Twenty more Stargate-mostly-Atlantis things that didn't fit or that I didn't think of in time
1. When packing for the initial Atlantis Expedition, somebody in social sciences got the idea of making a bulletin board for announcing what books people were packing and working out deals wherein A would bring X if B would bring Y. It became open to the entire expedition, and so there aren't that many duplicates. Many of the paper books wound up in one or another of the common areas, that first year.
2. All James White's Sector General novels wound up in the infirmary "waiting room." There is a persistent legend that nobody has even been able to finish Mind Changer in one sitting.
3. Sheppard found out the dimensions given for personal items and then made up a brown paper package fitting those dimensions, minus the area taken up by the poster. In the package were several DVDs (full of music transfers, video transfers, the Baen Free Library, etc.), an English translation of Tolstoy's War and Peace, Ende's Die Unendliche Gesischte in the original German, and Housman's Last Poems. The latter is the only one he didn't list as part of the common library.
4. When Airwolf first started airing, John Sheppard caught the first episode by chance. He liked it. A lot. ^_^
5. Sheppard's body is able to take in and process much more radiation than standard humans, vaguely akin to the way that pale people can absorb vitamins from sunlight through their skin. Enough all at once will give him sunburn, though.
6. Toran, in the pilot episode, was the last other remaining Emmagan of Teyla's generation. He was not the son of her father or mother, but had grown up in close enough proximity to her that they would not have sought each other out as lovers. When he died, Emmagan consisted of Teyla and Charin, all other members having died or married into some other family.
7. Jinto was, technically, fathered by Charin's son on Halling's sister. Halling was the one who wanted a child, and therefore Jinto is his son (although he'd introduce himself as "Jinto Irrylar, son of Suran" when greeting strangers, in case any of them were likewise engendered by Suran Emmagan).
8. While Teyla's initial feelings about her team members ranged from attraction (which she squashed because at that time it could have adversely affected the new team) through respect to suspicion, now they are her family. Her only family, now that Charin is gone.
9. If the choice comes down to her family or her people, there are very, very few situations where Teyla will not choose her people. In any case, while she is strong and would carry on, she would never fully recover from having to make such a choice.
10. Teyla and Sora have been friends, off and on, since they were about ten Tellurian years old. Because of her awareness of the differences between Athosian and Genii social mores, Teyla never in all the time leading up to "Underground" made a pass at Sora, or slept with her. Teyla regrets this.
11. Sora regrets it more.
12. Sora, after weeks of prison cell and being stuck listening to her guards, the people who came to talk to her, and the music her guards played, took the time to actually think about her actions and their causes and what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.
13. Something in the diet or the air or something is adversely affecting Elizabeth's, and a few others' brain chemistry, causing a mild form of bipolar disorder. When under its influence, they tend to have diminished judgment and impulse control, but not to realize that anything is actually wrong; this is made worse by the fact that not many of the Atlantis personnel know Elizabeth or the others well enough to recognize that something is in fact off, some of those who do are not the sort to realize its cause, and Kate Heightmeyer, who should be the first to recognize such a thing, has her own problems.
14. Dr. Heightmeyer has been exhibiting her own symptoms of reality shear ever since, really, the end of the first year. Hers takes the form of refusing to believe in any apparently mental problems that cannot be solved by Tellurian psychiatric methods, and, eventually, in any apparent mental problems that are not the result of disorders or situations documented on Tellus. In addition to this, she entirely believes that Elizabeth has no serious problems, although stress can make her short-tempered.
15. Laura Cadman likes Rodney McKay more than he likes her.
16. But not that way.
17. (Well, maybe it's shown up in her fantasy life a time or eleven, but it's not as if she's ever going to ACT on it.)
18. The SGC holds a costume party once a year, ever since the first year regular gate teams were established. (It began as a community-building event after the first few teams were having periodic feelings of being a little overwhelmed; O'Neill decided that SG-1 would throw themselves into it, thus Cheering Up Daniel and Introducing Teal'c To Aspects Of Human Culture. Or, to put it another way, "have some fun for a change.") Sometimes teams coordinate their costumes and go as a group; the three things most hotly betted about before the event are What The Base Leader Will Wear, What Costume the Chief Medical Officer Will Pick, and What SG-1 Will Go As. Or, in Atlantis the inheritor of said traditions, What AR-2 Will Go As -- AR-1 has yet to arrive as a themed complete unit.
19. Sergeant Bates self-identifies as Seminole. He had a great-grandfather in the First Seminole Negro Indian Scouts. He is a badass from a long line of badasses.
20. Atlantis isn't perfect. It isn't always the best thing for its inhabitants. But while many of them could be happy elsewhere, for all the main characters and most of the minor expedition members, there is nowhere else they'd rather be.