Stargate Atlantis - Fanlore

Stargate Atlantis

Name: Stargate: Atlantis
Abbreviation(s): SGA
Creator: Robert C. Cooper, Brad Wright
Date(s): 2004-
Medium: television series
Country of Origin: US
External Links: IMDB
EpGuides
Subpages for Stargate Atlantis:

Wraith · Vids · Trends/2006/Sandbox · Trends · Teyla Emmagan · Sentient Atlantis · Season 2 · Runner · Ronon Dex · Rodney McKay · Radek Zelenka · Pairing Names · OT4 · McKay/Sheppard · Lists and Communities · Lantea · John Sheppard · John/Teyla · Jennifer Keller · Fan Films · Evan Lorne · Carson Beckett · Aiden Ford


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Contents

Stargate Atlantis is a highly successful spinoff of Stargate SG-1. It began as the tale of a group of intrepid explorers making their home in the lost city of Atlantis in the Pegasus Galaxy. The show is currently in its fifth season, which is projected to be its last.

SGA focuses mainly on one four-person team: Major (later Lt. Colonel) John Sheppard, Dr. Rodney McKay, Teyla Emmagan, and Ronon Dex. (Dex arrived in season 2, replacing Marine Lt. Aiden Ford.)

Other main cast characters include Dr. Elizabeth Weir, Dr. Carson Beckett, Colonel Samantha Carter (who replaced Weir in season 4), Dr. Jennifer Keller (who replaced Beckett, late in season 3) and Richard Woolsey (who replaced Carter in season 5).

Recurring secondary characters include Major Evan Lorne, Dr. Radek Zelenka, Dr. Kate Heightmeyer and Colonel Steven Caldwell.

Show synopsis

In 2004, an expedition made up of an international military force and civilian scientists traveled through Earth's stargate to the Pegasus galaxy in search of the lost city of Atlantis -- the ancestral home of the Ancients, a race of humanoid beings who lived millennia ago, leaving behind technology and legends about themselves when they ascended basically en masse to a higher plane of existence.

They found Atlantis, but almost immediately inadvertently woke the scourge of the Pegasus galaxy: the Wraith, a race with humanoid shape but insectoid characteristics that lives off human life force. The expedition's military leader was killed as a result, leaving Major John Sheppard as ranking military officer.

From that point on, the expedition had several goals: defend against the Wraith, find allies among the local galaxy's natives (both for mutual defense and for trading, to keep Atlantis supplied), and find a power source that would allow the expedition to at least contact, if not return to, Earth.

The war with the Wraith continued to escalate, but after the first year things got less dire as Earth started sending a ship on a regular schedule to check in with them, help with defense if need be, and carry supplies and personnel. Eventually other connections back to Earth were made, both via stargate and via a "bridge" between the galaxy that small ships or individuals could travel through.

Other threats besides the Wraith also arose, including a race of humanoid Replicators (nanobots that replicate themselves into complex forms).

Stargate Atlantis Fandom

SGA fandom took off almost immediately, building on a base of existing Stargate SG-1 fans and new fans. It's one of the fandoms that straddled the line between mailing lists and livejournal, and thus has a fairly strong presence in both, although the LJ fandom is more widespread. LJ fandom is dominated by the McKay/Sheppard pairing. This reflects in the discussion of fanworks, the kind of fanfiction that gets recommended the most, the stories people look for on sgastoryfinders and what gets the most feedback. Other places on the net have a different focus. The most common het pairing is Sheppard/Weir followed by McKay/Weir. John/Teyla is a bit less popular in het fandom but seems to have some crossover appeal for slash fans. While SG-1 was a very strong gen fandom, SGA is more pairing focused, although it does have very good gen fanfic too. Many mailing lists have their own archives and also affiliated LJ communities; sometimes mailing lists were more active earlier in the fandom's history, but as LJ fandom grew communities became more widespread.

On November 9, 2004, Leah and Alyse launched the central SGA archive Wraithbait[1], which started affiliated to the Wraithbait mailing list for SGA slash (founded September 14, 2004), but as an archive has been open to gen, het and slash from its inception.

Because many fans came into SGA from fandoms with a tradition of centralised infrastructure like Due South, there were also efforts to create central and multi-ship spaces on the LJ side of the fandom. The SGA Flashfiction community was inspired by its Due South equivalent in February 2005;[2] the SGA Noticeboard was created in April 2005[3]; the daily SGA Newsletter in July 2005.[4] A weekly newsletter, atlantis_news, existed from February 2005 to March 2006.[5]

Canon or Fanon

While Stargate SG-1 uses specific designators for teams, Atlantis doesn't seem to follow that tradition, and instead goes with the team leader's last name as the official designation (Lorne's team, Sheppard's team, etc.) When a team uses a jumper, then the jumper's designation is used (Jumper One is most frequently used by Sheppard's team.)

