Post by mal on Jan 1, 2011 21:00:50 GMT -5
The Stargate
The Stargate is a ring-shaped alien device that creates a wormhole enabling personal transportation to complementary devices located cosmic distances away. It was created by an ancient race which left these gateways on planets throughout the galaxy.
Also, they or another ancient race has seeded human beings throughout the galaxy on various habitable planets. These people were taken from earth, and exist at various levels of advancement on hundreds of worlds.
A major rival race is called the Goa'ould. They are a parasitic (or rarely symbiotic) race which can inhabit and control other larger species including humans. They physically invade the mind of their hosts, and can control their bodies. Their true appearance is serpentine and at maturity about two feet in length.
At least some branches of the Goa'ould enslave humans and use them as hosts, making war upon each other in endless struggle using them as pawns. Often they are worshipped as gods by the enslaved.
The stargate at Star Gate Command in the Cheyenne mountain, a rival of Alternity International, requires great quanties of energy to power their gate. This is because they lack a dialer device which not only allows gate use but powers the gate. It is presumed long since destroyed or no longer on earth.
The stargate at Alternity International still receives power from its own dialer, though where on earth it can be found is unknown. Their dialing device is much simpler, merely a mechanism to rotate the inner ring to the proper combinations.
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Language : As a curious side effect, the stargates modify the neurons of those passing through it, absorbing common languages from the minds. Not only that, with every passage through the gate, more and more languages of the most frequent travellers are learned by other travellers. Commonly absorbed languages are Goa'ould, and various earth languages spoken by the Goa'oulds slaves and jaffa (Ancient Egyptian, Mandarin, Assyrian, etc). This does NOT include written language.
Stargate users quickly become master spoken linguists in many ancient languages.
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When dialing out to a stargate address, a connection signal is established first - then the wormhole forms. If no connection is available, the gate resets back it's default setting without attempting wormhole creation. When dialing, the address or combination is dialed first, then the default symbol/code again.
Wormholes are one way ... once one enters more than 50 percent of their body through the gate, they are dematerialized and reform, stepping through on the other side. One cannot step through, then go back again on the same dialing.
The first time one steps through, there may be a brief vertigo effect. This is both due to the transit and due to the fact that the gate on the other side is not necessarily at the same elevation/air pressure as the dialing gate.
Once a world has been visited once, the Alternity gateroom is often pressurized / depressurized to match the target world. If this is done, there is no 'popping of the ears' effect stepping through.
During the initial formation of the wormhole, just after the burst effect, a brief visual view of the scene beyond is visible. This is momentary but can be captured by extremely high speed video scanning.
The ancient dialers communicate with the stargate via tachyons, and power the gates in an unknown manner ... even over thousands of miles. Small amounts of tachyons can travel both ways through the wormhole, allowing radio/video communication through an open gate.
The sending address of an incoming wormhole can be seen on lighting up on the receiving dialer. The receiving gate does not dial the address of the incoming wormhole, but rather stays in the default location for incoming wormholes and the chevrons engage.
Gates can manually dial out as long as they have power. Gates can always receive incoming wormholes as long as they are undamaged.
When dialing a wormhole, it stays open approximately 90 seconds. However, the dialing gate can 'hang up' by dialing the inner ring even one 'notch'. Anything part way through the event horizon at the time it closes will lose whatever matter was partially entered into the gate. This is an effective form of disintegration ... as is the burst effect as it first forms. A dialer can keep the wormhole open by pressing the last symbol that was dialed repeatedly. Maximum open time is 32 minutes. When a wormhole closes, the combination of the stargate flashes briefly across the chevron lights. In effect, when a wormhole closes, the chevrons will recycle, first going through it's own "home" combination. This is how Alternity knew how to "phone home".
If a stargate opening is fully blocked (by a hatch, iris, rocks) then the wormhole fails to fully form. Matter (including people) attempting to come through is disintegrated, and only a small residue is transmitted through the gate onto the blocking material.
DHD
(Dial Home Device)
Ancient dialers, unlike manual dialing or use of a dialing computer, do a 'quick dial'. The symbols light up on the DHD as opposed to being dialed on the inner wheel of the gate. All the Chevrons click into place at once once the address is completely dialed.
The dialers also power the gates. They themselves recharge whenever a gate is opened, then receive power from the stargate network.
The addresses on the gates correspond to spatial coordinates of the planet upon which the gate was originally placed.