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The Law and Politics of Battlestar Galactica
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Mar 03, 2008 11:01 AM
from the why-don't-they-wear-normal-tank-tops dept.
from the why-don't-they-wear-normal-tank-tops dept.
privacyprof writes "Fans of the show Battlestar Galactica might be interested in our interview with writers and producers Ron Moore and David Eick. Three law professors at the blog Concurring Opinions have an hour-long interview with Moore and Eick about the legal, political, moral, and economic issues raised by the show. The interview is available in audio files; alternatively, people can read a transcript of the interview (Part I) and (Parts II and III). Part I examines the lawyers and trials in the show, how torture is depicted, as well as how the humans must balance civil liberties and security. Part II examines politics and commerce. It explores how the cylon attack affected the humans' political system, and it examines how commerce works in the fleet. Part III examines issues related to cylons, such as the humans' treatment of cylons, how robots should be treated by the law, how the cylons govern themselves politically."
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it's interesting to see (Score:5, Insightful)
but in real life, i bet a lot of these people who see a need for balance turn into kneejerk privacy fundamentalists or kneejerk security fundamentalists
there are limits on everything folks, even [insert principle you hold most dear]
Re:it's interesting to see (Score:5, Interesting)
Including, of course, the principle that "there are limits on everything"?
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yes! exactly! (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:yes! exactly! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:it's interesting to see (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:it's interesting to see (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:it's interesting to see (Score:5, Funny)
They Cylons launched an unprovoked sneak attack and thoroughly nuked the twelve colonies, after a 40-year cease-fire. And you're saying the humans are more vicious?
Your name isn't Gaius Baltar, is it?
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Re:it's interesting to see (Score:5, Funny)
Emmm, no. Or
But, clearly, what I need is
Parent
Re:it's interesting to see (Score:5, Informative)
There's no way the Cylons had the time to build up the force they had, and to conduct the necessary infiltration of Colonial defense infrastructure, were that not the case.
Besides, even if that were a human, don't you think nuking twelve planets is a bit of overreaction to one lone pilot incursion? That's like USSR launching WW-III because of Francis Gary Powers' U-2 incident. A bit vicious, don't you think?
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Killing the pilot (assuming it really was a human and not a Cylon ruse), maybe even bombing the base he (allegedly) launched from might have been considered provoked. Nuking billions of people on twelve planets was unprovoked.
If someone calls you an asshole and you whip out a gun and blow them away, no jury is going to be very sympathetic to the viewpoint that you were provoked, and the prosecutor will
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Re:it's interesting to see (Score:4, Insightful)
In "The Eye of Jupiter" episode (Season 3) when Three sends raiders to the planet surface Adama threatens to nuke the entire continent. The Six, Eight, Five etc tell Three to pull back but she recalls all but one of the ships. Three says to the others when Adama steps back from attack : "It is *never* about one ship".
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:it's interesting to see (Score:5, Interesting)
The humans on BSG are deeply religious and believe that humanity is defined by a Gods-given soul, which a man-made machine cannot have - it's a pretty major part of the show, if a little unsubtle. Goes along with the whole theme of the cylons having a more "evolved" religion than the humans (by our Western standards, of course, where monotheism > highly ritualistic polytheism).
Of course, the cylons did also exterminate the human race, some people would hold a grudge.
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Re:it's interesting to see (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd have to disagree slightly with that assessment. Most humans on BSG (at least the ones the show centers around) only show a token devotion to their Gods (if at all). Baltar is an atheist (at least at the start) as is Adama (he thinks Earth is a myth). Rosalind is a believer but is not above using religious posturing for her own political ends. The Cyclons on the other hand are unswervingly devoted to their God. I believe there's an intentional parallel with western secular 'Christians' and extremist Muslims.
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Re:it's interesting to see (Score:4, Informative)
The Cyclons on the other hand are unswervingly devoted to their God.
That's a generalization, and still wrong when there are only 12 personality basetypes to compare.
Specifically, the "Brother Cavil" model seems to be persistently atheist in all incarnations shown.
I believe there's an intentional parallel with western secular 'Christians' and extremist Muslims.
That's an easy assumption, but there's a practical inconsistency there: the Cylons are a functional nation-state complete with a high-tech standing army which the Colonials are in active war with. Extremist Islam has no such state. At least, not one which is actively at war with any nation of the West. So the comparison to any current situation is seriously flawed. If you focus on just the differences in religion and want to see a connection to behavior and interactions between the factions, you can certainly see it, but it's not cut and dried.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Some do, but I got the impression that's not very indicative of their society as a whole.
