Nicholas Rush
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| Nicholas Rush | |
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- "I have earned the right to make decisions without explaining myself to you or anyone else!"
- — Nicholas Rush
Dr. Nicholas Rush is a Tau'ri scientist who was stationed on Icarus Base. In 2009 during a surprise attack on the base he was forced to evacuate to the Ancient vessel Destiny.
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Biography
Early life
Rush was born into an impoverished family in Scotland. During his youth, his father worked in the Shipyards in Glasgow. When Rush went to Oxford he worked two jobs to support himself. At some point he married Gloria. He was working as a professor at University of California, Berkeley when Gloria got sick and died. His obsession with work led him to neglect her during her time of need and when she died, Rush blamed himself. Also during this time he was recruited by Dr. Daniel Jackson to work on the Ninth Chevron to which he devoted two and a half years of his life. (SGU: "Air, Part 3", "Human")
Icarus Base
Some time during his two years working for the Stargate Program, Rush worked on an ancient mathematical proof but couldn't solve it. Chloe Armstrong proposed inserting the mathematical problem into other media to gain access to otherwise overlooked people. Rush along with the Stargate Program integrated the problem as a puzzle on the online game Prometheus.
After a young 25-year old man named Eli finally solved the Dakara Weapon puzzle, he was visited by both Rush and General O'Neill. Rush and O'Neill give Eli a chance to sign the non-disclossure agreement, however he refuses. O'Neill ordered the USS George Hammond to beam Eli out. Rush meets with Eli on board and tells him signing would be in his best interest.
After finally arriving on Icarus Base, Rush and Eli get to work on dialing the ninth chevron. Rush claims that with Eli's help he has solved the problem. However the dial out fails and the plan is aborted. Rush and Eli get to work trying to analyse what went wrong. Young invites them both to a dinner but Rush refuses saying that they should keep working, however Eli goes anyway. After a while Rush goes to the kitchens to get some food and overhears Eli boasting about his ability to solve the problem.
Angered by this Rush goes to his quarters to rest, listening to music and looks at a photo of his wife and starts crying. When the base is attacked by the Lucian Alliance and Riley is ordered to dial Earth, Rush stops the process and instead uses this chance to dial the ninth chevron, making a connection. Young berates him for this however Rush states that dialing Earth would be too dangerous given the overload happening in the planets core. Realizing it was there only way out Young ordered them all to go through. (SGU: "Air, Part 1")
Destiny
Rush finds himself aboard an Ancient vessel, the Destiny. Rush is obviously happy about being on board the ship, inspecting the controls in the gate room and overlooking the chaos from above. He wanders off through the ship to the observation room seeing the ship travel faster than light. He soon discovers the ship's life support systems are failing and tries to repair them, unsuccessfully. (SGU: "Air, Part 1")
Rush takes the Long-range communication device to a secluded room and contacts Homeworld Command, telling the others that he was authorized by General O'Neill to take command, however nobody believed him. Reading more into the ship, Rush finds the name of the ship and talks to Eli about Ascension. He then noticed that someone is dialing the gate. He and Eli rush to the gate room and find Young and the others attempting to dial Earth, however Rush states that their isn't enough power to do so. The ship suddenly drops out of FTL and the gate dials. Rush then informs the others that Destiny is giving them a chance to get what they need to repair the life support systems. (SGU: "Air, Part 2")
Rush, Matthew Scott, Eli, Curtis, Ronald Greer, Jeremy Franklin and Andrea Palmer went offworld in search of the supplies needed. The group eventually split up, Rush going with Greer and Scott, however he was too tired to continue on, so Scott sent him and Greer back to the gate. Rush stopped part way back and claimed he could not go on and had a brief argument with Greer. They returned to the gate and Rush told Greer to shoot Franklin as he was leaving through the gate, presumably to stop him from taking the remote through, stranding the others. With Scott finding what they needed, Rush and the others managed to repair the CO2 scrubbers. (SGU: "Air, Part 3")
Rush was alone in the control Interface room where he discovered that Destiny's power reserves were almost depleted and becomes infuriated when he discovers the rest of the crew activating seemingly useless systems further depleting the reserves. Due to Rush's addiction to caffeine and nicotine, coupled with exhaustion caused Rush to collapse. He awoke hours later in the infirmary and found that Destiny was to perform an aerobraking maneuver however it ended up on a collision course with a star. (SGU: "Darkness")
Rush helped to calculate which of the three planets would be suitable for life and informed Young that he could take his name out of the lottery claiming that Destiny was his destiny. He prepared for the collision with a star by listening to music and finishing off a book he had. Young later accused him of knowing that Destiny wasn't going to fly into the star and be destroyed. Rush was adamant that the IOA's plan, to dial Earth while within a star, wouldn't work and made sure that the plan wouldn't destroy Destiny, creating a convincing light show to scar off the IOA scientists. (SGU: "Light", "Earth")
