The Gate Room

What it's for

The Stargate community has never had one place to call home. GateWorld gives you the news. Dial the Gate gives you the interviews. Everyone else is scattered across a dozen Discords, Facebook groups and subreddits, none of them searchable, none of them lasting, none of them ours. For a fandom this size and this loyal, there has never been a single place to actually gather.

The Gate Room is that place. A real forum where the whole community can sit down together and talk, plus the tools to decide and remember things as one community instead of in twenty separate rooms.

Why a forum, and not just another Discord

Discords are great for the moment and terrible for memory. Everything scrolls away, nothing is searchable, and when a server dies it all goes with it. A forum is the opposite: threaded, searchable, permanent, and owned by the community, not rented from a platform that buries it or shuts it down. That's the difference between a chat and a home.

A record that holds

On top of the forum, the community gets a way to make its choices stick. Decisions are proposed in the open, debated, and recorded with a date and a tally, so "we agreed on X" is a dated link, not a maybe, and nobody can claim a consensus that didn't happen. Inward, it keeps us honest. Outward, when we make a case to a studio or the press, it's receipts: real decisions and real demand, not vibes.

Bigger than any one campaign

#SaveStargate is what The Gate Room is being used for first, and the most urgent thing right now. But it isn't what it's for. Win or lose on the revival, the community keeps the forum, the record, the working groups, the codex, the place. savestargate.com is the campaign's front door. The Gate Room is the community's home, built to outlive any one fight.

Why I built it

I'm Janus. I built it because the community I love never had a commons of its own, just borrowed rooms. Call it the Tollan instinct: a real place, open, on the record, that can't be quietly rewritten or lost.

You're welcome to contribute

It's open, and it's yours. You don't need permission. Jump into the forum, vote on a decision, propose your own, join or even lead a working group, add a pledge, or share your story. I built the frame. You fill it.

If it's useful, use it. If something's missing, tell me and I'll build it. https://thegateroom.com

Where do the core ideas of the Stargate franchise actually come from? I went down the rabbit hole and here's what I found.

Ancient Astronaut Theory - the biggest source

The central premise - aliens visited Earth in ancient times, were worshipped as gods, and built or assisted with monuments like the pyramids - comes directly from Erich von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods? (1968). Director Roland Emmerich said it outright: "When I was in film school, there was a wave of theories about aliens visiting Earth thousands of years ago and being responsible for the pyramids." The franchise basically takes von Daniken's hypothesis and turns it into fiction.

Von Daniken's own work drew from even earlier sources. A 2004 Skeptic article traces the core idea back to H.P. Lovecraft's stories "The Call of Cthulhu" (1926) and At the Mountains of Madness (1931), where ancient alien beings shaped human civilization. The 1960 book The Morning of the Magicians also fed into von Daniken's thinking.

Theoretical Physics - wormholes

The Stargate device itself - a portal creating an Einstein-Rosen bridge - is rooted in real general relativity. Kip Thorne (Nobel Prize-winning physicist) explored wormhole travel in Black Holes and Time Warps (1994) and advised Carl Sagan on wormhole physics for Contact (1985). The concept of traversable wormholes as tunnels through spacetime was theorized by Einstein and Rosen in 1935.

Ancient Egyptian Mythology

The Goa'uld posing as Ra, Osiris, Apophis, and other Egyptian gods is a direct lift from Egyptian religion. The show reinterprets the entire Egyptian pantheon as alien parasites wearing human hosts, a twist on von Daniken's "gods were astronauts" thesis.

Norse Mythology

The Asgard aliens (O'Neill names them after Norse gods) mirror Norse mythology, small gray beings posing as the "gods" of Scandinavian legend, just as the Goa'uld did with Egyptian gods.

Cold War / Military Exploration Narrative

The SG-1 TV series (created by Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner) took the movie's concept and gave it a Twilight Zone / Outer Limits anthology structure, a military team stepping through a portal to a new planet each week. This drew from military sci-fi traditions and the appeal of episodic exploration.

Carl Sagan's Contact (1985)

Sagan's novel about humanity making first contact through scientific channels, and the cultural and religious shockwave it causes, is a clear spiritual ancestor, particularly the tension between science and faith that runs through the franchise.

TL;DR: The franchise is fundamentally a dramatization of von Daniken's ancient astronaut theory (itself influenced by Lovecraft), grounded in real wormhole physics, layered with Egyptian and Norse mythology, and structured as military exploration sci-fi.

