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ATLANTIS
Writing Credits:
Information borrowed from
WIKIPEDIA
site.
E-Mail for that site can be sent to
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In the science fiction television series Stargate Atlantis, the
spin-off of Stargate SG-1, Atlantis (Milky Way Gate address:        ,
Pegasus Gate address:       )
is an Ancient City
Ship, both of which are part of the Stargate science fiction setting. It is
based on, and serves to explain, the Greek myth of the Lost City of Atlantis.
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On the popular television series, the City of Atlantis resides
on a planet located in the Pegasus galaxy, and was built by the Ancients
and later abandoned. SG-1's seventh season was spent in search of the Lost
City, and culminated in the Atlantis Expedition when its location was found. In
the series premiere of Atlantis, this team from Earth used the Stargate to
travel to the City in search of knowledge and possible contact with its
builders, 10,000 years after it was abandoned.
This team of humans today makes up the bulk of Atlantis' urban
inhabitants, and the city now acts as the secure main base for Stargate
operations in the Pegasus Galaxy. With only a few exceptions, any episode of
Stargate Atlantis begins and ends at Atlantis.
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HISTORY
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Atlantis was built by the Ancients,
who called it Atlantus in their language. As the Ancients are known as the
"Ancestors" to the inhabitants of the Pegasus galaxy, Atlantis is
sometimes called the City of the Ancestors. The Ancients, whose true name are
the Alterans, abandoned it after a war with the Wraith.
The City (which also functions as a huge spaceship) was once
located on Earth in what is now Antarctica.
Several million years ago, apparently due to a plague (the same one with which
Ayiana was infected), many of the Ancients who inhabited Earth at that time
relocated the giant city to the Pegasus Galaxy. A small outpost was left
behind, with information on how to use a Stargate to get to the new location.
After years of being under siege by Wraith ships in orbit, the Atlantis
inhabitants abandoned the city, traveling back to Earth via the Stargate.
Atlantis's final resting place in the "Pegasus
Galaxy" is ambiguous. The galaxy is referred to as a "dwarf galaxy in
the Local Group". However, as there exist two dwarf galaxies within the
Pegasus constellation, the Pegasus Dwarf (also called Pegasus Dwarf Irregular)
and Pegasus Dwarf Spheroidal, it is not clear which galaxy is meant.
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In the beginning of the first episode, Atlantis sits on the floor of the
ocean, several hundred feet below the surface. It was left like this to
keep it intact and safe from the Wraith. Due to an energy shortage, the
autonomous city released its clamps on the ocean floor and resurfaced. In
contrast to Plato's Timaeus, this Atlantis did not sink in
destructive "earthquakes and floods", but rather did so in a
controlled fashion with a protective shield, keeping the city still intact
underwater. |
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In an alternate timeline, the city did not have a failsafe to raise it from the
sea floor, and was destroyed shortly after the arrival of Weir's team. However,
she managed to escape using a time machine, which allowed her to go back in
time and convince one of the original Ancients
to install the failsafe and devise a means to store enough power to make its
use practical.
In the new timeline, Atlantis was found by Earth. When they discovered the
shield was failing, they tried looking for a safe planet. Major Sheppard
returned with Athosian refugees who were fleeing from the Wraith. When the
shield collapsed, the city suddenly rose to the top of the ocean. Since then,
it was Earth base of operations in the Pegasus Galaxy.
Eventually, in what was called the Second Siege of Atlantis, the
Wraith came to take the city to get to Earth. After a long siege, the Tau'ri
faked a self destruct, using a timed nuclear weapon and a cloak to make it
appear that the city was destroyed. The Wraith fell for the ruse, and the
Expedition members spent some time saying that the city was destroyed. However,
the Genii were aware that the city survived, and keeping it's survival a secret
from the Wraith is now a top priority.
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ARCHITECTURE & STRUCTURE
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The shape of Atlantis is unlike that described in Plato's Critias.
