A Geek History of Time - Episode 43 - BSG and GWOT Part II

Episode Date: February 29, 2020

In this episode, Ed shares the story behind the development of the first BSG series, and begins comparing it to the reboot of the 2000’s. Damian opens the episode with proof that he missed his calling harassing goats from beneath a bridge. Toward the end, Ed tries and fails to do a Russian accent. Good times!

I said good day sir. You don't ever plan anything around the Eagles because the Eagles represent the grace of God. You heathen bastards. One of vanilla nabish name. Well you know works are people too. I'm thinking of that one called they got taken out with one punch. So he's got a wall, a gall, a gall, and a wall. Every time you mention the Eagles, I think Don Henley.

Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. This is a geek history of time. Where we connect nursery to the real world.

I'm Ed Blaylock, a world history teacher in New York, California. Who the heck are you? I'm Damien Harmon. I'm a Latin teacher and a world history teacher in the Indian California. Who the heck are you? I'm Damien Harmon, I'm a Latin teacher and a world history teacher, also in Northern California. And I came here to learn more about Battlestar Galactica. Well, you know, it's good that you did because that's what I'm talking about today. Wonderful, that happens to be what my notes are all about.

Serendipity, baby. Yeah, how, you know, what a coincidence. I know, right? Yeah, it's beautiful. It's almost like we planned it. Yeah. So, at the end of our last episode, we were, we, we, we'd left off, where, you know, we, we had spoken about, or we'd been discussing, you know, what was going on in the Zitgeist,

what the, what, as you said a couple of times, what the bedrock was. Uh-huh. you know, what was going on in the Zitgeist, what the, what, as you said a couple times, what the bedrock was, out of which, both the original series in the late 70s and the new series in the 2000s was coming out of. And one of the things that's notable about the reboot is, you know, as I said, the original series was escapist sci-fi. We're going to capitalize on Star Wars fiction. Everybody wants to see Ray Guns and Spaceships. We're going to get him Ray Guns and Spaceships. You know, but the paradigm that all of that was then kind of glued on to was a Western. Right. Because that's what writers knew. The tropes were taken out of Westerns.

Every other episode had somebody walking into a tavern on an alien planet that somehow was full of humans, even though the colonists were supposed to be the last remaining humans in that part of the... Like, there was a gleeful lack of consistency to how the universe was constructed. Humans and sci-fi are similar to two things. Rats. Yes. Or that last drop of pee after you've shaken. You're gonna get another job. It's gonna end up in your pants. No matter what. No matter what. Yeah. I might want to talk to your neurologist. I'm just saying, if that's a consistent issue for you, you maybe want to get something checked.

But, you know, and so the original series was written to be and was treated as, you know, it was, it was safe for kids to watch. It was, you know, family, family television, you know. The new series was decidedly not kid friendly. Right. For a whole host of reasons. Yes. There's the sex, there's the graphic violence.

You know, I can't tell you how many times you witnessed somebody getting shot in the head. And like they, That's, and I didn't. And I didn't racked me. Yeah, and they didn't, and the thing is they did not shy away like so many shows like like all these police procedurals and everything that you watch somebody gets shot and

the gunshot wound is you know you almost it it looks like their shirt hasn't even broken you know you see a spot of blood yes but like no BS she was like, no, no, no, no. When you get shot in the anywhere, like, Blood explodes. There's spattered. Like, everybody gets messed up. And they made a point of that.

Because part of the underlying ethos of the show was, no, no, no, this is a war. And we're not going to make any of this. We're not going to sanitize any of this. Our audience is going to be grown-ups because as you pointed out, we're now in a cable environment with up to 100 channels. So anybody tunes into the sci-fi channel to watch this show, they're going to be an adult.

They may or may not be nostalgic about the original series, but if they're nostalgic about the original series, they're gonna be 30 Right, you know or or older or older you know and or producer George quite yeah Usually throw the old jokes at me. I'm sorry dude now you're the middle child. I Don't know well anyway, we have the discussion at other time, but I don't know. Well, anyway, we can have the discussion at other time. But, um, but, you know, and so they're writing it under the assumption that, you know, you, the viewer, are an adult, you can handle this stuff. You're kind of looking for this. You're kind of looking for this. Yep. Uh, you know, you want something that is going to be

impactful and wreck you on occasion. Yes. Or, you know, if you're talking about like season three, like every week, you know, but you know, you're gonna, this is what you're looking for, we're gonna give you that. Real quick, real quick, spoiler alert. Yeah, okay, I just want- Oh you said, just in case we- Why didn't- I didn't give any detail. I know, I know, I know, just in case we do mention it- Oh, I'll just think we do mention it in the-

Going forward. We're going to, so yeah, if you have not watched the reboot of battle-star galactic which is I think yeah 15 years old God damn it. Yes, so spoiler alert. Yeah on something Yeah, well, you know, but if you off I haven't watched the whole thing if you have you're about to find out all right First off you need to go like I find it in the thing. Yeah, no meat in the thing. Yeah, where they all get called Oh, okay, okay, well, you know your Jimmy Hendrix then yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, so What was weird was when they started playing the Fleetwood Mac that was the weird that was really bizarre Yeah, especially since it was all silons doing it. Yeah. With the robot and roving eyes. Yeah. Nice.

That hurt as you're saying it. Yeah, as I was saying. Thank you producer George. So the the the new series started in 2003 as a mini series. We should really time mark when I did that. Which that's gonna be great bumper. Is it now? Yes. Okay. Five minutes.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. Five minute mark. Um, approximately. Yeah. Roughly. Because that was very rough.

Um, so. Battlestar, the new series, originally aired as a mini series in 2003. Right. And that was when it picked up like all the buzz. All like, I remember all of my nerd friends, which is to say all of my friends. Because I'm a pathetic dork. No, I have, okay. There's nothing pathetic about it. But I mean, anyway, I have a very specific bubble.

Yes. There's one I'm trying to say with that. And like everybody was hyper-siked. Sure. Because the galactica, the physical artifact of the ship itself was from the exterior. It was instantly recognizable as being a reimagining of the original. It was, it was kind of more modern looking. Right. It looked a little bit more like a real spaceship might.

Yes. But the profile was exactly the same. Okay. Like the, the, the, the shape, the front end coming to might. Yes. But the profile was exactly the same. Okay. Like the front end coming to that block out of the house with the two catamaran kind of sponsors. And to me, it always looked like the MC80, the Mon Calamari cruisers. Oh, okay. Well, it always had that kind of aesthetic to it.

Okay. But without being so organic looking, yes. Yes, yes, yes. And so I'd got picked up as a series in 2004, first season and 13 episodes, continued for total four seasons, total of 76 episodes. And the, I've already gone over some of this stuff, but the overall tone, as we've already said, was darker and there was a lot more conflict between the main characters. But also a lot more like the other one had essentially the same plot. Yeah, but this one People really felt like they were about to die and that they were exhausted by the trauma of it Yeah, you didn't see that in the first one. No, no, well because it was it was fluff family entertainment

Yes, it was network. It was network and it was and this just occurred to me It was a wagon train drama in space. Well, if you had gone across the Oregon Trail on a wagon train and been attacked by Native Americans, I died of dysentery for not having to. Well, okay. But anybody who could do it. You think this is a game?

Well, yeah, it literally was. Okay. We all played it in the fourth grade. But I'm talking about historically speaking. So producer George was in college when you were playing? Actually, I'm my very first computer. That's how far back the Oregon Trail dates. That's like 81. Wow, that's like 81

Yeah, that's like right around the time people start arriving in Oregon Wow Oh, I like your knife back This is yours. Yes. Um, so, but, but, you know, the original series, yes, had that, that is its archetype. Right. And so any depiction in Westerns, you never saw anybody dealing with like continuing trauma from having survived. You're right. Even if a kidnap, even if they're kidnapped. Even if they're kidnapped and threatened with scalping or God knows what, or a whole racist trope got used in that episode for drama.