Rush believed that Young was not capable of being an effective leader and so when he heard a gunshot one night and found Sgt. Spencer had shot himself, Rush took the gun and hid it in Young's quarters also removing the Kino footage Spencer had left to frame Young. With Young on trial, Rush was allowed to begin studying to Neural Interface chair. When Rush's plan was discovered by Young, he beat Rush offworld and left him for dead, claiming to the others that he had died in a rock slide on the planet. Rush managed to open the crashed alien spaceship and access the ships computer, however he alerted the Nakai who came and captured him, holding him in a water tank for several days before he was freed by Young, in the body of one of the aliens thanks to a communication stone Rush had on him. Rush used the mind link to access the aliens mind and take the information on how to operate one of their smaller ships. He found Chloe Armstrong on the ship and the both of them returned to Destiny. (SGU: "Justice", "Space")
Discovering that Rush had been left by Col. Young, he and Camile Wray came up with a plan to take civilian control of the ship. He began to transfer control of the ship to a secluded lab, however he was stoped from doing so completely. He sat in the Neural Interface chair and entered a dream-like state where he tried to unlock the master code. During this dream Rush was forced to relive the death of his wife, however he did come close to unlocking the code. While infected with a Tick-like parasite Rush began to have hallucinations of the Nakai coming aboard Destiny. He later attacked one of them, however it was one of the crew who he was seeing as one of the aliens.When one of Destiny's FTL engines are sabotaged, Rush can think of only one person to come aboard and help repair the system, Amanda Perry, an old friend of Rush. She comes aboard and helps out the crew repair the system andget Destiny back in FTL. (SGU: "Divided", "Human", "Sabotage", "Pain")
Rush began to have vivid dreams of supplying the Lucian Alliance with information on the Icarus project, soon realizing that these were in fact memories from Telford. Rush once again swapped bodies with Telford to go undercover and see if Telford was in fact supplying them with information. Rush went to Telford's house and found out about a safety-deposit box which contained a phone. He arranged a meeting with the Lucian Alliance however he did not know he was to supply a code and was taken hostage. He was transported aboard a Tel'tak to a planet while being tortured for information. Upon discovering that he was in fact Rush, the Alliance used him to replicate the Icarus project and dial the ninth chevron. (SGU: "Subversion")
Lucian Alliance Incursion
When the Lucian Alliance arrived on Destiny the connection between Rush and Telford was broken and Rush found himself back in his body in the infirmary. Rush decides to leave the infirmary despite protests by TJ and when she goes after him they are ambushed by Alliance forces. Rush, luckily, is seen on a Kino by Dr. Brody who closes a door in front of him cutting him off from the Alliance forces. (SGU: "Incursion, Part 1")
After Young decided to surrender to the Alliance forces, Rush and Brody secluded themselves in another part of the ship to eventually regain control of the ship. Rush came up with a plan to siphon away the energy being used to power the shields so that the radiation from a nearby Binary pulsar would kill all the Alliance soldiers unless they relinquished control back to Rush. Following this Rush soon unlocked the master code and gained access to the bridge, however he neglected to tell anyone, telling a hallucination of his late wife, that no one else on board was capable of understanding Destiny's mission as he did and were the wrong people for the job. (SGU: "Incursion, Part 2", "Intervention", "Aftermath")
The Bridge
Rush manages to find a planet within shuttle range and sends a team, however the shuttle crashes on the planet due to Rush overlooking some of the information on the planet, which directly resulted in the death of Sgt. Riley. After this Rush notices that Destiny was on a collision course with another ship, however he soon noted that it was actually docking with the ship, one of the Stargate Seed ships. He went aboard and saw the room where the Stargates were constructed and went to work with the plan to supply energy to Destiny to dial Earth. (SGU: "Aftermath", "Awakening")
Rush attempts to further control all of Destiny's systems by altering the jump countdown bringing himself very close to utter exhaustion, due to his previous efforts ending in people dying. When shown Chloe's diary, Rush identified the script in it as the Nakai script. He believes that Chloe was altered by the aliens and shows her the work he has been doing, where she solve the equations he has been working on. He later comes up with the idea to use the neural interface chair to cure Chloe, despite knowing it wouldn't work. (SGU: "Pathogen")
He goes to the planet where Scott becomes infected with an alien organism. He leaves the group to travel on ahead to the gate to get them to send the supplies needed to cure Scott. During a dream Scott has, Rush appears as the Justice of the Peace for Scott's wedding to Chloe. (SGU: "Cloverdale")
Rush later takes Chloe some food and she asks whether he was sincere about the chair being able to help her to which he assured her that he was, lying. During this time Col. Young begins to have graphic dreams of Destiny coming into contact with the Nakai motherships and losing, in the dreams Rush tries to get Young to defend the ship by raising the shields or firing the weapons thus causing the destruction of the ship. The dreams were in fact Destiny testing Young's leadership skills, which Rush interrupted. (SGU: "Trial and Error")
The "mission"
Some time later they came across a derelict spaceship and Rush is ordered to accompany Young to explore the ship. Young uses a Kino to levitate across and attach a cable for Rush to follow. The two of them find a control console on the ship and Rush accidentally activates the ships engines, sending them hurtling away from Destiny. Rush has an idea to get Amanda Perry to come back aboard and help with controlling Destiny.
