A little BSG musing

[vaznetti]

I am so tired it isn't even funny. I was still working last night after midnight, because a lot of stuff has hit all at once; I didn't even make it out of the office until 8. So that brownie was a real lifesaver, but now I feel thickheaded and grumpy.

I've been watching BSG and loving it, although I have a few general thoughts about the worldbuilding. One thing I've noticed in commentaries is that this is a show about people trying to hold their society together. I think that's true, but I'm starting to wonder about all the people who are doing the real day-to-day society building in this universe: the ordinary civilians. The people who got onto a shuttle one morning with a suitcase, only to find themselves a few days later at the far end of the galaxy with the whole world they knew in rubble. What are their living conditions like? How much space do they have? How much food, and where is it coming from? What kind of social organization are they developing? How many of them have sunk into depression? How many of them are looking for a way to volunteer like the would-be pilots of episodes 4 and 5? Those people were thrilled at the chance to join up, and probably for a number of reasons. What are they doing with their time? How have they divided up the work of keeping their ships working? Is the passenger/crew divide starting to break down, or becoming stronger?

I was wondering about their living conditions in particular, because President Roslin's quarters looked rather cramped, particularly in comparison with Adama's; but as president she's likely to have more space than others. But then, Colonial One is a shuttle rather than a full-sized ship. Some of the ships we saw in the miniseries are quite large (I'm thinking in particular of the ship with the little girl, which was left behind) but others must be very cramped. And how long were the journeys those ships were on, when the Cylons struck? This is the thing I'm most interested in. It seems that the civilian ships must be more like ocean liners than airplanes, since no one has run out of food yet (or rioted over cramped conditions). I suppose that only long-haul ships would have faster-than-light in the first place, so they might be better provisioned and roomier.

It's possible that these questions were answered in the miniseries, and I've forgotten it; I expect the show to deal with them soon, because that's the kind of show it seems to be. The issue of food supplies and water supplies have already been raised, after all. At the moment, we see the world more through the eyes of the military than anyone else, and they have certain prejudices against civilian life; I'd like to see the show explore the realities of civilian life, rather than those prejudices.

Comments

[muridae-x.livejournal.com]

I have also been watching BSG and loving it... but only since last week, when I finally got around to watching the miniseries. Call me slow... Alas, this means that I've now completely missed the first run of season one on Sky One, but I'm pinning my hopes on the DVD release towards the end of March.

In the meantime I plan on rewatching the original series, which I also liked - though very much in the way that I liked Voyager - more for its occasional flashes of brilliance and a potential for greatness that the writers and producers never quite delivered on, than for its actual episodes. So far the contracts in the new series has struck me forcibly as being something of a blending of both of those series... but with a deeper thought and analysis of the problems incumbent in the situations being set up. It gives me a certain confidence that the show will eventually deal with some of those things, and put that emphasis on the passengers and the supply shortages and the medium term adjustments that these people are going to have to make in their lives to form a society on the run... and that it might just be a case of when they have time to get around to it.

*sigh* I've watched so much crummy stuff over the past few years. It's entirely typical that as soon as something comes along that actually has the potential to engage my interest, it sneaks out of the starting blocks before I get around to looking up and noticing it.

[vaznetti]

I really like the new series. It's better than the mini, even. And I agree that time permitting they will get around to these issues. I just want to see them sooner, rather than later.

Won't they show the whole thing on normal TV, at some point? We've been putting off getting sky (or anything more than 1 to 5) as long as possible.

[reginaspina.livejournal.com]

P.S. I dunno if you've read this 'round your friends' list, but SciFi has renewed the show - there will be at least 13 more episodes after the initial thirteen. HUZZAH!

[muridae-x.livejournal.com]

I'm sure that it'll get shown on terrestrial television eventually. But like you, I want my instant gratification. I want to see it now... and my best shot at that is probably the DVD release. At least that's only 6 weeks away!

[se-parsons.livejournal.com]

I noticed that they destroyed the one ship that seemed to have plants on it. It wasn't FTL and they left it behind with the Cylon attack.

They'd better have some kind of food-creating ability or they're in deep doo doo. We already saw the water shortage because of the Battlestar.

It would be easy enough to set up hydroponic systems in big cargo holds, though. I wonder if we'll see that.

[vaznetti]

I thought the same thing--I mean, there was no way to keep that ship, but yes, you know they're going to miss it.

I expect we'll see hydroponics, but it will have to be very intensive to feed the 40-50,000 people in the fleet.

