I still feel Tory is the one. Just because she wasn’t in this episode, it doesn’t mean that she wasn’t acting like a backstabbing prick somewhere else. I’d like to think that Tory was somewhere else on the fleet, still betraying and murdering someone somewhere. And I think her potential for dickisiness has not been fully realized. The sky is the limit.
Probably. I don’t think many people in the fleet like Starbuck. They probably see her as angry prickly prima donna who’s Adama’s favorite little pet. If he had been punched by Starbuck before she stormed off the room, it probably would’ve helped his cause even more.
Conclusion? Gaeta is a dick.
Agreed. I think he was also weeding out the people who might not want to mutiny and might expose his plan to the higher-ups. Notice two other people leave the mess right after Kara–I think one of them is the big, tattooed Asian pilot (Yay! I wondered where he went.).
I noticed that when Starbuck left the room, there were two or three others that followed her out.
So “Dragon”, as he is sometimes called, is not among the traitors? I don’t know why, but that is a relief to me. It’d be a terrible shame to have to airlock him.
While others are quite douchey Gaeta is the king. His doucheyness will not only get everyone killed, but is the most narrow sighted “vision” of everyone. I love it when Starbucks tells him she is not afraid to hit a gimp.
OK, I have to apologize in advance for my post, because frankly Gaeta has finally succeeded in truly pissing me the frak off. He is now pissed off, well boo-fracking-hoo ya frakking pussy! He’s gonna finally gonna confront Starbuck. Well bully for you, it’s about time you got some testicular fortitude. It took him all this time & he finally finds the guts when he has a bunch of people he thinks ready to back him up. Well good for him, he’s now officially a pansy ass. Then he throws in with Zarek, not because he even LIKES Zarek, but because he’s being a petulatn little baby who didn’t get his way.
You’re right Casilda, Starbuck should have decked his sorry ass.
tell us how you really feel Aset 
If I had, there’d be a heck of a lot more swearing in there!
Okay, somebody’s gotta speak up. I’ve already said how just plain wrong Adama’s actions were this week, even if the plan was a good idea. So despite his jerk attitude, I was actually rooting for Gaeta. Somebody needed to say something. Somebody needed to throw a monkey wrench in the works. Somebody needed to motivate the people who were being given no voice. This is one of the recurring themes of Galactica, and while I can’t vouch for the positive outcomes of Gaeta’s plan, I’m glad he stood up on his one good leg and started doing something about it.
And I, unlike Sean, do not have problems with authority. I’m probably 180 degrees away from him, in fact. I comply and follow along and trust people who have earned their position. I am the absolute last person to raise a stink about bad decisions. Maybe that plays into my rooting for Gaeta, maybe not. But no one seemed to mind when he allowed Apollo and Roslin to escape Tigh’s martial law back in Season 2, so just because he’s being for active-aggressive about it now is no reason to think he’s changed his tune. He’s growing like everyone else. So I say, more power to him. It might get ugly, but as much as I love them, Adamlin have it coming.
I can’t really dispute anything that you’ve said here. Honestly - I think Roslin and Adam should just say “you know what? fine. If you all think that we suck, and that we haven’t be doing things correctly…then we are done. Here are the keys to Galactica. Tom Zarek is now in charge of the government. We are going on an extended vacation on that really cool ship where people go on vacations. You guys runs things however you want. Give everyone in the fleet a vote. Just as an aside, do you guys remember the last time the fleet decided anything? That’s right - they elected Gaius Baltar as President and settled on New Caprica. And that’s right - we really did try to explain why that wasn’t a good idea but nobody wanted to listen. So go ahead - lets see if Tom Zarek can do a better job that we have keeping this fleet together. Have a nice life. Oh and BTW Felix “King of Douchebaggery” Gaeta is in charge of the fleet now - so please expect all of the cylons, even the ones that might be trying to help, to be killed. So then when the “bad” cylons come back we are basically sitting ducks…again doomed to jump away from the enemy forever. Because gods forbid we actually try to do anything to stop this horrible cycle of violence.”
