Happily Ever After

(This is dedicated to my old roommate Paul Cartwright, who’s been asking me to blog about this forever.) SPOILER WARNING!

I delayed watching the final episode of Battlestar Gallactica, not wanting to say goodbye. The well crafted story ark, evolving characters, and social/religious, not to mention sexy robots, have been a good friend for five years.

BSG ended perfectly.  Characters was allowed to finish well.  The bad guys were defeated.  Evil people were redeemed.  The seemingly insane were vindicated.  The humans (and cylon) races survived. All questions were answered and peace was attained.

What made the ending so masterful was how every unresolved question was answered in one fail swoop.  All of the the seemingly unrelated questions pointed to a simple answer.  Why does Baltar see visions?  Why do Roslin and others share the vision of the opera house? How did Starbuck come back from the dead?  Is there a God?

We should have seen it coming all along. The original BSG epic was inspired by the story of  Joseph Smith’s 10 lost tribes of Israel in the Book of Mormon.  Mormonism is based on the idea that Joseph Smith met Moroni the Archangel, who revealed the rest of the story of Jesus, and promises that when true followers die, they get their own earth to repopulate.

The final episode climaxes with Dr. Baltar, whose self seeking manner has driven much of the storyline, suddenly has an epiphany. This provides the answer for every mystery, and the key to survival.  “I see angels,” he says.

Suddenly, everything fits.  The evil ones are vanquished, and the survivors are transported to a perfect planet in need of re-population.  BSG had the perfect ending: a reminder we will get where we are supposed to be, and that in the end we’ll see that God has been leading us all along.

Tags: Battlestar Gallactica

If I’m Evil, You Made Me This Way

We are sadly witnessing the last season of the most daring and complicated Space Opera to ever hit the small screen.  Like any good science fiction, Battlestar Gallactica is little more that a thin veneer of sci-fi, used to address complex social issues.  They’ve taken on war, racism, suicide, terrorism, and the threats of theocratic goverments.

Most recently, Battlestar took a bite into the most debated question in all religion: Theodicy.  The evil robot leader John Cavil confronts his designer Ellen.  He has abandoned the innocence and the purpose for which he was created.  He has turned against his creators, and set on a path that could destroy all intelligent life.

His reason?  A desire to become greater, limitless in his power.  A desire to achieve the perfection he believes his unfair creator kept him from attaining.  In many ways, it’s a retelling of the garden.  The created rebels against the creator because of his desire to become greater than the creator.

When his designer calls him out, Ellen responds by saying, “If I’m evil, you made me this way.”  It’s really the great question of all theology: Can a good God be blamed for the evil within his creation?  

Battlestar has posed the question, but has yet to give their answer.  What to you think?

Tags: Battlestar Gallactica, evil, sci-fi, social commentary, theodicy