Work Text:
John will never admit it, but it’s kind of magnificent to watch Rodney hold court.
“Alright, come on, people, we don’t have all day here.” Rodney stands next to a white board and Zelenka, black marker shoved behind his ear. He claps his hands once, less like he’s trying to get everyone’s attention and more like he’s trying to catch the noise and squish it like a bug. “Unlike some of you, I have important work to get back to, so let’s make this quick and painless, shall we?”
Zelenka clears his throat. Rodney glances at him, rolls his eyes, and corrects: “Fine, we have important work to get back to. Same difference.”
Most of the science department of Atlantis is cramped into a space that is obstinately supposed to be a board room for interdepartmental meetings, but functionally became an informal break room and lounge sometime during their first year in Pegasus (and a popular place for scientists to crash for a nap during or directly after a disaster). However, it’s also large, private, filled with seating options, and free of any hazardous materials, which isn’t a combination met by many other spaces on Atlantis. So it serves its intended purpose the odd times McKay calls an all-hands meeting.
Some scientists have grabbed chairs, but others are perched on tables or plopped down on the floor (Miko among the latter group and also folded in half on the ground, seemingly taking this time to stretch out her back). A few are standing or leaning; at least one botanist is in someone else’s lap.
At McKay’s command, the chatter peters off and eyes go to the front of the room.
John leans against the wall by the door. He’d been worried, at the start, about McKay’s ability to lead the whole science branch of the expedition. Not his own department, mind—putting him in charge of the physicists or the engineers or both seemed like a no-brainer—but every other department as well seemed like a recipe for disaster. McKay was self-admittedly terrible at people, never remembered anyone’s name, loudly and publicly talked about how anything that wasn’t his own specialty was a waste of time and a scientific mind, and snorted at the idea that the “soft sciences” were sciences at all. And many of the staff now under him fell into the latter of those two categories.
But, as time went on, John was surprised when he and Elizabeth received very few complaints. Oh, there were a few notable exceptions—Kavanagh made his displeasure known loudly and often—but for the most part, the science department seemed content under Rodney McKay.
He’d actually asked about it, once—caught the arm of an anthropologist named Betts after one of these meetings and pulled her aside, said he was checking in on morale so it didn’t seem like he was just satisfying his own curiosity.
“Huh?” says Dr. Betts. “Oh. I mean, thank you for asking, but I don’t have any complaints.”
John blinks at her. “Your department head just said, out loud, that he doesn’t think you’re a real scientist.”
To his surprise, she laughs. “That’s what you’re worried about? Major, that’s basically academic tradition.”
He must look flummoxed, because she continues. “Don’t you Air Force types say that Marines eat crayons?” His mouth falls open, and Dr. Betts smiles wider at him. “And they said Airmen are lazy nerds, and you all say Navy guys are soft?”
“Uh,” John says, but he can’t really contradict her. Those are the classic ribbing points, pretty much.
“It’s like that,” Dr. Betts concludes. “It’s just—stuff you say. Sociologists say that archeologists are geologists who failed math, everyone tells physicists to stop making up new invisible particles to explain shit they don’t have answers for, linguists get shit for being essentially English majors, everyone says that the bio-med crowd are all just doctors who couldn’t handle their bedside manner courses. It’s just teasing.”
“…Right,” says John. He can understand teasing. Rodney sure doesn’t sound teasing when he says it, but. Well, as beforementioned, Rodney is no good with people.
He expects Dr. Betts to leave now that she’s answered his question, but she lingers.
“These kinds of departments usually have a lot of politics in them,” she says carefully. “There’s a lot of—impressing the right people, and keeping on certain boards’ good sides, and using just the right vocabulary to keep your funding. It usually turns into a popularity contest quickly.” She nods back at the physics lab. “Dr. McKay doesn’t run things like that.”
John says, “I see,” and then Dr. Betts inclines her head at him walks away. When he thinks about it, it even makes sense—naturally, Rodney McKay, notoriously unpopular man, wouldn’t run his department like a popularity contest.
It’s also at that moment that John starts to realize that the majority of the science department isn’t just content with McKay as department head. They’re happy with him as the department head. They thrive under him.
