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 working in the shipyards of Glasgow. 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. Prior to going to work for the Stargate program Rush was a college professor at the University of California, Berkeley. As his wife became ill he encountered Daniel Jackson who recruited him to work on the ninth chevron project. His desire to explore the mysteries of the ninth chevron are his highest priority. 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. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 and cigarettes, 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.

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. Informing everyone else he realized what was going on: the Destiny had cut power to everything to use its remaining reserve power to power the shields as it flew through the sun. To everyone's surprise, the Destiny is apparently solar powered and flying through a sun replenish its fuel reserves. 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.

Several weeks later, Rush and several others determined that the ship's water supplies were down to 50% of what it had originally had been. During a mission the planet Hoth, he helped to oversee operations on the ship. He also advised Lt. Johansen on what to do concerning the Dust bug's that were on the ship. Following Gorman's death, he yelled at Eli and informed him that if they were to survive, he needed grow up. While Lt. Scott was in the crevasse trapped, he expressed more concern for the ice at hand than for the safe rescue of the Lieutenant. 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 caused. When Telford assumed command to enact the plan, he removed himself and helped under great reluctance. Telford believed he was hindering repairs, which may or not have been accurate. Following Riley's injuries, he confronted Telford on the safety of the plan. Camile Wray later swayed him into helping. He relented and helped with the plan. When it appeared the plan was doomed to failure, Telford and his scientists left control of the bodies of Col. Young, Eli and Chloe. Upon the return of control of their bodies, he deactivated the gate and revealed it all to be a ruse to protect the ship. Young suspected later on that he may have been hiding the possibility of the plan's success. Eli Wallace tested a number of scenarios, so far it appears that Rush was right that the plan would've ended with their destruction.

When Sergeant Spencer committed suicide, Rush is the first to discover it. Using the situation to his advantage, he took the gun and hid it in Colonel 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 ancient chair as a higher priority. When Young found out what exactly happened, he confronted Rush and the two began to fight. After Young had knocked out Rush, Young left him unconscious on a planet with only an apparently damaged alien ship.

Soon after that he managed to gain access and activate some systems of the alien ship, apparently including the distress beacon, which led him to be captured by alien race. He was held there for sometime in the water tank until Young in the body of one of the aliens freed him. He made his way back to Destiny using information gathered from mind probing of the same alien that hosted Young's mind as well as rescuing Chloe. He has joined Camille Wray's faction, hatching a plan of rebelling against Young.

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 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.

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 dialed the ninth chevron, recognizing that there would never be another chance to do so and jumping through an unstable Stargate rather than face a violent death at the hands of vicious nocturnal creatures. 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. Despite this, he did not hesitate to encourage other scientists to risk their own lives using the device. 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.

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 (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, Vannesa James and two others.  When Lieutenant 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.