BSG fic: Settlement (R)
Fic OF DOOM is done. In addition to all the warnings below, I should also mention that apparently I can't resist fic as meta, either.
( a quick thought about the show finale )
( a quick thought about the show finale )
Thank you. And thanks again for all of the positive, cheering words you sent my way while I was writing this. I really needed them.
Someone said it recently, that they didn't just give up technology, they gave up civilization. I think the separation is what made it worse for me.
There wasn't really an option, though. Because of their circumstances, they really have no alternative but to split apart. Subsistence-level living requires game to hunt and food to gather. No one area can support a really large group if they're forced to live off the land and don't have crops to plant.
It failed on New Caprica and might have failed on Earth II, but honestly Lee was the last person I thought would suggest giving it all up. Their lives had been bleak and would have continued to have been. Maybe I'm naive to think that books and history and the ideals, if not things, would have made a difference. Law . . . everything. Lee surprised me. I don't 'blame' him (they all did agree with his suggestion), but he really surprised me.
Remembering that history becomes very hard with the lack of time (have to gather food!) and lack of printing presses and lack of ways to make paper. Some of the materials needed to make a printing press and help make paper might well exist on the ships that they sent into the sun, though. I can't argue that Lee has no blame in what their lives will become.
I'm curious how the current unspoken laws of civilization and remnants of actual laws will be remembered... and how they will change to fit their circumstances now.
I have definitely spent too much time thinking about this. :)
That said, once done with it, one is done. And there are consquences. But there are consequences to life and I like to read about that. I like that Laine has her second or third or even forth chance to live. I know she will take it and make the best of it.
Yay! I loved reading this. Who/what the human race will become depends on people like Laine who are willing to learn and adjust and take life even if it's not what they dreamed of. (Possibly I'm far to attached to her now! Heh.)
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Subsistence-level living requires game to hunt and food to gather. No one area can support a really large group if they're forced to live off the land and don't have crops to plant.
But the thing is they didn't have to get rid of technology or stop at least trying to retain civilization. They could have the ships, the resources, the medicine, all of their shared skills and knowledge. Heck, they could have still had tent schools. Where was the paper mill on New Caprica? They could have tried do live how they did on New Caprica, minus the Cylon strife. How long it would have lasted? I don't know. Also, about crops, yeah, I don't know. I actually do not think these people would survive on Earth II at all, actually. Sorry, Laine! One bad winter or illness and it's over. I think people's strength is in numbers and helping each other. Prehistoric people had evolution and perhaps skills these people didn't.
That's why I like this story. Because it's hard. And they are trying. But it didn't have to be quite this hard. They chose that. We didn't see the choice (curses!) but it was said they agreed to this life.
I'm not really blaming Lee. He's one man. I expected a speech in a different direction but maybe he got tired. I don't know. But all of the colonists and 268s agreed to this too. I don't know if the laws of civilizations can be remembered or for how long. In a few generations I think it will be lost. I just thought they would have fought harder to hold on to it. It was a choice. That may not have worked either but I really thought they'd fight for that.
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