Epiphanies

"Epiphanies" An episode of the Re-imagined Series
Episode No.	Season 2, Episode 13
Writer(s)	Joel Anderson Thompson
Story by
Director	Rod Hardy
Assistant Director
Special guest(s)	Colm Feore as President Adar
Production No.	213
Nielsen Rating	{{{rating}}}
US airdate	2006-01-20
CAN airdate	{{{CAN airdate}}}
UK airdate	2006-04-28
DVD release	19 September 2006 US 28 August 2006 UK
Population	49,598 survivors
Additional Info
Episode Chronology
Previous		Next
Resurrection Ship, Part II	Epiphanies	Black Market
Related Information
Official Summary
R&D Skit – View
Podcast Transcript – View
Continuity Errors Present – View
[[IMDB:tt{{{imdb}}}|IMDb entry]]
Listing of props for this episode
Related Media
			@ BW Media
Promotional Materials
Online Purchasing
Amazon: Standard Definition | High Definition
iTunes: [{{{itunes}}} USA]

Overview

Admiral William Adama questions whether or not Sharon Valerii's pregnancy should be aborted. Meanwhile Roslin's health declines rapidly as a pro-Cylon peace group attempts to sow violence and discontent within the Fleet.

Summary

• President Laura Roslin is brought on board Galactica for intensive care treatment. She has days to live.
• Captain Kara Thrace and Lieutenant Louanne Katraine are conducting Viper tests. During a test of the Viper's projectile systems, Kat's port gun is destroyed and a piece of it impacts on Thrace's cockpit.
• Cally and CPO Tyrol discover that several rounds of ammunition from the damaged Viper are unusually light and fragile. These rounds break and misfire, leaving the projectile lodged in the barrel. When the next round fires, the overpressure destroys the gun. They determine the ammunition has been sabotaged.
• The sabotage investigation quickly leads Lee Adama and Kara Thrace to Asha Janik, one of the recent civilian hirees in Galactica's armory. When they apprehend her, she declares her allegiance to an organization claiming to want peace with the Cylons.
• Vice President Gaius Baltar is given the presidential tour by Billy Keikeya in preparation for his assumption of the Presidency. Billy reveals a letter from Roslin, to be opened upon her death.
• The new peace movement, led by Royan Jahee, gains momentum as the civilian population begins to realize that victory against the Cylons is impossible and questions the Fleet's 'attack-and-retreat' tactics.
• An infusion of Sharon Valerii's fetal blood ostensibly destroys the cancerous masses in Roslin's system. Valerii's pregnancy is allowed to continue for further research.

On Caprica, prior to the Cylon Attack

• Roslin finds out she has cancer.
• Roslin meets with President Richard Adar to discuss a teacher's strike, and his response.
• Roslin meets with the leader of the educational alliance, Naylin Stans, and strikes an agreement.
• Adar disagrees with Roslin's methods and results, and asks for her resignation.
• Roslin refuses to resign for the moment, and departs for Galactica's decommissioning ceremony.
• Roslin sees Gaius Baltar with Number Six in her dream state. She then seems alarmed to see Dr. Baltar when she wakes up and tries to say something to him.

