<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

A Supergate is a massive Stargate, about 400 meters in diameter. It is made of smaller pieces that can fit through a normal-sized Stargate.

After the Ori found out that there were nonbelievers in the Milky Way galaxy, they set out on a crusade to punish them. In order to get their ships to the Milky Way as quickly as possible, the Ori built a supergate. The first supergate is seen in "Beachhead," and is destroyed by Vala in that epsoide.

In the episode "Camelot," it is revealed that the Ori have built another supergate, one even bigger than the first. It was activated, and four Ori ships came through to unleash their threat of destruction.

Creation

In the episode "Beachhead", SG-1 learned, from the goa'uld Nerus, of a forcefield on the planet Kallana where the Stargate had been open in excess of the 38 minute limit. On the planet, they found a Prior touching the gate inside the forcefield, maintaining the connection to the Ori galaxy. The people on the planet attempted to destroy the field by firing staff weapons at it but the field only expanded.

SG-1 arrived via the Prometheus and beamed inside the field with a Mark IX "Gatebuster" naquadria enhanced nuclear weapon with the intent of destroying the gate. They informed the Prior of their plans but he made no attempt to stop them. The weapon was set off and the field expanded to cover the entire planet. The energy from all attempts to stop it only strengthened the field.

Rectangular projectiles emerged from the gate and the planet began to collapse into a micro-singularity. The rectangular pieces begin to form a circle with the newly formed singularity at its center powering a connection between the Milky Way and the Ori Galaxy.

Though, noone witnessed the formation of the second supergate, it can be assumed it was created by similar methods.

Technological Aspects

Much like the smaller stargates, the supergate uses established wormhole dynamics. Due to both the extreme size, and the fact that the supergate is intergalactic in nature, incredible amounts of power are needed to establish and maintain the wormhole. The only known way to obtain this power is to harness the potential energy inherent in a black hole. The nature of this power source also allows the wormhole to remain stable beyond the 38 minute window.

While the supergate resembles a regular stargate superficially, there are many important differences in construction. Control crystals which serve the same purpose as a DHD, or Dial Home Device, are imbedded in the supergate itself. Rather than being a solid device like planetbound stargates, supergates are composed of several rectangular pieces each of which are nearly identical to the other. For practical purposes each component is small enough to fit through the aperture of a traditional stargate. These components have also exhibited the ability to fly, much like a small ship, though it's unknown whether this was a result of external control. An energy field holds the individual pieces together.

Due to the dimorphism in the size of stargates and supergates, a wormhole cannot be connected between a regular gate and a supergate under normal circumstances. This is not a factor of size, but of power generation. A traditional stargate cannot generate enough energy to initialize the connection to a supergate. Once a wormhole is already in existence, however, it becomes possible to connect the two dissimilar devices by forcing the wormhole connection to jump from a smaller gate to the supergate with the assistance of a well placed explosion near the event horizon of the connecting gate.

Related

• Dial Home Device