the "Was Richard Hatch right about Cain?" conversation

Television, Movies Games and Books BSG-2003
#1

Well I have been listining to the podcasts for 6 months ( getting them from Zune). The last two weeks podcasts have inspired me to join up and post this thread.

I remember the the emotions I felt the first time I watched the Athena “rape” episode. It made me queesey, it was unsettling, and I was praying that the chief and Helo would make it there in time. My girlfriend at the time left the room. She wasn’t even cool with it as a work of fiction.

I also, didn’t like seeing Gena’s ordeal. Her lying there broken on the cold deck. It wasn’t appealing, and I could just imagine the horror that any person in her situation was going thru.

But before Cain could even reiterate the point, it hit me: Those guys weren’t rapeing a female anything. They were touching a Thing. not even an animal. An artificial thing that , sure, resembles a human female and is programmed to believe that it hurts and feels, but in the end… it was just a thing.

I wanted Helo and Chief to succeed as a viewer, but as an officer I have to conceed that them felony murdering ( legal term for an accidental death during the commision of a crime) an officer over him placeing his genitals into what the legal govening body has determined is for all puposes… a captured enemy tank, or airplane, or Dell Laptop, makes them guilty of a crime for which there is no excuse.

Now, as a man, I couldn’t do what the LT was doing. It would still look and feel like I was rapeing a chick and I couldn’t do it. I think that the person doing it has a few screws loose. But I can’t begin to even think that Admiral Cain is legaly or moraly wrong for ordering whatever done to the cylon skinjobs ( past the obvious grossness of useing subordinate’s private parts as a tool. That, as a commander is the crime. the crime agaisnt her own officers) I can’t imagine ordering one of my soldiers to screw a Dell laptop, but in effect that is what she did.

As for tortureing Gena. It’s not torture if you threaten a Buick, or an HP printer. PLUS nobody spends too much time complaining about all the german prisoners that were killed by the russians when they marched into Berlin. You take the hollocost

They aren’t even animals… they are machines ( biological as it may be). They call them toasters for a reason, they all believe them to be very sneaky machines… programmed to fool you into feeling love, sorry, or pitty for them. The skinjobs specific purpose is to manipulate the humans into believing that they are humans and betray them. They are programmed to think that they have fear, and fealings, and in Athena’s case… even love. The Humans built the machines, the machines built these skinjobs ( at least as far as Cain knows… and that’s all we can hold her accountable for)

Sharon thought that she loved the human race… till her programming told her to destroy the water supply, or kill Adama. They don’t truely have free will. They have free will until they recieve a signal, or unlock pre-loaded programing that controls them.

Now we may find out that this discussion is invalid because the 7 Cylon skinjobs might be more sentiant than we know. I am just refering to what the colonials and Cain believe, and how it affects their morales when dealing with skinjobs.

#2

Putting the Cylon rape issue aside, Cain was guilty of crimes against humanity when taking supplies from civilian ships and impressment when forcing civilian crews to join Pegasus or watch their families die before them.

Cain action against the XO was unforgivable on many levels. Had that occurred in almost any military establishment [perhaps not the Soviets] she would have been facing court martial.

Makes me wonder how someone like that makes flag rank in a peacetime military. I realize its fiction and its not Star Trek. Then again, in Star Trek, the majority of admirals were evil…

#3

There are 3 main claims Richard Hatch made about Cain that is in question.

  1. Cain maintained humanity even after all she went through.
  2. Cain was made the right decision “in a real world situation point of view”.
  3. Cain was a good leader.

I am not sure if he based the 3rd on the fact that he believed 1 and 2 are true. I can see arguments for 1 and 2, and I’ve made them on the podcast thread. But I am afraid even if 1 and 2 are true, Cain still wasn’t a good leader. but then again, who is a good leader on the BSG universe if all we are judging is by when they fail.

#4

I guess I kinda mis labeled the thread. I don’t agree with RH that she was really noble. I just believe that she isn’t the horrible animal either. I think she made horrible decisions that were within her legal right to do if the letter of the law is stretched to the max. I don’t think she is Captain Picard… or even a Janeway. Maybe she’s a middle of the road Cardasian Gul.

That is her biggest flaw. I don’t think she broke regulations. I think that they were in a martial law situation and she would be covered LEGALY for a lot of tough decisions that she made. The XO killing thing could be done in the US militery by regulations. ( She could be judged later and found guilty… but her immediate actions are coverned under subduing mutiny which allows for deadly force and immediate execution when not under cercimstance that allows for the houseing of prisnors.) It happened in WW1 to three US army soldiers, and to like 20-30 British Soldiers for failure to go “over the top”… but it’s rare. The civillians situation is this: She inacted a draft. They didn’t comply and there was a “riot”. She’s legaly covered.

I really was just refering to the discussion of the torture and rape that cameup in #146 and #147 ( which I ws listing to on my comute to work this morning). I am not saying I agree with RH, but I am saying he has more of a point than our host in regaurds to the rpe and tourture issue.

#5

Because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s right.

