Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II

"Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II" An episode of the Re-imagined Series
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Overview

Everything turns on its head as the survivors vote for a new president -- and vote for their fate.

Summary

On Caprica

• Starbuck, the marines, and the resistance continue to take fire from Cylon centurions and artillery. They make their way up a hill, and hold their position.
• The Cylons hold fire, and Sharon remarks that the Cylons will attempt to capture them with non-lethal weapons, such as gas.
• Eighteen hours later, they emerge to find that the Cylons have disappeared. Cavil -- who suddenly appears behind them -- announces that the Cylons have left the Twelve Colonies and that humanity was spared.

In the Fleet

• Cally is cleared back to work by Dr. Cottle, despite having her jaw wired shut. Chief Tyrol visits her, apologizing for the attack. Cally forgives him, saying that she's always cared for him.

• Dr. Baltar continues to gain in the polls. On Colonial One, Tory mentions there's always a victory plan. Roslin later calls a private meeting with Dr. Baltar, asking to deliver a joint statement of tabling the issue of colonization until after the election, which Baltar rejects.

• Starbuck returns to Galactica, with the resistance fighters, much to the delight of Admiral Adama. She mentions the fact that the Cylons have left Caprica, and a man appearing to be Brother Cavill confirms it. He also says he has a message, but is attacked by Chief Tyrol, claiming he's a Cylon. Both Cavill and Caprica-Sharon are escorted to the brig under marine guard.

• The other Cavill (from last episode) is also taken to the brig, claiming he's not a Cylon, but changes his tune upon seeing his "brother", as he calls him. Both Cavills then talk about the fact that the “war heroes” (Caprica Six & Galactica-Sharon) have talked about how the attack of the colonies and the pursuit of the fleet were mistakes. They were told to relay the message that man and Cylon will go their separate ways. Both Roslin and Admiral Adama are less than trusting regarding the message.

• In the brig, Caprica-Sharon is completely disillusioned and nihilistic, declaring that since her child's death, nothing - not Adama's trust, not even Helo - matters to her. A frustrated Helo insists that he's not giving up on her, but she seems disinclined to listen.

• Election Day has arrived and Baltar has an apparent five thousand-vote lead over Roslin with only a few ships left. On Colonial One, Tory makes a call to Galactica, putting a plan into action.

• Amazingly, Roslin initially appears to have retained the presidency. While most are celebrating, Lt. Gaeta makes a startling discovery regarding the votes, and informs the Admiral that Col. Tigh may be involved in a conspiracy to throw the election.

• Admiral Adama confronts Roslin regarding the conspiracy, saying he has a confession to rig the vote. Roslin admits her involvement and Adama is disappointed.

• Baltar is informed of his election as President. He's less than pleased, vowing to have full investigation in time. President-elect Baltar then orders a course for “New Caprica”.

• Gaius Baltar is sworn in as the new President of the Twelve Colonies, and orders the immediate colonization of New Caprica.

• Cloud 9 is destroyed by a nuclear blast, Gina being present before the explosion; in addition to the Cloud 9, at least two other ships are destroyed in the blast. Admiral Adama reports to the president that this may be a Cylon attack, but Baltar ignores him and presses forward with colonization.

One Year Later

Kara and Cottle on New Caprica.

• Mr. Gaeta is reporting to the President regarding a Union issue aboard Colonial One, now down on the planet. Baltar is upset, saying there have been no Cylon attacks but the people still complain. He has regressed, turning to alcohol, medication, and womanizing.

• Admiral Adama, now sporting a mustache, is walking around the near-empty Galactica, which is quickly falling into disarray. Over half of the crew have moved down onto the planet, and they are running on such a skeleton crew that they barely have enough pilots to fly training missions, much less a good CAP. Adama has a discussion with Tigh about going down to the planet, which Tigh reluctantly agrees to do.

• Anders, now Kara’s husband, is sick with pneumonia. Dr. Cottle is saying he can’t do much for him, saying there are no antibiotics available, but he is young and healthy, and with a little luck he "should" pull through.

• Kara runs into the Tighs as Tyrol, now a union boss, is making a speech to begin a strike, the very pregnant Cally by his side. Saul mentions that Pegasus keeps the backup medical supplies and that Apollo would spring some for Starbuck. Starbuck disagrees, which prompts Tigh to state that Apollo should be "over that by now".

• Roslin is doing what she does best, teaching the settlement's children, and manages to find enjoyment in her new position. Maya is with her, as is the now one year old Hera, whom Maya has named "Isis".

