Take the Celestra

"Take the Celestra" An episode of the Original Series
Episode No.	Season 1, Episode 20
Writer(s)	Jim Carlson Terrence McDonnell
Story by	David S. Arthur David G. Phinney Jim Carlson Terrence McDonnell
Director	Daniel Haller
Assistant Director
Special guest(s)
Production No.
Nielsen Rating
US airdate	1979-04-01
CAN airdate	{{{CAN airdate}}}
UK airdate
DVD release	2004-12-28
Population	survivors
Additional Info
Episode Chronology
Previous		Next
Experiment in Terra	Take the Celestra	The Hand of God
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Listing of props for this episode
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Overview

Starbuck encounters long-lost love Aurora amidst a mutinous rebellion aboard the Celestra.

Summary

• In a formal dress ceremony aboard the Galactica to honor Kronus, captain of the Celestra and former commander of the battlestar Rycon, Adama and the Council of Twelve bestow upon Kronus the Distinguished Service Medallion; he is also appointed executive commander of three industry ships in the ragtag fleet.
• During the proceedings, Starbuck recognizes former love Aurora standing among the ranks of the Celestra crew; when she leaves during the ceremony, Apollo and Boomer must physically restrain Starbuck from breaking ranks to follow her.
• Aurora goes to the control room and, in a sinister manner, requests navigational data for the beta sector.
• At the reception following the ceremony, Kronus mildly berates Tigh for drinking before duty; he then reminds Adama of his strict adherence to regulation and discipline.
• Starbuck (re-)introduces himself to Aurora, who has become the pilot of Kronus’ shuttle, but the two old flames are interrupted by Cassiopeia with concert duckets; annoyed, Aurora walks off, but is chased after by Starbuck.
• Shuttling back to the Celestra, Kronus informs Charka, his second in command, the he (Kronus) will be retaining command of the ship; he chides an obviously disappointed Charka, asking him to bide his time before getting his own command.
• Aboard the Celestra, Aurora and her fellow mutineers make last-centon preparations for their takeover attempt.
• Starbuck convinces Apollo to accompany him to the Celestra for a "maintenance scan" — and to speak with Aurora; although unconvinced, Tigh agrees to the request, but he also informs Cassiopeia, who reclaims the concert duckets — both concert duckets — from Starbuck in the viper launch bay.
• On the Celestra bridge, Hermes informs Kronus of a turbodyne problem; Kronus communicates their problem to Adama and requests that the fleet not slow down for them.
• Aurora and her lover Damon begin their mutiny by taking hostages in the landing bay; however, another crewman successfully alerts the bridge amid laser fire.
• Kronus is able to send security reinforcements to corner the mutineers; he and Charka personally grab laser pistols and take part in the melee.
• Apollo and Starbuck, who had landed aboard the Celestra during the uprising, walk into the middle of a firefight; Starbuck comes face to face with Aurora, each holding a laser blaster, but neither willing to fire.
• The mutineers are captured and rounded up for transport to the Galactica; since a senior commander must be present to bring charges of mutiny, Kronus accompanies the prisoners aboard the shuttlecraft, being piloted by Apollo and Starbuck.
• Charka, who had been placed in temporary command of the Celestra during Kronus' absence, orders that the shuttlecraft be given bogus navigation coordinates in order to strand its occupants, including Kronus, in deep space.
• Apollo and Starbuck pilot the shuttle away from the Celestra and, unknowingly, away from the fleet into oblivion.
• Aboard the Celestra, Charka begins to openly boast of his coup with his de facto second-in-command Hermes, as they change the ship's course toward the fleet, effectively stranding the shuttlecraft; Charka orders all laser pistols confiscated and brought to the bridge.
• Restrained as prisoners, Aurora and Damon try to convince Starbuck that their mutiny was undertaken for noble causes, specifically to protest the oppressive living conditions imposed by the ultra-strict Kronus; Starbuck reluctantly broaches the subject with Kronus.
• To ensure (buy) the crew's loyalty, Charka promises each crewmember a promotion in rank and pay.
• Kronus begins a dialog with the former mutineers, learning that they had planned to steal a shuttle and escape to a nearby, remote planet (the 21st planet in its system); Kronus learns, apparently for the first time, of Charka's inhumane oppressiveness toward the Celestra crew.
• Apollo is disturbed when the fleet does not appear on his scanners as expected; trying to reverse triangulate their position, they are unable to locate the Celestra, which has "gone dark" to avoid detection.
• Having lost its last reference point to the fleet, the shuttlecraft runs low on fuel; the mutineers agree to alter the shuttle's computers to act as ion tracking sensors to locate the Celestra, in exchange for fair hearings regarding their mutiny.
• Aurora, while acknowledging her previous love affair with Starbuck, nevertheless pledges her love to Damon; she convinces Starbuck to speak to Damon about the matter.
• The shuttlecraft locates the Celestra and touches down aboard her landing bay just as fuel expires; Apollo, Starbuck, and Kronus make their way to the bridge, accompanied now by former mutineers Aurora and Damon.
• Using Hermes, Apollo gains access to the confiscated laser pistols; a firefight breaks out on the Celestra bridge, damaging the steering control and sending the Celestra veering wildly off course.
• Kronus crawls to the steering control and rights the vessel, but not before taking a lethal laser blast.
• Apollo tackles Charka and disarms him, ending the (second) mutiny.
• Aboard the Galactica, a funeral is held for Kronus, as his casket is shot into space.
• Starbuck patches things up with Cassiopeia, who has two (new) concert duckets ready for that evening.

