Non-space-ready races in Pegasus + SpaceGates

[wise one]

the gate u would dial wouldnt tell anything about there being breathable atmosphere or nothing just that you have to transport one thing to the other otherwise the ancinets should costumized the gate with like a warning beacon that goes once a gate and established itself saying that there is a blackhole on the otherside or a volcano spilling lava everywhere.

so my answer would be they wouldnt know if it was a space gate till they float and die

[nhall]

but earth could have de-assembled a DHD and remade it into a power suply which can attach its self like the ones incorperate into SpaceGates.

They could do that.... ooor.... two words: Naquadah. Generators.

[PureMarksman]

They could do that.... ooor.... two words: Naquadah. Generators.

No way they used Naquadah Generators, i mean no offence but if they want to use a gate more than 3 or 4 times (correct me if im wrong) theres no way they can depend on a naquadah generator. And even they did keep replacing them in the long run they would have saved alot more of there resources on researching and rebuilding a DHD.

[Fayala Furling]

they use a M.A.L.P on a stick

LOL! I guess a non-space-ready race could use M.A.L.P on a stick if it was a plant and couldnt' breathe, except M.A.L.P on a stick wouldn't work on a real stargate with the thing not fully materialized until the whole M.A.L.P was through the gate but I appreaciate the humour!

[Fayala Furling]

.......why then did Mckay make it sound like they were only harvesting space gates? Wouldn't it have been faster to look for any gates on uninhabited worlds?......

Perhaps this is an issue of time, - ease of location (ie locating a space gate vs locating an unused gate on land. You could argue that there's less energy involved in harvesting a gate that's already in space but with beaming technology that's not really an issue...I'll have to watch that episode again...

[SG-25CSAR]

They didn't want to alert the Wraith in thier harvesting of gates. So the best way to collect PG gates is to find unused gates. The best way to know that they are unused was to get gates in space over Uninhabited worlds. In the Milkyway, Thanks to countless SG team missions, we already know witch ones are used and wich ones are onused. And There is no fear in haveing the Wraith find out.

[Anonmatel]

I'll assume for a minute that the only way to dial OUT of a space gate is with a DHD on board a ship, so from the start, unless you had a Puddle Jumper or a Wraith Dart information on these gate addresses would not have been passed on so easy.

[Xaeden]

I don't understand why space gates on uninhabited worlds are better than regular gates on uninhabited worlds if they could use just any old gate though. We have evidence to suggest that the Wraith ignore planets where there aren't Humans on them so it wouldn't effect them either way and we know Atlantis was running around dialing lots of gate addresses and searching for life signs on various different worlds to find their gates where as the SGC would've know right where to go in the Milky Way, as you said, so Atlantis would've been holding back the construction of the bridge. When Atlantis was doing just that they came upon Lucius because they detected life signs on a world where the Stargate was on the ground so they obviously didn't know the difference between Spacegates and regular gates in advance and therefore would've had to find an unknown number of regular gates on uninhabited worlds before they found all the spacegates they needed.

[Vala_M]

I always figured that they only knew addresses that were confirmed safe and none of the space ones.

Vala,

[SG-25CSAR]

I don't understand why space gates on uninhabited worlds are better than regular gates on uninhabited worlds if they could use just any old gate though. We have evidence to suggest that the Wraith ignore planets where there aren't Humans on them so it wouldn't effect them either way and we know Atlantis was running around dialing lots of gate addresses and searching for life signs on various different worlds to find their gates where as the SGC would've know right where to go in the Milky Way, as you said, so Atlantis would've been holding back the construction of the bridge. When Atlantis was doing just that they came upon Lucius because they detected life signs on a world where the Stargate was on the ground so they obviously didn't know the difference between Spacegates and regular gates in advance and therefore would've had to find an unknown number of regular gates on uninhabited worlds before they found all the spacegates they needed.

good point, but it is possible that Hunters could used Uninhabited worlds to hunt for whatever reason. Then their Runners. The Wriath would patrol these empty world in order to find hiding runners. If the gate i in space it would be pointless to look for a runner there.

[Yeade]

In a rather long LJ discussion (scroll down for the first comment thread), my friend and I concluded that the Ancients may have adapted a few stargates for space with flexibility in mind. For instance, a spacegate can be towed around or even sent through hyperspace (cf. the Asurans in "First Strike") from planet to planet while ground-based stargates are installed. Spacegates might also facilitate the construction of space stations and the like, and highly developed planets (though I think I argue there might not have been any non-Ancient ones at the time of the Ancient-Wraith war) with a great deal of space traffic may find spacegates more convenient and can then put the open land a heavily used stargate needs to another purpose.

