" It ’s not enough to survive . One has to be worthy of surviving . “—Adm . Bill Adama , Battlestar Galactica
Battlestar Galacticapresents a problem for me and myStar Trek - lover friends . Why do we love it so much ? We call each other up after each new episode and ramble in unquiet high up - pitched voice , flutter back and forth possibility and motion and " OH MY GOD" moments " ¦ all the while feel mistily guilty that noStar Trekclash with the Borg or tampering with the metre - space continuum ever engaged and taken up and obsess us to such a wakeless extent .
Star TrekandBattlestar Galacticahave wildly dissimilar aesthetics and ideologies , and both aspire to very different goals . Fundamentally , it boils down to this :
Star Trekis about who we want to be, andBattlestar Galacticais about who we are.
Star Trektakes property in a world where all the horrifying things about human existence have been rub out . Interstellar globalisation has brought us new applied science to make transportation and rendering effortless . simple machine call replicators can develop absolutely anything you need , so the economics of unfairness are gone . The injuries of backwash and division and sex have been surmounted , if not forget completely . Scarcity , borders , money , and culture have all ceased to exist . Interpersonal latent hostility are relics of a more savage age . No destructive dear affairs , no chafing under authority , minimum hauteur to put your fellow crew member at risk . There ’s something nice about confab a earthly concern like that — just like it ’s nice to pretend that institutional racism and vehemence against woman and impoverishment are getting good instead of worse . Much of mainstream fiction is built on this variety of wish - fulfilment .
That ’s why the reality ofBattlestar Galacticafeels so fresh , and so ambitious .
masses still drink in too much , and beat their spouses , and work too hard , and hate their bosses , and distrust the government , and venerate last . The gang of theGalacticais not boldly exploring the population for exploring ’s rice beer , learning about fascinating new cultures and ask round alien species to join the benevolent Federation of Planets . It ’s running off from a race of genocidal robots bent on their complete disintegration , while trying to maintain some tag of humanity and civilisation .
Star Trekrevels in its geekiness . Physicist in - joke and gleefully incomprehensible technobabble are discover in every episode . multitude say things like " The secondary gyrodyne relay in the actuation field intercellular substance have just depolarise . “
As a nerd , I find this fun . It ’s part ofStar Trek ’s fantasy prayer . It ’s part of the idea that science and reason and the intellect will rule . But we ’ve been tell apart ourselves that lie for a long time now .
In a very concrete sense , Battlestar Galacticadescends from the sci - fi community ’s realization that darker and more complex time demand coloured and more complex science fabrication . Ronald Moore , the developer / writer / executive manufacturer of the re - imaginedBattlestar Galactica , has aStar Trekpedigree that makes him the idol of Trekkies everywhere . He scripted 27 installment ofStar Trek : The Next Generation , and was promoted to carbon monoxide gas - manufacturer and later to producer . OnStar Trek : Deep Space Nine , he was a supervising producer and a co - executive producer , writing several of the series ' most controversial episodes . He co - wrote the scripts for the filmsStar Trek GenerationsandStar Trek : First Contact . And while he was hired as a manufacturer ofStar Trek : Voyager , he depart after only two episodes . In a January 2000 interview withCinescapemagazine , he outlined some of the frustrations with that show :
Galacticais sci - fi without that BS . Sci - fi with all the anger and stupidity and sadness that tangible people see . Sci - fi without the condemnation that we will conquer our own ugliness . Sci - fi for the eld of 9/11 and lifelike tragedy compounded by climate variety to the point where they can all destruct major city . Galactica ’s content is that unless we come to term with our own history , we are doomed . Mankind created the Cylons to press our wars and to do our oink work for us . Eventually they rose up and wiped out 99.999 % of us . This introductory lesson is one we still have n’t learned : that exploitation leads to exploitation , that if you oppress someone you seed the seeds of your own subjugation . “You ca n’t represent God and then wash your hands of the matter you ’ve created,“says theGalactica ’s commander , William Adama . " Sooner or afterwards , the day comes when you ca n’t veil from the things that you ’ve done anymore . “ * * * * * The apocalypse ghost us . The theme of society ’s entire collapse has broad adhesive friction across the political spectrum . Even Oprah ’s worried — that ’s why she pick Cormac McCarthy’sThe Roadfor her book club . No getting around it : we ’re afraid . We need to prepare ourselves mentally . We buy battery . We lave up every new zombie - destroy - humanity movie . All of a sudden , it ’s disturbingly easy to suppose the human backwash lose weight from million of masses to ten-spot of M .
Battlestar Galactica’s warning that technology and progress will bring us to the brink of total annihilation is far more resonant thanStar Trek’s hope that technology and progress will solve all of our problems.
Star Trekdoesn’t pretend that human being are perfect — prior to the discovery of the Warp Engine , Earth had been brought back to the bound of the Stone Age by the " Eugenics Wars"—but it does take for granted that human beings are good , and that chronicle represent a fumbling messy variety of progress towards perfection . What makesBattlestar Galacticaso stalk is the existential question it stupefy to all of us : " Do we deserve to exist?“ In light of Auschwitz and Darfur and the Tuskegee Syphilis Study , Tibet and 9/11 and Abu Ghraib , can we frankly say we do n’t merit full demolition ? That we ’ll learn ? That we ’ll change ? Early on , Galactica ’s commander wonders:“When we fought the Cylons , we did it to make unnecessary ourselves from extinction . But we never answer the question : Why ? Why are we as a people deserving saving?“And whileStar Trekplotlines often boil down to a search for the right solution to a problem , the " best solution" onBattlestar Galacticais likely to nurture all sorts of bristled moral questions . Is it satisfactory to rig an election , because you get it on that your opponent ’s policies will lead to disaster ? Can we assassinate a rival officer whose action put the fleet at risk ? Where is the line between a mob and a guild ?
I care I could see the show as a clear-cut house that we ’re ready to own up to the narratives of hate and violence and oppression that be our account , but that feels like a stretch . At the very least , I thinkBattlestar Galacticahas been an overwhelming vital and democratic achiever because we ’re quick to be challenged . As we enter the terminal part of the final time of year , the endurance of the human race clearly hinges on whether mankind will arrive to terms with what it has done . And while it ’s simplistic to come down the Cylons to an allegory for racism , or our petroleum dependency , BSGoffers us a rare opportunity to examine our own culpability , and our own superpower to shift .
This article earlier appear last June . Sam J. Miller is a writer and community organizer . His work has appeared in numerous magazine , anthology , and photographic print and online journal . He lives in the Bronx with his partner of six years . inflict him atsamjmiller.com .
