- "What's at the bottom of this tower?"
"Rodney." - ―John Sheppard and Teyla Emmagan[src]
The elevator cuts through several floors of Atlantis.
The drilling platform is a Asgard transportation device, created by the Vanir, to transport at most three of their people through several floors of a building in seconds. The elevator consists of three 1/3 circle platforms that are brought together and connected with a central device. Once activated, using controls located on the chest of a Vanir Battle suit, it creates an energy bubble around the people inside it and glides through each floor of the building until it reaches the bottom, cutting a hole in each floor it passes. The device is also capable of returning up the hole and appears easy to disassemble quickly. It is seemingly used in place of an Asgard beam transporter, as it is unlikely that the Vanir possesses that particular technology.
When the Vanir invaded Atlantis in 2008, they used this device to quickly descend through a building of the city to reach the Attero device's control key. (SGA: "First Contact")