All you ever wanted to know about the 9th chevron

[Guest750]

As I said up top, it's an idea of mine taken from all of the little hints and mysterious facts about the gate network dropped throughout the series. The colors are arbitrary, except red and maybe blue. But consider the following:

1. Ancients build ships with slow hyperdrives when they had the tech to travel between galaxies...why?-----Answer, they had the violet medium gates for travel between sectors of a galaxy or even galaxies and didn't require an intergalactic drive on their ships.

Because they didn't want the Wraith to get them, apparently the Tria had intergalactic hyperdrives, Atlantis has intergalactic hyperdrives.

2. Lack of necessary machinery and manufacturing capabilities on Atlantis. Where did they make zpms, drones, warships, etc?-----Answer, some other facility that hasn't been found. Why hasn't it been found by the Tauri, Goa'uld, or Wraith? Because it's on a different network.

3. How could the ancients have traveled and transported cargo through the gates without bogging them up with traffic and basically rendering them unuseable?-----Answer, a different gate network, Orange gates, to transport massive amounts of cargo through, leaving other networks free for personnel travel.

The same way the Aschen do, by having scheduled times at which the gate couldn't be used.

4. Why are Pegasus gates a different color?-----Answer, Pegasus was deliberately isolated to avoid plague contamination and later on Wraith leaving the galaxy. Restarting the human race was deamed an 'experiment' and potentially hazardous so they were designated blue gates even though they didn't connect to the blue intergalactic network.

Just to make the series look different. Have you noticed that all gates in SG-1 (excluding cross overs) even the Ori ones are red?

5. Anubis's wormhole redirection program(gate forwarding) shows that the gate network does have the capability of some security protocols against unwanted visitors above and beyond a shield that will kill inbound travelers. But the lack of any access codes being required to activate the gate and travel to restricted worlds suggest either a lack of forethought on the part of the ancients...or some other security measure not yet discovered.------Answer, multiple gate networks for secure facilities. Simple, sweet, secure.

Give proof that that wasn't just Anubis using something he built (it clearly shows something not normally on a DHD) to keep people from discovering his experiments.

6. Adria's manipulation of the DHD with the flashing symbols suggest some greater function than simply dialing addresses.-----A code prompt with flashing symbols in order to access other gate networks isn't a great leap of logic.

Uh, Adria was ascended. She could use ascended knowledge to make sure only the people she wanted to could use the gate.

7. Morgan established a separate, mini gate network to protect and move Merlin around.-----Answer, this isn't an original idea of Morgan's, just a miniature repeat of the multiple network idea.

8. Rings are like mini stargates, why don't they connect to stargates and vice versa?----Answer, they operate on different frequencies so they don't interfere with each other, just as the multiple gate networks do.

No, stargates use artificially created wormholes to transmit things as energy patterns which are then remoleculized (sp?). The rings transmit you as an energy pattern across our common space-time without the use of wormholes. This accounts for their short range and the fact that the matter stream can be intercepted.

9. Puddle jumpers are elongated so they can fit through the gate. Aurora-class warships aren't smooth, but they are also elongated. Why?----Answer, so they would fit through the violet medium gates.

The designers like the look.

10. Orlin's mini gate had 7 chevrons, why?-----Answer, he only needed to dial locally, which suggests that the 8th and 9th chevrons aren't just asthetic, they have a dedicated function. It also proved that a small gate can connect to a larger one, so it is possible to gate jump from say a red to a violet and fly a puddlejumper through if you really, really needed to.

Orlin's gate only had seven chevrons 'cause he only needed to connect to somewhere which would require a seven symbol address.

11. Why didn't the goa'uld or wraith recover tech or manufacturing facilities to make ancient weapons, zpms, atlantis-class cities etc?-----Because they weren't on the red network for them to find, and most of their exploration was through the gates, not by ship to uncharted star systems.

Because the Ancients weren't stupid enough to give them a stargate which is an easy means of attack.

