Atlantis expedition

"We need to get back out there; do what we came to do."

- Elizabeth Weir

The Atlantis Expedition, is Earth's international mission to the Ancient city of Atlantis in the Pegasus Galaxy. The impetus for the creation of the expedition was the discovery of the Ancient outpost in Antarctica. The reason that it is international is that it was felt that a project of such importance could not be the exclusive province of one nation, as well as the fact that according to American and international law, Antarctica is international territory and hence it would be technically illegal for the United States to operate any facilities without international participation or at least international knowledge. An international committee, originally called the Atlantis Committee was established, creating the first truly international body for the management of Earth's off world affairs.

Arrival
When the Atlantis Expedition arrived in 2004, they started to explore the city until Rodney McKay discovered that the city's Zero Point Modules were nearly depleted and that the city's shield would fail, causing a massive flood. After searching Athos for safe refuge due to the inevitable shield failure, the search team eventually brought the Athosians back after a Wraith culling occurred. When the team and refugees returned, Janus's fail-safe mechanism activated and Atlantis rose to the surface just as the shield finally ran out of power and failed. With Atlantis safe from the risk of flooding, the Expedition continued to settle down and set up home for both themselves and the Athosian refugees.

Tau'ri encounters with the Wraith
Having learned of the existence of Earth, the Wraith sent three hive ships to attack Atlantis. The Atlantis Expedition was able to destroy the three ships, but the Wraith sent another twelve. Seeing no way of destroying them, the Expedition used a cloak adapted from a Puddle Jumper, and a timed nuclear warhead to make it appear that the city had been destroyed. The Wraith fell for the ruse, causing them to fall into Civil War. The secret of Atlantis is now a top priority for the Expedition members.

In 2006, SG-1 &mdash; except for Teal'c &mdash; arrived in Atlantis on the Odyssey as a step in their war against the Ori. Samantha Carter and Cameron Mitchell took McKay on a mission to connect a Pegasus Stargate to the Supergate back in the Milky Way, preventing its further use by the Ori. Meanwhile, Daniel Jackson and Vala Mal Doran accessed the Atlantis database in the hope of discovering the location of the Sangraal, a weapon against the Ori designed by Merlin. However, the ascended Lantean Morgan Le Fay, who masqueraded as the database's holographic interface, was stopped by the Others before she could reveal it.

Later in the same year, live Lanteans were discovered in the void between Pegasus and the Milky Way, who subsequently reclaimed the city and forced the expedition out. Shortly afterwards, the Asurans attacked the city, killing the Lanteans and taking Jack O'Neill and Richard Woolsey hostage. John Sheppard, Elizabeth Weir, Rodney McKay, Carson Beckett, Teyla Emmagan, and Ronon Dex launched a daring rescue mission, using the city's shield generators to emit a massive Replicator disruptor wave. The Expedition was then able to reclaim Atlantis, keeping one of the ZPMs installed by the Asurans and sending the other two back to Earth to help with the battle against the Ori.

The Asuran Conflict
Some time later, after a massive pre-emptive strike on Asuras by Earth's new battle cruiser, the Apollo, the Asurans launched an attack on Atlantis. They sent a satellite housing a Stargate to Lantia, and after dialing in from Asuras, directed a powerful energy beam at Atlantis. Unable to evacuate by Stargate, and unable to fully dissipate the beam after submerging the city, the Expedition used the stardrive to leave Lantea. The recently discovered geothermal drilling platform, located on the ocean floor gave Atlantis the power boost it needed to lift off, as the expedition only had one ZPM instead of the 3 which the city was designed to use. The shield had to be lowered so that more power could be diverted to the Stardrive for the crucial first few moments of flight. As the shield was being raised after this initial phase however the Asurans beam grazed the side of the main tower, causing serious damage to the main power conduits. Because of this Atlantis dropped out of hyperspace prematurely and far from the new intended homeworld, with the city's single Zero Point Module nearly depleted, having only twenty four hours of energy left. With the aid of a replacement ZPM, stolen in a daring raid on the Asuran homeworld, the city eventually settled on M35-117.

Alliance against the Asurans
Knowing that the Atlantis team had re-activated the attack command in the Asurans, the Wraith, Todd, allied himself with them in an attempt to stop the Asurans once and for all as they were a common enemy between the Wraith and the humans of the Tau'ri. After McKay came up with a plan that would destroy the Asurans for good, the humans of Atlantis formed an alliance with the Wraith to forge an attack fleet to hold off the Asuran fleet long enough for the plan to be put into play. In the battle that followed the Tau'ri, Wraith and Travelers worked side-by-side against the Asurans and finally destroyed them with the loss of a single Hive Ship and a single Travelers ship. Afterwards the alliance was ended and the war resumed.

The future of the Tau'ri-Wraith war
Although the Tau'ri-Wraith war continues, the Tau'ri have made considerable progress despite terrible odds. With the addition of Daedalus-class battle cruisers and Asgard plasma beam weapons, the Tau'ri are slowly gaining the upper hand. Since the alliance against the Asurans, there have only been a few skirmishes (mostly with Michael), but the Tau'ri gained a major victory when they destroyed the Wraith Cloning Facility that had created the army that had overwhelmed the Ancients before the Wraith could clone a new one, and took another Hive ship with it.

Atlantis Committee
At least two dozen countries are confirmed to have at least one member in the expedition. The Atlantis Committee is composed of the representatives of several nations, but the leaders of the committee seem to be the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Russia, and China. However, numerous nations have sent people to Atlantis.

Staff
Certain personnel have special duties within the Stargate program, an example of these are the Atlantis teams. When the Atlantis Expedition was formed there there has been at least 4 active teams in the Pegasus Galaxy. The Atlantis personnel various heavily in nationality, role and rank. They all have different colors on their uniforms depending on their role. In addition to this, each member has a flag patch that contains the flag of the member's home country. Though the most common uniforms are almost all charcoal black, some members have been seen with all-khaki uniforms. They are also color coded. The colors indicate what speciality the members are part of;


 * Red (civilian, leader)
 * Blue (scientist)
 * Yellow (medical)
 * Black (military)
 * Green (technician)

Races encountered
Sine the formation of the Atlantis Expedition the Tau'ri have discovered and made contact to several new races. The most notable one being the Wraith. The Expedition made contact with their Wraith, disturbing their 10,000 year old cycle, almost instantly after settling in the Pegasus Galaxy. Since the Siege of Atlantis, the first Wraith conflict, the Tau'ri and the Wraith have been in war with each other. Another hostile race in the Pegasus Galaxy was the Asurans. The Asurans are a technological life-form originally created by the Ancients as a means of fighting the Wraith. They were ultimately defeated in 2007 by a united fleet of Tau'ri, Wraith and Traveler ships.

They've also befriended many human civilization as well. Making allies of the Athosians, the Genii, the Travelers, among others.