Nicholas Rush

"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.

Early life
Nicholas Rush was born into a poor family. His father worked in the shipyards of Glasgow. Rush was working two jobs until he earned a scholarship at Oxford. Prior to going to work for the Stargate program, Rush was a college professor at the University of California, Berkeley. At some point he married Gloria Rush. He was recruited by Daniel Jackson to work on the ninth chevron project, which he would spend two years on. His wife died from cancer during this period, driving Rush to see the fruits of his labor at any cost.

He was a smoker before boarding Destiny and a heavy consumer of coffee, drinking several cups a day. He, and others in the same situation, quickly began going through withdrawal symptoms from lack of caffeine and nicotine aboard.

2009
"This ship - coming here - was my destiny. My life's work was to be here."

- Nicholas Rush

In 2009, Rush was stationed at the Icarus Base in order to research the purpose of the Stargate's ninth chevron. When Eli Wallace discovered the formula that would finally allow them to successfully dial the ninth chevron, he personally visited Eli, along with Jack O'Neill, to recruit him into the program. The failure of Eli's formula to make a connection caused some friction between them, as Rush was set in his belief that the address they were using was right. While Eli was invited to a special dinner being held for the base's guests, Rush cried over a photo of his wife.

The base was attacked shortly thereafter, threatening to destroy the planet. Rush, fearing that his life's work would literally go up in flames, enlisted Eli's aid in figuring out how to dial the ninth chevron. Accepting Eli's unconventional logic that the ninth chevron address was actually a code, he aborted the dialling sequence to Earth and successfully made a connection with the ninth chevron, unconvincingly justifying his actions by claiming that the blast from the exploding planet could have followed them back through the wormhole (he could have dialled plenty of active gates in the Milky Way if he was concerned for Earth). Unable to undo his actions, the remaining Icarus personnel were forced to evacuate through the gate, arriving on the Destiny - an Ancient vessel located in a galaxy billions of light-years from home - with no way to get back.

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, which he believed would restore normal operations. Eli attempted to dissuade him, believing that doing so could blow up the ship, and Master Sergeant Ronald Greer held Rush at gunpoint to keep him from implementing the plan, as Rush's actions were responsible for stranding them in the first place. Greer was ordered to stand down by Lt. Matthew Scott. Rush was allowed to attempt the restart, but it ended in failure.

Later, he was the first to use the long-range communication device (brought aboard by Colonel Everett Young) to inform O'Neill of the situation. Upon returning to the Destiny, he told the crew that O'Neill put him in charge of the expedition (which was at best a very liberal interpretation of O'Neill's orders). The crew did not take well to his self-appointed leadership, but Lt. Scott restored order, believing Rush to be their best hope of returning home.

Having localized the life-support problem to the air filtration system, namely the CO2 scrubbers, and a large hole in one of the shuttles, Rush suggested that someone on board would have to sacrifice themselves to essentially "plug" the hole since the airlock doors were damaged. Rush began reviewing the personnel, attempting to find the one whose absence would least affect their chances of survival. His efforts were preempted by Senator Alan Armstrong, who took it upon himself to sacrifice his life to seal the damaged shuttle. With that problem dealt with, he focused on trying to repair the scrubbers. Destiny would eventually drop out of FTL in range of a desert planet with the necessary materials, and Rush joined the away team to search for them.

The heat of the desert planet eventually became too much for Rush to handle. He gave his remaining water to Scott and asked to return to the Stargate alone. 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. It ended quickly, since Rush could not overpower Greer and Greer couldn't just shoot him. Hearing over the radio from Eli that Andrea Palmer, Sergent Curtis, and Jeremy Franklin intended to go to another nearby planet, he and Greer returned in time to stop Franklin, though they arrived too late to save Curtis and Palmer. Scott eventually managed to locate the necessary materials, and Rush helped to integrate them into the failing life support.

With that problem solved, Rush shifted focus from life-support to the ship's power reserves, which were depleting rapidly. Short-tempered due to lack of sleep, caffeine withdrawal due to lack of coffee, and nicotine withdrawal due to lack of cigarettes, he drove away any attempt to help him. When power failed completely, he broke into a rant while explaining the situation to Young. This devolved into a nervous breakdown, and Rush collapsed, remaining unconscious for about ten hours. He woke up in time to learn that the ship was on course for a potentially livable star system, only for the ship to instead end up on course for that system's star.

