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

[MechaThor]

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.

The Gates Iris shield would not have stopped the Explosion. The blast came from the Gate itself exploding, not a blast coming through the Wormhole.
Only the Cities collapsed shield could hold off the explosion and even that barely held it as we saw.

[BubblingOverWithIdeas]

Janus may have wanted to make a bug-free version, and not have had the opportunity due to the evacuation.

[mellow yellow]

just adding my 2 cents... Its possible there are more side effects than just exploding Stargates. The beam has only been on for a few hours..if that much and it was already affecting the Stargates. its possible the longer it stays on the more things it will affect. Janus had it on for 3 days and it must have caused some major problems for him to shut it down and not try to use it again. Hopefully, we'll get more answers from the next epi

[Vespasianus]

And also Janus may only have worked during the end of the war (Before I Sleep, and let's not forget his new time traveling Puddle Jumper after the war), not at the beginning, so telling human worlds not to dial out was probably impossible by that time.

[RepliVeggie]

Alot of things that happened earlier in the series with SG1. Like the ground hog day episode. Likely happening million years before Janus' created his time machine. Or they just have to be thrown out. Cuz they don't write starget 10 years in advance and they dont have 1 writer so stuff changes.


Also if this show were real. The Ancients would have never lost to such a technologically inferior race. They lost to make story. There have been lots of things the Ancients could have done to beat the wraith. In this instance I am sure the Ancients could have just pressed 1 button and shut down the gate network and then turned on the device.

[knowles2]

just adding my 2 cents... Its possible there are more side effects than just exploding Stargates. The beam has only been on for a few hours..if that much and it was already affecting the Stargates. its possible the longer it stays on the more things it will affect. Janus had it on for 3 days and it must have caused some major problems for him to shut it down and not try to use it again. Hopefully, we'll get more answers from the next epi

Good point, perhaps eventually the device starts to effect all subspace technology, such ZPM, communications, all hyperdrives , may be even damage/destroy subspace.

[RepliVeggie]

Good point, perhaps eventually the device starts to effect all subspace technology, such ZPM, communications, all hyperdrives , may be even damage/destroy subspace.

Ohhhh thats a good thought. What if Janus found out that it would effect ZPMs and make them kerplode.

[the fifth man]

Good point, perhaps eventually the device starts to effect all subspace technology, such ZPM, communications, all hyperdrives , may be even damage/destroy subspace.

That very well could be the case.

[garhkal]

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.

Very true. WE have seen many tech the ancients made get 'sidelined' due to their destructive ness on other civilizations.

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

Is it? Every one of those planets which made a 'gate linkup' would be destroyed and uninhabitable for a long time.

Ohhhh thats a good thought. What if Janus found out that it would effect ZPMs and make them kerplode.

That would definatly be an unwanted side effect..

[BuggyMan]

I don't think starving the Wraith out would have worked.
They can survive a fairly long time without "food" (even without hibernation). I don't know how long but quite possibly longer than the Ancients could afford to lose the gate network.

[Alan Wake]

Alot of things that happened earlier in the series with SG1. Like the ground hog day episode. Likely happening million years before Janus' created his time machine.

I believe this was probably a more early version of the acienets who built that machine... likely before janus was alive.

[JSBriker]

Well I can think of a couple cases where the ancients wouldn't do something cause it violated some morals/beliefs they had. For example the Ark of Truth... they could have used that to solve the Ori problem but didn't cause they thought it was wrong. There was also the time Weir went back in time and they wouldn't let her return to her time for some reason I recall. So maybe as much as the Wraith were a threat to themselves and the rest of humanity they didn't want to do genocide and wipe them all out... instead hoping one day another means might be found to deal with the Wraith.