All you ever wanted to know about the 9th chevron

[akren]

i agree with the 9th chevron being put there for a purpose and also agree with that it must do more than help dial to the ship. Why does every gate need access to the one ship. i think there were multiple ships like the Destiny and each had a different address like planets but using the ninth chevron

Agree about the 9th Chevron designed to have a purpose, everything it seems, the Ancients did; had a specific purpose in mind (even if it was a disaster; e.g.: the Asurans, Project Artcurus, etc) -

Spoilers for 'The Return' (SGA S4):

Spoiler:

the one exception being the accident creation of the as a species.

- so having the 9th Chevron eventually suit a purpose like dialing the Destiny seems to fit.

Don't know I am so sure about there being more ships like the Seeder ship/Destiny out there- would be kind of hard to keep track of & would defeat the purpose of the premise of the show.

[knowles2]

i agree with the 9th chevron being put there for a purpose and also agree with that it must do more than help dial to the ship. Why does every gate need access to the one ship. i think there were multiple ships like the Destiny and each had a different address like planets but using the ninth chevron

I been thinking the same that there are multiple vessels out there. If there plan was to seed the entire universe stargates then having multiple seeding vessels and multiple tracking or explorer ships to follow them would make sense,. As the universe is a big place and well one vessel can only travel in one direction.

[Quadhelix]

This is more of an open question for anyone, but does it have to be the case that the 9th chevron is specifically for dialing the gate aboard the Destiny? I'm not really offering up any alternative, I am merely curious is all.

No, it doesn't have to be specifically for dialing the Destiny:

I recently realized the possibility that eight-chevron addresses might designate regions much larger than those designated by the seven-chevron addresses, perhaps as large as an entire galaxy. If that were the case, then the eighth-chevron may well be able to dial anywhere in the Local Supercluster. If that were the case, then there would be little reason that a nine-chevron address could not be as large as an entire supercluster.

Doing a little math, I found that, if that were the case, the maximum range for a Stargate dialing a nine-chevron address would be on the order of about 850 billion light-years. Since the size of the universe is expected to be on the order of tens to a few hundred billion light years, this is a very satisfying answer.

Additionally, it would easily explain how the ninth chevron is used to dial the Destiny. Since the Destiny was meant as the Ancients' exploration vessel, its 'Gate would naturally serve as the default 'Gate wherever the Destiny went. Combined with the above suggestion of the size of a nine-chevron address, this means that you would need only to dial the correct supercluster in order to connect to the Destiny.


All of this, is, of course, conjecture.

As the universe is a big place and well one vessel can only travel in one direction.

That's not entirely true. The Destiny could be traveling in a sort of three dimensional "spiral" pattern, exploring all galaxies within a certain range of its launch point before moving further out.

[knowles2]

That's not entirely true. The Destiny could be traveling in a sort of three dimensional "spiral" pattern, exploring all galaxies within a certain range of its launch point before moving further out.

True through incredible inefficient in the area covered over time the further out you get, through you should hit every galaxy just not very fast.

[Quadhelix]

True through incredible inefficient in the area covered over time the further out you get, through you should hit every galaxy just not very fast.

This statement is highly flawed; whether the ship is traveling in a straight line or a "3-D spiral," the next galaxy will always be roughly the same distance away, so it will still explore galaxies at roughly the same rate. Therefore, either path will allow for the exploration of the same number of galaxies in the same amount of time.

[whiskeyfur]

Got one other theory...

The ancients now live on an alternate plane so to speak, they're ascended... what if in the process of gaining that acension they had to do some research into alternate dimensions, and one of the results of that was the 9th chevron.

Basically, the 9th chevron isn't a distance, it's a dimension.

They may not have mastered time travel (although they were on that path), they DID however have access to various devices to cross the dimensional barrier. The 9th chevron could be in fact a dimension breaker.

Which means, the full address for the destiny could very well be an inter dimensional address.

That also means the first 7 symbols, with a different 8th, could result in a vastly different version of that same planet. How many different versions of Earth do you want to visit?

I'm assuming that the ancients started exploring into the possibility of dimensions with this, and built it into their gate network once they had a workable theory. The Destiny could be in fact going to these different places to verify if the theory panned out.

