The Sci. & Tech. Concordance and Discussion Thread

[Roscarrock]

Considering the terms for this are so generic, I'm not sure how to search for what I want... And I don't want to create a new topic on something I think is likely to have already been discussed:

If I were to dial in to Atlantis or the SGC from off-world, can they track my location (if I did nothing but dial the Gate)?

I would have thought the answer to be "yes." But I'm not sure. I only recently "discovered" the Stargate shows, and of the dozen or so I've seen, this hasn't come up. It's not in the Omnipedia, either (that I can find). And I don't have a personal McKay or Carter to ask

I thank you for all your help!

-Ross

[Seastallion]

Considering the terms for this are so generic, I'm not sure how to search for what I want... And I don't want to create a new topic on something I think is likely to have already been discussed:

If I were to dial in to Atlantis or the SGC from off-world, can they track my location (if I did nothing but dial the Gate)?

I would have thought the answer to be "yes." But I'm not sure. I only recently "discovered" the Stargate shows, and of the dozen or so I've seen, this hasn't come up. It's not in the Omnipedia, either (that I can find). And I don't have a personal McKay or Carter to ask

I thank you for all your help!

-Ross

If you were to dial out to another stargate, then the answer is no, they wouldn't no who was dialing into their stargate until you told them. There is no IFF code on the stargate, beyond whatever transmission protocols are setup between those who know each other. Otherwise, you won't know who is trying to come to your planet via the stargate.

Hope that helps.

[Wraith Scientist]

If you were to dial out to another stargate, then the answer is no, they wouldn't no who was dialing into their stargate until you told them. There is no IFF code on the stargate, beyond whatever transmission protocols are setup between those who know each other. Otherwise, you won't know who is trying to come to your planet via the stargate.

Hope that helps.

From Before I Sleep:

JANUS: I've blocked all addresses to the Gate except Earth. You will be safe.

WEIR: Thank you.

JANUS: Thank you, for giving me the hope that Atlantis will survive another ten thousand years ... after you discover it again.

It looked like Janus was able to 'block' certain wormholes, implying that he had some method of determining 'caller ID'. Either that or he modified the Earth gate to have it transmit a special code on connection to Atlantis or something

The 'blocking' itself could refer to stopping the wormhole engaging or just automatically raising the shield

[Seastallion]

From Before I Sleep:

JANUS: I've blocked all addresses to the Gate except Earth. You will be safe.

WEIR: Thank you.

JANUS: Thank you, for giving me the hope that Atlantis will survive another ten thousand years ... after you discover it again.

It looked like Janus was able to 'block' certain wormholes, implying that he had some method of determining 'caller ID'. Either that or he modified the Earth gate to have it transmit a special code on connection to Atlantis or something

The 'blocking' itself could refer to stopping the wormhole engaging or just automatically raising the shield

Well then, how would you explain the team being able to dial back into the gate after their arrival BEFORE they learned about the alternate timeline? I suppose Janus could've programmed the dialing computer to automatically unblock other wormholes from dialing in AFTER the stargate recieved the initial connection from Earth. On the other hand, I have an explanation for you that would fit the script of the show, AND not require the stargate to actually 'know' what address was being dialed in from.

It is actually rather simple. Janus could've easily programmed the stargate to accept only a wormhole that possessed enough power that it could ONLY be coming from another galaxy. He KNEW for a fact (by Weir herself) that NO ONE else from the MW knew where Atlantis was. The only thing Weir might have to worry about was someone coming to Atlantis from within Pegasus itself. Those wormholes would've been using FAR less power to reach the Atlantis gate than any extragalactic wormhole. See? Simple.

[Wraith Scientist]

Well then, how would you explain the team being able to dial back into the gate after their arrival BEFORE they learned about the alternate timeline? I suppose Janus could've programmed the dialing computer to automatically unblock other wormholes from dialing in AFTER the stargate recieved the initial connection from Earth.

That's what I thought too

It is actually rather simple. Janus could've easily programmed the stargate to accept only a wormhole that possessed enough power that it could ONLY be coming from another galaxy. He KNEW for a fact (by Weir herself) that NO ONE else from the MW knew where Atlantis was. The only thing Weir might have to worry about was someone coming to Atlantis from within Pegasus itself. Those wormholes would've been using FAR less power to reach the Atlantis gate than any extragalactic wormhole. See? Simple.

Ah yeah, that makes sense. The only dangerous dial-ins would be from the Wraith after they realized that the Lanteans had gone, and even before the alternate-timeline the Ancients thought that one day they (or their descendants) would come to reclaim Atlantis again

*********

On the subject of the 'blocking', I think there is plenty of interesting stuff you can do with a Stargate, like Anubis' call-forwarding mechanism (Prototype), which seems to be a rather good gate defence

How about a gate defence that takes the energy pattern of incoming travelers and then scans for, and strips them of, anything dangerous, wither call-forwarding it to a random gate, deleting it, or actually using the energy constructively (who needs fuel when you've got total matter-energy conversion)

I've wondered if it's possible to connect a gate to a ring transporter network, so incoming wormholed can be reintegrated at a ring station rather than the event horizon

[Roscarrock]

From Before I Sleep:

JANUS: I've blocked all addresses to the Gate except Earth. You will be safe.

WEIR: Thank you.

