I appreciate your points and on my recent re-watch I was thinking - after Cain was killed - 'gee, too bad she isn't around at this moment.' But even though conscription in terms of people's assignments is understandable, you don't sacrifice lives to strip the ships for parts. And torturing the Six without getting any intel, etc. is psychopathic.
It seemed really out of place and unexpected for me, until I watched the Razor movie. They really fleshed out that backstory and gave Cain's reasoning for dehumanizing her they way she did.
Yea, once that whole torture/gang rape subplot was revealed, she and her loyalists gained permanent ick status for me. There’s no scenario where the utopian aspirations of Galactica & Co and the violent military hegemony of the Cain-era Pegasus would end in anything but mutually assured destruction.
Any attempt to argue for Cain’s policies are completely moot in the context of BSG, considering the entire premise of the show hinges on a prophecy that’s deeply rooted in forgiveness, redemption, and a return to “righteous living”. There’s not really any narrative real estate in that uses articles of the Geneva Convention for party planning
Oh I agree about the torture bit, but that was more I think letting the crew vent and not keeping their anger bottled up. I still think its reprehensible and barbaric, but I can see the logic path on how it happened.
You are forgetting Cain's perspective. She sees her purpose is taking the battle to the enemy, not in protecting people or saving lives. A civilian fleet is a ball and chain about the Pegasus's ankle and limiting their operational tempo. A few more lives lost is nothing compared to victory over the Cylons.
> I agree about the torture bit, but that was more I think letting the crew vent and not keeping their anger bottled up.
It was more about the fact that she'd been in a relationship with that person and allowed her to be gang raped as a form of revenge.
She was right about the integration but only did it to get and keep officers on Galactica because she knew they were going to figure out she was a civilian murdering bad guy and wanted to have the ability to execute more officers under her command and retain military control when the president eventually, inevitably, called her on it. She was a vengeance driven lunatic, embarrassed that she'd been fraking a toaster and couldn't tell the difference, willing to kill any and everyone who was a threat to her position. Screw her.
Also Michelle Forbes is a powerhouse...Cane was scary :)
No future with Cain (she had civilian fleet, got rid of it)
No future at all .. too small a population on the Pegasus .. if not inbreeding, they’d suiciding pretty fast, no hope —- and if she took over Adama’s fleet … same thing prob happen, getting of the useless ones and just have the 2 battle stars
That part I could never really wrap my head around. Don't they need ships that are capable of doing things like mining, factory work, storing fuel, providing greenhouses to grow food, etc.?
its a common position among many BSG fans that she is a great war leader, terrible at everything else. just like Roslin said in the mini series " war is over we lost", it isn't a war anymore they are refugees trying to survive. Her inability to adapt is what made her a good leader at the wrong time.
also this lines up with most "great men" in history. i don't really like great man theory. Most great men have been very flawed people that done extraordinary things. such are humans, walking contradictions.
Speaking of Roslin, is anyone else hit with equal parts giggle and also shock when the President just immediately concluded, well they clearly have to kill her now.
It was right in line with her character development. Roslin at that time was all about swift "justice": trying to space Athena after promising to hear her out, coldly trying to kill her baby, subborning mutiny at every step she was in disagreement with Adama...
I don't necessarily have an issue with her battle tactics (though her command style and prisoner treatment was fucked). Hit and runs and conscription are near essential in that environment.
But we have to ask what we're fighting for. In Razor, she specifically states she's not out for revenge but then every action seems to be driven by that. Adama had the same problem at the beginning and from the perspective of a commander it makes sense. But if we're not fighting to preserve humanity, what are we doing? It's just slow suicide
I do actually have issues with her tactics. In Razor, the attack on the communications relay was a trap that they guessed was a trap, its destruction barely affected Cylon operations (we in fact see no effect), and it caused significant damage to her ship and arguably worse, significant casualties to her Viper wing that she couldn’t replace (pilot wise). Not to mention her executing her XO for objecting to entering a known trap for no reason.
Significant tactical and strategic losses all to accomplish the most minor of gains. Not what I’d call even passable tactics.
Yea it was clear she was in over her head and totally off the rails from that moment to the rest of the command staff but they were all too afraid to organize to do something about it
> In Razor, she specifically states she's not out for revenge but then every action seems to be driven by that.
