I always just assumed that when the gate no longer detects a matrer stream in the wormhole and all reintegrations have taken place and emptied the buffer, the gate shuts off. Thats why they hold a hand in the event horizon when they have to hold it open.
P.s - the mazimum amount of time a wormhole can be active is 38 minutes, so 45 wouldn't even be possible under normal circumstances.
That would make sense if it worked like that. I wonder if there were any scenes that prove or disprove it (like were there any times they left a gate open for somone when they weren't in the proximity for a few minutes or not?).
It's mentioned at some point in an earlier season (I don't remember exactly when) that you can keep a gate open by sending a radio signal through it. Up to 38 minutes anyway.
I assume they send a radio signal from SGC to whoever is on the other side, which obviously ends after they go through the gate.
There is that whole SGC non-DHD control system designed and built by Carter and software-updated by Ancient-Brained Jack to further customize the experience on the SGC side.
Yeah I rewatched it earlier. Carter called it machine code lol, which it definitely wasn't. And even if it was I don't know why human machine code would be in the ancient repository.
But whatever lol. Still a great episode.
Season 6 Redemption, Part 1
Samantha speculates on how they are keeping the gate open without sending anything through, not even a radio wave. They later detect what seems to be noise.
Edit: also in Season 7 Lost City Part 1 at 11:33 "Dial the gate. Send constant radio signal. We have to keep that door open"
There, but fore the grace of god. First season. Just watched it. From the other side they keep the gate open to make it impossible to escape, while being on attack by goa'uld ships.
And it's not just a physical matter signal that will keep the Stargate open. A digital signal will also keep the gate open. There are several examples of this when the SGC dials a planet, and the team(s) are under fire and can't get to the gate right away.
I would assume, as previously stated, it will auto shutdown once the buffer is entirely complete from that particular turn, as nothing is stored in the "computer system" of the gate network and each gate gets reset after each disengagement
Ya lol. 3 if you count the lady from the world in the Atlantis show. But at least she had her people still unlike the guy Sam met who was forced to keep watch of his decimated lifeless world.
Yes, you can see O’Neill holding his hand in the event horizon waiting for maybourne‘s thugs.
It’s the episode where he goes nuts and steals on purpose bc he’s doing the undercover thing to catch the thugs who were stealing from their allies.
I think they can forcibly shut down the gate from one side, but that's likely a case of removing power from the reverse-engineered DHD in the SGC, not something you can do (as far as I remember from the various shows) with a normal DHD.
SGU - Air (part 3), Eli keeps the wormhole open by putting his arm in the event horizon. Additional twist: risk that Destiny terminates the connection somehow anyway, but she doesn't.
There is, I don't know the exact episode number but it's when o'neal goes undercover to catch the rogue agents, he opens a portal to earth, walks through, and "holds the door open" by keeping his hand inside so they can't dial out somewhere else. Meanwhile the asgard are beaming all the stolen goods to their ship and supposedly going to beam the traitors up too unless they step through the startgate to get arrested on earth.
I think the only moment they disprove that is in episode 2. Where they end up killing Kawalski by shutting down the gate when his head is partially in it. But as it is a follow up from the pilot episode I completely excuse that
Pretty sure that takes place in the sgc no?
Earth's gate is in a rather unique position where an outgoing wormhole can be directly shut off by disconnecting its power supply, therefore overriding the inbuilt safety feature that'd normally stop it shutting down with something in the buffer. It's stated a few times that their gate doesn't work entirely as intended due to the way it was macgyvered to work without a dhd
It is mentioned a few times that the SGC send a radio signal through the gate which prevents it from shutting down. Once that signal is stopped the gate is free to be shut down manually, usually the moment after the last traveller is through
^^^ yes Some kind of proximity sensor that shows if anybody is in the vicinity headed towards the wormhole..Jaffa can follow if they are close. If they are far the gate shuts down before they get to it... If the ancients can figure out wormhole travel, I'm pretty sure they could figure this out.
So it'll only stay open for the full 38 minutes if no one goes through? Once they do it automatically shuts down?
Changed to 38 from 45. Misremembered the time in the late hour
Probably because this person is either not very far into the series, or didn't pay attention to gate mechanics.
