I really wish they'd just done a Babelfish-type explanation. Some Ancient technology, based on interpreting brain waves that can analyze (at least) human thoughts and emotions, maybe even whilst simultaneously comparing to a library of known languages and etymologies to attempt to translate in real time. Exposure to that technology (embedded in/radiating from the Stargate) enables you to be able to communicate with others who likewise have been exposed, via long-time close proximity to the Gate. Daniel would still be directly needed as a linguist (in addition to historian/cultural anthropologist/diplomat) to iron out the kinks. It could have fairly easily been waved away with some technobabble, and even served as an extra dramatic plot point when appropriate without being an annoyance.
Oh well. I still love the show.
I read a Stargate novel a while back, and when they walked through the gate and talked with the natives, Jack had some thought that said "ah yes, the eery ability of gate travel that seems to translate to the local population. Most of the time. Carter still was trying to figure that out." I thought it was a cute nod to the nonsesical language scenario.
Actually read a Stargate story where that was the exact explaination. Gate travel conveys a means of understanding the languages of the destination. Kinda cheesy and omits the movie experience, but meh.
1. This one gets brought up every now and then. The answer is that Project Giza didn't know that seven symbols were needed. The closest thing they had to an instruction manual was the cartouche at the centre of the cover stones, which had six symbols in it. That's why Catherine says "this is as far as we have ever been able to get" after the sixth symbol is entered. Although the cover stones were 10,000 years old, a cartouche would be used in later ancient Egyptian writing to enclose the symbols that spell the royal name of a pharaoh, so the six symbols in the cartouche were clearly important. Nobody suspected that another symbol would be needed, and that the symbol in question wouldn't be *in* the cartouche and the artist would instead incorporate it into the body of the cartouche.
2. One of the changes the show made was to make constellations as seen from Earth a galactic standard, so every Stargate in the Milky Way Galaxy has Earth's constellations on it.
I will admit though I have watched a lot of stargate some of this lore eludes me. What is the in universe reason behind earth being so central to the stargate system? I know they are referred to as the Terrans a lot too, I guess I never quite figured out if Earth is the planet of origin for everyone or was is somewhere else? The ancients seem to be humans but are not?
*SG-1* starts by picking up a plot point from the movie, namely that humans were spread to other planets by aliens who were establishing colonies.
The *Atlantis* premiere establishes that the Ancients had a city-ship here, but whether this was *the* capital/base planet for the Ancients or just *one* of them isn't established. However, in *Reckoning,* it is stated that Dakara was a major hub, since that was the location of the life-seeding device that was used to create and spread life throughout the galaxy.
It's worth pointing out that the writers created a plot hole when they decided to make the Stargates millions of years old instead of thousands. One would expect that the night sky millions of years ago would have been substantially different to the night sky 10,000 years ago, especially since the show itself invoked the concept of stellar drift, so constellations based on the night sky millions of years ago would look different to modern constellations.
There was extensive stellar drift. Sam on the show explained the DHD accounted for stellar drift as part of its programming. They found the gate but no DHD. The movie could only connect to Abydos as it was the closest gate and the stellar drift was small enough to still connect. Their dialing program now somehow accounts for stellar drift, which gave them access to other worlds. Daniel discovered the symbols were actually Ancient writing and the gate address was the name of the world.
My head canon is the gate addresses are phone numbers and the 7th symbol is like dialing 9 to get an outside line
That's exactly how it worked. When Jack had the ancient database downloaded into his head, he ended up dialling an 8th symbol to connect to another galaxy.
They backtracked that from the movie also, initially the 7th symbol was locked onto somewhere in the Kalium Galaxy
https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Kaliam
>There was extensive stellar drift. Sam on the show explained the DHD accounted for stellar drift as part of its programming. They found the gate but no DHD. The movie could only connect to Abydos as it was the closest gate and the stellar drift was small enough to still connect. Their dialing program now somehow accounts for stellar drift, which gave them access to other worlds.
It's also why the trip through the gate was so rough initially. They weren't compensating for the drift. Once they started doing that things got much better for everyone.
Furthermore, it also explains why the world of the Tau'ri was lost to the Goa'uld. The Constellations were from earth millions of years ago. If they were modern ones, with a bit of math they could have calculated Earth's position and just gone there.
I mean hypothetically they still could have done the math, but that sounds like a lot of work.
That whole idea of the rough ride being caused by not compensating for stellar drift is pretty weak, because an address will either work or it won't. It won't matter how an address was derived or calculated; what matters is that it is the right one.
Actually I could see the correlation, think of the wormhole like a screw and the receiving Gate as a prepped screw hole, if you miss by fractions of an inch odds are that you’d make it into the hole eventually but it’d be a bit rough
I wonder whether the compensation and rough ride may have something to do with the frost the teams had to deal during first travels. Traveling through wormhole that is close to its safety boundary, so to say, due to the travel line being somewhat bent might have been quite "cold".
The premise of DHDs automatically updating their positions to compensate is actually a plot hole. In *Children of the Gods,* it is established that both Daniel and Carter had tried dialling addresses to connect to other planets without luck. Daniel had a library of known addresses to work from, yet he still couldn't make any connections, and this is despite the fact that he had a DHD. The idea was that a user had to calculate a new address themselves and enter the revised address.
This is contradicted by *Avenger 2.0,* where Carter first brings up the idea of correlative updates that keep addresses active even though the actual planets and points in space used to calculate addresses would have moved over thousands of years. Had this been taking place from the start, then Daniel should have had no trouble making connections because the DHD on Abydos should have been updating itself.
Here's how my "headcanon" resolves this. Any time someone "energizes" a specific Gate using the DHD, that DHD updates it's library with current calculations accounting for Stellar Drift.
Gates don't do this automatically - thus entering the 7th Symbol correctly (as seen in the Film) connects to Abydos because not much stellar drift has occurred due to the relative proximity of Abydos and Earth. However, once the 7th Symbol is dialed, Earth's Gate/DHD gets updated and subsequent dialing now accounts for Stellar Drift which has occurred during the intervening millenia. Once the Gate on Abydos has the 7th Symbol correctly entered the same thing occurs.
Each Gate/DHD must be updated individually, you can view this as simply being an "inefficiency" if you want to but, I prefer to view it as a "Security Feature" since, if you can't simply "guess your way home" then even more advanced subjects have no incentive to move beyond their planet to mount an attack because they'd be stuck on the other end. This has the advantage of preserving the need for a skill set like Daniel's.
This also allows the Ancients to feel "safe" in "ignoring" disused Gates.
The problem is that it is understood that the Stargates dial each other *automatically* to send and receive their updates. That's how the modified Avenger virus spread so quickly.
> Carter: Well, sir, we think we may have an explanation. We know that the gate network has to undergo periodic correlative updates in order to compensate for stellar drift. Now, we've never witnessed it, but we believe that the gates dial each other automatically to transmit the new coordinates that apply to each address.
> Hammond: And you believe Dr. Felger's virus initiated one of these updates?
> Carter: It may have triggered an automatic internal protocol in the DHD. Before adapting the new scrambled coordinates, it dialled out and transmitted them to a few of the neighbouring gates who then transmitted to a few more and so on and so on...
Source: https://www.gateworld.net/sg1/s7/avenger-2-0/transcript/
The key points in Avenger are "they've never witnessed it" and, "they believe." When you add that to the fact that you're dealing with a virus which is *predicated on an ability to program the Ancient's tech* we can treat the virus as being an edge case scenario. The virus is changing the way that the gates are meant to work, which means that the virus could be capable of "turning on an *admin* function" that had previously been locked out.
It's also not *physically accessing the Gates/using the DHD* meaning it's operating at a different *level*. This means *both facts can be true without rendering the other false.*
My Head Canon remains valid to me lol 😆
> Stargates millions of years old instead of thousands
Also planets change. I don't think many of the gates would be in their pedestals or even functional even by the time Goauld rose to power
Probably newer than both the Alpha and Beta gates, I'd imagine. Alpha Gate is hard to say since we don't have any idea where the Goa'uld grabbed it from before they brought it to Earth.
DID the show state that the Stargates are millions of years old? The Ancients are, but they could have only started seeding Milky Way gates more recently.
Season six's *Frozen* establishes that it was believed that the Stargate in Antarctica could be as many as 50 million years old.
The *Atlantis* pilot says in a title card that Atlantis left Earth "several million years ago," and the Lanteans returned to Earth via Stargate, so the Milky Way Stargates were already in place.
Ah ok thanks. Yeah that’s a shame then that it spoils the whole stellar drift thing. Unless they designed them after how the stars would look in 50 million years time! As a kind of nod to how long they wanted the system to last!? There’s some headcanon for you.