Young arranged a lottery to determine who would be allowed to use the shuttle to escape the doomed ship. Rush had Young take his name out, saying that Destiny was his destiny and he wanted to die on the ship. Rush spent his remaining time in his room reading. He eventually realized that their impending deaths were behind schedule, and discovered that the ship in fact plotted a course into the star on purpose to recharge its reactors. This posed a problem, as the shuttle was about to be left behind, but Rush managed to activate the subspace communication array to contact them. Eli's planetary slingshot calculations were then transmitted to the shuttle so they could reach the ship in time. Later, Young invited Rush to join their celebration, but Rush refused, not seeing anything worth celebrating. Young speculates that Rush might have known all along what the ship was doing, but the others don't share his opinion.

Several weeks later, Rush and several others determined that the ship's water supplies were disappearing at an impossible rate. The ship stopped at an ice planet, allowing Young and Scott to collect more water. Meanwhile, Rush joined the effort to discover the source of the drain, which was revealed to be a colony of dust bugs Scott had accidentally brought back with him from the desert planet. He deliberately kept this information from Young, as Young needed to focus on retrieving more water, against Eli's protests, then sternly informed Eli that grown-ups sometimes needed to lie for the greater good. While Lt. Matthew Scott was in the crevasse trapped, he expressed more concern for the ice than for the safe rescue of Scott. He also helped to develop and enact a plan to remove the bugs from the ship.

When the IOA put a plan forth to return the crew home, he expressed major concerns over the dangers it presented. When Colonel David Telford assumed command (using the communication device) to enact the plan, he helped under great reluctance, doing everything he could to slow Telford's implementation of the plan, as Telford's rush to enact it put the entire ship at risk. Following Hunter Riley's injuries, he confronted Telford on the safety of the plan, blaming Telford for Riley's fate (though Telford asserted it was Rush's fault). Rush was present when Telford's team attempted to dial the gate. When it appeared the plan was doomed to failure, Telford's team left the ship. Making sure they had all left, Rush then ended the experiment, having staged the entire show as an elaborate ruse to get rid of Telford and prevent a catastrophic incident. Young would later have Eli investigate the possible success of this plan, which ended in failure in every scenario Eli ran.

During a routine exploration of the ship, Rush and Greer discovered the Destiny interface chair, a device similar in purpose to the repository of knowledge encountered by O'Neill. Rush advocated having someone sit in the chair, reasoning that its more primitive design might not be fatal to humans as the later model was, and that the data it contained could grant them full control of the ship. Young forbade any access to the chair, and asserted that the only person Rush would get to sit in it would be Rush himself. Rush attempted to force the issue by faking the discovery of a planet similar to Icarus Base, but Young remained steadfast in his refusal and Rush's deception was soon uncovered by Eli.

When Sgt. Spencer committed suicide, Rush was the first to find his body. Seeing it as an opportunity, he took Spencer's gun and hid it in Young's room to frame him for murder. Rush knew the charge would never stick, but would create enough reasonable doubt to remove Young from command. This put Wray in charge and gave him the freedom to research the interface chair. This in turn gave Franklin the opportunity to sit in it, rendering him catatonic. Young blamed Rush for Franklin's state, under the belief that Rush was hoping for someone to sit in the chair out of desperation. When Eli uncovered Kino footage that showed Spencer's suicide and Rush's theft of the weapon, which Rush had tried to delete from the archive, he reported it to Young. Young confronted Rush alone on a planet with a damaged alien ship, and attacked him when Rush proved wholly unapologetic about the frame-up. Young knocked Rush unconscious and left him on the planet.

