BSG: Resistance
Aug. 9th, 2005 01:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vaznettiI have a few comments on the "What was Apollo thinking?" question :
I'm glad that Billy refused to go with Roslin; it was an extra reminder of just how complicated the situation is, and I suspect that Dualla may need him. I doubt that Adama and Tigh will be able to remain willfully blind to the mutinous elements on Galactica itself.
I've seen occasional comments suggesting that Lee was acting out-of-character in breaking his parole and helping Roslin escape. I'm not sure; he showed early on that he's more loyal to the principles of civilian government than he is to either his father or Roslin (neither of whom, I suspect, were pleased by the idea of holding an election so soon). I suspect that during the course of this single episode, Tigh's declaration of martial law went from "temporary emergency measure" to "military coup" in Lee's mind, and once he'd made that judgment, it seems to me very much in character for him to cease to work with Tigh at all, and indeed to set about restoring civilian government.
I suspect that they key turning point for Lee was not the civilians shot by marines, but the return of Baltar to the fleet -- or rather, both events worked together to persuade him. After all, when Tigh declared martial law he might have felt that there was no responsible civilian authority (especially if he accepted Adama's view that Tom Zarek was to be kept out of political power at all costs); the return of the vice president to the fleet provides an obvious moment for Tigh to back down and start talking about a timetable for the restoration of civilian government. (I mean, personally, I don't think "Baltar for President" is the greatest idea ever, but it is the legal situation, if Roslin is unable to hold her position.) Not only does Tigh not do this, but he also (so it must seem to Lee) shows himself willing to use force to maintain his authority. Had martial law been declared earlier in the show's timeline (back in the miniseries, or in the first season), Lee would almost certainly have accepted it -- but the declaration now, after a form of civilian government has been established, is pretty clearly not acceptable. I also think that Lee would be willing to accept civilian deaths on a ship that was resisting orders from Galactica (because Tigh isn't wrong when he says that resupplying the battlestar is not optional), provided that he saw Galactica as the legitimate authority. It's the two situations together that become unacceptable to him. Add in how little he respects Tigh (and how much he seems to respect Roslin, or rather what she represents), and it's easy for me to see that to Lee, Tigh's government is illegitimate, and that it is his duty to oppose it. Once his brain tells him "coup," it's inevitable.
This line of reasoning does depend on the guess that Colonial military has some idea of illegal orders -- that is, that a soldier is required not to obey illegal orders.
In an aside, was I the only one to have that song from the South Park movie going through my head while I wrote up my comments on this episode? Or indeed, whenever I think about it?
I'm glad that Billy refused to go with Roslin; it was an extra reminder of just how complicated the situation is, and I suspect that Dualla may need him. I doubt that Adama and Tigh will be able to remain willfully blind to the mutinous elements on Galactica itself.
I've seen occasional comments suggesting that Lee was acting out-of-character in breaking his parole and helping Roslin escape. I'm not sure; he showed early on that he's more loyal to the principles of civilian government than he is to either his father or Roslin (neither of whom, I suspect, were pleased by the idea of holding an election so soon). I suspect that during the course of this single episode, Tigh's declaration of martial law went from "temporary emergency measure" to "military coup" in Lee's mind, and once he'd made that judgment, it seems to me very much in character for him to cease to work with Tigh at all, and indeed to set about restoring civilian government.
I suspect that they key turning point for Lee was not the civilians shot by marines, but the return of Baltar to the fleet -- or rather, both events worked together to persuade him. After all, when Tigh declared martial law he might have felt that there was no responsible civilian authority (especially if he accepted Adama's view that Tom Zarek was to be kept out of political power at all costs); the return of the vice president to the fleet provides an obvious moment for Tigh to back down and start talking about a timetable for the restoration of civilian government. (I mean, personally, I don't think "Baltar for President" is the greatest idea ever, but it is the legal situation, if Roslin is unable to hold her position.) Not only does Tigh not do this, but he also (so it must seem to Lee) shows himself willing to use force to maintain his authority. Had martial law been declared earlier in the show's timeline (back in the miniseries, or in the first season), Lee would almost certainly have accepted it -- but the declaration now, after a form of civilian government has been established, is pretty clearly not acceptable. I also think that Lee would be willing to accept civilian deaths on a ship that was resisting orders from Galactica (because Tigh isn't wrong when he says that resupplying the battlestar is not optional), provided that he saw Galactica as the legitimate authority. It's the two situations together that become unacceptable to him. Add in how little he respects Tigh (and how much he seems to respect Roslin, or rather what she represents), and it's easy for me to see that to Lee, Tigh's government is illegitimate, and that it is his duty to oppose it. Once his brain tells him "coup," it's inevitable.
