Battlestar Galactica's Last Days

bowman9991 writes "If your country was invaded and occupied by a foreign power, would you blow yourself up to fight back? If someone pointed a gun at your head and threatened to pull the trigger if you refused to sign a document you knew would lead to a hundred deaths (and you signed!), would that make you ultimately responsible? Does superior technology give you the moral right to impose your will on a technologically inferior culture? You wouldn't expect a mainstream television show to tackle such philosophically loaded questions, certainly not a show based on cheesy science fiction from the '70s, but if you've watched Battlestar Galactica since it was re-imagined in 2003, there has been no escape. The final fourth season is nearly over, and when the final episode airs, television will never be the same again. SFFMedia illustrates how Battlestar Galactica exposes the moral dilemmas, outrages, and questionable believes of the present as effectively (but more entertainingly) than any documentary or news program. It's not hard to see parallels in the CIA and US military's use of interrogation techniques in Bush's War on Terror, the effects of labeling one race as 'the enemy,' the crackdown on free speech, or the use of suicide bombers in Iraq."

Comments

First Post!

[XPeter]

My superior technology gives me the moral right to impose my will on a technologically inferior culture called Slashdot!

Re:First Post!

[Anonymous Coward]

My superior technology gives me the moral right to impose my will on a technologically inferior culture called Slashdot!

Looks like Taco's created yet another account...

Re:First Post!

[RonnyJ]

Slashdot's technology gives me the possibility to crush your will by modding you down!

...well, it did, until I clicked 'Submit' :(

Re:First Post!

[Anonymous Coward]

My parent and grandparent are both tools! must run in the family... :(

Re:First Post!

[FuzzyHead]

Only if you can keep your server from being slashdotted will we consider your technology superior. ;)

Re:First Post!

[operagost]

I, for one, welcome our technologically-superior-Slashdot-poster overlords.

Tackle?

[fm6]

BSG doesn't so much tackle moral questions as sort of run past them.

Re:Tackle?

[AKAImBatman]

I have to agree. One of the more frustrating aspects of the show is that the characters very rarely grow a sufficiently large backbone to Do the Right Thing(TM). And then it's pretty much only because they're forced to do so. Using a corporate environment as an analog, my company would have bitten the dust long ago if every employee kept secrets like they do in BSG. The fact that the Cylons didn't manage to wipe them out in the first season is purely an artifact of it being fiction.

Of course, there are plenty of situations where the secrets would be justified. e.g. If you know you're a cylon, do you really want to expose that amongst a ship full of cylon-haters? But some of the stuff is just plain ridiculous. Take Baltar as an example. By keeping his involvement with the destruction of the colonies a secret, he's basically accepting responsibility for his actions. Yet his character never accepts responsibility for his actions! A real individual like that would have carefully controlled the release of that information, being careful to spin it as something out of his control. Blame the cylons. Blame the dead government. Blame everybody, but make sure that it's not something that can come back and bite you in the ass.

I still like many aspects of the show, but the characterizations just get weird sometimes. And as you said, they end up blowing by the moral quandaries rather than taking the Star Trek approach of tackling them head-on.

Re:Tackle?

[elrous0]

Yeah, that's called "realism." People in real life often rarely grow sufficiently large backbones to "do the right thing" either, particularly when they're threatened and running for their lives.

And, as for secrets, is there any one of us who doesn't carry a TON of those around with them? Do you wake up every day and tell your wife that she's become a fat, bitter shrew and that you don't want to be married to her anymore because you want to go find a cute younger woman who isn't a fat, bitter shrew? Do you tell your kids that you're disappointed that they're not as smart or handsome as you'd hoped they'd be? Do you tell your boss he's a fucking idiot and that you think you could do a better job than him? Do you tell you mother that you don't want to visit her or call her because you're too different from her now to have anything to talk about? Do you tell yourself that you're not the hero of the story, just another loser in a world full of losers?

...I'm sorry, what were we talking about again?

Re:Tackle?

[kannibal_klown]

I wouldn't say they run past them. There were a few where they dedicated the whole episode to a moral question and how some really had no perfect solution.

Others had entire seasons (or the entire story) to deal with: the occupation, what is "alive", is mass-deception OK, etc.

The conditions and rebellion on New Caprica were done well (which lasted 1/2 a season) and "Baltar becoming a cult-like leader of a monotheistic religion" has played out pretty well.

Other small 1-episode shots that were done well:

The forced medication episode was another:

• What happens when the beliefs of a few, risk the lives of the whole?
• A group of people contracted a disease that was easily treatable, but refused medicine on religious grounds.
• So the disease spread like wildfire amongst them, while exposing the rest of the fleet.
• With medicine a scarce resource like in the show you'd want to stop an outbreak before it got out of control, which they made impossible.

The whole "inherited jobs" and "labor issue on the refinery ship" was one that stood out.

• With so few people available it became a big question of who worka which job
• Travel between the specialized ships (mining, refinery, fuel, etc) was limited. People just "lived" there, raised a family, and showed them the trade on the ship.
• Would new people get trained? Or would it just turn into a cast system? Would anyone without the last name Adama ever run the fleet?
• And even the sympathetic protagonist's seemingly ideal solution was flawed. People got roped into jobs they weren't fit for.
• Should working with farm machinery for a summer abroad qualify you into working on dangerous machinery at the refinery?

Treating the black and grey markets was interesting.

• In the context of the show, the black market kept the fleet running.
• They weren't trying to make the survivors seem like a close-knit extended family like the original series: you didn't get something for nothing.
• But then you look at the darker aspects of the market and you have to wonder where you draw the line. What is going too far? Should it exist at all?

How do you treat POWs

Re:Tackle?

[Yvanhoe]

Exactly. On one hand I am grateful to BSG for showing the general public that science fiction is not just about lightsabers and klingons, on the other hand, I would do the same observation as for the Matrix movie(s) : the questions, the ideas that seem so new to people who discover them on video-screens have been there in SF books for many, many years. BSG is deeper than most SF shows out there but it is still incredibly shallow when compared to the books that inspired its ideas more than 30 years ago.

SF literature is a field where some philosophical questions are asked that can not be asked in any other context. And compared to recent books, the moral dilemmas of BSG are quite laughably easy to solve.

Re:Tackle?

[nine-times]

One of the more frustrating aspects of the show is that the characters very rarely grow a sufficiently large backbone to Do the Right Thing(TM). And then it's pretty much only because they're forced to do so.

So you're saying it's realistic?

A real individual like that would have carefully controlled the release of that information, being careful to spin it as something out of his control.

Now that seems unrealistic to me-- a world where people take on their problems, admit their mistakes (even with spin), and avoid having their past actions bite them in the ass.

I like that BSG *doesn't* necessarily wrap everything up in a neat little package. Everyone sees a problem, nobody can agree on what to do about it, time passes, nothing gets done, and then it ends up blowing up in everyone's face later down the line. Or not. Sometimes that stuff just passes by and never gets resolved. That sounds much more like the world we live in, rather than having some all-wise character give you a moral to the story at the end of each episode.

Re:Tackle?

[Bemopolis]

Take Baltar as an example. By keeping his involvement with the destruction of the colonies a secret, he's basically accepting responsibility for his actions. Yet his character never accepts responsibility for his actions! A real individual like that would have carefully controlled the release of that information, being careful to spin it as something out of his control.

Ttrapped in space with the remains of humanity, each of which has suffered a devastating loss, has easy access to guns, and is looking for someone to blame. Saying "I did it" and hoping no one offs you before you get to "...but".

BRILLIANT PLAN, GENIUS.

Re:Tackle?

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, I told my wife that she had become a bitter, fat shrew, but then I could not tell the kids I was disappointed in them because she took them. She got the house in the divorce, so I moved in with my Mom. Things were a little tense when I told her that I did not want to be there because we had nothing in common, but that did not last long. When I told my boss that he was an ass, I got fired, and when I was unable to pay the court appointed alimony, I was sent to prison, so there was no need for me to see her anymore. I still continue to tell the truth and not keep secrets hidden, that is why I will honestly say that my cellmate, Mark, has the biggest dick I have ever seen and it hurts, but I would still not change anything.

Re:Tackle?

[AKAImBatman]

Yeah, that's called "realism." People in real life often rarely grow sufficiently large backbones to "do the right thing" either, particularly when they're threatened and running for their lives.

Sorry, I don't buy it. I watch the show and think of analogous situations in my own life. Humans are social creatures, many of whom have trouble with secrets. Somebody tends to speak up in nearly any situation. Whether anyone listens to them or not is another matter, but very few secrets are maintained. Yet everyone in BSG has the necessary personality traits to keep even the smallest of secrets. That's realistic?

Like frak'n hell! :-P

And, as for secrets, is there any one of us who doesn't carry a TON of those around with them?

I think you're confusing secrets kept for privacy reasons with the types of secrets kept in BSG. My work is not secret. If I screw up on the job, trying to keep that a secret is eventually going to bite me in the ass. Instead, if I screw up, it's important to admit that I screwed up so that I can control the potential recrimination. If the environment is so poor that mistakes are overreacted to, then it's time to get out of that environment because it isn't going to be lasting much longer.

Same with the example of Baltar's situation. He screwed up, but he didn't screw up badly. By withholding the information, he managed to ensure his recrimination at a later date. Someone like the character portrayed on the series is smarter than that. He would have talked it up from the get-go, releasing bits and pieces in a favorable light. Then when Roselin "remembered" him being with the six, no one (including Roselin) would have been able to find personal fault there. Particularly not without finding fault with themselves for working alongside the likes of Sharon.

Do you wake up every day and tell your wife that she's become a fat, bitter shrew and that you don't want to be married to her anymore because you want to go find a cute younger woman who isn't a fat, bitter shrew? Do you tell your kids that you're disappointed that they're not as smart or handsome as you'd hoped they'd be? Do you tell your boss he's a fucking idiot and that you think you could do a better job than him? Do you tell you mother that you don't want to visit her or call her because you're too different from her now to have anything to talk about? Do you tell yourself that you're not the hero of the story, just another loser in a world full of losers?

This honestly comes across more like you've got personal problems than secrets. And in the real world, the types of people who hold these opinions very often voice them very loudly. After all, a divorce is the ideal outcome in the first situation, obviously you feel your kids should be doing something different in the second situation (so why NOT tell them?), the fourth suggests you're trying to cut off communications with your family anyway (even if you don't say it, you'll say it without saying it), and the last is just a plain bizarre example. (Depression maybe?)