The next week, well, I got rescued, so everything's okay or whatever. And the actual, the idea that there would be continuing trauma, that there would be exhaustion, that there would be, you know, it's family entertainment, it's escapist entertainment. And so that just TV didn't do that. Right. In the 70s, unless it was like a movie of the week and they were trying to make a capital be big, capital B point of something.

Right. Right. You know. And so, and again, I want to go back to what we talked about in the last part of the last episode was that the bedrock upon which all this lay was for the new one was police procedures where you had people who were traumatized and battered down emotionally on some levels. World weary. Yeah, very.

You know, you had civil wits. Oh, yeah. You had, I mean, you had, you had, any, any one of any number of detectives from, yes, law and order, yes, it wasn't much. I'm trying to remember Jerry Warbox character had a and Order. Yes. It wasn't much. I'm trying to remember, Jerry Warbox character had a drinking problem. Okay. So you became a major plot spoiler.

So you became a major plot point, you know, in Law and Order, at the very ending episode of a season. Okay. Without giving any specifics away, he, he, yeah, it was, it was a big deal. So you have big deal. Trauma as being an acceptable part. Yeah. Whereas the only time

you really saw that in the 70s was after school specials, was daddy dearest. Yeah, shit like that. Big point. Yeah, big point. And I'm gonna make a statement about that. Yeah, gather the family round. Yeah, very special episode.

Big fill in the blank. The other thing that you, the other, only other other time I remember it from the 70s, again, having watched a bunch of reruns, I wasn't around that much, was at the end of, oh no, that happens in 84, nevermind. I was going to say the end of MASH. Oh, yeah. Where Hawkeye is dealing with it through the majority of that episode, but in all fairness, that was in 84.

So. That was in 84. So. That was in 84. And by the 80s, there was a shift in the public's perception. And the zip-guys, portrayal and perception of, you know, lingering kind of emotional trauma and exhaustion, that kind of stuff. That was when we really started seeing combat stress, PTSD.

You had the word in your Rambo. Yeah, starting to be like treated as a serious issue. As a legitimate kind of kind of, kind of a lot of point is legitimate kind of thing. Okay, so that occurs after the conestogas in space. Yeah. But that occurs, absolutely as bedrock. Absolutely, as part of what paved the way

for the way the new series dealt with stuff. And, please continue. And so, along with all of that tonal stuff, there was an overt level on which the new show mirrored the headlines of the time in the hotel. Absolutely. And the biggest source of those headlines, be it better way to put it, is the global warrant error.

And so now we got to get into real world history for a second. Okay. Um, so September 11th, the, the, the hijackers perpetrated September 11th, the attacks on the twin, twin towers in the Pentagon. All of whom were from Iraq? No. No, Afghanistan. No.

No. Uh, yeah, no. No, no, no, no, they're our friends. Must have been Iran. No. No, no, Saudi Arabia. Um, it was actually actually it was Saudi Arabia. Maybe it was a shit hole. It was Saudi Arabia. No, it was still Saudi Arabia. No, no, no, I mean, I mean, you know, they played everything in gold, but they hate us. It's fine. We have mercenaries. Um, no, it was from Saudi Arabia. Mexicans coming across the board. Saudi Arabia. I don't understand why you keep saying the country

People I don't Saudi Arabia they came for the home of Wahabism Potato patata fine. We'll agree to disagree You're gonna say it came from Saudi Arabia just as you have facts on your side. Yes, that's fine But I do have a little podcast where they got damn matter. Okay God damn it. Okay fine. So anyway like Saudi Arabia is a name of a country. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Fine. Well, you know, what it would really actually is is a whole bunch of oil companies to trench coat. Really good. So I mean, if we're really being blunt about it, let's be honest. But, so in the wake, in the wake of that, the financing and the planning and the support

of all of that had come from an organization that, like none of us in the general public had heard about before that event, Al Qaeda, the base, meaning ways of the pillar base of the building base of the base. Slap the base, baby. I was just thinking in terms of is there anybody else that's talking about the base? Well, every, yeah, it's fine. Yeah, there's no no reason we need to be worried about that at all. No, um, it's not like they murder journalists. No, no.

Again, again. Another plot point. Saudi Arabia. I have another plot point, but post facto? I don't know what the word would be for that. But so the financing came from Al Qaeda, which before the 9-11 attacks, none of us had heard of. Right.

And all of a sudden, they were everywhere. Now Al Qaeda was actually based though, at that time in Afghanistan. Yes. Al Qaeda was based in Afghanistan because, they got kicked out. Because they got kicked out of Saudi Arabia, it should be fair.

They got kicked out of Saudi Arabia because Ben Laden and the people around him, his followers, his soldiers, whatever you want to call them, the people within the al-Qaeda organization were batshit crazy fundamentalists. And their chief objection was that Saudi Arabia had had had home to the American soldiers. Yes, that we had we had bases in Riyadh that we that we have maintained. Right. Right. For forever all over Saudi Arabia, we've got installations, we got people there because we do have we have had this friendly relationship with them since like the foundation of the country in the wake of World War II. And so yeah, their biggest issue was that Saudi Arabia is the nation in which Mecca is located.

And Medina. And Medina, yeah. And so it is the idea that infidel soldiers are being quartered in the homeland of the faith that drove them to want to do this stuff. And so the Saudi government who needed, or felt they needed, fielding, need American military help to hold off Iran,

who's their major rival in the region. You know, the government basically kicked them out, exiled them. And so they went to Afghanistan where in the wake of the Soviet withdrawal, there was no real centralized government as such. It was being run by the Taliban, who we had indirectly armed because we were sending weapons to the Pakistani intelligence services, and the Pakistanis liked the Taliban, and so they gave our Stinger missiles to the Taliban to use to shoot down Russian helicopters.

Right. And have you read Charlie Wilson's war? No, but I saw a rainbow three. Same thing. Oh, yeah, same thing. Yeah. Do read Charlie Wilson's War? No, but I saw Rambo III. Same thing. Oh, yeah, same thing. Do read Charlie Wilson's War. Okay. I'll flip it to side because it really is.

It's a great read. It's about that. Yeah, it's about how one representative from a district in Texas engineered. Jesus Christ. Oh, okay. Look, Yall can ban Arkansas from sending us presidents and we ban Texas. Can we just can we agree on just to agree just those two for 50 year moratorium. 48 year. We'll keep it for you know. Who are we kidding? I don't know. I don't know who you're gonna be. Oh my God. I can approach with that. Oh my God. So anyway, well, no, but here's the deal. Here's the deal.

Okay. Charlie Wilson found out that, you know, the Russians were here. Any Murphy's brother. Yeah. Yes. No. No, very white guy. Oh.

But anyway, he found out that there, you know, he's, I don't remember the machinations how it wound up happening, but he that there, you know, he's, I don't remember the machinations how it wound up happening, but he wound up directly witnessing the refugee camps that were that were on the Pakistani border with with Afghanistan. He saw the way the Soviets were handling their fiasco in Afghanistan, their attempted invasion. And a puppet government. And they had installed a puppet government. They had installed a puppet, you know, Soviet style socialist government.

