There is Another Sky

"There is Another Sky" An episode of the Caprica Series
Episode No.	Season 1, Episode 5
Writer(s)	Kath Lingenfelter
Story by
Director	Michael Nankin
Assistant Director
Special guest(s)
Production No.	105
Nielsen Rating	0.4
US airdate	February 26, 2010
CAN airdate
UK airdate
DVD release
Population	{{{population}}} survivors
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Gravedancing	There is Another Sky	Know Thy Enemy
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Tamara Adama is forced to participate in a dangerous game as part of a trade individuals who claim they can help her return to reality. Joseph Adama tries to reconnect with his son. Daniel Graystone keeps himself from being removed from the leadership of his own company by introducing the U-87.

Summary

Teaser

• Sam Adama enters his brother's apartment in the morning, and finds Willie listening to music and playing with a computer instead of going to school--and Joseph asleep on the sofa. Sam wakes him roughly. Joseph insists that he will take Willie to school, but Sam and Willie both insist on going together. Sam asks Joseph whether he will go to work today, and after getting no answer, he chastises his brother for failing both his image as a Tauron and his son.
• In V-World, Tamara Adama walks into a caged area and pushes through a line until a pair of teenagers, Byun and Tad Thorean, stop her. She tells them that she is looking for Vesta, since she appears to be the only one who can help Tamara get back to the real world. At a round table, Vesta is accepting bets. She signals, lights in the room begin to flash, and a wheel with handguns spins on the tabletop. The wheel stops. Each player takes a gun, points it at their own head, and pulls the trigger. One man's gun fires and he instantly de-rezzes. Tamara realizes that this is a way home.
• She intrudes on the roulette game, telling Vesta that she wants to play. Vesta recognizes her as "the girl who can't get out" and tells her to just remove her band. Tamara barely has time to say "I can't" when Vesta produces another gun and fires. Tamara falls to the floor, bleeding and crying, but she does not leave V-World. The crowd is stunned. Vesta kneels next to Tamara, telling her that they are going to help each other.

Act 1

• Gathered around Tamara, Vesta and her followers speculate on Tamara's status: she is asleep or unconscious or in a coma, but with her holoband malfunctioning, since the device should have timed out. Tamara figures out that Vesta wants something in return for their assistance. Vesta says that she wants help in striking an adversary. Vesta's followers marvel that Tamara's gunshot wound has completely healed, something that never occurs in V-world.
• Still at home, Joseph receives a call from Willie's principal: Willie has been out of school since the middle of the previous week.
• Joseph finds Willie at the Tauron social club on Gore Avenue, wearing an apron and interacting with the Ha'la'tha there. He angrily demands that Willie leave. Before going, Sam tells his brother that he has lost Willie.
• Heracles, one of Vesta's followers, pulls Tamara through an underground tunnel by the wrist, giving her a few more details about their objective. Both of them are dressed in stylish formal clothes that do not resemble the norm for Caprica. They emerge onto a hotel fire escape overlooking a noisy, lower technology version of Caprica City at night. An airship prowls the city. It launches fighter planes that fire at the street and at them, forcing them to take cover. "Welcome to New Cap City," Heracles tells her.
• Safe in the hotel room, Heracles tells Tamara more about the game, that it mirrors and alters Caprica City, down to the site of the Maglev 23 bombing. Tamara asks calmly, "A maglev train blew up?" Heracles: "How long have you been asleep?" He goes on to tell her that although players can accumulate points and money in New Cap City, no one knows the ultimate object of the game.
• Joseph is working at home when he stumbles upon pictures of him, Willie, his wife, and Tamara on a fishing trip. He starts to cry.
• In a lower east side bar, Heracles and Tamara stalk Chiron, the best gamer in New Cap City. Heracles briefly mentions the plan to steal Chiron's avatar in order to gain access to his money. A few minutes later, Tamara moves toward Chiron, an overweight older man surrounded by pretty teenaged boys and girls and a number of bodyguards. Tamara claims to be an ignored girlfriend pleading for attention. Just as Chiron's patience is about to run out, Tamara produces a gun and takes out a bodyguard (who de-rezzes from the game) before she herself is shot. Like before, everyone is drawn to her as she cries in pain on the floor. While Chiron and the others are distracted, Heracles sneaks up behind Chiron and touches him with a device. Chiron looks up, puzzled but nothing more. A moment later, Heracles is running through the street, carrying Tamara.