As for the third example, this one is the closest to the truth. Except that we generally don't say anything out of politeness and fear for our jobs. That doesn't mean that we don't still make it clear as a bell. Human communication isn't always done with words.

Re:Tackle?

[Hork_Monkey]

I think someone needs a nap.

Re:Tackle?

[AKAImBatman]

The closest they came to tackling moral quandries was Picard looking distressed for his "I'm going to ignore the prime directive" monologues.

You do realize that TOS was under heavy fire from the CBS news agency because of their sci-fi commentary on the Vietnam war?

Star Trek asked all kinds of questions. Do we have a right to arm the locals to fight back against Klingon oppression? Should we fight the Klingons for having turned a peaceful people into pawns in their war? Does Kirk have the right to take vengeance on a dictator who is repentant of his ways? Do we have a right to kill off the indigenous population so that we can mine the materials we need? Would you kill someone you love if it meant saving billions of people and making the future a better place? Is it acceptable for mixed races to fall in love?

Star Trek was very much the BSG of its day. It asked all the hard questions that were on people's minds at the time. The difference is that it didn't let the abyss stare back at you. It exposed these problems as an agent of change rather than suggesting helplessness.

The Next Generation did continue the tradition with many hard questions. (e.g. Who Watches the Watchers, The Survivors, The Host, The Outcast, The High Ground, etc.) However, the questions were framed in the softer, more tolerant culture of the time. Now we're coming back around to hard questions which BSG raises. But the show does nothing to look those questions in the eye. It simply treats them as there and moves on. Nothing more, nothing less.

Re:Tackle?

[Wonko the Sane]

Don't forget about the projected Japanese death toll in the event of a land invasion.

We'll never really know for sure, of course, but dropping those two bombs probably saved lives on both sides.

Besides all the people involved in that decision are dead. Maybe we can move on now?

Re:Tackle?

[EvanED]

But they didn't really tackle any moral quandries.

"Who Watches the Watchers"? "First Contact" (the TNG episode, not movie)? "The Drumhead"? "The Defector"? "The Offspring"? "The Wounded"? "The Quality of Life"? "Tapestry"? "The Pegasus"? Many undergrad Artificial Intelligence classes routinely show "The Measure of a Man" to discuss sentience in manufactured beings. Hell, I've heard that the Naval Academy has shown "The First Duty" to incoming cadets as discussion about the honor code.

All of these episodes naturally could spawn discussions of a similar caliber to those mentioned in the summary for this /. article. A couple (particularly "First Contact" and those dealing with machine rights, which is admittedly many) aren't really applicable to the world today, but that's why we have an imagination. And only one of them is about Prime Directive violations, and it's one that Picard didn't cause. Hell, watch The Drumhead, from 1991, and tell me that that doesn't have eerie parallels to our terror hunt.

Re:Tackle?

[Austerity Empowers]

The show isn't a series of morality plays, it's to make you think about what's right. It's more social commentary, "this is how it is", not "how it should be". Right and wrong is a complicated issue, made easier for us viewers because we have (somewhat) perfect knowledge.

I believe that in general though, you're right, characters display less backbone than we, the audience would like them to. And I believe that's the point. We are unpassionate observers, watching two warring factions go at it. The more we watch, the less we necessarily have empathy for either side. The more clearly we see where this is headed. After the last episode, would you accept a Disney ending?

More importantly, are the times when characters actually do the right thing. Some characters do the right thing more often than not, on both sides. Sometimes the right thing had dire consequences, involving deaths of many people. How many people, your people, would you kill for the right thing? Would you lie to your people to unify them, to ensure their (brief) survival? What is the quest for earth if not a metaphor for our new president?

Baltar is, mostly, our example of the true self-serving egotist. He's even making a religion out of it. He's not all bad, he sometimes does the right thing, he certainly tries to think the right thoughts. But he is impossibly weak. Yet I think at some level we all identify with him. We hate what he does, but we understand why he does it. We'd like to think we'd do differently. Baltar, IMO, is ultimately dominated by his cowardice, not his intellect. He knows where he stands on the jedi-sith scale, but he's too much of a coward to take control of himself. This internal battle was fought out earlier on, with his "head six".

The show is pretty bleak, I think precisely for the reasons you cite for not liking the characters. Unlike Star Trek, the moral quandaries and decisions made persist and are affecting the outcome. They're absolutely not blown by, they're resolved one way or another. All the what-if's that were decided on in past episodes have forced them down the path they're on now, a path that has caused a lot of pain and suffering, more than what could have been if characters had acted differently.

Re:Tackle?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Somebody tends to speak up in nearly any situation. Whether anyone listens to them or not is another matter, but very few secrets are maintained. Yet everyone in BSG has the necessary personality traits to keep even the smallest of secrets. That's realistic?

I dunno, it took me about 3 seconds to come up with a counter-example - without too much spoilage - a certain person discovered they were a cylon and ultimately confessed it to Adama. Sure it took that person a couple of episodes to decide what they were going to do about their self-discovery, but deliberating over such an enormous and self-destructive revelation seems pretty realistic too me.

Same with the example of Baltar's situation. ... Then when Roselin "remembered" him being with the six, no one (including Roselin) would have been able to find personal fault there.

That's a terrible example, you are arguing about human nature - for which there are no cut and dried rules - and you are using foreknowledge that he would even be found out. It is just as reasonable to say that he chose to gamble that he would never be found out, considering just how few surviors there were AND just how few political survivors there were (wasn't roselyn like 47th in line for the presidency?) it seems like a plenty reasonable gamble to me.

Re:Tackle?

[Rogerborg]

On the 9th and 10th of March 1945, 325 (three hundred and twenty five) B-29s bombers dropped 1,600 tons of incendiary bombs on Toyko. 167,000 buildings were destroyed, about 25% of Toyko by area. Molten glass flowed down the streets, and superheated updrafts caused more losses among the bombers than the faltering AA defences. One hundred thousand people, mostly civilians, and most of them the elderly, women and children, were killed. Japan was already defeated well before the nukes were dropped. It was the Tokyo firebombings that broke Shwa's spirit, not Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I don't have any moral point to make here, just that nukes were simply the most efficient way to reach the death toll necessary to force a Japanese surrender. The same results (pragmatic and moral) could have been achieved with incendiaries.

Re:Tackle?

[rthille]

I wonder, given that we had two bombs that we were pretty sure would work, if we had dropped the first just off Tokyo (ok, not "just", but within sight, but far enough away to spare most of the population) on a lightly populated island or something, if Japan would have surrendered, or was destroying a city or two necessary?

Regardless, your points all still stand.

Re:Tackle?

[jedidiah]

I always love to see people with an axe to grind against the United
States so eager to so utterly trivialize the Japanese. They are not
a people to be trifled with, especially in war. All of this historical
revisionist nonsense about how they were all ready to give in is so
disrespectful to them individually and as a separate and independent
culture and nation.

The Germans didn't give in so easily. They were fighting street to
street all the way to Berlin even when all that was left were old
men and boys. Why should we expect any less of the Japanese?

You're like some fundie that selectively chooses what part of scripture they will acknowledge.

Re:Tackle?

[adamjgp]

5. US military is widely celebrated as a bunch of extraordinary cowards who go to war only after being convinced that they will kill their enemies without endangering themselves. Said bunch of cowards always acts surprised and terrified when their invincible warriors end up dead or captured, and proclaims that it only happens because their enemies are immoral war criminals.

The victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory. - Sun Tzu

Re:Tackle?

[AKAImBatman]

a certain person discovered they were a cylon and ultimately confessed it to Adama.

Only when the situation became dire enough. Which I actually thought was a pretty decent part of the show. However, before he did that he managed to get a six pregnant and all but give away the fact that he was a cylon. Furthermore, why did he give away the others? I was waiting for him to turn himself in (seemed like the situation was going to force it sooner or later), but I saw no reason why he'd need to reveal the identity of everyone else.

you are arguing about human nature - for which there are no cut and dried rules

Certainly. However, there's one thing that's certain. In any human population, traits will be far more varied than we see in BSG. While their personalities are different, their approaches to handling tough situations seem to be almost universal. Given the opportunity, nearly every person on the show makes the wrong decision. That's simply not realistic.

It is just as reasonable to say that he chose to gamble that he would never be found out, considering just how few surviors there were AND just how few political survivors there were (wasn't roselyn like 47th in line for the presidency?) it seems like a plenty reasonable gamble to me.

And yet he was found out. And STILL didn't start controlling information. When a six shows up and says that you sabotaged the colonies, it's probably a pretty damn good time to say, "She's a cylon!" Not only will it help get you out of conviction, but it will give you a nice out for future recriminations. (Like what happened with Roslyn later on.) Sure, he'd take a hit in the public eye, but he knew that Adama and the President needed him. That meant that he could have rebuilt after such a setback. Instead he rots in a cell and waits for a sentence of execution, all while the power of his trump card wanes.

Of course, you might say "well, that's a stupid idea." But consider how it would have played out for a moment. You don't just jump up and accuse someone at the table. He would have pulled Adama aside and told him that he watched this lady die during the attack on Cobol. Which can only mean that she's actually a cylon and thus must be the spy that sabotaged the defense computers. At best, it's his word against hers. They would have both been thrown in detention, and the falsified evidence would have eventually come to light. Baltar would now be blame free, and Adama would have a Cylon captive. Win-win for Baltar.

Instead, the show played up various metaphysical questions to no real purpose. I can tell you that if I'm on death row, worrying about the metaphysical meaning of my navel is not my first concern. I'd swing back to reality and start playing on the trust relationships I'd developed (however thin) until I can find a solution in my favor. Especially in a situation where the opponent has such a weak hand. (i.e. She's definitely a Cylon AND Baltar knows that her evidence is falsified.)

Baltar displays this sort of political acumen elsewhere in the series. Why did he fail so badly in this situation? He didn't even try. That's what really blows my mind.

Re:Tackle?

[nine-times]

Star Trek asked all kinds of questions. Do we have a right to arm the locals to fight back against Klingon oppression?...

I agree, but I think Star Trek sometimes suffered from giving answers that were a little too pat. "Do we have a right to kill off the indigenous population so that we can mine the materials we need? " Well, it turns out the answer is "no". That's nice. "Is it acceptable for mixed races to fall in love?" The answer is "yes". Great.

