Why didn't the ancients use the device to defeat the Wraith?

[AscendedThor]

so we know the side effect that it blows up any stargate that is activated. So what? the ancients had ships.
I suppose they were worried about the human worlds blowing themselves up by activating the stargates. but we know it is possible to shut off the entire stargate network using a virus (Baal did it). so the ancients who invented the stargates surely could have done that.

they could have disabled the stargates for a while, use the device to make the Wraith unable to reach anywhere, wait a while until they all die from starvation (and destroy all their ships to make sure no wraith survived by going into hybernation), then shut off the device and reactivate the stargate network.

my only guess is that Janus didn't tell the other ancients about this (but why not?).
the Aurora probably discovered about this. that was probably that 'great weakness' in wraith technology that they talked about.

[The TARDIS]

my only guess is that Janus didn't tell the other ancients about this (but why not?).
the Aurora probably discovered about this. that was probably that 'great weakness' in wraith technology that they talked about.

Because Janus was a good person who didn't think the risks outweighed the rewards, and wasn't willing to risk the deaths of millions of humans and possibly Ancients to win the war? He was a timetraveler, he likely knew several possible outcomes, and judged the risk was far greater than the reward

[AscendedThor]

Because Janus was a good person who didn't think the risks outweighed the rewards, and wasn't willing to risk the deaths of millions of humans and possibly Ancients to win the war? He was a timetraveler, he likely knew several possible outcomes, and judged the risk was far greater than the reward

but i just explained there would be no millions of deaths if they would simply disable the stargate network first. they could win the war easily with no casualties.

[The TARDIS]

but i just explained there would be no millions of deaths if they would simply disable the stargate network first. they could win the war easily with no casualties.

Janus may not have considered that option, or he may have felt that there was no means of safely eliminating all the Wraith due to that one side effect... we don't know. This was not the Anchient's decisions, it was Janus'

[Atlantis_Man]

It's not even a short term solution. As they said, the Wraith would either blow themselves up, get ambushed by an Aurora Class Battleship or starve to death in the empty space.

For the plan to work, the devise would need to be active, and the Stargates need to be shut down for months even years, for a combination of all three options to wipe them out.

Yes, I suppose you can stock up, and have every planet prepared for a long term project like this, but we're talking Gate Crasher explosions here. I personally can not see making this plan work until you were going to trick every Wraith ship into engaging their hyperdrive at once...actually thats a pretty good idea.

[Joben]

I just think it's strange that Janus didn't predict the device would have an impact on the Stargates considering it was the Ancients who built them

[Atlantis_Man]

He designed it with the sole purpose of disrupting the subspace frequency generated by the Wraith Hyperdrive. I really don't think you can predict all the ways the disruption wave could affect everything without observation and testing.

Going back to the coversation with Todd and Jennifer. Computer simulation can only show so much. Live trials are another thing.

[Joben]

He designed it with the sole purpose of disrupting the subspace frequency generated by the Wraith Hyperdrive. I really don't think you can predict all the ways the disruption wave could affect everything without observation and testing.

I dunno, considering the ancients built them I'm pretty sure they'd know what frequencies were used. He was able to make it not affect the ancient hyperdrives. Just seems like a pretty big mistake if it took 3 days of it turned on for him to figure it out

[Gate-builder]

Its possible that Janus wasn't an expert on the Stargate, maybe the Ancients had scientists that specialised in different areas. This could be why he didn't predict exploding Stargates.

Also shutting down the gate network for a while would have a big impact on all the people who use it for trade. Some might starve because they could not get food from their trading partners like they usually would.

[Xaeden]

but i just explained there would be no millions of deaths if they would simply disable the stargate network first. they could win the war easily with no casualties.

However, just because Humans/Goa'uld aren't as advanced as the Ancients doesn't mean they couldn't have stumbled upon uses for their technology that they never considered themselves. For example, Earth figured out that solar flares and the Stargate would cause one to travel back in time because they messed with the safeguards the Ancients had in place and as a result of them managing to be able to return to their own time, they lived for Ba'al to find out that he could develop an accurate way to predict when these solar flares would happen and how far he'd travel based on each one. But, meanwhile the Ancients were unsuccessfully trying to create a machine which had nothing to do with solar flares so that they could undo the plague via time travel, suggesting that they had no idea that was possible. Which could perhaps be explained as them being smart enough to know that there could be problems with the wormhole passing near a sun, but they didn't know the specifics because they had no intention of testing it with live subjects.

So we can't just assume that they ever considered the possibility of shutting down the entire network with a virus. Also, we don't know that they didn't try something like that earlier and the Wraith didn't figure out a way to undo it. They are, afterall, quite adept at viruses so Janus might've figured that they would undo it (again) just to spite them by letting Human worlds suffer. As I recall, Earth's original plan to fix the program involved something with using an uninfected DHD to upload the program through the network. The Wraith had plenty of those in the form of darts and since Spacegates never had DHDs, they wouldn't have been infected, allowing them to be just as usable as Earth's gate was. Thus they could potentially have used one of them to try and fix it.

[knowles2]

Its possible that Janus wasn't an expert on the Stargate, maybe the Ancients had scientists that specialised in different areas. This could be why he didn't predict exploding Stargates.

Also shutting down the gate network for a while would have a big impact on all the people who use it for trade. Some might starve because they could not get food from their trading partners like they usually would.

Yeah, but is that worst than leaving the entire galaxy in the hands of the wraith to feed on as they want.

[MechaThor]

Also apart from the countless Human worlds, and other races using the Stargate Networks, The Wraith could of figured out that all they need to do is dial up an Ancients worlds Stargate to destroy them.

[knowles2]

Also apart from the countless Human worlds, and other races using the Stargate Networks, The Wraith could of figured out that all they need to do is dial up an Ancients worlds Stargate to destroy them.

And all the ancients need to do is dial up their gate shields. I am guesting all the ancient bases with stargates would of had shields.

And the same could also be said for the numerous wraith controlled worlds with land bases on.

[jds1982]

And all the ancients need to do is dial up their gate shields. I am guesting all the ancient bases with stargates would of had shields.

And the same could also be said for the numerous wraith controlled worlds with land bases on.

Yeah but you run of the mill gate shield wouldn't contain that type of explosion, you'd need Atlantis type city shields, and not every base would have those.

[Xaeden]

And all the ancients need to do is dial up their gate shields. I am guesting all the ancient bases with stargates would of had shields.

I get the impression that Atlantis only had a shield because they were forced to keep the gate in the city since they landed it on the ocean. While others protected their holdings by keeping the gates off to the side ("The Inferno," "The Tower"). However, it wouldn't matter as the gate shield was worthless in this type of situation, thus they were forced to collapse the city's shield around it. So if the gate is within their complex, then it's possible thier shield wouldn't powerful enough to hold in the blast for so long and if it's off to the side then there's no telling that they will be able to detect it happening from where they are in time to raise their shields over their complex. "If" they did, while it would protect a specific city/outpost, there are a lot of things that could fall off to the side which would go unshielded (both because they don't have time to extend the shield that far and doing so could potentially weaken their shield too much to hold off the blast). For example, mining sites, ship building sites, Human communities that live nearby, extended structures akin to the ones seen in the replicator city, etc.

But, there's a simply solution to that - Just get approval from the council to go through with it and stick the gates near Ancient community on another part of the planet/in space before activing the device. Of course, that would be the least of their worries since they wouldn't have the resources to do the same for all Human populated worlds and it wouldn't be the first time they stopped a project because it would put Humans in danger.