Chaos erupted among the moironteau. The predatory discipline organizing the creatures broke down in the face of thirty quarry. Moironteau lunged and slashed, footheads choming wildly at the darting green Parrics flying to and fro. Those hanging above dropped into the fray, the lure of the chase too tempting to resist. The carefully-constructed trap collapsed into itself.
"Stupiding otherwhereians," muttered Parric from his coiled position in the middle of it all. "All muscle, no finessing."
A simulacrum found itself amid a cluster of three moironteau. It hesitated a moment, seeking a way out, and that was all opening the moironteau needed to crush it under foothead. When the baffled creature lifted its leg, however, all that remained was a single muddy featherscale.
Another simulacrums flashed past overhead, a loping moironteau in feverish pursuit. Two massive footheads slamed into the mud on either side of Parric in passing, the creature taking no notice of the real quarry.
The simulacrum flew head-long toward one of its twins, also pursued by a moironteau. An instant before colliding, the fake Parrics veered off at right angles to each other. The moironteau had no chance to stop, blundering into each other with a bone-jarring impact. And some bones were indeed jarred--the creatures lay where they fell, hooning piteously as they tried to lift themselves with shattered footheads.
Parric watched with satisfaction. The simulacrums may be insubstantial, but they flew better than he could ever dream.
He reached into one of his buldging pouches, pulling out a fat metallic cylinder. He launched himself into the air, holding the cylinder with the fingers on his second wings.
The way above now open, Parric made for the heavy cloudbank. He flew vertical, his wings a whining blur. Icy rain stung his face, rolling away off his featherscales as he climbed. Parric labored against gravity, the dead weight of Flavius MacDuff and loss of his second wing pair growing more and more difficult to ignore. If he could just reach the clouds before any moironteau noticed his escape--
An outraged bellow thundered from below. He'd been spotted.
A moironteau'd abandoned its prusuit of a simulacrum and thrown itself into the air, biting into the dimensional fabric of reality to pull itself higher.
The moironteau gained quickly. Parric no longer had the strength to fly vertically. Instead he'd slipped into a shallow spiral, gaining altitude incrimentally.
A second moironteau joined the chase.
The cloud cover loomed close. But not close enough. He'd never make it.
Parric glanced down. The pursuing moironteau were directly below him. Beyond them, the drama continued to play out on the ground. Significantly fewer simulacrums flashed through the air, but they'd done a good job of keeping the majority moironteau occupied. Of keeping them together. Of keeping them herded.
With a free finger, Parric pulled the pin from the cylinder and dropped it. The cylinder fell a few yards, glancing off the back of the closest moironteau before tumbling on. The second moironteau struck quickly, a foothead lashing out to gulp it down whole.
The moironteau took another step then stopped abruptly. The foothead that'd swallowed the cylinder writhed in agony. Whisps of yellow-green smoke escaped between its gnashing teeth. With a coarse moan, it vomited up the cylinder amid a cloud of the sickly smoke. Its footheads convulsed, and the moironteau lost its hold. It plummeted from the sky. The cylinder tumbled after, spewing great gouts of yellow-green smoke in its wake.
The smoke bomb landed in the middle of the massed moironteau. The cloud expanded at a startling rate, rolling over the moironteau even as more smoke drifted down from above. The simulacrums reverted to featherscales wherever the smoke touched them. The moironteau staggered from the smoke, flailing in agony, coughing up streams of purple blood through their dorsal vents.
"A little souveniring from your home cosm," Parric called down. "I'm thinking you might be homesicking, maybe."
The remaining moironteau in pursuit lunged up. Parric barely dodged in time. He could no longer climb. He was struggling to even maintain altitude. The moironteau would have him in moments.
In desperation, Parric cast about for the nearest Nexial gap. He found it instantly--the first one he'd attempted to Craft a Wedging for. The Wedging itself was still hanging over the gap, invisible and intangible, waiting for Parric to will it into action. Parric also found the second gap he'd tried for, and close by was the dimensional pocket he'd tried to hide in, still holding the unfortunate moironteau thrashing witin.
