Hey listener, it's Battlestar Galactica, which is a pretty dark show and this has not nearly the darkest moment of the show, but yikes, it gets pretty dark this one. So we're going to just give you a little content warning because there is a attempted suicide in this episode. and there's also. Someone trying to convince someone to commit suicide that we will be discussing. So if that's not something you're looking to participate in at this time, just go and skip this one.
We'll see you next week or the week after, because next week's going to have a content warning on it too, I imagine. So, just, we'll see you soon. Go listen to something else on What Happened to Her, you know? Go listen to some Cool Girls Don't Look at Explosions, or some Last Time On, or something. And come back, you know, when uh, when we're through all this stuff. We'll, we'll see you later, listener.
We love you and we'll be here when you're ready.
Yeah. Hello! And wow, you know, like, like recording that, and
Back to back,
Yeah, it's, it's, it's jarring for me too, listener. Hello, and welcome to Who Are You? This is a reasonably well done sci fi watchcast hosted by two former Strangers Now friends who are working their way through Battlestar Galactica, reboot from 2004. I'm Ja'far.
And I'm Laura.
And I was told you have a cold open.
Yeah, I did alignments.
Oh, I didn't.
It's okay. I thought about texting you, but I was doing this at one of those times when it was like, I should probably be doing something else like homework, but my brain is full of Battlestar Galactica, so I'm going to put that on paper.
Okay. What do we got?
So I think if I was going to start with alignments, and actually this is where I started in my head too, going to start at the most obvious place for me right now. Remember, listener, that these alignments are, as of Laura's perspective in the show, so I have no knowledge of anything that happens later, and they could be totally wrong, I don't know. But, when I first thought about alignments, one box was very obvious for me at this point in time, and that is the chaotic evil box.
Oh, who's chaotic evil?
Ellen Tai.
Oh, yeah. 100%. Yeah.
That was so easy. I was like Ellen Tai, 100 percent all the way. Like you can talk yourself in all kinds of ways on some of these other ones.
Mm hmm.
But that one, I was like, nah. And I put like underneath it, 6PT question mark. Cause I don't, I don't know. I'm confused by 6PT. So this. This perspective is after having watched this episode, by the way.
Okay.
it is up to the penultimate, episode of season one, is where I'm at with these alignments.
All right.
the chaotic column was pretty easy. So, for chaotic neutral, I put Mr. Gaius Baltar. Mm hmm.
Okay. I can, I can see that for sure.
He's a chaotic man.
He's a chaotic man.
Yeah.
And he's definitely
feeling neutral.
Yeah.
Cause he uh, is kind of the one who got us into this whole mess, and he did that by thinking about himself, right? So
like, When you talk about like, alignment stereotypes, True neutral is like the super selfish person. Right? Typically. And so I could see an argument for that. But he is just too much of a chaotic mess to not be chaotic neutral.
then my chaotic good, filling out that column, you wanna take a guess?
Oh, it's gotta be Starby, right?
Oh yeah, it's Starbees.
Yeah, hundo. Hundo, Starbees.
Let me just cut the guts out of this thing and fly home.
Let me
Not worried about the poop tube. Yeah,
Yeah, yeah, definitely chaotic good.
Okay, so do we want to go back down the neutral column?
Yeah, let's hear the neutrals.
Okay, so I did have a hard time with the neutrals. And neutral good, I put Chief Tyrrel question mark.
That's, I think that's appropriate. He's not, he's not super law, he's like, he's got lines, he's got, you know, he tries to do good. He doesn't particularly, like, some, he does a little chaotic stuff, a little lawful stuff, mostly neutral stuff. Chief Tierra, I think, is a good call for neutral good.
Yeah. And I was coming from the whole, like, you know, he was having that affair with Sharon, but when somebody is like, dude, this is really inappropriate, he realizes, yeah, like, this is inappropriate. And he's trying to do good, but he is kind of shooting himself in the foot a little bit. But
I might put Adama in that box, too.
Mm hmm. Okay.
Yeah, I could
Yeah. So of Adama,
yeah. Did you put him true
in the, I put him in true neutral, and I, I haven't really, because I don't think about this stuff that often, I think about it when we're thinking about it, you know? Thinking of it as like, the ultimately selfish person, I wasn't seeing it that way, I was just thinking of like, he seems to be motivated by saving these people, right?
Yeah.
He was willing to, violate Zarek's civil rights for that, but got told no, and he respected that.
Yeah. He will do whatever it takes. Uh, He's, he's very much like, he, he tries to be an arbiter, I think, not necessarily of like justice, like that word might be typically associated with, but just of like, Generally speaking, just like, oh, we need a mediator, let me take the middle here, um, in a lot of ways, like, and then, yeah, it's just like, he will do good, he will do evil, he will do law, and he will do chaotic, if it means humanity survives. That's really all he gives a shit about.
yeah, that's kind of where I was looking at him.
so it's not selfish true neutral, it's the other end of the same spectrum selfless true neutral.