Baltar is an atheist (at least at the start) as is Adama (he thinks Earth is a myth)
Baltar is The Scientist archetype, so of course he's an atheist, it's the setup for his whole "unlikely prophet" arc (not terribly original, but it's a thing). At least I got the impression that his atheism was so
Re:it's interesting to see (Score:5, Informative)
The workers's strike was eventually resolved by rotating jobs. The ore processor's got moved to other jobs in the fleet, and other people were brought in to fill in the gaps. Not idealistic but workable and it keeps people from getting bored and lazy in their work. It also makes the more stressful jobs easier to deal with.
It is how that episode finished up I do believe. Might have been the next.
Parent
Re:it's interesting to see (Score:5, Funny)
ducks...
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Re:it's interesting to see (Score:4, Interesting)
Still, it's a good reflection on the series writers that they are able to evoke such complex and powerful quandries.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:it's interesting to see (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:it's interesting to see (Score:5, Insightful)
Good sci fi makes you think about the real world, and I'm not quite sure where that line falls.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
To see ourselves as others see us (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:it's interesting to see (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:it's interesting to see (Score:5, Insightful)
I actually read that as an act of mercy--instead of leaving the baby to whatever fate had in store for it (if it were lucky, incineration, if not, death from radiation) she ended it quickly.
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And religion? (Score:5, Interesting)
about politics and law, why not religion too, right?
The image is slick...
Battlestar Galactica Last Supper [flickr.com]
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The majority practice hypocrisy (Score:5, Interesting)
True story: back during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, I had lunch with a well educated, mild-mannered, drug and gun running mujehaddin working in India. When he found out I wasn't going to be a customer, he relaxed and we talked religion. He asserted that there were more Buddhists than any other religion. I scoffed and began quoting the other statistics in this thread, but he replied:
"Few christians are actually christian, and few muslims are actually muslim... but most buddhists are actually buddhist."
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What I'd Like... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What I'd Like... (Score:5, Funny)
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The best science fiction (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:The best science fiction (Score:4, Insightful)
In fact, the Cyclon occupation was an incredibly clever (IMO) portrayal of modern-day Iraq and the tension and mentality (on both sides) of an occupation. The Cyclons apparently have this new religion (monotheistic one stressing love and forgiveness) and its teachings stop them from just wiping out the humans on the colony. This is the role of the United States in Iraq currently. The humans are the insurgents. Some have gone along and accepted Cylon rule (and even helped them) while others continue fighting. The morality and view from both sides is explored.
The primary of which being suicide bombing. It wasn't a "oh noes! suicide bombing is bad and cannot be excused" mentality. It tread a fine line and explored the motivations behind such tactics. The desperation, the hatred, etc. It also explored how in resorting to such tactics, the humans were losing their humanity and that the cost of fighting was just too high in those cases.
The show is a wonderful allegory of modern day and has really portrayed its modern day equivalents in a light I had not thought anyone dared.
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what i found kinda interesting ... (Score:5, Insightful)
i like the message transported through this: in the end, there are no heroes.
Re:what i found kinda interesting ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Isn't that the classic tragic flaw? Uncompromising goodness usually ends badly for the hero.
(sidenote for non-classics geeks: his name is a nod to this too, agathos means "good" in Greek, often in the sense of "noble" or "virtuous")
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Is BSG still relevant? (Score:4, Informative)
But the main reason I started to first TiVo instead of watching, then not watching the episodes on my TiVo, and finally not taping them at all, is that in my opinion, the quality of the writing went way down. Season 1 and 2 had terrific, well timed dialog, Season 3 and later descended to shouting, ranting, and screaming.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Well, hiding from killer robots bent on extermination for several years would do that to anyone.
Interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
Briefly in the early part of the series, things started running out. Simple commodities like whiskey and playing cards. I was upset when that issue disappeared. A random assortment of military and civilian vessels might be well stocked, but they certainly would not have a full assortment of manufacturing capabilities. Especially for specialized good like pharmaceuticals. They eventually addressed a shortage of antibiotics, and the development of a black market. But realistically. They would be able to produce no antibiotics at all.
And really. Why would a passenger vessel capable of hopping between stars in the blink of an eye have manufacturing centers? Or fuel refineries? Or food production capabilities.
I was hoping to see Cloud Nine, the dome greenhouse like ship be converted into agricultural land.
I know these issues aren't nearly as exciting as -getting into bed with your imaginary genocidal robot-
Think about it though. The main goals following some sort of catastrophe like this would be.
