Alternate dialing theory

[Serenity000]

I was thinking and I realized that the way doesn't quite make sense for how the gates work. I get that three lines, AB CD EF, if they intercept will give exact location but that doesn't work for for constellations. Constellations are on a 2-D plane in a sphere. My theory is that the three lines form sort-of a gun sight that points the wormhole in a direction, the seventh symbol is still a PoO, and the gate is smart enough to know which gate the dial wants. I know this goes against the canon, but as far as I know it was only mentioned in the original movie, by and archeologist.

So what do you think.

[thekillman]

the symbols form an area to which the gate sends a call, the gates in the area respond and the most "accurate" gate responds, they simultaneously activate and form a wormhole

[K^2]

There has been a lot of discussion on the coordinates before. General consensus is that:

1) A particular star from constellation is used as a 3D point. Most likely the brightest one.

2) The 3 lines system is still not going to work, because 3 lines in space do not generally intersect.

There are a number of adjustments to the system. In my own system, I suggest using intersection of 3 planes defined by the 6 glyphs, instead of 3 lines. This guarantees an intersection point. It lets me name any point in Milky Way galaxy with decent precision. However, it reduces number of available addresses by a factor of 6.

Other suggestions included things like using Sol-Glyph lines as vectors, with different weights. On the plus side, this system would produce the right number of combinations. The problem is that it requires Sol as a fixed point of origin and that it has no relation whatsoever with canon.

[ColdZero]

There has been a lot of discussion on the coordinates before. General consensus is that:

1) A particular star from constellation is used as a 3D point. Most likely the brightest one.

2) The 3 lines system is still not going to work, because 3 lines in space do not generally intersect.

There are a number of adjustments to the system. In my own system, I suggest using intersection of 3 planes defined by the 6 glyphs, instead of 3 lines. This guarantees an intersection point. It lets me name any point in Milky Way galaxy with decent precision. However, it reduces number of available addresses by a factor of 6.

Other suggestions included things like using Sol-Glyph lines as vectors, with different weights. On the plus side, this system would produce the right number of combinations. The problem is that it requires Sol as a fixed point of origin and that it has no relation whatsoever with canon.

The symbols could have just been chosen because they looked cool to the Ancients and the combination of symbols actually references an internal coordinate system that refers to the specific location. How would you ever chart a stargate address on a distant world without knowing where Earth was already to figure out the symbols?

[ColdZero]

the symbols form an area to which the gate sends a call, the gates in the area respond and the most "accurate" gate responds, they simultaneously activate and form a wormhole

Since teams have never been sent to the wrong planet without some outside influence on the wormhole (black hole, baal messing around) that would be unlikely. Since there's no ambiguity in which gate you are going to, there's isn't a most accurate response, theres only the gate that was dialed. The recieving gate has nothing to do with the dialing sequence or coordinates.

[Quadhelix]

There are a number of adjustments to the system. In my own system, I suggest using intersection of 3 planes defined by the 6 glyphs, instead of 3 lines. This guarantees an intersection point. It lets me name any point in Milky Way galaxy with decent precision. However, it reduces number of available addresses by a factor of 6.

What if the star in the constellation that the glyph represents depends on where the glyph is in the address: if it is the first/second glyph, use the brightest star; if it is the third/forth glyph, use the second brightest star; if it is the fifth/sixth glyph, use the third brightest star.

[diMaggio]

[...]
2) The 3 lines system is still not going to work, because 3 lines in space do not generally intersect.

But doesn't that depend on how exactly the Stargates were distributed?
I mean, there's at least one way to guarantee that the "3 lines intersection" method works:

Whenever you want to place a Stargate on a new planet, you do the following:
1. Choose 2 constellations in the galaxy (which have other Stargates) which form a line running through the planet.
2. Choose 2 other constellations with the same properties as the ones in 1.
Optional:
3. Repeat step 2 for two other constellations.

Granted, there is no guarantee that there are groups of 4 or more constellations which have these properties, but in a GALAXY full of Stargates it should be pretty probable.
Depends, of course, on the number and distribution of Stargates.
But you could just "make" a constellation that fits the properties by placing another Stargate in it.
This repeats all steps for that Stargate then as well, so it's a probability game.


I just had another thought:
Is it true that there are only constellation symbols on a Stargate where there is Stargate in it as well? If so, then I think I see a problem:

Let's assume we are the Ancients and we want to place our first Stargate.
The problem is: In order to be able to dial it, we need 6 constellations where there are other Stargates.
Well, no problem, for the sake of placing our first Stargate we just place these other 6 Stargates in the right constellations.
New problem:
For every of these 6 Stargates we have to repeat this step.
I think you see where I'm going...
1 Stargate -> needs 6 other Stargate
6 Stargates -> needs up to 12 other Stargate
etc.

Of course constellations can be reused for more than one Stargate, but there are bound to be Stargates that just can't be dialled.

This only holds true though if a constellation must have another Stargate in it. If this is NOT a rule, then this is not a problem. Well, not at first.

