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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."
My superior technology gives me the moral right to impose my will on a technologically inferior culture called Slashdot!
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
BSG doesn't so much tackle moral questions as sort of run past them.
The writers don't know what it is.
Anybody want my mod points?
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.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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.
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.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
Is this an article or an add? I'm not quite sure...
Am I eval()? - http://www.monst3r.com.br
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
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.
Next thing you know, they'll be a non sci-fi show about these very issues. It might even get decent ratings!
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.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
>> 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.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
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.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Poor product placements. No doubt the reason this show is being canceled.
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.
who says sci-fi is too preachy?
Oh, and Muslim isn't a race, fucktard.
THL phish sticks
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.
Jherico
What can the average user can do to ensure his security? "Nothing, you're screwed"
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.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
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.
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.
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.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
>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.
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...
"and when the final episode airs, television will never be the same again"
Yeap. It'll be all digital.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
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):
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.
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner