Paths

I wasn't sure how to write this. I roughly knew what I wanted to say, in terms of content, but just how to illustrate the notion eluded me, until now. I think I've stumbled on an enjoyable way to make my point.

My point is about paths.

I love Battlestar Galactica (the 21st century remake, that is). It's so well done. That's not my main drive here, but it's worth noting. This entry also consequently contains spoilers, so don't say you weren't warned.

There is an episode in the second season where we find out a Cylon agent (a Six, for those who that will mean anything to) has been captured, abused, tortured and raped for months aboard the Battlestar Pegasus. Despite being an artificial life form, we're informed that the Cylon mind has a vulnerable psychology like human beings do. These experiences have traumatized this Six to the point where she years for death.

Now, this is usually a problem for Cylons, as they don't actually die, but have the technology to have their consciousness resurrected in a new body. But if that mind is broken, how great of a thing is that, really?

Dr. Gaius Baltar is given the task of getting intel about a large, unknown Cylon ship that the Pegasus came across in its travels. The ship is actually the Resurrection Ship, the very thing that allows Cylons to reincarnate into new bodies when they die in deep space. The Six tells Dr. Baltar this, because she wants to die, really die, and this can only be achieved if that ship is destroyed, so she gives up the information willingly.

One of the take home messages is that the Six's fate is truly horrible, and shouldn't be wished on anyone, not even the genocidal robot Cylons. That is not a path we should hope anyone has to walk.

The destruction of the Resurrection Ship is arguably the event with some of the most significant ramifications in the whole of the series. It changes everything. Cylon life is altered so fundamentally in that moment that the paths they take as a race of beings is irreversibly altered from then on. This event is what allows the series' end, at the end of season four, to be what it ultimately is.

And it happened in part because of unimaginable suffering.

There is such a conflict here that it's very hard to sort out. But there's something important to distill here, I believe, and this I will endeavour to do in my next entry. For now, sleep calls me, but I have started walking a path towards this point, which I will finishing walking soon.

Rest well.