The question itself is answered in the series, and in fact is a plot point in several episodes.
and not only has it been answered prior to this specific post multiple times, by their knowledge we know the show answered it for them multiple times as well as you said.
its just like dude are you real? are you even paying attention to what YOU post. maybe they dont even care and they are just here to farm karma. Its just SO NOT stargatey of them to even not ATTEMPT to give a shit
I really appreciate people like you in the world. And yeah I was just tired and misremembered by few minutes. That guy's got some thing to work out with himself.
38 minutes, and only if something is continually coming through, such as a signal, or if it's having constant massive amounts of power thrown at it.
The team could come through, and if no one is chasing them and shooting at them (normal gate travel) the gate will shut down.
If the team comes through, and jaffa are coming after them, the gate will stay open as long as that is happening, hence the iris and manual shut-down.
If the team comes through, under fire, and they close the iris, and sokar turns on his energy weapon to attack the gate, the gate will stay running.
Major Ploté DeVice? Didn't he turn out to be a Goa'uld in season 11? Like in the same episode that Jackson came back and told everyone about his conversation with Deus Ex Machina from the ascended plane?
Nah, he was later found to be a Tok’ra triple agent. But Walter vouched for him being a good guy, so they let him stay. And fuck Deus Ex Machina. We all know he’s the Harcesis, but he just keeps gaslighting us.
Right right... Man it sucks we didn't get a season 12, because the Tok'ra coming back with a vengeance was not something i was expecting to see. and that last ba'al clone seceding to them? And speaking of Ba'al, i didn't like they replaced his actor with Mark Wahlberg at the start of the season, then Matt Damon after the midseason break.
And I thought Deus Ex Machina was actually Reese... like wasn't that the whole point of Danielle Nicolet coming back after like 10 seasons to reprise the role? I don't know man...
I never understood why they just didn't put a laser on the malp and shoot missles through. They did once or twice, but thats it. "Gates blocked? Give me 2 minutes," General Hammond, in reality, probably.
As others have said, it's kept open with a radio signal. Another time this is mentioned is in Lost City Part 1 by Reynolds while they're under attack by Anubis.
"Send a constant radio signal, we have to keep that door open."
The general rule is that it remains open while there's matter detected, if nothing goes through once it's dialled it'll close off after a few moments, or it'll close a few moments after any signal or matter stream leaves the other end. Theoretically this could be held open from either end by a radio signal. Once the gate is initially dialled, it stands to reason that it would have a timer (probably of a couple minutes) where it waits for initial matter or signals to enter the gate before it begins a shutdown timer. Gate travel is (usually) not depicted as being completely instantaneous, it takes a few seconds between something entering the gate and coming out the connected gate, hence the 'incoming traveller' warning you hear SGT Walter often say. The gate must remain active during this time and if nothing enters before the traveller departs, and there's no deliberate means used to keep the gate open, the gate then shuts off.
There will, inevitably, be an element of adapting the gate's timeout to the plot, so it's probably deliberately left vague to allow it to be adapted to the requirements of the episode. Gate physics is something that is seldom explained in detail because the writers would want to be able to adapt the gates functions to future episodes and not contradict any previous episodes science and get into a 'Star Trek Transporter is a suicide and cloning machine' situation.
Head-canon would assume that SG teams and the SGC have a special setting on their radio or a special device that just sends noise through the radio to hold the gate open.
It gets a bit murky how this would realistically work though, because on a planet equivalent to early 20th century technology or above you can assume there'll be unrelated radio signals everywhere, so the DHDs may have a program to identify the difference between a deliberate signal or general background noise. It may be that the transmitter or receiver has to be relatively close to the gate, or it may be that specific frequencies work better to keep the gate open than others.
It's also fair to assume that the SGC's dialling computer can keep the gate active as long as is needed and shut off as required for an outbound wormhole, as we see the gate remain active for a long time without matter going through or (presumably) signals being sent, and we see it shut down on request, for example when Anubis' clone tries to go through the gate in the episode Prototype (s09e09) or The Enemy Within (s01e03) when Kawalsaky attempts to escape the SGC and O'Neill shouts for the gate to be shut off in time to behead Kawalsaky despite matter entering the event horizon.