After coming to, Rush's first act was to explore the damaged ship. In doing so, he triggered a homing beacon which summoned the blueberry aliens. They took him prisoner, probing his mind for information on Destiny. When Young took control of one of the aliens through the communication device, the mothership Rush was on confronted Destiny. It attacked, and one of its fighters kidnapped Chloe Armstrong. Young attempted to use the communication device to free Chloe, but ended up freeing Rush instead. Rush instructed Young in the use of the alien mind probing technology, learning the identity of his rescuer but also breaking the communication link. Rush used the mind probe on the alien to find Chloe's location and teach himself to use their technology, then killed the alien. Unable to get back, Young tried to destroy the mothership. Rush, meanwhile, escaped the ship with Chloe shortly before it went to FTL. In private, Young and Rush decided to bury their rivalry for the sake of the crew. Rush, however, still did not trust Young to be in command, and schemed with Camile Wray to remove him.

When the opportunity came, Rush and Camile launched their plan to isolate the military and force them to surrender. While Young and Scott were using the Ancient shuttle to destroy an alien fighter that was attached to the hull, Rush started to transfer control from the control interface room to a research lab. This caused the shuttle's docking clamps to fail. Rush was forced to stop the transfer prematurely so they could dock, losing control of life support as a result. He then bargained to have Eli brought over to his side, requiring Eli's assistance in bolstering the shields for an impending alien attack. The true reason behind his mutiny was that the aliens implanted a transmitter inside his chest, and he feared that Young might kill him trying to remove it. Young managed to end the mutiny during the attack and ordered the transmitter removed. Chloe used the communication device to switch with Dr. Brightman, who with the aid of Tamara Johansen was able to remove the device. Destiny managed to weather the assault and escaped into FTL.

When Destiny dropped out of FTL near an uncharted star, Rush used the time to strengthen the shield in unexplored sections of the ship. One of the teams found a robot which Rush decided to leave be while he dealt with more important matters. In his off time, he also began work on carving a chess set. Young tried again to bury the hatchet with Rush, expressing his own fondness for the game.

A short time later, Rush and Adam Brody modified the interface chair so Rush could use it safely in an attempt to glean the ship's master code. Once in the chair, his experience took the form of a lucid dream of his days just prior to joining the Stargate Program. Treating it as a distraction, he ignored the vision of his wife despite her failing health, though he did take some time to comfort her. Eventually, he realized that the number 46 kept appearing everywhere he looked. Realizing that this was the key to deciphering the master code, he left the program, stopping to have a heartfelt conversation with the vision of his wife about his immoral behavior. He then devised a program to decipher the master code based on what he learned.

During his time in the chair, a team consisting of Scott, Greer, Eli, and Chloe were stranded on a planet and unable to return to Destiny before it jumped. With the help of the other scientists, Rush was able to produce a map of the gate system in the galaxy, and Destiny's position relative to it. With the knowledge that Destiny was about to leave the galaxy, Rush and Lt. Vanessa James led a rescue mission to attempt to retrieve the lost away team. They split to cover more ground when it became clear that Destiny had bypassed numerous gates. James' team found Greer, while Rush came back empty-handed. Unfortunately, Rush's team dialled in just when Scott, Eli, and Chloe, who had managed to find an alternate route, were trying to do the same, blocking them. Destiny left the galaxy before they could dial again.

Rush quickly discovered that Destiny lacked the power to make the trip across the void. Rush proposed using the communication device to bring aboard Dr. Amanda Perry, a hyperdrive specialist. The blueberry aliens used this opportunity to take control of James and sabotage the FTL drive. This gave Scott, Eli, and Chloe the chance to dial back in. Eli gave Rush back his glasses, which he had lost on the damaged ship from which he was abducted. Eli, Rush, and Perry managed to repair the drive. The aliens attacked Destiny before the system could be restarted, but with the help of Franklin and the interface chair, Destiny was able to enter FTL again and make the journey across the void.

Some time later, Rush was one of several people infected with hallucination-inducing ticks. His hallucinations took the form of an invasion by the blueberry aliens. Meanwhile, Greer hallucinations took the form of another mutiny by Rush and Wray. Seeing Greer as an alien, Rush fled into a supply room, followed by Greer. Greer in turn was followed by Wray. Seeing Wray as an alien, too, he stabbed her with a screwdriver before being knocked out by Greer. Greer was subdued before he could kill either Rush or Wray, and Rush was also restrained when he began attacking everyone in sight. The ticks were removed by TJ, restoring them to normal.