After the Ancients left Pegasus, or so our theory goes, the Wraith took the spacegate technology for their own use, as is their wont. To, as somebody noted up-thread, prevent food from escaping via the stargate and protect themselves when hibernating. Wraith hives are particularly vulnerable when parked on some planet with only a keeper (if that) and her guards awake to defend against, say, a small, determined strike force armed with a big bomb.

Regarding the gate bridge, I was under the impression that the Milky Way has no spacegates. That the stargates in the Milky Way half of the bridge are ground-based gates modified for space use. Spacegates have those additional three power nodes, yes, while regular stargates are powered by, as I understand, a source in the DHD. Maybe the DHD power supply was removed from the DHD and attached directly to the stargate? Since I think the Wraith did something similar to most of the spacegates in Pegasus, I don't see why McKay and Carter, working together, can't figure it out.

[Xaeden]

I wouldn't necessarily say I believe that the Milky Way has spacegates. Rather that up until the Return Part I, I felt that I was lead to believe (perhaps simply due to fault of my mine) that the gate bridge would be made up entire of Spacegates and when they revealed that it was made up of Milky Way gates as well it was enough for me to question the possibility that perhaps there were Milky Way spacegates. However, as I've mentioned previously it's not out of the realm of possibility that they simply have a DHD floating next to each gate. Right now there's just not an extensive enough explaination for how the gate bridge works. I have, however, long had a theory that space gates were created specifically for the Pegasus galaxy as a way to prevent the Wraith from infesting planets throughout the Pegasus galaxy and feeding on Humans (which would've given the Ancients time to get rid of the Wraith on all planets without fear that more would just run back through the Stargate). However, as the Ancients were in the process of moving them all into space the Wraith developed a dart like craft to counter it so they stopped working on that plan.

As far as the Wraith's use of the Spacegates go I really don't think they have made any modifications to the regular gates. Rather I think they've just been using them as the Ancients left them. The explaination that they moved some gates into space to prevent their food from escaping fails to explain why then there are so many gates that are on the planet. You'd think they'd move them all or most into space, but why choose which to allow Human access to so arbitrarily? Then the idea that they either picked spacegate planets to land their Hives on or that they moved them there to protect said Hives doesn't pan out. In Underground, Sheppard and the Genii visit a Hive on a planet with a Stargate on the ground and we were led to believe there used to be other such Hives that the Genii thought they could bomb even though there was direct mention of them knowing that for a fact. Then in Reunion we learn that Ronon and his friends striked at a "stronghold" and that their people made raids to many more places like that. There certainly were plenty of spacegate planets to hide strongholds (which may mean Hive given that it doesn't look like a ship on the ground) and Hives on. If they were so afraid of Humans attacking them why put some on such worlds specifically to keep them out of the Human's reach, but leave others out in the open? Simply landing a Hive far away from a gate, perhaps on another continent should do the trick without all the extra fuss - The Hive from Underground was a long walk from the gate and the research station in Reunion was a bit of a walk as well. Which does suggest some sense of trying to protect what is theirs, but I think the Wraith use planets randomly based on where Humans do not live. If there's a spacegate there fine, but it doesn't seem to hold any major significance to the Wraith based on the patterns we've seen so far.

All of the said, the theory I have for spacegates that I think makes the most sense is that the Ancients were studying/guiding Human development throughout the galaxy. Thus they placed spacegates on planets where they wanted to observe Human development in isolation so that those Humans wouldn't be contaminated where as elewhere they watched interaction between Humans from different worlds. It fits with seeing a spacegate in the world from "The Game." Some other spacegate worlds that we have seen could've had those satellites at some point, but they were destroyed and many others yet may simply have been put over planets they would visit from time to time to do some research and return with notes - You only need the satellites if you want to experiment with personally aiding their development, not if you just want to see how they develop on their own in isolation and a spacegate offers you easy access to them without them being able to escape and in some cases being aware that there is anybody visiting them.

[Yeade]

I wouldn't necessarily say I believe that the Milky Way has spacegates. Rather that up until the Return Part I, I felt that I was lead to believe (perhaps simply due to fault of my mine) that the gate bridge would be made up entire of Spacegates and when they revealed that it was made up of Milky Way gates as well it was enough for me to question the possibility that perhaps there were Milky Way spacegates. However, as I've mentioned previously it's not out of the realm of possibility that they simply have a DHD floating next to each gate.

