“He was used to working with machines, command is about people.” Great line. And perhaps a bit deeper than intended considering our enemies are sentient machines 😂
Something that always super-impressed me about this episode is how they treat the abortion debate. There is no shortage of movies and TV episodes that address the politics of abortion, usually, the abortion rights side "wins". Sometimes they lose, but the reason they lose has to do with the religious convictions of the pro-life side. This is the only time I've ever seen the pro-life side wins on scientific merits. (The merits of this situation, not to be translated to our current life). The real debate, which is a recurring theme throughout the series, is the "worthy of survival" question (as asked in Adama speech in mini-series-1, and subsequently rephrased at various points, including this episode). Is specie survival so precious that one should be allowed to violate all principals one believe in? No good answer. What good are principals if you go extinct? But, then, what good is survival if there are no principals worth holding? This show, unlike most other storytelling, doesn't provide a Deus-ex-machina solution where somehow you can do both. No easy out. The characters (and engaged audience) need to make the hard choice and live (or die) with it. Baltar wasn't BS'ing about the extinction risk. He told Roslyn that when he showed her that data six months ago she wasn't interested. While at this juncture he may have had a political interest in backstabbing Roslyn, that wouldn't have been the case then (at least not on this issue). In any event, it seems fairly obvious that while in space, the humans are losing people at a staggering pace, and that babies are nowhere near enough to replace the losses. Also worth noting, is the flip from s2x13, where Rosyln was ordering the termination of Sharon baby and Baltar (as pushed by head-six) was doing everything he could to save it. Dan.
It's such a good debate because there's no right answer. But massive repercussions either way. Oh that stat was real? Hmm. I wonder how chaotic it would get if they made that public knowledge and see what happens.
@@RamblersInc One would have to imagine that just about anyone in the fleet realizes that they are losing people way faster than babies being born. Packed spaceships aren't exactly procreation friendly.
The episode really showcases what a beast the Pegasus can be. 😉 With the right person running the ship, she can clean house all by her lonesome. The next battle shown is gonna be truly epic.
I think part of the reason Adama hadn't put a Galactica officer in charge of the Pegasus is that he didn't want it to seem to the Pegasus crew like he was just putting an outsider over them. Without spoiling any plot details, early in the movie Razor it shows Lee selecting his XO and he wanted an officer from the Pegasus crew for the same reason. Anoher probable reason is Seniority. Tigh is probably the only officer on Galactica above the rank of Captain prior to Lee being promoted to Major who could have realistically taken command of Pegasus and he 1. doesn’t want a command and 2. Fraked things up pretty bad when he was in command of Galactica at the befinning of the season. The Galactica was an older ship about to be decomissioned and other than Adama and Tigh, Major Cottle, and Major Spencer, Galactica's CAG who was killed in the miniseries, and then Captain Kelly. The ship didn't seem to have a lot of other senior officers aboard. Prior to the Pegasus joining the Fleet, the seniority of the officers that we know of from Galactica would likely go Commander Adama, Colonel Tigh, Major Cottle, Captain Kelly Or Captain Adama, Captain Birch (assumimg he didn't revert back to a Lieutenant after Lee returned to duty as CAG following Home pt. 2) and then a gaggle of Lieutenants. Pegasus was not only a newer ship, but also the flagship for an Admiral and likely had a couple more senior officers including Gardner who was likely at least a Captain and possibly higher ranking, but he was also probably not a line officer, and wouldn't have ordinarily been in the ship's chain of command. Adama might have also been considering the age of the officers and initially been reluctant to put a younger officer like Lee or Captain Kelly in charge of a Battlestar. Lastly he might have been reluctant to pull a Viper qualified pilot off the line, he didn't want to lose Apollo or Starbuck as options to command one of the air groups after the experience he had with Birch as Galactica's CAG and possibly only assigned Apollo as Pegasus XO temporarily since he wasn't healthy enough to fly a Viper at the time. He may have planned to put him back in a Viper as soon as Garner had a little more time in command and had time to pick himself an XO.
