There are spoilers ahead.
Last night we went to the Bagdad to watch the new episode of BSG in a room with several hundred other BSG fans. Major mistake. Every time a character picked up a gun or said anything macho, the room cheered, and the MC was obsessed with talking about Starbuck’s “balls” (as in, “she got them back” — he went on and on and on about it). It just made me feel that maybe my favorite current TV show is enjoyed by stupid people.
Also, am I the only one who thinks that on the whole, Zarek and Gaeta are in the right? It’s only this episode — after the fleet is in rebellion — that we see anyone actually attempt to persuade the public that an alliance with their former genocidists is a good idea. The leaders of the fleet are so used to thinking of themselves as dictators who don’t have to give a shit about what the nonentities they’re ruling think, that using persuasion to get the population on their side simply never occurred to them.
More importantly, the moment a military leader gives the order to have the elected government arrested, he loses all moral legitimacy. It’s likely that if the rebellion succeeds (which it won’t), Zarek’s government would be more effectively democratic than the Adama/Roslin government. (And as Elkins pointed out, it’s appropriate symbolism that the president and the admiral are literally in bed together.)
That isn’t to say that Zarek or Gaeta are perfect, or that their motives are pure and good. There’s clearly a lot of anti-cylon racism going on, which is understandable given the genocide and all, but still not fair to innocent cylons. And of course, Gaeta in particular is motivated by all the ways he believes he’s been betrayed. (I have a lot of sympathy, in particular, for his feeling that there was something terribly wrong about a circle of self-appointed vigilante executioners, led mainly by secret cylons, throwing people out of airlocks for collaboration with cylons.)
Despite all that — at least in the midst of that audience cheering every time one of the protagonists posed with a big gun — it seemed that this is being turned into a simple matter of good guys (the current military dictatorship) versus the bad mutineers. In particular, I thought the threat of Sharon getting raped was gratuitous — it was used by the episode not to show that rape is used as a weapon of war (which would have been a point worth making), but to establish that apart from Felix Gaeta himself, the mutineers are Bad People. Similarly, Starbuck — usually an excellent shot — manages to fail to execute the prisoner, because if she had executed an unarmed prisoner, that would have made it seem like atrocities were being committed on both sides — it would have created a parallel to the young soldier killed on the CIC, and that wasn’t an equivalence the writers wanted made.
I hope that in part two, things get a little more complicated — although Elkins tells me the writer of part 2 is one of the worse writers on BSG, so I may be disappointed.
On a shallow side, I got a lot of fun out of seeing Gaeta effectively and intelligently exploit his position to postpone Adama finding out that there had been a mutiny as long as possible. And Gaeta’s “why won’t my ex stop calling me” expression (as Jacob described it) when he was told Baltar was on the phone was priceless.
Thoughts?
“(I have a lot of sympathy, in particular, for his feeling that there was something terribly wrong about a circle of self-appointed vigilante executioners, led mainly by secret cylons, throwing people out of airlocks for collaboration with cylons.)”
and that right there is a big part of why I hate the choices for the Final Five. They make no sense and reduce much of the action from New Caprica to Cylon vs. Cylon. (though I love that Tyrol turned out to be a Cylon after he frakin married the woman who shot Boomer. not because I thought it was a good plot point, but since then I have loved it when the show messed with him)
I agree with you. As audience members, we know that the upgrades need to happen, and the cylon alliance is pretty safe. I think the show did a bit of a disservice to the conflict by not showing more of the fleet’s side of things. We got to see glimpses of their fear (like in the call to Zarek from the tilium ship before it jumped), but most of what we see is Gaeta’s racism. I would have liked to see more of the fleet’s genuine unease, and more of Zarek’s legitimate complaints.
I was cheering through the whole thing, though. Everyone was so badass, regardless of side. I know the revolt’ll get squashed, but I really hope we get to see more of Gaeta in a leadership position, he was just too awesome.