12. Why did the Asgard have a red gate if they are in a different galaxy?-----Answer, color doesn't indicate galaxy, it indicates something else. Hence, different gate networks.

Exactly, color indicates program. SG-1 = red, SGA = blue.

13. Why is Atlantis's stargate 'the one and only link back to earth'?-----Answer, pegasus gates are on different frequency than MW gates and would require a gate jump, but MW gate DHDs were never programed with Pegasus frequency and codes...and vice versa because Pegasus network was supposed to be completely separate and isolated. Special dialing crystal in Atlantis gate has more than just the ability to use the 8th chevron...it resets the gate's frequency temporarily to allow travel to the MW, or in the case of a wormhole from earth, resets Atlantis's gate's frequency to allow an incoming wormhole without a network jump command or code...which the Lanteans knew that primitive humans on earth wouldn't have because they had never installed the Pegasus frequencies or codes in the MW DHDs.

No, it has something that allows the eighth chevron to be dialed that is all.

14. Why is there a midway station? Why not just travel directly through the gate bridge?-----Answer, pegasus gates won't dial MW gates without the special dialing crystal. They can't connect. That's why midway has one from each galaxy in their gateroom and why an incoming wormhold from pegasus doesn't connect with the MW gate instead of the Pegasus gate. In fact, in theory you should be able to have both gates in the midway station activated simultaneously since they are on different networks. McKay even noted they were on 'different networks' without realizing the significance of this.

Since those gates were originally in Pegasus they needed the eighth chevron to be dialed from a MW gate. The close proximity of the two stargates means that both gates can't be dialed at anyone time.

I'm sure you can find more tantalizing tidbits if you look closer. The multi-network idea also fills in a lot of blanks and plotholes throughout the series.

My argument in bold.

[Aer'ki]

Because they didn't want the Wraith to get them, apparently the Tria had intergalactic hyperdrives, Atlantis has intergalactic hyperdrives.

No, Ancients don't use inferior technology so the wraith won't get their good stuff. Think about what you are saying. If that were true Atlantis wouldn't have intergallactic hyperdrives either, nor would the Tria. Also, the Ancients had ships with zpms before the wraith emerged and the wraith captured at least one. So the idea about dumbing down their tech to avoid capture doesn't fly. Why build a less advanced drive and still have it powered by a zpm?

The same way the Aschen do, by having scheduled times at which the gate couldn't be used.

That could work on small worlds, but we're talking about the MW ancients at the height of their civilization. Necessary transit of materials between planets whose population number in the millions, if not billions would require more than a few connects. It would have to be constantly in use and even then it couldn't completely handle the amount of cargo transit required, the rest would have to go by ship. Think about how much shipping takes place on earth now, over the highways, interstates, airways, and seas. Far more than a few truck loads of grain thrown through by the Aschen. The ancients would need an independent gate network for the large-scale cargo transit.

Just to make the series look different. Have you noticed that all gates in SG-1 (excluding cross overs) even the Ori ones are red?

Some of us take the series a little more seriously than that. And besides a supergate, have we ever seen an Ori stargate?

Give proof that that wasn't just Anubis using something he built (it clearly shows something not normally on a DHD) to keep people from discovering his experiments.

I don't know about proof, but I can come close. We know the Goa'uld used forcefields to guard some of their gates instead of this program, so we can assume it wasn't available to the other Goa'uld. Also remember, that Anubis was using a lot of knowledge he'd gained from his time spent with the ancients to his advantage...which suggests that the gateforwarding program was something he picked up from them or something already in the gates that he learned about from them.

Uh, Adria was ascended. She could use ascended knowledge to make sure only the people she wanted to could use the gate.