Yeah. Okay. I can now reconcile the things that we've said.
Yeah, because he doesn't care. He's, he's doing it for this reason, and I would argue that that puts him in neutral good territory, because the thing he wants to do is to save people, but he also is, like, really not, I mean, they, they're living through a genocide, so, like, that's gonna fuck up perceptions. For sure. And like, I don't hold him being super racist and callous against the Cylons against him, really.
Yeah.
that might change.
Tough to at this point, right?
Yeah.
At the penultimate episode of season one. Reminding everyone. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, they're like hunting him down and shit, like,
Yeah.
they, they are the bad guys right now uh, without much recourse, no matter what Sharon wants to tell Hilo. There's really no other way to look at it at this juncture.
Sure. Yeah. Speaking of Cylons. So, for my neutral evil, I have Doral.
Mm. Doral's a good call.
yeah, where I'm coming from on that is Six seems very, like, jealous and maybe motivated by some feelings. Doral doesn't seem to be motivated by any feelings in this. He seems very clinical about how they're going about things. and it just seems a little more, like, scientific
Yeah.
in his approach.
There is definitely a more, like, there is a character in this show who is just fucking textbook neutral evil that we have not spent time with yet.
Okay.
And I'm not going to take it any further than that.
Yeah. Okay. in the lawful column, back up top here. Lawful, good. Do you have a guess?
So, I know who I would put here. Right now, and I think it's colored by a lot of stuff that hasn't happened yet.
Okay. So do you want me to just give you my perspective?
Well, I'll say, it's a character who has acted this way, and will act more this way. for a bit. There's stuff. But uh, Douala is
I don't know Dwalla enough. Okay.
Yeah, she's super lawful good at this for right now. Like, I mean, the most example we have is her being all like, Tom Zarek was fighting for my rights and fuck that guy, he's a terrorist.
Right. Yeah, yeah.
maybe lawful neutral even. but we haven't gotten to spend a ton of time with her yet. So,
Okay. I went with Lee Adama, actually.
yeah. See, now Lee. Is a very, I always saw him as very neutral good.
Okay. I, I went with Lawful because he,
even lawful neutral.
he, when, in his, like, in his whole thing with, um, Zarek, you know, definitely Lawful, that he wanted to, like, okay, we need to have an election, we need to play by the rules, we don't, our society doesn't fall apart right now.
that's all. That's all good callouts from this season and not me thinking about stuff that hasn't happened. Good answer. I just agree and I'm not going to talk about it anymore.
Yes. Yes. And he does seem to be motivated by very good reasons.
Yeah. Yeah, his
also survival. Also upholding our society. Like, our society doesn't need to crumble just because of this.
I mean, he had the balls to tell the president to fuck off and his dad, so, you know.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, lawful neutral, I did say Laura Roslin for that.
Yeah, that's, that's good.
She she definitely Respects the law. You know, she didn't want Tom Zarek to get his civil rights violated. But she also didn't want him to win a position either.
Yeah, I mean, this is commentary on, you know, a little bit of Patriot Act America. So, you know, him getting spied on isn't The concern that, like, I might consider it to be currently.
Yeah. Okay, and that's one box left, right? And this was a hard box to fill. I mean, some of these were pretty difficult. They were thinkers. I thought about it a lot. But I went with Lioban on that,
For
seem to have his religious No, this is where Waffle evil.
Lawful Evil. Oh! Okay. Yeah. I'm sorry. Yeah, I got confused. That's fair.
Yeah, because he does seem to be very, like, religious. And that usually comes with some sort of code thing. and, I mean, because right now we're in season one. Cylon's mostly evil, right? So, that's how I've filled in the rest of the box. So, yeah, that's, that's what I was thinking about one day instead of work. But I don't know how long that, those boxes will hold. Some of them may get completely destroyed as we go into Season 2.
Yeah. It'll be interesting to see what happens.
Little, little Ja'far face there.
yeah, not a full, but a little, little taste. We have uh, we have quite the montage to open up this episode. Season 1, Episode 12, Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part 1. We have five scenes that are all kinda Going at once here. Well, four scenes, two of them end up being very related. and then uh, We see them all pan out.
So, in this montage, we have a second device. Remember the Cylon device? So, So,
Oh, that was on the last time on, yeah. They bring back the Cylon device.
Yes. So there's a second Cylon device. And, I was trying to figure out where it came from. Was this a device that Leo Bintu had on him?
It must have been, yeah.
