I think the thing about Sheppard is that he's just as brilliant as McKay but prefers to maintain the facade of being this kind of laconic, laid back, fly boy. The first episode of Atlantis had Sheppard turning down Mensa and then we've seen other flashes of his intellect (such as when he beat McKay at chess). The character of Sheppard deliberately downplays that aspect of himself and he may well have not even really needed it explained.

There was the time that McKay was ranting about the number of order permutations for a set number of gate symbols. He was saying that there were so many, and Sheppard all of a sudden gave the exact number and asked McKay to get moving.

They never really explored Sheppard's intellect, which, from what we can tell, is not small. They should put him in a situation without McKay and have him figure something out.

TPTB referred to how intelligent Sheppard was in 'McKay and Mrs Miller'. It was his and Rod's idea to sent Rod through the subspace bridge and later Rod says that his Sheppard is a member of Mensa and constantly reminds people of his intelligence.
"Our" Sheppard is as intelligent but is more subtle about it.

I don't think it is subtlety. I think he is either very modest, or has no interest in filling the role of 'genius'.

I do believe it's done on purpose. They did the same thing with Jack on SG1. Even Cassandra who is very intelligent reminds Janet about Jack, "why does he let people believe that he's not intelligent," from Season 5 Rite of Passage. I think both of these men are military men and they do it because they want to keep people off-guard. They want to catch them out, have them divulge stuff they normally wouldn't. But both are intelligent.

AHHH it is tactical.

When somebody considers you less important, not an equal, they will act differently towards you than they would otherwise. They want their enemies to make mistakes that can be exploited. Mistakes made because of over-confidence. I had forgotten about that.

I knew that I could remind you about something!

Actually, I agree with this version. I just think he doesn't care about filling in that role, he know's he's got people like mckay and zelenka there, he isn't needed in that 'role'. He's more interested in the military side of things, he want's to be the best at that. He just doesn't have that natural desire to be the best on the mensa front. While that annoys mckay because he's alwasy trying to be that.

Of course it is subtley. TPTB have only hinted at Sheppard's intelligence a couple of time in the entire show. If they wanted him to be modest about his intelligence they would have him acknowledge it first but he hasn't done that.

What a great episode! We got a chance to see Rodney fulfill his potential, as Super Rodney! It was cool how he was able to stop his Ascension. His super ego was truly his super power!

there are ways around the laws that govern chaya though and i'm surprised there hasn't been anything said about it.for instance if she was to give her people the knowlegde and have them share it with atlantis.
then she is not directly helping atlantis. and the others couldn't stop her.

I don't agree.

If she gave her people the knowledge she would be breaking the rules. They lived in a fairly primitive society.

She said she was punished because she interfered and saved her planet from Wraith attack. Like Revan said, if she gives them information she will be interfering again and we have seen what happens when an ascended Ancient gives a less advanced civilisation knowledge.