No, she wasn't ascended when she went after Merlin and into this alternate mini stargate network. This is when she manipulated the DHD with the flashing symbols.
Also note, I didn't mean Morgan's network was on a different wormhole frequency, I mean the programing kept it separate and the basic idea for it came from the multiple networks the ancients established.
Morgan's test chamber put them into the special network, but SG-1 was able to dial out on their own, so the red gates were in fact red gates, just with restricted access through some trick of programming...or else someone randomly dialing could have stumbled onto Merlin without having to pass her tests...and she wouldn't have made that mistake in her security.

No, stargates use artificially created wormholes to transmit things as energy patterns which are then remoleculized (sp?). The rings transmit you as an energy pattern across our common space-time without the use of wormholes. This accounts for their short range and the fact that the matter stream can be intercepted.

I might be wrong on this one...maybe not. When SG-1 went to antarctica to find the outpost and O'neil drilled through the ice, Daniel said that it would make since that there would be rings down below since the ancients were the ones that built the stargates...from this I assumed the construction and function were similar in nature to that of the gates.

Just a thought...maybe the demolecularization process is the same, as is the transmission, but to overcome the vast distances between planets the transmission must go through a wormhole. In which case a ring should be able to connect to a stargate and vice versa if in close proximity. But then the rematerialization process is different between event horizon and 3d reconstruction...oh well, just thinking out loud. Maybe someone else could offer some insight on this one please?

The designers like the look.

Again, I like to be a little bit more positive with regards to the complexity of the series.

Orlin's gate only had seven chevrons 'cause he only needed to connect to somewhere which would require a seven symbol address.

That's exactly what I said. I just took it once step further and suggested that that implied some other function that Orlin didn't need rather than the chevrons just being 9 in number for decorative purposes. What I mean is it ruled out several possibilites that were floating around before that episode aired.

Because the Ancients weren't stupid enough to give them a stargate which is an easy means of attack.

Possible, but not likely. Atlantis has a shield protecting the stargate instead of getting rid of the gate entirely. A green gate network makes far more sense because it would allow ease of travel while being completely unknown to anyone else and completely unaccessible without knowledge of the 9th chevron and the necessary codes in order to execute a network jump.

Exactly, color indicates program. SG-1 = red, SGA = blue.

Have a little more faith than that. (Even though that might have been what the writers were thinking).

No, it has something that allows the eighth chevron to be dialed that is all.

Midway disproves that. 8th chevron is used as an 'extra distance calculation', Carter's words, like an 'area code' for a phone number. The gates in the bridge don't require extra power because they're not far enough apart to require the 8th chevron...that's the whole point of the bridge. And yet, Pegasus gates won't connect to MW gates even if they're standing 20 meters away from each other. At the very least, MW gates should connect to Pegasus gates, like how the SGC originally dialed Atlantis...but they don't, which is why the Midway station was required.

A logical assumption can be that these gates are different and that the special Atlantis crystal(which can be removed and installed on other gates) overcomes this difference. My theory is that Pegasus's gate network has it's own distinct frequency(not the MW bluegate frequency, an original one) and the Atlantis crystal temporarily resets the gate to act like a red gate so that the SGC could dial in and that the Pegasus galaxy can dial out without having to input the 9th chevron and the necessary codes which the Pegasus DHD's were never programed with in the first place and the MW DHD's were never updated with the Pegasus frequencies.

Since those gates were originally in Pegasus they needed the eighth chevron to be dialed from a MW gate. The close proximity of the two stargates means that both gates can't be dialed at anyone time.

Again, you're getting the 8th chevron wrong. If a stargate is a stargate is a stargate...and only the lights were changed colors, then the gate bridge would connect all the way through no midway station needed. Also, the midway station gates would not always receive their incoming wormhole, but maybe the other as well. If one gate superceded the other it would get all of them. If they were equal, then it might be random which one got the incoming wormhold.

When earth had two gates the one with the DHD took precedence. When there was no DHD the SGC's gate took precedence because it had a pseudo DHD created by Carter and others to control the gate and the SG teams didn't get spat out in antarctica.

