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."

Comments

And religion?

[webword]

Yes, a little offtopic but if you're going to talk
about politics and law, why not religion too, right?
The image is slick...

Battlestar Galactica Last Supper

Re:it's interesting to see

[JesseMcDonald]

there are limits on everything folks, even [insert principle you hold most dear]

Including, of course, the principle that "there are limits on everything"?

Re:it's interesting to see

[jjohnson]

The producers are very much interested in not having BSG be a one-sided 'humans uber alles' series. I take it you're in the middle of the second season, where Cain's Six is being tortured and gangraped on the Pegasus. As the series continues, a lot of human decisions come back to the haunt them, and the Cylon perspective is explored.

yes! exactly!

[circletimessquare]

moderation in everything... including moderation ;-)

Re:it's interesting to see

[glwtta]

I mean yeah they're the enemy but they're obviously intelligent and sentient and they're not even given basic human rights.

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.

Re:what i found kinda interesting ...

[glwtta]

is that the only character that follows clear moral principles is karl "helo" agathon; every other character on the show has obvious flaws

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")

Interesting

[Cedric Tsui]

I stopped watching the series after it stopped being about running away from the hoard of robots trying to murder everyone. I'm not terribly interested in complicated relationships. That's what soap operas are for.

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...

Re:Interesting

[jollyreaper]

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 It's because they never thought the whole premise through. According to the show, the twelve colonies were all in one system. Why would there even be a need for interstellar transit if you never had to go further than the next planet over? The analogy here would be coastal lighters used to flee across the Pacific, only the distances are thousands of times greater. How are they carrying enough fuel and consumables? Why would they even have that range to begin with? It would be as if my little commuter Cessna just so happened to be capable of intercontinental flight, even though I only used it to go to the next state. Hell, the space shuttle could probably be rigged to reach Mars if they used those weird low-energy transfer orbits (stick an ion drive and reaction mass in the cargo bay) but the trip would take years and years and the consumables would run out in less than a month.

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.

Re:it's interesting to see

[Remus Shepherd]

I'm on the opposite side of you in the question of how Cylons should be treated. They have proven themselves an existential threat to the human race, and they should be exterminated without pity or mercy. I was frustrated by the one episode (much later than where you apparently are) when they decide not to release a biological weapon that could wipe out the Cylons all at once. I'd press that button in a heartbeat, and I think any leader responsible for the safety of the human race would do the same.

Still, it's a good reflection on the series writers that they are able to evoke such complex and powerful quandries.

Re:it's interesting to see

[Brian Gordon]

You should go back and watch Star Trek TNG, learn some starfleet ideals. Picard was absolutely right not to return Hugh with a disease to exterminate the Borg. Yes they were a threat to the human race, but genocide is never an acceptable solution. Would you wipe out a species to ensure your own survival? Murder? Starfleet wouldn't, and neither would I.. these are ideals worth dying for.

Re:it's interesting to see

[ianare]

Would you wipe out a species to ensure your own survival? If that species was bent on exterminating mine, yes, I would. And so would any other living thing, for that matter. Genocide and murder are certainly not acceptable in normal times, but when fighting for survival, all bets are off.

The majority practice hypocrisy

[gobbo]

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."