posted
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?
Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
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.
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Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
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
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.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
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.
Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
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.
posted
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.
Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
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).
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
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.
posted
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
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.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
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
^ 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.
Daniel Butler
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posted
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.)
posted
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.
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(Or if they do, that douchebag Rush has yet to tell anyone.)
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