Why didn't the Ancients return with Atlantis ?

[Sam.]

Not wanting to risk the wraith following them maybe?
Some wanted to live out their lives on earth without the technology didnt they

[mickhhh]

why would they even need to fight the wraith. they could have just done what they did before to trick teh wraith and when the wraith left the come up and leave. if they wanted to they could have just left any time they wanted

[Mister Oragahn]

Atlantis probably represented the Lantean's downfall: a blind faith in technology. They probably also had ethical values which they may have crossed too many times, to no avail, and thus thought that if anyone returns to the city, it will be with different moral values, and perhaps do what the Lanteans never did.
They probably were f***in' sick of Atlantis.

Now, I don't think anything could have prevented them from ever leaving with the city. Obviously, they could have sent most people through the gate and let a few dozen people remain in the control tower. After all, in theory one guy in a chair plus some people behind the consoles would be more than enough.

Why didn't the ancients return with Atlantis? To me it seems quite simple (assuming they had some sort of forward planning).

A few facts and assumptions about the ancients:
1) The ancients had been fighting for nearly a century with the Wraith, to no avail.
2) They spent alot of time focusing on Ascension.
3) Earth was developing quite nicely by itself
4) There were many planets inhabited by humans in Pegasus.
5) The Ancients felt 'guilty' for the creation of the Wraith

3. It was under Goa'uld control and would remain so for millennia, though. Not the best milieu for development, no matter what the Lanteans planned.
4. Who would have to deal with the Wraith with their wooden spikes. :/

So, Atlantis is the last line of defense, and the only link to the Milky Way. The Ancients have two options:
A) Stand and Fight, they have no way to win, and Atlantis will either be destroyed or be captured by the Wraith.
B) Return to the Milky Way, and focus on Ascension. Atlantis will have a problem breaking through the Wraith lines, and will probably be destroyed before it manages to escape to the Milky Way.

One ZPM could handle an armada's bombardment. Atlantis had three ZPMs, plus the mobile geothermal power plant to use as extra oomph. That, and the fact that they could have loaded big bombs on the PJs, piloted them with the chair in cloaked mode, and cleared a way for the city (not that I think it was necessary, the city could really laugh at the Wraith weapons).

The Ancients, not being natural fighters, decide to run. The only way they can do this is via the stargate.

There is another good reason for them leaving though. If Atlantis had been destroyed then the humans in Pegasus would be culled without a fight. As long as Atlantis remains then there is hope for the humans. The Ancients know that they cannot help the humans of Pegasus directly but, hope that the humans on Earth are sufficiently 'Ancient-like' to be able to
A) Defeat the Goa'uld if they ever invade
B) Find Atlantis ( The ancient left clues to help us)
C) Will have a instinctual need to help the weak (possibly programmed in by the ancients themselves)

A pity that it took so long. Without the Goa'uld, Terrans would have reached the level of devlopment of Tollans way earlier, and would have probably been able to find Atlantis muich sooner, avoiding the problem of the shield collapse and the awakening of the Wraith.
Of course they had a good opportunity with the Alliance, and the Asgards notably who were ready to nurse a portion of humanity subversively or something.

I have two points here...

1) They could easily have remained on Atlantis for a few weeks, rebuilt their drone supplies, fired one last drone swarm to clear a path and then full thrust out of the water and into hyperspace at maximum speed. It was said that the Ancients could easily win every battle they faught, it's just that more Wraith kept coming, so that plan should work. (And yes, drones do work underwater )

2) Atlantis was intended to be left and rediscovered by non-Ancients - the wiered floor console in the gate room is proof that Atlantis' systems are designed to be run by non-Ancients but also to be able to identify and reject those connections instantly when the override program was activated by a true Ancient. If it wasn't designed to be rediscovered by non-Ancients then that program would always be running and would never allow all these Tau'ri computers and personell to control Atlantis.

That and the Lantean chick from the Tria popping out a console from the floor and taking control of Atlantis. The humans never discovered this console, and it was right under their nose.

[Ark Cammando]

Damn Atlantis and it's lack of toilets!

I guess they could have buried it in the sands of Africa...

Maybe after it was undug from the sands of Africa, it would open a giant hyperspace window to some kind of Ancient version of Noah's Ark.

They could have landed it on Antarctica, or Hawaii. I think they left Atlantis in Pegasus to make a plot for the TV show.

[The Flyattractor]

Hand't the Virus also started killing of the ancients that were back on earth at the time too?

[Raza]

Well the Ancients did not want to take the chance of the Wraith getting access to any of their other technologies, and considering that Atlantis was their most advanced facility this would be one of the few objects of the utmost priority in protecting, meaning that any attempt at launching the vessel would have significantly increased probability of it getting captured (remember what the Wraith did with the standard technologies of the Ancients [cloning facility, and an upgraded hive ship], now imagine what they would have been capable of with the crown jewel that was Atlantis).
This still does not make any sense for the Wraith demonstrated their capacity for landing their vessels, as well as being able to swim without any protective gear whatsoever at extreme depths hence making the cities submergence pointless, but then again there were not all too many advancements by the Wraith for all of those years pointing to a point that they do not consider advancing themselves of the utmost priority and this is also evident with the Goa'uld, neither civilization shows any drive for increasing technological capacity unless dealing with foes at an equal or greater level of technological capacity for they mostly have to devote their time to the keeping of primitive peoples subjugated which does not have to be all to complex considering the vast differences in technological levels.

[Ouroboros]

I'd guess that they determined that if they tried to run the engines/shields/weapons etc at the same time there would be a chance that the Wraith fleet would shoot them down before they could escape, where as hiding under the ocean with 100% power to shields kept them safe effectively indefinitely.

Why risk flying into the suns of a siege line when they could just dial home instead, far safer. They don't really seem to care a great deal about preserving ownership of their own technology. They leave their crap scattered all over multiple galaxies like kids toys on the carpet.

[Vancho]

Some parts of stargate are bit non sense

My best guess is they submerged the city because the pressure on the shield were too high, draining the ZMPs too quickly, they probably were unable to power the stardrive and keep the shields up, remember that the entire wraith fleet were focusing fire on atlantis

[racketen]

but why didnt they just used the satelite? Is is still there in season 1 so it they would probably be able to fully charge it and take out a big number of wraith ships and so on.

And if they reely was planning on caming back. The only thing that stopped them must have been the fact that they acended.