I note with interest recent discussions to this paper about the recent failed coup and a Cylon-Human alliance.
I believe that these authors are asking the wrong questions, as if our only choice is an unelected president and military dictatorship, or a once elected vice-president and military dictatorship. The problems in our society run much deeper than that.
There are those who argue ‘not now’ and that the survival of humanity must trump any concerns of justice, equality and self-determination. Those who make these arguments are trying to cement their own power. Our responsibility is not just to survive, but to build a society that is worth saving.
I look at the few children within the fleet and despair for the world they are growing into.
Pilots who are in danger get all the resources of the fleet looking for them. Aboard the Tillium ship workers’ deaths are treated as inevitable, and speed ups continue despite the risk.
Women are using scarce resources and risking their lives to get illegal abortions. But if they do what the state supposedly prefers and continue their pregnancy, they get no support. Women suffering post-natal depression are just given more shifts and more drugs.
The power and the resources of the fleet are being used to maintain Caprican dominance. The military murder of Sagitarron citizens, is not just the result of one evil individual, but the reflection structural racism which the fleet is based on.
The ruling class have used the near extermination of humanity to cement their own power, and increase their control over anyone who challenges them. Neither a military alliance with some cylons, or a coup would change that. Zarek and Gaetna were no better than Adama and Roslyn. They were using the power of the military to attempt to make a few minor changes in policy.
Real change, the sort that builds a society that is worth saving, comes not from above but from below. Let the government make military alliances with the cylons, or not. Those of us who are fighting for another society that is indeed possible need to build relationships of solidarity with the cylons who are interested.
Chief Tyrall is a union man – Cylon or no. He has made clear, time and again, that he is fighting for something more than the unjust unequal society today. Colonel Tigh has made his position equally clear, he is for dictatorial power, and military control.
It is not enough to put up with intolerable inequality now, for the hope that things will change when we reach our mythic destination. Who believes that when we get to Earth those in charge will meekly give up the extra power that they have seized during this crisis? We must be organizing now among all who are willing to dream of a better society than this one.
[Illustration by Ratscape.]
Okay, please tell me that the three of you talked about this in advance.
Finally! A letter I can heartily endorse!
I just have to say, I love that Alas is apparently having a blogwar with itself over Battlestar.
That just tickles me.
—Myca
THIS.
I love Battlestar Galactica, but the worldview it proposes (even in a dying society) is severely frakked up.
This.
I love you people!
The multiple conflicting posts on Battlestar Galactica are great, but I want a little more controversy in the comments. Surely someone (at least, someone who knows the first thing about BG, unlike me) can start a flame war about this.
Maia, when I read your post I couldn’t resist adding the illustration! Please let me know if you object and I’ll take it down.
I agree with the letter. Fleet morality is truly and deeply fragged. Which I think is pretty realistic, actually, under the circumstances, but that doesn’t mitigate how much it sucks.
Also, more links to other blogs: The Weekly Standard with a regular blog post, “The Case For The Cylons,” and a letter to the fleet from Dr. Baltar.
Amp – the illustration is awesome thanks. And I feel the need to say that I the poster, hate Tyrol because of his role in Callie’s death (Callie was always my favourite). But I figured that random member of the fleet probably didn’t know that.
Mandolin – No planning – just extreme geek-i-tude
Thanks everyone – like Rebecca I enjoy BSG, but find the worldview so frustrating. I’m far more interested in what is happening on the Tillium ship than on Battlestar. It always makes me miss Firefly.
And I feel the need to say that I the poster, hate Tyrol because of his role in Callie’s death
So how’s that not-othering people thing going?
Does “not othering people” mean that we don’t hold their own choices and actions against them, ever? That seems weird to me.
Daedalus – if you’re referring to what I wrote here I think you’re misunderstanding what I said. I clarified here.
Amp – there was quite a dust-up in the New Zealand blogosphere about the suggestion that statistically some of your friends are going to be rapists. I wrote about the dangers of treating rapists as a scary other, and this has been (willfully mis)interpreted as implying that I don’t think people can be angry at rapists, or other violent men.
Anyway back on topic. I agree that maybe the situation in BSG is reasonably realistic. But I’m not sure we know enough to argue that the morality of the fleet is frakked. We don’t actually know much about the morality of the fleet, just that of the leaders. It’s entirely possible that there is heaps of organising and resistance going on, we jsut don’t see it. The worldview I object to isn’t anything about the reality that is portrayed, but the message that is shown through who are selected to be our viewpoint characters.
But BSG, I think, is also trying to bridge a certain faultline in our discourse(s) surrounding The Terrorist. The Cylons, especially the ‘sleeping cell’ Cylons, are just like everyone else around them – until they get switched on that is. Its impossible not to see the analogy between the populations in the West of Muslims who some one the right are afraid will get ‘switched’ on any second now and destroy everything around them.
In this sense I think BSG is quite impressive. It is actually tackling something (even if in a highly allegorical vein) that quite pervasively shapes our ideas of the world and what possible modes of action we have available to alter the course it is on. Interestingly, if you look back to Britain’s heydays of Empire, it was only in science fiction that the subject of Empire could be even slightly subversively tackled (think War of the Worlds et al.).
I’d love to see a mass uprising before the season is over, but I’m not holding my breath.
Daedalus – I deleted your post because it is woefully off topic. If you want to discuss my views on othering, do so in either of the linked topics.
Fleet morality is truly and deeply fragged.
Hee! I know this was just a typo, but now I’m having quite a fine time imagining that “frag” and “fragging” are the Colonial equivalents of our “frig,” “frickin’,” and “‘frigging.”
Gives the episode entitled “Fragged” an entirely new (and quite appropriate!) double-meaning, doesn’t it?