November 26, 2007
GWC Podcast #73
As you might imagine, this podcast focuses almost entirely on the first new content we’ve received in what seems like years: Razor. We ran long, so we’ll take your calls in next week’s ‘cast. Highlights: we tear into Cain’s motivations for her odd leadership style, discuss culpability and blame, pose numerous theories regarding the hybrid’s prediction about Starbuck, and make some pretty crazy guesses about what’s coming down the pike in season four — whenever that happens. Congratulations, GWCers — you’ve made it all the way to Razor. It’s just three or four more months to new episodes.
Galactic Watercooler 
Modern Geek 
Save Eureka 
Eff This Week 
FitSmart
I can’t believe it. Something new to talk about. Maybe we should ‘share the love’ by breaking down Razor into 120 seperate podcasts each dedicated to a particular minute of the show. Nah! Just kidding, keep up the good work.
Really look forward to hearing your podcast every week!
Responding to your thought that resisting the boarding parties would be the best choice among a bunch of really bad choices:
1. Over power the boarding party. Kane gets really upset, sends a couple of Vipers to perforate the hull, all on board die and Kane gets her spare parts.(Remember, if she can get them, personnel would be gravy, because she already has the crew of a battlestar to work with. Material is the much more valuable commodity in this situation.)
2. Surrender parts and personnel to Kane. Another bad choice, leaving your ragtag fleet stripped of critical personnel, FTL and spare parts, you limp along at sublight until the Cylons find you or your supplies run out and you die.
3. Jump away. Kane being ruthless AND obsessive, uses Raptors to hunt you down, jumps in, perforates your hull, everybody dies and Kane still gets her spare parts.
4. Jump away AND evade Pegasus Raptors. A single civilian ship alone in deep space…either Cylons find you or you wander aimlessly in space until your supplies are depleted and you die. The only good in this scenario is that Kane doesn’t get to kill you or get your ship’s parts.
It would appear the only real choice here is “How quickly do you want to die?” I suppose going down fighting allows you to take a few with you, but I suspect that if it happened on one or two ships, Kane would simply shoot-up the rest and save the trouble for her marines. I’m betting it wouldn’t be too hard for a Viper pilot to disable a merchant ship without damaging critical drive systems. Just open a few “windows” to vent the atmosphere out into space and you have instant parts counter.
A couple of points about the p’cast: Alot to say
I remember this scene pretty clearly since I watched it a few days before Razor. In the final Pegasus ep in Season 2, Baltar pats Gina on the butt and sends her off to seek her revenge. She gets into Cain’s quarters, pulls the gun on her. Cain says, “Frak you!” Gina says, “You’re not my type.” This struck me, even back when I first saw it way back when. I thought to myself, what the hell does that mean? Now we know. This leads into my second point about the podcast.
Gina IS the ultimate infiltrator. The Cylon 007. She IS the infiltrator model. Granted Doral was on Galactica for a bit but what did he really do? So was Brother Cavil and Boomer. As far as we know neither did much spying, but the Sixes’ did the heavy lifting. Think Gina, Caprica and the Six from Season 1 that fingered Baltar as a traitor to the humans. All excellent manipulators and seductresses. Intelligent, deadly and sexy. I caught a shiver when Gina was “outed” and proceeded to snap that Marines neck and point the gun on Cain. MMMMMM…toasty!
About Hybrids. I recall that in Season 3 around the Cylon disease eps, the skinjobs decided to leave behind one of the basestars because it was infected and the didn’t want the models to download into the Resurection ship. Anyhoo, the collective Cylons decided to bounce, ordered the Hybrid to bounce out of there and she/it disagreed by letting out a shrill cry. When did the Hybrids lose their pull? If Grandpa hybrid was the original “Cylon God”, how did they lose that respect once the skinjobs came along?
Lastly about the whole Starbuck as potential leader thing. To Lee, Starbuck will always be a Frak up. She never seems to get the big picture. Plus, she shot him! Because of her recklessness, he got shot in the hostage ep in Season 2. And she still hasn’t proven she can think straight, all the way up to Maelstrom. She always Fraks things up, then tries to pull it all together at the end. Even when she was CAG aboard Pegasus, she needed Lee to help her plan the attack on the Resurrection ship. Atleast Tigh can plan a insurrgency and even sorta ran things after Adamma was shot. Again, sorta.
That is all.
After seeing Razor and listening to Podcast #73 I came up with the following theory:
Assumptions
• The “Old School Cylons” are the creators of the final 5
• The Old School Cylons were split off from the rest of the Cylons (as shown in Sodes and explained by Athena) for 40 years. During this time they were doing their own thing in their own time and they developed the final 5 and sent them out way earlier than the remaining “skin jobs” which is how Tye could be around for so long. The regular Cylons have stories of this “lost tribe of Cylons” but they don’t know much about them- which explains the mystique the Cylons have of the final 5.
• It makes sense the “skin jobs” would call the Old School Cylons an “evolutionary dead end” if they are seen as being human-centric. (And especially if they really are human-centric)
• Lee is the last of the final 5 (A highly suspect thing to hang one’s hat on- but still)
• The Final 5 aren’t evil- they are protecting humanity for some “hybrid” purpose that hasn’t happened yet but surely has something to do with earth. We know 4 of the Final 5 have worked pretty diligently to help humans along- the whole leadership of the occupation of New Caprica was from the Final 5, etc etc.