Questions

• Kara Thrace is flying Mk. II Vipers with Galactica's pilots again. Is she still the CAG of Pegasus?
  • According to interviews with RDM, Starbuck is still the Pegasus CAG. There's nothing to say she couldn't just continue flying joint missions with Galactica, etc.
    • Confirming this, Kat remarks that Starbuck is "late" for flying the CAP. Presumably, the patrols are now a joint effort between the two battlestars.
• Now that Roslin recalls Baltar's involvement with a Cylon agent on Caprica, what will she do about it? (One answer)
• Will there be any consequences for Helo's near-mutiny?
  • Answer: apparently not. As mentioned of Colonel Tigh in "Final Cut", they have so few skilled people left that they can't afford to lose any of them.
• Will Roslin's attitude toward the Cylon fetus change following her recovery?
  • Ronald D. Moore's podcast implies that her urgency was only prompted by her lack of faith in Baltar's ability to handle the situation. Will she be content to let to Sharon carry to term now that her survival is no longer in question?
• Roslin's recent series of Machiavellian orders (Cain's assassination in "Resurrection Ship, Part I", and the forced abortion here) appear to have been facilitated by her belief that, given her impending death, she wouldn't have to deal with the ethical ramifications. Will this alter her relationship with Admiral Adama in the long term?
• Is security really so lax that Baltar (whom Adama does not consider especially trustworthy) would be able to smuggle one of Galactica's very few nuclear warheads off-ship?
  • The warhead is the one given to Baltar by Commander Adama to build the Cylon detector; he's got 24 hours a day unrestricted access to it.
  • Galactica and its Raptors are capable of detecting radiological devices. Why wasn't the bomb noticed in transit? (see Analysis).
  • Alternately, is the nuclear device actually functional? (Yes)
• Why aren't there posters of Gina scattered all over the fleet to inform everyone of her Cylon identity, making it difficult for her to hide, let alone lead a Cylon-sympathy movement?
  • Ronald Moore did admit during his podcast that this was Gina's "Clark Kent" disguise and it was very shaky the way they played it off that nobody would recognize her. Will this loose end be tied-up in some future story line when they get further into the Colonial underground story lines that the next few episodes are supposed to follow?
    • Gina was supposed to feature in a recurring subplot throughout almost every episode of Season 2.5 according to the podcasts, but for time reasons these sections of the script were cut and Gina only appears in a select few episodes for major plot developments.
  • On the other hand, Gina does not appear to be leaving her room on Cloud 9 that much, and the humans who do see her are Cylon sympathizers anyway.
• Does Gina "remember" Number Six's memories about having a relationship with Baltar on Caprica, or even after? In "Pegasus", she did not seem to know him, as Baltar introduced himself to her and explained that he had a relationship with another Cylon copy of her model. Here, however, it sort of seems like she remembers having a physical relationship with him, but isn't "ready" to go back to that after her torture. Then again, her lines also be interpreted to mean that she really never "knew" about him before she met him on Pegasus. The process of Cylon memory-transfer and systematic updating isn't very well understood at this point.
• Why is it that in the last episode, "Resurrection Ship, Part II," Sharon is not noticeably pregnant even when wearing a close-fitting tank top, but is now suddenly visibly quite progressed in her pregnancy? (This is part of the Season two timeline discontinuity)
  • The same may be said of the physical condition of Gina. She now has no noticeable scars or other markings from her ordeal on Pegasus. Baltar does comment when he sees Number Six in the corridor, however, that it has been several weeks since he saw her last. This could help explain the noticeably pregnant Sharon.
    • Gina does have several permanent physical scars from her ordeal, but her face has healed by now.
• Now that Roslin is no longer dying of cancer, is she still the "Dying Leader" foretold by the Book of Pythia?
  • From Ron Moore's blog on July 27, 2006:

" We have had numerous discussions of the fact that since Laura is no longer dying she may not, in fact, be the "dying leader" mentioned in the scriptures. There's also been talk of how that would be reflected throughout the fleet and in particular among the religious community and there will be some follow-up in this area. She isn't taking chamalla any longer, but she will experience some... "experiences" which will indicate that this part of her life isn't necessarily over."

Analysis

• The survivor count this episode is 49,598, a net loss of six since Resurrection Ship, Part II. Admiral Cain and the Pegasus marine killed by Gina account for two. Presumably the remaining were pilots or crew lost during the attack on the Resurrection Ship.
  • This seems to be extremely good fortune, as the two battlestars engaged in a major fleet action for an extended time.
• Roslin's affair with Adar was suggested by her comment in the miniseries that "he had a way about him... you just couldn't say 'no' to him."
• Naylin Stans implies that he believes the teacher's strike is a cause worth dying for. This claim is ridiculously hyperbolic.
  • The fact that President Adar was willing to use the military to enforce a back-to-work order seems to indicate that the protest must've been more serious than simple wage issues.
• Roslin's medical chart showed her name and other information such as date of birth, but this information was too blurry for viewers to read.
• Roslin's recollections of Baltar on Caprica do not match the same scene in the Miniseries. For example: Baltar and Six did walk together and kiss, and she was carrying the same case in her left hand, but they did not "make out" against a wall. Each character did end the miniseries scene by saying they were meeting someone else, however.
  • Logically, it wasn't the same scene. Baltar and Six were on Caprica for a while, and they could easily have been making at a different time on the same day. The episode actually makes no attempt to establish that Roslin is seeing the same scene of Baltar and Number Six (that we the viewers saw in the Miniseries), from a different angle.
• Watching closely during the early scene when Starbuck and Kat are flying the CAP, it seems probable that actress Luciana Carro (Kat) said the real "F word" instead of the ersatz "Frak", which was then dubbed over (it's a closeup so you can tell her lips don't quite correspond to it). She actually seems to have done this in the past on many occasions.

• Roslin's cancer cure seemed somewhat a "deus ex machina." For more analysis on the cure, see this section of the article Science in the Re-imagined Series.
  • It should be noted that the cure might not be permanent and the cancer may return in the future (as hinted by Ronald D. Moore in the podcast for this episode).