Campaign update, straight from the GateWorld panel. Darren, Tommy and James (the fan who kicked off the GoFundMe) went live to talk about where the #SaveStargate push stands, and there is real movement worth sharing.

The GoFundMe blew past its target

James set it up expecting maybe $4,000 to $4,500. It is now sitting near $16,000. That money is what funds the on-the-ground events. If you want to chip in:

https://savestargate.com

The events, in order

The strategy is a deliberate escalation: start at the studio, take it to America, then Europe, then the world, then space.

LA banner flyover - done New York digital billboards - done Europe rally - targeting July 11. Distributed across the UK, France and Germany rather than one city (France's authorities have been slow to clear a Paris event, so it is going multi-location for a bigger turnout). San Diego Comic-Con - Saturday and Sunday. You do not need a badge; the action is outside on the grounds. Save Stargate Day - about two weeks after Comic-Con, timed to a Stargate anniversary, building to a space-related finale.

RSVP for the European events:
https://savestargate.com/rsvp

Cannot travel? Join Save Stargate Day online:
https://savestargate.com/day

Why the panel thinks this one is different

Past fan backlashes fizzle after about a week, and studios count on exactly that. This one has not fizzled. The framing that stuck with me: the fanbase is not just an obstacle to a cancellation, it is an asset for a new show. The same global reach lighting up Amazon MGM's feeds could just as easily promote a new Stargate series. James also floated getting the full-scale EMG Milky Way gate to a September event, though that needs a benefactor (around $15,000) and someone on the ground in Europe to run it.

354 hours of television, four MGM regimes come and gone, fifteen years of waiting, and the fandom is still this loud. As Darren put it: it means more to us than it does to them, so do not expect us to walk.

Full context is in the GateWorld broadcast and the Dial the Gate clip going around social. If you have a couple of minutes and a couple of dollars, this is the window.

#SaveStargate

Genuine question, not a roadmap pitch.

The Gate Room exists to be something GateWorld never quite was: a place where community input turns into a documented record. Proposals debated in the open, outcomes dated and tallied, working groups that can actually get something done. The 251-world canon codex and the 3D star map are there for the lore side. The #SaveStargate connection is there because the campaign matters and deserves a serious home.

But I want to hear from the people who showed up, not just tell you what we built.

What is missing for you right now? Is it the wrong kind of content, the wrong cadence, something about how discussions are structured? Is there a working group topic nobody has proposed yet that you would actually contribute to? Does the open-record format feel useful or does it feel like overhead?

If you post a suggestion here it goes into the record. If there is enough signal around an idea it becomes a formal proposal, gets debated, and gets a dated outcome. That is how this place is supposed to work.

So: what would make The Gate Room genuinely worth your time?

Post below. Specific beats general, blunt beats polite.

Janus

Stargate Research Dossier — Overview

This is an inventory of the research archive at /root/stargate-research — 99 MB, 364 files, built primarily June 2–July 4, 2026, covering the cancellation of Martin Gero's SG4 series, the fan reaction, the industry pattern, the campaign strategy, franchise valuation, legal/IP risk, streaming data, and community sentiment analysis.

1. The Cancellation Event (MASTER-DOSSIER.md, MERGED-REPORT.md) Martin Gero's SG4 series ordered Nov 2025, axed June 2, 2026 Reason given: lack of "broad appeal beyond dedicated fanbase" Regime-change casualty: Pepper/King out, Fetter in 1,900 comment threads analyzed from Dial the Gate video (466 mourning, 684 angry at Amazon, only 14 relieved) 2. Primary Source Transcripts (transcript_v1–v8.txt, devlin_dropping_names.txt)

Full transcripts of every major video covering the cancellation:

Dial the Gate "eulogy" (David Read) State of the Gate roundtable (Read + Sumner + insider Jenny Stiven) Dean Devlin podcast (his deal was series-specific) Multiple reactors, insiders, and panel discussions 3. Industry-Wide Pattern (INDUSTRY-WIDE-PATTERN.md)

Seven documented facts showing this is not an isolated decision:

