by Michael Daly
John Kenneth Muir’s analysis of Battlestar
Galactica touches on most every conceivable angle of the show. It deals with
production problems; the pivotal change, dictated by ABC, that the show become a weekly
series instead of the monthly series of movies Glen Larson had originally envisioned;
controversy about the show (several suicides were linked to the show), etc. In my review of the book at Amazon.com,
I noted Muir’s analysis of the show’s hawkish view of war-and-peace issues. Muir
notes how Battlestar Galactica differed from almost all other science fiction
because of this worldview. Most science fiction takes a decidedly leftist view of the
world. Among popular sci-fi, Galactica is different. It is by no means the sole
sci-fi that dissents from leftism. John Podhoretz, in his early 1998 review of the film Starship
Troopers in the political magazine The Weekly Standard, notes that Robert
Heinlein, from whose novel the film derives, was right-wing at a time when it wasn’t
cool. Heinlein debunks socialist thought in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, for
instance. There are also what are arguably the
two all-time greatest novels ever written for any genre, George Orwell’s 1984
and Animal Farm. Though Animal Farm is not meant to be a sci-fi novel, it
nonetheless has sci-fi touches, and in any event is brilliant in its parody of the
self-importance and ultimate savagery of socialism. Battlestar Galactica is military
sci-fi, but it involves more than enough political intrigue to justify Muir’s
analysis of the show’s politics. Muir cites repeated instances in the show where
civilians are treated as fools or a burden. He is especially cutting when he compares the
society of the Fleet with that of the openly Nazi-esque Eastern Alliance. Certainly, in both the show and in
Maximum and Realm Press’ comic book incarnations, Galactica repeatedly sees
the ruling Quorum of Twelve commit blunders of extraordinary foolishness. There is the
Treaty of Cimtar that sets off the Final Destruction; the subsequent decision to settle on
Carillon; the Quorum-mandated opening of the Terran ship and resulting near-asphyxiation
of Michael and the others in “Greetings From Earth;” the end of martial law and
subsequent seizure of the Quorum in “Baltar’s Escape;” the implementation
of Adama’s Last Command, which helps open the pyramid of Earth but condemns Adama to
death by Kaitai Syndrome in Maximum’s “The War Of Eden;” the decision by
the Quorum not to flee Earth when it becomes clear the Cylon Empire has upgraded its base
stars with temporal warp corridors, a decision that leads to the frightful massacre in
Part One of “Journey’s End;” the Quorum’s shortsighted decision to
settle the Fleet on an unexplored planet, named Domia, in Realm Press’ story arc
“No Place Like Home” and “Hades Hath No Fury.” There are also the repeated end runs
Commander Adama and the military must pull to minimize damage or prevent catastrophe.
There are Adama and Tigh’s warrior switch on Carillon; Adama and Apollo’s
surreptitious return to the crashed spaceship where Count Iblis was found in “War Of
The Gods” (side note—Muir criticizes the fact that Apollo and Starbuck
don’t wear radiation suits when they return to the ship; this admitted glitch
actually adds to the tension, for it’s as if Apollo was more than certain that
Iblis’ story about radion was a lie); the military’s “illegal” return
of the Terran ship into space in “Greetings From Earth;” Tigh’s cryptic
warning to Apollo and Starbuck in “Baltar’s Escape.” All this is true enough. In defense,
there have been quite a few realworld examples of civilian incompetence in such matters.
