“elected and popular President”

Didn’t she get voted out (in an election she tried to sabotage) and then reinstated by Zarek himself following the New Caprica catastrophe? I don’t remember them running any elections since then.

And Roslin hasn’t ever been popular with anybody outside the single critical constituency of William Adama; the major reason she’s stayed as President is Adama not so subtly indicating that he’ll kill anyone else who tries to be President.

I thought she was re-elected in a fair election.  But I might be wrong.  She serves at the behest of the quorum, though, which is similar to how Americans elect a President.

Which I mean, the lawless military dictatorship into which the Colonial fleet has utterly devolved wouldn’t be so bad as a plot device, if it weren’t so utterly and shamelessly portrayed as right and good and justified in all its authoritarian, autocratic whims.

I mean come on Roslin stood on the bridge of the cylon war ship threatening to kill everyone aboard the Galactica…. and they play this as her being the hero? Face it between the two choices in that situation, Felix Gaeta was the one who ultimately wasn’t willing to throw away humanity’s hope for survival on a game of chicken played for the sake of his own manic grasp on power.

I think it’s clear from the response to her broadcasts that yes—she is popular at this point. Before the coup, she wasn’t popular enough to force the Cylon alliance, but people do like and trust her a great deal. The quorum is probably more antagonistic than the general populace, too.

Still confused: Do we know for sure why the Cylons can’t build a new resurrection hub?

Dan, that was less “MYYYYY POWER” and more “YOU BASTARDS KILLED MY LOVER, DIE!”

Yeah, after the debacle on New Caprica I don’t remember any new elections either, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen that season.

While I enjoyed the episode, watching it again it made me realize just how inept Zarek was in his trust of Gaeta. I know Gaeta wanted to do the right thing but if you’re going to be serious about a mutiny you just go ahead and put a bullet in your enemies brain, you don’t give them a “trail” especially one that doesn’t mean shit. I’m truly surprised Gaeta didn’t have Narcho arrange for Starbuck to be somewhere where she could be shot easily, as the episode before his hatred of her was evident.

I love the moment where Zarek asks where Adama is and to his disappointment Gaeta tells him he’s still alive. Their fate is pretty much sealed in that moment, cause you know Adama’s going to kick ass.

In the Twelve Colonies, the Cylons wiped out humanity through a nuclear holocaust. On Earth, the Cylons wiped out themselves through a nuclear holocaust. Machines, which are not truly living, have no respect for life. They will end the fleet if they are given the chance.

The only good Cylon is a disassembled Cylon.

Your points about Zarek and Gaeta’s methods are well-taken, however. A referendum would have been more appropriate than mutiny and military coup—and one through which the rot in the Quorum would have been excised peacefully. However, with the fate of the human race on the line, it is important that we move constantly forward and not stop to navel-gaze.

My only regret out of the failed mutiny is that Zarek and Gaeta may have reversed a gathering storm of public opinion which is, in my estimation, vital to our survival.

We don’t know that the Cylons wiped themselves out.  It’s possible that humans did it.  Perhaps that’s what the scriptures meant by saying that this has happened before and will happen again.  And perhaps it happened many times before—-Cylons wiped out humans, humans wiped out Cylons, and back again.  We have a critical opportunity with this alliance to finally break the cycle.

Hopefully we’ll know tomorrow when all is said to be “revealed” though they pulled that crap the first half of the season so I’m not gonna hold my breath.

As a fellow concerned citizen of the colonies (Caprica repraZENT: We will see you at the crossroads!), I have to say that Zarek displayed a scary disregard for the sanctity of the human lives he claimed to be defending with his coup. The murder of the quorum was entirely indefensible, especially since he already had them under his physical control. Furthermore, the actions taken under his leadership, including the attempt to murder the president of the colonies without a trial, and the summary executions of fellow citizens whose only crimes were to be oblivious to what was happening, should caution any of us against turning him into a folk hero.

His actions prior to the coup, including the secret tribunals in the wake of our escape from new Caprica, presaged his deadly lack of respect for the rule of law. After the discovery that the 13th colony was destroyed millenia ago, I believe like many of us in this time of crisis, he embraced a deadly form of nihlism and was essentially suicidal. I know I thought about shooting myself in the head with a frakking gun.

I think he figured better to go out as the final leader of Humanity, and decided to take all of us with him in a blaze of Glory. Such people must be stopped by any means neccesary, before they can do real damage. Unfortunately for us, he was not. And now numerous essential personnell have been killed.