#6

I can’t buy the arguement that Cylons are just machines. If you hump your Dell, you don’t get a mini sometime later. Athena became pregnant by Helo, so there goes the machine arguement.

#7

In the 3 points I listed, #1 is about the raping and torturing. #2 was more about the draft, XO killing, and leaving civilians defenseless.

Coming back to #1, the only argument for Cain’s order wasn’t torture, was that Cylons are only things. Like a blow up doll is a thing and people don’t get arrested for having sex with them without consent of the blow up doll.

Of course there are signs that Cylons are more than just things, for example Athena clearly had a baby with a human.

But regardless of whether Cylons really are just things, I think if the actions didn’t have a point, like forcing her to tell more secrets, it was just her way of vent her feeling of being betrayed. added later Also, if Cain believed allowing her crew to abuse Gena would induce her to give up valuable information about the Cylons, then there are ways for Cylons to break away from their programming, making them more than just things.

So, in the end, whether Gena was a thing or not, she only gave the order to satisfy her personal agenda. I don’t know if that is showing her “humanity” but it certainly is far from being morally right.

#8

Agreed. But I think it’s interesting, I had assumed because it was wrong that it would be illegal… which disturbingly might not be the case.

I just can’t buy it from a historical human rights perspective - we have cruelty to animals laws (like you can’t torture a cat or something), but these people would think that sexually violating something that is sentient would be OK? I don’t buy it, not at all. They definitely have a screw off, no matter what.

I’m not going to go into the whole rape-as-an-instrument-of-war bit that is just wrong wrong wrong.

It also makes me think of the situation of the indigenous peoples of the Americas when the Europeans arrived in the late fifteenth century. In the sixteenth century, in fact, there was a debate in Spain between Bartolome de las Casas and Juan Gines de Sepulveda as to whether or not the indigenous people had souls and could or could not be enslaved (I’m simplifying things here, of course, things are more nuanced than that, as you can see from reading this). Leaving aside various other considerations (that this debate was a basis for the Black Legend, that despite the finding that indigenous peoples did indeed have souls they were locked into other systems of social, economic oppression for centuries, that these same people replaced indigenous slavery with African slavery, etc), the fundamental question was: are the indigenous peoples human? Because one must be human if one has a soul.

I do think that the cases can be seen as analogous in some ways. Whereas the New Laws of 1542 and the results of the debate proved that the indigenous people, according to the Spaniards, had souls and were therefore eligible to be converted to Christianity, the LT of the Pegasus maintained the opposite view of the Cylons (i.e., that they could not possibly have souls, that they were nothing more than machines). In essence, our very own history contains the same debate over and over again, every time one group of humans encountered another that they saw as different than themselves for one reason or another.

#9

I would add to Casilda’s post, the end of the debate has remained the same, every time. Whether her decision to order the summary rape & torture of the Six was legal, in the strictest set of the term, it does not remove the ethical & moral wrongness of the order.

As Jack McCoy (for you L&O fans) would say, enforcing the letter of the law to bypass the spirit of it, is still wrong.

#10

Prior to the horrific degradation of Gina, I would say that while Cain’s decisions seem abhorrent in the face of what Adama/Roslin did not do, she was motivated to keep the fleet up and going.

What she did to the families, leaving people, even her XO – recall that they had no clue that there were any other survivors. But if she didn’t take the actions she took, would they have survived? We don’t know.

I think “Razor” was fantastic in the fact that the Cain we see in S2 is a cold, heartless beeyotch. “Razor” gives you a different point of view, to include her experiences as a young child and the loss of her sister. She kept that fleet going.

But the moment she ordered the degradation of Gina, all went out the window. The subsequent rape of Sharon/Athena demonstrated the “leadership” path she ultimately chose to take.

And as Sean said in the 'cast - that is never acceptable.

All that said, Michelle Forbes was fan-frakkin-tastic as Cain.

#11

I’m sorry, there was no reason for her to shoot her XO. They have a brig, she was well within her rights to arrest him.

#12

Good points. I mostly agree with you guys. I think that she is nowhere is great as RH makes her out to be. I also don’t think that she is Tori/Brother Cavil evil either.

I think of her as being like a Maquis from DS9. The maquis killed federation citizens in their war effort. ( they avoided it when at all possible… but they still did it). They attacked Starfleet personel and material goods. They tried to incite a few wars, and they attempted to use a mutagenic weapon to cause genocide on a few cardasian civilian populations. Those are all bad things… but most Star Trek fans will say, " I understand why they did it".

She isn’t Captain Picard, but nieither is Adama. Hell, he isn’t even Janeway.

I think her strength over Adama is that she realized from the onset that Democracy in their world was a farce. She wasn’t going to play ball with the civilian government. Adama acted as if he would and then didn’t follow thru. She correctly realized that it wasn’t going to workout and never tried to have a civilian fleet of her own. Many people would argue that Adama’s stomping on the head of democracy is as bad or worse than anything Cain ever did. PLUS Adama mutinied over the rightful prosecution of two murderers. CAn’t argue that risking the death of the fleet is worth all that!

