Piloticians wish you a very happy Fourth of July!

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Hi everyone! Happy 4^th of July! I hope you’re all having a wonderful, relaxing weekend. I’m Rachel, and it’s my pleasure to be hosting the DPP this week. I'm jumping the gun a bit by posting a day early, but I didn't want the 4th to pass without a chance to honor our pilotician heroes :)  I’m planning on posting a discussion topic each day except for next Sunday, which I’d like to leave open so that people who are too busy to comment every day can still have time to read over the weekly developments and add their thoughts to earlier posts at the end of the week.  Sunday will also be an opportunity for all of you to start new conversations as the spirit moves you :) But till then, you’re stuck with me! BWA-HA-HA-HA.

Today’s post is a split-personality patriotic celebration, half silly and half serious.

 

Silly first:

                                  VS                         

 Be Smarter.  And Wronger.                                               Sometimes you gotta roll the hard six.
 VOTE APOLLO / STARBUCK                                                      VOTE ROSLIN / ADAMA
           148,000 B.C.E.                                                                         148,000 B.C.E.

Let’s imagine presidential competitions between our favorite characters. I think Apollo/Starbuck versus Roslin/Adama could be entertaining (imagine the Vice Presidential debates!), but feel free to run our pilots against each other, or alone, or in different pairs as you see fit. Give them political slogans, bumper stickers, campaign posters, party names and platforms, or write a little snippet of their speeches and debates. Have fun!

 

And if anyone is in a more contemplative mood…

On the Fourth of July it seems only natural to think about the men and women of the armed services. I would say that BSG in general provided a positive view of the military, and we’ve certainly discussed what our pilots’ individual roles and callsign personas meant to them. But I’m curious: what do you think the military itself meant to them? What did they value about the ethics and lifestyle of the service? What did they dislike about it? Were Kara and Lee’s views of the meaning of their work similar or different? To what extent was soldiery their true calling at any given time?  What aspects of their personalities, good and bad, did it develop, which might otherwise have gone unrealized? It’s interesting to me that the military seems to have been a second choice for both of them. They were each pressured to join from an early age by a domineering parent, though both apparently planned to make their own way pursuing other careers (Lee was a reservist, and Kara had dreams of professional pyramid). Looking back, what do you think they’d say about this ‘second choice,’ and how it ultimately shaped their lives and the lives of others? And, not to get into any real life controversies, but if you’d like to share, I’d be curious as to whether having Kara and Lee as your favorite characters affected the way you thought about the military at all?

 

Comments

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Well I think the writers were just tired/out of ideas honestly, but sure that sounds like a good rationale. ;)

I think most people, esp. those who had military experience, just thought it was kind of ridiculous that he could do more serving as an aide to a town council Quorum member (which is what he originally left to do, not actually be the Caprican delegate if I recall correctly) than being the CAG. Which is really hard to argue with.

[somethingusual.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the writers really seemed to drop the ball quite a bit later on. I just try my hardest to rationalise their decisions and oversights.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

It's too bad really, because the direction wasn't a bad one. Lee as President (for his whole ten minutes in Revelations) was fantastic. However all the leadup to it was not so much.

And seriously, Kara should have been (never kiled and) admiral.

[somethingusual.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, I have a little draft of a fic going where they never find earth, Kara becomes Admiral and Lee's president. One day I'll find a beta and finish it :P

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Heh, well I wrote my own (co-wrote with Bee actually) the very same premise, so I heartily approve. ;)

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Yes, I can see why people would have thought his career switch didn't make much sense, initially (though I think he was leaving to take up a position as a delegate, not an aide, from the start - in the brig scene, he says Zarek nominated him for the vacant Quorum spot, aka the Caprican rep). I think in reality it was a move the writers took because they felt they needed a new direction for Lee.

But I think the decision could actually make sense in context. Lee has just found out that the President is dying of cancer once again; her Vice President is Zarek, who is bad bad news, and no one else in the civilian governing structure has *any* knowledge of, relation to, or trust established with the Admiral or the military. In my opinion, Roslin's illness returned the civilian authority to the status of "disaster waiting to happen," and a breakdown between the military and civilian authorities could split the fleet once again. Lee had just been deeply involved in a trial dealing with the messy after-effects of the last time they had stood aside while an inexperienced and awful replacement for Roslin led the whole human race straight to hell. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I think a few months of meditating on the lessons of New Caprica convinced Lee that he needed to be in the government when it started to fall apart this time. And as events proved, it was a good thing he was.

I think they could have played a lot more with that in "Sine Qua Non" - but even as it was, neither Lampkin nor Lee seemed particularly surprised when he seemed to emerge as the best choice to take over.

[damao2010.livejournal.com]

Very interesting and original topics, Rachel. Unfortunately, I don't have enough time right now to really get into them, so let me juts say this now in response to your comment.

First, I think you make a very good point defending the reasons why Lee's decision to leave the military made sense. Although I've always thought a career in politics made sense for him and I loved President Lee, I confess I missed "Captain Apollo" a lot and I didn't like the way they decided to go in that direction. I have to agree with Taragel here: the direction was a good one, but the execution, not so much. Another example of poor writing. And what bothers me the most about it is that I had the impression the representatives to the Quorum were elected (they were a democracy, after all), so how could Zarek simply nominate him? Not very democratic, if you ask me. And Zarek of all people? The whole thing seemed rather contrived to me.