• Kara calls Lee,who has gained a lot of weight in the past year aboard Pegasus, requesting the antibiotics. Dualla is now an officer, serving by Lee Adama's side in the Pegasus' CIC. Before Lee can reply to Kara, Dualla catches something on DRADIS.

• A fleet of Cylon basestars arrive in orbit around New Caprica. The Adamas are having a discussion about what to do, when Helo asks if alert fighters should be launched. Admiral Adama keeps them in as the defense fleet jumps away.

• Mr. Gaeta informs the President of the Cylon approach. Later, before his assembled staff, copies of Number 5, 8, and 6 approach the President. The Cylons declare that as long as there’s no resistance, no harm will come. President Baltar declares surrender on behalf of the colonists, and as Cylon armies occupy the planet, Kara vows to resist.

Questions

• Who is Baltar's vice president?
• What "number" is Cavil?
• Was Roslin's threat to put the two Cavils into space actually carried out?
  • Most likely not, she had the election on her mind, much to do, and didn't actually make it an order. Baltar would have been unlikely to vent them into space.
• Where did the defense fleet jump to?
  • Likely a prearranged rendezvous point, similar to that of the miniseries.
  • If the Colonies have actually been abandoned, the defense fleet might have jumped back there. While the worlds may well be uninhabitable, there may still be weapons and fuel to salvage. If the Ragnar Anchorage is still intact, that might serve as a good place to re-munition.
    • If that is the case, would the Fleet have enough fuel and crew to effectively re-arm the Battlestars?
    • Although Roslin calls the colonies a "nuked out wasteland," it seems apparant from scenes of Caprica that not only is there extensive vegetation left, but the radiation is not bad. The cylons have actually rebuilt many of the buildings, and they live on the planet without suffering from radiation. Since it has been nearly two years since the original cylon attack, radiation on the planets would have gone down significantly.
• Where is Caprica-Sharon?
  • Most likely, still in Galactica's brig. This is probably why Helo is still aboard ship, having taken a CIC officer's position.
    • This seems to be confirmed by his ready acceptance of Adama's order to jump away from New Caprica; if Sharon was not still aboard he would have protested.
  • In the podcast, Ron Moore vaguely hinted that they hadn't forgotten about Sharon, but that we'd have to "wait and see". Apparently, several of the early season 3 episodes will have flashbacks dealing with events that took place in the year that passed.
• What happened to Zarek?
• Why is Leoben looking for Starbuck, specifically?
  • Could it be the same Leoben Conoy that Starbuck interrogated in "Flesh and Bone"?
    • As seen with Galactica-Sharon, it is distinctly possible that that particular Leoben was lying when he said he'd actually die and not download.
  • It is likely that, as the only escapee from The Farm, they are interested in continuing with her. After all, there was an incision, and something had changed with her.
• Why has the population (until Tyrol's recent union speech) accepted Baltar's imperious rule? People were hardly so passive under Roslin. Indeed, Adama executed a military coup over a rather less important issue than giving a nuclear weapon to a Cylon agent.
  • Perhaps they were less contemptible towards Baltar because he was the first legitimately elected ruler they've had since Adar's death.
  • Admiral Adama wasn't conclusive as to how the weapon got on board Cloud Nine.
  • Baltar pointed out there have been no attacks since he took office. Under Roslin the attacks were common. Perhaps for a year the people decided they preferred the safety Baltar gave them to their liberties.
  • They did vote him in, and perhaps the struggle of trying to survive on this planet is distracting their attention, i.e. at first they weren't sure how much to blame on Baltar, or on the simple struggle of trying to rebuild. Howevever, it hasn't been a particularly smooth or easy presidency, as shown by the recent Union strike.
• Are the Six and Eight that Baltar surrendered to Caprica-Six and Galactica-Sharon?
  • Judging from Six's reaction to Baltar, it is either Caprica-Six or Gina.
• Where did the Cylon fleets go, after they left the Twelve Colonies? Cavil was deliberately vague when asked if they simply returned to the Cylon homeworld.
• Did the nuclear bomb ever get picked up by the fleet's radiological alarms?
• How many people died in the Cloud Nine explosion?
  • The Cloud Nine explosion also destroyed ships near it. Given the stated size of the New Caprica population along with subtracting the minimal crew sizes needed to maintain the ships in orbit, you can estimate that approximately 3000 to 5000 people died.
    • The full complement of Cloud Nine may have been lower than its share in proportion to fleet size, as it was a luxury liner. It seemed to be continuing to serve as a public meeting and recreational vessel after the Colonial Day election. It seems plausible that the minimal crew required to operate Cloud Nine would have been small, as with the STL botanical garden ship destroyed in the pilot episode. Equally, since Baltar was being sworn in, it is possible that Cloud Nine was not at full population.
• When Gina-Six was instantly vaporized due to being only two feet from a nuclear detonation, did she still transmit her consciousness? Was she even capable of transmitting considering that any internal hardware responsible for this task would have been instantly destroyed?
  • They have already established that with the Resurrection Ship destroyed, Cylons in the fleet that are killed will actually die. Gina expressed suicidal impulses as early as "Resurrection Ship, Part I".
  • Additionally, since the Cylons found the planet due to the radiation, it is unlikely that Gina was resurrected, as she then would have told the Cylons the location of the planet.
    • It is possible, perhaps even likely that the bulk of the civilian population was deliberately left in the dark about the fleets exact location, just in case there were Cylon agents in the fleet.
• Given Roslin's memories of Baltar with Six, why didn't Admiral Adama suspect Baltar of handing over the nuke to the cylons? If he did suspect him, why not act on it?
  • He had no real proof.
• Did the events of "One Year Later" actually happen, or were they a dream or vision sequence given to Baltar?
  • Although Baltar has had elaborate visions in the past, this vision left Baltar's point of view several times, addressing issues such as the marriage of Kara to Sam Anders and Adama's friendship with Tigh that are of little knowledge or importance to Baltar.
    • Ron D. Moore has stated in interviews that the first 4-5 episodes of season 3 will deal with the Cylon occupation of New Caprica, and unless a vast swath of episodes is going to be a dream sequence, all of these "one year later" events really happen.
    • Moore actually discusses this in the podcast, saying that many people might just assume this is a dream, or a Dallas-like season-erasing shower-dream episode, but he thought it was a bold decision to jump ahead a full year, and have all of it be definitely real.
