Ok, this is a Stargate question?

[薔薇語]

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question?

 

I've been thinking about this a lot today, and discussing it with a couple of other friends over meals and such... and the checksum may be the best solution. A bunch of the other proposals (including some I speculated about above) don't hold water, thanks to at least one pair of episodes. (Yes, I know... if something's established as canon in 99 episodes, looked at a lone divergence indicates this is fiction and they occasionally screw up, and not reality where is has to make logical sense all the time, but bear with me.)

 

At the end of season 1, SG1 was on one of a pair of ships that Apophis was brining to Earth to wipe it out. During the first episode of season 2, they manage to plant explosives that destroys one ship and sends the flaming hulk careening into the second ship, destroying it as well. Everyone except Daniel escape via a pair of Deathgliders. Daniel had been badly injured and had to be left behind. He ended up managing to get to a sarcophogus, get healed, and get to the stargate being carried on that ship and dial out just before the ship exploded.

 

Not long thereafter, he returned to the SGC, and explained to General Hammond that he'd dialed the coordinates for the Alpha Site (where personnel were being evaced to and setting up a new base). He said he realized that after the ship dropped out of hyperspace it was close enough to Earth to use Earth as a point of origin for dialing, and so he was able to escape.

 

This would seem to fit the idea of the checksum that Cancer has proposed, and would indicate that the point of origin DOES have something to do with a particular location in space... or why the necessity of using Earth's point of origin code when he was dialing?

 

This does bring up several problems, though.

 

First... since the point of origin glyph is supposed to be unique to each gate... how was Daniel able to dial Earth's point of origin symbol on a gate the presumably had its own point of origin glyph which would of course be different from the gate on Earth?

 

Also, we've seen that gates can be moved and used at new locations. (This is demonstrated in numerous episodes, not just this one in which the gate is on board a hyperspace-capable ship.) If the unique point of origin glyph is tied to a particular location in space... that's a problem for a LOT of episodes.

 

Now, I don't know the answer to this, and it's never occured to me to check: did the original gate they used (uncovered at Giza) have the SAME point of origin symbol as the gate they discovered in Anarctica? Both were "Earth" gates. If the symbols are the same, this would tend to indicate there IS something about a particular location in space that goes with a given symbol... and we run headlong into the issue of gates being moved between star systems and still being functional. If they are different, this would indicate each gate does indeed have its own unique point of origin glyph, which means the "tied to a particular location in space" would be difficult to make work as a hypothesis.

 

If they DID have different point of origin symbols, it was never mentioned in the show in on-screen dialogue. It would be easy enough to check... just watch a complete dialing sequence from any episode after they had to switch to using the Antarctic gate when the original was taken from the SGC.

 

(I suspect the symbols ARE in fact the same, for budegetary reasons. They have so many pre-canned dialing sequence shots, both of the gate and of the dialing computer display, that I can't imagine they'd redo them all just for the Antarctic gate having a different point of origin glyph -- it wouldn't be in the budget. If that's the case and the two gates DO have identical point of origin glyphs, it would seem that each WORLD has its own unique identifier, and the gate put on that world is coded with that identifier... which brings us back around to the issue of moving gates between star systems and having them still work.)

 

 

This is what I imagine the Last Gate symbol is, and why it is "Called" the point of origin.

 

 

It has been made clear in many episode that the gates automatically line themselves up in relation to other gates. And that the only reason why this wouldn't occur is if there was no DHD to make the Conection. So think of the DHD as a homing becon for ever other. As long as it is hooked up it will continuely update its memory with the current intersteller adresses periodically.

 

We Know that the first Six symbols are for defining where in space you are going. But instead of considering them staight coordinates think of them as a logic problem. If you have a spell check that automatically tries to assume what word you writting, this is similar. You defind the first symbol and the DHD automatically eliminates 38/39 of its coordinates as possiblities and continues to do this. It isn't making a Three dimentional address but rather anticipating what you want like spell check.