After using the communication device to switch with Telford, Rush began seeing pieces of Telford's memory which indicated he was a spy for the Lucian Alliance. He advised Young of the situation, and arranged to switch with Telford during the next scheduled contact with Earth in order to confirm his suspicions. He successfully made contact with the Alliance, pretending to be Telford, but was betrayed by his lack of knowledge of their procedures. He was kidnapped and taken off the planet in a Tel'tak. He was tortured by Commander Kiva into revealing his identity, then taken to their base, a recreation of the Icarus project. Rush was forced into completing their work into dialling the ninth chevron, while Telford was interrogated by Young on Destiny. Rush stalled as much as he could, which gave Young the time he needed to break Telford's brainwashing and get the location of the Alliance base. The George Hammond was dispatched to rescue Rush, but this instead forced the Alliance to dial ahead of schedule, reaching Destiny at the expense of blowing up the planet.

Upon arrival, Telford and Rush were returned to their own bodies. Rush managed to escape the conflict that followed, and remained in the control interface room as Young attempted to resolve the situation. He continually advocated a quick and decisive solution, since the Alliance had hostages and would kill them no matter the circumstances. Young insisted on trying to rescue them, which put them at odds. Matters were further complicated by a nearby binary pulsar, which emitted regular bursts of radiation that were slowly depleting Destiny's shields and disrupting power, foiling one of Young's attempted rescue plans. A solution was discovered, but Young had to surrender to Kiva in order to implement it. Telford, working as a mole in her ranks, had Rush and Brody move to another area of the ship so he could transfer control back to them after Kiva had secured the hostages in one location. His plan was interrupted before he could fully implement it.

Telford's efforts were not entirely in vain, as Rush had been given enough control of the ship to affect the power systems. Using this, he drew power away from the shields, in order to force the Alliance to surrender lest they die from the radiation. He and a small group hid in the hydroponics lab, which would provide enough protection for them to survive the radiation burst. Despite the fact that some of the crew were still outside, Rush persisted in his plan, and the Alliance surrendered to save themselves.

Not long after, Rush's program to break the master code worked. Using it, he gained access to the bridge, from which he could control all of Destiny's systems. However, he decided to keep this information to himself. Without a trained crew, he wanted to understand each system first. More importantly, he did not trust Young, believing him unfit to lead the mission. While on the bridge, he was haunted by a vision of his wife, who questioned his decisions and motives at every turn. A vision of Franklin also appeared to him, serving to question Rush's technical deductions.

With his new control over the ship, he stopped Destiny at a planet with an inactive Stargate, as the crew needed food supplies desperately. A shuttle was sent to the planet, but Rush failed to account for the severity of the atmospheric turbulence, which damaged to the shuttle and caused it to crash. While the shuttle team worked to fix the gate, Rush brought the ship out of FTL as soon as possible in order to reach them. Though successful, Riley died from his injuries, which Rush blamed himself for. The ship then notified him of an approaching object, which it dropped out of FTL to meet.

The object the ship detected was a Seed ship, which for some reason was dead in space. Destiny docked with the ship, and began downloading a large amount of data. Rush was more eager to explore the ship than analyze the data, but Young insisted that Rush decode the data as quickly as possible. He managed to excuse himself and visit the bridge, from which he detected a large amount of reserve power, enough to dial the gate to Earth. He decided not to tell anyone, reasoning that they would figure out on their own, which they did. Meanwhile, an alien was discovered on the ship. Rush was sent over to the ship to facilitate a power transfer, while TJ was brought in to examine the alien. After it woke up, Rush gave advice in communicating with it, with little success. When the power transfer to dial the gate began, the rest of the aliens stunned Rush and reversed the transfer, threatening to drain Destiny permanently. Rush was carried out by Greer, and upon reviving immediately went to the bridge to disconnect the two ships before the power drain reached an irreversible state. Telford, who was attempting to counter the power drain from the seed ship, was stranded. The vision of Gloria wondered whether Rush had broken the connection out of concern for the ship or to save his dream.

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. He argues that the resulting blast from the planet's destruction could have transfered to Earth.

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 argues that politicians ask military personel to sacrifice themselves for the well being of others every day. . He is not afraid of speaking his mind, even if it will be met with dissaproval and cast doubt on his morals.

