Rodney McKay
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| Stargate character | |
|---|---|
 Rodney McKay in Stargate Atlantis |
|
| Meredith Rodney McKay | |
| Race | Human |
| ATA | Gene therapy |
| Gender | Male |
| Rank | Chief Scientific Advisor of the Atlantis Expedition |
| Birthplace | Canada, Earth |
| Relatives | Jeannie Miller (sister), Kaleb Miller (brother-in-law), Madison Miller (niece) |
| Portrayer | David Hewlett |
| First appearance | "48 Hours" |
Dr. Meredith Rodney McKay (commonly known as Rodney McKay) is a fictional character in the science fiction television series Stargate Atlantis played by David Hewlett. The first appearance of this character was in the Stargate SG-1 episode "48 Hours". In the episode Miller's Crossing, it is revealed that Dr. McKay is in fact the holder of two Ph.Ds.
The following information is to be taken in context of the Stargate SG-1 universe, a fictional setting based on a popular franchise. For more on this franchise, see Stargate.
The character of McKay is a Canadian, although, in the Stargate universe, he works for the United States Air Force as an expert on astrophysics, naqahdah, Ancient technology and the Stargate system.
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[edit] Character's background
He was born in 1968.[1] As a child, Rodney McKay wanted to be a pianist. At age 12 he was told by a piano instructor that his playing was "clinical" (suggesting technical perfection without the emotion required to be an effective musician), and as a result gave up his musical studies.
Deciding that the sciences would make the best use of his talents,[2] McKay turned to physics. He quickly demonstrated his genius-level intelligence and ability in the field, evidenced his construction of a model atomic bomb for his grade six science fair. Though it was not a functional weapon, the CIA still took interest, and after a six-hour-long interview, he was hired for an unspecified intelligence job (despite this he still didn't win the science fair).
McKay has one sister, named Jeannie Miller. Though they are similar in intellect, his sister is by far less arrogant and more adept in social situations. In her first appearance in the series, Jeannie (played by David Hewlett's sister Kate Hewlett) stated that Rodney's first name was actually "Meredith" (she calls him Mer for short), "Rodney" is his middle name.[3] As previously noted, Jeannie is, like her brother, very intelligent (she is portrayed as having a great deal of understanding in both high-level mathematics and theoretical physics.[4]) Additionally, he used to have a dog—which ran away while he was younger—and parents who blamed him for their problems. He has had an unusually high heart rate (even while in a deep sleep) since childhood, something that his family doctor once published a paper on.
On Earth, he had an apartment where he lived while working for the US Air Force, and a cat.[5]
[edit] McKay and the US Air Force
Prior to McKay's first appearance in SG-1 it was explained that McKay was stationed at the Area 51 facility, which is within the domain of Nellis Air Force Base. There, McKay became one of the premier experts on the Stargate network outside of Stargate Command. During this time, he discovered that Major (later Lieutenant Colonel) Samantha Carter's dialing program ignored 220 of 400 signals given by the Stargate during a dialing sequence. In his first appearance in the series, he was assigned to help Carter recover Teal'c (who was stored as information in the Stargate at the time after an accident at the other end caused the gate to shut down before Teal'c could rematerialise). It was his assessment that the energy that stored Teal'c's pattern would have succumbed to entropy in a 48 hour time period; thus, it was impossible to save the SG-1 member after that period. Ultimately, McKay was proven wrong about how Teal'c's pattern was stored.
Much to his chagrin, he was subsequently reassigned to Russia where he was to oversee the transfer and development of the naqahdah generator technology, [6]
Some time later, McKay was assigned to help the SGC when Anubis attacked the SGC's Stargate by sending a harmonic energy pulse to overload the gate. After attempting to send a massive electromagnetic pulse through the gate, McKay and Carter ran out of options—until Jonas Quinn gave them the idea of getting the gate out of Cheyenne Mountain and sending it through hyperspace.[7] McKay redeemed himself significantly from his earlier behavior during this incident; he made a sincere apology to Carter for being wrong, and then directed her attention to the thoughtful Quinn, who had been all-but-ignored until that point.
