Resurrection Ship, Part I

"Resurrection Ship, Part I" An episode of the Re-imagined Series
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R&D Skit – [[R_and_D_TV (Season {{{season}}})#Resurrection Ship, Part I|View]]
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Overview

A military power struggle threatens to escalate into all-out war as the Battlestars Galactica and Pegasus attempt to join forces to destroy a critical Cylon target: a “Resurrection” ship.

Summary

• Kara Thrace flies in behind the Cylon fleet following Galactica. The stealth features of the Blackbird allow her to fly to and within the superstructure of the Unknown Cylon Ship, taking pictures along the way. Just before leaving the superstructure, she Jumps away to safety and the Fleet.
• [Thrace returns from her unsanctioned reconnaissance of the Cylon fleet in the middle of Adama and Cain's standoff, with recon images of the Unknown Cylon Ship. Her return appears on DRADIS as a Raider and causes Viper squadrons from both Galactica and Pegasus to stop a deadly game of "chicken", with neither side firing unless fired upon.
• Thrace downloads her incredibly detailed pictures of the Unknown Cylon Ship. A closeup shows Cylon bodies, including several inactive copies of the agent known as Gina.
• After being grilled for their near-disasterous action on Colonial One by President Laura Roslin, Adama and Cain agree to a truce while they prepare a joint attack on the Cylon fleet.
• Roslin warns Adama that Cain is a loose cannon, who must be killed in order to save the Fleet from annihilation. Adama is surprised at Roslin's candor, and is reluctant to consider the idea.
• Adama learns that the Pegasus was also shepherding a civilian fleet, which it abandoned months ago, but not before stripping it of anything useful, including FTL drives, spare parts, and people. Cain threatened to shoot the families of individuals she selected that would not leave with Pegasus.
• Gaius Baltar speaks more with Gina, who wants Baltar to kill her so she can free herself from her tortureous existance. He tells her that she cannot die as her consciousness would only download into another Cylon body. Seeing the copies of reconnaissance photos Baltar is carrying, Gina says she would die if his Fleet destroys the Unknown ship.
• Baltar briefs Adama and Cain: The ship is known as the Resurrection Ship. Its function is to allow Cylon agents a place where their consciousness can download, as an agent in the Fleet would be too far from the Cylon homeworld for their consciousness to return. Cain quickly surmises that, without the Resurrection Ship, the few agents remaining would be permanently gone, perhaps more reluctant to complete their respective missions.
• Laura Roslin's illness is now more visibly apparent. William Adama visits her, and the two have a most unusual, even sentimental talk, with humor about getting a fresh, young Cylon body replacement for Roslin. Adama smiles and says that he couldn't think of her as a blonde, but Roslin smiles and says he'd be surprised.
• Cain finds Thrace's initiative intriguing, and promotes her to Captain and assigns her as Pegasus CAG. She initially pulls Lee Adama's flight status, but Thrace successfully asks for young Adama to be on her team. Thrace begins plans on an attack on the Resurrection Ship.
• Helo and Galen Tyrol are pleasantly surprised not to be dead. Lee Adama visits the two and catches them up on events, noting that his father pulled out the stops to ensure Helo's and Tyrol's survival.
• Thrace briefs the battlestar commanders on the attack plan. Adama consults with Thrace privately, asking her to shoot Cain in the head after the attack. Likewise, Cain instructs Jack Fisk to shoot Adama and his command after the attack after she transfers Fisk and a squad of Marines loyal to her to Galactica.

Questions

• Why doesn't Cain and her crew grasp the concept that survival of the human race supersedes the military way of life?
• Why would Cain consider a return to the Colonies to attack the Cylons when she's hopelessly outnumbered?
• If Dr. Cottle were to perform a psychological examination on Cain, could Adama strip her of command for medical reasons?
  • Adama could have just had Roslin strip her of her rank because she's Commander-in-Chief; it doesn't matter: Cain's hold over Pegasus is so tight it would be fluffed off. Also, Cain is not clinically insane. It's not just "insane" humans who do evil things in wartime. Cain does bad things, and she doesn't have the excuse of not being in command of her mental faculties.
• Has Roslin's illness has brought her to terminally important attitudes on life and death? Unlike the option to kill the prisoners on the Astral Queen (Miniseries), Roslin does not hesitate to suggest to Adama to kill Cain.