Parric's antennae sprang erect at the opportunity. Flavius, of course, would hate the plan that'd appeared, fully-formed, into Parric's mind. But hating Parric's plans was Flavius in a nutshell.
"Seeing you shortly," Parric said, then flung Flavius out into open air.
Parric's second wings flew into action. He cut back on the pursuing moironteau and shot past it before the creature could react. The moironteau froze with confusion, unable to decide which to pursue.
Down Parric dove, straight at the convulsing dimensional pocket, Crafting as he went. A sudden, horrific thought struck him--what if the trapped moironteau freed itself before Parric reached it?
Parric plunged through the insubstantial space of the dimensional pocket. Air seemed to turn to syrup around him, the thick folds of reality collapsing around him as he gathered it to him. For an instant it seemed he would freeze in place, then he was out the other side, banking up and about, speed undiminished.
Ahead, the tiny figure of Flavius tumbled helplessly as he fell earthward.
Parric wasn't sure if the curses he heard were actually coming from the distant figure or merely memories of past tirades. Not that it mattered all that much. Either gravity in this cosm was stronger than Parric'd estimated, or he'd been way off in his altitude assumption. Either way, Flavius was much closer to the ground than was entirely healthy.
Parric threw back his antennae and forced more speed from his overtaxed wings.
Flavius grew larger. Corpses of English soldiers flashed below as streaks of crimson. Raindrops hung in midair as Parric hurled past them. Flavius turned his face toward Parric, his wide eyes filled with equal measures of terror and hatred.
Mere feet from a messy impact, Parric plucked Flavius out of the air. Triggering the waiting Wedging, Parric and Flavius shot through the open gap, leaving not a trace of their passing behind.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
MEMORY: 10
Apologies for the shameful delay on this installment. No excuses, just life and a deplorable lack of discipline on my part. I'll try to do better in the coming weeks.
Continued
“Call the human flesh search engines!”
How's that for a chilling cry of a virtual mob?
Calling out someone who they have deemed an enemy (in this case, a Chinese student at Duke who tried to get Free Tibet demonstrators and Chinese loyalist demonstrators to talk to each other when she found them facing each other down outside the cafeteria), and collaborating to collect and post every bit of personal information they can find about her, as a the initial act of retribution.
NYT: "Chinese Student in U.S. Is Caught in Confrontation"
With this background, one doesn't need to be able to read the language to get the gist of what's going being done on this Chinese board.
Speaking from experience, the anonymity of the Web and the corresponding lack of personal accountability (and even attribution) enable the worst kind of vindictive mob behavior and groundless personal attacks. No fear of the future? I'm not so sure when I see things like this.
Calling out someone who they have deemed an enemy (in this case, a Chinese student at Duke who tried to get Free Tibet demonstrators and Chinese loyalist demonstrators to talk to each other when she found them facing each other down outside the cafeteria), and collaborating to collect and post every bit of personal information they can find about her, as a the initial act of retribution.
NYT: "Chinese Student in U.S. Is Caught in Confrontation"
With this background, one doesn't need to be able to read the language to get the gist of what's going being done on this Chinese board.
Speaking from experience, the anonymity of the Web and the corresponding lack of personal accountability (and even attribution) enable the worst kind of vindictive mob behavior and groundless personal attacks. No fear of the future? I'm not so sure when I see things like this.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Tokyo's Shiny Catacombs
Via Paul Williams at the JGB list, the amazing underground photography of Joe Nishizawa.
An enormous underground tunnel that runs through 40metres under the Hibiya Junction Tokyo or an underground dome that lies 500metres below deep in the mountains of Gunma…? In Japan unimaginably large spaces underneath our ground level lives exist. Even beyond the high walls of nuclear power stations, incineration plants or energy research organizations futuristic cities that we thought only to exist in science fiction movies unfold - not far from your neighbourhood. I talked to Joe Nishizawa who photographed such hyper-surreal dimensions in Japan and just published a book Deep Inside.
Written by Kaori Nishida
All images © JOE NISHIZAWA
Nishizawa-san, flipping through the pages of your book “Deep Inside” one gets sucked into this technical-magic-wonderland. I can’t believe that those places actually look like that - better than any CG setting I have ever seen. Bladerunner would simply be jealous! Even the lighting is perfect in pink and green!
