Maybe it’s easier in hindsight, or maybe it’s because I was at a Health and Safety in the Workplace meeting today, but having watched this episode, I think there’s many unnecessary risks that these guys take. It’s like nobody watched the ‘On previous episodes’ bit to get an idea of what could go wrong this week.

Athena starts off the episode still being helpful. I expected her to have found out about her baby by now and become violent. But that’s a mistake for a future episode. She might never get around to it if she gets infected by this virus. Then, as Adama says, they could display more caution when entering a deserted Cylon ship. Something is clearly wrong. Some gas masks maybe, hazard suits could be handy. Especially for Athena, the one in the biggest danger. Athena unknowingly, continues to risk her life. I wouldn’t put my hand into that gunk on the control panel. Cylon ships are icky.

The lack of caution continues too. No one checks that the Cylons in the control room were dead. In _Pan’s Labyrinth_ all the enemy soldiers at the end of the fight were shot in the head, just in case. Athena now touches the sickly looking Cylons. I’m not convinced that the mission protocol is optimal.

From here things are handled more sensibly. The humans on the base ship decide to leave before something goes wrong, and then the crew is put into isolation.

Gaius tells fibs to the Cylons and is found out. Naughty naughty Gaius. A human living on a Cylon ship turns out to be as fun as being a Cylon on the Pegasus.

The humans’ mistake is non-lethal and they get away with it; Gaius’s mistake is also non-lethal but more painful.

And so we get to the big decision of the episode. Not one you want to get wrong. Killing the infected Cylons in range of a Cylon base ship will cause them to be ressurected on the base ship. They’ll also carry the disease with them, which could spread genocidally throughout the Cylon population.

This raises a couple of questions. Do the Cylons have the same rights as humans? And if not, does the extinction of their species count as genocide?

Helo, the wuss, thinks that the humans still have the moral high ground, that committing genocide will cause them to loose a piece of their souls and that everyone can still get along.

Well I say, ‘How much of their souls?’ and ‘Have they met the Cylons lately?’ The Cylons aren’t exactly the brightest of the bunch. They wander, planless. Perhaps they should be put out of their misery.

Although I don’t believe the virus would kill all the Cylons. It is slow spreading. An infected ship would have plenty of time to distance itself from a ressurection ship, and the disease could be contained. I should feel more reluctant to take a side on a decision about attempting genocide, as it is harder to say what is right and wrong, but after the way the Cylons conducted themselves on New Caprica, I don’t have much sympathy for them.

This entry was posted by the illustrious Andy Cocker on Tuesday, January 30th, 2007. It concerns such pressing issues as Battlestar Galactica, tv. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.