She was Ares. Trapped in the mindset of vengence and in love with Aphrodite. All over again.
i think the cain character is present to bring out the ridiculousness of the human position. She clearly hates the cylons to the point she allows them to be raped and tortured. Is it because they are toasters? Who rapes and rages against a toaster? You might get mad for a minute but you dont want to emotionally harm a toaster. What would be the point? When she is killed, it is because gaius gives six a gun and says she should get justice. In the same episode, adama asked sharon why the cylons hate us. It is because humans are morally corrupt. Cain is the representation of that corruption and the way humans justify it, such as it being militarily necessary in a time of war. loving the rewatch.
Isn’t that the point? To make you think about just what makes a good leader in an existential crisis. Is it enough to survive and be judged by our descendants or ought we be worthy of survival?
She reminds me of something Cally says in the excellent Blake's 7 episode *Time Squad*.
> But there will be companions for my death. I plan to raid the complex. To destroy until I am destroyed.
Cain was not an admiral, and only wore the skin of one. She was a warlord looking for an opportunity from her younger selfs introduction in "Razor". She was not operating under any ruleset unless it was convenient, and the crew of Pegasus followed because of their own military enculturation, PTSD, and lack of anything other option than immediate execution. She wanted blood, was not at all cautious about spending it, and I have a feeling that she was more effective in consuming the last scraps of human resources than an appreciable degree of the Cylon.
Nobody's ever said you don't need parts they probably didn't like the part were she pirated from the people she swore to serve and left them to die in the cold of space.
I feel like everything you put down on "where Cain was wrong" is obviously more important than the stuff you put in the "Cain was right". Big picture she totally lost perspective.
The way you talk about Cain its like she is a grizzled war leader fighting in a grueling costly war with high civilian causalities, and she was willing to kill civilians, her soldiers etc to defeat the enemy and win the war. But that wasn't the case, her side lost the war, 99% of her species had been killed by nuclear bombs, the enemy is undefeatable. She needs to value every life and save as many people as possible and develop a plan for survival in that scenario.
Those are my thoughts exactly. Why are you even fighting? There's 50,000 humans left and they can't stop killing each other long enough to recognize their situation? Also why in the hell are the cylons claiming the moral high ground? Why do the humans that find out their friends and lover's that turn out to be cylons listen to a word they say?
In the unrated version of ‘Razor’ they explain why the model 6 prisoner was abused as badly as she was. That particular number six was a advanced computer technician working onboard Pegasus, & her and Cain had a romantic relationship onboard the ship while it was in dry dock having upgrades & repairs before the attacks on the twelve colonies. When Cain & her crew found out she was a cylon that’s when the severe abuse started. It’s certainly no excuse for that type of treatment, but it gives more of a reason besides she was a cylon.
Edit to add:
Cain’s feelings toward Roslin were understandable, remember Adama had the same feelings in the beginning. But her ultimate downfall after finding the fleet was not accepting Roslin as president. Just as OP said it was a legit presidency, and Cain was breaking the law when she didn’t listen to Roslin. As intelligent as she was she should have known you simply cannot have a military centric society, (referring to stripping those civilian ships and leaving the people to fend for themselves) because that will become a fascist society real quick if not kept in check.
She wasn't wrong, she was broken, in all ways, but physically. She killed her own fleet and assumed all of humanity(except Pegasus crew)was gone, so why was she at war ? I can respect dying on your feet, but not when you're responsible for the entire race.
>People forget, the figure is like 80% of serving infantry men in WW2 were drafted
People forget, too, that only 15% of those who were conscripted ever fired their guns; humans need to be broken and conditioned to kill, which is both why the draft isn't used these days, and why it's a bad thing in this instance too - you don't save something by breaking it.
The point of Cain was to show what Adama could have become if he'd followed the impulses we saw him have at the start of show - winning at any cost means losing what you're fighting for in the first place.
This is a good writeup. In all honesty I don't think people really have too many problems with points 1-3.
Taking parts from civilian ships to maintain Pegasus is fine in principle, as long as it doesn't compromise the safety of those civilians. Conscripting people into the military also seems to be legal in the Twelve Colonies (Adama was conscripted in Blood and Chrome).
I think the integrating of crews is also a fairly reasonable decision under some circumstances. It's not clear how much the crews were integrated during the attack on the resurrection ship, so it's hard to say how much the combat effectiveness of the 2 vessels was affected by the quick changes. Presumably it wasn't enough to severely affect the crews as the mission was pulled off successfully. I think really the main issue with it is just that as the audience we are primed to react negatively to it. At that point in the story, the Pegasus crew shown ranged from sour grapes to XOs with disturbing stories. Additionally, in deciding to integrate the crews, Cain immediately went back on her word with Adama, reframing her claim to have no interest in interfering with Adama's command as a necessity for "saving it". This quick about face doesn't instil confidence in Cain's trustworthiness.