Oh no, absolutely no computer graphics involved in these photos. That’s essentially what those places look like - for example one right below Hibiya Junction.
Lightings and everything is just captured as it was there - I didn’t even use a flash light! It’s magic: you first hear the car noises on the ground level and as you descend slowly, suddenly, this vast and silent space unfolds in front of you.
For the full treatment, Nishizawa's book Deep Inside is available at Amazon Japan.
For an American analogue, check out Taryn Simon's amazing An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
The movie version
On September 11, 2001, I had lunch with a one of my cyberpunk elders. Trading notes on our real-time observations regarding that morning's unfolding CNN apocalypse and its making real of so many of our collective fictional imaginings, I remarked something along the lines of...
"On a day like this I wish Charlton Heston were my president."
...playing on the NRA bumper sticker slogan and endeavoring to repurpose its metatextual frisson.
The cyberpunk was not buying it. Having a decade on me, and being a committed futurist, he was of a generation and mindset such that the very idea of Charlton Heston reeked of pulp-era anachronism and square-jawed retardation.
Of course he was right. But so was I. Heston, through the aggregated avatar of his iconic characters, represented (for me) my gullible youth's ideal of the can-do American lone action hero who solves our disasters with Randian resolve. A Yanqui-Hegelian everyman übermensch who resurrects lost virtue and dons the cloak of reluctant Paladin when the circumstances of the World Gone Mad finally compel it. The Ronin of bourgeois Anglo-Saxon values stranded in exaggerated versions of our entropic dystopia who keeps fighting the fight of his fathers despite its self-evident futility. The string of back to back post-pulp epics -- Planet of The Apes, The Omega Man, Soylent Green, Airport '75, Earthquake -- in which the last upper middle class white dude puts his fist in the dyke of Götterdämmerung. Watching our bumbling President in those early days, my inner adolescent wished the frat boy fuhrer had some of those action man genes working through his system.
Of course, by the end of that week, W. had done just that, and was barking into the megaphone at Ground Zero, and before long he was in the flight suit that inspired a line of custom action figures. And look what that got us.
A persistent theme of life during GWOT-time has been the failure of reality to live up to the action hero narrative that wrapped our national self-image throughout the post-WWII era. The Schwarzeneggerian political semiotics that worked so well in the Reagan era started blowing gaskets when the new generation of political actors, weaned on war movies rather than actual combat in actual wars, seemed to believe that if you mouthed the lines you could make the movie come real. Actual White House spin doctors declared their ability to create their own reality with all the power of a disaster movie production designer. Easy to believe among those who thought they had defeated the Soviets with cathode rays and post-Churchillian rhetoric. But, as they learned, the power to spoon-feed corporate media only gets you so far.
You could hear the cultural gears grinding as the Hurricane Katrina disaster played out, and confused television watchers realized the closest thing to Hestonian figures were the upper middle class Dads from Uptown who loaded their family in the SUV and relocated to a comfortable hotel in Houston. The bounty hunt for the evil villain Osama has degenerated into a "Where's Waldo" self-parody. And when patriotic NFL star turned volunteer Ranger Pat Tillman got fragged by his own troops, the big brass pulled out all the stops to rewrite the public narrative to better fit the Bruckheimer Paradigm. (And of course, the saddest self-parody of all was the aged Heston spouting echoes of his own movie lines at NRA conventions for the cameras of Michael Moore.) Ad man spin doctoring works fine in political campaigns and the manipulation of domestic public opinion, but it's not so good at impacting actual tactile reality. As President Heston didn't say, well-manipulated news narratives don't kill people, guns, bombs and natural disasters do.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that in the week of Heston's death I have seen my cynical thematic arc come full circle with the flurry of reports about the making of an actual movie about the crew that practices geopolitics as a Beltway variation on the Hollywood pitch session. Oliver Stone's W. is in production, with an ambitious goal of release in time for the elections. President Josh Brolin drinking his non-alcoholic beers in the shadow of Poppy James Cromwell, fresh from a similarly spooky paternal turn as Jack Bauer's geopolitically corrupted dad in the last season of 24. The Welsh Mr. Fantastic as Tony Blair. And Thandie Newton as Condi!
