Why is there a Point of Origin?

[zer0_1]

does anyone remember the fact that sam said all planets are moving away form the centre of the galaxy?
maybe thats what it is needed for, to tell the system you are here, if a planet with a gate moves close by to another planet with a gate, the system may get confused

if i remember from the season 2 opener, daniel escaped form apohis' ship using the gate, but since it was in earths orbit, it became earths 3rd gate, using the PoO he was able to escape

the analogy is the same as my planet thing, just with a goauld ship

[The Signal]

does anyone remember the fact that sam said all planets are moving away form the centre of the galaxy?
maybe thats what it is needed for, to tell the system you are here, if a planet with a gate moves close by to another planet with a gate, the system may get confused

I agree, it is likely to allow the system to update for spacial drift

[Wildrat]

Been reading about old episodes and found out that the PoO is vital when there are several gates in the same place. The first six chevrons tells the gatesystem where in space the gate is and the seventh chevron tells the system which gate the wormhole is supposed to be connected to.

So the PoO is really only needed when there are several Stargates in the same place...

[ItsDan]

Can you cite episodes to back that up?



if i remember from the season 2 opener, daniel escaped form apohis' ship using the gate, but since it was in earths orbit, it became earths 3rd gate, using the PoO he was able to escape

My problem with that was that it would mean the Earth symbol was present on the gate they brought on the ship. Kind of a big coincidence, especially when (I'm trying to figure out which episode it was) I believe the home symbol is the only unique one.

[Jarnin]

My problem with that was that it would mean the Earth symbol was present on the gate they brought on the ship. Kind of a big coincidence, especially when (I'm trying to figure out which episode it was) I believe the home symbol is the only unique one.

The Earth PoO isn't required to dial out from within Earth orbit. All you need is to be within the Earth Gates operational range, and you can dial out with any gate, regardless of what symbol it uses to represent it's PoO.

[SmallTimePerson]

The PoO is used to plot the course. You always have a PoO, when you are driving to work you would start from somewhere, when you make a call the switchboard knows where you are on the line (your PoO). The PoO symbol is useless in the Stargate universe when it comes to actually puncting it in, as you wouldn't be able to dial without it because you wouldn't be able to plot the course, thats why the DHDs have that button (the gate PoO but you dont have to search for the symbol).

[Seastallion]

I was thinking about this while trying to answer another question. I understand the concept of having to have 7 points to plot a course, 6 for the destination and one for the origin, as explained in the movie. But why did the Ancients even have a Point of Origin?

The gate dialing is much like that of a telephone, you dial a number, and no matter where you're calling from, you will connect to the same phone. It doesn't matter where the origin is. So if the first 6 symbols give you the destination of a gate, and those symbols will connect you to the same stargate no matter where the wormhole originates from, why would you bother to even have a Point of Origin symbol? It changes nothing about the wormhole connection and only complicates the process (as seen in the movie).

Any thoughts?

Quite simple really. Not all Gate Addresses are 7 symbols long. Some are 8 symbols long (Like the address to Atlantis from Earth). The Point of Origin acts largely as an initializing factor. If you don't plug the PoO into the sequence at the 7th place, then the gate will assume that you are in fact dialing a longer address. If it did as you suggest, you might activate the gate to the wrong address when you were actually trying to dial a gate located outside the galaxy. This is why the PoO symbol is so very, very important. Granted... the instance where an extra-galactic gate would have the same first 6 symbols as a stargate within the galaxy would be very rare, but the possibility does exist.

Hopefully this settles the question.

[Atlantis_Man]

Do you remember in Before I Sleep, Atlantis can block out all gate addresses other than the one from Earth, which begs the question how would the cities Mainframe be able to know which offworld activations were coming from where. I think I was correct to assume that not only does it act in terms to tell the offworld gate where in subspace the energy needs to be directed to establish the wormhole, but informs the DHD where it is coming from so any other programs (like a block) can be used.

[Seastallion]

Do you remember in Before I Sleep, Atlantis can block out all gate addresses other than the one from Earth, which begs the question how would the cities Mainframe be able to know which offworld activations were coming from where. I think I was correct to assume that not only does it act in terms to tell the offworld gate where in subspace the energy needs to be directed to establish the wormhole, but informs the DHD where it is coming from so any other programs (like a block) can be used.

