The team runs through the gate, and once they’re through, it shuts off, closing the wormhole. Ok, fine. The folks in the control room turned it off. But what about when they return and they dialed from some planet where no one was around to turn it off? We know the gate can stay open for 30+ minutes, so what makes it close? Don’t they have problems closing it when someone has dialed in? I recall this coming up before, where the gate was being “held hostage” by constant incoming wormholes…
I admit that I often don’t pay 100% attention to the technical discussions/explanations on the show so I’m sure this has been explained and I either didn’t see that episode or I didn’t pay attention…
If I recall correctly, the gate will stay open up to 30-someodd minutes as long as there is something “holding” it open. Sometimes that can be a stream of people going through, or a radio signal or some other type of transmission. So for instance you can open the gate, and send a radio signal through, and the presence of that signal will keep the gate open…once you shut the signal off, the gate closes. There are a lot of logical loopholes in how the wormhole works on the show, but I think that is generally the logic for how it works.
Ah yes… the grocery store door opener technology, with the Fancy Advanced Alien Technological Upgrade that lets it know that T’ealc is under fire, and running about a minute behind the team, and will be diving through the gate in just a second so please don’t close yet, until just after he’s through.
Also travel through the Stargate usually alters one’s brain structure enabling one to speak (but not read or write) the local language. Except when it doesn’t.
They have a metal iris installed on this side (eventually), so even if the gate is being held open, whatever came through would materialise against the surface of the iris. Hence all the booming impacts in the episode you are recalling.
I’ve been watching the show since it started; I’m well aware of the iris. In fact, I think I posted a question a few years ago asking what happened to the residue from people who splatted on it (the general consensus seemed to be that it was so close to the event horizon that things didn’t actually materialize, and so there was no residue. I think I complained “what is making the impact sounds, then” at the time. I still think they have some poor shmuck with a squeegie on staff.)
Wow - this is a blast from the past. Okay the Stargate works like this:
If a lander is abducting a humanoid and you hit the Stargate button, the Stargate will transport you to the humanoid’s location. You shoot the lander and catch the humanoid before he falls. After you have saved four humanoids and have not deposited them safely, you can hit the Stargate button and you’ll skip ahead a couple of levels.
Anyway, they used to have the thumping sound, but they stopped doing that. I am not sure if it was due to the new improved naquada iris or what. Either way I’m sure that since what’s going through is supposed to be reduced to atoms, there wouldn’t be much to clean on this end. Just atoms bouncing off the iris.
It works like this. When a plot device is desired to complicate the show, a pseudo-scientific reason is created to either close or open the stargate. The actual reason, is essentially immaterial. Then Samantha Carter comes up with a technical solution, Daniel Jackson translates the runes required to complete the techinical solution meanwhile Teal’c runs around the station battling the aliens that happened to get through while the gate was open. Of course none of this matters because Richard Dean Anderson just remembered where he left his car keys, thereby saving the day.
You might get the wrong impression that I don’t like this show. Quite the opposite, I love the original incarnation of the show. Once Richard Dean Andreson was no longer a regular, I lost interest. Bring back the Goa’uld!
Frink: Yes, over here, m-hay, m-haven… in episode BF12, you were battling barbarians while riding a winged Appaloosa yet in the very next scene my dear, you’re clearly atop a winged Arabian! Please do explain it!
Lucy Lawless: Uh, yeah, well whenever you notice something like that… a wizard did it!
Frink: Yes, alright, yes, in episode AG04…
Lucy Lawless: Wizard!
Frink: Oh for glaven out loud…
Yup. They keep the iris open, and then close it if they have an incoming wormhole. I presume because of exactly this problem…the iris would go bye-bye.
I have seen episodes where the iris is closed but the stargate opens. I beleive the logic is that they have the iris so close to the event horizon, that the goo-splooge thing can’t materialize.
I don’t think they’ve ever actually addressed what the goo-splooge thing is.
I thought they explained what the goo-splooge was in one or two episodes, but I can’t remember what it is now. The back of my brain is saying anti-matter, but that can’t be right. I almost never remember all those details–I really need those little “previously, on Stargate…” clips at the beginning!
