How did the Icarus gate know the location of Destiny?

[Rylor]

My theory:
When the 8th chevron is encoded, the gate knows that a 9 symbol address is being dialed. The gate transmits the ancient equivalent to a network broadcast looking for Destiny. When Destiny receives that broadcast it drops out of FTL and transmits a reply with it's location. When the dialing gate receives Destiny's reply it checks the available power versus the distance and if the PoO is correct. If everything is good it establishes a wormhole.

I agree with you, that seems to be the most likely explanation.

The problem with that is that most Stargates lack the specialized control crystals in the DHD needed to dial an 8 Chevron address. Without that crystal any attempt to dial an 8-chevron address would fail when the 7th symbol wasn't the point of origin.

Because of that, I suspect that while any gate CAN dial Destiny, it takes a specialized DHD in order to do it. After that, it just becomes a matter of power, which an exploding Icarus-type planet core provides

We've seen before (Fifth Race) that the only thing really limiting a Milky Way stargate's range is power. In Earth, they tried applying that principle to Destiny by plugging it directly into a star, but Rush and Eli agree in that that wouldn't have worked.

As far as we know, Destiny can only be dialed from the Milky Way gate network and the Milky Way DHDs have no problem with dialing an 8-chevron address. I think the problem is the Point of Origin. We know that Destiny's address is a code and the last symbol is the Point of Origin for the Earth gate. So only the Earth gate could (provided enough power) directly dial Destiny. Every other gate / DHD would have to be modified in order to encode the Earth Point of Origin despite it not being on the gate.

[beafly]

It may be interesting to think of Destiny's address as something more like a website's URL. It's basically a name that is tossed into the cloud where some authoritative source identifies the actual physical address.

The question of how the actual location is resolved could be explained by any number of technologies presented in the stargate universe.

I too would be interested in the writer's explanation.

[sman789]

It's definatly nothing to do with the other gates "guessing" Destiny's location. The simple fact that Eli's hand wasn't cut off is proof that the course isn't entirely unalterable, and can be delayed, therefore the position of the ship changes reletive to any guesswork. Also, the fact that the LA could dial in even after the events of Faith that took a whole month is proof that the location of the ship is identified as and when it is needed, not worked out or taken from a map.

[mickhhh]

heres my theory.

maybe the first 8 determine the galaxy. maybe the galaxy was included in the equations to determine the address. its possible destiny follows a calander set when it first left. not planet to planet but maybe galaxy to galaxy.
when the first 8 determine the galaxy they sent a signal to the galaxy containing the 9th chevron which is destinys own chevron. and then destiny sends a signal back telling the gate its location.

[droid327]

Alternate hypothesis: perhaps Destiny's unique FTL drive works on a similar principle to the Stargates themselves; ie, some kind of localized sliding wormhole, that would create a signal in subspace that the Stargates could detect and use to track it? Maybe we just havent seen that part of the DHD code yet? We know there's whole layers to that program that we dont understand yet

Destiny's FTL "effects" look vaguely event-horizoney, and we saw how the Smurf fighters went boom just from being near Destiny when FTL kicks in, much like you get disintegrated in a kawhoosh...

[knowles2]

I mean, sure, it's a code, but the gate does need to forward the wormhole into a very specific direction. Now, that's where the power requirements come in, but it doesn't explain how the Icarus gate could know the location to 'gate to' Destiny.

Periodic updates through 8 chevron dialing? Not likely, costs hell alot of energy.
Subspace transmission? Not likely, even that still takes time, and given the vast distance between Icarus and Destiny..
Communication Stone transmission? Hmmmmmmm. That's instant. And thus, that's possible.

Share your thoughts.

Communications the ancients uses are instantainious, as demonstrated by the stones, which is technology that is older than the gates themselves. It not much of a stretch to say the destiny has this technology built into it.

[Gala]

Not sure if it has been mentioned properly or not... but it would seem to me that the reason it is stated that the 9 chevron address uses a 'pass-code' that takes earth as the point of origin, whether they are there or not, is because Destiny is constantly on the move and any specific tracking of its location would be too difficult. It probably is some technology similar to the communications stones built into Destiny that lets the dialler know where it is.


I think it's also good to raise that point that they can directly dial destiny from a nearby planet, so it's probably a good guess that if it was, say, in the Pegasus, we could dial it from earth using a 8 symbol address if we were aware of it's location.

