And yet another Battlestar thread

[Wouter]

People, from Galactica, have rejected his leadership and patriarch role before, particularly during the Kobol rebellion where even Lee and Starbuck sided openly against him (and for example Dualla did so behind his back).

[Bronn Stone]

[quote name='Myrddin' post='1673910' date='Feb 4 2009, 11.10']For the civilians who take part in the mutiny, I can see him being more forgiving (except for Zarek). For his own lost children, the airlock.[/quote]

I think they'll get the lifeboat, not the airlock. There will be enough of them that he'll give them the least valuable ship and enough food and water for a few months. And then jump away.

[EHK for Darwin]

[quote name='Sebastian' post='1673391' date='Feb 4 2009, 06.36']But I agree, the show has been trying to portray the Cylons in a more sympathetic light while all the time evading the question of their culpability in the genocide. Actually, even the reasons for the genocide were never explained in a non-cryptic way. The writers sometimes seem to pretend it didn't happen, with some characters blaming the Cylons only for New Caprica and not for the mass murder of billions of people.[/quote]

This is a recurring problem with alot of the moral ambiguity the show sometimes tries to create. Everytime the remnants humanity do something inhumane to cylons the implicit (and sometimes explicitly stated) question is thrown out there, "Are we really any better than they are?" Well, have you essentially extincted a species without provocation? No? Well, torture away. You are better. You have the moral high ground in everything you do even if it amounts to genocide, cause even that amounts to self-defense at this point.

There are only two reasons not to inflict the most horrific atrocities on the Cylons. One is necessity. They (arguably) presently need the rebel cylons because they're useful to man's survival. And two, excess brutality for the sake of brutality, without any other purpose amounts to barbarism and those impulses should not be condoned or encouraged. Not that Cylons don't deserve these things, but it reflects poorly upon us and we should be above it.

And the WW2 analogies don't really work. Nor do any other past instances of human atrocity because of what I pointed out in the first post. Humans do not behave collectively in the same fashion and to the same extent that Cylons do. Even in the heart of NAZI Germany there are innocents. It is impossible to declare full collective guilt for every member of that country. It is very easy to do so for every cylon who knew what they were.

[quote]One thing that I've always wondered: doesn't a situation like the fleet's in usually warrent martial law? Everything about the new civilization post-attack on the colonies just screams a need for a dictator-like leadership (speaking historically, not from any desire to see the rise of any dictatorship)?[/quote]

I've said many times that I think it does. Extreme times open people up to extreme solutions, including dictatorial, cult of personality leadership. But Adama has done nothing to cultivate that following and given his disregard for civilian interests, government, and media plus the ultimate failure of his 'master plan', its quite easy to see how they would turn on him. Adama does not care about his own PR and his major objective has failed, thus they do not rally around him anymore. Quite the opposite.

[TrackerNeil]

[quote name='Myrddin' post='1673910' date='Feb 4 2009, 14.10']I think Adama here is more going to swing the hammer on his own people the hardest and without mercy.

He sees his crew (the whole military really) as his family with himself as the patriarch. So the mutiny is very personal. They aren't just rejecting his leadership and (bad) choices, but his positon as father. His love. When he said "No amnesty" for them, I believe him.[/quote]

Oh, sure. Adama takes any sort of "family" dissension very hard; in the podcast for "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part 2" Ron Moore states that what freaked Adama out was the fact that it was [i]Kara [/i]whom Roslin suborned. She was even more like family, given her relationship with Zack, and he took it very personally.

I don't think, however, that Adama can airlock everyone on [i]Galactica [/i]who took part in the mutiny. Gaeta, yes, and maybe a few others (might as well get rid of Gage while he's at it), but the fact is that he just can't spare that many people and still run a battlestar. How many pilots would he have to kill? How many deck hands? How many command officers? Too many. If Cylons can be pardoned, and if Cylon collaborators can be pardoned, so can mutineers.

[EHK for Darwin]

Good post Davos. :thumbsup:

[Bronn Stone]

[quote name='EHK for a True GOP' post='1673934' date='Feb 4 2009, 11.28']And the WW2 analogies don't really work. Nor do any other past instances of human atrocity because of what I pointed out in the first post. Humans do not behave collectively in the same fashion and to the same extent that Cylons do. Even in the heart of NAZI Germany there are innocents. It is impossible to declare full collective guilt for every member of that country. It is very easy to do so for every cylon who knew what they were.[/quote]

But what you 'pointed out' was more an argument, and in my opinion an unconvincing one.

