Battlestar Galactica

I just got through watching the season premier of Battlestar Galactica. Overall impression, very good.

First of all the political stuff. Ron Moore said that he wanted to make the story relevant to contemporary events, which means introducing elements which parallel issues relating to the current global war on terror and its battlefields in Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel.

The ones which I particularly noticed were the Cylon “priest” model who thought that the Cylons could more effectively bring the “word of god” to the humans if they killed all of them except for a thousand or so. This is supposed to remind us of the Islamists who commit appalling acts of savagery in the name of their “god”.

The next supposed parallel between the storyline and current events is the fact that the Human resistance to the Cylon occupation of New Caprica is referred to as an insurgency, just like the Iraqi insurgency.

Finally the Colonists use suicide bombing as a tactic against the Cylons. And in another parallel to Iraq the first target of a suicide bombing is the graduation ceremony of the New Caprica Police academy, the human collaborationist police force recruited and trained by the Cylons.

Taking these issues in order; it is not a stretch to compare the Cylon religious fanaticism to the Islamists. Both the Cylons and the terrorists do what they do because they believe that god wants them to.

Next, calling either the Human resistance on New Caprica or the terrorist guerillas in Iraq an “insurgency” is a misapplication of the term. An insurgency is a rebellion. The colonists fighting against British rule in the US were insurgents as were the Scots fighting Edward I under William Wallace. What is going on in New Caprica is a resistance movement. In Iraq in the first months after the coalition invasion there was a resistance movement of Saddam’s Ba’ath Party loyalists. Now the people fighting against the coalition forces and the legitimate Iraqi government are foreign fighters recruited under the al Qaeda banner. This means that Iraq is fighting an invasion, not an insurgency.

Finally the suicide bombings. One of the tactics which the Human resistance is using against the Cylons is suicide bombings. In the premier the graduation ceremony of the collaborationist police and a critical power plant were hit in this way. There is plenty of moral ambiguity about the issue among the humans. Chief Tyrol tells Col. Tigh that suicide bombings are “wrong” and that they “cross a line”. President Roslin tries to order Tigh to stop them after the first one.

Tigh refuses. He points out, reasonably, that he has ordered men on suicide missions in two wars and that it doesn’t matter if they are in the cockpit of a Viper or wearing an explosive belt; they are just as dead. Tigh is correct. Suicide bombing is a tactic and as such is morally neutral. The act derives its moral component from the purpose from the cause which it seeking to advance.

Putting aside the messages which Moore is attempting to send about contemporary events and just looking at the show as entertainment it was a very good episode.

You will remember from the last season’s cliffhanger ending that President Baltar had ordered the fleet to settle New Caprica and one year had passed. The EMP from the nuclear blast that Gina had set off had reached the Cylon fleet and they had landed on New Caprica. The Galactica and the Pegasus had jumped away with the fleet. The two warships were at half strength and the civilian ships had 2000 people on them.

We pick up this season with the Cylon occupation of New Caprica four months old. They humans, under Col. Saul Tigh are resisting as best they can. Tigh has been arrested and thrown into detention and his wife is securing his release by sleeping with one of the Cylon “priest” models, played by Dean Stockwell. Callie and the Chief have had their baby and Laura Roslin is still teaching school. Baltar is still the puppet president propped up by the Cylons, who need him to maintain (in their own minds) the fiction that they are “friends and allies who have come to help out”. Gaeta is still Baltar’s assistant, but is copying documents and handing them over to the resistance. Starbuck is being held in an apartment with one of the Lenovan model Cylons who is determined to make her love him.

On the fleet Apollo has gotten fat and is married to Dualla. Admiral Adama is obsessed with going back and rescuing the people that he left behind on New Caprica. Apollo thinks this is suicide. He believes that those that they left behind are lost beyond any hope of rescue and that their only hope is to protect the 2000 civilians that they have in the fleet and continue on in their search for Earth. Adama will not do this. He says that he cannot live with leaving so many behind.

Adama plans a rescue mission with the Galactica only so that the Pegasus can continue searching for Earth. To help coordinate with the New Caprican resistance Adama sends Sharon (the Cylon), who he gives a commission as a Colonial officer to be the liason between the resistance and the fleet.

Mrs. Tigh, who is continuing to sleep with the Cylon “priest”, is ordered by him to get the location of an “important meeting of the insurgency’s leadership”. She takes him the map showing the location where Sharon will link up with the resistance. The meeting is ambushed by Cylon Centurions. We don’t know who will survive, but I suspect that Sharon will be able to stop the Centurions because we are told that the Centurions are not self aware and that are programmed not to be able to distinguish between the humanoid Cylons. They will see in her one of the “masters” who must be obeyed.

The Cylons have decided to answer the suicide bombings by executing hostages. 200 people (including Laura Roslin and Tom Zarak) are rounded up and taken out to the forest in trucks. The human police who are guarding them are ordered to let them out to “stretch their legs” and a group of Centurions appear. One of the human police who is a friend of Chief Tyrol lets Callie go and tells her to run. As she is heading away we see the Centurions open fire. Callie hears the shots, but can’t see what is happening.

In the previews of upcoming episodes we see Roslin still alive, so I’m guessing that the “execution” was some kind of a psychological operation.