Battlestar Galactica: Season Four

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yeah, that's a view I've seen. Gaeta and Zarek MAY JUST BE right deep down, but the manner in which they've gone about it is bad (and Zarek is just really looking for power). I mean the Cylons destroyed the colonies by infiltrating their systems, so putting Cylon tech on the ships is a bit... well, peculiar. Roslin & Adama have a point that without working with the rebel Cylons, humanity will die, but I can understand the views of Gaeta and his group.

Its kind of another switch by the creators of BSG... the "bad guys" may be right deep down while the "good guys" may be wrong. One of the reasons I love this show.

Hell, you could easily see a different type of show showing things from Gaeta's side and making him look like the hero in facing the domineering captain, who isn't thinking through things, and the Dictator-wannabee President, who decided to check out.

[Whoha]

Gaeta's point of view makes even more sense if you watch the webisodes. Enough so that if he were doing this for himself and not Zarek that I'd be sympathetic.

[Solver]

While I can understand Gaeta somewhat, I don't sympathize with Zarek at all. Zarek just wants power, wants to be President and wants to be sure that Adama isn't stronger than his civilian government. Zarek hasn't even actively fought the Cylons. And yeah, the episodes are nice for some of the backstory of Gaeta's motives.

[Sprayber]

What alternative have Gaeta advocated? So far his protests have been negative reactions not constructive criticisms. He hasn't presented an alternative to the Cylon alliance or anything else. Is he supposed to make a better commander of Galactica? Does he think Zarek will lead them anywhere?

So far, I can only see people using this as an opportunity to settle scores.

Great television though. Rarely does TV leave me pissed off or invoke reactions like this series has.

[Imran Siddiqui]

While I can understand Gaeta somewhat, I don't sympathize with Zarek at all. Zarek just wants power, wants to be President and wants to be sure that Adama isn't stronger than his civilian government. Zarek hasn't even actively fought the Cylons. And yeah, the episodes are nice for some of the backstory of Gaeta's motives.

Exactly. Zarek is just power hungry and is good at using emotion to get what he wants (he was brilliant it getting Lee off Colonial One).

The webisodes do definitely go further into Gaeta's loathing for the Cylons.

[Solver]

It's really remarkable how the Cylon-hating attitudes can extend even to the Final Five. Like Lee snapping at Tigh or Gaeta loathing Tigh in this episode, even though it's obvious that they have always been a great asset for humanity.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Hey, they even extend to Starbuck, though no one knows what she really is .

[Solver]

Who cares? She's frakking great!

[Whoha]

What alternative have Gaeta advocated? So far his protests have been negative reactions not constructive criticisms. He hasn't presented an alternative to the Cylon alliance or anything else. Is he supposed to make a better commander of Galactica? Does he think Zarek will lead them anywhere?

So far, I can only see people using this as an opportunity to settle scores.

Great television though. Rarely does TV leave me pissed off or invoke reactions like this series has.

He advocates not trusting the Cylons, other then that yea Zarek is the wrong guy to listen to so its going to end in failure.

[OzzyKP]

Well the quorum voted fairly convincingly not to allow the Cylon tech on ships that didn't want it. So whatever you think of the merits of the Cylon alliance, the governing structure seems to have made a decision. Either you support the workings of the democratic government as established (Gaeta) or you admit that the democracy is mostly a sham and Adama just does whatever he wants.

It is a shame this point wasn't emphasized more in the episode and it was cast more as a rebellion of anti-Cylon bigots vs. the right-thinking main cast.

[Imran Siddiqui]

OTOH, just about every reviewer makes the point that Gaeta and Zarek are on the "right" side (democracy, not trusting the Cylons), so maybe it wasn't something that they needed to beat over our heads with.

[Whoha]

That raises the question of whether or not they should have a Democracy at all, and further if they do, then what type? A fleet wide Democracy as per the New Caprica settlement decision? Or an individual ship Democracy where the Refinery, Food Processor, and Galactica can all exercise hydraulic despotism on the other ships, such as when Zarek convinced the refinery to jump away from the fleet.

[Solver]

It's obvious that in such a situation a democracy only exists as long as the military allows it ad is willing to tolerate the civilian government, and this is a point they have raised on the show. Adama has shown that he's willing to completely ignore the government if Zarek runs it, which is also something that had happened. It's worth nothing that the President of the Colonies really has a lot of powers apparently, more than the real-life US President, even if there are definite similarities between the US government and the Colonial one.

[Kuciwalker]

Given the purge that has to happen, how are they going to find enough crew and marines to maintain the ship and maintain order?

[Dinner]

There aren't really that many left.

If they don't find the real Earth (and that seems unlikely) then I suspect the few survivors with the few surviving cylon rebels will settle on some planet (after a big show down with the non-rebel cylons) and start a new human-cylon hybrid culture. After all they did say Starbuck would lead the human race to its end.