During his time with the USAF, he was on a team that perfected a means of digital data compression that allowed a large sum of data (such as mission reports, and high quality audio and video) to be transmitted in an extremely short period of time.[4]
[edit] McKay and the Atlantis expedition
[edit] Season 1
Two years later, McKay was sent to Antarctica with the team assigned to study the small Ancient outpost discovered by Colonel Jack O'Neill in "Lost City, Part 2". With the discovery of Atlantis' location in the Pegasus Galaxy, McKay was assigned to Dr. Elizabeth Weir's expedition to Atlantis, serving as chief scientific adviser. He became the expedition's leading expert on the Ancients, and was assigned to an exploration team consisting of Major John Sheppard, Teyla Emmagan and Lieutenant Aiden Ford.[5]
Though he often comes across as arrogant, pompous and rude, he has proven himself a courageous and dedicated member of the expedition. He has also shown a capacity for change, having evolved considerably throughout his time spent on Atlantis. Most notably, he has become progressively less insistent that he alone knows everything about specific subjects. Another characteristic that others have noticed is his propensity for coming up with his most brilliant ideas while faced with the threat of death. Acerbic tongue aside, he is close to the people he works with, having referred to them as a surrogate family in a message to his sister Jeannie.[4]
By his own admission, he has always envied Lt Col. Samantha Carter's aptitude for creativity and for having a 'sixth sense' when it comes to problem solving, but it is possible that Dr. McKay's experience on Atlantis will eventually put the two scientists on equal footing.
McKay (to his great irritation) was born without the ATA gene. As a result, he volunteered to be the first human subject for Dr. Beckett's gene therapy. The procedure was successful, giving him an artificial ATA gene of his own. The first thing he used it with was a personal shield device the expedition had found in a lab. After realizing what the device was intended for, he tested it by letting Maj. Sheppard shoot him in the leg and throw him off a balcony, neither of which harmed him. Unfortunately, he discovered that he couldn't remove it—and could neither eat nor drink through it, creating the very real possibility that he would die from dehydration. Dr. Weir hypothesized that Rodney's fears of their current situation were subconsciously preventing the shield from deactivating. After the Athosian, Jinto, accidentally released an energy creature from the Ancient device it was trapped in, Dr. Weir assigned McKay to attempt to recapture it as the shield was protecting him. At that moment, the shield (expectedly) deactivated and dropped off McKay's chest. Afterward, their attempt to lure the energy being through the Stargate to a barren world, using a naqahdah generator as a lure, failed when the creature sucked the energy out the MALP carrying it. McKay put the shield back on, walked into the energy being and threw the active generator through the gate, followed by the creature.[8]
When Maj. Sheppard and Teyla discovered an enormous storm heading Atlantis' way, McKay discovered a way to power Atlantis' shield using lightning strikes from the same storm that seemed poised to destroy the city.[9]
McKay went with Sheppard, Dr. Brendan Gall and Dr. Abrams to investigate an Ancient weapon satellite Gall discovered in the Atlantis solar system, about 15 hours away from the city by Puddle Jumper. Once there, they discovered a very weak Wraith distress signal and McKay and Sheppard convinced Dr. Weir to let them investigate, as even if the signal was centuries old, any scientific or military knowledge or artifacts the team might recover could prove useful.
