All you ever wanted to know about the 9th chevron

[_Owen_]

Lol, that wouldn't be so bad!

Owen Macri

[Duckonthehunt]

lol a giant kawoosh then massive whipcream pies just start raining out like all hell

[_Owen_]

lol, lots and lots of whipped cream!

Owen Macri

[Col. Newman]

I Prefer Donuts they are really Yummy

[Duckonthehunt]

Only if there is suger coated jelly kind ( haha probably the fattest statement Ive made in my entire life )

[Col. Newman]

Only if there is suger coated jelly kind ( haha probably the fattest statement Ive made in my entire life )

jelly, yuck i like poudered, glazed, frosted, and cream filled yum yum

[_Owen_]

I will eat pretty much anything, lol, I like Boston Cream though, I have that often, but everything else is good too.

Owen Macri

[Jprime]

Bring on the cruellers (sp?)!

[_Owen_]

That looks like it is spelled right. I also like Apple Fritters!

Owen Macri

[briguy213]

i think it is just so the ancients didnt need to replace all stargates if they upgraded.

[_Owen_]

Well, that is a possibility, but it would still have a function. As well, I don't think this is the case, I think that the gates were built as they are now, and then re built if they were changed, however they were never needed to be cahnged, maybe there were a few prototypes, but other than small changes like the power source there were never any modifications or reproductions made.

Owen Macri

[Bam359]

My first post... (I have been coming to the site for years though) and its a long one.

I think that the ninth chevron is to allow intra planetary, or intra solar system travel (i.e.: Being able to gate to Ottawa, London, Canberra, the moon, or Mars, more then one place on Mars, ect.).

This theory has been put forward before in this thread, and has been shot down, generaly useing this argument:

Sure you could go to more then gate on a single world, but you would have to do it in another galaxy, because the 8th chevron takes you to another galaxy.

This doesn't actualy make any sense at all, but I will get to the reason for that a bit later (I'll let you know when). I think the 8th chevron is simply used for an additional distance calculation, and that distance could be long *or* short.

Example: (Going to Utopia Planitia on Mars from SGC)
Chevron 1-6 spacal coordnates (same as as the dial-in address for SGC)
Chevron 7 Distance calculation (short distance symbole - PoO*)
Chevron 8 Symbole indicating Utopia Planitia, Mars gate (37(?) possibilities)
Chevron 9 Point of Origin (PoO henceforth)

Now you will probably say 'no, no, no, you cannot use the same symbol (PoO) twice' I have two solutions for this:
1 - You in fact can't use the PoO twice, so some other symbol.
2 - You can *ONLY* use the PoO twice when useing a DHD.

Lets take soultion 2 as the correct one, as it make alot of peaces fall into place, see below.

The only time you would NOT be useing a DHD would be if there was a problem, and you had to manualy dial the gate - in which case, you would probably just want to get out of there. Going to a regional capital is likely better then a outlying colony anyway - so you can get help (DHD Technician).

The naysayer: 'Ah, but as soon as you hit the PoO, the gate activates'
This is untrue in the case of a DHD - you have to press that big red dealio for the gate to activate, which is probably proof of this theory. Why else would big red dealio exist? (Dramatic licance... >scoff<)

Again the naysayer: 'Why then does the Earth gate activate automaticaly when the PoO is encoded?'
Well I think that because the SGC doesn't thave a DHD. When there is not DHD attached, the gate automaticaly tryes to open a wormhole after every chevron is encoded. But the 'open wormhole' command can only be initiated, after the correct PoO has been input, the command is ignored untill it is. Remember the earth gate is being 'manualy' dialed every time we use it, we have just automated the process a bit.
When Ernest Littlefield went through the gate, and when they got the address for Abydos in the movie they were very VERY (!!!) lucky... how did they get the abydos address, I forget.
When Jack dials the galaxy Ida (in the fifth race) the gate does not automaticaly engage on the seventh symbol, because the last symbol entered is not the PoO. As soon as the PoO is correctly entered, the gate (realizing its an 8 chevron, long distance, address) Draws more power then normal (to make sure its available), and connects. This also meens that if you were the only gate (first) in a galaxy, you could still get somewhere in a bind, provided you had enough power for an 8 chevron gate lock.

