MENSA-verse musings
Mar. 1st, 2007 04:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cinaedSpoilers for "Grace Under Pressure" and "McKay and Mrs. Miller"
So I'm writing a MENSA-verse fic. Obviously. I've been rambling about it for a couple weeks now. I'm almost to the point where in our universe Sheppard and Zelenka save the day and rescue McKay.
Of course, in the MENSA-verse, that scenario is slightly skewed, and instead it's Rod and Sheppard rescuing Radek. Which lead me to musing about MENSA-verse's John Sheppard. From what Rod said in "McKay and Mrs. Miller," Sheppard is very much of a part of the scientific community, leading the MENSA chapter there and apparently he's as arrogant as our own beloved McKay is.
There are plenty of MENSA-verse fics out there. Good ones, too. And almost all of them seem to have Sheppard wearing glasses and being a scientist, no longer a member of the Air Force.
So what to do with my MENSA-verse fic's Sheppard? Love of flying just seems such an essential part of Sheppard to me that it seems like his love would be equally devout in other universes. Not all of them, but in the MENSA-verse, where we see that Rod has also kept his love of science, I think it's safe to assume that Sheppard's love of flying would also be there.
I came to the conclusion that Sheppard did join the Air Force. I imagine he was young, enthusiastic, got the best grades he could because he wanted the Air Force to want him. Unfortunately, not everyone flies in the Air Force, just like not everyone in the Navy sails, and Sheppard finds out too late that the Air Force wants him for his brains.
He becomes regulated to research labs, something akin to Samantha Carter's situation in SG-1. Seriously, have we ever seen her really fly a plane? Unless she's in SG-1 on a mission, she's in a lab. Such would be the case with Sheppard. The Air Force doesn't want to risk his intelligence on testing or flying planes.
So. Life goes on. The years pass. Sheppard ends up working on various projects, probably spends a lot of time at Area 51. He is frustrated, because he wants to fly, but at the same time, he gets to do as much scientific and math stuff as he pleases, so he's mostly happy and probably tries to tell himself he's content. Makes himself feel more important and less trapped and useless by becoming involved with MENSA, talking to people at his intelligence level, actually interacting with people who might get him. After all, if the Air Force wanted him for his brains, he definitely better show everyone just how damn smart he is, so smart that he can't be 'wasted' flying. He becomes a workaholic, working harder than anyone else on the projects he's been assigned, ends up eventually straining his eyes and needing glasses, and there goes any hope at all of getting to fly, ever. He tries to tell himself that's all right, but I doubt if he believes it, and that's why he talks about Mensa so much. Mensa is how he now identifies himself. Our Sheppard can identify himself as a lone wolf, an Air Force pilot. Mensa!Sheppard has only his intelligence to fall back on.
And then one day, he's at -- let's say Area 51 -- and activates an Ancient device, and Sheppard's life takes a sharp descent into the odd. This is probably just as Carson's discovering the ATA gene, and there are only a handful of people who can "make the Ancient stuff light up" so Sheppard gets dragged off to Antarctica to play with the Ancient technology.
From there, he goes off to Atlantis, and there are Puddlejumpers he can actually fly, glasses or no glasses, and even Colonel Sumner can't keep Sheppard from the Puddlejumpers, since there are so few gene-carriers on Atlantis and it was a one-way trip. He would probably be the head of the Engineering Department under Rod if I didn't suspect Sumner has very strong opinions on keeping scientists and soldiers separate and would not let an Air Force officer run a civilian-post, even if Sheppard seems more like a scientist than a soldier to everyone around him.
So he would have to content himself with harassing whoever gets the job as head of Engineering (which in my fic is Radek, the poor man). Of course, the fact that he gets to fly the Jumpers is more than enough to assuage any ruffled pride. And if he ever needs to make himself feel important, he can crush the egos of his fellow MENSA members.
There we go. Probably no one cares. I've just been musing on this for a bit and wanted to write it down.
So I'm writing a MENSA-verse fic. Obviously. I've been rambling about it for a couple weeks now. I'm almost to the point where in our universe Sheppard and Zelenka save the day and rescue McKay.
Of course, in the MENSA-verse, that scenario is slightly skewed, and instead it's Rod and Sheppard rescuing Radek. Which lead me to musing about MENSA-verse's John Sheppard. From what Rod said in "McKay and Mrs. Miller," Sheppard is very much of a part of the scientific community, leading the MENSA chapter there and apparently he's as arrogant as our own beloved McKay is.
There are plenty of MENSA-verse fics out there. Good ones, too. And almost all of them seem to have Sheppard wearing glasses and being a scientist, no longer a member of the Air Force.
So what to do with my MENSA-verse fic's Sheppard? Love of flying just seems such an essential part of Sheppard to me that it seems like his love would be equally devout in other universes. Not all of them, but in the MENSA-verse, where we see that Rod has also kept his love of science, I think it's safe to assume that Sheppard's love of flying would also be there.
I came to the conclusion that Sheppard did join the Air Force. I imagine he was young, enthusiastic, got the best grades he could because he wanted the Air Force to want him. Unfortunately, not everyone flies in the Air Force, just like not everyone in the Navy sails, and Sheppard finds out too late that the Air Force wants him for his brains.
He becomes regulated to research labs, something akin to Samantha Carter's situation in SG-1. Seriously, have we ever seen her really fly a plane? Unless she's in SG-1 on a mission, she's in a lab. Such would be the case with Sheppard. The Air Force doesn't want to risk his intelligence on testing or flying planes.
So. Life goes on. The years pass. Sheppard ends up working on various projects, probably spends a lot of time at Area 51. He is frustrated, because he wants to fly, but at the same time, he gets to do as much scientific and math stuff as he pleases, so he's mostly happy and probably tries to tell himself he's content. Makes himself feel more important and less trapped and useless by becoming involved with MENSA, talking to people at his intelligence level, actually interacting with people who might get him. After all, if the Air Force wanted him for his brains, he definitely better show everyone just how damn smart he is, so smart that he can't be 'wasted' flying. He becomes a workaholic, working harder than anyone else on the projects he's been assigned, ends up eventually straining his eyes and needing glasses, and there goes any hope at all of getting to fly, ever. He tries to tell himself that's all right, but I doubt if he believes it, and that's why he talks about Mensa so much. Mensa is how he now identifies himself. Our Sheppard can identify himself as a lone wolf, an Air Force pilot. Mensa!Sheppard has only his intelligence to fall back on.
And then one day, he's at -- let's say Area 51 -- and activates an Ancient device, and Sheppard's life takes a sharp descent into the odd. This is probably just as Carson's discovering the ATA gene, and there are only a handful of people who can "make the Ancient stuff light up" so Sheppard gets dragged off to Antarctica to play with the Ancient technology.
From there, he goes off to Atlantis, and there are Puddlejumpers he can actually fly, glasses or no glasses, and even Colonel Sumner can't keep Sheppard from the Puddlejumpers, since there are so few gene-carriers on Atlantis and it was a one-way trip. He would probably be the head of the Engineering Department under Rod if I didn't suspect Sumner has very strong opinions on keeping scientists and soldiers separate and would not let an Air Force officer run a civilian-post, even if Sheppard seems more like a scientist than a soldier to everyone around him.
So he would have to content himself with harassing whoever gets the job as head of Engineering (which in my fic is Radek, the poor man). Of course, the fact that he gets to fly the Jumpers is more than enough to assuage any ruffled pride. And if he ever needs to make himself feel important, he can crush the egos of his fellow MENSA members.
There we go. Probably no one cares. I've just been musing on this for a bit and wanted to write it down.