The team found a Wraith ship, mostly intact, buried below the planet's surface. Unfortunately, they also found a survivor, a ten thousand-year-old Wraith that had survived by draining his own people; as a result, it was practically invulnerable to the team's weapons. This "super-Wraith" attacked Drs. Abrams and Gall when they were alone, killing Abrams and leaving Gall very weak and fragile. When Maj. Sheppard went outside to confront the Wraith, he left McKay behind to take care of Gall. McKay was torn between staying with him and going to help Sheppard. Gall used the pistol Rodney had given him for self-defense to kill himself, in order to release McKay to go to Sheppard's aid. McKay managed to help Sheppard defeat the Wraith survivor and allowed them both enough time so rescue could arrive.[10]
While inspecting the city with a group of scientists and Marines after the storm, several scientists suddenly died with no apparent cause. They finally found out a lethal nanomachine had been let free after one Atlantean lab was damaged by the storm. Dr McKay devised a way disable the nanomachine using an electromagnetic pulse; however, the EMP generator in his lab didn't work, Major Sheppard got the idea of using an overloaded naqahdah generator instead to generate the pulse.[11]
After discovering the Wraith hiveships en route to Atlantis, he devised a means of opening the Atlantis stargate to Earth, by networking the expedition's naqahdah generators, long enough to send back information in a highly compressed digital format to the SGC detailing the expedition's research and discoveries and covering the events leading up to the impending Wraith assault on Atlantis. Though running on very little sleep by this time, due to his research on a solution to the impending Wraith assault, he recorded a lengthy (and rambling) video letter to several people for whom he cared deeply (even if he didn't do a particularly good job of showing it) such as Samantha Carter and his sister, Jeannie.[4]
With the Wraith close, McKay went with Dr. Grodin and Lt. Miller to the Ancient's orbiting weapons array discovered in The Defiant One. McKay used a space suit to reconfigure the satellite from outside the Puddle Jumper; unfortunately, the new configuration meant that Dr. Grodin was trapped aboard the satellite while McKay and Miller where aboard the Puddle Jumper. They managed to destroy one of the hiveships with the satellite, but McKay and Miller were unable to rescue Grodin before a Wraith ship destroyed the satellite, killing him.[12]
[edit] Season 2
After the timely arrival of the Daedalus, Col. Steven Caldwell beamed the ZPM down with two Marines, to ensure the ZPM's safe arrival and installation. En route to the ZPM room, they were waylaid by two Wraith, leaving McKay to deal with one himself. After a spontaneous show of courage on McKay's part (sabotaged slightly when he accidentally ejected the magazine of his sidearm instead of firing it), the remaining Wraith was eliminated by Teyla, who escorted McKay the rest of the way. McKay's first attempt at powering the shield was a failure, but the second succeeded in time to save Atlantis from a kamikaze attack. Later, he and Dr. Zelenka implemented Major Sheppard's idea to hide the city so the Wraith would leave thinking it had been destroyed. By substituting a Puddle Jumper's cloak for Atlantis' shield and detonating a nuclear warhead above the city, the Wraith armada departed, fooled into believing Atlantis had been completely obliterated.[13]
While scouting a new planet, Dr. McKay and Marine Lt. Laura Cadman were captured by a Wraith dart. Col. Sheppard ordered the dart to be shot down, but McKay and Cadman were trapped inside the dart's teleportation device. Dr. Zelenka managed to extract only McKay, since there was not enough power to extract them both. By accident, Cadman's mind became trapped also inside McKay's body, and only he could hear her. After some embarrassing incidents, the Wraith transporter was finally repaired and Cadman was restored to her proper body, but not before sharing a passionate kiss with Dr. Beckett.[14]
In Grace Under Pressure, a hallucination of Samantha Carter tells Mckay that the reason he could never have a relationship with her is because "you don't work with people, you don't trust them".
While looking for a race called the Dorandans they found in the Ancient database, McKay and his team found an experimental Ancient power generator, called Project Arcturus. McKay thought he could make it work where the Ancients had failed, even after one scientist died during a test. With LtCol. Sheppard's backing, they returned to the planet. Dr. Zelenka found the reasons Ancients had abandoned the technology; however, McKay refused to listen to him, assuring both Weir and Sheppard that he could do it. Whenactivated, however, the device exploded, destroying over 80% of the star system where the test was conducted. McKay told Sheppard he hoped he could earn his trust back; Sheppard answered that it might take a while, but that he was sure Rodney could do it if he really wanted to.[15]
During the mid-season two-part story, he was held prisoner by two of the now-renegade Lt. Ford's men whilst the rest of his team were on a mission to destroy a Hive ship. McKay wanted to escape, so he injected himself with a large amount of the Wraith enzyme, which allowed him to subdue his guards, commenting, 'That's what happens when you back a brilliant scientist into a corner'. Returning to Atlantis, he underwent cold-turkey withdrawal of the enzyme, due to the lack of sufficient remaining enzyme samples that would allow him to be gradually weaned off it. His subsequent recovery was viewed as miraculous, although, as Dr. Beckett pointed out, probably due to his innate stubbornness.
