Ancient Technology in Stargate - Power Sources

Power Sources

Ancient technology have varied in power and capability over the passage of many millions of years. Early Ancient technology has shown various advantages over Later Period Ancient technology for inexplicable reasons. The multi-million-year old vessel Destiny possesses an early hyperdrive system that manages FTL travel in normal space with the use of multiple modular drives, giving it vastly superior speed to the later hyperdrive systems that utilized hyperspace windows. Destiny also possesses the ability to convert plasma discharges from the chromosphere of a sun into energy without damage, giving it the ability to recharge at any point in travel while Late Period Ancient ships were more fragile and required an exhaustible power supply provided by ZPMs. While certain prototypical properties of Destiny such as shields, weapons, and interface technology improved significantly over time, the reasons for the loss of many superior advantages of Early Period Ancient technology have not been explained. Ancient beings themselves have also expressed a similar loss of advanced abilities over millions of years; the Stargate device was conceived by an Alteran during a dream on the eve of the exodus from the Ori galaxy, but by the end of the war with the Wraith, Ancient scientists such as Janus required lengthy periods of work to create equally powerful technology such as time-travel.