I think, thank goodness. A authoritarian socialist government. That's never, yeah. No, that's, no. Obviously they learned their lesson from that and they're never going to try that in another country again. Ever. No. Yeah. No, no's no obviously they learned their lesson from that and they're never gonna try that in another country again ever ever No, yeah, no, no Certainly nobody in the KGB would would carry that with him for the rest of his life

Political career whatever no Sorry, well, at least they don't have people in our country that don't feel the same way about Iraq I read more and and don't blame my ran for everything. No, yeah, certainly not So anyway, he decided that we needed to do something. Because that was his first... He saw a humanitarian crisis. He saw a humanitarian crisis. And he found a sympathetic field officer from the CIA.

Uh huh. And everybody in the CIA was like, we want to give the Russians a goddamn black eye. Sure. Because of all the dirty shit the Russians had pulled in the Skull Duggery Wars. Oh, yeah, yeah. Up to that point.

And the CIA was like, nobody's letting us do our job. Like, just please let us do some. Sure. And there was essentially an agreement that we can't directly hit one another. Right. And so Afghanistan was the perfect opportunity for the CIA to go,

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, you. Right. And so we funneled Stinger missiles and all this other stuff. Sure. Mostly the Stinger's with a big deal. Two. Because those could shoot down the helicopter. Could shoot down the helicopter.

Yes. And they're a mobile as fuck. Yeah. Well, they're a man for the world. You shoot down the helicopter. Yes. And their mobile is fuck. Yeah. Well, they're, they're a man for the world. You could train a guy to use one in, you know, eight hours. Yeah. And yeah. And, and they were relatively inexpensive.

Mm-hmm. And so we sent a ton of them over there. Mm-hmm. And the Pakistani intelligence service was, was our, was our go between.between we gave we sent the weapons to them They got the weapons into the hands of the Taliban Taliban blew the crap out of the Soviet army Taliban also called forth a What's it called fought what yes yes and

brought in a group called the Mujahideen Well, no the Mujahideen was the term for anybody who was fighting against the infidelists. And that included immigrants from Saudi Arabia. That included all kinds of guys from Saudi Arabia, all kinds of guys from all over the Muslim world. Yes. Because they said this is the godless atheist Soviets. And we were absolutely down for them saying that.

And we were totally down for them saying that. And the thing was, we didn't really pay a lot of attention to who it was who was getting the lion's share of, because there were multiple factions. Right. The Taliban was one and the Northern Alliance or the guys that later turned into the Northern Alliance was another one and there were a whole bunch of groups

that were doing it. But the Pakistanis really liked the Taliban. And so they funneled the majority of the stuff to the Taliban. I just want to come back to the Moodahidin for just a second. So unless I'm stealing your thunder from them. So the Moodahidin, so they called out the Fatwa,

Moodahidin come from places like Sudan, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Saudi Arabia. And I bring up Saudi Arabia specifically because the very rich son of a very rich, I forget what he did. I think construction magnate in Saudi Arabia. His name was Lawden. Concrete. Concrete.

His son, Osama bin Laden, answered the call, had a kind of spiritual awakening while he was in Beirutifire call, because he had been living as a playboy for a while. He had originally been, yeah, he'd been living as, you know, the second or third son of a, but yeah, later son, baby of the family son of this really wealthy industrialist. Right. Answering the call. Well, he found a purpose in life in hearing the thought, and became the Muslim version of everybody's most annoying, offensive, late in life convert to born again, Christianity, Uncle or Aunt.

Okay. You know, in every, in every extended family, you got that one person who found religion and like it became it, like their whole personality. They won't pass the salad dressing until they've told you about Jesus. Yeah, or they insist on when nobody in the family is like that religious, they insist on being the one

to bow their head and loudly say grace. Right. Like over everybody else, so everybody else either has to shut up or be the asshole. Yeah. You know, that one only with guns and explosives and a fortune. Right.

So he answers a call, ends up in Afghanistan and gets trained specifically by the Pakistani Pakistan intelligence service Which is being which is being the front for the CIA? Yeah, so there's this old thing that an old CIA officer said Of course, we know they have weapons of master's-struction. We have the receipts. Yeah, of course we know they have weapons of master's structure, we have the receipts. Yeah. Well, of course we know when Osama bin Laden joined up because we trained him.

Yeah. Yeah. OK. So anyway, there's Osama bin Laden. There's the Taliban. The Pakistan has loved them. And so the thing is, the Soviets left. And Charlie Wilson screamed and hollered and shouted and the CIA officers

that he had been working with would funneled all this stuff to drive the Soviets out. Screamed and hollered about now we need to go in and we need to help them rebuild the country, we need to help them rebuild the schools, we need to help them rebuild, they screamed and shouted and the rest of Congress said, what do we care? It's a shit hole country. We kicked out, it's not a Soviet republic anymore. We kicked the Russians out.

We did what we need to do. We don't have the money to spend on that. We already came. Why a cuddle? Yeah, why? Yeah, pretty much. And so just real quick, Charlie Wilson was a socialist? No, he was a socialist. No No, wait, wait, sorry. He may have been a Democrat, but he was an 80s Democrat. There can't be Democrats in Texas. That's a I don't understand was he there at like South by Southwest like what was going on? How the world has changed?

So so yes anyway So that's we didn't buy Yeah, we broke it and we didn't buy it. And then led to through permutations that led to September 11th. And because that was all, you know, that organization was in Afghanistan at the time, we invaded Afghanistan because the Taliban had been giving aid and comfort to Al-Qaeda who had rolled up a whole bunch of our people. And so we invaded, like immediately, after, so within a month, if I remember right, we had boots on the ground. We were already breaking stuff and killing people in Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan. Because that made sense. Because that was logical. We got to find out some of them in Lodden and you know, either bring him in or get his head on a stick. Sure. And so then in March of 2003. Now, Afghanistan is a province of Iraq? No.

Afghanistan is its own country along the Silk Road has been its own country since time immemorial. I mean, it's been a collection of, you know, warlord little duchies. Was it where Saddam Hussein had a guest house? Like, I don't understand. There was really no connection at all between Afghanistan and Iraq. Well, Al-Qaeda was in Afghanistan. Yes.

Has a Q in its name. Yes, so there you go. And Q-E-D. Q-E-D, you go. You Q and D. You go there. You go. Owned me. Yep. Suck it. Liberal Tards. Yeah, something. I don't know how that works. Whatever. Yeah. So, so in in starting in 2002, uh-huh, the Bush administration shifted the lens of of our attention towards

Saddam Hussein And they made the case that he and the Iraqi bath party Presented a real and present danger That they were they were trying to obtain or manufacture chemical biological even nuclear weapons again We had the receipts we had the receipts on the curse yes well we knew that he had chemical weapons at one time yes and the argument that was presented was they're trying to get nukes there was this whole thing about yellow cake uranium right and all the centrifuges centrifuges all there, all the, there was, there was,

but we'd had, we'd had put in a no-fly zone, there were UN investigators who had been given the run around a few times, but ultimately, they did get to do their investigation. They did finally get to do their job. And they found that there were stockpiles and stockpiles of New Zealand. And tons of uranium.

Exactly. No. But we'll get to that. Okay. And so using that as the rationale, using all that information, all those reports as the rationale, Colin Powell got up in front of Showed his ass. Showed his ass. And they got a Use of Force resolution to invade Iraq, which they did in March of 2003 for the sequel and We've had US troops on the ground in both countries ever since Wait wait wait wait, so

Wait wait wait wait. So 19 years we have had troops on the ground in Afghanistan going on 19 years. Afghanistan could have served itself. Yes. Yes. Yes. Wait wait. So I'm just I'm thinking of the geography. Yeah. Iraq. Largerly shea population. Yes. Sunnis in charge. Yes, minority government, our dictatorial government. Yes, our allies up until they up through their up through their attack on a Shia government right next door, the Iranians. They were allies that whole time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, from 1988. Yeah. Then they turned south and attacked Kuwait for side drilling. And we said, no, no, no. And then we attacked them. Yeah.

