-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
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quote:Originally posted by Sol System: Yes. However, Teal'c has, if I recall correctly, stood on one side of the gate and fired a grappling hook attached to a rope through it, one imagines in the hopes of it coming out the other side and catching something. (Specifically, this is that one episode where a stargate gets buried by, uh, meteorite-related activity, I think.) But perhaps he figured it would come out before him (and hopefully, well, grapple) since it had gone in before him.
I'm usually not a big fan of "the gate knows how to do things" plot points, though.
I admit this is rationalizing what's probably a plot hole or inconsistency, but what the heck!
It seems to me that the Stargate considers objects by their being connected to things. Therefore, if four individual people step through the 'Gate, then they're treated as four separate objects. But if four people inside a spaceship try to fly through the gate, then the ship itself is the primary object in question, and the people inside are treated as parts of the containing object (the ship).
For the example of Teal'c firing the line of rope through the Stargate and then going through himself, we can only assume that the 'Gate recognized that the person and the rope were two separate objects.
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Hmm... the "weapon" that Teal'c used to fire the grappling hook with, was it portable (like a Stinger missile launcher) or static? Maybe that had something to do with why the gate rematerialized the hook even though the back end of the rope attached to it hadn't gone through yet.
I think this is all ascribing too much intelligence to the gate, though.
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posted
There might be a practical limit on the size/length of the object passing through the event horizon. If it's enough to potentially overload the molecular buffer, the gate may default and send it through anyway.
WRT Teal'c harpoon, we also know that objects entering the gate exit it at about the same velocity, as long as both gates are working properly (remember early episodes when they would tumble out of the gate - it's 'cuz they hadn't gotten everything working on the Earth side yet). So IF the harpoon was in limbo before someone tossed the rope in after Teal'c supposedly took a run at the gate, passed through, and grabbed hold before sinking backwards through the EH, the harpoon could have exited shortly before he did, embedded itself, and then he came through.
Then there was the time they all got stuck on the prison world Hadante... The gate would periodically open and a stream of porridge would shoot through into a trough to feed the prisoners. I wonder how that worked - liquid matter isn't like a space ship passing through, but would the stream qualify as a discrete object?
posted
I don't remember which ep it was in, but Carter has said that the Gate detects pressure on the event horizon, or something, and determines whether or not something is trying to pass through it. That could have something to do with it too. As long as there is motion through the Gate, or perhaps a continuous string of matter, it considers it a single opbject. Maybe Teal'c's rope just didn't have enough matter in it to qualify.
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posted
I think you're talking about 'Watergate", where they sorta addressed the fan question of what would happen if you tried to open a gate underwater.
You know what - I wonder if the gate magically re-orients stuff that passes through it... On planetbound gates it's no problem as the gate is always right-side up, but what about the orbital ones? Did the pilots in both cases we saw try to right the ship before they went through the gate? Or perhaps it's automatic - they did mention at one point that there may be an autopilot involced when you[re actually threading the needle.
posted
And, on that same topic, I've always wondered if it matters which side of the gate you walk through. The "SG-1" gates all have a front and a back, but the space gates on "Atlantis" seem to be symmetrical.
"For the example of Teal'c firing the line of rope through the Stargate and then going through himself, we can only assume that the 'Gate recognized that the person and the rope were two separate objects."
There's still a problem with that, though. The rope never fully entered the wormhole, so it still never should have exited on the other planet (according to "38 Minutes").
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quote:Originally posted by TSN: And, on that same topic, I've always wondered if it matters which side of the gate you walk through. The "SG-1" gates all have a front and a back, but the space gates on "Atlantis" seem to be symmetrical.
Actually, no. And we've only seen the one Stargate hanging out in space -- the one around the Wraith planet. If you looked closely in the pilot episode, all of the little Wraith fighters were focusing on one side of the 'Gate, blocking the approach of the Puddle-Jumper. That suggests to me that the 'Gate is not symmetrical.
Out of curiosity, did we ever find out what would happen if you tried to enter the Stargate from the wrong side?
quote:There's still a problem with that, though. The rope never fully entered the wormhole, so it still never should have exited on the other planet (according to "38 Minutes").
Ah, good point. I forgot about that.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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quote:Originally posted by MinutiaeMan: Out of curiosity, did we ever find out what would happen if you tried to enter the Stargate from the wrong side?
I've never seen it. We've seen the view from the backside of an active Gate, but I odn't think anyone's ever walked through. My guess would be one of three things:
1) Nothing. Once the wormhole begins at the event horizon, it travels through subspace, not normal space, so there is literally nothing behind the gate. You'd pop through to the front side of the Gate with the event horizon directly behind you.
2) You'd vaporize. I don't know why but it would look cool.
3) Something wierd and worthy of an entire episode worth of trying to undo.
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posted
Since the gate looks exactly the same, on both sides, it LOOKS like it's intended to be used both ways, though when the wormhole forms, it 'shooshes' out the front. On the other tentacle, the shield is only on ine side, so no exit on the other side..
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In the Stargate movie, the event horizon atually forms a swirling inverse whirlpool on the other side. This is omitted from the series, probably for cost-saving reasons.
And while I have yet to see SGA on actual television, is anyone else slightly disappointed with the new wormhole effect? It's certainly passable, but the "tube" thing has been done to death in sci-fi. I really like the "twin ribbon" effect from the feature film, and hoped they'd just do a variation of that... SG-1 had been trapped with those 30 seconds of VFX for its entire run, so new stff was expected - I just wished it would be a little more unique than the transwarp / wormhole / slipstream / whatever stuff we've had over the past few years.
"In the Stargate movie, the event horizon atually forms a swirling inverse whirlpool on the other side. This is omitted from the series, probably for cost-saving reasons."
Actually, they did do that in the black hole episode.
"That suggests to me that the 'Gate is not symmetrical."
I meant "symmetrical" in the sense that the actual ring itself looks the same on both front and back. the "SG-1" gates look different on the back (they're pretty much flat, if I remember correctly).
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quote:Originally posted by Mark Nguyen: And while I have yet to see SGA on actual television, is anyone else slightly disappointed with the new wormhole effect? It's certainly passable, but the "tube" thing has been done to death in sci-fi.
Well, how many different variations of the "passage through space-time" imagery are there, anyway? Not all that many. From the movies I've seen, there's the 2001 style (which is just lots of psychedelic flashing lights in random patterns), there's the "ribbon" effect from Stargate and also Babylon 5, and then there's the classic tube in all its variations, most notably in Star Trek and the movie Contact, among others.
There aren't that many other options, IMO. Maybe I just lack imagination.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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