• A nuclear warhead was smuggled from Galactica to Cloud Nine. How would such a device possibly get past the various radiological sensors throughout the Fleet?
  • This was a plot complication used in "Flesh and Bone" as well when a copy of Leoben Conoy claimed that a nuclear device was hidden in the Fleet. "Flesh and Bone" established that Colonial radiological scanning technology is limited; it would take hours for them to scan the entire Fleet. The process does work faster when they know specifically what ship to scan, such as the Olympic Carrier when it reappeared in "33" because it was a potential hostile, or Cylon ships. Here, they didn't know they should scan the outgoing Raptor (how frequently do people move nuclear warheads in the Fleet without their knowledge?) so they didn't think to scan it; they do not scan all air trafic.
  • Like any device, radiological sensors are only effective when they are online. It is possible that these sensors are intelligent enough to ignore known radioactive sources, such as Galatica's existing stores of nuclear warheads.

• The explosion of the bomb on the refinery ship is powerful enough to create a sizable hole on the ship. While space is a vacuum and so shock waves do not carry as they would in an atmosphere, the Raptor that flew close to the ship and was not very far from the explosion should probably be damaged from flying debris.
  • Raptors, being warships, presumably have some shielding against shrapnel.

Notes

• This episode is part of the Season two timeline discontinuity.
• In the podcast, Ron Moore stated that a longer, more detailed explanation of the curing of Roslin's cancer using fetal hybrid blood was filmed - explaining that it was the fetal blood stem cells from the baby that were the actual cure - but Moore was afraid that this would be seen as technobabble and criticized by fans, so it was edited down to a truncated version. Ironically, this resulted in widespread complaint in critic reviews and fan messageboards that there was too little explanation in the final version.
• Lee Adama is once again a Captain, and has been reinstated as Galactica's CAG. His authority apparently extends to the Pegasus squadrons as well. This is consistent with Cole Taylor's authority over Galactica's air wing, when Pegasus was the flagship.
• Gina has joined the Cylon sympathizers. The other members of the resistance are apparently unaware she is a Cylon agent.
• Roslin was in an intimate relationship with President Adar.
• Roslin now recalls witnessing Gaius Baltar's affair with a copy of Number Six on Caprica, prior to the attack.
• The radiation symbol used by the colonials is different from the one used in reality, but is still easily recognizable.
• Galactica has been recruiting civilians to handle "grunt work" on the hangar deck.
• Baltar was aware of the Demand Peace movement prior to this episode.
• At least three bodies can be seen being vented into space after the explosion onboard Daru Mozu.
• The file photograph of Number Six is of Shelly Godfrey, seen in the episode "Six Degrees of Separation".
• The nuclear device Dr. Baltar gives the resistance is the same one he was given to create his Cylon detector in "Bastille Day".
• Pegasus is barely featured in this episode, and none of her crew or interior locations are seen, except in the pre-episode recap.
• Admiral Adama continues to wear his commander's uniform with new admiral's rank insignia at his collar.
  • Adama is a pragmatist who tends to eschew ceremony.
• This episode, which contained the issue of abortion, was aired on January 20th, 2 days before the anniversary of the United States Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision of 1973.
  • The issue of abortion was not, however, directly addressed—very few, if any, real-life abortions happen because of the national security implications of giving birth to a human-robot chimera.

Noteworthy Dialogue

• Admiral Adama informs Agathon of Roslin's decision to terminate Sharon's pregnancy.

William Adama: There's no easy way to say this. It's about the Cylon. The President has decided that her pregnancy will be terminated.

Karl Agathon (taken aback): What? Why?

Adama: Doc Cottle discovered some anomalies in the fetal blood work.

Agathon: Isn't that expected?

Adama: Maybe. But the President believes that to allow the baby to come to full term, it constitutes an unacceptable risk to the Fleet.

Agathon: I don't understand. Sharon's only helped us since she came back from Caprica. She even turned on her own.

Adama: To save her life. Don't mistake the will to live for genuine compassion, Lieutenant. She's still the enemy.

Agathon: Does she know?

Adama: Not yet.

Agathon: Then I should be the one to tell her. If that's all, sir.

Adama: Helo, I don't expect you to agree to the decision, but I need you to accept it.

Agathon: We're talking about my child, sir. Part of me. But I guess it's easier to kill when you call it a Cylon.

Adama: Dismissed.

• During Roslin's flashbacks:

President Richard Adar: One of the most interesting things about being President is that you don't have to explain yourself. To anyone.

• Roslin earlier attributed this saying to Adar in the episode Flesh and Bone.

Secretary Roslin: I am on my way to the Galactica to represent this administration. When I return, if you still want my job, be prepared to fight.

Guest stars

• Colm Feore as President Adar
• Aaron Douglas as Chief Petty Officer Galen Tyrol
• Nicki Clyne as Specialist Cally
• Bodie Olmos as Lt.Brendan "Hot Dog" Constanza
• Luciana Carro as Lt. Louanne "Kat" Katraine
• Leah Cairns as Lt. Margaret "Racetrack" Edmondson
• David Richmond-Peck as Naylin Stans
• Holly Dignard as Asha Janik
• Paul Perri as Royan Jahee
• Jennifer Kitchen as Marine

External Links

"Epiphanies" at scifi.com