• Why was it so easy for Adama to hide the collusion of the rigged election from the press, and why were there no consequences?
  • So far as we know, Adama, Tigh, Gaeta, Dualla, Dualla's two associates, Tory, and Roslin are the only people that knew; 6 are military personnel, 4 of whom would be implicated, and the other 2 were directly involved civilians. All are strongly motivated to conceal the information.
• Why would it take the Cylons over one year to find New Caprica, alerted by the nuclear detonation prior to the inhabitation of the planet?
  • It was stated in the previous episode that the interference from the gas cloud surrounding it would hide the planet fairly well. The Cylons were slightly over a light year away, according to the Number Five. Searching something as large as the gas cloud likely is for a planet or fleet is, given the sensor range limitations, quite impressive to accomplish in months, even with general directional information from a light-year out.
    • Actually with the Cylon base 1 light year away, it would take 1 year for the nuke to show up on the Cylon sensors. Short of some FTL communication system, that's the only way the Cylons would have been able to detect the planet. Since the fleet is all in within non-FTL distances, all the FTL devices, if any exist would likely have been destroyed or disabled.
• If the Cylons really left the Twelve Colonies, leaving behind a nuked-out wasteland, what happened to all of the human captives in the Farms?
  • Has it really been established that all that remains of the colonies are nuked-out wastelands? Yes, it's clear that they were nuked from the mini-series, yet in more recent episodes, it's also clear that the Cylons have been rebuilding them, in particular Caprica. The comment is bizarre in that Admiral Adama would know this as well, given the return of Anders who no doubt gave a full account of his experiences.
    • Adama and Roslin appeared to be questioning the Cavils immediately after the Caprica copy was detained, leaving no time for Anders' debriefing.
• Why have the Cylons returned? According to Cavil, the two races were to go their "separate ways". The Cylons may have been worried about the humans retaliating at some point in the future, but the location of the Cylon world(s) is still unknown to the humans, so ensuring the safety of their society presumably isn't the motive behind the occupation of New Caprica.
  • In "The Hand of God", it was actually implied that the Colonials do know the location of the Cylon homeworld, and at no time has anyone ever said "we don't know the location of the Cylon homeworld".
  • This assumes that the Cylons were being honest in their announcement of withdrawl from all Human contact and association. It is possible that this was a tactical feint and the Cylons went looking for possible alternate locations where the Humans could have resettled.
  • Cavil stated that the cylon "war heros" had changed cylon opinion about the war on the humans, perhaps others within the cylon population had swung public opinion back towards starting up the war again.
    • If Cylon opinion had been swung back in favor of war, then Caprica-Six and Galactica-Sharon would not be leading a delegation to demand surrender. The cylons must have some ulterior motive, probably involving Starbuck. Otherwise, they could have simply bombed the human settlement from space.
      • Perhaps, due to Caprica-Six and Galactica-Sharon's influences, the Cylons are actually trying to 'help' the humans in their own way this time around. This would also not contradict the Cavils' statement of the Cylons stopping their attacks on humanity.
• Did the Cavils lie about the pursuit of humanity being a mistake? Or were they telling the truth?
  • If they were telling the truth, perhaps not all Cylons are readily able to admit and rectify their mistakes as the Cavils believed.
  • It seems that the intent was truthful, given that Caprica-Six and Sharon are taking an active leadership role in this new occupation. What seems unclear is how their positions has changed from Downloaded, where they clearly felt that the Cylon destruction of humanity was wrong. This is especially so for Sharon, who still considered herself human. Why would she go along willingly with this new course of action of occupation and presumably other forms of experimentation.
• Will the Cylons resume their pursuit of the Fleet?
• How many people are left in the Fleet?
  • The population of New Caprica City is given as 39,192. There were just under 50,000 people in the Fleet before establishing the settlement, so that gives a figure of roughly 10,000 missing. It is uncertain how many were killed in the destruction of Cloud 9 and surrounding Fleet ships but this loss along with any births and deaths that have taken place during the year since the election, leaves very few military personnel in the Orbital Defense. This almost certainly means that both Galactica and Pegasus will be extremely short on crew, as many military personnel will have been left on the planet. There was clearly no time to retrieve even selected members of the crews before the Fleet jumped.
  • Watching the Fleet jump in slow-motion, you can count approximately 19 ships, which also gives a rough impression of the reduced size of the fleet. Other ships, including Colonial One and some Raptors, are landed on New Caprica and have presumably fallen into the hands of the Cylons.
  • It is not explicitly said that all members of the New Caprica colony reside in New Caprica City. There may be outlying settlements, though none are named. One reason for this would simply be as a safeguard to keep a single nuclear strike from wiping out all of the fleet survivors.
    • Will the Adamas resort to Cain's tactic of conscripting civilians to fill the gaps?
      • Although William Adama has not conscripted civillians like Admiral Cain did, he did draft some to be viper pilots in the episode "Act of Contrition." This would have set a precedent to draft or conscript more civillians especially in this obvious time of crisis.
• What happened between Apollo and Starbuck?
  • Colonel Tigh mentioned that the incident that happened "a long time ago" and that it wouldn't prevent Apollo from giving antibiotics to Starbuck. When she contacted him aboard Pegasus, he seemed very much not to want to talk to her.
    • Problems may have arisen due to possible jealousy of Anders.
    • This may refer to Starbuck's drunken comments about Apollo and Dualla.
• What led to Starbuck's reconciliation with Col. Tigh? The two had been in conflict since the Miniseries, what led them to bury the hatchet and become the close friends they now appear to be?
• Has it become public knowledge that Baltar killed Crashdown on Kobol? Now that Chief and Cally are Baltar's open adversaries they could attempt to use this information against him.
• When Adama informes Baltar that the nuke used to blow up Cloud Nine was probably stolen form Gaius' lab, why is he not he suspicious about the fact that Baltar never reported that it was missing? Had it really been stolen from his lab, he would surely notice.

