OK, so I just got the DVDs of SGU season 1 and finished Air part 3 tonight. I know I'm a season behind the game and that S2 just started... but humor me.
Besides the whole "use Earth's point of origin" thing when Earth's point of origin symbol shouldn't even be on other gates, one thing is bugging me about the technical aspect of the set-up: when the ship drops out of FTL, why are only a few gates within range? Why is the galaxy's entire gate system not available as it is in the Milky Way and Pegasus systems? The only answer I can come up with is that it's an older gate system and might not have the power the newer systems have. So each gate can only go so far. After all, the newer models are powered by their DHDs, which these gates lack.
Do they ever explain this directly?
Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :
Hm. Now that you mention it, I don't think it is ever explicitly mentioned...
It could be that gates only have a certain range however later networks (Milky Way, Pegasus, Ida) send a wormhole through several gates to travel longer distances. Destiny gates are probably capable of this with a firmware update sort of thing.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
I think it is mentioned in one of the later episodes when Eli, Scott and Chloe are hopping from one gate to another, trying to catch up to Destiny before it leaves the galaxy. Basically, these are the 'original' stargates and don't have the power capacity needed for the kind of trans-galactic wormholes generated by the Pegasus and Milky-Way gates.
Destiny itself probably could connect to more distant gates, but again, the issue is power and they don't have enough.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
What Rev said; the Ancients (probably) upgraded the Milky Way system to a newer standard where they could reach the entire rest of the galaxy.
But also, I get the impression that each galaxy isn't being seeded quite as thoroughly as the Milky Way and Pegasus galaxies have been seen to be. So for a given volume of space, Destiny would find fewer gates than would be found back home.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Kind of what I figured. They mentioned specifically that Destiny was launched from Earth, so it's possible that the Milky Way originally had no stargate network or possibly a Destiny-style network. Then after the ship left for Pegasus, the Ancients upgraded the Milky Way network for more thorough colonization and life-seeding activities.
When they moved on to Pegasus, they probably did the same thing, making improvements to the system based on what they'd learned from the Milky Way System. And just like the Milky Way gate icons are constellations as seen from Earth, the Pegasus gate icons are likely constellations as seen from Lantea.
A program of colonization and upgrading would actually explain why the Destiny gates use a simple code for addresses since noone had been to any of these planets to use the constellations.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
I'm willing to bet that the Destiny gates aren't made of naquadah, which was fairly rare in the Milky Way in the first place. Whatever they ARE made of, it probably doesn't have the capacity to create a wormhole the range of later gates. This may be by design, as the seeder ships probably didn't carry millions of tons of the stuff to seed stargates on planets for millenia, nor have the capacity to locate and extract it on their own. As such, the seeder ships will only have the ability to create stargates out of relatively common materials they find on the way on planets, asteroids or stars along their flight path. We know that a stargate can be created without naquadah (ref: the Ancient guy who built a gate in Carter's basement out of stuff he found there or bought online).
So the Destiny gates may predate the other systems, but the Ancients may have deliberately used more limited technology to be able to seed so many worlds. Hopefully we'll hear some explanation of this when we are told what Destiny's mission actually is.
Mark
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Good point. The Destiny gates don't really feel very... Naquadah-y (yes, that's the word I was looking for). The sound they make when they spin is more metallic than stone. I realize they're embedded in those iron ramps (which the seeder ships must also construct) but still... they just seem to be more primitive.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
I think the gates are a bit thinner too.... as if they're not quite made for heavy-duty, long-term use. The gates in the Milky Way were ridiculously durable and were clearly made to be as idiot-proof as possible. That's not apparently true with the Destiny's gates; for example, I got the impression that those blue aliens haven't figured out how to use the stargates (yet).
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
I think they understand what they ARE (they knew to shoot at stuff coming through it, for example) but they do not have the ability to use it. The Destiny gates don't have the same constellation / symbol system that the Milky Way or Pegasus gates do (not that they made much sense anyway, but I digress), instead using symbol combinations to mark the chevrons.
