Elizabeth Weir/John Sheppard Appreciation/Ship/Discussion Thread

[Fionnait]

Thats true, both my parents are carriers of a gene that causes cystic fibrosis. They found out when they had a child with it, my older brother who died before i was born. When i was pregnant i found out i was also a carrier but with cystic fibrosis as with other inherited diseases both parents have to be carriers in order for there to be a chance to have a child born with it.

That is only true for monogenetic (= involving only a single gene) and recessive (= you have to have both of your copies with the disease gene) diseases. Most diseases are polygenetic (= they involve many genes) and very difficult to predict. Huntington's is dominant (=you only have to have one copy).

[Falcon Horus]

A big hug! I am really sorry. But I actually wanted to say that the predisposition wasn't that bad (-> no reason not to have kids). It's really only slight!

'S okay... ...I'm not going to block you or deny you further access to me, myself and I.

But don't be surprised if your cables of your laptop have been bitten in half, I can't always control my inner-lemming.

I have a lot of admiration for people who fight their disease and for the cause like Michael J. Fox. Terry Pratchett has early onset Alzheimer's. This also makes me sad

Second that. And Terry really... wow, that's really sad.

[Scary Kitty]

That hits really close to home for me.

So, if it's decided that is going to be your "killer", than I can offer you a view of what it's like to live with someone who has Parkinson's disease at a fairly young age (and yes, I think late 40ties is fairly young).



I still wish you hadn't said that.

*BIG HUGS* Oh, I am so sorry to hear that. *more hugs*

On John's mother. Not sure why but I've always assumed she died either from an accident (car, horse) or cancer.

Actually, that's what I always assumed as well. More on that below...

No, we did not find out the origin of the guns, other than that the Travelers had them. What might be funny if SR is willing is to have John con Ronon out of his gun in "To Build A Fire" and then not being able to get to it the whole time he's captured, so basically you're watching him struggling to get his hands on this awesome weapon that would take care of the situation and which he basically had to sign his life away for and it being of no use to him against Abomamama.

It also makes Ronon being helpless in ice world a little more feasible, if he's having to deal with a handgun or something.

Hmm, that sounds like a fun twist to put on that episode!

They did not delve into anything regarding John's mom in canon, nor did we discuss it for any of our episodes. We can glean a few things about John from his demeanor in Outcast:

- He felt his Dad wanted him to 'go away' and is surprised to find his father wanted to reconcile
- He does not care about money and is more selfless about family than his brother Grant
- John said his father had his life planned out for him from 'about the age of 14'--could just be that was considered his age of maturity when he needed to plan his future, or it could be around the time his mother died and his father started become strict.

The only canon issue I see with regards to John's behavior with a degenerative mental disease is that he never panicked during "The Shrine". It bothered him to lose Rodney, but it didn't seem to bother him that it was a disease where Rodney's mind was going. In fact, in the pier sequence he emphatically tells Rodney that he's not going to say goodbye to him in a lucid state, and he's very gentle with him when they reach Talus, but he's not awkward or scared or acting as though it gave him bad memories. I would imagine that anyone who lived through someone suffering a degenerative mental disease would be uncomfortable seeing that happen again to someone else they cared about.

A long suffering illness may be more plausible; it would explain, too, why John is so determined to do whatever he can to save others if it is within his power, as those situations are within his control, while something like cancer is not. Though, at the same time, John has never demonstrated any antipathy towards hospitals, medicine, illness or disease, which you might expect from someone who watched someone they love die after a long medical battle (that ever present 'I just don't like hospitals' line writers sometimes throw in). And John has had a couple of questions raised about his gene (and also suffered genetic mutation) and nothing was mentioned about complications or other genetic issues with regards to that.

That's my canon 2 cents! Do with it what you will!

For me personally, it's hard to say. John isn't resentful of his father other than in his father tried to control him and determine what was best for him--but he didn't seem to begrudge him his mother's death or anything. And John's sense of 'leave no man behind' is extremely overwhelming, which makes me think he wants to keep 'death' under control. The best I can do is deduce that his mother died in a way which he could not control or prevent and he determined that he would not let that happen again. But how that is, I'm not sure.