1.Stability: Stop whatever killed everyone from still doing so. Stop the panic. Get people working together instead of looting from each other.
2.Preserving technology, infrastructure and supplies. If you've got something that works, you can't replace it. Do whatever you can to keep it working.
3.Rebuilding infrastructure. Need to grow food to live once the supplies run out. Can we built farming workers? No. Can we build tractors? No. Can we build shovels? Yes. Start from there, and learn what we need to make it work.
4.(optional) Preserving knowledge. After everyone's farming, hunting, gathering, or whatever is needed to stay alive. We realize that we still know how to make all sorts of advanced technology, even if we don't have a large enough society to make use of it. It would be valuable to archive all the knowledge so that it is accessible after the last battery runs out of juice.
just my thoughts...
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That's what I thought of during the Razor episode, when the Admiral wanted to strip the civilian ships and go fight a guerilla war. What the hell, you idiot? You have working ships and people that can operate them. Those people being of a very small set of remaining humans. Why would you just throw either away. Program the ones with FTL spools that are n
Re:Interesting (Score:4, Interesting)
And really. Why would a passenger vessel capable of hopping between stars in the blink of an eye have manufacturing centers? Or fuel refineries? Or food production capabilities.
I was hoping to see Cloud Nine, the dome greenhouse like ship be converted into agricultural land.
I know these issues aren't nearly as exciting as -getting into bed with your imaginary genocidal robot
What probably would have been a smarter way to go with the series is to assume that the Cylons are like the Japanese in WWII, strong striking force but incapable of keeping up rapid production. Make up some sort of applied techno-babble that says they can crank out raiders and centurions but the AI's in their basestars take ages to nurture and grow. So they could not take the humans in a stand-up fight, thus requiring the decapitation strike. They knew they could not get all of the human colonies at once, they tried to get the biggest ones and take out the bulk of the fleet, then would mop up the rest at their leisure. Also, if they spread the main colonies among several star systems with further splinter settlements, then there's some real drama. Assume the colonies are spread between four major star systems. Ok, the Cylon fleet is divided into four task groups, they use the trickery to get through the defenses. Galactica manages an escape. Info trickling in later shows that it was not just the one system that was hit, all four are gone. The crew goes from thinking they're going to meet up with fleet elements for a counter-attack to realizing they're most of what's left of the fleet. They then realize that the Cylons are going to begin a systematic sweep of the outer colonies, the ones founded after the big 12. So the first season is then about trying to get there before the Cylons, building up the rag-tag fleet. From there they can have the wangst about whether the Cylons are still shitfire hot about genocide, if they have second thoughts, etc etc.
I have no idea where they're planning on ending the current series but I think making the Cylons human was a mistake. The whole feel of the original was fighting against an enemy so unfeeling, so remorseless that they may as well be a force of nature. Yeah, they forgot about that and went silly early on but that's still what I felt was the core of the show. You can get the soap opera relationship strife wangst anywhere. The emotional trauma I want to see is related to the premise of the show, how people are reacting and cracking under the pressure, not Melrose Space crap.
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preachy shows (Score:3, Interesting)
Galactica has been guilty of all of those. I gave up when they decided to do the whole Iraq occupation thing. For starters, settling on a planet makes no sense when your enemy is space-borne and can hunt you down. That violates sound military doctrine in the context of the show. Second, how do you apply terror tactics against an enemy who is effectively immortal? While somewhat cheesy and seemingly a wasted effort, suicide bomber Cylons make sense in that they are immortal and will come back after they die. It would still seem more sensible for them to conduct a larger sabotage given how far they've infiltrated into the Colonial military. But for humans to suicide attack Cylons? Again, it's one thing if you're talking about a Viper pilot pressing home an attack against a basestar. Losing a capital ship should hurt, they don't grow on trees, and such a move could provide the opening for the Galactica to escape a sticky situation. But strapping on a dynamite vest and walking into a Cylon bar? "Bugger, I got blown up. Well, let me crawl out of this tank, put on something slutty and we can resume at some other bar."
None of that made any context within the confines of the show, the writers just wanted to do something they saw in the headlines. Yawn. Might as well throw in stem cell research, teen pregnancy, female genital mutilation, and rants about Vista.
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Oh, please. The humans weren't under military command, they had just elected a new civilian president, because he promised them he'd allow them to settle on this planet. They had been on the run for maybe 2 years at this point, and
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Re:That's all very well.... (Score:5, Funny)
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You're looking for Space Opera (Star Wars and its ilk), two doors down on your left.
And also, who's to say that it is meant to be USA specific. Maybe you are just extrapolating based o