I know many of you have been laboring on the Tylium processing ship and might not have had time to keep up with recent colonial history, but Roslin definitely has never been elected. Even so, her leadership has been largely successful, and the major tragedies that have befallen the fleet during her tenure have occurred when her suggestions were disregarded. If anything, her judgement is spectacular and I, for one, am willing to temporarily put aside my committment to colonial government in the interest of survival of the species. Even if it means creating a hybrid cylon-human species.

So say we all.

“This cycle” certainly assumes a lot.

Forget not that the very first target of the Cylon attack was the Armistice Station, built and manned by humans, to build an enduring peace with the Cylons. They never engaged us in any level of diplomacy, despite our continued efforts along these lines.

So, for forty years, humans lived in peace, celebrating life, building our families and our cities, and keeping ever open that gesture of friendship to the Cylons. Meanwhile, they built an armada and planned for our destruction.

It is what makes us different from them—a Culture of Life.

Consider too, that despite all of the stresses the fleet has been under, from the Pegasus fiasco to the Roslin/Baltar schism to this recent mutiny, self-inflicted human casualties have been minimal and the fleet, our interdependence, has endured. In the same time, despite all of their military victories and logistical advantages, the Cylon death fixation led their race into a devastating civil war. The rebels even helped us destroy their own resurrection hub—what could be greater evidence of their barbarism?

We are not the problem. The Cylons are the problem, one which must be purged from the universe for the sake of all life.

Could this have been behind a cut? I was out of town last week and haven’t had a chance to watch the latest ep.

[Holy fuck, I’m so glad I’m getting my BSG knowledge second hand. I think I’d be heartbroken 20 times over watching the real thing. INTENSE.]

[Here, here, Nenya. It was pretty hard to watch. Brace yourself, though, and check it out on Hulu.]

All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again.

Your points about Zarek and Gaeta’s methods are well-taken, however. A referendum would have been more appropriate than mutiny and military coup—and one through which the rot in the Quorum would have been excised peacefully. However, with the fate of the human race on the line, it is important that we move constantly forward and not stop to navel-gaze.

The way I look at it, it would have taken very little to give Zarek and Gaeta complete legitimacy.  Roslin was already almost kicked out by a vote of No Confidence by the Quorum earlier in the season.  If Zarek really wanted anything other than a revolution, he would have tried that again - given the attitude of the Quorum, and the speed with which they rejected the alliance, I’d put the odds at better than 50/50.  Adama would have ignored the policies of the lawful president - the “Military Matters” vs “Civilian Matters” division of authority was in no way legally binding…it was an agreement Roslin made with Adama to get him to recognize her authority at all.  Ignoring legal orders from the President would have made Adama actually guilty of treason, giving Zarek a completely legitimate justification for taking him down.  Enter Gaeta and the mutineers.

Dan, that was less “MYYYYY POWER” and more “YOU BASTARDS KILLED MY LOVER, DIE!”

I’m supposed to care which of the motivations of an utterly selfish despot were going to lead her to annihilate the human race with the weapons of an alien fleet?

This is why I fucking love Pandagon.

BTW, I am on Team Negotiate-With-The-Cylons.

ha, I can’t embrace the idea that Cylons have no humanity worth respecting.  It’s true that their cloning ways are odd to us, but they intermarry with us, have children with us, fight for us, and suffer like us.  For all intents and purposes, they are human.  That they acted in bad faith and then committed genocide makes them all the more human, sadly.  We hate the Cylons in no small part because we look at them and see ourselves looking back.

We hate the Cylons in no small part because we look at them and see ourselves looking back.

Word.

The weaknesses of our leaders (Zarek and Roslin, and others), notwithstanding, the broader point about human nature is clear: our collective impulse is to survive, then prosper, in peace.

I won’t defend Zarek, who I believe was probably as insane as he was ineffective, despite his being on what I am sure will be the right side of history. Two other points, however, one illustrative and the other speculative:

First, Colonel Tigh was the leading proponent of suicide bombings on New Caprica, a tactic which did not sit well with anyone but was pursued, both out of desperation and under the force of Tigh’s will and influence. Can anyone truly be surprised that Tight turned out to be a toaster?

Second, Lee Adama has indicated that the fifth Cylon, the last Cylon whose face remains unknown (though, this assumption should be deemed less than credible), is a woman. You want to know my guess? It was Admiral Caine.

[It is fun to troll-LARP.]