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

You make excellent points as usual :) I agree with you and Taragel that the "Lee entering politics" plotline was not well explained. I just don't think his decision to switch from military to civilian life at that juncture was out of character. There were good reasons for him to do it, they just weren't discussed onscreen. Sigh. I seem to make this kind of argument a lot about Lee's storylines, which kind of makes your point, doesn't it? :) And I think Taragel is absolutely right that the *really* out of character thing was for him to show so little attention to Kara for the first few months after her return. When your one true love miraculously returns from the dead, I think your honest reaction is to put your previous plans on hold :)

As for his being nominated rather than elected, I always thought that the previous Caprican representative resigned or became incapacitated, and that Lee was nominated to serve out the remainder of their term, the same way Roslin took over Adar's term. He would face an election eventually, at the same time as the other Quorum delegates. Zarek, as Vice President and head of the Quorum (like the American Vice President is technically the head of the Senate), seems like the logical person to have the authority to appoint mid-term replacements.

The confusing thing to me is why Zarek would have nominated Lee, of all people? He must have known that Lee would not be his puppet. This is pure speculation, but I think that once the news about Roslin's cancer got out, Zarek stepped up his plans to take over the government, which eventually ended in the mutiny. He was a realist and an astute judge of character, and he must have thought it unlikely that Admiral Adama would simply allow the presidency to pass to him once Roslin died. He expected to be cut out of power; to prevent that, he needed time to recruit allies. So he needed someone else to be the focus of Roslin's ire and attention while he made his behind-the-scenes plans. He knew Lee would make trouble for her, he knew she was furious with Lee and would expend a lot of energy battling with him. I think, in Zarek's mind, Lee's job was to make small-scale trouble and keep everyone occupied until he, Zarek, was ready to make his move. Then, of course, Lee would be the first against the wall when the revolution came :) Once in power, Zarek had no problem with shooting dissenters, as he later proved.

Once again a case where the characters' actions made potential sense, they just weren't explored.

[damao2010.livejournal.com]

I agree with you and Taragel when it comes to Kara. I could see him leaving the military but not keeping so little contact with her. Another example of poor writing, if you ask me.

As for the Quorum, I seem to recall an episode back in season 1 where someone informs Baltar that he had been chosen as the Caprican representative. He was kind of caught by surprise then, but I don't think he was nominated out of the blue. He was somehow chosen by the position. And yes, Roslin was serving the remainder of Adar's term, but she was next in line (after all the others died). And that was not the case with Lee.

You made a very convincing point regarding Zarec's intentions, though. Are you a lawyer (or a psychologist) by any chance? I'm always amazed by how you are able to figure out people's motives and explain the logic behind their behaviour. Kudos.

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Hee! No, neither lawyer nor psychologist, just a lowly grad student. I find fictional people and historical personalities much easier to analyze than living ones :) But I'm glad you liked the bit about Zarek. I think he was quite an interesting antagonist.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Oops you're right, that is when he becomes the rep. I feel like there was some confusion about what he was doing before that possibly but timelines are iffy as always on BSG.

I like your argument for it. But still the execution (to me anyway) felt kind of aimless. All those endless quorum scenes were soooo dull in the first half of s4, so I would've liked to have seen perhaps a different route to the presidency.

Although honestly, on a personal level, it just didn't make sense to me that Lee would go off in a different direction with Kara back. It actually invalidated Romo's whole argument for me and I felt like Lee learned nothing from that clearly, because here he was with this miraculous second chance...and he's like "OK I'll see ya later" and then they're never together again practically for all of S4.

I know it's because the writers were out of ideas of what to do with K/L and didn't really want them together or whatever anyway, but their motivations were showing and that made his departure make even less sense (and be of less interest) to me.

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty much in full agreement with all you say here. I think you're right that the most out of character thing was for Lee to leave Kara so soon after her return and to see so little of her for so long. Emotionally, it doesn't ring true. It's pretty inexcusable, from a storytelling perspective.

And although I think Lee's reasons for switching from the military to the civilian side of things could potentially have made sense, they just weren't explored onscreen. And yes, the Quorum stuff was dull, although I tended to like his direct confrontations with Roslin. The two of them were always interesting, especially when they were convinced that the other one's worldview was dangerous.

I can't actually sit through "Sine Qua Non" because I find the Romo hold-up scene so ridiculous. But I thought it was interesting that apparently Jamie Bamber argued vociferously for a chance to show that Lee knew exactly what he was doing when he put himself in position to take over for Roslin. Basically the writers said, "We can't portray him as back-stabbing and ambitious," to which Jamie said, "But he *is* ambitious, and it's not like he's doing this for an egomaniacal power trip, he's doing it because he knows his own worth and he thinks he can save the fleet by doing exactly this. Please, let me *want* this. Let me show why he cares about this." So in the final script they tried to compromise, but I don't think it came across very clearly. But I think Jamie had a point, that one of the things that storyline was missing was the sense that Lee saw the crisis coming and that he deliberately put himself in the place he thought he could do the most good, and that he thought the stakes were high enough to be worth fighting for.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Some days I'm seriously convinced that Jamie must have pissed in someone's cornflakes. >:(

The one thing I do like in Sine Qua Non (which fails in many ways for me) is that assessment of Romo's that Lee is more ambitious than he let on. "One could argue that Laura Roslin is a study in repressed ambition. Just like you, Mr. Adama. Never seeking out a job until it's handed to you? Flight leader, Battlestar Commander, Quorum Delegate... A man doesn't carve out a path like that through life without... "

It's interesting to me that Lee doesn't elucidate that ambition but seemingly sidles into things.

[damao2010.livejournal.com]

I love that line too.