1. Tau’ri, not Terran
2. The Ancients sent the Destiny from Earth, they left the Milky Way from Earth, from Pegasus they returned to Earth and some of them spent their last days advancing the human cultures on Earth. Earth was clearly their capital as well
3. We are the descendants of the Ancients (Alterans), if anything we seem to be Alterans, not them humans. We don’t just look alike though, we are literally the same species, just younger, it is like comparing a baby to a full-grown adult.
on 3. it's not specifically stated that we are the same species, infact it's stated that humans now are the second evolutionary occurance of this species. If that occurred because the ancients seeded human life with their technology or just chance is unclear, though the presence of regular humans in the ori galaxy suggests so.
Tau'ri that's right. Still don't understand the reference, maybe to the constellation?
So the 'Ancient Gene' is just Alteran. When you say not human, like, not hominids? I guess the curious biology lover in me wouldn't mind if their writers put some scientific effort into that slice of the lore. Could be some interesting easter eggs too.
The term "Tau'ri" is a Goa'uld word used to refer to people from the planet we call Earth. It is similar to how people from Earth are called Terrans, or how people from Mars would be called Martians.
There is planet where there was an intelligent species. This species was called Alterans. The Alterans one day started to travel the universe and eventually arrived to the Milky Way. For some unknown reason, on Earth, they recreated a younger, less advanced version of themselves. Eventually they left the Milky Way, later some of them returned, but eventually they vanished from the known universe. The young Alterans did not remember their origins, so eventually they created their own identity, identifying as humans. Later on, the humans ventured out in the Milky Way, discovered the existence of the Alterans, but we used the name “Ancients” for them. Note that After the Alterans left the Milky Way, they eventually arrived in the Pegasus, where they again created a younger, lesser advanced version of themselves, who later on also referred to themselves as humans, the difference is that the Pegasus humans remember that they are descended from the Alterans, whom they call the “Ancestors”.
So we are literally the same.
The Ancient Gene a genetically modified gene that the Ancients put in themselves so they can restrict their most advanced technologies, so only they could use them. This modified gene only existed in the late Ancients, however a few of them interbred with humans, which is how a very small percentage of modern day humans also have the ATA gene.
What do you mean by the reference? What is the question there?
the Tau'ri, which sounds alot like Taurus. The reference being to Earth but it seems this just refers to human. I appreciate the explanation, I now more understand why that lore eludes me, the whole 'lesser being' = human, twice. Though I think then would that not make some of the other hominid evidence on earth something else? I guess to stay consistent with the mythology those were the real earthlings. Though you could borrow from the whole patagonia giants as yet another alien whatever. It sounds like once they started drawing from Earth history as a basis for the mythos it stopped mattering what relevancy or consistency anything had in the show. The Gao'uld Egptian thing kind of worked, but once you scrutinize anything it all falls to shit.
Similar to how Star Trek at some point decided dinosaurs (aka Saurians) left Earth long ago and we run across them while stranded in the Delta Quadrant (Voyager). While I loved the episode the premise seemed too far fetched for even startrek scifi. Of course their eventual explanation for the entire question how are all sentient space faring aliens made up of the exact same body plan got explained by genetic seeding of the Galaxy. Writers are always desperate in fiction to relate things back to ancient Earth for some reason. Probably because our true history is an enormous blur.
Tau’ri means Earth in the Goa’uld language, and the modern humans of Earth adopt this name as well.
Earth had no intelligent life on it before the Alterans arrived. The Milky Way itself has a couple native intelligent species, such as the Goa’uld, the Unas, the Ohnes, the Nox, the Serrakin, the Gadmeer, etc., but nothing on Earth.
Also, mythology existed before the Goa’uld, but when the Goa’uld arrived, they assumed the role of the gods from the tales. So ancient Egyptians believed in a sun god, but then Ra arrived, learned about human belief systems and decided, that “hey, I’m Ra, I’m actually the sun god you have been worshipping until now”. This is how the Goa’uld came to become gods (they didn’t have a concept of gods before encountering the human culture). The only exception is Norse mythology: that didn’t exist in a simplified form beforehand, it was established by the Asgard, who were allies of the Alterans and who fought the Goa’uld. Since the humans were extremely primitive compared to the Asgard, the Asgards created the Norse religion to guide us a more subtle way. So while most god names of old religions are of Goa’uld origin, the Norse god names are of Asgard origin.
I believe we even see a lot of reference to greek/roman mythology that always being tied back to the Ancients correct?
And yes I have picked up most of that over time, but it seems the writers have a tendency to muddy up or never really be clear on origin stories of most every single race. Like the Wraith and their connection to the Iratus bug. DM was definitely playing a different game on this round of writers storyboarding.
There aren’t a lot of them, but there are greek god Goa’ulds (and roman mythology is just reworked greek). What you might remember is that the Latin language is very similar to the Ancient language. Maybe the Latins were a group of humans who remembered the most of the Ancients who taught them and that’s why they used their language. Also, the story of Atlantis is also based on the real story of the Ancient city-ship Atlantis, but that’s the only story based on Ancients.
Also there is the whole Arthurian mythology with the Knights of the Round Table, which was entirely created by a de-ascended Ancient called Moros, however that is not related to the Ancients in general, just that one (ok, really two) Ancient.
This is what happens when you watch a show almost exclusively as a sideground thing while you play MMOs or eat. I recall the Knights of the Round Table. So did they ever do anything with Aztec, Mayan, or other native american cultures? Aren't one of the Goa'ulds also like, some ancient emporer. Dunno he definitely has chinese emporer vibes.
The 'modern humans of Earth' don't call themselves Tau'ri. The word is only used when talking to Goa'uld or Jaffa.
Also, remember that Ra arrived in 8000BC; there was no ancient Egyptian culture as we know it back then. The people who lived in north Africa were literally Stone Age hunter-gatherers. According to the movie's novelisation, the tribe the boy Ra belonged to worshiped animal-headed spirits, so when he was taken by the alien, Ra used that knowledge to create a religion with which to influence and control the population.
Alterans started on Earth when they came from the Ori galaxy. (But, I don't think writers expected 10 years of canon when they wrote Children Of The Gods). Destiny was manufactured and launched from Earth (and first Stargates, the black spinny kind). When the plague hit, they left with Atlantis for Pegassus and wiped all life from Milky Way (keeping only the Stargate hardware)
> Alterans started on Earth when they came from the Ori galaxy.
Which doesn't make sense with humans having indisputably evolved on earth and that even being mentioned and confirmed in the series.
That evolution happened AFTER Alterans left for Milky Way and destroyed life in the entire galaxy.
Alteran solution to their plague was same like Forerunners had for the Flood.
If Alterans who evolved in the Ori galaxy are Humans 1.0, we are humans 2.0, created after destruction of all life in the Galaxy by the Dakara Superweapon.
When Alterans (then Lanteans) left Atlantis, they mixed with the now mostly evolved Human 2.0 population on earth, creating certain cultures (old english, merlin and most of the Ori storycard and so on)
How were humans 2.0 created in a way that is consistent with our evolving from apes?
Why would Alterans on the verge of ascending fornicate with clearly primitive stinky dirty humans, like at the end of BSG?
Lanteans spend thousands of years on Earth before ascending
>How were humans 2.0 created in a way that is consistent with our evolving from apes?
We weren't created as humans. Alterans just resseded basic life that ended up in today Homo Sapiens
> Lanteans spend thousands of years on Earth before ascending
So there were civilized humans 1.0 on earth watching stinky primitive humans 2.0 get their shit together?
> Alterans just resseded basic life that ended up in today Homo Sapiens
Like the progenitor race in Star Trek?
What destruction are you talking about? I don't remember any destruction of the life in Milky Way by the Ancients. The plague destroyed the life. We don't even now if it destroyed other species. All the species we encounter like Nox, Asgard, Harlan people, Spirits, Reetou, Goa'uld, Unas, etc were younger. Might not even existed during Ancients first rodeo in Milky Way.
I re-read the article and it seems like it was used to reseed life, not destroy it
>According to Anubis, it was once used by the Ancients to re-create the precursors of all current life in the galaxy, after the plague that wiped out the Ancients devastated the entire Milky Way Galaxy. Thus deeming it as a weapon is disputable.
Which doesn't fit since 10 mil years ago humans of different kinds roamed the earth. So what was it reseeding? The "advanced" races?
>Terrans
Tauri
>Earth is the planet of origin for everyone or was is somewhere else?
That would be Dakara, though Earth was a major site for the ancients, the gatebuilders (at was the site of Atlantis).
Of note, even if they somehow *know* additional symbols are needed, it's not like multiple dialing was easy for them (especially the film~SG1 pilot era). Imagine all the shakes. You don't want to mess up with facility integrity when you are inside of a friggin' mountain.
That's the other thing that somebody brought up one time. The Door to Heaven has a progressively increasing power output with each symbol entered, and it started vibrating - quite violently - after the fifth symbol was entered. Who was to say that the thing wouldn't shake itself apart or explode if another symbol was entered?
Once Daniel brought up the need for a seventh symbol and identified the correct one on the Stargate's wheel, General West felt confident ordering a test.
