DPP: As Time Goes By

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Hey shippers, Today let's talk about the passage of time, shall we? Here's a link to the BSG wiki's rather elaborate estimated timeline of when things happen in the series. (I used this to come up with a Kara-centric timeline as well, which may be a bit easier to navigate/more relevant to our discussion today.) 

At the beginning and at the end

So I wanted to talk about time in relation to our fair pilots. We have certain perceptions on how long things took based on how long it took us as viewers to watch them unfold I think. For most of us, it seemed like there was a long time of pining, and dancing around each other and USTing it up before anyone made a move. Does it change things to know:

--it was actually less than two months from the miniseries to Colonial Day?
--it's seven months before they get all handsy and try to frak their problems away in Scar?
--Lee has been with Dee for roughly six months and Kara with Sam for roughly four months when they declare their love on New Caprica?
--that Kara and Sam have been married for roughly 9 months when Leoben captures her?
--it's 18 months between when they sleep together and when they finally make up at the dance?
--their affair lasts less than two weeks?

What do you make of this timeline? Things happen quickly and intensely in a time of war. But does it surprise you that pilots spend so little time together in comparison to how much they spend apart (including those two pre-mini years between funeral and the attacks?) Feel free to discuss...or fill in some of the gaps in the timeline. 

Comments

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

Is it weird to say that seeing the timeline laid out makes me sad? IDK, it DOES seem like so little time together. I guess the one that really surprises me is the timing of Scar. I know it's more than six months, but that seems like a long time for them to finally get all handsy. I mean, they were are war and completely crushed by the basic idea of living and surviving, but all that time without once getting frisky? IDK, given the way we talk about and think about pilots, that seems like a long time. Especially since they're drinking together (which I assume they did a lot) and I wonder why it hadn't happened so much earlier.

And then I realize it's a tv show and the timing seems rather arbitrary or loosely shown. In writing long fic, timelines are really tough to keep straight and to make meaningful. Showing the passage of time in a fic, at a minimum shown, is shown in just a few words and then our brains make the mental shift. In the show, everything seemed vastly shorter. I have a hard time getting my head around the 18 months on NC and don't even know why it was arbitrarily set at that length. And how long was the cylon occupation? A few months? Do you know how much time passed between the Exodus and the Dance?

Interesting topic!

[winegums.livejournal.com]

Pretty sure the Cylon occupation of New Caprica was 4 months, and it took 5 months between the Exodus and the Dance.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Wow seriously? FIVE MONTHS of pilots being on the same ship and mostly avoiding each other? That seems...ludicrous honestly. I assumed it was a few weeks between exodus and the dance. I have a hard time buying they could stay out of each other's faces (and uh, other parts) that long!

[winegums.livejournal.com]

I know, I just wish the the Dance had been sooner. Five months, it just makes me so sad :(

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

I just flat out think they're wrong there. HEE. I don't believe they could stay away from each other and just let it be for that long. Look how antsy Kara was after a month in The Captain's Hand. Hmm. I dunno. Then again...I have a hard time believing they never saw each other or interacted (aside from that one raptor phone call about medicine) for the nine months on New Caprica either.

[winegums.livejournal.com]

I think if she could stay away from him for a clear two years over siding with PapAdama and going off to Galactica, it's pretty easy to believe that they cut out of each other's lives completely after she declared her love for him and then married someone else. And then spend five more months unable to reconnect with him.

In The Captain's Hand, she stayed away for an entire MONTH because she shot him by accident and had no idea how to apologise, even though it was eating her up inside. And that wasn't even her fault! It took Lee getting sent after her, for them to finally patch up, otherwise who knows how long it would have gone on. UB, on the other hand....marrying Sam and effectively cutting Lee out of her life was something she chose to do, no wonder the estrangement was more serious and lasted longer.

It still feels so wrong, though, I am completely with you on that. Those must have been a VERY antsy five months!

[embolalia.livejournal.com]

I've always been alright with how long that took, mainly because Kara was in SUCH a dark place, all ptsd and self-loathing. She was so screwed up and completely unable to ask Lee for help after everything that had happened between them, and he was hardly about to go to her. I do wish he (or anyone, really) had noticed how damaged she was and done something earlier.

[winegums.livejournal.com]

It does make sense to me too, I just wish it hadn't taken that long for them to reconcile. I'm just furious sometimes that the show never really let Kara properly leave that dark place until her death/didn't allow her to deal with it and live.

