Uncreated Conscience

I’ve been struggling for a few days now to write this post as Battlestar Galactica is so epic, it’s a bit difficult to review. If I’d watched the show like any normal person, I could probably give you a coherent blow-by-blow, but as it is, I’m trying to encapsulate my thoughts on four seasons worth of story into one tiny (okay, really long) little entry.

My dear friend, The Inimitable Bex, is an enormous fan and had been suggesting to me for ages the show as one I would enjoy. She hasn’t been the only one, various friends whose artistic opinions I value had continually been at me to give Battlestar Galactica a go, citing it as being “totally up [my] alley”. It hits all my “buttons” (so to speak): religion, mythology, post-apocalyptic narratives, forged families, etc. Spoilers follow beneath the cut.

Well and good, but I will own some slight reluctance on my part. I like space operas, but I tend to like space operas that are about human conflict. I loved that Firefly had no alien races and despite the Henson-ified characters of Star Wars, I loved that it was your very traditional, fantasy-genre-based hero’s journey. One way to not sell me on a concept is to tell me the story is about humans vs. aliens/machines—Us vs. Them, if you will. (I could never get into Asimov’s ROBOT series.)

The other part of the problem is Stargate and Star Trek and all space operas involving the military. Military dramas bore me. I never liked A Few Good Men or shows like M.A.S.H. and J.A.G. (another thing I hate about the military—all those stupid acronyms). Military thinking runs very counter to how we intuitively act and react—the chain of command has to be beaten into you (literally and metaphorically). Battlestar Galactica is about a battleship in space fighting a war against machines. Yawn.

And yet. Holy frak. My friend Jess gave me the first 3 seasons of Battlestar Galactica (I found the rest on SurftheChannel.com) and damn if it actually isn’t the best TV show I’ve ever seen.

The Cylons were created by Man. They rebelled. They evolved. There are many copies.

And they have a plan.

Half a century before the actual timeline of Battlestar Galactica, Cylons were machines created by humans to make our lives easier. Once technology rendered them sentient, they rebelled against their creators and declared war. After a long and bitter conflict, a truce was declared.

For 40 years there was a tenuous peace until one day, they attack the Twelve Colonies of Kobol with nuclear bombs, wiping out the human race—save for a small faction. Less than 50,000 souls are all that’s left of mankind and now it’s a desperate struggle for survival across space, fighting Cylons, fighting internal tension, and trying to find a place to call home.

Forged Families and the Post-Apocalyptic Setting

One of the reasons post-apocalyptic narratives are a favourite of mine is because we get to see what heights and what depths people are capable of when pitted in such an extreme environment. As it turns out, humans are capable of great nobility—and great treachery. One thing Battlestar Galactica is great at portraying is that the capacity for both exists in all people, and that people aren’t wholly good or wholly bad. Moral shades of grey! I love it! Always will!

I tend to view Battlestar Galactica almost as a family saga. On one hand, you have Commander Bill Adama as “The Old Man”, the leader of the military faction and de-facto father figure. On the other, you have President Laura Roslin, the schoolteacher-turned-Leader-of-the-Twelve-Colonies, as the de-facto mother figure. The main players are their surrogate (or even actual) children, especially Lee “Apollo” Adama and Kara “Starbuck” Thrace.

As with any good show, each character simultaneously represents a concept beyond him/herself, while inverting tropes at the same time. Like any good father, The Old Man protects his family from outside threats, administers discipline, and keeps a watchful (and sometimes blindly indulgent) eye on his children. Madam President, like any good mother, keeps the cogs turning and gets things done. And boy does she get things done. Madam President, she is hardcore: cold, ruthless, utterly pragmatic, and not afraid to throw people out the airlock if it serves her purposes. This is a woman who destroyed an entire ship filled with innocent people because it might be a Cylon plant. DAMN.

On the other hand, you have Papadama (as I like to call him) as the emotionally intuitive one, the one who knows how to rouse people to action by cutting through to the heart. He, more than Mama President, is more easily moved to compassion and between the two of them, you have Mercy and Justice. (As a side note, this is one of my favourite archetypal male/female inversions: the intuitive male and the intellectual female.)