Yeah. I, I don't remember it being discussed in the episode, but there's lots of visual things that I might miss while I'm taking notes. So, but, but it's important that we know there's two devices that they have in their possession now. We had the one from Galactica,
Yeah.
there's the second one, probably from Leoben 2. Or, I guess maybe it came from Starbucks Raider? Could have been
it could have been. I mean, Starbucks Raider is where it goes at the end of the episode. So,
know. But, it's important that we have two of them, because we figured out something important about them.
yes, yeah, we know, we know that they're uh, transponders.
Right.
So, uh, In this montage, we have Lee and Bill Adama sparring. We have Baltar and Kara fuckin
Yeah, but no, it's like, the first couple of shots, it's Leigh.
Yeah?
Yes. So she is, cause she's hallucinating Leigh, right? But we find that out pretty quick that she, she makes it real awkward. But like, in the first couple of shots, that is not Baltar. That is Leigh.
Okay, I was wondering if that was Lee or if my brain was playing tricks on me.
No, no, no,
Because I wrote Lee down and crossed out for Baltar.
no, you were right the first time because it goes straight from like the boxing to Lee's boning her and you're like, wait, what? Because he's back there. And then it becomes clear that that's her imagination.
Okay. We've got Hila runnin we get Boomer with a pistol, not Sharon. And then we get Sharon with a pistol, not Boomer.
Yeah, this is fun. Lots of people where they're not supposed to be things.
yeah. And so it all kind of works out this way. Lee gets a good on in on Dad. But he returns the favor a few times over, knocking Lee down. He encourages Lee to stop thinking about sparring, stop treating it like it's sparring, and start treating it like it's a fight if he's ever gonna win. Starbuck calls out Lee's name, and is just like, leaves, has 6PT, watches, and cries.
I was right. These two need to just kiss. Also, Starbuck, Paltar, really, girl?
I mean, come on. Hilo is cornered by Sharon. She holsters her pistol, and Hilo shoots her in the shoulder, and then Boomer almost kills herself, but doesn't.
I wrote, after I wrote down everything in this silly montage that is really good. It's a really good whole thing. Juxtapositions everywhere that are really fun and nice. I wrote, this is a lot of crazy shit that has great music. I don't remember the music specifically now, but it was really good. And then we go to theme.
yeah. After theme, Rosalind is talking to Elosha about her cancer.
Oh, is that her name? I hadn't caught her name.
I don't know if they've said it. I just look it up every time.
I just write Priestess. I can't look things up, that's too dangerous. Cottle has given her pretty much six months to live after an MRI. So,
I thought we knew that.
I don't think we had a number on it.
Oh, okay.
I don't think we had six months.
Okay. We cut over to a galley with our, some pilots, GATA, and D. And uh, Baltar are all playing cards. Chara walks in, and Gaius makes it awkward.
He really does, doesn't he?
In the worst fucking way.
Yeah, he wants to be called Mr. Vice President.
Duh. Yeah. Duh. Yeah.
Ugh. And then uh, tells her she should sit down next to Lee, and she's like, nah, I'm a bounce.
Fuck this. Rightfully so. Um.
Very much.
Speaking of making it awkward, 6PT demands Gaius answer questions about sleeping with Chara while he's trying to pay attention to Rosalind rambling on about a fiat currency.
Oh my gosh, yes. This is some hoops that he's having to jump through to try to figure out an answer that makes sense for both situations.
Yep.
Man, 6PT.
This is the rudest fucking timing, 6PT. I'm not saying you're not right to question Gaius about this, but to do it here is a bit much.
Here and now. And she really doesn't care. She is a very jealous little Cylon. Even though she was like, I know I have your heart, you go do whatever, with all these little ladies, and then she's not as secure as she thinks she is.
Mhm.
Oh man, it is an amusing breakdown because he's basically trying to pass off to Rosalind that he's like freaking out about his responsibilities as vice president, and that he wasn't capable. And whatever. And she's like, I think this means we need to take a break. And then he's doing the, yes, we need a break at 6BT. It's beautiful. Beautiful. But then he goes to the bathroom and she smashes his head into the mirror. So, whatever.
She warns guys to stay off the Galactica as it's not going to be safe there very, very soon.
Huh. I just cannot figure 6BT out.
Yeah, that's, that's the point.
Huh. I I am so confused by her, and I'm really ready for her to be out of Gaius's head. Like, I was hoping that would be a, like, season one ending thing. Doesn't seem to be. Oh,
You got a long way to go before the end of that.
that sucks. Okay, well, Boomer and Crash are jumping around looking for supplies. And they jump right on top of a planet and curse Gaeta for planning this jump.
Yeah, they're so close.
he did a bad job. He put us too close to this planet. I think the implication there is that Gaeta didn't know there was a planet there at all. Like, that's what it's supposed to be. I don't know if that's true or not. Cause, I don't know.
That's, uh, it's definitely, they did not know this was here.
okay. They did not know this was here, but did Gaeta not know? I
I don't, I don't think anyone knows this is here.
alright. I mean, the Cylons obviously know it's here, because they show back up
Not, not at this point.