Atlantis is a huge, snowflake-shaped, spacefaring platform with skyscrapers
on it, lower buildings in the six outlying sections, and the highest building,
the control tower, in the centre. Below it, is an outpost. The shape of the
city is in fact very similar to that of a self similar fractal. The "Gate
Room", (referred to by the expedition as "Stargate Operations"),
where the Stargate is located, and the expedition crew have their centre of
operations, is located in this tower, as are the Jumper
bay and the control room. This is the most protected area of the city. Outlying
parts of the city are easily accessible by using a system of internal
teleporters which function similarly to Ring Transporters.
The Atlantean buildings depicted in the series is probably best attributed
as a postmodern architecture with elements from futurism. It retains and relies
heavily on a prism shaped, functional form, while being very free to modify
this in the detailed realization. The architecture is eager to include
ornaments or other purely decorative, while still abstract forms, in an even
more intensified form as most postmodern style buildings. Next to prism,
diagonal and pyramidal forms are key elements on Atlantean buildings, while
curved forms are used with much restraint, unlike many buildings attributed to
the modern futurism.
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INTERIOR & EXTERIOR
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GATE ROOM
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The gate room of Atlantis is a large two-floor room nearly on top (only the
Puddle Jumper bay lies higher) of the central tower of Atlantis that houses the
Stargate and has many exits to leave in different directions. The Stargate is
located on a large platform which has space for many people. Right on the
opposite side of the Stargate a large stair leads to the upper floor that
houses the operations center, Dr. Weir's office, the conference rooms and
several balconies to look down on the platform. Thus it is easy to keep an eye
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on the Stargate and the surrounding area. The ceiling above the platform
contains a large panel to the Puddle Jumper bay from which the Jumpers are
moved automatically from and to the gate room. They have also put more Ancient
control units in the control room since their arrival at the city.
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OPERATIONS CENTER
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Also known as "Stargate Operations", The operations center is the
main control room of Atlantis. It is located on the second floor of the gate
room and holds all devices and control consoles to operate the city. Here the
DHD of Atlantis is located (and the only one which can make a connection with
Earth as it has a special control crystal to do so,) as well as controls for
the Stargate force field, city-wide communications, external communications,
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energy systems, city-wide sensors, space and planetary sensors, access to the
Ancient database and much more. Later a console is found and installed in the
operations center which turns out to be a biometric sensor to scan the city. In
the direction of the gate room, the center is enclosed with a glass façade and
a balcony, which allows the people to watch the gate area. Lastly the room
provides access to the Puddle Jumper bay and a balcony at the backside. Despite
all the Ancient control consoles, the Atlantis expedition also uses Earth
technology in conjunction with the more advanced technology.
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CONFERENCE ROOMS
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Atlantis houses two known conference rooms, that allows the leadership to
discuss important matters. Two such rooms are known to exist that are located
right beneath the gate room. The smaller one is used for only a few people and
it contains only a larger triangle shaped table with chairs. Another bigger one
is used for large meetings in which many people can take part. It contains a
longer table. Each of these rooms can be accessed by multi-panel doors.
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HOLO-ROOM
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This room allows people to watch access the Ancient database in the form of
holographic pictures and videos. It is a round room that houses a platform in
the middle as well as a control console to activate it. When the Atlantis
Expedition first found the city, a message left behind by an Ancient council
member was displayed. It told the history of the Ancients, explaining why they
came to Pegasus, and why they left.
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The room uses a substantial amount of power, and its use was avoided nearly
completely until the city was powered by a ZPM. Even then, due to its massive
power requirements, it was used sparingly, as the Ancient database can be
accessed from any number of terminals throughout the city. An Ancient by the
name of Ganos Lal (Morgan le Fay) wrote a program to teach young children the
Atlantean systems. At one point, the ascended being, Morgan le Fay, posed as
the holographic program in order to communicate the names of two planets to
Daniel Jackson and Vala Mal Doran.
