Why is there a Point of Origin?

[Gate Master]

No, Carter made a program that caclulates that.

Yes I know and given the importance of the PoO she would have to of calculated the drift for the PoO as well, it just wasn't explained to that extent in the show. The gate also stores the co-ordinace and updates with the DHD otherwise manual dialing would be impossible.
It was even said in 2001 that with out a DHD or the starting co-ordinace found on Abydoss to help calculate for planetary drift the furthest you could dial including manually was three hundred light years.
NoDot seems to have the impression that the gate can not only function with out a PoO but because you can manually dial it it can go any where with out bothering about little things like planetary drift.
Then to top it off he tries to get insulting when people dont share his ridiculas notions about how the show or real life navigation works when he has no idea what he's talking about. He seems to think the PoO is a movie point to introduce a charactor when it actually has basis in reality.

[Wildrat]

Hey! There is no need for hostilities from anyone. As someone said: IT'S ONLY A TV-SHOW! Not real... At all...

[Gate Master]

Hey! There is no need for hostilities from anyone. As someone said: IT'S ONLY A TV-SHOW! Not real... At all...

I fully agree and apologise to every one for any offence caused but certain people can rub me the wrong way. I would much rather have an inteligent civilised debate. If some one doesn't agree with me then fair enough, everyone has their own views on things and I respect that. I do get pi**ed off tho when certain people dont show that same respect that nearly everyone else I have spoken to on this forum has.

[NoDot]

Since you're opperating under a delusion, allow me to explain.

NoDot seems to have the impression that the gate can not only function with out a PoO but because you can manually dial it it can go any where with out bothering about little things like planetary drift.

Allow me to clarify: the planetary drift problem deals with the DESTINATION! The gate, as demonstrated by manual dials, can figure out for itself where it is, at least in relation to the destination.

I repeat: the PoO has no use other than in manual dials, as the gate cleary knows where it is, at least in relation to the destination.

The planetary drift problem deals in calculating the new destination coordinates to dial, as the old ones would be out of date.

Then to top it off he tries to get insulting when people dont share his ridiculas notions about how the show or real life navigation works when he has no idea what he's talking about. He seems to think the PoO is a movie point to introduce a charactor when it actually has basis in reality.

WRONG! The gate is the origin. The PoO is useless if the gate already can figure it out for itself.

Please provide an actual counter-argument, if you can find one.

[edit] I doubt it, but this'll be just in case...

The concept of the PoO is obvious. To plot a course through space of any numner of dimensions, you need an origin and a destination.

On the gate, OTOH, we have a different story, which I outlined above.

[Seastallion]

To qoute Charlie Brown.... "Good Grief...!" (places face in palm of hands)

Okaaay... I'll try to explain this. Again.

Question: Why is there a Point of Origin?

Answer: The Point of Origin acts as an initialization factor in an outgoing wormhole address. There are both 7 and 8 symbol gate addresses, and the Stargate needs the Point of Origin symbol to know when your done dialing the address. The 7th and 8th symbols respectively ARE the PoO symbols themselves.

As someone has pointed our earlier, the DHD and the Stargate are two completely (but related) different technologies. The coorelative updates in the Stargate network are actually between DHD's, however the Stargate is used to transmit and recieve the information between them.

For those who need this in bold print... The Point of Origin symbol has NOTHING to do with the planet, and or the place it is positioned. The PoO symbol deals with ONLY the stargate that it is on. Each PoO symbol is unique to its own gate... NOT the planet it is on.This means that a Point of Origin symbol will NEVER tell you where you are, if you don't already know. However, the way that you tell the difference between the PoO symbol and the others on the stargate, is that ALL stargates have 38 symbols in common, that are exactly the same on each gate. The PoO symbol is the ONLY symbol on the stargate that is unique to that gate, and that gate alone. (Once again... the Point of Origin symbol has NOTHING to do with the planet it is on.)

For all those folks out there wondering... why couldn't SG1 dial out when they were on board Apophis mothership? They couldn't dial out because the ship had already jumped into hyperspace, meaning a wormhole couldn't be formed. However, as long as a ship is NOT in hyperspace (even if it is moving), an outgoing wormhole can be established. Remember that episode where they blew up a sun? They weren't anywhere near the planet the stargate had been on (they were millions of miles away in space, closer to the sun), with the stargate in constant motion, and yet they had been able to dial an outgoing wormhole, and the PoO symbol was still valid, despite the fact they were far across the star system from where the gate had usually been placed.