Had a coalition of the willing. Yeah. Wasn't called that at the time, but it was, it was a much larger coalition the first time around. Yeah. Always is. Yeah. Um, second time around, reinvaded Iraq, but this time also invaded Afghanistan, which is on the other

side of Iran. Okay. I would just like to highlight the fact that we for 19 years have had troops on literally either side of Iran. Yeah. I'm sure there's no connection there. Well, you know, if he hears the deal ever since off the top of my head, I don'm sure ever since Okay, well, you know if years of the elever since off dumb. I had I don't remember the year 53 ever since Well, I'm talking about the revolution 79. Ever since 79

Everything we had as a nation everything we have done in the middle east as had Iran like in in the Baton at the very least in the background of our planning, of our consideration because they had the unmitigated audacity to throw out the guy that we had, you know, the son of the guy that we had installed. Yeah. And they took a bunch of our people hostage. That was this horrible blow to our pride right on the tail end of having taken the whack to our pride that was losing Vietnam. And so, so, so, so, so what I'm saying is, which was a war in South Asia, that, South

East Asia, it's totally different than South Central Asia, but South East Asia that went on for damn year, 20 years, depending on how you measure it. Pretty much. History runs. History doesn't repeat itself, but it does run. So the invasion of Afghanistan wound up going the way every invasion of Afghanistan has ever gone.

Oh, cool. We won. Sweet. No. Oh. No. All the way back to the fucking Romans. Alexander. I was gonna say. Before the Romans even. Yeah. Alexander.

Yeah. Concord it. Air quotes. Air quotes. Air quotes around conquer. And then basically said, you know what? We're just gonna, we've got territory on either side. We're just gonna kind of pass through and fuck off

because every time we actually try to impose Hegemony over these people they they get hyper violent terrifying like oh my god and And I want to point out that's Alexander the great and So we can't blame this is one of those cases where we cannot blame a religion. Right. Because the religion we might want to blame didn't exist yet. This is just that's Afghanistan. Yeah. And so Alexander couldn't couldn't make it work. The Romans went in, succeeded. Of course. We have We have captured your capital, and then couldn't hold on to it,

and got shellacked and had to leave. I don't know, I haven't studied Islamic military history enough to know which sassanids or affafids, which caliphate probably tried to combat. They may have had a little bit more luck through the power of conversion and shared ideology, but they still couldn't actually get them to behave and be a unified nation.

Right. And anybody, and then of course, the most modern example before the Soviets is the British Empire, who had conquered India. Yes. And Afghanistan was on the border of the Raj of India. Right. And so Raiders coming out of Afghanistan were causing trouble in the British territories and what is now Pakistan. So the British army went, right then! Well bloody well showshow, you rotters marched in with all the discipline of the thin red line. Mm-hmm.

And, and, and, failed. Repeatedly, miserably, and ugly. And, and so everybody goes in thinking, well, it's their, their tribesmen. Like, right. What are they gonna do? Throw rocks? Yes, they are. And, and they're also just going to let you know that they don't want you here.

And that means they're gonna kill you at every opportunity until you fucking leave. And, and the thing is, the shame of it is that before the Soviet invasion, Afghanistan had a modern what the CIA world book would have referred to as second world because they weren't allied to us, but they were a modern industrialized secular government that was, you know, a liberal, you know, Western liberal enough that the Soviets considered a threat and invaded again, or in the sense of somebody else invading him,

and then blew all of that up. And basically reset the clock in Afghanistan back to the 1600s. Right. And then we decided, well, we're gonna fix that. Right. And no. And so our leadership,

we found ourselves fighting a long, slogging fight against dug-in insurrectionists. Right. People who were fanatical because we were invading their country, so they're motivated to begin with, plus they, in many cases, have the ideas of whahabism or some other, some other serious religious fundamentalist,

religious ideas about anybody who doesn't agree with him is going hell, so they're justified doing it. Send them that quicker. Send them, send them their quicker. And so it was gonna be this, we're gonna go in, we're gonna bomb the crap out of, we're gonna punish them for what they did, we're gonna get us on bin Laden, we're gonna get out.

Right. And we haven't left yet, and it's 20 years later. Hello Geek Timers, this is producer George, interrupting this podcast to let you know that we have space available. This space could be used to promote your product, book, event, group, even wish a special someone happy birthday. If you're interested in using this space, please contact us on Twitter via private message at Geek History Time. First of Afghanistan, which okay, that made sense. Sure. And then Iraq, which they sold to us in a way that made sense.

But a year after invading, like right before the TV show started, we basically found out that the whole word been started based on bullshit. Right. That, that no, there hadn't been a meaningful nuclear weapons program we found. No evidence, there were no weapons mass destruction. He had in fact gotten rid of, he was not lying. When he said he'd gotten rid of two stockpiles

and chemical weapons that we had been convinced he had. Uh-huh. You know, and so now we're stuck with a you break it, you bought it pottery barn war to to quote paraphrase Colin Powell right because now we're there and we can't leave because we got a whole lot of people who helped us out who are going to be murdered if we do and we've got it we have a responsibility to try to help rebuild the country. While we're trying to rebuild the country, we have a whole bunch of people in the country who are undermining our ability to rebuild the country because they want us just to

fucking leave. Right. You know, if we can make it uncomfortable enough for you to leave, you'll just leave. And if it takes a thousand years, you'll still leave. You'll still leave. Which by the way, when there was a guy captured, it was a Vietcong operative captured by South Viet and Amize government, well, police soldier interrogated

by our intelligence. And I forget what branch of the military DIA yeah, okay, well, yeah, DIA probably are probably he's interrogating the guy he says Who is winning this war and the Viet Cong guy says without a doubt and he says you are Who is going to win this war? We are yeah, why because you'll leave We are. Yeah. Why?

Because you'll leave. And if it takes a thousand years, you'll leave. And if it takes a million lives a year, you'll leave. That was Vietnam. Now luckily in Afghanistan, they have a different sensibility. Did they? Oh no, no. No, quite the opposite.

No, quite the opposite. Yeah. Yeah. So, we find out that this invasion, this war is pointless. Right. There's no reason. There's no meaningful reason for us to be in Iraq or no compelling meaningful reason. I'm enough of a crusader at heart that like, you know, yeah, so I'm saying it was a bad guy, fucks that I'm who's saying. Yes. But when balanced against the number of lives that that cost, that's not legitimate. Even to me, you know, wanting to, you know, punch the dumb in the face on, you know,

like, like cat punching Hitler, you know, on the top of it, you know, I get it. Petty Timpoh dictator shouldn't, shouldn't be. He, he gasped his own people. Like I cannot overstate enough how evil this guy was. Oh yeah, no. And he is, he, the Catholic Church, generally speaking does not ever talk about who is in hell. We cannot know who is in hell.

Okay. I'm gonna tell you, Saddam Hussein is in fucking hell. I say that as a devout, so he's leaving Catholic. Oh, okay, that's in hell. Well, yeah, I mean, we have evidence from, you know, the documentary. From the documentary.

Colorado. Yeah. But I guess what I'm pointing out though is, you know, John Quincy Adams flat out said, we're good about freedom, but we shouldn't impose it on others. I absolutely paraphrasing. But I mean, he's,

it's a meaningful, it is an important philosophy to keep in mind. Yes. And so we have all of this going on, and then you look at the elements within BSG, within the new series, and the first one I wanna point out, and this is a spoiler alert. So at the end of the first season, the colonists find a habitable planet. Yes.