This line of reasoning does depend on the guess that Colonial military has some idea of illegal orders -- that is, that a soldier is required not to obey illegal orders.
In an aside, was I the only one to have that song from the South Park movie going through my head while I wrote up my comments on this episode? Or indeed, whenever I think about it?
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no subject
Date: 2005-08-09 01:18 pm (UTC)He said early on in the series, in the one where he first met Zarek, that he wasn't on the side of the military or on the side of government, he was on the side of the law. And I think, like you, he saw Tigh's move as illegal, and therefore he acted.
Mmm, Jamie Bamber
Date: 2005-08-09 02:24 pm (UTC)I think Apollo's mind is definitely behind the president because he respects her for one, and because he isn't sure what's going to happen to his father at this point, and wants to make sure the colonies survive with an intact government. Tigh admitted he fracked up big time when Adama confronted him, so I say good for Apollo for standing up for himself -- despite what his father may think -- and going with what he believes is the right path.
And I know I'm not the only one who fell in extra-special love with Tyrol this week. That scene in the brig with Baltar....amazing!
no subject
Date: 2005-08-09 02:49 pm (UTC)Additional factors for his timing: Dualla told him Tigh was hitting the bottle, hard. Now Dualla has served with Tigh for a while; presumably she knows he's an alcoholic just like everyone else does. If she thinks that the quantities he consumes are extraordinary, they are. If she, who is an Adama loyalist, tells this to someone who's on parole and adds she wishes someone else where in command, it's a writing in flames on the wall that Tigh is rapidly losing what respect and obedience he had in the military, and the civilians are opposed to him already. Things were getting uglier and more explosive by the minute. Action was called for. I suspect that if Roslin had died of a heart attack in the brig right then, and Adama would not have woken up, (some of) the crew would have mutinied as soon as they'd be ordered to get into a shoot-civilians-situation again.
Sidenote, caused by talking of addictions: it's worth noting that Doc Cottle, who not only has more facts about Roslin's cancer and just how it affects her than anyone else in the in the fleet and knows about her chamalla medication, and about the effects of chamalla, still helps her escape when she asks. And he's military, not civilian. If he thought either the medication or the illness itself was affecting her judgment or making her a worse choice than Tigh in this situation, you'd think he'd speak up and give Tigh a reasonably good justification for keeping her out of office. But he doesn't.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-09 04:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-09 08:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-09 08:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-09 09:57 pm (UTC)Your point about the likelihood of mutiny on Galactica is an interesting one -- and I think that if Lee were only interested in getting back at Tigh, he might well have stayed on the ship and allowed himself to become a focus for discontent. Instead he separates himself from the situation entirely, although I'm not sure whether that will strenghten Tigh's position within Galactica -- it maky instead make it even more clear that Lee thinks that his command is illegitimate.
Of course, with Adama awake again, the point is moot: Adama's authority is not under threat in the same way Tigh's was. I think this returns the division between them to the original problem -- Starbuck's mission.
I also like your point about Cottle very much.
Lee's Reactions
Date: 2005-08-09 08:33 pm (UTC)Emmm. I disagree. (You knew that already. *g*)
Above all else, I don't think Lee's actions were either intellectually driven (vs his decision reguarding Zarek earlier) nor based primarily at restoring democratic government.
(You said "civilian", where I agree with you, but I've seen elsewhere the opinon that "Lee is all about Democracy".)