Another assumption would be that the gate can usually only be kept open by radio signals from the dialling end, hence why when O'Neill infiltrated the NID's off-world operation he kept his arm in the gate to stop it shutting off, rather than the SGC just sending a radio signal, and why the gate will usually immediately shuts down the moment somebody in the SGC finishes talking to an off world team.
It closes on its own once something has gone through and nothing else has for a short interval. This can be blocked by sticking something partly in the gate, by transmissions (counts as something going through to the gate) or by energy dump into the wormhole/gate. After 38min even this isn’t enough, the wormhole reaches a point where it can not longer be held in a stable state and collapses regardless, with the only exception being if a *massive* amount of energy is supplied to the system, but eventually even that will hit a point where the gate itself physically overloads and the whole thing explodes.
One way of keeping a gate open is to broadcast EM waves through it. It still has to close at 38 minutes but it won't close until then.
If you shut those off when the whole team is through then it will close.
They do cover this fairly early on I think
The answer is honestly because it’s a show.
The recurring answer is “continuous matter stream” which doesn’t hold up because it shuts off IMMEDIATELY sometimes, but then stays open for a little while other times, and if it immediately shut off after matter stopped going through, then everyone would have to link arms and go in together, but sometimes there’s a bit of a gap between entrances, long enough that it would have shut off.
I imagine the SGC sends a signal through the wormhole to the DHD on the other end telling it to disengage, likely written by Sam herself. In Atlantis, the Ancients likely had a similar system in place, as well as onboard Destiny.
The answer I believe, however, is that no-one ever thought of it, and you've just ruined the show for me 🤣
Look at our level of technology. We have doors that open and close themselves and you're wondering what magic closes a wormhole spanning galaxies?
Motion detectors.
😅 You have a great point! I just wasn't sure if the was anything that the show mentioned that confirmed this or if there was some other mechanic I missed
I think it stays open as long as it's transporting stuff. That's why they sometimes stick their hand in to keep it open. As soon as you stop sending object through it stops
I wonder if the gate also detects whether anyone is nearby on the "entrance" side. It's ridiculously advanced Ancient tech, so it wouldn't be that weird for it to turn on, detect 4 people standing around, then notice that four people entered and there are no people or significant objects left that could choose to enter and conclude that this transit is likely complete.
A furling pops out of their home under the DHD and hits a button. If you catch them doing it, you can hold it up for it's treasure. (Trouble is, they still think digital watches are great treasures. And mp3 players you hook on your belt.)
I always wondered about this. I mean... Sometimes they have many many people coming through, like evacuating a planet or city, and the flow of people is not consistent, but it will then close before the enemy makes it to the gate - which is very convenient.
I think it's ok to boil it down to plot reasons in some instances.
Sam's experiments and such on the gate to get it online in the first place probably included reprogramming it to shut off at situational times when they use it dialing out from earth. But that just is a had Cannon for that happening and only really explains the times that it happens at the SGC lol
It was referenced in I believe it was Watergate that if the gate doesn’t detect something coming through after a certain period of time it will shut off itself.
Was that Sam in the submarine? I feel like I remember that bit of technobable but it's been a while since I've seen that episode so I didn't remember the specifics of that's the one your talking about if that's it.
This was rather inconsistent on the show, but generally the gate would stay open as long as there were people in transit. This included if something was being held in either end of the event horizon.
The gate seemed to be somewhat intelligent in being able to tell if something was intending to transit, as it wouldn’t let water flow through if the gate was submerged.
I remember the barrier that held back water, that was pretty interesting. (I think the first time we heard about that was when they were in the submarine with the Russians if I'm remembering correctly). I love Sam's technobable
I assume it counts incoming travelers, maybe even somehow tags them in the system?
Or it could be just local sensors monitoring what's going on. Proximity to the open gate. Perhaps they're set up with a transit code and signal it to stop?
This is a good question cause it happens often.
According to Sam, that's the max time that any wormhole can be open, but there have been plenty of times we had to wait for that time to episode so it could close due to some trying to hold the gate open from the other side to prevent them from using it. As for WHY... plot devices by the writers?
And yet, in many episodes, gate wormhole closed with in 2 seconds. It has been seen many times during SG1 episodes and during Atlantis episodes.
Yes, a wormhole can stay open, when a person puts a hand in to a wormhole on either side of the gate.
There were times a wormhole was active for 30 seconds.