It's, it's arid. It's, there's no appreciable plant life that you can see. It's a dirt ball, but it's a habitable planet. And they land and they're like, all right, we can stop running. They think they've gotten away. We found home. We found home and then you have a title card one year later.

And the sylons jump in and have them surrounded and all of a sudden the sialons are in charge. And the beginning of the second season was a direct, like you could not miss it allegory for the Iraq war with the sirens playing the part of US troops. I need to go rewatch this because I've always had a policy of I never watch anything when it comes out because I want to binge. Cause I learned my lesson from a few shows.

Yeah, but what I'm missing is the historical context of the time. Uh-huh. Oh, yeah, I need to go look at this. Oh, it was a holy shit. They went there like watching this with my best friend and his wife, sitting on their couch watching this as at week by week as the episodes came out that that season premiere for season two was literally feed up off the floor. Wow holy fuck. Like we couldn't we couldn't believe they were doing it.

Right. Is that one Gator becomes a civil servant? Yes. Okay. Yeah Gator first gets seduced into working for Boulter as president. Boulter runs against... Oh, God, what's your name? Oh, God. The president. The president. Rosalind. Thank you.

Laura Rosalind. Boulter runs against Laura Rosalind and wins on a platform of we're not going anywhere, we're gonna stay here. We're not running anymore, we don't need to run anymore. Nobody wants to run anymore. Where Rosland is a paranoia act, we don't need to run. Right. What was the name of their old planet or the new place that they were looking for?

Earth. Oh, it was. Yeah, they were trying to get to Earth. Well, they were looking for, yes. They were looking for, they were trying to get to earth. Or they were looking for, yes. They were looking for, they were looking for earth. Okay, but where did they come from? Caprica. Caprica, so he's trying to make Caprica great again.

And he's running against an eminently qualified woman with experience. And he's got, he's, well, he's got a certain dark charisma. Oh, okay. So it's and yeah, yeah, no parallel, whatever anything. Well, at least he's not like a sexual deviant who's like, we're going to get to the spoilers. All right. So, okay, I want to go back to Gata because in defense of Gata, he, he was working for the civil government. He was working for the civil government. He was a member of the bridge crew.

He listened to everything that Baltar was saying. He became a true believer in Baltar. I didn't get that when I watched it. I did not see him being a true believer. I saw him being a true believer in staying, but not a true believer in Baltar. He was a true believer in staying. He was a true believer in balltar. He was a true believer in staying. He was a true believer in balltar.

I believe you guys missed it. Or at least that was the way it looked to me and the people I was watching. I thought he got done dirty in that show. He did. There's no getting around it. So he does this and then winds up finding out that somehow, if I'm remembering it right, you know, if you find out that that Balthar isn't just, you know, the puppet president of the the Silone overlords, but he is actively like a traitor. Like he doesn't, he doesn't find out all the stuff that you had to start. It just had happened.

Wow. There will be riots on the streets. And he realizes. Well, we wouldn't let that happen. No, we have branches. We've got to balance out the powers. Exactly. And governance over party.

Yeah. It's fine. So everybody understands as we are recording this earlier today, and Shiff gave his closing statements to the Senate in the impeachment trial of our 45th president. So, that's the reason for the cynical bitter, bitter, bitter edge. So, much for this being a timeless episode. Yes, right. Because that's what killed it. Yeah, total. Because, because yeah, I just, I just dated it right there. I would like to point out that also

Chuck Schumer, uh, entered an amendment was shot down, entered another amendment was shot down, kept doing it so that he could get them on recording is being on record is being partisan As like they they will you know until they vote that they can change the records, which that's not gonna happen for a week Yeah, but So yeah, so yeah, so the breathing shining moment. We're gonna have proof. Yeah. Yeah, so So baltar is so baltar bal Balter is working as an active tool of, of, and Balter rationalizes it to himself as, you know, I'm doing this, so more people don't wind up getting killed.

You know, I'm acting, I'm acting as an agent of, of them because, you know, I'm trying to, I'm trying to act as a buffer. I mean, he gives all of these compelling. He is, it really is. And he manages to give all of these arguments in a way that you really believe that he believes them as he's saying them. Right.

And then he goes and he does something that is so completely cowardly and self-serving. And he's like, you're doing this to cover your own ass. Like, I thought it was, he had a moment of, I need to do the right thing and then he just wasn't strong enough to do it. Well, that's, yes. I actually saw it as he was a failure.

Well, that's both. Yeah. That's part of what was so, and I'm gonna get to Balthar specifically as a character in a second. But so just to give the direct, like I can't believe they did that, parallels the colonial resistance against the Silons,

which is made up by the way of former military veterans who had been the crew of the Galactica before all of this happened. Kind of like the resistance in Iraq. Oh, yeah, that means. They adopted suicide bomber tactics. That's true. They blew up specifically blowing up

a police academy graduation. Oh my God, you're right. Okay. Yeah. Colonel Ty. Yep. The stone cold badass out of the entire series. Who am I?

Lated, up and turned his ass. Yeah, yeah, who was it was a prick right up until this point. I mean, he stayed a prick, but like now he's our prick. Now he's our prick. Wines up. He's tortured because loses an eye. Yeah, loses an eye. Where's an eye patch for the rest of the series?

And and so I mean, it was like they're turning over the dog dish. Yeah, that's an eye patch for the rest of the series? And, and so I mean it was. It's like they're turning over the dog dish. Yeah, that's right. And by the way, they're working. What I was gonna say was, Gata, without revealing his identity to the resistance, realizes that Balthar is a trader becomes a double agent. Yep. Which then, later on, after they get off of the planet, it turns into a huge plot point

when Balthar winds up getting put on trial. Yes. And you know, Gata winds up getting put in a position where he has to reveal that he was the one who was the double agent and everybody has this like, oh wait, oh shit, you were moment because they've been shitting on him. Yeah, constantly because he was a licks fiddle of balltars.

Right. And so he has this moment of vindication. Mm-hmm. And then he still winds up carrying this mat on, I mean, reasonably, he carries a mat on for another two seasons against Laura Roslin. Because he lost his leg. And then he has the wonderful line when he and the original Apollo, don't remember his

character's name off the top of my head in the new series, but the vice president, slimeball politician, they're both about to be shot out of a shot through a catapult, you know, airlocked, through a viper catapult, and you know, the resistant resistance leader just turns into a sobbing wreck, you know, pleading for mercy and Gated just looks at him and goes,

oh, shut up and die like a man. Yes. Or some words to that effect. Yes. And that was the moment at which, because I had hated Gated for a while. Up until that point, he bubs the shit out of me. Because to me, a lot of his ethos was, and this is going to say, I'm funny coming from me, a lot of his ethos was, and this is gonna say,

I'm funny coming from me, but it was so immensely purest and self-righteous. Like, you know, because we're dealing with a milieu in which nobody gets to make an easy choice. Like, every, there is never a morally white choice. Okay. It's all shades from, from dove to charcoal to ebony black. Right.

There is no choice you're gonna make as a leader that's not going to have some moral fallout. And Gata turned into this character who was so embittered and could not give anybody credit for trying to do the right thing. You know, I get you having a problem with that because ultimately he doesn't recognize the possibility of redemption And that's that's big for you as self-righteous you want to get yeah, you care about redemption. Yeah, so that makes sense Oh, by the way Tom's Eric that was a dude. Oh, yeah I always love because he played Apollo Apollo in the original series Z Yeah beginning in the end. Oh, nice. Oh, that's...

I never... Yeah. Never had spotted that before, but that's cool. Yeah. And he, oh my God, hatched play that character so well. Yes, he did. He was, he wanted, you could totally see why it was that everybody bought into him. And as the audience, knowing what was going on behind the scenes, you were like, you fucking

snake. Like one of one of those figures that you truly, truly loved to hate. Yes. It was absolutely amazing. Yes. And so, so we have, we have these direct, in season two, we have these direct, like not even allegory, like, like, no, no, no. We're recasting this in space.

And this is what is happening on the ground. We're in Iraq in space. And by the way, the Sylon's may kind of have a point, but they're the bad guys and that's us. Like, and the good guys aren't the good guys because they're doing deeply morally, not even ambiguous, like the good guys aren't the good guys because they're doing deeply morally not even ambiguous like their murdering other humans in order to break the silent hegemony. And like, you know, um, you know, another thing I'd like to point out though also just because I am who I am I really liked that the resistance in a large part was led by a union

You remember it was the chief petty officers and the enlisted men. Yeah, the the fix it guys the text What's her name's husband? Yeah You know for loving this show as much as we do we can't remember any Yeah, but the the chief yeah who fixed everything who turned out turned out Kelly Henderson Kelly Yeah, and her husband But he he was a union leader.

Yeah. Yeah, they formed. And they formed the resistance. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Chief who? Galen. Galen. Yeah. Now see, here's the thing. There was a character who was utterly morally upright in the series, who was my, he was the dude I looked at, was like, okay, he's my guy. Heal-o, yes.

Heal-o was the one character on the show. It's true. Who managed to maintain a level of consistent, who managed to maintain a level of consistent, honor moral rectitude, like if there was, and the thing was, he did wind up doing things that were not 100% lily white, you know, totally pure, but he never went to the depths

that other characters wound up doing. There was always a line line he would not cross. And when he got close to that line, it was for really compelling reasons. And I was kind of disappointed. He didn't wind up getting more, more time more time, more screen time. More screen time. Well, more screen time and his role in the end of everything wasn't more pivotal.

Oh, I see what you're saying, yeah. And part of the reason that bothered me was because I wouldn't get to this too. There was this also part of the zitgeist because this was also the same time that Lost was on the air. Yes it was. And both of them wound up turning into these weird post-apocalyptic spiritualists, mysticism kind of things. Do you think some of that's because there was a writer's strike and then

the writers just had the nihilism of their strike kind of being. I think, I think that they were abstract. Correct, by the way. The writers deserved royalty rights on DVDs and on streaming. They deserved that. They weren't getting that. They struck so they could get that. Yeah. That's what ruined lost and heroes and added this element. I think per house.

I don't think, okay, here's the thing. Based on what we know from people who've talked about the writing of the show from the beginning, part of the point was gonna be that the humans were from the beginning polytheistic, worshiping essentially the Roman gods, the Greek gods. Right. And the silence from the very beginning,

although we didn't really see it until late season one, beginning of season two. They were monotheists and they were, and they were several of them were religious fanatics. And that was a big part of their motivation for starting the war against the colonies and for everything and for why they felt they had to hunt humanity down. Right. And it was all, you know, the one and, you know, God, you know, and, yeah, yeah. And, you know, it ties in also with the

fact that another huge difference between the two series is in the original series, all of the silence, every model of Cylon, and there's only like four in the original series, but you have the brain bought, who had the tear drop shape kind of head with all the lights in the top. Okay, yeah.

That you had them, you had the Cylon Centurions with the famous one. The famous one. The one that sang Fleetwood Mac. Yeah, and awful. You know, and actually you might not have even had more than those, but you had the Centurions, you had the brain bots. Right. There may have been others, but we didn't really see very many more. They were all robots. It was really, they were all robots. It was really clear, they were all robots. And in the original series,

well, I'll get into the original ball-turvers and the new ball-turvers. Please. But for someone who's talking about the Silons, in the new series, the Silons are, there are multiple models of Silon that are played by human actors without any kind of a suit there if they look Human they bleed you cannot tell if one of them is a human or a sion without doing like a

microscopic yeah, you know, which he test he gets it right the first time yeah, and scares him Yeah, but he gets it right on a silent who doesn't know she's a silent. Yes. Like there's all kinds of really good. Almost that. Yeah. And you're gonna get so there are so there are sleeper silence. Right. Who have been planted forever before and and and are specifically programmed to be sleepers. Right. And another one that tries to kill a dama. Right. And then we find out in late season three or season four that, uh, no, there are, there are five, the final, the final five, the final five, who are apparently immortal. Well, they have been living amongst humanity forever.

Forgot that they were silons, and they all get called together by the watchtower, and it's this big reveal. And this was the moment where Sol-Tai became my number two guy on the show. They all look at each other and they have this moment of realization, oh my God, we're all signlines. What are we gonna do? And the claxon goes off and they're under attack and Ty looks at all of them and says,

I'm a colonial officer. Yeah. And he goes back and he does his job. Yeah. And I know who I am. And what I just found out doesn't change who I am. Sure. And that was this one moment,

this one really powerful moment of maybe not moral certainty, but I certainly have identity existential certainty where you don't know who's, you clearly don't know who's a silent. Nobody can know if they are a sylon, or until something happens, and you know, they lose control of their body because they're programming, their hidden programming takes over. There are some things I would like to just kind of delve into on that just a little bit.

Number one, when you have sylons who are essentially immortal, what you really have is you have reincarn silons who are essentially immortal, what you really have is you have reincarnation. Yes. Which I find very fascinating because they get to carry their consciousness with them and they're guiding each other through it. And so there's a communal reincarnation which I would like some explanation please

since you said that they're monotheistic and fanatic in case you have that. Now it could be that you're pulling multiple things and that's fine. But the other thing I would also like to point out is just the idea that what you said with Saul. First off, his name is Saul. Saul Ty.

Okay, just pointing it out to you. So on that out there. As the atheist in the room with the Catholic and... Saul of Tarsus. Yeah. But I find that interesting. Phil's his donkey landed on his ass. Uh-huh.

And then decides who he's going to be. Yes. And by the way, missing an eye, made to go blind. And good point. There's a lot of that shit going on with him. Yeah, oh, well, there's a lot of that shit going on everywhere. But he used to be loyal to one brand,

and now he's like, no, I'm choosing this. This is just, yes. He used to persecute his, you know, and now, so there's a lot of that kind of stuff, but I would like some digging deeper on like you said, they're monochrome. Yeah. Okay, so they refer all the time to God. And who's for all time? Yes, they do. So they refer all the time to God. You refer all the time to the one. Right.

Which is almost heretical and stupid sounding to the humans. Oh yeah, well to the Capricans and the colleagues. Except when Baltar goes all culty and looks like Jesus, or Charlie Manson. I could, we could spend a two-part episode just talking about fucking ball Because can I compare him to CM Punk?

Sure, cuz I could cuz I'm sure yeah, I have no doubt No, the thing is that the the reincarnation thing Uh, at least for all of the other models of Silon the final five are never really explained the final five We've never seen any other Silan that looks like that didn't didn't one of them mentioned that they'd been boxed up or something something there was there were no they boxed Lucy Laws Laws is a character yeah but there was there they had to they had to take her out of storage or no they want to instrument. They had a putter in storage, right? They had a putter in storage, yeah. Because she went back nuts.

Yeah. And Ziggy, or not Ziggy, Admiral Wets' name from Quantum Leap. Yeah. He always had Ziggy. Yeah, he wound up practically starting a civil war amongst the silence. Yes.