I think it's the mark of much better writing when BSG makes the audience answer these questions with something like, "I want to say 'no', but I'm afraid I feel like I have to say 'yes'. Does that make me a horrible human being?" Maybe it's a matter of opinion, as well as what you're looking for out of a show.

Re:Tackle?

[Walkingshark]

I've thought a lot about this situation, and on reflection I think the way it went down was probably (as horrible as this sounds) a best-case. Nuclear weapon technology was coming. The soviets were going to have it eventually, we got to it first and we dropped the only two we had.

If we hadn't done that, imagine how many might have been mass produced by the WW2 industrial war machine. Now imagine a world where no example existed of how incredibly mind blowingly horrible these weapons are. Imagine an exchange of dozens or even hundreds of these weapons launched by clueless political idiots who had no idea what they were playing with.

Those victims in Japan are heroes on the stage of history. Their deaths, and the suffering of the survivors, is all that stood between the humanity and the long winter.

Or at least, thats how I look at it.

Re:Tackle?

[karstux]

5. US military is widely celebrated as a bunch of extraordinary cowards who go to war only after being convinced that they will kill their enemies without endangering themselves.

Everything else aside: This is not cowardice, but the only responsible course of action for a military. If you fight an enemy "fairly", you'll end up with equal casualties on both sides, thus abusing the soldier's trust in their superiors. In war, you don't fight fairly, you minimize your own losses. It's not pretty, but a moral necessity.

Re:Tackle?

[Svartormr]

From the Wikipedia entry on Operation Downfall, the Allied plan to invade the Japanese islands to force surrender:

Nearly 500,000 Purple Heart medals were manufactured in anticipation of the casualties resulting from the invasion of Japan. To the present date, all the American military casualties of the sixty years following the end of World War II -- including the Korean and Vietnam Wars -- have not exceeded that number. In 2003, there were still 120,000 of these Purple Heart medals in stock.[45] There are so many in surplus that combat units in Iraq and Afghanistan are able to keep Purple Hearts on-hand for immediate award to wounded soldiers on the field.[45]

My parents lived through World War 2. I've heard it from them and I've read a lot of accounts and history. It wasn't like anything before and I hope we never see anything like it again.

At that point, in July 1945, what would you have done? The world isn't a blank slate and doing nothing has millions of Japanese starving and other world powers wondering. What do you do? Sure, better to have never come to that point of picking between situations of how many die. But imagine you're there now. You're Harry S. Truman. What do you do? Let the enemy starve, with whatever fallout for the post-war world? Invade and have that butcher's bill from both sides? Or use the Bomb and crush 2 cites and their people?

From Wikipedia again. :

In the years since the bombings, however, questions about Truman's choice have become more pointed. Supporters of Truman's decision to use the bomb argue that it saved hundreds of thousands of lives that would have been lost in an invasion of mainland Japan. Eleanor Roosevelt spoke in support of this view in 1954, saying that Truman had "made the only decision he could," and that the bomb's use was necessary "to avoid tremendous sacrifice of American lives."[65] Others, including historian Gar Alperovitz, have argued that the use of nuclear weapons was unnecessary and inherently immoral.[66] Truman himself wrote later in life that, "I knew what I was doing when I stopped the war... I have no regrets and, under the same circumstances, I would do it again."[67]

Re:Tackle?

[Scrameustache]

Don't forget about the projected Japanese death toll in the event of a land invasion.

Don't forget that the japs had been negotiating a surrender with the Russians for about a year before someone chose to murder hundreds of thousands of civilians to obtain an unconditional surrender to the US.

Re:Tackle?

[Alex Belits]

Conviction is not the same as truth, and cowardice does not guarantee safety.

Re:Tackle?

[huckamania]

Don't forget that the Russians were not at war with Japan at that time. They waited until the final moments of the war and only so they could steal islands from the Japanese.

You can blame the US for dropping the 1st bomb, but blame the Japanese for the 2nd.

Re:Tackle?

[theaveng]

Even AFTER the destruction of two cities, the military tried to assassinate their own God-emperor. They simply did not want to stop fighting because they were willing to go down to the very last person. Same as Hitler was willing to do.

Also: Recall that the easiest way to prevent the nuking of Japan was to not bomb Pearl Harbor.
Or Midway. Or the Philippines. Or the rape of Nanking (that's not just a colorful idiom; the Japanese literally raped women & children).

Re:Tackle?

[dat cwazy wabbit]

"Same with the example of Baltar's situation. He screwed up, but he didn't screw up badly."

Are we watching the same show? He leaked classified information to the blonde he was banging and she used it to kill billions of people. Has anyone ever screwed up worse than this? Ever?

Re:Tackle?

[elrous0]

2. Racist Americans assumed Japanese soldiers to be fanatical killing machines.

I wonder if the people of Nanking would consider that an unfair characterization of the Japanese military at the time? Or are they just racists too?

Re:Tackle?

[OctaviusIII]

Well, most of those aren't applicable to me, as I really don't feel those ways. In general, though, I don't have secrets. I don't tell my girlfriend about every passing fancy I've had for someone, but you'd better believe I'd tell her if I cheated on her. I try not to lie to myself, either: I'm not the hero of the story and my failures are monumental. There are no good people, only bad ones that compensate, and that includes me.

BSG always seemed like it cooked up drama for the sake of drama by creating characters with strong allergic reactions to any kind of openness. There may not be good people, but there are always people that struggle against their evil. Nobody in BSG struggles with it unless confronted with it, and I find that frankly unbelievable.

Re:Tackle?

[Have Brain Will Rent]

Yeah, that's called "realism." People in real life often rarely grow sufficiently large backbones to "do the right thing" either, particularly when they're threatened and running for their lives.

Sadly, for many people, all it takes is the "right thing" being inconvenient. It doesn't take life threatening situations or serious threats to their welfare. It just takes the "right thing" being the more inconvenient path. I wish it weren't so but I've seen it too many times to believe otherwise - try living in a condo and you'll see it all the time. But what most often makes me realize this is when someone behaves otherwise and does "the right thing" even at some cost to themself, and then I'm hit at how infrequently I see that occur.

Do you tell your boss he's a fucking idiot and that you think you could do a better job than him?

LOL yep, done that more than once. But only when it was true lol.

Re:Tackle?

[Alex Belits]

"NO ONE ON OUR SIDE WILL BE KILLED! I GUARANTEE IT!" is not a strategy. It is the only way to convince a coward to fight.

Re:Tackle?

[LandDolphin]

the idea of European countries being attacked is at best laughable now, and yet NATO expands.

Tell that to the People of Georgia.

NATO expands to countries that want to ensure that have nothing to fear from other NATO countries, and support if they get involved into a conflict with non-NATO countries.

There is a reason that much of the expanding NATO is doing, invovled adding former members of the Warsaw Pact.

However, I do not argue that the US military-industrial complex has used NATO to expand. But That does not mean that NATO was not important, or does not still play an important role.

Re:Tackle?

[Xveers]

Except the Japanese were putting out some negotiations via the russians to try to negotiate a peace settlement by early '44. By that point they had recognized that should everything continue, they were going to lose. Their negotiations were meant to save face at home by presenting a story about how they "hadn't really been totally defeated". The main sticking point was that they wanted to keep their current political structure, emperor and all. The main allies (The US especially) wanted an unconditional surrender. Hence the war continuing onwards. Just because you're looking to surrender dosen't make you a spineless weenie. There is such a thing as recognizing when you're completely overmatched and needing to cut a deal...

Re:Tackle?

[Alex Belits]

Oh yes, Georgia.

The microscopic mountainous country that, with some guidance of US, managed to alienate not one but three of its provinces (all three unrelated and not particularly friendly to each other) to the extent that they had to actively seek secession. Then, after years of a stalemate, Georgia government decides that the only way to fix the problem is to fire rockets at residential areas of one of those provinces' capital. All the while the same ethnicity in a similar province in Russia does not have a slightest problem with being a part of the larger country.

US propaganda tried to show you a different picture of what happened before the war there, didn't it?

NATO expands to countries that want to ensure that have nothing to fear from other NATO countries, and support if they get involved into a conflict with non-NATO countries.

None of those countries had a chance to enter into any armed conflict since the end of WWII, and certainly aren't going to have such a chance now (being mostly surrounded by EU members or having a border with something obviously peaceful like Russia or Ukraine). Georgia had conflicts, and that was the reason why it was not allowed into NATO. Speak about only getting something you don't need.

There is a reason that much of the expanding NATO is doing, invovled adding former members of the Warsaw Pact.

Yes, and the reason is, US wants to feed its military contractors and control foreign governments.

However, I do not argue that the US military-industrial complex has used NATO to expand. But That does not mean that NATO was not important, or does not still play an important role.

It doesn't.

However the fact that NATO never accomplished anything other than feeding said complex and involving foreign countries in various failures of US foreign policy, very much does mean it.

Re:Tackle?

[Cowmonaut]

Mod this guy Insightful or Underrated whichever is more Karma. I find few people that seem to actually understand what politically was happening in WW2. Most people are just interested in the fighting and military tech.

Re:Tackle?

[mlush]

The fact that the Cylons didn't manage to wipe them out in the first season is purely an artifact of it being fiction.

The reason they were not wiped out in the first season is because, the Cylons as a race are, Mad as a Herring. Which is a pity because any motivations they do display are convincing as 'A wizard did it'

Re:Tackle?

[nine-times]

I think it's open to debate. Trying to think of someone growing a backbone, it took me approximately 2 seconds to come up with Lee Adama's defense of Baltar. It wasn't exactly the path of least resistance, but he seemed to think it was "the right thing to do." I didn't even understand why he was doing it until he actually explained it at the trial, and after his explanation, I agreed that it was probably the right thing for him to do.

I think part of the problem is that they display everything as being multi-sided and multi-faceted, and so for any example that I come up with of a character "growing a backbone and doing the right thing," you might say, "That wasn't the right thing to do."

And I don't know... but that seems more like my experience of life. I don't think I've ever seen a decision so "right" that it's beyond debate, beyond questioning from another perspective, or at least beyond some kind of improvement. I don't think I've ever found the "right" answer to any of my problems, but rather I hope that the answers are things that I can be happy enough with, or at least that I can live with.

Re:Tackle?