For all McKay mouths off about not respecting other disciplines, he also doesn't butt in or talk like he's an expert on subjects he isn’t actually an expert on. He takes others' expertise at face value and doesn't impose himself or arbitrary rules on their experiments—simply put, he stays out of their way, which John learns is an oddity in the world of scientist hierarchy. Rodney can’t retain names for shit, but he can retain project descriptions, and can give a rough outline of what most people on his staff were working on at any given time (and sometimes refers to them solely as that—John knew one botanist only as “Soil Acidity Scrubber” for two whole months).
Rodney adds two sections to the start of the Atlantis Project Proposal Paperwork: The first reads, “IS THIS GOING TO HELP US NOT DIE?” and the second one reads, “IF YES, HOW? IF NO, WHY SHOULD I CARE?” This is, to Elizabeth’s bafflement, a hit. If the answer to these questions is satisfactory, the idea doesn’t seem likely to cause immediate danger to anyone, and it doesn’t demand an amount of power that would put strain on the generators, basically every project gets McKay’s green light.
While he’s notoriously difficult on his own department, demands brilliance from the engineers and physicists, his own department almost always rises to meet him. From conversations John’s overheard, many of them seem to view navigating Rodney an added intellectual challenge. The results can't be argued with: he gets good work out of his people. And that demanded brilliance is one of the biggest reasons why any of them are still alive, so. It really did work out.
McKay is also a constant advocate for his staff in ways John wouldn’t have even thought about—he steadfastly insists on policies that ensure everyone can take individual credit for their own work, for instance (this is certainly self-serving, but the positive effects for the rest of the staff can’t be ignored). He makes sure no scientist joins a ‘gate team unless they’re completely aware of the risks and totally confident in their own abilities. He does it in a way that’s abrasive, and cranky, and often deriding—but he still does it.
John likes to think he can admit when he’s wrong. For all his concerns, for all that Rodney actually is a social disaster, he’s no longer worried about his ability to lead his own department. Hasn’t been for a long time.
Thus: enjoying watching him hold court.
Rodney pulls the marker out from behind his ear, uncaps it with his teeth, and starts scrawling at the top of the whiteboard. “Alrighty, people,” he says around the cap, “it’s time for everyone’s favorite activity. Who’s ready for Stupid Question Time?”
John grins.
Stupid Question Time is a tradition originally implemented after the first siege of Atlantis, when Elizabeth’s idle wishing the city could disappear led to the actual plan of cloaking the city that saved all their asses. If a team in the science department was stuck on some problem and losing all will to live about it, they could call All Hands: Stupid Question Time, pitch the problem to peers with totally different specialties and very little working knowledge of the field in question, and invite the floor to ask the dumbest questions possible.
It’s shocking how often it leads to a breakthrough.
“Here is the problem,” says Zelenka, and starts to explain it while Rodney continues to scrawl equations on the board.
Essentially, the crystals that form the basis for most Ancient technology have been burning themselves out, but only in a specific recently-explored and repowered part of the city.
“And we do mean burnt out,” Rodney adds. “Think dead light bulb useless.”
This is bad, because they do not have an unlimited amount of replacement crystals, and they are still working on exactly how to replicate them.
Problems that Rodney’s team is running into: They don’t know why these crystals are burning out, as they are in every way identical to the ones elsewhere in the city. They have no idea if this can spread, which would be bad, as it would mean that the city would slowly break in ways that can’t be fixed. And, because of the first two problems, they have no idea how to stop it, or even if they can.
Well, that’s not good. John takes a moment to reflect on the fact that, even though he’s already very aware of how often the science team needs to save everyone’s asses, he is still somehow unaware of how often the science team needs to save everyone’s asses.
“Okay, get to it, you know the drill.” Rodney turns to face the room and snaps his fingers several times. “Let’s go. Stupid questions, the dumber the better. Make ‘em good.” Beside him, Zelenka nods.
“Have you tried turning it on and off again?” someone calls out, a shit-eating grin on his face (John thinks he’s one of the geneticists, but a PhD geneticist, not an MD geneticist, so technically under Chief Science Officer McKay and not Chief Medical Officer Beckett, a distinction that has caused way more problems than anyone probably expected when they all shipped out).
Rodney responds to this suggestion by flipping the geneticist off, and a ripple of laughter goes through the crowd.
“Actually, we have,” Zelenka breaks in. “The degradation does seem to have something to do with the power source, because it stopped when we turned it off and started again when we turned it on. What we don’t know is why, so let’s continue.”