No, Midway and the ancient hologram lady in the first show proves that the gates are different...not just different colors.

[thekillman]

to forever bust the color theory: if it were real: why the hell didnt heliopolis have a yellow VIP gate?


asgard had a red gate. so what. it looked cool in that hall, though with asgard architecture, it shoudlve been silver and light blue. its just a regular gate. pegasus has gate 2.0

[Aer'ki]

to forever bust the color theory: if it were real: why the hell didnt heliopolis have a yellow VIP gate?


asgard had a red gate. so what. it looked cool in that hall, though with asgard architecture, it shoudlve been silver and light blue. its just a regular gate. pegasus has gate 2.0

Heliopolis was the equivalent of a museum. That's not high security stuff, let alone ultra-secret yellow gate material. That molecular code was clearly designed for species they had never met in order to provide a basis for communication...which would mean it would have to be in a public place in order for them to see it.

Now, that said, it doesn't mean heliopolis couldn't be used as a meeting place for the occasional summit, but there's nothing secretive going on so no need for the security of a yellow or even green gate local.

....Unless, there were other parts of Heliopolis that were not accessible to the public, maybe another city on the planet, maybe an underground extension or something similar that held sensitive stuff and they did have a green or yellow gate to connect to those areas...but I'd bet not.

[Chevron 40]

I'll admit, its a sound idea, that is highly creative and ingenius.

Some parts make sense, some parts dont because of information omitted or not remembered.

Example;

The construction of Midway, was not explained very thoroughly, we do not know (afaicr) exactly why it was built. But i would like to hazard an educated guess at being like the intergalactic version of "services" at the time of its construction Earth only had 2 ships, Odyssey and Daedalus, 2 ships 2 galaxies, the math on that one is simple, 1 apiece, what if the Daedalus broke down en-route to Pegasus, like the drive burnt out or it developed an overload that the crew could not contain (Phoenix in "The Last Man") The ships have limited supplies, and if the Odyssey was busy with whatever at the time, Ori, Lucian Alliance etc, the crew would be *****ed. Midway would allow additional supplies to be sent through untill the Odyssey reached them, or send through the parts necessary for repair.

Another reason, is that because a direct A -> B connection of gates in 2 galaxies requires ZPM levels of energy, these things arent exactly prizes at the local Pinata contest, the GB negates that, enabling Atlantis to evacuate WITHOUT a ZPM and keep the gate open for the norm 38 minute window. In my eyes it is also a security measure, to prevent Atlantis from being cut off from Earth, and Earth sending all they have to find out wtf was going on, only to discover Atlantis havent payed their phone bill, its a quick and easy method, ingenius and multiple application idea.

The best example i can think of, is, u want to get a message in a bottle from from Leeds to London, u have 1 Litre Micra, and only half a tank of petrol, u also have 5 freidns along a direct route to London, so instead of using all your petrol to get there and leave u basically stranded, u ask ur mates, to drive a certain way, enabling everyone has enough petrol to get from their start point to the next drop off/destination and still have enough petrol to get home safely.

C40

PS - Sorry for the rant and the probable repeating of myself and explanations of the ximple ****, but its late and i cant sleep

[Aer'ki]

I'll admit, its a sound idea, that is highly creative and ingenius.

Some parts make sense, some parts dont because of information omitted or not remembered.

Example;

The construction of Midway, was not explained very thoroughly, we do not know (afaicr) exactly why it was built. But i would like to hazard an educated guess at being like the intergalactic version of "services" at the time of its construction Earth only had 2 ships, Odyssey and Daedalus, 2 ships 2 galaxies, the math on that one is simple, 1 apiece, what if the Daedalus broke down en-route to Pegasus, like the drive burnt out or it developed an overload that the crew could not contain (Phoenix in "The Last Man") The ships have limited supplies, and if the Odyssey was busy with whatever at the time, Ori, Lucian Alliance etc, the crew would be *****ed. Midway would allow additional supplies to be sent through untill the Odyssey reached them, or send through the parts necessary for repair.