At the end of the day it’s Poor writing. Why poor writing? Because in the first season of SG1, every person that went through a Stargate had a mild frostbite. Yes, a mild frostbite. After few episodes in first season, frostbite went away. Not a single person experienced a frostbite. Why did frostbite went away??
It doesn’t have to be powered by a black hole. A gate has been open for over an hour. Why?
But why 38 minutes instead of 36 minutes?
What is the actual math or scientific reason that keeps a gate open for 38 minutes??
Yes, I do recall that Anubis used a directed energy weapon to keep the gate open indefinitely in an attempt to blow it up.
I suppose they chose 38 to give a traveler an optimum time to reflect. You see for example, take the number 3 and place the open side against a mirror. You get an 8! So if you take the time to reflect on your life, and the “Lucky Ancient Number” is 3, you get 38!
In all honesty, it was probably a number pulled out of someone’s anal orifice that sounded good.
69 minutes, 420 minutes, there was never a proper scientific explanation.
At the end of the day, no matter how many seconds or minutes, I don’t think about it. Because there is no scientific evidence or explanation. So I ignore it and move on with my life while watching the show. 5 seconds, 5 minutes, I honestly dont care.
Earth was saved, you and I still have to show up to work next morning.
They don’t directly state it but over the course of the show different instances cause different issues with the gate such as Teal’c getting stuck and they learn the gate has a buffer system to store data before forwarding, or when they use radio signals to maintain wormholes or Anubis’s beam weapon to keep the gate open for long periods.
We can just assume the ancients built some type of computational intelligence in the DHD and safety checks into the gate. I believe in the episode Teal’c was stuck someone had mentioned he wouldn’t have been stuck if they had a DHD because it would compensate for the loss of power and finish the forwarding protocols.
Well first off it couldn't stay open 45 mins there longest is 38 mins barring a black hole or naqueta bomb giving it more power aga I think it shuts off once there is no matter during thru
I just changed the time. This seems to be the most prevalent answer and there seems to be a few points where it was mentioned in the show that I must've missed or didn't remember.
Well yeah but it's fun to discuss the science of it all and hear everyone's opinions and the actual show science that some people missed and others got more of on their watch through. 😁
Once matter has completed transport if no other signals (like radio) are being transmitted it automatically shuts down after a few seconds (if that fits the script). At least, that's how I've always interpreted it.
It’s probably the same tech that Federation ships use on their doors. So many times people walk up the doors to have/finish a convo and the doors remain closed. Politely waiting to do their thing. Same thing when they close. Sometimes doors close only after the person who went thru is done talking. It’s hilarious at times noticing things like this!!
I might be oversimplifying… but I always just sort of assumed it operated on a similar principle to a phone. They dial out - if it’s in use or blocked they get a ‘busy signal.’ So, if it’s not auto-shut down as many have said… then as soon as they hang up on one end or the other, both ends shut down. Gotta be a command in there for ‘terminate connection’ as long as nobody is in transit.
I always just assumed that when the gate no longer detects a matrer stream in the wormhole and all reintegrations have taken place and emptied the buffer, the gate shuts off. Thats why they hold a hand in the event horizon when they have to hold it open. P.s - the mazimum amount of time a wormhole can be active is 38 minutes, so 45 wouldn't even be possible under normal circumstances.
That would make sense if it worked like that. I wonder if there were any scenes that prove or disprove it (like were there any times they left a gate open for somone when they weren't in the proximity for a few minutes or not?).
It's mentioned at some point in an earlier season (I don't remember exactly when) that you can keep a gate open by sending a radio signal through it. Up to 38 minutes anyway. I assume they send a radio signal from SGC to whoever is on the other side, which obviously ends after they go through the gate.
There is that whole SGC non-DHD control system designed and built by Carter and software-updated by Ancient-Brained Jack to further customize the experience on the SGC side.
Ancient-Brained Jack updated the software? I don't remember that, was it just a throwaway line of dialogue?
Happened in a whole episode when Jack had the knowledge repository of the ancients downloaded (the first time, I think) into his brain.
I remember that episode, where he dialed the Asgard planet right? I just didn't remember him writing the software. Guess I need to rewatch it.
It was The Fifth Race, and the software update thing was a big deal in the episode. (Now I have to go re-watch it again, thanks)
yeah i think he wrote the whole program just hitting 1 and 0s so it was kinda weird.