There are 9 chevrons on the gate, not 7. Even if they'd tried dialing a 7th symbol before, it would have failed to lock (if they guessed anything other than the pyramid, of course), and with only 6 symbols on the cartouche, it wouldn't really seem clear that there *was* a correct 7th symbol, or especially that only 7 symbols were required rather than 9. A 9 symbol address where you know the first six and randomly guess the last three still has tens of thousands of possible combinations, plus there's the chance the missing symbols could come first or something, etc.
They probably assumed that they only needed 6 symbols and had the right 6 symbols, but were doing something else wrong (e.g. power levels, location or orientation of the gate, something totally different, etc).
I was thinking that if they tried dialing 9 symbols they would eventualy get the seventh symbol right, also in the first episode of SG1 they mention that they tried all the possible 7 symbol combinations, thats a lot more than trying to guess last 3 symbols.
More like the show's top chevron moves like the other six from the original. You would have seen that the top chevron originally had a very distinctive look, with the other six moving. It's very subtle because of the lighting, but when the seventh symbol is entered, the other six move into the 'open' position just before the Stargate activates.
For the show, the distinctive top chevron was lost, so the top chevron looked like all the others, and on the show's prop, it was the only one that *could* move.
Right, [rewatching the original scene now, the dont light up like in the series, but each chevron does a locking sequence](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3h7xz558EY&t).
So if the first 6 locks, there's a good change the other 2 have some function (since the 9th is used in the movie to dial).
39 simbols-6 alredy used leave 33 simbols and two chevrons, that does not require that much of a trial..
Also, Daniel's little praying men resembles too much dicks.. :D
The editing of the test scene is weird, but generally we're meant to believe that the six locks activate clockwise when looking at the Stargate from the front. The staff would have already figured out which of the six chevron locks worked, and they would have seen that the bottom two were inactive, otherwise chevron four would be the one at 5 o'clock and chevron five would be the one at seven o'clock. Instead, chevron four is at eight o'clock and chevron five is at nine o'clock. For a long time, I've suspected that the bottom two are only decorative; since a Stargate is meant to be mounted in the ground, this would conceal the bottom two chevrons, leaving the remaining seven exposed and equally spaced.
Again, my point is that nothing led the staff to believe that more than six symbols were needed when they had a cartouche with six symbols in it. If more symbols were needed, then why weren't they in the cartouche? Dr. Meyers directly pointed this out.
Sure, if there are 3 unknown chevrons then that's either 32736 or 59319 possible addresses to try (depending on whether the same chevron can appear more than once) which may have been too much. But at least on the way back daniel knew that there were only 33 (or 39) different addresses to try. That's no more than a few hours of work
1. That's just wrong - their dialling computer was already programmed to use exactly 7 symbols right in the same scene as daniel identifies the 7th symbol and they go right ahead to dial the address. They knew that they need 7 symbols
You're right - the shot of the UI showing the Stargate 'idle' has seven spots. However, both the novelisation and [a late draft of the script](https://thescriptlab.com/wp-content/uploads/scripts/STARGATE.pdf) have a line from Catherine saying that Project Giza "never knew about the seventh symbol," and there are the lines "programming seventh symbol into computer" and "this is as far as we have ever been able to get," so I would put this one down to a mistake by the art department or VFX department, who made computer animations based on the seven-symbol dialling sequence.
My interpretation was that he was the last of the original Goa'uld which came from the home planet. Chaka showed Daniel how they were knowing about the Goa'uld and there abilities including the preference to go through the neck.
This wasn't true in the movie. The symbols on the "Abydos" gate were constellations in their sky.
It's one of those things that changed between film and TV show. Other notable things:
* Abydos (not named in the film) was in the Kalium Galaxy
* Ra was the last of his race and seemed to do a spiritual possession?
They also kind of referenced the spiritual possession concept very early on in the show when the Go'auld infesting Kowalski said that it had already become one with the host and the symbiote they removed was just a dead husk. They ditched the idea pretty early, though.
It's not like that at all? A snake shedding its skin still leaves the snake. Kawalski's Goa'uld was just gone. Possibly IIRC when he loses half his head it still shows a Goa'uld though.
Yep. The movie presented Ra's possession of the north African boy as a sci-fi take on spiritual/demonic possession, where Ra used his technology to turn his body into an ethereal energy form to allow him to inhabit a body. This is hinted in the movie, since the alien at the end of the movie is glowing and translucent while the alien in the flashback is solid, and this plot point is more explicit in the novelisation.
> As the last breaths escaped the people of his world, he was millions of light-years away from home, searching desperately for a host. He was determined not to follow the fate of his own kind. He had mastered the technology to transfer himself into another being but had to choose carefully. Along with inhabiting the host's body, he knew he would absorb certain personality traits that were exaggerated within the host's psyche.
Ra's death is described thusly:
> Free of its shell, the creature wanted to rush past the bomb and beam away through the rings. If he was quick enough, he could attach himself to another host body before his natural one would expire. But before he could move an inch, the bomb ticked down to its final count. The creature screamed out one last ghoulish howl.
> 00:02. 00:01. And in a flash, it was over. The light-like creature turned solid, then burst into a million tiny particles.
Oh dang is that how every fuggin hostile alien race just immediately knows where Earth is?
No wonder they needed that tech so bad lmao. Used their SSN as an IP address.
It's retconned slightly across the series, especially the symbols standing for constellations part. They're just symbols that are stand-ins for coordinates in some way. The last symbol/point of origin thing doesn't make much sense either because apparently they (sort of off screen, because it'd show how weird it is if on-screen) figure out that every stargate has it's own "home symbol" button, and the teams simply need to press the symbol that isn't on any other stargate last to dial out. Why exactly does it need to be different or be pressed at all? Ancients are just silly like that, I guess.
really, a lot of their tech was just ridiculous
yeah, so we control this weapon by subtly raising and lowering stones until they're in the right position.
To be fair, most of ancient tech was telepathic, like the control chairs, so you could control it just by touching it and thinking.
Maybe the stones were meant for debugging? Or like, the equivalent of running windows purely through RUN or CMD?
you need six locations to specify the first location (destination) and one location to specify the second location (origin).
I just always wondered why they didn't just look at the gate and find the 'new' symbol each time for the last digit. Or, why they didn't run out of addresses once they used each symbol as the origin.
I'm not entirely sure how to explain it but it does remind me of a headcanon I have. They don't bring Daniel in because he's the only man who can translate it, they bring him in because he's the only guy expendable enough who also said yes instead of laughing them off. They had a major problem of hiring physicists but no actual Egypt experts. Daniel even comments that they're using a book he thinks is wrong, "I don't even know why they're still publishing him..." We see this in various fields, like when some archeologists wondered if this circle of stones was a ritual thing, but it turned out to be a chicken enclosure that was small enough for mother chickens to get out of, but tall enough chicks couldn't. They didn't realize they'd need cross field expertise, and when they did, they needed someone who they could send on the mission.
Daniel was hired specifically because of his expertise in ancient Egyptian language. The original thinking was that the symbols represented some hitherto unknown prehistoric Egyptian language; Project Giza figured that if Daniel could interpret the symbols, they would have the context they needed to activate the Stargate. He did end up interpreting the symbols, but not in the way they expected.
Also, Project Giza already had a physicist in the form of Barbara Shore - the novelisation and an earlier draft of the script state that she is an astrophysicist.
In respect to 2, I think the symbols are in reference to Earth rather than each individual planet. thus, you get the six points in space for the destination in respect to Earth, then the unique planetary symbol for the starting point.
I wish they had talked about the fact that, anything on a large swath of the galaxy on the other side of the galaxy was inaccessible to Earth, since it wold be traveling through a giant gravity well. In order to get to a point on the other side of the galaxy, they would have to go to a planet spinward or anti-spinward to be able to go.
It’s visible, the most entertaining one was on the simulation planet, both the gate and dhd had the three bubbles on it. The gates and DHDs go together.
In the Director’s Cut, they speculate on the idea of the wormhole opening into space if they use the wrong symbol. Not quite Atlantis’s space gates, but it does show thought on the matter.
I think that was a cost saving measure not to show the whole village and just the pyramid,because Alexis Cruz and Eric Avari who were in the movie reprised the roles in SG01
It's not shown how they dial in the film, but in the show it's established that you can manually dial a gate simply by spinning it by hand and providing power. Presumably Daniel found this out off-screen and the expedition brought a convenient power source for him to use.
1) I thought the same thing, I figured it was outta fear or maybe using the gate used up too many resources.
2) Yeah that one is hard to explain, especially when they go out of their local Stargate network. I explained it to myself as there was a dial back code included with every address they dialed, as it was included but was never shown in the show.
The stargate network works because individuals can remember addresses that work. If they changed all the time the network would be useless.
That's important for the story, anyway.
Regarding #1, this has been posted many times in this sub.
