Mrissa Sue Visits Battlestar Galactica Season 2
[DRUMS. BURST OF LIGHT AND SPARKLiES. mrissa appears on the flight deck.]
Gaeta: Is it a Cylon?
Adama: I think it's a Sue.
Dee: I don't mean to question your analysis, Commander, but it has normal brown eyes and was not an instant virtuoso on the contrabassoon. Also I am not irrationally jealous of it, and I don't wish to become its best friend or lover. How can it be a Sue?
mrissa: Because I have the one power no one left in the fleet has: organization.
Crew at large: Ooooooh.
mrissa: Yah, no kidding. Okay, so listen up. We seem to be through the part of the series where everybody stayed up for a stupidly long amount of time because the Cylons were, like, almost right there. So now we have the time to think, and we know that certain skills are missing from humanity, since there are not quite forty-nine thousand of us left. For example, the skill of setting up alternating watches, known to navies and merchant ships for centuries, is apparently completely unknown to you people. So. We need to figure out which skills are in short supply and which are completely lost, so we can start retraining people.
Roslin: We do?
mrissa: Yes. We do. Sheesh. Lady. You are supposed to be a schoolteacher.
Roslin: Yeees.
mrissa: And yet you have not put your presumed kindergartener-wrangling skills to work here.
Roslin: Hey, that's right! That's exactly what would come in handy here! And I haven't used them all series! Sol!
Tigh, guiltily: Eh?
Roslin: That is not how we treat the other children.
Tigh [SHUFFLES FEET]: No'm.
Roslin: Do you want to stay in at recess?
Tigh: No'm.
Roslin: Then what do you say to Kara?
Tigh: Sorry-if-I-hurt-your-feelings-Kara.
Starbuck: Bite me.
Roslin: Thank you, Kara, I think it's time for your nap.
Starbuck: Nap mat nap mat nap mat! [RUNS OFF]
Roslin: You were saying something about figuring out which skills we have?
mrissa: Right. I'm sending the executive branch around with these surveys--thank you, Billy--and pencils for all of you. We need to get this organized. Don't want to send humanity's last known cobbler out to die in a Cylon raid.
Adama: We need to kill Cylons.
mrissa: We also need shoes. Barefoot people kill very few Cylons.
Adama: Um. Good point.
[They have a good time FILLING OUT THE FORMS and PLAYING WITH THE PENCILS. mrissa sends the Executive Branch, a.k.a. Billy, to PICK UP THE FORMS. She READS THEM.]
mrissa: I see we have no scientists at all.
Adama: That's not true! We have Dr. Baltar. He has a degree in science! He can do everything scientific.
mrissa: Uh-huh. I have met biologists who can do everything scientific. They can't do everything scientific. And anyway he's not going to have time to do much science if he's part of your administration. Baltar, what are your actual skills?
Baltar: That's what I told the rhinoceros, but you know he doesn't listen to anyone but you! [looks around] I mean to say, if you followed my rhinoceros analogy, um, the horn of our dilemma is--well, technically it would have to have two horns to be a dilemma, but in an actual rhinoceros one of the horns tends to be smaller. Which leads me back to my main point about your question, which was...uh....
mrissa: This is the guy you elected VP? Dude has a bad crazy.
Tom Zarek: I know.
Dee: We all has a bad crazy, ma'am.
mrissa: Oh. Right. Um. Think through your survey sheets, people. Anybody write down psychiatry? Psychology? Counseling of any kind? [There is general SHUFFLING OF FEET and COUGHING.] Clergy lady, what about you?
Clergy lady: No, huh-uh. I do the kind of clergy with prophecies. Not the kind with getting your life back together or providing any concrete help to poor, needy, sick, grieving, that kind of thing.
mrissa: Not at all?
Clergy lady: Does it involve snakes?
mrissa: I sincerely hope not.
Clergy lady: Then no. That's your rule of thumb: if it's got no snakes, I'm useless.
mrissa: Got it. [SHUFFLES MORE PAPERS] Okay, it's looking like we have no psychiatric services and exactly one dentist for forty-nine thousand people. Ellen Tigh, why is your form blank?
Ellen: I have no known skills. I am only here to annoy you.
Sharon: And to demonstrate that Cylons are not the only bad guys and humans are not the only good guys!
Ellen: And that.
mrissa: Fine. You can learn to be our dental hygienist.
Callie: No fair! I wanted to be a dentist! I thought if I was here in the Fleet of Misfit Toys--
Chief: Engineers are actually useful, Callie.
Callie: Let her fix the frakking planes! All I ever [SNIFF] wanted to do [SNIFF-SNUFFLE] was clean people's molars....
Adama: Let's not get bogged down in what people might actually want or enjoy or use to maintain a civilization here. Do you have a solution that leaves us killing Cylons and wearing shoes?
mrissa: I...guess so.
Adama: Good enough for me.
mrissa: It is? Becuase I would think--
Crew at large: Let's all get married!
mrissa: What? Whoa, seriously, not that kind of Mary Sue story.
Crew at large: In units of two.
mrissa: Oh. Look, guys, here's the thing. The bit where everybody marries somebody else all at once? That's not supposed to be canon. That's supposed to be the fanfic written by 12-year-old girls.
Crew at large: Weddings! Wheeee!
mrissa: You know what? You need me. You have forty-nine thousand people to rebuild a civilization, and you are not even slightly concerned with the fact that none of you knows how run plumbing in a very simple house. But you aren't going to listen anyway. I'm just going to slip out quietly and let you continue to do things that make no sense at all because your officers and elected officials could not successfully run a small Brownie troop, much less all of surviving humanity.
