All you ever wanted to know about the 9th chevron

[_Owen_]

Oh, if only that were my problem. I'd love to have me a Widescreen TV... besides... all the DVD's are Widescreen.

-IMF

maybe you just saw a wierd picture or assumed it looke diffrent or mayb u saw it from a wierd angle

[IMForeman]

maybe you just saw a wierd picture or assumed it looke diffrent or mayb u saw it from a wierd angle

Nah... it's probably just my addled brain.

-IMF

[sharky277]

actually on the DVD cases and aparently all stargate related DVD's, the 7th chevron is different, Its got a gap in the middle. Like in these examples:







Now you could say they strechted it to make it bigger for the box, but there really is no need too, at least the way I look at it.

P.S.- To get these pics I just typed in Stargate DVD in google.

P.S.S.- As near as I can tell, they don't use the special 7th chevroned gate on the show at all.

[IMForeman]

actually on the DVD cases and aparently all stargate related DVD's, the 7th chevron is different, Its got a gap in the middle. Like in these examples:




Now you could say they strechted it to make it bigger for the box, but there really is no need too, at least the way I look at it.

P.S.- to get these pics I just typed in Stargate DVD in google.

That's where I saw it! Thank you.

-IMF

[sharky277]

Your welcome

[_Owen_]

i bet that the ancients did that to avoid coming out upside down who ever wrote the idea to get enemies like that it is a good theory but i dont see how it would ever be needed both the earth stargate and atlantis stargate have shields... unless the team was trapped on another planet and were being attacked by goa'uld and couldnt dial out that would work

[Splitsecond]

imo the 9th chevron is used to connect to other networks, possibly alien or different purpose gate networks. for example they may have built bigger gates for ships that only connected to the same sized gates but when you activate the 9th chevron you can connect with another sized gate. maybe they had ring sized gates for travelling around a planet.

i dont like the extra distance idea because we have only seen one gate from each galaxy being connected to another galaxy. so maybe 7 chevrons lock the galaxy in an 8 chevron lock and a connection is made to the control crystal gate in the galaxy your trying to reach. eg in ida the asgard gate is the only one earth can connect to.

maybe it does something stupid like set the colour of the wormhole, adds a time delay, turns it off or puts on the answer mechine (how funny would it be if they found a gate with the 9th chevron lock then when they turned it off everyone that tried to get there since the ancients activated it appear all at the same time)

[Mr Prophet]

i dont like the extra distance idea because we have only seen one gate from each galaxy being connected to another galaxy. so maybe 7 chevrons lock the galaxy in an 8 chevron lock and a connection is made to the control crystal gate in the galaxy your trying to reach. eg in ida the asgard gate is the only one earth can connect to.

I simply don't think that's the case. (Spoilers for Home)

Spoiler:

Rather, only Gates with an extra control crystal in their DHD - or a jury-rigged dialling programme - can accept an 8 chevron intergalactic address, but it could Gate anywhere within that galaxy.

[Jarnin]

I don't mean to shoot down all the nice 'theories' in this thread, but this has been discussed hundreds of times on many fan site forums, and the only logical conclusion is that it allows for even further dialing; as another poster said, like an international call.

Time travel is not a possibility: If you haven't seen "Before I Sleep" yet...

Spoiler:

The ancient council seems pretty dead set against time travel, so it makes no sense what so ever that they'd build that functionality into the stargates.

Multiple gates on a planet is also not a possibility: Planets aren't meant to have more than one gate on it at a time, which was shown in "Frozen", "Watergate" and probably a couple other episodes I'm forgetting.
For planetary travel you'd use the transporter rings, or a teleport beam like the Asgard, or one of the teleport closets like the ones on Atlantis.

A gate in orbit also doesn't pan out: We've seen in "The Serpents Lair" that when a Stargate is moved into orbit around a planet, it shares the same point of origin as the gate on the planet. We've also seen in "Rising pt 2" that an orbital gate doesn't require 9 chevrons to activate.

If you don't understand anything about the structures in our universe, there are only 3 things you need to worry about:

1. Star Systems make up galaxies.
2. Galaxies make up groups.
3. Groups make up clusters or superclusters.

The 8th chevron allows you to travel from one galaxy to another galaxy in the same group.

The 9th chevron would allows you to travel from one galaxy to another galaxy in a different cluster.

[dd78matt]

The "point of origin" thing was only used in the movie. In the series, gate addresses are always the same regardless of where you're dialling from.

While the address is same from any planet, you still need the PoO to plot a course.

But anyways, I was watching the movie last night, and it came to me, don't you only need 4 points to locate any spot in a three dimensional space?

Look, on the segment formed by the first two points, the area your are trying to lock onto is on that line somewhere. And then the second two points' segment intersects the original segment, and where it intersects is where the point is you are trying to locate. See so isn't it redundant to have two more points? where the other two points just put in so that there was a possibility for more addresses?

