Battlestar Galactica:Seaon 2 Part3 7.29.05

[Steel_Wind]

I don't see how Tigh gets out of this one.

We know Adama will live and recover ep 5 or 6. We know that they are not going to kill Roslin off at least before the end of this season.

We know the Council of 12 will never forgive Tigh for acting as he did.

So: either the Martial Law sticks or it has to go. If it has to go - Tigh will take the heat for it and Adama will return.

I suppose Tigh might do a deal with Baltar and restore gov't to him. Baltar is the hero - Tigh saves face.

Alternatively, Starbuck get back with arrow in ep 6 - it does unlock something and it does point to earth. Adama admits he was wrong - offers his resignation to Roslin - she refuses to accept it knowing Tigh can't do the job and there really is no alternative to Adama.

Let bygones be bygones. One happy fleet. Except Richard Hatch's character will never forget this and it will be hard to have Roslin run for re-election with her cancer known.

Baltar to the resuce as President again? Or is it Apollo - who profits and gains in credibility by supporting Roslin?

Either way - I honestly don't see how Tigh lasts. He's simply not fit to wear the uniform - and he certainly isn't fit to be Executive Officer. The Council will never, ever trust him.

He's just swirling the bowl now. There won't be a third season for Colonel Tigh.

 

[ecliptic]

Should have been martial law since the beginning. There are no 12 colonies since the Cylons took them out. There are less than 50,000 humans left and all of them need to pipe down and let the military do their work. In such a horrible situation martial law is the only effective governing body. Beurcratic bickering would do nothing for them. Exactly what is the President done anyway? Other than risked the lives of almost 50,000 people for delusions.

I have said it before. She should have stepped down as soon as she realized she was sick.

 

[Volaran]

Should have been martial law since the beginning. There are no 12 colonies since the Cylons took them out. There are less than 50,000 humans left and all of them need to pipe down and let the military do their work. In such a horrible situation martial law is the only effective governing body. Beurcratic bickering would do nothing for them. Exactly what is the President done anyway? Other than risked the lives of almost 50,000 people for delusions.

I have said it before. She should have stepped down as soon as she realized she was sick.

This may have been pointed out before, but she knew she was sick before taking the presidency. Do you mean that she should have never accepted the role? That she should have stepped down after convincing Adama not to abandon the last remains of humanity for a pointless fight and the initial crisis had passed? Some other specific time?

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Other than risked the lives of almost 50,000 people for delusions.

Delusions that are continually proving to turn out correct and fitting words in the ancient scrolls. They definitely are more than delusions at this point.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Should have been martial law since the beginning. There are no 12 colonies since the Cylons took them out. There are less than 50,000 humans left and all of them need to pipe down and let the military do their work. In such a horrible situation martial law is the only effective governing body. Beurcratic bickering would do nothing for them. Exactly what is the President done anyway? Other than risked the lives of almost 50,000 people for delusions.

I have said it before. She should have stepped down as soon as she realized she was sick.

I think the Military would have had martial law from the get go. But it's fun to watch it play out like this in any event.

 

[Endur]

On the one hand Galactica is a military vessel, on the other hand the Human systems were at peace until the sneak attack. Colonel Tigh was about to be retired along with Adama and the Galactica. Likewise, the President's previous experience was as a school teacher appointed Secretary of Education.

There is no reason to keep Adama and President Rosalind in charge in the wake of an apocalpytic event, except for inertia and continuity.

The scary thing is that under this situation, Baltar really should be put in charge. Or Starbuck and Apollo.

 

[Fast Learner]

Continuity -- and the mental stability and reassuredness that comes with it -- is a huge reason to maintain a civilian government.

Besides which, as was pointed out in the series, the civilian government has done a ton maintaining civilization among the ships, from distributing food and medicine to providing all kinds of other services.

It scares me how easily people are willing to suggest succumbing to martial law. Does history teach us nothing?

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I never saw much of the original series, but weren't they effectively living under martial law in that one?

Though as far as the new series goes, it was definately Laura Roslyn that put the fleet together and gathered the refugees. Right from the start she was the one that got Apollo and Boomer to find the others. While the Galactica was completely unaware of the situation at the time.

 

[Fast Learner]

In the original, Adama was leader of the military and... well, essentially (though the series never makes it truly clear), the Council of Twelve was the civilian leadership. And -- again, essentially -- the Council was in charge of the whole thing, telling Adama what to do. Except that he rarely did it, and usually because the Council's ideas weren't necessarily sound... except that they were the civilian government, so he should have....

To sum, it was a mess, but they did have both factions.

 

[wingsandsword]

It scares me how easily people are willing to suggest succumbing to martial law. Does history teach us nothing?

Not that much. When people are scared, they run to what promises to remove the fear. They don't want freedom, they don't want liberty, they want safety. Sad, very sad, but that's what happens when you let fear rule your life.

Now, in the original BSG, Adama was the head of the Military and the Civilian government (which was very token and only occasionally mentioned), and was the benevolent father-figure leader of all humanity. However, 70's BSG wasn't exactly realistic in how it came to that state:

They witness the destruction of the entire 12 colonies, and the first place they go is a glitzy Disco/Casino planet full of partying humans ignoring the destruction of the human homeworlds. Then they go from long lost human colony, to lost outpost, to western-themed "frontier" planet, to even fully developed spacefaring and militant human worlds, but they always ignore them (and never take any more humans along, blissfully leaving them to the pursuing Cylon fleet and never think about it). They literally ran into many times more humans on the worlds they visited than were possibly in the fleet. It quite often had a "Star Trek" Planet of the Week feel.

Original BSG had a great concept, spoiled with a very thin Colonials=Good Guys who Get along and follow their infallible Great Leader vs. Cylons=Menacing but strangely incompetent machines lead by a cartoon-chararacture of a Baltar. It did have the strength of a few excellent episodes ("The Living Legend", "Lost Planet of the Gods", "The Hand of God") and it really did go a long way to use different costumes, expressions and designs to make it seem like another civilization instead of Earth-humans (Yahren instead of years, frack & felgercarb swears, socialators instead of prostitutes [I'm amazed that one got by '79 era network censors])

They were always seeking Earth (which wasn't a myth, in one of the first episodes they intercepted a transmission of the Apollo 11 landing, which given the 70's series where Galactica found earth in 1980, meant they couldn't be further out than 11 light years). Oh, and they never, ever even mentioned FTL drives of any kind, those giant rockets on the back always seemed to get them there on time.

So, having Adama rule the entire Fleet under de-facto martial law didn't have quite the same feel as Adama staging a military coup and Tigh outright declaring Martial Law (after being goaded by his wife, who is increasingly looking like another Cylon)