[anamarya.livejournal.com]

yes, seems like a very long time if you think of things but then again 5 months pass rather quickly when you always have something urgent/important/etc to do.

only putting people on the remaining ships must of taken like forever. then again, maybe 5 it;s a little too much but i was thinking at least 3 - just look at Lee's change in shape. that kind of transformation takes time - he didn't just lost the weight but got back to THAT kind of a shape. and that, even with the G's from the Viper and all takes time.

hmm, now that I think of it, that's pretty much the aspect that made me think that they were months and months between the two events.

[workerbee73.livejournal.com]

What a cool topic!

--it was actually less than two months from the miniseries to Colonial Day?


I never realized that before but I can totally believe it. They were on a collison course from day one to hook up, so it was only a matter of (very short) time before all the flirting and the banter led to something more (of course this is BSG, so that 'more' had to happen in the worst possible way, yo. :P) And it's weird thinking about the so-called golden age of S1 pilots lasting for only 2 months or so.

[winegums.livejournal.com]

of course this is BSG, so that 'more' had to happen in the worst possible way, yo.

**sigh**

[winegums.livejournal.com]

Though I am chipping in late with this, I actually think we can make a very good case that the golden age of pilots did in fact last all the way up to just before Pegasus.

I mean, as of KLG through Home 1 they were estranged and discovered alternative love interests (more in Kara's case than Lee's, though Dee was interested by then) but they were still back to the pilots we knew and loved.....until Cain came along and everything went straight to hell - getting sent on assassinations, Lee being close to death and then having an existential crisis/pushing Kara away, then Kara pushing Lee away and getting more hung up on Anders than ever - none of that got BAD before they found another battlestar.

[winegums.livejournal.com]

The affair CAN'T have lasted only two weeks, do we have any idea how much time passed between Rapture and TAB?

I'm mainly asking because Kara's hands looked quite badly burned when her Raptor went down, but by TAB they're fully healed and she's back on duty. I mean, it took Lee a month to recover from his bullet wound between Sacrifice and The Captain's Hand, the show is usually pretty good about not healing injuries overnight or whatever.

(also, I wonder how long it took between UB and The Passage? Because neither pilot has a mark on their faces there, and they really did beat each other bloody)

[winegums.livejournal.com]

Also, timeline-wise, it's about 4 months from LDYB2 (not counting the jump-forward) to the UB flashbacks, 8 months from there to Kara getting captured. That lasts four months before the New Caprica rescue, and then it takes pilots FIVE MORE MONTHS to make up (going by the 17 months ago caption at the groundbreaking).

That just makes me so sad. :(

[workerbee73.livejournal.com]

But on a cracky sidenote, only five months for Lee to do his Get in Shape Girl thing. Impressive, no?

He must have low-carbed it. :P

/crack

[winegums.livejournal.com]

less than that, more like three months, lol.

[workerbee73.livejournal.com]

Definitely low carb then. ;)

[workerbee73.livejournal.com]

Also?

THIS bit kind of blows my mind:

2 days after that/1 month and 20 days after mini -- Kara sleeps with Baltar, steals the raider, goes to Caprica.

3 days after that/1 month and 23 days after mini -- Kara meets Sam

8 days after that/2 months and 1 day after mini -- Kara is shot/captured/taken to farm

1 day after that/2 months and 2 days after mini -- Kara heads back to Galactica.

3 days after that/2 months and 5 days after mini -- Tomb of Athena is found on Kobol. Kara stands on earth.

She only knew Sam for about a week? Geez. Talk about summer camp romance. (Sorry, K/S folks. I really do try and reign it in, I promise. *g*) But seriously, the amount of time she's on Caprica seems really short. This makes a lot more sense now that she wasn't able to handle Lee's response when she came back. I mean, it was total whiplash. Last time she saw him, which was two weeks ago, he was punching her and playing the slut card and then, the very next time she lays eyes on him he kisses her and within a few hours after that, he tell her he loves her. Wow. I'd have whiplash too.

[winegums.livejournal.com]

But then, all Kara's romances seem to proceed at super-quick pace (she was engaged to Zak after knowing him for what, a year?) and she came thisclose to frakking Lee the first night they met.

Also, our girl does have a tendency to get hung up on dead guys. She wasn't treating Sam like anything but a fun summer camp romance till Cylon Simon lied to her that he was dead, after she herself was stuck in a hospital bed and had nothing else to do. Cue Kara's tears.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad that was a deleted scene, because it made no sense/was way over the top. Helo being dead--absolutely? But Sam cueing tears and a scream of rage/frustration or whatever she does? I don't believe Kara would lose her shit like that no matter what she felt inside over some guy she just frakked.