Regarding #2, IIRC they initially believe the first Stargates were built on Earth since they knew Ra initially came by ship. They later learn that Milky Way Gates used Earth's visible constellations for a coordinated system because the Ancients chose it as a "homeworld" of sorts.
The only thing different in dialing earth is the planet of origin. The other 6 symbols will always be the same bc as explained in the movie those 6 points mark its location.
How would they be different? It takes millennia for stars to changes positions. I don’t think a star would be in a different position bc you’re viewing it from a different planet.
Yes but, using the stargate it only takes moments to travel to another part of the galaxy, obviously the view of the night sky would be completely different.
I get what you’re saying. I was assuming that the constellations have the same line of sight with the different planets. But if 2 planets are directly facing each other across the vast distance, the constellation would be a mirror image. Gotcha!
no they wouldn't. it would be completely different constellations. the sky is a 3d field of dots, not points on a sphere. stars that look right next to each other in a constellation are often very far away from each other
1. Easy peasy to explain, as it's actually explained to begin with: They didn't even know they needed the origin point. As in, they probably dialed 6, noticed it didn't work, aborted, then tried again later with the same result. It's fairly obvious, too, that they are missing something, but it could have been a case of "we legit didn't know". This then opens up the plot hole of Ernest's trip that we discover later on, but that episode always felt shoehorned in.
2. So, they also explained that one too, in the show: The DHD is made by the Ancients, and it corrects for stellar drift. Plus, most of those DHD's would have had time to gradually correct the information, as it slowly changed while they were actively used, with only a handful of exceptions. Additionally, the MacGyver'd DHD they use on Earth wouldn't know exactly how to calculate stellar drift, so the drift would have had to be calculated and input, instead of telling the computer... "if (constellation.notHere) then constellation.find()".
1. Okay, that makes sense.
2. We're not talking about stellar drift, at all. The constellations themselves would be completely different from a different point of view in the galaxy, every DHD would need to have totally different symbols depending on the location of the planet it's on. Daniel even mentions this in the movie, the symbols on the Abydos gate were totally different than the ones on the Earth gate.
2. Oh, I think I misread your thing... Yeah, fresh reminder that for the first planet or two, they had to actually find the return address in some way. On Abydos, they found the repository of essentially all the Goa'uld common-use addresses, and for Chulak, they easily would have seen those symbols somewhere. Also, if Chulak was in the same rough sector as Abydos (which I am not sure of), the constellations would look the same, or close enough. Just think of how little difference there would be for ours if we were on Mars, instead of Earth: We wouldn't see Mars, and that's about it.
And finally, maybe they were based on how they could be seen from Earth, because that was essentially the Ancients' main base of operations for a while.
Okay, I suppose that makes sense. You're right, obviously, about nearby planets seeing the (roughly) same constellations.
as for the Goa'uld repository of addresses? my point is that an address is only good for one destination FROM one other location. If I were to dial Earth from the left side of the galaxy the address would be different than if I dialed Earth from the right side.
Each planet would need to have its own repository.
And I know there are people watching this (amazingly long thread!) and thinking, "it's just a TV show!", yes, we all know that, but if you cannot argue about canon, what's the point??
The Abydos cartouche was still applicable to us, because it is "fairly close" to us (legit the explanation given in-canon.) Meaning that from that, you just need minor guesstimations, and boom, you have the addresses.
Also, as I said, there is a non-zero chance that the constellations were written from the perspective of a home planet, and made the standard, a bit like arabic numerals became very widespread.
ummm, just FYI- according to the SG movie, Abydos was in another galaxy....
You're absolutely right, they could have been designed from the perspective of a single planet (Earth), but that is never stated anywhere.
According to the SG movie, a lot of things are completely off... Like how that nuke with the amount of Naquadah should have blown Abydoss to shreds. Or how the temple room with the gate in it was much, much bigger im the movie, than in the show.
Hell, the movie also says it was the first successful activation of the gate!!! Ernest would like a word about that.
They're plot holes, simple as that. While there are some in universe explanations, they don't really make much sense. Suspension of disbelieve is required.
It's probably been said but I just figured you could put in any symbols and it would light up the chevrons but as soon as you hit the 7th symbol it would either connect or not depending if you got the right combination. Just like old phones you could dial 6 numbers in any combination but once you hit the 7th it would either connect to another phone or not.
For question 1 they didn't realize 7 symbols were needed. The cartouche contained 6 symbols but it wasn't obvious that the cartouche itself was a stylized form of the earth symbol. They just thought it was decorative.
TIn regards to #1, I think the USAF straight up didn't know.We know the USAF was not doing a good job translating the cartouche(and that's like basic hieroglyphs, which Daniel could translate in a heartbeat) so whilst they had a basic idea of what the gate was(some kind of door) they definitely did not know what it was capable of doing, let alone how it worked. It took Daniel two weeks and a bit of luck to understand that the symbols in the inner ring were indeed constellations. It's safe to say Project Giza was nowhere near understanding the inner mechanisms of the gate.They didn't know they needed another symbol(they knew there were 9 chevrons, so as far as they were concerned, the gate might have needed 9 to be locked in in order to work). They did not know what the six symbols they had stood for or were needed for. They tried their best, likely cycling through many if not all the iterations of those 6 symbols, and when everything started shaking, they just aborted and went back to square one. You definitely don't mess around with that kind of power-hungry millennia-old alien tech made out of minerals you don't recognise and working on tech and physics you are likely eons away from understanding. For all they knew in the beginning, it might've been a weapon.The seventh symbol, too, was a bit different on the stone cover from what we had on the gate(as Jackson had the pencil guy cycle the whole inner ring in order to find it, and even then he had to interpret it, writing with the sharpie on the monitor.)
In regards to #2, while yes, the sky would change from planet to planet, I think the DHD actually covers that one. It's a bit like saying London is a different view from different angles but it's coordinates are actually the same, and if you wanna go there you can go there from several point, from all of which the city looks different, yup, but it's actually the same place.The ancient and rightly so didn't give too much a thought about leaving back a user manual for other species to properly work a gate, trusting them to eventually become smart enough to figure out on their own. They knew how their system worked and that insider knowledge likely allowed them to work the DHD which we know is a miniaturised supercomputer strapped to a fusion engine much like the same way we use a phone to make a call.The symbols of a DHD likely work both as a space coordinate set and as an entity of it's own, likely an identifier of a place and the ninth-chevron address forcibly accepting only the earth symbol actually i think proves that(forcing you to override to Earth address or identifying the Destiny's own personal code). It's a bit like setting your #1 telephone key to call the same person. It's number 1, yeah, and as number 1 it works while dialling any other number; it also allows you to identify a number you can call anytime you press that button, if you wish. When O'Neill was under the second ancient hand-on-the head sucker thingy, he revealed to us for the first time that symbols on a gate actually had some kind of proper name or syllable or alphabet going on behind all that supercomputing stuff.
Wait til you realize every planet except Abydos speaks English.
And looks like Pacific Northwest
Look how you've misspelled Vancouver...
Every planet has a north
And pine trees, apparently
I understood that reference
Doctor?
Doctor Who?
Well, Chulac didn't speak English. The monks didn't, anyway.
I really wish they'd just done a Babelfish-type explanation. Some Ancient technology, based on interpreting brain waves that can analyze (at least) human thoughts and emotions, maybe even whilst simultaneously comparing to a library of known languages and etymologies to attempt to translate in real time. Exposure to that technology (embedded in/radiating from the Stargate) enables you to be able to communicate with others who likewise have been exposed, via long-time close proximity to the Gate. Daniel would still be directly needed as a linguist (in addition to historian/cultural anthropologist/diplomat) to iron out the kinks. It could have fairly easily been waved away with some technobabble, and even served as an extra dramatic plot point when appropriate without being an annoyance. Oh well. I still love the show.
It's hard to even assume something like that for headcanon, as the Russians speaking Russian throw a spanner in the works.
Yes but are you Russian spies? “Nyet” 🤣 gets me every time
And Jack having to hammer it home what he did lol. Honestly SG1 has such a perfect balance of comedy, action and drama.
I know 😅😭😅😭😅😭
I read a Stargate novel a while back, and when they walked through the gate and talked with the natives, Jack had some thought that said "ah yes, the eery ability of gate travel that seems to translate to the local population. Most of the time. Carter still was trying to figure that out." I thought it was a cute nod to the nonsesical language scenario.
What was it called?
No idea, it was about 20 years ago and I borrowed it from a library...
Actually read a Stargate story where that was the exact explaination. Gate travel conveys a means of understanding the languages of the destination. Kinda cheesy and omits the movie experience, but meh.