Those are good points about John's reactions to similar circumstances; they just don't seem to fit the scenario of his mother dying from a prolonged illness. I keep going back to Mallozzi's revelation on his blog regarding that line of dialogue he wanted to put in Remnants, about the Sekkari AI telling John not to blame himself for his mother's death. That implies that whatever happened to her was something that John believed he could have prevented, like an accident. I think there's also a strong parallel in his reaction to what happened to Elizabeth in Adrift/Lifeline; John seemed very shocked when he saw Elizabeth being carted away on a stretcher at the end of First Strike, and we all know how devastated he looked while watching her surgery and the discussions of her treatment with Keller. All this says (to me, at least), that he felt personally responsible for what happened to Elizabeth-- not getting the city off the planet and the shields up fast enough to prevent the Replicator beam from hitting the tower, and thus causing Elizabeth's injuries. Like I said, I think there's a strong parallel between the two situations. Take that how you will. *shrugs*

[VampyreWraith]

That is only true for monogenetic (= involving only a single gene) and recessive (= you have to have both of your copies with the disease gene) diseases. Most diseases are polygenetic (= they involve many genes) and very difficult to predict. Huntington's is dominant (=you only have to have one copy).

Sorry i meant to add some i didnt mean all ill go fix it i know it doesnt have to be both parents.

[KrisRussel]

And SGU opens with a sex scene yet again. *headdesk*

On John's mom: I also always had a feeling she died of cancer. And cancer can be very long whined and very painful to watch someone suffer through it. Trust me, I lost my aunt only a couple of months ago and she suffered for nearly a year. The last couple of months were the most difficult though and I can imagine John's dad barely able to handle it if something like that were to happen with John's mom. And John being royally pissed at his dad for doing that.

[Fionnait]

Sorry i meant to add some i didnt mean all ill go fix it i know it doesnt have to be both parents.

I didn't mean to intimidate you with my science babble, sorry! What you said is absolutely correct for CF and other diseases that are inherited like CF!

[KrisRussel]

Those are good points about John's reactions to similar circumstances; they just don't seem to fit the scenario of his mother dying from a prolonged illness. I keep going back to Mallozzi's revelation on his blog regarding that line of dialogue he wanted to put in Remnants, about the Sekkari AI telling John not to blame himself for his mother's death. That implies that whatever happened to her was something that John believed he could have prevented, like an accident. I think there's also a strong parallel in his reaction to what happened to Elizabeth in Adrift/Lifeline; John seemed very shocked when he saw Elizabeth being carted away on a stretcher at the end of First Strike, and we all know how devastated he looked while watching her surgery and the discussions of her treatment with Keller. All this says (to me, at least), that he felt personally responsible for what happened to Elizabeth-- not getting the city off the planet and the shields up fast enough to prevent the Replicator beam from hitting the tower, and thus causing Elizabeth's injuries. Like I said, I think there's a strong parallel between the two situations. Take that how you will. *shrugs*

Those are all very good points. And if John blames himself for his mom's death, maybe his dad did too and that could have caused the rift between them.

[Southern Red]

No, we did not find out the origin of the guns, other than that the Travelers had them. What might be funny if SR is willing is to have John con Ronon out of his gun in "To Build A Fire" and then not being able to get to it the whole time he's captured, so basically you're watching him struggling to get his hands on this awesome weapon that would take care of the situation and which he basically had to sign his life away for and it being of no use to him against Abomamama.

It also makes Ronon being helpless in ice world a little more feasible, if he's having to deal with a handgun or something.

I love this idea. I added it to my fic notes.

No harm done... sometimes I think I have finally accepted my mother's condition, and other times I realize that I haven't really at all. And then I'm going from angry to sad, and back to angry. But that's okay - it's normal I guess.

But, like I said, I can offer a viewpoint if you should go with Mr. Parkinson. I can be the emotional research or something.



And how's Mr. SR feeling?

That's one hell of gene-soup.

Pope John Paul the 2nd had Parkinson's. And he got really old too.