Sorry - that was a bit of a rant. :o
I hope this gets resolved in the next few episodes, because as interesting as it is, I can’t say I will be looking forward to the rest of the episodes if they follow this particular arc down the line to the finish.
That’s exactly what I said on my Blog:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2009/01/battlestar-galactica-disquiet-that.html
But it took me many more paragraphs to say it.
I hope they can wrap it up next episode because if they play this story out for a long time then they aren’t going to have the time they need to fill in the huge holes they created last episode by giving the FF 2,000 year old memories.
I really should quote Miss Muffet, Glimfeather, and Aset, but this post is way too long already…
Gah, I’m so conflicted! (Not on Tory–she still wins–but on the Gaeta issue). There are two big issues going on here: 1) do Gaeta/the Gaeta-Zarek-11/12 of the Quorum have a legitimate point, and 2) if so, is Gaeta going about getting this point across in a legitimate way?
#1 goes back to the positives and negatives of democracy that we and the characters have struggled with through the whole show. Is democracy good only so long as the people make good decisions, or do you take a risk and allow humanity to fall flat on its face every once in awhile? It’s not an easy call, especially when humanity falling on its face probably means humanity ending. But as Zarek points out, there’s no guarantee that putting your faith in a non-democratic method, the Adama-Roslin administration, is going to work out any better. My story-telling instinct tells me that Adama is right, that the only way to survive is to ally with the Cylons and blend the two races, but if I were Joe Schmoe in the Fleet, the direction I think God/RDM is taking the story wouldn’t be something I’d be factoring into my analysis of whether allowing Cylons to alter my ship’s jump drives is a good idea.
As for #2, I found Gaeta’s behavior dickish and rather amusing, but the more I think about it, the more trouble I have pointing to him as behaving particularly worse than other characters have in the past. What he’s done so far:
-Complaining in the meeting with Adama: Gaeta was pretty bitchy in the meeting, but it turned out there really was a rather large catch, and even Tigh, a Cylon, thought Tyrol was nuts for asking for a Cylon seat on the Quorum. Should the Cylons probably have one? Probably yes. Would lots and lots of people have a huge problem with that? Undoubtedly.
-Snide attack at Starbuck concerning Sam’s Cylonicity: Gaeta threw some very low blows at Starbuck, but it was almost a mirror of the scene in “Collaborators” when Starbuck goes after Gaeta in the mess. As for why he chose to do it with so many people around, I think it was because that was the whole point: Gaeta was putting on a show to garner support for the planned mutiny–not that he wasn’t enjoying baiting Starbuck, too, but that wasn’t the only motive. If we excuse Starbuck’s behavior in “Collaborators” because of her PTSD, then we end up playing a game of “my disorder is worse than your disorder” (being trapped with Leoben for 4 months+finding out your baby is not your baby vs. losing your leg+trying to put your best friend’s brains back in her head after she’s blown them out+6 days on the Raptor of Death–Kara’s was worse, but both probably meet the threshold of “enough to frak you up pretty badly”).
-Calling Adama on the separation between political and military powers when the ships won’t answer Galactica’s hails: didn’t Lee and Laura do this sort of thing on a daily basis in Season 1 and 2? Also, when word comes in that violence has broken out, Gaeta shuts up and goes to his post.
-Mutinying with Tom Zarek: Lee and Laura did exactly this in Season 1 and 2, even though neither of them trusted Zarek as far as they could throw him; the main difference was their mutiny ended up being relatively bloodless, but it didn’t start out looking that way–Lee pulled a gun on Tigh, along with many other guns drawn on all sides. Kara mutinied by going back to Caprica. Helo, Athena, and Gaeta mutinied on the Demetrius. On a related note, we don’t know what Gaeta thinks of Zarek personally; Gaeta might even respect Zarek, since they probably worked together on New Caprica before the Cylons showed up. I do wonder if Zarek’s involvement in the Circle was ever made public, though, because that would make their alliance very interesting…
-The only action I don’t see an analogue to is his complaining about “toasters” Tigh and Caprica Six getting attended to before him. That was very petty and stupid. Then again, if we’re airlocking people for pettiness and stupidity, I don’t think there’d many people left in the Fleet.
