Street children in Philippines and World.

I have this friend who just will not stop harassing me about giving this show a chance.

Way back when I was in grade school, I remembered having a blue Battlestar Galactica lunch box. It had the faces of Apollo and Starbuck on one side, and a galactic fight scene on the other. I wasn’t even a fan of the show. I suppose my mother thought it was a cool choice. And she was probably correct, it certainly was a better choice over the Flintstones or the Jetsons. That is my only recollection of the show.

The ‘reimagined’ 3-hour mini-series of Battlestar Galactica (BSG) came out in 2003 courtesy of SciFi Channel. Not being a follower of the 1970’s version, this latest production apparently follows the same premise of the original, but took a big galactic twist and turn with everything else. The character of ‘Starbuck’, originally played by Richard Hatch, now belongs to ace female pilot Kara Thrace, played by Katee Sarkoff?. Apart from that, I have no idea what other direction the current production took.

And the premise is this. Somewhere out there were twelve colonies of human beings. These humans created robotic slaves called the Cylons to toil and fight for them. Through artificial intelligence, the Cylons banded together and fought the humans, thereby creating the first Cylon War. Eventually a truce was agreed upon wherein the Cylons were allowed to leave the colonies in search of their own ‘space’ in the galaxy. An Armistice Station was created for the humans and Cylons to meet once a year and discuss their fates. For 39 years, the Cylons never sent an emissary. On the 40th year, the Cylons sent a human blonde bombshell to meet with the colonial ambassador. Only she wasn’t human. She’s one of the new twelve models created by Cylons in the image of human beings. She kills the colonial ambassador. Simultaneously, Cylon raiders blows up the Armistice Station, and nukes the homestar of the twelve colonies—Caprica, thereby wiping out mankind. Or so the Cylons think.

Around the same time this was happening, the Battlestar Galactica was in orbit getting ready to be decommissioned. With almost 40 years of peace, there was no need to maintain battle stations in space. Laura Roslin, the Secretary of Education, is on board Colonial One to attend the ceremonies to be headed by Captain Adama. When news of the Cylon attack spread out, it became apparent that the Colonial One, the Battleship, and the few remaining orbiting fleet—a collective total of approximately 50,000 humans—are the only survivors of the Cylon attack. Caught unaware and left homeless, they must now defend themselves from the far-technologically-advanced Cylons, while looking for a new home, a mythical star where a thirteenth colony is rumored to be—Earth.

This series turned out to be a lot more than I expected. Apart from the Star Wars sextet, I haven’t really followed any sci-fi series religiously. Certainly not the Star Trek franchise that turned octopoid with its tentacled spin-offs . There’s a lot of human elements found in BSG. Choices that confront the survivors of the second Cylon War are not far from choices that confront us everyday.


TO BE CONTINUED

Cybele Arnaud