Gaeta was obviously incapable of replacing Adama. Somehow Tom missed the obvious. Zarek’s words when addressing the Quorum:
“He [Gaeta] believes he’s that someone. I believe he’s that someone. But he has very big shoes to fill.”
What do you thin Zarek was trying to do in that scene? He didn’t look like he had decided to murder the Quorum ahead of time. He certainly wasn’t trying to bolster Gaeta’s support in the Quorum. It looked to me like he was laying the groundwork to have Gaeta replaced. When the Quorum looked like it wasn’t going along, then he decided to eliminate them.
Was only looking at the humor in Zarek’s choice of words.
Zarek wasn’t trying to do anything except inform the Quorom of the new situation.
I don’t think he had intended to kill them going in. If they had taken his side as he expected he would have had much more legitimacy in the eyes of the fleet. When that didn’t happen, the “This Is What A Revolution Is,” mindset kicked in immediately.
It looked to me like he was laying the groundwork to have Gaeta replaced.
Yeah, by him. Seeing Zarek in CIC was…unsettling, considering how he had already used military personel.
I don’t know… I think Zarek went in thinking eliminating the Quorum as a distinct possibility. That’s why the marines with the rifles were right outside the door. The way they took the order they didn’t seem very surprised. On the other hand, Kelly seemed very disturbed to be hearing the Quorum shot down, and it appeared to be what started his revolt against the mutiny…
he has very big shoes to fill
The OP was supposed to be funny–not philosophic…
It’s just not the same if he had said, “He has a very big shoe to fill.” But yes, bad choice of phrase on Zarek’s part.
Haven’t you learned that you can’t stop the phylosophising on this board even when (and probably especially when) its based upon the most inane initial premise? 
I think that Zarek brought that many marines to Colonial One because he wanted to be able to take control if the Quorum wouldn’t just give it to him. I think he was fairly confident that he’d get what he wanted, which is why he left the Marines outside of the Quorum’s chamber when he addressed them. He also saw them as a nice stamp of legitimacy but also as wholly unnecessary- thus the willingness to slaughter them.
I suspect that if the mutiny had triumphed that he would have reported that the Quorum was killed by military officers loyal to Adama and Roslin and used that to gain the trust of the civilians.
In terms of Gaeta, I think Zarek loved that his primary military mutineer was someone who he ultimately would have been able to manipulate. He definitely knew that Gaeta wasn’t the man to truly lead the military the way Adama had- and he intended to use that to assert his own control even more deeply. He only needed Gaeta to hold out until it was done. I suspect that Gaeta didn’t want to hold on to the military leadership and that he would have passed it off to someone else gladly. He seemed to know himself well enough to know that he wasn’t that kind of inspiring leader.