are, that base motivation is still very much there for them and it scares enough of them that they have adopted such strict rules.

Again, we will have to agree to disagree. My proposed solution is not devastating. It puts everyone on the same level on the playing field. There's no point in going on about the new world, Polyphemus (the name of the cyclops in the Odyssey), the attitudes of humans in the Pegasus galaxy, and so forth. All of those things are irrelevant, because in the long run, people may fight but they do find ways to coexist. Some humans would never accept the former Wraith, and some humans would. Some former Wraith would never adjust to getting along with humans, and some would. Eventually a balance would be found. The important thing, and this is why my solution is so perfect, is that turning the Wraith into humans would preserve both sides, while putting them on an equal footing and creating a genuine opportunity for them to coexist. And the Ancients could easily do it, and they are morally responsible for the Wraith because they chose to put people on a planet with the Iratus bug and then were negligent about what happened on that planet.

I'm sorry, but this baseless idealism. The reason I brought up all the things I did is because humans have a massive history of abusing those who are not like them. We are, today, locked in an age old pattern of genocide and persecution that exists because of dislike of unlike, fear mongering, scapegoating, and demonization of the other. Would some humans be able to accept humanized Wraith? Yes. But would many be unable/unwilling to? Also yes.

The problem is three-fold.

One, acceptance is a fragile thing. You don't like when I reference historical examples, but if you change your mind on that I can quote to you primary source after primary source where people don't understand how it is that people who were their accepting neighbors one day could turn into their persecutors the next. It takes very little. Illness, a missing child, (see Blood Libel) crop failure, a natural disaster, etc., and all of the sudden this group living next to you is going to be blamed.

Two, those who will be unwilling are many. We're not talking about socially and morally advanced societies here. We're talking about very primitive, superstitious people mixed in with single minded militaristic groups. Both have suffered under the Wraith for thousands of years. The situation could not be more perfect for the former to get together in Wraith persecuting bands and the latter to try to expand territoriality by using the guise of eradicating the Wraith to accomplish that.

Three, your idealized future where there's a chance for them to work it out is a long way into their future and is extremely bloody. The reason I keep referencing historical examples is because we've seen this happen over and over and over again. At some point in the future I truly hope we can get beyond that but we haven't yet and the conditions in the fictional Pegasus galaxy are such that we can use history to know quite certainly that your solution would lead to a very long set of periods of mass killings and genocide that could very easily be worse than what is going on right now.

Right now there's a reason for humans to unite against an outside threat. Overcoming that threat will not come without bloodshed, but that suffering and that death has the potential to join people together in a way that could lead to better interactions between them in a post-Wraith galaxy. Meaning, possibly less death and less suffering overall. Your solution, whether you realize it or not, advocates for creating suspicion among these wildly unconnected groups that will, without question, pit them against each other in the most brutal and horrific fashion possible for an untold number of years.

It's possible that the path to your idealized future will lead to less death and suffering but it's not guaranteed and, frankly, I think that's rather unlikely given the bad position that the Wraith were in at the end of the series, the rising power of Earth, the hint of advanced societies coming out of hiding, and the beginnings of efforts for even simple groups to mobilize against the Wraith. Unless something goes screwy, allowing the Wraith to rise in power again and, in doing so, throw the galaxy (and possibly the Milky Way with it if they find a way to get there) into another multi-thousand year period of their treating humans like cattle, I think humans are in a good position to force a resolution on their own.

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