[earlymon]

Tokyo was pretty bleak at the time the two big ones were dropped - it had been the target of incendiary bombing, and according to recently re-broadcast news clips, the death toll of that raid was 100k dead and a million families displaced.

The second bombing underscores the need for diplomatic communications. After Hiroshima, the Japanese sent us a message that was taken as a resolute stand to continue the fighting - later analysts questioned its poetic language and concluded that it might have been the overture hoped for to prevent further violence. We will never know.

There was a strong debate over the principle target - Hiroshima - and one option was as you said, an area where population loss would be minimal. AFAIR, the debate shied from that option because, incredibly, the Japanese would have had to have been warned in advance of the drop to ensure that they observed the effects and the option was discarded because it would have backfired if the US had warned them to look for something big and the first one turned out to be a dud.

Here's a collection of interesting background on the targetings and a few other things:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/index.htm

I know the ending

[Awperator]

Battlestar clearly parallels events in today's society. The cylons will elect Simon to be their new leader and Cavil will retire/get boxed while the rest of the cylons sing "na na na na"

The Cylons have a Plan

[russlar]

The writers don't know what it is.

Re:The Cylons have a Plan

[_xeno_]

Man, I wish that were a joke, but it just isn't. The series producers have admitted that the whole "and they have a plan" thing was added "because it seemed cool."

In fact, if you listen to the episode commentary, quite a bit of things were done "because it seemed cool." Boomer being a Cylon? "Because it seemed cool." The whole thing with the second Sharon and Helo on Caprica? "Because it seemed cool."

The writers have never had a real plan and have been playing the entire thing mostly by ear. And it shows: the "and they have a plan" thing has just vanished. What is that plan? Did they give up on it? Why didn't they finish wiping out the human race? (Problems with Cylons procreating, apparently?) What's the deal with the human/Cylon hybrids (versus the Basestar/humanoid Cylon hybrid)?

I will give them credit, though. They've managed to take the identities of the Final Five Cylons in the most recent episode and make them make sense. Sure, not everything is explained yet, and there are remaining questions, but at least the idea that they're Cylons doesn't seem completely implausible any more.

Hopefully they'll find a way to tackle some of the dangling threads and finally figure out what the Cylon's plan was. Because they sure don't appear to have had a plan in the series so far.

Re:The Cylons have a Plan

[_xeno_]

Without getting into too much of a spoiler - they're at least plausible now. There are a ton of questions left open, but it's at least possible to believe that the questions are answerable. Plus, the characters actually acknowledged some of the questions, so we know that the writers are at least aware of them.

Without getting into too much detail, we now have an answer as to why they'd be living as humans for as long as they did and why the Cylons weren't aware of their identities. (Then again, how did they know that there were 12 models, again? And the answers given seem to suggest that the five shouldn't count as Cylon models, especially given the model numbers we know.)

So, yes, quite a few questions left open, but at least it seems plausible that they can be answered.

Re:The Cylons have a Plan

[cherokee158]

THANK you. That really needed to be said. I enjoy the show, because I am generally hungry for any science fiction on TV, but I find it largely devoid of any logic. Why would a race of machines attempt to exterminate 99% of the human race, and then follow the rest around trying to convert them to monotheism like a bunch of horny space baptists? Why would anyone ever attempt to defect to another species? Why wouldn't they be blasted out of the nearest airlock if they were even suspected of doing so? Why don't Cylons come in more flavors than Baskin Robbins? Did someone really think it was more efficient to keep twenty thousand copies of themselves in orbit rather than just keep the blueprints on file? Why would a machine build a new improved model of itself that was nearly identical to a species it considered inferior, and then put it in charge? If a machine wanted a baby, why wouldn't it just build one?

The series may pose some interesting moral questions, but it also poses a lot of stupid ones, too...and leaves them unanswered.

I miss Babylon Five.

Re:The Cylons have a Plan

[Shotgun]

Oh, please. It is obvious what the plan was.

Earth had a war between man and cylon, nearly destroying everything and poisoning the world. A small band of humans were able to escape to another world, where they rebuilt civilization, forgetting what went on before.

They unwittingly rebuilt the machines. The machines rose up again, and found the previous incarnation of man-vs-machine. The Cylons had a plan to bring man and machine back together, in order to stop history from repeating itself again and again.

It wasn't the 7 that had the plan. It was the Cylon base ships that had the plan. Like the old ship that said what's-her-name being the harbinger of death.

Those who do not ready history are destined to repeat it. Those who do read history can manipulate the illiterate into doing the right thing.

Oh come on.

[Hatta]

The final fourth season is nearly over, and when the final episode airs, television will never be the same again.

I'm sure it's a good show, but get real here. Television will be pretty much the same after BSG than it was before BSG.

Re:Oh come on.

[exley]

Well, you are certainly entitled to your believes.

Re:Battlestar analogies

[Anonymous Coward]

If my country were invaded and occupied by a foreign power, I would ensure that I obey the cease-fires and give peace a chance, and not hide like a coward amongst my own women and children as I target the enemy's women and children.

Collaborator.

It's not as good as it was

[Cthefuture]

In the beginning I really liked the show. It had a good mix of action, technology and drama. However, the last few seasons have been fairly "meh" for me because it has turned almost completely into a soap opera. Don't get me wrong, the soap opera stuff is OK but now there very little of the original mix that attracted me in the first place. It's just not the same show that it started out as.

Re:It's not as good as it was

[Anonymous Coward]

Things that stay the same tend to get boring.

Re:It's not as good as it was

[flitty]

The end of the good mix for me seemed to be the Sub-Atmosphere Jump of Galactica (at the beginning of Season 2?) That was the end of the really good action scenes. There has been action since then, but it all seemed to be tangential to the story, rather than the driving force it was during the first season. Now i'm finishing up the series just to see how they wrap it all up. I think they've found a good time to end the show. A fifth season (or spinoff... you're kidding me, right?) would be too much and doomed to failure. It's gone off the rails at times (All along the watchtower sing-a-long? Really?) but considering how decent the show has been for the majority of it's run compared to most sci-fi series that run this long, it's forgivable.

With the current configuration (truce between the two sides) has been a bore and they really need something to happen to get stuff to happen outside the halls of the ship.

Is this...

[MikeDirnt69]

Is this an article or an add? I'm not quite sure...

Another dilemma

[mseeger]

Hi,

BG (season 4.5) exposes another more significant dilemma for me: Imagine you're a resident of a third world country (e.g. Germany or UK) and even capable and willing to pay for your favorite TV series. Would you wait months or years for it to acess it legaly or just download it immediately from the asinus electronicus? What if your wife is even more anxious to see it than you? Having a gun put against you head can not be compared to the pressure applied to one in such a case.

Hard choices :-)

Yours, Martin

Re:Another dilemma

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine you're a resident of a third world country (e.g. Germany or UK)

or Canada

Re:Another dilemma

[Otter]

What are you talking about? He's using "e.g." perfectly correctly.

Re:Another dilemma

[notnAP]

Any nation whose citizens do not have readily available access to BSG is, IMHO, a third world nation.

Re:Another dilemma

[mseeger]

My education is sufficent to use irony by exaggeration :-).

Re:Another dilemma

[YourExperiment]

Imagine you received a first world education

Imagine a whooshing sound, just above your head...

Re:Another dilemma

[chrysrobyn]

In 2001, I NEEDED to see Enterprise. I was out of antenna range of UPN for my metro area without an antenna the HOA would sue me over, and my satellite provider at the time didn't have a deal with my city. What could I do? Wait for it to go to syndication where I can see it out of order? After I had sat idly by for years while people discussed what happened and what would happen? No, I turned to the internet. I found out I could download them from a specific website, and later from Limewire. Thanks to companies enforcing overly restrictive copyrights, in this case attempting to bolster a brand new network by forcing people to tune in for a show they "couldn't live without", I found an entire world of content without those restrictions and which could be viewed on my own schedule.

Would you wait months or years for it to acess it legaly or just download it immediately from the asinus electronicus?

In my mind, it's not even a valid question. In the United States, copyright is actually spelled out in the Constitution -- specifically for the purpose of furthering the progress of science and art. I can't see how downloading or sharing a television show hurts the progress of either science or art, but I can see how participating in the electronic distribution and improving such methods improves both. My personal progression from simple FTP and HTTP through Limewire to Bit Torrent seems to outline such a furthering, and the popularity of Bit Torrent speaks to its value to society.

And if you want to say that, by not viewing ads, I'm harming science and art, I have a few followup questions for you to clarify. 1) If I choose not to purchase a Coke after seeing the ad, have I done something wrong? 2) If I choose to make a sandwich in the kitchen and not even view an ad, have I done something wrong? 3) If I record a show on VHS and fast forward through the ad, have I done something wrong? 4) If I record a show on VHS for a friend, and HE fast forwards through the ads, has either of us done something wrong? 5) Why doesn't NBC provide episodes of their shows on Bit Torrent with ads already inserted?

Re:Another dilemma

[Broken scope]

That sound you just heard. That was a joke screaming over your head at around mach 2.

Would you like someone to illustrate the joke for you.

Re:Another dilemma

[ImOnlySleeping]

Good jokes always get spoiled when you have to explain them to the dimwit. It's so obvious that those countries are first world countries, the point being that in a first world country you would think it would be easy enough to view/purchase digital media. If it makes you feel better, I have the same issue getting trying to watch BBC shows on this side of the pond.

How is This New to SciFi?

[CheshireCatCO]

but if you've watched Battlestar Galactica since it was re-imagined in 2003, there has been no escape.

That's... hyperbolic. I haven't seen an episode of the fourth season yet, nor do I plan to. I just lost interest when I started feeling like the writers didn't know where they were really heading.

So I'm clearly... well, not hostile, but indifferent... to the show, but it should be noted that this "story" is nonsense. SciFi shows have been doing this for, literally, decades. Tackling moral issues of the day was the point of The Twlight Zone and Star Trek (TOS). More recently, Babylon 5 earned a pretty solid reputation for discussing (and very definitely not answering) moral conundra. Even Deep Space Nine (where BSG producer Ron Moore once worked) did a pretty good job with the same thing.

So I suppose if your point is "BSG continues the tradition", then fine. But the tone of the summary and article very much make it sound like this is revolutionary.

No way!

[Trojan35]

Next thing you know, they'll be a non sci-fi show about these very issues. It might even get decent ratings!