Because he started lobotomizing warriors. Because warriors realized, you know, everybody realized, hey wait, there's silence. The final five are over there. Right. We don't want to fight him, and he ordered that the raiders and centurions be lobotomized so they would keep fighting, which is how's that for some sectarian conflict going on there? Yeah.

And, you know, so, but the reincarnation thing, you remember there was a big plot point that when one of the Silons died, their consciousness was literally uploaded to a satellite, which then put their consciousness into another body. Yeah. And the thing is, I think what you said about just pulling stuff from multiple sources. You said about just, you know, pulling stuff from multiple sources. Mm-hmm.

Monotheism is not necessarily incompatible with the idea of reincarnation of individual consciousness. I don't know if you're right. Yeah. You know, we, we tell you, you get a bodily resurrection. Yeah, there you go. Okay, there you go.

So, yeah, so in the West, we associated with Buddhism, Hinduism, and not with, you know, Zoroasterianism, Christianity, Judaism. I never tried my question, because that answers it. Okay, okay. So, I already talked about, in the first episode, we talked about Adama originally, in the first series being an unquestioned patriarch,

Moses figure, and in the new series, there are multiple coup attempts. Adama is constantly having to deal with people questioning his decisions and I should and the father-son dynamic between him and Apollo is a whole lot more nuanced. You know in the original series Apollo is the good son who just does whatever he gets told and he's the faithful air. Whereas in the new one, their relationship is deeply strained at the beginning of the series and proves over time. Take a huge dip. Take a huge dip and it is a realistic kind of relationship.

Realistic for that period of time. Because you have, at that period of time because you have at that period of time you have young men going off to fight in Iraq and their parents saying this is stupid what are you doing this like there were plenty of families were there was that kind of hell I know one that I'm very close to where that happened yeah and and there was a lot of that that was a plot point and a lot of things. Yeah.

The underlying tension that nobody acknowledged at the time was you have no economic prospects. This is a good way to get to college. Yeah. So really fucked up hunger games. But yeah. But what do you call it? So you have a grittiest version possible because it is the 2000. Oh, yeah.

Well, and and the last thing I want to say about Adama here, since we already talked about a whole bunch of it, what's important to point out here is in the very first episode, He pulls this prophecy out. He talks about Earth. And we have information on how we can hunt for and how we can get to Earth. Which is. And he forces everybody to channel on with him. So say we, and you like like, no, no, no,

we're all gonna survive. You're all gonna say this. Yeah. And, and he straight up fucking lies. Yes. He doesn't know any of it. Nope. But unless he gives everybody something to believe in,

everybody's gonna collapse, everybody's gonna die. Humanity ceases to exist. Oh my God. How fucked up is our world that that's an idealized version? Yeah. When there's like, like, that's actually better than the mirror. That's the better side of the mirror.

That's the more morally like, okay, this is in a different way. This is how you lie to the people. Okay. And then, and then they find earth, they do, find earth, only to find out the original silence had been wiped out by a rebellion of their own creations and millions of years previously in a nuclear holocaust. All of this has happened before

and all of this will happen again, is the tagline for the series. Right. The final five wind up becoming a link between the silence and humanity. Forgot they were silence before, again, somehow immortal. And, and. And one of them kills the other. Yeah. Strangles her. Strangles her.

Yeah. And she had been sleeping with Baltar. Yeah. Hey kids. I mean, yes, bizarre. So, and, and now I want to go back to Baltar for just a minute. Please do. Because the original series, in the original series, Balthar was straight up a villain. He was a traitor who had sold the colonies out for his own power, his own elevation, his own survival. And he kind of became sort of a leader of the Cylon forces. Like if you serve him.

Like if you serve him. he's like you server. But a out and out you server not a venal curve. Not a not a venal who does that because who does it because. Yeah, yeah. In the new series, Balthar got,

Balthar sold the colonies out for to get laid. Yeah, you know, got seduced. Accidentally, yeah, accidentally. He was to get laid. Yeah. Got seduced. Accidentally. Yeah, accidentally. He was duped. Yeah, he was duped.

And he's the smartest guy in the world. He is the smartest guy. He's brilliantly intelligent and morally a complete chicken. I thought he got a psychotic break and that's what led him to that though. Now, I might be wrong, maybe I'm giving you too much credit. But once he realized, oh shit, I caused all this, that was his, was initiating event, what's it called?

That was an inciting event. That was his inciting event to him being a terrible person. Everything after that was him trying to justify to himself that he hadn't done that to humanity. That's what I took it as. It was just his long decline as a person. I see that interpretation. Mm-hmm.

I never got that. Cool. What I got was that he was the King of Moral Ambiguity. He was the poster boy for like, I really, like I always have the impulse to do the right thing. I always know what the right thing to do is and I just never have Uh, the courage or the

Fortitude or the or the strength whatever I always take the easier option right whatever is gonna make me happy in the present moment Whatever is gonna keep my neck off the chopping block. Right. That is always what he chose. He's the mirror image of Hilo. Oh. Hilo is the character who is defined by having an iron moral core. Yeah.

And Balthar is defined by having no spine. Like, he has no moral core at all. So Balthar is defined by having no spine, like he has no moral core at all. So Baltar, he's getting scared. Baltar is like the equivalent to a dry drunk who wants to justify that he's never really done anything but really wants his father's love. And Hilo is the equivalent to a man who fought a war that maybe didn't see it as a good war and gave back his medals. Yeah, wow, I hadn't tied that specifically.

I'm reaching a little, but not very far. I would also point out that Gata would be all the rest of us stuck in the middle because he started off decent, dipped into ball territory and then came out as, did I like a fucking man? Yeah, yeah. A bitter iron hard shell of what he once was. Yeah, I can see that. But doing the right thing at the very, very end. bitter iron hard shell of what he once was. Yeah, I can see that.

But doing the right thing at the very, very end. Yeah, so at least acting with honor. Yeah, so, but, but, you know, the new, the specific point about Boltar, remember, he's, when you talk about his psychotic break his inciting episode, whenever, remember, they planted a, a Cylon literally in his head. Yes, they did.

She kept him going crazy. She kept him, you know, and, and, you know, he's constantly, the first, the first season, he's constantly looking timidly over his shoulder and, and talking to a sylon agent who exists only in his head. He's the only one who can see her. Uh, which, which they, see her. Which they play up really so well. Like her leaning, you know, putting her arm around somebody

who like obviously is not reacting to it at all. Right. And she apparently has access to his nervous system and his limbic system. Yeah, because there are all those occasions on which she sidles up on him. Yeah. And puts her hands in places and you can see him reacting clearly to nothing. Yes.

And everybody else through, it was like, Walter, you okay? Right. And yeah, I'm sorry. I had a moment, I'm okay now. You know, and so he's the villain. Yes. But at the same time, you can't really hate him.

You can despise him. You can look at him and go, oh my God, you weak mother fucker. But he, there is always this, this sympathetic, yeah, kind of core. And the deal is, I think all of this moral ambiguity, all of this, you know, we look at, we look at Baltar and we identify with Baltar because we were living in a time where we were weak. All of this can be traced to the fact that we saw that our leaders lied us into an unnecessary war. But there was

a reason for a separate war we were fighting at the same time. And still are. We felt bes. We felt like there was no good choice. Right. You know, there, there, there was no hero. Okay. Or if there was a hero, he was a secondary figure who didn't actually, who didn't have the command authority to be the one to make the decisions. So Colin how? Kind of. Yes. And, and we were angry and we were scared. Yeah. And we we we had our protagonists are flawed. Yeah. And sometimes drunks. Yeah. And our antagonists are very sympathetic. Yeah. And so we're we're living in this very weird. We're vent diagram kind of place. Yeah. And and we're living in this very weird, vent diagram kind of place.

