9th Chevron = TIME AND DISTANCE (SPACE TIME)

[toby1kanobi]

That's pretty much been my assumption, somehow the 9th chevron establishes it as the Destiny, perhaps through some kind of updates to the gate system programming (we know now that they're all on a perpetual indexing link from Felger's experiments). Maybe the 9th chevron has to be dialed first in this instance and the 8 identifiers are then read differently by the system?

so your saying the ninth chevron in this case is in a way a programme to tell the gate "you are dialing a code, not an address"

i think i should make absolutely shure of one fact befor we continue, you, when refering to the ninth chevron mean the ninth locking device on the gate and not the ninth symbol dialed (ive befuddled myself once or twice) so is this right

[Professor D.H.D. Puddlejumper]

the nine chevrons could be transposed as numbers (they are representing coordinates afterall) so perhaps its not an address but a lock on code for a transponder and the gate as homing in on this rather than an address (like a sub space locator becon).

That's pretty much been my assumption, somehow the 9th chevron establishes it as the Destiny, perhaps through some kind of updates to the gate system programming (we know now that they're all on a perpetual indexing link from Felger's experiments). Maybe the 9th chevron has to be dialed first in this instance and the 8 identifiers are then read differently by the system?

so your saying the ninth chevron in this case is in a way a programme to tell the gate "you are dialing a code, not an address"

I'd been thinking along similar lines, just slightly different, and that is that the ninth chevron is not part of a gate address--but rather it IS the gate address--all wrapped up in one. But in order to activate the ninth, you must first activate the other eight chevrons using a specific combination of symbols. There's probably a flaw there somewhere but go ahead and pick away at it.

[toby1kanobi]

I'd been thinking along similar lines, just slightly different, and that is that the ninth chevron is not part of a gate address--but rather it IS the gate address--all wrapped up in one. But in order to activate the ninth, you must first activate the other eight chevrons using a specific combination of symbols. There's probably a flaw there somewhere but go ahead and pick away at it.

so a combination lock to open the ninth chevron

[Ravroz]

I gotta say that is a good idea on that one. Perhaps not only in a different galaxy but with a 9th chevron as a kind of lock.

[toby1kanobi]

I gotta say that is a good idea on that one. Perhaps not only in a different galaxy but with a 9th chevron as a kind of lock.

itd make a cool vis effect too

[Commander Zelix]

you have a point, when the 80's battlestar went back to ww2 i nearly kicked my tv to death

You don't get my point. I don't mind at all a time travel series about people going back in time or moving back and forth. I like the new Dr. Who, Sliders (which was technically parallel universe) and Journeyman for example.

Dr. Who did ww2 episodes and other back in time (and in the future) stuff which were great. But that is what the show is all about. The purpose of Universe is a ship with humans on it lost in other galaxies against their will with planets interconnected through Stargates. Beside the occasional time travel stories, its not what the show is all about (which happens to be often very good). There's no creative reasons to make the 9 or 10th chevron a time-travel chevron in this series. They're not even on earth!

[Professor D.H.D. Puddlejumper]

so a combination lock to open the ninth chevron

I gotta say that is a good idea on that one. Perhaps not only in a different galaxy but with a 9th chevron as a kind of lock.

That's sort of the way I was seeing it. As I recall, early press reports indicated that activation of the ninth chevron takes one to the Destiny regardless of where it is in the universe. I would take that to mean the ninth isn't a distance calculation at all because you go to the Destiny regardless of whether the ship is a mere 10 light years away or millions of light years away. It's just a matter of dialing a correct combination of symbols to activate the ninth chevron. Perhaps an SG team discovers this combination.

[Replicator Todd]

The Ninth Shevron can't be an address as no gate dials past eight.

[Professor D.H.D. Puddlejumper]

The Ninth Shevron can't be an address as no gate dials past eight.

You mean we've never seen more than eight being dialed as of yet. Since there's a ninth chevron on the MW stargates it's safe to assume that it's used somehow to connect with Destiny and that could mean dialing more than eight symbols. If you have a theory of your own, by all means, put it up here.

[Colonel Forte]

The Ninth Shevron can't be an address as no gate dials past eight.

We don't know that. Until Dr. Jackson figured out the "point of origin" glyph they didn't know it could dial 7. Until Jack dialed the 8th chevron in "The Fifth Race" they didn't know it could dial 8.

From the beginning they've been saying that the thus-far unused 9th chevron would somehow be explained in Universe. I'd even be inclined to believe that in Dean Devlin's original Stargate Trilogy idea there was a reason the gate had 9 chevrons that was very similar.

And yes toby1kanobi that's exactly what I mean, somehow whatever the first chevron is in the code tells the gate system you're no longer dialing a planet but something else, and I do mean nine locking chevrons. They could try dialing glyphs all they want, but a chevron doesn't lock, they could just keep spinning the inner ring and dialing 100 glyphs if they want, nothing would happen.

[Quadhelix]

I'm with you on this to some extent; assuming Destiny is confined to just one galaxy. It falls over though if this isn't the case.

