Rewatch: Miller's Crossing
Rodney McKay is continuing to work on solving the problems with the replicator nano code and finally gives in to Zalenka's request that he contact his sister Jeannie for help. He sends her an e-mail but that same night, she is kidnapped and taken to a private medical facility where she is expected to use nano technology to save the life of a
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First of all, there's the concept that desperate people will do desperate things. I believe that one's personal morality will allow someone to go only so far. Henry Wallace's personal morality was, shall we say, flexible. He believed saving his daughter justified kidnapping, though it was interesting to see that his hired goons did the least amount of damage to Malcolm ... so he wasn't killed. Kaleb and Maddie hadn't been harmed either. Just in case we don't see the comparison, we can feel so reassured that the people who kidnap first instead of asking don't only live in Pegasus. Don't you feel so much better knowing that? Nah, didn't think so.
Compare and contrast that with Jeannie. Her life's been more than threatened but she still thinks of helping someone else. I don't think it's simply because she's a mother (that's too simplistic); it's just the way she is. On the other hand, I believe it's because she was a SAHM with fairly limited recent exposure to the cutthroat environment of large corporations why her reactions were on a personal scale. Fix Sharon and I'll be okay. Everything will be okay.
Then look at Rodney. He's been affected by his time on Atlantis and exposure to - who else but - John. John always sacrifices himself first. If that's the only way to save everyone else, he won't even think of the consequences to his life. Rodney's been kidnapped before, his life has been in danger. He understands that his first priority is to escape (or wait to be saved by his team). Nothing else reaches that priority.
However, where Jeannie is affected, he understands instinctively that he cannot allow himself to be the first priority, not if living means that she dies. It's not just that. He's learned the value of "family" (gee, I wonder how - NOT) and can't see hers broken up over her unnecessary death. So he proposes a desperate measure, one that will not harm any outsider, but only himself. We all know that John's the same way. [I don't really want to talk about this, but the SGC could have gotten a death-row inmate, but that's an area where TPTB, being Canadian, probably didn't want to explore. And we wouldn't have had this moral dilemma.]
But someone like Henry Wallace was already unhinged enough to take the next step ... to infect Jeannie. He knew what he was doing but didn't care about the consequences. Only his daughter's life was important, but no one else's, not his and not any stranger's. Once again, I think that kind of entitlement comes from being rich and having people at one's ... disposal. If Jeannie died, that would have been ... unpleasant but he would have blamed Rodney for not working hard enough to save her. He would refuse to take responsibility and would instead project it outward. What he did also continues to demonstrate what I believe the problem was with his science teams. They assured him they'd ironed out the nanite coding problems - anything to tell the boss exactly what he wanted to hear. And then they probably got out of there ASAP. Working for the bad guys is usually not something you can put on your résumé. Especially if you've been sucking up and basically lying to cover your ass.
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