FIC: Not Where I Belong, Part 3
Title: Not Where I Belong, Part 3
Author: lls_mutant
Fic Summary: Tory might have pulled her from the launch tube, but Cally's life still felt like it was over. Everything she loved was gone, or at the very least, changed to something that she hated.
Chapter Summary: Earth. It's not what anyone expects.
Warnings: Suicidal thoughts (Cally), suicide (not ( Read more... )
Author: lls_mutant
Fic Summary: Tory might have pulled her from the launch tube, but Cally's life still felt like it was over. Everything she loved was gone, or at the very least, changed to something that she hated.
Chapter Summary: Earth. It's not what anyone expects.
Warnings: Suicidal thoughts (Cally), suicide (not ( Read more... )
YES!!! THIS! Augh! Sorry, this hit my Cally-hate nerve (I hate Cally-hate), but so many people who argue that she should have reacted differently when meeting with Boomer on New Caprica, for example, don't take into account that this is MORE than just a disagreement and Cally should be more open-minded.
Thanks! One of the things I really think that RDM failed in a bit was recognizing the scope of his apocolypse. He had a lot of 9/11 elements in it, which in many ways I agree with. But at the same time, there are major differences between 9/11 and what the Cylons did. For one, 9/11 cost a lot of lives, but not all but 50K lives. I mean, I can imagine forgiving someone who killed my sibling or my parent. I can even imagine forgiving someone who killed my husband. I can almost (but not quite) imagine forgiving someone who killed my sons. (I can imagine it better if they were more fully grown.) But I just can't imagine forgiving someone who killed ALL of them, plus all of my friends and all of my enemies. At least the people on the military ships had the bonds they had with each other. Can you imagine how some of the people on the transit ships must have felt? But more than that, in 9/11, there ARE innocent people of Arab descent. A vast majority of them. The people responsible for 9/11 are a small group and we should remember that. But all of the Cylons voted for this genocide. They all perpetuated it. And not one single one of them- even Athena- has said "I'm really sorry for what we did." That bugs the hell out of me that we're supposed to be so forgiving when in this case, the racists actually are right in what they're saying (although I give the Final Five a pass).
The other thing that drives me nuts about the way people react to the scene in the cell on NC between Cally and Boomer is the fear Cally must have been feeling. I mean, think about it. What are the odds that they had a lot of baby formula on New Caprica? Really, really low, right? So, realistically, Cally was nursing. She was probably terrified that if something happened to her, Nicky really would die. (Even if they had some formula, getting Nicky to take the bottle would be hard.) Plus, the poor girl was probably as engorged as hell. I challenge ANYONE to be civil when they're as engorged as Cally must have been. That HURTS. (And I am so working this in somehow- I just haven't figured out where yet.)
Cally taking on Vireem is something I really wish had happened, and is also building up to something I just want to say later, as to why Gaeta is not completely responsible for Vireem, and why Gaeta would have done something like that. (Because I don't think Gaeta wanted Sharon raped, even if he realized Vireem would threaten that.)
Glad you're enjoying it! :)
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It's worth noting that this is exactly the same kind of prejudice and anger that led Cavil to nuke the colonies in the first place. There were no humans who weren't part of a society which rose on the backs of enslaved Cylons, after all, nor were there any humans who apologized for treating the Cylons like less-than-human appliances, even after they knew better. Just as the Cylons thought they could just walk away from genocide, the Colonials pretty clearly thought they could walk away from what they'd done to the Cylons... until it turned out the other side wasn't ready to forgive and forget.
Personally, I think the mutual hatred (though perhaps not the actions it led to) was justified on both sides. But seeing as how only one side actually succeeded in wiping out the other's culture -- and it wasn't the Cylons -- I find it pretty hard to applaud Cally's sentiment, as justified as it is. I still don't think the show ever gave a reason why the Cylons were worse than the humans, nor less deserving of forgiveness; seems to me that they were both murderers and destroyers of the highest degree. I kinda thought this was the meaning of Laura's jump visions during The Hub -- if even Baltar must be forgiven because "if humanity is going to prove itself worthy of surviving, it can't do it on a case-by-case basis. A bad man feels his death just as keenly as a good man", and the Cylons are the Thirteenth Tribe, this would seem to suggest that even they can't easily be forsaken.
Except by the writers, apparently. :P
I'll be the first to admit that I like this sort of moral ambiguity more than most, though... I don't expect everyone to agree with me on this.
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I definitely like the moral ambiguity- I guess my point is I just wish the writers had included MORE of it. If we'd been presented with the final version of the Cylons and their position on the genocide earlier, rather than the constant retcons of who was in on it, I'd be more inclined to be forgiving myself. But the way it was initially set up... it was very much "Go genocide!" And given how many years it had been since the first Cylon war and all the people who had been born since.... There's more of a case for human innocence than Cylon. (But then, the Cylons also started out by snapping a baby's neck. That just was a moment I can't forget, given the hormones I had going when I watched it for the first time :) )
I don't necessarily agree with Cally- I'm more along the lines of Helo that genocide is never the answer- but at the same time, if I was in her shoes I'm not sure I wouldn't be saying the same thing. Not flattering, but true.
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Well, of course. I'm not sure there's such a thing as a reluctant genocide. If you're going to go that frakkin' far, you gotta be in it to win it, as Cavil (or D'Anna!) might say. That said, I think season 1 & 2 and The Plan made it clear that all the Cylons, including the Ones, were not familiar enough with humanity to fully understand their own actions. Just as the humans thought it was OK to enslave the Cylons because they were "just machines", the Cylons pretty clearly thought it was no big deal to destroy the Colonies because they were "just humans". Cally's "it's not like they're from Sagittaron" line could apply equally to the season-one Cylon POV -- well, it's not like they're Eights or Twos or something, they're the Evil Humans and they have to go.