Furthermore, we have yet to see anyone use a gate without the little PDA thingies. The aliens may have one or more PDAs after previous visits to Destiny, but they may be so rare that they simply stick to their spacecraft. I feel we'll be going back there eventually, so perhaps we'll find out.
Mark
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Just out of curiosity, has anyone compared the sketchbook drawing of the gate seen in Ark of Truth to the Destiny gates...? I doubt there's enough detail in the sketch to really make up any connection, but it'd be interesting to see.
Just finished "Light"... am in love with Lt. James.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Yeah, are those PDA things the only way to control the gate at all? Although that seems like a plausible basic security function, it would seem really stupid in general practice. For one thing, what happens if someone accidentally loses their PDA? (Like in the pilot, when those idiots went through the gate but the guy with the PDA got shot at the last second.)
Also, what kind of security mechanism would there be to keep someone from reverse-engineering the whole system? As soon as the aliens found one device and tried using it next to a gate, I'd think it would be rather straightforward to replicate the process. Kinda like Bluetooth pairing.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
It seems like the whole network was designed to only be useful once Destiny and the crew showed up. If noone can use it unless they have a piece of equipment that's on a ship 4 galaxies away, there's not much chance of it influencing the development of any sentient life that might develop. Though anyone who suddenly came through it might find themselves being worshiped or something.
Perhaps everyone on the away team was supposed to carry a PDA. Or maybe the designers figured that everyone involved was smart enough not to let the only guy with one stay behind. The Ancients were pretty arrogant after all.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
^ I don't think the ancients (or Alterans if you like) started worrying about cultural contamination or developmental interference until after they ascended. Hell, if they were then none of the shows would even exist. The entire Goa'uld dominion was a direct result of their carelessness in leaving they stuffy lying around for anyone to find, even the Asgard said they owned a lot of their advancements to cracking into one of those head-grabby archive thingies.
quote:Originally posted by Aban Rune: Good point. The Destiny gates don't really feel very... Naquadah-y (yes, that's the word I was looking for). The sound they make when they spin is more metallic than stone. I realize they're embedded in those iron ramps (which the seeder ships must also construct) but still... they just seem to be more primitive.
I'm pretty sure they are, at least to some extent. Naquadah is just an element that emits and amplifies power after all. It doesn't seam unreasonable to presume that the earlier gates were less efficient. After all they had millions of years to refine and perfect these things so even if most of the materials and basic principles are the same there can still be a significant gulf in capabilities between the 1.0 gates and the later models. It's like comparing a car's engine circa 1940 with a modern (non-hybrid) one. The basic principle is the same and it's mostly made of the same material, but the mechanics and processes are a lot more refined.
Plus I think Eli mentioned "the mineral the gates are made of" being capable of blowing a chunk out of a planet when Scott used C4 to dig one out in the last episode.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
He did. That's not to say they know for sure that the Destiny gates are made of Naqadah of course...they don't exactly have a mass spectrometer on board (Or if they do, that douchebag Rush has yet to tell anyone.)
Discuss.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Nah, that sketch looks pretty standard Milky-Way gate-ish to me, even to the constellation symbols on the lower corner. The kawoosh thing is pretty standard on all stargates regardless of origin (the homemade one in Carter's basement made the same thing), so it stands to reason that the kawoosh is a byproduct of any wormhole being formed rather than something the gate itself does.
The PDAs have been shown to be active even when the Destiny leaves a given galaxy, so it's not like they were to be meant to be used only when the ship was around.
Moreover, it's important to note that the gate is self-powered, or at least has its power systems in the stone base they find themselves anchored to. Other gates we've seen are apparently powered by the DHD they're tied to, or by the space-based staion-keeping devices they're mated to in the Pegasus galaxy, or are otehrwise remotely powered. Here, the PDAs don't seem to do anything except manage the dialling and destination process, so it would follow that people could figure out how to activate the gates via PDA by reverse-engineering it. I don't think they can dial a gate simply by turning the ring, though.