McKay revealed that he "toked" marijuana in college once, with disastrous consequences; he did not elaborate.[16]
In the second half of the season, he was test flying a newly-repaired Jumper after it was shot down (presumably the same Jumper that had been shot down in the episode 'Condemned') when one of its engines failed, causing it crash land into the Lantean Ocean. While trying to find a way out of the sinking craft, he had a hallucination of Samantha Carter, who told Rodney to use whatever power of the jumper is left for him to survive, because Dr Zelenka and Lt Col Shepperd were working on a way to rescue him. However, McKay ignored "Carter's" advice and attempted a different means to get out of the ocean. The hallucinatory "Carter" then tried to delay McKay, by coming on to him. McKay then used up most of the Jumper's remaining power trying to raise it out of the water. However, his the weak distress signal he was transmitting attracted the attention of a Lantean sea creature, subsequently named a whale by the humans (and later called a Flagisalis by the Lanteans). The presence and actions of the whale were the actual reason Zelenka and Shepperd managed to have found McKay before the Jumper took on too much water after settling on the ocean floor.
In the episode 'The Long Goodbye' McKay claims that he is in charge should both Weir and Sheppard be unavailable or incapacitated. However, when both are taken over by entities posing as a supposedly loving couple, who then try to kill each other, Col. Steven Caldwell, captain of the Daedelus, takes command of Atlantis. McKay doesn't wholly trust Caldwell due to Caldwell's having been previously taken as a host by a Goa'uld symbiote. Later, with the situation resolved, Weir tells Caldwell that "McKay said you did a good job".
In the season finale, McKay was part of an 'alliance' between the Atlantis expedition and the commander of a Wraith hive ship, who wanted to use the retrovirus Dr Beckett had previously used on a Wraith the expedition named 'Michael', as means of turning other Wraith hives into an alternative food source. However, the alliance was a ruse for the Wraith to get to Earth. McKay and Ronon were trapped aboard the hive ship now heading for Earth.
[edit] Season 3
Trapped aboard the Hive ship, McKay frets about his fate and bemoans his responsibility for the destruction of his home planet. Ronon manages to free them both, then convinces McKay that if they're as good as dead, then they might as well take the Wraith with them. Their work on rigging the ship's engines to overload is interrupted by LtCol. Sheppard and 'Michael', who rescue them just as the Daedalus and the Orion launch an attack against the Hive ship. The retrovirus is beamed aboard the Hive vessel with 'Michael's' aid, and Daedalus' oxygen supply, depleted due to damage received in the battle with the hive ship, is replenished.
McKay's problems attempting to resurrect Project Arcturus, cause him to seek the help of his sister, Jeannie Miller, a fellow scientist whose intelligence matches his--but who lacks the worst of his most aggravating personal qualities. Though there is obvious friction in their relationship, McKay manages to reconcile his differences with his sister.
While testing the new "gate bridge" that he and Carter devised, live Ancients were found, who reclaimed Atlantis and asked the expedition to leave, allowing General Jack O'Neill and Richard Woolsey to remain as liaisons. McKay was reassigned to Area 51, but upon learning that the Asurans had taken Atlantis, McKay joined Sheppard, Weir, and Beckett in hijacking a puddle jumper, and picking up Ronon and Teyla on the way, succeeded in retaking the city.[17]
In the episode "Tao of Rodney" he and a team that includes Dr. Zelenka were searching around the flooded parts of the city after the Replicator occupation of Atlantis when he stepped into a machine and a zap of energy surrounded him. A medical examination reveals no apparent aftereffects of any kind. However, over the next few days he suddenly manifests superpowers: drastically improved hearing, telekinetic abilities, the ability to read minds and even improved intelligence. However, while reading what the machine can do to humans, Weir and Shepperd inform McKay that the machine was originally designed so that people can ascend. If McKay doesn't learn how to ascend, he will die.