Ugh I have to stop because the more I talk about the Sam/Kara thing, the more forced and over the top it feels and the more I abhor it.

[winegums.livejournal.com]

What was a deleted scene? I'm pretty sure she did start crying when she was stuck in the farm, it was right there in the episode.

But I didn't think it was a sudden indicator of ~feelings so much as Kara's guilt issues over dead guys coming up yet again (y'know, yet another guy dead because of her/where she could have prevented it), it makes NO SENSE otherwise.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Oh there's definitely a deleted/extended version where it's played a little differently I think. Like maybe it's a dream/much darker and menacing on Simon's part? It's been a while since I've seen, so I thought that was only deleted/extended and not in the actual episode.

[workerbee73.livejournal.com]

she was engaged to Zak after knowing him for what, a year?

This raises a very good question. We probably have no evidence one way or the other, but I'm curious what everyone thinks and why.

And I'd also make a distinction between sex and romance/love/kittens and rainbows whatever we're going to call it. Because I think Kara is a sex-first-ask-questions-later kind of girl. See Kara meet hot young thing. Boom. (And I totally love that about her precisely because it smashes all the virginal!heroine conventions and leaves them in a cloud of dust.) Girl just likes sex. And that's awesome. Good for her. But I think feelings come much later in the day for her if at all. So it doesn't really suprise me that she'd take that intial approach with both Sam and Lee (and basically anyone that struck her fancy.) Because hello? Hotness. I dont think that in either case (summer camp!Sam or table!Lee), she intended to start anything. It was all done on impulse.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

I agree. I think people have pointed out in the past that Kara forms attachments to people (or Sam and Zak anyway, and arguably Leoben and Kacey (whom the timeline said she only had for two days!)?) very quickly and that's a common trait among sufferers of abuse because they're just starved for love and approval. I have a tough time reconciling that with my own idea that Kara is actually quite a guarded person beneath her carefree/rebellious/don't-give-a-frak attitude.

[winegums.livejournal.com]

But in a way Sam, Kacey and even PapAdama are exceptions to the rule - she's guarded and uses her larger-than-life persona as a front with regular peeps, but with people whom she meets in circumstances where she is under extreme stress/helplessness (stuck to a hospital bed and told Sam is dead, held prisoner by a crazy Cylon for four months, meeting her lover's father right after his death in which she feels she played a hand).....the only exceptions to this seem to be Zak and Lee. Zak because we don't know HOW it started, and Lee because, well, we saw what happened when they met.

I think it's really that post-Zak's death Kara and pre-Zak's death Kara might have had very different responses to things like this. That's the only way I can make sense of it.

[workerbee73.livejournal.com]

people have pointed out in the past that Kara forms attachments to people (or Sam and Zak anyway, and arguably Leoben and Kacey (whom the timeline said she only had for two days!)?) very quickly and that's a common trait among sufferers of abuse because they're just starved for love and approval

**insert Lee Adama Eyebrow of Incredulity HERE**

Srsly? Well maybe she wants the love and approval, I don't doubt it, but it's so carefully buried. I'd parse that answer and say that really speaks to her loyalty more than anything else. She can become loyal fairly quickly, and her loyalty is, to a fault, pretty darn unshakeable. (Leoben is obvious an exception, and while she might feel attached, it ain't imo, b/c she lurves him. It's because he's telling her things no one else knows and then proceeds to kidnap her and engage in psychological warfare. As my grandmomma would say "innit he sweet?")

But enough of my Leoben love. *g* Loyalty aside, I don't think she really allows herself to feel much of the FEELINGS other than guilt, responsibility and anger. She has a really hard time letting go and just allowing herself to feel the good stuff (See that night on NuCap.) And it goes to all the self-doubt/self-worth issues which totally stem from her upbringing. But Kara has never struck me as one to wear her feelings (or her trauma) on her sleeve. She deals with both by burying them-- from others and often from herself as well.

[winegums.livejournal.com]

that really speaks to her loyalty more than anything else. She can become loyal fairly quickly, and her loyalty is, to a fault, pretty darn unshakeable.