Although self preservation is one of Rush's dominant instincts, he has been seen to throw caution to the wind at times when there is little to no alternative. During the attack on Icarus Base, he dials the ninth chevron, recognizing that there would never be another chance to do so. Also by jumping through an unstable Stargate rather than face a violent death at the hands of vicious Squigglers. Nevertheless, Rush considers precious little more important than his own survival, refusing to sit in the early repository of knowledge unless absolutely positive that it was safe. He did, however, use the device after a new safety feature had been installed. During a lucid dream whilst using the device, Rush appeared to rediscover his morals in a conversation with a dream version of his wife. During the dream he revealed that he believes his morality died with his wife.

When it is within his power to preserve lives in the cases of the few for the many, he is not hesitant in taking those decision and actions based on this principle regardless of going through procedures or of retaliation from the crew.

Alternate timelines

 * In the first timeline, Rush is part of the team that gates to the Jungle planet. When members of the team start getting sick, he and the others remain on the planet but due to an unknown Stargate malfunction, are unable to establish a stable wormhole to Destiny and cannot return home.  That night, the team comes under attack and some are killed, although Rush manages to survive.  After moving to a cave, Rush discusses with Eli Wallace (who is recording everything on a Kino) about his mother's illness and Ascension.  Rush later tries to dial out again, and although the wormhole is a little more stable, its not stable enough to return through.  That night the creatures attack again and Rush, Eli and Greer fight them off.  Rush ends up running to the gate and dials Destiny and although the wormhole is still unstable, he heads through for help, quoting his favorite movie and saying "for a moment there I thought we were in trouble."  The unstable wormhole sends him into the past and when the Kino arrives in the past, it shows him dead on the ground near the gate of an unknown cause.
 * In the second timeline, Rush travels to the planet and discovers the skeletal remains of himself from the first timeline while the rest discover the Kino. The team immediately returns to Destiny to review the Kino recording and he is unable to determine the source of the Stargate malfunction.  Like everyone else, Rush quarantines himself when the illness is revealed.  After seeing his other self's last words, he and Young realize that they both have in common that they love Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  When Rush sees the Kino travel back in time, he realizes that the malfunction was caused by a solar flare intersecting the wormhole, causing it to go back in time.  After figuring out that the creatures on the planet's venom can cure the disease and that they have less than an hour before the solar flare hits, a team is sent while Rush remains behind on the ship.  He later reports to the team the deaths of Chloe Armstrong, Vanessa James and two others.  When Lt. Matthew Scott dials Destiny in order to use the solar flare to send a message back in time, Rush tries to contact him but is unsuccessful.
 * In a third timeline, Rush disapproves of a plan to dial Earth from within a star, but goes along with it despite deciding to stay on Destiny himself. He convinces Colonel Everett Young to stay as well and help him make a speech to ask for ten volunteers to remain on board with them to complete the ship's mission. The two get the volunteers they need and the plan to dial Earth succeeds, but unknown to them, also results in Destiny being thrown twelve hours back in time. After Colonel David Telford makes it through, the wormhole destabilizes although Rush and Eli Wallace apparently fix the problem and the crew heads through.  The ship's power starts to overload and everyone ends up having to leave, but Rush is forced to stay behind in order to keep the wormhole open long enough for everyone to get through. Rush connects to Earth with the Long-range communication device and learns that only Telford made it through. With the ship growing ever more dangerous from explosions and overloads, Rush, slightly injured in an overload, abandons ship in the Ancient shuttle and finds the Destiny from the present timeline. After landing, Rush attacks Telford who he blames for the deaths of his crew before passing out. While having his injuries treated, Rush explains his story to the crew and they call off the attempt to dial Earth. The crew locate Rush's Destiny and raid it for parts and supplies to repair the current Destiny. Rush goes with the salvage team, but while disconnecting a power relay for the weapons, is confronted by Telford who doesn't believe his story. In a moment of anger, Rush accidentally shoves Telford into a damaged power relay, electrocuting and killing him. Horrified by what he did and with few options, Rush heads to the Destiny interface chair to download the Ancients' knowledge with the help of his present self. Rush dies in the interface chair when the future Destiny falls into a star and disintegrates.