Act 2

• Back in the hotel room, Heracles marvels at Tamara's healing, a flickering wound closing up as they watch. With the device he had used on Chiron, he demonstrates how he can mask himself as Chiron and break into his vault. He confesses to Tamara that the game is a place where he can make something of himself, to which she answers that less time in New Cap City might allow him to achieve something in the real world.
• Joseph and Willie arrive at a shallow river with fishing gear, but Willie is thoroughly bored with the outing from the very first moment. As Joseph tries to give emotional support, Willie's attention is drawn to older boys who are making faces at him and are muttering "dirt eater." Eventually, one of the boys stands up and openly taunts Willie. He confronts the boy, then hurls a rock at his head, knocking him to the ground. Willie leaps onto the boy and begins pummeling him as Joseph struggles to pull him up.
• In the hallways of Graystone Industries, Cyrus Xander uncomfortably informs Daniel Graystone that the corporation's board of directors is planning an emergency meeting to decide whether Daniel should be removed, due to his surprise announcement about the future of the holoband. When Daniel asks him whether there are enough votes to do this, Xander quietly backs away.
• Late at night, Daniel is sitting in bed. Amanda wakes up. He confesses to her that he might lose Graystone Industries the next day. She reminds him of a time when she was pregnant and the two of them were struggling financially, and how despite a host of difficulties, Daniel had a successful meeting with the computer company Microcap, "the deal that would start everything."

Act 3

• Gathered around the boardroom table, Priyah Magnus and Xander defend the public relations success of Daniel's move to Jon Parker and the rest of the Graystone Industries' board of directors. Xander points out that "Daniel Graystone is the brand," and that removing him from the board would be tantamount to suicide. They are interrupted by the sound of metallic clanking that grows louder. Daniel briskly enters the room, followed by the U-87.
• Daniel begins by announcing that the holobands are as good as dead as a profit-making venture. The future, he claims, is Cylons. Expense is irrelevant; the machine that is walking across the boardroom (and making the board members nervous, to Zoe-A's delight) is not just artificial intelligence, but artificial sentience, "another race that will walk beside us." This race, Daniel continues, will serve humanity without question or fail. To emphasize the point, Daniel orders the Cylon to rip its own arm off. Zoe hesitates, but she complies, and violently tears off the robot's left arm and tosses it onto the table, frightening the board. Daniel concludes by saying that humanity will not be able to resist the need to connect with the Cylons--and ultimately, to buy them.
• In New Cap City, Tamara and Heracles (as Chiron) enter a bank. Once the guards are dismissed, Heracles reads the vault code to Tamara, a sequence of steps on a floor pattern representing the Twelve Colonies. The floor vault opens and emits golden light and floating gold coins. Heracles collects them and accumulates points on a massive scale--until an alarm is triggered. Two guards enter and fire at Tamara. She quietly takes the bullets, then clenches her fists and instantly de-rezzes the guards.

Act 4

• At home, the tension between Joseph and Willie is growing. Later, Sam and Larry visit. Sam tells his brother that Willie would already be a man on Tauron, and that denying him his heritage will drive him further away. The best place to start, Sam tells Joseph, are the "rites" to bring closure to Shannon and Tamara.
• Daniel waits in the boardroom at night. Xander enters and tells Daniel cautiously that he has won the vote.
• Tauron family and friends gather, playing games and praying before an altar bearing photos of Shannon and Tamara. Eventually, Joseph announces that he is ready.
• Heracles and Tamara step into the bar that had been Chiron's, but is now occupied by Vesta and her followers. Before handing Vesta the money, Tamara demands to be woken up. Vesta flatly tells her that she cannot: she produces a month-old newspaper with a list of the bombing victims, including Tamara Adams. Vesta only offers the girl the promise of more work in New Cap City. Heracles holds Tamara, and glares at Vesta. Without warning, Tamara grabs Heracles' guns and opens fire, eliminating all of Vesta's followers. She takes Heracles aside and demands that he find her father, and that he tries to make something of his life in the real world. After Heracles removes the holoband and de-rezzes, Tamara returns to Vesta, who is sprawled on the floor. "What are you?" she asks. "I'm awake," Tamara answers, and fires.