JANUS: Thank you, for giving me the hope that Atlantis will survive another ten thousand years ... after you discover it again.

It looked like Janus was able to 'block' certain wormholes, implying that he had some method of determining 'caller ID'. Either that or he modified the Earth gate to have it transmit a special code on connection to Atlantis or something

The 'blocking' itself could refer to stopping the wormhole engaging or just automatically raising the shield

I wonder if Atlantis's controls can recognize incoming signals, but perhaps not display them... or maybe no one has figured out how to display them yet. Earth's controls probably wouldn't recognize foreign signals simply because they've yet to be programmed to do so.

I've seen the chevrons light up for the incoming wormholes... could they possibly lock in the foreign address? Or do the chevrons just help establish the link?

Having a "caller ID" for the Gate would make a lot of sense. So far, in the episodes I've seen, the scripts have always called for the incoming Gate to be identified in some way. A MALP transmits a signal, someone sends an IDC, or someone calls through the Gate and the location of the foreign Gate is known.

But if the Gate is unknown, it would be a great story device... Maybe Atlantis has the capability of figuring out the foreign address. Or maybe McKay could figure something out as usual.

As fo making a wormhole disable or get rid of weapons or bombs... it only rematerializes the entire object, no pieces. I recall that much from "Thirty-Eight Minutes." But a forcefield might do the trick.

Thanks for the input!
-Ross

[Platschu]

Maybe it is a stupid question, but how many stargate exist in MW and Pegasus? They mentioned in 9x04, that they haven't visited hundreds of gate adresses. Now, they have said in 10x04 that O'Neill got thousands of gate adresses from the Ancients in 2x16. So I think the writers should say a maximum number of gates (500, 1000 or 2000), how many active, how many has been explored, which races controll them etc.

[Seastallion]

Maybe it is a stupid question, but how many stargate exist in MW and Pegasus? They mentioned in 9x04, that they haven't visited hundreds of gate adresses. Now, they have said in 10x04 that O'Neill got thousands of gate adresses from the Ancients in 2x16. So I think the writers should say a maximum number of gates (500, 1000 or 2000), how many active, how many has been explored, which races controll them etc.

They've never said for certain how many gates there are, but it is a pretty high number. Definitely in the thousands. Potentially even more.

[HallowedRtheOri]

SGC has in there database a list of thousands of gate addresses. They have a program that tries to get a lock.

[immhotep]

by the way going back to the purpose of this thread, could you add the GW virtual fleet thread in to the Politicsand development part of the concordiance seastallio. Thanks

[Seastallion]

by the way going back to the purpose of this thread, could you add the GW virtual fleet thread in to the Politicsand development part of the concordiance seastallio. Thanks

No problem!

[Wraith Scientist]

How about a new discussion topic?

How about: Near-future technology interstellar travel - How would we go about getting to a nearby star with forseeable technologies, taking into consideration propulsion, life-support, mission structure etc.

Or does someone want to propose a different topic?

[immhotep]

I think Ion propulsion is our most likely way of getting intersteller travel in the near future; with the HiPEP system the nearest to succesfull testing.
i did watch a program called alien worlds or something on discovery about a planned mission, that was sumulated to a fake planet called darwin V. it was uite interesting and well worth a look.

[Wraith Scientist]

I think Ion propulsion is our most likely way of getting intersteller travel in the near future; with the HiPEP system the nearest to succesfull testing.

Ion drives have a great specific impulse, but can't provide enough thrust to escape a planet's gravity well with any forseeable power source.

We use chemical propellants for our spacecraft at the moment, which provide tons of thrust, but at a low specific impulse.

Specific impulse

What is needed for interstellar travel is a propulsion system which is both capable of high thrust, and high specific impulse (ISP). Nuclear propulsion methods generally satisfy both. It's the best power source we've got.

Nuclear pulse propulsion
Nuclear thermal rocket
Nuclear salt-water rocket

Nuclear pulse propulsion involves propelling a craft with the energy released by a nuclear detonation. A nuclear bomb detonates against a 'pusher plate' and propels the craft along. It is capable of remarkably high thrusts at high efficiency. The disadvantage is nuclear fallout, although it's not as much as you'd think.

Nuclear thermal rockets pass a reaction mass (usually hydrogen) through a nuclear reactor, heating it to high temperatures, making it expand, and squirting it out of a thruster. Fallout is negligable, as the nuclear fuel does not leave the rocket.

Nuclear salt-water rockets use nuclear fuel dissolved in salt-water. They bring it together in a reaction chamber where a nuclear reaction heats it to very high temperatures. It is like the nuclear thermal rocket except that the nuclear fuel is not retained. This leads to the same fallout problem as nuclear pulse propulsion.

i did watch a program called alien worlds or something on discovery about a planned mission, that was sumulated to a fake planet called darwin V. it was uite interesting and well worth a look.

Ah yeah, I saw that programme. It was awesome

Wikipedia has an article on Darwin IV which includes a list of the aliens encountered

Those lighter-than-air robot explorers were cool too.

[immhotep]

Yeah i was thinking that they are the kind of thing that the SGC need, instead of the malp.
You have talked about NPP quite alot and i think its a good option but its quite hard to test and build soemthing like that without massive public opposition, you know how humans work, it wouldnt get off the ground..
if only gravity drives could be figured out.