Project Arcturus

Project Arcturus is a power generation device capable of generating astronomical amounts of energy. Unlike a Zero Point Module which utilizes an artificially created region of subspace to extract zero-point energy, Arcturus was an attempt at extracting zero-point energy from our own universe. In the words of Dr. Zelenka, this could potentially make it as powerful as the scope of the universe itself. It was described as the Ancients' last and possibly greatest discovery before Ascension.

The ultimate goal of Arcturus was to replace ZPMs. Work on Arcturus began when the Ancients were already a century into their war with the Wraith. Arcturus was originally comissioned to power the weapons of the Durandan people. The scientists who were working on the project did not feel that it was ready to be tested under battle conditions, but they had no choice, and Arcturus failed. The exotic particles that were created inside the containment field couldn't be predicted due to the uncertainty principle and the field could not be properly adjusted to compensate for them. This results in these particles breaching the containment field as hard radiation. During the original test, the weapon acted as a release valve in an attempt to prevent a catastrophic overload. The Ancients working on Arcturus barely managed to shut it down, but it was too late. Even with the shutdown, the overload continued, and radiation killed the scientists working on it.

Dr. McKay and a team of scientists attempted to finish the Ancients' work, not knowing about the particle containment problem. In their first powerup, there was an overload, and the containment field shifted asymmetrically in the direction of the command access tube, killing a scientist who was attempting to manually adjust the containment field. Despite protests from Dr. Weir and various other scientists, McKay was allowed to attempt one last powerup of Arcturus, which he attempted to do by trying to manually adjust the field to compensate for the particles. His attempt failed, and resulted in another overload, which was significantly more catastrophic than the previous two. The weapon armed and began firing at random targets to prevent a catastrophic overload. Thanks to intervention from the Daedalus, McKay and Sheppard managed to escape with their lives, but it was too late for Arcturus. The power source overloaded and caused a massive explosion, which destroyed five-sixths of the solar system it was in.

Record 1101 - technology - Last update 28 Mar 2007, 23:13:10

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