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selenakNew day, new hotel (with dial-up, alas), and some more Battlestar Galactica thoughts and (unspoiled) speculation caused by rewatching 3.01 and 3.02.
By now, I've caught up on some other reviews and see there's speculation that Baltar might take Gaeta's credit for being the source (either after Gaeta dies or after he frames him) in order to get back into everyone's good graces. Here's why I think this is unlikely: if the scenes in the first two episodes are any indication, Gaeta himself will have trouble of getting anyone to listen long enough to explain before he's getting killed, let alone convince them to believe him. Baltar? Who is currently public enemy No.1 and hated far more than poor Gaeta is? Not a chance. Do you really think Roslin and Adama who both despised him at the best of times would believe him? Tigh certainly won't.
All the same, I don't think the New Caprica storyline will end with Gaius Baltar remaining with the Cylons, either. For one thing, he's of use to them only as long as he's nominal President, and aside from Caprica Six, they don't care for him as a person. (Though I think it's possible Boomer might pity him, as he did pity her in Kobol's Last Gleaming, as they're in somewhat similar situations, but I'm not basing that on more than her reaction in the SIGN YOUR NAME SIGN IT SIGN IT SIGN IT scene, and that might have been all about Caprica Six.) Moreover, old BSG Baltar might have gotten his own ships and done his evil cackling from there, but "our" Baltar is neither a military commander nor otherwise either interested or capable in staging attacks on humans. He's not even into power; the reason why he ran against Roslin was a personal grudge, and he's currently paying hell for it (along with the rest of humanity). So, whatever Baltar's future role after everyone is back in space will be, I don't think it'll be Evil Overlord with the Cylons.
However, given that he is Public Enemy No1 with everybody and their dog (literary) wanting to see him dead right now, how can he go back to the humans without getting torn to shreds the first time he steps on a human ship? What reason could be good enough for Adama, Roslin & Co. to leave him alive? Like I said, I don't think a (false) claim to be the source for insurgence intelligence would do the trick. Nor would something like saving a particular person's life, even - or especially not - of it's Roslin (again). About the only reason I can think of, right now, would be if Baltar - who, lest we forget, was an expert in Artificial Intelligence even before the colonies got wiped out and has now had more and better opportunity to study Cylons up close than any other human - came up with a way to incapacitate, seriously damage and/or kill the Cylons on a permanent basis. Whatever it is would not be a one time does the trick weapon, as he'd then be redundant, but something that only he can provide on an ongoing basis and which he uses to bargain for his life for. In such a scenario, I can see him getting Sharon's old cell on Galactica, which would solve the problem of why the population at large doesn't tear him apart as well.
That's my short time idea. In the long term, though, I'm speculating on something more complicated. Because really, either humanity wiping out the Cylons or the Cylons wiping out the rest of humanity isn't how I see this show ending. The two species will have to find a way to coexist. Obviously another than the current one. Caprica Six and Boomer meant well, but even leaving Cavil's efforts to swing the other Cylons back to believing extermination is preferable aside, even if the cycle of arrests, torture and executions on the one side and suicide bombings taking more and more non-military targets on the other with them weren't growing ever more vicious, even if the Cylon dictatorship really were what Caprica Six intended, entirely benevolent, it would still be a dictatorship. Though I believe Caprica Six and Boomer could have never persuaded the others to even try if they had suggested something like "let's disarm first and show the humans we're not threatening them anymore" as opposed to "let's atone for genocide by ruling the humans for their own good", because the suspicion that the former method would be greeted with a die, Cylons, die! would have been more than likely and impossible to argue against. Now we do have two examples of what humans did to Cylons when Cylons were the powerless ones in their hands - Sharon Agathon and Six-on-Pegasus aka Gina. These were individuals. If the Cylons in general were to actually surrender and would not get massacred at once, would they be treated more like Sharon or more like Gina?