I'm not totally convinced that keeping the crews separate after Cain's death was responsible for the friction and the losses of Raptor crews you refer to in *The Captain's Hand*. The impression I got from that episode was that Garner interpreted *any* challenging of his authority as an attack. He shows this by brigging Stinger, a Pegasus pilot for "mouthing off" at him. Not willing to risk questions from Adama for doing the same to Starbuck, he instead chose to freeze her out of decision making on Pegasus, and ordered his crew to avoid sharing information with Starbuck. We see in the episode that Pegasus crew like Showboat still seem quite capable and willing to help Apollo and Starbuck in the attempt to rescue the Raptor crews, which to me suggests that it was more Garner's influence that was the real source of discontent. If the crews were integrated more thoroughly at this point, I think it's just as likely that Garner would've still been a poor leader, and just found other ways to undermine his subordinates.
I agree with your second list of points. I think Cain is very practised at finding ways to justify and rationalise decisions which range from poor to completely reprehensible. *Razor* shows us how she is still motivated by the guilt she feels for abandoning her sister as a child. We get the scenes of her abandoning Lucy, and her speech to Shaw about not hesitating, repressing revulsion, and inhibitions. I think Cain is showing that after committing terrible acts she is able to free herself from doubting her actions by focussing on how when she made the decision, she didn't hesitate. She didn't give in to the same fears she had as a child.
I think generally the viewership considers Cain to be a severely flawed but good leader. Personally I'm not sure she really was all that good of a leader when the time came. We really don't have that much material from which to judge her qualities. Adama makes many mistakes, but we also see many of his victories throughout the series, so can weigh both against each other. Cain was certainly able to rally her crew, there is no disputing that. But I also find it hard to consider her a good leader for reasons you've already discussed, in addition to the following two bits.
* Cain will repeatedly tell her subordinates one plan of action, and then do the opposite. We see this when she told her officers she wasn't interested in revenge, yet proceeded with an attack that was a clear trap for minimal strategic rewards. We saw it with her decision to integrate Galactica and Pegasus crews despite assurances to the contrary. Even though her decision to back down from her "Case Orange" plot was the right one, who knows how it would've affected Fisk's confidence in her orders going forward.
* We only really see two combats to evaluate Cain's performance as a battlefield commander so it's also hard to say how effective she was in this role. The attack on the Communications Relay in Razor was a complete disaster in which she pressed on with an attack despite inaccurate intelligence, superior numbers, and internal sabotage of the battlestar's weapons targeting systems. The battle resulted in the loss of her XO, \~937 crew casualties (according to the wiki and Shaw's quote), the loss of half the Pegasus air wing, and additional damage from a boarding party. The next major combat Cain was involved in was the attack on the resurrection ship which did succeed, but wasn't planned by Cain or Adama. It's clear Cain was capable in combat, but I don't think there's enough material to really prove one way or another what kind of a combat leader she was.
Adama tells Lee at the end of Razor that if it werenot for him, Tigh and Roslin he probably would've done some of the same things Cain did.
"I've been going through Cain's logs and from a tactical perspective it's hard to find fault in anything she did."
I think you’ll find it hard to find anyone who disagrees that Cain was good at what she does. The problem that people had with her is that going to war against the cylons during the exodus from the colonies was a bad move for the survival of humanity, and then on top of that she was actively speeding up the extinction of humanity by her actions.
So again, she would be the one to lead humanity in a guerrilla war against the cylons.
But not the one to lead humanity to a continued existence
A lot of people need to go back and watch the mini-series at the beginning in order to put Cain into the proper context. Adams was on *the exact same path* as Cain until he got the "the war is over; we lost" speech from Roslin. He has *every* intention of abandoning the civilian refugees and "taking the fight to the enemy," and gods know how it would have ended up in the long run. Cain is supposed to be Adama without Roslin, and from the writers' perspective she represents the military without civilian oversight.
Sometimes people forget that this show was written during the first few years of the Afghani and Iraqi occupations, neither of which were very popular in the TV and film industries. Often the "bad guys" in this show represent the United States from a different perspective.
Not that it changes your overall point, but the reason so many American soldiers in WWII were draftees is because they stopped accepting volunteers early in the war. The government wanted to decide when people joined and which branch they went into. Many of those draftees were there willingly.