#13

I’m sorry but when it comes to this I think Hatch is DEAD wrong…
Cain was a tyrant and a monster…

#14

I must reiterate that Cain clearly knew Gina wasn’t just a machine. She ordered the rape and torture of the prisoner, at least in part, as revenge for being duped by Gina in their romantic relationship. A Dell laptop isn’t capable of fooling a human into thinking it’s also human. I think it’s worth arguing that anything/one that can pass as human so effectively qualifies as sentient.

Wow, interesting post. Do you wonder if the native people would have been better off had they been deemed soul-less? Though I suppose it only would have meant a different official reasoning for the conquest.

#15

Aren’t the s7 cylons just machines that are SO advanced that they fool us into believeing that they aren’t. That seems to be the purpose ( acording to six in the mini-series ) in building the skin jobs.

I know that we can say that they are more than machines because they can cry and frak and conive… but aren’t they jsut machines that are advanced enought to do those things. Their actions don’t make them not machines just because WE can’t concieve of a science where they exist. The Cylons themselves maintain that they are artificial and that the s7’s were “created”. Regaurdless of how advanced their actions are… they are still reacting to artificial programming.

Kinda like a Halo game. Those Jackel snipers can do a pretty good job of stoping me from sneaking around. Those marines can help me kill the bad guys. Take the s7’s … that is super science fiction AI. They cylons themselves have mentioned that they are created, that they have programming. After Sharon shot Adama ( not a free will moment) he programming sent her right back into beliving she was our friend Sharon. how is that possible… because she is a thing. The most advanced thing that we may have ever seen in science fiction… but still a thing.

#16

The only problem with that argument is that 200 years ago African Americans were seen as property and objects. If you have even the slightest spark of decency (cylon, human or otherwise) you cannot justify torturing any sentient creature except Cavil cause he just plain sucks.

That Cain and her crew treated six like an object all the more justifies Adama’s speechifying in the miniseries that “we never asked ourselves if we deserve to survive”.

#17

Haha.

Sympathy for the Ellen

Where Jagger goes hoo hoooo in the original you can put the cylon eye sound, just speed it up a bit.

#18

Just for the record, I don’t agree with Richard Hatch that Cain is a good leader/good person/justified in her actions. I do definitely appreciate his point of view – especially as it’s kicked off all these great discussions. But I love how I keep getting email accusing me of taking each side. :slight_smile:

I’ve heard lots of good arguments on both sides of this issue, but as of this moment I think the best argument I’ve heard so far regarding the question of Cain’s culpability is this: the psychological ramifications of rape/attempted rape wouldn’t affect a “mindless machine.” By selecting these methods of torture, Cain tacitly admits that the cylons are more than simply machines – which puts her squarely in the wrong.

But FWIW, I think the core of this discussion is just that: Are cylons “machines” to be treated like a typewriter or hammer or are they sentient beings – albeit of a different type? This is a deep philisophical question – defined as a question that can’t be answered simply (or possibly can’t be answered at all).

I hope that regardless of how all here might feel about it at the moment, that everyone will keep an open mind and absorb all the other viewpoints and arguments because he beauty of these kinds of questions is that we learn as from asking and discussing them, not answering them. :slight_smile:

#19

Google “Turing Test.” According to Alan Turing, if a machine (or, rather, its communication) is indistinguishable from a human, it’s sentient.

The position is arguable, but it’s widely accepted.

#20

For the record, I do like RoDama and Lee and Starbuck and all the other characters that I have philisophical problems with. I rooted for Adama during his feud with Rosylyn at the end of season 1 and I rooted for Tigh when he was fraking the fleet up. So these discussions for me are more about ideas than enjoyment. I would hope that RoDama would continue bussiness as usual, but if you ask me about weather it’s ok, I would say no.

But I don’t treat BSG as science fiction, I treat it more as a drama that takes place in space… with supperior technology… but not a trek style sci-fi themed show. I also believe that in the real world, even Data wouldn’t be a REAL living being. That is why I stick to the belief that … if man created it, or a creatiion of man created it… it’s not “real”. An argument can be made that everything a cylon does that makes it seem sentiant… is just programming to make the thing appear sentiant. in other words… none of the emotions are real. The fear is a programmed response. The compassion as well. Athena’s love for Helo or Hera. or anything can be programmed. I almost take a religious stance ( although I am not really religious) in that … if it didn’t occur naturaly… it’s not a sentiant thing.

Now for a true sci-fi show like Trek, I can accept that they play Data as sentient because the writers have stated openly in the cannon that he is… and we just have to take that as sci-fi truth. But, if I am on a jury in the 24th century trek… and somebody made their own Data and killed the robot… I think I would have to rule that it was their thing and that they don’t go to jail for murder.

On the other hand, a blow up doll that looks like a 4 year old boy is a thing, and if someone does bad stuff to it… that tells you a lot about them. So I don’t condone the atrocities against the s7’s… mostly because of what it does to those junior crewmen who have to deal with that.