I don't see the two races going their separate ways, either. Neither side would trust the other not to do what the Cylons did after the first Human/Cylon war, i.e. only withdraw to plot bloody revenge for the future. So what else? The shape of things to come. Eventually a merging of the two species, not enforced (i.e. rape, however you phrase it) but voluntary. Already, we see the differences lessen; the Cylons are losing their unity, there are different factions set against each other, they are losing their taboos (no killing of other Cylons unless the other Cylon allows or requests it), faith is no longer something they all share - between Leoben, who is convinced he has seen the face of God, and the Cavil models, who are atheists, there is the same spectrum as there is in humans regarding religion. Some of them have started to realize that killing others, not just killing your own, but others, is wrong. Back in early s2, you had Baltar, on Kobol, the origin of both species, having an exchange with Six which went something like this:
Six: Murder. Man's one true art form.
Baltar: You've done plenty of your own killing, I think.
Six: Yes, but we are your children. What did you expect?
Baltar: So we kill more of you, and you kill more of us, and we kill more of you... what is the point? What is the point of any of it?
And here we come full circle. Because Baltar who is truly between the species and an outcast now in a way the other halves of human/Cylon couples weren't (because they were not guilty of similar things) might just be the one with both reason, incentive and the mind to think of the fact that the merging of the species in a non-violent way is the only possibility to end the bloody cycle. Thereby finding a cause which might make him a traitor to either race in the short term but perhaps the most unlikely candidate for salvation ever in the long.
By now, I've caught up on some other reviews and see there's speculation that Baltar might take Gaeta's credit for being the source (either after Gaeta dies or after he frames him) in order to get back into everyone's good graces. Here's why I think this is unlikely: if the scenes in the first two episodes are any indication, Gaeta himself will have trouble of getting anyone to listen long enough to explain before he's getting killed, let alone convince them to believe him. Baltar? Who is currently public enemy No.1 and hated far more than poor Gaeta is? Not a chance. Do you really think Roslin and Adama who both despised him at the best of times would believe him? Tigh certainly won't.
All the same, I don't think the New Caprica storyline will end with Gaius Baltar remaining with the Cylons, either. For one thing, he's of use to them only as long as he's nominal President, and aside from Caprica Six, they don't care for him as a person. (Though I think it's possible Boomer might pity him, as he did pity her in Kobol's Last Gleaming, as they're in somewhat similar situations, but I'm not basing that on more than her reaction in the SIGN YOUR NAME SIGN IT SIGN IT SIGN IT scene, and that might have been all about Caprica Six.) Moreover, old BSG Baltar might have gotten his own ships and done his evil cackling from there, but "our" Baltar is neither a military commander nor otherwise either interested or capable in staging attacks on humans. He's not even into power; the reason why he ran against Roslin was a personal grudge, and he's currently paying hell for it (along with the rest of humanity). So, whatever Baltar's future role after everyone is back in space will be, I don't think it'll be Evil Overlord with the Cylons.
However, given that he is Public Enemy No1 with everybody and their dog (literary) wanting to see him dead right now, how can he go back to the humans without getting torn to shreds the first time he steps on a human ship? What reason could be good enough for Adama, Roslin & Co. to leave him alive? Like I said, I don't think a (false) claim to be the source for insurgence intelligence would do the trick. Nor would something like saving a particular person's life, even - or especially not - of it's Roslin (again). About the only reason I can think of, right now, would be if Baltar - who, lest we forget, was an expert in Artificial Intelligence even before the colonies got wiped out and has now had more and better opportunity to study Cylons up close than any other human - came up with a way to incapacitate, seriously damage and/or kill the Cylons on a permanent basis. Whatever it is would not be a one time does the trick weapon, as he'd then be redundant, but something that only he can provide on an ongoing basis and which he uses to bargain for his life for. In such a scenario, I can see him getting Sharon's old cell on Galactica, which would solve the problem of why the population at large doesn't tear him apart as well.