There’s a murmur as everyone processes that. Next to speak up is an agricultural scientist: “Have we changed anything about the power sources recently? Or—if we didn’t change it on purpose, did it somehow get changed or change itself?”
Rodney rolls his eyes. “First thing we checked. No, everything is as it should be, and we’re not seeing this decay in any other part of the city with the same power sources.”
A linguist offers, “Could it be something with the input? Like, is too much power being routed through the crystals or something and it’s burning them out?”
“Christ, this is stupid questions,” Rodney snaps. “You’re not supposed to ask me perfectly reasonable questions. That’s the first thing my team thought of and checked, thank you. Yes, everything is totally normal with the power inputs. Come on.” He points dramatically with the black marker. “I know you’re all idiots. Dig deep.”
John hides a smile in his sleeve.
“Could something be literally eating them?” This is a geologist, and as the room turns to look at her, she squirms, obviously uncomfortable under all the eyes. “I mean, have we checked? It could be some kind of fungus or mold or acid. The Wraith’s whole thing is biotechnology, you’re telling me you can’t imagine them coming up with something to literally eat our hardware?”
The “they already literally eat us” went unsaid.
Zelenka says, “We’ve examined the crystals under our strongest microscope, and we don’t detect anything like that on the surface. No nanotech, either.”
The geologist looks slightly nauseous when she says, “Could it be working on the subatomic level?”
“Oh, joy, that’s just what we need.” Rodney reaches over to the blank side of the white board and writes, Subatomic matter-eating fungus. They have, unfortunately, seen weirder in Pegasus. “Let’s put that down as ‘horrific, but possible.’ Other ideas less likely to give me new nightmares?”
“Are these crystals being used for what they were intended to be used for?” This is an anthropologist. “Maybe this part of the city has parts cannibalized from something else, and this is the consequence?
“We’ve never seen this type of reaction with crystals we’ve moved between devices and sites before.” Zelenka answers. “That might be an element of what’s going on, but it can’t be the whole story.”
A chemist raises his hand. “Could this part of the city be specifically created to break crystals?”
Everyone stops and stares.
The chemist doesn’t look remotely ashamed of provoking the reaction. “Hey, listen, we’ve seen enough Ancient fuckery at this point that nothing would surprise me,” he defends. “Don’t ask me why they would do that, but I would totally believe those weirdos make a super special ‘break shit’ wing in their city.”
“I almost wish that wasactually the answer, because then we’d know for sure that it wouldn’t spread.” Rodney jots down ‘Ancients make no sense and suck’ under the note about the fungus. “Any other Nobel-worthy question?” he asks. "Other than crazy not-dead people and plants that eat molecules?"
“Why is everything blue?”
Rodney pauses, his mouth parted in the way it gets when he’s actually taken aback. “...What?”
The sociologist sitting criss-cross-apple-sauce on the ground tilts her head, and continues, “I mean—everything here in the city is blue. Is that on purpose? A symptom of the material it’s built of? Did the Ancient just—like the color? Is it symbolism, part of their flag?” She gestures to the walls and machinery around them, which are, in fact, blue. “Even the console lights are blue. Do we know why? Are the bulbs tinted?” When Rodney continues to stare at her, her shoulders take on a defensive hunch. “You did ask for stupid—”
“No, no, that was perfect.” Rodney drops the black marker and starts snapping with both hands, alternating one and then the other. “That’s exactly the kind of idiotic, moron question we needed.” He whirls to his 2IC. “Radek, why is it blue?”
Zelenka stares at him for a wrestling three count, and then understanding dawns on his face. “You are referring to visible light spectrum?”
“Yes, yes, and the problem isn’t the input or the type of power, but the way that power is interacting with the waveforms of—”
He’s already moving, as is Zelenka. The sea of scientists part around them. They speedwalk to the door, tossing half-formed sentences back and forth and finishing each other’s thoughts. John doesn’t think they realize they do it. It’s kind of adorable, not that he would admit that under pain of torture or death.
“So if we just filter the power through—”
“Yes, exactly, and we do it closer to the source so that it doesn’t—”
Rodney’s so absorbed in it that he brushes past John at the door without so much as a glance.
And then they’re both gone.
The door closes behind them, and most of the science department of Atlantis stares at it for a few seconds in silence.
“Well,” says Dr. Betts, “I guess we call that a successful Stupid Question Time?”
The room breaks out into laughter and chatter, and people start to get to their feet, and John think that, yeah, they made the right choice of CSO.