Stargates

We are fascinated by portals between worlds, gateways between stars, wormholes through the fabric of reality, but could these be real, and if so, what would the civilizations using them be like?

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Credits:
Stargates
Episode 442a; April 14, 2024
Produced, Written & Narrated by: Isaac Arthur

Editors:
Donagh Broderick
Merv Johnson II

Graphics:
Ken York
Jeremy Jozwik
Sergio Botero

Music Courtesy of
Epidemic Sound
Lombus, "Cosmic Soup"

[robrick]

Remember that time Daniel Jackson died, or that other time Daniel Jackon died, or that other other time Daniel Jackson died....

[rastan]

The episode where Isaac finally put up the picture of Jack O’Neil when talking about O’Neil cylinders made me chuckle at the time as I always thought of him and most of us probably did the same.

[brokeneyes]

“ The Einstein Rosen bridge…”

Sliders loved this one. Very clever and fun show for it’s day.

[ky]

You got Star Trek and Star Wars the two everyone knows but then you got the lesser known golden triangle StarGate, Farscape and Babylon 5. These show are some of the best media you will ever watch and I’m very happy to get more video on them. So keep it up Isaac with how you talk about Syfi you could make some epic video on the ideas behind these shows.

[stillatwork]

Stargate wormholes are actually very small. The "event horizon" is actually just a matter-energy translator, like a Star Trek teleporter or, the in-univere transport rings. The energy is then sent through the wormhole, and then you are retranslated back to matter on the other side. That's why radio works both ways (already energy), but mass is only one way (matter translator only works one way by convention).

It is also probably a small, pinpoint spherical wormhole, and the big blue glow has no wormhole inside it. The wormhole could be behind the top chevron.

Stargate was more a practical road system than a science experiment. They probably used a flat plane rather than a sphere because it worked better with ancient focus groups.

[nightspod]

Currently rewatching SG1, this time in order and methodically, the show had great continuity (for the time!) and I’m digging the steady advancement and development of humanity over the show’s 10 year run.

[TimSedai]

Comment for Sliders. My personal fave of that era of television. Professor Gimli rocked!

[danieljacksononearth]

Nice to see an Isaac video dedicated to my namesake! The idea of a fully-developed gate-based sci-fi empire was very well-developed in Dan Simmons' Hyperion novels as the Hegemony of Man. There, the technology was so ubiquitous and cheap that wealthy people had gates in every door in their house, with different rooms on different planets. The second two books consider, among other things, what happens when the gate system collapses--as would be expected, civilization generally regresses.

[palladin]

Note on Stargates whole "one portal per planet", that wasn't a restriction of Stargates themselves but rather how the original builders designed the addressing system. Because planets are always in motion around stars that are themselves always in motion, they couldn't use a static system of space coordinates and instead used star charts where you requested a planet and the ancients gate computer calculated the wormhole coordinates on the fly. This is also why gates couldn't be open more then a limited amount of time, as the computer would have to constantly update the coordinates as both source and destination changed non-stop.

If more then one gate was active on a planet, then when the request from the origination gate came in, the gate that answered first would get the connection. Essentially try to think of each planet as having a single "IP address". Much alter in the series we find out that beings do exist that can are capable of maintaining it for longer then 38-miniutes as well as creating their own gates with their own addressing scheme.

[physetermacrocephalus]

"Why isn't it spinning? Well what do you mean; it has to spin, its round. OK listen I am the General and I want it to SPIN!"

- GENERAL Hammond (Of Texas)

[lareolanKFP]

SGU had such amazing promise, I was so disappointed when it got cancelled. The concept was absolutely amazing!

[sokuyamashita]

Im so happy issac arthur is familiar with the battletech lore, im a big fan of that universe and i believe it deserves a wider audience.

[erictaylor]

Though rarely shown in SG1, they did send send unmanned probes ahead of the teams to each planet, as some of the environments would have been hostile to humans.
In at least one episode they went to a planet that had no atmosphere and another where the gate was under the sea.

[ManicPandaz]

There are pros and cons to many of the biggest sci-fi shows/movies, but I will say Stargate did technological development from the introduction of alien tech perfect. They went from modern day technology to intergalactic technology in one series. They did power creep very very well, A+ 👍

[fhilbo]

One evening at an extended- family dinner, a friendly debate arose over which was better, Star Wars or Star Trek. My then 5 year old daughter won the debate, sweeping aside the conflict by confidently asserting "Star GATE!" was better than either.

[ivanvukasovic]

I love your videos, Isaac, and I just wanted to use this early opportunity to say thank you for all the hardwork. I don't always fully grasp all the concepts you talk about, but I'm always trying to research more and educate myself. Thank you.

[miltenignis]

Very nice video.
On your point regarding civilisations which rely on gates instead of starships, it reminded me of something:
The german sci-fi novel series Perry Rhodan had that with the "Akonen", where they had the majority of their population inside one star system protected by a system-encompassing shield and some ouposts all over the galaxy connected to the home system and each other via a "doorway-transmitter" (the series equivalent to stargates) network.

[viddarkking]

Stellaris actually has one of the best representations of the evolution of this technology. We start with the hyperspace network (Clasic FTL).
Them we move on to the Hyper relays (Highway in space)
Then we go to point to point teleportations with the Gateways and Quantum Catapults. (The big Stargates in space)
Then we do to the jump drives. (BSG style teleportation.)
And none of them really become obsolete as we grow as a Galactic Empire.
If we ever discover FTL. I wonder if we'll follow that same path.

[slabrankle]

I believe the best depiction of a Star Gate was from the original Star Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever". In that episode the Guardian of Forever could not only take you anywhere and anytime but also totally eradicate your timeline and do so with an impressive sounding voice. I love that episode, and of course Joan Collins was amazing. One of the best episodes of any show ever.

[theaccountant]

Daniel Jackson became more and more badass with the seasons 👍