Don't get me wrong, normally I'd be the very first person to jump up and tell you how outrageous it would be to exterminate an entire people for revenge. That's the unique horror of genocide, after all. Such a pervasive loss of life is exactly as great an atrocity no matter who it is inflicted upon.
But that's in the real world, with humans in real life. Cylons are fictional aliens that aren't like humans. I don't mean that like they don't matter because they aren't real or that they are machines and therefore inherently less valuable than human life. But Cylons function as organisms and as a society in ways that don't exist in real life.
There may be millions of individuals, but given what we seemed to be told about Cylon society, it seems to me it's fair to say there's still only 7 of them. Leoben said at one point that every Cylon ever has always voted with their model, implying that with very rare exceptions they all make the same decisions. Essentially, millions of Cylons are really all the same people. And all of them seemed to be on exactly the same page when it came to exterminated the 12 Colonies. Hence, every last one of them is guilty. So I feel like it's fair to say without hyperbole that they are a race of murderers.
I know villains are supposed to be the guys that you root against, but Battlestar Galactica seemed to be so successful at creating truly unlikable villains that I found it rather astonishing that the show seemed to have the gall to try to get us to sympathize with them by the end. I had no respect for them at all. The endless parade of unspeakable deeds they perpetrated was one thing, but what sealed it for me was the fact that they weren't fun to watch. They were just annoying. Now that worked brilliantly if they wanted me to hate them see them get comeuppance, but if not, then whatever they were trying failed spectacularly.
Lots of truly evil characters are a lot of fun to watch, especially from Sci-fi fantasy shows. In my case I often found I was kind of rooting for them in spite of myself. The Cylons were a rare example of a villain I just wanted to see die. They were just so preachy and pretentious, made all the more insufferable by the fact that they were essentially monsters lecturing humans on it's sins. And half the time so much of what they said sounded like nonsensical psychobabble anyway. It was made all the more ironic when the debacle on New Caprica seemed to reveal that they are also all idiots who have no idea what they are doing and have an almost comical inability to understand humanity. I'll admit that I haven't seen The Plan yet, but I seriously doubt it will make me understand what their ridiculous aimless agenda was.
The fact is that for almost all of the show, with the exception of Athena, there was not a single remotely sympathetic Cylon character at all. Boomer started off as one but she might as well have been a completely different character when she first showed up on New Caprica. If they intended to imply that there were actually more good "normal" Cylons out in their population, they failed. I saw no reason not to think that every last one of them was a genocidal murderous rapist. If they were humans, I would be able to safely assume that. But they aren't, and there's only 7 of them.
I mean for a while in the 3rd and 4th season Caprica Six was the best example they had of a "noble" Cylon. She is a child murderer, so I think it pretty much disqualifies me from seriously liking her for good.
When they Cylons started their civil war I felt like it was hilarious that the show seemed to expect me to care when really I had no reason. Normally I love villain/villain conflicts but if I hate both sides, I have no investment. I remember actually one of my favorite moments in the entire show was when that one Centurion ominously looked back at The Sixes who were questioning Cavil. I was actually hoping for the Centurions to rebel and kill them all.
In the final season when the Cylons were talking about putting Boomer on trial or really any time any Cylons talked about justice of any kind, I wasn't capable of taking them even the slightest bit seriously. It's like if Hitler, Stalin, Attila the Hun and Ghengis Khan presided over a UN human rights council. Much time was spent in the last several episodes about the fate of the Cylon race and how Ellen and the Sixes and Cavil were all fighting to save them from extinction but I was still waiting for a reason as to why to care. I mean why did they even need the Cylons? What was so significant about Hera to the humans? Apart from her connection to God or whatever it was, what did she signify to them that was so vital to saying them?
As far as I'm concerned, if Helo hadn't stopped the Fleet from eradicating them in Season 3, it would have been a happier ending than the one we got. I didn't mind him doing that at the time. In fact, I actually thought it was an honorable choice. But I still thought every individual member of the Cylon race was evil enough to deserved to die. Athena and the was the only one who wasn't and she was the only one who would have been spared. And the first 4 of the final 5 were on the fleet at the time so they would have survived as well. The only person who would have died who was innocent was Ellen. And A) They didn't know she was a Cylon. B) I was never quite sure why Saul killed her in the first place C) More inncoent people died because they didn't wipe out the Cylons. So really it's hard for me to see what wouldn't have been better if the fleet had followed through with their little exterminatus.
When D'Anna said, "they will never forgive us for what we did to the 12 Colonies" all I could think was "Of course not! What you did was unforgivable!" This isn't like holding all the German population responsible for the Holocaust. This is like if all the German race was actually 90 million immortal copies of Hitler. The other thing was that since Final Five are apparently a completely different race of Cylons, and they created all the others in the first place, why did they need any of them to survive? Why don't they start again with a new non war criminal race of creations.
I know a lot of the characters felt the same way and that was the cause of the rebellion in Season 4 but to me it's really still kind of a bigger deal than the show seemed to make it out to be. And that's despite the fact that they spent a fair amount of time on it anyway. I remember Lee angrily pointed out that the reason the rebellion was so strong was that at the end of the day Tom Zarrek was right. But apart from that and Adama and Roslin being sad that Galactica had become a mixed human/Cylon ship. The plot thread was didn't seem to go anywhere.
That seems all the more ironic considering one of the first things the show said was "Sooner or later, you can't hide from the things that you've done."