I think you grossly exaggerate the extent to which we can be certain (and the Colonials especially can be certain) that the Cylons behave in a collective fashion. The primary mechanism by which they seem to gain shared experiences is (was) tied to the Resurrection process. That has been destroyed and from that point forward, as far as we know, all shared consciousness among the models ceased. And even before, it was limited to the models. The 3's have no guilt whatsoever for what the 6's did except for the extent to which they cooperated with it. And even then, not all 3's are the same.

But from the moment the Resurrection Hub was destroyed (an act of Rebellion even stronger than Gaeta's, btw), each individual from the 'standard seven' became wholly and irrevocably a unique being - each with its own ongoing perspective shared by no other.

[EHK for Darwin]

[quote name='Bronn Stone' post='1674211' date='Feb 4 2009, 16.33']But what you 'pointed out' was more an argument, and in my opinion an unconvincing one.

I think you grossly exaggerate the extent to which we can be certain (and the Colonials especially can be certain) that the Cylons behave in a collective fashion. The primary mechanism by which they seem to gain shared experiences is (was) tied to the Resurrection process. That has been destroyed and from that point forward, as far as we know, all shared consciousness among the models ceased. And even before, it was limited to the models. The 3's have no guilt whatsoever for what the 6's did except for the extent to which they cooperated with it. And even then, not all 3's are the same.

But from the moment the Resurrection Hub was destroyed (an act of Rebellion even stronger than Gaeta's, btw), each individual from the 'standard seven' became wholly and irrevocably a unique being - each with its own ongoing perspective shared by no other.[/quote]

The Resurrection Hub was destroyed well after the genocide. Even if some have 'seen the light' since than (even though we still can't find a single cylon whose expressed a significant measure of guilt and sorry on the whole mass murder thing.), its too little, too late. I'm sure that even Eichmann could potentially reform, turn over a new leaf, and be deeply sorry for the atrocities he was responsible for...but you still execute the fucker regardless. Crimes this big have no expiration date no matter the 'personal growth' of the culprits. And I still haven't seen any individualism within the model numbers outside of those who have had large exposure to humanity. Even the limited individualism we have seen only resulted in one out of the many 'human tainted' cylons voting against her model number. A 100% voting record is a pretty good sign of collective behavior...or a 3rd world dictatorship.

We can reasonably assume that all Cylons (those who knew what they were) knew of the impending genocide. We have no evidence that any of them disagreed with the decision, let alone actively worked against it. We have no evidence of any cylon dissent whatsoever til long after the fact when Boomer was introduced into their midst. I think its safe to say that they're all (those who knew what they were) culpable. What is there really to cast doubt on this?

[Ran]

I think there's something to Bronn's argument regarding the Cylons here. They were a vast collective that went in relatively unthinking lockstep, because there weren't really more than eight "individual" personalities. This has slowly changed at first, but now it's changed much more rapidly with the destruction of the resurrection hub. With no means of reinforcing the shared nature of experience, they will individualize quite a lot more quickly.

Personally, I'm pragmatic. Humanity needs the rebel cylons on their side. So, you accomodate them, and you think that whatever they believed and did then, they were one tiny cog in a big machine, and they may see matters differently now than they did then when the urge to conform was overwhelming.

In the end, RDM will resolve it however he wants to resolve it. I'm pretty sure you're never going to see anyone with the, "All Cylons should die," attitude as being depicted on the right side of things, though.

EHK:

[quote]I'm sure that even Eichmann could potentially reform, turn over a new leaf, and be deeply sorry for the atrocities he was responsible for...but you still execute the fucker regardless[/quote]

And if Eichmann did all that, [i]and[/i] was key to the survival of all humanity against an outside force... ?

Curiously, [i]Watchmen[/i] has some relevance to this discussion.

[Bronn Stone]

[quote name='Ran' post='1674369' date='Feb 4 2009, 16.41']I think there's something to Bronn's argument regarding the Cylons here. They were a vast collective that went in relatively unthinking lockstep, because there weren't really more than eight "individual" personalities.[/quote]

And even this is suspect. We know that the 6's, 2's, 5's and 8's were heavily involved in the occupation of Caprica. 1's and 4's were seen occasionally, but not seemingly in command-related roles. 3's were kind of a wild card. I am not completely convinced that there was a unanimous civilization-wide fervor for it. I think that were he inclined to do so, RDM could credibly assert otherwise for two or three of those models.

