Cylon Says: BSG – Daybreak Part Two

By Lisa Fary

Which came first: Bob Dylan or “All Along the Watchtower”?

We can’t have aliens, but we can have angels and intelligent design? Gotcha.

No. Sorry. Don’t gotcha.

I totally reject the theory of intelligent design.  It has no place in our science classes and has no place in my science fiction (because that’s what BSG is, you know. Science fiction). Adding a little “150,000 years later” tag doesn’t change the fact that BSG is talking about intelligent design, and with the subtlety of a meat tenderizer to the head.

If you believe in intelligent design, sorry. I don’t agree with you, and I’d better not hear you propping BSG up as some sort of evidence that it should be taught in public schools. I will picket you.

I also don’t accept Luddites. It’s the natural state of humans to create and to build. We started with simple tools and have worked our way up to the iPhone and G1, which are just as much a part of human evolution as they are a part of technological advancement. Throwing all of that away isn’t going to reboot the species.

Yeah. I’m talking to you, Apollo.

Apollo? What the hell? He’s been all about politics and the voice of the people this whole time and then he makes a decree like this: “We shall throw our ships into the sun and all go camping! Forever!”

If I were thrown into the wild with nothing but a bag and the clothes I was wearing, I would have no idea what to do. I don’t know how to hunt. I don’t know how to make a fire that doesn’t involve a lighter or dinner. I’d be dead in three days. And Apollo wants to throw me out there with the hopes that I’ll have a party with the natives?

Speaking of which, while I noticed the addition of a couple of black red shirts, I cringed at the implications of the technologically advanced white race landing in Africa and intermingling with a pre-verbal society.  Maybe that cultural algebra is the reason why RDM and friends chose to have the ragtag fleet spread out and throw their tech into the sun.

Although, it might have been awesome if the fleet arrived and it was 1980.  Or if the fleet landed in the Jurassic era and there were dinosaurs!

It would be just as believable as Starbuck being an angel and vanishing.

Is it just me, or was Apollo way too mellow about that? He saw that she was gone and said,

“You’ll be remembered. I shall wrangle this planet’s coffee and name it for you.”

Really? Sure, Apollo has seen a lot, but vanishing people? In a culture that doesn’t include transporter technology? He was pretty nonchalant about Starbuck’s disappearance. About as nonchalant as he was toward Dualla’s suicide.

Heey. . . .

I think Apollo might have some emotional issues.

But, no. I’m supposed to buy Starbuck as an angel. Not the harbinger of death. Not an alien. Not a Being of Light. Not a bastard human-Cylon hybrid. An angel. Presumably of God.

Here’s the thing: I can buy angels in something like Supernatural. A precedent has already been set for that. There have been demons in that mythology for years, so despite whatever Ben Englund may have said, the existence of demons in Supernatural makes it easier to accept the existence of angels.

In a mythos which has consistently pushed man and machine and the non-existence of life other than man and machine, it’s kinda hard to accept angels.

Now that I’ve addressed these annoying aspects, let’s look at the episode itself.  Did RDM and friends learn nothing from Return of the King? “Daybreak 2” had like sixteen endings and all that was missing was a homoerotic bed-jumping scene.

Ending with the abandoned fleet flying into the sun would have been appropriate. Ending with Admiral Adama by Roslin’s grave would have been appropriate. Ending with the remaining colonists marching into the wilds would have been appropriate.

But, no. We had to end with In-Head-Six and In-Head-Baltar looking over RDM’s shoulder as he looked at a copy of National Geographic, talking about how similar to the colonies this civilization has become.

First, I love my G1, OK? Unless, of course, my G1 becomes self-aware and kills me in my sleep. Considering mine is a first generation G1, I don’t think that’s on the horizon this year.

Second, what the hell, RDM? When did you become M. Night Shyamalan?

Lastly, if no one could see In-Head-Six and In-Head-Baltar other than Baltar and Caprica Six, why are they floating around New York like the angels in Wings of Desire, commentating on humanity? Are you saying that Baltar’s in-head Six was an angel all this time? If so, why wasn’t Starbuck with them? She was an angel. You guys said so.

And another thing! Isn’t anyone worried about Hera being non-verbal? A child that age should, at the very least, be speaking phrases, if not complete sentences by now. I’m really uncomfortable with that being the ancestor of humanity.

There was one thing about “Daybreak Part 2” that I thought was well done and brought tears to my eyes: Admiral Adama and Laura Roslin. Their story is the only one I felt got its due and showed our capacity for love.  I will have more to say about that, and the rest, after I’ve digested this further.

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Lisa Fary’s early exposure to classic Battlestar Galactica in 1979 is largely responsible for her lifelong interest in science fiction and her childhood ambition of being an intergalactic space cowgirl. She thinks diagramming sentences is a fun alternative to Sudoku.

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