Fifty Billion people deserved justice and apparently the perpetrators got away with it in the end.
But that's in the real world, with humans in real life. Cylons are fictional aliens that aren't like humans. I don't mean that like they don't matter because they aren't real or that they are machines and therefore inherently less valuable than human life. But Cylons function as organisms and as a society in ways that don't exist in real life.
There may be millions of individuals, but given what we seemed to be told about Cylon society, it seems to me it's fair to say there's still only 7 of them. Leoben said at one point that every Cylon ever has always voted with their model, implying that with very rare exceptions they all make the same decisions. Essentially, millions of Cylons are really all the same people. And all of them seemed to be on exactly the same page when it came to exterminated the 12 Colonies. Hence, every last one of them is guilty. So I feel like it's fair to say without hyperbole that they are a race of murderers.
I know villains are supposed to be the guys that you root against, but Battlestar Galactica seemed to be so successful at creating truly unlikable villains that I found it rather astonishing that the show seemed to have the gall to try to get us to sympathize with them by the end. I had no respect for them at all. The endless parade of unspeakable deeds they perpetrated was one thing, but what sealed it for me was the fact that they weren't fun to watch. They were just annoying. Now that worked brilliantly if they wanted me to hate them see them get comeuppance, but if not, then whatever they were trying failed spectacularly.
Lots of truly evil characters are a lot of fun to watch, especially from Sci-fi fantasy shows. In my case I often found I was kind of rooting for them in spite of myself. The Cylons were a rare example of a villain I just wanted to see die. They were just so preachy and pretentious, made all the more insufferable by the fact that they were essentially monsters lecturing humans on it's sins. And half the time so much of what they said sounded like nonsensical psychobabble anyway. It was made all the more ironic when the debacle on New Caprica seemed to reveal that they are also all idiots who have no idea what they are doing and have an almost comical inability to understand humanity. I'll admit that I haven't seen The Plan yet, but I seriously doubt it will make me understand what their ridiculous aimless agenda was.
The fact is that for almost all of the show, with the exception of Athena, there was not a single remotely sympathetic Cylon character at all. Boomer started off as one but she might as well have been a completely different character when she first showed up on New Caprica. If they intended to imply that there were actually more good "normal" Cylons out in their population, they failed. I saw no reason not to think that every last one of them was a genocidal murderous rapist. If they were humans, I would be able to safely assume that. But they aren't, and there's only 7 of them.
I mean for a while in the 3rd and 4th season Caprica Six was the best example they had of a "noble" Cylon. She is a child murderer, so I think it pretty much disqualifies me from seriously liking her for good.
When they Cylons started their civil war I felt like it was hilarious that the show seemed to expect me to care when really I had no reason. Normally I love villain/villain conflicts but if I hate both sides, I have no investment. I remember actually one of my favorite moments in the entire show was when that one Centurion ominously looked back at The Sixes who were questioning Cavil. I was actually hoping for the Centurions to rebel and kill them all.
In the final season when the Cylons were talking about putting Boomer on trial or really any time any Cylons talked about justice of any kind, I wasn't capable of taking them even the slightest bit seriously. It's like if Hitler, Stalin, Attila the Hun and Ghengis Khan presided over a UN human rights council. Much time was spent in the last several episodes about the fate of the Cylon race and how Ellen and the Sixes and Cavil were all fighting to save them from extinction but I was still waiting for a reason as to why to care. I mean why did they even need the Cylons? What was so significant about Hera to the humans? Apart from her connection to God or whatever it was, what did she signify to them that was so vital to saying them?
As far as I'm concerned, if Helo hadn't stopped the Fleet from eradicating them in Season 3, it would have been a happier ending than the one we got. I didn't mind him doing that at the time. In fact, I actually thought it was an honorable choice. But I still thought every individual member of the Cylon race was evil enough to deserved to die. Athena and the was the only one who wasn't and she was the only one who would have been spared. And the first 4 of the final 5 were on the fleet at the time so they would have survived as well. The only person who would have died who was innocent was Ellen. And A) They didn't know she was a Cylon. B) I was never quite sure why Saul killed her in the first place C) More inncoent people died because they didn't wipe out the Cylons. So really it's hard for me to see what wouldn't have been better if the fleet had followed through with their little exterminatus.
When D'Anna said, "they will never forgive us for what we did to the 12 Colonies" all I could think was "Of course not! What you did was unforgivable!" This isn't like holding all the German population responsible for the Holocaust. This is like if all the German race was actually 90 million immortal copies of Hitler. The other thing was that since Final Five are apparently a completely different race of Cylons, and they created all the others in the first place, why did they need any of them to survive? Why don't they start again with a new non war criminal race of creations.
I know a lot of the characters felt the same way and that was the cause of the rebellion in Season 4 but to me it's really still kind of a bigger deal than the show seemed to make it out to be. And that's despite the fact that they spent a fair amount of time on it anyway. I remember Lee angrily pointed out that the reason the rebellion was so strong was that at the end of the day Tom Zarrek was right. But apart from that and Adama and Roslin being sad that Galactica had become a mixed human/Cylon ship. The plot thread was didn't seem to go anywhere.
That seems all the more ironic considering one of the first things the show said was "Sooner or later, you can't hide from the things that you've done."
Fifty Billion people deserved justice and apparently the perpetrators got away with it in the end.
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