- "The legend surrounding the ninth chevron has been floating around our galaxy for some time now. We found that it meant various things to different cultures. Some said it was a key to the universe itself and, once unlocked, you could gain untold power."
- ―Nicholas Rush commenting on the ninth chevron
A chevron is a V-shape, often used in architecture as a fret. All known Stargates have nine chevrons used to lock in coordinates, with the exception of the Asuran Stargate Satellite, which only had eight.
Overview
The top chevron on a Stargate 'scans' each co-ordinate and the corresponding chevron lights up. Only seven of these chevrons are normally used, as use of the eighth, which allows transport to other galaxies, requires tremendous power (ZPM levels). The ninth chevron enables the connection to a Stargate on the other side of the universe. Used to dial the Ancient starship Destiny from the Milky Way galaxy, Earth's point of origin is used and locked by the ninth chevron, which acts as a sort of code that allows a wormhole to the specific gate on Destiny to be established. From Destiny, a ninth chevron address is also needed to dial back to Earth and likely to any other address that is across the universe. In this case, the ninth chevron acts as an X-factor distance equation. Dialing the ninth chevron requires tremendous amounts of power - even more than is required by the activation of the eight chevron. Such power has so far only been achieved from the utilization of a planet's (P4X-351) core. (SGU: "Air, Part 1")
Stargate chevrons of the Milky Way galaxy glow a yellow-red color, Pegasus Stargates' chevrons glow blue, and the chevrons on Stargates similar to that on the Destiny glow white.
Tau'ri customs
At Stargate Command, a technician, usually Walter Harriman, shouts out the chevrons being encoded in the following manner:
- "Chevron One, encoded."
- "Chevron Two, encoded."
- "Chevron Three, encoded."
- "Chevron Four, encoded."
- "Chevron Five, encoded."
- "Chevron Six, encoded."
- "Chevron Seven, locked."
According to Harriman, he occasionally says "locked" instead of "encoded" for variety[citation needed].
On the Icarus base during the 9th Chevron dialling sequence, Technician Riley had a different approach. As the gate was dialling a symbol for the address he would announce the Chevron was encoded, once the chevron locked in place, he would identify it as being locked in place. (SGU: "Air, Part 1") In 1994, when dialing Abydos for the first time, a technician named Jenny shouted out the chevrons locking in a lengthier manner: "Chevron _ is holding," when the symbol came up on the screen and "Chevron _ is locked in place," when it locked. (Stargate) In 2004, when the Atlantis Expedition arrived in Atlantis, the first thing Rodney McKay said when activating the gate was "Chevron One encoded", even though the Atlantis gate dials much faster than the dialling computer on Earth. (SGA: "Rising")
Gallery
Behind the scenes
- In Stargate Infinity, Stargates have eight chevrons.
- In Stargate, the top chevron is different from the rest of the chevrons on the Stargate but only from the front. This has no effect on dialling, it just serves to indicate and lock the point of origin. The reason it is unlike the other eight symbols is unknown. Just watch Stargate, and pay attention to the glyphs that lock where, and compare them to the address for Abydos.