I would agree with you, but for one salient fact: these people are facing extinction. They can’t live on Earth; it’s an irradiated rockball. They may have still-genocidal Cylons on their tail. Their only hope is to lose their pursuit and get to another earthlike world. Now, I’m not sure why they can’t just limp along with their usual slug-speeds and wander-jumping until they find one — though I can see how that would be psychologically dangerous; the longer they wander without a goal, the more likely it is the fleet will just fall apart. But it seems to me that persuasion means convincing people that Choice A is better than Choice B when both choices look reasonable. There’s no comparison here, though. Choice B in this case is Increased Chance of Absolute Doom and Choice A is Lessened Chance of Absolute Doom. I don’t blame the dictatorship for not wanting to waste time explaining the obvious.
I also can’t be on Zarek’s side. If Roslyn and Adama are dictators, I think they’re at least enlightened despots, trying to balance expediency with humanity. Zarek’s all expediency without the humanity. I think they’ve positioned him as the Dick Cheney of the BSG world — expediency over ethics, power over all, and if a few innocents get shot in the face, oh well.
I’m annoyed about Gaeta, though I’m glad to see his character finally getting some greater development. He had, as you point out, plenty of reasons to be disaffected before this, but they seem to be trying to imply that the turning point hasn’t been politics, but the pain of his amputated leg. Which strikes me as an objectification; he’s not a man driven by complex political considerations, he’s just crazy and making morally questionable decisions because the guy with the pegleg is always evil. Arrr.
nojojojo,
I think this is once again “tuff” decisions imposed by sloppy writers. The fleet is facing extinction, so any means necessary can be used to force the populace to submit to the will of the military to accomplish what the military says is the right course of action. Naturally, only the military is capable of judging what is best for humanity. Elected government must necessarily be composed of toadies and schemers.
As so often before, the “tuff” decisions are required by a specific situation that makes no sense, in which the unpopular course of action that must be inflicted on the stupid mass of humanity is not actually a sensible course of action, much less a necessary course of action. In this specific situation, as you mention, there is no coherent reason that the fleet should search for a habitable planet by having the entire fleet jump as one. Instead, a small number of ships could be used for the search, while the remaining fleet remained in place. Even without equipping the search ships with Cylon jump drives, this would save a huge amount of resources relative to jumping the entire fleet. In fact, they could use the Cylon base star for the search operation, which already has Cylon jump drives and a number of jump capable raiders for area searches. This would also provide an opportunity for the Cylons to demonstrate that they are trustworthy to the civilian population, and would not require a military occupation of each of the ships in the fleet. But, instead of a sensible policy that wouldn’t require military force against the civilians, the writers have decided that the only possible right course of action is the one that requires making the “tuff” decision to force the course of action on the people.
So we are left with recognizing that the writers failed to come up with a coherent scenario, or we can stay within the fiction as it exists and recognize that Adama is wrong, and is willing to destroy morale within the fleet and once again crush the illusion of civilian government in order to enforce a policy that sounded like a neat idea to him at the time, but that is not actually in any way necessary to the survival of humanity. Consider that this is a man who once wasted a third of the fleet’s non-FTL fuel supplies to try to find a single obviously dead pilot. We have no reason to trust his judgment on much of anything.
The civilian (and military) opposition to Adama’s plan is presented as being based only in anti-Cylon racism, which seems nonsensical to me. As you describe it, choice A is obviously superior to choice B, so why waste time explaining this to the fleet? (The obvious answer is: because choice C fight a civil war first is the worst possible choice, and taking a few weeks to convince the populace of the superiority of choice A would not have harmed anything). Of course, the military must be right that allowing the Cylons to install Cylon technology on every ship in the fleet couldn’t possibly be a threat, because everybody knows things went really well the last time the fleet was subjected to control by “nice” Cylons (recall that the occupation of New Caprica was the pro-human Cylons trying to make peace), and surely the military knows exactly what the Cylons will install and what that might do. Safe as houses to have the enemy who destroyed human civilization through the infiltration of technology be permitted to make major modifications to every ship in the fleet. No reason to worry that the nice Cylons may have other interests than the best interests of the human portion of the fleet, that the nice Cylons might ever find themselves in a position where they could use the fleet to their own advantage against Cavil’s Cylons, even if that was to the detriment of the fleet.