Also a good point. Obviously the symbols have many different uses and we shouldn't forget that. The symbols in a gate address are also phonetic so that a gate address can be spoken aloud as words, besides being locator points. The Ancients sure were smart...

[ItsDan]

The Earth PoO isn't required to dial out from within Earth orbit. All you need is to be within the Earth Gates operational range, and you can dial out with any gate, regardless of what symbol it uses to represent it's PoO.


Which brings us back to the original point, why is there a point of origin

[Seastallion]

The Earth PoO isn't required to dial out from within Earth orbit. All you need is to be within the Earth Gates operational range, and you can dial out with any gate, regardless of what symbol it uses to represent it's PoO.


Which brings us back to the original point, why is there a point of origin

Say what? If your referiring to the episode where they beamed the stargate onto Thor's ship, your sadly mistaken. They did use the PoO to dial the gate. The gate can be anywhere, and it still needs to have the PoO symbol on the gate used. The PoO symbol does not represent the actual position of the planet a gate is on... rather it represents the individual Stargate itself. Each PoO symbol is unique to every stargate. You could take the Earth Stargate to any starsystem anywhere, and it would still work as long as you were using a proper address.

In short... you don't know what your talking about. There is no "operational range" for the Stargate. As long as it has enough power to reach the address your trying to dial, it will work no matter where it is. Unless your trying to dial your own position. Then the stargate simply won't activate. We saw an example of this when O'neill and Carter were trapped in Antartica and didn't know it. On Stargate SG-1, stargates have often been moved to new planets, but that didn't change the PoO symbol on the gate.

Anywho...

[Wildrat]

So simply put, the PoO is the gate you're using.

Important either when there are several gates in the same place or to tell the system you're done dialling.

[ItsDan]

In short... you don't know what your talking about

I was responding to Jarnin, who stated that, like you said, the gate always uses its own PoO symbol. I never disagreed with this. I said "Which brings us back to the original point, why is there a point of origin", meaning, why does it need to be activated, given that the PoO is always "here", wherever "here" is. Sorry if I wasn't clear, I wasn't arguing that the PoO wasn't important.

Now, there IS some sort of limit on the gate's activation abilities. We weren't refering to the episode you thought we were, rather it was The Serpent's Lair, where Daniel uses a gate brought from another location to dial out. That gate only worked when it was close to the surface of a planet (first when they gate'd onto the ship, and again when Daniel left the ship for the alpha site).

[NoDot]

Why is there a PoO? Because it was in the movie.

Pragmatically? There is no pragmatics to bothering with the PoO!

No one's seemed to have noticed this, but the PoO is THE GATE! There is no reason for there to be a PoO, as the origin is the GATE!

Making someone dial a PoO is redundant and idiotic, as the gate can clearly calculate its own location relative to the other gates, or else you'd need to dial 12 coordinates.

[Seastallion]

Now, there IS some sort of limit on the gate's activation abilities. We weren't refering to the episode you thought we were, rather it was The Serpent's Lair, where Daniel uses a gate brought from another location to dial out. That gate only worked when it was close to the surface of a planet (first when they gate'd onto the ship, and again when Daniel left the ship for the alpha site).

Wrong. The Stargate doesn't have to be anywhere near a specific planet to be activated. It just can't be in travelling through Hyperspace and activated at the same time. The Stargate Address deals with an entire star system, not a single planet. The Stargate on Earth could be on Pluto, Mercury, or the Moon, and someone dialing to our stargate would still be able to activate it. As to dialing out with a gate, it doesn't matter where you are, as long as you have a valid outgoing address. You could take Earth's gate to the other side of the Galaxy, and still operate it exactly as you would on Earth, with the one exception that if you want to return through the moved Earth gate, you would need to calculate the new stargate Address for the Tau'ri gate based on its new position in the galaxy.

The Point of Origin symbol is specific to the gate being used and nothing else. Not even the planet of origin. The Earth PoO symbol is specific to the gate on Earth, not the planet. If the gate were taken to another star system, it would still be valid. The only difference is, that if you moved the gate you would need to figure out what the new return address would be, because the old one would be invalid because the gate would no longer be in the Solar system.