Not necessarily; I suspect that a single nine-chevron address would cover a region roughly the size of a supercluster, if not larger (this would almost have to be the case if the Destiny is as far away as I suspect it is).

UNLESS (now you got me thinking) the 9th chevron works somehow as you suggest. Somebody at SGC figures this out. The gate on Destiny simply takes over as master gate for that "area" if dialling from outside that "area". So when they attempt to dial a 9-chevron address, they get the area Destiny is in, so thus Destiny itself.

There is reason to believe that this is accurate. Firstly, we know that a wormhole, by default, connects to a Stargate with a DHD in place of one without, if possible ("48 Hours") and that certain types of Stargate instead of others ("Enemy at the Gate").

Also, there is reason to suspect that each eight-chevron address covers many seven-chevron addresses, perhaps even enough that an entire galaxy could fall under a single eight-chevron address. If this is indeed the case, then one of those 'Gates would have to be dominant, and the very premise of Stargate Atlantis would seem to imply that the dominant 'Gate is the one with a dialing crystal enabling it to dial eight-chevron address; this is also implied in "Home," again, if I am right about the size of an eight-chevron address.

With regard to the Destiny's gate serving as the default, the Ancients probably would have designed that way for a very significant reason: if an Ancient wanted to 'Gate to the Destiny, (s)he would have to dial the galaxy or supercluster that the Destiny was visiting. Unless said Ancient could be sure that the Stargate would connect to the Destiny, there would be a very good chance of becoming stranded among the people of that galaxy, without a way to reach the Destiny.

[toby1kanobi]

your absolutly right about donimant gates with dhds, how many gates could there be in one galaxy. the milkey way gates have 36 symbols to make a 7 chevron lock so thats a total of only 181,440 addresses. the pegasus (mk2 gates) dont have a set limit to the interpolations as they are digital and not bound to 36 symbols and unlike an MW gate they could repeat a symbol in an address

in theory an MW gate can dial 36 different galaxies using a standard 8 chevron address (as there are only 36 possible AREA CODES so to speak)
that would be a very very small galactic cluster

[Colonel Forte]

After some careful calculation and review, I believe that at least 1 glyph repeating in any gate address is possible, the repeating glyph could potentially be the end of two separate axes in the three axes necessary to pinpoint a point in space. By that logic, a glyph could appear up to three times, but no more, in any gate address (each of three axes terminating at a single point would give you your point in space potentially making the other three glyphs abitrary or possibly just the nearest three constellations in space). I am not aware of any deep discussion about this in any episode of either show so I could be very wrong, I'm just speculating about geometry in a vacuum with no gravity.

Additionally, I don't follow your logic, toby1kanobi, regarding the manual dialing Milky Way gates versus the digital Pegasus gates and not being able to repeat a glyph. The ring could simply spin to line up glyph A with chevron 1 and then spin to line up glyph A with chevron 4 later.

Finally, we're assuming that a single glyph represents a single galaxy. 36 glyphs on the ring, 36 galaxies. Maybe it doesn't work like that. 6 glyphs create intersecting axes, glyph 7 is point of origin. Maybe 8 glyphs only changes distance, not galaxy. By dialing an 8th glyph instead of changing the galaxy, it changes the six glyphs that come before the point of origin, like pushing the shift key on your keyboard. Not every planet in a galaxy possesses a gate first of all, so 180,000+ gate addresses could merely represent gates within the 36 constellations represented by the glyphs. In the SG-1 episode where Daniel discovers the Atlantis address, what Daniel discovered was the necessary glyphs to correspond to the same glyphs that Shepard or McKay might dial in the Pegasus galaxy, the 8th glyph "shifted" what the glyphs on the ring meant. Remember that constellations are based on our view from Earth. Star formations look differently on different planets, but some might not. Pegasus may be a different galaxy, but it might share glyphs (and therefore constellations) with the Pegasus galaxy. So that changes the calculations necessary to determine the amount of potential gate addresses. Not every accessible gate from Earth necessarily has to be in the Milky Way either (though they probably are). Still 36 glyphs, used as an 8th chevron, means 36th different sets of constellations, and through some clever gate programming potentially not yet revealed, perhaps a mixture of constellations from "shift sets" (a gate address doesn't have to be all lower case or all CAPS for example, as it were, Milky Way gates could be "abcdef", Pegasus could be "ABCDEF", other galaxies could be a mixture of lower-case and caps).

So, the 9th glyph in an address is like the "Alt" or "Ctrl" key. Instead of shifting the glyphs to another set, it changes the function of the keys (Alt+F means pulls down the File menu, not the letter "F", Ctrl+P is a shortcut to print the page you're looking at instead of the letter "P"). Alt+ABCDEF+Point of origin tells the gate system we're not looking for a gate anymore, but the Destiny, for example.