Point of Origin symbols NEVER change, no matter where the stargate is located. However, if you do move a stargate to a new planet in a new star system, its stargate address DOES change. If the SGC were to move the Earths Stargate to another planet (for some crazy reason), the address to the Earth Stargate would be very different from the one used to reach the planet Earth itself. Everytime you move a Stargate to another planet in another star system, its incoming address always changes.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
This part is seperate from the PoO question, but still related.

This brings us back to the coorelative update which is very different from the Point of Origin itself, which never changes. The Coorelative update is somewhat controversial, but this is the best theory I've been able to come up with. The Stargate network (by means of the DHD's) has a built in working model of the galaxy itself, which allows it to take the stargate symbols which symbolize fixed position (which are themselves in constant relative motion), and update them to current relative position. In essence the coorelative update changes the values of each gate symbol keeping them valid for longterm gate address dialing. That is to say, that since the fixed stargate symbols' realspace counterparts are in constant motion the DHD's must constantly adjust the coordinate value of each symbol to keep a stargate address valid. This however, has only provides a limited form of self correction. Because of stellar drift, the star (and their planets) positions slowly change. This means that eventually (after many, many thousands of years), even with the coorelative updates, you will need to calculate a new address for a given stargates new location as a result of intra-galactic stellar motion. (Completely seperate from the relative motion caused by galactic drift between intergalactic gate networks.)

Did you get that? good. Because I only just barely did.

p.s.- I'm sure someone will disagree, and I'll be happy to play ball... but in the end it IS only a TV show using psuedo-science. The point of this entire subsection of the forum is to come up with seemingly plausible explanations for inherently flawed and ill-thought out technologies.

[Gate Master]

Since you're opperating under a delusion, allow me to explain.

Allow me to clarify: the planetary drift problem deals with the DESTINATION! The gate, as demonstrated by manual dials, can figure out for itself where it is, at least in relation to the destination.

I repeat: the PoO has no use other than in manual dials, as the gate cleary knows where it is, at least in relation to the destination.

The planetary drift problem deals in calculating the new destination coordinates to dial, as the old ones would be out of date.

WRONG! The gate is the origin. The PoO is useless if the gate already can figure it out for itself.

Please provide an actual counter-argument, if you can find one.

[edit] I doubt it, but this'll be just in case...

The concept of the PoO is obvious. To plot a course through space of any numner of dimensions, you need an origin and a destination.

On the gate, OTOH, we have a different story, which I outlined above.

The gate can not figure out its own position, every gate was once connected to a DHD which would have programed the PoO in to the gate along with the corralitive updates. This is what is then used for manual dialing. The PoO is linked to the co-ordinance where the gate is, not the gate itself or the planet technically. Also the actual symbals while perhaps unique to a gate are still 6 symbals in one defining the starting point. So I fail to see how you deem the PoO to be meaningless.
Also how does planetary drift only deal with the destination since every destination is another PoO, and manual dialing doesn't get around the need for corralitive up dates.

[NoDot]

The gate can not figure out its own position, every gate was once connected to a DHD which would have programed the PoO in to the gate along witht the corralitive updates. This is what is then used for manual dialing.

Then you wouldn't be able to take a gate to another location and have it still work. You CAN. The Goa'uld were doing this for a long time, and I seriously doubt the Ancients would be so stupid as to overlook that.

You also seem to have overlooked what Seastallion wrote, which supports my comments.

[Gate Master]

Then you wouldn't be able to take a gate to another location and have it still work. You CAN. The Goa'uld were doing this for a long time, and I seriously doubt the Ancients would be so stupid as to overlook that.

You also seem to have overlooked what Seastallion wrote, which supports my comments.

Thats true but then the gould were smart enough to account for planetary drift so recalibrating a star gate for a particular planet or tying the PoO in to there ships navagational computor would be easy for them it doesn't negate the need for a PoO. Also if the gate could figue out where it was on its own then it could figure out where other destinations are with out corralitive updates.

[NoDot]

Thats true but then the gould were smart enough to account for planetary drift so recalibrating a star gate for a particular planet or tying the PoO in to there ships navagational computor would be easy for them it doesn't negate the need for a PoO. Also if the gate could figue out where it was on its own then it could figure out where other destinations are with out corralitive updates.

