I'm rewatching SGA first season which is provoking several threads related to it...here's another one. In "Sanctuary," Teyla points out her people could not have ventured to this planet, because the gate is in orbit. Which leads me to ask: What ABOUT those orbital gates? The Ancients were pretty good about failsafes in their gate system; is there some way to prevent poor li'l Athosians from gating to hard vacuum from a planet-based gate? I mean, does it only allow ships or robots through, or did they leave a big red "WARNING DONT GATE HERE" above a list of addresses on each planet they put a gate on? Or did Teyla's people just periodically lose a few scouts?
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
The residents of the Pegasus galaxy are unlike the ignorant denizens of the Milky Way... For one thing, they regularly use the stagates for travel and commerce, something that didn't happen in the Milky Way until much later (and even then, not too often). The Goa'uld domination of our galaxy reduced interstellar travel mostly to themselves until a bunch of SG Teams started smartening the plebes up.
In Pegasus, it seems the residents had long-since figured out the gates, and which ones in general led to the good trading and tourist spots. In the case of Athos, they once had much higher technology than what they currently possess, and other civilzations had done so as well before the Wraith popped up. It stands to reason that at some point in the history of Pegasus, things were advanced well beyond where they are in the Milky Way, with multiple exploration programs from multiple worlds giving way to a true interstellar community linked by the Stargates. When the Wraith laid waste to everything, this was eventually reduced to rudimentary trade and commerce that evolved from the surviors of the previous culling, who quite possibly passed down the addresses of the most important worlds as traditional knowledge.
Which brings us to the space gates. The reasons they even HAVE space gates are confusing, since there are none back in the Milky Way. There could be any number of reasons to have space gates - wanting to preserve the indiginous culture, for example. I'm willing to bet that whatever space gates there are, were kept off of any addresses found (or given to) the locals.
Also, I think we've only EVER seen space gates accessed from Atlantis itself. This makes sense, given you need a puddle jumper and its DHD to go anywhere (unless you've developed that technology). It's possible that they simply can't access space gates from a land-based one.
Mark
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Yes, unless contradicted onscreen, I'd think there would be safeguards against dialing a spacegate except from designated gates or by designated means, such as a ship-based DHD. And it does seem that most people in Pegasus know of the ancients and their connection to them. This implies that the Lanteans had a relationship with the people of the worlds in Pegasus before the Wraith.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
Which again leads me to assert that most Ancients were bastards. I mean they didn't just Ascend and then decide not to interfere with the Wraith; even in their corporeal forms they just high-tailed it back to Earth and left all the humans of Pegasus to be culled for eternity. Yeah, I know there's not a lot they could have done, but it seems like they never even said "Man, we ought to do SOMEthing."
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Like what? They'd been fighting the Wraith for YEARS by that point, and come up with any number of superwaepons to do it (exploding tumours, the Asurans, that big gun...). At some point they finally decided that it just wasn't winnable, and took off, leaving the locals to a really crappy fate. OUR human history has plenty of examples of that. Start with Vietnam.
Mark
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
They could've used the gate to round up as many people as they could and taken them back to Earth with them.
Interesting question on ascended Ancient non-interference: SG-1 seems to suggest the Ancient's ascended presence is confined to the Milky Way. But Atlantis hints at them being involved in Pegasus also. Does season 3 shed any more light on that?
Posted by bX (Member # 419) on :
No answer there (my snarkiness would get the better of me).
But relative to the original post. I always assumed the gates weren't originally installed in space. Like, later (after a wraith visitation or unsuccessful conqueration) someone decided that it'd be a good idea to stick the gate in orbit to provide a measure of security (anything that stepped through it would have to be space-worthy), but at the same time you wouldn't be cutting off what could be a valuable means of transit/escape for a space-faring race. The people who moved the gates wouldn't need to be the indigenous people either. Like maybe the Wraith would do that to prevent their food from gating away, but would still want to be able to get back there for dinner time.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Opening a land based gate to a space gate seems like a good way to lose a planets atmosphere, since Atlantis does have the shield for protection.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Well, Stargates seem to posess the ability to only pass objects through that are being actively moved through the gate - people, jumpers, weapons fire, exploding debris, etc. In general, I'd say the gates are programmed to leave the immediate environment intact and not really "suck" stuff through the gate. You can't imply pressure here (if for example you wanted to open a gate underwater), since matter would be converted to energy, negating any pressure difference. Atlantis routinely opens space gates from their gate room without using the shield.