I'm not sure that fifty years is enough to count as a statute of limitations on war and slavery, either. The wealth and unification of the Twelve Colonies was itself a direct result of the Cylon War -- you can't build your entire society on something on the one hand, and then claim non-responsibility for it on the other. I think this is part of what Adama meant in his washing-of-hands speech in the miniseries. He'd been in the previous war, and he understood that the lives his younger officers were living came at a price that might have to be paid... a price the Cylons chose to demand in blood.
I don't necessarily agree with Cally- I'm more along the lines of Helo that genocide is never the answer- but at the same time, if I was in her shoes I'm not sure I wouldn't be saying the same thing. Not flattering, but true.
heh, I definitely agree that Cally's got the right to say it, and I don't know whether I'd be any different, either. But the whole "the racists were right" thing applies to both sides, that's all I'm saying. The Cylons had just as many reasons to hate and fear the humans -- we just never got to see them, because the story was told from the human point of view. I suspect that the Colonies may seem a lot less "innocent" once Caprica is finished...
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Wait, wait. I thought he did it so he could be Mommy's Special Boy again. Jane Espenson wouldn't lie to me!!! ;)
There were no humans who weren't part of a society which rose on the backs of enslaved Cylons, after all, nor were there any humans who apologized for treating the Cylons like less-than-human appliances, even after they knew better.
I don't really think this is equivalent. The Cylon War ended 40 (IIRC) years before the attacks on the 12 colonies. That means that everyone under the age of about 60 who died in the attacks was either not born or too young to be responsible when the war and the events leading up to it took place. Yeah, they were part of that society - but there's still a huge moral difference (to me) between being, through no choice of your own, a member of a society that sometimes does bad things (which is true of everyone on the face of the, erm, Earth *g*) and doing those things yourself. Most of the time when we talk about 'prejudice,' we're talking about generalizing from the group to the individual; "my ex screwed me over so I hate all women." So holding the Cylons responsible for what they actually did in their own individual capacities doesn't strike me as prejudice. It may be totally useless and counter-productive, mind you, but not prejudiced. Whereas condemning the FF or, clearly, Hera or Nicky (totally a Hybrid) would be.
I'll be the first to admit that I like this sort of moral ambiguity more than most, though... I don't expect everyone to agree with me on this.
I remember you said this in a comment in my journal once, and I meant to answer you but got distracted. :) Anyway, I appreciate that you're into moral ambiguity, but I don't think it's entirely accurate to frame the other side as anti-ambiguity. (I'd say I think most BSG fans are pro-moral ambiguity, but... I've read the Skiffy boards. Still, I think a lot of us are.) I don't think the only morally ambiguous position is one that says "there's a conflict between two sides, so both must be equally right and equally wrong." I think it's possible to see one's actions as significantly worse than the others, and still think that they have their own nobility and that they're valuable and worth saving. Not that that's an inherently better position than yours, by any means, but it's not one I find lacking in moral complexity.
And wow. That was a lot of tl;dr for a fanfic comment. *scurries off*
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That, too!
I don't think there's any question he hated the humans for what they'd done, though; part of his rationale may have been "because mom thinks you guys are better than me and you're so not! MOM MOM THE HUMANS ARE ON MY SIDE OF THE GALAXY AGAIN!", but he hated 'em.
Yeah, they were part of that society - but there's still a huge moral difference (to me) between being, through no choice of your own, a member of a society that sometimes does bad things (which is true of everyone on the face of the, erm, Earth *g*) and doing those things yourself. [...] Most of the time when we talk about 'prejudice,' we're talking about generalizing from the group to the individual.
I certainly agree in the case of human beings. That said, I'm willing to bet there were many Cylon copies on the Colony, on the Basestars, in the Caprica coffee shop, etc. who never personally harmed a single human, yet they were still "in on it" in a way individual humans cannot be. It makes it much harder to draw these lines fairly when part of the problem is the difference between individual and collectivist societies; if the main moral difference here isn't that the Cylons committed genocide, but that they all did so (i.e. they did it like Cylons), then that seems kind of tautological. Bet the Cylons thought that human behavior was worse because "they don't even have consensus, so they were each responsible for enslaving us", etc...
Anyway, I appreciate that you're into moral ambiguity, but I don't think it's entirely accurate to frame the other side as anti-ambiguity.
Sorry. I didn't mean it like that; that was meant as a pre-emptive "please don't hate me" hedge, not an attack because I think anybody here is anti-ambiguity.
I don't personally think the Cylons and humans are "equally right and equally wrong"; in fact, I don't really think "equal" is even a valid word in this situation. I'd say they were both wrong well past the point of no return; even according to their own moral codes, both groups did things that were way off limits, and when you're talking about genocide and total war, it's much too late to call the match on points. I only meant to point out that most of the judgments/excuses/justifications/etc you can make here also apply to the other side, in one way or another, and I think that was pretty deliberate on the part of the writers.
That said, they also very deliberately came down on the side of the humans in the end... to be honest, the main reason why I like to wave my moral-ambiguity flag is because of the show, not the fans. :(
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Somewhat random thought: I wonder if Adama (and to a lesser extent Lee) not having as much of an issue about the alliance as a lot of other people was due in part to the fact that they just didn't lose as much as almost everyone else did. Aside from Zak, who'd been dead a couple years, everyone he cared most about survived: Lee, Tigh, and Kara. Just a thought.
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