I do like it a lot that, given that Roslin is the only person capable of swaying the fleet to obey Adama’s plans, and given that Adama believes his plans are so necessary that they are worth inciting civil war within the fleet, he doesn’t consider the tough decision of forcing Roslin to give up her decision to retire to be worth the bother. There is an admirable consistency to the writing of Adama’s character. He will happily sacrifice consensual civilian government to what he thinks is for the good of humanity, and he will likewise happily sacrifice what is for the good of humanity for his family.
Adama isn’t doing what must be done to keep humanity alive even if it requires using force against the populace, he is doing what he thinks would provide a moderate advantage given the particular strategy that seemed reasonable to him, even if that action requires abolishing civilian rule and using force against the fleet. I find it particularly apropos that you raised the issue of the risk of poisoning the fleet morale if they return to their pattern of slow jumps instead of using cylon technology. Does it seem likely that abolishing civilian government and forcing the fleet to accept cylon technology on every ship is actually going to harm morale less?
The best thing about the show is that while the show repeatedly pitches us the propaganda that the military is always right, it also sometimes shows us the disastrous consequences of believing the propaganda, and each time the military or its puppet president chooses the tuff solution (when the tough decision is not actually required by the situation), the show links back to Adama’s speech in the miniseries. We may think we are fighting for the survival of the species, but we still haven’t answered the question “Why?”
nojojojo – did you watch the webisodes? Gaeta was given a fairly good reason for his sudden, intense shift of loyalties away from Adama and his attempt to forge an alliance with the rebel Cylons.
Racism is never understandable, no matter what the circumstances.
Charles S,
I think this is once again “tuff” decisions imposed by sloppy writers. The fleet is facing extinction, so any means necessary can be used to force the populace to submit to the will of the military to accomplish what the military says is the right course of action. Naturally, only the military is capable of judging what is best for humanity. Elected government must necessarily be composed of toadies and schemers.
What’s Roslyn, chopped liver? =) And they keep trying to position Lee Adama as some kind of Obamaesque visionary, which isn’t going over so well in my book, but I can see why they’d try. But yes, I see your point about the forced choice between stupid decisions. I’m not sure they’ve adequately explained this jump drive thing to the audience, let alone to their own population.
Instead, a small number of ships could be used for the search, while the remaining fleet remained in place.
This doesn’t negate the pursuit problem, though. The genocidal Cylons (even if Cavil’s group has been destroyed, somewhere back there are whole planets of Cylons, including the occupied 12 colony worlds) are looking for Earth. The fleet’s near (or still at? I couldn’t tell if they’d moved) Earth. Ergo they need to get the heck outta Earth-dodge, post-haste. It makes sense to me that they’d move the whole fleet just for that purpose, at least once.
So we are left with recognizing that the writers failed to come up with a coherent scenario, or we can stay within the fiction as it exists and recognize that Adama is wrong, and is willing to destroy morale within the fleet and once again crush the illusion of civilian government in order to enforce a policy that sounded like a neat idea to him at the time, but that is not actually in any way necessary to the survival of humanity. Consider that this is a man who once wasted a third of the fleet’s non-FTL fuel supplies to try to find a single obviously dead pilot. We have no reason to trust his judgment on much of anything.
And yet Zarek’s judgment, which seems to be based on little more than “they’re Cylons and can’t be trusted”, is more reliable?
Yes, the Cylons tried to wipe out humankind. But this did not occur in a vacuum; they perceived humans as their former oppressors/enslavers and had fought them for 50+ years. They felt that a preemptive strike was necessary because the humans would’ve eventually come after them. Not that that justifies what the Cylons did — but it proves that the “we should destroy them now because they were bad back then” logic both sides have been using is problematic. All it’s done so far is get a whole bunch of people on both sides killed, as each one-ups the other.
So something new must be tried. IMO, peace cannot rely on the will of the majority, especially after a traumatic event (or many traumatic events, as in a war). And especially not when that traumatic event has been framed as an us-or-them survival binary (which it usually isn’t). I’m going to take a chance by using real-world analogies here, not with the intent to diminish, but just to clarify my point. The Civil Rights Act would never have passed if it had been put to a popular vote. Prop 8 passed, unfortunately, because it was put to a popular vote, IMO. It takes years — generations — for the kind of hate that exists between the humans and Cylons of BSG to fade. Neither side has that kind of time.