Maybe I'm missing something. Looking at seniority over credentials or speciality in "management"? This guy was basically an expert engineer with no people skills. I love him but this is the second time Adama has chosen the wrong person and then said "don't let me down" 😂 Or am I being too harsh and is this all down to a lack of people in the first place?
Good summary. Not only would flying an Admiral's flag likely have brought some seniority it also seems the crewing philosophy on Pegasus is different than on Galactica (at least in her prep for decom state). Tirol is the chief in charge of apparently all engineering and flight ops whereas Pegasus has a deck chief and a full on officer (probably a Major) in charge of engineering (which is more similar to blue navy ships.) Possibly Galactica had already lost her commissioned officer as part of crew reductions, leaving a chief in charge, but either way Galactica is really short on command line officers (which, unless the Colonial Navy is very different than blue water navies, Cottle isn't in line to command anything he's only an officer to allow him to command most of the crew to follow medical direction.)
@@RamblersInc In theory an officer in command of the entire engineering section should have SOME people skills. Garner was either very very good at what he did and earned respect and advancement despite his poor nature with people, managed to always work with other engineers of similar disposition and therefore not be atypical, and/or have some kind of sponsor/nepotism. The last doesn't seem super likely IMO given how harsh a task master Cain was but it isn't impossible. He was a bad choice but its not like Adama had a lot of time to review jackets and a bunch of choices. He likely looked over Cain's record on the man and based it on that.
23:15, On the original show I believe the Galactica was over 500 years old. But due to the the centuries long fight against the Cyclons she was still state of the art. On this version, she is at least 50 years old and behind the technology curve. She is literally a rust bucket.
Yes on the Pegasus they can land either way up so to speak depending on which bay they are landing in, The Pegasus is a much more modern ship than Galactica. With more advanced use of artificial gravity. Allowing for an upper & lower landing bay in each flight pod..
The Pegasus has 2 flight pods but each pod has 2 flight decks in a mirrored arrangement so they can share some of the machinery and makes maintenance much easier.
I suspect Gaius was being truthful when he told Roslin that the human race would be extinct in 18 years on their present course. They started with 50,298 survivors (Ep 1, 33) and in the time since (even with Pegasus crew adding) dropped to 49,584. A new battlestar's worth of crew is unlikely to happen again (+1,752). They've lost 2,466 over a period of at least ~200-250 days. Even if we call it a year, 2,466/yr only gives them 20 years so its probably a bit less than a year. Assuming pretty minimal birth rates and that they will continue to be chased and lose so many is probably the worst case scenario and there should be other projections, but it is likely not an outright lie.
No one from Galactica previously took over, Because of the two crews mutual hostility. Adama was trying to keep the Pegasus"s command in house, In order to try and prevent exactly the situation Starbuck was facing, Where they couldn't do their job properly because of the non cooperative attitude of the Pegasus's crew..
Bucket and the Beeeeeast... (Sung in the Disney chord) This episode makes me wonder WhoTF is Galactica's Chief Engineer- I mean, Chief Tyrol is the flight deck chief, he ain't in the engine room... So who is running it? Oh, Doc Cottle is the freaking GOAT- Cottle knew EXACTLY what he was saying. He gives no fucks and will do the right thing (at least in his mind), end of story. Yeah, being in charge is far different from being NEAR the big chair- when you have the final say, especially when people's lives are at stake... it can throw you for a loop, especially if its a sudden (say, a "battlefield") promotion Yes, The Beast has four flight pods, a top and bottom on each side. The order came after she SOUGHT the abortion; now, the procedure might not have occurred, (and I'm sure Cottle could smudge the time a few hours if need be), but Rya sought it prior to the law even being considered. OH, Gaius's report? No, that was legit- and I do believe he had been working on that at some point earlier. (I mean, way back, he had that report on the food and water needs of the fleet on hand- pretty sure a survival projection wouldn't be that hard. The only thing that would change is plugging in the Pegasus crew number and re-running the equations.)