McKay uses Shepperd's help to help him ascend (Sheppard having previously spent time with a group of humans trying to master the secrets of ascension). McKay worked out the EEG reading has to be between 0.1-0.9Hz and that his brain has to reach 96% of use to ascend. However, while meditating, he quickly realizes that he can't reach the required EEG reading. He decides to better use his time working out a new form of advanced mathematics and even plans on having a hyperdrive engine on a Puddle Jumper.
McKay finds out that he can choose to descend again; however, upon further meditation, he finds still can't reach the requirements for a human to ascend, and suffers a near fatal seizure.
In the infirmary, McKay then starts to accept his possible death and was told by Shepperd to empty his thoughts. His EEG reading went down. However, before ascending, he manages to send Dr. Beckett a message on how to undo what is done to him. He is then sent back to the machine and by using his old DNA, Dr. Beckett manages to bring McKay back to his normal self. At the end of the episode he learns that he doesn't remember how he worked out his new advanced math.
McKay takes Dr. Beckett's death in "Sunday" quite badly. He assumes the duty of telling Beckett's mother that her son had died (the two are revealed to be, in fact, close friends) and subsequently serves as one of Beckett's pallbearers along with Lt Col. Sheppard, Ronon, Dr. Zelenka, Dr. Cole and Maj Lorne. A mourning McKay was comforted at the end of the episode by what appeared to be Beckett's spirit.
McKay was shot twice during this season. The first time happens in "Sateda" when a villager fired an arrow into his gluteus maximus; and the second in "Phantoms", when a hallucinating Sheppard, believing that McKay was an Afghani Taliban soldier, attempted to kill him in self-defense. However, he has fully recovered from both injuries.
[edit] Season 4
In the Season opener "Adrift" McKay and Sheppard are forced to take over the leadership of the city when Elizabeth Weir is seriously injured. McKay discovers that the city is beginning to shut down the artificial gravity and shielding around the outer parts of the city in an effort to conserve power, so he shuts down any non-essential systems to solve the problem. This doesn't work however and he is forced to restrict the city's shield to just the main control tower. With the shields only protecting the central tower, an approaching asteroid belt could severely damage the outer parts of the city, so Sheppard decides to send up all available Jumper pilots, including a reluctant McKay. Once that disaster is averted McKay begins work on reprogramming the nanites inside Weir's body to heal her life threatening injuries. Since McKay's not sure the nanites can be controlled Sheppard orders him not to activate them, but he defies him when Elizabeth's condition worsens, and she wakes from her coma fully healed. Meanwhile McKay discovers that the city is running out of power, the hyperdrive is out of commission and that the shield will fail in 28 hours unless they find another ZPM. They decide to use the hyperdrive Jumper McKay designed during Tao of Rodney to fly to the Replicator homeworld and steal a ZPM.
In "Lifeline" McKay, Sheppard, Ronon and Elizabeth Wire travel to the Asuran homeworld. Weir's nanites allow her to control the Replicators while McKay directs Sheppard and Ronon to the ZPM room. While connected to the Asuran system, McKay discovers a code in the Replicators' base code which orders them to attack the Wraith. In order to reactivate the code, it must be loaded directly into the Replicators' computer system. Sheppard and Ronon return to the city and load the program, but Elizabeth is captured by the Asurans and they must leave without her.