 

The reason why it asks you about the "home adress" is little more than a safty protocol. It is to insure that you know how to properly congigate what your spelling. And you don't Necessarily only have 39 possible home adresses. It is just giving you a multiple choice question. IT defines its part of space into 39 diferent 'local adresses and asks you for the proper one. Also the Home symbol is never used in earlier adresses so the DHD assumes that once you indicate your home adress(even if it is by accident) you are done and will try and dial. IT the address isnt possible it ignores your intry. Hence the reason why SGC spent all those years with only one success before they relized that they had to enter not only the correct home address but do it in the correct order.

 

 

That is what I think at least if you see any "holes" in my idea please let me know so I can account for them.

 

 

La Rose.

[Inu]

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question?

 

Yeah, I HATE the direction the series has gone in the last few years. What made Stargate so interesting early on was that it the humans had only ONE maguffin--the stargate itself. Otherwise, they were exploring the universe and fighting the goa'uld with contemporary weapons and tools. And the absence of spaceships made it impossible for the writers to get lazy and fall back on Trek-type cliches accumulated over the last 40 years.

 

Now, I think it's neat that they've stolen or borrowed or captured or reverse-engineered some of the ultra-tech they've encountered over the run of the series. I like that. But I hate it that the more time they spend flying around in spaceships* the more the show looks and sounds and feels like a lame rip-off of Star Trek.

 

*Even in the pilot they acknowledged that goa'uld had spaceships and could get to earth "the old fashioned way" if they had to--but that it would take months. There's a reason why everyone preferred stargates.

 

Now ATLANTIS--in another freaking galaxy--is a puny three weeks away by starship. THREE WEEKS.

Yah, they kinda forgot about that as soon as first season was over. I mean, it took Apophis an entire year to get his strike fleet together (since he was a feudal leader, so he had to raise Jaffa from all over the place -- he didn't just have 'em at his beck and call) and what he ended up with was two motherships. Later on, system lords can whistle and dozens of ships respond immediately. Nice and epic, but the prevalence of ships made the Stargate less cool.

 

No, actually, that's not entirely true. I woudln't have minded the ships, except that every time they stepped on board one, Trek writing took over. When they started saying 'shields at x%', I cringed. That, and they never updated the original low-budget goa'uld bridge, with its painted-cardboard control pedestal.

 

It was like a rule. 'Props on the bridge must suck.' So even when they were on Cronus' ship, his big throne looked like painted polystyrene.

 

And I never liked the idea of 'this is a ship with hundreds of crew! But, yes, one person can operate it from the bridge, in the total absence of anyone else present.'

 

But I understand it's hard to get away from Trek writing. It's hegemonic -- when people think 'so, what do we have happen in this bridge scene', Trek is the first thing they think of, and doing something different is difficult, it's going against the flow.

[sinanju]

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question?

 

No, actually, that's not entirely true. I woudln't have minded the ships, except that every time they stepped on board one, Trek writing took over. When they started saying 'shields at x%', I cringed. That, and they never updated the original low-budget goa'uld bridge, with its painted-cardboard control pedestal.

 

Exactly! I don't mind the props--I can't stand the way it turns into "Trek" whenever they BEAM ABOARD a spaceship.

 

They have ring transporters (okay, fine, the original movie had those). They have Asgard transporters. Shields (that routinely crumple like wet cardboard, complete with "Shields down to 30 percent!" reports as you mentioned). They have "sensors" that work remarkably like Star Trek-style sensors, including "life sensors". I hate those.

 

They get into space battles. The ship shakes. People fall out of their chairs. They use technobabble solutions to overcome technobabble problems.

 

Ships warp in and warp out (okay, jump into and out of hyperspace) at will, crossing the galaxy in hours or days, and reaching another bleeping galaxy in three weeks.

 

Gah!

 

And I never liked the idea of 'this is a ship with hundreds of crew! But, yes, one person can operate it from the bridge, in the total absence of anyone else present.'

 

Yes! Why do you have so many people on the ship if it requires so few to run it? And why do all repairs consist of replacing a few crystals or rerouting software controls? Why don't we ever hear about them having to cut away debris and rebuild walls, ceilings, floors, ductwork, wiring...you get the picture.

