Girls! Girls! Cylons!
Home Part II : Like the love boat with guns and corpses.
Am I the only person that watches BSG with the continual subconscious knowledge that the Cylons are keeping the fleet alive? I mean, I guess there's really no doubt about that, knowing how many Cylon agents are in the fleet, unless they have no way to correspond with the Cylon collective. Which would seem very unlikely, since Six is able to communicate with Baltar, however she's doing so. I just find it somewhat unbelievable that they've managed so far neither to keep a lock on the location of nor eradicate it when they actually come into contact with the fleet. I know space is big. But the cylons are there with them, and unless Six and Boomer are guarding the fleet singlehandedly, it just seems really... odd. Mysterious.
Anyway, let's establish what we know about Six, since it's turning into a little bit of a mindfrak at this point. A) She is not a manifestation of Baltar's considerable crazy. B) She is not an angel from God. (It is a very rare television show that brings any sort of actual God into it, never mind a pro-cylon one. I don't think BSG is going to go there, aside from all kinds of hinting and all kinds of faith issues in characters.) C) She is not communicating with Gaius from a recognizable microchip. D) But she is communicating with Gaius. From somewhere. She has "prescience," but only insofar as could reasonably be expected. If Six is fully "plugged in" to the Cylon consciousness as Boomer is not, you bet your ass she's watching Boomer, and using whatever Cylon sources she can to figure out the most likely course of action for the future.
I keep getting the feeling that Six's "chip" (or way into Baltar's brain) is nothing Cottle's scans would recognize. The raider was made out of organic material, wasn't it? And the human-Cylons are fully organic, or so we've been lead to believe. I want to see an autopsy of dead!Boomer- and Lord I hope they're doing one, for their sakes. But if they can alter an organic human-like brain to have Cylon capacity for reasoning and a way to tap into the at-large Cylon consciousness, as they do in their human-cylon models, who's to say they couldn't put something in Gaius that a human scanner wouldn't recognize? It's not like Cottle's got Baltar's cylon detector technology working for him.
The Helo/Boomer in this ep was well played, and very interesting. I've been a big H/B shipper since the early episodes, but the part with Tyrol gave me some serious pause. If Sharon's purpose as a cylon model is to love, then it's likely that she'd be easily able to love more than one person. If the human concept of "true" love exists at all, it wouldn't really exist in Sharon's case, would it? Her reaction to Tyrol was very telling, and a little creepy, to be honest, and poor Helo was a hurt little woobie because I'm quite sure he remembers their relationship before he split off from dead!Boomer for the first time at the destruction of the colonies. And even if it isn't this Sharon who's capable of loving the Chief and Helo, she has that ghost-memory of actual Sharon in her head. She feels everything that happens, remembers everything- how could anyone assume that the love disappeared when just one physical manifestation of Boomer did?
A lot of people have been commenting on how stupid my tv boyfriend Helo's being. Let's just keep in mind that, not knowing about Leoben or Galactica!Boomer, he'd really have no idea how the fleet would react to a declared human-cylon who appears to be on their side. Particularly since that human-cylon is one that they all know, as I doubt he had any idea that Galactica!Boomer even existed 'til he stepped on that ship and Lee got all angsty on them. As queenofthorns mentioned, now he knows Boomer tried to shoot Adama, so things should be getting through to him. But I still just can't peg him properly as an idiot.
Part of my crush on sympathy for Helo is that he's been through likely the worst hell of them all and has never had time to break down. He was alone on Caprica, on foot, unsure of his enemies' capabilities and whether or not they were just toying with him. Then Sharon shows up, and as there was clearly pre-existing feelings on his part it's like a double miracle; some other human and the woman she loves. So things aren't awesome once Sharon gets back, but there's still just a 'lil bit of hope and light in the world. I'm imagining that's what kept poor Helo going. He's just a young soldier like any other young soldier, and though survival training and that built-in instinct can last for a pretty long time, eventually, without Sharon, and without running into any other humans, there wouldn't have been any point. So when Sharon's revealed to be not only a Cylon but pregnant with his kid, I don't think he's being an "idiot" by being loyal to her. He rejects the Cylon in Sharon as his enemy and torturer, but he better than anyone can see that that's not what his Sharon is. Honestly, I would be quite surprised and a little unhappy if the current Sharon ended up betraying the fleet in any conscious way. I think her character exists almost solely to prove that point about the Cylon capacity for love.