Re:Hmm minor word-o

[snspdaarf]

Everyone in my office beliefs you are correct, and we have nothing to loose by saying so.

I hope the DVD/Blu-Ray Disc collection is cheap...

[VinylRecords]

Battlestar Galactica is one of those series that I'm sure I would enjoy if I watched it as rapidly as possible. Commercial free and at my own leisure.

Watching LOST is painful due to the seemingly infinite periods of time between seasons. Guess what I'll be doing tonight...

But hopefully BSG can have a cheap DVD or BD bundle for the entire series for people who enjoy sci-fi but didn't follow the series across its run.

Re:Battlestar analogies

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, ain't it funny how peoples consiousnesses react to ambiguous stories.

hat's off to BSG for getting us to actually think and pointing out the conclusion jumpers.

I was skeptical back in 2003

[elrous0]

I was a kid when the original BSG was on in the late 70's, and so remember it fondly (I can still remember how sad I and other kids were when they cancelled it). And when I heard they were bringing it back as a miniseries, I was skeptical to say the least. My first thought was "Jesus, can't Hollywood come up with ANYTHING original anymore?" and my second thought (after hearing that Starbuck and Boomer would be female) was "Oh great, and they've made it politically correct too, even better." At that point, I vowed I would never waste my time on it.

Then a funny thing happened. I was flipping around and caught a bit of the miniseries, a way into the first night (just after the nukes hit). It was the scene where Helo and Boomer put down on Caprica for repairs and are faced with a mob fleeing for their lives. It was one of the most powerful and dramatic scenes I had ever seen on television. The contrast with the original, where the colonials seemed to forget that their entire civilization had been wiped out almost immediately after it happened, was just stunning. And the obvious connection to 9-11 was immediate and visceral (I don't think this series could have been made before 9-11, certainly not with this kind of gritty realism).

From that point on, I wasn't a skeptic.

And just when I thought I had seen the best it could offer, along comes the first season and it somehow managed to get even BETTER. The premiere episode of that season ("33") was absolutely brilliant, "Hand of God" was touching and dramatic, and "Kobol's Last Gleaming" bordered on an almost mystical experience (the opening to that two-parter has to be the harshest montage to ever grace a television screen).

Now, the series has had its ups and downs since then. They've never again equalled the quality of the miniseries and first season, IMHO (though individual episodes like "Flight of the Phoenix" have come close). But even at its worst, this is still the best thing on television.

This skeptic will miss you greatly. Nothing else even comes close.

Some easy answers to those questions.

[Pvt_Ryan]

Blow myself up - No that's just stupid as that limits the number of enemy i can kill. My objective is not to die for my country/planet but to make the other bastard die for his.

gun at my head to sign - I'd sign, after all it's self presevation, and no I wouldn't be responsible (in my mind) as they forced me to sign, so they were going to do it anyway.

Re:Some easy answers to those questions.

[Jherico]

My objective is not to die for my country/planet but to make the other bastard die for his.

Sure, if you're a soldier fighting in a standard 'symmetric' war. On the other hand, the kill ratio in Iraq for coalition forces is 100:1 (1 coalition soldier dead for every 100 enemy combatants). Numbers like that make suicide bombing start to look pretty appealing.

Re:Some easy answers to those questions.

[Tubal-Cain]

Because you can't do much to undermine them if you are dead.

Re:Some easy answers to those questions.

[SensitiveMale]

My objective is not to die for my country/planet but to make the other bastard die for his.

Sure, if you're a soldier fighting in a standard 'symmetric' war.

Nope. Any any war, asymmetrical or not, the objective is to kill them and inflict social pain until they decide to stop.

Re:Some easy answers to those questions.

[DaveV1.0]

Yes, let's kill ourselves faster! That is the way to win a war, kill our side off faster. /sarcasm

Suicide bombing is not an effective tactic for anything except terrorism and terrorism doesn't effect enemy soldiers. The suicide bombings in Iraq don't target the U.S. military. It targets the Iraqi police, the Iraqi army, and the Iraqi people.

Roadside bombs are a much more effective tactic. Attacking supply lines, destroying communications, general harassing attacks, snipers, guerrilla warfare, etc. work against invaders and occupiers. Suicide attacks don't.

Just ask the Vietnamese. They succeeded in stymieing one of the largest and well-equipped military forces on the planet. They rarely used suicide bombers because the tactic was counter-productive.

Re:Battlestar analogies

[iluvcapra]

Sure, I'd sign the cease-fire, even though it would lead to 100 deaths because the Islamic savages don't abide by treaties and cease-fires anyway. I wouldn't be responsible for the other side breaking the pact.

I think the operative comparison would be to Jewish collaborators throughout occupied Europe in WW2, who were forced, sometimes at gunpoint, sometimes with mere words, to compile lists of people to be shipped for "resettlement," form police forces of their own people to round them up, etc.

It's not about being technologically inferior, it's about being culturally inferior. Grow up kids, quit kicking Israel in the shins! If the islamic savages choose to behave like deviant youth then the only thing they will understand is a spanking.

Yes, everybody knows that all you need to do is "teach people a lesson," and if only the "shin-kickers" would get out of the way, the little peoples of the Earth would learn their lesson faster. After all, it worked for Germany in 1914 when the inferior and decadent cultures of France and Russia dared to oppose them, or Austria when immature Serbia tried to oppose them, or France when the barbaric Algerians opposed them, or England when the Mesopotamian Arabs and Afghans opposed them, and on and on. The "lesson" is that "uncultured" people probably have as much a right to live as anyone else, and the only "lesson" you teach from the barrel of a gun is that gun-barrels are for teaching lessons.

This troll is an imperialist, of a hundred-year-old vintage, but the ideas STILL have remarkable currency and need to be deconstructed, as BSG does.

Re:Al Jazeera

[MadCow42]

>> The ad that Slashdot is choosing to serve with this story is for Al Jazeera. Am I the only one that thinks that's kind of funny?

Funny in what way? Al Jazeera is a normal, reputable news source in the Middle East. It's no more (and no less) a propaganda or terrorism hub than USA Today, Fox News or the New York Times. Just because it's in the Middle East doesn't make it "evil".

Go read it some time... it'll give you a good balance to offset the propaganda you're being spoon fed daily here.

MadCow.

the inheritor of star trek

[goombah99]

In case no one noticed, is the topic post simply forgetting Star Trek. It to "ran past" the issues but it did present them. It should not be neccessary to recite examples but it seems like it is required.

Hmmm a man who's half black feels he has the moral right to enslave a man who is half white.

An integrated crew, and even a miscegenating kiss?

A prime directive that , to rephrase it a lot, basically said other cultural values are equal valid as your own technologically advance society, hung out before the audience every week.

The futility of doomesday logic?

Even the trouble with tribbles had a message that Russians and Americans still have common desires and interests.

On the otherhand this was what early science fiction was about. Long before Andy Warhol and crew got the idea of decontextualization as the means to seeing things as they are, science fiction was mainly about seeing what happens when you transplant a cultural norm into a different society, usually by means of a technological story telling device.

it was not all techno whiz larry niven (who later on also started contemplative sci fi with the Mote in gods eye) or space opera flash gordon.

think about flowers for algernon, or the canticle for lebowitz, the lathe of heaven, farenheight 451.... Or for you young kids, Ghost in the shell.

Star trek was designed to grab the flash gordon audience and show them a short 1 hour play about moral issues under heavy syrup.

Galactica is in this tradition, not in the tradition of "Buck rogers" or star wars.

Re:the inheritor of star trek

[hopkimi]

We should also look at "Ender's Game" as a classic example of a moral issue presented in a sci-fi wrapper. I think that novel looked at what it takes to wage war on someone: a willful ignorance of who you are warring against. Or saying it another way: if you truly know someone, how they think and why they did everything, you can't hate them.

Been there Done that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Gene Roddenberry had been using parallelism and morale dilemmas in his show for decades. As a matter of fact, I thought the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica is even more cheesy than the first. Whats up with this camera guy, does he have Parkinsons or something? No, I do not deny Star Trek can be cheesy either but at least it doesn't make me feel dumber for having watched it.

Er, really?

[Knara]

I could never get into this series, and (as evidenced by many a post here) even people who used to be into it eventually fell away due to the Lost effect (the realization that the writers didn't have a pre-planned plot arc). To me, it always felt like "what if the FX channel did a 'Babylon 5'-esque series while re-using a 70's franchise?"

I don't think this is as influential a series (or event) as TFA (or the poster) claims it to be.

what is the climate like on your planet?

[Shivetya]

Instead of assuming the Cylons are using their technological superiority to enforce their view why not consider...

both specie know faster than light travel, how much superior can you get if you can break that? I guess you can throw in the ability to transmit memories across space

how about the fact that we are now only learning, everything isn't what it seems to be.

While I could occasionally see some parallels to exaggerated actions of Bush and Co that exaggeration was so extreme at times that it bordered on ludicrous. If anything BSG jumped the shark one too many times that too much has become both silly and interesting at the same time. Every time they introduce a new interesting angle they lose with the previously mentioned shark jumping explanation

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the most recent episode but I loathe seeing the explanation of Starbucks corpse and crashed viper. While I love the story twist I have little to no faith in them pulling it off anymore.

Honestly past 2.5 all I got was an impression of angst expressed improperly in some story arcs. In other words they tried to portray the Cylons as Bush and Co yet at the same time Roslyn had her supposed Bush and Co events. Yet neither really worked because they were always exaggerated beyond the point of belief.

If I could tie what the story is portraying to something in real life it would not be Bush and Co. It would be Hamas versus Israel versus Fatah. Both sides being victims of stupid hard headed actions and ideology, throw in some religion where if God did come back down neither side would recognize him because they would be to wrapped up in proving they are right.

I think I know what the problem is....

[wpiman]

Poor product placements. No doubt the reason this show is being canceled.

You've got to be kidding...

[cmdahler]

when the final episode airs, television will never be the same again.

This is just about the most ridiculous thing I've seen on Slashdot in a very long time. If one were to poll the public on this subject, I'm quite sure a substantial number of people wouldn't have ever heard of the SciFi channel to begin with, let alone have a clue that there's some obscure show called BSG on there or be able to remotely describe what the show is about. Nor would they give a flying rat's ass. The Sopranos, now that's a show that had a measurable impact on TV. Regardless of the quality of the show, BSG is going to fade right back into the obscurity from whence it came, with only mom's-basement-dwelling geeks remembering the first thing about it.

