Total Gate Addresses

[Three PhDs]

All of this meaning, that if there were all of these possible gates, then there would be 1987690320!*63606090240!*2035394887680! possible addresses that you could dial total from all gates! I don't know about you, but that's one hell of a lot. Can anyone tell me what the grand total comes out to? Both my calculater and my laptop can't cruch that many numbers. Think about it.

No... what are you thinking? The biggest possible combination you can dial is using nine chevrons. You're doing nine chevrons multiplied by eight chevrons by seven chevrons.

[Kralizec]

No... what are you thinking? The biggest possible combination you can dial is using nine chevrons. You're doing nine chevrons multiplied by eight chevrons by seven chevrons.

Yeah, you'd need to in order to get all the gates from every system. The seven symbols will get you the first batch, eight the second, and nine the third. To add these in, you need to multiply them together. I'm trying to find the maximum number of addresses (from every gate, to every gate), and that number will be huge.

[Three PhDs]

Yeah, you'd need to in order to get all the gates from every system. The seven symbols will get you the first batch, eight the second, and nine the third. To add these in, you need to multiply them together. I'm trying to find the maximum number of addresses (from every gate, to every gate), and that number will be huge.

Then you would add them, not multiply them. Where can I get with seven, where can I get with eight, where can I get with nine? Add the three, and also bear in mind that you'd need to take into consideration overlap between addresses of nine chevrons where the first eight, seven or six are the same as others of a lower order and so on.

[immhotep]

its still more gates than the universe has planets and the ancinets had the facilitys to place IMO.

[AngelusInsomnus]

Indeed. The grand majority of combinations just don't work.

[Three PhDs]

its still more gates than the universe has planets and the ancinets had the facilitys to place IMO.

And there are more possible phone numbers than phones in the world. What's your point caller?

[Deckker]

I think there is a mistake here in the addressing system.

The number of address refers to a grid reference in space, not a planet or star system.

If you guys remember Season 1 Esp 1, The address on the wall required recaculations to make them work to accomdate for plantery drift.

What is interesting, is that they all work on a single point of reference to create addresses, does that mean there is a supergate or computer somewhere that is consider the reference marker?

[Kralizec]

I think there is a mistake here in the addressing system.

The number of address refers to a grid reference in space, not a planet or star system.

If you guys remember Season 1 Esp 1, The address on the wall required recaculations to make them work to accomdate for plantery drift.

What is interesting, is that they all work on a single point of reference to create addresses, does that mean there is a supergate or computer somewhere that is consider the reference marker?

Interesting theory, I'd completly forgotten about that. That would totally change things, but there is still a maximum number of possible combinations, so... Maybe I should just spend my time on more productive things .

[Deckker]

Agreed there is still a Max number, but far more than what is needed for colonization. If you break the galaxy into sq grids based on your numbers, it becomes rather managable to travel with sub-light engines, if every possible addressed had a gate.

[Jarnin]

I think there is a mistake here in the addressing system.

The number of address refers to a grid reference in space, not a planet or star system.

If you guys remember Season 1 Esp 1, The address on the wall required recaculations to make them work to accomdate for plantery drift.

What is interesting, is that they all work on a single point of reference to create addresses, does that mean there is a supergate or computer somewhere that is consider the reference marker?

The DHD is the computer you're looking for. They do coorelative updates every so often in order to keep the coordinate system in order.
Distributed is the way to go with a system like the Stargate network. That's why the Avenger 2.0 virus was so nasty; it jumbled up the coordinate system in the DHDs when they did an update, which resulted in people not being able to dial out with a gate controlled by a DHD. Imagine if the entire network was controlled by a single computer, and it was infected with a virus...

If you break the galaxy into sq grids based on your numbers, it becomes rather managable to travel with sub-light engines, if every possible addressed had a gate.

The coordinate system has to work on a universal scale, not just galactic. Without a universal coordinate system, a DHD in the Milky Way would have no way to determine where a planet was in another galaxy.

I'm guessing that's what the special control crystal McKay was playing around with in Home was; without that crystal, the DHD wouldn't have coordinates to other galaxies, and so couldn't dial outside it's own galactic network.

[Deckker]

The DHD is the computer you're looking for. They do coorelative updates every so often in order to keep the coordinate system in order.
Distributed is the way to go with a system like the Stargate network. That's why the Avenger 2.0 virus was so nasty; it jumbled up the coordinate system in the DHDs when they did an update, which resulted in people not being able to dial out with a gate controlled by a DHD. Imagine if the entire network was controlled by a single computer, and it was infected with a virus...

