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With Stargate Atlantis (and already in S02E16) and Universe, we're introduced to Chevron 8 and 9 to dial to another Galaxy and a moving target. Specially with Anubis having the knowledge of the Lanteans, did they ever try to use those chevrons?

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    Given the existing antipathy between the Goa'uld and the Asgardians, it's unlikely that Anubis would want to piss off a second super-powered ancient race
    – Valorum
    Commented May 31, 2021 at 14:21
  • Would the Goa'uld even have a suitable power source to supplement the power source of a DHD which AFAIK doesn't have the power to dial a gate in another galaxy. Anyone trying the 8th or 9th chevron would just assume the address they tried was incorrect, they might not know about the extra power requirements
    – SpacePhoenix
    Commented May 31, 2021 at 19:28
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    @SpacePhoenix I think that's unlikely. With basic knowledge of Stargates and wormholes, the Tau'ri were able to work out what the additional chevrons did and their likely power requirements. I don't think they had Asgard or ancient help with solving that puzzle.
    – BMF
    Commented May 31, 2021 at 19:31
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    @BMF the SGC didn't have any idea that inter-galaxy dialling was even possible before he first time that Jack had the Ancient Archive of Knowledge downloaded into his brain. They hadn't encountered any ancients or Asgard before that point
    – SpacePhoenix
    Commented Jun 1, 2021 at 5:52
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    @SpacePhoenix The Goa'Uld had Naquadha and therefore could build generators with them. Also, Anubis would've known about the additional power requirements.
    – Shade
    Commented Jun 1, 2021 at 8:15

4 Answers 4

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The fact that the Goa'uld didn't know every milky way stargate address suggests that they learned the addresses by traveling to the planet and finding Lantean inscriptions.

As we know, any knowledge they found they hoarded for themselves, so destroying the inscriptions after deciphering them only makes sense.

Not sure about cross-question linking, but this: Why don't the Goa'uld and Asgard know all the valid stargate addresses?

The bottom line is, and this comes from 40 or 50 rewatches of the entire series over the last decade, The Goa'uld just weren't that interested. They had all the power they wanted, without being forced to go out of their way or find potential challenges to their power (And lies about being gods) in other galaxies that they likely realized were definitely going to be inhabited by intelligent life. The Goa'uld were, after all, very lazy in retrospect. They couldn't even be bothered to put down rebellions on planets if the planets had run out of Naquadah, see Earth as an example.

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We have no information in canon one way or another however the most likely answer is no.

The snakes are not explorers even if they knew it was possible to dial a different galaxy they would have had no real reason to.

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    I like this answer but it could use some fleshing out.
    – Pingu510
    Commented Jun 1, 2021 at 8:23
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    They are not explorer but conquerers. A new galaxy can lead to riches and a source of resources unchallenged by other System Lords. And as we see, Baal seems to have a rather good understanding of the DHD. IIRC, it was him that made it possible to activate all gates at the same time.
    – Shade
    Commented Jun 1, 2021 at 8:24
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    @Shade it was Nerus who figured out how to activate every gate in the galaxy at the same time
    – SpacePhoenix
    Commented Jun 1, 2021 at 9:34
  • They had no reason to believe there was anyone to conquer in other galaxies. They didn't know humans were seeded there.
    – John Meacham
    Commented Jun 22, 2021 at 5:44
  • Downvoted because your statement about them not being explorers is evidently false. They brought out the humans into the galaxy, colonizing lots of planets. They must have explored to do so. They must also have explored to even find the Tau'ri to begin with, since their home planet is not Earth. Perhaps they do not explore simply for the reason of exploring, but really only do so because of concrete needs (to find resources, hosts, etc), but the reasons are irrelevant, exploring is still exploring.
    – a20
    Commented Sep 26, 2021 at 10:52
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I like the previous answers, but there’s one caveat I would give, there may be a survival driven answer here. It might be too dangerous of a proposition for a Goa'uld to dig too deep there.

There are 39 glyphs. It might not sound like a lot but combined with the coordinate system that requires seven chevrons, it means that there is 39 to the power of seven possible combinations.

397 = 137,231,006,679

Or about 1.3 * 1011.
That’s about a 10th of 1 trillion. It’s very large but it’s tractable.

There’s an argument to be made that it’s only six chevron’s because you know the point of origin.

In the episode where O’Neill sent himself to one of the Asgard worlds, there were eight chevron‘s. This can be treated as having seven distinct, non-origin, chevron’s.

For Stargate universe, there were nine chevron’s. This can be treated as having eight distinct chevrons.

Let’s say, hypothetically speaking, that it took only one minute to dial a address. In that scenario 396 minutes is the same as about 6700 years of continuous dialing and 397 minutes is about 261,922 years, or about a fifth of a million years.

Goa'uld are competitive as well as being psychopathic, narcissistic, and Machiavellian (aka dark triad) so sitting around for a thousand years is a solid way for one to get killed or enslaved by another.

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    It is possible to dial multiple gates at one time, as Nerus figured out when they destroyed the replicators in the Milky Way. Of course, that does not mean that you necessarily get feedback on exactly which coordinates actually led to an active gate. If such feedback were possible, it would at least appear that the Goa'uld did not look into it, since there are lots of gates they do not know about.
    – a20
    Commented Sep 26, 2021 at 10:59
  • There is also the "how the chevrons work" issue to consider when calculating the number of possible addresses. While it's not specifically covered in the TV series (at all), it is suggested (although not stated) in the movie that the chevrons act in pairs to create lines which intersect. If that is the case, the number of possible combinations is more than halved because of the identity property of line formation.
    – GrasshopperTaji
    Commented Dec 18, 2021 at 16:38
  • 6700 years using one stargate. A curious Goa’uld could have sent Jaffa to hundreds of different planets, each with a different portion of the codespace to search, and finished in a few decades. And every new world they found would cut that time further. Once that was done and you likely have thousands of stargates, even trying all the 8-chevron addresses could be done within a reasonable time.
    – StephenS
    Commented Dec 18, 2021 at 18:46
  • Every New World has its risks. There are worlds that are quite lethal to Goa’uld. The 6700 years is the standard seven digit number. When you’re looking for an eighth Chevron or ninth Chevron that number goes up towards a quarter of 1 million years. The ninth Chevron is going to have eight digits, a.k.a. the order of tens of millions of years. Even chopping it down by hundreds it still would take dangerously long time. And those are centuries that it would not be investing that manpower and resources into protecting itself from the other Goa’uld who would want to kill it, and Pillage it.
    – EngrStudent
    Commented Dec 19, 2021 at 3:07
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There is nothing in the produced television series, mini-series or movies to suggest that he did.

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