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PUDDLE JUMPER BAY
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The Puddle Jumper bay, which is located on top of the central tower of
Atlantis, houses the small ships. The room is a large two-floor room which can
store the Jumpers on the floor or on platforms on the upper area. The upper
area also contains a gangway which runs on the walls and provides access to the
platforms. The room provides two possibilities for the Jumpers to leave it: the
first is a large panel in the middle of the floor which leads directly to the
large platform of the gate room, so that the Jumper can fly immediately through
the Stargate.
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The second possibility is another panel of apparently the same size that is
located in a small shaft in the ceiling and thus allows the Jumper to leave the
city to fly to other locations on the planet or in the same solar system. This
panel is however discovered later. At the beginning of the series it is unknown
how many jumpers there were- presumed to be at least 12 in the bay.
During the 1st season two were destroyed in the days before and during the
Siege of Atlantis over the course of the series other jumpers have been
damaged, lost at the bottom the ocean, stolen and left behind on Islands
inhabited by prisoners. It is not known if these jumpers were retrieved. We can
assume that the damaged jumpers were repaired and the jumper stolen by Lt. Ford
was recovered, but we do not know about the other lost jumpers. During the
second season in the episode The Tower, the Atlantis team more than doubled
their fleet of jumpers when the Atlantis sister city gave them all of their
jumpers in exchange for medicine and IDC. As very few of them had the Ancient
Gene, they had no use for jumpers.
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MEDICAL FACILITIES
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To treat ill or injured people, Atlantis has several medical facilities. These
rooms house many different medical devices, most of them from Earth but some
from the Ancients. There are also possibilities for medical and biological
researches. The primary medical facility is a large room with several beds to
treat and watch over many people. But there are also extra rooms like an
adjacent room where people can recover as well as a single room for treating
only one person while other people can watch from above through a large glass
façade. The medical facilities are under the command of Dr. Carson Beckett.
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BRIG
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The brigs in Atlantis are used to lock dangerous people away. The brigs are
rooms which have a cage in the middle. This cage is not only protected by
horizontal running bars but also by a powerful force field which no one can
penetrate. These fields only drop when the chamber is unlocked. The Atlantis
expedition used the brigs several times to imprison captured Wraith.
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CHAIR ROOM
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Like the Ancient outpost in Antarctica, Atlantis also contains a control chair
which allows people with the ATA gene to launch and control the Drone Weapons
of the city. Since the chair needs a lot of energy it can only be activated
when a ZPM is installed and thus the Atlantis expedition couldn't use the chair
for a long time. When reinforcements arrived during the attack of the Wraith,
they brought with them a Mark II Naquadah reactor which provides enough energy
to activate the chair.
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The number of drones available in the city can be checked if the chair is
activated or manually by going down into the drone storage rooms, thus the
exact number of them was also unknown until it was activated (It's likely they
didn't know where drone storage was at the time so manual checking was
impossible). During the attack of the Wraith the
Jumpers were modified to be
remotely controlled by the chair, although this plan was never used due to the
fact that the Mk II Naquadah generator's energy output was exhausted.
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ZPM OUTLET ROOM
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In this room the ZPM's which power Atlantis are connected to the city. To
connect the ZPM's they must be inserted in one of three slots in a large
triangular-shaped device which is located in the middle of the room. The ZPM's
can then be controlled by a console near the device.
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DRONE WEAPON STORAGE ROOMS
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These are large rooms in the underground of the city that house the Drone
weapons of Atlantis. The rooms are filled with large honeycomb-like racks in
which the inactive drones are stored. It is quite possible that the Drones are
directly launched from these racks. Although only the drone storage room of
Atlantis' sister city was seen, it is quite possible that Atlantis' room looks
the same.
At the end of the 1st season, the city's drone supply was exhausted, when Major
Sheppard used the few remaining drones to destroy the wraith darts. Later
in the series in the episode the
Tower, the city secured what appeared to be thousands of drones, if not
more.