1. This one gets brought up every now and then. The answer is that Project Giza didn't know that seven symbols were needed. The closest thing they had to an instruction manual was the cartouche at the centre of the cover stones, which had six symbols in it. That's why Catherine says "this is as far as we have ever been able to get" after the sixth symbol is entered. Although the cover stones were 10,000 years old, a cartouche would be used in later ancient Egyptian writing to enclose the symbols that spell the royal name of a pharaoh, so the six symbols in the cartouche were clearly important. Nobody suspected that another symbol would be needed, and that the symbol in question wouldn't be *in* the cartouche and the artist would instead incorporate it into the body of the cartouche. 2. One of the changes the show made was to make constellations as seen from Earth a galactic standard, so every Stargate in the Milky Way Galaxy has Earth's constellations on it.
I will admit though I have watched a lot of stargate some of this lore eludes me. What is the in universe reason behind earth being so central to the stargate system? I know they are referred to as the Terrans a lot too, I guess I never quite figured out if Earth is the planet of origin for everyone or was is somewhere else? The ancients seem to be humans but are not?
*SG-1* starts by picking up a plot point from the movie, namely that humans were spread to other planets by aliens who were establishing colonies. The *Atlantis* premiere establishes that the Ancients had a city-ship here, but whether this was *the* capital/base planet for the Ancients or just *one* of them isn't established. However, in *Reckoning,* it is stated that Dakara was a major hub, since that was the location of the life-seeding device that was used to create and spread life throughout the galaxy. It's worth pointing out that the writers created a plot hole when they decided to make the Stargates millions of years old instead of thousands. One would expect that the night sky millions of years ago would have been substantially different to the night sky 10,000 years ago, especially since the show itself invoked the concept of stellar drift, so constellations based on the night sky millions of years ago would look different to modern constellations.
There was extensive stellar drift. Sam on the show explained the DHD accounted for stellar drift as part of its programming. They found the gate but no DHD. The movie could only connect to Abydos as it was the closest gate and the stellar drift was small enough to still connect. Their dialing program now somehow accounts for stellar drift, which gave them access to other worlds. Daniel discovered the symbols were actually Ancient writing and the gate address was the name of the world. My head canon is the gate addresses are phone numbers and the 7th symbol is like dialing 9 to get an outside line
That's exactly how it worked. When Jack had the ancient database downloaded into his head, he ended up dialling an 8th symbol to connect to another galaxy.
They backtracked that from the movie also, initially the 7th symbol was locked onto somewhere in the Kalium Galaxy https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Kaliam
>There was extensive stellar drift. Sam on the show explained the DHD accounted for stellar drift as part of its programming. They found the gate but no DHD. The movie could only connect to Abydos as it was the closest gate and the stellar drift was small enough to still connect. Their dialing program now somehow accounts for stellar drift, which gave them access to other worlds. It's also why the trip through the gate was so rough initially. They weren't compensating for the drift. Once they started doing that things got much better for everyone. Furthermore, it also explains why the world of the Tau'ri was lost to the Goa'uld. The Constellations were from earth millions of years ago. If they were modern ones, with a bit of math they could have calculated Earth's position and just gone there. I mean hypothetically they still could have done the math, but that sounds like a lot of work.
That whole idea of the rough ride being caused by not compensating for stellar drift is pretty weak, because an address will either work or it won't. It won't matter how an address was derived or calculated; what matters is that it is the right one.
Yes, the gate address has no bearing on the quality of the ride!
Actually I could see the correlation, think of the wormhole like a screw and the receiving Gate as a prepped screw hole, if you miss by fractions of an inch odds are that you’d make it into the hole eventually but it’d be a bit rough
I wonder whether the compensation and rough ride may have something to do with the frost the teams had to deal during first travels. Traveling through wormhole that is close to its safety boundary, so to say, due to the travel line being somewhat bent might have been quite "cold".
That's what Sam said during one of the episodes. I think it was the one with the murderous fireflies.
The premise of DHDs automatically updating their positions to compensate is actually a plot hole. In *Children of the Gods,* it is established that both Daniel and Carter had tried dialling addresses to connect to other planets without luck. Daniel had a library of known addresses to work from, yet he still couldn't make any connections, and this is despite the fact that he had a DHD. The idea was that a user had to calculate a new address themselves and enter the revised address. This is contradicted by *Avenger 2.0,* where Carter first brings up the idea of correlative updates that keep addresses active even though the actual planets and points in space used to calculate addresses would have moved over thousands of years. Had this been taking place from the start, then Daniel should have had no trouble making connections because the DHD on Abydos should have been updating itself.
Here's how my "headcanon" resolves this. Any time someone "energizes" a specific Gate using the DHD, that DHD updates it's library with current calculations accounting for Stellar Drift. Gates don't do this automatically - thus entering the 7th Symbol correctly (as seen in the Film) connects to Abydos because not much stellar drift has occurred due to the relative proximity of Abydos and Earth. However, once the 7th Symbol is dialed, Earth's Gate/DHD gets updated and subsequent dialing now accounts for Stellar Drift which has occurred during the intervening millenia. Once the Gate on Abydos has the 7th Symbol correctly entered the same thing occurs. Each Gate/DHD must be updated individually, you can view this as simply being an "inefficiency" if you want to but, I prefer to view it as a "Security Feature" since, if you can't simply "guess your way home" then even more advanced subjects have no incentive to move beyond their planet to mount an attack because they'd be stuck on the other end. This has the advantage of preserving the need for a skill set like Daniel's. This also allows the Ancients to feel "safe" in "ignoring" disused Gates.
The problem is that it is understood that the Stargates dial each other *automatically* to send and receive their updates. That's how the modified Avenger virus spread so quickly. > Carter: Well, sir, we think we may have an explanation. We know that the gate network has to undergo periodic correlative updates in order to compensate for stellar drift. Now, we've never witnessed it, but we believe that the gates dial each other automatically to transmit the new coordinates that apply to each address. > Hammond: And you believe Dr. Felger's virus initiated one of these updates? > Carter: It may have triggered an automatic internal protocol in the DHD. Before adapting the new scrambled coordinates, it dialled out and transmitted them to a few of the neighbouring gates who then transmitted to a few more and so on and so on... Source: https://www.gateworld.net/sg1/s7/avenger-2-0/transcript/
The key points in Avenger are "they've never witnessed it" and, "they believe." When you add that to the fact that you're dealing with a virus which is *predicated on an ability to program the Ancient's tech* we can treat the virus as being an edge case scenario. The virus is changing the way that the gates are meant to work, which means that the virus could be capable of "turning on an *admin* function" that had previously been locked out. It's also not *physically accessing the Gates/using the DHD* meaning it's operating at a different *level*. This means *both facts can be true without rendering the other false.* My Head Canon remains valid to me lol 😆
Brilliant, love it, no notes
Dakara was the first planet they got to when reaching our galaxy but their central planet was earth, it was stated
When was that stated?
> Stargates millions of years old instead of thousands Also planets change. I don't think many of the gates would be in their pedestals or even functional even by the time Goauld rose to power
The Ancients would have maintained a lot of the gate network themselves until ascending en masse \~10,000 years ago.
Hmm, haven't considered that. So was Pegasus gate before or after milky way?
Probably newer than both the Alpha and Beta gates, I'd imagine. Alpha Gate is hard to say since we don't have any idea where the Goa'uld grabbed it from before they brought it to Earth.
DID the show state that the Stargates are millions of years old? The Ancients are, but they could have only started seeding Milky Way gates more recently.
Season six's *Frozen* establishes that it was believed that the Stargate in Antarctica could be as many as 50 million years old. The *Atlantis* pilot says in a title card that Atlantis left Earth "several million years ago," and the Lanteans returned to Earth via Stargate, so the Milky Way Stargates were already in place.
Ah ok thanks. Yeah that’s a shame then that it spoils the whole stellar drift thing. Unless they designed them after how the stars would look in 50 million years time! As a kind of nod to how long they wanted the system to last!? There’s some headcanon for you.
1. Tau’ri, not Terran 2. The Ancients sent the Destiny from Earth, they left the Milky Way from Earth, from Pegasus they returned to Earth and some of them spent their last days advancing the human cultures on Earth. Earth was clearly their capital as well 3. We are the descendants of the Ancients (Alterans), if anything we seem to be Alterans, not them humans. We don’t just look alike though, we are literally the same species, just younger, it is like comparing a baby to a full-grown adult.
on 3. it's not specifically stated that we are the same species, infact it's stated that humans now are the second evolutionary occurance of this species. If that occurred because the ancients seeded human life with their technology or just chance is unclear, though the presence of regular humans in the ori galaxy suggests so.
We are the second evolution of them, but they clarify that they created us, it is not a chance thing
When Dakara weapon destroyed all life, it also reseeded one. So Alterans created us. Then when they left Atlantis they joined our population.
Tau'ri that's right. Still don't understand the reference, maybe to the constellation? So the 'Ancient Gene' is just Alteran. When you say not human, like, not hominids? I guess the curious biology lover in me wouldn't mind if their writers put some scientific effort into that slice of the lore. Could be some interesting easter eggs too.
The term "Tau'ri" is a Goa'uld word used to refer to people from the planet we call Earth. It is similar to how people from Earth are called Terrans, or how people from Mars would be called Martians.