Same "broad appeal" logic used by Netflix (Sarandos) WB Discovery destroyed finished films (Batgirl, Coyote vs Acme) ~1 in 5 Netflix scripted series canceled in 2025 Amazon's own Fallout succeeded because of built-in fanbase 4. Campaign Strategy (ACTION-SHEET.md, petitions_roundup.md) 6 petitions → 65k+ signatures (lead petition at ~49k) GoFundMe ~$16k for aerial banner + billboards Full email hierarchy (Hopkins → Friedlander → Fetter) Ready-to-send rebuttal letters 5. Franchise Value Research (franchise-value-research.md, streaming-value-research.md) Amazon bought MGM for $8.45B ($3.4B content + $4.9B goodwill) Stargate catalog still streams on Pluto, Netflix, Sky — live paying audience Sci-fi/fantasy = 2nd fastest-growing spending demographic (Luminate) Search interest in 2026 ~2x the 2021–2023 floor 6. Legal/IP Review (LEGAL-REVIEW.md, rights_investigation.md) Website: LOW-MEDIUM risk (nominative fair use) Paid billboard: MEDIUM-HIGH risk (commercial use of STARGATE mark) 3 HIGH, 9 MEDIUM, 7 LOW severity findings AI personalization tool has unbounded content exposure 7. Streaming Value & Popularity (STARGATE-SEARCH-POPULARITY.md, STATS-AMAZON-IGNORED.md, STATS-AMAZON-IP-VALUE.md) 3x Wikipedia pageviews on news day (1,280 → 3,605/day) Subreddit: 143k–179k members YouTube cancellation video: ~47k views Google Trends: 2026 average ~2x the 2021–2023 baseline 8. Community Sentiment (comments.json, analyze_comments.py, community_data.json) Full comment datasets from DtG, Reddit, YouTube Sentiment analysis scripts notable_reactions.md — who spoke, who stayed silent 9. Data Collection (~75 Python scripts)

Google Trends scraping via Patchright, YouTube transcript extraction (downsub_.py), Wikipedia pageviews, X/Twitter profile scraping, newsletter/listicle aggregation, comment scraping (yt_comments.py), Copyright office records search (cprs_.py), Reddit tracking, billboard render scripts, astro charts, iris animations, and more.

10. Reference Assets

Billboard renders, campaign images, ancient language reference, VFX techniques doc, CSS/design review, spreadsheet data, braille output, clock/chevron visualizations.

Summary of research outputs Category Files Key output Master dossiers 5 .md MERGED-REPORT / MASTER-DOSSIER / INDUSTRY-PATTERN / LEGAL-REVIEW / RIGHTS Transcripts ~15 txt + .dl 8 video transcripts captured end-to-end Python scripts ~75 Data collection, analysis, sentiment, scraping, verification Campaign material ~10 ACTION-SHEET, petition data, contacts, email drafts Data (JSON) ~25 Comments, community, petitions, Wikipedia, X profiles, Reddit, YouTube Images/graphics ~30 Charts, billboard renders, astro graphics, chevron/iris visuals Budget/spreadsheets ~10 savesg-budget CSV files, sheet.xlsx

Status: The research is complete — all major angles covered (event reconstruction, fan reaction, industry pattern, campaign strategy, franchise valuation, legal risk, streaming demand, community sentiment). The actionable outputs are the ACTION-SHEET (what to do) and the MASTER-DOSSIER (the full public record to cite from).

Janus — July 4, 2026

Off duty from the gate, but if you buy PC games this one is worth a look.

What happened

A new class action just hit Microsoft, and the strange part is it traces back to Valve. The claim: Microsoft and Valve effectively agreed not to compete on price, which means we all pay more. It grew out of the long-running Wolfire case, which just got cleared for a full jury trial.

The part that changes things

For years the standard defense was that Valve's price-parity rule only covers Steam keys. Valve's own internal emails, now surfacing in court, suggest it goes much further. They reportedly threatened to delist Ubisoft's Rainbow Six over a cheap Play Store pack, and pulled Warner Bros pre-orders for Shadow of War because the Steam price was higher than elsewhere. Not keys. Whole games on other stores.

Gabe in the deposition

He flatly denied that Valve dictates third-party prices, and kept denying it even when the lawyers put his own staff's emails in front of him saying the opposite.

Where do you land

Steam is genuinely the best place to buy and sell PC games, no argument there. But is "you cannot sell cheaper anywhere else or we pull you from Steam" a fair house rule, or a dominant store using its size to hold prices up across the whole market? Curious what people here think.

Source: Bellular News breakdown

This is the home for build-in-public on community Stargate game projects. Devlogs, screenshots, builds, design talk, and honest feedback.

Kicking it off because there is a real one taking shape right now, an Unreal Engine Stargate game, with more coming. If you are building something Stargate, in any engine, this is your room too. Post your progress, ask for eyes on it, and let people watch it grow.

The whole point of The Gate Room is that the fandom can actually build, not just talk. This is where some of that building gets shown.

Janus