Still, why do we even need to dial the PoO? If the gate has it, then dialing it on the DHD is pointless. If it's in the DHD, then you wouldn't be able to manually dial.

[Gate Master]

Still, why do we even need to dial the PoO? If the gate has it, then dialing it on the DHD is pointless. If it's in the DHD, then you wouldn't be able to manually dial.

I agree dialing the symbol is comletely pointless and should be done with the main button. But just the fact you can manually dial the gate means both DHD and the gate must store the necessary co-ordinance

[NoDot]

I agree dialing the symbol is comletely pointless and should be done with the main button. But just the fact you can manually dial the gate means both DHD and the gate must store the necessary co-ordinance

Or that the gate can figure out for itself where it is.

[Gate Master]

Or that the gate can figure out for itself where it is.

But then you wouldn't need corralitive updates as it could also figure out where the destinations are. Also the gate stores all other co-ordinance but you still have to dial them.

[Seastallion]

I agree dialing the symbol is comletely pointless and should be done with the main button. But just the fact you can manually dial the gate means both DHD and the gate must store the necessary co-ordinance

The reason the Point of Origin symbol is on the Gate itself, is because if you don't have a DHD you need to be able to initialize a wormhole activation. The DHD has NO Point of Origin symbol. The DHD has ONLY 38 symbols as opposed to a stargate having 39. (The 39th symbol being the PoO.) The Big Red Button acts as the PoO symbol button on the DHD. However, because of acting snafu's the DHD has been seen dialed with both 6 and 7 coordinates before hitting the big red button.

So you see... it is IMPOSSIBLE to dial the point of origin into a DHD other than hitting the big red button.

[Gate Master]

The reason the Point of Origin symbol is on the Gate itself, is because if you don't have a DHD you need to be able to initialize a wormhole activation. The DHD has NO Point of Origin symbol. The DHD has ONLY 38 symbols as opposed to a stargate having 39. (The 39th symbol being the PoO.) The Big Red Button acts as the PoO symbol button on the DHD. However, because of acting snafu's the DHD has been seen dialed with both 6 and 7 coordinates before hitting the big red button.

So you see... it is IMPOSSIBLE to dial the point of origin into a DHD other than hitting the big red button.

To be fair I have never took much notice of how many symbals were dialled but as I said its daft dialing it when it should be incorporated in to the main button. Why press two buttons to do the job of one. Even tho its not dialled it still has to be in the sytem tho when the main button is pressed as it is equivelant to 6 symbols for the PoO. But again dialing the same six symbols each time would be pointless if it can be incorporated in to a kind of speed dial

[Seastallion]

But then you wouldn't need corralitive updates as it could also figure out where the destinations are. Also the gate stores all other co-ordinance but you still have to dial them.

Coorelative update have nothing to do with the Point of Origin. The coorelative update is used to change the coordinate symbol values in a constant moving galaxy over an extended period of time. The coorelative update is relevent only when trying to dial to another stargate. The Stargates themselves do NOT know where they are. The person using the gate has to know that... if you don't, you're screwed. Once YOU know where you are in relation to the rest of the galaxy then you use the coordinate symbols as an X, Y, Z targeting axis, for where you want your wormhole to go to. If there is a stargate located in the coordinate you enter, then the wormhole will be attracted to the other gate like a magnet, and you'll get a lock. It has nothing to do with one gate knowing where the other gates are. The DHD might know... but not the Stargate. However, the DHD is not independently interactive (at least not without the proper diagnostic equipment. Computers, etc.), so it won't give you a list of available addresses, unlike the SGC dialing computer.

Keep in mind, the X,Y,Z targeting axis is the same for every Stargate, meaning it uses a standered galaxy wide point of reference... NOT any specific planet's point of reference. (The fact that all gates use Earth constellations as their coordinate symbols is a productions snafu. However, one limited plausible explanation is that the constellations above the Earth's sky were imagined based on the symbols on the stargate instead of the other way around.) That is why all stargate addresses to any planet in the galaxy will work for any other stargate as well. If the stargate symbol coordinates were based only on the reference point of view of a single planet it wouldn't work galaxy wide. The stargate addresses would always be different depending on your actual Point of Origin. This I think is where much of the confusion comes in. Many people are still using the Movie's frame of reference as opposed to the one on the TV show.

Hopefully this will help.