Well this is a seriously controversial episode. In the real world we have literally billions of humans. We got warm bodies to spare. But on this show we only got less than 50,000. It comes down to a matter of purely numbers. Her decision was hard and not very popular but I don’t think Roslin had much of choice. If the number on the whiteboard keeps going down, bye bye human race. Then people’s rights really don’t mean a hill of beans.
I always try to emphasize to whoever watching the shoe to take their situation into account. Every decision they make carries a LOT of weight due to their extreme circumstances. They are the survivors of a genocide in a scale we can barely comprehend and they are not just in war, they're in war for the survival of the human race against a race that literally have infinite numbers. This put things into perspective.
Worth saying that Garner's speech about nobody cowboying in the Engine Room sounds a little hollow after disobeying Adama. That said, he was the best Adama could find in the Pegasus crew. There's a limited talent pool going on right now, you know. I think Baltar was being real in his prediction. People are dying at a far greater pace than they are being born. At some point that number would hit zero.
The fact that the human race is down to 50,000 might be legitimate reason to some people as to NOT have kids. Perhaps they wouldn't want to bring a child into a world of fleeing killer robots while trapped inside sardine cans. That's no life for a baby. Imagine this scenario. At some point in the future our sun will turn into a red giant. It's surface will expand nearer and nearer to earth, burning off it's air and water. Blasting her with intense radiation and heat. This will of course take a long time in developing. But when the scales tip even slightly every next day will be one day worse than the last. Somewhere along that history I imagine you, me, anyone with a conscience will say, "That's it. I'm not bringing a child into this." So where along that time line would it take for you to reach that point? Even in our present day reality the birth rate in Russia is crashing. Despondent people don't see reason for bringing a child into their lives. Only a tyrannical regime would deny people choice. There's 50,000 people but really the numbers that matter are the women. And are they of child bearing age? Salvation would probably be some women would have no children. Some women would have 8. That's usually how it works. Not picking a bone with you. As I'm a guy. Women should decide these things.
@@RamblersInc yes - I worked in politics and a legislature. We’d all say that governing and elections would be fun and easy …if not for the damn voters.
Just a couple of things: I used to love the action part of the episode, but now the political aspect of it is more compelling. And disingenuous Zarek dissing the "raving Gemenese" while being their representative only because they accept ex-cons for political office. Just sayin.
What pisses me off most in this episode is that Laura made that extremely difficult decision, one which she CLEARLY struggled with both morally and emotionally, based on the numbers that GAIUS gave her saying we would simply go extinct otherwise and he has the audacity as a scientist- as a numbers guy- to flip the script and play like he gives two fraks about a woman's right to choose. It's gross. It makes me want to take a shower from the inside out.
They missed their opportunity with Gardner to introduce a new Pegasus character that goes missing, so Gardner gets to yell, 'KEVIN!'..
🤣🤣🤣...................😱
“He was used to working with machines, command is about people.” Great line. And perhaps a bit deeper than intended considering our enemies are sentient machines 😂
So basically...........he's saying working with machines will get you killed 😂😳
@@RamblersInc definitely 😂
@@chrisfraser5088 You know, that doesn't need to be true. Look at Helo and Sharon. And and , at season .
Something that always super-impressed me about this episode is how they treat the abortion debate. There is no shortage of movies and TV episodes that address the politics of abortion, usually, the abortion rights side "wins". Sometimes they lose, but the reason they lose has to do with the religious convictions of the pro-life side. This is the only time I've ever seen the pro-life side wins on scientific merits. (The merits of this situation, not to be translated to our current life).