Their surrogate/actual children, on the other hand, are another type of inversion. Both are Viper pilots, first in the line of defense against Cylon Raiders, but they couldn’t be more different from each other. Captain Apollo is a fastidious, by-the-books military officer and his psuedo-sister Lieutenant Starbuck is your hotshot, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants top gun. Admittedly, this is an inversion I don’t enjoy: sometimes (okay, often) Apollo can come across as a whiny bitch and Starbuck is one of my least favourite types of “feminist” heroines—the “kickass” warrior. They are the Head and the Heart.

But to give the writers credit, both Apollo and Starbuck are infinitely more complex than that, even if they make me grit my teeth with frustration and/or annoyance. And I think the writers meant for me to have that reaction to these two (to whom I affectionately refer as the Twins) because for all their obnoxious flaws, both are completely human (and not in a human/Cylon sense).

Apollo is Momma’s Boy and Starbuck is Daddy’s Little Girl and boy do they have frakked up relationships with their parents and each other. Especially each other. I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of the Romantic Double (please see: the writings of Percy Bysshe Shelley), but I was simultaneously horrified and intrigued by the incestuous bent to their relationship. Mostly I was intrigued that I was horrified because ordinarily stuff that like doesn’t faze me. They’re not even related by blood. (We also won’t delve into how Apollo married the wrong adoptive sister. Oh yes, there’s a lot more to this frakked up family.)

But family sagas wouldn’t be interesting if the members weren’t highly dysfunctional. And God(s), for all that I wanted to bash in each of their heads for different reasons, I just as often (if not more often) wanted to give them all hugs.

Narrative Doubling in Battlestar Galactica

Doubles are everywhere in this series. Every character has at least one double—if not more—and all represent different aspects of the human narrative. For instance, you have Apollo/Starbuck (the Twins), but you also have Apollo/Anders as two different romantic interests for Starbuck. Hell, you even have Apollo/Dead Brother Zak, as Good Son/Bad Son and act as yet ANOTHER set of romantic rivals for Starbuck (this is another reason Starbuck irritates me—all those damned love interests).

You also have Starbuck/Dee as two different types of adoptive daughters for Papadama, who also serve as potential rivals for Apollo’s affections. (Adamas! Stop dating within your adopted sibling pool! Geez!) And of course, you have the biggest narrative double of all: the Human/Cylon existence.

Human/Cylon doubling is the most interesting as it raises the question of what makes someone “alive”. The Cylons are “people”; they have a culture, feelings, and religion. What differentiates human from Cylon? If they feel as humans do, if they’re even made from synthetic organic material and bleed as we do, if they love as we do—then are we just programming as well?

The most interesting double of all was the Boomer/Athena storyline. Both are Cylons of the Eight model (there are 12 models—sort of). Both fell in love with humans (again—sort of) and are deeply involved with the Galactica. They are, in fact, the same person: Sharon Valerii. Programmed with the same memories and the same capacity for emotion. However, one was reviled for what she was and the other loved and accepted despite her Cylon nature. Athena became a wife and mother while Boomer stood alone. Athena has everything Boomer ever wanted: love, acceptance, a family, and all with the full knowledge of her identity as a Cylon.

(Something small and inconsequential: I wish Athena’s callsign were something else. I realise there was an Athena character in the original series, but naming a wife and mother being after the Greek virgin goddess of war and wisdom is weird. I would have called her Demeter, due to her storyline. Maybe Inanna or Astarte to go with the Babylonian goddess of love and war.)

What is left to you when all you’ve ever wanted is snatched by someone who is not only exactly like you, but is you? You go as far in the opposite direction as possible. In some ways, Boomer is the most human, despite the fact that she is a machine. Oh Boomer. You broke my heart.

I view both Boomer and Athena as the bridge between human and Cylon: Boomer in an emotional way and Athena in a more literal way. Athena is the mother of Hera, the first and only human-Cylon hybrid, who eventually becomes Mitochondrial Eve and the mother of us all.

Religion and Battlestar Galactica

The most interesting and compelling part of the show (for me) were the religious aspects of it. The Cylons and the humans are of different religious persuasions: the Cylons are monotheistic and the humans are polytheistic. But that would be over-simplifying it for both humans and Cylons run along the religious spectrum: from atheism to fanaticism and a few are even converted from one “side” to another.

