Talk:Stargate (device)

Iris

(And gate activation / shutdown)

How does the iris work? i mean , if you bury a gate it becomes inactive, so wouldn't the iris stop the gate to? I think that has something to do with distance, but anther question is how is it that in one episode they dialed a buried gate, and teal'c wen through to dig out. Shouldn't the fact that the gate was buried have stooped the worm-hole from filling....? ok just a random thought... --Hiaburi - the wormhole was still active when it got burried stopped the soil from burring the gate. it gave the nessasary space for the wormhole to engage but not enough for the matter to reintegrate. stargate command used a goa'uld weapon to punch a hole big enough for teal'c to get through and get to the surface but,It has to do with material being within the Stargate. When you bury a Stargate, you've buried it underground with soil all around and inside the circle. This is what stops a wormhole from forming. The episode you're thinking about ("A Hundred Days") the Staragte was trapped under a layer of rock, but did not have anything within the ring itself which would prevent the connection. — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 02:09, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, so i read up on the episode since its been awhile i guess it all makes some sense now. On a side note, i saw a question on another site that i thought was really good, In one episode, as people were going through the gate, O'Neil put his hand in the gate, as you would do to hold an elevator open, how did he know the gate would not just shut off and take his hand with it? --Hiaburi(don't feel like logging in)

As long as something is going through the gate (a radio signal, a hand, whatever) the gate won't shut down unless it reaches the end of the 38 minutes, or there is some kind of malfunction (in particular, a power failure). Template:Sgcite explains that. --Tango 21:23, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmm ok well thanks for explaining...--Hiaburi(don't feel like logging in)

If this is true, then why in one of the first few episodes (the first?) did the tail end of a staff weapon get cut off as the last Jaffa passed through the gate? This has always bothered me through-out the entire series. --Agvulpine 00:55, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say the gate was manually shut down - a benefit of having a home made dialling computer. --Tango 10:56, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

What about the torment of tantalus? His cord got cut off. Technically he shouldn't even have made it to the other side, as the whole object hadn't been recieved by the stargate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.106.140.192 (talk) 05:21, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that bothers me too. It's probably just a mistake. You could say it was a loss of power, and the DHD at the other end compensated (despite being broken) and allowed what had crossed the horizon to reach the other side. --Tango (talk) 14:19, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Maybe the 38 minutes were up, time up, shutdown, wooooo_ooo... – ThatWikiGuy (talk | life) 14:50, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

It is likely that the scientists dialed the gate, and then had Ernest suited up. He steps through, takes a look around, 38 minutes are up and the gate closes. I can only imagine what kind of panic he went throughafter that. I also wonder how many times they dialed the gate after he was cut off before giving up... Tigey (talk) 02:25, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

The gate may allow cables/cords without the whole "waiting for the rest" protocol, remember in "A Hundreded Days", Teal'c fired the cable into the gate before stepping through to make sure it was secure. --Vala M (talk) 18:40, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Or maybe the writers aren't quite as obsessed with these things as we are! ;) (I've always wandered why they don't just employ a handful of dedicated fans to read through the scripts, etc., and check for continuity errors and things - there are plenty of fans with such an encyclopaedic knowledge of the show that they can spot mistakes immediately.) --Tango (talk) 20:45, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Number of Valid Addresses

In the article's "Features" section, it states: With 38 symbols, the Stargate Network in the Milky Way has:

   (38×37×36×35×34×33) = 1,987,690,320 possible addresses.

However, if you look at this image: http:/upwiki/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/StargateCoordinates.svg It can be seen that there are three lines each made up of two points to determine the destination.

If you assume the addresses are of the form: 1a 1b 2a 2b 3a 3b (points a and b on each of the 3 lines), then putting the lines in a different order would still result in the same destination (eg. 2a 2b 3a 3b 1a 1b), as would swapping the two points that form one line (eg. 1b 1a 2b 1a 3a 3b). Thus the following are all the same: ABCDEF, ABCDFE, ABDCEF, ABDCFE, BACDEF, BACDFE, BADCEF, BADCFE, CDABEF, CDABFE, DCABEF, DCABFE, CDBAEF, CDBAFE, DCBAEF, DCBAFE. And that's only one third of the possible ways of rearranging the lines AB, CD, EF such that they would still intersect at the same point.