Mark
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
I still wanna find out about the Nox/Future Cassandra (and the Asgard? Can't remember) being able to make wormholes without a kawoosh. Could the Ancients do that? Have we ever actually seen an Ancient dialing a gate? I know we've at least seen them walking through an active one (in Atlantis when the citizens are returning to Earth during the episode where Weir was in the past or whatever the hell that was.)
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
We've seen an ascended beings do that (though one has to wonder why they needed to use the gate at all) and I think Carter and McKay managed to do it in that one where Teal'c got stuck in the buffer after blowing up that bloke from Highlander...I forget the episode title.
As for the khawoosh itself, I think it's been said to be a result of the vortex stabilising into an event horizon--sort of like wormhole equivalent of degaussing, I suppose. Remember that even the Ori supergates "khawooshed" so it's a standard by product of the technology.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
When an iris or forcefield is in place over the gate, there is no kawoosh though the wormhole does form (it only doesn't when there is a significant obstruction in the way, such as when the whole thing is buried). The kawoosh-less gate activations could thusly be an extension of a forcefield technology or something, remotely activated when people know for sure that there's nothing in the way of the event horizon.
Mark
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
I think ascended beings need to travel through space like any other being; the Ori were specifically 'in' their galaxy, as were the Ancients in Pegasus and the Milky Way. Their using the gate proves it, I think - indeed, why would they need the gates at all, unless they can't shoot across the universe faster-than-light.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
But I think that ascended beings can travel faster than light; otherwise, how could Daniel have been hanging out with Jack on Baal's planet and be monitoring what was happening on Earth too? (Just to name one example.)
That being said, I do think there's some kind of range limitation, otherwise the ascended Ori would probably have come to fight their war in person (so to speak).
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Yah, it seems like ascended beings can do pretty much whatever they want, including travel FTL. The Ori didn't come to the Milky Way because the Ancients had put up a no trespessing sign and they were trying to avoid a direct confrontation with them until they'd hoovered all the worship-magic from the local populace. Doesn't mean they couldn't have shown up whenever they wanted though.
Just finished "Earth". O'Niell's really old. Telford's a mega-jerk... and poor Eli.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
Maybe time just doesn't mean the same thing to them and they can be in more than one place at once? I dunno. Maybe you're right, but then why did they ever use a gate :-/
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Because the writers hadn't figured out that they were ascended Ancients yet
Remember too, at the time, Oma was doing something that she wasn't supposed to be doing. Protecting the Harsesis was probably a big no-no. Maybe she was trying to stay under the ascended radar. Or maybe, since she had the child with her, she needed to stay on this plane of existence.
Shifu went through the Earth gate after he ascended, but Daniel didn't, at least not outside of his head. The monk on Kheb didn't either.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Anyone notice the 'un-assembled' gates on the seeder ship last week? they come in pieces! I would have thought they were solid structures.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
We saw a seeder ship...? I don't remember that :-/ Screencaps, anyone?
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Just watched "Lost" last night and it pretty much answered my original question about the gate networks. Riley said that the gates are "more primitive" than the ones in the Milky Way or Pegasus galaxies and that only a handful fall in range of the ship at any given time. They also made it pretty clear that only planets along the path that Destiny is following are seeded with Gates.
I found the gate-hopping to be quite cool as there has been a distinct lack of stargate action in some of the recent episodes.
I'm finding the Kino diaries in the extras to be pretty cool and often informative about some of the characters.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
quote:Originally posted by Daniel Butler: We saw a seeder ship...? I don't remember that :-/ Screencaps, anyone?
Did you see last week's episode, it was all about the Seeder Ships which travel ahead of Destiny. The crew encounter a derelict one filled with not so nice aliens, and we do get to see where gates are constructed.
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
(Or if they do, that douchebag Rush has yet to tell anyone.)![[Smile]](smile.gif)