Battlestar Galactica 3-6

I actually watched this week's "Battlestar Galactica" on Friday night! No VCR magic!

"Torn" essentially is two separate entities: On the Galactica Tigh and Starbuck and busy sowing dissent and discord among the Viper pilots. They believe they suffered inordinately, and basically no one else should complain about their difficulties -- especially those who were onboard the Galactica and/or Pegasus during the occupation. (Hey Tigh -- what's the deal with that craggy looking gauze bandage? Your eye is gone, dude -- get a pirate patch or something, will'ya?) Admiral Adama gets royally pissed off at this, and confronts the two in the mess hall. You know he's pissed when he kicks over Starbuck's chair, knocking her for a royal loop! He asks for Starbuck's sidearm, takes it, informs them that there is one round in it, and tells them to either "straighten up," or "shoot him (Adama) now." Starbuck walks out, while Tigh actually picks up the gun -- but he empties the chamber, puts the gun back down, and leaves -- saying he'll "not be back" -- and proceeds to drink himself silly.

Elsewhere, Baltar is "enjoying" the company of his Cylon "hosts" on a base-ship. The humanoid Cylons inform him that they are searching for Earth too -- they want it to be their new home! The Cylons know Baltar did extensive research into Earth's location, and they want that knowledge. Part of Baltar's diggings revealed a double pulsar system in a nebula, and so the Cylons dispatch a base-ship to investigate. But soon they receive a distress call -- something is killing the Cylons, some "infection." Baltar offers to investigate as he's potentially immune, and the Cylons agree. Upon searching the "infected" base-ship, Baltar discovers a piece of human machinery that might be the source of the "infection." He decides to withhold this info from the Cylons for the time being, however.

Also, it is revealed that the Cylons have a "hybrid" Cylon that essentially acts like a humanoid super-computer. Is this an homage to the "Galactica 1980's" Dr. Zee character? Nevertheless, the hybrid looks like one of the "pre-cogs" from "Minority Report" -- definitely a female who's sitting in a vat of viscous liquid with all sorts of wires running in and out of her.

But the BIGGIE: Baltar realizes that humanity may now have the means to rid themselves of the Cylon threat -- forever! We see in the scenes for next week's episode that the Galactica learns of this potential Cylon-destroying infection, and then debates what to do. Here's where I started shaking my head. One of the scenes showed Helo stating "If we do this, we'll be no better than they are."

Excuse me, but HUH?????

Once again, as Bruce Dickinson (at left) would say, "That's ... that's not workin' for me." Let's follow this:

• Humans create Cylons.
• Cylons (machines) used as essentially slave labor.
• Cylons gain self-awareness, and rebel.
• Human-Cylon wars occur, taking place over some 40-50 years.
• Armistice agreed upon, whereupon a space station meeting place is established for [cultural, political, etc.] contacts once per year.
• Cylons never show up at once/year meetings; humans always send a representative.
• During the 40+ years of peace, Cylons plan to infiltrate human society and to eradicate humanity once and for all.
• Cylons, with the assistance of genius Gaius Baltar, successfully infiltrate [human] 12 Colonies' defense grid, setting up a totally defenseless humanity for the last Cylon invasion.
• Cylons invade 12 Colonies, bombarding from orbit all twelve planets with nuclear weapons, and annihilating all defensive threats (like Battlestars) in large part due to a computer virus which shuts down any and all networked computer systems.
• The Battlestar Galactica, which was to be decommissioned due to its old age, survives the initial Cylon onslaught mainly because its commander, Bill Adama, refused to allow networked computers on the ship.
• The Galactica leads the 40,000+ human survivors in fleeing the Cylon threat, and begins search for [possibly mythical] "13th colony," known as Earth.
• After months of running, the human fleet discovers a human-suitable planet, and new president Gaius Baltar orders the fleet to settle what comes to be known as "New Caprica."
• A year later, New Caprica is discovered by the Cylons. They invade and occupy the planet, subjugating the humans there to torture, killings and just plain squalid living conditions. The Battlestars Galactica and Pegasus, in orbit about New Caprica for defense, flee the planet when the Cylons arrive, because they're massively outnumbered.
• Months later, Galactica and Pegasus mount rescue mission; humans flee New Caprica en masse.
• Humanity's total numbers have dwindled further. Barely 40 thousand humans are left out of tens -- possibly hundreds -- of billions of the 12 Colonies' population.
• The human fleet discovers potential method of obliterating the Cylon threat once and for all.
• Humans debate whether they should make use of this potential Cylon-destroying weapon.

Again, HUH???? Would humanity rather become extinct than "sink to the Cylons' level"? Apparently some humans in the fleet believe just that. Helo probably does because he and humanoid Cylon Sharon had a child together. Bully for them.

Here we have another possible connection to the "war on terror": Do we "stoop to the terrorists' level" by utilizing torture ourselves (or whatever is close enough to it) and restricting certain civil liberties? That's about ALL this line of the thinking should make you do -- just think about it. Because ultimately, there is no comparison to be made. To me, I just cannot fathom why the human survivors would not jump at any chance to wipe out their Cylon killers. A more apt comparison would be World War II where the Axis powers were set on world domination, and engaged in genocide in part to achieve it. Yet, there is still debate on the morality of the atomic bombings, and the firebombing of Dresden, Germany.

In Star Trek: The Next Generation, Captain Picard made a similar -- unpopular with the Federation higher-ups -- choice when he refused to introduce a computer program that could have destroyed the Federation's greatest threat (at that time), the Borg. In a later episode, Picard was given a royal chewing out by a Starfleet admiral for not taking the opportunity to snuff out the Borg. (Indeed -- had Picard followed through, there never would have been the need to make the 11th Trek film, "First Contact"!)

In Fred Saberhagen's "Berserker" series, humanity (and a few other races of the galaxy) are faced with extermination from what are dubbed the "Berserkers" -- self-replicating machines that are programmed to destroy all life. In all the "Berserker" stories I read, there was precious little vacillation over whether humanity (and the Milky Way's other sentient species) should attempt to destroy the killing machines. I mean, gee, let's see -- the machines are trying to completely annihilate us after all!

In [my] oft-mentioned Heinlein Starship Troopers, humanity likewise has little qualms about cleaning out a race of spider-like intelligent insects that are trying to destroy any and all humans they encounter. Indeed, although the invasion ends up being a disaster, the spiders' home planet was invaded by humans at one point; the only reason it wasn't utterly blown away was that the military wanted to rescue the untold numbers of human prisoners first.

Survival is the most basic of human traits. Faced with continued life, or ultimate death by an intractible enemy, which would humans choose? For me, the answer is simple: life. As we might say here in America, "the Constitution is not a suicide pact." That is, if we are faced with a major threat to our existence, do we deal with the threat with all means at our disposal, or do we fall -- constrained by the very rules which we ourselves established?

Posted by Hube at November 4, 2006 09:17 AM | TrackBack