Stargate Network System

[Supergater]

Hail people from Earth! I come in peace! LOL

Out of curiosity I did some calculation of the gate coordinate system. Either by sheer luck or diligent research, the people who create and/or vet all the finer details of the Stargate mythology really hit the nail on the head. I feel like adding parts of these calculation to the Stargate wikia, but I also like some opinions/vetting of this information first from you Gaters out there.

1. There are 38 symbols on the Milky Way galaxy gate, using a 6 symbol address to identify the destination gate and 7th symbol for point of origins.
2. This gives 38x37x36x35x34x33 = 1,987,690,320 possible addresses
3. Our galaxy has radius of 50,000 ly (lightyears) and a thickness (sun to vertical edge) of 500 ly.
4. Assuming Milky Way is a perfect ellipsoid, its volume = 1.6667x10¹² pi ly³
5. Therefore a single gate address encompasses a volume = MW volume/no. addresses = 2634.21 ly³
6. It also equates to a sphere with radius = 8.5675 ly

To put it in perspective, our solar system extends from Sun to the Oort Cloud at 1.87 ly away. At 8.5 ly, a single gate address would reach Sirius A and B, one of the brightest stars in our night sky. Based on my research, a single address would then perfectly cover a large enough region of space to, with high probability, find one habitable planet but small enough not to include another habitat planet. As far as I can find, Google says that the nearest "Solar system" is Epsilon Eridani at 16 ly away. In other words, if our gate sector is centered on our Sun, the neighboring gate address would just right be centered on Epsilon Eridani with no huge overlaps. It also seems that there can only be one habitable world in a single solar system. Therefore it seems Stargate's sci-fi science was actually spot on.

What do you think on the accuracy of the calculations above? Apologies if the flow of presentation or wording is unclear.

(Time to go. I like this icon)

[Xaeden]

As far as I can find, Google says that the nearest "Solar system" is Epsilon Eridani at 16 ly away.

The nearest solar system is Proxima Centauri at about 4.2 light years away. Also, Epsilon Eridani is actually about 10.5 light years away.

It also seems that there can only be one habitable world in a single solar system.

Within the Stargate universe or the real world?

Stargate: In Sg-1's "Paradise Lost" there was both a habitable planet and (for some reason) that planet's moon was also habitable. In Stargate: Atlantis they showed us that there were two habitable planets in the solar system that the expedition originally gated to. One was Lantea and the other was the planet that they found the crashed Wraith ship on.

Real world: Habitability is possible anywhere within the Goldilocks Zone, which is the area where it's possible for water to exist in its three forms. That area is large enough that it's possible for multiple planets to safely co-exist within it. Then both planets also need to be a within a certain size range and have magnetic fields.

[thekillman]

Stargate: In Sg-1's "Paradise Lost" there was both a habitable planet and (for some reason) that planet's moon was also habitable. In Stargate: Atlantis they showed us that there were two habitable planets in the solar system that the expedition originally gated to. One was Lantea and the other was the planet that they found the crashed Wraith ship on.

The Tollan also initially coexisted with another habitable world (until they gave them advanced tech which destroyed both planets)

Real world: Habitability is possible anywhere within the Goldilocks Zone, which is the area where it's possible for water to exist in its three forms. That area is large enough that it's possible for multiple planets to safely co-exist within it. Then both planets also need to be a within a certain size range and have magnetic fields.

I think Trappist could possibly have up to to 3, due to the planet arrangement.

[Supergater]

Many thanks to Xaedan and Thekillman for point it out. If this is the case, then my working theory goes out the window. I was trying to adapt the Stargate science into real-world science (something like on Because Science youtube channel. Go check it out. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvG...0HExnIjdgaqcDQ)

My theory was based on the assumption that each gate sector would be the same size - the galaxy is divided up equally. The theory came up from the fact that two nearby gate interfere with each other (i.e. Egyptian gate & Antarctic gate or Earth gate & Wraith gate in "Enemy at the gate"). It would be like two telephone(Stargate) connected(placed) in the same house(solar system). I was wondering how "big" this "house" extends to in space, hence the calculations above.

As Xaedan and Thekillman pointed out, the only implication/explanation I could think of then would be Dr Jackson's 6-point coordinate explanation isn't exactly literal. The gate coordinates system would then be more analogous to a 6 digit telephone area code, 7th digit "caller's id" and maybe 8th digit country/galaxy code.

What do you think? Is there any other explanation that can make this work in real life?

[NickEast]

I always treated the Milky-Way Stargate network as only spanning a small portion of the galaxy, roughly a third. This reduces the scale of the coordinates, and whenever we see starmaps on the show the gates seem to be quite close together compared to the scale of the galaxy and density of the stars.

Other than that, the coordinate system used by the gates as created by the Ancients is way beyond our understanding (the excuse I use to justify some of the apparent plot holes like the constellations and such ), so there is no way we could comprehend exactly how it works. I always believed the "points" in space to lie within the constellations, instead of being the constellations themselves. And that the shapes are some abstract representation (since most aren't even close to the actual shape of the real constellations, except Orion). Perhaps they are real planets or beacons or space stations or whatever, or even some kind of subspace network. One other theory I had, though which I don't really support, is that perhaps originally, 38 Stargates (each using one of the 38 other glyphs as their point of origin) represented the coordinates and that it was later replaced by a more abstract system.

With this, it's possible there is more than one gate network in the Milky-Way, opening up the possibility of other advanced alien civilizations, unaffected by the Goa'uld and Ori, and other possible mysteries involving the Ancients (such as why there are multiple isolated networks). But now I'm diving into fan-fiction .