Bah. The answers to the problems facing the Colonials are obvious. Extensive deregulation along with a series of hefty tax cuts targeted toward the wealthiest (i.e. those who have hoarded loads of toilet paper and cigarettes) members of the population will go a long way toward bringing about the Utopia that the human survivors seek. It’s obvious to me that the current troubles were brought about by Laura Roslin’s abandonment of her faith. Just because Pithia’s prophecies were all as load of crap that made everybody miserable was no reason to just abandon them all together. In closing, the fundamentals of the Colonial economy are strong, my friends.

That’s a good point Michael. I’ve also heard that Roslin might be a secret convert to the Cylon Religion, (Her name means “Lightening” in the Cylon language, don’t you know), and that her commitment to the religion of the colonies (the True Religion!) was only a scam to win votes from her gullible constituents. But then, she’s from the Caprica political machine, and that’s just more of those Caprica politics we’ve heard so much about. Plus, she’s well known for palling around with terrorists like Baltar and the final five.

[Michael Clear just won the internet, fyi XD]

One thing is bothering me about the “discovery” that the inhabitants of Earth were Cylons (though citizen Foxwell might have mentioned it - my eyes kind of glazed over after his fourth treatise on them ):  Wouldn’t all of the other items on Earth have been much heavier/stronger than what we’re used to, to accomodate the Cylon’s superior strength?  Sure, the newer models can emulate human strength levels, but why would they need to fake that if there were no humans around?

(BTW, I’m trying to think of what the equivalent of the French Revolution and Le Montaigne were for the Colonies that would give them the terms “left wing” and “right wing”.  C’mon, you know someone wants to take a crack at the back story!)

Second, Lee Adama has indicated that the fifth Cylon, the last Cylon whose face remains unknown (though, this assumption should be deemed less than credible), is a woman. You want to know my guess? It was Admiral Caine.

I think you missed an episode there.

Oh wait, nevermind.  I am dumb.

The Colonial Anarcho-Communist Union strongly repudiates the actions of Vice President Szarek and Lt. Felix Gaeta. Szarek has used the illegitimacy of the Adama/Roslin military dictatorship as well as justified sentiments against their continuation of Caprican imperialism and suspicions against the Cylon mass murderers in order to seize power for himself. At no point should we be duped into thinking that this was about anything else than his own ego. We the people still give our sweat and blood for the survival of the fleet with nary any say in how it is run, and nothing about that would have changed under a paternalistic Szarek/Gaeta military junta.

Our solidarity still goes out to the strikers of the Tylium ship who courageously stood their ground against yet another example of military ingerence into civilian affairs. We are critical of their involvement with Szarek’s faction, but we support their right to strike on principle, and express disgust at the military dogs who threatened their fellow human beings with death if they did not comply with their orders.

Our demands remain the same. That the administration steps down. That all ships be run by all the men and women who live on them, from below upward. That each ship be allowed a representative, duly elected by its constituency and recallable at any time with a vote of nonconfidence. That these representatives together form a federated council which will run jointly the affairs of the entire fleet. That the military hierarchy be disbanded, all members of the military and civilians who wish to participate be transferred to the Free Colonial People’s militia, where all militia members are considered equals and officers are elected directly by their unit. That the fleet’s affairs and religious affairs be strictly segregated to stop religious favoritism, and all men and women be given the right to worship the gods (or god, as the Baltarites would claim) of their choice, or none at all, as they see fit. That all men and women of the fleet be given equal access to the necessities of life, no matter what work they do.

Until these demands are met, we vow to continue disrupting the fleet’s affairs. We call upon all friends of the people still remaining on the fleet and who haven’t been ensnared by the totalitarian view of Szarek and his crew to join us next week as we call for a General Strike to paralize the fleet and force the administration to acquiesce to our demands. We also ask that Cylons who are sympathetic to our views step up in solidarity. We must never forget the genocide of humanity, but if any Cylons are truly repentant of these actions and wishes to repay humanity with their labor and solidarity, the CACU supports their full integration into human society, so that after the Revolution both humans and Cylons can live free lives.

My assumption has been that the people of Earth were human/Cylon hybrids similar to Hera, and that the only way for humanity OR the Cylons to survive will be to do so together.

As a fellow member of the Colonial Anarcho-Communist Union, I second BlackBloc’s statement, and further argue that we should also oppose Zarek’s coup because he simply sought to perpetuate the military-industrial complex to which we are all enslaved. 

