Old Forum Repo: How to Build a Stargate

[Kaosubaloo]

Kaosubaloo
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What do you do when you want to go to another planet and building a Cattlebruiser just isn’t in the budget? The answer, as you may have guessed, is to use a Stargate. Now you can go to Egypt or Antartica and dig one up, but some people don’t like to travel, to say nothing of the costly expenses or the trouble of carrying the devices through international water.

No, there’s a more practical solution to this problem: You build one.

But before even that we need somewhere to put the thing. You might have such an area handy but even if you do you’ll probably need to upgrade to current Stargate security standards. After all, long gone are the days you can store your get in some museum, and even trained professionals have been known to lose a gate or two given improper preparation.

So the first thing we’ll build is the facility. There are several places that could work. An underwater lab perhaps, or maybe under a desert somewhere. These places are all relatively secure but each has its own disadvantages. That is why that I recommend building you facility into a mountain.

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Here’s ours, located at scenic Cheyenne Mountain. You’ll note that the entrance has been fortified with Steel. Naturally the weakest aspect of this sort of facility is its entrance so it is recommended you spare no expense in its construction. It should also be noted that while not shown here, the facility has regular patrols at this and other entrances during all active hours.

This is just the first step however. While it is by no means compulsory a good disguise is strongly recommended. In this case we use the age-old cover of an underground bunker slash control center. This gives us a handy excuse for a number of the security features we’ll want for the Gate and requires little that we didn’t need anyway.

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Should someone sneak into the facility he will see little more than a fortified and heavily guarded bunker. The relative antiquity of the building will ensure that it doesn’t peak the interest of invaders while the heavy guard ensures the most ambitious among them will not be able to enter further.

Of course if they do get in they will find a storage facility with a prominent metal shaft – the elevator to the complex proper.

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This shaft goes quite deep for added utility it is advice that you have it connect to various other levels unrelated to the gate but in this example it connects only to the gate floor.

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Once you do reach the gate floor however, we suggest wide, reinforced hallways. It is largely up to you what you put on this floor but there are a few essentials to consider.

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For starters you need an infirmary in any trans-world facility in order to comply to current standards. A lab, while not strictly mandatory, is also strongly encouraged. Here we have combined the two as the doctors (medical or otherwise) work well together and we’ve yet to hire an archaeologist (another advantage of avoiding Egypt).

Some other basic utilities you will need are entrances to your back-end (not shown) and an emergency escape hatch that comes out to a secure, secluded location. We cannot stress the importance of such a hatch as besides giving handy escape from black holes and hallucinations and the like it also provides direct access for your protagonists should the unthinkable happen and your base be overrun with mind-controlling parasitic aliens.

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Before we come to the gate room itself there is one more thing to consider: the control room. A single, centralized control room is strongly recommended as it will give you and a small group of technicians direct control over your facility. We will be coming back to this later but for now keep this goal in mind for wiring and room placement.

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Pictured: View of the control and briefing rooms from the gate room.

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It is strongly recommended that you position your control room such that you have line of site with the gate itself. Being able to shield it in a lookdown is good for a pinch, but you should never sacrifice the advantage that close viewing proximity gives you for this protection. This room should also connect to a briefing room for quick transit from discussion and planning into action. In our model we placed it above the briefing room above the control room, but below or behind are both just as valid.

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We recommend you customize your briefing room to suit your needs, but a screen for overhead displays is always recommended.

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Finally there is the office. This should be in close to the control room for the same reasons as the briefing room. Running any large facility will require a lot of paper work and you’ll want to be able to quickly leap into action should the call arise. In this case we build the office connected directly into the briefing room, also providing an additional exit should it be needed.

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And now we move onto the gate room. Shown above are the main entrance side entrance and the retractable roof (currently unlocked). To stay within regulations it is important to have proper, sealable blast doors on any gate room entrance, and these doors are all 100% functional and controlled by via the control room.

Now before we continue, some of you may be questioning the presence of retractable roof, to which there are 2 important things to consider. The first is that the roof is itself very hidden and very well guarded. The second, much more important thing is that you always want to be able to move your gate intact. Sometimes a situation will arise where you need to quickly move the gate, before its inevitable detonation for instance, and even if you retain the resources to dissemble it, you will rarely have the time.

With all that out of the way it brings us to the most important part of this whole article: The Stargate itself.

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The first thing to note is that the gate is deceptively difficult to build. Doubly so if you don’t have any Naquadah handy, so it is essential that you prototype and begin your expensive, final version only when you’re certain of your design. As you can see above even the experienced designers with us here had to go through several design iterations before coming up with a finalized design. Eventually though, the boys came up with this beauty:

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Sure, it’s a little bigger than standard, but sometimes you’ve got to make modifications to suit your building materials and environment. Note, however, that the gate has a total of 9 chevrons. Some would have you believe that less are necessary but we are here to ensure you that any real gate will have 9, and though all of these may not be used they ARE required if you want to e taken seriously.

Another thing you’ll want to watch out for is making sure that you can comfortably step through your gate. Here we use a platform to reach it but it is not uncommon to simply encase the bottom of the gate in stone. This usually won’t vaporize the stone and provides just enough of a height difference to walk comfortably inside.