YES. This makes SO MUCH SENSE, thank you bb! It's something I vaguely half-thought before, but you are so much better at stringing the idea into a sentence :)


Loyalty aside, I don't think she really allows herself to feel much of the FEELINGS other than guilt, responsibility (and the aforesaid loyalty). She has a really hard time letting go and just allowing herself to feel the good stuff (See that night on NuCap.)

Again, so much truth. She's very good at operating on instinct, but that's more for the physical stuff, when it comes to feelings she is so much more likely to go on lockdown/flip out when it's too big and scary and more than physical for her to deal.

[workerbee73.livejournal.com]

when it comes to feelings she is so much more likely to go on lockdown/flip out when it's too big and scary and more than physical for her to deal

I completely agree. And part of me almost wants to say that it's because she feels stuff so damn deeply. It's an incredibly scary proposition to allow herself to actually feel the feelings because of it. It's why I think she's scared to death to get involved with Lee, b/c allowing herself to feel would make her vulonerable and give another person power over her (and ironically, I think that very reason is exactly why he's so guarded around her.)

[winegums.livejournal.com]

And part of me almost wants to say that it's because she feels stuff so damn deeply. It's an incredibly scary proposition to allow herself to actually feel the feelings because of it.

This is exactly what I've always thought - that allowing herself to really feel, and letting someone in, is much more difficult for Kara than for most people. And the same goes for Lee when it comes to her, though he's much more able to lay it on the line when it comes to their feelings if he's really, really pushed to it, while Kara's response is to run away/deny deny deny, either right then or later (Scar, UB).

And I really think it's not just the idea of giving another person power over her that freaks her out when it comes to Lee, it's the fact that she can't take the idea of losing control, and risking the possibility of having and then losing him. I really think she thinks it'd be easier to never have him, that that would be more dealable than having him and then losing him (as could well happen since they're both soldiers and risk death every day). Which is why I think it's interesting that things don't actually come to a head between them until it looks like they have a reprieve from the fighting, and the war might actually be done.

[embolalia.livejournal.com]

sufferers of abuse

I tend to read her emotional responses as less a result of the abuse than her abandonment by her father. Abandonment tends to lead to a lot of distrust and unwillingness to rely on others - traits I see in Kara a lot. It doesn't mean she doesn't love people (though she may be more cautious about it) but I think it triggers her fear of losing them.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Maybe it was more that than the abuse? It's not one of my own theories, just something I've seen people discuss. I guess it makes sense. It's hard to reconcile all the different layers of Kara. ;)

[winegums.livejournal.com]

And I'd also make a distinction between sex and romance/love/kittens and rainbows whatever we're going to call it. Because I think Kara is a sex-first-ask-questions-later kind of girl.

Yes. Kara does operate on instinct quite a lot, the thinking usually comes later.

[anamarya.livejournal.com]

All I can say after this comment if AHAMZ. or OH, YEAH (if that;s mire appropriate).

[workerbee73.livejournal.com]

Either works just fine, bb. :)

**FISTBUMP**

[n-e-star.livejournal.com]

Okay, the season one timeline kind of makes sense, but after that it just makes my head hurt.

[anamarya.livejournal.com]

--their affair lasts less than two weeks?

well, you see THIS doesn't make any kind of sense. where are all the bruises? it took S1!Lee like an eternity with all the cuts and bruises and everything that happened then and they were clearly less serious than the damage from the Dance and then both of them are just in a great shape in less than 2 weeks? Seriously?

[winegums.livejournal.com]

exactly, which is why I think some time - at least a couple of weeks - must have passed between the Dance and The Passage.

And then even more between EoJ/Rapture and TAB, Kara's hands were badly burned and completely bandaged up but then in TAB the bandages are off? Hell, it took Lee an entire month to recover from his gunshot injury in Sacrifice, the show isn't so flippant about healing injuries magically overnight,

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Right, but at the beginning of TAB Kara says Lee's been avoiding her since they got off the algae planet. I guess you could count that as "affair" time if you wanted, but the dialogue establishes they weren't seeing each other. Lee says, "I told you I won't cheat on Dee, and after what she did for you, I'm disappointed you'd ask me to," or something along those lines (going from the Extended scene). I'd say it's pretty heavily implied that whatever they had ended in Rapture.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

No, I mean from The Passage to EOJ it's only two weeks--I think. I should double check though...

[anamarya.livejournal.com]

I mean from The Passage to EOJ

ok, now that I can believe.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Yeah timeline hints it's only 14 or 15 days between The Passage and EOJ.