BattleStar Galactica:Season 3.0--11/10/06--Arc 6

[The Grumpy Celt]

This conversation has become pointless. No is changing their opinion or conceding anything.

 

[DM_Matt]

If humanity must commit genocide to survive, then I say this: Humanity does not deserve to survive.

So if it is the case that humanity cannot prevent the cylons from genociding them (and in that statement, you concede this point) without killing all the cylons, then the cylons have a right to commit that genocide?

In that statement, the cylons are entirely in the drivers seat. If they really want to kill humanity and nothing can convince them otherwise, then what you are saying is that humanity has no right to stop them. In essense, you are saying that the cylons committment to genocide justifies the genocide.

 

[RangerWickett]

I'm not trying to change anyone's minds. I'll just say that, in my mind, I think of the Cylons as people, not as machines. That's why I think killing them all is genocide, and thus not tolerable.

 

[IcyCool]

So if it is the case that humanity cannot prevent the cylons from genociding them (and in that statement, you concede this point) without killing all the cylons, then the cylons have a right to commit that genocide?

I think you misread that. Where in there did he say that the Cylons have a "right" to commit genocide? He stated that if humanity had to commit genocide to survive, then they didn't deserve to survive. They might still survive, but they wouldn't deserve it, from a moral (i.e. opinion) standpoint.

Thus far, humanity hasn't had to commit genocide to survive, and they didn't have to in this episode either.

And for what it's worth, if the Cylons had to commit genocide to survive, they wouldn't deserve to survive either.

 

[Joker]

What I don't understand is why they thought it would wipe out the entire Cylon race, most of which, I presume, is lightyears away from where the battle took place.

I mean, they would lose a rezz ship and a few basestars but their entire race?

I too thought this episode was rather weak but that may have to do with the fact that I went from watching the first two seasons and the first few episodes of the third season in quick succession to watching episodes once a week.

Which blows, I might add.

 

[wingsandsword]

The cylons began as machines, as just robots. Hence the epithet "toasters" to describe them. However, now Cylons are much more advanced. They are apparently using cloned and genetically engineered bodies that are so close to human that a detailed medical examination cannot tell the difference, only a very specialized test or exposure to high levels of radiation for hours. Sleeper agents can even think they are human, and pass for being human for years in the human population. They have their own religion, their own culture. They can even sexually reproduce with humans.

That's not just a "machine", when members of the fleet start to wonder if they could be sleeper agents and not know it, your enemy is not just a machine.

It's one of the oldest tactics in warfare, to dehumanize your enemy, to make them seem less human or less civilized than you, so you can feel a lot better about killing them. It's been going on for millennia, and it still goes on today, and it goes on in BSG. It's easier because the original cylons were inhuman, they were just renegade machines out to destroy all humans. Now they've become something more, something beyond normal limits of humanity.

Helo was having a moment of actual morality, it's been a recurring theme of the show, since the miniseries, of what is the real virtue of mankind. As Adama asked at Galactica's decommissioning ceremony, what had humanity done to deserve to exist? If mankind resorts to genocide, how are they any better than the Cylons? Roslin is quite moral. . .with regards to humanity, but she also sees the cylons as inhuman and has no qualms about torturing or throwing them out an airlock. Adama has gained some degree of insight from the year spent above New Caprica with Athena, hence his reluctance to go ahead with the plan, and being willing to drop the matter when Helo apparently makes a stand (perhaps realizing that in his place he may well would have done much the same).

Individual cylons apparently do have some degree of free will, hence Athena, seen as a traitor by her kind, and Caprica-Six, a huge walking scandal of a human-sympathizer among her kind. New Caprica was a huge failure as an attempt at peace, because the Cylons understand humanity very poorly, just like apparently the humans understand the Cylons very poorly.

 

[dravot]

What I don't understand is why they thought it would wipe out the entire Cylon race, most of which, I presume, is lightyears away from where the battle took place.

I mean, they would lose a rezz ship and a few basestars but their entire race?

I saw it pretty much the same way, Joker. The virus is a fleet-killer, or perhaps Op-Force killer, but not a genocide device.

 

[DM_Matt]

I think you misread that. Where in there did he say that the Cylons have a "right" to commit genocide? He stated that if humanity had to commit genocide to survive, then they didn't deserve to survive. They might still survive, but they wouldn't deserve it, from a moral (i.e. opinion) standpoint.

Well, if they deserve to be genocid-ed, by the definition of deserve, the genocide-r is justified.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Of course, the cylons aren't a species.

Cylons are living, sentient, beings. Regarding them as toasters is a way for the colonists to justify killing them. That's all.

 

[LightPhoenix]

Completely disagreed. If you didnt find tension in this episode you weren't thinking hard enough.

By all rights, I should ignore everything you say from here on out, but apparently I'm not thinking now either. I'll just say disagreeing with you doesn't mean I don't think, and I find it offensive that you should say that.

COnsidering my last message, I'll consider the genocide thing hypothetically. I think a lot of us are coming from different directions. For those of us who have children, saving them can sometimes be the most important thing in the world, its near biological. When I"m talking about my children, hcildrens children and my families future existance, if i had away to wipe out that threat I would. The instict to survive is far greater than whatever moral dilemmas we put on ourselves.

We are coming from different directions, I don't argue that. My argument, with regards to the moral decision, is that there really isn't one.

The Cylons are not sympathetic. Let's put aside the fact that the Cylons are indeed sentient (they are AI) or that they are machines, for the moment. The Cylons, regardless of that, are completely unsympathetic, for reasons I've stated before. It doesn't matter that they're machines, it doesn't matter that they are sentient. That's all moot.

Genocide is justified in this case, I would not argue that. There's a difference between something being justified and something being morally right or wrong. Because they've set up a situation where genocide is completely justified, there is no middle ground for the moral argument. So, morally either you are for genocide, or you aren't. That's it.

If the Cylons were presented as more sympathetic, that would be different. Then there'd be more of an argument for justification, and thus a moral middle ground.

We're not talking about BSG here, and we never were. Most of this thread has been all of us stating our moral position, and that's it. There's value in discussing the show. I don't see much value in discussing our personal morals, because there's no points to make. Not to mention, as you handily demonstrated, that we'll take it personally, and when we do that, insults start to fly.

That is the problem with this episode. There's no middle ground to discuss, and so at least personally, I find it's not interesting at all. That leaves out the biological weapon nonsense, which was a flawed premise to begin with.