milo bloom

I am finally! caught up with this series! It just wasn't on my radar until I started seeing pieces of the first season. I didn't even see the miniseries until I bought the season 1 box set a few weeks ago. I had jumped right in with 33 and was hooked.

This is an incredible series, but I can see how the changes would upset the old fans. But even more is the dramatic heights it reaches for. It has taken a concept that was never meant for such lofty goals, and it has made difficult decisions along the way. It has crossed lines, and drawn new ones.

It has some baggage, that is obvious. The most obvious is Voyager. If Voyager had touched a tenth of the subjects in it's seven years, that the new BSG has done in a scant season and a half, the name Janeway would be spoken with a reverence only held now for Kirk, and on a good day, Picard. And if I had seen just one episode of VOY with them building a new shuttle, like Tyrol's Blackbird, it would have gone a long way with it's detractors.

But no matter Mr. Moore's intentions, he is achieving an incredible accomplishment. And like it or not, he is telling a story about us. The parallels are obvious in places, subtle in others. But Pegasus hammers it home. We cannot lower ourselves, no matter the enemy. I firmly believe the Cylons have achieved sentience (that they are a bit nutters is beside the point), but even if not, they are something that is so close to us, that if we engage in that act, with that intention (which Thorne and the others fully intended), then you are committing that act.

Cain is allowing, and supporting, abuses that are beneath the dignity of human beings to perpetrate, regardless of the victim. She must be removed from command and tried for these crimes. Human civilization has already been reduced to a pitiful number, but she cannot be allowed to continue in her position. We cannot allow a time of crisis to allow us let our morals slip. Now more than ever, our sense of human dignity must be maintained. Even if the Cylons are still machines, if we don't extend that dignity to our prisoners of war, we will become worse than them.

Cruella

Sorry, I re-read first page and didn't see your distinction between someTHING and someONE. You linked Cyclons to toasters, that I've read. However, what for me makes toasters someTHING, is their inability to have independent thought and self-consciousness (as far as we know, LOL). Cogito, ergo sum, for example, does not apply to toaster, since toaster doesn't THINK. So I am still interested (honestly, not in picky way) to see what constitutes SOMEONE for you, if that's not ability to think and feel. I am always interested in seeing other people's logic. Do you think they not feel the pain for real and simply "pretend", in a way?

Sadly though I don't see how we can continue this discussion and not keep on the argument.

wendersfan

As of last night, so am I.

Regarding the "rapes" of Six and Boomer, I take a different tack - given the near-impossibility of telling humans and human-like Cylons apart, surely there must be some small, maybe infinitesimal, lingering doubts over the makeup of the human-like Cylons, no? And if so, how could someone justify a forced sexual act on something that may in fact be human? Think of it this way - let's say I'm a really sadistic perv, and I build a sex robot designed to react in a certain way when I "rape" it, because it's that reaction that I want, not the sex itself. In my mind, that's entirely different than stumbling across something that looks and acts human, but which I believe to be mechanical, and then commiting sadistic acts on it.

Also, consider this (and also try to think of it the way a Cylon might) - God made man in His image. Humans made Cylons, and now there are Cylons in human form:

God's "image" = human form = Cylon form, therefore

God's "image" = Cylon form.

Also, Human's "make" babies in their own image, so how are they different than Cylons made in the "style" of humans? True, Cylons are nothing but machines, but isn't the human body nothing but a really complicated machine, once you get right down to it? As humans, we like to differentiate ourselves from everything else in the universe because we have a "soul", and because we are made in God's "image". I've demonstrated above that the latter is true of the human-like Cylons, and since they are also capable of worship and faith, wouldn't the former be true as well? In other words, the human-like Cylons are in no significant way different than "real" humans, which is what I think the show will be dealing with more and more in S3.