So why do I feel worse about Gaeta’s mutiny than I did about Lee’s or Kara’s? Because Lee and Kara had good reasons to mutiny and Gaeta doesn’t? Because Gaeta has always been support staff rather than front-line badass? Because Gaeta is a secondary character going up against main characters whom I know are going to turn out to be right and win? If it were the first one, then I’d think my initial reaction was fair, but the more I ponder, the more I think the last one is the only reason I feel any differently, which isn’t fair.
Nicely put, and very true. I totally understand Adama and Roslin’s reluctance to let the sheeple make these decisions. I was rooting for Roslin when she fixed the election even though I knew it was the wrong thing to do. I’m glad she 'fessed up and backed out, though, because I could still respect her.
But now she and Adama are scarred by the consequences of that action, and I think they’re determined to never let it happen again. So a simple plan like: “Let’s use Cylon technology to enhance our jump capabilities” becomes “Everyone shall allow the Cylons on their ships or we’ll board you and force you to do it.” No discussion. No explanations.
They could survive without Cylon FTL drives, but Adama has decided it is the one and only true option, and everyone must do it. And as Kappa pointed out earlier, he started out saying it was a political decision that had to be made by the President; but when Laura checked out, he decided it was a military decision and that he was going to enforce it. Not cool.
Gaeta’s making a deal with a very bad devil by going to Zarek. I get that. And I can’t believe I’m railing on Adama and Roslin this much, because I’ve always loved and trusted them, even in some of their worst moments. They really are the Mommy and Daddy of the fleet–in all the good ways–and if I had to stand up to them like Gaeta, I’d probably piss myself. But maybe Gaeta will stir up just enough trouble that the two of them will come to their democratic senses. He might have to pay for it by getting himself shot–for good, this time–but I can’t argue with the guy’s position. I can argue with Adamlin’s.
Here is where we may have to disagree. Because I’ve found most of the major characters doing dickish behavior in the past, and earning my disdain for one or more episodes. But they come back from it. I don’t think Gaeta’s major enough to have that kind of arc. Regardless, though, I don’t like anyone being that dickish. Not Starbuck, not Lee, not Roslin, not Gaeta. Just because I may like them at other times doesn’t mean I’ll tolerate their screwed-up-ness.
See now, if he had confronted her after collaborators & gotten in her face about it I wouldn’t have had a problem. If he had gotten in her face & bitched her out for what happened on the poo barge I wouldn’t have a problem with that either. What I DO have a problem with is, he waits all this time to confront her about bullshit he’s already let slide? Yeah I call bullshit on that one pal. Grow a pair & do it when it happens, otherwise he’s just a snivelling little shitstain.
ahem Sorry.
Edit: For the record & clarification. I thought Starbuck/Kara was being a psycho bitch in Collaborators.
Gaeta. He’s bitter and oily. Even if he CAN sing.
Me too!
On Gaeta again - well, this discussion is almost entirely about Gaeta, so I guess I’m not changing the subject 
I’ve realized that I’m evidently a lot like Helo and the Eights in that loyalty and honesty in personal relationships are very important to me, and I can recognize that Gaeta has suffered a lot, but I can’t forgive him for perjuring himself in Baltar’s trial. He never picks his side and sticks with it (as the eights would say) - so he never has a life to call his own, so to speak. And that’s what makes me mad - he’s a turncoat, you can’t depend on him to do the right thing (like Helo).
So that’s why he still, after a day or so of less angry reflection, my vote.
I guess my problem is - and I know this isn’t fair and I know it isn’t a very rational reason to think someone is a douche - I just don’t like Gaeta. Never have. I honestly have no respect for him as a person. He has never done anything (besides maybe feed info to the resistance during the occupation) to earn my respect. Starbuck has earned my respect and admiration time and time again - so when she goes off her nut I guess I’m more able to deal with it and forgive her. Same thing with Adama. I really don’t think he’s a power hungry maniac like he’s being talked about lately. I think he’s just doing the best that he can with what he has. My other problem is that it seems as though Gaeta has forgotten that he’s in the MILITARY!!! The military is not a democracy. The admiral does not have to put his decisions up for a vote.