I seem to recall in SG1 that they said the puddle jumpers (as yet uknown by that name) were "almost exactly" the size of the gate, or something to that effect - that they *barely* squeezed through with maybe an inch to spare, or less. Yet, in the images below from SGA "Thirty-Eight Minutes," you can see the jumper seems almost a foot or so smaller than the gate. You guys think I'm totally off on the size? The Stargates don't seem to be as wide as the jumpers look from inside, either.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
The regular interior set IS slightly exaggerated from the exterior set piece, as has been noted in various commentaries. The reason is so they have more room to move around with the cameras on the inside, and separate the walls to similar effect. The mobile jumper exterior is finished on the inside too, in the first seaason was only used for less detailed shots and entry-exit shots. From the second season onwards this piece was finished to match the larger interior set, though it's still slightly smaller.
Mark
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
The only reference I remember like that is Carter saying that it looks like it was "designed to fit through the gate." But I don't ever recall them talking about clearance or anything.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Here's the "field" gate prop with a 1:1 representation of O'Neil for reference:
According to wikipedia, they're 22 feet in diameter. Subtract a few feet for the ring structure itself, and you still have a lot of room to play with for a jumper.
Mark
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
I want one of those things for my front yard...
Posted by The Ginger Beacon (Member # 1585) on :
What? MacGyver?
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Yeah. He can make a stargate out of a bottle cap, a mouthpiece to a seussophone, and a box of mouse entrails.
Mark
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Well, I meant a light-up gate prop. BUt hey, if RDA wants to come over and have a beer, daz cool too.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
To tell you the truth I'm really bad at figuring out sizes in my head - I mean for example, if someone says "a 12x12 foot room," I just can't visualize it.
As for this 22 feet...assuming it's an exact 22 feet, that would seem to indicate the number 22 is somehow significant - or it could just be a coincidence, in which case its measurements in Ancient might be significant? I only wonder in case there's some hidden bit of mythology here, some Roman numerology or something, or if it's just arbitrary.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Well, in THAT case you have to start doing stuff like questioning the design of the stargate in the first place, like why the backup activation procedure involves the PHYSICAL dialing of a GIANT STONE RING...
OTOH, it could simply be rooted in cultural carryovers. For example, car lanes and train tracks have always been that wide, because that's how wide a lane you'd need to maneuver a two-horse carriage. The stargate, designed to carry both people and people-carried cargo, was probably meant to be big enough to get four or five people through abreast. It probably wasn't designed for large cargo or beasts of burden, or else more of the alien planets we've seen would have actual RAMPS instead of stone steps up to their gates... Then again, they may have had the idea for puddle jumpers from the beginning (as was shown in the Atlantis pilot, they had jumpers "several million years ago").
Mark
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
I was going to say - maybe that is the size of the event horizon of those wormholes that are created - but then I remembered the super-gates.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Somewhere in the Alterans' home galaxy, there's probably a large beast of burden that was used to transport their heavy cargo in their pre-industrial days. Thus, the diameter of the Stargate is probably just wide enough to accommodate two of those animals' rear ends.
It's funny, I was going to mention that myself in my post. The whole two-horses' asses chariot rut wagon trolley train tunnel solid rocket booster thing.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
quote:Originally posted by AndrewR: I was going to say - maybe that is the size of the event horizon of those wormholes that are created - but then I remembered the super-gates.
Also, the dude who created his own Stargate in Sam's basement from stuff he got on eBay, made his about the size of a hula hoop.
((Well, for milder values of wild.))
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Apart from Atlantis itself, have we ever seen an "original" installation for a stargate?
I mean, the stone pedestals are millions of years younger than the gates, obviously. Were all the original gates in orbit, and the planetside ones are in fact something that fell out of the sky in the respective prehistoric times of those planets? (Unless brought down to the surface by a semi-advanced, spacefaring culture, that is.)
...Well, probably not, if the DHDs that can be found next to most surface gates are also "original" hardware.
The multiply redundant, hyper-robust backups to gate operation (such as manual dialing) would suggest that these things are meant to be used "shirtsleeves" by barbaric natives when necessary, rather than being optimized for orbital installation. Perhaps the diameter of a standard gate is also chosen with such operations in mind: something that a tribeful of people can easily erect and operate.
And it is a nice safety feature if the biggest thing that can fit through your gate is a Wraith needle, or a silly ATV with a .50cal.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
I don't know if the Ancients meant for primitives to be able to use it necessarily. All accounts seem to suggest that it's a pretty complex system to figure out. It seems to be set up to keep people who don't understand it from using it easily, but also to keep accidental usage, as well as effects from the random astronimical phenomonea, from being fatal. The Ancients set these things up and basically just left them there for millions of years to take care of themselves, but still had to count on them to work.
The installation of the gate on Earnest's planet was probably original since that building seems to have been designed as a meeting place. Steps there make since as probably only delegates would be arriving and not equipment.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
We know a gate weighs about 64,000 pounds (about 29 metric tons). That's a lot of rock for a bunch of cavemen to lug around.