The first few pages of an October 2007 version of the script appeared online just the other day:
INT. WHITE HOUSE - OVAL OFFICE - DAY- JAN. 2002
ON CHIEF PRESIDENTIAL SPEECHWRITER, boyish, 40's, talking to 2ND SPEECHWRITER.
CHIEF SPEECH WRITER
"Axis of Hatred?" I don't know. Something about it... just misses.
Seated around the table, Bush and his inner circle: VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY, KARL ROVE, fifties, pudgy; CONDI RICE, her assistant, STEPHEN HADLEY, bespectacled, late 40's.
ROVE
(pipes up) Well, then what about "Axis of the unbearably odious?"
Bush, intent. Scowls at him.
BUSH
Don't get cute, Tudrblossom. (nickname for Rove) This is serious.
CHIEF SPEECHWRITER
What about... "Axis of Evil?"
Bush thinks for a moment.
BUSH
"Axis of Evil." I like the ring of that. That's it.
RICE
But Mr. President, how are we going to tie them all together? It's not like they're Germany, Italy and Japan--who were on the same side.
HADLEY
Yeah, they're not aligned with each other.
ROVE
Who gives a shit? It plays.
BUSH
They may not be aligned. But they're threats to our security. Iran and Iraq is trouble next door to trouble. And they have to know that this President is telling them that they've got a problem. With us.
RICE
Still, I think the Iranian people could take offense in being lumped together with the Iraqis and North Koreans. After all, they have a president who was democratically elected.
HADLEY
(nods agreement)
Could send the wrong message to the democracy movement, sir.
BUSH
No, Hads, you don't get it. Khatami along with the students, the reformers, they'll understand. They want Freedom. It'll give legitimacy to their struggle against the hardliners, the deadenders, the Ayatollah Cockamamies. Iran stay in.
Rove opens a bottle of non-alcoholic beer for the President. Cheney finally chimes in.
CHENEY
Anyone can go to Baghdad. Real men go to Tehran.
Bush smirks, clinks beer bottle with Cheney's coffee mug.
BUSH
Real men.
CUT TO:
INT. DKE FRAT HOUSE- BASEMENT- NIGHT- 1966
Genius high concept: equal parts Animal House, Nixon, and JFK.
Yet to be cast: Cheney, Rummy, and Rove. Suggestions?
What would happen if they let the real W. choose the songs for the soundtrack? That would rock.
[All Heston stills from Earthquake (1974)]
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
The Day the Earth Stood Still... in vomit
Ain't It Cool News used to be great when they focused on early script reviews and productions rumors. Now, they're mostly a sycophantic Hollywood hanger-on, with writers competing to see how many F-bombs and penis jokes they can shoehorn into a slap-dash "review." Occasionally, however, they revisit the glory of yesteryear with beyond-the-horizon looks at forthcoming films. Case in point: Their current script review of the upcoming remake of "The Day the Earth Stood Still."
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/36336
If even half of this is true, the film will be far, far more awful than any of us ever imagined. And I, for one, imagined it being pretty bad solely based on Keanu's participation. Dear lord, save us from mass-market corporate lobotomies.
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/36336
If even half of this is true, the film will be far, far more awful than any of us ever imagined. And I, for one, imagined it being pretty bad solely based on Keanu's participation. Dear lord, save us from mass-market corporate lobotomies.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
The Le Carré Spam
Fresh from the inbox. It makes total sense that these guys would contact me about this.
Greetings I am Barrister Geoffrey George Kenshore, a solicitor at law. I am the personal Attorney to Late Mr. Alexander Litvinenko, A Russian ex-Spy in London who was poisoned with polonium-210 and died on the 23rd of November 2006 at the University College Hospital here in Central London. Before his death my client made a secret and confidential confession to me that he was poisoned by his Russian Associates. Two weeks before his death my client handed to me a portfolio which contains some deposit documents with security code numbers of a deposit worth of Ј5,500,000,00 British Pounds in a security firm which i cannot disclose to you now. As his personal Attorney i believe that his associates will be coming after me because my client never told me why they poisoned him rather in his confession he told me not to disclose the portfolio to his associates or any one in the family and that i should be very careful, since his death i have not been myself that is why i contacted you to assist me as a Foreigner,First to claim this funds in which i will give you the security codes and every legal backing documents to claim the funds for investment purpose at which i will give you 40% of this funds for your assistance and also invest with you in your country, I assure you that there is no risk in this transaction and there will be no trace of the transfer. Thank you. Barr,Geoffrey George Kenshore. Regent Chambers LLC London.