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AUXILIARY
CONTROL ROOM
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This is a large room in the underground of the city. It allows people to
control the city if perhaps the main operations center is unavailable. From
this room a person can for example use the communication or even power the
city's star drive.
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LABORATORIES
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Atlantis houses a huge number of laboratories in which the Ancients were
conducting many different experiments. In one of these laboratories, a special
device is stored that kept an energy being imprisoned so that the Ancients
could study it during their studies on Ascension. In another one Sheppard's
team found a stasis capsule which contained a Dr. Weir from an alternate
reality. Some of these rooms are now used by the Atlantis expedition, but most
of them are unused.
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OTHER ROOMS
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Weir's office: A large office which is connected through a short gangway
to the operations center and which provides a sight on the gateroom. It is used
as Dr. Weir's personal office as well as a meeting room for small or unofficial
meetings, most times between the Atlantis senior staff.
Mess hall: There exists a large mess hall in the city where the
personnel of Atlantis can eat or spend their free time, for example playing
chess. The hall provides a spectacular view of the city.
Living quarters: Since Atlantis can house many people there are also
a lot of living quarters. Some are rather small, can only house one person and
do not have much free space, while others are bigger and provide more room.
Gym: An empty room which is used by the personnel to train. This room
is often used by Teyla Emmagan and John Sheppard.
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ANCIENT OUTPOST
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The bottom tower that is under the water in Atlantis which can be seen in many
episodes on the monitors in Atlantis appears to be the Ancient outpost which is
left behind when an Ancient city ship leaves the planet it was originally on.
This is shown in "Rising (Part 1)" in the beginning and much more
clearly visible in the episode "Progeny". A new outpost can be
constructed as was done with Atlantis as shown by Atlantis having a replacement
one after the original was left on Earth.
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The encountered outposts, the Ancient outpost in Antarctica
and the one on Proclarush Taonas, were powered by a single ZPM and had a
compliment of drone weapons and a control chair. The outposts were protected by
a shield similar to the one on Atlantis, except much smaller. The shield had
been activated on Proclarush Taonas, but eventually the shield failed and left
a dome of hardened lava behind.
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TECHNOLOGY IN THE CITY
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The city holds many secrets and technology far in advance of that mastered by
the human expedition. In regular use are the transporters to move people and
objects around the city and the Puddle
Jumpers docked in Atlantis. But the city has not been fully explored due to
its size, and search teams are finding new rooms and technology every day.
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ENERGY
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Like all Ancient City Ships, Atlantis is powered by Zero Point Modules. The
city can operate on one but requires three to achieve full functionality. The
city will automatically power up rooms depending on the number of people in the
city. The city shield is an enormous drain on the power and can deplete a ZPM
much faster than normal. The city can also be powered by Naqahdah Generators,
but at reduced power output. This is done by the Atlantis expedition, who has
set up several generators in different rooms of Atlantis. In general, the less
power the city has, the less technology is available for use in it, and indeed
a large amount of technology and functionality was never even noticed until
greater power was supplied. For these reasons, locating and acquiring ZPMs is
one of the standing orders of any team from Atlantis, especially as these
devices are now extremely rare and impossible to recharge.
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OFFENSIVE AND DEFENSIVE SYSTEMS
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The primary defensive measure of Atlantis is its all-encompassing shield.
Whilst this shield is invaluable and can effectively hold back almost any
threat, it requires so much energy that a ZPM must be installed to activate it.
Earth's Naqahdah reactors don't generate enough energy to power it up. However
it has been proven that a flash of lightning can power up the shields if the
grounding stations are deactivated.
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Another means of protecting the city was developed by the Atlantis expedition
during the siege of the Wraith. They decided to link the cloaking device of a
Puddle Jumper with the city shields which makes the city invisible and thus
undetectable. However if this is done the cloaking replaces the shield, which
means, when the cloaking is active, the shields can't be raised. This plan was
used to fool the Wraith in believing Atlantis was destroyed,
and is used in the future to hide it from other Hive-Ships that arrived.
