A question about the stargate and chevrons

[Merrick178]

I've done my best at overlooking this small confusion of mine about the "point of origin" chevron and why it's necessary.

Imagine if you will, that every time you were done typing in a phone number you had to type a special symbol on your phone, unique to your phone, to make the phone work as you expect it to. This would just be unacceptable as all phones would need to be custom and it would serve little functionality to justify the extra expense and efforts.

Maybe I simply misunderstand the whole thing; please help me out here.

[ffstbh]

can u please make a concrete question

[Merrick178]

Of course, sorry.

What purpose does the point of origin serve? And could the stargate have been designed without it just as well?

[mikeroq]

So you can plot the wormhole from your gate to the one you want to dial?

/sarcasm

"Computer, dial this gate address *says symbols*"
Unable to comply, point of origin is missing
"Explain"
A valid gate address must have a point of origin to plot a path for the wormhole
"Computer, enable self destruct, authorization carter-pie-1242-alpha"

/lol

[Merrick178]

So you can plot the wormhole from your gate to the one you want to dial?

/sarcasm

"Computer, dial this gate address *says symbols*"
Unable to comply, point of origin is missing
"Explain"
A valid gate address must have a point of origin to plot a path for the wormhole
"Computer, enable self destruct, authorization carter-pie-1242-alpha"

/lol

I think I'm being misunderstood here.

Let's say I wanted to give somebody directions to a certain room in a building or something, I would just give directions such as "left, right, right, 3rd room on the left."

I wouldn't give directions like "left, right, right, 3rd room on the left coming from my office."

Now I understand the gate needs a point to begin plotting from but are you telling me such an advanced device needs to be told where it is? AND it can only be in one place?

I guess when it really comes down to it, the point of origin can't change, so why have it in a system in which different "variables" are selected, and not just permanently embedded or "wired" into the gate or something like that?

[Academy3]

I think I'm being misunderstood here.

Let's say I wanted to give somebody directions to a certain room in a building or something, I would just give directions such as "left, right, right, 3rd room on the left."

I wouldn't give directions like "left, right, right, 3rd room on the left coming from my office."

Now I understand the gate needs a point to begin plotting from but are you telling me such an advanced device needs to be told where it is? AND it can only be in one place?

I guess when it really comes down to it, the point of origin can't change, so why have it in a system in which different "variables" are selected, and not just permanently embedded or "wired" into the gate or something like that?

Well, to answer your question, stargates and DHDs can be moved around so their point of origin can change. And the only reason I can think of as to why the DHD can do this and not have a million different symbols on it, is that when you move it, it connects with the nearest gate, and the programming changes. So I really think that the origin symbol, even earths, is just their for show, and really just represents a underlying program.
But really, you aren't looking at the bigger problem. The show automatically assumes that star constilations look the same from all points in space, not to mention that daniel shouldn't have even been able to figure out the gate system in the first place.
If you go to another planet 90 degrees west of earth, orion wouldn't look the way we see it, it may just make a bunch of scribble. The very reason this happens defeats the purpose of the stargate system, and that's because although stars look like they have been arranged on a neat 2D peice of paper, they are actually very spread out, one star in the big dipper may only be 20 lightyears from earth(guessing), while the one that we precieve to be right next to it is 500 lightyears from earth(guessing).
Daniel could have never figured out the gate system because the constilations that we see today are far from what the ancients would have seen when they built the stargate, like I said before, when the stargates were built the stars would have looked like a bunch of scribble. Ironic since the very first episode of stargate talks a lot about stellar drift.
And finally if I were the ancient in charge of building the stargate, it would have been much easier to just build a grid system, and a computer in the stargates that compinsates for the drift over time, and of course addresses, not based on constilations but a ordered set, like our streets today, 11th street, 12th street, 13th street. Instead in the original stargate movie, daniel says that the symbols minus the origin are the way the stargate figures out where the planet is, which really is shown to be stupid, because there are a bunch of gates in the middle of nothing in SGA, what constilations do those use???

[Blistna]

I think I'm being misunderstood here.

Let's say I wanted to give somebody directions to a certain room in a building or something, I would just give directions such as "left, right, right, 3rd room on the left."

I wouldn't give directions like "left, right, right, 3rd room on the left coming from my office."

Now I understand the gate needs a point to begin plotting from but are you telling me such an advanced device needs to be told where it is? AND it can only be in one place?

I guess when it really comes down to it, the point of origin can't change, so why have it in a system in which different "variables" are selected, and not just permanently embedded or "wired" into the gate or something like that?

Well, look at it this way:

you ask me where is my house. I tell you, "Well, go down Broad street until you come to the intersection, then make a right on Lamar Alexandra, then turn left onto Hollwood Road, and your there!"

Then you give me a puzzled look, and say, "Where the hell do i start?"

Then I tell you, "Oh, yea, I live in London."

And it all just clicks.

And yes, the advanced piece of technology has be told where it is.

And Academy, hell man, you found a plotz-wholey! (lol)

[Crazy Tom]

Ys, teh coridnate system has confused me for some time now. But what kind of grid or cooridnate systems do the gate actualy use?

[xSFx]

Everyone knows that's just a plothole left over from the Stargate movie.

[umopapisdn]

Everyone knows that's just a plothole left over from the Stargate movie.

Do they?

[xSFx]

They needed a reason to justify Daniel's genius and then another reason to keep the team on the planet until Ra dropped by.

Otherwise, just look at IP addresses. There's nothing about an IP address that contains info about the source.

[Chappa'ai]

YES the advanced piece of Tech needs to know where it is.

The point of origin serves the purpose of telling how far to go. To borrow the analogy from 'blistna' or even your own office analogy, unless you know where to start you have no idea where youre going.

If you are in a City and some tells you go four blocks, turn left head two blocks and turn right, and you are at your destination. Depending on what street youre on, and what direction you are facing you could end up in any millions of places. The six symbols form a 3 dimensional cross which isolates the destination, and the point of origin tells the gate how far to travel, and how much energy to use to activate that gate.

As for Stellar Drift and Constellation Maps, we Believe that the universe is constantly expanding, in the real world this is a widely accepted theory, so the DHD computers need to update, and its been stated in the show that they do. We dont even know that the Glyphs are akin to constellations, they could have a different meaning entirely, the entire thing about constellations is human speculation.

It could be a grid, or sphere, or an Alphabet none of the ancient characters (to my knowledge) have stated the glyphs as constellational representations.