Oh. I somehow missed this on my quick read through the thread. Frankly, I don't remember the episode--"Irresistible," wasn't it?--in which the gate bridge was first mentioned very clearly. However, I do have some vague notion that I thought McKay was referring to gate harvesting in Pegasus where, of course, there are already spacegates. In addition, I was under the impression that spacegates had never been mentioned in the entire course of SG-1. I haven't watched much of SG-1, but there seemed, IMO, to be some surprise in "Rising" at finding the Wraith had taken Sumner et al. to a planet with a stargate in space. Could've been just Sheppard though. I'm not at all sure of these interpretations.

At any rate, regardless of what they once were, all the stargates in the bridge are now spacegates.

Right now there's just not an extensive enough explaination for how the gate bridge works. I have, however, long had a theory that space gates were created specifically for the Pegasus galaxy as a way to prevent the Wraith from infesting planets throughout the Pegasus galaxy and feeding on Humans (which would've given the Ancients time to get rid of the Wraith on all planets without fear that more would just run back through the Stargate). However, as the Ancients were in the process of moving them all into space the Wraith developed a dart like craft to counter it so they stopped working on that plan.

My only contention with this theory is that the Ancient-Wraith war never seemed quite this close to me. From what the hologram lady in "Rising" said, after encountering the Wraith, the Ancients were pushed off planet after planet without much pause or, put another way, the Wraith experiencing any major setbacks in their campaign for control of Pegasus. What you're describing--the Wraith war machine expanding so slowly that the Ancients consider mass modification of stargates in a process that's time-consuming enough for the Wraith to develop and build the number of darts needed to make spacegates negligible--strikes me as a stall that doesn't fit with the kind of relentless pressure I imagine the Wraith applied to the Ancients.

Besides, I believe the Wraith are specifically presented as a race with "powers" (I read: technology) that rival the Ancients', and I can't see how this could be said if the Wraith didn't already have spaceships.

The explaination that [the Wraith] moved some gates into space to prevent their food from escaping fails to explain why then there are so many gates that are on the planet. You'd think they'd move them all or most into space, but why choose which to allow Human access to so arbitrarily?

Well, the Wraith are territorial and, in fact, don't depend on sending darts through the stargate to cull; a big culling is done by launching darts from an orbiting hive ship. As I think different Wraith factions manage their feeding grounds differently, some Wraith may choose to move the stargate into space and others to continually dial in to lock up the stargate while leaving the thing on the ground ("Letters From Pegasus"). Furthermore, ground-based stargates facilitate trade and development among pre-space cultures. The more advanced a society becomes, the generally larger and healthier the population. Which, of course, the Wraith would desire. Either way works, IMO, so this is a matter of preference, i.e. it's arbitrary.

Then the idea that [the Wraith] either picked spacegate planets to land their Hives on or that they moved them there to protect said Hives doesn't pan out. [snip "Underground" and "Reunion" examples for space] There certainly were plenty of spacegate planets to hide strongholds (which may mean Hive given that it doesn't look like a ship on the ground) and Hives on. If they were so afraid of Humans attacking them why put some on such worlds specifically to keep them out of the Human's reach, but leave others out in the open?

Again, I think whether any particular hibernating hive has the extra protection of a spacegate depends on the preference of its Wraith keeper or queen. Especially if converting a regular stargate for space takes a bit of time and effort. What's more, I don't believe we've seen enough hibernating hives (and are unlikely to now) to conclusively decide this issue. There's "Rising," which had a spacegate, and "Underground," which didn't. A grand sample size of two, lol.

The Wraith installations in "Reunion" and, for that matter, "The Gift" and "Phantoms" were expendable, IMO, and aren't really comparable to a hive. Given their numbers and willingness to play with their food, the Wraith probably have such facilities all over Pegasus, none of which require the security of a hive, I think.

All of the said, the theory I have for spacegates that I think makes the most sense is that the Ancients were studying/guiding Human development throughout the galaxy. Thus they placed spacegates on planets where they wanted to observe Human development in isolation so that those Humans wouldn't be contaminated where as elewhere they watched interaction between Humans from different worlds.

Yes, I agree that's also a possibility. (Good catch on "The Game"!) Another that was mentioned in my LJ was that the Ancients had established prison or quarantine planets. For whatever reason.

My point is that there simply isn't enough information to say either the Ancients or the Wraith are solely responsible for the Pegasus spacegates. It could be both; it could--though I consider the possibility unlikely--be neither. The Wraith, however, have the technical know-how and motivation to turn normal stargates into spacegates, IMO.

[FallenAngelII]

First contact (off-screen) by jumper?

[Yeade]

Eh? I'm sorry, but I don't know what you're referring to.