Ya know, I really wish I’d had access to threads like this for Babylon 5, Buffy, and the various ST series. Very interesting to see so many different reactions to each episode. Some people interpet things differently than I do, some pick up on things I missed, etc…
Question for this episode–how come Chief seems to be speaking for the rebel cylons now? Six was in the episode, she could have done it…or Xenabot…
They left D’Anna on earth, didn’t they?
I didn’t see the ep (stupid DVR), but did Cally know that Tyrol wasn’t Nicky’s father? It seemed like she thought he was, and they was why she was going to airlock him with her…
I got the impression that the Chief had gone over to the Base Star. Might have been just to learn their technology, but my understanding was that Tigh was the only one of the Four who stayed on Galactica.
Hmmm…I do remember Xenabot saying she was not leaving the planet…and she has not been seen onscreen since, as far as I know.
Cally knew Tyrol was not the father. She had Cottle do a DNA test…but apparently never told Chief or the actual father.
One thing I’ve complained about since the beginning is the vast importance civilian politics plays in this. Highly implausible, given the fact that everyone needs Galactica, but Galactica needs nothing else, save a fuel processing ship or two. if this scenario was realistic at all, EVERYONE would realize that what Adama says goes. If you don’t like it, you’re welcome to stay behind. There might be a civilian advisory council to the military, but that’s it.
Which makes Lee’s transition from pilot to battlestar captain to political underling (so he can “do more good”) just ridiculous. He was about 1000x more useful to the survival of the human race before he was fielding questions from “the press” every day.
Speaking of which, the only thing worse than the politics in BSG is the press. Every time I hear Rosilin say “the press will have a field day with this!”, or they have a briefing in which 40+ reporters are all shouting questions at once, trying to scoop one another, I can’t help laughing. How many different news networks does a society of 34,000 people(hint: the population of Butte, Montana) need? If this was at all plausible, they would have conscripted at least 95% of the existing news reporters into ship repair, tilium processing, farming, or toilet cleaning.
Is there any way to separate the coherent discussions of topics triggered by an episode from the “live blogging” stuff at the beginning? I don’t feel like wading through pages and pages of :eek: Wow :eek:, in order to get to stuff with more substance. I wonder if we could start a separate thread for discussion after having seen the full episode.
No, she would not be as much of a criminal as Zarek, since Zarek is a career criminal who actually runs the black market and is accepting graft in his role as VP on an ongoing basis. Roslin, as wrong as you may think she was, turned out to be correct in her impulse to protect humanity from a disastrous Baltar presidency. Sometimes I feel like Ron Moore wants us to think that democracy isn’t such a great idea in a situation like these, because I did not walk away from that “Roslin tries to steal the presidency” storyline thinking that democracy was worthy of protection in that situation. Too bad she didn’t steal the presidency. As someone upthread said, Tigh would still have his wife and his eye, and many, many people would still be alive.
As for quibbling about my use of the word “racism,” well, if you allow your hatred of a race, no matter how justified, interfere with your ability to survive, I’m not sure what else you call it. Bill Adama certainly seems to feel that the FTL upgrades are necessary to human survival, otherwise I doubt he’d allow it or even consider it. You might doubt him, but if he’s correct, and humans don’t go along with out of hate/fear of the Cylons, then they have their principles but the human race goes extinct. No one has at all stated that they’re against the upgrades because the fleet doesn’t really need them. Their only reason is “WE HATE CYLONS.” Completely understandable, but worth risking extinction for?
I think this is a complete mischaracterization of the opposition. It’s not a matter of principle; it’s the very practical matter that allowing Cylons to tamper with the ship drives opens up a vector for error, for sabotage, or intrusion just like the first Cylon attack. People may well hate the Cylons, I’m not arguing that, but letting former and recent war criminals install mystery technology on your only remaining fleet is… well… nuts. Bad call on Adama’s part, and I think the writers only made him do it to contrive a split within the fleet. I don’t care for the conceit on any level; it just isn’t believable to me.
Ultimately, this is a “do the means justify the ends” question. For me, they don’t. For you, they do. In a show like BSG, which doesn’t just play with gray-area issues but plonks its tent right in the middle of the gray space and lives there for long stretches, there really are no absolutes. When I said that Roslin’s actions make her an up-against-the-wall criminal, naturally there’s an implied “as far as I’m concerned.” And I think we all recognize that, since, despite the strong feelings this show triggers in its audience, these after-episode discussions have remained, while strenuous, fairly civil; we’re all reading that “in my opinion” phrase where appropriate.