No, no and no.

[drsmithy]

Next question.

Re:Al Jazeera

[PyroMosh]

I *do* read it. It's a great source for getting a different prespective, and it's much, much better written than Pravda is.

I just find it funny that whatever software Slashdot uses to choose ad serves decided to pick Al-Jazeera in a story that mentions suicide bombers. I just have to think that that's not coincidental.

It's like whatever software runs the ads decided $suicidebombers --> $middleeast --> $al-jazeera which is funny, if a bit disturbing.

really?

[gandhi_2]

who says sci-fi is too preachy?

Oh, and Muslim isn't a race, fucktard.

Re:really?

[Mesa MIke]

You can have mine.

Oh, wait...

My theory of the show

[goombah99]

In the end it will come down to the Adam-a family being the biblical adam--the origin of man. Somehow the human race will struggle to some new planet and start over shore of their technology but in paradise. Till they are once again expelled as a consequence of their seeking knowledge -- that is biblical "know" and carnal knowledge's purpose is the creation of new life--that is cylons with independent will.

The ultimate irony is that endure the rigors of space and the time it takes will require sturdier carriers of the seed. Namley the hybrids are the next generation of humans.

A few pure cylons will stay behind on the radiated planet since they are immune to radiation.

It will turn out the mechanical cylons sis not create the wetware human like cylons as is generally assumed. after all where are the missing links? No instead it will turn out that when the mechanized ones that are created by the tranpslanted human hybrids encouter the left behind cylons they will be enslaved by them and then return to conquer the hybrid humans.

starting the whole story over.

Galactica stopped being entertaining months ago

[roc97007]

Episode 4.11 was more depressing than, I dunno, being at work. Seriously, this is entertainment?

Re:Galactica stopped being entertaining months ago

[GameMaster]

It's called drama. In this case, the writers seem to be trying to write a futuristic Greek tragedy (which would be fitting, considering the blatant Greek mythology references). The entertainment is watching the way the characters react to the situation they are in and whether we think it is realistic.

Of course, that said, I agree that it can be depressing sometimes. That's why, as much as I might like it, I can't stand to watch more than a single episode of Law & Order in a row (not sure if it's true anymore, but TNT used to play 2-3 episodes in a row every day).

Re:There was a season 3?

[Captain Splendid]

I love you idiots whining about how it got too soapy as it went along. It was always like that, you just didn't notice at first.

Oh, and comparing it to General Hospital is low, man. BSG is far far better than that. Think Dallas.

I wanted Science Fiction, not Social Commentary.

[EnderWiggum]

BSG isn't even decent sci-fi, and it's creators aren't Martin Luther.
The character's personalities have been re-molded so many times it is ridiculous:

* Adama is outraged at the idea of a teacher being president and forcibly takes over the government (only to give it back), yet rolls over for "Democracy" when a *known* criminal, traitor, and lunatic (who mumbles outloud to NOBODY) is elected. Nice job!
* Trained, hardened, reasonable, and resourceful soldiers *suddenly* resort to STRAPPING BOMBS TO THEIR CHESTS to fight the enemy.
* Fighter pilot spontaneously goes lawyer. (no offense to lawyers or pilots)
* Some human ships are filled with normal humans, others (same training and organization) are filled with bloodthirsty sadists with no regard for the lives of others (Pegasus). I hope U.S. aircraft carriers aren't like this :)

On the bright side, the visual polish and effects are very slick.

Essentially, the show is crapsh!t.

a very hard programme to love

[petes_PoV]

When the new version started I watched BSG. However, I quickly found it lacking in pace and couldn't form any connection with the characters. As a consequence I stopped watching. It's hard to consider the moral questions posed by a programme when it's too dull to watch.

I watched the last ep. of the previous part and though for all the world it was "planet of the apes" again. I still couldn't form an emotional bond to any of the characters.

As a sucker for punishment, I watched the restart episode (last night inthe UK) and still felt it spent far too long on close-up shots of people looking confused - especially the guy with the eyepatch.

So far as moral questiosn go, all I can say is GO CYLONS They're far more interesting that the human (if that's what they turn out to be) characters int he show.

Oh come on ....

[ubrgeek]

> when the final episode airs, television will never be the same again.

A little melodramatic, no? When the final episode of All in the Family ran (not the shitty spinoffs) TV changed. Same as M*A*S*H. Same would hold true for Sesame Street. Look, BSG was entertaining and even thought provoking (at times) but it's hardly something that 20 years from now people will be watching TV and say, "Wow! If it wasn't for BSG, TV would be totally different."

Suicide bombing is futile

[sjbe]

On the other hand, the kill ratio in Iraq for coalition forces is 100:1 (1 coalition soldier dead for every 100 enemy combatants). Numbers like that make suicide bombing start to look pretty appealing.

No, that just means the bomber has lost the conflict but is to stupid to admit the fact. If suicide bombers had any tactical or strategic purpose to what they were doing, then perhaps you might have a point but they almost never do. They simply walk into a random crowd and kill a bunch of random people and accomplish nothing.

It doesn't weaken the stronger military by any meaningful amount, it just pisses them off. Even when public opinion is against a war suicide bombings aren't going to cause our military to quit and go home. At most it financially stresses the stronger party but it's hardly going to bankrupt the economy. We want out of Iraq but it isn't because of the suicide bombers - it's because it is a stupid, wasteful and unnecessary conflict which we should not have started in the first place.

The Japanese started using kamikaze tactics in WWII when the leadership already knew or should have known that the war was a lost cause. It was a futile and cowardly act by their leaders which in the end changed nothing. Similar actions in Iraq and other places will have similarly futile outcomes.

Re:Suicide bombing is futile

[Jherico]

No, that just means the bomber has lost the conflict but is to stupid to admit the fact.

Asymmetric warfare isn't designed to 'win' in the conventional sense. Its designed to wear down the will of an invading force.

It doesn't weaken the stronger military by any meaningful amount, it just pisses them off.

Not in terms of absolute numbers or weapons, but certainly in morale. And again, the point of such an attack is not the effect it will have on the military (which is already admitted to be superior by the very term 'asymmetric warfare') but the effect it will have on the morale of the invaders and their homeland as a whole.

The Japanese started using kamikaze tactics in WWII when the leadership already knew or should have known that the war was a lost cause.

The allies never invaded the Japanese islands, did they? Instead they chose to use the Atomic bomb. Its conceivable that the demonstrated willingness of the Japanese to die in defense of their country discouraged the use of a full scale invasion, such as the one in Europe.
Maybe you're right, and the only people who might question whether suicide attacks are genuinely ineffective are the people like myself who are already questioning the point of being an invading force in the first place. But then again, maybe even the most pro-war mother and father might stop for a second and wonder if their child really had to die, and whether he really had to be an occupying force in the first place.
You can argue the effectiveness of suicide bombing all you want, and you can tell a conquered people that it will do no good till you're blue in the face, but even if you're right, that's not going to stop them. People who are cornered or conquered have two choices: assimilate or fight. Some will choose to fight and of those some will believe that the only effective way to fight a vastly superior force is to resort to suicide tactics. The only way to prevent this is to go all the way back and do your best to prevent the need for an invasion in the first place. Say for instance, by not lying about the presence of WMD's in a country that doesn't have them, and not conflating the government of that country with a completely unrelated (ethnically, politically, and geographically) group that is responsible for an actual attack on your country.

Re:Suicide bombing is futile

[0xABADC0DA]

The Japanese started using kamikaze tactics in WWII when the leadership already knew or should have known that the war was a lost cause. It was a futile and cowardly act by their leaders which in the end changed nothing.

Kamikaze tactics in WWII achieved nothing only because we invented the proximity fuse so they could be shot down before reaching the ship. If not for those fuses we would have lost most or all of our ships or given up.

You can't take 100:1 losses. You need to change the game so that you don't take those losses. Suicide bombing will work regardless of whether you, Joe Spectator, thinks the side using it is 'stupid' until we have some way to neutralize that tactic.

Ethics in Total War

[sjbe]

They grew a big enough backbone to stand up to you, despite the fact that you're war criminals who drop nukes on cities.

This has to be a troll but I'll bite anyway.

Comparing ethics from a time of total war is absurd beyond measure. Shall we get into the atrocities committed by all sides? There's plenty to go around. A nuke in a time of war is no more unethical than any other kind of massive scale bombing. FAR more people were killed with conventional bombing on both sides during WWII than by nukes and yet the nukes are somehow special? The nuke just has a bigger bang for the payload.

War is horrible but once there is a war the MOST unethical thing anyone can do is to prolong the war. It should be ended as quickly as possible and this is usually accomplished by using the most overwhelming force possible. Dropping two atomic weapons on Japan brought the war to an abrupt end and probably saved countless lives. Yes it was a horrible thing to do but there were NO options that were not horrible to consider. None.

Re:Ethics in Total War

[sjbe]

You're deliberately ignoring the fact that FAR, FAR more conventional bombs were dropped than nukes. We're talking several orders of magnitude here.

So? A death is a death. The means matters little to the dead person.

The ratio makes them quite special.

No it doesn't. It just makes that individual weapon scarier but dead is dead. One million dead from one bomb or one million dead from a million bombs is still one million dead. Any conflict where nuclear weapons are considered is pretty much going to mean massive casualties even if they are never used. A nuclear weapon is just another way to kill a lot of people but hardly the only one.

All the kids that later died of cancer makes them special as hell.

So you don't care about the starvation, disease, death, maimings, destruction and other side effects of war? You think radiation is the only way to cause cancer? Man are you missing the big picture.

Re:Ethics in Total War

[master_p]

The nuke just has a bigger bang for the payload.

You don't measure the effectiveness of a weapon by the payload, but by how much damage it will do per unit of time. The nuke at Hiroshima killed 80,000 people the moment it exploded. The firebombing of Tokyo on 9-10 of March, 1945, killed almost 100,000 people, but it lasted 48 hours.

The nuke is a much more devastating weapon than the bombs. It not only kills equal or more people (instantly and in the long run), it also damages the moral of the enemy far more greatly than any other weapon.

A Television Revolution

[Tetsujin]

The final fourth season is nearly over, and when the final episode airs, television will never be the same again.

