SF Political Science Question
Dean
Humanity has expanded to the point where it is a spacefaring race that colonizes 12 worlds, with many billions of people spread out across those worlds. Then humanity suddenly suffers a devastating attack from an enemy that destroys all 12 of those worlds, and the only remaining humans are stuck in a ragtag fleet of ships that happen to be voyaging between worlds when the apocolypse strikes. Humanity is reduced to literally less than 50,000 souls.
Only one significant ship in the military fleet survives the devastation, along with a few hundred other ships, all of them civilian. They decide to try to take a run for it and find someplace safe to evade an enemy that considers all humans a threat and seeks to wipe out the last remnants of humanity.
The humans had been organized under a Constitution that recognized a President and an at least somewhat-representative governing council. The remaining people, taking stock of themselves, realize that a woman named Laura Roslin, Secretary of Education under the now-dead President, is the highest-ranking executive left alive. She was 43rd in line to become President, but she is the closest that they can find, so they swear her in as President.
Meanwhile, the only remaining commander of a military ship, the equivalent of an aircraft carrier, accepts his place as the top military leader left in humanity, and makes an agreement with the hastily-sworn-in President that she will allow him to make all important military decisions, while she would be in charge of all civilian affairs.
After a few months of running and several times barely escaping with their lives, the remaining 50,000 or so humans reach a strange point: they don't know where exactly they're going, but the President has begun having strange visions of the Gods, who tell her that they will lead her people to the promised land if they can attain a mystical artifact that will point the way. As strange as this sounds, however, several things have happened recently which suggest that the President may be a prophet guided by fate, not least of which is that they find the long lost world of their ancestors that their scriptures told them about.
The President is a fairly well-educated, secular woman who is not particularly religious, and is not very comfortable with religion in general. But she has recently found out that she has terminal breast cancer that has spread through her body, and by doctors' opinions she has no more than six months to live. And she has been seeing visions--some of which doctors say may be caused by the chemotherapies she has been taking--which seem to match what the scriptures are saying.
At a crucial moment when the last remaining humans are facing a conflict with the enemy who seeks to destroy them, the President persuades a brash young military officer to steal a valuable military asset from the fleet in order to seek a mystical artifact that the scriptures say will lead her people to the promised land. The brash young officer disappears with this valuable military asset at a crucial moment when the Commander is about to launch a critical attack that may mean the life or death of the remaining human fleet.
The military commander, in utter fury, and under the assumption that the President is quite insane, immediately stages a military coup, unilaterally terminating the civilian government and throwing the President in the carrier's brig. Before most people can even react to this, however, another young military officer--possibly in reaction to all of this, possibly for her own obscure motives--pulls out her sidearm and shoots the commander several times in the torso. He is immediately taken to triage and treated, and remains unconscious at this time.
Question #1: Whose side are you on, the President's or the Commander's?
Question #2: Why aren't you watching the new Battlestar Galactica?
Hard to disassociate from my instinct that the Galactica writers are going somewhere with Starbuck's mission, not just wasting our time on a wild goose chase.
I back Roslin on general principals - civilian control of miitary - plus the non-constitutional principal that a smart writer willl keep a good conflict going so Roslin will have to be re-instated. Unless her contract's up.
Then again, I remembering hearing what Cmdr. Adama once said:
"There's a reason you separate the military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people."
But now I'm leaning toward waiting for a few weeks till I can get BSG in HD.
"God hath shapen lives three:
Boor and knight and priest they be."
Religion vs. the military? The Gods vs. the Empire? The priest (the First Estate) vs. the knight (the Second Estate)? The Cathedral vs. the Castle? Space (Eternity) vs. Time?
Hmmm.... The solution is difficult. The conflict is most tragic in the highest sense. Reminds me of a dream I once had.... But I will have to side with the Gods against the Empire, the priest against the knight, the Cathedral against the Castle, Space and Eternity against Time.
Why? No cable. It would take even more compelling reasons than Galactica, which is insanely good, to get us spending that much money we don't have. In a few years when it's worth having cable for Nickelodean, Discovery, and whichever channel shows the classic Sesame Streets from back when it was still any good, maybe we'll go for it. Ditto if it becomes our only option for broadband and the whole thing is a better buy if we get the TV part too.
It always amuses me when people count cable as one of their necessary "utilities" for which the Must Spend Money. Not to mention amusing me how much the cable companies can get away with charging.
Anyway, Adama versus Roslin is a tough choice, but my reaction was that his was an overreaction. I can understand where he's coming from, but I tend to side with her.
Don't know without evaluating the situation.
Answer 2):
When science fiction begins mimicking and even mirroring contemporary life too closely, it gets to be like watching a rerun of "Seven Days in May". At which point, I go back to googling up interesting but but real-life stuff on the web.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Sandi: This show has nothing to do with the original series, so whether you liked the original series or not is kind of irrelevant. And it's anything but boring.
1. Interesting! Commander Adama knows and accepts that they are running and is trying to keep the human race alive. President Roslin knows that they are running but feels the hope that her knowledge would bring to the people. Both are wise and wrong-headed at the same time. Which is why this show is so great and why I am at odds with siding with either one.
2. The wife and I are addicted. Besides "Pimp My Ride" (guilty pleasure), Battlestar Galactica is required viewing.
Then again, I live way out in the countryside, no cable available, it's either the aerial on my roof or else satellite. Eh. See what Jay Solo said, above.