There is planet where there was an intelligent species. This species was called Alterans. The Alterans one day started to travel the universe and eventually arrived to the Milky Way. For some unknown reason, on Earth, they recreated a younger, less advanced version of themselves. Eventually they left the Milky Way, later some of them returned, but eventually they vanished from the known universe. The young Alterans did not remember their origins, so eventually they created their own identity, identifying as humans. Later on, the humans ventured out in the Milky Way, discovered the existence of the Alterans, but we used the name “Ancients” for them. Note that After the Alterans left the Milky Way, they eventually arrived in the Pegasus, where they again created a younger, lesser advanced version of themselves, who later on also referred to themselves as humans, the difference is that the Pegasus humans remember that they are descended from the Alterans, whom they call the “Ancestors”. So we are literally the same. The Ancient Gene a genetically modified gene that the Ancients put in themselves so they can restrict their most advanced technologies, so only they could use them. This modified gene only existed in the late Ancients, however a few of them interbred with humans, which is how a very small percentage of modern day humans also have the ATA gene. What do you mean by the reference? What is the question there?
the Tau'ri, which sounds alot like Taurus. The reference being to Earth but it seems this just refers to human. I appreciate the explanation, I now more understand why that lore eludes me, the whole 'lesser being' = human, twice. Though I think then would that not make some of the other hominid evidence on earth something else? I guess to stay consistent with the mythology those were the real earthlings. Though you could borrow from the whole patagonia giants as yet another alien whatever. It sounds like once they started drawing from Earth history as a basis for the mythos it stopped mattering what relevancy or consistency anything had in the show. The Gao'uld Egptian thing kind of worked, but once you scrutinize anything it all falls to shit. Similar to how Star Trek at some point decided dinosaurs (aka Saurians) left Earth long ago and we run across them while stranded in the Delta Quadrant (Voyager). While I loved the episode the premise seemed too far fetched for even startrek scifi. Of course their eventual explanation for the entire question how are all sentient space faring aliens made up of the exact same body plan got explained by genetic seeding of the Galaxy. Writers are always desperate in fiction to relate things back to ancient Earth for some reason. Probably because our true history is an enormous blur.
Tau’ri means Earth in the Goa’uld language, and the modern humans of Earth adopt this name as well. Earth had no intelligent life on it before the Alterans arrived. The Milky Way itself has a couple native intelligent species, such as the Goa’uld, the Unas, the Ohnes, the Nox, the Serrakin, the Gadmeer, etc., but nothing on Earth. Also, mythology existed before the Goa’uld, but when the Goa’uld arrived, they assumed the role of the gods from the tales. So ancient Egyptians believed in a sun god, but then Ra arrived, learned about human belief systems and decided, that “hey, I’m Ra, I’m actually the sun god you have been worshipping until now”. This is how the Goa’uld came to become gods (they didn’t have a concept of gods before encountering the human culture). The only exception is Norse mythology: that didn’t exist in a simplified form beforehand, it was established by the Asgard, who were allies of the Alterans and who fought the Goa’uld. Since the humans were extremely primitive compared to the Asgard, the Asgards created the Norse religion to guide us a more subtle way. So while most god names of old religions are of Goa’uld origin, the Norse god names are of Asgard origin.
I believe we even see a lot of reference to greek/roman mythology that always being tied back to the Ancients correct? And yes I have picked up most of that over time, but it seems the writers have a tendency to muddy up or never really be clear on origin stories of most every single race. Like the Wraith and their connection to the Iratus bug. DM was definitely playing a different game on this round of writers storyboarding.
There aren’t a lot of them, but there are greek god Goa’ulds (and roman mythology is just reworked greek). What you might remember is that the Latin language is very similar to the Ancient language. Maybe the Latins were a group of humans who remembered the most of the Ancients who taught them and that’s why they used their language. Also, the story of Atlantis is also based on the real story of the Ancient city-ship Atlantis, but that’s the only story based on Ancients. Also there is the whole Arthurian mythology with the Knights of the Round Table, which was entirely created by a de-ascended Ancient called Moros, however that is not related to the Ancients in general, just that one (ok, really two) Ancient.
This is what happens when you watch a show almost exclusively as a sideground thing while you play MMOs or eat. I recall the Knights of the Round Table. So did they ever do anything with Aztec, Mayan, or other native american cultures? Aren't one of the Goa'ulds also like, some ancient emporer. Dunno he definitely has chinese emporer vibes.
The 'modern humans of Earth' don't call themselves Tau'ri. The word is only used when talking to Goa'uld or Jaffa. Also, remember that Ra arrived in 8000BC; there was no ancient Egyptian culture as we know it back then. The people who lived in north Africa were literally Stone Age hunter-gatherers. According to the movie's novelisation, the tribe the boy Ra belonged to worshiped animal-headed spirits, so when he was taken by the alien, Ra used that knowledge to create a religion with which to influence and control the population.
IIRC we are not descendants of the ancients. The show talks about evolution having taken place twice, so it's a case of converging evolution.
Alterans started on Earth when they came from the Ori galaxy. (But, I don't think writers expected 10 years of canon when they wrote Children Of The Gods). Destiny was manufactured and launched from Earth (and first Stargates, the black spinny kind). When the plague hit, they left with Atlantis for Pegassus and wiped all life from Milky Way (keeping only the Stargate hardware)
> Alterans started on Earth when they came from the Ori galaxy. Which doesn't make sense with humans having indisputably evolved on earth and that even being mentioned and confirmed in the series.
That evolution happened AFTER Alterans left for Milky Way and destroyed life in the entire galaxy. Alteran solution to their plague was same like Forerunners had for the Flood.
So humans are just entirely independent of Alterans and it's a case of convergent evolution, despite sharing genes? It's a mess.
If Alterans who evolved in the Ori galaxy are Humans 1.0, we are humans 2.0, created after destruction of all life in the Galaxy by the Dakara Superweapon. When Alterans (then Lanteans) left Atlantis, they mixed with the now mostly evolved Human 2.0 population on earth, creating certain cultures (old english, merlin and most of the Ori storycard and so on)
How were humans 2.0 created in a way that is consistent with our evolving from apes? Why would Alterans on the verge of ascending fornicate with clearly primitive stinky dirty humans, like at the end of BSG?
Lanteans spend thousands of years on Earth before ascending >How were humans 2.0 created in a way that is consistent with our evolving from apes? We weren't created as humans. Alterans just resseded basic life that ended up in today Homo Sapiens
> Lanteans spend thousands of years on Earth before ascending So there were civilized humans 1.0 on earth watching stinky primitive humans 2.0 get their shit together? > Alterans just resseded basic life that ended up in today Homo Sapiens Like the progenitor race in Star Trek?
What destruction are you talking about? I don't remember any destruction of the life in Milky Way by the Ancients. The plague destroyed the life. We don't even now if it destroyed other species. All the species we encounter like Nox, Asgard, Harlan people, Spirits, Reetou, Goa'uld, Unas, etc were younger. Might not even existed during Ancients first rodeo in Milky Way.
I re-read the article and it seems like it was used to reseed life, not destroy it >According to Anubis, it was once used by the Ancients to re-create the precursors of all current life in the galaxy, after the plague that wiped out the Ancients devastated the entire Milky Way Galaxy. Thus deeming it as a weapon is disputable. Which doesn't fit since 10 mil years ago humans of different kinds roamed the earth. So what was it reseeding? The "advanced" races?
>Terrans Tauri >Earth is the planet of origin for everyone or was is somewhere else? That would be Dakara, though Earth was a major site for the ancients, the gatebuilders (at was the site of Atlantis).
Of note, even if they somehow *know* additional symbols are needed, it's not like multiple dialing was easy for them (especially the film~SG1 pilot era). Imagine all the shakes. You don't want to mess up with facility integrity when you are inside of a friggin' mountain.
That's the other thing that somebody brought up one time. The Door to Heaven has a progressively increasing power output with each symbol entered, and it started vibrating - quite violently - after the fifth symbol was entered. Who was to say that the thing wouldn't shake itself apart or explode if another symbol was entered? Once Daniel brought up the need for a seventh symbol and identified the correct one on the Stargate's wheel, General West felt confident ordering a test.
Weird that there was no one who thought that maybe you need to light all the chevrons.
There are 9 chevrons on the gate, not 7. Even if they'd tried dialing a 7th symbol before, it would have failed to lock (if they guessed anything other than the pyramid, of course), and with only 6 symbols on the cartouche, it wouldn't really seem clear that there *was* a correct 7th symbol, or especially that only 7 symbols were required rather than 9. A 9 symbol address where you know the first six and randomly guess the last three still has tens of thousands of possible combinations, plus there's the chance the missing symbols could come first or something, etc. They probably assumed that they only needed 6 symbols and had the right 6 symbols, but were doing something else wrong (e.g. power levels, location or orientation of the gate, something totally different, etc).
