The Official Battlestar Galactica Season 3 Live Thread (Est/Cst)

10/06/06 | Kevin Davis

[KevinDavis]

Well this is the live thread for Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica.. Basically for people who lives in the Eastern and Central times zones. There will be another thread for the Western Time Zone...

So say we all..

[af_vet_rr]

t's pretty clear the Cylons are a tad fascistic ~ and are very involved in only one god who is actually a gigantic robot coordinating machine.

Sounds like the Islamofascists to me.

Yep - When you hear the Cylons talking about rounding up people off the street and executing them at random to instill fear into them, and using fear to convert them to their god, the first thing that popped into my head was Islam.

Christians generally don't convert others at the tip of a sword these days - it's been centuries since that kind of stuff happened on a large scale.

Islamics on the other hand...

The truth is, the humans resisting in the show have things in common with humans throughout history, whether it was the Dutch resisting the Nazis or this or that tribe resisting the Romans (and plenty in both examples went on missions that were all but suicide in name) or whoever. The fact is, they have always tried to keep a contemporary feel to the show, and if people get their panties in a bunch that they are using modern events and terminology in a fictional setting, so be it.

In a way, if anything IMO, I felt that when Admiral Adama was addressing his son, telling him he had grown weak and soft, mentally and physically, when he should have been preparing, I felt like if there was any kind of commentary on the United States, that was it. The Cyclons definitely do not come across as Americans. If anything, if people see the Cylons as Americans, then we've lost our way. We don't round up people in the streets at random, we don't instill our religious beliefs using fear.

[muawiyah]

You won't?

I know a lot of Moslems, including missionaries. They talk about a lot of things including material that sounds suspiciously in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

[thoughtomator]

One thing that needs to be taken into account is that this being a fictional series, deliberate steps have been taken to obscure the who-represents-who. While it does bravely take on a lot of present-day controversies, it is not trying to be a mirror of the present day, it is trying to be a work of fiction. This deliberate obscuring of symbolism allows the show to appeal to broader audience, and thus make more money for its creators.

[muawiyah]

The show is being done against a backdrop of 30 to 40 centuries. YOu can expect anything you want.

[unspun]

Look if you wish in Islam for those specific terms and phrases, used by BG, not bastardizations of them.

[af_vet_rr]

Yes but the show is being done against the backdrop of the Iraq/Afghanistan conflicts. That's what makes it ambiguous....

I'll take a contemporary backdrop over the "last humans" running across pleasure planets in the 1970s Star Wars ripoff ;-)

[unspun]

money

Yes, money.

[af_vet_rr]

There is a very clear Islamic analogue to that - this is the Islamic treatment of "dhimmis" who have submitted (or been forced to submit) to Islam. Even the "nice" cylons' approach was not "live and let live", it was submit to us because we know what's best for you, combined with a murderous religious fanaticism.

There aren't too many things they could do to be more clear about it, aside from calling the cylons' god "Allah".

When the Dean Stockwell Cylon was talkiong about instilling fear to convert humans, and executing them at random to make them fear the Cyclons, he could have said "Allah" and it would not have seemed out of place at all.

[thoughtomator]

Iraq and Afghanistan are not the only conflicts going on in the world... the big picture is Islam vs. everyone else. When cylons capture prisoners, do they treat them like we do, or like Muslims do?

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

The leader of the humans is willing to store arms in a temple that the occupiers have respected as a place of religion. He is also willing to wage war near the sick and the injured and willing to send men off to commit suicide in battle.

The leaders of the Czech resistance based themselves in a church and fought to the death within its walls. The Doolittle raid over Tokyo was a suicide mission, as were many other commando raids -- Remember The Bridge over the river Kwai. Any battle that lasted over a day was waged near the sick and the injured. War is called Hell for a good reason.

[muawiyah]

You're talking about stuff in the hadiths and the Koran. No you don't find it there.

However, the nutballs have been in charge of Islam so long that people really aren't free to discuss the hadiths or the Koran, so what they do talk about in the eternal quest of all human beings to discover morality and salvation are principles and standards which are strictly extra-koranic.

That way you can find the correct path and not run afoul of some nutcase looking for people to kill for "insulting Islam".

The Islamic world is, at this time, a fruit ripe for the picking by whatever Christian groups can get there.

[thoughtomator]

When the Dean Stockwell Cylon was talkiong about instilling fear to convert humans, and executing them at random to make them fear the Cyclons, he could have said "Allah" and it would not have seemed out of place at all.

Exactly... and over the course of the series, that has consistently been the case.

I must confess, I own the entirety of the first two seasons of BSG on DVD, and I have read the Koran. So I have a pretty well-developed sense of what both are about, and it's stark raving clear to me that cylons represent Islam.

[KevinDavis]

Also, the wimpy President Baltar, is going to get his due..

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

To call Balthar 'wimpy' is to oversimplify his extremely complex and contemptible character.

[KevinDavis]

Well he is going to get his due.....

[unspun]

The Islamic world is, at this time, a fruit ripe for the picking by whatever Christian groups can get there.

Where there are hearts of flesh, instesd of stone, as anywhere else, yes. And in the Islamist world, one has to be courageous. God bless the courageous ones. Many of them suffer.

[KevinDavis]

Watching it again, it seems that Chief and Anders disagree with Colonel Tigh tatics....

[af_vet_rr]

Not only do Dean Stockwell's Cylon sounds like somebody pushing Islam onto non-willing subjects, the black ski-masked secret police seemed like they would be right at home on the Gaza Strip or West Bank....how many times have we seen Palestinians, etc, dressed in ski-masks terrorizing people...

[KevinDavis]

Exaclty.... I don't recall seeing our troops wearing ski masks...

[Hawk1976]

Good post.

That's what I was thinking. The cylons spouting off liberal nonsense while rounding up innocents. The Cylons engaging in mass-murder using nazi like tactics.

Tigh is even right in talking about the suicide mission, as much as I don't like it. A suicide mission is a suicide mission, whether you are strapped to a Viper or a bomb.