In "Reunion" McKay is under the impression that the IOA has chosen him to be the new leader of Atlantis, and is deflated when the newly-promoted Colonel Samantha Carter's name is announced instead of his. Col Carter arrives on Atlantis from the Midway Station to assume command of the city. McKay is waiting to greet her with a basket of various fruits from the different worlds the Atlantis base trades with, but Sheppard tells him the gift is "lame" and that flowers would be better. Later in Carter's quarters, McKay drops by to give Sam her flowers when he notices the fruit basket on her dresser, she says Sheppard brought it by. McKay decides to tell her he hopes their attraction towards each other will not get in the way of them working together and that he's now in a relationship with Katie. Meanwhile Ronon and Teyla return from a planet where they have met several of Ronon's old friends from Sateda. They want Ronon to leave Atlantis and join them. Ronon's friends have a plan to destroy a Wraith hiveship, but need a Jumper to complete the mission. Carter reluctantly agrees to let Sheppard and his team accompany the Satedans on the mission, but the Satedans are actually Wraith worshippers who have been sent to bring McKay to the hiveship in a bid to deactivate the program which forces the Replicators to attack the Wraith. According to the Wraith, they once found a way to deactivate the program, but have long since forgotten how. Ronon is angry with his old friends when he discovers the truth about their mission, he rescues Sheppard's team, and they return to Atlantis.
"Doppelganger" begins with Sheppard's team exploring a planet on which there appears to be no technology of any kind, however since McKay has a bet on with Zelenka that they will find something of value on this planet, he insists on checking it thoroughly. Eventually they discover a crystal entity on the trunk of a tree which has begun to light up. While McKay is studying it, Sheppard is drawn to it and touches it.
In the episode "Quarantine" Rodney decides to propose marriage to Katie Brown. Due to a passing atmospheric anomaly, a lockdown is triggered city-wide and he and Katie ends up stuck in the botany lab for several hours. Elsewhere, Sheppard and Teyla are trying to reverse the lock-down whereby John reveals his knowledge of Rodney's computer password: 16431879196842. In Sheppard's words the password is: Isaac Newton's birthyear, Albert Einstein's birthyear, Rodney's own birthyear and the number 42, which is the answer to life, the universe, and everything. Thus revealing Rodney's birthyear of 1968, making Rodney 39-40 years old provided the Stargate universe exists in the same timeframe as our own. After the lockdown is over, McKay ultimately decides not to move forward with his marriage proposal, though Katie is left with the knowledge that he intended to propose.
In the episode "Trio", it is shown that Katie and Rodney are no longer speaking. She interpreted his decision not to move forward with his proposal to mean that he was breaking up with her because he was no longer interested in her. Rodney tells Dr Keller that Katie added her name to a list to be transferred back to Earth. At the end of the episode, Dr. Keller asks Rodney out by telling him that he owes her a drink because of a bar bet she won earlier in the episode. Rodney argues with her, saying that he never agreed to the bet, until he realizes that he is being asked out.
In the season finale episode, "The Last Man," in the now alternate future, Rodney, after loosing Sheppard, Teyla, Ronon, and Carter, quits the Atlantis Expedition and becomes involved with Dr Keller.
[edit] Alternate timelines
There are five known alternate-timeline versions of McKay:
- In the episode "Before I Sleep", Rodney McKay stayed behind on the newly discovered Atlantis to attempt to open the bay doors of the Puddle Jumper bay. He drowned as the control room of Atlantis became submerged. The alternate-timeline Elizabeth Weir calls him "heroic" for giving his life on the chance that the city and the expedition might be saved.[18]