I tend to think that Apollo's actions *last* week were bordering on OOC - or, showed a side of his character that we'd seenlittle of before - namely, his weak and bitter side. (I'm referring to his "demanding thing, commanding a Battleship" snark and his attitude, as a whole, towards Tigh.) The closest we've seen to this unproffesional side of Lee was the fishmonger's screeching he did to Kara by the Raptor.
If those actions were not OOC, then I would say that they were emotionally driven, rather than intellectually. (Which would fit better in the circumstances, rather than assume Lee can be living in the brig with the President while his father lies in ICU and still function in a highly rational manner.)
Given that, I don't see his breaking of parole as being an intellectual thing, but an emotional rebellion.
I suspect that they key turning point for Lee was not the civilians shot by marines, but the return of Baltar to the fleet
This just hit me as I was typing up this post - I haven't seen anyone talk about Lee's personal opinion on using force against a threat wearing civilian clothes. I haven't even seen a flashback of it in the show. 33 was only what, three months ago? Lee has been there, has been the one to have to kill civilians (as far as he knows), and it hasn't even been touched on.
I could see that previous experience pushing Lee in either direction - either supportive of Tigh's move, or strongly condemning it, but I find it rather frustrating that we don't have any clue (or, at least, I don't) of what Lee's thought process was.
So, the killing of the rioters could have been a/the factor, but I dislike the way it was shown.
Back to Baltar - granted, Lee's seen far less of Baltar's craziness than just about anyone else on the ship. But Baltar was the man Kara fracked. I don't see Lee being able to deal with that, right now, in a logical way, and besides which, any such thought process happened *entirely* off screen. I doubt Lee is ignorant of the fact that Baltar is back on board, but I have no reason to think they've actually met since.
the return of the vice president to the fleet provides an obvious moment for Tigh to back down and start talking about a timetable for the restoration of civilian government.
I'm also a bit puzzled that people see to think that, now that Baltar is back on board, everyone - especially Tigh - would fall upon him with a glad heart - oh, here you are! symbol of rule-of-law! please, Baltar, take up the presidency and lead us all! IMO, that sort of a response requires people to have been entirely blind to Giaus's disturbing actions previously, rather than just non-commentative.
Not only does Tigh not do this, but he also (so it must seem to Lee) shows himself willing to use force to maintain his authority.
Hmmm. I'm trying to parse this out. Tigh uses force to secure supplies that Galactica - not Tigh, the military protection for the Fleet - needs to do it's job. I can't see that as "willing to use force to maintain his authority." There has been no other use of force or cohersion, that I saw.
Re: Lee's Reactions - PT II
Date: 2005-08-09 08:33 pm (UTC)So I will back off from saying that Lee is acting entirely OOC, and just leave it as "he's acting emotionally, and not rationally, which for Lee is a pretty major departure from norm."
As far as his actions being in support of "rule of democracy" - I tend to disagree with that as well. Again, Lee's not acting rationally, he's acting in response to Tigh and in response to the injury of his father. He's not supporting democracy, he's supporting Roslin - running home to Moma, if I can get uber-Jungian about it. Lee is going beyond restoring civilian/democratic control - which did not require releasing Roslin, but only moving control to someone not Tigh - and is acting to upend the fleet against Tigh, and, ultimately, Adama.
was I the only one to have that song from the South Park movie going through my head while I wrote up my comments on this episode
Not a SP fan, so you're all alone in this. *g*
- hg
Re: Lee's Reactions
Date: 2005-08-09 09:51 pm (UTC)I don't really see much evidence that Lee is driven more by emotion than by reason in this episode, aside from his very obvious grudge against Tigh -- I have to grant you that! But I don'tthink that his actions this week were entirely determined by that lack of respect.
It's because of his own actions in 33 that I don't think the civilian deaths are the turning point for Lee -- he did what he had to do in that instance to protect the fleet. I think that Tigh feels that he's doing the same, in sending out marines to ensure that Galactica is resupplied (no matter how clumsy the execution was).