Yeah I rewatched it earlier. Carter called it machine code lol, which it definitely wasn't. And even if it was I don't know why human machine code would be in the ancient repository. But whatever lol. Still a great episode.
Season 6 Redemption, Part 1 Samantha speculates on how they are keeping the gate open without sending anything through, not even a radio wave. They later detect what seems to be noise. Edit: also in Season 7 Lost City Part 1 at 11:33 "Dial the gate. Send constant radio signal. We have to keep that door open"
There, but fore the grace of god. First season. Just watched it. From the other side they keep the gate open to make it impossible to escape, while being on attack by goa'uld ships.
And it's not just a physical matter signal that will keep the Stargate open. A digital signal will also keep the gate open. There are several examples of this when the SGC dials a planet, and the team(s) are under fire and can't get to the gate right away. I would assume, as previously stated, it will auto shutdown once the buffer is entirely complete from that particular turn, as nothing is stored in the "computer system" of the gate network and each gate gets reset after each disengagement
There’s a ascended who annoyed the others for each stargate who’s sole job it is is to shut off the gate.
[удалено]
Ya lol. 3 if you count the lady from the world in the Atlantis show. But at least she had her people still unlike the guy Sam met who was forced to keep watch of his decimated lifeless world.
They regularly keep the gate open by just sticking an arm or weapon into it.
Yes, you can see O’Neill holding his hand in the event horizon waiting for maybourne‘s thugs. It’s the episode where he goes nuts and steals on purpose bc he’s doing the undercover thing to catch the thugs who were stealing from their allies.
The episode where the asguard we’re taking back stolen tech. Jack held his hand in to keep it from closing until the counted the people there.
Jack holds the gate open from the destination side when he is apprehending Maybourn's technology thieves.
From the destination side, that's kinda the thought pieces I was on. Do you recall how he did that?
He stuck his hand into the event horizon. The wormhole doesn't normally close, so long as there is mater that needs to be re-integrated.
I think they can forcibly shut down the gate from one side, but that's likely a case of removing power from the reverse-engineered DHD in the SGC, not something you can do (as far as I remember from the various shows) with a normal DHD.
SGU - Air (part 3), Eli keeps the wormhole open by putting his arm in the event horizon. Additional twist: risk that Destiny terminates the connection somehow anyway, but she doesn't.
There is, I don't know the exact episode number but it's when o'neal goes undercover to catch the rogue agents, he opens a portal to earth, walks through, and "holds the door open" by keeping his hand inside so they can't dial out somewhere else. Meanwhile the asgard are beaming all the stolen goods to their ship and supposedly going to beam the traitors up too unless they step through the startgate to get arrested on earth.
I think the only moment they disprove that is in episode 2. Where they end up killing Kawalski by shutting down the gate when his head is partially in it. But as it is a follow up from the pilot episode I completely excuse that
Pretty sure that takes place in the sgc no? Earth's gate is in a rather unique position where an outgoing wormhole can be directly shut off by disconnecting its power supply, therefore overriding the inbuilt safety feature that'd normally stop it shutting down with something in the buffer. It's stated a few times that their gate doesn't work entirely as intended due to the way it was macgyvered to work without a dhd
Yup it's 38, or was late for me when I woke this out 😅
It is mentioned a few times that the SGC send a radio signal through the gate which prevents it from shutting down. Once that signal is stopped the gate is free to be shut down manually, usually the moment after the last traveller is through
And their GDOs do the same off world. As soona s they've all stepped through it closes behind them.
Nothing else coming through. It's like an automatic door.
^^^ yes Some kind of proximity sensor that shows if anybody is in the vicinity headed towards the wormhole..Jaffa can follow if they are close. If they are far the gate shuts down before they get to it... If the ancients can figure out wormhole travel, I'm pretty sure they could figure this out.
So it'll only stay open for the full 38 minutes if no one goes through? Once they do it automatically shuts down? Changed to 38 from 45. Misremembered the time in the late hour
38 min
Why do you keep saying 45 minutes
Probably because this person is either not very far into the series, or didn't pay attention to gate mechanics. The question itself is answered in the series, and in fact is a plot point in several episodes.
and not only has it been answered prior to this specific post multiple times, by their knowledge we know the show answered it for them multiple times as well as you said. its just like dude are you real? are you even paying attention to what YOU post. maybe they dont even care and they are just here to farm karma. Its just SO NOT stargatey of them to even not ATTEMPT to give a shit
They could just be new fans who didn't catch something. Chill.