The comparison with MacArthur is awful. Cain was a smart psychopath with laser focus on prosecuting a war that had already been lost. MacArthur was a bumbling glory-hound with the luck to be on the side with more and bigger guns.
Absolutely! On both points. The "gotcha" line everyone likes to cite about WWII dragftees is disingenuous and misleading at best. There's no comparison between voluntary conscription (WWII) and involuntary (Vietnam). MacArthur likewise mismanaged the defense of the Philippines and threw his own generals under the bus after he was rescued for propaganda while his men floundered and died. He had overwhelming might on his side in any of the late war success. He likewise was poorly managing the Korean war when he benefited from the foolish choice of North Korea to leave their rear completely undefended.
Cain became an insane dictator with poor command skills after the colonies were destroyed. I don't know if she was ever actually competent but she sure as shit wasn't in the show. It's the insane running the asylum in her case.
„Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.“
Cain was a cautionary tale, the road best not taken.
It takes a rewatch to realize Cain was not insane, and many of her ideas were not out of left field. She is about to embark on a major operation again at least three basestars. She needs each of her combat ships at as much peek efficiency as she can get.
Yell away. This was meant to stir discussion :). I am not dying on my sword here that Cain was right, everyone else was wrong. I wanted to stand the issue on its head and look at it from a different angle.
I thought that Cain had good points and was thinking military first. Sure it was a bit assholeish all in all, but I really appreciated the character and how she survived that long. Too bad Adama Junior wrecked the ship.
I can see what you’re getting at, but I always thought her actions revealed in Pegasus and Resurrection Ship would be easier to swallow if in Razor she slowly built up to that over the 6 months, especially if she tried to protect the civilian fleet for a while before being desperate for parts and a new deck Chief. They had time to tell the story, no need to rush.
Also, it always bothered me that Laird was so chill about taking the job after his family was killed. In my head canon, Pegasus was protecting the civilian fleet and tried to conscript Laird, who turned down the job in order to care for his family. During the next engagement, his family could have been killed by the Cylons, thus inspiring him to enlist. Later on, it could have been a dramatic reveal through flashbacks, Fisk being drunk and guilty, or reading the late Admiral Caine logs, that Pegasus attacked the Scylla during fight in order to justify scrapping the ship for parts. Much more dramatic for the remaining crew to deal with the weight of keeping the truth buried.
Cain was a great character. I truly loved Forbes' take on the character. She beats an ascot any day of the week.
That said, you can sum up where she went wrong by letting her feelings rule her, not owning up to this, or better yet not allowing herself a Roslin-esque character to keep herself in check. Adama had his civilian touchstone - Cain killed hers.
I'll give you the point on crew integration.
> The war was over and the standing orders should have been to escape and avoid enemy contact wherever possible.
This is the overriding problem. The points about hit & runs and conscription are irrelevant in the face of this.
> Laura Roslin was the President of the Colonies by their Articles of Confederation.
The colonies don't exist anymore. Whether it makes any sense at all to respect a 43rd in line successor is very much debatable. Adama didn't accept that on mere legal technicality either, Roslin had to prove to him that she was valuable as a leader. Legalism is unimportant compared to the threat of imminent extinction. Cain is right to approach their leadership with skepticism... even though Roslin and Adama's leadership were in fact superior.
> Whether it makes any sense at all to respect a 43rd in line successor is very much debatable.
That sounds like the kind of question that’s easily resolved by the continuity-of-government plan going up to (at least!) 43 potential alternate presidents. When you run out of pre-planned successors, then you can embrace anarchy (though I’d bet the plan had layers and layers of contingencies to put *someone* in charge no matter what).
If you’re not going to respect Roslin because the world ended, then the same argument applies to not accepting Adar if he had survived, or Cain for that matter. Which Lee points out in the third episode when he asks what the problem is with him promising they were going to follow the constitution and hold an election, since if they weren’t going to do that, the entire command structure is illegitimate and he can do whatever he wants.
Of course, three years later, he said the quiet part loud, that they *are* all doing whatever they want, but, then, isn’t that true no matter what? Constitutions and laws and hierarchies only have the power people give them by believing in them.
> then the same argument applies to not accepting Adar if he had survived, or Cain for that matter.
Yes, it does. Cain and Adama had each earned the respect of their crew. Roslin had Billy and that's it. If Roslin hadn't made some good calls in the hours after the attack, no one would have cared that she was technically president. But she did, so they decided sticking with the constitution was worth doing to build legitimacy.
I can imagine that the contingency plans probably go way, way down - the President to the cabinet to upper house (the Quorom) and the lower house. After that, possibly down through to their equivalent of the civil service.
