Did Battlestar Galactica Jump the Shark?

Cafe Society
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  1. How can a civilian know that Adama is the only thing, etc.?
  2. What if there’s someone, whether civilian or military, who is capable of better decision making than Adama?
  3. What is to prevent Adama from abusing his authority or for using for means other than “saving the human race”?
  4. Please explain why a military commander is automatically better qualified to make decisions under these circumstances. Our political system assumes that civilians make policy decisions and military people merely carry them out under the terms set by civilian leadership. How does an emergency situation automatically overturn that assumption?

And what you seem to be missing is that there is a valid existential question here. If the situation is as you describe it, living under a military dictatorship in an emergency situation with no foreseeable end, it’s perfectly valid for individual civilians to decide that what Adama says in his opinion is essential for preserving the human race is simply not worth it. Remember Masada?

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And for how long?

-Joe

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I think that the writers made a mistake in picking the number 50,000. That’s only the size of a moderate town – not big enough for the kind of politics and diversity they want for the plot. If you only had 50K people left, it would make sense just to have the military run the show (50K is more or less two divisions.)
There wouldn’t be much need of a press – maybe a small town newspaper and a community cable, but not the kind of broadcast news level reporting that you see on BSG.

Multiply the number by 10 and all of a sudden you’re talking a population big enough that it needs a civilian infrastructure.

Of course, that’s not the only mistake the writers made (in my opinion). Probably the biggest one is they made the show too unrelentingly gritty. To the point where there’s not a single likeable character. There’s also too much concentration on backstory. The human race has almost been wiped out by Cylons. That’s angst enough. We don’t really care if Starbuck’s mommy didn’t love her enough.

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Well, it’s not like the civilians get a chance to get together and chat all that often. Even though it’s 50,000 people, it’s spread out over dozens of space ships. I think you need some kind of media just so folks stuck on the cigarette-producing ship know what’s going on. I think it’d be very important…right after defense and supplies.

Also, another arguement against the ‘town’ sized population is that there are folks from each colony, with their own cultures and views on things. We (through season 2.5) don’t get to see much of the rest of the fleet, but we see how the military lives. The officers always get fed. They always have booze. It’s reasonable to think that there are lots of people who don’t think that’s terribly fair, and want to at least have a voice in the government. The fact that Baltar-who promises the chance to grow your own food-won the election is evidence of this.

I have a hard time with prostitution and slave trade among 50,000 people just weeks after the end of the world(s), but I sleep better at night tossing most of “Black Market” out the window.

mswas, stick with the first 5 episodes of season 3 before declaring any shark-jumping, as they are among the best the series has produced.

Ooh! I just saw Razor last night!

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Your right. Individuals can always decide that the stress isn’t worth it. The writers have set up a very nihilistic scenario. Individuals and groups may think they can run things better and who knows, maybe they can if they were given the opportunity. I think I could have made a few wiser decisions than our last few presidents. Should I be in charge? If 5,000 people left in the Galactica fleet think they should parlez with the Cylons, I say give them a non-essential ship, 1/8 of the stores, and tell them good luck. It is pretty much what Adama did when the majority of the people decided they wanted to settle on New Caprica. Adama also knew he had to save them from their own foolishness, because without them, he was left with a non-viable population and at that point, he might as well had his own Masada.

Also, I am in no way saying that Adama is the right or the best choice.

He is, however, the only choice. Why? Because the military leadership follows him, and the rank and file follow the leadership. As long as there isn’t major dissension in the ranks, he is the only choice for survival for the civilian population, the way the story is set up. Not only is he the only choice, but given the story set-up, there is little-to-no chance for a civilian uprising. What are they going to do - storm a battleship with improvised weapons? And without Galactica to hold the Cylons at bay during emergency jumps, the Cylons will pick away at the survivors much quicker than they have been, so the bulk of the remaining population is aware of the threat they live under.

As for preventing Adama from abusing authority, one only needs to look at the story of the Pegasus to realize there is nothing preventing it. That was the whole reason for the Pegasus story - to show how ‘good’ a guy Adama is; he is in control of power which the rest of the survivors cannot check without Adama’s permission, yet his abuses are limited and smaller in scope.

I’m not even going to try to apply our (US) political system to the Galactica universe. It’s an elephants to apples comparison. It might have applied before the Cylons wiped out 99.99% of the population. When the US is reduced to a population of 30,000 and under a constant external threat to drive it down to 0, then we can compare how a civilian government served by the military rather than a full military government works. Few are the nations that have experienced that level of threat (well, few if you count the collection of Native American nations and aboriginal Australian tribes as one).

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JoeMama and Merijeek I think you guys are still sort of missing the point. A nuke went off and killed half of the remaining people. That’s martial law time, period. On top of that the number one suspect is the President elect. Sure Adama was stupid for leaving a nuke in his possession, but that’s how it played out. Baltar should have taken up permanent residence in the brig from that moment forward. Think about it, to your knowledge there are only 50,000 people left, and then a nuke goes off. Anyone that doesn’t understand the need for a strong authority at that time is an idiot.