There is one more thing that’s important though.

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It is absolutely key that you be able to turn your gate off. It’s true that some organizations cheap out in this respect but we feel this functionality is key. Therefore our gate comes complete with an on/off switch that will disable and reenable the event horizon.

So, that’s it on how to build a stargate, but…where do you go once you have one?

Tune in next time to find out!
Guess who, it’s Kaosubaloo!
Posted 1 year ago # Edit Delete Undelete

Kaosubaloo
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Coordinates:
X208
Z1152

If you want to come here then the best thing to do is go to Kahalis’ Cathedral of Evil walk from there. There will be a road this way eventually, but I haven’t finished it yet.
Guess who, it’s Kaosubaloo!
Posted 1 year ago # Edit Delete Undelete

Kahalis Djnn
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+1 respect for using one of my old buildings, but you have forgotten that it is yours now, and therefore renamed Kaosubaloo’s Evil Cathedral of Evil (Formerly Kahalis’ Evil Cathedral of Evil).
Now where did I put that invisible tower again?
Posted 1 year ago # Edit Delete Undelete

Kahalis Djnn
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but to be on topic, epic win dude, I loved this series
Now where did I put that invisible tower again?
Posted 1 year ago # Edit Delete Undelete

Kaosubaloo
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Either way, there is now a torch-lit path behind the Cathedral that leads too the site. It should be easy to spot as the torches create a causeway of grass and not-snow around them.
Guess who, it’s Kaosubaloo!
Posted 1 year ago # Edit Delete Undelete

Cap
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Jon is going to shit himself. He loves SG-1
Posted 1 year ago # Edit Delete Undelete

Mjolnir
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That just made my fron spin! Nice contribution to the Build-A-Thon! Love it!!
MjollnirMK86 on the Server of Awesome. Formerly Polysics.

“I’m just breaking the laws of physics. It’s no big deal.”
Posted 1 year ago # Edit Delete Undelete

bferlin
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I’m really glad it worked out! Great work!
Posted 1 year ago # Edit Delete Undelete

MuckRaker
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impressive
Courage TFM
The Erie Better Beer Bureau
Posted 1 year ago # Edit Delete Undelete

mopkins
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when I saw this, I decided to finally watch that show, and I’m already past the first season. Thankyou.
You know me, the fighting freak Knuckles
And we’re at Pumpkin Hill, you ready
Posted 1 year ago # Edit Delete Undelete

Kaosubaloo
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Where do you go anyway?
The answer, quite simply, is Abydos.

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Unfortunately budget cuts have reduced the Abydos temple to a shadow of its former glory, but hey, got to make do. And it still paints clear enough what you want for an alien temple. For and most prominently, note the gate itself. You can’t tell but this one is a little simpler then our other on, it is thinner and generally more slick in construction, but in exchange for this is lacks some of the functionality of the other one. Most notably it cannot be turned off. But hey, we figure you can get away with that in an alien temple.

After that is the temple itself. Now, ideally, you’ve be able to build a nice, big pyramid for your Temple, but it isn’t strictly necessary. In a pinch a properly constructed raised platform is acceptable.

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As for the environment itself, you have a number of choices. The classic setting is a sand dune or desert, but temperate rainforest or even underground bunkers can be used as well. Really, if there’s one setting you’re best off avoiding it is submerging your gate in something, as this presents an obvious logistical problem even in cases where you are not instantly vaporized.

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Finally is the decorations. Here we use a combination of ancient pillars and ring platforms, but always remember that it’s more important to dress for your environment then it is for the gate itself. For a huge alien ring it is remarkably flexible in where it is appropriate, something that cannot be said for sandstone pillars.
Guess who, it’s Kaosubaloo!
Posted 1 year ago # Edit Delete Undelete

Mjolnir
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Heaven forbid you submerge the ‘gate. Especially if its in a living liquid. That’d be just insane!

Awesome recreation of the Abydos gate room. Good to see you went with the TV version instead of the movie version. The latter would have been crazy to do.
MjollnirMK86 on the Server of Awesome. Formerly Polysics.

“I’m just breaking the laws of physics. It’s no big deal.”
Posted 1 year ago # Edit Delete Undelete

Kaosubaloo
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Well I actually wanted to put more detail and accuracy into the Abydos gate, but I didn’t really have the time or space to build the whole pyramid in the nether. Still, I think for a compromise it turned out pretty well.
Guess who, it’s Kaosubaloo!
Posted 1 year ago # Edit Delete Undelete

Mjolnir
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As do I. It looks very well done for being replicated in the game.
MjollnirMK86 on the Server of Awesome. Formerly Polysics.

“I’m just breaking the laws of physics. It’s no big deal.”
Posted 1 year ago # 69.118.203.101 Edit Delete Undelete

Guess who, it's Kaosubaloo!

[Kaosubaloo]

Unfortunately the pics did not copy over cleanly. It is unfeasable for me to replace all the pictures where they belong, but what I can do is link you to the galleries where I store them:

http://s248.beta.photobucket.com/user/Kaosubaloo/library/Minecraft/Stargate%20Command

Guess who, it's Kaosubaloo!

[Cat]

Awesome Kaos. Thanks! These’d be fine to post in the SoA forums.

[Author]

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