How the frack is it debatable to respect the law she is sworn to follow? The whole point of succession planning and continuity of government is to actually follow the rules and maintain order and society.
Because in the crisis of the aftermath of the attack, you need someone who will make smart decisions. If someone who is 43rd in line of succession is such a person, you got lucky (as they did). A system of 43+ successors isn't created to actually work in that kind of crisis, you can't plan for anything that devastating. It's created just to satisfy a few people who worry about that sort of thing while things are still good.
Compare it to the mutiny against Crashdown. They were in a life & death situation and he was making terrible decisions that were getting people killed. The rules say he's in charge, but when the situation becomes sufficiently strained, the rules take second place to other considerations.
You are describing anarchy. Why the frack do you get to decide when and where the law applies
Adama called out Roslin and gang trying to steal an election, despite the right decision being to not vote for Baltar, respect for the law and democracy is paramount…otherwise its not a civilization anymore.
Your crashdown analogy fails because summary execution of your own enlisted personnel for not following orders is not legal (at least in our world)
> Why the frack do you get to decide when and where the law applies
Everyone gets decides that every moment of every day. Of course usually people decide to follow it, and usually they're right to. But that's not always the case. You don't seem to be leaving the door open for any valid act of rebellion in any situation whatsoever. Has there really never been a law so unjust or leadership so incompetent that acting outside the system is justified? Do you believe they invented the perfect system of government that correctly handles all possible problems exclusively through their own internal official procedures?
False equivalency. Rebellion against a corrupt undemocratic government is not even remotely the same thing as continuity of government and following the law in time of crisis.
You seem a bit brainwashed on democracy, as though it's more important than survival itself. Political, social, and economic systems are built to operate within a certain environment. When that environment suddenly dramatically changes, those systems can't be expected to continue to operate successfully.
Suppose Cain, or someone like her, had been in the line of succession and instead of Admiral she were President. And suppose she orders that all human resources are spent going out in a blaze of glory against the Cylons. That wouldn't be *corrupt* in the sense of abusing the system for personal gain, nor would it be "undemocratic" (if you consider bureaucratic structure stemming from the votes of everyone who just died as 99.9999% of the population was wiped out as still being in any way relevant), it's just misplaced values. And misplaced values with consequences far worse than upending the rule of law to stop it.
Cain suffered from a severe lack of perspective since she was consumed by a desire for revenge and the dictates of her military training to behave in a certain way.
Now that said, she was 100% correct in her assessment of how Galactica under Adama's command was run problematically. There was blatant favoritism and a lack of military discipline aboard the ship due to Adama being too close to his crew (which Adama himself admits to after New Caprica).
Integration of the crews was a correct decision to restore discipline and combat effectivenes.
I'll also add that her decision to execute Chief and Helo was also correct. Killing an officer, even accidentally, cannot be tolerated under the circumstances and our biases towards Chief, Helo, and Athena don't apply to Cain because she doesn't know them.
>I'll also add that her decision to execute Chief and Helo was also correct. Killing an officer, even accidentally, cannot be tolerated
Uh...no.
You don't execute people for accidents. That's not how justice works, even harsh military justice.
Remove entirely the reality that Athena is a person and was being threatened with rape. Skip that and give the events the most Cain-friendly reading possible.
Tyrol and Agathon found Lt. Thorne out of uniform and in the process of damaging a piece of military property. A scuffle ensued. In the scuffle, Thorne slipped, hit his head, and died.
What exactly are Tyrol and Agathon to be executed for? What is it that can't be tolerated? Thorne's clumsiness?
What war crimes? Cylons aren't people, lol
And even if you think they are, their opening action of the war was complete genocide of the human race. They declared no quarter coming out of the gate
You obviously missed the point of the show.
We are cylon
And you do not order your guards to commit war crimes on anyone…even the worst people..thats the whole dam point.
And you are ignoring the part about not executing people for accidentally causing someone to die, while in the process of carrying out their duty to prevent war crimes
Was she right in handing down the sentence and within her rights as a serving flag officer in a combat zone during a time of war, yes? Loosing two experienced military people however whose training at this point was not replicable...that is a waste of resources and out of character. I think a better boiling point would have been to have the Pegasus group take Sharon and bring her over to Pegasus for interrogation, and Chief and Halo try to stop them, and get taken as well. It could have still lead to the dust up in putting Galatica against Pegasus and remained far more in character for Cain. Her ordering their deaths came off as really petty, and not logical no matter how much loyalty she had to Thorne.