The fact is that we as the viewers know that Baltar is the achilles heel of the human race, but the characters don’t. However, at that point they should’ve started to realize it.

As for the comment about this thread showing how easy it is to slide to dictatorship, I have a big :rolleyes: for ya. Somehow, I don’t think that the near extinction of the human race is exactly a ‘trivial’ reason. If there’s ever a justified reason, I think it’s being hunted by the species that has nearly driven you into extinction.

The fact that people are living in ships built to maintain populations shows that they are probably not removed from modern amenities the way we would be if our cities were destroyed and we were out in the wilderness, but still anyone that doesn’t have something to do isn’t looking hard enough. Counting ballots takes away from the valuable time needed to tighten nuts and make sure that everything is running smoothly.

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I think the idea is that a Cylon agent was the prime suspect for the nuke going off. In other words, why would anyone suspect Baltar had anything to do with it, other than the nuke was stolen from his lab while he was running for president? It’s true that we (viewers) know that Baltar gave Gina the bomb, but no one on the ship even remotley suspects that.

The olny thing Adama can accuse Baltar of is not listening to his advice about settlement…which he didn’t.

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whew, thanks mswas. I thought I was out on that limb all alone.

I think the ships weren’t built to maintain populations, but have been retrofitted as needed. Pretty much they just gathered any ship not annihilated by the Cylons initial assault, no matter what condition or planned use, and pressed it into service.

Dirty, rotten Adama and military making me use my pleasure yacht for refugees!

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I didn’t get where I am today by thinking.
My father caught me thinking once.
He said “CJ” (we were never close), he said
“CJ, thinking doesn’t get the washing up done!”

CJ, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin

I agree with the idea that at a certain point, news media, elections and debate are luxuries that the remaining small fraction of a percent of the Human population cannot afford. As long as the leader is not too abusive and Group Survival is the key goal, shut the fuck up and work. “News Media” is not a job that is producing food, fuel or materials for anyone’s survival.

If there were 3,000 people left in the USA and we were banded together with outside forces hunting us, I’m fully committing myself to following the leader who works to save us. The people who want to debate every move and nuance can go fuck themselves.
Or maybe it’s time to divide the population into three groups and send the B Ark ahead to look for a habitable planet… :wink:

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Can I change jobs or get reassigned before the B ark leaves? Please! :cool:

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Chimera I find bolt tightening to be a fabulous place to do the deep thinking.

As far as it goes, a small town can handle a local ‘zine’, it doesn’t really need a media in the way it’s portrayed. What’s interesting about the show is the way it seems like it’s filmed by people in the 70s sometimes. Why not setup a BBS for the fleet? Why would they need professionals for this purpose?

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Are we watching the same show? :slight_smile: Computer networks are the root of all evil as far as their society is concerned.

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I think it’s more important to look at it from the other direction. BSG definitely fails at showing the ability of the human race to voluntarily give up freedoms all too willingly in situations where there might be danger. I guarantee you if Americans were in that situation, they’d be all too happy to give up all freedoms. And I can’t really see why this would be a bad idea.

ideally there ought to be a leader who is responsible to the people in a much less direct way. Adama would have been an okay fit. He’s certainly no great leader, but on the other hand he isn’t too evil or actually even on top of things to do a whole lot of damage.

But yeah, I was talking with my friend, and the whole attempt of the show to expound on these issues just gets a big :rolleyes: from me…

It’s like, “Point of order. The Presid-”
:rolleyes:

This stupid trial for Baltar? What a waste of time…Although I don’t like it the way that Baltar was marginalized in such a way. I really preferred his first-season position where he was on Galactica.

I hate the things that are all too close to real life things. Some people find it intelligent, I think it’s lazy writing. True Sci-Fi should be compelling because it expresses human traits in the face of new unforseen problems, not ones we are familiar with already.

I don’t know the best way to change things though. Adama seems to need Roslin most of the time anyway. He seems to need someone like her to deal with the people. Essentially they are like co-rulers of the fleet. Sure, Roslin is technically over Adama, but she rarely diagrees with his opinion on military matters when she asks him. And frankly military matters are like 90 percent of her policy anyway.

Sorry about the spoiler above guys, but it’s no big deal. There’s loads of shockers in the last episode of season 3.

That’s the problem with BSG, though. They are essentially unwatchable on repeat. The chemistry between almost all of the characters is terrible.

Starbuck - Apollo is unbearable
Apollo - Dualla is bad, but it’s supposed to be.
Tigh and Adama is pretty good, to be sure
And finally I suppose the best example would be Helo and the Cylon (Athena or Boomer?). It was pretty touching that time he had to shoot her so she could go back and get their baby.

Want to know a terrible episode? It was easily the one where Helo was trying to figure out why the Doctor was killing all of the religious people who wouldn’t take medicine. The plot was awful, and even worse was the fact that all of the characters essentially hated Helo for the episode

So anyway, it’s great that it’s not going to end soon. Season 3 has at least 5-7 top-notch episodes.