The real debate, which is a recurring theme throughout the series, is the "worthy of survival" question (as asked in Adama speech in mini-series-1, and subsequently rephrased at various points, including this episode). Is specie survival so precious that one should be allowed to violate all principals one believe in? No good answer. What good are principals if you go extinct? But, then, what good is survival if there are no principals worth holding? This show, unlike most other storytelling, doesn't provide a Deus-ex-machina solution where somehow you can do both. No easy out. The characters (and engaged audience) need to make the hard choice and live (or die) with it.
Baltar wasn't BS'ing about the extinction risk. He told Roslyn that when he showed her that data six months ago she wasn't interested. While at this juncture he may have had a political interest in backstabbing Roslyn, that wouldn't have been the case then (at least not on this issue). In any event, it seems fairly obvious that while in space, the humans are losing people at a staggering pace, and that babies are nowhere near enough to replace the losses.
Also worth noting, is the flip from s2x13, where Rosyln was ordering the termination of Sharon baby and Baltar (as pushed by head-six) was doing everything he could to save it.
Dan.
It's such a good debate because there's no right answer. But massive repercussions either way.
Oh that stat was real? Hmm. I wonder how chaotic it would get if they made that public knowledge and see what happens.
@@RamblersInc One would have to imagine that just about anyone in the fleet realizes that they are losing people way faster than babies being born. Packed spaceships aren't exactly procreation friendly.
I'd hope so
The episode really showcases what a beast the Pegasus can be. 😉
With the right person running the ship, she can clean house all by her lonesome. The next battle shown is gonna be truly epic.
Man, imagine if they got the right person in charge...
I think part of the reason Adama hadn't put a Galactica officer in charge of the Pegasus is that he didn't want it to seem to the Pegasus crew like he was just putting an outsider over them. Without spoiling any plot details, early in the movie Razor it shows Lee selecting his XO and he wanted an officer from the Pegasus crew for the same reason.
Anoher probable reason is Seniority. Tigh is probably the only officer on Galactica above the rank of Captain prior to Lee being promoted to Major who could have realistically taken command of Pegasus and he 1. doesn’t want a command and 2. Fraked things up pretty bad when he was in command of Galactica at the befinning of the season. The Galactica was an older ship about to be decomissioned and other than Adama and Tigh, Major Cottle, and Major Spencer, Galactica's CAG who was killed in the miniseries, and then Captain Kelly. The ship didn't seem to have a lot of other senior officers aboard. Prior to the Pegasus joining the Fleet, the seniority of the officers that we know of from Galactica would likely go Commander Adama, Colonel Tigh, Major Cottle, Captain Kelly Or Captain Adama, Captain Birch (assumimg he didn't revert back to a Lieutenant after Lee returned to duty as CAG following Home pt. 2) and then a gaggle of Lieutenants.
Pegasus was not only a newer ship, but also the flagship for an Admiral and likely had a couple more senior officers including Gardner who was likely at least a Captain and possibly higher ranking, but he was also probably not a line officer, and wouldn't have ordinarily been in the ship's chain of command.
Adama might have also been considering the age of the officers and initially been reluctant to put a younger officer like Lee or Captain Kelly in charge of a Battlestar.
Lastly he might have been reluctant to pull a Viper qualified pilot off the line, he didn't want to lose Apollo or Starbuck as options to command one of the air groups after the experience he had with Birch as Galactica's CAG and possibly only assigned Apollo as Pegasus XO temporarily since he wasn't healthy enough to fly a Viper at the time. He may have planned to put him back in a Viper as soon as Garner had a little more time in command and had time to pick himself an XO.
Maybe I'm missing something. Looking at seniority over credentials or speciality in "management"? This guy was basically an expert engineer with no people skills.
I love him but this is the second time Adama has chosen the wrong person and then said "don't let me down" 😂
Or am I being too harsh and is this all down to a lack of people in the first place?
