I love, love, love smart!John and you portray him so well. Great job.

Aw, I think that this story is awesome and that it rocks. Great job! :)

Very enjoyable story. I really enjoyed seeing Shep from different angles. Loved it.

I adore this story. It was really, really, really good. I loved the style, the little blurbs of time, where it was like each scene could've been an entire novel, but you picked the important moment to get your point across. Great job.

Amazing!

That sums my reaction on all axes.

Aww that was such an amazing story! You really showed how math and flying has played such a huge role in John's life, and how smart he really is behind that pilot's persona, which the show didn't really delve into sadly. And you even got in some Shep-whump! Great job and loved the ending with him showing the kids the thing that demonstrated the beginnings of his love of flying. Looking forward to more of your stories!

I loved this - how you showed that math isn't this abstract thing for John, but useful and meaningful to the life he's chosen. Most fics are either/or (military or math, not both) when it comes to Sheppard, but this, I think, is more likely and fits better with his character. :)

Awesomeness :D

Love, Winnie

Great fic! I have no idea whether all the maths is correct, but it sounded very impressive! I particularly loved seeing his skills save him and Rodney from a nasty situation, and Rodney's comments afterwards were classic.

I was SO EXCITED to see your name again! This story was beautiful. I've always loved how John likes to hide his brilliance and the way you showed the progression was awesome. Write again soon. I've missed you a lot! God bless you bunches

Nice story! The way you portray John's intellect and abilities is very true to his character, and I love the sweet ending!! Thanks for sharing, once again! ^^

I loved it!! John as a closet math geek. Well, not really a closrt math geek, more of a unnoticed math geek. Write more Soon!

Wonderful, I loved this!

This was nicely written and I enjoyed it. One thing I will point out though, the "Sheppard as math genius" thing is
pretty much fanon. I know he has shown himself capable of some mental arithmatic in the show, but there has been
nothing in canon to show that he is anything other than a bright, resourceful person with an aptitude for problem
solving and (relatively basic in the scheme of these things) mental arithmatic. I'm a mathematician and I can tell
you that there is an enormous gap between the abilities Sheppard has shown on screen and the abilities his fans tend
to bestow upon him in fic. Calculating the number of possible gate addresses as shown in the pilot? Easy peasy for
anyone with the knack for it, or who has mastered some pretty basic mathematical principles (such as you'd need to be a top fighter pilot for example:) ). The other solution is
that he simply has it memorised as I imagine anyone who has to work with these highly dangerous stargates and dhds does, especially people like Sheppard who have a tendency to calculate the odds. This has escalated in more and more
fics over the years to the point where most people seem to believe that he is a "secret genius" - like McKays
supposed childhood abuse, it is extrapolated from a very shaky canon basis. In terms of overal smarts, common sense and keeping his head in a crisis (witness the Brotherhood episode for his superiority over McKay in that respect) - there he excels. In terms of directing others actual genius (just about any episode you care to mention) - again he excels.

Qualifying for mensa is not indicative of that high a level of intelligence either. Did you know that roughly 2% of
the worlds population have an IQ that would qualify them for mensa membership? While that proves that Sheppard is
smart (or at least good at IQ tests) it also shows that there is a hell of a lot of people out there who are as
smart/smarter than Sheppard. Membership sounds a hell of a lot more impressive than it actually is. Anybody can take
the mensa test if they have the small fee charged for grading and return postage. You can even test yourself in mensa
sanctioned newspaper Sunday supplements. To join requires a supervised test, but once again, absolutely anyone can
take it, you just need to book yourself in and travel to the test centre, which to be honest I can't see Sheppard being bothered enough to do. It certainly isn't the "elite society of genius that you must be entered for by other members or math professors" that fandom often
assumes. I've been a math professor in an excellent university for years and I would never bother to send a gifted student to mensa - there is no point, it's just not any kind of benefit to you, except in making people who don't realise how easy it is to get into think that you are clever. I know for a fact that if the air force let you fly their billion dolar planes than you have to be relatively smart anyway.

Another popular fanon theory that we have no evidence for, is that Mensaverse Sheppard is a civilian scientist who
pretty much fulfills McKays role in that universe. Rod mentions that it was Sheppards idea that got Rod over into
the normal universe. What he does not say however, is that Sheppard had any part to play in designing, building or
in any other way contributing to the actual mechanism that transfered Rod over. He came up with the plan (as our
Sheppard so often does) and volunteers to go through, but there is literally no basis for thinking that he is
anything other than a more stuck up version of our Sheppard - who we know is smart but not THAT smart. Our Sheppard
frequently comes up with ideas that he must get McKay to actualy implement. I think it was Sherlock Holmes who said
that certain people, while not possessing genius themslves, are adept in conducting it in others. Again, it the rolling stone theory, one or two fics use the premise and before you know it everybody has convinced themselves that it is canon.

Beating McKay at chess does not make him a math adept either -it just makes him good at chess :)

However none of the above *prove* that Sheppard isn't a secret mathematician do they? I think there were a few things that clinched it for me - Zelenka refusing to explain his math to Sheppard as he knew Sheppard wouldn't understand it was one (cue outraged fan cries of how mean and wrong Zelenka was, and surely John was so hurt by that, followed by fix-it fics where John SHOWS THEM ALL by solving some problem that eludes McKay, Zelenka and
Carter, or revealing his multiple phds that he got imbetween missions as a career military pilot, SO THERE). Another
was realising that Sheppard is canonically portrayed as someone who will do *anything* to protect the people around
him, so refusing to bust out his math/engineering skills in a situation where it could save lives when McKay or the other scientists are busy, incapacitated etc. is just out of character for him. Why would he just pace around looking frustrated (when there is no action heroing to be done of course) yelling at McKay to go faster when he could be contributing? Not his job? When lives are at stake John Sheppard would be the first person to multitask while Ronon and Teyla watched his back:)

The show web site that stated that Sheppard was a "closet math genius" was discarded by the shows writers as not canon. That web site was also the source of that "Sheppards dad was a cold war colonel" thing that was such a huge
part of fanon before being out and out destroyed on the show. Finally, and probably most convincingly, one of the Powers That Be behind the show (I'm pretty sure it was Gero) has out and out stated that Sheppard is not a math genius - it was a direction that they considered, like the military father thing, but ultimately decided to go another way. Now I'm no great admirer of Gero, (or any of the SGA writers really) but they make canon so who am I to argue?

This is not to say that you can't enjoy fics that have this particular brand of characterisation (and this was a very good and well written example of one), but to me it will always be as unlikely as those fics that show McKay to
be some sort of commando due to the fact he has been on Sheppards team for a few years. Yes he will have picked up
some new skills but, like Sheppard and maths/science, it's not the same as being a pro. It probably just bugs me
more than most because I am a mathematician who is less impressed by Sheppards arithmatic abilities than someone not in the field. It reminds me of a ex-student of mine who could memorise a whole parking lots worth of car registration plates and recite them back on command. A particular skill maybe, but not one that is anywhere near as hard as it looks if you actually know the "trick" to it. Long live the au, eh?

That was excellent. Very, very well crafted and completely unique. Well done!