Another reason, is that because a direct A -> B connection of gates in 2 galaxies requires ZPM levels of energy, these things arent exactly prizes at the local Pinata contest, the GB negates that, enabling Atlantis to evacuate WITHOUT a ZPM and keep the gate open for the norm 38 minute window. In my eyes it is also a security measure, to prevent Atlantis from being cut off from Earth, and Earth sending all they have to find out wtf was going on, only to discover Atlantis havent payed their phone bill, its a quick and easy method, ingenius and multiple application idea.

The best example i can think of, is, u want to get a message in a bottle from from Leeds to London, u have 1 Litre Micra, and only half a tank of petrol, u also have 5 freidns along a direct route to London, so instead of using all your petrol to get there and leave u basically stranded, u ask ur mates, to drive a certain way, enabling everyone has enough petrol to get from their start point to the next drop off/destination and still have enough petrol to get home safely.

C40

PS - Sorry for the rant and the probable repeating of myself and explanations of the ximple ****, but its late and i cant sleep

Actually, your speculation is accurate. They did explain the gate bridge...but in several pieces scattered between more than one episode.

Each gate is within normal dialing range, so no ZPM juice required. Wormhole travelers are saved in 'computer memory' instead of being spat out into space. They are then forwarded through the next wormhole in the chain and so forth and so on until they reach Midway. It's 15 or so gate dials and forwards to get to midway and it takes 30 minutes for the whole trip between galaxies because of these multiple dials.

Mckay actually refers to the MW gate network and Pegasus gate network as separate entities when explaining the bridge. This, and the fact that the Midway station has one gate from each suggests that Pegasus gates can't dial MW gates without special accomodations, otherwise the gate bridge wouldn't need a midway station and would connect straight through to stargate command.

The whole point of the gate bridge is to save ZPM power and allow the SGC to initiate a connection(which they couldn't do without ZPM).

Sorry I don't know episode names to tell you. But I remember Rodney standing in front of a digital diagram of the gate bridge while he was explaining it to a group of scientists. Maybe someone else will know the episode name?

As for the explanation of the Midway Station itself, McKay mentioned it as the transition between gate networks. If all stargates were built the same this wouldn't matter, hence the multiple network theory.

[Chevron 40]

The episode is the beginning of "The Return pt.1"

The only way to bust your theory i can see, is if there was a compatability issue between the gates programming code-wise that has either never been explained, or it was just cut from a script somewhere, BUT, then other questions would arise because we GOT to Atlantis by direct A-> B dial connection between MW gate and Pegasus gate, thus giving us evidence that the aesthetical differences are just that.

To, coroborate you theory a bit more, in "Before I Sleep," Janus told Weir that he had blocked access from any other gate connecting aside from Earth's address, showing that the gate system has rudimentary security options.

How deep the security options go atm is an open book

C40

[Jack_Bauer]

Well in order to dial another gate network/galaxy you requre an 8 chevron address, and Atlantis is the only gate which can do just that. Hence why the Midway station needed to exist, the last PG gate in the chain couldn't dial the seperate network.

[asgard_forever]

stargate universe focusses on the ninth chevron and according to preproduction information is based on an ancient ship used to seed individual gates onto planets.

so it would seem logical that the ninth chevron allows dialing to this special gate or a gate moveing through space.

so instead of have haveing chevrons 1-6 identify the place in space you use chevron 1-9 to identify the gate by name and use 7 as point of origin

[Jack_Bauer]

stargate universe focusses on the ninth chevron and according to preproduction information is based on an ancient ship used to seed individual gates onto planets.

so it would seem logical that the ninth chevron allows dialing to this special gate or a gate moveing through space.

so instead of have haveing chevrons 1-6 identify the place in space you use chevron 1-9 to identify the gate by name and use 7 as point of origin

Welcome to the forums.

