Now, it's not necessary to have watched the previous incarnations of BSG in order to enjoy the current season, and I will try to explain some of the more confusing parts along the way, but if you are getting lost, rent the DVDs, or refer to the Battlestar Wiki (warning: contains spoilers). Anyway, at the end of last season, we learned that another Battlestar had survived the original attack on the 12 colonies. That Battlestar was named Pegasus, and it was captained by Admiral Cain. Now, although these two Battlestars survived, they took different paths after the original Cylon attack. The Galactica has become protector to a civilian fleet, has come under control of a civilian government, and is concerned with evading the Cylons and finding "Earth," which in their legends is the home of a thirteenth tribe of humans, mystical and presumably full of all of that good salvation. On the other hand we have the Pegasus, who is ruling under military control, has little concern for civilian affairs, and wants to beat the Cylons into submission and return back to their home worlds.

Since Admiral Cain is senior in rank, she will command the colonial military, and she's not so keen on still being beholden to a bunch of (sort of) elected pussies. Can wants to go after the Cylons, and it looks like civilian rule has made people a little soft. For instance, there is Sharon "Boomer" Valeri, a Cylon. One of her copies attempted to kill Commander Adama, and another one of her copies fell in love with Carl "Helo" Agathorn and is now pregnant. She is prisoner, but she is treated well. This is in contrast to Gina, the Cylon who was captured on the Pegasus. Gina was tortured and raped until she was left barely functioning. The man responsible for Gina's treatment was about to interrogate Boomer, and his first technique to get her to talk was raping this pregnant woman while two of his brave soldiers held her down. Helo and David Tyrol, the chief engineering officer who was in love with the Galactica Valeri, go to her aid, and while we all cheered when the would-be rapist died in the scuffle, it meant bad news since he was from the Pegasus and Cain is in control. Cain sees no reason why anybody should care what happens to a Cylon prisoner, even if that prisoner is carrying the child of one of the people who "attacked" the rapist.

In no time at all, she has a tribunal and Tyrol and Helo are sentenced to death, without a chance to defend themselves. Commander Adama, leader of the Galactica, and still possessing some sort of moral fiber, will not have Cain pulling that sort of shit while he is around, and is determined to stop Cain, his only method of getting her attention being to send his space fighters to attack her ship, even though it would be about as effective as betting on Duke to win an ACC football championship. Last season ended with us wondering what the hell it was going to take to stop an all-out civil war from taking place. What it took was yet another gutsy mission by Kara "Starbuck" Thrace.

Starbuck is arguably the fleet's best pilot. She managed to survive a crash landing on a strange planet by taking over a Cylon Raider (another fighter), and using it to fly back to safety. She then used that Cylon Raider to go back to Caprica for Apollo's Arrow, which would lead her people to Earth. When the Pegasus came, she was originally slated to become part of the Pegasus flight group, which was preparing for a recon mission on a nearby Cylon fleet. She had the audacity to suggest on using a stealth ship for a recon mission. Sure the stealth ship was built by hand using spare parts, but it was effective and would be perfect for the mission. Kara was dismissed from the mission, but Lee "Apollo" Adama, her almost brother-in-law, sort-of love interest, and probably best friend from Galactica, told her to take the stealth ship (Blackbird), and to make the recon trip without anybody else's knowledge, and that is exactly what she did.

Posted by J-Unit on January 8, 2006 8:20 PM