So, take these suppositions and add the line Starbuck says about the way Lee keeps “almost getting Starbuck killed” as discussed at the very end of Razor. What if he really is trying to “neutralize” Starbuck because he’s a 5 and he knows at some subconscious level Starbuck actually is going to cause some horrible downfall of humanity. What if Lee’s romance with her is another attempt at dragging her away from her destiny?
So when the Hybrid offers Kendra “forgiveness” he means that by telling humans about Starbuck she’ll be warning the fleet of the danger Starbuck poses- which, while not as good as killing her- at least offers humanity a chance- thus giving Kendra salvation for the harm she’s caused.
As Chuck says on Podcast #73- Starbuck’s a loaded gun that you point at people and pull the trigger. I think that’s exactly right- she’s not meant for command- she’s a weapon- the problem is- we don’t really know who’s weapon she really is.
So of course I’ve been thinking about RAZOR…and not my dissertation, as I should be. Here’s what’s been going through my head:
1. I think that the hybrids are able to see patterns of cause and effect in a way that is similar to what the human oracles do. ‘How’ the hybrids access that information is beyond me. Mystical? Technical? Dimensional? Who knows. Maybe that doesn’t matter so much. But they do ‘see’ future possibilities just like the oracles. I think that the First Hybrid, the one protected by the Guardians, is coherent because his brain isn’t being used as a mainframe for an entire basestar. Much like my out-dated computer, I think human-hybrids can only handle so many programs before something in their system starts freaking out. It didn’t seem to me that the First Hybrid had the same function as the basestar hybrids. To that end, I found it curious that the First Hybrid suggested that his “children” considered him a “god.” I don’t know how far to run with that. But I’d like to hear some ideas.
2. IMHO, the Kara Thrace prophecy cannot be interpretted simply, or plainly. Prophecy doesn’t ‘necessarily’ work that way in the world of BSG, or in our religious traditions for that matter. There seems to be a mix of literal and symbolic meaning in the prophecies of BSG. To that end, I think it’s helpful to remember that the First Hybrid stated that Kara Thrace would bring humanity to it’s end. And that she is the harbinger of the apocalypse. “End” can mean a number of things: A: To earth. B: To annhilation. C: To cohabitation and synthesis with the Cylons towards a new race of humanoids. Apocalypse literally means “revelation” or “that which is revealed.” Now typically it does come with “end of the world”/firery battle narratives–but even so, it doesn’t tell us ‘how’ she functions in the coming apocalypse. For example, a number of “religious good guys” among our earth religions announce or bring about “the end times”…but that doesn’t make them bad. Jesus of Nazareth, for example, declared over and over the coming of the Kingdom of God in himself and of a looming judgment day. The Hebrew Prophets announced a similar message and said that “judgment day” was coming…but…would be for the renewal (not annhilation) of the world. In other traditions the ‘end’ of one way of life gives ‘birth’ to another one; or to a new era of existence. I think the apocalypse that Kara Thrace heralds is going to be one hell of a ride–but I’m not sure it’s a bad thing. Although, as I write this I am remembering that the First Hybrid also said that she would take them in the wrong direction. That’s either completely true, or perhaps partially true. Namely, she might very well get them to Earth, but she will likely take the “wrong way of getting there” morally speaking. I mean if Kara’s leading, it’s not going to be the way of hand holding and rose smelling. Maybe her ‘fight ’em tell we can’t” attitude is the “wrong way.” The information she has about Earth might be right. But the ‘wrongness’ of ‘how’ she goes about getting the fleet there is another story–and one that might be a matter of morality or practice.
3. WOW, RAZOR was really cool!!!! Old School Cylons. Lesbians without homophobic overtones. Prophecies. Piss-me-off-Admiral-Cain action. I was rivted and I “knew” what would happen to Cain, Pegasus, etc. That, my friends, is good writing, editing, and acting. Kudoos to the Kendra Shaw actress. I believed her every step of the way.
Okay…now back to grad school. 🙂
Rich
I would SO let Cain slap me around.
Regarding the Starbuck having more of a leadership role:
1.
The episode where she plans out the attack (The Hand of God, not Water) took place a few weeks after You Can’t Go Home Again where she breaks her leg, and she can still not fly. This is the primary reason that she is planning, not flying the mission.
2. A few episodes after The Hand of God, Starbuck steals the Cylon raider, probably hurting her chances for future leadership roles in Adama’s eyes. Adama’s line to her right before she jumps away “Whatever you do, make sure you don’t regret it later.” Says as much.
A little off topic but newsworthy. With all these forums and stuff on the site now I just don’t know where I am supposed to put comments now.
Anyhow…
Ronald D Moore is thinking about his options with the BSG universe should the writers’ strike put an end to the series.
See his comments here.
Moore is optimistic that BSG will survive the strike but the very fact that he is having to think aloud about this sort of stuff makes me more pessimistic.
Maybe we need a topic on GWC. What do we do if all this is kaput for BSG? Going off the air with a show called “Razor” has a weird kind of poetic ring to it.
What was that thing where you say you don’t have enough time to listen to Battlestar Gallactica podcasts?!?!
I think you were overcomplicating the Starbuck thing. She is a battlefield commander and, with one significant exception, an excellent trainer. So she’s the Clint Eastwood character in Heartbreak Ridge, to much of a frak-up to get too far up the chain of command, but soft-hearted (yeah! Soft hearted! I said it!) enough to inspire students. This is a very different skill than the Adama boys have. They’re more like Patton. But we shouldn’t forget that Starbuck brought a bunch of nuggets up to speed in no time flat.