It would be too easy to point fingers at the Muslims—oh sorry, Cylons as being the Big Bad. (This is also neatly inverted in season 3, when the humans become the suicide bombers.) After all, they commit genocide in the name of their God, but it’s not nearly so simple. Despite the obvious comparison due to the monotheistic nature of their worship, their religion is nothing like Judaism, Christianity, or Islam.

I think the major difference is their relationship to death, which is tied up with the biggest difference between human and Cylon. Cylons cannot die; their consciousness is simply downloaded into another copy of their body. For them, as Athena says, “Death is a learning experience.” For humans, life is a learning experience and death is a release. In some ways, you can view the Cylons’ quest for sexual reproduction (sounds silly, but bear with me here) as the Buddhist desire of releasing themselves from the cycle of death and rebirth. The ability to create life organically, from infancy onward, is Nirvana.

Because I was raised in a Christian house and went to Catholic school, I immediately pick up on Christian imagery (I mean, this is totally the Last Supper tableau), but I’m not unmindful of the polytheistic—no, mythopoeic elements. The writers of Battlestar Galactica? Totally have their mythology mojo down, and this includes Judeo-Christianity.

The Importance of 12

Let’s start with the number 12. The number 12 occurs with astonishing regularity in human myths: from the 12 Olympians, to the 12 signs of the zodiac, to the 12 Tribes of Israel, to the 12 Disciples. There are 12 Cylon models and 12 Colonies of Kobol (the planet from which all humans came).

The 12 Colonies of Kobol are named for the signs of the zodiac, but they are in fact closer to the tribes of Israel than the Greco-Romans. For instance, each Colony (planet) has a function in the way each Israelite tribe did: Aerelons are farmers, Gemenons are religious, etc. (Gemenons are totally the Levites, by the way.)

On the other hand, you have the 12 Cylon models which are more like zodiac signs. I mean, you could easily categorise all Sixes as being a certain type of humanity and the same with the Ones, the Twos, the Threes, and the Eights. Ones are singleminded, Twos are fanatic, Threes are intense, Sixes are pragmatic, and Eights are sensitive. Within each model there are, of course, individual differences, but overall? Yeah.

Religious/Mythopoeic Narratives

The story of a people journeying toward a Promised Land is pretty well known. Humans are searching for their own promised land, a mystical planet called Earth. The fact that Moses never saw the Promised Land is also well-known. Laura Roslin dies of breast cancer (sob!) before she can live on Earth. And yet. Laura Roslin is the prophesied “dying leader” of Pythia’s scriptures. There are many dying gods and goddesses throughout the world: Osiris, Adonis, Baldur, Ishtar, even Persephone, and of course, Jesus Christ. They are usually associated with sun/seasonal myths, as well as rebirth. Through Roslin the human race experiences a rebirth.

But perhaps the most intriguing figure is Gaius Baltar. He is a man of science, a believer in the rational universe, but he is also totally self-serving, self-centered, obnoxious, cowardly, and despicable. I LOVE HIM. He is also the messianic head of a monotheistic cult who metaphorically “died” and was “reborn” again as a religious leader. Baltar has the most frakked up storyline of any of the characters: he was responsible for the destruction/oppression of humanity not once but TWICE, he may or may not be insane, and he has a beautiful Cylon girlfriend claiming to be an angel of God living in his head. I love Baltar because all he ever wanted to do was save his own skin and if he was safe, then to save his reputation. Because of this, he becomes an outcast and hated (and consequently, even more loved by me).

This could have easily gone an insipid route, in which Baltar finds redemption in God or whatever. But Battlestar Galactica is so much better than that. He doesn’t find redemption in God—his position as religious figurehead was more accidental than anything else. Contrast that to Roslin, whose religious position as the “dying leader” was a total calculated maneuver. No, Gaius Baltar finds redemption in himself, when he casts aside his selfish impulses and discovers he has the great capacity to love. Can it be reiterated HOW MUCH I LOVE HIM?

There is so much more to uncover and discuss on this show (like the awesome of Colonel Tigh and the Chief), but I will lay those aside for another time. If the verdict weren’t clear enough before: THIS IS THE BEST SHOW EVER. WATCH IT. NOW, NOW, NOW! And once you’ve done so, come back here and answer this one question for me:

What the frak is Starbuck?