I think the total number should be divided by 48 (3!=6 for the number of ways to arrange the lines and 2^3=8 for the number of ways to write the lines using the two points) to account for geometry of lines, or am I missing something?

Canadiancow (talk) 11:12, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

• Short answer: Daniel's explanation in the movie is rubbish. Long answer: The address mechanics given in the movie and the series are so contradictory at times (why would addresses differing in just one symbol exist?), especially when the point of origin is involved, that it's best not to think how they map to real coordinates and just accept them as convenient unique identifiers, like IP addresses. If SG-1 canon says that every planetary system with a Stargate has a unique address, then so it is and thus the symbols are not reorderable, Daniel's guess notwithstanding. - Sikon (talk) 11:34, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Trying to make sense of the address system just drives one to drink. If a given planet could be dialled with a selection of addresses, it would have been mentioned at some point, I'm sure. In fact, they've mentioned that given the 6 symbols but no order there are 720 addresses, which is 6!, so there can't be any reordering. --Tango (talk) 11:42, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Let's just bow down to the fact that the movie and the show conflict on more than a few issues. After all according to the show Abidos is on "the other side of the known universe" while in SG-1 It's pointed out as practically next door (why they were able to dial it without accounting for drift). Suffice to say any concrete exploration of this in the article without a creator interview or something to cite would most likely be OR.--Oni Ookami Alfador^Talk|@ 00:47, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Then I would suggest modifying section 3.2 (Operation -> Addresses). The description of addresses do not correspond to the number of possible addresses given in the Features section. Canadiancow (talk) 09:15, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

• The difference is basically one of Combination Versus Permutation. The current calculation on the page shows 38 P 6 = 1987690320. A permutation is counting the number of arrangements in a set where ORDER matters. But if we accept Daniel's "3D-Map" in the movie, then the order in which symbols entered into an addresses should NOT matter, this would be 38 C 6 or 2760681 (actually much less) unique addresses though some of those addresses may still map to the same place. Nevertheless, the article makes reference to BOTH Daniel's explanation AND a number of gate addresses that does not agree with his explanation, and I think this should be cleaned up to reflect that so that they are not contradictory! NathanRahl (talk) 21:06, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

We need to be careful to avoid original research. It would be good to point out this inconsistency, however it would be best if we can find a reliable source that discusses it (which probably does exist somewhere). Anyone want to volunteer to look for one? --Tango (talk) 23:24, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Multiple gates

When Apothis(?) and SG-1 dialed a bunch of gates to kill the replicators, the signal got sent to all the gates at once. If somebody walks through the gate which (if not all) will he come out of? – ThatWikiGuy (talk | life) 19:35, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

That was Ba'al, and I don't think anyone knows. It was never addressed. --Tango (talk) 19:54, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I got 2 possible explanations, they get cloned or the gate with most power. – ThatWikiGuy (talk | life) 20:08, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Or they get split between them and die. --Tango (talk) 20:14, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think they would be cloned. After all the actual matter is being transmitted from one gate to another under normal conditions. I would imagine that the gates have that multidialing capability to allow for gate-system wide programming updates. Thus, no matter is allowed through. If the gates can be set to act like a network router, they multicast information from one to the next and therefore only energy (in this case the anti-replicator energy) is allowed through.Tigey (talk) 02:31, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I Agree, i think if someone tried to go through the gate whilst in multi dial mode, they would just leave one gate (randon or perhaps specific, or perhaps would die, or be held in the buffer and rematerialized at the same gate without wormhole travel.--AvatarIII (talk) 17:14, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

That's assuming the gates are designed to be able to dial multiple addresses, Ba'al had to make significant modifications to the DHD to achieve that (and the other occasion I can think of was apparently a malfunction - the Groundhog Day episode). Avenger suggests gates are updated by updating one and having that one dial a few others (presumably one at a time) and having those dial more and so on - dialling multiple addresses isn't required. If the feature isn't an intended one, then there's no reason for the outcome to be anything desirable - a horrible gruesome death is quite likely. --Tango (talk) 18:34, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Eww, guts. – ThatWikiGuy (talk | life) 14:41, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Id say the the Ancients probably thought of dialing multiple addresses and would have realised it would be possible after some tinkering (If Nerus could think of it, surely the Ancients would as well) so they probably added a safety protocol just in case. Perhaps if solid matter enters through a gate that is connected to multiple/all the other stargates, it is sent to just one of them, perhaps the gate that is closest in the system to the gate of origin. But of course thats just fan speculation. --Zoobz19 (talk) 19:18, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Or, perhaps, they knew dialling multiple addresses would kill people so implemented a safety protocol to prevent people doing that, which Nerus figured out how to disable (in the same way Carter was able to disable [or at least ignore] the protection against wormholes going straight through stars). --Tango (talk) 20:08, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