I'm sure it's a good show, but get real here. Television will be pretty much the same after BSG than it was before BSG.

Now, I wouldn't say that...

I mean, for one thing, BSG apparently has allowed for the possibility of more than one fourth season. How many have they had now? I guess after this final fourth season they'll finally move on to season 5.

Re:Battlestar analogies

[odinsgrudge]

Collaborator.

Send him out the airlock

Hyperbole is right

[Obfuscant]

Television will never be the same? Oh, please.

The last episode of BG will come and go and TV will still be the same. The "moral dilemmas" that are easy to find parallels in real life politics are easy to find because you want to find them.

When Dan Quayle spoke about the negative impacts on society when Murphy Brown deliberately became a single parent, everyone was falling all over themselves claiming "it's just a TV show" and claiming that Quayle was an idiot for even suggesting that TV might have some relevance to real life. When they find deep, meaningful parallels to real life, "TV will never be the same". Please, pick one and stick with it.

Re:Battlestar analogies

[iluvcapra]

I don't necessarily dispute you here, but what can be done when you are faced with such a lesson, other than learn it?

I would probably argue that in the case of WW2, the "lesson" the Germans learned wasn't that "Americas guns are better than yours, therefore suck it for eternity," which is the "lesson" the Germans were trying to teach France, the Austrians, Serbia, the Israelis, Palestine etc. (I guess there's a lot of room to argue about the last one, but I find the intents of both parties completely out of joint with their actions so its hard to debate it reasonably.) The lesson the Germans learned in both world wars was "We the world won't tolerate your hegemony and will fight to stop it," which is something most Germans already knew in their moral hearts but the principle required demonstration.

Either way, turning "killing for political purposes" into "teach a lesson" is pretty Orwellian and I'd like to avoid the whole construction, since it's a literary trope masquerading as an ethical principle.

Science Fiction versus Science Video

[fm6]

Now you've verged into one of my pet beliefs: that movie and TV SF (let's call it "science video") can never be "real" SF in the sense that (for example) Heinlein is SF. The problem with SV, as with all movies and TV, is that it aims at a mass audience in a compressed format. That means thoughtful exposition and intellectual complication, which is how the genre engages most of its readers, are off limits. Indeed, many people who work in the media don't even have the background to do it properly.

One reason I became a rabid trekkie early on was that TOS went further than any previous SV in trying to be real SF. One of their best inventions was Spock, who's a genuine alien, not just because he doesn't look human, but because he doesn't think human.

And yet even this key character is not carefully thought through. In an early episode, we're told that this guy's physiology is so alien that McCoy's instruments go wild on him. Later in that same episode, we get a melodramatic scene relating to his relationship with his human mother! Apparently nobody had the background to appreciate the inconsistency between these two facts. Or probably somebody did (TOS had some good scientific advisers) and the producers said, "Whatever, we need that bit of drama near the end, we're not looking for an audience that will know the difference."

Another example: Star Trek has always followed the convention that space fleet officers have naval ranks. But they've always carefully avoided the dual use of the word "captain" that's standard in real world navies. (In English-speaking countries, "captain" refers both to a rank equivalent to an army Colonel and a commander of a vessel, regardless of rank. In one of my favorite naval historical novels, The Sand Pebbles, the Captain of the U.S.S. San Pablo is a Lieutenant J.G.) A small complexity, but apparently deemed beyond the capacity of TV audiences.

Though I've always thought that this complexity was stomped on after the fact. Notice that in TOS, Kirk wears wrist insignia that anybody who knows naval ranks would recognize as a futuristic version of the "one and a half rings" of a Lt. Commander. That's about the right rank to command a ship with 400 people. But officially that's insignia of a Captain and all the other officers (regardless of rank) wear a single ring. Right.

And of course, we don't even want to talk about sound in a vacuum....

BSG is not science fiction

[mlwmohawk]

It is a space opra.

2001 was science fiction.

Arthur C. Clarke, H.G. Wells, and even a little Douglas Adams were science fiction writers. They wrote about how society changes around technology and envision life in the context of new technology.

BSG has nothing to do with science fiction. They don't contemplate the benefits or dangers of science. They use it as nothing more than a backdrop. The closest BSG comes to science fiction is in the first episode where Adama critiques and disdains technology. (Ignoring, of course, he's on a space ship.)

Suicide bombers are tactical imeciles

[sjbe]

So, you are saying that that suicide bombers should just shut up and die?

No I'm saying they are tactical imbeciles who are defeating themselves. What difference does it make if they die in a hail of bullets or by blowing themselves up? Dead is dead. In the hail of bullets option they just might live to accomplish something another day. But doing it via suicide out of mere spite is just stupid, not to mention psychotic.

When given a choice between a miserable existence given to you by a hated enemy or taking a few "enemies" with you when you die, what would YOU chose?

Nice strawman argument. Taking enemies with you is fine but only if there is some tactical or strategic purpose to it. Claiming there is something ethical or justifiable about killing yourself and taking a bunch of innocent people with you is about the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

Furthermore, even enemies don't have to remain so forever. The conflict between the US and Japan was about as intense as it gets. Millions lost their lives and there was such intense rage we can barely comprehend it 60 years later. Now Japan is among our closest allies and it didn't even take a single generation. Just being on the losing side of conflict doesn't doom the combatants to an eternity of misery. Life moves on and only those who dwell on past injuries will be doomed to a pathetic existence.

A slow death or a quick one?

We're all going to die. Why not try to accomplish something productive before you go?

Vengeance or humiliation?

Vengeance against whom? Explain to me how the 3000 victims in the world trade center were in any way deserving of their fate.

Doing SOMETHING or nothing?

A suicide bombing accomplishes nothing so I'm guessing you are voting for doing nothing. Dying is easy - actually doing something productive is hard. Suicide bombers are mentally unbalanced people taking the easy way out.

Think about it, it may be seem stupid and the bomber may have lost the conflict
but just sitting around and letting someone push you around is not something most people would be willing to do

There are plenty of ways to push back that don't involve killing other people. Ghandi and Martin Luther King led peaceful revolutions that last to this day and led to them being honored throughout the world. I've never heard of a suicide bomber ever having any lasting effect on the world.

Re:Battlestar analogies

[iluvcapra]

And, yet, oddly those whom we "taught a lesson" in WWII at the barrel of a gun have taken it to heart and are now great international citizens.

Only to add to my reply to the other poster, I would just offer that the "lesson" the Germans and Japanese took to heart after World War II had a lot more to do with the Marshall Plan than it did with Fat Man, and that the US's aggressive investiment in building up its former enemies against Communism in the 1940s and 50s was the prime mover in bringing these nations back into the fold of peace-loving nation states. If we had taken over Germany and run our sector like the Russians ran their sector, no "lesson" in the sense you mean would have been learned, even though the Russians were using their guns to teach a "lesson" just as effectively, if not more, than we were.

Violence and military supremacy may have been a necessary aspect of the World War 2 conflict, but it wasn't the essential aspect of the peace, and I find it diffifcult to accept that it's advisable given the myriad other conflicts that we've seen over the past century, their players, forces and outcomes. Germany still lost World War I, it's cultural superiority notwithstanding, and though Israel (or the UK or France) indisputably has a stronger civil society and healthier political culture than that-which-might-be Palestine (or Afghanistan, or Algeria), these "cultural superiors" found themselves in decades-long conflicts that they usually fought to stalemate, or just plain lost.

In any case the analogy to WW2 is defective, because our actions were clearly not imperial, for the same reasons I stated above.

Re:Battlestar analogies

[Sleepy]

>If my country were invaded and occupied by a foreign power, I would ensure that I obey the cease-fires and give peace a chance, and not hide like a coward amongst my own women and children as I target the enemy's women and children.

All guerilla wars are spun this way. The danger of good vs. evil propoganda is that someday you might WANT peace, and when you try for it one of your fellow comrades will put a bullet in your head. That's already happened to the last Israeli president who wanted peace.

Israel survives as a "pure" culture by ethnically herding native born non-Jews into refugee camps. Chasing people into camps and then not allowing them to leave counts as herding. A constant state of war provides justification.

The simple truth is peace would destroy Israel, demographically speaking. The "right of return" would mean a majority Palestinian state of Israel.

Houses that were occupied by the same families for hundreds of years get taken and turned over to colonial settlers born in far away places like Moscow.

The thing is, apartheid ended gracefully in South Africa because both sides didn't brainwash themselves into a corner, and produced sane leaders who negotiated an end to minority rule. I don't see that happening here.

Re:Battlestar analogies

[radtea]

Banding together to visit consequences on those agressors seems to work but that just reverses the teacher/student roles.

Right, that's why the British still rule India but the Palestinians have successfully created a homeland for themselves and the Israelis are no longer threatened by Palestinian violence, because the "lesson" of violence works so incredibly well. Unless you mean "seems like a good idea to monkey hind-brains but actually fails miserably in practise", which is one way of reading "seems to work."

The problem with non-violence is not that it doesn't work, it's that it requires more courage than most people have to execute it. Non-violent resistance is enormously effective, and anyone who chooses violence over it as an avenue for political conflict resolution is either a coward or has no interest in actually resolving the conflict. In most real cases it is probably a bit of both.

There may be a few instances where violent attack is more effective than non-violent resistance. WWII is arguably one of them. In most other cases, and in virtually all the cases facing the modern world, non-violent resistance is clearly the superior approach.

It's a pity that hardly anyone has the guts to employ it.

Re:Battlestar analogies

[Anonymous Psychopath]

What right have you lost?

Habeas corpus.

It's kind of a big deal. You should read about it.

blood -vs- tits

[zbrewski]

Never following the BSG before, couple of days ago I taped the whole day of last season's episodes, and was relatively amused by it until the expected, but always disappointing happened:
1. Scene A: Guy got shot in the knee, blood all over, open wound and fractured bones close up, as realistic as it can get, well done, you did the good job, I feel little sick.
2. Scene B: Cute Indian actress, love scene with ex-president-turned-saint, about to undress, I feel better already, okay, she is undressing, removing last garment possible... and silly me, seasoned to realism, open fractures, blood and guts... expecting to see a tiny little bit of otherwise shapely acress' body... ah silly me... no realism here.. all we will see is standard issue bra and nothing more, because:
2.1. Blood, open fractures and guts, is good for you
2.2. Women breasts, is bad for you

And this happens over and over and everybody just whistles and pretends all is good and does not care and instead of having a realistic realistic tv, we have half realistic tv, and for other half we must all hide and sneak into wast expanses of silly and often extreme fields of what is referred to as porn...