[reginaspina.livejournal.com]

You know, I was just wondering whether the civilians aren't getting horribly, HORRIBLY bored - because they must have exhausted all of their reading matter etc., and they're in these cramped conditions... I picture something like the DP camps in post-war Europe, only with the added fun of not being sure their enemy isn't coming back to kill them again.

I bet there's lots of boozing, casual sex, card games, maybe some attempts to organize schooling or something for the children... (Hey, someone should write some fic about this!)

[vaznetti]

Hey, someone should write some fic about this!

Oh, I've been thinking about it. But who's going to read a fic that's all OCs all the time? I suppose you could hang it off one of the nuggets, though--they must have come from somewhere.

I expect it's actually rather frightening on those ships. At least on Colonial One and Galactica, they can do something about their situation.

[reginaspina.livejournal.com]

But who's going to read a fic that's all OCs all the time? I suppose you could hang it off one of the nuggets, though--they must have come from somewhere.

Oh, yeah, that'd totally work. "A Day in the Life of Hot Dog" ;) Something like that? (I'd read it!)

I bet there'd be all kinds of stresses & strains from communal living - maybe the nuggets just wanted a little more room in their bunks ;)

[elishavah.livejournal.com]

They did bring up food in "Water." Baltar's calculations were...intimidating, to say the least. And so far, I've been able to put off my wanting to see what's going on with the civilian side by saying "they're still in 'flight, flee, hunker and hide' mode." But I would indeed like to see more of the civilian side of things. Other than snippets, it would be nice if they will spend an entire episode, I dunno, maybe following Roslin around for a day. That'd be cool.

[vaznetti]

That's a lovely icon.

I'd like to see a day completely away from all the established characters, both on Colonial One and on Galactica--a day with the ordinary citizens, and how they're coping. And I agree that Baltar's calculations were frightening--which is why I think we'll see the issue of provisioning again, and very soon. But I'm wondering what perspective we'll see it from--one sometimes get the sense that from the Galactica's perspective the civilians are a bit of a burden.

[elishavah.livejournal.com]

Heck, after this last week's episode, I'm trying to figure out where they're getting fuel from.

I guess the thing about a all-civilian episode is that I can't think of anyone other than Roslin (or maybe Billy) who we could follow who would make sense; who wouldn't necessitate hopping from character to character, but we could really follow through a good portion of the fleet.

And thanks, I've been playing Photoshop. If you'd like a BSG icon, just let me know.

[vaznetti]

As I said to Vee, below, I'm not thinking about fuel or other power sources. Watch me handwave!

I wouldn't mind a BSG icon, but have no idea what I want it to be.

[elishavah.livejournal.com]

Heh. I hadn't really been thinking about it until Roslin brought up that they'd used up 43 percent of their reserve fuel.

As for an icon...the first question is whether you want something non-character (like Galactica itself, or the Vipers, or the seal), or something with specific character(s).

I do already have this one that I decided not to use:

[vaznetti]

Sadly, my computer display is so dim that I can barely make that out--that's my problem rather than the icons, but I had to wait to come in to work to take a good look at it. (I love that text, though, and the idea of an icon with Galactica or a viper...)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

You know what I think? When they get the promised elections, and election-campaigning. That'll be when we'll see how the civilians are coping on a day-to-day basis.

[vaznetti]

Actually, that's a good point--although the cynic in me wants to say, because it won't matter until then.

[life-on-queen.livejournal.com]

The other thing to consider is that, going by the number of days Helo's spent on Caprica, it hasn't yet been two months since the 12 colonies were destroyed.

[vaznetti]

Two months? Can it actually have been that much time? It seems to me like it ought ot be less than that--but that's a long time. Where are they getting their food from?

[reginaspina.livejournal.com]

Actually, I believe the whole season only takes two months ... I mean, in the last episode, Apollo still had the scars from the beating he took on the prison ship, so I'm guessing at most, it was only a week later.

I'm less enthused about the Caprica storyline so I don't pay as close of attention to when the blip the numbers at the bottom of the screen, but now I feel compelled to go back & check how long it is between "33" and "You Can't Go Home Again."

[elishavah.livejournal.com]

According to the title card, Helo's only been on Caprica for 15 days. So two weeks. Which feels about right to me.

[vaznetti]

That makes much more sense--it just seemed impossible to me that two months could have passed already.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

I'm starting to wonder about all the people who are doing the real day-to-day society building in this universe: the ordinary civilians.

Same here. My first thought was, hey, I wonder why all those people trapped on the space equivalent of a Greyhound Bus haven't gone batshit crazy yet? How can they be supplied with enough air or power to last, much less food for the long haul? What can the toilets on those buses smell like by now??

But then I realized, the civilians only exist when the plot needs them to, and they disappear when not needed.