Michael J. Fox has Parkinson's - though not quite sure how he's doing these days. All I know he's involved in fundraising and doing as much as he can in the research to a cure or medicine to slow the disease down.

And... yeah, I do my occasional reading on the subject...

So sorry about your mom. All this happened in 1991, so it's all just a distant memory now. It was the worst year of our lives. I left out the part about his dad's surgery and how he ended up with gangrene. Anyway, water under the bridge. And yeah, quite a soup but no one else in that family seems affected as far as I know.

A big hug! I am really sorry. But I actually wanted to say that the predisposition wasn't that bad (-> no reason not to have kids). It's really only slight!



I think we should rule Parkinson's out if it hits so close to home for one of us. No need in causing unnecessary pain.

I have a lot of admiration for people who fight their disease and for the cause like Michael J. Fox. Terry Pratchett has early onset Alzheimer's. This also makes me sad

I didn't know that about TP. I love his books. So sad.

On the John's mother front, I'm ambivalent and torn. It needs to be logical and the explanation for his abandonment issues yet make sense in canon along with the things Eri mentioned. So whatever the writers decide is okay by me. As far as his dad ordering his life, since you enter high school at around 14, that may have been the time when John's dad started making plans for his future. What college, etc. If it corresponds with the time of his mother's death, it would have really stuck with him. John may even have just gone along with it for a time until he got out of high school and made his own plans? That brings up the question of did his dad refuse to pay for college. Did he enter the Air Force and then get his degree? I don't think that would have worked too well. Did he work and put himself through college? Scholarships? ROTC would work and make the most sense. Then he went into the AF when he graduated against his dad's wishes.

[VampyreWraith]

And SGU opens with a sex scene yet again. *headdesk*

Spoiler:

Again lol? thats getting old. hopefully its not while using the stones, cant stand that

[Anuna]

They did not delve into anything regarding John's mom in canon, nor did we discuss it for any of our episodes. We can glean a few things about John from his demeanor in Outcast:

- He felt his Dad wanted him to 'go away' and is surprised to find his father wanted to reconcile
- He does not care about money and is more selfless about family than his brother Grant
- John said his father had his life planned out for him from 'about the age of 14'--could just be that was considered his age of maturity when he needed to plan his future, or it could be around the time his mother died and his father started become strict.

The only canon issue I see with regards to John's behavior with a degenerative mental disease is that he never panicked during "The Shrine". It bothered him to lose Rodney, but it didn't seem to bother him that it was a disease where Rodney's mind was going. In fact, in the pier sequence he emphatically tells Rodney that he's not going to say goodbye to him in a lucid state, and he's very gentle with him when they reach Talus, but he's not awkward or scared or acting as though it gave him bad memories. I would imagine that anyone who lived through someone suffering a degenerative mental disease would be uncomfortable seeing that happen again to someone else they cared about.

A long suffering illness may be more plausible; it would explain, too, why John is so determined to do whatever he can to save others if it is within his power, as those situations are within his control, while something like cancer is not. Though, at the same time, John has never demonstrated any antipathy towards hospitals, medicine, illness or disease, which you might expect from someone who watched someone they love die after a long medical battle (that ever present 'I just don't like hospitals' line writers sometimes throw in). And John has had a couple of questions raised about his gene (and also suffered genetic mutation) and nothing was mentioned about complications or other genetic issues with regards to that.

That's my canon 2 cents! Do with it what you will!

For me personally, it's hard to say. John isn't resentful of his father other than in his father tried to control him and determine what was best for him--but he didn't seem to begrudge him his mother's death or anything. And John's sense of 'leave no man behind' is extremely overwhelming, which makes me think he wants to keep 'death' under control. The best I can do is deduce that his mother died in a way which he could not control or prevent and he determined that he would not let that happen again. But how that is, I'm not sure.