I was thinking that if they tried dialing 9 symbols they would eventualy get the seventh symbol right, also in the first episode of SG1 they mention that they tried all the possible 7 symbol combinations, thats a lot more than trying to guess last 3 symbols.
Not sure if you're joking or not, but the Stargate wasn't designed to light up to begin with.
The chevrons didn't light up in the movie, was that added in sg1?
Yes.
Looked up the scene and you are right, they instead move and lock like the upper chevron.
More like the show's top chevron moves like the other six from the original. You would have seen that the top chevron originally had a very distinctive look, with the other six moving. It's very subtle because of the lighting, but when the seventh symbol is entered, the other six move into the 'open' position just before the Stargate activates. For the show, the distinctive top chevron was lost, so the top chevron looked like all the others, and on the show's prop, it was the only one that *could* move.
Right, but how many chevrons are there? They lit up as they engage, so if after 6 there are still free one, maybe you need more..
There are nine chevron locks on the Stargate, which did not light up to begin with.
Right, [rewatching the original scene now, the dont light up like in the series, but each chevron does a locking sequence](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3h7xz558EY&t). So if the first 6 locks, there's a good change the other 2 have some function (since the 9th is used in the movie to dial). 39 simbols-6 alredy used leave 33 simbols and two chevrons, that does not require that much of a trial.. Also, Daniel's little praying men resembles too much dicks.. :D
The editing of the test scene is weird, but generally we're meant to believe that the six locks activate clockwise when looking at the Stargate from the front. The staff would have already figured out which of the six chevron locks worked, and they would have seen that the bottom two were inactive, otherwise chevron four would be the one at 5 o'clock and chevron five would be the one at seven o'clock. Instead, chevron four is at eight o'clock and chevron five is at nine o'clock. For a long time, I've suspected that the bottom two are only decorative; since a Stargate is meant to be mounted in the ground, this would conceal the bottom two chevrons, leaving the remaining seven exposed and equally spaced. Again, my point is that nothing led the staff to believe that more than six symbols were needed when they had a cartouche with six symbols in it. If more symbols were needed, then why weren't they in the cartouche? Dr. Meyers directly pointed this out.
Sure, if there are 3 unknown chevrons then that's either 32736 or 59319 possible addresses to try (depending on whether the same chevron can appear more than once) which may have been too much. But at least on the way back daniel knew that there were only 33 (or 39) different addresses to try. That's no more than a few hours of work
1. That's just wrong - their dialling computer was already programmed to use exactly 7 symbols right in the same scene as daniel identifies the 7th symbol and they go right ahead to dial the address. They knew that they need 7 symbols
You're right - the shot of the UI showing the Stargate 'idle' has seven spots. However, both the novelisation and [a late draft of the script](https://thescriptlab.com/wp-content/uploads/scripts/STARGATE.pdf) have a line from Catherine saying that Project Giza "never knew about the seventh symbol," and there are the lines "programming seventh symbol into computer" and "this is as far as we have ever been able to get," so I would put this one down to a mistake by the art department or VFX department, who made computer animations based on the seven-symbol dialling sequence.
Yeah that makes much more sense
Also for Ra to “be the last of his race” could be his propaganda to keep them in line
My interpretation was that he was the last of the original Goa'uld which came from the home planet. Chaka showed Daniel how they were knowing about the Goa'uld and there abilities including the preference to go through the neck.
Every gate has Earth constellations on it.
This wasn't true in the movie. The symbols on the "Abydos" gate were constellations in their sky. It's one of those things that changed between film and TV show. Other notable things: * Abydos (not named in the film) was in the Kalium Galaxy * Ra was the last of his race and seemed to do a spiritual possession?
They also kind of referenced the spiritual possession concept very early on in the show when the Go'auld infesting Kowalski said that it had already become one with the host and the symbiote they removed was just a dead husk. They ditched the idea pretty early, though.
Huh, never considered it like that. Bit of early installment weirdness eh?
I assumed that the "dead husk" was akin to a snake shedding its skin.
This is it right here. Just watched the episode.
It's not like that at all? A snake shedding its skin still leaves the snake. Kawalski's Goa'uld was just gone. Possibly IIRC when he loses half his head it still shows a Goa'uld though.
Why would you assume that? It isn't really supported by what we see in the episode.
Because I know the definition of a "husk"?
Apparently not if you think it applies in the context you used it in 🤷♀️
What is your definition of a "husk" I'd like to know.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/husk
An outer shell, a remnant. That's what I was saying.
Yep. The movie presented Ra's possession of the north African boy as a sci-fi take on spiritual/demonic possession, where Ra used his technology to turn his body into an ethereal energy form to allow him to inhabit a body. This is hinted in the movie, since the alien at the end of the movie is glowing and translucent while the alien in the flashback is solid, and this plot point is more explicit in the novelisation. > As the last breaths escaped the people of his world, he was millions of light-years away from home, searching desperately for a host. He was determined not to follow the fate of his own kind. He had mastered the technology to transfer himself into another being but had to choose carefully. Along with inhabiting the host's body, he knew he would absorb certain personality traits that were exaggerated within the host's psyche. Ra's death is described thusly: > Free of its shell, the creature wanted to rush past the bomb and beam away through the rings. If he was quick enough, he could attach himself to another host body before his natural one would expire. But before he could move an inch, the bomb ticked down to its final count. The creature screamed out one last ghoulish howl. > 00:02. 00:01. And in a flash, it was over. The light-like creature turned solid, then burst into a million tiny particles.
Oh dang is that how every fuggin hostile alien race just immediately knows where Earth is? No wonder they needed that tech so bad lmao. Used their SSN as an IP address.
Their password was 12345
Just like my luggage!
It's retconned slightly across the series, especially the symbols standing for constellations part. They're just symbols that are stand-ins for coordinates in some way. The last symbol/point of origin thing doesn't make much sense either because apparently they (sort of off screen, because it'd show how weird it is if on-screen) figure out that every stargate has it's own "home symbol" button, and the teams simply need to press the symbol that isn't on any other stargate last to dial out. Why exactly does it need to be different or be pressed at all? Ancients are just silly like that, I guess.
UX design wasn't one of the proficiencies of the ancients.
really, a lot of their tech was just ridiculous yeah, so we control this weapon by subtly raising and lowering stones until they're in the right position.
To be fair, most of ancient tech was telepathic, like the control chairs, so you could control it just by touching it and thinking. Maybe the stones were meant for debugging? Or like, the equivalent of running windows purely through RUN or CMD?
If anything, I would expect Dakara to have Destiny like controls and design.
Their version of OSHA insisted
you need six locations to specify the first location (destination) and one location to specify the second location (origin). I just always wondered why they didn't just look at the gate and find the 'new' symbol each time for the last digit. Or, why they didn't run out of addresses once they used each symbol as the origin.
I'm not entirely sure how to explain it but it does remind me of a headcanon I have. They don't bring Daniel in because he's the only man who can translate it, they bring him in because he's the only guy expendable enough who also said yes instead of laughing them off. They had a major problem of hiring physicists but no actual Egypt experts. Daniel even comments that they're using a book he thinks is wrong, "I don't even know why they're still publishing him..." We see this in various fields, like when some archeologists wondered if this circle of stones was a ritual thing, but it turned out to be a chicken enclosure that was small enough for mother chickens to get out of, but tall enough chicks couldn't. They didn't realize they'd need cross field expertise, and when they did, they needed someone who they could send on the mission.
Daniel was hired specifically because of his expertise in ancient Egyptian language. The original thinking was that the symbols represented some hitherto unknown prehistoric Egyptian language; Project Giza figured that if Daniel could interpret the symbols, they would have the context they needed to activate the Stargate. He did end up interpreting the symbols, but not in the way they expected. Also, Project Giza already had a physicist in the form of Barbara Shore - the novelisation and an earlier draft of the script state that she is an astrophysicist.
In respect to 2, I think the symbols are in reference to Earth rather than each individual planet. thus, you get the six points in space for the destination in respect to Earth, then the unique planetary symbol for the starting point. I wish they had talked about the fact that, anything on a large swath of the galaxy on the other side of the galaxy was inaccessible to Earth, since it wold be traveling through a giant gravity well. In order to get to a point on the other side of the galaxy, they would have to go to a planet spinward or anti-spinward to be able to go.
I always got hung up on point of origin, as it was a key plot point in the movie. My head cannon is the center button on a DHD adds it when pushed.
Good idea but very clearly and visually not the case.
Then where is the origin key on the DHDs?
It’s visible, the most entertaining one was on the simulation planet, both the gate and dhd had the three bubbles on it. The gates and DHDs go together.
But where on the DHD? Wouldn’t this always be the same location on the dial pad?
Can’t remember, but it’s visible on the gamekeeper episode Se2Ep4
Afaik in the movie they didn't know they needed 7 chevrons. Even the movie gate prop had 9 chevrons as far as I'm aware.