 

But I understand it's hard to get away from Trek writing. It's hegemonic -- when people think 'so, what do we have happen in this bridge scene', Trek is the first thing they think of, and doing something different is difficult, it's going against the flow.

 

Yeah, but they get paid damn good money to be creative. I wish they'd earn it, the way they used to before they started copying Trek.

[Yansuf]

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question?

 

Actually, the largest difference between the original and later that I can think of is that in the series pilot, the gate was two way; Apothos and his Jaffa walked back through it after their attack/recon of Earth without redialing.

[EvilDrPuma]

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question?

 

Actually' date=' the largest difference between the original and later that I can think of is that in the series pilot, the gate was two way; Apothos and his Jaffa walked back through it after their attack/recon of Earth without redialing.[/quote']

 

Yeah; that's since been acknowledged as a continuity goof, and it has never been repeated.

[MPT]

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question?

 

You may find this link http://home.kendra.com/urania/stargate_sg1/sg1_font_glyph.htm useful - it has a copy of the gate glyphs as a truetype font.

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question?

 

Speaking of retcons: I haven't seen the movie in years but I seem to remember that going through the gate was described as extremely cold, and everyone came out the other end all frosted. I understand why they didn't want to bother with that every week of the series, but was there ever any attempt to explain it away? Or am I remembering it wrong?

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question?

 

Speaking of retcons: I haven't seen the movie in years but I seem to remember that going through the gate was described as extremely cold' date=' and everyone came out the other end all frosted. I understand why they didn't want to bother with that every week of the series, but was there ever any attempt to explain it away? Or am I remembering it wrong?[/quote']

They had that in the first couple of episodes of the series, as well, and they sometimes emerged from the stargate as if they'd been thrown by something, landing hard and rolling down the steps. It was explained this (the frost and the rough landings) were caused by tiny misalignments of the gate / gate coordinates, quickly corrected by updates to the dialing program / database and by the installation of "stabilizers" on the gate itself (which also did away with the physical shaking that used to make the whole room tremble when the gate was connecting).

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question?

 

They had that in the first couple of episodes of the series' date=' as well, and they sometimes emerged from the stargate as if they'd been thrown by something, landing hard and rolling down the steps. It was explained this (the frost and the rough landings) were caused by tiny misalignments of the gate / gate coordinates, quickly corrected by updates to the dialing program / database and by the installation of "stabilizers" on the gate itself (which also did away with the physical shaking that used to make the whole room tremble when the gate was connecting).[/quote']

Actually as technobabble rationalizalizing goes...that ain't too bad. Thanks.

[Alverant]

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question?

 

I asked my friends (who are self-professed Stargate experts) some of these questions and they did try to explain them, but it was more in the "well it makes sense from a show production" standpoint and not a "this is how the stargate really works" standpoint. One compared it to the episode in the Simpsons when Homer was on the Ichie and Scratchie show and dealt with an obsessive fan in a Q&A session. I summarized their explaination as "Shut up and enjoy the show". Or to quote the MST3K intro, "If you're wondering how he eats and breaths, and other science facts, la la la, just repeat to yourself 'it's just a show, I should really just relax'!"

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question?

 

But I understand it's hard to get away from Trek writing. It's hegemonic -- when people think 'so' date=' what do we have happen in this bridge scene', Trek is the first thing they think of, and doing something different is difficult, it's going against the flow.[/quote']

Even worse, there seems to be a belief in Hollywood that sci-fi fans are preconditioned to equate "Trek" with "how things really will be in a few centuries." So they're worried it will jar people's suspension of disbelief if shields don't act the way they're used to seeing shields act, etc. Not saying the idea makes sense, mind you.

 

Tho to be fair, Stargate on a bad day still does Trek a darn site better than Trek itself has for years...