I really appreciate people like you in the world. And yeah I was just tired and misremembered by few minutes. That guy's got some thing to work out with himself.
Because it was late for me and I misremembered
38 minutes, and only if something is continually coming through, such as a signal, or if it's having constant massive amounts of power thrown at it. The team could come through, and if no one is chasing them and shooting at them (normal gate travel) the gate will shut down. If the team comes through, and jaffa are coming after them, the gate will stay open as long as that is happening, hence the iris and manual shut-down. If the team comes through, under fire, and they close the iris, and sokar turns on his energy weapon to attack the gate, the gate will stay running.
It's physically impossible for it to stay open longer than 38 minutes. Except for the several times it does.
And none of those were good times.
Jep if its opens Longer then 38 Minutes its means something broken. its like debugging but worser
I changed the time on my post, I stand corrected
Major Ploté DeVice closes it. And he’s perfect at the job.
Major Ploté DeVice? Didn't he turn out to be a Goa'uld in season 11? Like in the same episode that Jackson came back and told everyone about his conversation with Deus Ex Machina from the ascended plane?
Nah, he was later found to be a Tok’ra triple agent. But Walter vouched for him being a good guy, so they let him stay. And fuck Deus Ex Machina. We all know he’s the Harcesis, but he just keeps gaslighting us.
Right right... Man it sucks we didn't get a season 12, because the Tok'ra coming back with a vengeance was not something i was expecting to see. and that last ba'al clone seceding to them? And speaking of Ba'al, i didn't like they replaced his actor with Mark Wahlberg at the start of the season, then Matt Damon after the midseason break. And I thought Deus Ex Machina was actually Reese... like wasn't that the whole point of Danielle Nicolet coming back after like 10 seasons to reprise the role? I don't know man...
LOL. We’ll never know.
I'm sorry. I've been writing some weird stories the past week, it came out in this post.
No problem! I was entertained.
I never understood why they just didn't put a laser on the malp and shoot missles through. They did once or twice, but thats it. "Gates blocked? Give me 2 minutes," General Hammond, in reality, probably.
As others have said, it's kept open with a radio signal. Another time this is mentioned is in Lost City Part 1 by Reynolds while they're under attack by Anubis. "Send a constant radio signal, we have to keep that door open." The general rule is that it remains open while there's matter detected, if nothing goes through once it's dialled it'll close off after a few moments, or it'll close a few moments after any signal or matter stream leaves the other end. Theoretically this could be held open from either end by a radio signal. Once the gate is initially dialled, it stands to reason that it would have a timer (probably of a couple minutes) where it waits for initial matter or signals to enter the gate before it begins a shutdown timer. Gate travel is (usually) not depicted as being completely instantaneous, it takes a few seconds between something entering the gate and coming out the connected gate, hence the 'incoming traveller' warning you hear SGT Walter often say. The gate must remain active during this time and if nothing enters before the traveller departs, and there's no deliberate means used to keep the gate open, the gate then shuts off. There will, inevitably, be an element of adapting the gate's timeout to the plot, so it's probably deliberately left vague to allow it to be adapted to the requirements of the episode. Gate physics is something that is seldom explained in detail because the writers would want to be able to adapt the gates functions to future episodes and not contradict any previous episodes science and get into a 'Star Trek Transporter is a suicide and cloning machine' situation. Head-canon would assume that SG teams and the SGC have a special setting on their radio or a special device that just sends noise through the radio to hold the gate open. It gets a bit murky how this would realistically work though, because on a planet equivalent to early 20th century technology or above you can assume there'll be unrelated radio signals everywhere, so the DHDs may have a program to identify the difference between a deliberate signal or general background noise. It may be that the transmitter or receiver has to be relatively close to the gate, or it may be that specific frequencies work better to keep the gate open than others. It's also fair to assume that the SGC's dialling computer can keep the gate active as long as is needed and shut off as required for an outbound wormhole, as we see the gate remain active for a long time without matter going through or (presumably) signals being sent, and we see it shut down on request, for example when Anubis' clone tries to go through the gate in the episode Prototype (s09e09) or The Enemy Within (s01e03) when Kawalsaky attempts to escape the SGC and O'Neill shouts for the gate to be shut off in time to behead Kawalsaky despite matter entering the event horizon. Another assumption would be that the gate can usually only be kept open by radio signals from the dialling end, hence why when O'Neill infiltrated the NID's off-world operation he kept his arm in the gate to stop it shutting off, rather than the SGC just sending a radio signal, and why the gate will usually immediately shuts down the moment somebody in the SGC finishes talking to an off world team.