The civilian (and military) opposition to Adama’s plan is presented as being based only in anti-Cylon racism, which seems nonsensical to me. As you describe it, choice A is obviously superior to choice B, so why waste time explaining this to the fleet? (The obvious answer is: because choice C fight a civil war first is the worst possible choice, and taking a few weeks to convince the populace of the superiority of choice A would not have harmed anything).
Again, this assumes it would’ve taken only a few weeks, which a) they don’t have, and b) is far, far too optimistic, IMO. I also think you’re forgetting another Choice C (C for Cylon!). How are the rebel Cylons likely to react if Adama tries to convince the human pop and fails? The rebels are already jittery and distrustful. They would likely see the humans’ refusal to accept them as proof that The Only Good Human Is A Dead Human, and then they would either a) leave peacefully, or b) attack. (I think b is more likely, given TOGHIADH.) Either way, the human race’s chances of survival diminish sharply (because at least with the rebel Cylons around, they’ve got two battleships instead of just one).
I do like it a lot that, given that Roslin is the only person capable of swaying the fleet to obey Adama’s plans, and given that Adama believes his plans are so necessary that they are worth inciting civil war within the fleet, he doesn’t consider the tough decision of forcing Roslin to give up her decision to retire to be worth the bother.
Agreed! I also liked that, when Adama ended up in the shit in part because of her retirement (she wouldn’t’ve fallen for Zarek’s gambit the way Lee did, IMO), she stepped up to try and fix things immediately. Proves it’s not just a one-way dedication on Adama’s part.
I find it particularly apropos that you raised the issue of the risk of poisoning the fleet morale if they return to their pattern of slow jumps instead of using cylon technology. Does it seem likely that abolishing civilian government and forcing the fleet to accept cylon technology on every ship is actually going to harm morale less?
Well, we’re down to unequal choices again. Choice A is destroy morale slowly by staying put (or moving slowly) and trying to convince them to accept the Cylons. Note that this convincing is likely to fail miserably, and that is likely to provoke the rebel Cylons into an attack. Choice B is destroy morale in one fell swoop by trying to force them to accept the Cylons — which would’ve worked if not for Gaeta’s rebellion.
I can’t see any real value in Choice A, other than paying lip service to democracy.
The best thing about the show is that while the show repeatedly pitches us the propaganda that the military is always right, it also sometimes shows us the disastrous consequences of believing the propaganda, and each time the military or its puppet president chooses the tuff solution (when the tough decision is not actually required by the situation), the show links back to Adama’s speech in the miniseries. We may think we are fighting for the survival of the species, but we still haven’t answered the question “Why?”
I think the Cylons keep asking that question, interestingly enough. I’m kind of annoyed that we haven’t seen more of them since they reached Earth. The whole “Earth was populated by Cylons” thing has got to be baking their noodles like crazy.
And I’m not sure the show pitches that the military is right — not consistently. Remember when Adama was shot and Tigh took over? That didn’t go well. The Pegasus debacle? Not pretty. Even when the military arm of the Cylons took over their society, things went pear-shaped. The only clear message I’ve gotten out of the show is that it’s dangerous as hell to allow anyone to have unrestricted power.
Elusis,
No, didn’t see ’em; the one time I tried to dl them it didn’t work. What was their explanation for Gaeta?
One of the things I love about this show is that everyone’s right, most of the time — but that doesn’t make them right.
Of course Gaeta and Zarek are right that the Old Man is subverting democracy. They are. And from the perspective of Joe Ambrosia on the Zephyr, those Cylon bastards are way, way, way to cozy with the leadership. I mean, one of Them is the XO of Galactica! They killed my family, destroyed my home. How dare they!