 

I summarized their explaination as "Shut up and enjoy the show". Or to quote the MST3K intro' date=' "If you're wondering how he eats and breaths, and other science facts, la la la, just repeat to yourself 'it's just a show, I should really just relax'!"[/quote']

If that works for you, fine. But personally I've always thought that explanation is just a big cop-out to excuse bad writing. If any "real world" TV show had airplanes flying backwards, or characters walking from New York to Paris, no one would say "Oh, it's just TV; don't sweat it." But when sci-fi shows do things just as ridiculous, it's suddenly okay and anyone who points out the obvious is an obsessive geek.

 

Again, no offense intended; if "it's just a show" works for you, more power to you. But forgive me for wanting my sci-fi to be slightly more plausible than the crappy B-movies being skewered on MST3K.

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question?

 

Again' date=' no offense intended; if "it's just a show" works for you, more power to you. But forgive me for wanting my sci-fi to be [i']slightly [/i]more plausible than the crappy B-movies being skewered on MST3K.

Reminds me of when Tim Allen's character in Galaxy Quest blew up at the group of geek kids who wanted to talk to him about inconsistencies between a couple of episodes.

 

(On a side note, since the Thermians actually built the ship to work and act the way it was depicted on the show... once has to wonder what kind of backflips they had to go through to get inconsitences to give them a working ship, and still work they way things said they did in conflicting episodes.... since they were taking the "historical documents" as fact. Man those guys must be SOME engineers!)

 

bigdamnhero, did you mean perhaps consistent rather than plausible? I don't know how plausible a lot of this stuff is, but internal consistency matters to me a lot, when discussing shows like this.

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question?

 

bigdamnhero' date=' did you mean perhaps [i']consistent[/i] rather than plausible? I don't know how plausible a lot of this stuff is, but internal consistency matters to me a lot, when discussing shows like this.

I meant "plausible" as opposed to "realistic." Wanna have FTL travel, artificial gravity, and all the rest? No problem. Just please try to have it act in a way that makes some kind of sense on any level other than "the script requires it." So it might have been more precise for me to say "plausible within the ground rules established by the show." But to me that goes beyond just internal consistency. To make up a silly extreme example, if every week our heroes went for a space walk without space suits or oxygen (barring some technobabble explanation of why they can do so), that would be internally consistant, but still fail to pass the Bright Five Year Old test.

 

I'm not asking for hyper-realism here, but 5 minutes of thought and/or research doesn't seem like asking too much.

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question?

 

I meant "plausible" as opposed to "realistic." Wanna have FTL travel, artificial gravity, and all the rest? No problem. Just please try to have it act in a way that makes some kind of sense on any level other than "the script requires it." So it might have been more precise for me to say "plausible within the ground rules established by the show." But to me that goes beyond just internal consistency. To make up a silly extreme example, if every week our heroes went for a space walk without space suits or oxygen (barring some technobabble explanation of why they can do so), that would be internally consistant, but still fail to pass the Bright Five Year Old test.

 

I'm not asking for hyper-realism here, but 5 minutes of thought and/or research doesn't seem like asking too much.

Okay, I see that... and I'll accept that, and agree with you!

[Jhamin]

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question?

 

If they DID have different point of origin symbols' date=' it was never mentioned in the show in on-screen dialog. It would be easy enough to check... just watch a complete dialing sequence from any episode after they had to switch to using the Antarctic gate when the original was taken from the SGC.[/quote']

 

Actually, it was mentioned on the show that the Antarctic gate has a different point of origin symbol. In the episode it was discovered O'Neil and Carter are accidental sent to it rather than the home gate. Not recognizing the point origin symbol, Carter assumed they were on a distant planet.

 

(It should be noted that the Antarctic gate is actually Earth's original gate. It was build by the Ancients and left behind when the Migrated to the Pegasus Galaxy. When it froze under polar ice the Gould replaced it with the one later found in Giza.)

 

 

Of course, for Budgetary reasons, the stock footage isn't changed for the two different gates.

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question?

 

Actually, it was mentioned on the show that the Antarctic gate has a different point of origin symbol. In the episode it was discovered O'Neil and Carter are accidental sent to it rather than the home gate. Not recognizing the point origin symbol, Carter assumed they were on a distant planet.