Greetings I am Barrister Geoffrey George Kenshore, a solicitor at law. I am the personal Attorney to Late Mr. Alexander Litvinenko, A Russian ex-Spy in London who was poisoned with polonium-210 and died on the 23rd of November 2006 at the University College Hospital here in Central London. Before his death my client made a secret and confidential confession to me that he was poisoned by his Russian Associates. Two weeks before his death my client handed to me a portfolio which contains some deposit documents with security code numbers of a deposit worth of Ј5,500,000,00 British Pounds in a security firm which i cannot disclose to you now. As his personal Attorney i believe that his associates will be coming after me because my client never told me why they poisoned him rather in his confession he told me not to disclose the portfolio to his associates or any one in the family and that i should be very careful, since his death i have not been myself that is why i contacted you to assist me as a Foreigner,First to claim this funds in which i will give you the security codes and every legal backing documents to claim the funds for investment purpose at which i will give you 40% of this funds for your assistance and also invest with you in your country, I assure you that there is no risk in this transaction and there will be no trace of the transfer. Thank you. Barr,Geoffrey George Kenshore. Regent Chambers LLC London.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Battlestar returns
So I missed the season premier of Battlestar Galactica on Friday night (we were at a dance performance at Texas State--the experience clarified the understanding that we enjoy jazz dance quite a bit, modern dance not so much). Since Galactica jumped the tracks so badly last season, and showrunner Ron Moore's comments in the interim seem to indicate that he doesn't grasp this simple fact, I've not held out much hope of the series "sticking the landing," as it were, in this final season. As I sat down last night to finish up the latest installment of "Memory," my brother calls from the living room that Galactica is coming on. Well, crap. Like the siren songs of old, I can't help but abandon my best-laid plans and flit in there like a moth to the flame.
So, did it suck? Did it not suck? That's hard to say. There was no spectacularly obvious mid-course correction to the series that makes everything awesome again. Neither was there anything as awful as that "Along the Watchtower" singalong last season. Mainly, things remained status quo, which isn't a good thing.
Apollo remains a spineless wuss. Last season, after resigning his commission in a pissy fit, he backtracked and hopped in a Viper five minutes later when the Cylons attacked. Way to stick with your convictions, dude. Now, in the newest episode, Papa Adama gets all mushy and offers him his commission back. Because Adama's all about bending the rules, you know. Apollo rejects this offer, instead deciding to enter the civil service, where he can do more good. You know, at least until he hops into another Viper the next time the Cylons attack. Throughout the series, Apollo has been the most ill-written, inconsistent character bar none, and that doesn't look to change any time soon.
The so-called "Final Five" Cylons (minus one) had another group hug, declared to each other that they'd never do anything to harm the Galactica and that they were loyal to humans. Yet if they're so loyal, why did none of them suggest they turn themselves in? After all, Boomer eventually made out okay with that "proof of loyalty" gambit. Instead, they opt for a cover-up. And really, the whole Final Five thread has half-assed written all over it. Between seasons 2 and 3 Ron Moore gave an interview stating that all the active Cylon models had been revealed, that the remaining five had been "Boxed," and we'd see another of the models Boxed in season 3. This happened with the Lucy Lawless character, but apparently Moore abandoned those other plans and retroactively made characters into Cylons who make no sense. Tigh? Tyrol? Gimme a break. This is absolutely a third-season contrivance. The only way this would make sense in the narrative continuity is if the Cylons are, top to bottom, batshit crazy insane. It actually hurts my brain to think how the writers are going to contort storylines to retroactively shoehorn this nonsense into the characters' backgrounds. The only "out" I can think of is that during the occupation of New Caprica the Cylons took each into custody and did some heavy-duty brainwashing to implant this stuff into their heads. Because the alternative is just too dumb to fathom.
