Tory became a monster quicker than I thought

Television, Movies Games and Books BSG-2003
#40

The reason she was in the airlock was to protect her baby from the Cylons not to destroy him. Cally wanted to go somewhere where the Cylons couldn’t get to them. Obviously, she wasn’t thinking clearly at the time, but she wasn’t really wanting to killer either herself or Nicky. When Tory talked her down, she came out of her shock enough to realize what she had almost done, and she started apologizing.

I think, given time, we would have seen Cally’s love for the Chief overcome her hatred of all things Cylon.

What I find interesting is Tigh’s comment about Chief’s “Cylon-hating wife.” Not all that long ago, I’m thinking Tigh would have been passing Cally more ammunition to kill Cylons with. This shows me that Tigh has already “changed sides” so to speak. He’s thinking more like a Cylon than a human no matter what fancy speech he gave at the end of The-Episode-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named.

The last of the FF’ers to give up their humanity will be Anders, I’m thinking. Cally’s death is going to push the Chief over the edge.

#41

Remember who helped her, too. Tigh.

#42

I’m glad to see the Cally Haters aren’t gloating too much here. The episode was sad on many levels. I need to rewatch it again, because I didn’t feel very grounded in Cally’s storyline with the pills. I remember many nights caring for an infant who wakes you up all night and what that does to you over time, so I felt a lot of empathy for her. I don’t think she wanted to harm herself or Nikki either. I would have preferred to see her go out strong and brave, as she’s been so many times before, but I don’t disagree with her death. It really raises the sakes.

I feel badly for Chief and I fear he will fall prey to Tory in his grief. She is very scary now, all the more because we know so little about her. With the others we have a default setting.

So far the season is living up to all it’s promises. It’s going to be a bumpy ride!

#43

You might have a point. The only Cylon model that hasn’t slept with Baltar is the Boomer line (the 8s I think) and they seem to wander around in a cloud of smiling, blissful ignorance.

#44

I was surprised at how Tory casually threw Cally to the floor: she just raised her hand, and whacked the girl no less than three meters away. I wonder if Tory really knew she had it in her, or if her sudden Cylon-ness kicked in and the hit was subconscious?

From a Cylon-POV, Cally was a threat. Tory noticed that the cross-space was open, put two and two together, and Cally was the natural suspect for eavesdropping. Still, knocking Cally unconscious, taking the baby and throwing Cally out the airlock was pretty callous. And Tory waited for Cally to wake up before she opened the airlock. :eek:

Is it just me, or does it seem that Tory’s absolutely savoring the knowledge that she’s someone ‘different’ now? I was bothered by what she told the Chief about ‘being free’ and ‘experiencing new things’ while they were in the bar.

Well, Tigh always did seem to talk that way - what he said offhand while they were in the weapons locker seemed a very Tigh-like comment: “Your Cylon-hating wife… skinjobs, and one of them’s her husband!” I remember when he was explaining to Roslin about his motives for sending Duck on a suicide bomber mission on New Caprica. Even then, Tigh has always been very caustic when he says something.

#45

Tory never was ethical. If she wasn’t as a human, why would she be as a cylon?

She is drunk on the power of the baseline change she sees in herself. A sober person has reason and social taboos for guidelines to behavior. A drunk person is freed of those inhibitions.

This is Tory as she always was. Uninhibited, she is realizing her terrible potential.

Drunk or sober, a person is accountable for his/her actions. The only difference in decision-making is the amount of personal/social inhibition.

She is who she alway was with NO BRAKES!

I have a feeling she may be “stopped” by one of the others. Possibly Tyrol? He flat out said he doesn’t take change well. Once he recovers from the shock, and eventually finds out the truth, what will he do?

This incident makes Chief a wild card.

#46

Many have opined that Tory is not long for this (or any other) world. Go with The Last Supper photo - if a notable character is not there, he/she is history - Cally, Tori, Dee, Gaeta. Which is not to say that all who are pictured will make it to the closing credits.

SPEAKING OF TORI - How convenient for the Cylons that Billy died, opening up the job of Madam President’s #1 assistant. Help out an old timer - looking back on it, is there anything “suspicious” about Billy’s death?

