Supergate (Stargate)

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A Supergate near a planet, with the Prometheus in the foreground.

A closer view of the Supergate showing individual modules. A Tel'tak is wedged in place of one giving a sense of scale.

A Supergate's activation

In the Stargate science fiction universe, supergates or macrostargates are enormously large Stargates 300 to 400 meters (1000 to 1300 feet) in diameter comprised of many smaller wedge-shaped modules connected to form the outer ring of the gate.

The supergate constructed by the Ori in the episode Beachhead was intended as a means to transport a fleet of starships from their home galaxy to the Milky Way. They sent the ring's components through a conventional Stargate, each component flying autonomously up into nearby space to self-assemble into the supergate's ring. The planet the original conventional Stargate was on was then enveloped in an energy shield that contracted to crush its mass into a micro black hole, which was thought to be intended as a means to hold the supergate's wormhole open for longer than the usual 38 minute time limit (a property of black holes that was previously seen in the episode A Matter of Time).

This supergate device was destroyed by Vala Mal Doran before it was fully completed by inserting a Goa'uld Tel'tak cargo ship in place of the last link of the gate, causing it to suffer a catastrophic failure when an attempt to open the supergate was made.

In Ripple Effect the leftover black hole was used by SG-1 in an alternate reality as a means to travel between realities by directing a Stargate wormhole through it. Also revealed in Ripple Effect was an alternate reality in which the Ori successfully created a second Supergate and were swiftly conquering the Milky Way.

In the Season 9 episode Crusade, Vala Mal Doran uses an Ancient communication device to inform the SGC that "somewhere out there, the Ori have a working Supergate". In the Stargate SG-1 season 9 finale, the Ori use their fully operational supergate to transport only four Ori battlecruisers which subsequently devastate the numerous vessels positioned to defend the Galaxy. The second Supergate appears to be considerably larger than the first - the segments that made up the first were small enough to fit through a Stargate, but when Major Carter beams out to a segment of the second it appears to be more than fifty metres wide and over a hundred or so metres long.

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