posted
Regarding the effect of geological forces on Ancient tech, our heroes by definition wouldn't have access to those pieces that are affected. If the tech is buried, so is the local gate.
But what looks like inert rock, or rock that only moves mechanically, in the general case controls machinery that can move things between stars, or shift time, or stuff like that. Surely such technology could be rigged to self-protect against mere mechanical forces, too. The local bedrock may be stone-tech, too, riding securely on the surrounding natural rock no matter what upheavals affect the site.
It doesn't bode well for these pieces of stone-tech, though, that they tend to shake apart like standard masonry when our heroes misset the controls and create a local earthquake. If a minor disturbance like that is enough to topple the stone pillars and crack the tablets, then their self-protection tech isn't worth much.
OTOH, perhaps our heroes always manage to catch these things at their final stage of degradation, when their self-protection systems are already failing and their functionality is nearly gone as well. Strike that, it's obvious that this is what always happens. A strange coincidence, to be sure... How does mankind hit the exact 100,000 year window when the great machines are at that particular state of disrepair?
posted
Maybe the ancient who invented the "Time Jumper", the one who met Weir, is responsible for rigging up some of these tech site to survive to our time, like he did with Atlantis, because he knew roughly how long it would take us to start exploring the galaxy he knew how long these things would have to hibernate for.
Of course the "Four Races Alliance" planet didn't have self protection technology, otherwise it wouldn't have found itself atop a rabidly eroding cliff face. Then there are possibilities like flood, Volcano activity and meteor hit (all of which have been seen) that can't be passively protected against unless of course the devises have a ZPM and an active shield.
Though on the other hand if we suppose that the SGC has only dialled a small percentage of the addresses on the ancient database and only a portion of them are still active then we can presume that what they have stumbled across happens to be on worlds going through a long stable period and/or has had the benefit of Human or perhaps even Asgard Caretakers, at least up until the last few centuries or millennia.
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