I finally got around to watching “Pegasus”…the latest episode of Sci-Fi channels new Battlestar Galactica series.  I really shouldn't have watched it alone.  It would have been good to have someone else here in the house with me.

     Now, I know there are a couple people reading this who have absolutely no use for the new Galactica.  I’m sorry, but I’m completely gripped by this new show.  I’ll admit the shiny-glossy-high-tech production quality doesn’t hurt that.  Yes, I am dazzled by the lush sensory pallet served up by this production, but the fact that the story is a crucible of raw emotion doesn’t hurt either.

     I can’t quite shake the dreadful feeling that they’re taking us on a ride that can only disappoint (shades of season three of Babylon Five come to mind…tons of suspense and tension and emotional build-up, and then Sheridan tells the big players to pack up their toys and go home…and they do???WTF?)…but so far it’s been quite a ride.  It’s not been a lot of fun…but it has been gripping, compelling, and thought-provoking and so far, it’s been worth it.

     Right away my first observations are political.  Big surprise, huh?  Pegasus, isolated from the rest of humanity, dealt a terrible blow in a devastating sneak attack…ruled over with an iron fist by an uncompromising admiral who will not hesitate one moment to punish dissent with the total destruction of anyone who opposes her…

     …surprise, surprise, the ship turns into a cult of personality.  Where the leadership feels unaccountable, and therefore the whole operation loses its moral center.  Obedience replaces discipline.  Swagger replaces moral.  Jingoism replaces loyalty…and expedience replaces morality…and rapidly degrades into a complete lack of ethics where crimes against humanity are committed with no sense of remorse or decency.

     Before we go into the fact that the Cylon’s aren’t human…what about the humanity of the people committing the atrocities?  They are committing crimes against their own humanity.  Look at the reactions of the Galactica’s crew members when the Pegasus transferees were talking about the gang rape of the cylon prisoner aboard the Pegasus.

     They were repulsed by what they heard, and intimidated and afraid of the people that just moments before had been their comrades…whose arrival they had celebrated.  The director did a very fine job of showing the chilling effect; the physical separation of the crews from one another, the looks of complete rejection on the faces of the Galactica crew members.  One of the people most deeply affected by the whole thing was the little mechanic chick who herself had murdered a cylon in cold blood.

     She most likely didn’t think about what the cylon had suffered during the attacks described.  She most likely didn’t care.  The humanity that she saw betrayed was the humanity of the perpetrators, and her own…and she got as far away from them as fast as possible.  She knew that whatever the thing was they’d committed the crime upon…whether it was a machine, and animal, an enemy or whatever, they had identified themselves as criminals.

     People who profane themselves don’t like to have it pointed out to them.  They don’t like to be told they are wrong.  They don’t like people who try to choose a better way.  They think that they are the standard of humanity.  They think that they are what everyone else is, but pretends not to be.  They think that anyone who is not like them is just a self-deluded idiot, a liar, or a hypocrite…and they react with anger, hatred and violence to any messages that invalidate their perceptions.

     Witness: the two people who stopped the Pegasus officer from torturing and raping Sharon are charged with murder and treason, and their immediate destruction ordered.

     A closer look at the main fleet shows similar incidences of moral failure.  The President summarily executes a Cylon agent by blowing him out an airlock after giving her word that he would be safe, just for instance.  There’s been plenty of betrayal to go around…and the massacre on the civilian transport still hasn’t exacted its full human cost for either the perpetrators or all the victims.

     Human failings, moral crisis and failures, paradoxical ethical conundrums and just outright political machinations and intrigues of the most ruthless and petty kinds abound.  But the Galactica and its crew are different from the Pegasus crew in that they still struggle to reconcile what they MUST do with what they SHOULD do, and they try to find the best answer they can in the time they have…whereas the Pegasus crew only seem to think about what they CAN do.  Galactica has a moral center, though it is often difficult to find, and often off balance.  The Pegasus has none.

     This is going to be a very interesting sub-plot.