#47

I have to disagree. I think it’s more out of fear that they hide. Chief was obviously worried about Cally finding out. Humans HATE the cylons, with Athena being the exception for some. If they go public, what’s preventing them from sharing a cell with Caprica 6 or getting shot in the gut by some one who hates cylons. How do you tell people that you’ve lived with, loved & known for years that you’re a cylon & have been from the start, but you weren’t aware of it until a few days ago?

#48

Was Tory ever a human? If she was Cylon from the beginning that’s how they made her, hiding her true identity until they wanted her activated. If she was always Cylon and not replaced by one, then yes, this side of her has always been there. Unlike Boomer, it doesn’t seem to bother her. I think she’s happy to be playing for the other side now.

Still, trying to steal an election isn’t the same as murder. Also, the motives for stealing that election were, supposedly, for the “greater good.” And Tigh, another secret Cylon, helped her try to steal it, so maybe there was a “greater evil” behind the good hidden unconsciously in their intent from the beginning. Killing Cally wasn’t for any greater (or human) good. It just protects the hidden Cylons.

And a drunk may be deprived of reason, social taboos and inhibitions, but Tory still has plenty of reason and purpose, though certain social taboos, inhibitions and moral sentiments seem to be gone. And that reason and purpose seem to revolve around Cylon goals she wasn’t directly informed of, like saving hybrid babies.

Saying a person is accountable for his/her actions assumes there is someone to hold you to account. And who, exactly is going to hold Tory to account? Indeed, from where we sit as viewers, Chief could go either way. You hope, on some level, that he still has some humanity left, but deep down you know you want more scares and conflict. If their problems can be resolved simply by Cheif holding onto his humanity, then you’d start getting bored with Galactica.

#49

So what? Fear is what motivated Baltar not to tell who the Cylons were when he detected Boomer. He was aftraid they’d kill him. Even when Boomer was all conflicted and trying to shoot herself, she wound up going all Manchurian candidate and shooting Adama.

Why do you think fear is an excuse? Because you think the simple, pathetic lives they lead are worth more than the future of humanity?

The longer they hide, the more dangerous they become. They should welcome prison.

You start recording those meetings where they talk about how to deal with being a Cylon and then when you think things have gone too far, you turn the tapes over to Adama and show him what you’ve become.

#50

While it has been widely remarked that Tory’s actions toward Cally were “rational”, yet murderous, her reason for saving Nicky aren’t at all obvious to me.

The easiest, or rational thing to do would to have let events take their course - with Cally and Nicky being blown out of the launch tubes. No explanation for returning Nicky required. Bish bash bosh, as they say.

This didn’t happen. She stepped into the 'lock and saved the kid. Why?

She has not received orders. Last time we checked, the remaining six still didn’t know who the final five were. Could she ( and the rest of the final five ) have an innate need to preserve Cylon life? An inability to see it destroyed?

Some things point to this. Goo-hybrid mentioned something along the lines of “they will not harm their own”. Anders couldn’t fire on a Raider in the first episode of the season. Tory’s choices at the end of this episode may strengthen this case.

A lesser case can be made for her emerging lust for the Chief. Cally out of the way creates an opening, but trust me, you get far less frakking done when there are kids in your quarters :slight_smile:

Whatever the reason, she risked her own life to save the child. Whatever else Tory is ( and I for one cannot wait to find out ), she isn’t completely self-serving.

#51

We sort of know why the Cylons want them, but you’re right, she was never informed of those Cylon goals, they were programmed into her it seems.

It seems to speak against her having “free will” (depending on how you define that fuzzy term).

And yet, back among the basestar Cylons they’re talking about inhibitors that prevent “free will” from developing:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2008/04/six-of-one-dissapointing-part.html

#52

[QUOTE=NormanDoering;26063]Why do you think fear is an excuse? Because you think the simple, pathetic lives they lead are worth more than the future of humanity?QUOTE]

I wasn’t trying to excuse anyone’s behavior. Fear is a great motivator to some. But no life, cylon or human is ever simple or pathetic. Not even Baltar. We can’t dismiss them as skin jobs, hope they get caught & thrown into jail just based on who they are.

Well, m,aybe the Tori-Termanator. She’s a little scary. :smiley:

#53

Pap - you and Norman are more thoughtful than I. I tend to view the show as a mystery to be solved - and it clearly is more than that. Very clearly.

Having said that, I am pretty certain that either all the 4 (or 5 - who knows at this point?) were either humans replaced by Cylons or Cylons from the start. I lean towards the former because of each seeming to be unique, having (real) histories of some length and, yes, Tigh’s alcoholism (why would the creator of a “machine” build that into an original model?)