Analysis

• Baltar's arrogance seems to have led to corrupt rule during his year on New Caprica—he replaces Roslin's modest desk with a larger, elaborate one, replaces the population count whiteboard with a portrait of himself, and keeps a harem aboard the landed Colonial One.
• After a whole year, everyone is still living in tents. There is a vital shortage of medicine, the military is of no use, and labor conditions are apparently intolerable. Baltar's administration is apparently as incompetent as Roslin feared.
  • It is not clear whether these conditions are the result of admimistrative incompetence or the inherent difficulties of colonizing a marginally habitable planet.
    • Of course, it was Baltar's idea to settle on a marginally habitable planet in the first place.
• It's ironic that the obligations of duty keep Lee Adama aboard Pegasus while everyone else goes planetside—he is a reserve officer, and promised to build his pilots a bar as soon as they found a habitable planet.
• Ron Moore has once again decided to play with viewer's expectations; in the podcast for "Resurrection Ship, Part II" Moore commented on how everyone assumed that Pegasus would be destroyed by the end of the episode, and thus he thought it would be a good twist to keep Pegasus alive as another ship in the Fleet. Here, many viewers assumed that the nuke that Baltar gave to Gina in "Epiphanies" would be used to destroy Pegasus this time, but it wasn't.
• 29 people died between this episode and the preceding one? One or two Raptors were lost, and some Marines died on Caprica, but that doesn't seem high enough.
  • Is it possible they took out all of the people who left in the raptors because they were not apart of the fleet at the end of the previous episode?
    • They didn't remove Starbuck from the count when she left for Caprica at the beginning of Season 2.
      • She left at the end of season one, before they started the count. But, they did not add her to the count when she returned with Helo, because the count rose by one.
  • Maybe more people died during the attack on Caprica than was shown.
    • Yet another possibility is the inclusion of the Caprica survivors in the count to offset many of the losses that had incurred in the rescue mission.
    • Although they didn't actually talk about the losses, there was a shot of a wounded person being taken away on a stretcher after the Raptors returned from the Caprica SAR mission.
  • There may have been a series of election-related riots or murders.