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The primary offensive measure of the city are its large number of Drone Weapons
like those seen in SG-1 Season 7's finale, "Lost City". After
the war with the Wraith only a few dozen drones remained in the city but it was
not noted until the chair was powered up. These last drones were depleted
during the Siege on Atlantis but Sheppard's team managed to acquire more of
them, together with a number of Puddle Jumpers (although the exact number is
not known) from Atlantis' sister city since its ZPM was depleted and therefore
useless to the planet.
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When SGC sent reinforcements to
Atlantis, they also brought several anti-aircraft Railguns, mounted Machine
guns, and SAM missiles.
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STARDRIVE
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Because Atlantis is not only a city but also a spacecraft in itself, it has a
functioning stardrive. This stardrive was used to bring Atlantis from Earth to
the Pegasus galaxy. To protect the inhabitants of the city during starflight,
Atlantis is equipped with inertial dampeners like all other spaceships. The
stardrive is most likely controlled by the main control room but it can also be
activated from an alternate control room deep under the city's spires. Despite
this ability, the stardrive's power requirements are far beyond the means of
the current inhabitants and even activating the stardrive uses much energy and
can deplete a weak ZPM in a matter of seconds.
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ANCIENT DATABASE
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Atlantis holds a huge database of Ancient knowledge, comparable in size to the
Repository of the Ancients. Even with all the hard drives the Atlantis
expedition brought with them and using an efficient compression codex invented
by Dr. McKay only about 9% of the database could be stored. The database holds
a collection of Stargate addresses for both Pegasus and the Milky Way,
information about the Wraith, the Iratus bug, information about other species,
and much scientific research, including zero-point module research, work on
ascension, weapon schematics and notes on space travel. The database also has
an incredible ability to back up data, so deleting it is difficult. The
database can be accessed through many database terminals in the city.
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SENSORS
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The city is equipped with several types of sensors: first the long-range
sensors which allow Atlantis to scan star systems that are far away. Thus the
inhabitants can find out whether ships are on their way to the city and thus
are warned if the Wraith are coming. Another set of sensors are the internal
sensors, which display detailed plans of the city and life-forms in it.
Although it can distinguish between organic and energy life forms, it cannot
differentiate between organic life forms.
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The third set of sensors are the biometric sensors that scan the city for
irregularities in biometric rhythm. If people of different species are in the
city, the sensors detect them. These sensors were discovered by the Atlantis
expedition about one month before the arrival of the Wraith. However the
biometric sensors need a lot of power so they were ordered to only scan the
gate room.
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GROUNDING STATIONS
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To protect the city from lightning, the city is equipped with lightning rods at
the highest points of the city, which channel the electricity to four grounding
stations, which then dispel the energy into the ocean. However, during a
powerful storm that threatened Atlantis, Rodney McKay and Radek Zelenka devised
a plan to reconfigure the grounding stations so that the energy could be
diverted to power up the city's shield. To do this, the rods that usually
directed the energy into the ocean needed to be separated; this was done by
entering the code 031547 at each station's console. All the stations had to be
configured this way, or insufficient power would be generated.
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In any case, the plan was also extremely hazardous, as the electricity would
have to be channeled along the corridors of the city to the power generators,
potentially electrocuting anyone not in the shielded city control room.
However, despite an attempted takeover of the city by the Genii, the plan was
ultimately successful.
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TRANSPORTERS
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The transporters are the primary means of transport to move quickly between
different parts of the city. They are small chambers and if someone enters a
console opens in the back and reveals a map of the city with red lights that
display the location of the other chambers. To be transported to another
chamber a user only needs to press one of the red lights at the target
location. Afterwards the people in the chamber are transported to this location
in a blinding flash of light. This system functions in a similar manner as the
Ring Transporters which doesn't come as a surprise since both systems were
invented by the Ancients. The chambers also function as elevators to move
people up and down in the same structure or building.
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