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While watching some of the episodes of the Stargate Series, I have been wondering in what fashion the DHD interacts with the stargate itself.

I've have read some of the various questions and answers here on the science fiction stack exchange here, but only a few mention the possible workings of the DHD, and only this [question]: Why did The Ancients not include the remote dialing feature in the Milky Way Stargates? suggests that the DHD communicates wirelessly.

However, in all of the episodes, since the DHD is mounted on a pedestal and the "legs" of the DHD are buried within the ground, wouldn't it make more sense for the DHD to be physically wired to the gate, or for that matter any hardware trying to automate the dialing process?

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  • Why would it "make more sense"? The ancients were a lot more advanced then us. Just because wired is more reliable and tamper proof with our current technology, doesn't mean it was for them. Or maybe the connection by the Ancients was made though non-electrical communication and would make less to be wired? But there isn't any in-universe explanation given either way. So we can only guess at this point. – Mufasa Mar 11 '13 at 13:35
  • I would agree more with your second argument about how it would make less sense to use a wired method because the Ancients already had a wireless method in place. I have not watched the show closely enough to recall all the instances in which fashion the DHD was used in order to keep a running tally. Regarding your first argument, in hindsight of asking the question I would assume that perhaps the benefits of using a wired system were diminished as they developed their form of wireless communications farther. – gate_engineer Mar 13 '13 at 0:43
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Wireless. There are several episodes where the DHD is removed from its pedestal and/or overturned and still able to be controlled by a DHD.

Also, when Ba'al was stealing stargates, SG-1 used a DHD on his ship to dial one of the stargates in storage.

http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_of_the_Stargates

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    There's also an episode where a Stargate was in a box on Earth, and its DHD was in a truck nearby. Bad guys use it to escape, the Gate's ka-woosh disintegrating part of the box. – Izkata Mar 11 '13 at 23:29
  • However, in the episode where Teal'c was trapped in the buffer, they had to wire the gate up? – m.t.bennett Mar 12 '13 at 12:28
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    The buffer incident was a special case where they were trying to retrieve Teal'c's pattern off the storage crystals--they were not engaging in normal gate operations at the time. – Force Flow Mar 12 '13 at 15:46
  • Thanks for your answer. I'm trying to create the equivalent of something like the HTTP, FTP, telnet, etc. protocols for the Stargate System, closely matching cannon as possible. – gate_engineer Mar 13 '13 at 0:53
  • I just watched the episode where Ba'al stole the gates. I was thinking about how the DHDs were "tied" to a specific Stargate, kind of like a Bluetooth pairing. – Elan Hasson Jun 12 '16 at 16:31

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