British writer Matthew Wharmby's Summary

PREMISE: Veteran Commander Kronus is decorated at a ceremony, but the model conditions on his industrial ship conceal harsh conditions which spark a mutiny. One of the rebels is Starbuck's old flame Aurora. The power struggle aboard the Celestra prompts Kronus's corrupt deputy to attempt to maroon him and the rebels.

THE SHOW: Adama reads into his journal that a general lull in events of late has led to a renewal of hope, during which the people of the Fleet can even, from time to time, indulge in ceremony. This is revealed as an awards event in which Commander Kronus, currently skipper of the electronics ship Celestra, is decorated and given formal command of all three industry ships. We hear of his military exploits, when as commander of the Battlestar Ricon leading the Colonial Sixth Fleet, he destroyed three Cylon basestars at the battle of Kasmaro Archipelago. However, the assembled Galactica warriors (getting a chance to dust off their old dress uniforms for the last time) have a shock when Starbuck nearly steps out of line. As usual, he's clocked a girl in the audience, but this time can identify her by name. 'My God! It's Aurora!' he says as his friends have to yank him back into formation before Colonel Tigh spots him.

Aurora is Commander Kronus's pilot. She has some business aboard the bridge before shuttling Kronus back to the Celestra, requesting information about the 'beta sector'. Starbuck catches up with her, but she blanks him. Once the curmudgeonly commander is aboard the shuttle, we see his second-in-command, a smug young individual named Chaka. He takes the opportunity to suck up to Kronus by congratulating him on his decoration, but the commander pours scorn on the occasion in general. 'When I commanded the Ricon and six hundred fighting ships, that was a fleet!' he grouses. This collection of slow-moving derelicts 'isn't a fleet...it's a convoy.' More importantly, he knows full well that Chaka is expecting Kronus to retire and hand over command. Kronus has to let him down gently, but in doing so plants the seeds of resentment into his deputy.

When Aurora gets back to the Celestra, she meets her boyfriend Damon, a weedy fellow with an afro that would make Kid (of Kid & Play) jealous. The information she got from the Galactica bridge is going to come in handy when they and a few other Celestra crewmen decide to execute their long-awaited plan to take over a shuttle and make a run for it. The reason is the slave labour conditions imposed aboard the ship by Chaka.

Aboard the Galactica, Starbuck is miserable that Aurora has taken no notice of him and has apparently moved on (perish the thought!). He begs Apollo to come with him to the Celestra to try and sort things out with her. Unfortunately the old cad has already got something planned with Cassiopeia, whom he has to blow off. Irritated, she demands the immediate return of the ducats for the triad match they were going to see aboard the Rising Star - but manages to keep Starbuck's jealous nature interested by keeping him guessing as to whom she might be going to offer the extra ticket.

Under the pretense of using their spare time to go over to the Celestra for a maintenance check, Apollo and Starbuck make their way there, but are surprised to walk straight into a firefight. Aurora, Damon and their co-conspirators have managed to surprise the security personnel in the landing bay and pinch their lasers, but further guards have sounded the alarm and fired on them. Starbuck and Apollo are figuring out whose side to take when Aurora appears and draws a bead on Starbuck - roll commercials.