Fanworks

SGA is a huge fandom, with an enormous amount of fan activity: vids, fic, art, meta, you name it.

Fanfic

SGA fandom has been exceptionally creative in its fanfiction (some might say prone to writing crack). Stories range from epics with highly realistic and detailed worldbuilding[6] to fairly off-the-wall AUs, including stories where the primary characters are recast as members of a symphony, a NASCAR race team, penguins, and Girl Scout cookies. In one notable story, But Where Would They Live? by thingswithwings, Rodney McKay is a unicorn, John Sheppard is a rainbow, Teyla is a dolphin, and Ronon is a warm summer breeze.

Gen, het, slash, threesomes, and moresomes or OT4s are all represented in the fandom.

SGA fandom also has a variety of AU shared universes, for example Pegasus B, Spygate, GPFG Studios and Coyote AU.

See Stargate Atlantis/Fanfic for a more detailed overview.

Fanart

SGA is also known for the diversity and sophistication of its fanart in terms of both style and of media. Styles range from cartoon-type line drawings by artists such as spaggel and Pentapus to more realistic chalk or oil on canvas by artists such as Lorraine Brevig and Crysothemis.

Many SGA artists work in more than one medium, and many of SGA's challenge communities are open to all forms of art, so there's a lot of collaboration, experimentation, and playfulness, as well experimentation with multimedia fanworks.

Examples of multimedia fanart include Zoetrope's Missed the Saturday Dance[7], Newkidfan's Ambushed[8], Mamoru's Scrapbook of my Life[9], and Bootleg: The Best of the Puddlejumpers [10].

Comic book or illustrated fan fiction stories include such diverse offerings as moonloon and spaggel's Twenty Four Hours With A Rodneysaur[11], Lenkti's Never Should Do [12], Astrid's Creature (Double) Feature [13], Zelenkamatch.com by LillyJK and Newkidfan [14], and A Bed Too Small by liketheriver [15].

There are many SGA communities that encourage artmaking, including the LJ communities artword and paintedspires. SGA_Flashfic also receives art submisstions, such as The Pegasus Tinies[16]for the Ways to Die challenge.

See Stargate Atlantis/Fanart for a more detailed overview.

Podfic

SGA fandom has embraced podfic; there's an active podfic community on livejournal (Stargate Atlantis Podfic) and many SGA stories have been recorded and stored at general_jinjur's audiofic | podfic archive (http://audiofic.jinjurly.com)

See Stargate Atlantis/Podfic for a more detailed overview.


Vids

Vids in SGA fandom run the gamut, from joyfully absurd looks at canon, like Another Sunday by Jescaflowne, to vids that break the fourth wall like mamoru's Cartoon Heroes, to metavids such as Speranza's Supersmart, and everything in between. Because so many SGA vids are unusually effects-driven, with a lot of created footage or highly worked footage, often there are some who say they aren't vids at all, but visual fanart. Others say SGA's just cutting edge--or just unusually prone to breaking the rules.

See Stargate Atlantis/Vids for a more detailed overview.

Archives

Resources

References

  1. ↑ Wayback Machine Link to the front page from Nov 14, 2004. (Accessed October 11, 2008)
  2. ↑ SGA Flashfiction community info.(Accessed October 11, 2008)
  3. ↑ SGA Noticeboard community info. (Accessed October 11, 2008)
  4. ↑ SGA Newsletter community info. (Accessed October 11, 2008)
  5. ↑ First Atlantis Newsletter issue from February 14, 2005 and last issue from March 17, 2006. (Accessed 10 October 2008)
  6. ↑ Freedom's Just Another Word For Nothing Left To Lose, Written by the Victors, Retrograde
  7. ↑ Missed the Saturday Dance archived on Open Doors, a mix of written fiction, art, audio, and video, (Accessed 10 October, 2008).
  8. ↑ Ambushed, a mix of art and video in vid form, (Accessed 10 October, 2008).
  9. ↑ Scrapbook of my Life, a mix of video and hand-drawn art, in vid form, (Accessed 10 October, 2008)
  10. ↑ [Bootleg: The Best of the Puddlejumpers] is a fictional album by the fictional band, The Puddlejumpers, with fictional booklet and fictional liner notes included, (Accessed 18 October,2008)
  11. ↑ http://rivatar.com/aa/atlantis/rodneysaur.htm
  12. ↑ http://community.livejournal.com/sga_flashfic/395056.html (Accessed 19 October, 2008)
  13. ↑ http://astridv.livejournal.com/105441.html (Accessed 19 October, 2008)
  14. ↑ http://cnieto.captures.free.fr/matchmaker/matchmaker01.html (Accessed 19 October, 2008)
  15. ↑ http://www.wraithbait.com/viewstory.php?sid=12680 (Accessed 19 October, 2008)
  16. ↑ The Pegasus Tinies Accessed November 3, 2008
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