Penology in Battlestar Galactica

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2005-04-01 05:42am

Yesterday afternoon, SciFi marathoned several episodes of the original Battlestar Galactica series which included the episodes "Take The Celestra" and "The Hand Of God". In the former, two seperate groups of mutineers aboard the industry-ship Celestra rebel against the iron-willed Commander Kronos; the first simply to desert the fleet for a nearby habitable world over the slavedriving conditions existing on board, the second to actually seize command and dispose of Kronos for personal aggrandizement and this group led by Kronos' own exec, Chaka. In both cases, Kronos says that the mutineers will end up spending the rest of their lives on the prison barge. The second, "The Hand Of God" involves Adama agreeing to commute Baltar's sentence of life imprisonment to exile on a nearby habitable planet with supplies and a short-range transmitter in exchange for intel on how to infiltrate and disable the scanners of a Cylon basestar Adama intends to attack and destroy.

From what we see in the first series, there seems to be no capital punishment in the fleet. Even for a crime as serious as Baltar's genocidal treason against the Twelve Colonies of Man, the worst punishment is life aboard the prison barge. Given that resources must be strictly rationed for the full benefit of over 200,000 civilians, you'd think this would not allow the luxury of maintaining large and increasing numbers of long-term prisoners who would constitute a waste of those limited resources as well as a potential source of trouble arising from a large number of malcontents who have no stake in the survival of the fleet.

This would seem to logically justify not only captial punishment but its application over a relatively broad list of crimes not only to conserve resources but also to reduce the number of potential rebels who might make trouble for the fleet and its civilian population. You'd think the death penalty would be imposed not only for the most serious crimes of treason, espionage, murder, and mutiny, but also for attempted murder, manslaughter, attempted manslaughter, felony murder, felony manslaughter, felony attempted murder/manslaughter, rape, kidnapping and hostage-taking, sabotage and any defined act of terrorism. Societies facing extreme challenges to their collective survival in history have tended to mandate death for any excuse to reduce useless eaters, and the refugee fleet certainly meets the definition of that type of society. Of course, given that the original was a product of the 70s, that sort of logic was probably unthinkable to that series' writers (the real world explanation, of course).

I haven't seen very much of the new series and so have no idea if this issue has been touched upon in that storyline or not.

FTeik · Post by **FTeik** » 2005-04-01 07:47am

Can't comment on the new series, but if only 200,000 beings are left from a population, you would need everyone alive for genetic diversity.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2005-04-01 08:47am

FTeik wrote:Can't comment on the new series, but if only 200,000 beings are left from a population, you would need everyone alive for genetic diversity.

Harvest sperm samples and eggs for freezing from condemned prisoners, then space 'em. Solves both problems.

FTeik · Post by **FTeik** » 2005-04-01 09:58am

Patrick Degan wrote:
FTeik wrote:Can't comment on the new series, but if only 200,000 beings are left from a population, you would need everyone alive for genetic diversity.
Harvest sperm samples and eggs for freezing from condemned prisoners, then space 'em. Solves both problems.

Their religious believes probabely prevent them from doing so.

Steven Snyder · Post by **Steven Snyder** » 2005-04-01 11:03am

FTeik wrote:Can't comment on the new series, but if only 200,000 beings are left from a population, you would need everyone alive for genetic diversity.

Actively participating in a behavior that will make your own species extinct is something of an aberration.

There is a chance that he was like this due to a mental defect steming from genetics. I would purge him out of an airlock and lose one of 200,000 than risk putting such a self-destructive gene back into the pool.

StarshipTitanic · Post by **StarshipTitanic** » 2005-04-01 03:07pm

In "War of the Gods," Baltar is captured by the Colonials and put on trial for his crimes (very brief scene). Obviously, as a series regular, they couldn't execute him so they probably figured that the death penalty wouldn't work.

In the miniseries, Baltar is concerned about being found out and executed (the scene where Six tells him what she is in his bedroom) as a traitor.

Darth Sephiroth · Post by **Darth Sephiroth** » 2005-04-01 04:02pm

Didn't they space the one human cylon?

Jalinth · Post by **Jalinth** » 2005-04-01 04:17pm

StarshipTitanic wrote:
In the miniseries, Baltar is concerned about being found out and executed (the scene where Six tells him what she is in his bedroom) as a traitor.

Baltar in the mini-series is a bit of an exception. He is the guy who basically allowed the Cylons to kill 99%+ of the human race courtesy of his prick - including almost everyone's friends, families, dogs, you name it. So for him, if caught, he'll die one way or the other - legally or being lynched. His death would be a political necessity. But almost anyone else is needed just for genetic diversity reasons.