So, that does actually open up more purpose for 9 chevrons rather than just dialling destiny.

7 dials relatively close destinations.
8 dials other galaxies like an area code, may even work for extremely far distances.
9 dials mobile gates such as destiny.

[tomstone]

Given enough power, both MW and Pegasus Galaxy Gates can dail each other. So, even if a normal Wormhole cant be established, the Gates must have a much wider range when it comes to simply sending/recieving beacons and even redirecting the signal if the adress is out of range.

So, given that the Gate Seeding Ships left a trail in every Galaxy they visited, the signal could easily get to Destiny and back. When they tried to Dail the Destiny from Icarus, it took the gate some time to activate the last chevron. Possibly because the Signal had to go through a much wider range of Gates to get to the recieving end.

On a Sidenote: Was that a screw up from the writers or wasnt Eli talking to his Mom while they traveled to Icarus in HS? So if we could do it, why shouldnt the Ancients be able to get a signal through in Hyperspace?Therefore, I dont think that Destiny has its FTL drive just to recieve the signal.

[Ben 'Teal'c would WIN!!' Noble]

Given enough power, both MW and Pegasus Galaxy Gates can dail each other. So, even if a normal Wormhole cant be established, the Gates must have a much wider range when it comes to simply sending/recieving beacons and even redirecting the signal if the adress is out of range.

So, given that the Gate Seeding Ships left a trail in every Galaxy they visited, the signal could easily get to Destiny and back. When they tried to Dail the Destiny from Icarus, it took the gate some time to activate the last chevron. Possibly because the Signal had to go through a much wider range of Gates to get to the recieving end.

On a Sidenote: Was that a screw up from the writers or wasnt Eli talking to his Mom while they traveled to Icarus in HS? So if we could do it, why shouldnt the Ancients be able to get a signal through in Hyperspace?Therefore, I dont think that Destiny has its FTL drive just to recieve the signal.

I don't remember that happening but you never know.

[thekillman]

another one of these threads.


the 9th chevron is a code. the icarus gate knew the location of Destiny because it used the code, it contacted Destiny via long-range comms and then dialled.

[Ben 'Teal'c would WIN!!' Noble]

another one of these threads.


the 9th chevron is a code. the icarus gate knew the location of Destiny because it used the code, it contacted Destiny via long-range comms and then dialled.

I think most here knew that but how did the gate send the signal, did it send it everywhere in the know universe I don't buy it.

[EllieVee]

I think most here knew that but how did the gate send the signal, did it send it everywhere in the know universe I don't buy it.

Actually, when Eli suggested it was a code he was referring to the use of the ninth chevron as if they were dialling from Earth rather than where they were. 'What if we're not supposed to be here.' It wasn't about recognition at the other end.

[YsoL8]

Given that the comm stones work over these distances, why wouldn't the gate? My thought is that the energy required per lightyear for a wormhole must decrease exponentially as the distance increases. How else do you account for needing a ZPM to dial the nearest galaxy but only a planet of that mineral I can't spell to connect millions of galaxies away?

It's more energy in that planet for sure, but it can't be more than 10,000 zpms and probably a lot less. On a straight line energy graph that would get you 10,000 galaxies into space. Given the size of the first galaxy Destiny was in (based on the display Rush used to see the next gate would be the last) and the number of dialings made, Destiny must have traveled though at least 10,000 galaxies and closer to 1 million.

Anyway the point of my rambling is that Wormhole travel becomes increasingly efficient though distance, which explains how a gate can connect to destiny despite an apparently unachievable power requirement. It would allow a comm stone like device in the stargate to search distant locations almost as energy efficiently as in nearby galaxies.

This would provide a reason to explain why the ancients waited until the project the forgotten to board Destiny. The power requirements could of been much higher to get there while it was relatively close.

It would also mean that the ancients would of known in advance it didn't matter how far away Destiny is, they just find a suitable planet and Destinys gate range will become virtually unlimited, allowing two way travel.

Feel free to make of that what you will, I'm not going to argue it's merits round in circles.

[Mike.]

It's actually the other way around, more distance = higher power consumption. The comm stones work with a different principle like quantum entanglement.

[Ben 'Teal'c would WIN!!' Noble]

It's actually the other way around, more distance = higher power consumption. The comm stones work with different principle like quantum entanglement.

My point was only repeating the purpose of the thread it's not some stupid question.