Aurora has her former lover dead, but Apollo moves up behind her and covers her in turn. Unwilling to blast Starbuck, Aurora lays down her arms and calls a halt to the mutiny. She is upset with Starbuck for having ruined everything, especially when Kronus takes a predictably firm line and orders them all shuttled to the Galactica brig, with the commander making the handover in person.

Once the shuttle is away, Chaka can now unleash his own counter-plan. Still bitter at not having been given command after Kronus's award, he is now going to undercut him altogether. Having notified the Galactica that they are experiencing engine trouble that will force them to drop out of position pending repairs, he orders his helmsman Hermes to cut power to the Celestra's main systems and running lights, letting the ship vanish off radar. This is strictly against regulations - but then again, so is feeding the shuttle false coordinates which will send it haring off into deep space. By the time their two centares worth of fuel runs out, they won't be able to make it back, and if they do, will not be able to see where to land. Just to make certain of his own gratitude, Chaka summarily promotes his entire bridge staff, with the accompanying pay raise.

As the shuttle zooms off in the wrong direction (hold on, you'd think you'd be able to sight the other 219 ships in the fleet and navigate by them!), the mutineers sit there in shackles and with long faces. Starbuck wanders over to chat to Aurora and try and figure out why she'd start a rebellion on a fleet ship. Angrily, she spits that Chaka is forcing the workers aboard the Celestra to complete sixteen-centare shifts. Kronus did not actually know this, probably rationalising the high productivity as evidence of his efficiency. What they were planning to do was to steal a shuttle and flee to the twenty-first planet in this system, which she chose from the info she collected from the Galactica earlier. What to do, Starbuck asks. 'Live!' Aurora cries out. As she is explaining this to Starbuck, Damon goes into a major sulk in the corner, figuring she's chosen Starbuck anew - which is where the show's Romeo has to turn stern and tell him off. It's obvious to Starbuck that she loves Damon now - while Starbuck loved her once, it's over. With a guilty thought back to Cassiopeia, he concedes to Damon like a gentleman. With everyone all smiles, all the better to plan their strategy of revenge against Chaka - assuming they get back alive, as it's at this point that they realise that they've been sent in the wrong direction. With a sharp about turn, they steam back in the vague direction of the fleet.

After two centares expire, a smug Chaka reckons his adversaries have had it, and orders Hermes to fire up the engines and resume their position in the fleet. Hermes punches it, and they're away. Once they're within visual contact, they'll bring up the lights and nobody will be any the wiser for what's happened. Not far away, the shuttle is on their trail, but running fast out of fuel. Apollo is furious to see the Celestra dark, and homes in on their landing bay as the ship's last drops of fuel are used up and they're running on fumes. As it happens, this has turned the tables on Chaka, as he can't pick them up as they come in. Our Heroes disembark and head for the armoury, but the shrewd Chaka has ordered the contents emptied and stashed in a box on the bridge. Thus, with just Apollo and Starbuck tooled up, the others have to use their fists to go through the various guards they encounter on their way to the Celestra bridge.

As they storm the bridge, a shootout ensues between Chaka's men and Apollo, Starbuck, Aurora, Damon and even Commander Kronus. However, in the fracas, a stray round hits the flight console and the Celestra begins to plunge out of formation. Commander Kronus bravely seizes the stick to bring the ship back level, but is hit himself and collapses. Alternating gunshots and punches, Our Heroes overpower Chaka and his men, but the focus of this episode is out of it and not responding.

A solemn scene aboard the Galactica recalls the first scene as the cast reconvene to send off Commander Kronus where before they'd decorated him. After a brief funeral eulogy delivered by Adama, Kronus's body is committed to space, in a local equivalent of burial at sea.

Review

This is probably the worst episode of Battlestar Galactica. A lot of people will probably disagree, but I have to go with this choice simply because I found this episode to be incredibly boring. The Magnificent Warriors and The Lost Warrior were also really bad (and they were certainly more simplistic), but they were never really boring. A story focusing on the hardships of voyaging on the rag tag fleet is a great idea, but this episode takes one self-destructive turn after another and may be the best example of a wasted opportunity for the series. Many of BG's bad episodes were somewhat saved by wonderful performances from the actors, but there is nothing here that stands out (although the Starbuck/Cassiopea reconciliation at the end is a nice moment). Starbuck and Apollo actually look stale. This is one of the few times that neither Richard Hatch nor Dirk Benedict are able to rise above the mediocre writing. Commander Kronus is incredibly boring - a static, stale character with little depth. Because it's hard to care about the character, it's hard to feel anything during the "dramatic" finish when Kronus dies. Given the moronic decisions he makes, I felt like saying "Good riddance." On the other hand, Ana Alicia suceeds in making Aurora interesting, but she is mostly wasted in this episode. Unfortunately, her boyfriend is more boring than Kronus, and I just wanted him to shut up. Despite these issues, the main problem with Take The Celestra lies in the script itself.

