posted
Well, they've stated pretty specifically that the Gate won't work unless it's on the surface of a planet or in orbit. In the season 2 opener, Daniel could only dial out of the Gate on the ship after entering Earth's orbit. The only exception I can think of is when they dialed the planet being consumed by a black hole then sent the Gate hurtling towards a star to suck the stellar material through the Gate. However, the wormhole was established before they sent it flying off.
posted
Even though it seems that only one Gate per planet or planetary vicinity can be active, it would make sense to assume that Earth hosted dozens of Gates back in the good old days when Ra was running things here. Ra would have been in control of the Giza gate, but pretty much every Goa'uld of worth supposedly had a branch office here as well. They wouldn't have trusted Ra, so they probably would have had a Gate or two stashed somewhere. Certainly some percentage of the ships visiting Earth would have had Gates aboard. (Even if we consider most of the current pyramids just cargo-cult copies, there must have been plenty of original landing platforms to inspire the cargo-cult, and thus significant ship traffic as well.)
This in mind, I find it highly unlikely that the Antarctica Gate would be the means by which post-Egyptian cultures propagated into space. Our heroes back in "Devil" and the like had a good reason to think it may have been the means, since they did not know of other possibilities - but it sounds far more likely that other Goa'uld would have sneaked in after the rebellion and Ra's demise, and abducted these people with the help of ships or shipborne Gates.
It would be simplest to assume that the Antarctica Gate has been buried since prehistoric times (the strangely modern human found next to it remains as mysterious as ever in Season 8, right?). But it is also quite possible that Earth (or the Sol system) still retains other Gates, left behind by Goa'uld infighting. And perhaps it is possible to run multiple Gates simultaneously from one location, or from various points that are slightly offset from the basic planetary coordinates, and the Goa'uld may know how.
Physically speaking, low Earth orbit cannot be the limit of a Gate's ability to operate "off-boresight". After all, Earth wobbles crazily around its central star. Perhaps an accuracy of 50 AUs might be closer to the truth?
posted
Well, the operation of the Beta Gate by the NID and the Alpha Gate by the Russians at the same time as the SGC operated its Gate proves that two can be functional on the same planet at the same time. So in theory, a dozen System Lords could've had Gates on Earth at the same time trafficing people through them. They just couldn't have done it at the exact same time. The issue of where an incoming wormhole would connect to would still be a problem.
The fact that incoming wormholes defaulted to the Giza Gate even when the Antarctic Gate was able to receive wormholes suggests that the Giza Gate was the one orginally placed on Earth by the Ancients. Other Gates would still be able to dial out, but only one could receive.
The Antarctic Gate is possibly one of the Gates brought to Earth after the rebellion. There was a Jaffa found next to it in modern Jaffa armor, but who knows how long they've been using that design.
Later seasons and revelations about the Ancient Base beneath the Antarctic Gate may invalidate this reasoning, but I've not seen those episodes yet.
posted
Well, not that it will happen, but that question could, technically, be addressed on the show if they found the "Gamma Gate". After all, there are still two DHDs on Earth, right?
Registered: Mar 1999
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They have two DHDs, neither of which work.. The one they retrieved with the Beta gate reported just "stopped working" shortly after they got it, and the original Alpha DHD met its fate in "48 Hours" in the fifth season. Suffice it to say that their jury-rigging system is the best they can do short of manually dialling the gate like they originally did in "torment of Tantalus" et. al.
posted
Maybe we can have the Antartic gate being what brought the Predators and Aliens to Earth to build an Aztec pyramid.
Just a thought, but in the episode where they destroy an entire fleet of Mom-a-Mids in space, wouldn't there then be a BUNCH of gates just floating around out there? Couldn't they go back to the system and recover a few after the Nova subsided. (and NO, I have no idea how long that event would take)
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posted
Well, there's no evidence that every Goa'uld mothership has a gate on it. Besides, the force of the nova could have thrown any gates that were there far out into space.
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posted
Or obliterated them. Gates are tough, but (I'd like to think) not indestructable.
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted
Indeed. The one they dropped into the sun was destroyed, and so was the one that overloaded. In the first season, Teal'c told a story of how Nirrti used explosives to destroy a gate. It was probably just sheer luck that the gate they destroyed on the Beliskner was not destroyed...
Hey, anyone remember Apophis' ships in the second season opener? I can't remember, but of the two, only Klorel's ship seemed to have a gate, right? Poppy and Son had to ring over there to escape before the two ships collided.
"The one they dropped into the sun was destroyed..."
Well, are we sure about that? It ceased to be a problem once it was in the sun, but was it actually destroyed? I mean, you'd think it would be, if they can be destroyed by explosives. But, then, they can fall into a black hole and, far from being destroyed, continue functioning. So, it's hard to say what the criteria are for destroying one.
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posted
In "The Torment of Tantalus", the gate in that building stopped working after the storm went through. Could the storm have actually destroyed the gate or is it a case of the gate not having any power source whatsoever to be able to function? This doesn't quite seem right given the establishment of an incoming wormhole through the Antarctic gate which had been buried in ice.
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