I'm also a bit puzzled that people see to think that, now that Baltar is back on board, everyone - especially Tigh - would fall upon him with a glad heart.
OK. let me try to reconstruct what I remember here -- my memory may be faulty. Before Roslin sent Starbuck on the insane mission to Caprica, it seems to me that the military and civilan spheres in the fleet were working together relatively smoothly. Roslin, for reasons of her own, crossed a line there, and Adama had her locked up. At this point, wasn't Baltar already away from the fleet? So there was a temporary vacuum on the civilian side, and when Tigh felt that he couldn't work with the council of 12 (is that what they're called?) he declared martial law -- because the council was going to put power back in Roslin's hands, and that's unacceptable to Tigh.
Granted that Colonial practice may be different from our own, but one assumes that the reason you have a vice president is so that someone can perform the office of president if the president him or herself is incapable (because, say, she's been locked up for treason). You and I might think that Baltar is crazier than a crazy thing and dangerous too, but (a) we don't have much evidence that the people on the show have noticed and (b) he's still the vice president. Once he's back with the fleet, Tigh has a duty to meet with him and explain the situation. In not doing so, I think he indicates that he has no intention of cancelling his own order, no matter what the situation on the civilian side -- that's when this moves from a temporary measure to a coup. When does Tigh plan to restore regular government? When Adama wakes up? What if Adama dies? Will Tigh allow elections to be held (elections to which Lee has shown himself to be strongly committed)?
I really don't see this as some kind of teenaged revolt, if only because of the scene between Lee and his father -- he knows exactly how serious the situation is, and he knows what he's doing. And he strongly suspects that his father will never forgive him for it.
Re: Lee's Reactions
Date: 2005-08-10 01:56 am (UTC)Re: Lee's Reactions
Date: 2005-08-10 02:22 am (UTC)*nods nods* Because Tigh's pissed at Roslin for being what turns Lee away from Adama, because Roslin stuck her hands in miltary ops, possibly because Roslin is using religion against the standard rules of their society (hypoth on my part, not justified by anything we've seen thus far) but most importantly because Roslin caused Adama's shooting by sending away the Raider.
So "going back and discussing where we go from here" with the Council would not fix any of those things, because they're going to support Roslin.
Now, back to Baltar.
(a) we don't have much evidence that the people on the show have noticed
I think we have at least some. Tigh himself saw this repeatedly in the ep with Ms Godfrey. Also - I think most everyone in the command structure knows that Roslin dumped Gray as VP for Giaus strictly on the popularity vote. Above all else, he has yet to show himself as a leader worthy of respect.
(b) he's still the vice president.
Who is crazy, who is not a leader, who was hand-picked by Roslin, who was removed from command because of the danger she represented to Galactica's operations and to the fleet. Even if it is legally the correct thing to do, I have a hard time getting even Lee to think that putting Giaus in charge would be the right thing to do. (And this is Lee without being pissed at Giaus for the other thing.)
(Obviously, YMMV, and I'm cool with that.)
You raise very good questions about what Tigh's future plans are - in fact, they would be pretty damn good questions for Adama, too. But Lee doesn't raise those questions, or those objections. Because, imo, he's not thinking about those questions, he's just reacting, and assigning motivations without collecting data.
(And yeah, I'd be pretty pissed off, too. Again, understandable, but not like Lee to run emotional for this long.)
OTOH, the point made earlier about the significance of Dee's reaction ("he's hitting the bottle *a lot*") and about Doc Cottle are good points, which show that some people (on the show) who are thinking do support what Lee's doing.
So. Wait and see, huh?
- hg
Re: Lee's Reactions
Date: 2005-08-10 02:50 pm (UTC)Yes (and really, I'm so happy to have this show to look forward to.)
By the way -- and I'm not sure whether or not this is a stupid question -- all the discussion above isn't really about what lee was thinking, is it? It's really about whether Lee was justified in the decision he made.