One of the biggest (yet least noted) flaws of Battlestar Galactica was the way it portrayed life in the rag-tag fleet. Day-to-day existence on a fleet of mostly derelict ships would no doubt be a grueling struggle for survival. Yet the series rarely ever indicated this. Most scenes with civilians consisted of parties, gambling, and triad games aboard the Rising Star! (hardly the most accurate look we could have been given) Take The Celestra was the perfect vehicle to change this, but unfortunately the writers took the easy way out. Aurora and the other mutineers were "illegally forced" to work so many double shifts. This makes the issue of right and wrong very easy to determine, but consider another direction the writers could have taken.

What if the harsh working conditions existed throughout the entire fleet? (and, logically, they should have) What if Aurora and the others were not working harder than anyone else and simply decided they had had enough? Would they be morally right in trying to escape the fleet (considering that the loss of manpower would likely hurt the remaining Colonials)? Apollo, Starbuck and the rest of the military are always talking about the importance of freedom. Apollo talks about it strongly in his speech to the Precedium in Experiment In Terra. When Starbuck tries to convince the prisoners to rebel in The Long Patrol, he says "You have rights. You're human beings!" When they finally escape, he says, "That's freedom." An interesting idea to explore is how free the Colonials actually were. Surely many of them wanted to settle on some of the planets the fleet passed by. If Adama refused their wishes, he would technically be restricting their freedom. Unfortunately, this kind of story is problematic because the extent of Adama's power is never clear; in fact, it varies from episode to episode (depending whatever works best for the story that week). But this kind of story would have made it a tough call as to whether Aurora and her friends were right and whether Starbuck and Apollo were totally justified in stopping them.

Anyway, that's the episode I would have liked to see, or anything other than what we did see, the most boring Galactica episode to date. The story is riddled with holes, outdone perhaps only by Experiment In Terra. Whereas that story's flaws are not immediately noticeable, most of this story's flaws are. Commander Kronus' decision to immediately shuttle the prisoners back to the fleet despite being so far away doesn't make much sense. His accompanying the shuttle makes even less sense. Colonial law states that a commander has to personally take the mutineers in for charges? Huh? Even when his ship is out in the middle of nowhere? Okay. Whatever. Kronus should have waited until the Celestra rejoined the fleet. His decision makes him look like an idiot.

How is it that Chakka is able to get almost the entire crew to mutiny with him on a whim? He couldn't have been planning mutiny beforehand because he had expected to become commander of the Celestra. And if the entire crew wasn't with him in the mutiny, then how could he have expected to get away with powering down the ship? And could Starbuck and Apollo both be so clueless that they wouldn't be able to remember which heading the fleet was on? And how does the shuttle run out of fuel so fast? And how is it that Kronus could not have known or heard about any of the harsh working conditions? The Celestra isn't that big of a ship. Are we to believe that he never left the bridge? To top it off, why is there such an urgent need in the final battle scene to "level out" the Celestra? It's not as though there were any ships or planets around that it could crash into. Almost nothing in this episode makes any sense.

The minor plot of Cassiopea agonizing over Starbuck's evasiveness in their relationship is far more compelling than the main plot of the Celestra mutiny. But even the Starbuck/Aurora plot has problems. For one thing, the writers have Starbuck act like a total jerk by skipping his date with Cassie so he can see Aurora. Why would Cassie put up with that? And how is it that Starbuck had a serious relationship with Aurora going during the time of the Destruction? Didn't he clearly have something going with Athena back then? If so, this only makes Starbuck out to be a bigger womanizer than anyone thought (not exactly the best way to endear him to viewers). Aurora makes a valid point in her anger towards him. If Starbuck really did care about her, why didn't he check to see if her name was in the fleet computer? Just because her house was destroyed doesn't mean for certain that she was killed. It's also highly questionable that Starbuck ever made it back to Caprica after the Cylons attacked. We've never been given any indication that anyone besides Adama and Apollo ever went back. Considering how dangerous it would have been (not to mention how strong a chance that someone might have led the Cylons back to the Galactica), it's absolutely ludicrous to suggest Adama would have allowed anyone to return to the planet.