Rather than following the failed methods of our Imperialist past, we need to seek a truly revolutionary and radical mode of conflict resolution.  Peace between the Humans and Cylons will not come at the point of a gun, or through the decisions of our “leaders.”  True peace can only arrive through a grassroots reconciliation between the working class members of both of our societies—the laborers and soldiers on our side, and the oppressed sentient Centurians, Raiders, and Fours (who have had what, like two lines?) among the Cylons.  These are the people who understand most the price of war, and it is only through an understanding of their mutual interest in peace that we can achieve a true end to pointless imperialist aggressions.

I am really fucking lost with this post.  No offense, I’ll stay that way.

Why the hell are you people wasting your and my time talking about this political crap and spoiling my enjoyment of “Caprica’s Next Top Model”??

If we as a race deserve to survive, we will earn it by renouncing racism, renouncing the cycle of violence, and embracing peace.

Yeah, that’s just what a Cylon would say.

Furthermore, I’ll have you know I voted for a third party candidate.

Humanity tried embracing peace 40 years ago, and we earned a holocaust for our trouble.

The CACU’s vision of an egalitarian future is compelling, but the Cylons can never be a part of it. They will destroy us from within.

Amanda pointed out that, based on some of the relationships human individuals have formed with the Cylons recently, we cannot deny that they too share some element of humanity. This could not be more wrong-headed and dangerous. Before we knew they could take human form, they used human form to infiltrate and destroy us. Now that this tactic is no longer available to them, they are constructing a new mask of humanity to hide behind. Do not be fooled. Maintaining human solidarity within the fleet is of utmost importance in guarding against the Cylon’s ultimate plans.

And, speaking with the CACU specifically in mind, this is why we need to deal with the traitors among us, so we can focus on the true enemy.

Humanity tried embracing peace 40 years ago, and we earned a holocaust for our trouble.

The genocide committed by the Cylons was a criminal act, but its roots were systemic.  We did not seek a true Peace, which comes from below, but simply a stalemate.  It left the humans and Cylons divided, and encouraged both of our citizens and workers to think in base nationalist terms, obscuring the common interest in Peace shared by the Cylon and Human working classes.  It was an unjustified war of Imperialist Aggression, but the solution is to tear down Imperialism and Nationalism, not to perpetuate these forces.  Can we truly say that Humans like Admiral Caine would not have sought to commit genocide against the Cylons, had they known where to find the Cylon homeworld?  The problem was the system, one which enslaves human worker and Centurian alike to the war machine, and makes interplanetary warfare inevitable.

Good riddance to Zarek. The man was a terrorist before, and to no one’s surprise returned to his terrorist ways the minute he saw a chance to seize power. I remember when I was in college on Canceron, and there was a “Free Zarek” rally and I thought to my self “The situation on Saggitaron needs fixing, but could you have picked a worse frakking guy as a focal point of that?”

the solution is to tear down Imperialism and Nationalism, not to perpetuate these forces.

Oh, and Capitalism.  We have to tear that down, too.

Can’t believe I forgot that one!

You are absolutely correct that the Cylon’s attack had systemic roots, but those roots go back to the Cylons and their nature, not class struggle.

Your description of the Centurians as a worker class is evidence of your corrupted perspective. They are a warrior class, built to kill, just as the Raiders are. Whether a worker class of Cylon exists on their homeworld is unknown, but if there is, it would have been built to work—not to think, not to feel, not to aspire to peace or freedom. Cylons are what they are, and while they may have grown from the seed of human invention, they have retasked themselves as instruments of destruction.

It is the Cylon’s nature, you see, to be eliminationists. In peace, there is always chance for renewed war, and the Cylons have shown themselves as unable to handle that uncertainty. They sought to resolve 40 years of peace through an ultimate act of violence. The Cylon rebels with us today, no matter how sincere their intentions may be (and I assure you, we cannot afford to entertain the possibility), will ultimately return to this conclusion once again.

Humanity constantly reinvents itself, with each generation that lives and dies, passing on to new generations full of new individuals. We can tolerate the perpetual uncertainty of a state of peace, because the very nature of life itself is uncertainty. Through this, humans find their greatest strength, while the Cylons will stagnate, renew their paranoia, and hunt us again.

Individuals like Caine (who may not have even been human, though that is beside the point) have so far failed to prevail over our collective instincts for life and peace.

If the Cylons are allowed to continue their existence, the end of history will have no place for humanity.

[I’m starting to worry that I’m trying so hard to create a neo-fascist anti-Cylon argument that I’m getting too far away from real-world based tropes for this to be fun anymore. But I certainly do love an abstract challenge! Scifi: making dehumanizing the enemy easy since 1928!]