That said, while Zarek and Gaeta are right, they aren’t right. The Quorum is dealing with the power vacuum left when Roslin went AWOL. Fine. But rather than act as the proper government authority to reverse Lee Adama’s general amnesty for Cylons, rather than confront Adama directly, remove him from power through legal channels, they dodge and weave and stage a mutiny instead. Why? Because the Quorum doesn’t want Adama out, not really. Zarek does. Gaeta does. But the Quorum isn’t there yet. Gaeta and Zarek are no more democratic than Adama is. And, moreover, when this is all done, what if they win? So Gaeta is promoted to Admiral by Zarek, and they fight the Basestar, and…humanity goes extinct.
Because let’s face it, with half of Galactica dead, with fighter pilots shooting other fighter pilots, with all the debacle that is the mutiny, that’s what the best-case scenario is — the death of humanity.
That does not let Adama (either one) or Roslin off the hook, morally. Roslin, especially, deserves all the brickbats that can be thrown her way. You don’t want to lead? Fine, I understand. But then do right by your people and resign. Force the Quorum to decide whether to back Tom Zarek or re-appoint Lee Adama to the presidency.
Oh, and one minor quibble with your recap — Starbuck misses because Bill Adama knocks her off balance, not out of any lack of marksmanship. Starbuck is many things, but she is absolutely the kind of person who’d kill an unarmed prisoner.
And that’s the show, in a nutshell. Starbuck is as capable of genocide as anyone on the show — she would have happily wiped all Cylons out of existence about two years ago. She’s a highly damaged soul. And yet…she’s also a hero of the show, working on the side of the angels most of the time.
My prediction for next week — write it down — is that Bill Adama has his life saved by Felix Gaeta. Because that is the ethos of this show — nobody is all darkness, or all light. Nobody is beyond redemption. And for all Adama’s claims this week that there would be no amnesty for Felix — there will be, I suspect, amnesty for Felix.
Ultimately, what I love about the show is this: watching it in a crowd may color your view, but consider the view that crowd espoused. The group was cheering those who work with the Cylons and booing those who oppose them. Tell me, back during “33,” you ever would have guessed that was where we were heading. This is why I’m not pessimistic about the resolution; things are already complex. And this show has managed to whipsaw one’s worldview in the space of minutes. I have no doubt it will deliver again.
(Final prediction — Tigh will die, and wake up wherever the frak Ellen has been since he poisoned her.)
I have a crazy theory that might just be crazy enough to be true, based on the various clues I’ve been seeing.
It’s on this page:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WMG/BattlestarGalactica
Of course, I’ve been wrong before…
What struck me was actually the similarities to the United States’ Civil War.
The rebels in both cases rise up in rebellion for several reasons. On the one hand, of course, there’s racism, including the assault on Anders, which I found disturbingly lynching-like. On the other hand, we’ve got an either sincere or politically convenient dedication to the autonomy of discrete small political units as opposed to the stronger central government attempting to impose its will to force a politically unpopular decision.
In both cases, the federal government, whether it’s in the person of Adama/Roslin or Lincoln, was accused of being undemocratic and betraying that which they swore to serve, and in both cases it’s true.
Rather than agree with Jeff about, “everyone’s right, most of the time — but that doesn’t make them right,” in this case I’d change it around and say that both the rebels and Adama/Roslin are wrong and corrupt, just for different reasons.
Of course, the other parallel I’d point out is that the original metaphor of the show was the colonials as the post-9/11 USA . . . knocked back on their heels by a stunning attack, distrustful of each other, prone to massive overreaction. So what would the cylon/human alliance be then? A recognition that not everyone in the middle east is responsible for the WTC bombing? The decision to seek peace through withdraw from Iraq? Whatever the case, I’m not sure I’m at all comfortable putting myself on the other side.
—Myca
Also, from my favorite BSG discussion forum:
Yeah. Well, yeah.
—Myca
Or, to put it another way, I sort of felt like the question this episode was asking was, “What if the Civil War struck and we didn’t have Lincoln? What if we had the Bush Administration?”
Well, before Lincoln took office, we had President James Buchanan, who is generally considered by historians to be one of the worst, if not the absolute worst, President ever. This is primarily because he responded to the South’s declaration of independence by, well, trying to pretend it didn’t happen and leaving the mess to Lincoln to clean up. His administration was plagued by corruption and freely indulged in patronage. Buchanan himself, although from the North, was strongly pro-slavery and supported the Dred Scott decision, saying that the question of slavery in federal territories was a matter for the courts to decide. His administration also presided over ballooning government deficits that happened to coincide with, but were not caused by, major tax cuts. Oh, and he was also President during a major financial crisis and economic slowdown, the Panic of 1857.