And even within the models, there has to be plenty of variation. As far as we know, the only sharing of experiences that occurs is within a model and results from the resurrection process. The natural conclusion is that the only shared experiences are those that result in the death (and resurrection) of a Cylon. When you consider how the murder of a single human often inspires cries for vengeance, imagine how much stronger it would be if one in seven humans all actually had to experience the death first-hand.

And I still don't think we have sufficient exposure to the Cylon decision process to assert categorically that they are automatons marching in lockstep. In fact, that is most likely a human bias.

[davos]

[quote]This is a recurring problem with alot of the moral ambiguity the show sometimes tries to create. Everytime the remnants humanity do something inhumane to cylons the implicit (and sometimes explicitly stated) question is thrown out there, "Are we really any better than they are?" Well, have you essentially extincted a species without provocation? No? Well, torture away. You are better. You have the moral high ground in everything you do even if it amounts to genocide, cause even that amounts to self-defense at this point.[/quote]

Do we really know what the Cylons were thinking when they planned the attack on the colonies. Was it motivated out of revenge, hatred, or a perceived need to strike decisively before the colonials decided that they are not ok with the cylons still lurking out there. At the point in time that the strike occurred the colonials were not paying much attention to the cylons. In fact, by and large, as a society, it seems like they were trying desperately to forget the cylon were altogether. That doesn't mean that the leadership was thinking the same way. We also know that the colonial military had made efforts to determine what was going on within cylon space. So despite the wishes of the masses the government still concerned about the threat the cylons represented.

The cylons also could not know if the colonials had accepted them as beings with a fundamental right to exist or still viewed them as rogue machines that were only allowed to survive because of a need to end the war and should be destroyed if the opportunity presented itself. We do know that the colonials maintained a powerful military. since it seems the fleet was held in common by the 12 colonies there was only one reason to continue to support it, a potential future war with the cylons. We don't know if the military was growing or maintaining a relatively static size. We do know that it continued to modernize and improve its fleets and armaments. If it was also getting larger this would have been rather ominous to the cylons.

the cylons also would have been aware of the kind of firepower the colonial fleet had at its disposal. They managed to destroy it almost in mass only because they were able to basically throw the off switch on the whole fleet. We've seen that one on one a battlestar is more than a match for a basestar, that individual vipers outmatch several raiders, ect.. Now we do not know what the balance of forces was or could have been projected to be in the future. We do know that the cylons were aware of cointinue cycle that we still know relatively little about which has had them and humanity at eachother's throats again and again. It may well have been seen from the cylon pespective that if they did not destroy the colonies then they would sooner or latter face destruction at the hands of the colonies.

Of course some of this is suposition on my part.

I do not pretent to justify genocide. What I am saying though, is that, at least in the context of the show, that the only way to break the cycle where each side takes turns slaughter the other is for them to get past their hatred and fear. The colonials hatred for the cylons is understandable. their fear is reasonable. Hell, not fearing and hating the cylons after what they did would probably be boardline insane. For the cycle to stop though, for this to not occur again several millenia down the line, is for each side to stop being driven by those feelings and reach out. they need to understand eachother elsewise they will keep swapping sides, victim and butcher, butcher and victim.

You may not agree with this. It seems, though to be where the show is headed. I personally tend to agree with it though. While we've never seen anything taken close to the extremes presented in the series we do have situations where long standing conflicts are keep alive by continuing hatred, fear and anger and the only way out is for at least one side to have the balls to get past their very reasonable feelings to reach out to the other.

[Shryke]

I thought they made it pretty clear why the Cylons attacked. They viewed themselves as Humanity's children and they came to replace us.

Of course, we'll have to wait till The Plan airs to see what the writers finally decided on.

[EHK for Darwin]

[quote name='Ran' post='1674369' date='Feb 4 2009, 18.41']I think there's something to Bronn's argument regarding the Cylons here. They were a vast collective that went in relatively unthinking lockstep, because there weren't really more than eight "individual" personalities. This has slowly changed at first, but now it's changed much more rapidly with the destruction of the resurrection hub. With no means of reinforcing the shared nature of experience, they will individualize quite a lot more quickly.[/quote]

But that's now. 'Then' already happened, 'then' was a genocide of an entire species, their personal growth since is nice but irrelevant. They could spend a thousand lifetimes healing the sick and caring for the meek and it wouldn't matter. All of them are guilty. None of them have paid for those crimes. They all still deserve death.