 

(It should be noted that the Antarctic gate is actually Earth's original gate. It was build by the Ancients and left behind when the Migrated to the Pegasus Galaxy. When it froze under polar ice the Gould replaced it with the one later found in Giza.)

Yes, and there's some speculation it may in fact be the oldest of all gates.

 

I know the episode in question, having watched it several times, but I've not gone back to check the dialoge and watch for any mention of the point of origin symbol. I assumed at the the time I first watched it that it must have a different symbol, otherwise you'd think that Carter would have recognized something was fishy right from the beginning.

[Curufea]

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question?

 

Perhaps the seventh symbol isn't "point of origin" but "which gate".

Meaning a planet could contain up to 39 gates.

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question?

 

Perhaps the seventh symbol isn't "point of origin" but "which gate".

Meaning a planet could contain up to 39 gates.

I suggested that a bit earlier in the thread, but there are some things that I'm not sure could be made to fit that idea.

[Hunter]

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question?

 

Actually' date=' the largest difference between the original and later that I can think of is that in the series pilot, the gate was two way; Apothos and his Jaffa walked back through it after their attack/recon of Earth without redialing.[/quote']

 

No, since the Gate shut down after Apophis and his troops came through.

 

They could have manually dialed the gate. We don't know precisely, since when the Earth reinforcments arrived, the Gate had been reactivated. However, in the previous scene, Apophis did say something to his Jaffa and indicated the Stargate with a nod of his head.

[EvilDrPuma]

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question?

 

Perhaps the seventh symbol isn't "point of origin" but "which gate".

Meaning a planet could contain up to 39 gates.

 

Funny thing, though, Earth is the only planet that has ever been shown to have more than one gate--and that was really only because the original (the Antarctica gate) became inaccessible. You might think that multiple gates would be desirable, if only to have a backup or because a Stargate is really a pretty lousy deal for deploying strategic or large tactical forces...but until the Ori started trying to set up supergates in season 9, that never came up.

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question?

 

I just checked the first season episode with the Antarctica gate... "Solitudes". They do in fact explicitly say the point of origin symbol on the Antarctic gate is different from the Giza gate. (The point of origin symbol on the Antarctic gate is a large, solid circle with a small bar to one side.)

[Inu]

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question?

 

Even worse' date=' there seems to be a belief in Hollywood that sci-fi fans are preconditioned to equate "Trek" with "how things really will be in a few centuries." So they're worried it will jar people's suspension of disbelief if shields don't act the way they're used to seeing shields act, etc. Not saying the idea makes [i']sense[/i], mind you.

*twitches* Yes, you're probably right. That would explain a lot.

 

Tho to be fair, Stargate on a bad day still does Trek a darn site better than Trek itself has for years...

Seconded. Stargate on its worst day is better than the average NouveauTrek.

 

 

If that works for you, fine. But personally I've always thought that explanation is just a big cop-out to excuse bad writing. If any "real world" TV show had airplanes flying backwards, or characters walking from New York to Paris, no one would say "Oh, it's just TV; don't sweat it." But when sci-fi shows do things just as ridiculous, it's suddenly okay and anyone who points out the obvious is an obsessive geek.

 

Again, no offense intended; if "it's just a show" works for you, more power to you. But forgive me for wanting my sci-fi to be slightly more plausible than the crappy B-movies being skewered on MST3K.

 

Hear hear. There are people who take things too far, but that's not a reason to dismiss all such complaints. Some are valid... unless you lack, as many producers seem to, any respect for the medium you're working in. 'Jeez, it's not Shakespeare.' I HATE it when people say that. Sure, it's not high art... but that doesn't mean you can skimp. Have some pride in the work you do, and some respect for your fans.

[Brother Jim]

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question?

 

Shakespeare wrote most of his stuff for the masses, if I remember right.

 

And it wasn't considered "literature" until a long time after he had died.

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question?

 

Shakespeare wrote most of his stuff for the masses' date=' if I remember right.[/quote']

Absolutely right. But he didn't use that as an excuse to just write any old crap.