While the technological progression of the ancients was never really well established we do know that they built the Milky Way gate system no more then 50 million years ago (likely much later then that). Now we learned from SGU that the original gate system (the prototype destiny gates) predate the milky way gates chronologically, however the timeframe on that is unknown. The pegasus gates are relatively new compared to the original or milky way gates, but are still tens of thousands - few million years of age. Now while this rate of advancement seems all well and good (albeit very slow). Other ancient technologies shown to exist during the time of the original gate system makes the continuity seem... odd.
Destiny has an FTL drive, now it is directly said that Destiny's FTL does not operate through hyperspace. Now while this makes for a very interesting mystery, the fact that Destiny can travel between galaxies in a single jump makes no sense whatsoever. In the stargate universe there are two common types of hyperdrives: interstellar and intergalactic variants. Now while we don't really have the data to compare Destiny FTL v Hyperspace (e.g power consumption, building materials required) we do know some cursory performance information.
Destiny FTL: Really fast, can traverse galaxies in a matter of months. Cannot engage/disengage the drive in rapid succession.
Hyperdrive: Fast or really fast depending on model. Intergalactic drive can go from galaxy to galaxy in under a month, no restrictions on activation time other then power.
Now the existence of destiny means that the ancients had intergalactic capability when the original gate system was manufactured (around 50M years ago). However, we see a ancient vessel in Stargate Atlantis with a interstellar hyperdrive active then less then 10 thousand years ago. Meaning, even if destiny FTL was absurdly hard to manufacture (which doesn't make sense, because they made an undefined but somewhat large amount of seed ships) they found no better intergalactic drive solution in 50 million years. This discrepancy is further amplified by the scope of the power generation the ancients had access to at the time of destiny. We know that the seed ships had enough power to make a 9-chevron connection (and possibly destiny when it was in top-condition), however a ZPM (the most advanced working ancient power source as of 10,000 years ago) does not have the power to make a 9-chevron connection (or at least it's incredibly likely, they emphasized the whole you-need-an-icarus-planet thing and Rush nor Mckay even mentioned the possibility, which would have been a big plot point when they were deciding whether it was worth it to mount another icarus mission). Meaning that not only had the ancient made no technological advancements in the realm of power whatsoever in 50 million years, but they instead went backwards. However you got to give them some credit because ZPM's glow.
In fact the known advancements that the ancients made in 50 million years are:
- Gates that have a larger 6-chevron range
- Cloak
- Slower hyperdrives
- On-par hyperdrives
- Glowy power sources that can explode
- Glowy power sources that don't work
- Drones (probably the biggest advancement in terms of ship tech)
- Life signs detector
- Blue shields instead of yellow shields
- Mind data transfer machines that don't kill you
- Mind controlled weapons
And they ditched the following innovations:
- Kenos
- Cool mobile dialers that tell you nearby gates
- Energy weapons (they were shown in the scene where the ancients destroyed the pegasus replicator planet and the episode with the zero point energy research, but they weren't widely deployed)
- Gates that spin (they're round, they have to spin!)
- Artificial intelligence (Atlantis with an AI would have been interesting)don'tlietome
Now I just want to say I really enjoyed SGU, but this has been nagging at me ever since I rewatched the SGA episode where they found the half-destroyed ancient ship with the interstellar hyperdrive. I also know this isn't really the fault of the SGU writers as destiny required intergalactic drive to make sense. (Also, for plot, being stuck on a ship in transit for upwards of centuries doesn't make for good TV)
Also, If I'm wrong please say so. I want nothing more then to be proved wrong so I can go about my day thinking stargate has a totally internally consistent plot.
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