[_Owen_]

imo the 9th chevron is used to connect to other networks, possibly alien or different purpose gate networks. for example they may have built bigger gates for ships that only connected to the same sized gates but when you activate the 9th chevron you can connect with another sized gate. maybe they had ring sized gates for travelling around a planet.

(WARNING SEASON TWO AND FIVE, FIFTH RACE AND ASENCION SPOILERS HIGHLIGHT TO READ) that wouldnt be it because in seeason five the episode asecnion where the ancient comes to visit and stalks carter he builds a stargate in carters basment to escape the NID or whoever it was and the stargate he built was considerabley smaller than all of the other stargates but it still connected to the same network and he only used 7 chevrons and i doubt that he used more because if whatever amount of energy that is going into the SGC cant power an eighth chevron (see fifth race) then i doubt the power going into carters basment could power nine

[sueKay]

Here's an idea about the 9th Chevron!

Spoiler:

maybe it's a sort of cleaner for a puddle-jumper. Kinda like an automated car wash

[aeromathlete]

I've often wondered about the 9th chevron's function, except I'm watching The Fifth Race right now, and realized that the 9th chevron probably doesn't do anything. According to the 5th episode, the Ancients do mathematics in base 8. Which means they count to 8, and then what we know as 9 would be written as 11. It would be as odd for them to go to 9 as it is for us to go to 11. 10=8 seems like a good stopping point for the numbers.

It could be there because the gate needs an odd number of chevrons in order to look good. LOL. I mean, it is kind of nice to have one on the top, to stand out for the point of origin lock.

[Mr Prophet]

I've often wondered about the 9th chevron's function, except I'm watching The Fifth Race right now, and realized that the 9th chevron probably doesn't do anything. According to the 5th episode, the Ancients do mathematics in base 8. Which means they count to 8, and then what we know as 9 would be written as 11. It would be as odd for them to go to 9 as it is for us to go to 11. 10=8 seems like a good stopping point for the numbers.

It could be there because the gate needs an odd number of chevrons in order to look good. LOL. I mean, it is kind of nice to have one on the top, to stand out for the point of origin lock.

So most Ancients go up to eight and then they can't go any higher; but if the Gatebuilder Ancients need that little bit extra they can go all the way up to nine?

So...Why not go up to eight and just make eight louder.

...This Stargate goes up to nine.

[Dodge Baal]

This post contains references to The Fifth Race, Window of Opportunity, Red Sky, Torment of Tanalus, and SGA episode Home. So if you haven't seen these skip on by....











I've read through a lot of the theories and have actually witnessed some pretty heated discussions (i.e. near fist fight) between friends of mine about what the use of all nine chevrons would accomplish. But I figured I would throw my 2 1/2 cents in anyway....


Distance vs. Galaxy:

Correct me if I am wrong but from all of the episodes I've seen on the matter (specifically The Fifth Race and Rising Pt 1) it's only theory that the use of an 8th chevron indicates an additional distance calculation. I'm in the middle of watching seasons 1 thru 7 (again....for the Nth time) so I'll post again if I find another mention of it. I find this hard to swallow and believe that a more accurate description would be a specific galaxy (mentioned elsewhere in this thread).



DHD, 7 chevrons, and limitations:

In past episodes we've seen the gate do various things that *MAY* be considered an anomoly. Time travel, time loops, establishing a wormhole without dialing, remaining open because of a blackhole on the other end, opening a wormhole through a sun, etc. Because of this we know that the gate itself is not limited to it's current use and/or operational limitations. If you look at certain episodes a lot of gates on other worlds APPEAR to only have 7 rather than 9 chevrons. Most of the time the chevrons are just covered up by the stone steps holding it in place - but I think at least one episode had a gate that clearly only has 7 chevrons (I'm making notes on seasons 1-7 so I'll correct this later if I turn out to be wrong).

The second issue is the dialing computer vs. the DHD. By all indications I personally believe that the DHD itself is not capable of using more than 7 chevrons by itself or in it's current configuration (as seen in in SGA - Home). I belive that in most cases in order to use any extended features of the gate a more capable computer needs to be used (i.e. the SGA gate computer and the reprogramming Jack did in The Fifth Race). From the point of view of the Ancients the DHD is probably considered primitive and therefore is probably the most limiting part in the equation.