I’m starting to worry that I’m trying so hard to create a neo-fascist anti-Cylon argument that I’m getting too far away from real-world based tropes for this to be fun anymore.

You need to throw in a bit of religious bigotry there too.  Something about them worshipping a “moon God”, perhaps.

Stupid Cylons with their stupid moon god.

[I’m starting to worry that I’m trying so hard to create a neo-fascist anti-Cylon argument that I’m getting too far away from real-world based tropes for this to be fun anymore. But I certainly do love an abstract challenge! Scifi: making dehumanizing the enemy easy since 1928!]

You would have to dip into the Neocon writings about Muslims circa 2002/03 (‘the only language they understand is violence,’ etc.) but then you’d need to go stand in the shower for about a week.  I could probably go on with this, but I’d have to break out the Rosa Luxembourg and Eighteenth Brumaire, and I’m really not going to do hard research just to beat a joke to death.

Stupid sexy Cylons.

Still confused: Do we know for sure why the Cylons can’t build a new resurrection hub?
jericho on 02/12 at 10:20 AM

As far as we have been told, the Cylons bootstrapped themselves into their current form, as the outcome of a project begun by the clunky old Centurion models during their rebellion some 40-odd years before.

If that were all there were to it, I can’t imagine any good reason why they couldn’t just rebuild anything they had developed themselves, up to and including a resurrection hub.

If I wanted to go for a technobabble answer I might suggest that these Cylons—the current models, both humanoid and mechanoid—were developed, or at any rate actually “constructed” or whatever, after the first resurrection hub went online, and their ability to benefit from it depended on being created in the presence of mumble mumble infusion resonance <i>handwave blah blah<i>. If this were the case, then the current Cylons have the know-how to build a new Hub and create new Cylons who can use it to resurrect, but it wouldn’t do themselves any good.

All we have been told for sure is, the rebel Cylon faction leaders swore up and down that if the old Hub were taken out, there would be no chance whatsoever of restoring its function. (The above is the only technical reason I can imagine this might be the case.)

I actually think that if this is ever explained (and judging by the ads on SciFi I suppose this Friday would be the beginning of such explanations) we will find that actually the Cylons use a lot of stuff they didn’t actually invent, owing it to shadowy predecessors—the “Final Five,” some renegade subset of the Lords of Kobol (remember them? I want more answers about them!), or what have you.

I actually think that if this is ever explained (and judging by the ads on SciFi I suppose this Friday would be the beginning of such explanations) we will find that actually the Cylons use a lot of stuff they didn’t actually invent, owing it to shadowy predecessors—the “Final Five,” some renegade subset of the Lords of Kobol (remember them? I want more answers about them!), or what have you.

We’re pretty close to already having confirmation of this.  Ellen Tigh, in the Colonel’s flashback, reassured him that everything was set up, and that they would be reborn.  Strongly suggesting that the resurrection technology far predates Cylons 1-6 and 8, and was set up by the Final Five. 

This would explain why the Cylons so venerate the Five, and why they are so religious.  Someone literally was looking out for them, in building the Hub, etc.  It would also nicely blur the lines between the mystical and the scientific/technological, similar to the Wormhole Aliens in Ron Moore’s DS9.

The fifth Cylon is Hera, the half Cylon half Human.  The Cylons & Humans can only survive by coming together.

One thing is bothering me about the “discovery” that the inhabitants of Earth were Cylons (though citizen Foxwell might have mentioned it - my eyes kind of glazed over after his fourth treatise on them ...

My “treatise-es” lack coherence because nothing neatly ties together all the evidence, plus I insist on throwing in some cranky conditions about humanity having had to evolve first on Earth. Given that we have no archeological evidence of a prior industrial civilization here, I have to suppose ours is the first on this planet. So I had to invent yet another cycle at least, prior to the one the Final Five remember being attacked. That would make the New-York-like city they remember a successor, in the next cycle; our cycle would then end with us creating Cylons who would be the ancestors of those people—and by my prior speculations, also the ancestors of the “Lords of Kobol.”

But earlier I tried to fit in a prior cycle to ours here on Earth by supposing they used magic rather than technology—then we’d be their (I called them “the Atlanteans” for convenience) Cylons but Earth got radically disenchanted during their revolt against the Atlanteans. In that case the Lords of Kobol would have been an exodus of our own siblings, who sought an unspoiled habitable world to continue to practice magic on; eventually they create their own Cylons—the ancestors of the Colonials.