- In Stargate SG-1's eighth season finale, "Moebius", the alternate McKay was the lead scientist on the project that dealt with experimenting on the modified "time-jumping" puddle jumper. In that reality, he bore a strong resemblance to the initial incarnation of the character in the "48 Hours" of Stargate SG-1, wearing a T-shirt with Mr. Fantastic emblazoned across the chest, exhibiting extreme sarcasm and arrogance, and just like in his initial SG-1 appearance trying to win the affection of Dr. Samantha Carter through insults and sexual harassment. In a reference to the premiere episode of Atlantis, he succeeded in naming the Ancient ship a "gateship", to the confusion of Daniel Jackson and Jack O'Neill. From the audience's perspective this is the second time he has tried to name the ship Gateship One and been met with a lukewarm response; with an air of defeat he remarks: "Well, I thought it was clever". Interestingly, in the episode "The Return (Part 2)", the Asurans refer to the puddle jumper Sheppard and his team use to assault the city as "The Gateship".[19] In another reference to Atlantis Rodney says about the Stargate "I'm certainly glad it's not me going through that thing!", whereas in Atlantis he very frequently travels through the Stargate. This version of McKay was not allergic to citrus, describing lemon chicken as his favorite food—another reference to "48 Hours", in which McKay describes lemon chicken as a deadly poison which would kill him with one bite.[20]
- In the episode "McKay and Mrs. Miller", an alternate Rodney McKay transports himself to our universe via matter bridge created by a resurrected Project Arcturus. Unlike the our McKay, this alternate McKay is far more outgoing and social, able to quickly befriend most of the Atlantis staff; he says that the staff in his universe calls him "Rod". It's not made entirely clear whether he is at the same mental level as our McKay--mostly due to his not feeling the need to demonstrate just how superior he is to those around him; however, and John Sheppard describes him as "annoying", clearly confused by the difference in behavior between the two McKays. He tells Atlantis that he was sent to warn them that the resurrected Project Arcturus was slowly destroying his universe. Once the Atlantis team agrees to close the matter bridge and shut down the project, he beams himself back to his own universe. It is unknown whether he survived the journey or not, though the normal universe Rodney held the bridge together a few extra seconds to give him a very good chance of surviving. Doing this, however, caused their ZPM to be completely depleted.
- In Stargate SG-1's tenth season episode, "The Road Not Taken", the alternate Rodney McKay is a wealthy high-tech industrialist. His occupation involves--in his words--the "buying and selling of companies", with much of his income acquired through defense contracts. Major Lorne describes him to LtCol Samantha Carter as a dot-com millionaire smart-ass, subsequently asking her if he was also a jerk in another universe. Rodney was also married to--and later divorced from--Maj. Samantha Carter. At the end of the episode, he is reluctantly persuaded to join the SGC as Special Advisor to the President. This version of McKay wears glasses.
- In "The Last Man" in a future where Sheppard was trapped 48,000 years in the future he had to witness the deaths of Carter, Teyla and Ronon before he decided to join Dr. Keller in moving back to Earth. In this timeline he fell in love with Keller during the trip back on the Daedalus and spent a year with her before she died of complications due to repeated exposure to the Hoffan Drug. McKay spends the next 25 years figuring out how to send Sheppard back from the future in order to change what happened by saving Teyla and preventing Michael from getting her baby which would hopefully change the course of events for the better. After 25 years he comes up with a plan and implements it by creating a somewhat sentient hologram of himself and programing it to perform the necessary tasks in the future supplying it with a Mark Twelve Naquada Generator so no matter if Atlantis runs out of power it won't. In the future his hologram guides Sheppard giving him all of the information he needs to change things and successfully sends him back in time 12 days after he left effectively changing time and erasing this timeline.
[edit] Personality
Dr. McKay is one of the most arrogant and condescending personalities found in the Stargate franchise. He claims being the smartest person in the city (he identified himself as a Mensa member, and implied an unofficial chapter in Atlantis) and thus unique among his peers. He often verbally abuses his peers for their perceived lack of intellect or imagination.
Despite his irritating demeanor, however, almost everyone on the Atlantis expedition is either a friend or on friendly terms with him. He's also apparently able to keep steady relationships despite his social awkwardness. LtCol. John Sheppard usually shows full trust in him and his teammate Ronon Dex has admitted that he likes McKay for the simple fact that he is able to speak his mind so freely and simply. In fact, in the episode Tao of Rodney expedition commander Dr. Elizabeth Weir states that she and the members of Rodney's team love him, which Sheppard, in his own way, seems to confirm. Although McKay enjoys deriding medicine as voodoo and fake science, he considered Dr. Carson Beckett to be "the closest thing to a best friend" he ever had.