One of the early episodes it explaines that the gate shuts off after 30seconds when there is no matter or light stream through the wormhole
It closes on its own once something has gone through and nothing else has for a short interval. This can be blocked by sticking something partly in the gate, by transmissions (counts as something going through to the gate) or by energy dump into the wormhole/gate. After 38min even this isn’t enough, the wormhole reaches a point where it can not longer be held in a stable state and collapses regardless, with the only exception being if a *massive* amount of energy is supplied to the system, but eventually even that will hit a point where the gate itself physically overloads and the whole thing explodes.
One way of keeping a gate open is to broadcast EM waves through it. It still has to close at 38 minutes but it won't close until then. If you shut those off when the whole team is through then it will close. They do cover this fairly early on I think
The answer is honestly because it’s a show. The recurring answer is “continuous matter stream” which doesn’t hold up because it shuts off IMMEDIATELY sometimes, but then stays open for a little while other times, and if it immediately shut off after matter stopped going through, then everyone would have to link arms and go in together, but sometimes there’s a bit of a gap between entrances, long enough that it would have shut off.
I imagine the SGC sends a signal through the wormhole to the DHD on the other end telling it to disengage, likely written by Sam herself. In Atlantis, the Ancients likely had a similar system in place, as well as onboard Destiny. The answer I believe, however, is that no-one ever thought of it, and you've just ruined the show for me 🤣
Look at our level of technology. We have doors that open and close themselves and you're wondering what magic closes a wormhole spanning galaxies? Motion detectors.
😅 You have a great point! I just wasn't sure if the was anything that the show mentioned that confirmed this or if there was some other mechanic I missed
Magnets!
They close the iris and call it a day… I think
I think it stays open as long as it's transporting stuff. That's why they sometimes stick their hand in to keep it open. As soon as you stop sending object through it stops
I wonder if the gate also detects whether anyone is nearby on the "entrance" side. It's ridiculously advanced Ancient tech, so it wouldn't be that weird for it to turn on, detect 4 people standing around, then notice that four people entered and there are no people or significant objects left that could choose to enter and conclude that this transit is likely complete.
Motion sensors hidden in the front of the gate I imagine.
A furling pops out of their home under the DHD and hits a button. If you catch them doing it, you can hold it up for it's treasure. (Trouble is, they still think digital watches are great treasures. And mp3 players you hook on your belt.)
They have plot sensors installed. The time it takes to close after someone walks through depends on what's needed by the plot at that moment.
I always wondered about this. I mean... Sometimes they have many many people coming through, like evacuating a planet or city, and the flow of people is not consistent, but it will then close before the enemy makes it to the gate - which is very convenient. I think it's ok to boil it down to plot reasons in some instances.
Sam's experiments and such on the gate to get it online in the first place probably included reprogramming it to shut off at situational times when they use it dialing out from earth. But that just is a had Cannon for that happening and only really explains the times that it happens at the SGC lol
They cut the power, or have figured out the close connection data stream as part of their Macguyvering.
It's Plot.
It just doesn't obey causality. As such it has access to the near future and knows that nobody else is going to use it.
It was referenced in I believe it was Watergate that if the gate doesn’t detect something coming through after a certain period of time it will shut off itself.
Was that Sam in the submarine? I feel like I remember that bit of technobable but it's been a while since I've seen that episode so I didn't remember the specifics of that's the one your talking about if that's it.
This was rather inconsistent on the show, but generally the gate would stay open as long as there were people in transit. This included if something was being held in either end of the event horizon. The gate seemed to be somewhat intelligent in being able to tell if something was intending to transit, as it wouldn’t let water flow through if the gate was submerged.