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Autumn is right. Any sort of digital network can be infiltrated by the Cylons. That’s why Galactica’s internal communication system is analog. That’s why many of the calculations are done by hand, or at the very least hand-verified. Cylons control the digital world completely. Heck, my car is more computerized than a Viper. As I’m no communications scientist, I’m unsure how audio and visual signals are transmitted between ships securely, or if it a loophole/plot convenience.

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Some of the series 2 issues that you have raised mswas are, I think it’s non-spoilery to say, dealt with in series 3. I’d watch it if I were you. There are a couple of total clunkers mid-season that you could easily skip. Perhaps the participants here could suggest episode numbers to miss if you feel you just want to hit the good bits?

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I thought the entire point of the Pegusas and Adm. Cain’s actions were to demonstrate that, while flawed, Adama’s and Rosilyn’s attempts at keeping it ‘democratic’ were much more likely to succeed for the long term goal… the same even applies to Tigh’s short term as ‘Leader’.

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I haven’t listened to the ‘director’s commentary’ version, but I can easily accept the different interpretation. I’m not necessarily on board with it, but I understand how you could come to that conclusion.

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So they go from being military to being prison guards? Whee! That’s what I signed up for! You also seem to have forgotten what happened when Adama tried to be a hardass. Maybe folks will be forced to manufacture food and fuel at gunpoint?

And Adama has the support of the military leadership? Is that Lee “Weekly Rebellion” Adama? Kara “I stole a priceless Raider because of my religion” Thrace? Felix “I’m giving the election to Baltar” Gaeta?

That’s three of your top four rankings right there. Number four was the guy who managed to have some troops gun down civilians.

Yeah…there’s an ideal government. With lots of support at the top for the very top.

-Joe

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[QUOTE=mswas]
JoeMama and Merijeek I think you guys are still sort of missing the point. A nuke went off and killed half of the remaining people. That’s martial law time, period. On top of that the number one suspect is the President elect. Sure Adama was stupid for leaving a nuke in his possession, but that’s how it played out. Baltar should have taken up permanent residence in the brig from that moment forward. Think about it, to your knowledge there are only 50,000 people left, and then a nuke goes off. Anyone that doesn’t understand the need for a strong authority at that time is an idiot.
QUOTE]

I’m not necessarily disputing your take on this. I’m playing a bit of devil’s advocate as I’ve asked myself the same question (why doesn’t Adama just step in and take over?). I think the writers have already tried to address this (he already tried something similar in Season 1 (or 2, I forget) and failed. And there was already something of a anti-military rebellion fometing over the planet that became New Caprica. If his only option is to try to impose order and then have to deal with a rebellion and never really be able to keep those sentiments under wraps, is that really an option?

As for the “groupthink” you’re assuming (that humans would really rally together when faced extinction)…I don’t necessarily agree with you that it’s a given as you and some others have suggested. As far as we know, humans don’t exist outside Earth, yet since the beginning of recorded history we’ve been at war with one another and have yet to unite together against common global threats, whether it be environmental changes, devastating nuclear war, common diseases that affect all of us, etc. Everyone has their own ideas as to what is best for them (and for the rest of the human race). Unless there is a clear “right answer”, I don’t see it happening. And Adama hasn’t demonstrated at this point that he’s the right answer, or even the best (or only) solution.

At least thats what I think the show is trying to convey.

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And yet none of them have attempted a coup because they thought Adama was slacking or abusing his position. My guess, with the way all have been written and keeping in their character, they would all circle the wagons around Billy Adama if there were a threat, and Tigh would lead them.

Plus, Lee is bi-weekly rebellion. The other weeks, he is in the Old Man’s pocket. We’ve also trashed out how much Thrace gets away with in the weekly show threads. It’s best not to think logically about it, else your head will hurt.

IMO, the closest we ever came (that we know of) to a near-extinction level event was the Cuban Missile Crisis. I’m not sure just how much people knew of it before it happened. Disease, even pandemics, global warming and other environmental ills, etc. don’t resonate as an immediate threat in the way that a Cylon attack on the fleet in Battlestar: Galactica should.

I would say that the reason Adama doesn’t try to strong arm the civilian fleet is because he believes that he needs to save the maximum amount of people possible, and that every lost life hinders the future survival of the human race. So my plan of letting seperatists separate isn’t a viable option to him. He must placate, and he is not a person who placates at the end of a gun. Second, Galactica is not self-sufficient, and needs the fleets help. Again, any loss hinders the Galactica and makes it harder to complete what I view as Adama’s main mission - to keep the human race alive.

What annoys me is the amount of waste that goes on. Even if a centrally planned economy (communism) was established, you would certainly have people trying to game the system. But, when dealing with <50,000 people on the run from a known extinction threat, all the political bullshit and the fact that people are wasting time and resources on a frakkin’ press corps breaks my suspension of disbelief more than Starbuck not having already been spaced for insubordination. Roslin or whomever is in charge (and the method of choosing her was as good as drawing straws, which is all that would have happened anyway) needs to play economic planner, and to do her damnedest to make sure the maximum amount of the population is on board. Take every journalists’ pen away, give them a wrench or a mop, and let them do an honest day’s work. Those luxuries, given the circumstances, always take me right out of the show.