In any case, the wormhole would stay open for only 38 minutes, so I'd say the atmosphere of any given planet should be okay even if it were possible.
Mark
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
We've already seen a submerged get hold back the water and allow only travellers/submersibles through and we've seen SG-1 gate to a planet devoid of atmosphere too (that season one ep where O'Neill gets pinned to the wall by the crazy spike shooting ball thing.) Not to mention the trip from SGC to the incomplete (and unpressurised) Midway station.
I forget what the exact explanation is for the water episode, but I have a feeling it's a combination of the gate sensing local atmospheric pressure and possibly something to do with an object's inertia. Either way a vacuum shouldn't be a problem, but I do wonder what would happen if you gate back from a planet with wildly fluctuating pressure and wind speed. Like say during a hurricane or tornado, or the gate being hit by a tsunami while open. That could pose a problem.
While we're at it, I wonder how effective a weapon it would be if you simply open your gate in orbit and just dropped it into the atmosphere. All that plasma and the sheer kinetic energy when the gate lands (assuming it hits open side down) should pass through the wormhole and fry whoever happened to be near the gate on the other side. Or better yet ditch it into a sun (black hole are, oddly enough, easier to deal with.)
Here's a question - Have they ever established what happens if you cross the event horizon from the back of the gate? You might think that you would re-materialise through the rear face of the other gate, however, if this were the case then wouldn't it make sense that they would have taken advantage of that by now, especially when doing mass embarkations? Just a thought.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
It's reasonably certain that you can't just go through the back side of the gate just like the front side, or, as you say, they would have done so already. Two obvious possibilities present themselves. One is that you walk through to the front of your gate as if nothing has happened. Two, you die. But no, it's never been addressed.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
They did explain why the gate holds back water/atmosphere. Carter said it was intelligent enough to tell when something was actively trying to get through the gate, and what was just ambient matter (air, water, etc).
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Aban Rune: They could've used the gate to round up as many people as they could and taken them back to Earth with them.
Probbaly did- how else did the Atlantis myth start? I cant see that many Aincents blabbing on to the primitaves....and it's crazy to think the legend remained so accurate after at least 7000 years from one telling.
I maintain that the Atlantians were a beaten people who probably were on a social and spiritual decline. It's the only way to reconcile the spooky-cool nearly-ascended Aincents with the (mostly) petty bastards we see on Aroura and that other revived ship from season 3. Maybe the Aincents that returned to Earth got their shit together and re-evolved some.
It's possible there were space-based gates in the Milky Way at some point but were destroyed in an effort to limit the Gouauld's accessibility to certain regions (and we've seen that systems without gate access were never bothered (the races in that "space-race" episode for one). Possily, there was a time when GouAuld had no FTL ships and only subjected the gateworlds- I can see the Asgard or Nox destroying/removing/hiding the orbital gate system to stem the threat.
As to the Pegasus orbital gates, maybe Wraith started off at a lower tech level (we know they got written language -somehow- from the Aincent writing system) and the orbital gates originally limited the wraith threat to land-based gateworlds.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
I do apologize, but...ANCIENTS. Please. For the sake of the children.
Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :
Despite repeated (and I mean, like fucking every time) attempts to correct Jason's spelling of Ancient, he insists on spelling it wrong.
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
Hey, at least his spelling has gotten *better* over the years! His posts were downright painful to read in the early days of Flare.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Yes, but his smell......
Mark, Rev, yes, I was thinking about the gravity/RF waves passing through and didn't think about the other eps.
Could the space gates be for studying the evolution of the planet, or a protected habitat, or a Galactic Park?
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
I've come to think that before the Wraith war, a lot of human societies in Pegasus were at a tech level sufficient to support orbital space travel (or higher). Sateda, Ronon's planet, was probably there even 'now' - if that blaster he has is of Satedan design, anyway. Teyla's hinted her people used to be as advanced or more so than the Tau'ri (general population, not the SGC).
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Fabrux: Despite repeated (and I mean, like fucking every time) attempts to correct Jason's spelling of Ancient, he insists on spelling it wrong.
But....if I started spelling it correctly, you' grow bored and leave us. The ongoing frustration keeps you coming back for more...kinda like when Voyager was stil running- the blind hope things will improve is all you got.
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