Are the SG teams specialized, or general-purpose?

Question

The title of the show is SG-1, referring to the first Stargate team. Throughout the show, other teams are mentioned and sometimes featured/murdered, but the main focus seems to be on just the first team.

What I'm wondering is if each of the teams is meant to serve a specific purpose. For instance, there don't seem to be other people like Daniel on the base, so maybe SG-1 is specifically supposed to interact with other cultures. On the other hand, SG-4 seems to just be a bunch of soldiers, so perhaps they're the muscle squad?

So, is there, for instance, an astronomy team (SG-7? ), or a botany team, or a mountain climbing team? Or is it just "pick some coordinates and roll a d10"?

Answer 1

Depending on what you call an offical source and specialisation, the Stargate SG-1 RPG from AEG has a list of SG- teams 1 to 20. The core Rulebook spans the Seasons 1 to 6. (ISBN 1-887953-95-7)

Leaving out Exploration, Marine Combat and the Russian Team there are:

• Search and Rescue SG-6
• Scientific SG-7 and 16
• Medical SG-8 and 12
• Diplomatic SG-9
• Engineering SG-11
• Covert Ops SG-13 and 19

No deeper insights if the exploration teams are more focused, but since SG-1 is listed as exploration I guess not.

Answer 2

Not really but kind of.

Each SG team had a somewhat specific purpose but they are not really specialized:

• An SG team with a sociologist assigned would be a Contact team (we see a couple of these in the series)
• A team with a scientist would be a Science team (again, we see a few)
• A team with just muscle could be a lot of things Recon, Combat, Guard, etc

TL;DR: to a certain extent, yes, but the specialization of a unit would depend on the specialization of its assigned members, not its designation.

Answer 3

There ARE several others who are like Daniel. Daniel is the HEAD of the SGC's Archaeological department - Of which included Dr. Rothman. Nyan was even allowed asylum on Earth and he became a research assistant to the department.