Oh, you don't think they do? You think they find out because of Galactica?
Yeah,
Okay, alright. So Okay.
Well, no one knows where this is that is plotting jumps or working on maps or making decisions.
Uh Huh. Sure.
Let me say that. That's carefully chosen words enough.
Yeah, I don't know. I'm not convinced that everyone doesn't know where this is. How about that? So they see oceans, continents, and there's nitrogen, oxygen, atmosphere, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool but Crashdown kind of hypothesizes, well, could this be Earth? And Boomer just knows
Yep. Yeah, Boomer knows what this is. The second she sees it, she's all like, Fuck. I know what this is.
yeah, maybe the Cylon's got it from Boomer, I don't know. But we're gonna go to Caprica Black now.
It's day 50.
Yeah.
Hilo is still with Sharon, whose arm is in a sling, and Hilo is still yelling. I believe it's been three days.
Yeah, I believe our last count was 47, so.
We don't know when the gunshot takes place.
Right.
But, that could be 47, that could be 50, it could be somewhere in between. Yeah.
But I like the idea of thinking that he shot her on day 47 and then fell bad. And bandaged up her arm and has just been yelling at her for three days. That's pretty funny to me.
that's same. 100%. I'm here for that.
They're sitting and talking in the rain. Sharon keeps trying to talk to him, but he just refuses to listen and demands that she get him off Caprica.
Yeah. Yep.
of logic to think that she can do that, but that's what he wants. All Cylons can do everything, right? They're just all, all powerful.
Kara is working on the raider when Lee comes to visit, and is just a complete asshole until she punches him.
He's giving her a bad time about Baltar.
This. Scene. Did you notice that there's like six extras, like, twenty feet away from them watching this entire thing in silence?
Yes. Well, I mean, presumably they're both commanding officers, right? Of these extras who are sitting around? Like, if my two bosses are fighting in front of me I am seeing nothing. I am saying nothing. I am not here. I am dissociating out of my body.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's the, that's incredibly real. yeah, so they can't seem to just kiss and do it. And we're going to have to probably do three seasons, three more seasons of Will they, won't they?
Well, we'll find out. Yeah. Rosalind, Billy, and Elosha discuss the ruins, and Rosalind sees the city as it was for a moment.
Hmm, more hallucinations.
Yeah. Elosha pulls up some scripture, and the time frame of the ruins confirms. This is Kobol. Birthplace of humanity.
Yeah, they left about 2, 000 years ago. Hmm.
Man uh, did you see in the Discord Ryan left us a little bit of stuff about Mormonism and Koval? I,
Uh, maybe I missed that.
it was like maybe 15 minutes before we started recording and it
Oh, then I did miss that,
and it's not anything I had. Oh, it's also in spoiler town, so you can't see it.
Oh, there we
Um, even though it's not a spoiler, because I want to talk about it uh, but it was like, yeah, it was very soon after recording, so I had no time to look into this. But there's a little bit of talking about how BSG handles the inherent Mormon foundation of Battlestar Galactica, being the original Battlestar Galactica was very Mormon. and the, I guess, I don't know much about Mormonism, so I'm just reading what, People are posting in the discord right now,
Which could be, it's just asterisk. Could be wrong.
If I, I trust everyone here who's talking. So, but if I get something wrong, it's probably me misreading or misinterpreting. So apologies. Um, so they're talking about how Kobol comes from the Mormon mythos being Kolob is a place in Mormon mythos, which is like, The planet nearest to God, and the idea of Battlestar being this is where humans were, and then they leave to go find other places,
For some reason,
And art's, like, coming back is inherently dangerous, um, and how it's kind of, like, reverse Mormonism in a way, because Mormonism is about getting back to that, right? And I thought that was very interesting, and I wanted to talk about it, but you hadn't read any of this, and I hadn't had time to do research, so.
Yeah, I mean,
Talk about it more in the Discord, everyone, though, because I'm, I, I, I'm digging the conversation with uh, there's a handful of people in there right now
Victor might have some, some perspective on that as well.
Yeah.
So, basically Rosalind is hallucinating things that scripture confirms. I'm curious how scripture works in this society. Because, like, just standard Christian society, say, or even, okay, Abrahamic religion society, I think. The holy book is, like, in everybody's living room, right? And you can just whip out a copy and see stuff on it, in it, whenever you want.
Right
So, if, if the book is in our living rooms in the society, which it doesn't seem like it is, Rosalind could have just come across that picture and hallucinated that, like, you know, she just saw it once, and now she's on these weird drugs. And then it goes, boom, back into her mind, you know?
Yeah.
But it could be some sort of, not secret priest knowledge, but maybe just, like, guarded priest knowledge or something?