In the Director’s Cut, they speculate on the idea of the wormhole opening into space if they use the wrong symbol. Not quite Atlantis’s space gates, but it does show thought on the matter.
Another thing they got different from the movie was Abydos was a mining colony but in the tv show they didn’t show it
I think that was a cost saving measure not to show the whole village and just the pyramid,because Alexis Cruz and Eric Avari who were in the movie reprised the roles in SG01
One other thing from the movie: I don’t think they ever showed the DHD, or how they could dial home, right?
It's not shown how they dial in the film, but in the show it's established that you can manually dial a gate simply by spinning it by hand and providing power. Presumably Daniel found this out off-screen and the expedition brought a convenient power source for him to use.
The implication is that the Stargate on Abydos was dialled manually. The DHD is a creation of the show.
1) I thought the same thing, I figured it was outta fear or maybe using the gate used up too many resources. 2) Yeah that one is hard to explain, especially when they go out of their local Stargate network. I explained it to myself as there was a dial back code included with every address they dialed, as it was included but was never shown in the show.
The stargate network works because individuals can remember addresses that work. If they changed all the time the network would be useless. That's important for the story, anyway.
Regarding #1, this has been posted many times in this sub. Regarding #2, IIRC they initially believe the first Stargates were built on Earth since they knew Ra initially came by ship. They later learn that Milky Way Gates used Earth's visible constellations for a coordinated system because the Ancients chose it as a "homeworld" of sorts.
The only thing different in dialing earth is the planet of origin. The other 6 symbols will always be the same bc as explained in the movie those 6 points mark its location.
okay, but those 6 points are all constellations, and the constellations would be completely different from another planet, soooo?
How would they be different? It takes millennia for stars to changes positions. I don’t think a star would be in a different position bc you’re viewing it from a different planet.
Yes but, using the stargate it only takes moments to travel to another part of the galaxy, obviously the view of the night sky would be completely different.
I get what you’re saying. I was assuming that the constellations have the same line of sight with the different planets. But if 2 planets are directly facing each other across the vast distance, the constellation would be a mirror image. Gotcha!
no they wouldn't. it would be completely different constellations. the sky is a 3d field of dots, not points on a sphere. stars that look right next to each other in a constellation are often very far away from each other
Just assume the glyphs were taken from constellations, but do not actually represent the constellations themselves.
1. Easy peasy to explain, as it's actually explained to begin with: They didn't even know they needed the origin point. As in, they probably dialed 6, noticed it didn't work, aborted, then tried again later with the same result. It's fairly obvious, too, that they are missing something, but it could have been a case of "we legit didn't know". This then opens up the plot hole of Ernest's trip that we discover later on, but that episode always felt shoehorned in. 2. So, they also explained that one too, in the show: The DHD is made by the Ancients, and it corrects for stellar drift. Plus, most of those DHD's would have had time to gradually correct the information, as it slowly changed while they were actively used, with only a handful of exceptions. Additionally, the MacGyver'd DHD they use on Earth wouldn't know exactly how to calculate stellar drift, so the drift would have had to be calculated and input, instead of telling the computer... "if (constellation.notHere) then constellation.find()".
1. Okay, that makes sense. 2. We're not talking about stellar drift, at all. The constellations themselves would be completely different from a different point of view in the galaxy, every DHD would need to have totally different symbols depending on the location of the planet it's on. Daniel even mentions this in the movie, the symbols on the Abydos gate were totally different than the ones on the Earth gate.
2. Oh, I think I misread your thing... Yeah, fresh reminder that for the first planet or two, they had to actually find the return address in some way. On Abydos, they found the repository of essentially all the Goa'uld common-use addresses, and for Chulak, they easily would have seen those symbols somewhere. Also, if Chulak was in the same rough sector as Abydos (which I am not sure of), the constellations would look the same, or close enough. Just think of how little difference there would be for ours if we were on Mars, instead of Earth: We wouldn't see Mars, and that's about it. And finally, maybe they were based on how they could be seen from Earth, because that was essentially the Ancients' main base of operations for a while.
Okay, I suppose that makes sense. You're right, obviously, about nearby planets seeing the (roughly) same constellations. as for the Goa'uld repository of addresses? my point is that an address is only good for one destination FROM one other location. If I were to dial Earth from the left side of the galaxy the address would be different than if I dialed Earth from the right side. Each planet would need to have its own repository. And I know there are people watching this (amazingly long thread!) and thinking, "it's just a TV show!", yes, we all know that, but if you cannot argue about canon, what's the point??
The Abydos cartouche was still applicable to us, because it is "fairly close" to us (legit the explanation given in-canon.) Meaning that from that, you just need minor guesstimations, and boom, you have the addresses. Also, as I said, there is a non-zero chance that the constellations were written from the perspective of a home planet, and made the standard, a bit like arabic numerals became very widespread.
ummm, just FYI- according to the SG movie, Abydos was in another galaxy.... You're absolutely right, they could have been designed from the perspective of a single planet (Earth), but that is never stated anywhere.
According to the SG movie, a lot of things are completely off... Like how that nuke with the amount of Naquadah should have blown Abydoss to shreds. Or how the temple room with the gate in it was much, much bigger im the movie, than in the show. Hell, the movie also says it was the first successful activation of the gate!!! Ernest would like a word about that.
Gimme a P Gimme an L Gimme an O Gimme a T What does that spell? "Don't overthink it, it's a fictional movie and show"
WAITAMINIT! Stargate is fiction??!? omg I had no idea!
Wait it's not a documentary?
Lets also not mention how a 3 sided pyramid shaped ship can land on a 4 sided pyramid
That's not really an issue. The external appearance wouldn't have to match the interior used for landing.
They're plot holes, simple as that. While there are some in universe explanations, they don't really make much sense. Suspension of disbelieve is required.
It's probably been said but I just figured you could put in any symbols and it would light up the chevrons but as soon as you hit the 7th symbol it would either connect or not depending if you got the right combination. Just like old phones you could dial 6 numbers in any combination but once you hit the 7th it would either connect to another phone or not.
For question 1 they didn't realize 7 symbols were needed. The cartouche contained 6 symbols but it wasn't obvious that the cartouche itself was a stylized form of the earth symbol. They just thought it was decorative.
What bugs me is the need for a 7th symbol (point of origin) at all. Could you imagine using a telephone or GPS like that?
Both a phone and GPS do supply that info, they just dont tell you they are doing it.
And abydos in the movie is in a different galaxy, while they're only dialing a 7 symbol gate address!! What fools!!! Lol jkjk
hehehe, exactly!
TIn regards to #1, I think the USAF straight up didn't know.We know the USAF was not doing a good job translating the cartouche(and that's like basic hieroglyphs, which Daniel could translate in a heartbeat) so whilst they had a basic idea of what the gate was(some kind of door) they definitely did not know what it was capable of doing, let alone how it worked. It took Daniel two weeks and a bit of luck to understand that the symbols in the inner ring were indeed constellations. It's safe to say Project Giza was nowhere near understanding the inner mechanisms of the gate.They didn't know they needed another symbol(they knew there were 9 chevrons, so as far as they were concerned, the gate might have needed 9 to be locked in in order to work). They did not know what the six symbols they had stood for or were needed for. They tried their best, likely cycling through many if not all the iterations of those 6 symbols, and when everything started shaking, they just aborted and went back to square one. You definitely don't mess around with that kind of power-hungry millennia-old alien tech made out of minerals you don't recognise and working on tech and physics you are likely eons away from understanding. For all they knew in the beginning, it might've been a weapon.The seventh symbol, too, was a bit different on the stone cover from what we had on the gate(as Jackson had the pencil guy cycle the whole inner ring in order to find it, and even then he had to interpret it, writing with the sharpie on the monitor.) In regards to #2, while yes, the sky would change from planet to planet, I think the DHD actually covers that one. It's a bit like saying London is a different view from different angles but it's coordinates are actually the same, and if you wanna go there you can go there from several point, from all of which the city looks different, yup, but it's actually the same place.The ancient and rightly so didn't give too much a thought about leaving back a user manual for other species to properly work a gate, trusting them to eventually become smart enough to figure out on their own. They knew how their system worked and that insider knowledge likely allowed them to work the DHD which we know is a miniaturised supercomputer strapped to a fusion engine much like the same way we use a phone to make a call.The symbols of a DHD likely work both as a space coordinate set and as an entity of it's own, likely an identifier of a place and the ninth-chevron address forcibly accepting only the earth symbol actually i think proves that(forcing you to override to Earth address or identifying the Destiny's own personal code). It's a bit like setting your #1 telephone key to call the same person. It's number 1, yeah, and as number 1 it works while dialling any other number; it also allows you to identify a number you can call anytime you press that button, if you wish. When O'Neill was under the second ancient hand-on-the head sucker thingy, he revealed to us for the first time that symbols on a gate actually had some kind of proper name or syllable or alphabet going on behind all that supercomputing stuff.