What about a Stargate that is at the edge of a galaxy and is therefore lacking a "neighbouring" constellation in at least one direction?
Well ok we'd only need 4 constellations really, but you get my point.
What if there are too less constellations around it?

So no matter how you turn it, in the end it's an eternal expansion problem.
You'll always have to fill the universe with more and more Stargate if you want to be able to dial the all.

Any thoughts?

[diMaggio]

What if the star in the constellation that the glyph represents depends on where the glyph is in the address: if it is the first/second glyph, use the brightest star; if it is the third/forth glyph, use the second brightest star; if it is the fifth/sixth glyph, use the third brightest star.

That's actually a good idea, because this means that every constellation could be used several times for different starting points of the intersection lines.
So if there are 3 Stars in a constellation, then - depending of its place in the address - you can use the symbol for 3 different starting points.
Combined with another constellation as an end point of a line, which has 2 Stars, you could create 6 slightly different lines.

So basically for a line from constellation A to constellation B:
number_of_stars(A) x number_of_stars(B) = all possible lines

Very good thinking.

[K^2]

But doesn't that depend on how exactly the Stargates were distributed?
I mean, there's at least one way to guarantee that the "3 lines intersection" method works:

Whenever you want to place a Stargate on a new planet, you do the following:
1. Choose 2 constellations in the galaxy (which have other Stargates) which form a line running through the planet.
2. Choose 2 other constellations with the same properties as the ones in 1.
Optional:
3. Repeat step 2 for two other constellations.

If you try to actually do this, you'll quickly find that with 36 glyphs, you can't build a lot of addresses. Try it on a 2D plane with 6 glyphs. And just use intersections of two lines to mark a point.

Another problem, what is the point of the 3rd line? Intersection of two lines already gives you a unique point. The requirement that 3rd line passes through the same point only restricts the available placement of reference points for glyphs.

3 planes, in contrast, ALWAYS have an intersection point somewhere, unless they happen to be parallel, but as long as no 3 reference points in constellations are collinear, which choosing brightest stars achieves, then this situation never happens. So by choosing brightest star in each constellation and using pairs of stars to define planes, you will get over 230 million unique points, most of which are in our region of galaxy, but plenty of which are in the rest of the galaxy, and with some extending well outside of our galaxy. Basically, this would give you everything you need for the MW network.

What if the star in the constellation that the glyph represents depends on where the glyph is in the address: if it is the first/second glyph, use the brightest star; if it is the third/forth glyph, use the second brightest star; if it is the fifth/sixth glyph, use the third brightest star.

I don't know if that would make any significant difference. The first 3 brightest stars would still be in reference to Earth. That would mean that they are all very close to Earth, and in the same general direction from Earth.

I can try and run a simulation using my address system, and forming addresses for a few random points of interest in MW to see if using your idea would find addresses closer to these locations.

[diMaggio]

If you try to actually do this, you'll quickly find that with 36 glyphs, you can't build a lot of addresses. Try it on a 2D plane with 6 glyphs. And just use intersections of two lines to mark a point.

I guess it depends on how dense you can pack groups of six coordinates so that as much individual coordinates from one group are reusable for as much other groups as possible.
I plotted a little bit around on paper, but because I'm not a math genius I started to draw some possibilities in 3D, which is really challenging.
Everything that goes farther than orthogonal drawings is a b**ch.
First I lined them up in a linear fashion, like atom structures in a diamond.
Then I've changed it a bit and so far I've managed to put 6-coordinate groups together in such a way that every single coordinate can be at least used twice, i.e. can be used as a coordinate in at least one other 6-coordinate group.
As I've said I'm not a pro at math, so from the top of my hat I have no idea how to generalise the calculation to sum up the number possible intersections for a given number of 6-coordinate groups.

But apart from that it's clear that this is an approach that has a very high order, and as we know the constellations in the universe probably won't be in such an order.

In the end it all depends on good "cram-together" math, but I'll definitely take a closer look at your planes suggestion.

Another problem, what is the point of the 3rd line? Intersection of two lines already gives you a unique point. The requirement that 3rd line passes through the same point only restricts the available placement of reference points for glyphs.

I know, that's the reason why I said "Optional".^^

[...]
Optional:
3. Repeat step 2 for two other constellations.
[...]

[K^2]

I don't know if the DL link still works, but if you follow the link in my sig, I posted a 3D simulation of the local star system (within about 10,000 ly from Earth.) with ability to dial the 3-plane address. If the RapidShare link is dead, let me know, and I'll upload it elsewhere.

[diMaggio]

I downloaded your program before, but for some reason it crashes, shortly after it shows a screen with Stars and at the top some constellation symbols.
I have no idea why it isn't working, but now I'll gonna try it on my laptop, you've made me curious.^^

[Kailias]

The way the stargate system works is actually a plot hole if you think about it.