Base 8 math:

One of the possible restrictions that has been posed was that the use of 9 chevron would not fit into the whole base 8 math used by the Ancients. While it does have some merit for certain things it just doesn't fit. If the base 8 math (octal) played that much of a part in the construction and operation of the gate there would logically be 64 symbols (100 octal) rather than 39 (47 octal). Add in the assumption that a race as advanced as the Ancients would probably use quantum computing rather than transistors each 'bit' would most likely have 8 states (but only the primitive ones ). I think that there would need to be some canon dictated which fully explains the method of computers used by the Ancients before something like this could be fully explained. The best example/background for this however is the use of crystals which lend to the (strong) possibility of quantum computing. Regardless of what type of math used (base 10, base 8, base 2, etc) I don't think that it would impose significant limitations nor should it.


1444 Functions:

If you consider that the Ancients were smart enough to build the Stargate they would have had the foresight to make sure the abilities of the gate (or the network) could be extended beyonds it's initial purpose. This is where the use of all 9 chevrons would come in.

If you assume that the 7th and 8th chevrons act as a function indicator then all plausible theories about what the gate are possible and could be assumed to be true. In order to do this however the dialing computer (and the DHD's) would most likely need to be reconfigured/reprogrammed as was done in The Fifth Race. By acting as a 'function key' this would make for a new dialing sequence where the first 6 chevrons are an address, the 7th and 8th symbol specify the function to use (1444 possible when you exclude the origin symbol), and the 9th is the origin.




Here are some possibilities...

1. Allowing a wormhole to be activated without a gate at the destination address (requiring MUCH more power than a single ZPM). You could just end the dialing sequence at the 9th symbol and 'trust' the dialing computer to place the exit at a safe location or initiate an additional dialing sequence to provide specific coordinates on the destinatin planet. I know most people think that you MUST have a gate at the other end but I think that's only dictated by the SGC's current understanding of the capabilities/limitations of the gate technology - i.e. anything can be introduced to explain away current canon.


2. Ability to travel THROUGH a black hole. I find this intriguing because it would make more sense (and is quicker) than creating the technology to compensate for time-space distortion created by the presence of a black hole in order to get close enough to it to do anything (I forget the episode black holes are touched upon). The black hole itself acts as a super gate and the even horizon appears on the other side. Since we don't actually know if there IS another side of a black hole or what it's really like I can see this one working. This could even be one of the things researched by the Ancients as a method of 'manual ascention'


3. Remote dialing of another gate. This would also cause the event horizon at the origin to appear as a different color (say green) to indicate it was remote dialed and safe to pass through. The gate doing the dialing connects to the other gate (subspace or whatever method you wanna use) and initiate the dialing sequence as if it were a DHD. You could also do a multiple dialing sequence including the origin on the first go around and the destination on the next go if you want to activate it between worlds other than the dialing origin.

I find this one very plausible in the gate world since during the establishment of a wormhole 7 chevrons on the destination gate lock so it wouldn't be that far of a jump to have it initate a remote dialing sequence since we know that the origin and destination gates communicate in some fashion.


4. Time Travel. We've seen it before so it's always possible although I personally think it would suck for them to introduce something like this. Not because it's hokey but because time travel episodes are rarely if ever done right regardless of the show. Often things are introduced throughout the episode (either subtle or quite obvious) that SCREAM temporal paradox - resulting in complaints and people thinking it sucked.


5. Turns the color of the event horizon to alternating red and green for x-mas.


6. Creates a weapon possible of destroying entire planets.


7. With enough power creates a shield covering the entire planet to defend against attacks.


8. Allows additional gates to be activated and used in various ways (any described above). We know that multiple gates can be used at the same time as was seen in "Window of Opportunity".


9. Specify one of multiple gates on the same planet.


10. Select a specific gate on the same planet as the destination. This I think is a very good possibility since both the gate and the transporter rings appear to rely on pretty much the same technology and could have been a precursor to the transporter rings (or vice versa). As a matter of efficiency (and logic) they would have wanted to abandon the lenghty dialing sequence for same planet travel. This one is actually at the top of my list as cool/fun/plausible uses.


Other stuff

Something else to think about.....the dialing sequence does not have to be limited to 9 symbols. The reason I say this is that the origin symbol (unique to each planet) seems to work as a marker to initiate the sequence. What happens if you dial a short or even an extended sequence? That would elimiate the requirement/limitation of 9 symbols for certain operations. Here are some interesting scenarios....



Short sequence: Same planet travel:

4 symbols (destination gate ID - 2,085,136 possible)
1 symbol - origin.


Full 9 chevron sequence: Bi-directional wormhole:

6 symbols (Abydos coordinates - destination)
2 symbols (bi-directional function)
1 symbol - origin.


Extended sequence: Remote dialing:

6 symbols (Abydos coordinates - destination)
2 symbols (remote dial function)
1 symbol - origin.

After the origin locks and releases ALL chevrons lock, light up, and release to indicate the gate is ready for the next sequence.

6 symbols (Chulak coordinates - source)
1 symbol - origin.



Anyway just a few thoughts