Battlestar Galactica

At the beginning of the current season we were shown some previews of upcoming episodes. One of them was a clip of Adm. Adama confessing to his son Lee that the was responsible for the Cylon attack on the Colonies.

The episode which that clip was from aired this past Friday. I have to say that the way they framed the "Adama's guilt" aspect of the plot was rather lame. What happened was that about three years before the episode the Admiralty ordered Adama, who was commander of the Battlestar Valkyrie, to conduct a reconnaissance mission beyond the Cylon Armistice line.

It seems that the Admiralty was concerned that the Adar administration had grown complacent about the Cylon threat and was neglecting the military. The mission Adama was being sent on was designed to determine if the Cylons were amassing their forces for a possible attack on the Colonies.

The Tauran Colony had conveniently placed a tylium mining operation on a planet dangerously close to the armistice line so the Valkyrie's cover was to be a mission to remove the illegal mine.

So far everything was plausible, but then they got to the execution of the mission. What it amounted to was a pilot handpicked by Commander Adama flying a stealth recon ship into Cylon space and doing dradis scans. Where things got ridiculous was that the "stealth" ship was easily seen on the Valkyrie's dradis and it only penetrated the armistice line by two kilometers (only a little over a mile).

What could the small ship see on its dradis (which is nothing more than radar) that the Valkyrie couldn't see on its much more powerful dradis? And would the Cylons be stupid enough to park their fleet just across the line?

What happened was that Cylon raiders jumped in and attacked the stealth ship, damaging it so badly that it couldn't make it back to the Valkyrie. In order to keep the ship and pilot from falling into Cylon hands Adama ordered the launch of a missile to destroy it (and kill the pilot). The missile blew up the stealth ship, but the pilot ejected.

The pilot was picked up by the Cylons and kept a prisoner on a base ship for around 3 years. Then he was allowed to escape. Allowed to steal a raider (which he just happened to know how to fly) and he just happened to jump into range of the Galactica.

Of course the embittered Colonel Tigh told the pilot (his name escapes me) that he had not been shot down by renegade Taurans or Cylons, but by Adama. Of course he tells Adama that he needs to talk to him and when Adama shows up he attacks him, ties him up and starts to play out his "revenge of the betrayed" scenario.

Meanwhile Starbuck and Tigh figure out that the Cylons let the guy escape and Tigh goes to where he is about to beat Adama to death and stops him. Tigh, an old man who needed a cane to walk on New Capricia and has spent the past couple of weeks laying in bed in his quarters dead drunk and chain smoking, kicks the ass of the young man who has just spent the last three years in a cell on a base ship obsessively exercising. That's believable.

Tigh convinces the pilot to stand down and forgive Adama and in this we see the beginnings of Tigh's healing of himself.

So this is what is behind Adama's "I started the war" guilt trip. Adama thinks that because they got caught violating the armistice line that the Cylons figured that the humans were planning an attack and the attack on the Colonies was a preemptive strike.

I feel compelled to point out that the fleet was in space for at least three months after the Cylon attack upon the Colonies before they found New Capricia. That they were on New Capricia for one year before the Cylons found them and that they endured four months of occupation before the Galactica jumped back and rescued them. Add the two months, at least (based on the amount of weight Apollo has lost) since the rescue and you have the blown recon mission taking place only about 15 months before the Cylon attack.

Let us recall that the original Boomer had to enter the Fleet Academy and graduate then stay in service long enough to promoted to lieutenant and be given command of a Raptor. I'm pretty sure that all this takes longer than 15 months. Also No. 6 was working with Baltar long enough to help him write and test his navigation program then have the Admiralty test it to their satisfaction and upgrade all the Colonial military hardware with it. I rather think that took longer than 15 months. Then there is the time that it took Deanna (Lucy Lawless) to become established as a journalist. That most likely took longer than 15 months.

In other words the "I'm responsible" rap that Adama is singing doesn't hold water. The Cylons attacked because their "god" told them to destroy the flawed human race and start over. That is what every Cylon model we've seen to date has said and they don't seem to be lying.

Ron Moore's desire to "grey up" the moral landscape is an aspect of the show which has never really worked. What he really needs to do is answer, or at least begin to answer, the $64,000.00 question of the entire series.

Who told the Cylons what "god" wanted them to do?