[quote]And if Eichmann did all that, [i]and[/i] was key to the survival of all humanity against an outside force... ?[/quote]

Like I said earlier, absolute necessity preempts justice. Got to be practical and all.

[quote]For the cycle to stop though, for this to not occur again several millenia down the line, is for each side to stop being driven by those feelings and reach out. they need to understand eachother elsewise they will keep swapping sides, victim and butcher, butcher and victim.[/quote]

Nonsense. The actions of today do not guarantee repeats thousands of years from now. I don't care what RDM and the show creators have to say about it, its silly. The decision to slaughter a species was made independent of any 'cycle'. Even if they knew of such cycle and claimed that as their justification it'd still be bullshit. You cannot base such a monumental and horrific decision on some thousand years old prophecy and if you do, it does not remove a shred of your culpability.

[quote]You may not agree with this. It seems, though to be where the show is headed. I personally tend to agree with it though. While we've never seen anything taken close to the extremes presented in the series we do have situations where long standing conflicts are keep alive by continuing hatred, fear and anger and the only way out is for at least one side to have the balls to get past their very reasonable feelings to reach out to the other.[/quote]

Which is another example of the show's attempted relevance that doesn't really fit the context it created. Despite the speculation of continued arming of the colonial fleet and inquiries into the current status of Cylons, there was no 'cycle' of violence within this current human/cylon epoch. There was a war, a 40 year peace, than a genocide. There was no real provocation. Perhaps the Cylons had right to fear the colonials, perhaps they had the right to feel threatened by some of their actions, but none of that remotely calls for, excuses, or justifies the actions taken. How the hell can you ask a species of 50,000 people scrambling for survival that was 50 BILLION to be the bigger man and reach out? The only reason to reach out, the only reason to cooperate is and should be necessity. Otherwise the Cylons deserve extinction.

[EHK for Darwin]

[quote]And even this is suspect. We know that the 6's, 2's, 5's and 8's were heavily involved in the occupation of Caprica. 1's and 4's were seen occasionally, but not seemingly in command-related roles. 3's were kind of a wild card. I am not completely convinced that there was a unanimous civilization-wide fervor for it. I think that were he inclined to do so, [b]RDM could credibly assert otherwise for two or three of those models.[/b][/quote]

Wake me when he does. At the moment we've seen absolutely no evidence that there was any dissent whatsoever on the initial decision and significant evidence that could lead to the reasonable inference of widespread, even unanimous support.

Honestly, the writer's seem intent on ignoring that little 'episode' entirely. The butchering of humanity doesn't sit well with their pretensions towards moral ambiguity and real world relevance. The actual context overwhelms the themes they're trying to explore. So they disregard it, especially in Cylon to Cylon discussion where they talk about never being forgiven for New Caprica....New Caprica? Really? A bit of oppression, internment, torture, and a few executions? That's the unforgivable crime? Not slaughtering 50 billion people?

The Cylons seem neither repentant nor really even ready to acknowledge their role in that matter. Which would be fine, but I don't know if the writers are intentionally trying to portray them as the self-delusional butchers that they really are, or if they mean their reactions to their crimes to be taken as reasonable and thoughtful. Or their (mostly negative) observations of humanity to be true and insightful rather than blatant hypocrisy of the highest order.

[Lord O' Bones]

[quote name='TrackerNeil' post='1673868' date='Feb 4 2009, 10.43']We should also consider something that happened at the end of Season 4.0, when one of the Sixes suggests to Three that they avoid taking hostages and try for a peaceful settlement with the humans. Three responds, "They'll never forgive us for New Caprica." I was floored, because evidently Three considers Cylon responsibility to have begun there, and not with the 20 billion lives they snuffed out on the Colonies. That suggests that the Cylons are nearly incapable of admitting or even considering their own culpability in...well, anything. One does not enter lightly into an alliance with those kinds of people.[/quote]
That struck me immediately as well. My first thought was "Um, no... they'll never forgive you for Old Caprica."