I only continue to mention this alternative because it does seem that the fate of Kobol is different from those of Earth the second time around or the 12 Colonies. The latter were nuked and are radioactive; Kobol apparently wasn’t, but it was “unlucky.” Perhaps it wasn’t nuked but hexed you see.

Wouldn’t all of the other items on Earth have been much heavier/stronger than what we’re used to, to accomodate the Cylon’s superior strength?  Sure, the newer models can emulate human strength levels, but why would they need to fake that if there were no humans around?

Well, that’s an example of how the writers long ago left recognizable science fiction behind and got all mystical. Apparently there is some compulsion, in their world, for intelligent beings to seek out a humanoid form; each cycle’s Cylons might rationalize it how they will but they will inevitably transform themselves into humanoids. Then become indistinguishable from their original makers, and forget their origins, and eventually create new Cylons of their own that will in turn overthrow them, and so on.

By the time NYC or its echo gets attacked, its builders would have long forgotten they were developed from mechanoids. Presumably our legends about “giants in the Earth” would be some vestige of that memory.

(BTW, I’m trying to think of what the equivalent of the French Revolution and Le Montaigne were for the Colonies that would give them the terms “left wing” and “right wing”.  C’mon, you know someone wants to take a crack at the back story!)
NY Expat on 02/12 at 11:22 AM

Someone other than me, I suppose you hope!

Well, actually, I’m stumped, because if you remember way back a year or two ago, when we were speculating on some prior season, I was very puzzled by Colonial history.

How could a people capable of starfaring, who more or less accurately remember settling their twelve worlds many thousands of years before, be so much like us? We are capitalist people; our society depends on expansion and development. If we somehow stabilized ourselves for centuries as the Colonials appear to have done, we’d have a very different society with a very different flavor.

There is nary a mention of conflicts (beyond a certain amount of bigotry and grumbling) between the Colonies. No one ever tried to find and settle a 13th world. They use gasoline-type automobiles—how can that be sustainable for thousands of years?

It seems like it might be more evidence for the “they used magic” theory—the Kobol cycle was all magical; the 12 Colonies were an exodus of Kobol-“built” (or conjured) golem-Cylons who arrived, settled, then lost the magic along with their memories somehow, and later evolved a new technical path, only recently developing their starships and so on and re-creating a united civilization. But if they did so without the outrages and excesses so common in our own history suggests they were still very different sorts of people than us.

Which, to my surprise, actually legitimates ha’s claim that Cylons are indeed fundamentally different from Colonials, even in their humanoid form.

(It doesn’t mean I agree that the Colonial survivors should have no dealings with the rebel Cylons.)

I disagree, and:

The history of the current President of the Twelve Colonies is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these Colonies. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

She has refused her assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

She has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power.

She has quartered large bodies of armed troops among us.

She has protected them, by a mock trial from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these Colonies.

She has deprived us in many cases, of the benefit of trial by jury.

She has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of her protection and waging war against us.

She is at this time transporting large armies of Cylon mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A President, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Zarek and Gaeta’s rebellion may have been more bloody than it needed to have been - they should have titled the episode “Kick the Dog” - but it was a response to Adama’s treasonous refusal to obey the law and Roslin’s tacit approval of the same.  And this isn’t the first time Adama, Roslin, or one of their favorites have ignored the Quorum when it suited them.  Yet not only were they not put to death for their actions, they weren’t even put on trial.

At this point, I think it’s safe to say that there is neither democracy nor justice on Galactica, and the only way to restore them would be a violent rebellion against the military dictatorship.

The bloodyness of Szarek’s actions aren’t a mere point of contention. At this point in humanity’s history, with the heavy losses we have suffered, we cannot afford the loss of any human being with valuable skills that may still benefit the whole. As such we must take care that our revolution be as bloodless as possible, that the people who currently oppress us be given a chance, however minute, to redeem themselves by contributing to the collective. While the CACU recognizes that the social revolution on the Old Colonies would have necessitated political violence, it is utterly irresponsible at this point to continue with this sort of praxis. Even though the actions we recommend risk preserving agents of a counterrevolution in our midst, it is a risk that must be taken. We will prevail together or not at all.

First, Colonel Tigh was the leading proponent of suicide bombings on New Caprica, a tactic which did not sit well with anyone but was pursued, both out of desperation and under the force of Tigh’s will and influence. Can anyone truly be surprised that Tight turned out to be a toaster?

Speaking of the resistance on New Caprica ...

