Plus what you "see" hardly seems relevant, because you're all dematerialised and stuff anyways....which does bring up the question of why you would see anything at all, with the whole lacking eyes thing. Oh well.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
I'm in the middle of reading Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, and on page 163, he specifically describes a wormhole as "a thin tube of space-time which can connect two nearly flat regions far apart."
If he considers a wormhole to be a tube, who are we to disagree?
-------------------- “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
Doesn't have to be a VISIBLE tube.. I think he means theorhetical either way, meaning that it's a "tube" through which normal matter can pass between two regular planes of space-time far enough apart not to be affected by each other.
posted
I know the gate system is supposed to be intelligent and all, but I just can't imagine that it exclusively sends discreet objects through. I mean how many times have we seen weapons fire being passed through. How would the gate make the distinction between the vapor trail and the object? And if it's a blob of plasma then it's probably trailing a bit of goo behind. What about engine exhaust from the jumpers? How does it distinguish? This isn't even getting into the idea of the gates in black holes and stars and how it would try to make discreet objects of entire stellar masses. There's the energy quanta question too. What I'm saying is that I think that's kind of silly and is a needless distraction from what has been and continues to be an exciting venue for storytelling. I am officially deciding to ignore the gate-tech knowledge gleaned from this episode.
Registered: Sep 2000
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"What I'm saying is that I think that's kind of silly and is a needless distraction from what has been and continues to be an exciting venue for storytelling."
Well, by that logic, they did things right. After all, if the story takes full precedence, shouldn't it be okay to slightly contradict previously implied technological details in order to write a good story?
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posted
Well, saying that the front half of the ship would come through just fine if they couldn't get themselves unstuck wouldn't do much damage to the story. I mean, the people in the front were just extras. Who cares about them anyway? On the other hand, that raises the question of why couldn't they just walk through the gate. You could make it so that the gate doesn't actually show up inside of things (which still bugs me for some reason), but then the characters have access to the controls. But, one supposes that in that case you could always just say "the controls are damaged" instead of "something is damaged."
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"On the other hand, that raises the question of why couldn't they just walk through the gate."
Exactly. If the front of the ship were in Atlantis, everyone just goes there, they break a window, crawl out, and shut the gate down.
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quote:Originally posted by TSN: ... After all, if the story takes full precedence, shouldn't it be okay to slightly contradict previously implied technological details in order to write a good story?
TWOK is my favorite movie of all time, so of course it is. Fair enough. But I've always felt that the strength of the Stargate concept is that every week it opens windows to new worlds, new and different planets (in different galaxies now?) our heroes can walk into and shoot at things. And with such a fertile playground should not need to resort to technobabbling this limitation onto said story vehicle. I mean it did look neat and it was an interesting episode, granted (I'm not that familiar with this show, but I like the Quentin Tarentino engineer and I think the base commander is pretty in an interesting way). It's just the limitations this imposes on the writers of new episodes w/r/t technical continuity may not be worth it. (ie. I'm walking next to a 75 meter long antenna assembly through the gate. I'm somewhere near the middle of the antenna when it takes me aproximately a half a second to cross the gate's event horizon. When I come through, do I pop out at the same position relative to the antenna? What if at the last second, they decide to use a smaller mast instead and pull the antenna back out? Do I still arrive at the other end and just not see the half antenna that had been next to me sticking out of the gate? What about my lucky hyperspace-transit silver dollar that I had been flipping and catching nervously as I walked (and was in mid-air as it entered)? Would I still catch it (assuming a coordinated, science-fictionionalized version of myself), it taking several dozen milliseconds longer for my body to fully enter than the gate after the coin?)
Also I have always felt like SG was a less technological transport than scan-destroy at one end and re-construct on the other. I always just assumed it was opening a physics-type wormhole between the two planes of the gates. But obviously I don't know that much about Stargate so I'm probably dumb.
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"(ie. I'm walking next to a 75 meter long antenna assembly through the gate. I'm somewhere near the middle of the antenna when it takes me aproximately a half a second to cross the gate's event horizon. When I come through, do I pop out at the same position relative to the antenna? What if at the last second, they decide to use a smaller mast instead and pull the antenna back out? Do I still arrive at the other end and just not see the half antenna that had been next to me sticking out of the gate? What about my lucky hyperspace-transit silver dollar that I had been flipping and catching nervously as I walked (and was in mid-air as it entered)? Would I still catch it (assuming a coordinated, science-fictionionalized version of myself), it taking several dozen milliseconds longer for my body to fully enter than the gate after the coin?)"
Yes, those are going to be extremely important to a future story. And any story based on those premises would be the best show ever.
What's wrong with you?
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by TSN: Yes, those are going to be extremely important to a future story. And any story based on those premises would be the best show ever.
What's wrong with you?
Too much peanut butter probably. My dumb argument was lost before it even began.
I guess what I'm really worried about is the Stargate writers starting to get caught up in transporter accident-type stories rather than focusing on stories where people go to strange new worlds and shoot at things. It seems like that's what the show is supposed to do.
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Cartman
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posted
I've just thought of the perfect explanation for the apparent conflict in how the 'Gates handle large and/or long objects: After all, the Ancients built the 'Gates in the Milky Way first, and so the 'Gates in the Pegasus Galaxy could be considered "Mark II" 'Gates -- they obviously look different, anyway. So though they're interoperable with the Mark I's, they could function differently in minor respects.
Just a thought, anyway.
-------------------- “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
Okay.. But then how would they already know that the Pegasus gates are different? Had they had a few experiences already and noted how they operate in contrast with the more familiar gates?
posted
What's with the "this is the only gate in this galaxy that can get us back to Earth" claim, then, while we're at it. Though I think this is brought up in the episode after this one. Anyway, there doesn't appear to be anything special about the gate on Earth that they used to get there, so why should they need a special one to get back? After all, every gate has nine chevrons, suggesting that they can all be used for, uh, Long Distance. Previously it's just been made out to be a power issue.
I suppose one could rationalize "this gate" to mean "this gate and the complex support machinery that surrounds it" and "can get us back to Earth" to mean "without having to, like, carry a bunch of extra wires and stuff needed to connect extra power to some other gate." Kind of klunky, though.
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