Another question about the Iris

[Dr.Jackson]

Just sitting down to write a fan fiction script and a thought suddenly occured to me.

How do offworld SG teams know when the Iris has been opened?

I wondered about 2 possibilities;

a) they don't

or

b) the GDO gets sent a comm signal to tell them it's safe to step through.

Anyone else want to speculate?

 

[PTeppic]

As far as we can tell, they don't. They simply type their code number into the GDO, it authenticates the number and if correct sends the coded signal. It is then up to the SGC staff to open the iris. If the SGC timing is slow, and several times we seem to see it being several seconds, they COULD still go splat.

But, we appear to know it takes perhaps 5 or 6 seconds to travel, so there is that much safety margin, even if they dial, GDO and jump very quickly (i.e. under attack). Normally though, they have the leisure to dial, GDO, pause and then jump.

Just to make it difficult for viewers, because of editing, we can't be precisely sure of the sequencing, since we can cut from dialling to SGC and still be cutting to the same time, a few seconds forward or even a few seconds back in time....

 

[Dr.Jackson]

Thanks for confirming that. It's generally what I thought, but I thought I'd just check what popular opinion was before going any further.

The fact that they don't know if the iris is open or not is quite crucial to the cliffhanger ending I've got for part one of this story.

 

[PTeppic]

Ooh - I wouldn't assume I am "popular" opinion... just a noisy, verbal opinion...