Mark
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Well, we know they *can* be lugged around. The people in "The First Commandment" tore one down and set it back up all in the space of a few hours (which is really silly). Maybe the high radiation excellerated the curing process of some really fantastic mortar.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
Or accelerated, even. But anyway, the Egyptians were pretty primitive and look at the size of those great big stone things they built. Not just the pyramids, either, but the monuments too. There's a lot of debate as to how they managed it, but there are a lot of interesting ways a primitive culture can manipulate a very heavy monolith like a Stargate. One guy even demonstrated, with ancient Egyptian-available tech, that wind power could be used to raise some of these things.
And as a side note in the same area of Ancient 'architecture,' why is it some devices (like the time loop device, the Dakara superweapon, etc) seem to have easily accessible controls made of weird multi-height stone columns (not to mention giant primitive-looking stone combination locks) that look to be designed, almost, for primitive people? As opposed to the high-tech, sleek touch-screen and hand-waving tech as seen in Atlantis, various warships and outposts?
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
quote:Originally posted by Daniel Butler: Or accelerated, even.
Hey. I've had bronchitis for the last week. The antibiotics are effecting my brain.
And yes, I'm watching Stargate from season 1 while I recoup.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Aban: Bummer man, get well soon.
Dan: Maybe after their affair with the Wraith they decided to try to create tech that would blend in better than all the high tech flashy stuff?
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
It depends. The stone tech seems to be common in the Milky Way, but in Pegasus it's more like the tech they find in Atlantis. The civilization is literally millions of years old; there's plenty of time for styles to come and go dozens of times. For the Milky Way stuff, it's certainly likely that most of it was created by Merlin and his Lantean buddies - he had one, the time loop device had one (which jives with the time when the Lanteans were experimenting with time travel), and the big reboot device at Dakara had one. I'm willing to infer that the Dakara and time-loop machines had been refitted after millions of years by Merlin or a friend as a possible weapon to use against the Ori, explaining the more "modern" stone table and the "older" Atlantis-style displays on Dakara.
Mark
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
I think the Atlantis stuff looks more modern, really. Displays, controls, all right there, instead of having to calculate relative heights of stones and so on. Also, a screen, I would think, would convey much more information than a set of 'topological' stones.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
A screen would, if one were trained to read it, a set of stones would, were one trained to read them. All in perspective.
How long did it take the first ship to get from Atlantis to our galaxy in the first place?
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Probably not long at all. We can get from Earth to Lantea in about three weeks. We don't know how much available power or mass to be moved affects speed in hyperspace, but the massive Atlantis had three of 'em on the way out.
Mark
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
quote:Originally posted by Daniel Butler: I think the Atlantis stuff looks more modern, really. Displays, controls, all right there, instead of having to calculate relative heights of stones and so on. Also, a screen, I would think, would convey much more information than a set of 'topological' stones.
Well in a way having to calculate relative heights of stones to control a high tech devise proves, in a way that the person using it is REALLY clever and has a sharp eye, to say the least. So by that logic the "stonetech" is more advanced than the more intuitive displays on Atlantis. As for how much information it can convey, you have to wonder how many possible positions one of those control stones can have and if it's significance is altered in the context of all the other stones then the permutations become exponentially complex.
I think the key phrase for the Stonetech is not so much less modern as it is deceptively simple.
Plus one would think the stonetech is more durable and not as prone to breakdown as say a touch display or a panel of small buttons, at least on the scale of millions of years and especially when said tech is often found out in the open.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
Well, I guess my version of high-tech includes 'intuitive' by definition. Using a lot of your concentration just to read the display seems self-defeating; but then by the time the Ancients were building things like Dakara and the time-loop device (wonder if Janus had anything to do with that? Do we know how long the Ancients' lifetimes were?) they might have been close enough to ascension to be Prior-like in their intelligence and concentration...Bah, I'm being self-argumentative again.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
A bit better than being self manipulating I suppose.
Now I have to ask about the effects of erosion on the stonetech. How long has this stuff been in the open, compared to, say, the time it took to make the Grand Canyon? Then, like the time-loop device, what would be left after millions of years of sand blasting?
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
True, even if they were indestructible after a single millennium of wind blown sediment and rainfall they should be at least several feet underground, after a million years, they should be upside-down, on their side and sticking out of a cliff face halfway up a mountain that used to be a riverbed...but then it's just a tv show and I wouldn't try to over think these things.
I suppose it's possible of course that subsequent human civilisations have preserved some of these ancient artefacts and the areas around the gates (where most of them tend to be sat) and it just so happens that on some of the ones the SGC have visited have only actually been deserted for a fre centuries since the last inhabitants.
As for the user interfaces being intuitive vs them being intrinsically complex, yet efficient, remember that the frozen chick in Antarctica was said to be genetically more evolved than "modern" humans and of course at that level their perception of what constitutes complicated is a little different than ours. To them our computer displays might look as crude and as clumsy as a fisher price computer for toddlers. Hardly an efficient scientific instrument.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
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?
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
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.
![[Wink]](wink.gif)