Well, yes and no. I think one could react either way - with panic or with empathy. I know lot of people with chronic kidney diseases, and I've seen different reactions to dialysis. And yes, i know it's not the same thing as degenerative mental diseases, but the similar element to it is the fact that your body and your abilities deteriorate the longer it all lasts. I've seen people, and their family members reacting both negatively and positively to doctors and hospitals. Not everyone has a knee jerk reaction to doctors, but I believe it varies from one person and situation to another. then, also, John's profession is tied to possibility of needing a doctor. maybe he learned to trust military doctors through his career - if he spent significant amount of time in places like Afghanistan, then I can imagine him being hurt and having a field doctor patch him up, or prevent more serious damage to his health.

We don't really know why exactly John's grudge with his father is. Yes, there's the control issue, but I got an impression that whatever caused a rift between them had to be profound and painful for both of them. As we've heard, John's mother was supposed to be mentioned in "Outcast" but she never was, so we don't have a conclusive proof if John did or didn't begrudge his father over anything related to his mother. IMO, the canon has enough loopholes for this idea, if it's played out carefully. But I'm not going to push it if everyone else has issues with it.
The fact that john didn't want to tell goodbye to rodney, while rodney was still lucid seems like a sort of denial -- I don't want to go through all that again thing. Maybe I should rewatch The Shrine, but I think I remember it well enough. John was sad and scared and very worried. It seems logical enough to me.

[Anuna]

Those are good points about John's reactions to similar circumstances; they just don't seem to fit the scenario of his mother dying from a prolonged illness. I keep going back to Mallozzi's revelation on his blog regarding that line of dialogue he wanted to put in Remnants, about the Sekkari AI telling John not to blame himself for his mother's death. That implies that whatever happened to her was something that John believed he could have prevented, like an accident. I think there's also a strong parallel in his reaction to what happened to Elizabeth in Adrift/Lifeline; John seemed very shocked when he saw Elizabeth being carted away on a stretcher at the end of First Strike, and we all know how devastated he looked while watching her surgery and the discussions of her treatment with Keller. All this says (to me, at least), that he felt personally responsible for what happened to Elizabeth-- not getting the city off the planet and the shields up fast enough to prevent the Replicator beam from hitting the tower, and thus causing Elizabeth's injuries. Like I said, I think there's a strong parallel between the two situations. Take that how you will. *shrugs*

You can also blame yourself for not saving your loved one from mental disease. Those feelings, likes trong guilt tend to be irrational and present, regardless of the afct if you could saved someone or not.

[VampyreWraith]

I didn't mean to intimidate you with my science babble, sorry! What you said is absolutely correct for CF and other diseases that are inherited like CF!

Lol its ok I'm always forgetting words and misspelling things and not always expressing myself correctly, and i tend to babble to try to explain myself properly lol sorta like now

[Eri13]

Those are all very good points. And if John blames himself for his mom's death, maybe his dad did too and that could have caused the rift between them.

Well, we kinda have stuff mentioned about John's Dad--in Outcast, John mentions that his father planned his life out for him and John rebelled against that; he also thought by leaving he was doing what his father wanted, but Grant tells him that his father was sad by what had happened between them and wanted to try and reconcile things. John was surprised by that. It doesn't seem that Patrick Sheppard held anything against John, just grew angry that John didn't do what he wanted him to do. We also know that Patrick approved of John's marriage to Nancy, so they at least spoke enough to allow Nancy to meet Patrick (since she mentions he was always nice to her).

[KrisRussel]

Spoiler:

Again lol? thats getting old. hopefully its not while using the stones, cant stand that

Ugh, IKR!

Spoiler:

Them having sex while using the stones is so wrong on so many levels *shudders*
And luckily it wasn't like that this time...

[KrisRussel]

Well, we kinda have stuff mentioned about John's Dad--in Outcast, John mentions that his father planned his life out for him and John rebelled against that; he also thought by leaving he was doing what his father wanted, but Grant tells him that his father was sad by what had happened between them and wanted to try and reconcile things. John was surprised by that. It doesn't seem that Patrick Sheppard held anything against John, just grew angry that John didn't do what he wanted him to do. We also know that Patrick approved of John's marriage to Nancy, so they at least spoke enough to allow Nancy to meet Patrick (since she mentions he was always nice to her).

I really should watch Outcast again apparently... But yeah, they way you put it, it doesn't sound like Patrick blamed John.