(((OT... Why can't they just use the device Jack built to Gate to Atlantis - I am sure they have several Jaffa Staff weapons they can use to get the required liquid naquadah. Use it to send the ZPM to Atlants, along with backup, no need for the Deadlus to push its engins too hard... I guess it must have burned out, yay! for dios ex machina)))

(I said I would get back to this above...) Useing this theory, one could NOT go to a specific gate in any solar system, in another galaxy, (because the PoO would not be available on your average DHD, neither would it have the power to open a long distance wormhole). However, you could if you went to a Regional capital first (the places with the fancy dialing computers, containing a database of all regional capital PoO's stored).
Not all gate locations rose to the title of regional capital. If there were more then one gate in an area, you could travel between them from with in the local network, so gate to them - one DHD must take lead useing some kind of algorithm, or by assignment; or go to any regional capital. These non regional capital, but multiple gate places are likely scientific outpoasts, or somesuch.
There were probaly only a handfull of Regional Capitals in each galaxy, in fewer then 30 odd galaxys in the universe. If the Anciant domain was larger then this, it is possible that a group of 30 Galaxys represented some kind of Galactic Group, and the Group Capital could contact the other Group Capitals, extending the size of the empire forever. Atlantis being the Universal Capital of the whole thing. These Ancients thought big (I am sure that is a quote from one of the episoeds), or maby it just me.

Another thing to consider, is that to the Ancients, these were not just symboles, but letters (or sounds) in their alphabet. They would not need to memorize the sequence of symboles, just the 'name' of the place they were going. Places near to eachother would begin with the same six sounds, only the last three would be different, the last one being the PoO, so not mattering.

The naysayer, almost defeated: 'Solitudes?!?'
Ah Solitudes, a very good episoed, I espicaly like the out-take where Amanda Tapping askes RDA why, after being MacGiver for 7 years he can't fix the DHD...

This episode brings up two questions:
Q1 - Why did Sam, and Jack endup in Antartica, and
Q2 - What realy was going on when they dialed SGC

Its been a while since I watched this episode, by to the best of my recolection, these should be the answeres (as per my theory, as presented above)

A1- The SGC Gate knows it is not attached to a DHD, when something goes horribly, horribly wrong, it reaches out to the nearest regional capital to ask it what to do, as part of its failsafe, basic programing. There are *NO* regional capitals, so it passes them to the nearest DHD, which is in Antartica. It reset the connection to the remote gate's DHD, and took care of it. Had the SGC had a DHD, it may have just reset the connection and no one would have been the wiser. A Regional Capital (being much smarter) may have just reset the connection for the DHD-less Gate remotly, something a DHD cannot do for a non-attached gate. We know DHD's can do things like this from the time Teal'c is trapped in the gate, and we need the Russan DHD to get him out - I am saying a Regional Capital may be able to do these kind of things remotly, or maby not, every Stargate is supposed to have a DHD, you never know.

A2- When they dial home, there are two Local Gates, one with a DHD one without, when attempted, the connection is terminated. We assumed it was a 'busy signal', but maby not. Maby the DHD was trying to tell the people connecting that there is a problem at SGC (no/broken DHD): "I am not going to activate, send help". The DHD programmers, knowing the nature of the Anciants (as curious as ourselvs), assume that those trying to contact the gate sans DHD will try to figure out why its not working, and either fix the DHD, or gate to the nearest Regional Capital, to get a DHD Tech.
Every time the gate opens for offworld activations, it is probably expecting a repair crew to fix the problem, as they are coming from outside the Local System.

ps. I don't have a spell checker on this computer yet, I just re-installed windows, sorry for all the spelling mistakes, I did my best. If I can come back and edit it for spelling I will (like I said at the begging first post - I don't know what is possible)

PPS. I hope you liked this post, it took me a while to author it. Please let me know what you think. And feel free to poke holes in it!