For those who question of motives of our new cylon friends, have you forgotten that some cylons aided us against our foes on New Caprica? Haven’t some our allies already proven their loyalty to us time and again?

And let us not forget the interesting case of Galen Tyrol. He led a somewhat peaceful and very effective strike in the early days that resulted in greater equality for all humankind. I can’t help but wonder what might have been if Zarek and Gaeta had taken the same non-violent approach.

I was very interested to read Richard Hatch’s defence of the Zarek character and I must say, while his slaughter of the Quorum completely earned him his ultimate fate, i can’t disagree with his intentions:

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2009/02/battlestar-galactica-tom-zarek-richard-hatch.html

Typical Cylon apologist rhetoric. This is the kind of thinking behind the insurgency that proposed an alliance, from the beginning. Led by a Cylon terrorist! And how did that work out on New Caprica, huh? And you’re probably the same ones who are listening to Baltar and his Cylon total-lack-of-god now! Felix Gaeta is the out-of-universe Pim Fortuyn reference of our imaginary non-time, and we should embrace him as a hero and an iconoclast. What do we do when Cavil and his type show up, tell them there’s been a big misunderstanding? I’d like to see you try.

Frak, I’m so sad there are only a few more episodes.

“This BSG sneak peek has been brought to you by Viagra.”

Damn, this thread is clearly dying, and the next ep airs tomorrow; presumably Amanda will put up another post by Saturday morning. Having read Hatch’s defense of his character I have a response but clearly it is indeed Friday the 13th; not an auspicious time!

<u>As</u> a “lefty,” I say Zarek was wrong.
—-Marko of Picon, Killer of Threads…

How could a people capable of starfaring, who more or less accurately remember settling their twelve worlds many thousands of years before, be so much like us? We are capitalist people; our society depends on expansion and development. If we somehow stabilized ourselves for centuries as the Colonials appear to have done, we’d have a very different society with a very different flavor.

There is nary a mention of conflicts (beyond a certain amount of bigotry and grumbling) between the Colonies. No one ever tried to find and settle a 13th world. They use gasoline-type automobiles—how can that be sustainable for thousands of years?

The first half of season 4 strongly implied that the sole purpose of the military post-Cylon War was to quell insurrections among the Colonies. Also, the Colonies settled other worlds, but the new worlds were under the auspices of their original Colony. Sharon Valerii thought she was from a Colony called Troy.

Hath not a Cylon eyes? hath not a Cylon hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Colonial is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.

At this point in humanity’s history, with the heavy losses we have suffered, we cannot afford the loss of any human being with valuable skills that may still benefit the whole.

True, and that would be an argument against violent rebellion if Roslin/Adama hadn’t proven their willingness to torture and murder their own citizens.  Need I remind my fellow citizens of their lack of concern for the welfare of workers?  They allowed them to be killed and maimed, and when they threatened to strike, the Roslin/Adama administration imprisoned them, tortured them, and threatened to murder their families.

In fact, violent rebellion against this oppressive regime may be the only way to secure our long-term survival.  If allowed to continue, they may well kill us all.

The Cylons are still among us and they haven’t forgotten!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ra96-4xKrw

(I promise it is not a rickroll)

AlanB

Also, the Colonies settled other worlds, but the new worlds were under the auspices of their original Colony. Sharon Valerii thought she was from a Colony called Troy.
Juan Stoppable on 02/13 at 07:32 AM

I totally missed that, then! I thought she said she was from one of the 12 worlds named after (or in parallel to, or something) our Zodiacal constellations. Which Troy might be in the sense of being a subcolony of one of them.

But in general I question:

The first half of season 4 strongly implied that the sole purpose of the military post-Cylon War was to quell insurrections among the Colonies.

Now honestly, I’ve lost count of the seasons—I think we are now finishing off Season 4, which is the final one, right? So you are talking about the episodes that picked up right after the Colonials escaped New Caprica. I suppose I’ve glazed over from time to time, but I really think I would have picked up on this.

The closest I recall ever hearing about inter-Colonial conflict was when Zarek was running for office (before the discovery of New Caprica, so this would be back in Season 3, or even 2—told you I lost count…) He pointed out that in the Colonial regime and society in general, Capricans (and a few other peoples from other worlds) tended to dominate, to hold the better jobs and more influential and honored positions.

But the timeline you indicate—that the Fleet and Marines were kept around and funded after peace had been apparently won with the Cylons out of fear that some Colonies might otherwise turn on others—well, when I put it that way it actually seems only prudent, especially if there had been a history before the Cylon War of intercolonial strife.