Notes

• According to Ron Moore's podcast, although Scifi Channel was willing to air this episode as a 90-minute special, it had to be heavily edited down for international distribution; outside of the United States, viewers will only see a 1 hour version of the episode, which Moore regards as "almost incomprehensible". Many plot threads, such as the entire Cally/Tyrol subplot, were completely removed from the one hour version.
• Ron Moore's podcast for episode 13, Epiphanies, states that the Nuke given to Gina will come back in this episode, to the benefit of the Cylons.
• Admiral Adama watches Pyramid games and is a fan of the Picon Panthers.
• In RDM's podcast for the previous episode, he said that in early drafts of this special 90 minute long episode, the writers actually tried to make it a 2 hour special, but this was soon dropped (these times are including commercials).
• The election board appears to have a definitive list of the names of all of the ships in The Fleet (RDM). Not all of them are clearly visible, but this would seem to indicate that the writers do have an actual list that they get new ship names from. Ship names visible on the chart are: Demetrius, Diomedes, Embla Brokk, Enkidu, Epheme, Galactica, Gideon, Gemenon Traveller, Greenleaf, Monarch, Odysseus, Pegasus, Persephone, Prometheus, Swordfish
• The framed photo of President Roslin and Billy Keikeya was still on her desk during the election.
• When Roslin "won" the rigged election results, Roslin received 24,265 votes, while Baltar recieved 22,266. This means that the elligible voters in the Fleet number 46,531. In the podcast, RDM explains that he quickly came up with these numbers, to try to reflect roughly how many survivors are below the voting age.
• Toward the end of the episode, President Baltar refers to a government body called the "People's Council". This may be the proportionally elected lower house mentioned in by RDM in his blog post on January 30, 2005.
• Hera is seen on New Caprica in the same white cradle that Baltar had a vision of her being in in "Scattered", etc. According to RDM's podcast it's actually the exact same cradle.
• Tyrol's union speech is an almost word for word quote of Mario Savio's address during the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley in 1964. According to Ron Moore and David Eick in the podcast, they even got permission from Savio's widow to use it (even though, due to the way copyright laws work from back then, they could have just used it without permission, they felt they should get it). As a result, it's even listed in the credits: "Mario Savio speech excerpted courtesy of: Lynne Hollander Savio". Actor Aaron Douglas (Chief Tyrol) actually studied film of Savio, so all of the hand gestures Tyrol makes when he gives the speech are gestures that Savio actually used.
• Baltar's portrait of himself does not have the 'cut corners' as seen in most (all?) other papers and photos in the show.

Noteworthy Dialogue

• Dr. Cottle decides Cally is ready to return to duty:

Cottle: You're done here. I'm kickin' you out of here and sending you back to work.

Cally: (muffled, because her jaw is immobilized) Work??? Like this?

Cottle: You gotta love a woman who can complain even with her jaw wired shut.

• "Would you mind telling me what's going on? I'm not a frakking Cylon, I'm not…(sees the other Cavil in the cell)…oh. Well, okay then."

  —Brother Cavil

• "Gods help us."

  -Admiral Adama over the objection of Edward James Olmos (podcast)

• Trying to bring order to a Union meeting:

Tyrol: Everyone, please be quiet. (crowd ignores him)

Cally: Hey! Shut the frak up! (crowd quiets down)

• Admiral Adama: We're leaving. But we'll be back.

• The Cylons occupy New Caprica:

Tyrol: "What do you want to do now, Captain?"

Starbuck: "The same thing we always do. Fight them until we can't."

Official Statements

From the official site (http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/): When Baltar wins the vote, Roslin considers stealing the election because she believes he is a Cylon collaborator.

Guest Stars

• Richard Hatch as Tom Zarek
• Dean Stockwell as Brother Cavil
• Michael Trucco as Samuel Anders
• Kate Vernon as Ellen Tigh
• Donnelly Rhodes as Dr. Cottle
• Callum Keith Rennie as Leoben Conoy
• Matthew Bennett as Aaron Doral
• Rekha Sharma as Tory Foster
• David Kaye as James McManus
• Alisen Down as Jean Barclay
• Winston Rekert as Priest

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