Ancient shuttle

"We can turn left..."

- Lisa Park

The Ancient shuttle is a short-range exploration vessel employed on the Ancient starship Destiny.

Specifications
The Ancient shuttle has a shape closer to that of traditional Tau'ri design than previously seen alien shuttle-craft. It is shaped similar to Destiny itself, having an elongated nose section and wings where the engine mechanism is housed. It is larger than a Gateship, and has seats for a total of seventeen people; five crew and twelve passengers. The ones docked with Destiny when the expedition boarded the ship had faded paint, but they are later shown to be mostly gray with red highlights, while the interior is mostly light blue with gold trim.

The forward area contains the cockpit of the vessel with all control functions and three main viewports. In the cockpit are three chairs: the pilot's chair with the flight control interface, the supplemental navigation control area and the supplemental weapons area. Behind the supplementary controls are the main weapons and navigational control systems, with basic stool-like seating. The aft area is the passenger and storage area with bench-style seating, six on each side, for a total of twelve passengers. The benches have over-the-shoulder safety harnesses for the passengers to protect them from turbulence. The ship is accessed via the door at the rear, which when docked externally with Destiny opens into an airlock. No other entryways are presently known.

The ship is capable of sublight speeds but not faster-than-light travel. Its sublight speed is also inferior to that of Destiny itself. It has two forward-firing energy weapons mounted in the wings, which appear to be of equivalent power to Destiny's anti-fighter turrets. It has energy shielding for defense, and a stealth mode which has yet to be demonstrated.

Control Consoles
The controls, displays and indicator lights are all accompanied by Ancient text. Because not all expedition members can read Ancient, English translations have been written on pieces of white tape and placed above the controls.

From the pilot's chair, the pilot has access to most (if not all) of the ship's systems, allowing the vessel to be flown by a single person if need be. Directly ahead are the piloting controls, such as thrusters, inertial dampening, auto-pilot, pitch/yaw, and landing gear. Above these controls are the navigational radar and a display for Destiny's jump countdown, as well as life-support indicators such as oxygen level, internal temperature, and pressure. On the pilot's right side are weapons systems such as manual override, targeting and counter measures. On the left side are the ship's power systems.

In supplemental navigation, two displays give readouts for various systems such as stealth mode, long range and wide spectrum sensors, and diagnostics. The supplemental weapons area provides access to main weapons, proximity indicators, shields and thrusters.

History
When the Tau'ri discovered the Destiny in 2009, they discovered one of the two shuttles had a broken window that the ship's air supply was leaking out of. An energy shield had been automatically erected to contain the atmosphere, but lacked the power to completely seal the breach. The airlock door was also malfunctioning, making the shuttle impossible to seal off except from inside the cockpit. Senator Alan Armstrong, having already suffered major internal injuries and believing himself to be beyond help, volunteered to do so. He closed the shuttle door and the rest of the oxygen within the shuttle was siphoned into space. He died of asphyxiation.

A short time later, Matthew Scott, with the help of Adam Brody and a few others, began investigating the second operational shuttle. Scott made rubbings of the labels for each control and Brody translated them into English. Though Scott had no real flight experience, he expressed interest in being the first to fly the shuttle, which he would later do when it appeared that Destiny would collide with a star, Scott being selected as the pilot to take the shuttle and a group of select survivors to the nearest planet (Although he subsequently had to race against time to dock with Destiny before it returned to FTL after it was revealed that the ship was merely recharging its power supply).

When the blueberry aliens attacked Destiny, Scott and Ronald Greer piloted the shuttle in battle against a squadron of blueberry alien fighters launched from a blueberry alien mothership, successfully destroying several vessels before they retreated to the mothership. They were recalled when it was discovered that Chloe Armstrong had been taken aboard one of the fleeing ships. After Young's attempt to use the long-range communication device to rescue Chloe failed and he ordered the mothership destroyed, Scott attempted to take the shuttle out to rescue her, only to be cut short when the ship jumped to FTL and Nicholas Rush brought Chloe back using a commandeered fighter.

Some time later, the other shuttle was partially repaired, restoring enough functionality for a one-way trip into a planetary atmosphere. Colonel Everett Young piloted it to the planet Eden as a means of providing power and shelter for the people who decided to stay on the planet. It was left there for their use when Young and the military personnel returned using the first, operational shuttle.

After entering a new galaxy, Nicholas Rush used the newly discovered master code to drop the ship out of FTL to replenish their food supplies. The nearest planet had a damaged Stargate, which could potentially be accessed later, so Scott led a team to the surface to repair it and gather resources for the crew. However, the shuttle was damaged en route and crashed. The damage was too severe to repair, rendering it incapable of flying, much less leaving the atmosphere. The crew of Destiny was forced to abandon the shuttle on the planet.

When the civilians left on Eden were unexpectedly sent back to Destiny, they arrived in the previously-damaged shuttle that had been left for their use. The shuttle was not only made space-worthy, but was restored its original factory condition.

Later, a Nicholas Rush from twelve hours in the future came to Destiny in his Destiny's shuttle, returning the ship's compliment to two working shuttles. The second shuttle is in the same condition as the other shuttle.