On SG-1, our heroes wear their SG unit patch on the right shoulder, and an SGC patch on the left. When on the base and offworld, they always wear these insignia. However, when on Earth and in the public view, they remove them. This makes sense.
On Atlantis, our heroes wear the Atlantis team patch on th right shoulder and their country's flag on the left. What bugs me here is that they remove both when travelling offworld. What's the deal here? Are they afraid of letting all the alien species know what country they're from, from a planet none of them have been to?
On the flipside, on Atlantis they tend to stick to military uniforms when on military operations, at least for Ford and the military contingent - he switches to the new Marine BDUs when he's off capturing Steve, for example, while Shepperd stays in the questionably camoed Atlantis uniform. Of our military-minded members here, would anyone like to offer an explanation or theory behind this? Stargate is usually pretty good about this sort of thing, so it follows they put some thought into it.
Mark
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
I'm not military minded, nor in the know whatsoever, but since I'm bored I'll offer a theory. From what I've observed of SG1 and other militarily based shows, there seems to be alot of variety in uniforms with a certain amount of discretion given to the personnel as to what is appropriate to wear. Perhaps it's preference, or perhaps Ford felt his BDU's were more practical for the mission.
As to why they remove their unit insignia when offworld, I haven't a clue. It doesn't seem to make sense. Does the insignia contain Earth's point of origin symbol like the SGC logo does? If it does, they might want to keep that info from falling into enemy hands. But then, one would be forced to wonder why they would include potentially strategic information in the unit patch design.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"When on the base and offworld, they always wear these insignia. However, when on Earth and in the public view, they remove them."
Is that what it is? I've noticed that sometimes the patches are gone and there's just a spot of Velcro, but I never paid enough attention to see the pattern.
"Does the insignia contain Earth's point of origin symbol like the SGC logo does? If it does, they might want to keep that info from falling into enemy hands. But then, one would be forced to wonder why they would include potentially strategic information in the unit patch design."
Well, the symbol would be completely useless in Pegasus anyway, since the gates there use a completely different set of symbols. (Speaking o which, does the Atlantis team even know the address to redial Earth?)
Also, the symbol probably wouldn't be useful to aliens even on "SG-1". After all, it doesn't provide the gate address. It just identifies them as being from Earth (and only if whoever sees it is familiar with the symbol). And it's not like they ever try to pretend they aren't from Earth.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
I suppose in that case it's equivalent to wearing the US flag, which they don't from the outset desptie being a US military operation. The Earth symbol they use is recognaizable to the Goa'uld, the Tok'ra and others as the home of the Tau'ri, which I guess is good enough.
The Atlantis team patch seems to be the word "ATLANTIS" over a stargate chevron, and possibly have some symbol on it; however no one's been able to get a good enough look at it yet. Here're some of the better views that I know of so far:
In addition, Weir seems to wear a slightly different version on a modified uniform jacket that's slimmer and longer than the typical one everyone else wears:
I'm guessing that finding the gate address back to earth isn't so tough - they may have already figured it out from the Asgard. And yes, the standard Stargate BDUs have circular velcro patches that attach the SGC and team patches (and for some units, an additional place where you put the black spec ops (?) badge on the right arm. The Atlantis jacket have an appropriately-shaped velcro spot for their badge on the right arm, and a rectangualr one for the left.