Notes

• This was the last episode to air before the announcement of the original series' cancellation.
• The notion of fleets was introduced in "The Living Legend." The existence of Rycon reinforces this concept of separate battlestar fleets.

Analysis

• "Take the Celestra", filmed late in the series, is another episode that was designed to save budget money by making use of existing sets. The episode is set in only a few locations, all of which are in the Fleet, and involve no location shots and few new special effects. The bridge, corridors and landing bay of the Celestra are redresses of existing sets, and a few new uniforms and judicious use of matte paintings help to save money. However, with the possible exception of the hall where Kronus receives his award at the start of the episode which is largely unseen and seems to consist mostly of black curtains, these measures are not distracting.
• Again, we meet one of Starbuck's love interests, this one a jilted one from his past, who wants nothing to do with him, a young technician named Aurora. This provides an interesting look into Starbuck's character, as we see the perspective of one of his conquests, who claims he didn't care enough for her to look for her after the Destruction of the Colonies. Although Starbuck claims he did look for Aurora, after the attack, her claim that she was listed in the computer (the equivalent of being listed in the phone book) is an unavoidable assertion. Of course, we know from "Saga of a Star World" that Starbuck seemed more concerned about two-timing Athena and the refugee socialator Cassiopeia than in any searches for Aurora, but perhaps this occurred off screen.
• Kronus is a somewhat less interesting character, a Galactican version of Captain Bligh, who seems to have completely lost touch with what is actually happening under his command. This reflects badly on Commander Adama as well, who saw fit to give Kronus an award without even checking his former commander's credentials.
• All in all, another Fleet episode that reveals more about the motivations and passions of the survivors beyond the people on Galactica.

Questions

• Was Kronus always in command of the Celestra before the Cylon attack? If not, who previously commanded the Celestra?
• Does Starbuck honestly attempt to look for Aurora?
• How many other romantic acquaintences of Starbuck's are in the Fleet?
• Given the situation on the Celestra, how many other ship's crews share the same situation as they do?
• The mention of the battlestar Rycon again asks the question, how many battlestars actually were built throughout the course of the Thousand-Yahren War? How many battlestars were left or believed destroyed before the Battle of Cimtar?
• How many battlestar fleets were there?

Noteworthy Dialogue

• Adama’s opening narration:

Adama: The morale of the fleet continues to rise, due in part to the increasing number of habitable planets we are encountering, and the reintroduction of some of the amenities our people enjoyed before the destruction of the colonies. Once again, although on a limited scale, we are able to partake of music, and the theater, and, when the occasion warrants, even indulge ourselves in ceremony.

Official Statements

• Jim Carlson discusses an attempt by ABC's censors to interfere with the series that Carlson fixed:

Jim Carlson: In doing "Take the Celestra" we had a firefight going on, and this goes to the quota of violence that’s involved and ABC had some kind of formula that you could have x number of incidents of violence within a show, and I think it was like four or five but I’m not sure. But meantime we had a ‘B’ story going on back aboard the Galactica and we had to cut away from that firefight, then we come back to the firefight and then finish that. Well, I got a call from this young lady at ABC who was new at that time in the Standards and Practices division and probably very imbued with ‘follow the rules and regulations as they’re set down on paper.’ And she was counting that firefight as two instances of violence because we cut away to go back to the Galactica and she said you have to drop either the beginning or the ending of the firefight. And I said we can’t do that, it’s impossible, besides, it’s only one incidence of violence with this cutting away, it’s not two. And she said no, it’s two, you have to drop one, and I said we can’t, it’s impossible, and she said, no, it’s not. And she became very adamant about it and finally I lost my cool, I didn’t swear at her or call her names or anything, I just said I didn’t think this was going to work and invited her to come over and write the episode. So she hung up on me and I picked up the phone again and called her boss and explained the situation to him. And he listened to what I had to say and I didn’t say a word about her except that she didn’t agree with me and he listened to my explanation and said, ‘that’s fine, go ahead.’”

Guest Stars

• Paul Fix as Commander Kronus
• Nick Holt as Charka
• Ana Alicia as Aurora
• Randy Stumpf as Damon
• Richard Styles as Hermes
• James R. Parkes as Mutineer #1
• Michael Horsley as Mutineer #2
• Ted Hamaguchi as 3rd Crewman
• Robert Murvin as Duty Officer