Despite his shortcomings, McKay has performed acts of extraordinary heroism as early as the first few episodes of the show, ranging from taking the initiative to hand-carry, and then throw, a naquadah generator through the stargate in order to lure a creature of floating energy out of the city, to evacuating entire populations from planets about to be destroyed. In another mission, he was torn between staying with a dying man or going to help the outmatched Sheppard. The man, Dr. Brendan Gall, told him to leave and assist Sheppard, but he refused to leave until Gall (already near death) finally drew a pistol and killed himself. McKay saved Sheppard from the Wraith and the combined efforts of the two and a Puddle Jumper finally took it down for good.[10] He often provides comic relief in addition to his considerable technological expertise and his ability to find solutions in situations of imminent death have been used against him several times to motivate him (and they worked every time).
McKay is a hypochondriac. He has claimed at various times to suffer from hypoglycemia, restless leg syndrome, and allergy to bee stings[10] and citrus fruit (among other chronic ailments), neither of which have ever been confirmed. He enjoys veal, MREs, hospital food, and airline food (his only complaint that he can't get seconds). While he and Sheppard were playing what they thought was an Ancient game, McKay inadvertently forced the people of Geldar to despise anything citrus and made them believe that "even the sunlight is dangerous" (see below). He studied medical science at one time, but stopped because too much information on the human body made him start to diagnose himself with many phantom diseases.
An obsession with protecting his fair skin led him to creating his own personal mix of SPF 100 sunblock, which didn't keep him from wearing a radiation suit on a planet with admittedly high solar radiation values.
McKay has a predilection for women with short blonde hair—particularly Col. Samantha Carter. He named the people of Geldar after a blonde girl he once dated; and went so far as advising their women to wear their hair in a manner similar to Col. Carter's.
McKay is also known for repeatedly snapping his fingers several times at once. He often does it when he gets a sudden idea or to attract someone's attention.
As revealed in Redemption (Stargate SG-1), McKay originally turned to science after studying the piano, intending to be a musician until he was told by his piano teacher that he was a "great clinical player" but had no sense of the art. After turning to science, he discovered that it, too, is an art. He reveres Col. Samantha Carter and has called her "an artist", and in Grace Under Pressure (Stargate Atlantis), he says that while he considers himself smarter than Carter, he believes she is wiser.
McKay's Canadian heritage is a frequent source of humor among his teammates. Brigadier General Jack O'Neill is initially confused when he refers to the ZPM as a "zed-pee-em", the letter "zed" being the non-American pronunciation of the name of the letter z. Sheppard and McKay have also traded insults back and forth over nationality in the past as a form of friendly rivalry.
[edit] References
- ^ "Quarantine". Stargate Atlantis.
- ^ "Redemption part 2". Stargate SG-1.
- ^ "[[McKay and Mrs. Miller (Stargate Atlantis)|McKay and Mrs. Miller]]". Stargate Atlantis.
- ^ a b c d "Letters from Pegasus". Stargate Atlantis.
- ^ a b "Rising". Stargate Atlantis.
- ^ "48 Hours". Stargate SG-1.
- ^ "Redemption". Stargate SG-1.
- ^ "Hide and Seek". Stargate Atlantis.
- ^ "The Storm". Stargate Atlantis.
- ^ a b c "The Defiant One". Stargate Atlantis.
- ^ "Hot Zone". Stargate Atlantis.
- ^ "The Siege, Part 1". Stargate Atlantis.
- ^ "The Siege, Part 3". Stargate Atlantis.
- ^ "Duet". Stargate Atlantis.
- ^ "Trinity". Stargate Atlantis.
- ^ "The Lost Boys". Stargate Atlantis.
- ^ "The Return". Stargate Atlantis.
- ^ "Before I Sleep". Stargate Atlantis.
- ^ "The Return". Stargate Atlantis.
- ^ "Moebius". Stargate SG-1.
[edit] External links
- Dr. Rodney McKay. Stargate Atlantis official site. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (© 2006). Retrieved on 2006-09-03.
- McKay, Rodney. The Stargate Omnipedia: Characters. GateWorld. Retrieved on 2006-05-21.
- David Hewlett (I) at the Internet Movie Database. Retrieved on 2006-09-03.
- Rodney McKay. StargateWiki. Retrieved on 2006-05-21.
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