Ahh Yes, I forgot about Avenger 2.0. Agreed that a distrubuted system has to be the only way the Stargate can operate. I need to go back and watch the esp to understand better, but I think there is a slight flaw.

The virus affects the DHD not the stargate, thus not actually changing the addressing system. Since you can dial a non-DHD stargate and get stuck there, or dail without a DHD.

The coordinate system has to work on a universal scale, not just galactic. Without a universal coordinate system, a DHD in the Milky Way would have no way to determine where a planet was in another galaxy.

I'm guessing that's what the special control crystal McKay was playing around with in Home was; without that crystal, the DHD wouldn't have coordinates to other galaxies, and so couldn't dial outside it's own galactic network.

This would imply that the function was built into every Stargate, but never used. Because the 1st time 8 chervons was used was to get to the Asgards, and there was no modfication to the gate, only the power supply and the Dailing computer was updated. I agree it has to work on a Universal scale, since we know the Ori can drop Pirors on any planet.

[KairezLightkeeper]

Maybe the ninth chevron dials to other universes! (Dun, dun, DUN!) Yeah, I know Carter said that the Stargate wasn't designed to take travelers to other universes like the dimensional mirror... but she's been wrong before.

Additionally, since no one seems to have mentioned it, the Stargates in the Pegasus Galaxy have 36 symbols on them ("The Botherhood"). Since the same point-of-origin rule still applies in Pegasus, the possible number of combinations within Pegasus would be 1,168,675,200. Adding the eighth chevron would give us 33,891,580,800; nine would be 948,964,262,400.

[Abiron]

Of course, all of this assumes that there are only 39 symbols in the gate network dialing system. I would disagree with that assumption. Since each glyph represents a point in space, and those points are updated based on stellar drift and other factors by the gates themselves, there is no reason why there would be only 39 "points" in the system.

Think of it this way. Each glyph is "shorthand" for a spatial coordinate. Press the glyph on the DHD, and the DHD sends that coordinate to the gate, which uses it to target the recieving gate. If you have some method for inputting other coordinates that are not found on a specific gate or DHD, such as the SGC dialing computer, you can do so...which may explain the presence of the Abydos Point of Origin glyph in several addresses used by the SGC. But if you have only a DHD, you can only enter the coordinates represented by the keys. If you don't even have that, the gate has a hard-coded coordinate set which is accessed via manual dialing.

Does this mean that gates and DHD's without additional glyphs are unable to dial some destinations? Possibly, but maybe not. It's possible that a destination point can be defined by more than one set of coordinates, since all they're really doing is defining a point in space. And it's a pretty big point, too...after all, the target planet could be anywhere along its orbital path when dialed, so at the very least we're talking a 1AU targeting solution (assuming that the coordinate is actually pointing to a star and not the planet itself).

(As for the 9th chevron, my personal belief is that it's used during the inital setup of a gate or when one is moved from one system to another to "zero" the gate and tell the network where the new/relocated gate actually is, setting the local Point of Origin.)

[Abiron]

The coordinate system has to work on a universal scale, not just galactic. Without a universal coordinate system, a DHD in the Milky Way would have no way to determine where a planet was in another galaxy.

I'm guessing that's what the special control crystal McKay was playing around with in Home was; without that crystal, the DHD wouldn't have coordinates to other galaxies, and so couldn't dial outside it's own galactic network.

I'm not sure that would be necessary.

With 8 chevrons, you would still use the first 6 to define a coordinate in the local network (Milky Way or Pegasus). The existence of a 7th (that isn't the Point of Origin) tells the system, "Use that point as a targeting vector, not a destination." The exact glyph used as the 7th tells the system, "Using that vector, target the wormhole X distance beyond the vector point." This would mean that each glyph has a second value for the distance calculation, and thus this might be a case where a chevron could be reused (once for coordinate and once for distance).

I would guess that the Pegasus network gates do not have the secondary values for distance encoded at all, except for the Atlantis gate, and would therefore not even understand an 8-glyph address.

[Deckker]

I always have treated the 8th Chevron to change what all the symbols refers on the gate to the addressing system placed in another galaxy.

No matter how advance the gates are, there is a upper limit to the max possible size of the gate network.

I also suspect that the gate work in the Milkly way was designed to not allow travel to the Ori Galaxy, but that is my belief.