Deathstalker · Post by **Deathstalker** » 2005-04-01 11:30pm

People don't necessarliy have to be killed. Exile to a habital planet, which in the old series they seemed to come across every week, would just work as well. The flaw is if they don't come across a planet in a reasonable amount of time.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2005-04-01 11:38pm

Darth Sephiroth wrote:Didn't they space the one human cylon?

He wasn't a human, though. He was a Cylon.

StarshipTitanic · Post by **StarshipTitanic** » 2005-04-01 11:49pm

Jalinth wrote:Baltar in the mini-series is a bit of an exception. He is the guy who basically allowed the Cylons to kill 99%+ of the human race courtesy of his prick - including almost everyone's friends, families, dogs, you name it. So for him, if caught, he'll die one way or the other - legally or being lynched. His death would be a political necessity. But almost anyone else is needed just for genetic diversity reasons.

He specifically said something like "The punishment for treason is death."

Post by **Coyote** » 2005-04-02 01:13pm

The "human Cylon" in the miniseries was left aboard the Ragnar munitions station with food and water. They felt pretty sure he was a Cylon but not 100% sure, so they left him on the base, which appears to have been automated.

But I would have blown it up instead, if for no other reason than simply to deny the munitions to the enemy.

SCVN 2812 · Post by **SCVN 2812** » 2005-04-02 10:44pm

Coyote wrote:The "human Cylon" in the miniseries was left aboard the Ragnar munitions station with food and water. They felt pretty sure he was a Cylon but not 100% sure, so they left him on the base, which appears to have been automated.

But I would have blown it up instead, if for no other reason than simply to deny the munitions to the enemy.

Every bullet and warhead on that station is probably crammed into every available space in the fleet not taken up by a person or basic necessities of life like food and water otherwise they would not have left the station intact or there just wasn't time.

Post by **Coyote** » 2005-04-02 11:25pm

Which reminds me-- are the weapons in BSG bullet-slingers, or blasters? They talk about "bullets" a lot, but it could be euphimism left over form the past (ie, Star Wars "lasers" and our own, modern "record" industry)...

frigidmagi · Post by **frigidmagi** » 2005-04-02 11:26pm

From what I've seen their side arms are bullet slingers.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2005-04-02 11:27pm

frigidmagi wrote:From what I've seen their side arms are bullet slingers.

They do an awful lot of damage in Kobol's Last Gleaming Pt. II to be slug-throwers.

StarshipTitanic · Post by **StarshipTitanic** » 2005-04-03 01:15am

That's because they have little rocket launchers, too.

SCVN 2812 · Post by **SCVN 2812** » 2005-04-03 01:30am

Uraniun235 wrote:
frigidmagi wrote:From what I've seen their side arms are bullet slingers.
They do an awful lot of damage in Kobol's Last Gleaming Pt. II to be slug-throwers.

What scene in particular are you talking about? Someone practically sticking even a very low calibre gun in your stomach and pulling the trigger is not going to be healthy.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2005-04-03 01:35am

Coyote wrote:Which reminds me-- are the weapons in BSG bullet-slingers, or blasters? They talk about "bullets" a lot, but it could be euphimism left over form the past (ie, Star Wars "lasers" and our own, modern "record" industry)...

We see honest to god 'bullet slingers' via the Marines weapons and Boomer's side arm she 'shoots herself with'. The pilot emergancy side arm appearse to be something different in that it's stockier and has two barrels. The big ass holes in Cylon Centurions and the smaller damage to Boomer (Caprica) seem to indicate that the weapon has a 'bullet slinger' and a bigger 'ass whooper' intergrated into one weapon.

Deathstalker · Post by **Deathstalker** » 2005-04-03 01:37am

Coyote wrote:Which reminds me-- are the weapons in BSG bullet-slingers, or blasters? They talk about "bullets" a lot, but it could be euphimism left over form the past (ie, Star Wars "lasers" and our own, modern "record" industry)...

In "Kobol's Last Gleaming part 1" Starbuck was loading belted ammunition into the cylon raider. The cannons that were added to it looked to be about 20-30 mm. On the BSG site, the Gal's guns are said to be railguns.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2005-04-03 04:49am

SCVN 2812 wrote:What scene in particular are you talking about? Someone practically sticking even a very low calibre gun in your stomach and pulling the trigger is not going to be healthy.

The scene where Starbuck's trying to shoot #6, and she shoots a statue and breaks it in two.