Rush secretly communicates with Perry telling her where to find the bridge. However Eli goes over her work and the rest of the crew also finds the bridge. Young overhears Eli yelling at Rush and proceeds to beat him for withholding this information. Getting Destiny to follow the ship, the bump into it, causing the alien ship to begin rotating out of control. This forced them to jump from the ship to get back to Destiny. Rush lands but Young hit the ship and begins to float away, Rush managed to get to him in time and catch him. He then went and saw Perry and kissed her. When he left Simeon entered the room and closed the door. (SGU: "The Greater Good")
When Rush discovered that Simeon had killed Perry, in the body of Ginn, Rush went after him. He got to the gate room as Simeon had left and went through. He found Lisa Park on the other side, kidnapped by Simeon, she was tied and had a bomb on her back. He diffused the bomb and went after Simeon. He is caught up by Scott and Greer and soon begins to blame himself for Perry's death. Rush figures out how to track Simeon using the Ancient Remotes and uses some C-4 to spook some animals that trample Simeon. Rush then shoots him. (SGU: "Malice")
Rush was checking out the shuttle returned with those who stayed behind on Eden noting it to be in perfect condition. He met with Dr. Robert Caine who asked about Destiny's mission, who believed it had something to do with God. However Rush maintained a purely scientific stance on this stating God had nothing to do with it. (SGU: "Visitation")
When Destiny came across a debris field and were attacked by some automated drones only to be rescued by the Ursini who had gained control of a seed ship, Rush advocated to double-cross them, allowing them to take Destiny to safety, repair their FTL and leave before entering into battle with the Drone command ship. Following the initial battle that they themselves were double-crossed into entering, Rush helped Eli study one of the Drones and then suggests allowing Chloe Armstrong to be taken by the Nakai so she can be cured of what they did to her. (SGU: "Resurgence", "Deliverance")
Personality
Morality and Wisdom
- "I always had it in me ... to make the hard decisions. I have reasons ... good reasons."
- — Nicholas Rush
Nicholas Rush is a brilliant scientist despite being somewhat machiavellian, having a lack of compassion, occasionally putting his work before the wealth of others. During an encounter with the terminnaly ill virtually-simulated version of his wife, Gloria Rush, he stated that he always had the ability to make the hard decisions. (SGU: "Human")
He has also demonstrated his willingness to risk his own life in pursuit of his goals. Rush has on occasion risked his own life for others, perhaps for his own desires. He has stated that the work he has put in throughout his life has granted him the right to make the decisions he feels are right. As a scientist Rush doesn't believe in God or in anything that cannot be proven. (SGU: "Air, Part 3", "Time", "Visitation")
Abilities and Skills
- "It's too much for one person. I don't care how smart you are."
- — Jeremy Franklin
Rush has demonstrated his skills numerous times, he was working on the Icarus project for two years before it was finally solved. He has secluded himself in his work both on Icarus Base and on Destiny preferring to work alone stating that he is the only one qualified to do the work, despite the fact that many others on the ship have helped him in the past. (SGU: "Human", "Aftermath")
Relationships
Family
- Gloria Rush - late wife
Romantic
- Amanda Perry - long time colleague and romantic interest
Alternate Timelines
- In an alternate timeline Rush was part of a team that traveled to a jungle planet to gather food and water. Some of the team were found to be infected with a virus and quarantined on the planet. During the night they were attacked by alien creatures and Rush dialed the gate discovering that the wormhole back to Destiny was unstable. During the next night the creatures attacked again and Rush ran off to the Stargate and went through, traveling back in time and eventually dying on the planet. (SGU: "Time")
- During a subsequent timeline Rush was part of the group that watched the Kino footage of the first team. He also handled his own skull on the planet. He was present in the gate room when the team left to capture one of the creatures to use its venom to cure the virus infecting the entire crew. It is presumed that he died from the virus after the team all died offworld. (SGU: "Time")
Notes
- Nicholas Rush was the first character to be cast and had the name of David Rush, until the name changed
- He shares at least two things in common with Col. Young: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Chess.
| Senior Destiny Expedition members | |
|---|---|
| Military | Ronald Greer · Vanessa James · Tamara Johansen · Hunter Riley · Matthew Scott · Everett Young |
| Civilian | Chloe Armstrong · Adam Brody · Lisa Park · Nicholas Rush · Dale Volker · Eli Wallace · Camile Wray |