I try to put myself in Adama’s shoes and see things as he sees them- that the President is somewhat under qualified, that she has a terminal illness, that since becoming ill she’s begun making claims of visions from prophecy, that those visions apparently drove her to make what he can only view as a disastrously irrational decision. Add to that the fact that the Vice President is hors de combat and quite possibly dead on the surface of the planet Kobol.
From my point of view Adama had no choice but to remove the president. The extant system of government (admittedly ill-defined in the show) was designed to rule twelve planets, not a mere 50,000 people spread over many small civilian vessels. It has inherent weaknesses in such a situation and Roslin’s actions just serve to dramatically highlight that fact. Divorce yourself from the knowledge that this is a screenplay where we the viewer can assume that every single act made by any primary character has direct implications for future plot development and simply evaluate the facts as known by the characters and Adama’s actions become downright reasonable.
The following characterization feels a little misleading to folks who haven’t seen the show:
The military officer in question was aware of the coup when she volunteered for an extremely risky mission necessitated by the loss of the military asset ‘commandeered’ by the president for her religious quest. She had returned from successfully completing that mission and to the accolades of her peers and superiors. As such, speculation as to her motives on the part of an observer unaware of what happened during this mission (the officer learned something very disturbing about herself) is purely hypothetical and not particularly germane to the discussion of whether or not Adama’s actions appear to be justified. Whether or not he acted “in utter fury” is also a point I might contest, but only insofar as it tends to prejudice the discussion.
A tangent to this is how will they resolve the situation? My own opinion is that the Rubicon has been crossed- there is no way to reestablish the old working relationship. Either the President remains in jail, or she is reinstated and both Adama and Col. Tigh are hanged for treason and mutiny. Barring some third outcome, that’s the way I see things- if Roslin is reinstated and Adama and Tigh keep their jobs then Roslin is just a figurehead. I can’t see a way for Adma, Tigh and Roslin to all go back to status quo ante and make it a believable outcome.
What? Get a real life? What could you possibly mean by that?
Fortunately it seems to me that President Roslin is smarter than to allow civil war. She will almost certainly be restored to power and while there may be calls for Adama's head she will not allow him to be hanged or even removed from command. She will simply note that the situation prompted a governing crisis because it wasn't clear who was ultimately in charge anymore, and a new order has to be established as to who is ultimately in command.
It will be a severe test of everyone's leadership abilities but I suspect it can be gotten through. It depends on how the actors--and the show's writers--handle it.
I'm not sure you understand how chain of command works, and if the BSG universe is congruent with ours (and I believe it is, since Ron Moore is deliberately holding up a mirror to our society), then Commander Adama was only fulfilling his oath of service.
I explain my reasons here.
I, for one, do not wish for NBC to pick it up. I have a feeling that once the Big Suits are involved, the show will become like so much other network pablum and fade rapidly into non-existence.
On the Skiii Fiii Channel, they seem to be willing to leave well enough alone and let the show develop.
No "chain of command" allows an officer to inform the President that he is terminating her Presidency, board the president's ship and take her prisoner. That is a coup by any historical standard. If circumstances weren't so extreme Adama would be guilty of high treason and should probably be hung.
The proper thing for a military officer to do if he TRULY BELIEVED the President were completely unhinged would be to temporarily cease obeying the President and order other officers to do the same, explaining his reasoning. Then he would INFORM CIVILIAN AUTHORITIES of his serious concerns.
There was no crisis that would make that an unacceptable alternative. The situation was grave but not such that Adama could not continue to do what he had to do while simply ignoring the President and waiting for the crisis to pass. His action was highly irresponsible.
Adama's going to get away with this because of the circumstances, but Captain Lee was right to mutiny. I would have too. If you understood military protocols and history a little better maybe you'd grasp that too. :-)
Things are a little different in their situation than they are in our military. Adama and Roslin agreed to split the two. Military decisions would be made by Adama and non-military by Roslin.
Roslin violated that when she encouraged a military officer to violate orders and steal a peice of military hardware that was vital to a military operation that was underway. Even if her visions are correct, she oversteped her authority. She made it clear in that action that she would not abide by her agreement with Adama, and that she would only yeild to his decisions on military matters if they were not on conflict with her own ideas.
She also showed herself to be a danger to the fleet and to the military, since she was able to have such strong influence on a military officer.
Adama also oversteped his authority. I believe that he did so in reaction to her. Roslin made a move to take complete control (at least for a time) and Adama did the same (again for a time).
I can't really pick a side based on their actions to this point, because I see them as equally wrong actions. Adama has the slight edge in my mind in that his coup was in reaction to Roslin's usurping of his authority.
My inclination is to side with Adama because I have more respect for his character and his thinking. He has made bad decisions in the past, but not often. I suppose I trust him better than I do Roslin. Though I respect her a great deal, she tends to act more emotionally and erratically than Adama. If she were given complete power, I think she would be more likely to keep it than Adama would. After all, if Adama wanted complete power, he could have easily taken it earlier. Roslin has not been in that position, but she has clearly abused the power that she has had so far.
Future predictions: Starbuck, Helo, and CapBoomer will make it back to Galactica with the arrow, the arrow will point out the next steps, and Baltar's "vision" of a human/cylon mixed child will come to pass through Helo and CapBoomer's kid, with interesting consequences. (Anyone here ever see V? That's what I'm talking about.)
In the meantime, we get to watch the second string civilian and military leaders (Col. Tigh and Tom Zarek) go at each others throats. Geez... an old drunk who should have been cashiered from service years ago vs. an egomaniacal ex-terrorist. Who do you root for?
P.S. Where the frack is my clone of Grace Park?