Daily Pilots Post

[dramaturgca.livejournal.com]

Two questions today:

1. What's your personal fanon for how Starbuck and Apollo got their callsigns? There's no official reason given in the show (I'm told Kara's is explained in one of the comics, which I have but haven't read yet, but having read most of the comics, I'm rather loathe to count them as any kind of canon) but there has to be a reason she came out Starbuck and he Apollo. (Because there were characters with those names in the original is NOT a valid reason)

2. What advice would you give to a person for whom BSG was her/his first "real" fandom? How would you explain fandom to a newbie?

Comments

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

The callsign question is an interesting one. I think the Zarek interpretation that "Apollo" is related to the god-like status of his father only really makes sense in the post-apocalyptic scenario. At that point Adama is in charge of the fleet and the last guardian of humanity, so it makes sense to equate him with Zeus. But would people have made that connection back when Lee was in the Academy and Adama was one near-retirement Commander among many? Adama had spent ten years washed out of the fleet, he got back into it due to his wife's connections, and he says that he had long ago given up any hope of rising to the rank of Admiral. He was a respected veteran, but nowhere near the top of any command structure. Why would people equate him with Zeus? His callsign was Husker ~ I would think that if fellow pilots wanted to give his son a nickname in homage to Adama, they would have tied Lee's callsign to 'Husker,' not 'Zeus.'

In short, I think whatever prompted 'Apollo' had more to do with Lee than with his father. I think it had to do with his attitude in school; I think he looked like a bit of a golden boy, but not really because of his family connection. He was strong in academics - BattleWiki says he graduated third in his class - and presumably textbook perfect in much of his professional demeanor. The association of Lee with 'by-the-book' accomplishments is more fanon than canon, but I think canon gives us a fair amount of support on this: Kara criticizes Lee's initial plan in 'Hand of God' as being textbook perfect, for example. In any case, he certainly rose to the rank of Captain very quickly, in part I think because he was a lot better at playing the rules game than Kara ever cared to be. He was the type of student that instructors wanted to hold up as an example for his peers. I think Lee still would have been uncomfortable with being put on a pedestal like that, even if it didn't have much to do with Adama.

Plus, come on, look at the man. You can't tell me his appearance had nothing to do with it.

For Kara, it's hard to say. As I recall, the character of Starbuck in 'Moby Dick' was the only one with the courage to stand up to a madman and try to convince him to renounce vengeance and focus on keeping his crew alive. Starbuck was willing to stand up to his superior officer and denounce Ahab's plans as crazy, and he fought to bring everyone under his command home safe. He failed and died in this effort, never going so far as to commit mutiny; never abandoning his post. He mixed loyalty with insubordination, reason with faith, courageous defiance with an ultimate resignation to destiny. I think overall the name has a lot of connotations for Kara. But I bet she got it in the Academy because she wasn't afraid to stand up to superior officers with her trademark "Your plan sucks" honesty.