I’m a bit wary of stepping back into this, but okay, here goes.
I disagree with the notion that nobody would believe Cally about 4/5 of the Final Five. After all, nobody but the Doc and her husband actually knew she was on drugs, and the Doc seemed to be on her side, all in all. With the climate of fear and mistrust in the fleet, especially after New Caprica, a woman accusing her own husband, and claiming to have heard the “confession” of his toaster-nature first hand? Well, she might just be believed.
And while the Old Man would definitely go to bat for Tigh, I get the feeling that A) a lynch mob might very well form before he got things under control B) Tigh might actually crack under the strain. It’s looked like he’s come pretty damn close more than once. I could easily see him and Adama talking in Adama’s quarters and Adama slowly realizing that Tigh was holding something back, and probing until Tigh broke down and admitted everything. Remember too, that he’s still heartbroken and tremendously guilty about killing his wife for collaboration. And now, he’s not just a collaborator, he’s a freakin’ toaster himself. The mental/emotional strain would almost certainly be more than he coudl handle, and he’d be crying like a baby on Adama’s shoulder. (That is, if he didn’t flip and go Boomer on him)
What would happen once Adama found out Tigh was a toaster would be anybody’s guess, but imprisonment would be the least severe option. Adama, however, rather than assuming that Tigh was a special kind of Cylon who (evidently) actually is an individual who grew from a child into an adult, rather than being popped out of the Eazy Goo Oven, fully formed, like all the other Cylons… would probably assume that the Cylons had somehow caught and murdered Tigh and replaced him with a copy, maybe even during his time on New Caprica.
As for Cally herself, I do think that once she showed she was willing to murder her husband, and her child, and sacrifice herself, that she was simply too much of a liability to let her go on living. Chances were good that the next time, it’d be a bullet to the head instead of a wrench. I’m having a lot of trouble viewing Tory’s actions as evil rather than ruthlessly and necessarily brutal. As has been mentioned, one of the themes of the show is the dividing line between good and evil, and man (or super-hot woman) and machine. I’m curious as to whether the suggestion was that Tory was acting out of a very human sense of self preservation, or a very Cylon manner of cold, calculating lethality to advance certain goals. I suppose that her character will evolve over time, but out of all four of the Super Toasters, I’d put money on her being the one to betray the fleet.
However, in the context of self defense, remember that, after all, the four toasters haven’t done anything yet, and we don’t even know if Tigh’s fantasy about shooting the Old Man was his own daydreaming or foreshadowing. For all we know, the function of the Final Five is to spend all their time among humanity, as humans, and then return to the rest of the 12 in order to complete them, intellectually and by paving the way for the ascension of a Hybrid race. (total fanwank). So if they’re not ‘villains’ yet, it might make sense that they’d have more of a right to life then if they were evil.
And, consider, if they were created as babies, and aged naturally, and think they’re humans… isn’t it kinda, well, racist to say that they’re bad just because they’re Cylon?
please don’t hit me.
My point is, only, that the four toasters haven’t yet proven that their survival is wrong. As such, they seem to have as much right to life as anybody else. So if it comes down to them being shot or spaced by Cally/an angry mob, or eliminating Cally? Fuck… turn the key and slap that door release button, I’m in the mood for corpsicles.
Maybe, for me, my understanding and reaction to the scene is a bit different because, as soon as Tory stepped into the scene, I knew what she was going to do. And, I have to admit, seeing confirmation that she does indeed have Cylon level strength was just awesome. And, yeah… I’ve been rooting for Cally to get made dead, somehow, for quite some time now. Her voice is like nails on a chalkboard.
And, on another subject, was anybody else tremendously interested by the tidbit that Cavil let slip? The Cylons actually have a limited number of ‘spare’ bodies. I mean, it makes sense, and I should’ve flashed to it long ago, but that does mean that even with a Resurrection Ship right next to them, the Cylons still do have to worry about ‘dying’ too many times, lest they never manage to get a new body.
And, of course, ayieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, Cylon civil war is GO!!!