Actually, I bet civilians are really quite nutritious. Solved that problem, then!

There are a number of unaddressed logistical problems with maintaining a refugee population of thousands. At least, kept apart in their tiny bus-prisons, they can't go all giving each other dysentery.

[se-parsons.livejournal.com]

Isn't space just a big convenient waste dump, though? I can't imagine the ships are getting filled with sewage, for instance. Not after what happened to the tour group here in Chi-town when Dave Matthews Band's bus driver decided to dump his tanks in the Chicago river. If they have enough water to wash hands, the chance of dystentery is pretty low. They are probably going to start getting stinky, soon, though, as they run out of deoderant, soap and the like.

How are they doing things like cooking? Washing? Sleeping? They've clearly had to have run out of prepared food by now and they haven't come up with handy replicator technology to whisk that all away like in Star Trek.

Somebody would have to be coordinating that. There would have to be manufacturing somewhere on some ships and food production elsewhere. There would have to be laundry eventually. BSG has all that stuff on board, and probably some of the luxury liner ships, too, and the prison ship. They'd have to coordinate that stuff. Who does that?

I would love to see a story about the Cylons tracking them from their waste trail.

[vaznetti]

I suspect that in this case "the space equivalent of a greyhound bus" is actually something along the lines of an ocean liner--when flight was impractical, and everyone took liners. So water, oxygen and waste disposal aren't problems--they'll have recycling for those, just as Galactica does--but food will be. But there will also be a range of comfort levels among the civilians--some people are on the Queen Mary in first class, and others are on creaky old freighters in steerage.

I have decided not to think about power sources at all.

[leadensky.livejournal.com]

Brilliant questions, and ones I, too, would love to see addressed in fic, but even more than that we need to see in canon.

The shift for the civilians must, I think, be even more significant than for the crew of the Galactica - they are, to some extent, doing what they always do, while the entire world order has changed for the civilians - with the possible exceptions of the ships' crews.

I'm holding up the 'crew' of Lost in my mind, up against what we've seen of BSG, and Lost isn't coming out looking so good. I hope - I expect - that what we're eventually going to be shown of the civilian social structure will be more cohesive and competent than either Jack's refugees or Tigh's fears low expectations.

I don't agree that the show's producers/plotters view the civilian component of the fleet as plot-disposable, it's just that things are rather busy this sec, and with the threat of the Cylons hanging right there to trump any minor things like heart attacks, broken laundry machines, rude cabin staff and people sleeping in hallways, I can see where they haven't had the chance to address those issues yet.

I think we're getting hints, though. Roslin asked Adama if he had a physican on board - I wonder how much of that was resonable precautions and how much was driven by her not knowing if there were any other doctors in the Fleet. Following the attacks, physicans/police officers/public officals might have not left their posts, and might be less well represented among the Fleet than normal population distributions would indicate. (Wildly speculating, here.)

As for who we could follow through the fleet - the military doc could be a interesting fellow to follow for a day.

- hg

[reginaspina.livejournal.com]

minor things like heart attacks, broken laundry machines, rude cabin staff and people sleeping in hallways

Hee! The way you put that is very amusing ;)

Also, some of the ships are clearly equipped for long-term space travel - like the tanker Boomer finds in the miniseries, for example... So there must be a fairly large spectrum of different types of civilian ships. From the shots we've seen, none of them is as large as "Galactica", but I don't think they all look like the equivalent of 747s (yes, being on one of THOSE for months would get old very, very fast.) Roslin is *doing* something - I guarantee that - and Adama said she'd be the one making the decisions about the civilian fleet, so I have every faith we're going to see at least some of this addressed at some point.

[vaznetti]

The shift for the civilians must, I think, be even more significant than for the crew of the Galactica - they are, to some extent, doing what they always do, while the entire world order has changed for the civilians - with the possible exceptions of the ships' crews.

I agree, and this is why I want to know how they're coping. I suspect that they're doing better than Tigh fears simply because people pull together in the face of massive catastrophe, but I want to see it. (I also have a lot of questions about how the social structure will develop long-term--what will be the valuable social roles? how will group identity form?--but I think that's just mental exercise on my part.)

Following the attacks, physicans/police officers/public officals might have not left their posts, and might be less well represented among the Fleet than normal population distributions would indicate.

You know, I was working on the assumption that most of the ships in the fleet simply happened to be in transit when the attacks came--but of course some of them must be full of people who got away.

A modern cruise ship will have a medical staff, so I suspect that a long-haul ship in the BSG universe would as well. But I'd be interested in seeing the military doc (who I rather liked) going from ship to ship--someone needs to find out what supplies they have, for example.