And before folks ask, the reason there were 9 chevrons on the old milky way gates is foward compatibility, so they can be upgraded with just a software patch. It's easier to upgrade software at a distance then it is to go and visit every single gate to upgrade the hardware. Ask anyone who is in IT management. Perhaps the original software version of the stargate could ONLY handle 7 addresses, or less?

It's just a theory, feel free to blow it full of holes. Got a second theory I'm working on too.

[Catalin]

you all think about dial gate-2-gate, only 2 gates in the eq.. what about a gate-bridge.. and the 9th chevron has nothing to do with the adress ..but with the DHD routines.. reprograming the next income-whole gate to rearange the programing so the gates to dial themselfs in a cronological order given the ships route in a time-line.. like following a trail of croms!

[arelyss]

you all think about dial gate-2-gate, only 2 gates in the eq.. what about a gate-bridge.. and the 9th chevron has nothing to do with the adress ..but with the DHD routines.. reprograming the next income-whole gate to rearange the programing so the gates to dial themselfs in a cronological order given the ships route in a time-line.. like following a trail of croms!

yes, this makes sense. maybe the old-fashion way to travel gate-to-gate was somehow improved by the 9th chevron

[Aer'ki]

Doing a little math, I found that, if that were the case, the maximum range for a Stargate dialing a nine-chevron address would be on the order of about 850 billion light-years. Since the size of the universe is expected to be on the order of tens to a few hundred billion light years, this is a very satisfying answer.

You're forgetting the Ancient proverb:

There is one truth: The Universe is Infinite.

So I don't think they were intending to seed every galaxy in the universe.

[Quadhelix]

Got one other theory...

The ancients now live on an alternate plane so to speak, they're ascended... what if in the process of gaining that acension they had to do some research into alternate dimensions, and one of the results of that was the 9th chevron.

Basically, the 9th chevron isn't a distance, it's a dimension.

They may not have mastered time travel (although they were on that path), they DID however have access to various devices to cross the dimensional barrier. The 9th chevron could be in fact a dimension breaker.

Which means, the full address for the destiny could very well be an inter dimensional address.

That also means the first 7 symbols, with a different 8th, could result in a vastly different version of that same planet. How many different versions of Earth do you want to visit?

I'm assuming that the ancients started exploring into the possibility of dimensions with this, and built it into their gate network once they had a workable theory. The Destiny could be in fact going to these different places to verify if the theory panned out.

No. The Destiny is a follow-up ship designed to explore a network of Stargates left behind by an older "'Gate-Seeder" ship.

Further, a major flaw in your conjecture is that there are effectively an infinite number of alternate realities. There are about two trillion nine-chevron addresses. You can easily create that many alternate realities each second by shining a flashlight at a wall: each photon has a certain probability of being reflected or absorbed, and thus each photon causes a "reality splitting" when it hits the wall.

Another potential flaw in your conjecture is that it postulates that the Ancients would design the 'Gates to reach other realities at the expense of being able to reach places in our own reality: without the ninth chevron as an extra distance calculation (in addition to the eighth), the Stargates would be limited to dialing within the Local Supercluster, or even the Local Group.

Got one other theory...

No, you don't. None of us do. In order to be a theory, it has to be supported by and explain existing evidence, then be proven by new evidence.

You're forgetting the Ancient proverb:

There is one truth: The Universe is Infinite.

So I don't think they were intending to seed every galaxy in the universe.

As deep and philosophical as that statement is, it is a proverb. By the time the Alterans had developed star travel let alone Stargates, they would have realized that, while potentially impractical, it was indeed possible to seed the entire universe with Stargates.

[Aer'ki]

proverb[/i]. By the time the Alterans had developed star travel let alone Stargates, they would have realized that, while potentially impractical, it was indeed possible to seed the entire universe with Stargates.

Ah, reality check here. Any scientist that claims to have 'measured' the universe is lying through their teeth. That is so absurd only a moron would believe it. If they can't account for the exact number of stars in the milky way, then how can they possibly know the size of the universe?

Right now, the only information we get from space is by light(or EM to be specific). That's it, and it's not much. So there can and probably are more galaxies out there in the 'dark' patches yet so far away their light hasn't reached us...or that the light has become so diffuse that the few photons that reach us miss Earth entirely. If light is indeed tiny capsules of energy, if you extend the sphere out from the origin then eventually they are going to diverge and you are going to have a limit to 'sight.'