But some “creature” out there knows that the 4 are Cylons before they do. Was that why BIlly was killed - to put Tory next to the President? Is her attempt to steal the election CYlon influenced or a red herring. (One would think that it must be the latter.)

As for saving the hybrid boy - I think Tori doing so because of the Cylons great interest in creating natural hybrids (as opposed to the manufactured ones in goo) and because some sort of a union between the 2 hybrid children is the sort of simple minded outcome that I can grasp.

#54

Not even when compared to a thousand others?

And Tory is, I suspect, a harbinger of things to come for Chief and Tigh. Why would the Cylons get Tory programmed so well and then blow it with Chief and Tigh?

The Cylons with their civil war are already being weakened so the humans can triumph. Do we need to have Chief and Tigh assert their free will and defeat the Cylon programming? Boomer couldn’t even kill herself.

If they do that they’ll be falling into the old Star Trek / sci-fi trap where they present a powerful, seemingly unbeatable, enemy and then suddenly weaken it, dumb it down, use some undefinable human essence, or such so it can be defeated.

#55

That’s certainly a perspective. I remarked in my previous post that the final five could be naturally protective of other Cylon life. It’s programming, like you say.

Tory has embraced her erm… Cyloninity ( is that a word? :smiley: ) better than the other four. She seemed the least bothered about it at the time of the reveal, and has actually enjoyed it in the last two episodes, certainly in “The Ties That Bind”.

What has been interesting to me for the entire time that the show has been running is the almost inscrutable different between Cylons and humans, particularly when you consider Real Earth history.

Interests declared, I’m wondering how sophisticated the programming is.

Is it a simple set of instructions based on true or false values, or would it be similar to the same “programming” that humans have?

In the main, our species tries to preserve human life. Sure, we have extreme examples with scant regard for it, but that happens to be the status quo.

Reverse the situation. Jump onto a Basestar and imagine that a dismayed Cylon, high on engine oil and silicon chips, has just discovered her better half was a human, part of a cabal of other humans who were conspiring in secret rooms. Part of the said human infiltration catches her in the act, and sees a part-human kid about to be destroyed.

Would things have turned out any different?

#56

I disagree. The fleet has had enough bad experiences with the Cylons that it would be irrational for them not to summarily jail if not execute anyone claiming to be a Cylon (killing the other 18B humans, saying that it was time for peace and then conquering New Caprica, saying that they would make a deal on the Eye of Jupiter and then, in the humans’ view, reneging, etc.). So the Four have to remain hidden in order to be free to help the humans. The only way I can see them “coming out” successfully would be for all four to do something that obviously saved the fleet from one of the many disasters looming ahead, and then to immediately reveal themselves as a group.

On the other hand, I don’t disagree with you that they’re loyalties and goals are ambiguous. I want to trust them because I think that the “new breed,” as Six once called the Hylons, are the future and that the Four are meant to lead them to that, somehow. But, especially after “The Ties that Bind,” I don’t know if we can trust them. Jury’s still out.

#57

Oh how I hope you are wrong! The Chief is the most human character on BSG, which is why I love that he is a Final Five Cylon. But if he loses that humanity I will lose a lot of the hope that I still hold out for the resolution of the show.

#58

I would not consider that a rational thought. That’s blind hope.

But then again, this is science fiction and Galactica has been throwing out a lot of blind hopes that go against the evidence, like Starbuck’s quest for Earth. However, that quest isn’t costing them big time if it fails. This gamble could be costly.

#59

before she discovers that she is a cylon, tory doesn’t have real close alliances with anyone other than roslyn (not a great example of humanity at the moment)- at least that is what we see. she has no family, no partner, etc. so she is the most susceptible to corruption or to giving in to her cylon side…

i think the fact that boomer, chief, anders and tigh have all served in the military in some way has strengthened their alliegance to the humans. these 4 also had/have relationships with humans boomer-chief (and when that relationship ended, that is when boomer started to really lose it), tigh-ellen, chief- cally (and their son nicky), anders-starbuck…so these 4 had more to live for as humans…

no wonder anders volunteered to go on the mission with kara- he needs to keep his connection to his humanity through his love for kara…even if it is not a reciprocated love…

and now we see chief losing some of his ties to his humanity- in losing cally …