But Boomer was amazing in this episode, and it's in these last few episodes that Grace Park has really shown some excellent presence as an actress. What I always saw as Boomer's dullness is turning into a character trait- I missed the mini, so I probably missed a lot of her initial character development, but she's a soldier and survivor at heart, and I bet she was a bit of a hardass on the Galactica. She's highly capable and I'm sure an excellent pilot, and, as Helo mentioned, probably a good bit smarter than humans. Boomer is different from the Six model (and I feel like the Simon model is a little, as well, from his and Six's exchange in the hospital on Caprica) only because of that near-crippling capacity for emotions. If I was a Cylon, I'd take that as proof of the universal nature of human flaws, since Boomer's looking more and more like a turncoat.
Did the bit about the tomb confuse anyone else? Not the star map part- which was totally amazing and very heart-wrenching, I thought- but the part about how the hell they were transported to that grassy area. Particle beam technology? Moving floor? The grass looked pretty real, but maybe it was just a projection. Anyway, that whole scene was amazing.
Billy! AWESOME! Man, it's nice to have minions who have minds of their own. The world at large would assume Lee Adama would be in daddy's pocket, and that Roslin's secretary would be in his. But that's just not how wicked hotheadstrong young sidekicks for Laura Roslinmen work these days, apparently.
I think Roslin's dismissiveness of Kara is going to show up in later episodes. I totally agree with Roslin that they had other priorities than Caprica at the moment Kara pitched the idea, but I think she sees Kara as a simple fighter pilot who happens to be well-loved of the Adamas (which, in it's own way, is true,) and not an actual force. We'll see, I guess.
Someone go write some Kara/Lee summer camp fic, seriously. They seem so at home hudding under a wet tarp in the dark and toasting marshmallows toasters and sittin' around a campfire that it feels like they've been in a comabt situation before. I think the producers need to go over their backstory a little bit more before making Kara and Lee as familiar in as many situations as they are.
TEASER SPOILER. SPOILER! :
Xena's got a point about the whole non-disclosure thing. I mean, we're getting at the show from Galactica's perspective, so of course we're on their side and know that civilians can get angry mob-y too quickly to tell them certain things. But imagine if you were a reasonably-educated and/or democratically minded person in the fleet. All power lies in the hands of one or two un-elected people, who barely even listen to the Quorum and have no real motivation to do so. They also have all the guns. And supplies. That's a scary place to be.
Am I the only person that watches BSG with the continual subconscious knowledge that the Cylons are keeping the fleet alive? I mean, I guess there's really no doubt about that, knowing how many Cylon agents are in the fleet, unless they have no way to correspond with the Cylon collective. Which would seem very unlikely, since Six is able to communicate with Baltar, however she's doing so. I just find it somewhat unbelievable that they've managed so far neither to keep a lock on the location of nor eradicate it when they actually come into contact with the fleet. I know space is big. But the cylons are there with them, and unless Six and Boomer are guarding the fleet singlehandedly, it just seems really... odd. Mysterious.
Anyway, let's establish what we know about Six, since it's turning into a little bit of a mindfrak at this point. A) She is not a manifestation of Baltar's considerable crazy. B) She is not an angel from God. (It is a very rare television show that brings any sort of actual God into it, never mind a pro-cylon one. I don't think BSG is going to go there, aside from all kinds of hinting and all kinds of faith issues in characters.) C) She is not communicating with Gaius from a recognizable microchip. D) But she is communicating with Gaius. From somewhere. She has "prescience," but only insofar as could reasonably be expected. If Six is fully "plugged in" to the Cylon consciousness as Boomer is not, you bet your ass she's watching Boomer, and using whatever Cylon sources she can to figure out the most likely course of action for the future.
I keep getting the feeling that Six's "chip" (or way into Baltar's brain) is nothing Cottle's scans would recognize. The raider was made out of organic material, wasn't it? And the human-Cylons are fully organic, or so we've been lead to believe. I want to see an autopsy of dead!Boomer- and Lord I hope they're doing one, for their sakes. But if they can alter an organic human-like brain to have Cylon capacity for reasoning and a way to tap into the at-large Cylon consciousness, as they do in their human-cylon models, who's to say they couldn't put something in Gaius that a human scanner wouldn't recognize? It's not like Cottle's got Baltar's cylon detector technology working for him.