Anyway, it’s a point of view thing. You forgive her because ultimately she was right. I don’t care; she broke what is to me the paramount law for a leader in a democratic system. Maybe that makes me an idealist. I can live with that.
And I think it’s all academic if the survival of the human race is at stake, which Bill Adama really seems to think is the case. I guess, if you accept that premise, that he has considered the whole situation from the Admiral of the Fleet’s POV, and thinks this is the only thing that can be done, do you trust him? Or don’t you? That is what it seems to come down to. Can Bill Adama’s judgment be trusted in this matter? If not, mutiny is the obvious conclusion you’d come to. My money is on Adama, but maybe that’s because the alternative, trusting Zarek and Gaeta, is too awful to contemplate.
Was there a point when you thought it was not civil? 
I can’t see how Roslin fixing an election, no matter how wrong it was, would make her “as much of a criminal as Zarek,” since he’s really never been anything but a criminal the entire series, and think what you will about Laura Roslin, she’s always been more than that. That, to me,* is* very black and white, absolutist thinking. I think, even in her most power-mongering moods, Laura Roslin does have the best interest of the human race at heart, and tries to do what she thinks is right. You might find that patronizing, presumptuous, etc., but her intentions are the best. Tom Zarek? I don’t think so; not really any altruism going on there. He’s a gangster.
I think idealism (and democracy, and all that nice stuff) goes out the window when extinction is on the table. I can live with that, too. Ultimately right is what matters in situations of life or death.
That scenario looks like it needs a Cylon to give birth to a Final Five-type Cylon… except, this is the first time the Cylons have known of such a birth. So the birth of the current incarnations of the Final Five would’ve required some mighty peculiar logistics.
Even though Baltar’s cult is on the Galactica, it appears that it is being unofficially ignored as much as is possible. They’re kind of in their own little world. So Tyrol wigging out there probably does not have as much impact if he did it elsewhere – particularly if Hotdog didn’t make a fuss over it.
The odd thing is, Cylons are supposed to be stronger and tougher than humans (witness Tory smacking Cally around the airlock)… so Tyrol should’ve wiped the floor with Hotdog. Presumably, Baltar’s groupies pulled them off each other.
IIRC, in the miniseries they determined that Leoben was not human by testing his corpse. So, yes, there is some test that is specifically for dead bodies.
That is not at all a mischaracterization of the opposition – that is exactly what the opposition stated their objection was. Not once did Zarek or Gaeta ask what would prevent the enemy Cylons from taking over the fleet through the new Cylon tech. All they objected to was the fact that it was Cylons coming on board to install the stuff.
Recall that the workaround discussed – and rejected – at Adama’s meeting was having only humans install the stuff. So that apparently would have satisfied the Quorum.
Of course, that is a mischaracterization of the position people are attributing to Zarek and Gaeta. But that attribution has no basis in the series, only in logic. (and it is logical, of course.)
Adama and the Chief in that silly boxing episode.
Maybe this is the source of all the disagreement in this thread. The arguments presented in this thread against an alliance with the Cylons are more sound than the ones being offered by the opposition on the show. Lightray and I are arguing against the position presented in the show, while the rest of you are arguing from a more logical, but less show-based, viewpoint than the one on the show.
That makes me think that there are aspects of the situation that are being glossed over by the show, which are concerns about the security and hackability of a Cylon-installed FTL system. I guess I’m assuming that Adama has either thought of that and feels it’s safe, or he thinks things are so frakked that it’s worth the risk. Until the security issue is brought up on the show, or anything beyond “Frak the Cylons!” I’m going to assume that’s the sum of their objection.
Yeah, remember the abortion issue? Roslin- who said that she’d fought all her political life to support the right to birth control and abortion- let Baltar talk her into the bitter necessity of banning abortion in a desperate attempt to keep the population from declining. And THEN Baltar uses the very issue to stab her in the back, announcing his candidacy for the presidency.
I think we’re meant to understand that the Final Five were just like humans before their activation, but gained the nifty Cylon powers like improved strength and resilience after hearing the music. All rather vague, though.
Better to be bitten by a radioactive spider.
Well… all the spiders on Earth are radioactive now, so… things are looking up for the Colonists!
With great power comes great angst.
…onsibility.
yah, but the only one left there is D’Anna, so… :eek:
She’s gonna come back as Xena!
And what would the Galactica do without the fleet? Go off and be a military dictatorship of a couple thousand people? How long would that last? Without the fleet, the Galactica has no purpose.