[Jarnin]

My first post... (I have been coming to the site for years though) and its a long one.

I think that the ninth chevron is to allow intra planetary, or intra solar system travel (i.e.: Being able to gate to Ottawa, London, Canberra, the moon, or Mars, more then one place on Mars, ect.).

The series has shown plenty of examples of other ways to travel between short distances. I mean, you have the ring devices, the Asgard teleportation beam, the Furling transporter door, the Aschen teleporters, the Gadmeer teleportation beam, and, well, I think you get my point.

It is much easier to create a travel device for short hops than it is to make one for interstellar travel. The gate's basic function is to provide a way to travel interstellar and intergalactic distances.

Another thing to remember is that both the Asgard's home galaxy and the Pegasus galaxy are relatively nearby to the Milky Way. They used different symbols for the 7th chevron lock, so the difference in distance those symbols represent is pretty small in astronomical terms. There are only 38 symbols you can use for the 7th chevron, and if the differences in distance are constant, a 7 symbol address should only allow intergalactic travel to nearby galaxies.

To travel to Pegasus, you use the Sculptor symbol, which is the 20th symbol on the gate if the PoO is counted clockwise as the 1st symbol. To travel to the Asgard galaxy Ida, you use the Scorpio symbol, which is the 9th symbol on the gate.
Now the Ida galaxy is fictional, but we know it's about 4 million light years away (from the season four episode Exodus). Pegasus is a non-fictional galaxy, and exists roughly 5 million light years away. That means that the difference in distance that the 9th symbol and the 20th symbol represents is only 1 million lightyears. The Universe is >13.7 BILLION lightyears in radius, and it's probably much much larger than that. We can only see 13.7 billion light years because light travels relatively slowly when you talk about distances this big.

Lets apply some basic logic:

6 symbol address is for interstellar travel.
7 symbol address is for intergalactic travel.

Logically, an 8 symbol address should allow you to travel much farther than an 7 symbol address would.


I don't know why this debate still exists

[Mio]

But the Atlantis Dialing Computer is the most advanced Ancient Dialing Device out there. It can dial Earth. We have seen no indication of any 9th chevron abilities within that computer. If it doesn't have them, then logically no stargate would.

Of course, maybe Rodney will put his coffee on it, push two buttons at once by accident, and bring up a 9th chevron dialing screen by mistake

[Bam359]

The series has shown plenty of examples of other ways to travel between short distances. I mean, you have the ring devices, the Asgard teleportation beam, the Furling transporter door, the Aschen teleporters, the Gadmeer teleportation beam, and, well, I think you get my point.

These technologies are not Ancient technologies, and are thus beside the point. The Ancients are well Ancient, and pre-date their own meetings with other advanced races. The Asgard themselvs call the Anchents's "Achents". Parts of the stargate system were likely inplace long before any other advanced species was discovered.
Infact the only short range Ancient transportation technology we have seen is the 'elavators' on SGA. These seem to work only intra city, not for the whole planet.

It is much easier to create a travel device for short hops than it is to make one for interstellar travel. The gate's basic function is to provide a way to travel interstellar and intergalactic distances.

Is it? Why? Because you say so?
I would think that useing wormholes to travel instantly from point 'A' to point 'B' is essentialy the same thing no matter how far away point 'B' is - just a matter of power.

I don't know why this debate still exists

Probably because untill a show is aired useing a 9th chevron, there is no cannon to explaine its existance.
Debates like this will contune untill the righters have decided that it is 'time travel' or 'different universes' or 'allows 2 way travel' or 'makes you big on the other end' or 'makes you small on the other end' maby its 'like thors hammer, and if you use a ninth gate, your gould symbiot is removed in transport'.
What ever, go ahead and all you want. You didn't bring anything new to the table, just puked up old stuff...good job.

Now, anyone else who read my whole post have anything interesting to add?