Well, I mean, Alosha accuses her of having read Pythia just to fuck with her at one point.
Yeah, and it's, but,
holy books. Well, it's like, you read this, and now you're fucking with me, so.
Yeah, yeah. But in the land of Oklahoma, where the Bible is everywhere, just, just everywhere. Like, even places it shouldn't be. Like our schools. Uh, Like, you, that'd be like saying, You read Proverbs, and you're fucking with me. You know, it's like, well, I mean, lots of people have read Proverbs, so, like, I don't know.
I mean, we've established that Laura has not read the holy book. Like that's something that's been said.
Oh, have we established her as maybe, like, not religious? Okay.
Yeah, she is becoming a believer. Like even like, when she talks to Adama about it, you know, it's like, Oh, I didn't think you were religious. And she's like, I didn't either.
Okay. Yeah, I, I, guess when, that was probably an early establishing fact. And it was one of those things that I didn't collect as that important at the time.
Mm hmm.
Like, how everybody feels about religion is just whatever to me. Like, um, we all have, we can all have our own thoughts. It's okay. But yeah, I see, I see what you're saying there. This is a bit of a turnabout. And she wouldn't probably have just been leafing through her scripture bible and seen a picture.
Well, I don't know that she, like, she might have had one in her home even, but unlikely given her professed non religious status. It's very unlikely that she has one now. Given everything.
Giving everything, yes, yes.
yeah, Rosalind saw the forum at the opera house on Kobol.
Oh, you know, I do remember those words being said and that makes something else make a lot more sense now. Okay.
Yeah, I'm calling it out for a reason. Yeah it's, they, they mentioned that it was, there's a bit on Caprica that was modeled after it as well while they're talking about it. Which will come into play next episode.
Cool. Neat. Back on Battlestar, Boomer comes close to suicide. She's been cleaning this gun for a while. And Baltar interrupts and clearly clocks the situation at this moment. 6PT tells him that she unconsciously knows she's a Cylon, but she can't accept it. Uh, And she is very judgy of the Sharon model. She says, this model is weak, but it will carry out its mission.
Yeah.
Boomer talks about her dark thoughts.
Mm hmm.
Baltar tells her there are things worse than death, to listen to her heart, embrace what she knows to be the right decision. And this moment kind of cemented the chaotic neutralness of Baltar for me, because
Well, I mean, I agree, because he's talking someone into killing themselves.
he is, but he's also encouraging her to self determine.
Yeah, but he knows what that self determination is. She's clearly, like, he, when he walks in, she's got a gun in her mouth. Like, there's not a lot of, oopsie, I'm cleaning my gun weird there that can be explained. You know, it's pretty clear that's, that usually, that means one thing. And he knows she's a Cylon. And he knows that there is danger on this ship coming from the Cylons.
Yeah. If it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it's probably her. Yeah. So Mm
easily be incredibly self serving of him to do this.
hmm.
get me out of danger, you are the problem, you are the danger.
Yeah. He leaves, and We get the gunshot sound on the other side of the door. And 6PT looks kind of mad, but she doesn't say anything.
yeah. The uh, collected senior staffs between the politics senior staff and the military. Military senior staff discussed cobol. Adama wants to consider settlement while organizing a survey party of which Gaas volunteers, and then Valenti tells Atma he's going,
Yeah, throwing a little bit of that political weight around now. Uh, And you know, this is a planet full of science and I'm the science guy. So I should go. I'm, I'm big science genius.
He's like, if you're going to be having, if we're going to be testing samples and shit, I should go and just test samples rather than have your goons bring them back to me.
Yeah.
You know, just let me go collect the shit that I need to collect to be able to say what the hell is going on. I,
not important. That's not important right now.
Yeah.
It's kind of wild to me that Dodama is like, ready to talk settlement here. Like, it doesn't feel like we've gone far enough, you know? Like, we were still running into Cylons in like, the last episode.
right.
Like You're just gonna, you're just gonna hide, like? You don't think they'll just come through this section of space ever? Like, you're like, oh well we didn't know this was here so they don't know this was here. And like, it's fine. I don't think it's fine, guy.
It's like, you know, there's like stuff like Ragnar station where like, okay, well, silence die within a couple hours here, right?
Mm hmm.
You know, like 12 hours and you're a dead Cylon if we're on here. So Like, if you know stuff like that exists, I don't know how you consider settlement anywhere else at this opportunity.
You know what even would be useful right now? Go take the whole fleet to Ragnar Station. And make everybody in the fleet just hang out for 12 hours.
Just jump in, hang out,
mm hmm,
don't tell anyone where you're at, close every window on every ship,
uh Huh.
just wait. Right.
down like Leoben, like crayons in an oven, like,
hmm. That would solve too many problems, Laura.
just saying.
