User:JubalHarshaw/Cain

Disclaimer: I have edited this essay for grammar, spelling, and concision, but have made no substantial changes in tone or content. All added emphasis is mine. I make no claim on it; I merely wanted to re-host it in my userspace because I feel it has great value. Many thanks to mnm4334; and if you don't want me reposting it I will gladly take it down.

I have always loathed black and white thinking. In my life, I have come to realize that exceptions are the rule. I abhor cruelty, and I find that when you abandon logic and reason in favor of anger and hatred, you can easily become far worse than the enemy you are trying to fight, and through the actions you take, and those that you are willing to take, they may have been the reason you were attacked in the first place.

The attack on the Colonies was terrible; we do not have words to properly describe the feelings one would have in response to such a tragedy. Having said that, it is the way we conduct ourselves when our world is falling apart that shows us who we really are. The actions Cain took, they were completely short-sighted, they were in contrast to her calling as an Admiral in the Colonial fleet, and she failed at the most basic response to the genocide of the human race.

I often find it difficult to re-watch Razor and several episodes of Season 2.5 because we learn the full extent of the barbarous acts that Admiral Cain committed and condoned. I despise Cain for her actions, and find those who would defend her to be either morally bankrupt or as innately sadistic as Cain demonstrated herself to be. There is no defense for the actions Admiral Cain took; she embraced bigotry and set out on crusade for vengeance, she had no hope for success and was guilty of the same crimes the Cylons committed. Cain demonstrated a critical lack of compassion and a failure to respect human life.

In a society like the 12 Colonies, the military exists for one reason: to defend its people. The Cylons came to destroy the PEOPLE, they didn't come to reduce the size of the Colonial Fleet, they came to exterminate the human race. When a military officer decides that her primary goal is revenge, driven by unbridled hate, and resorts to killing the few remaining humans left in the universe (to her knowledge), she has blatantly violated her oath as an officer and in the most heinous way possible, she has distorted the very reason for the military's existence. She did not even attempt to justify her actions under the guise of patriotism; she couldn't - she gave up her rights to call herself a Colonial officer when she began attacking human civilians.

Now, for purely hypothetical purposes let's say Cain was able to kill every Cylon she encountered. Her crusade for "vengeance" is successful, but what next? The fun from kicking and raping prisoners can only last so long, I would imagine. "Empress" Cain claimed to want to return to the Colonies and kill Cylons there, but then what? The Colonies are a nuclear wasteland; you cannot live there. After all, the Cylons are dead; would she hand herself over to civilian authority to be tried for her crimes against humanity? I think not. I think Cain was corrupt to her very core - she was a sociopath so blinded by anger that she had no plans for the future outside of her attempts to kill Cylons.

Cain's first act was to murder her executive officer. Cain (who was contradicting her own statement about not succumbing to blind rage) shot a man in the head without warning, because he would not go along with such suicidal behavior. The Pegasus' executive officer was murdered by Cain because he was trying to defend the ship and its crew from reckless hate. Sadly, this was only the first of the atrocities committed by Cain.

Cain came across a civilian fleet. To my understanding, this fleet was not following Pegasus around, but was a simple group of a dozen or so ships running from the Cylons. Admiral Cain ordered the ransacking of these poor people's ships, the theft of their FTL drives ensured the would be found, killed or captured by the Cylons. Did Admiral Cain offer refuge to all these people she was leaving to die? No, she ordered all valuable people to be taken to Pegasus, while leaving the families of such individuals behind. We know this not to be the end of the story though, because how many decent human beings would leave there families behind? These men refused, and Admiral Cain ordered the families murdered. This act alone - the barbaric tactics used on innocent civilians - shows that Admiral Cain is not acting in the best interest of the human race, and is actively contributing to its destruction.

We then come to Admiral Cain's most horrific act. The Pegasus had discovered a "Number Six" copy on their ship. We are shown that Admiral Cain did not attempt to interrogate the prisoner within normal regulations. Cain specifically ordered degradation; mental and physical torture that is more obscene - more horrific - than anything you could imagine. Cain sanctioned brutal gang rape while admitting that those techniques had not yielded any information. Then - on top of this - Cain sent her "Cylon interrogator" to see Athena. Cain's man isn't in the room for a full minute before he is about to start Cain's brand of degradation tactics. Helo and Tyrol arrived just in time to stop the brutal gang raping of a pregnant women.

Helo and Tyrol came to the defense of an innocent, to protect someone who has saved thousands of lives countless times, and Cain wanted to execute them for killing a serial rapist? Is she being serious? You see, when I first saw this, I was thinking to myself "Well, Cain must not know what has being going on." Sadly, I was wrong; Cain was well aware of the situation and wanted to kill Helo and Tryol anyway. I would love for some Cain supporters to make an attempt at justifying this. Helo and Tyrol deserve a medal.

The worst kind of evil is that which will do anything for vengeance, for this evil is without limits, without restraint. Cain acted in a manner so contradictory to the event which triggered her response in the first place. All logic, all reason, any sense of duty, the things that an Admiral should possess would say to you that when your race is about to be extinct, you should exercise every possible option to avoid killing more innocent people. Cain felt differently; she thought murder, rape, and intimidation were the proper tactics to use. She treated her own people as though they were the enemy and she treated her prisoners ... well, we all know what Cain did.

The innocents that Cain killed deserved better; who is to speak for them? Where is their justice? What crimes did the children commit? Did those men and women survive the Cylons just to be killed by a psychotic admiral? These are the questions you must ask yourself before you try and defend Cain. You tell me why more innocents deserve to die, even with a million spare parts the Pegasus couldn't win - the war was over - and Cain killed those people for nothing.

Cylons are alive, they bleed, can have children and have almost identical genetics and anatomy. You cannot claim that "it's a machine", then use tactics like rape, mental, and physical torture on them. If it was a machine, these tactics would be useless. The very fact that Cain wanted them used demonstrated Cain's acceptance that this person can feel. The Six makes its own choices, but there is no defense for Cain on this count either. Feel free to challenge any of these points, just be sure you can explain how you would feel if any of these things were done to you.

I take Cain very seriously, her actions represent the worst possible reaction to such extreme circumstances. I take no joy in bashing Cain; her actions though, were inexcusable, I have not felt such utter disdain for a character since Joaquin Phoenix played Commodus in Gladiator. I am still in disbelief that some people on the show defended Cain, and I whole heartedly disagree with Kara Thrace; the Colonial's are much safer with Cain gone, I think we can all agree that one less soulless murderer commanding a warship is a very good thing.

Cain, for her acts of barbarism, got off way too easy. Admiral Cain brought us violence for the sake of violence. She needed a trial - her crimes were far worse than Baltar's ever were - she had a choice in every decision she made. We the viewers were deprived any real closure; she needed to be brought to justice, her actions needed to be publicly condemned. Like Adama said, you have to be worthy of surviving. Even if Cain's actions were the smart thing to do, there are lines you can never cross - and she crossed them. It would be better for the Pegasus and all its crew to die defending those civilians than for the Pegasus to murder them. The torture of the Six was done for her own personal satisfaction and had no impact on the survival of the human race or the fight against the Cylon.

I hope one day the very memory of Cain will be looked upon as a disgrace to the human race, that in the new human/Cylon world she is seen for what she was. A morally corrupt, compassionless bigot, a cold blooded murderer, and the very embodiment of everything that holds us back as a people.