Crew at large: Wheeeee! Weddings!
mrissa: [sigh]
Gaeta: Is it a Cylon?
Adama: I think it's a Sue.
Dee: I don't mean to question your analysis, Commander, but it has normal brown eyes and was not an instant virtuoso on the contrabassoon. Also I am not irrationally jealous of it, and I don't wish to become its best friend or lover. How can it be a Sue?
mrissa: Because I have the one power no one left in the fleet has: organization.
Crew at large: Ooooooh.
mrissa: Yah, no kidding. Okay, so listen up. We seem to be through the part of the series where everybody stayed up for a stupidly long amount of time because the Cylons were, like, almost right there. So now we have the time to think, and we know that certain skills are missing from humanity, since there are not quite forty-nine thousand of us left. For example, the skill of setting up alternating watches, known to navies and merchant ships for centuries, is apparently completely unknown to you people. So. We need to figure out which skills are in short supply and which are completely lost, so we can start retraining people.
Roslin: We do?
mrissa: Yes. We do. Sheesh. Lady. You are supposed to be a schoolteacher.
Roslin: Yeees.
mrissa: And yet you have not put your presumed kindergartener-wrangling skills to work here.
Roslin: Hey, that's right! That's exactly what would come in handy here! And I haven't used them all series! Sol!
Tigh, guiltily: Eh?
Roslin: That is not how we treat the other children.
Tigh [SHUFFLES FEET]: No'm.
Roslin: Do you want to stay in at recess?
Tigh: No'm.
Roslin: Then what do you say to Kara?
Tigh: Sorry-if-I-hurt-your-feelings-Kara.
Starbuck: Bite me.
Roslin: Thank you, Kara, I think it's time for your nap.
Starbuck: Nap mat nap mat nap mat! [RUNS OFF]
Roslin: You were saying something about figuring out which skills we have?
mrissa: Right. I'm sending the executive branch around with these surveys--thank you, Billy--and pencils for all of you. We need to get this organized. Don't want to send humanity's last known cobbler out to die in a Cylon raid.
Adama: We need to kill Cylons.
mrissa: We also need shoes. Barefoot people kill very few Cylons.
Adama: Um. Good point.
[They have a good time FILLING OUT THE FORMS and PLAYING WITH THE PENCILS. mrissa sends the Executive Branch, a.k.a. Billy, to PICK UP THE FORMS. She READS THEM.]
mrissa: I see we have no scientists at all.
Adama: That's not true! We have Dr. Baltar. He has a degree in science! He can do everything scientific.
mrissa: Uh-huh. I have met biologists who can do everything scientific. They can't do everything scientific. And anyway he's not going to have time to do much science if he's part of your administration. Baltar, what are your actual skills?
Baltar: That's what I told the rhinoceros, but you know he doesn't listen to anyone but you! [looks around] I mean to say, if you followed my rhinoceros analogy, um, the horn of our dilemma is--well, technically it would have to have two horns to be a dilemma, but in an actual rhinoceros one of the horns tends to be smaller. Which leads me back to my main point about your question, which was...uh....
mrissa: This is the guy you elected VP? Dude has a bad crazy.
Tom Zarek: I know.
Dee: We all has a bad crazy, ma'am.
mrissa: Oh. Right. Um. Think through your survey sheets, people. Anybody write down psychiatry? Psychology? Counseling of any kind? [There is general SHUFFLING OF FEET and COUGHING.] Clergy lady, what about you?
Clergy lady: No, huh-uh. I do the kind of clergy with prophecies. Not the kind with getting your life back together or providing any concrete help to poor, needy, sick, grieving, that kind of thing.
mrissa: Not at all?
Clergy lady: Does it involve snakes?
mrissa: I sincerely hope not.
Clergy lady: Then no. That's your rule of thumb: if it's got no snakes, I'm useless.
mrissa: Got it. [SHUFFLES MORE PAPERS] Okay, it's looking like we have no psychiatric services and exactly one dentist for forty-nine thousand people. Ellen Tigh, why is your form blank?
Ellen: I have no known skills. I am only here to annoy you.
Sharon: And to demonstrate that Cylons are not the only bad guys and humans are not the only good guys!
Ellen: And that.
mrissa: Fine. You can learn to be our dental hygienist.
Callie: No fair! I wanted to be a dentist! I thought if I was here in the Fleet of Misfit Toys--
Chief: Engineers are actually useful, Callie.
Callie: Let her fix the frakking planes! All I ever [SNIFF] wanted to do [SNIFF-SNUFFLE] was clean people's molars....
Adama: Let's not get bogged down in what people might actually want or enjoy or use to maintain a civilization here. Do you have a solution that leaves us killing Cylons and wearing shoes?
mrissa: I...guess so.
Adama: Good enough for me.
mrissa: It is? Becuase I would think--
Crew at large: Let's all get married!
mrissa: What? Whoa, seriously, not that kind of Mary Sue story.
Crew at large: In units of two.
mrissa: Oh. Look, guys, here's the thing. The bit where everybody marries somebody else all at once? That's not supposed to be canon. That's supposed to be the fanfic written by 12-year-old girls.
Crew at large: Weddings! Wheeee!
mrissa: You know what? You need me. You have forty-nine thousand people to rebuild a civilization, and you are not even slightly concerned with the fact that none of you knows how run plumbing in a very simple house. But you aren't going to listen anyway. I'm just going to slip out quietly and let you continue to do things that make no sense at all because your officers and elected officials could not successfully run a small Brownie troop, much less all of surviving humanity.
Crew at large: Wheeeee! Weddings!
mrissa: [sigh]