Nicholas Rush

From SGCommand

"I have earned the right to make decisions without explaining myself to you or anyone else! "

—Nicholas Rush

Doctor Nicholas Rush is a brilliant, albeit Machiavellian, scientist, and an expert in Ancient technology, comparable to the likes of Samantha Carter and Rodney McKay. He is a member of the team sent and later trapped aboard the Ancient vessel Destiny. (SGU: "Air")

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 2009 2 Personality 3 Notes 4 External links

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Nicholas Rush was born into a poor family, as his father worked in shipyards in Glasgow, and Rush was working two jobs until he earned a scholarship at Oxford. His research was hindered while he was married to his wife, Gloria Rush, however since her death, he has become more dedicated to science. His desire to explore the mysteries of the ninth chevron are his highest priority. He was a smoker and a heavy consumer of coffee before boarding Destiny, drinking several cups of coffee a day. He, and others in the same situation, quickly began going through withdrawal symptoms from lack of caffeine and cigarettes aboard. (SGU: "Air", "Darkness")

[edit] 2009

In 2009, Rush was stationed at the Icarus Base in order to research the purpose of the Stargate's ninth chevron. After an unknown attack on the base, Rush alone was responsible for sending the Icarus personnel to the Destiny - an Ancient vessel situated in a far galaxy - with no way of returning. (SGU: "Air")

After arriving on the Destiny, Rush was the first to begin exploring the ship. When he realized that the life-support system was failing he attempted a restart of the system, expecting it to restore normal operations. At first this attempt was halted by Eli who believed that doing so could blow up the ship. Master Sergeant Ronald Greer who is very distrustful of Rush, was ready to shoot him, but was ordered to stand down by Lt. Matthew Scott. Allowed to attempt the restart, Rush pushed the button and realizing that it failed, he began looking for other solutions.

While attempting to find an answer to why the life-support was failing he found a flight plan indicating that the Destiny is several billion light-years from home. (SGU: "Air, Part 1")

Later, he was the first to use an Ancient long-range communication stone (brought aboard by Col. Everett Young) to contact Lieutenant General Jack O'Neill to inform him of the situation. Upon returning to the Destiny, he informed the crew that O'Neill put him in charge of the expedition, but was rejected by the people on board. Fortunately, Lt. Scott restored order, believing Rush to be their best hope of returning home. (SGU: "Air, Part 2")

Having localized the life-support problem to the air filtration system, namely the CO2 scrubbers, Rush suggested that someone on board would have to sacrifice themselves to essentially "plug" a hole left by a damaged Ancient shuttle and a malfunctioning airlock door. Rush suggested they begin rating people on their merits and strengths and send only the most useless person to perform this task. However, Senator Alan Armstrong took it upon himself to sit in the shuttle and close the door, which vented the air in the shuttle and killed him. (SGU: "Air, Part 2")

After the door had been shut, Rush seemed indifferent to the fact that Senator Armstrong had sacrificed himself to save the others on the ship. In order to learn as much as possible, as quickly as possible, Rush ran nine separate searches of the database in an attempt to solve the life-support problem.

During this time, he learned that a series of ships were launched prior to Destiny, seeding Stargates all over the galaxies they visited and returning information about these planets back to the ship. Because Rush "told" the Destiny of the life-support problem, the ship was able to use this data to locate a nearby planet that may have the material needed to restore the CO2 filters. Destiny dropped out of FTL (Faster Than Light) travel and dialed this planet.

Though most people on the ship distrusted Rush at this point, being the foremost expert on everything Ancient, he was allowed to go with the team through the Gate to help locate the material.

On the planet it became clear that Rush was not used to working in the field. He became exhausted, and not wishing to go any farther, gave his water to Lt. Scott and asked to be left in the desert. Scott, however, ordered Greer to escort Rush back to the Gate and continued on his own. Expecting Greer to share his water on the trip back to the gate, Rush incited an altercation. However, the two were still able to reach the Gate in time to stop Jeremy Franklin from walking through to an unknown planet.

On this mission his only true value was when he helped determine what substance the planet offered to restore Destiny's air filtration. He did, however, help ensure that Scott and Greer were able to return with the material, when he asked Eli Wallace to put his hand into the event horizon of the desert planet's Gate, seconds before the ship jumped back into FTL. (SGU: "Air, Part 3")

With that problem temporarily solved, Rush shifted focus from life-support to the energy system, which seemed to be quickly running out of power. Not having slept or rested for days, and having been without coffee or nicotine, to which he had become addicted, he began reacting to other people very aggressively, and collapsed while having an argument with Col. Young in the Gate room. Rush had a nervous breakdown due, in part, to his withdrawal symptoms and was unconscious for about ten hours. (SGU: "Darkness")

When the crew was doing a lottery to determine who would remain behind who would go, Rush had Young take his name out saying that the Destiny was his destiny and he wanted to die on the ship. After describing the death he thought they would have to Eli and Chloe and hoping it would be quick, Rush spent the rest of his time in his room reading and was shocked when the ship wasn't destroyed when he expected it to be and discovered there was still power. Informing everyone else he realized what was going on: the Destiny had cut power to everything to use its remaning reserve power to power the shields as it flew through the sun. To everyone's surprise, the Destiny used the sun's energy to reenergize itself and afterwards Rush managed to get subspace communications back up and helped call back the shuttle and guide it to the ship. Rush explained that the Destiny is apparently solar powered and flying through a sun recharges its batteries. It had flown into the sun on purpose. Later, Young invites him to sit with him at meal but he refuses and Young realizes that Rush might have known all along what would have happened when the ship flew into the sun. (SGU: "Light")

[edit] Personality

Though he is a brilliant and very focused scientist, Dr. Rush lacks the usual compassion seen with scientists involved with the Stargate Program.

Having worked his way up from being a son of a worker at the Glasgow Shipyard to an important post in a top secret program, he is convinced that he has the right to make decisions that affect not only himself, but also other people, disregarding injury or death, to attain his goals. For instance, simply out of a desire to finish his work and satisfy his curiosity, he decided to dial the nine-chevron address from Icarus, while the base was under attack, stranding everyone aboard the Destiny. (SGU: "Air")

He also illustrates this trait when he is ready to point out someone who is not of potential value to the expedition to be the person to sacrifice their life for the good of everyone else. He argued that politicians ask the military to sacrifice themselves for the well being of others every day. (SGU: "Air, Part 2")

[edit] Notes

• He is played by Robert Carlyle, and will be a regular cast member as confirmed by Brad Wright. He was the first character to be cast.
• Carlyle's character was originally David Rush, until the name change.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] External links

• Dr. Nicholas Rush on the official MGM website.
• Nicholas Rush on Wikipedia