Earth Stargate Point of Origin strikes again

[fwivot]

Lol, the whole stargate shouldn't really going work either. How can 39 or 38 symbols or wherever represent every gate in the galaxy it can only work as the movie intended the stargate only works between two planets as you can't actually see all these constellations from all around the galaxy as they would change.

This is the problem you run into when you make a tv series out of a movie - you inevitably have to change a few things to make it work. In the movie, the gates used the constellations as points of reference to determine a destination, hence the different glyphs on the Abydos stargate. In the show, I think they just assume it's more like a telephone number so they can just walk up to any DHD and know Earth's address. This helps explain the shift from the gate transporting you to the other side of the known universe in the movie to just being our galaxy. Also, this makes it easier to remember addresses and dial them from any planet without pulling out your star charts. You can also have more gate addresses this way. For instance, if you only had 6 different glyphs to work with, you could only have (if my math is right) 15 possibilities using the "6 points in space to make 3 lines that intersect method" since you would run into duplicate lines (1-2 is the same as 2-1, for instance) while the phone number method gives you 720 possibilities. Obviously there are more than six glyphs on the gate, but you get the idea.

The problem is TPTB inherited the PoO from the film so just kept it a much better system would be to integrate the PoO in the BRB (big red button) as so long as the stargate knows where it is why do we need a visual cue for us. Now that I think about it TPTB could have said the PoO symbol is always A one and is just on gate for manual dialing and the DHD has the PoO integrated into the BRB.

This would have been great if they had thought of it. Then all gates could have the same 38 glyphs and one random glyph to represent the point of origin. This would tie in nicely with identifying which planet the stargate is on, as Daniel did when he showed Teal'c that they were from Earth in the first episode.

Like others have said though, at the end of the day it's best to not read into this stuff too much as it's not exactly based on something real so there are going to be some inconsistencies. Just sit back and enjoy the episodes. After all, we're able to suspend our disbelief on a lot of other aspects of the show, why not the Point of Origin, as well?

[traylormatt]

In England, where I live used to have 01203 in front of it, now it is 024. It could have just changed, the technology is the same but they altered the programming somehow. Maybe they just originally thought there wouldn't be many more that 30 or so planets that would be habitable so they thought they could put a symbol on each gate that would be their PoO. When they spread out more and more they thought "ahhh dammit, we are going to have to sort this out" which is when they introduced the system where a gate would have all the standard symbols plus a random one for their own personal PoO. I don;t know, this doesn;t really make sense.

Maybe the PoO can be what ever the random symbol out is at any time. So you bring a new gate to earth and throw away the old one (it got dirty or maybe someone chipped it by acciednt) and obviously the symbol really just represents "this gate" (which is what I always figured the large activate style button on DHDs should do any way, like that would have that last symbol in there and you would dial the other 6 and that big button would be the PoO for easy use) but yes, so they bring the new gate and that new symbol really represents the same information on all gates which simply tells the gate it is locking the address dialed, kind of like a reverse hang up. Rather than dialing 6 numbers then thinking "oh no i dialed the wrong number" and hanging up after making a short connection to some random planet who may then worry their gate is malfunctioning, it is more like "ok let me check I have dialed the right place, yep yep" and push the confirm key to dial away. So really it could just be like a fancy enter key.

Also would it be worth thinking that the whole "constellations mapped out the positions" thing only works for earth? Which I would say also attributes to the 6 numbers with the final just acting as an engage (so really a pointless symbol that can be anything and is the same on every gate just disguised differently which is why gates can be swapped) Because the constellation are from earths POV yet the address are the same from anywhere in the galaxy then they are all dialing from earth's understanding and POV of the galaxy, most of the constellations would look slightly different to people on the other side of the galaxy surely. Which is why I figure maybe the final 7th symbol is just a "call" button, like I suggested and attributes nothing to the particular planet in question. And as we know, the symbols each have a word associated (like we do for numbers for dialing, really they could be shaped like animals and we would just learn our numbers as "cow octopus cat cat cat fox tiger elephant crocodile elephant" rather than 11 digits or what ever). They just decided to attribute these symbols to them instead and earths symbol means "at" or what ever, but other than constellations which Jack gave associated sounds to, for all we know every seventh symbol (one that doesnt attribute to a constellation) could just be "at" or what ever he said, which could mean "call" in english.

though it is probably wrong, just thinking.

[Merlin's_Legacy]

Consider this: The gate symbols are icons representing points in space. Each point has to have a numerical equivalent for the software to work. Obviously we can override the PoO in software as was done at the Icarus base. Now, back when the ancients were building Stargates they probably used a unique symbol for the PoO on each gate, but then later when the Goa'Uld started adding to the network they were mass producing gates, most likely using the same molds for each gate. End result is this: Original Ancient-made gates have unique PoO symbols, but mass-produced Goa'Uld gates all use the Earth Pyramid PoO symbol and the gate's numeric PoO is set in software.

As far as gate dominance goes I'd imagine the PoO numeric is more like a serial number for the gate in addition to a location code. A gate of a newer design or revision is going to take receive precedence over an older gate, unless the software in the sending gate has been modified to ignore the precedence rules (as in the case of the midway station).

[traylormatt]

Were the Goa'uld ever seen to be able to manufacture gates? I didn;t think they were able to which is why it was a big revelation when we discover the Ancients are the gate builders. Plus Jack puts in loads of address in and that seems to be the majority of address they have, which implies that the Ancients made more. I really don;t think the Goa'uld had anything to do with make the gates, ever.

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

Ra could have just brought another gate from an uninhabited planet and changed the symbol.