Legacy of the Twelve Colonies Volume IV: Battlestar Galactica... There's a Starbuck Waiting in the Sky

Forgiveness, like revenge, is a dish best served cold. At least, that's what mom always told me. Learning to move on from any kind of sustained animosity or after being wronged is no easy feat for either the forgiver or the forgivee (unless either one of those parties is a complete sociopath, which in that case, problem solved, I guess), and in my own experience, forgiveness is almost always driven by some utilitarian purpose. This isn't a knock against any variety of situational pragmatism: in fact quite the opposite. Most important decisions in life tend to be made only when our hand is forced. (Or maybe I'm just an indecisive bastard.) Real life has a way of throwing curve balls; it's these changes in our personal situations that tend to act as catalysts for our really big decisions. And rightfully so. In life, as in film, we're often far better served by what we need rather than by what we want. And the contingency that serves as an impetus for driving decisions should also necessarily bleed over into the content of those decisions:

Like trust, respect, love, and making on offer on a house, forgiveness should always be conditional.
 
This may seem counter-intuitive, but essentially what I'm arguing for is forgiveness in the sense of accountability rather than forgiveness in the mystic sense of the Christian (or Cylon) tradition, which is tainted by this concept of absolution. People absolutely should be given second chances, but it's important to make this distinction between accountability and absolution. Accountability is a process of accepting responsibility for one's actions, and involves an effort on the part of the individual who wronged someone to better themselves and atone for what they've done; it's also a process that involves that individual's society (either on a macro or micro level) to work with and support them, and reintegrate them back into the group. Absolution, on the other hand, is an abdication of all responsibility by all parties to have to change or strive to do better; it's a surrender, in the worst sense of the word, of any kind of moral obligation for everyone involved, sacrificing the need to process uncomfortable emotions like hate, anger, guilt, or resentment in favour of a self-indulgent and immediate gratification.

Like much of the series, Season 4 of Battlestar Galactica doesn't shy away from difficult ethical questions like this. Season 4 was, in many respects, centred around this core theme of the pragmatism of forgiveness, and that divide between accountability and absolution. Well, that, and, of course, hot robot sex.

Legacy of the Twelve Colonies Volume III: Battlestar Galactica... The Occupy New Caprica Movement

In the wake of 9/11, the Terrorist became the bogeyman de jour. One of the most defining characteristics of this new threat was their propensity for using suicide bombers. It's a difficult mindset to understand and one typically associated with the evil hordes threatening to kick down our front doors. So it was all the more striking for a sci-fi show made by Western Devils just a few years after the single most iconic terrorist act in modern history to empathize--quite effectively--with what amounts to a terrorist movement employing suicide bombers against the enemy.

Granted, Battlestar Galactica does give us more meat to sink our teeth into in terms of contextualizing the extreme measures the survivors of humanity are willing to resort to in order to fight back against their cybernetic oppressors than, say, nobodies favourite real-life assholes in al-Qaeda. At the outset of Season 3, we're presented with a scenario and point of view that makes such methods more easy to swallow, but that in itself is a pretty incredible feat considering the political landscape both then and now. Ask anybody in the Western world--especially residents of the good 'ol US of A--in the wake of the 9/11 attacks whether they could ever fathom what it would take for somebody to consider going to such extremes, and what few answers you would have been able to remember after waking up in the hospital three days later probably wouldn't have offered much insight into that sort of mindset. For most people living in modern times, it's a nearly unfathomable thought experiment. So to have it tackled in a mature and nuanced way in a sci-fi show about humanity's struggle against annihilation at the hands of usually pretty sexy murder-bots is a feat unto itself.

Legacy of the Twelve Colonies Volume II: Battlestar Galactica... Cross-Species Pollination and Burdens Laid Down

I like my television shows how I like my women: coherent, engaging, relatively free from plot holes, and benefiting from a strong narrative arc. Also, a healthy budget doesn't hurt either. Also, after diving into Battlestar Galactica, a love of cigars and fine liquors is also a plus. Also, strong doses of Katee Sackhoff are also basically a must. Being Katee Sackhoff is even better. Or maybe just a show about Katee Sackhoff taking names and kicking ass, or just kicking ass, or just doing whatever the fuck she wants to do because Starbuck is a fucking god.

After a strong start, I think it's safe to say that I did not find it too hard difficult to become completely immersed in Katee Sackhoff the world of the reborn Battlestar Galactica television series. As far as television sci-fi goes, it's hard to think of a real contender in recent years. It's as exciting as it is insightful, effectively dealing with moral, social, and political issues in a fairly nuanced way without any really definitive black or white answers, but more of a murky grey maybe flecked with, I don't know, whatever colour explosions are. Red and orange maybe. (I don't know, I've been watching a lot of Archer recently, and I totally can't help but read that last sentence in Archer's voice. I know, right?)

Legacy of the Twelve Colonies Volume I: Battlestar Galactica... Sex, Guns, and the Apocalypse

I was raised on a steady diet of sci-fi (and Whoop-Ass, a can of which a day is conducive to keeping away all manner of punk-ass bitches), though for a short while I underwent a definite nutritional deficiency. I never bottomed out completely, but for a time, I was most certainly not getting my daily recommended dose of science fiction, and all of the health benefits that such a regime typically provides. It was really kick-started again a few years ago with the double-shot of Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3, the second and third installments in the beloved (except for the ending, apparently) video game franchise sensation. Besides being catapulted to one of my top ten trilogies of anything in any medium, the Mass Effect series also ushered in my own personal Sci-Fi Renaissance (think RENAISSANCE MAN but with less military training and more sitting on my ass on the couch watching movies and playing video games, slightly less Danny DeVito, and basically a lack of anything that even vaguely resembling the archetypal ‘90s comedy except the name).

My reborn, ravenous appetite had some pleasant side-effects, such as a willingness to expand my horizons, the most notable case of which involved overcoming my irrational hatred of Joss Whedon and discovering Firefly, which turned out to be incredibly awesome. Another sci-fi narrative/phenomenon that has been on my radar for some time is the remade/rebooted/reimagined Battlestar Galactica series that ran from 2004 to 2009. (Incidentally, Tricia Helfer, who featured heavily in the Mass Effect series as EDI is also one of the leads in Battlestar Galactica, which was another reason to throw myself into the fray.) The show was developed in large part by one Ronald D. Moore, whose Star Trek pedigree gives him all kinds of street cred on the proper street, which just happened to be one I had frequented all too often in my youth and then basically took up permanent residence on.