Justification
Date: 2005-08-11 02:29 am (UTC)OTOH, whether *I* (or you, or my great aunt Sally) thinks he's justified, entirely or not, to break his word without visible concern over what that entails, is beside the point. Just as I think it's beside the point to decide if Adama was justified in lying to the fleet about knowing where earth was, or if Roslin was justified in dumping ol'whats-is-name for Baltar in the vp race -
- as you said, there are *no* good choices here. (And yeah, I'd love to debate the pros and cons.)
But if we're trying to decide if the actions seem justified from that character's pov, *and* we assume that the character is using logical reasoning to reach their decision, then I think some examination of what the facts of the matter are, as would appear to that character, and what he was thinking.
Am I making any sense?
- hg
Re: Justification
Date: 2005-08-11 11:28 am (UTC)What I think I meant is this. You seem to me to be arguing that Lee's decision was driven by emotion more than by reason. I think I was arguing that he did have a rationale for "breaking his word" (that is, that he could either break his word to Tigh or his oath to uphold the articles of whatever-they-are) -- and that if he had decided that Tigh had set a coup in motion, he would probably feel that had had no choice but to break his word.
As you say, there are two sides to the issue of justification -- whether Lee thinks he was justified in what he did, and whether we think he was justified in what he did. I don't think that the second part of the question is irrelevant; I'm interested in the moral choices characters make.
I'm not sure this response is helpful at all. I think part of the problem is that we're arguing without much data. We saw what Lee did in the episode, but we weren't privy to his thinking, so I think we're both speculating without sufficinet data. Which is fun, but it's not an argument either of us can win.
Re: Justification
Date: 2005-08-12 03:28 am (UTC)ITA. Isn't this show great, that it leaves things open like that?
I'd like to do one more comment (in my lj) that covers the "is there anyone else who thought Lee wasn't the sort of person to casually/easily/without *mentioning* it/ or in any other way break his given word?" - which constitutes one part of my response to this issue, with the (in)/accuracy (from Lee's pov) of the statement "Tigh set in motion a military coup" being another part.
However, there is this crazy thing called "multiverse" that's due on Monday or some such thing. *g*
I'm looking forward to seeing what light canon can shed on the argument.
- hg
Baltar's Craziness.
Date: 2005-08-10 07:59 pm (UTC)He came out of Six Degrees of Separation smelling like roses - the poor heroic scientist framed by cylons. His reputation among the fleet is purely as a worlds-renowned scientist, the man who invented the cylon detector, and now, the vice-president. He may have been picked as VP because he was popular, but hang on, that makes him *popular* with the people. He's an eloquent speaker and very intelligent when he's not fumbling around and trying to carry on two conversations.
While this doesn't make *Tigh* any more likely to take him into consideration (as Tigh thinks he's a "shifty sonofabitch"), it does show Tigh yet again having no understanding of public opinion, or quorum opinion, who will see a well-spoken, well-respected VP not given the time of day.
Also, Lee hasn't seen most of Baltar's craziness and will, largely, know him in the same capacity as most of the fleet. I got the impression his anger at Kara's fling was mostly directed at Kara, and given the strength of character Lee has shown, I think it's disrespectful to assume he couldn't put his own feelings aside and recognise that Baltar is the rightful vice president. This is the man who freed Zarek despite his deep personal loathing of the man and the fact he'd just seen Cally almost raped and killed by someone under Zarek's "command". He managed to put those feelings aside in defense of what he felt was right and legal. Lee is very, *very* good about bottling up his feelings. When that bottle bursts (like the fight in front of the raider) it's spectacular, but you can *see* it happening.
Finally, Lee was pretty pissy, petty and bitter in some of his scenes in the mini series. Certainly it's how Kara first viewed him when he came to visit her in the brig.
Thanks,
Stace.
Re: Baltar's Craziness.
Date: 2005-08-10 08:57 pm (UTC)These are good points. I have a tendency to forget that the characters must see Baltar very differently; you're particularly right about Six Degrees of Separation. I do think that he might have had a drop in popularity after it appeared that his Cylon detector didn't work on Sharon (I'm rather surprised he told anyone he'd tested her, to be honest), particularly because of the consequences.