Escape Velocity
Escape Velocity and the Body in Motion
---Referring to Cally's body as it drifts out in space. (An object in motion, will tend to stay in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force.)
---Cally's dead body continues to move through space: at zero velocity. Her body is unchanging, even when in motion. So, I'm going to say that "Escape Velocity" = zero velocity. It's that thing you do when treading water. It's the "always moving but going nowhere" effect.
---When Adama reads to Roslin, the "emptiness" he fears is death-in-life, or death-in-motion (think of Cally's body). He fears zero velocity, and the mental numbness which resembles it. I was afraid of the emptiness that I felt inside. {begins to set book down} I couldn't feel anything. [closes book and looks at Laura] That's what scared me.
---And THEN, Roslin comes into dradis contact. She comes in, and things MOVE, no longer at zero velocity: You came into my thoughts. You filled them.With her around, he's no longer simply "going through the motions" (yes, that's a homage to Buffy: The Musical).
--Finally, the impact she has on him? Pleasure. I felt good.
Pleasure and Pain: The "fragile body of Giaus Baltar"
---Tory, plucking one hair at a time while--well, you know--, manages to "consecrate" Giaus's pain into pleasure. Is it just me, or is "pleasure" Tory's operative term, here? Not only for her sex life, but more importantly, for her religious beliefs. For her, "pleasure" creates "perfection." (Or maybe I'm not reading that right--I haven't gone back to rewatch this part.)
---This scene with Tory recalls Baltar's torture-scene aboard the Cylon Basestar. Head!Six also turns Giaus's pain into pleasure. Suggesting that cylon psychology was modelled on the human capacity to interpret signals from the brain.
---I think cylons *can* turn off the pain--by converting it into some other sensation. But it seems unwise to do so, because "when you're in pain, that's when you learn who you really are." It's so scary that when cylons "turn their brains off," it's the equivalent of zero velocity: that emptiness that Bill feared so much.
---The mortal, fragile body of Giaus Baltar, sharpens both Six's pain of losing him, and the pleasure of having him. The potency of mortality, etc.
Tyrol and Tigh are living at "Escape Velocity." Given the slippage between pleasure and pain, I'm not surprised that Six was "mistaken" as to which one Tigh needed, in order to jolt him out of zero velocity.
I was especially worried by Tyrol's numbness at the end of this episode, as he looks blankly at his son. I wonder if he will try to kill his son, and whether that knife blade will come into play. (Tyrol must be the classic case of living at zero velocity: "settling" rather than "choosing" his life.) In the midst of Baltar's rubbish-voiceover, we see Tyrol's face, as Baltar asks, "If we don't love ourselves, how can we love others?" How can Tyrol love his son, when he's living at escape velocity?