Starbuck. Oh, Starbuck, what are we going to do with you? People view you with suspicion, so that gives you leave to beat the crap out of your security detail, husband and hold the President at gunpoint. Nice. What ticks me off about the whole Starbuck subplot is something that's bothered me about the third season as a whole--everything is either/or. The early seasons were all about shades of gray, with no answer being acceptable or right, but the characters tried to choose the one that was least bad. Now, as Adama and Apollo's conversation showed, we're reduced to two choices: She's either a Cylon or she's telling the truth, ignoring a host of obvious alternatives people in power should seriously consider. Leave it to Starbuck herself to think of them: She's a clone derived from her time in captivity on Caprica, or she is Starbuck, but was captured and manipulated by the Cylons in the months she'd been missing. This is good. What's not good is that Starbuck immediately dismisses these possibilities and gets all violent, which is exactly what a Cylon or Cylon agent would be expected to do. Idiot plot alert! The ensuing confrontation is coming about solely because everyone with the power to avert it is acting like idiots. Sheesh. This used to not be the case with the show.
Finally, we come to Baltar. I actually don't have a problem with the character, since unlike Apollo, he's been written consistently as a self-centered genius with a tremendously inflated sense of self-importance from day one. But the whole religious cult thing has gotten too heavy-handed. The monotheistic/polytheistic conflict served as a nicely textured backdrop for the Cylon/human conflict, and that's where it belonged. Moving that element to the forefront, with Baltar as some sort of prophet, exposes the fact that these are both shell religions. There are no tenets, no actual beliefs of spiritual paths or anything associated with actual living religions shown on Galactica beyond maybe lighting some incense on occasion (and I'm even sure about that, to be honest). They're make-believe, and if the show is going to make the viewer believe that these people on either side believe passionately enough about their God/Gods to fight and die over them, then by golly those beliefs have to be shown as real, not just some lip-service to off-camera happenings. I actually played around with a story pitch/novel tie-in idea addressing this issue head-on to a degree a year or so back, but then season 4 was announced as the finale and the whole exercise seemed rather pointless. Suffice to say that my brilliant idea introduced a powerfully atheistic viewpoint to the equation. But that's neither here nor there.
I wish with all my heart they'd address the Cylon in Baltar's head already. Farscape did the concept first, and did it much better. It didn't drag out as long, either.
I've decided to stick with Galactica throughout the rest of the run. I've been here this long, so why stop now? Recently, Ron Moore said the entire fourth season had been plotted out more than a year ago, but during the writers' strike he had time to think and "came up with something better." Huh. We'll see. Hopefully, he rewatched the first two seasons and realized why the show was so much better then--more drama, less soap. I tell folks the show "jumped the shark" with the destruction of the Pegasus. Not that the destruction of the second Battlestar was in and of itself a bad move, but rather the show went downhill from there in startling fashion.
The characters' universe seems to have contracted rather than expand. It's somehow become a smaller show, more insular. Case in point: President Laura Roslin no longer keeps a running tab of the surviving human population. Think about that for a minute, and the differences it symbolizes between the first season and where we are now.
So, did it suck? Did it not suck? That's hard to say. There was no spectacularly obvious mid-course correction to the series that makes everything awesome again. Neither was there anything as awful as that "Along the Watchtower" singalong last season. Mainly, things remained status quo, which isn't a good thing.
Apollo remains a spineless wuss. Last season, after resigning his commission in a pissy fit, he backtracked and hopped in a Viper five minutes later when the Cylons attacked. Way to stick with your convictions, dude. Now, in the newest episode, Papa Adama gets all mushy and offers him his commission back. Because Adama's all about bending the rules, you know. Apollo rejects this offer, instead deciding to enter the civil service, where he can do more good. You know, at least until he hops into another Viper the next time the Cylons attack. Throughout the series, Apollo has been the most ill-written, inconsistent character bar none, and that doesn't look to change any time soon.