The Helo/Boomer in this ep was well played, and very interesting. I've been a big H/B shipper since the early episodes, but the part with Tyrol gave me some serious pause. If Sharon's purpose as a cylon model is to love, then it's likely that she'd be easily able to love more than one person. If the human concept of "true" love exists at all, it wouldn't really exist in Sharon's case, would it? Her reaction to Tyrol was very telling, and a little creepy, to be honest, and poor Helo was a hurt little woobie because I'm quite sure he remembers their relationship before he split off from dead!Boomer for the first time at the destruction of the colonies. And even if it isn't this Sharon who's capable of loving the Chief and Helo, she has that ghost-memory of actual Sharon in her head. She feels everything that happens, remembers everything- how could anyone assume that the love disappeared when just one physical manifestation of Boomer did?
A lot of people have been commenting on how stupid my tv boyfriend Helo's being. Let's just keep in mind that, not knowing about Leoben or Galactica!Boomer, he'd really have no idea how the fleet would react to a declared human-cylon who appears to be on their side. Particularly since that human-cylon is one that they all know, as I doubt he had any idea that Galactica!Boomer even existed 'til he stepped on that ship and Lee got all angsty on them. As queenofthorns mentioned, now he knows Boomer tried to shoot Adama, so things should be getting through to him. But I still just can't peg him properly as an idiot.
Part of my crush on sympathy for Helo is that he's been through likely the worst hell of them all and has never had time to break down. He was alone on Caprica, on foot, unsure of his enemies' capabilities and whether or not they were just toying with him. Then Sharon shows up, and as there was clearly pre-existing feelings on his part it's like a double miracle; some other human and the woman she loves. So things aren't awesome once Sharon gets back, but there's still just a 'lil bit of hope and light in the world. I'm imagining that's what kept poor Helo going. He's just a young soldier like any other young soldier, and though survival training and that built-in instinct can last for a pretty long time, eventually, without Sharon, and without running into any other humans, there wouldn't have been any point. So when Sharon's revealed to be not only a Cylon but pregnant with his kid, I don't think he's being an "idiot" by being loyal to her. He rejects the Cylon in Sharon as his enemy and torturer, but he better than anyone can see that that's not what his Sharon is. Honestly, I would be quite surprised and a little unhappy if the current Sharon ended up betraying the fleet in any conscious way. I think her character exists almost solely to prove that point about the Cylon capacity for love.
But Boomer was amazing in this episode, and it's in these last few episodes that Grace Park has really shown some excellent presence as an actress. What I always saw as Boomer's dullness is turning into a character trait- I missed the mini, so I probably missed a lot of her initial character development, but she's a soldier and survivor at heart, and I bet she was a bit of a hardass on the Galactica. She's highly capable and I'm sure an excellent pilot, and, as Helo mentioned, probably a good bit smarter than humans. Boomer is different from the Six model (and I feel like the Simon model is a little, as well, from his and Six's exchange in the hospital on Caprica) only because of that near-crippling capacity for emotions. If I was a Cylon, I'd take that as proof of the universal nature of human flaws, since Boomer's looking more and more like a turncoat.
Did the bit about the tomb confuse anyone else? Not the star map part- which was totally amazing and very heart-wrenching, I thought- but the part about how the hell they were transported to that grassy area. Particle beam technology? Moving floor? The grass looked pretty real, but maybe it was just a projection. Anyway, that whole scene was amazing.
Billy! AWESOME! Man, it's nice to have minions who have minds of their own. The world at large would assume Lee Adama would be in daddy's pocket, and that Roslin's secretary would be in his. But that's just not how wicked hotheadstrong young sidekicks for Laura Roslinmen work these days, apparently.
I think Roslin's dismissiveness of Kara is going to show up in later episodes. I totally agree with Roslin that they had other priorities than Caprica at the moment Kara pitched the idea, but I think she sees Kara as a simple fighter pilot who happens to be well-loved of the Adamas (which, in it's own way, is true,) and not an actual force. We'll see, I guess.
Someone go write some Kara/Lee summer camp fic, seriously. They seem so at home hudding under a wet tarp in the dark and toasting marshmallows toasters and sittin' around a campfire that it feels like they've been in a comabt situation before. I think the producers need to go over their backstory a little bit more before making Kara and Lee as familiar in as many situations as they are.
TEASER SPOILER. SPOILER! :
Xena's got a point about the whole non-disclosure thing. I mean, we're getting at the show from Galactica's perspective, so of course we're on their side and know that civilians can get angry mob-y too quickly to tell them certain things. But imagine if you were a reasonably-educated and/or democratically minded person in the fleet. All power lies in the hands of one or two un-elected people, who barely even listen to the Quorum and have no real motivation to do so. They also have all the guns. And supplies. That's a scary place to be.