Good summary. Not only would flying an Admiral's flag likely have brought some seniority it also seems the crewing philosophy on Pegasus is different than on Galactica (at least in her prep for decom state). Tirol is the chief in charge of apparently all engineering and flight ops whereas Pegasus has a deck chief and a full on officer (probably a Major) in charge of engineering (which is more similar to blue navy ships.) Possibly Galactica had already lost her commissioned officer as part of crew reductions, leaving a chief in charge, but either way Galactica is really short on command line officers (which, unless the Colonial Navy is very different than blue water navies, Cottle isn't in line to command anything he's only an officer to allow him to command most of the crew to follow medical direction.)
@@RamblersInc In theory an officer in command of the entire engineering section should have SOME people skills. Garner was either very very good at what he did and earned respect and advancement despite his poor nature with people, managed to always work with other engineers of similar disposition and therefore not be atypical, and/or have some kind of sponsor/nepotism. The last doesn't seem super likely IMO given how harsh a task master Cain was but it isn't impossible. He was a bad choice but its not like Adama had a lot of time to review jackets and a bunch of choices. He likely looked over Cain's record on the man and based it on that.
@azuresentry815 True. He would have had to be very good at his job to rise up the ranks. Let's hope Apollo is up to the task.
23:15, On the original show I believe the Galactica was over 500 years old. But due to the the centuries long fight against the Cyclons she was still state of the art.
On this version, she is at least 50 years old and behind the technology curve.
She is literally a rust bucket.
Agreed. At least compared to the Pegasus.
Yes on the Pegasus they can land either way up so to speak depending on which bay they are landing in, The Pegasus is a much more modern ship than Galactica. With more advanced use of artificial gravity. Allowing for an upper & lower landing bay in each flight pod..
The Pegasus has 2 flight pods but each pod has 2 flight decks in a mirrored arrangement so they can share some of the machinery and makes maintenance much easier.
I suspect Gaius was being truthful when he told Roslin that the human race would be extinct in 18 years on their present course. They started with 50,298 survivors (Ep 1, 33) and in the time since (even with Pegasus crew adding) dropped to 49,584. A new battlestar's worth of crew is unlikely to happen again (+1,752). They've lost 2,466 over a period of at least ~200-250 days. Even if we call it a year, 2,466/yr only gives them 20 years so its probably a bit less than a year. Assuming pretty minimal birth rates and that they will continue to be chased and lose so many is probably the worst case scenario and there should be other projections, but it is likely not an outright lie.
No one from Galactica previously took over, Because of the two crews mutual hostility. Adama was trying to keep the Pegasus"s command in house, In order to try and prevent exactly the situation Starbuck was facing, Where they couldn't do their job properly because of the non cooperative attitude of the Pegasus's crew..
Then......he's bad at picking players for his team 😂
@@RamblersIncOr he's got nothing to work with, and is making the best choice possible out of limited options 😂
@Markus117d That's also true. You're never going to find the "perfect" person for the job if the pool to chose someone from is small.
"I'd like to know how she got pregnant."
Well, you see, when a man and a woman love each other, they share a special hug...
🤣🤣🤣🤣👏
oooohhhhh so thaaaat's how it happens. Do the village elders know?
Bucket and the Beeeeeast... (Sung in the Disney chord)
This episode makes me wonder WhoTF is Galactica's Chief Engineer- I mean, Chief Tyrol is the flight deck chief, he ain't in the engine room... So who is running it?
Oh, Doc Cottle is the freaking GOAT- Cottle knew EXACTLY what he was saying. He gives no fucks and will do the right thing (at least in his mind), end of story.
Yeah, being in charge is far different from being NEAR the big chair- when you have the final say, especially when people's lives are at stake... it can throw you for a loop, especially if its a sudden (say, a "battlefield") promotion
Yes, The Beast has four flight pods, a top and bottom on each side.
The order came after she SOUGHT the abortion; now, the procedure might not have occurred, (and I'm sure Cottle could smudge the time a few hours if need be), but Rya sought it prior to the law even being considered.