Tag

• Led by an elder Tauron, Joseph and Willie say farewell to Shannon and Tamara. Joseph opens his shirt and receives a tattoo.
• After the ceremony, a stranger comes to the door. Tad Thorean, Heracles, nervously tells Joseph about Tamara in V-world, still unconvinced that she is dead. Joseph reacts angrily, and Thorean realizes that Vesta was not lying. He flees. Joseph chases after him, but cannot keep up.
• Tamara prowls the streets of New Cap City, armed.

Notes

• Lacy Rand, Clarice Willow, and Jordan Duram do not appear in this episode.
• According to the audio commentary for the episode, New Cap City is a reference to the film New Jack City.
• The game Vesta and her compatriots play is a variation of "Russian roulette," although no direct name is attributed to this game in-universe.

Analysis

• The Tauron Funeral Rite as seen in this episode mirrors the Ancient Greek rite of placing a coin on the head of the dead for the Charon, the ferryman who took the souls of the dead across the Rivers Styx and Acheron to Hades (The Underworld). In Ancient Greece it was two coins for each person to be placed on each eye; however, in the case of the Tauron rite it was a single coin each. The ceremony also differs in that it involved the Tauron custom of applying tattoos.
• Logically, Zoe-A has the same capabilities that Tamara-A does, though we have not seen this. It is possible that this is because she, like Tamara at the beginning of the episode, does not know about her capabilities. Another possibility is that she simply hasn't seen any reason to use them.
• It is likely that Tad (Heracles) ran away because he did not believe Vesta's claim that Tamara was really dead. This is evidenced by his statement to Joseph Adama that Tamara was in trouble and that he should "wake her up." When Joseph told him that Tamara was dead, his demeanor changed rapidly.
• Daniel Graystone's speech to the board about the Cylons might seem self-destructive at first glance and, in the long run, it certainly is. However, it is possible that when he talked about the U-87 appearing sentient he did not, in fact, mean that it was, but rather that it did an excellent job at imitating a human connection. Alternatively, he may believe that sentience and free will are not necessarily linked and that the U-87 can be both sentient and completely obedient. This latter scenario has a precedent in famed sci-fi author Isaac Asimov's work, which imagines a society in which (sentient) robots carry out the commands of their human overlords without hesitation, but who are nonetheless capable of conscious thought, rationalization, and self-inquiry. Whatever the case, it is clear that Graystone miscalculated, as the Cylons do, in fact, eventually rebel.
• This episode marks the first time that a specific street address is given for a location in the re-imagined continuity: the Adama apartment is located at 615 Olympic Street #3 in Caprica City.

Questions

• What will happen to Tamara-A now that she is aware of her abilities within the V-world? (Answer)
• Will Joseph find Heracles? If so, will he lead him to Tamara? (Partial answer)
• Will Daniel's treatment of the U-87 in the board meeting affect Zoe-R's behavior?
• Does Willie ever learn of his sister's avatar? (Possible answer)
• Will the funeral improve Willie and Joseph's relationship, as Sam indicated it would?

Noteworthy Dialogue

• Sam Adama is arguing with his brother Joseph about his detachment from work and family:

Sam: First, you be a father, and when you can manage that, maybe I'll introduce you to your son.

Guest Stars

• Luciana Carro as Priyah Magnus
• Karen Elizabeth Austin as Ruth
• Camille Mitchell as Vesta
• Sina Najafi as William Adama
• Hiro Kanagawa as Cyrus Xander
• Genevieve Buechner as Tamara Adama
• Julius Chapple as Larry
• Richard Harmon as Heracles
• AC Peterson as Chiron
• Eve Harlow as Byun
• Travis Turner as Ashok
• Graham Chabot as Big Kid
• Thomas Saunders as Jon Parker
• Ian A. Wallace as Ferryman
• Patti Allan as Tauron Rites Singer
• Jim Ralph as Chiron's Bank Guard
• Charles Andre as Rail Thin Man
• Zolton Crane as Man