WP:NOTAFORUM--Oni Ookami Alfador^Talk|@ 19:33, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

We know. We're not harming the project by having a short chat about the topic on the talk page. If it becomes excessive, feel free to intervene. Posting to a month old discussion with just a shortcut to a policy page might not be the best way to make your point, though... --Tango (talk) 20:28, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Merger of Supergate (Stargate)

The article Supergate (Stargate) currently establishes no notability, consists almost solely of plot retelling, but why I propose this merger is that I have no idea how to fix that other than through merging. The supergate section in Stargate (device) is already pretty good, so only little merging may be required in the end. Comments before I go ahead with the merger in about a week or two? – sgeureka ^t•c 15:33, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there's any need for more than a paragraph or two about supergates, and that can easily go in this article. Merge away. --Tango (talk) 15:59, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

In this case, I'll merge the full version of the article to the Stargate Wikia. - Sikon (talk) 04:52, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the Stargate Wikia's policies, but most of the information will be redundant - it's just plot summaries which will already be in their episode articles. --Tango (talk) 23:30, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

• "Merged". (There wasn't really anything to merge but the number of modules). The "history" part of the Supergate article has already been transwikied by someone else. – sgeureka ^t•c 11:01, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Article to long?

Maybe it's time to split up the article some? I find it very difficulte to read with so much information in one place. 129.16.49.9 (talk) 00:01, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

We should trim it first and consider a split only afterwards. The section "Other variants" can be trimmed a lot IMO (as I've said before), the section 'Use of the term "stargate" in other works' is a mix of trivia and original research, and the whole article has more of an in-universe focus than a real-world focus, but balancing that would require time. As a general note, since the article is so badly sourced, it is hard to tell what is original research, what is fancruft, and what really needs to be mentioned. I'd say that at least 30 percent can be cut without the article suffering anything. – sgeureka ^t•c 07:25, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Ancient/Alteran

It is a trivial point i know, but at the start of the article it says
"their creators were an alien race known as the Ancients, who called them the Astria Porta in their language, and scattered them on a variety of planets and moons, throughout the Milky Way and other galaxies millions of years ago. The Alteran who invented the Stargate was named Amelius"
My point i was going to make was, it should say 'their creators were an alien race known as the Alterans (now known as Ancients)' or something like that. It also just occured to me that in the one paragraph it calls them Ancients and then says 'the Alteran who invented them...' which could be confusing for someone not familiar with the show.--Zoobz19 (talk) 22:04, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

When we discussed it before, it was agreed that Ancient is the far more common term, and therefore the one we should use. Alteran should only be used in direct quotes and in the one sentence mentioning that they were once called Alterans. --Tango (talk) 21:46, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Questionable Rephrasing

Is this revision Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Stargate_(device)&diff=223127670&oldid=222321472 really necessary? I don't recall the quote actually being in Stargate SG-1 or Atlantis, and the former version seems much more descriptive and professional. I hardly see the advantages of describing conservation of Momentum between wormholes as "Speedy thing goes in, speedy thing come out".--Techercizer (talk) 22:40, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

That's from Portal, isn't it? :-p --Codenamecuckoo (talk) 14:21, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, so what's it doing here? IMHO it makes the article sound kind of dumb, the previous explanation was much better.Techercizer (talk) 03:43, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Being one-way

Throughout the series, the wormhole is clearly on-way. Why is not mentioned here? I'd say it's quite an important feature. See, for examle "The Fifth Race" episode, where the team got stuck on a hot planet where there was no DHD. They could communicate with SGC, they could receieve things sent from SGC (by a wormhole open from the SGC side), but they could not walk back... --Tartaros (talk) 23:50, 7 August 2008 (UTC)