Black and white morality is not deeper

[Geof]

Your comments are very judgmental about what people should do in a given situation. You seem inclined to believe they would make rational choices accordingly. But people aren't very rational. They seldom "do the right thing", assuming they even think about it consciously and assuming it matches what you think the right thing should be.

Your comparison with Star Trek is telling. When Battlestar Galactica presents moral quandries it leaves much of the interpretation up to the viewer. Star Trek, on the other hand, resolves them: it is unsubtle in claiming what's the right thing to do. I won't make big claims for Galactica, but in my mind Star Trek's treatment is much more superficial. (And very culturally specific: I find many of Star Trek judgments and values quite foreign to me. I'm Canadian; our culture is about as close to the American one as is possible.)

very few secrets are maintained

On a slight tangent: Um, how can you know this? We only know about secrets that aren't kept, not the ones that are. Unless we're keeping them: a sample of one is not a reliable indicator of anything.

you need social commentary

[Scrameustache]

Some human ships are filled with normal humans, others (same training and organization) are filled with bloodthirsty sadists with no regard for the lives of others (Pegasus).

The Stanford prison experiment was a study of the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. The experiment was conducted in 1971 by a team of researchers led by Psychology Professor Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University. Twenty-four undergraduates were selected out of 70 to play the roles of both guards and prisoners and live in a mock prison in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. Those selected were chosen for their lack of psychological issues, crime history, and medical disabilities, in order to obtain a representative sample. Roles were assigned based on a coin toss.[1]

Prisoners and guards rapidly adapted to their roles, stepping beyond the boundaries of what had been predicted and leading to dangerous and psychologically damaging situations. One-third of the guards were judged to have exhibited "genuine" sadistic tendencies, while many prisoners were emotionally traumatized and two had to be removed from the experiment early.

The Cyclons have a plan, but the writers don't

[jjohn]

What started off as a fine little space opera became a morass of tangle and contradictory plot lines in Season 4. Ron Moore is a total hack who should have plotted the show arc out. Now, BSG is essentially Dallas in space.

What a wasted opportunity to say something interesting about the human condition.

Re:The Cyclons have a plan, but the writers don't

[Obfuscant]

Now, BSG is essentially Dallas in space.

Instead of "who shot JR" (and who cared anyway?) it's now "who is number 11"?

"I am not a number 11, I am a pers.... ummm, never mind."

Re:Battlestar analogies

[jamstar7]

The problem with non-violence is not that it doesn't work, it's that it requires more courage than most people have to execute it. Non-violent resistance is enormously effective, and anyone who chooses violence over it as an avenue for political conflict resolution is either a coward or has no interest in actually resolving the conflict. In most real cases it is probably a bit of both.

The problem with non-violence is, you're at the mercy of people who don't believe as you do. And when those people control the media, your non-violent message will not be heard. To bring it home to us Americans, 'Free Speach zone', anyone?

Re:Battlestar analogies

[Hijacked Public]

Timelines vary no doubt, and there are failures, but it seems to have worked for the Allied countries in WWII, for instance. It worked for a time for the Boers and the Afghans (despite inferior material technology in both cases). As an example of the failing to come together, Native American tribes would have eventually been subdued but playing one tribe against another hastened that. I'd throw nearly all of Africa in there too.

My problem with non-violence is that I just don't see how it can work over the long term in all cases or even in most. There is a small camp near an oil extraction operation in Congo. The enemies of the people who live there have guns but the villagers don't. When their enemies come the villagers flee, but their enemies shoot at them anyway. Sometimes they even make hits. For the people hit, non violence did not work in that instance. I've watched this happen 3 or 4 times over the course of a few years and it doesn't strike me as a long term strategy either. The enemies don't want anything from there people other than to kill them, so mutually beneficial negotiations can't really proceed.

I don't understand their mentality but I'd say those villagers have guts in spades to not arm themselves.

Re:Battlestar analogies

[_Sprocket_]

What right have you lost? What can't you do now that you were happily doing before Bush took office?

It's not about what I can or can not do. I'm doing everything I did now after Bush that I did before Bush. But then, that's how these things work. You're all fine and happy until you fall afoul of someone. And that's when you become really interested in the checks and balances that keep Governmental authority from being abused.

Bush's actions have chipped away at those checks and balances. And while that doesn't mean much to most people, I can only hope that it will never HAVE to mean anything to you.

And don't get me wrong. If I am a foreign operative then by all means, tap my communications and catch me out. Use my communications to uncover my cohorts. Play the spy game and win. But be sure that you've done the due dilligance to ensure that I am, in fact, said foreign operative before doing so. And prove that work in front of a judge.

Japanese were prepared to surrender

[maynard]

Because RUSSIA had just entered the war against Japan. There was absolutely no reason to drop those nuclear bombs, because the last thing the Japanese wanted was Russia occupying the Japanese islands. We can thank General Curtis Lemay for convincing President Truman of the necessity of dropping those bombs. We can also thank him for all that firebombing too.

I don't accept that mass civilian casualties are the norm of warfare. It is WRONG.

it's a trap!

[Endo13]

This whole thing was written by frakkin' Cylons, you can't trust any of them!

TV

[slapout]

"and when the final episode airs, television will never be the same again"

Yeap. It'll be all digital.

The US military disagreed with your opinion

[Mark_in_Brazil]

I always love to see people with an axe to grind against the United States so eager to so utterly trivialize the Japanese. They are not a people to be trifled with, especially in war. All of this historical revisionist nonsense about how they were all ready to give in is so disrespectful to them individually and as a separate and independent culture and nation.

The Germans didn't give in so easily. They were fighting street to street all the way to Berlin even when all that was left were old men and boys. Why should we expect any less of the Japanese?

You're like some fundie that selectively chooses what part of scripture they will acknowledge.

Funny you should say that about the selective quotation of scripture. Your "analysis" ignores the United States Army Air Forces' own Strategic Bombing Survey on the atomic attacks, which produced a report that stated, among other things, the following (boldface emphasis mine):

Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion (of Japan) had been planned or contemplated.

Further, it is clear that leaders in the US had signs of this before the Strategic Bombing Survey was completed. Japanese codes had been cracked, and messages were being intercepted. The Allies knew that the Japanese ambassador in Moscow had been ordered to work on peace negotiations with the Allies. Japanese leaders had been talking about surrendering a year before that, and the Emperor himself had started suggesting in June of 1945 that alternatives to fighting to the end should be considered.
Interesting fact: the Russians had agreed to declare war on Japan 90 days after the end of the European war. The actual date of the end of the European war meant that the Russians were due to declare war on Japan on the 8th of August of 1945.

Re:Battlestar analogies

[radtea]

When their enemies come the villagers flee...

This is is non-violence, but it is not non-violent resistance, because the villagers are doing nothing to resist. They are offering no resistance, just running away.

People often confuse non-violence with non-violent resistance, but the two are not the same at all. Non-violent resistance is pro-active, not reactive, and can be quite confrontational. Look at what Gandhi's movement did in India, and how they did it. It was not at all about running away, and Gandhi himself disliked the word "pacifism" as he felt it failed to capture the fundamentals of his approach, which were active.

I can't offer advice to the villagers because I don't know enough about their situation, which is one of the other problems with non-violent resistance: violence is the VisualBasic of human interaction. Any idiot can use it to produce some kind of effect with negligible training or intelligence. Non-violent resistance is the the C++ of human interaction: it requires care and planning if it is going to compile, much less run and be maintainable.

Re:Battlestar analogies

[crmarvin42]

People have the luxury of being moral. Governments who's civilians are under threat of hostile military action do not.

Israel does not want to be wasting it's money and reputation firing rockets and bullets into Palestinian territory. Nor does it want the blood of all the non-combatants and their own military personnel on their hands. Unfortunately, certain groups within Palestine insist on provoking them, and those who would accept peace with Israel do nothing to stop it.

I think it says alot about members of Hamas, that they care less about their people than Israel does (as evidenced by repeated unilateral withdrawls by Israel). It takes only one side to start a battle, but it takes both sides to stop one.

Re:Loss of Habeas?

[Anonymous Psychopath]

I think you have been getting some bad information.

There is no such provision in the Geneva Convention.

Here, in fact, is what it says about the treatment of persons not in uniform (emphasis added):

"Where in occupied territory an individual protected person is detained as a spy or saboteur, or as a person under definite suspicion of activity hostile to the security of the Occupying Power, such person shall, in those cases where absolute military security so requires, be regarded as having forfeited rights of communication under the present Convention.

In each case, such persons shall nevertheless be treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed by the present Convention. They shall also be granted the full rights and privileges of a protected person under the present Convention at the earliest date consistent with the security of the State or Occupying Power, as the case may be. "

So no, we aren't permitted to just shoot people who aren't in uniform.

Re:Battlestar analogies

[iluvcapra]

Serbia's a great example, my point really has nothing to do with the intentions of the minor party. If the Human's somehow provoked the Cylons intentionally into a war the point still stands. Besides, I think it's still pretty debatable how high the plot went. I though the whole thing was run by Dragutin DimitrijeviÄ, and that no one has conclusively proved that it went any higher.

And the worse thing is that assassin is celebrated in Serbia even today - there are streets and schools named after him. (Trust me, I live in Serbia.)

That the Assassination in Sarajevo and Vidovdan happen on the same day probably doesn't help matters...

Ok, problems between Austro-Hungary and Serbia started long before, but during that period AH did not do anything even remotely savage to Serbian state, although there was a trade war.

I'm specifically referring to the post-assassination period, when Austria-Hungary clearly had 'teaching a lesson" on its mind when it demanded nothing less than Serbia's sovereign rights. I'm aware. entire prewar period was very messy. Austria-Hungary didn't just want the murderer tried or extradited, as would be normal; they wanted a War, and they drafted a set of demands on Serbia that were designed to be unacceptable.

Re:Battlestar analogies

[Hal_Porter]

It worked for Gandhi because the British were insufficiently ruthless to just kill everyone who turned up for a non violent protest and keep doing that until people stopped protesting.

It doesn't work for the Tibetans becuase the Chinese are that ruthless. So were the Germans and Japanese in WWII, or the Russians in the Cold War.