[toby1kanobi]

After some careful calculation and review, I believe that at least 1 glyph repeating in any gate address is possible, the repeating glyph could potentially be the end of two separate axes in the three axes necessary to pinpoint a point in space. By that logic, a glyph could appear up to three times, but no more, in any gate address (each of three axes terminating at a single point would give you your point in space potentially making the other three glyphs abitrary or possibly just the nearest three constellations in space). I am not aware of any deep discussion about this in any episode of either show so I could be very wrong, I'm just speculating about geometry in a vacuum with no gravity.

Additionally, I don't follow your logic, toby1kanobi, regarding the manual dialing Milky Way gates versus the digital Pegasus gates and not being able to repeat a glyph. The ring could simply spin to line up glyph A with chevron 1 and then spin to line up glyph A with chevron 4 later.

Finally, we're assuming that a single glyph represents a single galaxy. 36 glyphs on the ring, 36 galaxies. Maybe it doesn't work like that. 6 glyphs create intersecting axes, glyph 7 is point of origin. Maybe 8 glyphs only changes distance, not galaxy. By dialing an 8th glyph instead of changing the galaxy, it changes the six glyphs that come before the point of origin, like pushing the shift key on your keyboard. Not every planet in a galaxy possesses a gate first of all, so 180,000+ gate addresses could merely represent gates within the 36 constellations represented by the glyphs. In the SG-1 episode where Daniel discovers the Atlantis address, what Daniel discovered was the necessary glyphs to correspond to the same glyphs that Shepard or McKay might dial in the Pegasus galaxy, the 8th glyph "shifted" what the glyphs on the ring meant. Remember that constellations are based on our view from Earth. Star formations look differently on different planets, but some might not. Pegasus may be a different galaxy, but it might share glyphs (and therefore constellations) with the Pegasus galaxy. So that changes the calculations necessary to determine the amount of potential gate addresses. Not every accessible gate from Earth necessarily has to be in the Milky Way either (though they probably are). Still 36 glyphs, used as an 8th chevron, means 36th different sets of constellations, and through some clever gate programming potentially not yet revealed, perhaps a mixture of constellations from "shift sets" (a gate address doesn't have to be all lower case or all CAPS for example, as it were, Milky Way gates could be "abcdef", Pegasus could be "ABCDEF", other galaxies could be a mixture of lower-case and caps).

this is a tricky one, i was in error to state that an MW gate cannot dial 2 glyphs the same. the whole gliph subject gets increasingly tricky when you remenber that the planet of origin has its own unique gliph, making only 35 gliphs that can be used for initial coordinates/pionts of refferance.

if the gates use star formations as the referance pionts (as is stargate lore) you get a very vague direction (im assuming that the gate signal homes in on a gate in the general area the address dials to, the gliphs would haft to have a fixed numerical meaning in order to create precise coordinates.

what i wana know is where is the common referance point for the MW gate system, as the ancients spent a vast amount of time on earth then its fair to assume that x0,0 y0,0 z0,0 is earth (but it should be the galactic core)

i find your "case sensitave" theory intreaging and extreamly well thought out, it would certainly answer a lot of questions

an idea i personialy like (not my idea but has much merit) is that the glyphs are encoded not to be an address per say but to be a shortcut for some sort of navigational program and it is that, and not the glyphs them selves that provide the stellar coordinates. a bit like trping in to a sat nav and brings up your saved locations

BTW green for you

[Quadhelix]

this is a tricky one, i was in error to state that an MW gate cannot dial 2 glyphs the same. the whole gliph subject gets increasingly tricky when you remenber that the planet of origin has its own unique gliph, making only 35 gliphs that can be used for initial coordinates/pionts of refferance.

Actually, neither Milky Way nor Pegasus 'Gates can dial a glyph multiple times: when a glyph is encoded in the DHD, that glyph "lights up," and is presumably unavailable.

the pegasus (mk2 gates) dont have a set limit to the interpolations as they are digital and not bound to 36 symbols

This is also not correct: Pegasus DHDs all have the same 36 symbols on them. Thus, the Pegasus 'Gates are limited to 36 symbols.

In the SG-1 episode where Daniel discovers the Atlantis address, what Daniel discovered was the necessary glyphs to correspond to the same glyphs that Shepard or McKay might dial in the Pegasus galaxy, the 8th glyph "shifted" what the glyphs on the ring meant. Remember that constellations are based on our view from Earth. Star formations look differently on different planets, but some might not. Pegasus may be a different galaxy, but it might share glyphs (and therefore constellations) with the Pegasus galaxy.

All constellations used on a Milky Way DHD are 100% in Milky Way! All constellations used on a Pegasus DHD are 100% in Pegasus. Do you realize how astronomically large the distances involved are? The Milky Way is about 100,000 light years across and yet it is still difficult to distinguish individual distant stars in Milky Way. Most visible stars are within a few hundred light years, if that far. Pegasus is 3,000,000 light years away: there is no way that any Milky Way constellation is visible in Pegasus. As for Pegasus constellations in the Milky Way, Pegasus itself is barely visible, let alone any constellations that may be inside it.