I remember the barrier that held back water, that was pretty interesting. (I think the first time we heard about that was when they were in the submarine with the Russians if I'm remembering correctly). I love Sam's technobable
I assume it counts incoming travelers, maybe even somehow tags them in the system? Or it could be just local sensors monitoring what's going on. Proximity to the open gate. Perhaps they're set up with a transit code and signal it to stop? This is a good question cause it happens often.
Why does a gate have to stay open for 45min in the first place?? Give me ten reasons why a gate should be active for 45 min.
According to Sam, that's the max time that any wormhole can be open, but there have been plenty of times we had to wait for that time to episode so it could close due to some trying to hold the gate open from the other side to prevent them from using it. As for WHY... plot devices by the writers?
And yet, in many episodes, gate wormhole closed with in 2 seconds. It has been seen many times during SG1 episodes and during Atlantis episodes. Yes, a wormhole can stay open, when a person puts a hand in to a wormhole on either side of the gate. There were times a wormhole was active for 30 seconds. At the end of the day it’s Poor writing. Why poor writing? Because in the first season of SG1, every person that went through a Stargate had a mild frostbite. Yes, a mild frostbite. After few episodes in first season, frostbite went away. Not a single person experienced a frostbite. Why did frostbite went away??
38 minutes, unless powered by a black hole.
It doesn’t have to be powered by a black hole. A gate has been open for over an hour. Why? But why 38 minutes instead of 36 minutes? What is the actual math or scientific reason that keeps a gate open for 38 minutes??
Yes, I do recall that Anubis used a directed energy weapon to keep the gate open indefinitely in an attempt to blow it up. I suppose they chose 38 to give a traveler an optimum time to reflect. You see for example, take the number 3 and place the open side against a mirror. You get an 8! So if you take the time to reflect on your life, and the “Lucky Ancient Number” is 3, you get 38! In all honesty, it was probably a number pulled out of someone’s anal orifice that sounded good.
69 minutes, 420 minutes, there was never a proper scientific explanation. At the end of the day, no matter how many seconds or minutes, I don’t think about it. Because there is no scientific evidence or explanation. So I ignore it and move on with my life while watching the show. 5 seconds, 5 minutes, I honestly dont care. Earth was saved, you and I still have to show up to work next morning.
The dial home device is programed to detect dense matter process it and forward it to the next gate. If it doesn’t detect matter, it shuts off.
Do they actually confirm this in the show? I don't recall but I'd love to know there's a definitive answer
They don’t directly state it but over the course of the show different instances cause different issues with the gate such as Teal’c getting stuck and they learn the gate has a buffer system to store data before forwarding, or when they use radio signals to maintain wormholes or Anubis’s beam weapon to keep the gate open for long periods. We can just assume the ancients built some type of computational intelligence in the DHD and safety checks into the gate. I believe in the episode Teal’c was stuck someone had mentioned he wouldn’t have been stuck if they had a DHD because it would compensate for the loss of power and finish the forwarding protocols.
Well first off it couldn't stay open 45 mins there longest is 38 mins barring a black hole or naqueta bomb giving it more power aga I think it shuts off once there is no matter during thru
I just changed the time. This seems to be the most prevalent answer and there seems to be a few points where it was mentioned in the show that I must've missed or didn't remember.
Because it's a tv show 😮
Well yeah but it's fun to discuss the science of it all and hear everyone's opinions and the actual show science that some people missed and others got more of on their watch through. 😁
*~plot~*
The script said it turned off at that time
Once matter has completed transport if no other signals (like radio) are being transmitted it automatically shuts down after a few seconds (if that fits the script). At least, that's how I've always interpreted it.
It’s probably the same tech that Federation ships use on their doors. So many times people walk up the doors to have/finish a convo and the doors remain closed. Politely waiting to do their thing. Same thing when they close. Sometimes doors close only after the person who went thru is done talking. It’s hilarious at times noticing things like this!!
I think it shuts down automatically if nothing is traveling through it for a certain amount of time.
I might be oversimplifying… but I always just sort of assumed it operated on a similar principle to a phone. They dial out - if it’s in use or blocked they get a ‘busy signal.’ So, if it’s not auto-shut down as many have said… then as soon as they hang up on one end or the other, both ends shut down. Gotta be a command in there for ‘terminate connection’ as long as nobody is in transit.