The so-called "Final Five" Cylons (minus one) had another group hug, declared to each other that they'd never do anything to harm the Galactica and that they were loyal to humans. Yet if they're so loyal, why did none of them suggest they turn themselves in? After all, Boomer eventually made out okay with that "proof of loyalty" gambit. Instead, they opt for a cover-up. And really, the whole Final Five thread has half-assed written all over it. Between seasons 2 and 3 Ron Moore gave an interview stating that all the active Cylon models had been revealed, that the remaining five had been "Boxed," and we'd see another of the models Boxed in season 3. This happened with the Lucy Lawless character, but apparently Moore abandoned those other plans and retroactively made characters into Cylons who make no sense. Tigh? Tyrol? Gimme a break. This is absolutely a third-season contrivance. The only way this would make sense in the narrative continuity is if the Cylons are, top to bottom, batshit crazy insane. It actually hurts my brain to think how the writers are going to contort storylines to retroactively shoehorn this nonsense into the characters' backgrounds. The only "out" I can think of is that during the occupation of New Caprica the Cylons took each into custody and did some heavy-duty brainwashing to implant this stuff into their heads. Because the alternative is just too dumb to fathom.
Starbuck. Oh, Starbuck, what are we going to do with you? People view you with suspicion, so that gives you leave to beat the crap out of your security detail, husband and hold the President at gunpoint. Nice. What ticks me off about the whole Starbuck subplot is something that's bothered me about the third season as a whole--everything is either/or. The early seasons were all about shades of gray, with no answer being acceptable or right, but the characters tried to choose the one that was least bad. Now, as Adama and Apollo's conversation showed, we're reduced to two choices: She's either a Cylon or she's telling the truth, ignoring a host of obvious alternatives people in power should seriously consider. Leave it to Starbuck herself to think of them: She's a clone derived from her time in captivity on Caprica, or she is Starbuck, but was captured and manipulated by the Cylons in the months she'd been missing. This is good. What's not good is that Starbuck immediately dismisses these possibilities and gets all violent, which is exactly what a Cylon or Cylon agent would be expected to do. Idiot plot alert! The ensuing confrontation is coming about solely because everyone with the power to avert it is acting like idiots. Sheesh. This used to not be the case with the show.
Finally, we come to Baltar. I actually don't have a problem with the character, since unlike Apollo, he's been written consistently as a self-centered genius with a tremendously inflated sense of self-importance from day one. But the whole religious cult thing has gotten too heavy-handed. The monotheistic/polytheistic conflict served as a nicely textured backdrop for the Cylon/human conflict, and that's where it belonged. Moving that element to the forefront, with Baltar as some sort of prophet, exposes the fact that these are both shell religions. There are no tenets, no actual beliefs of spiritual paths or anything associated with actual living religions shown on Galactica beyond maybe lighting some incense on occasion (and I'm even sure about that, to be honest). They're make-believe, and if the show is going to make the viewer believe that these people on either side believe passionately enough about their God/Gods to fight and die over them, then by golly those beliefs have to be shown as real, not just some lip-service to off-camera happenings. I actually played around with a story pitch/novel tie-in idea addressing this issue head-on to a degree a year or so back, but then season 4 was announced as the finale and the whole exercise seemed rather pointless. Suffice to say that my brilliant idea introduced a powerfully atheistic viewpoint to the equation. But that's neither here nor there.
I wish with all my heart they'd address the Cylon in Baltar's head already. Farscape did the concept first, and did it much better. It didn't drag out as long, either.
I've decided to stick with Galactica throughout the rest of the run. I've been here this long, so why stop now? Recently, Ron Moore said the entire fourth season had been plotted out more than a year ago, but during the writers' strike he had time to think and "came up with something better." Huh. We'll see. Hopefully, he rewatched the first two seasons and realized why the show was so much better then--more drama, less soap. I tell folks the show "jumped the shark" with the destruction of the Pegasus. Not that the destruction of the second Battlestar was in and of itself a bad move, but rather the show went downhill from there in startling fashion.
The characters' universe seems to have contracted rather than expand. It's somehow become a smaller show, more insular. Case in point: President Laura Roslin no longer keeps a running tab of the surviving human population. Think about that for a minute, and the differences it symbolizes between the first season and where we are now.
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