Analysis

This episode fails to skip a beat from the mid-season closer. With Galactica's and Pegasus' Vipers in a scary game of chicken, the level of tension borders on the "fish in a blender" scenario.

Admiral Cain is clearly showing signs of stress indicative of some kind of sociopathic disorder; her orders and desire to follow the military way overshadow any compassion or understanding of the reality of her situation. She fails to understand that killing Helo and Tyrol worsens the Fleet, as she cannot simply find a suitable replacement.

The star of this show, albeit briefly appearing, is Mary McDonnell's Roslin. Like her namesake Blackbird itself, Roslin shows her toughness in staring down Cain and Adama, who actually looks ashamed in his actions while Roslin reads both "the riot act." Were not for the situation, Roslin's second talk with Adama, maybe the first time that Roslin does not appear with Adama in regular clothing, very casual, and obviously ill, seemed more like two old friends. Adama does something viewers have rarely seen with Roslin--his face relaxes and shows humor, sympathy, perhaps even sadness at Roslin's illness and her strength in looking her illness in the face and denying it anyway. He offers his hand and she accepts with a squeeze before she leaves. It seems in this moment that Roslin and Adama exchanged more romantic chemistry than the writer's attempts to do the same with Adama's son and Kara Thrace.

Baltar was generally neutral in this episode, playing both sides, Adama and Cain, Colonial and Cylon, to the advantage of all. His motives in saving Gina are still in doubt, and viewers are likely to see more development here.

Pilot Louanne Katraine has apparently got her groove back from "Final Cut", appearing to have become the lead pilot on Galactica (with Thrace's transfer) and becoming the top bird in their game of chicken with Pegasus' pilots. She's confident, flying well, and has an itchy firing trigger finger.

Viewers are likely more interested not in the upcoming battle, now a more evenly matched fight between Colonial and Cylon (all things considered--basestars generate Raiders like rabbits generate offspring), but in the battle for control of the Fleet, with both Adama and Cain performing similar strategies to kill the other.

Goofs

• Cain wonders if debating morality is what Roslin and Adama have been doing "for the past six months"; however, as explained in the Timeline (RDM), this episode only takes place roughly three months after the Fall of the Twelve Colonies. Specifically, the beginning of "Flight of the Phoenix" took place 30 days after "Resistance", when the crashed Raptor team returned from Kobol, which only took place few days after Day 51 (the last time we see a time explicitly given on screen, in "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II". In "Flight of the Phoenix", Roslin was told that her cancer had advanced its rate of progression, and she had only a month to live at the most. The idea that the episode "Pegasus)" (which took place immediatly before this one) took place three months after "Flight of the Phoenix" thus seems entirely impossible, and this line should be regarded as a goof.

Notes

• Admiral Cain promotes Kara Thrace to the rank of captain. She replaces Stinger as Pegasus' CAG.
• The Cylon fleet containing the Resurrection Ship has been following the Colonial Fleet. It was speculated that the Resurrection Ship was a safety net for any Cylons who died in the Fleet.
  • Logically, it follows that the copy of Leoben Conoy previously discovered in the Fleet had his consciousness downloaded to this ship.
• During the closing R&D production company animation, in which David Eick is sliced in two by a bolt of lightning, House Resolution 2995 of the 109th Congress is mentioned in a news ticker. The resolution, introduced June 27, 2005, involves the creation of a "Weather Modification Operations and Research Board." Source: GovTrack

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Re-imagined Series definition: technology enabling travel across distances faster than the speed of light would permit, see: FTL

Re-imagined Series definition: the senior pilot on a battlestar