Biggest shock for me of the night?

[trinityvixen]

Et tu Racetrack? She always seemed so cool. Stupid Gaeta has to ruin everyone. Plus, he sent his boyfriend to the brig. They are totally on a time out.

This is the first episode of the second half to provoke my interest and enthuse me to the point of debating for hours. A longer post is clearly in the offing, but, yeah, way to go, show. Way to not forget everything and start actually doing shit with the precious little time we have left!

(Spoilers may lurk in comments!)

Comments

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

Did the Cylons commit genocide and are still stained with that?

Here's the thing -- the thing that the humans on the show unfortunately cannot understand, but that I think the narrative does present as The Way It Is -- the Cylons did not have any conception of what committing genocide on the humans meant. They (at the time) did not know death. They did not, for the most part, know humanity. They (depending on which retcon you follow) were either following instructions from God, or believed that they had a permanent and irresolvable security concern; thus, they committed an act they didn't understand with motives they considered substantive.

They have since realized that they were completely incorrect. The experience on New Caprica, as well as the subsequent experiences showing that human and cylon should coexist, have proven this to a lot of the Cylon models. Can forgiveness be possible? Well... it doesn't matter if it's realistic; it HAS to be, or humanity is doomed. An alliance with half the Cylon fleet makes the humans strong enough to survive. Not having that alliance means they're doomed.

Moreover, from the moment the Cylon alliance is formed, there can be no turning back. Having chosen to trust the Cylons, the humans must trust them completely. The Cylons have HAD the chance to finish the genocidal job, if they wished; if the Cylons currently with the fleet were allied with the rest and going to turn on them, then they could easily have done so in every one of the nine days since Earth. They have perfect jump coordinates, and we've seen what an ambush can do; if a strike was going to come, it would have come by now...

I'm still working out my feelings on this, because I know exactly what my emotional response to all this is, but I haven't yet figured out what the underlying motivations might be. I'd like to think they're in the logic of the show, but I could be misinterpreting myself there.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I don't disagree on any one point. The fact that trust must be absolute between Cylons and humans was demonstrated in Natalie's revelation about the Final Five: keeping any plans to force the hand of your allies, with all the ugliness between you and them, is exactly what no one can do if the alliance is to survive and opinions are to change. (Or, at least, mellow.) Basically, Natalie realized they were still acting like enemies when they bartered for protection in exchange for the Hub, and that if both sides did so (they were), the alliance would go nowhere. Ironically, that's why Natalie's murder was unavenged--if you punish back and forth, back and forth, there's no way for the alliance to survive, much less humanity. (This is also why the 8 who killed the humans on the raptor in the miniseries--and Gaeta, who killed her in turn--was not punished. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.)

I understand the problem with emotional versus logical impulses on this one. I think Lee was probably closest to spelling it out in this last episode, where he took advantage of the network that Tyrol pretty much magicked out of thin air but was still incredibly resentful at being put in this situation by Cylons in the first place. Because, when it comes down to it, that's what most humans believe: regardless of what they have done since the attacks, the Cylons attacked without mercy first. Emotionally resonant thinking and feeling, but almost assuredly wrong from a logical standpoint since the fact was the Cylons may have been provoked (if you follow that retcon). There's also the experiences of the Final Five which suggest Cylons were attacked thousands of years ago, possibly by the 13th colonists who left Earth and founded the colonies (in a total reversal of scripture which has the 13th tribe separating to go to Earth rather than leaving it).

However, all that is supposition and knowledge known only to a few and not necessarily provable. And humanity probably isn't interested in trying to acknowledge that maybe they had a hand in bringing about their own doom. They are capable of only looking that sort of truth in the face so much, you know?