[QUOTE=toadspittle]
I still don’t understand Kat’s sacrifice, or purpose of it.
OK–she clearly is feeling guilty after her Starbuck encounter, and has a bit of a death-wish.
But why steal Helo’s badge? What did Helo do when he opened his locker and saw he couldn’t fly? Did he just hang out? Were they planning to send far fewer pilots through on the last run, anyway? Was there some implication that, if Kat didn’t go, then there wouldn’t have been enough pilots with enough white space on their badges to escort the last ship through, condemning that ship to be left behind? Or is she just one of the few pilots good enough to make the trip?
And why is Adama praising her “choice”? (And what WAS her choice–to steal the badge and fly at all, or to stay in the hot zone too long so she could find the ship she was escorting?) Is he just being nice because she’s dying? Seems to me she made the same choice Hot Dog (or was it Race Track? I forget) did early in the episode, when he lost his ship and hung around in the cluster a bit too long. Only she ended up finding her ship, and ended up dying.
[/QUOTE]
Her choice was to hide the fact that she had received a potentially lethal dose of radiation, and instead go back and fly. That was her, choosing to be “Kat”, and not “Sasha”. Starbuck’s point was that “Sasha” was selfish, someone who would hold out on protein bars when the other pilots were sharing. “Kat” was someone willing to sacrifice herself to complete the mission.
We don’t know that there weren’t enough other qualified pilots to complete the mission, just like we don’t get an explanation about why they had to go through the cluster, or why the Raptors had to fly solo, or why the food processors got contaminated. That’s just the set-up, and BSG usually doesn’t linger on the set-up. What we know is that the mission needed pilots, and Kat chose to place the mission above herself.
And she is one of their best pilots – she took the best pilot cup from Starbuck as of “Scar”; so losing her the mission would have been harder on the remaining pilots. But we don’t know, for example, if they only had exactly enough pilots to compress it down to five jumps, and if they were short one pilot it would’ve taken an extra jump.
Helo ended up flying the mission, although we don’t see him in the cockpit; he’s suited up in his flight suit along with the other pilots waiting for Kat to go through decon on her return. (which, of all of 'em, Helo could’ve stood a little less radiation; he got quite an exposure from his time on Caprica, too).
Hotdog was the one who lost his ship on the first jump.
Probably only Starbuck fully understood what choice Kat made, though, in going through with the mission. Everybody else was impressed because she wouldn’t leave her lost ship behind – even though it meant that she took an obviously fatal dose of radiation (which they’d assume she got on the last jump, since her badge had been good to go when they’d left; of course, her badge was black from the previous jump).