This has been said numerous times, read back over previous pages.

[asgard_forever]

thanks didn't quite feel like reading over almost 100 pages of posts can you blame me?

[Aer'ki]

The episode is the beginning of "The Return pt.1"

The only way to bust your theory i can see, is if there was a compatability issue between the gates programming code-wise that has either never been explained, or it was just cut from a script somewhere, BUT, then other questions would arise because we GOT to Atlantis by direct A-> B dial connection between MW gate and Pegasus gate, thus giving us evidence that the aesthetical differences are just that.

To, coroborate you theory a bit more, in "Before I Sleep," Janus told Weir that he had blocked access from any other gate connecting aside from Earth's address, showing that the gate system has rudimentary security options.

How deep the security options go atm is an open book

C40

I already considered the Earth to Atlantis question, thanks for pointing that out by the way. In theory, in order for a network jump to occur, one gate has to temporarily readjust its frequency to match the other network...after the proper codes were input (which prevent access by simple random dialing).

I think the special Atlantis gate crystal reset Atlantis's stargate when Earth dialed in the first time.

Now, from the 'ancient hologram lady' we know that the Ancients hoped that Atlantis would be recovered by their descendants(Earth) and had left the Atlantis gate as the 'one and only link back to earth'. This means they knew that Earth would have to dial in without any special knowledge or codes...so I think the crystal does more than just allow extra-galactic dialing. It has the 9th chevron jump codes and procedures stored in the crystal in order to allow access back into the MW gates(red gates) and from the MW gates.

So when SGC dialed in the first time the gate recognized that the request for connection came from earth and it reset itself to the red gate frequency to allow earth to connect instead of forcing Earth to use the 9th chevron, because Earth wouldn't know the codes to execute a gate jump, nor would the MW DHD's know the frequency of the Pegasus Gate Network since it was built later and intentionally separate.

Also, I've been thinking about the 'one and only link back to earth' line, and it's occured to me that link could mean both ways. I think the link refers to the gate crystal which allows network jumping rather than meaning that all the Pegasus gates can't dial the 8th chevron.

Think about it...couldn't the wraith tear apart a DHD and figure out how to dial another galaxy in the 10,000 years they had to spare? The gates do all have 9 chevrons, so they should be normal gates.

But if the DHD didn't have the other networks' gate frequencies then there was no possible way for the Wraith to get out...which is why they hybernate, because they have nowhere else to go.

Well in order to dial another gate network/galaxy you requre an 8 chevron address, and Atlantis is the only gate which can do just that.

We did see other gates dial MW twice(ok, once. The other was a dream), and each time they mentioned used of the gate crystal or a copy of the crystal. One was "Home" when they thought they returned to the SGC and Hammon but they were still on the mist planet...the other was "Pegasus Project" when they forced a connection through to the MW supergate.(This fact reinforces the network jump idea since it would allow all colors of gates to connect to the larger purple gates even though they're not the same size)

So we know the other gates are physically capable of dialing out of the galaxy. The gate network jump idea makes a lot more sense security wise.

Hence why the Midway station needed to exist, the last PG gate in the chain couldn't dial the seperate network.

8th chevron is a 'distance calculation' for the longer wormhole connections, which isn't a factor in the gate bridge since they're all within 7 chevron dialing range from each other. It only makes sense if it's because the wormhole frequencies are different between networks.

[dwdcomic]

If I understand the spoiler info for Stargate: Universe correctly, the 9th Chevron is used to gate to the Stargate Seed Ship that the ancients sent out.

[Guest750]

The ninth chevron is a self destruct key! All nine chevrons are used like a combination lock only when it unlocks, BOOM!

It's about as fact based as his^^ network idea.

[Aer'ki]

The ninth chevron is a self destruct key! All nine chevrons are used like a combination lock only when it unlocks, BOOM!

It's as fact based as his^^ network idea.

I heard that.