That's my short time idea. In the long term, though, I'm speculating on something more complicated. Because really, either humanity wiping out the Cylons or the Cylons wiping out the rest of humanity isn't how I see this show ending. The two species will have to find a way to coexist. Obviously another than the current one. Caprica Six and Boomer meant well, but even leaving Cavil's efforts to swing the other Cylons back to believing extermination is preferable aside, even if the cycle of arrests, torture and executions on the one side and suicide bombings taking more and more non-military targets on the other with them weren't growing ever more vicious, even if the Cylon dictatorship really were what Caprica Six intended, entirely benevolent, it would still be a dictatorship. Though I believe Caprica Six and Boomer could have never persuaded the others to even try if they had suggested something like "let's disarm first and show the humans we're not threatening them anymore" as opposed to "let's atone for genocide by ruling the humans for their own good", because the suspicion that the former method would be greeted with a die, Cylons, die! would have been more than likely and impossible to argue against. Now we do have two examples of what humans did to Cylons when Cylons were the powerless ones in their hands - Sharon Agathon and Six-on-Pegasus aka Gina. These were individuals. If the Cylons in general were to actually surrender and would not get massacred at once, would they be treated more like Sharon or more like Gina?
I don't see the two races going their separate ways, either. Neither side would trust the other not to do what the Cylons did after the first Human/Cylon war, i.e. only withdraw to plot bloody revenge for the future. So what else? The shape of things to come. Eventually a merging of the two species, not enforced (i.e. rape, however you phrase it) but voluntary. Already, we see the differences lessen; the Cylons are losing their unity, there are different factions set against each other, they are losing their taboos (no killing of other Cylons unless the other Cylon allows or requests it), faith is no longer something they all share - between Leoben, who is convinced he has seen the face of God, and the Cavil models, who are atheists, there is the same spectrum as there is in humans regarding religion. Some of them have started to realize that killing others, not just killing your own, but others, is wrong. Back in early s2, you had Baltar, on Kobol, the origin of both species, having an exchange with Six which went something like this:
Six: Murder. Man's one true art form.
Baltar: You've done plenty of your own killing, I think.
Six: Yes, but we are your children. What did you expect?
Baltar: So we kill more of you, and you kill more of us, and we kill more of you... what is the point? What is the point of any of it?
And here we come full circle. Because Baltar who is truly between the species and an outcast now in a way the other halves of human/Cylon couples weren't (because they were not guilty of similar things) might just be the one with both reason, incentive and the mind to think of the fact that the merging of the species in a non-violent way is the only possibility to end the bloody cycle. Thereby finding a cause which might make him a traitor to either race in the short term but perhaps the most unlikely candidate for salvation ever in the long.
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no subject
Date: 2006-10-11 02:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-12 10:41 am (UTC)However, Hera'll probably survive, though right now Roslin, Cottle (not on New Caprica) and Tori are the only ones who know a) she' still around, and b) who she is. Which makes me wonder: about the only thing Six-in-Baltar's head told him which he couldn't have figured out himself subconsciously (i.e. the one thing one can't explain by him hallucinating) was Hera's existence, back in "Kobol's Last Gleaming", and then later her birth in the cell. Will she tell him again, and/or will Roslin (not likely) or Tori (possible, we don't know much about her)?
Baltar couldn't protect Hera when she was born, but he did an effective job of saving her from abortion earlier on by figuring out a reason that prevented Adama and later Roslin from insisting on the order, so who knows what the knowledge might cause him to do?
no subject
Date: 2006-10-12 04:00 pm (UTC)You know, I've decided that I think there is some sort of active supernatural force in the BSG universe. Roslin's chamallah hallucinations are also difficult to explain away.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-12 05:11 pm (UTC)Roslin's accurate chamalla hallucinations, mostly concerning Kobol and Earth.
Leoben's correct prediction they'd find Kobol, and knowledge about Kara which I don't think he'd be able to get from her file, or other Cylons (i.e. her mother, etc.)