In the movie, the address system represented 6 points in space (represented by constellations).. with the 7 symbol you'd have to dial being the home location in order to establish a wormhole.

The series was originally based on this, until i'm sure someone thought much the same way that is being discussed in this thread.. that it doesn't really work well... or while it does work, it will eventually cause all kinds of problems. 2 gates that are close to each other would make dialing difficult.. how would you control which one you ended up on?

Another one off the top of my head, if the symbols were based on constellations... Wouldn't the constellations look different depending on what part of the galaxy you were in? Or what if a constellation was obscured by a Black hole or something? So you have one set of symbols on one DHD let's say the one on earth (i know earth doesn't really use on.. its for example) while earth's address was still the same.. a DHD on the other side of the galaxy would have completely different symbols that matched the constellations from that perspective in the galaxy that would require you to examine the sky for God knows how long in order to get home again.

Another problem is.. we know that Stargates communicate their positions to one another every now and then... If an incoming wormhole just had to be close, and not exact... there would really be no need for them to do this. I mean, assuming the Chevrons are actually based on Constellations you could be off by many, many, lightyears and still get a hit as long as the gate you were trying to reach was the center most gate in the six chevron address.

Later on in the series Morgana set up a series of Stargates that were disconnected from the regular gate network to hide Merlin while he was in stasis. If the gates worked by simply knowing where the coordinates to dial were. There really wouldn't be a way to disconnect a gate from the network, if you dialed to the right place... You would get a hit.

Not really related, but knowing that Stargates communicate their positions to at least the next closest stargate and exchange information with one another. Shouldn't really be a big thing to tap into a Stargate do a query and eventually find the address/location of every Stargate in the network. However, no one is ever able to do this... but they do find a way to simultaneously activate every gate in the galaxy.

See what I mean?

The first attempt I noticed to correct the problem, is when O'neil ended up with the ancient knowledge in his head for the 2nd time. And Daniel realized that each chevron represents a syllable in the Ancient language... So each gate address was supposed to be a six syllable word representing the place you were going. Which is what I currently hold in my head as the way the Gates work, as that simply makes more sense than anything else. Each gate is assigned a static six symbol sequence that does not change, that becomes the name of the planet the gate is on. You tell whoever your talking to the name of the planet your on, they don't need to have any idea where it is, as long as they can spell it out on the DHD they can get to you.

Or i suppose if you wanted to be die hard about the whole thing.. .there is a fix to the problem. Have the DHD symbols represent constellations in the sky as seen from the planet that you are currently on. Meaning the symbols would be different for lots of different DHD's depending on where in the galaxy you are. Now, assign each spot on the DHD (NOT the symbol) an underlying numerical value starting at 1 on the outside and working clockwise in, so that every button is numbered. This way doesn't matter if you've never seen the symbols on the DHD before, as long as you know where the buttons for earth or somewhere else should be, you can press them in the right order and get home. I'm not going to do it, but i'm sure you could invent some really sophisticated math explaining how the numbers actually correspond to different parts of the galaxy and that's how you know what constellation in the sky to use, and where to put it on the DHD.

[K^2]

Constellation, by itself, defines a solid angle in the sky with Earth/Sol at the origin. It is a useless thing in navigation to just about anywhere. The consensus is that each constellation actually represents a particular object that happens to be located in that constellation when viewed from Earth. Consequently, glyphs for constellations are what they look like from Earth. Since beyond this the glyph image is arbitrary, same glyphs are used to mark the set of reference objects regardless of where in the galaxy you actually are.

Which objects are used is a big question. I used brightest stars in my simulation, but there is not a lot of evidence for it. For all we know, these could be very distant objects that are easy to find. Pulsars could be great candidates, as they can be "seen" from just about anywhere in the galaxy with the right equipment, and they are easy enough to distinguish from each other and other objects due to their fixed period.

As for coordinates updates, it seems that the reason that gates would not connect is more of a safety feature than complete inability to locate the other gate. We see from early episodes of SG-1 that a small error results in a velocity mismatch on arrival. If this mismatch is too great, travel becomes dangerous, and gates most likely simply refuse to establish connection. If the gate is taken too far from the location, it cannot be accessed by other gates for correlative updates, allowing one to create an isolated sub-network.

For multiple gates in one location, we see that there is precedence. Only one gate at a location will be accessible.

[Ice Wolf]

A lot of how the Stargate dialing and co-ordinates work doesn't make any sense.

For starters the addresses on Abydos not working, yet later we find out that the gates/dialing devices update themselves to correct for drift etc.
If this is true then only the earth gate would have been affected and instead of recalculating each address they would just have to update the dialing computer to account for the drift. Also the Earth address wouldn't have worked.
The addresses shouldn't change and realistically drift shouldn't matter as a 7 symbol address seems to be for the co-ordinates for a single galaxy.

The only thing that made sense is that symbols are just that symbols with no actual relation to what they look like, chosen to represent the co-ordinates, which were given sounds so that they could be spoken as a name so that addresses could be easily remembered.