OH, Gaius's report? No, that was legit- and I do believe he had been working on that at some point earlier. (I mean, way back, he had that report on the food and water needs of the fleet on hand- pretty sure a survival projection wouldn't be that hard. The only thing that would change is plugging in the Pegasus crew number and re-running the equations.)
😂I knew it. Love Cottle.
Gaius is definitely winning. He'll mess everything up after he's in power, but he's winning.
Well this is a seriously controversial episode. In the real world we have literally billions of humans. We got warm bodies to spare. But on this show we only got less than 50,000.
It comes down to a matter of purely numbers. Her decision was hard and not very popular but I don’t think Roslin had much of choice.
If the number on the whiteboard keeps going down, bye bye human race. Then people’s rights really don’t mean a hill of beans.
Also while not the best solution, Adoption is an option for those who don't want to be parents.
@@Markus117dBingo!
She wasn't even going to do it in the first place. Gaius you genius.
I always try to emphasize to whoever watching the shoe to take their situation into account. Every decision they make carries a LOT of weight due to their extreme circumstances. They are the survivors of a genocide in a scale we can barely comprehend and they are not just in war, they're in war for the survival of the human race against a race that literally have infinite numbers. This put things into perspective.
Worth saying that Garner's speech about nobody cowboying in the Engine Room sounds a little hollow after disobeying Adama.
That said, he was the best Adama could find in the Pegasus crew. There's a limited talent pool going on right now, you know.
I think Baltar was being real in his prediction. People are dying at a far greater pace than they are being born. At some point that number would hit zero.
Humanity is hanging on by a thread - honestly odd they hadn’t banned abortion. They need to start procreating and fast.
The fact that the human race is down to 50,000 might be legitimate reason to some people as to NOT have kids. Perhaps they wouldn't want to bring a child into a world of fleeing killer robots while trapped inside sardine cans. That's no life for a baby. Imagine this scenario. At some point in the future our sun will turn into a red giant. It's surface will expand nearer and nearer to earth, burning off it's air and water. Blasting her with intense radiation and heat. This will of course take a long time in developing. But when the scales tip even slightly every next day will be one day worse than the last. Somewhere along that history I imagine you, me, anyone with a conscience will say, "That's it. I'm not bringing a child into this." So where along that time line would it take for you to reach that point?
Even in our present day reality the birth rate in Russia is crashing. Despondent people don't see reason for bringing a child into their lives. Only a tyrannical regime would deny people choice. There's 50,000 people but really the numbers that matter are the women. And are they of child bearing age? Salvation would probably be some women would have no children. Some women would have 8. That's usually how it works.
Not picking a bone with you. As I'm a guy. Women should decide these things.
It'd be so much easier if everyone realised it rather than forcing it though.
@@RamblersInc yes - I worked in politics and a legislature. We’d all say that governing and elections would be fun and easy …if not for the damn voters.
😂
Just a couple of things: I used to love the action part of the episode, but now the political aspect of it is more compelling.
And disingenuous Zarek dissing the "raving Gemenese" while being their representative only because they accept ex-cons for political office. Just sayin.
Zarek represents Tauron, Sarah represents Gemenon.
@@roguenine9LU I think if you go back to colonial day in S1 they explain Zarek's situation. I could be wrong tho.
Yep.....always got to watch out for Zarek.
What pisses me off most in this episode is that Laura made that extremely difficult decision, one which she CLEARLY struggled with both morally and emotionally, based on the numbers that GAIUS gave her saying we would simply go extinct otherwise and he has the audacity as a scientist- as a numbers guy- to flip the script and play like he gives two fraks about a woman's right to choose. It's gross. It makes me want to take a shower from the inside out.
It was so easy for him (and head six) to manipulate her in that way. This is going to go badly.
@@RamblersInc Yes it was, because unlike Gaius, she is deeply concerned with the future of the human race. Not just the future of Gaius Baltar.
This episode makes my blood boil.
I hear you