So, yeah, we pretty much did have the Bush Administration running things when the American Civil War was about to begin.
I don’t think this is true of Lincoln before the Civil War began. As Doug points out, Lincoln hadn’t even taken office.
Nor is my main complaint — that the Adama/Roslin dictatorship didn’t even bother attempting to persuade the population — applicable to the lead-up t0 the civil war. There were years of widespread debate about slavery preceding the civil war; no one can claim the abolitionists didn’t try persuasion. (I know I’m nit-picking, but my inner geek can’t resist it.)
I do agree with you that BSG ought best be interpreted as “both sides suck.” But I’m not certain that’s the interpretation the BSG writers are taking. We’ll see how it’s developed next week.
* * *
Jeff, you’re right about why Starbuck missed — but I’m right, I think, about why the writers had her gun pushed aside so she’d miss. They wanted to avoid having the Good Guys shoot an unarmed prisoner.
Appointing Lee (who has, iirc, never won a single election) would be just as bad as dissolving the Quorum; Lee isn’t the legitimate vice president, so it would be declaring outright that the military has no intention of allowing democratic institutions any independence. And it’s been made clear that Adama would rather dissolve the Quorum by force than let Tom Zarek, who actually has won at least one election, assume the presidency.
I think Roslin didn’t resign because she didn’t want Adama to dissolve 0r arrest the civilian government, and she realized that would be the likely outcome of her resignation.
it was used by the episode not to show that rape is used as a weapon of war (which would have been a point worth making), but to establish that apart from Felix Gaeta himself, the mutineers are Bad People.
I took this as an emphasis not that mutineers are bad people, but that this mutiny isn’t fun and games that can be erased with a negotiation and compromise. It’s an ugly, nasty conflict in which a lot of pent up frustration and anger is coming out and being directed at each other, and a variety of unforgivable acts are likely to be commited all around. As a democratic theorist, I think you’re right about Gaeta and Zarek being more or less justified, but I’m not convinced any side in this is “right”.
Am I the only one who thinks Gaeta is a stereotypical bitter-gimp character? They’ve made him much meaner and more one-dimensional since his disability, and always make a point of showing and alluding to it, as if to shout DON’T TRUST THE RESENTFUL GIMP!
I also regard the word “cripple” as offensive as all those other words for people that we no longer say… only people keep right on saying it (on LOST too).
That’s the interpretation I’d prefer. But for it to be supportable, the episode would have to have actually shown “unforgivable acts” being “committed all around.” It did not; it showed the mutineers committing unforgivable acts and threatening to do more, while Adana’s forces acted in self-defense and with mercy (hence the scriptwriters avoiding having Starbuck actually execute the unarmed prisoner).
You can’t say it’s showing that unforgivable acts are likely to be committed all around, unless it actually shows unforgivable acts being committed all around.
Agreed.
Daisydeadhead, I agree that “cripple” is offensive, but I think the audience was meant to understand it as being used hatefully.
I also agree with you about the “bitter cripple” thing — I could do with many less shots of Gaeta rubbing his leg, and more of his genuine bitterness over the acceptance of cylons in the fleet.
However, did you watch the “Face of the Enemy” miniseries? They do go more into his motivations there. (As someone else said upthread.)
That said, in show time, it’s been a very short time since Gaeta was shot and lost his lower leg. I think it’s realistic for him to be bitter at this point. The real problem for me isn’t that Gaeta is written as being bitter about his lost leg, but that Gaeta is the only and only example of a disabled character on a show about war, in which soldiers don’t have a home front to be sent to after they get injured. As a result, rather than being “Gaeta is responding this way because he’s Gaeta and he’s responding to the particularities of his situation, but that’s not a universal response of all disabled people” Gaeta is the one and only example of a disabled character on the show — and that one and only example is, as you say, the “bitter crip” cliche.