[quote name='Bronn Stone' post='1674521' date='Feb 4 2009, 19.12']As far as we know, the only sharing of experiences that occurs is within a model and results from the resurrection process. The natural conclusion is that the only shared experiences are those that result in the death (and resurrection) of a Cylon.[/quote]
The 3 on the baseship that rubbed Helo's shoulders told him that she had accessed Athena's memories and now shared them. I don't remember if she mentioned having died to do it, but I don't think so.

[Bronn Stone]

[quote name='EHK for a True GOP' post='1674585' date='Feb 4 2009, 21.07']Wake me when he does. At the moment we've seen absolutely no evidence that there was any dissent whatsoever on the initial decision and significant evidence that could lead to the reasonable inference of widespread, even unanimous support.

Honestly, the writer's seem intent on ignoring that little 'episode' entirely. The butchering of humanity doesn't sit well with their pretensions towards moral ambiguity and real world relevance. The actual context overwhelms the themes they're trying to explore. So they disregard it, especially in Cylon to Cylon discussion where they talk about never being forgiven for New Caprica....New Caprica? Really? A bit of oppression, internment, torture, and a few executions? That's the unforgivable crime? Not slaughtering 50 billion people?

The Cylons seem neither repentant nor really even ready to acknowledge their role in that matter. Which would be fine, but I don't know if the writers are intentionally trying to portray them as the self-delusional butchers that they really are, or if they mean their reactions to their crimes to be taken as reasonable and thoughtful. Or their (mostly negative) observations of humanity to be true and insightful rather than blatant hypocrisy of the highest order.[/quote]

Nor have we seen any human repentance for the original discrimination and abuse that lead to the Cylon rebellion forty years prior. The only word of the abuse WE get is when the news scrolls across the screen early in the series. But the Centurions seem to remember. And we still don't REALLY know what they are - we know they aren't total automatons.

[EHK for Darwin]

[quote name='Bronn Stone' post='1674675' date='Feb 5 2009, 02.25']Nor have we seen any human repentance for the original discrimination and abuse that lead to the Cylon rebellion forty years prior. The only word of the abuse WE get is when the news scrolls across the screen early in the series. But the Centurions seem to remember. And we still don't REALLY know what they are - we know they aren't total automatons.[/quote]

Was there any concept of the Cylons being sentient before they rebelled? I can't recall if that was ever explored in the mini-series. If not, what can you really blame humanity for? Do people actually give two thoughts to the emotional well-being of their microwaves and refrigerators? Do they ask if their television wants to continue being a television? These were tools. What was the timing between their exercising of free thought, humanity's awareness of this, and their rebellion? Do we know these things?

Further, even if they knew Cylons were self aware and still kept them as indentured servants, that was 40 years before. Most people old enough to have had an active part in that oppression were long dead. What does anyone younger than Saul Tigh have to atone for?

[Shryke]

It's funny you mention that, since it's one of the shows first themes, from back in the mini-series. Adama's speech talks about it:
[quote]We decided to play God, to create life, and that life turned against us. We comforted ourselves in the knowledge that it was not our fault. You cannot play God, and wash your hands of the things that you have created. Sooner or later, the day comes when you cannot hide from the things that you have done anymore.[/quote]

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Here's some spoiler information about the outcome of the mutiny:

SPOILER: BSG

If Gaeta is going to be airlocked or shot he must be in a bunch of flashbacks because he appears in all the remaining episodes:

From IMDB:

[quote]"Battlestar Galactica" .... Lt. Felix Gaeta (65 episodes, 2004-2009)
... aka BSG (USA: promotional abbreviation)
- Daybreak: Part 2 (2009) TV episode .... Lt. Felix Gaeta
- Daybreak: Part 1 (2009) TV episode .... Lt. Felix Gaeta
- Islanded in a Stream of Stars (2009) TV episode .... Lt. Felix Gaeta
- Someone to Watch Over Me (2009) TV episode .... Lt. Felix Gaeta
- Deadlock (2009) TV episode .... Lt. Felix Gaeta[/quote]

[Kalbear]

i'd take info from IMDB about as reliably as the cylons saying that they meant no harm in bombing the colonies to the stone age.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Kalbear,

[quote name='Kalbear' post='1675215' date='Feb 5 2009, 13.50']i'd take info from IMDB about as reliably as the cylons saying that they meant no harm in bombing the colonies to the stone age.[/quote]

Fair enough. I simply thought it unusual that

SPOILER: Spoiler

Gaeta is listed as being in all those episodes.

I wouldn't be shocked if it amounted to naught.