Take the eagles and drop the ring in on the top of Mount Doom version of Battlestar Galactica. At
won't get to have all this intrigue if we do that, you know?
least we're not being sabotaged or tracked anymore.
Okay, I'll amend, I'll amend my plan. Let's just have Starbuck jump Ellen Tai out there. And if she melts down in 12 hours, then okay, good. And if she doesn't, we just leave her there. Cause she sucks. Problem solved. Yeah, so
goes to visit Boomer in Med Lab, who's blown out the side of her cheek. She tells the chief it wasn't an accident, and then also puts this all on him in a way that was very uncomfortable. It was all like, oh, you care now? Fuck you, dude. And it's like, if, if you are hurt, regardless of whether or not your ex knows how you got hurt initially, and they reach out to you, that is. Probably a selfless act of caring, I would imagine.
You know, that's not going to be an easy conversation and you know that before you say something and you decide to check in anyways. I don't know. Maybe don't be a dick. But also, like, clearly things are not emotionally stable.
right, she doesn't know who she is, she tells him, and he won't help her, he's already said that, so she gives him a dismissal,
Yep.
and uh, he salutes and leaves. Like this whole situation is just super ugly.
Mm hmm. Rosalind tells Adama about the Arrow of Apollo?
Uh huh, yeah, it's the
Arrow The Arrow of Apollo? Okay.
We gotta go get it. It's back on Caprica. It's really important. Having that arrow and knowing where Kobol are will point us to Earth somehow. Not clear yet how.
Do thing. Get Arrow.
Yeah. Prophet.
He is not Adama is not interested.
Yeah. He knows there's no Earth. He's like, you know what, you know that I made that up. And she says, no. You're wrong. Things are happening, I really believe. And he asks her not to let her faith blind her to reality. And the bleakness of it. But he's blinding himself to the bleakness of reality by thinking he can settle Cobalt. I don't know. So, she really believes that that Cylon Raidership, which apparently these have a different FTL drive system, they can jump farther.
Better technology.
Yeah. Better technology. That could jump back to Caprica and bring Apollo's arrow back. Obviously Starbuck would have to be the one who flies this thing. If they get the arrow to the tomb of Athena on Kobol, then they can find Earth. Still not clear how, how that happens. But Adama refuses. He's not going to give up his military asset right now when he needs military asset.
Yeah, that raider can do a bunch of other things. Like something we're going to talk about in 15 minutes.
Yeah. So we get the exploration party going back to Cobalt and whoopsie doodle, just crawling with Cylons. Just everywhere.
We get my favorite, least favorite shot. In all of TV. This is a thing that happens a ton. I want to say, like, this predates the example that I always use of this shot. but the example that I always use is in the first season of Glee.
Uh
There is a car accident where you see, it's like, it's like you see the driver and you see out the side window and you see the car flying in, in the background while the driver is unaware. Um, and there's been, like, auto insurance commercials with this shot now and stuff. Like, this shot has been around for a minute and I don't know what originated it. And I didn't do the research to check. Um, surprise. But this shot is like, I love this shot, but I hate this shot.
Cause it always gets, every single time I'm just like, oh god, fucking look! UGH! Every time it gets me so UGH! Mm. Oh, yeah, so see,
You want to tell the people what the
2.
Smash.
Is it that gets taken out? 3 gets taken out. And it's, when they jump in, it's a side view of the pilot and we see a Cylon Raider just like, way too close to react. Just smash right through it.
Yeah, yeah. I guess that probably means that the raiders weren't expecting them to jump in there. Because you wouldn't, like, kamikaze the raptor if you didn't need to, right? You would shoot the thing.
Yeah, I think it's, it definitely seems like, given there's a moment of like, Oh fuck, from everyone, and the Raptors have to like, turn around, and the base starts like, what the fuck's going on, and it's definitely a surprise for all parties.
yeah. So, whole base star up in there. Baltar's ship and the pilot get shot. They patch the hole, but they can't jump out. Their FTL drive, gone.
Yeah. So we've got Raptor 2, who jumps home to let everyone at Galactica and the fleet know what the fuck's going on.
So on Galactica, they were talking about the Cylon devices. And GATA has cracked the code that these are some kind of transponder.
hmm.
Lets the Cylons know, Hey, I'm a friendly.
Yeah.
Weird.
Could be useful. Yeah.
jumps back in to Galactica.
Crashdown crashes down.
So, Ty tells Adama and Rosalyn, Starbuck is working on a plan to nuke the base star with the captured raider.
Yeah. And immediately, Immediately they're like, The frack?
huh. She didn't talk to the Adamas about this. Either one of them. Uh
My My vibe is that when she originally pitched this it was 100 percent a like, Independence Day style fly into the mothership. And only instead of putting a virus in, it's just setting the nuke off while smoking a cigar in your raider and getting atomized.
