DPP: Callsigns

[ninjamonkey73.livejournal.com]

OMG, you guys! I am made entirely of fail! Sorry I let yesterday slip away without a post.

Today, I'd like us to hypothesize about how Kara and Lee got their callsigns.

Many stories I've read have alluded to how one or both of our pilots got their callsigns. If you have a favorite callsign origin story, tell us about it- link to the story or summarize (credit the author, though, please!). Or, if you have an idea of your own (theory, story you'd like to write, etc) share it with us in the comments. Is Starbuck a reference to Moby Dick (heh, now I have a cracktastic idea)? Is Apollo really named after the sun god?

How did Kara and Lee get their callsigns when they were nuggets?

Comments

Just an excuse to show off Amaliak's epic Happy Days Icon. Woot!!!

[kag523.livejournal.com]

These are the explanations from my personal canon:

Starbuck: (fits with canon)
http://kag523.livejournal.com/17270.html

Apollo: (completely AU - last section of the chapter)
http://kag523.livejournal.com/121071.html

Re: Just an excuse to show off Amaliak's epic Happy Days Icon. Woot!!!

[wand3rlust.livejournal.com]

I was gonna point out your Starbuck explanation... but ya beat me to it. :) It's my favorite logical explanation for her.

Though generally I like to not think too hard about where either of them got their callsigns from.

Re: Just an excuse to show off Amaliak's epic Happy Days Icon. Woot!!!

[kag523.livejournal.com]

Hee hee! That's AWESOME! Thanks! :>D

Re: Just an excuse to show off Amaliak's epic Happy Days Icon. Woot!!!

[anamarya.livejournal.com]

I think that i told you when I read Officers Club that i found the explanation for Kara's callsign just fitting and very logical. at as far as it goes is probably the best fro what i read out there.

Re: Just an excuse to show off Amaliak's epic Happy Days Icon. Woot!!!

[kag523.livejournal.com]

Hey - thank you for this! :>)

Re: Just an excuse to show off Amaliak's epic Happy Days Icon. Woot!!!

[wand3rlust.livejournal.com]

damn you! that bloody song is stuck in my head now!

Re: Just an excuse to show off Amaliak's epic Happy Days Icon. Woot!!!

[kag523.livejournal.com]

I. LOVE. THIS. ICON!

And I don't care who frakking knows!

Re: Just an excuse to show off Amaliak's epic Happy Days Icon. Woot!!!

[anamarya.livejournal.com]

Well, the icon is really epic so why would you care? Or why would anybody mind that you are showing it of?

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Hee! Cracktastic though it may be, I actually like the Moby Dick connection. They have pythias and Apollos and All Along the Watchtowers, why not Captain Ahab somewhere in their literature as well? :)

In Moby Dick, Starbuck was the only officer with the guts and sense to point out all the problems and insanity in his captain's orders. He told Ahab to his face that he was going to get them all killed (in a phrase, "your plan sucks!") But at the end of the day he was loyal to the service and crazy enough to follow orders anyway, and he went down with his ship on an impossible mission.

In literature, Starbuck combined vocal insubordination with underlying loyalty, cool good sense with a fatalistic acceptance of death. I think it would be cool if those combinations of qualities got Kara her callsign - her instructors probably thought she seemed like the kind of person who would get herself killed on some crazy-ass impossible mission and be complaining about it all the way.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

I like Zarek's explanation in Bastille Day for Lee. Apollo, son of Zeus. Explains a lot about why he (maybe) finds it ill-fitting sometimes.

(I also like fanon's insistence that it's because he has "the body of a God." ;)

As for Starbuck...I don't really like to conjecture about it. I enjoy the mystery. (It's been fun in AU fic trying to fit the nickname in, whether she's a star Buccaneer (pro athlete) or a lumberjack champion! Hee.)

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

For Lee, I've seen a lot of people analyze the various facets of the god Apollo in mythology (god of war, of healing, of song, of truth, of prophecy, of the sun), and I've also seen a lot of people assume it was a reference either to his physique or to his father. I don't think the "reference to his Dad" theory makes much sense, given that Bill was nowhere near the highest ranks of the admiralty (he told Laura he'd given up on ever becoming an Admiral long ago - why would he be thought of as 'Zeus?'). But any of those other explanations could work.

Personally, I think if the callsign was some mythological reference, it might explain why Lee's uncomfortable with it. Lee's an atheist, and even minor little superstitions like his dad's "good luck lighter" seem to be something pushed on him rather than something he wants or needs for himself. He gets visibly impatient when people like Zarek try to analyze his character based on the mythic qualities of Apollo; he even seems a bit frustrated with Roslin's playful insistence on using the term to imply that he's some kind of paragon. He refers to his callsign as "a stupid nickname." I get the distinct impression he thinks it's pompous and a bit silly and doesn't particularly like it when people try to define him by it.

If I had my wish, I would give his callsign a different, non-mythological origin. I know they never really figured out Lee's backstory, but for a while there they conceived of him as someone who was heading toward test piloting. And in the miniseries when his Viper has been disabled in the middle of a massive firefight with the Cylons, Kara says "You broke your ship, Apollo!" and he answers "I've had worse, but thanks." I think it's interesting that - despite the fact that all his previous service in the military had been during peacetime - he had at some point found himself in a "worse" situation and a more badly damaged plane than the one he was in when Kara saved his life. I like to imagine that when he was training as a pilot something went terribly wrong with his plane, something that could have killed him, but that he survived it by doing something clever or lucky. I think this could have netted him both a godlike callsign (immortal - hard to kill) and an invitation to consider test piloting. *shrugs* Theories, theories :)

[ddt73.livejournal.com]

I could buy your theory about Apollo's callsign. He's gotten out of more than his fair share of scrapes, that we know about, so it's quite possible in the pass he's gotten out of tough situations then.

Well Lee doesn't like it when his callsign is like he's the son of Zeus, the son of the war hero.

[wand3rlust.livejournal.com]

ohhh interesting! This would also double up the guilt factor of Zak dying in a plane crash too! Girl... you sure know how to bring on the angst. ;)

[anamarya.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with you on the part about 'son of Zeus' thing. even if in the moment that Zarek made that comment it was kind of true, it wasn't at the moment that Lee got his callsign. But i like the rest of the things that Zarek says about the duality of Apollo as god of the hunt but also of healing. and that part in a strange way fits Lee's journey through the series as military officer and then in lets say public service. and it was very interesting that during Bastille Day in a way Lee was both part of the higher ranking military and political government. but in the same time probably has nothing to do with the origins of the 'stupid nickname'.

btw, your explanation about his callsign just became my favorite from what i managed to see out there. idk why but just makes sense for me right now because is based on canon. i read a number of other good explanations but they were usually AUish.

[kdbleu.livejournal.com]

I've always seen Lee as one of those people who was emintently capable, at least publicly. No matter how deep that water, he could figure out how to swim back to shore, yah know? So I always found the Apollo moniker and his discomfort really fitting because his persona is that of a young, able, go-getter, but inside he's filled with doubt and personal demons.

I too like the fact that Starbuck is almost nonsensical. It fits Kara because it comes across as both silly and dramatic. And I don't really think much about where it came from. It just sound like the sort of thing someone shouted one day in jest and it stuck. *shrug*