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The Law and Politics of Battlestar Galactica
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."
people seeing a need for balance on these issues in the abstract
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]
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The best science fiction is always used as a tool to explore the current issues of the day. Whether it's aliens subbing for commies in the 50's, or cylons standing in for terrorists in the 1st season of the new Battlestar Galactica, using science fiction always lets you take a step back from the subject and explore it indirectly in a way that you never could if you made a show that deal with it directly.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
... is that the only character that follows clear moral principles is karl "helo" agathon; every other character on the show has obvious flaws (which are necessary to create tension), but he is the only one that does what he deems right without doubt.
i like the message transported through this: in the end, there are no heroes.
Science Fiction uses fantastic elements as window dressing to cover up the fact that they are trying to get you to think about the human element. All good science fiction (Star Trek, Asimov, BSG, B5, Firefly (definitely not all of it, but examples)) is less about the science and more about the people and the choices they make.
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 on what you are seeing. Like how many people see the conflict between God/Nature vs. Man in Moby Dick when Melville had stated it's just a story about a whale.
In which case, that makes BSG excellent science fiction.
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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.
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 not compatible with the Pegasus jump in next to a base ship and set off a nuclear device. Outfit them with scanning equipment and have them run scouting missions. Mount weapons on them and have one more gun in the battle. Train the people to be soldiers.
In fact, I find the whole series permeated with the idea that there are 'civilians', helpless and incapable of self defence, and the 'military' who must provide all the needs for the civilians. And, somehow, this is as it should be. Sorry, but this is an all out WAR. Get your ass in gear and learn to shoot. Mount a gun on your ship and lend a hand. Human resources is still any organizations greatest asset. They built one additional ship the whole series. It was used for a few episodes and quickly forgotten. What the hell did everyone else do during all those months in space?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
I think the series is scripted to provoke exactly the kind of conflictual emotions you have mentioned - it's an old trick and it works well for retaining viewer interest. The interesting thing is that you feel the writers haven't considered these issues - I don't think they show the humans in an uncritical light at all, in fact many of the worst acts in the war are committed by humans (rape, torture, etc), I think you're feeling exactly what you're supposed to feel - i.e. 'Hang on a minute, that's not right'.
By showing both sides of the conflict, they're shedding light on the tricks we play on ourselves to make warfare acceptable. Rather cleverly, they've cast the robots as more human than the humans in many ways (religious, questioning, constantly seeking resolution), and difficult for the viewer to tell apart from humans. People are being tortured right now in the name of the US and the UK, so I think it's rather apposite that they show humans trying to justify this by dehumanising their enemy - now perhaps they still show torture working sometimes, and they fail to show the effects it has on the torturers in terms of twisting their moral sense, but torture does happen in most wars, and they're right to show it. Nicknames like toaster etc are very common in times of war (see names for Germans or Japanese used in the states in WWII)- it's the first step in preparing to wipe out an enemy; suppress empathy. I'm sure you could find people who applauded the fire-bombing of Dresden, because of being dehumanised by war.
Now the scripts are far from perfect, and in many ways it's a standard sci-fi pot-boiler, but there are elements which are definitely interesting, and I don't believe for a minute that the writers are not aware of the buttons they are pushing, or that they somehow feel all the actions of the humans are justified. Much time is spent discussing whether in fact these actions are correct or acceptable in any circumstances, and the introduction of several cylon characters into the human fleet is designed to bring home this distinction - personally I don't agree with their justification of torture, but it's not as naive as something like '24' at least, where jack gets out his pistol and whacks evil super-villains on the head with it a few times till they give up the secret code to their nuclear weapons. They've also played with insurrection and when/whether it is justified, which I thought was a very useful topic to examine right now in the west.
I agree the politics can be caricatured at points, though the revolt of workers was not unusual in its outcome - If you look at the history of industrialised nations, you will see many cases of exactly this behaviour - the 1848 revolutions in several other european countries fizzled out before they got going, and the earlier frame breakers/luddites have even become a byword for stupidity, even though their grievances were real and their movement brutally repressed. When workers are not organised or allied with the middle classes they're going to have a hard time fighting a heavily armed government determined to impose order, and often the best option is to give up and bide their time.
I just wish they based more of their scripts on historical events, to give it a bit more grit and a bit less of the trite pablum which passes for political discourse in America at the moment - at times I felt like I was watching the first episode of the West wing, particularly when that president opens her mouth, or they had that journalist woman being defused by being allowed access to the military (a nice idea, and stylistically quite fun with the grainy footage, but again came out a bit trite). I finally got bored with it all after the 3rd series, and gave up on it - it turned into a soap opera, and not a very good one, and the mixture of shallow political/social analysis and faith was just too much for me. There's a lot there that could be good, but unfortunately they went for the easy options too many times, and felt it necessary to add lots of trite filler and romantic stuffing that didn't really belong. But perhaps that's why they didn't get cancelled and Firefly did.
I don't feel the show is encouraging xenophobia though, quite the opposite, it's encouraging you to think about it.