And uh, Lee is like, you went over my head to talk to Ty about this. I feel, kind of feel bad for Ty in this one. He's just like, yeah, Starbucks is working on this thing and, and everybody else is like, Like, freaking out that she didn't tell them, and he's just like, I just, she just, just is doing the thing, I'm sorry, you know?
Lee's screaming at her, he wants to know the plan, and obviously, yes, she is planning to just randle case, I believe is that character's name, just gonna do a randle case on this thing, and he's not gonna have that. Lee's not gonna let her. off the hook that easy.
Yeah.
Objects to Rosalind's drug induced visions of prophecy. Billy's not down anymore, guys.
Yeah. He's like, you are inviting the military to dissolve our fledgling government by doing something incredibly stupid right now. Like, Adama would be right if you went with this plan to say the government can't be trusted to save humanity.
yeah, Rosalind doesn't care and she demands that he get her Starbuck.
Yeah, she needs Starbees to door dash the arrow here.
Yeah, she, and here's the thing, like, Starbuck is not totally down with this, right? She is 100 percent Adama all the way. She respects Father Adama. Rosalind is trying to give her, like, reasons. Reasons you should trust this, and you should trust this religious experience we're all having. And we know Starbuck had a religious mother, but she doesn't seem particularly religious herself. She's prayed a couple of times, but you know, no atheists and foxholes and whatever.
Yeah.
So Rosalind tells her, you know, I have cancer. The scripture says the person who's going to lead us the way has a wasting disease. This may be their only chance. Starbuck is like, what are you talking about? Adama says he knows where Earth is.
He said us. He said
Dad said he knows.
Dad said it was okay. Yeah.
Yeah.
Mom, fuck off. Dad said it was okay. Dad said we're getting McDonald's.
Exactly. And uh, Rosalind says, Alright. ask Dad.
Yeah, we have McDonald's at home. Is the answer. Because she goes and asks Dad. And is not inspired by his bullshit answers.
He just totally avoids her Earth question. She, I think she asks him how long till we get to Earth, or how far away is it? And
Hard to say.
yeah.
Are we there yet? No. Are we there yet? No.
Uh huh. And he blows her off with a good luck on your flight. Your test flight. She's supposed to be test flying with the new transponder, right? And they're doing something.
Yeah, they're doing a little testy of something.
They're not She's not ready to go do nuke flight. This is just test flight.
Yeah, make sure that nuke flight can happen. Yeah.
Right. So, it's still meaty inside this bitch.
It's meaty, and like, she's not in a like, fully enclosed flight suit. Which is wild to me. Because it's like, isn't part of this plan, like, Low key just dropping yourself out of the back of this ship like cuz I miss she she climbs in through the ships butthole, right?
Uh Huh.
Or equivalent thereof.
Obviously, yes.
obviously it's a butthole and so, you know, it's like her isn't her plan to just like Autopilot and drop out this thing's butthole while it's flying into the base star with the nuke armed Would you not want to test that bit and make sure you can get? Out of the ship from your crawled in position while it's in flight.
Yeah, I don't know, man. Maybe they were just gonna drop the nuke out the butthole? And then she was gonna get to keep the ship? But
Oh, that'd be gravy, but
Yeah. It's not clear how the butthole works, unfortunately.
a nuke. We know there's a butthole. We know there's a Starbuck. Instructions unclear.
Is there a flared base on that nuke? Anyway. So, she heads out for her little test flight. Calls Adama on the scrambled channel.
Yeah.
And uh, tells him angrily, I believed you, Dad. I believed in McDonald's.
Right. Not happening.
And he knows that she's up to something, but she spins up that FTL and jumps away.
My favorite part of this scene is not Starbuck's righteousness. It is not Adama calmly trying to convince her. Otherwise, it is Saul Tye's face only hearing half of this conversation. Yeah.
Starbuck and their superiors. Well, he's not the superior, but you know what I mean. And now he's in the bad position of hearing one half of the landline conversation. That is clearly going off the rails. And uh, she jumps away. Tai wants to know where she went. Where'd she go? And Adama just says, Home. To credits. So dramatic. Wow. What an episode.
What an episode. It is just fucking wild.
Yeah. So many things. A penultimate episode should do this to you though, right?
Yeah, I mean, you texted me immediately after watching this to be all like, Hey, I need to watch the next one fucking ASAP.
Uh
Like, Shafir, whatever you're doing, you need to stop so that we can record so I can go watch this next one now.
Yeah. Yeah.
And it's been five days, so sorry.
That's okay. I did it without you.
I know it's fine. You can watch one ahead. You can watch whatever ahead. I'm not going to fucking, I'm not here to police anyone.
Yeah. We're the last people to do that, guys.
It's a hundred percent. Do what you fucking want.
