Skip to main content

Is there any indicator as to how many planets have Stargates?


I'm trying to figure out how many planets have stargates in the Stargate universe, preferably separated by galaxy. I've recently thought about just how many stars there are in the galaxy, and roughly what fraction of them would have a stargate, just to run through some numbers.



Bonus points if you compare the number of stargates to the number of stars in the galaxy, distance between stargates, etc.



Answer



To my knowledge, there was never a number given for the number of Stargates in the Milky Way or Pegasus galaxies. An out of universe explanation for this is that giving such a number would limit the number of planets they could visit and thus the number of episodes they could have on different planets. Such a limit would also prevent the writers from easily doing things like pulling 17 gates from each galaxy to build an intergalactic bridge, which would further reduce the number of gates in the galaxy.


This is a pretty comprehensive list of the known gates and addresses.


On the other hand, for Stargate Universe, we know that the trail of gates left behind the seed ships have been going for 60 million years, and their FTL is pretty quick. If one ship is able to seed a gate on one planet each week, then that means there are roughly 3.13064742 × 10^9 gates spread across the universe, per seed ship.


After reading a few of the Stargate wiki pages, I rewatched a couple of episodes that I thought might provide clues. In Avenger 2.0, a season 7 episode, Felcher's assistant Chloe provides a hint to the number of gates in the Milky Way. They deploy a virus that scrambles the glyphs on a DHD so they no longer correspond to the correct coordinates. This makes it so the DHD for that gate doesn't work. This virus then spreads to other gates, and Chloe says:



If each gate only dials 2 others before adapting to the new system, the entire network will be affected in less than 2 hours.



This was several hours after they'd deployed the virus. What follows is speculation, inferring from what is in the episode. The above quote was from later in the day they deployed the virus to one gate. If we assume they deployed the virus first thing in the day, and learned of the ramifications at midday, then there are ~5 hours of the virus spreading prior to that quote. Add 2 more hours, we get 7 total. We don't know how long it takes for one gate to dial another gate and send the update, so for an upper bound on the number of gates, let's assume that it's instantaneous once the two gates connect.



One gate dials one other gate (1 infected DHD), sends the update (2 total), then both gates dial another (4 total). Then the first infected gate is done, and the 3 others dial out (7 total). Then the second infected gate is done, so 5 of the gates dial out (12 total). Next 8 of them will dial out. The number of gates dialing each time is going to follow the Fibonacci sequence.


So, now we know how long it will take to spread, and how quickly it spreads to new gates. If we assume that the dialing process takes 1 minute, it will run for 420 iterations. But that yields a number larger than the number of stars in the galaxy. By like 10^78th power. If it takes 2 minutes to dial, that comes down to 10^35th.


I hate it when writers don't do research.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

aliens - Interstellar Zoo story

I vaguely remember this story from my childhood: it was about an interstellar zoo that came to Earth with lots of bizarre and unusual species, and humans would file through and gape at all the crazy looking creatures from other planets. The twist came at the end when the perspective shifted to the other side of the bars and we discovered that the "creatures" were traveling through space on a kind of safari. They thought they were the visitors and we were the animals. Neither side knew that the other side thought they were the zoo creatures. Answer Got it. Zoo, by Edward D. Hoch. Published in 1958. Link to Publication History Link to PDF
Post a Comment
Read more

harry potter - What is the difference between Diffindo and Sectumsempra?

In the Harry Potter books, Diffindo is called the 'Severing Charm' and it’s most commonly used to cut ropes and the like. However, in the last book Hermione uses it on Ron but misses, creating a 'slash in his jeans' and his knee gets cut, causing him to 'roar in pain'. We've only seen Sectumsempra used once on screen when Harry directly uses it on Malfoy in the sixth book, but there it's mentioned that he is 'waving his wand wildly'. Wouldn't Diffindo, if used in such a fashion also cause a similar effect? Similarly, if it was able to cut Ron, it would also be able to, say, chop off an ear (George's)? In that case, how are these two spells different, except for Sectumsempra seemingly used exclusively to hurt humans? Answer While Diffindo and Sectumsempra both can be countered by other spells, Diffindo is far more easily countered. Reparo, a relatively common spell, can completely reverse its effect when used once. “He pulled the old cop...
Post a Comment
Read more

harry potter - How could Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra?

I want to be very careful about how I ask this question – I am not asking How did Voldemort die? [CLOSED] Below the text is the relevant passages from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows if anyone wants to review them (I'm sorry for the amount of text). How did Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra and kill Voldemort? I feel the reason Harry's Expelliarmus overpowered Voldemort's Avada Kedavra curse has to do with who was master of the Elder Wand and how the Elder Wand works. I've always had trouble understanding fully how the Elder Wand works, though. How much did the fact that Voldemort never truly won or mastered the Elder Wand factor into how Expelliarmus reacted to Avada Kedavra and caused Avada Kedavra to rebound and kill Voldemort? An answer based in book canon would be especially welcome, but any canon source really is fine. Harry heard the high voice shriek as he, too, yelled his best hope to the heavens, pointing Draco’s wand: ‘ Avada Kedavra !’ ‘ Expelliarmus !...
Post a Comment
Read more