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 Cavil confirms it. He also says he has a message, but is attacked by Chief Tyrol, who declares a "Code blue," claiming Cavil is a Cylon. Both Cavil and Caprica-Sharon are escorted to the brig under marine guard.

• The other Cavil (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 Cavils 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 three 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?
• Where did the defense fleet jump to?
• Where is Caprica-Sharon?
• What happened to Zarek?
• Why is Leoben looking for Starbuck, specifically?
• 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.
• Are the Six and Eight that Baltar surrendered to Caprica-Six and Galactica-Sharon?
• 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? (see #Analysis)
• 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?
• 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?
• Why was it so easy for Adama to hide the collusion of the rigged election from the press, and why were there no consequences?
• 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?
• Why have the Cylons returned after suggesting that they were willing to go their "separate ways"?
• Did the Cavils lie about the pursuit of humanity being a mistake? Or were they telling the truth?
• Will the Cylons resume their pursuit of the Fleet?
• How many people are left in the Fleet?
• Will the Adamas resort to Cain's tactic of conscripting civilians to fill the gaps?
• What happened between Apollo and Starbuck?
• 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.
  • Who says he didn't build a bar for them? However dispite building a bar he would still have to be comanding the Pegasus.
• 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. This may not be the case in the UK however as Skyone (the channel that broadcasts the show in that country) previously showed the full 90 minute version of Stargate SG1 episode 'Threads' and may well do the same for this episode.
• 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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