need help with canon

[fai_dust]

I am trying to polish up a very late gift for a friend and I'm stuck on an Stargate Atlantis thing. (The problem isn't directly 'shipper or even Sheppard-related, but I promise the fic sort of is.)
 
The question: Is there a basic naming system for 'Gate teams on Atlantis? The SGC has it simple; SG-(#), but I've asked two friends, as well as gone over every potentialy relivent page on both gateworld.net and the SG Wikia site, and I still don't have an answer. And if there isn't a naming system in canon, is there a generally accepted on in the fandom?

(Sorry that this is my first post to the comm, but I don't have anywhere else to go. I can, however, promise that a very silly fic will follow.)

Comments

[scifisentai]

I generally see SGA-insert number here in fic, if that helps? And it's been a while since I saw SGA itself but I think a lot of the teams were referred to by the leader's name, as in "Colonel Sheppard's team" or "Major Lorne's team." It has been a while since I watched the show, though, so I'm happy to be corrected if I'm mistaken.

[bluflamingo]

Agreed - I don't think Atalntis ever uses numbers in canon, though people make up all sorts of variants in fic. Everyone just seems to refer to them by their team leader's name, maybe because they have fewer teams than the SGC? Or less turnover? Or John couldn't be bothered with a numbering system when he took oveer?

[fai_dust]

Okay, thanks. My bet is the last one, concidering it's Sheppard we're talking about. ^_^

Specifically, if I wanted to refer to Cadman's team 3 or 4 times in an (aprox) 750 word fic, how would I go about it do you think?

[bluflamingo]

I'd probably just call them Cadman's team. Unless it's really formal (if they're reporting to someone extremely senior like Landry, maybe?) because I suppose they might, technically, have officialy designations that no-one uses.

[fai_dust]

Woolsey, not Landry. But it's still the formal thing. And I don't think Cadman ever really had a team leader named, either, otherwise, I could just go with that.

[bluflamingo]

Ah ok. I've never heard Woolsey refer to a team by a number - I think he calls John's team Colonel Sheppard's team, for example - so you could probably go with Rank Lastname's team. If Cadman's not the TL, then the name of whoever is, either from canon, or someone you make up, since a random name won't mean anything more or less than a random number since Cadman never belonged to a specified team anyway.

[fai_dust]

Thanks so much. You've helped me more then I can say.

[scifisentai]

I favour all of the above reasons at the same time. >.>

[paian]

I see you got most excellent help here, but also, for the future, you can always call on the folks at sgacanon. There's also sg1canon and sgucanon, and all three comms would be thrilled to see some action.

[skieswideopen]

I didn't know about those comms, so thank you!

[paian]

You're welcome! They're all the brainchild of samantilles, and it'd be great to see them getting more use.

Also, thanks back, to you and scrollgirl -- this comm is terrific!

[skieswideopen]

:D I'm glad you like the comm!

[skieswideopen]

It's not canon, but one of the producers once made a joke about about Sheppard's team being the First Atlantis Reconnaissance Team, and while I doubt anyone would ever use that name as is (given what the acronym would be), I know a few people ran with it by naming the Atlantis teams AR-1, AR-2, etc. So that's another option for you, if you don't want to use names.

[fai_dust]

Why, what's wrong with 'FAR'?

[skieswideopen]

Nothing's wrong with FAR, but you're missing a letter there. The suggestion was First Atlantis Reconnaissance Team. :D

[bestliar]

I like to imagine that on Atlantis they use letters so Sheppard's team would be SG-A, Lorne's SG-B and so on, but that isn't cannon at all. It just seems fitting.