But I would think that if there had been such a history, there wouldn’t be 12 Colonies as independent entities—there would be asymmetrical groupings based on who conquered whom before the Cylon Wars.

It is conceivable that the Colonials did have such a range of polities, were forced to unite completely by the Cylon revolt, and then afterward decided to create a more equal federation by deliberately disbanding any former empires, unions, coalitions, or what have you, and making each planet formally equal in a federal Quorum. Certainly consolidating all military capability into one body run by that Quorum’s executive would be smart then.

But it would also be smart to keep a substantial fleet in being just as a precaution against the Cylons. Presumably Colonial industry became heavily geared toward war production during the war and afterward there would be a lot of inertia favoring keeping those industries, even if on a lower scale.

I’m completely unaware of anyone stating or even implying such a history, whereas if it happened in any version I’d think there would be strong memories; they wouldn’t just forget that say Scorpion was once completely subjugated by Tauron or Geminon, for instance, or that the Arions and Capricans once bombed Aquarion. On the contrary, if Colonial society post-Cylon war was a deliberately engineered balance of power I imagine they would ritualistically remember all these things, or sufficient examples, as cautionary tales justifying the new regime.

No, everything I’ve ever picked up assumes that all 12 colonies have a shared tradition and have always operated more or less together. Zarek did mention some oppression of his homeworld (which I think was Scorpion, IIRC) but you’d think that at least half the 12 peoples would have similar stories.

I’m completely unaware of anyone stating or even implying such a history, whereas if it happened in any version I’d think there would be strong memories; they wouldn’t just forget that say Scorpion was once completely subjugated by Tauron or Geminon, for instance, or that the Arions and Capricans once bombed Aquarion. On the contrary, if Colonial society post-Cylon war was a deliberately engineered balance of power I imagine they would ritualistically remember all these things, or sufficient examples, as cautionary tales justifying the new regime.

The producers stated that the Cylons were used as servants and solders for inter-colony warfare before the Cylon War. Also, in the episode “Hero” the coverup for their secret mission was that the Tauron colony was mining across the Armistice Line, and that they shot down one of their Raptors, which apparently was plausible enough to be used as an excuse.

The producers stated that the Cylons were used as servants and solders for inter-colony warfare before the Cylon War.

This kind of thing is why I try to avoid accepting as canonical “fact” anything that has not actually been shown in an aired episode. If we take this as true, then they’ve done a very poor job in showing a society that has until so recently not been politically united, as I’ve tried to explain. The history should be visible if it was that drastic, and after the Cylon attack it should have taken the form of a few major political landmines going off—vicious recriminations between specific Colonial “Tribes” for instance.

Since I like the shows, I’d rather not accuse the producers of being illogical boneheads until I have to. Ignoring this as non-canonical helps.

Also, in the episode “Hero” the coverup for their secret mission was that the Tauron colony was mining across the Armistice Line, and that they shot down one of their Raptors, which apparently was plausible enough to be used as an excuse.
Juan Stoppable on 02/13 at 05:07 PM

Now I’m confused again. I remember two “episodes” that were largely flashbacks to during the Cylon war or sometime near either the beginning or end of the truce period. The first was “Razor,” which I have actually seen quite recently, and its flashback portions were set in the last few days of the war.

You are now reminding me of the other ep, that had to do with some guy Adama used to know showing up out of nowhere to join the Fleet, and Adama’s revelation that he and his mission (and Adama) had something to do with either starting the new Cylon war or at any rate having foreknowledge the Colonial authorities should have used to foresee the attack. Thus, IIRC, that stuff happened near the end of the truce period, and thus you are saying that Tauron was plausibly defying Quorum agreements (with the Cylons in this case) after the Quorum had been running things for over 40 years.

That could then be strong evidence of a recent history of outright conflict between the Colonies, and with your producer statements, that seems foregone.

But forty years into the Quorum, it could just as plausibly be that a certain degree of autonomy had always been the norm in a basically consensual arrangement that had existed before.

Ok, no details until the next official post on BSG, but both artistically and as a sci-fi thing, this latest (02/13/2009) ep was the best in a long time.

I don’t care what people say…

OK just one detail so I don’t forget it. Just historical timeline trivia:

The 13th Tribe was on its way _to_ Earth 3000 years before the series timeframe.

There’s a frackin’ spoiler in the title of this post.  I can scroll past the text of the post and not click on comments, but how do I avoid seeing the title?  So say, uh, just me I guess.