Exactly. Yeah, watch Battlestar. Don't watch Battlestar. listen to other What Happened Here shows, or don't listen to other What Happened Here shows. It's fine. Join the Discord. Don't join the Discord. You're, you're perfect as you are, listener.
I mean, if anyone on Earth doesn't have the high ground to say watch episodes in order, it's the guy whose podcast purposefully skips a ton of episodes all the time. So, you know, do what you want. But uh, I gotta know, Laura, on a scale of 1 to 12 colonies,
Where do I rate this on 1 Hmm. I mean, I'm pretty hooked. I'm pretty hooked.
it's a really good app.
Did we have a mechanism? We had the fuck this episode mechanism.
Yeah,
Did we, have another mechanism?
Yeah, the, you can rate an episode a 13 out of 12.
Oh, right, right. Hmm.
Make something up right now. I don't give a fuck. Whatever, fuck it. There are no rules. The only rules that exist are the ones that we impose upon ourselves.
I mean, I don't have anything wrong with this episode.
Yeah.
I, I just don't. And I feel like I haven't had anything wrong with this whole season except fuck Ellen Tai.
Yeah, well, she's the fucking worst.
I, I've, the suspense is very real. It's really good. I'm so glad I'm not watching this back in the days when you had to wait a week in between your episodes.
Oh, it's
I can get to it.
Uh, We'll talk about how long the breaks were in between seasons of this show when
Next episode? Yeah.
But, fuckin Yikes. I, I think season one and two was pretty normal. I think season two and three was delayed a little, and if memory serves three and four was delayed quite a bit. And then four, they only gave us half of a season at a time. They might've done that with three too. There might've been a decent break in the middle. I'd have to check.
Okay. Well, you know what I'm going to do?
Yeah. What are doing.
I'm going to give it the penultimate number. I'm going to give it 11. 11. 11.
Yeah, that's exactly what I did. 12. Penultimate number for a penultimate episode. It's really fucking good.
Yeah, it is really good, especially that, that art at the beginning, that is the montage, the crazy drama that we've managed to build up. And some things have been building for some of the characters over the whole season, like Boomer. We've had kind of the Starbuck Baltar tension, maybe. In the last couple episodes, building up. Um, oh, Baltar VI tension, for sure. Like, she's getting real crazy up in there.
and there's just a lot of like, it's not necessarily payoff in that like it's over, but it's payoff in that like it's setting up the next thing.
Yeah.
A new thing. That is going to happen because of all this tension that's been building up.
For sure.
I'm very interested.
Well, let's talk about the next episode briefly. We've got Season 1, Episode 13, Cobalt's Last Gleaming, Part 2. I'm gonna read this description because I've been purposefully trying to find the least descriptive descriptions I can, I feel like, for episodes.
been sanitizing a little for my sake, I think yeah.
While Adama makes plans to destroy the base ship over Kobol, Laura focuses on an ancient prophecy to find a path to Earth.
Okay.
That's it. That is technically a true synopsis of the next episode.
technically, a true synopsis. Those things definitely happen, yeah.
There might be some other things that are more impactful, perhaps, we'll see. Uh, But we won't see until next week, and if, it's gonna be a whole week, listener.
Yeah.
If you're gonna wait a whole week, I want you to go through that week. With a couple of thank yous. You'll have your thank yous. Everyone has the people that they appreciate in their lives. The people who make the things that they do better or possible, just like Laura and I have that. And so thanks Jeremy Siegel for our awesome theme music. You can find more of Jeremy's work at JeremySiegel42. bandcamp. com or on streaming services.
And if you don't have streaming services and still want to hear more Jeremy Siegel, guess what? He also did the theme song for Cool Girls Don't Look at Explosions.
It's true. Yeah. Go, go listen to Cool Girls. Go listen to LTO. And, you know, it's fun stuff. What happened to her podcast? we got
We got stuff! We got stuff. Reasonably well done stuff. Yeah.
Reasonably well done stuff.
you to Angry Duck Time Machine on Instagram for our reasonably well done artwork.
Thanks for finding this podcast. I want you to stop editing, hit pause, pat yourself on the back right now. You can unpause, and I don't know if that made it through the edit, through the pause process or not, but that's fine.
You'll, we'll never know.
Yeah, I won't. I will never fucking know.
And you know what? Thanks, listener, for being here with us. We really appreciate you. You're great. And we would love to talk to you in the Discord. You know, if it's cool. If you're cool with it, it's fine.
If you're cool with it, it's cool. It's a cool place to be. All the uh, the whole podcast community, everyone's there chatting. You know, come talk about Battlestar, come talk about Airwolf, come ask for tech supports, questions, whatever, you know, it's a pretty open show place. It's a good time.
it is a good time. The only caveat is you keep your spoilers in Spoiler Town, so if you need to be there, ask when you get in.
a hundred percent. All right. Well, with all that said, I guess we'll, we'll see you next week, internet. bye!