In his book Bad News: The Foreign Policy Of The New York Times, Russ Braley notes
several such instances in foreign policy matters; he is especially cutting in describing
civilian irresponsibility regarding Vietnam and Israel. In an especially interesting
sidenote, Braley explores a visit by Israeli defense minister Moshe Dayan to Vietnam;
Dayan “left Vietnam bemused” because American tactics were dictated by
civilians, with the paramount goal being limitation of casualties, not an actual
accomplishment of a military objective. The decade of the 1990s saw repeated
such examples of civilian interference resulting in military disasters, such as in Somalia
(civilians changed what had been a convoy-protection mission and tried to make it an
exercise in nation building) and Kosovo (a war instigated and run by civilians). Even the
slaughter at Waco was planned and executed by civilian authority, not the military. But in all of this, an important point
regarding Battlestar Galactica is missed. The military STILL ANSWERS TO CIVILIAN
RULE. In “Saga of A Star World,” Adama refuses to disobey the orders of civilian
President Adar, even during the actual Cylon attack; only when the President’s
flagship, the Atlantia, is destroyed does Adama break formation and flee for the
besieged Colonies. In the subsequent assembly of the ragtag fugitive Fleet, a new civilian
Quorum is chosen, under the influence of the decidedly Clinton-esque Sire Uri; though the
Fleet is under martial law, Adama refuses to disband civilian rule. If anything, he just
wants to not deal with anything anymore, as he mournfully tells Athena in Part Two of the
episode. When an exasperated Apollo questions why Adama voted for Sire Uri for the
Council, Adama says that Uri used to be a fine leader, “a builder, and architect of
dreams.” Adama lays down the law in “Baltar’s Escape” when he tells
Apollo and Starbuck, “When two of my finest officers forget their oath to obey the
civil government, we have been under martial law too long.” In Realm Press’
“Hades Hath No Fury,” Adama seethes, “If one life is lost, I’ll see
that this pathetic excuse for a governing body be disbanded,” but he hasn’t the
guts to do it. Only in Maximum’s Richard Hatch story “Apollo’s
Journey” is the Quorum actually threatened by a dictatorial takeover - the result of
Count Iblis’ infiltration of Apollo’s soul, not any military desire to rule. Muir examines Apollo’s pro-defense
speech to the Presidium of the Western Nationalists in “Experiment in Terra.”
What Muir misses, however, is that this episode features a leader who truly is
fascist—the Nationalist President jails military officers who dissent from his
duplicitous negotiations with the Alliance, negotiations which lead to a full-scale
nuclear attack stopped by the Galactica. This theme is further touched on in
Maximum Press’ sequel to this episode, the Starbuck miniseries. His viper crippled by
an attack of Alliance destroyers, Starbuck finds himself on Lunar Four, a satellite world
on which Nationalist guerrillas are laying siege to an Alliance prison-fortress. Leading
the guerrillas is Colonel Charles Watts (the man Apollo impersonated with the help of the
Seraph John in “Experiment”), who was jailed with others when they discovered
that the President had reneged on the cease-fire with the Alliance and granted them enough
concessions to encourage them to renew their aggressions. Far from being fascist, Galactica
reacts with horror at a human world that truly is fascist—Commander Cain’s
Poseidon, in the novel Warhawk. And here, the ruling strongman (Commander Cain)
sees his decisions explode in his face when the alien Chitain he has allied with, armed by
the Cylons (to Cain’s surprise and horror), attack the Fleet and succeed in
destroying numerous ships and leaving Starbuck badly injured and in a coma. Another point weakens Muir’s Galactica-as-fascism
argument; fascism and communism have little in the way of fundamental differences;
historian Paul Johnson notes in his masterpiece Modern Times: The World From The
Twenties To The Nineties that Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were enemies only by the
accident of race, and even so they nonetheless formed an alliance that made World War II
possible. Such societies have basically one raison d’�tre—social engineering.
Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Brezhnev, Nasser, Ho Chi Minh, Idi Amin, Ayatollah Khomeinei, Saddam
Hussein, and their acolytes were leaders of societies that lived off social engineering.
They sought to remake mankind - literally, figuratively, and in the here and now. Social engineering is the last thing on
the mind of anyone in Battlestar Galactica; on the contrary, the Fleet is itself
the victim of the ultimate conclusion of social engineering - genocide. Realm Press’ Galactica
story “Search For Sanctuary” touches on this when it reveals that the Quorum,
behind the back of Commander Adama, has been continuing cloning experiments begun under
Doctor Ravashol. The intent is to breed a race of warriors, but Adama objects vehemently
to such ethically questionable experiments, only to be overruled by the Quorum. The society of Battlestar Galactica
more resembles the state of Israel than anything that could be called fascist. Indeed,
I’ve long felt Galactica was basically a sci-fi allegory on the state of
Israel. Both the Galactica Fleet and the state of Israel were born of Holocaust;
both are deeply religious societies; both are under siege from tyrannical enemies bent on
extermination; both are polyglot societies involving numerous “tribes” and
languages, though both have an “official” language; both have heavy military
influence (Israel’s interior ministry is often run by active duty generals, most
famously Ariel Sharon) but are nonetheless democratic societies where civilians are in
charge. Israel even has its own Borellian Nomen—Yassir Arafat’s PLO. Muir simply goes too far in drawing
fascist allegories, as does the author of the unsigned review of Armageddon
at this site who calls the novel an Aryan power fantasy. Such claims show insufficient
analysis of the politics of Battlestar Galactica.
�1999, Michael Daly