Well, the thing is that many of the people Gaeta has enlisted for his mutiny are leftover Pegasus crew . . . after all, if you’re looking for folks who 1) really hate Cylons and 2) have little personal loyalty to Adama, where better to go?
The tendency of the former Pegasus crew to use rape, specifically rape of Cylons, as a wartime tactic is pretty well documented in-show.
—Myca
nojojojo – Here it is in Rot-13 in case anyone doesn’t want to be spoilered.
Tnrgn gnxrf n fuhggyr gb nabgure fuvc sbe fbzr E&E, nybat jvgu 3 uhznaf naq gjb Ahzore 8f. Gur syrrg whzcf ohg gur fuhggyr zvffrf gur pbbeqvangrf, yrnivat gurz fgenaqrq. Crbcyr fgneg qlvat zlfgrevbhfyl, ohg Tnrgn vf ybngur gb oynzr gur fheivivat 8, jub erzvaqf uvz gung gurl jbexrq gbtrgure ntnvafg gur bpphcngvba ba Arj Pncevpn – ur tnir ure yvfgf bs erfvfgnapr zrzoref jub jrer vzcevfbarq fb fur pbhyq gel gb svaq naq eryrnfr gurz. Gurl nyfb unq n ebznagvp yvnfba. Gur 8 vagresnprf jvgu gur fuvc’f pbzchgre gb uryc gurz svaq gur syrrg, ohg jura gur ynfg gjb uhznaf ner zheqrerq, vg’f boivbhf gur 8 vf erfcbafvoyr. Fur nqzvgf gb Tnrgn gung fur hfrq uvf yvfgf gb unir gur erfvfgnapr zrzoref rkrphgrq, naq gryyf uvz ur unq gb unir xabja – ur nyybjrq uvzfrys gb or frqhprq naq vtaberq uvf orggre whqtzrag. Nccneragyl guvf vf gur guvat Onygune juvfcrerq gb Tnrgn va wnvy gung pnhfrq Tnrgn gb nggnpx uvz – “V xabj nobhg lbhe Rvtug.”
http://rot13.com/index.php
Myca, the question I’m bringing up isn’t if it’s consistent with previously established continuity. You’re right that it is.
However, it was the writer’s choice whether to emphasize that, or not — and they chose to emphasize it. And I think the reason they chose to do that was to emphasize that Gaeta and Zarek’s side is Bad.
I think that maybe folks are forgetting that Adama had been sent to the Galactica for his less than stellar record. He is not the best of best – and most of his crew doesn’t have the most stellar records in the pre-Cylon Attack colonial fleet.
I think that Moore et al are doing an excellent job of showing how people come to think they are right no matter what evidence there is against it once they reach certain positions in society – military, political, religious, or business. The series focuses on military and political power with a dash of religion to make it all more like our own world.
Do the best of the best really end up in the ruling class? I have not found this to be the case in my own studies. I think that all of the characters are acting exactly like they would given the circumstances they have been confronted with, including the mutineers.
Elusis,
Whoa — that does make a huge difference in how I interpret his actions. Huh. I wonder why they tucked such a salient detail into webisodes that not all the fans are going to have the time, bandwidth, etc. to watch?
And thanks for the rot13 education; I never heard of it! Interesting. =)
I’m surprised that the webisodes had so much important content this time myself. I didn’t watch them until after seeing the first new ep after the holidays. I don’t recall clearly, but it seems to me like the webisodes on New Caprica were more “local color” than plot/character advancement?
I suppose SciFi is thinking in part (whether correctly or not is certainly debateable) that the bandwidth issue is mostly a concern of the past. And I guess if they figure people can sit for a 40-minute regular episode, they can do 10 3-5 minute chunks. Or they can read the summary on Wikipedia? But personally I didn’t even know they were coming out until after they’d all been made available; if I hadn’t seen them come up in the deadbrowalking community on Live Journal, I’d still be in the dark.
And, you’re welcome about rot-13. It’s an old Usenet tool for avoiding spoilers, back before everything was html-ized, and still immensely useful in comment threads and the like where there’s no such thing as a cut tag. :)