Letter to the Editor: Zarek Was Wrong

In his seminal work, My Triumphs, My Mistakes, the Rev. Gaius Baltar says, “If you hear the people, you will never have to fear the people.” Would that the late Vice President Tom Zarek had listened. For Zarek clearly feared the people of the Colonial fleet, feared us too much to worry about the rule of law. In his thankfully thwarted coup attempt, Zarek and his puppet, Felix Gaeta, sought to bring out the worst of humanity, to make us no better than the Cylons we are told we must fear. And even now, after the traitors have been executed for their crimes, we have the usual apologists trying to tell us why hating the Cylons is more important than keeping the fleet together and following the law.

We are told that we cannot trust the Cylons. Well, we can’t; I think that’s abundantly clear. All of us lost family and friends at the hands of the Cylons. Whether on Tauron, Picon, or New Caprica, Cylons have killed plenty of humans. So no, I don’t particularly trust the Cylons.

And yet the Cylons have no real reason to trust us, do they? After all, the rumors of an attempted genocide of all Cylons, one ordered by the President herself, have been flying throughout the fleet for years. Can we humans really say that we wouldn’t have destroyed the Cylons the same way, if we had the opportunity? No, we can say that we would — we tried. We just failed in the execution.

While humans have tried to mortally wound the Cylons, the only group that’s really succeeded has been the rebel Cylons themselves, who destroyed their own ability to resurrect themselves, dooming themselves to mortal lives, and eventual extinction. They did this in order to forge an alliance with the fleet, one that would lead us to Earth. That Earth is in no better shape than Caprica is no reason to throw away that alliance.

The previous letter-writer demands to know what we can gain in the future from an alliance with the Cylons. Well, for one thing, we gain tactical knowledge about the Cylons who remain our enemies. Additionally, while I acknowledge that the basestar is not as strong a military asset as Galactica, it is, at least, a military asset. Since the destruction of Pegasus, Galactica has been the only military vessel in the fleet — until the basestar arrived, that is. And let us not forget, Galactica herself is aging, and was about to be retired. Can we assume that she will last forever? And if and when Galactica gives out, do we want to leave the fleet utterly defenseless?

The Cylons have committed grave and reprehensible acts, acts that are beyond the pale. But at this point in our species’ existence, we have few better options. Unless the Valkyrie suddenly reappears, a la Pegasus, we’re not going to be able to improve our firepower otherwise. And while I don’t trust these Cylons…well, at least they’ve tried to demonstrate their willingness to work with us. They may have wiped out a lot of humans, but they’ve wiped out their own future, too, just for the opportunity to try to mend the gap. We should go ahead with an alliance — with a wary eye, to be sure, and a hair-trigger willingness to abandon them should push come to shove. And frankly, I expect them to hold us in the same wary regard.

But more than any question of alliance, we must commit ourselves to operating within a legal framework. Tom Zarek tried to do an end-run around the Quorum, tried to launch a coup against our leadership — and killed a lot of people in the process. In the end, if we are to survive, we have to be willing to make decisions through discussion and agreement, rather than through killing and coercion. If not, the question of alliance with the Cylons is moot; we’ll kill ourselves off long before they can get to it.