Yeah. And we felt like the threat we faced was existential. Yep. And we felt like there was all this apocalyptic feeling in there, which leads to, are we in hell? Are we in purgatory? Right. You know, when all of this ends, how, you know, end, and bab,

a dump, bab, five, B-S-G. Yeah. Ended with, they arrive on, on our earth. Yep. Millions of, you know, to hundreds of thousands of years ago. Yes. And we get the idea that they're going to, like, interbreed with the Australian pithesians, and that's how modern humans came, I mean, it was weird.

And there was this, and there was this weird Koda, I haven't even mentioned Starbucks being an angel. Yeah. But that was in there. That was a thing. I mean, the character of Starbucks was basically the same character as from the original series only played by Katie Sackhoff

in a much more compelling performance. I mean, I loved her Benedicta death, but she was better. And so the whole thing ends with this Coda of Balthar and his, you know, Silon and his head walking around a modern, so I want to say New York. Looking at, you know, so somehow they have survived or been reincarnated, we don't know what. And all of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again, and the Buddhist wheel is somehow our takeaway.

Right. Like there's an answer, but it's not really an answer, and everything is gonna be okay sort of. It's alright, it lost you had the Dharma and you had the 8th Trigram and then it was really just purgatory. Yeah. So you go from east to west, where this one you went from west to east. Yeah. And so I think what my ultimate, I guess thesis, the ultimate conclusion statement here is that all of these

differences boil down to the fact that we didn't know what the fuck was going on. And so the story that we turned to for entertainment for, I don't know know validation is the word catharsis reflected all of that through the power of science fiction with these ideas. And that's that is why I think the reboot of the series I think is is going to be much more compelling forever because the first series was a scapest fiction right like beginning and that was that was all it was and the second series deals with it does what sci-fi suppose yes it does what science fiction is really supposed.

It's reflective. Yeah. So that's my jam. What's your takeaway? Now that we're at the end of our video, what do you think? I think that there's a simpler answer to why it's more compelling. That's because it was what, 20 years later, writing just got better.

There's a level of that. We didn't actually mention one of my favorite plot points, which is totally fine because it was that- It gives us something to talk about in another episode. Yeah, true. The gal who played in San Roe as she's the admiral of the other Battlestar. Oh, yeah, that was much more modern and much better off and They was a fascist. Yes

Now you see why I love that But they come from Their their approach to it wasn't well, they didn't have a civil government with them either They were all military so their paradigm just becomes that. And they are the metastasization of a military that is unchecked. Yeah, they're black water. Yeah.

Ooh. Yeah, and if you look at when she shows up, I bet you that's around Fallujah. Well, I'm gonna agree with you in effect, but I think it was after Fallujah because the writing was being done for all of it at the time of Fallujah. Oh, okay, okay.

So yeah. But that is. Oh, okay. Okay. So yeah. But that is, yeah. Hershoing up that's. That's her. That is the genesis of that storyline. Yes. You know, which winds up putting Apollo in a position where he's in a position where he has

to make a solidly gray moral choice. He gets he does. You know, of his own. Yeah. And that's one of those moments where the relationship, like you talked about the shift in the relationship between him and the Dama, that's a really big moment in that in that. That's true. That's true. So yeah. No, it's good. Yeah. So I guess my my takeaway is that it's like a lot of shows at that time. And like perhaps necessarily at that time.

Shows didn't end very well. It caught a lot of flag-fraining poorly. Some of them are so lost. And again, so he's like, oh, Jesus, here. The second season, it was like the final season though. It was cool, there was a carnival. But, but I would, here's the thing. I don't think anything back then could end well

because nothing was ending. Okay, that's really profound. Yeah, I think you're right. That's my take away. Okay, just like this podcast. I like it. That's, just like this episode. So, but yeah, that's my takeaway. I think, okay. Just like this podcast. I like it. That's it. I just like this episode.

So, but yeah, that's my takeaway. Nothing was ending. Okay. We couldn't end it. So yeah, well, we didn't know how to. Yeah. But we do. We do.

So just to say, what are you reading right now? Yeah, I just started reading Vector Prime for the fourth time. Okay. Vector Prime is the very first book in the Yu-jian Vong series and it's a Star Wars series that most Star Wars fans didn't like. Hi.

Fuck him. I loved it. I loved it. It was. It was cool. Yes. And so it's advanced research for... See other Star Wars fans?

See how easy that was. You're allowed to. That's cool. Yeah. Anyway. You're allowed to. That's cool. Yeah. Anyway, sorry. Carry on. In the meantime, fuck them. See, Star Wars fans, I understand the temptation. Yeah. But I really like it. It's, I believe it's the book in which the family dog gets killed. It's no longer canon, so we're okay. Yeah. But it really is, it is what I love about it is that even in the very first I'm seeing first time I read it I was half my age now. I was in my first

apartment. I was living or not my first apartment but I was living in Sacramento in my first apartment. I was in my first marriage. I was in college still. I didn't know fuck all. I was enjoying Star Wars. Second time I read it, I was dating my second wife. I was falling madly in love. I was going on spring break. With her, I was traveling. It was a wonderful time. And it was a really cool Star Wars book. Third time I read it I was working out. I was living here. I was still married But I was I was trying to lose weight and this is my reward for trying to lose weight This time I'm reading it and I'm noticing boy. I sure missed a lot of politics the first three times

And so now I'm reading it going because because because it was it was a remark I made earlier That that made it so this this podcast isn't gonna be timeless Yeah, because nothing else right. We've said. Yeah, what have ruined that yeah, yeah, but But you're gonna you're gonna love my analysis of Borsk Fala when I get done with all 19 of these books But it's gonna be a while again. Yes again. We're done with all of them again. Yes Hopefully I'll be thinner because I'm still reading it while I'm working out. Okay. Well, there you go Yeah, but that's what I'm reading. What are you reading? Okay? I am not reading anything right now. Oh, you know what it is I have a comic book to recommend

The Republic the Republic by a man named to recommend. Ooh, the Republic. The Republic by a man named Tim Watts. Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. I will pick it up. The other thing I'm planning on picking up is I have decided I'm going to pick Dune up again.

And you're getting on me? I'm re-read. Yeah. What? What? I'm sorry. Yeah, what? What? I'm sorry. Sure? No, fine. Yeah, I'm fine.

Go ahead. Okay, go ahead. Fine. Yeah. No, I'm not into fucking mom. Yeah, just freaking. Well, I can't speak for a curb or something. But yeah.

So my intent is because the the James Joyce of the sand Well, okay, I'm only gonna read the first three books Maybe only the first two because it gets it But the movie with the movie the movie is gonna be well, there's another one coming out And I want to kind of prepare for that. And, yes, simultaneously, at some point, it's a big enough work that I have to find some hook to talk about it on here. Okay.

And so that's what I'm going to get into. Okay. Where can we find you on social media to argue with you? You can find me at EH Blalock on the Twitter machine. Where can we find you? Well, there's a couple places. You can find me at Da Harmony on the Twitter, on the Instagram.

You can also find us at Geek History, also on the Twitter. Mm-hmm. And yeah, so that's where you can find us. Tell us how wrong we are. Tell me what I got wrong about BSG. Correct me on the names of people. Yeah, point out the names that we've been clubbed

because I'm gonna carry some guilt for that. I don't know. And yeah, you know, if our geopolitics or you know, Bass Acquired let us know, you'll be wrong. But you can let us know. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah.

Well, for a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock, and until next time, watch out for Silons.