Basic point, our technology is so infantile that anyone saying they've measured the Universe, calculated the total mass in the universe, etc should be dragged out in the street and shot. You can't get much more stupid than that.

So why do some scientists say that? Because they abhor having anything outside their control. Saying 'we don't have a clue what's out there' defeats their ego trip and makes people wonder if our current beliefs and assumpts are really true. But when we say, yeah, we know how much of it is, that leads people to believe that we're still in control of things and what happens out there doesn't matter.

It's another form of the 'Earth is the center of the Universe' philosophy............which is essential to several religions. Therein lies the greatest problem. Their first loyalty isn't to the truth, it's to their beliefs.

[K^2]

Alright, now we have the 9th Chevron which has yet to be used, now here is an idea i read and i kinda like it: an Extension. This would come into play when there is more than one gate in a given area.

I don't think that is at all possible to do with the gate network. I realize that we are working with something entirely fictitious here, and if show creators would say that it's extension, then it is extension, but for the most part, they tried to be systematic. So lets examine what we know.

First of all, why are constellations used for dialing an address? Because they are fixed (mostly) points in space, that are there regardless of where you are located. We know that you can take a gate, carry it to a new location, and it will work with that location's address. Gate's aren't coded for a specific address, or anything like that. So how should an "extension" select one gate over the other? What would make it possible to tell the gates apart?

Another thing is that the way wormhole is established is likened to an electric current selecting path of least resistance. Gates are lightning rods, of sorts. A gate of origin "throws" the far end of the wormhole in a given direction with a given amount of energy, roughly selecting direction and distance of the destination point. After that, it simply goes to the "nearest" gate. What happens if you have two gates on the same planet? It's probably going to be pretty random. It can consistently go to one of the gates, or it may jump from one to another depending on a lot of factors. A planetary body in the way could probably make a difference in gate selection. We do know, however, that once the gate is established, it is energetically favorable to keep that connection open. So unless you surge it with a lot of energy, it won't jump.

If all of the above is valid, the only way you'd be able to connect to the second gate on the same planet, if the connection consistently prefers the first gate, is if connection to the first gate is already established. It is possible that then, and only then, would connection jump to the second gate instead.

[Quadhelix]

If they can't account for the exact number of stars in the milky way, then how can they possibly know the size of the universe?

Because the two are unrelated questions. Part of the reason that we cannot account for the exact number of stars in the Milky Way is because we cannot see the entire Milky Way, because the rest of the galaxy is in the way.

The minimum size of the Universe, however, was calculated from observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background.

Right now, the only information we get from space is by light(or EM to be specific). That's it, and it's not much. So there can and probably are more galaxies out there in the 'dark' patches yet so far away their light hasn't reached us...or that the light has become so diffuse that the few photons that reach us miss Earth entirely.

Interestingly, it is also possible that some of the very, very distant galaxies that we see are actually nearby galaxies whose light has circumnavigated the universe.

Your argument cuts both ways.

Basic point, our technology is so infantile that anyone saying they've measured the Universe, calculated the total mass in the universe, etc should be dragged out in the street and shot.

Good, because nobody has said that. Don't misrepresent others' arguments to make your own look stronger; it just makes you look like a liar.

What I have said is that, by the time the Ancients learned star travel, they would have learned that the universe is not infinite in extent. I have since realized that we don't empirically know that. However, we once believed that the time dimension was infinite in extent, until we figured out that the universe had a finite age.

[K^2]

Ah, reality check here. Any scientist that claims to have 'measured' the universe is lying through their teeth. That is so absurd only a moron would believe it. If they can't account for the exact number of stars in the milky way, then how can they possibly know the size of the universe?

Can you measure the number of particles in a gallon of water? But you can measure its size rather easily.

Though, I have to admit, there is no way, currently, to measure the size of the Universe. Perhaps, there will never be such a method. However, we do have models that make certain predictions. Some of these predictions can be verified by experiment. Based on that, we can make an assumption about the size of the universe. I'd be a lousy scientist if I said that we can know how big it is, but the probability that we are at least in the right ballpark with the estimates is rather high.

[Icedragon]

Spoiler:

The ninth chevron dials the seeding ship. So is it just one symbol or what?