Baltar's visions - most blatantly of course the opera house and the baby, but he saw also skulls on Kobol, and his vision of Adama putting the baby in the water a la Moses and himself being unable to save/find it is a good metaphor for what happens in Downloaded
Six-in-Baltar and Baltar-in-Six: how did that happen? Because the Cylons for sure didn't do it (they don't seem to be aware - as far as we know - that it happened to either Gaius or Six).
Mmmmmmmm.....
no subject
Date: 2006-10-12 05:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-12 05:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-12 09:00 pm (UTC)I've always found her "I'm an Angel of God" whisper most resonant; in a show so infused with faith, all its types, that has always been my favourite explanation.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-12 09:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-12 09:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-11 03:52 pm (UTC)I like this idea in principle but what would merging the “species” actually mean? More hybrids like Hera might work in a fantasy universe, where some kind of sacred marriage would satisfy both sides but that wouldn’t really make sense under the modern political systems in place here (at least on the human side). Unless the Cylons, including the Cavils, would be satisfied that they’d fulfilled God’s plan if Hera were allowed to found a new Cylon line. Maybe that would make all the previous models obsolete so they’d send themselves off to cold storage.
I think a more fundamental problem is that the Cylon aren’t a biological species in any meaningful sense of the term. They don’t reproduce genetically even though the bodies they occupy seem capable of it under some circumstances. If the Six in his head is anything more than a hallucination, Gaius in his current state is as much of a hybrid in Cylon terms as Hera is in human ones. Merging might mean some kind of mass downloading into existing human hosts? Or uploading human consciousness to other Cylons beside Caprica Six? Although neither need be physically violent both sound like violations.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-12 10:47 am (UTC)Uploading/downloading one species in the other: hmmmm, haven't thought about this, but you're right, it's both a possibility and a violation because I can't see anyone volunteering. Well, Helo might if his Sharon were to die, but other than that...
What I think might be on the horizon: modifying the Cylons so they'd age and die naturally, i.e. without downloading in another body. For this, of course, they'd have to agree. Now so far the only one who really wanted to die permanently was Gina because of what had happened to her, but I can see other Cylons coming to a similar conclusion in less existential despair as well. Once they've lived long enough, and/or to ensure their hybrid children (with Hera as the first) get to be accepted and live. They are capable of self-sacrifice, after all.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-12 01:31 pm (UTC)Conversely, I suppose Cylon biotechnology could give life to humans or at least a cure for cancer.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-12 02:00 pm (UTC)Yes. I think it's very likely Caprica Six had never died before the miniseries - that this was her first download - and yes, I think their various deaths do just what you say. And once they have children who will inevitably, permanently die - I can't see them wanting to outlive them forever.
(Otoh, they could also go crazy from too many deaths, like the titular Scar and Leoben.)
Cure for cancer: true. It would also create an odd yin-yang symbiosis of gifts.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-11 05:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-12 10:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-11 08:51 pm (UTC)Mind you, I wouldn't call Sharon's treatment good. No, it could've been much worse, as we saw with Gina, but they tried to abort her against her will (and the only reason they didn't was because it became inconvenient to do so) and then they took her child away and told her it was dead. They won't be getting any humanitarian awards any time soon, even though she wasn't subjected to the kind of atrocities Gina experienced over and over.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-11 08:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-12 07:14 am (UTC)Back to Sharon: what I'd like to see is the two Sharons meet up on New Caprica and exchange experiences. And try to find a solution as well. With one being a Cylon who knew what she was and ended up living with the humans and the other having thought of herself as human and ending up with the Cylons, plus shared memories, they'd be in an ideal position to do so, once Sharon V gets over the strangeness of talking to another self...
no subject
Date: 2006-10-12 09:03 pm (UTC)And I have downloaded the Dr. Who fics to my iPAQ! & :-) Now, must finish these files for tomorrow's session with SA....
no subject
Date: 2006-10-13 11:33 am (UTC)You know, I was wondering how on earth Sharon could be reconciled with Cylon rule, as a Cylon who identified (and probably still does, to a degree) as human. But I can see her advocating that if she thought it would give humanity the only chance it had to survive the Cylons.