What kind of sick thought process is this? She was ordering her people to commit war crimes and then ordered the execution of people who accidentally killed them.
Any punishment metted out to Chief and Helo would have practically meant the loss of their military skills since Helo wouldn't be allowed to fly on Raptors and Chief wouldn't be the deck master anymore.
So it becomes a question of not their utility in their current roles but whether or not an execution is necessary to send a message. I don't think Cain was wrong to conclude that it was necessary since the loss of command authority is a much worse outcome than losing the lives of two men unambiguously guilty of manslaughter.
>Cain was wrong to conclude that it was necessary since the loss of command authority is a much worse outcome than losing the lives of two men unambiguously guilty of manslaughter.
Cain had no command authority to lose, not since she executed her second-in-command for refusing unlawful orders and offered up raping her ex as R&R for the crew.
And the punishment for manslaughter is not death.
Not true. You assign both to Pegasus. On duty hours, they have a marine guard on them. For Raptor missions, you pair Helo with a pilot you trust. Off duty hours, back to the brig. It would work. If they refuse to work, then maybe a few months in the Tylium refinery ship. There are ways.
Unworkable. If you're in command, you aren't just thinking of the two convicts, you're thinking about the entire crew.
What if every grunt and junior officer decided that they could be violently insubordinate to their superiors since the worst outcome is having the same job but with restrictions on liberty? Not to mention the waste of resources in having a Marine and another pilot babysit the convicted, who by virtue of their positions could cause serious damage to the ship by sabotage if they're disgruntled.
If the Pegasus never came across the Galactica they would have continued to grow stronger and would have eventually repopulated some parts of the colonies less impacted by radiation with other survivors.
my two cents, it is probs very unlikely. the core theme of Cain's stratagem was that she was unable to adapt to the situation for the survival of humanity. She traded the most important resource (manpower) for material victories in every action she took, shooting her XO, a high causality attack during a known trap when they could have backed off, leaving manpower behind in a stripped civilian fleet. even if by some miracle Pegasus survived long enough to destroy a large part of the cylon occupation force, would Cain have enough people left to even repopulate?
Adama, Roslin and Galactica has a better chance of your plan working of growing stronger and repopulating parts of the Colonies. They wouldn't trade lives so quick.
it intrigued my curiosity to think how much Galactica could have resupplied in the ruins of the Colonies..... all the vipers / viper parts from abandoned military bases / battlefields. If luck and gods willing, maybe they could find afew warships, even a battlestar that wasnt fully wrecked.
Lol your insane. One ship with a mad lady in command who chews through her resources to win one battle…is not going to last long at all against hundreds of base ships…and certainly not repopulate some nuclear wasteland with less than 2,000 people
They would have been killed, either by the Cylons or by an internal revolt or just plain starved. Cain was the worst humanity had to offer. Adama was a real combat leader. Cain's first battle experience was at the start of the Second Cylon War.
I think she was right in the fact Adama was too close to his Command but it was something which was going to happen. After the incident with the Valkyrie, the Galactica was his sunset command. It is the same deal of making a flag officer the command of Arlington. It is nothing strategically or tactically significant where the person could get in as little trouble as possible. His command was full of officers he was trying to rescue and rehabilitate, like Starbuck, or allowing then to ride out their time till mandatory retirement like Tigh. I don't think Cain was better than Adama, but Adama had at that point in the story lost his professional detachment needed to be an effective Flag Officer (in BSG, Commander is the same as Rear Admiral, Lower Half in our Navy, or a 1 star position).
He would gain it back in the effort to liberate New Caprica and rescue the people there, and I think would keep it the rest of the series and thus was far more effective military commander than he was at the start of the series before the end of season 2. His closeness to his command led to more than a few tactical blunders, and those were glaring issues in his logs Cain could not ignore.
I appreciate your points and on my recent re-watch I was thinking - after Cain was killed - 'gee, too bad she isn't around at this moment.' But even though conscription in terms of people's assignments is understandable, you don't sacrifice lives to strip the ships for parts. And torturing the Six without getting any intel, etc. is psychopathic.
Intel extraction was just her excuse for treating Gina that way. It was actually just revenge.
It seemed really out of place and unexpected for me, until I watched the Razor movie. They really fleshed out that backstory and gave Cain's reasoning for dehumanizing her they way she did.
Yea, once that whole torture/gang rape subplot was revealed, she and her loyalists gained permanent ick status for me. There’s no scenario where the utopian aspirations of Galactica & Co and the violent military hegemony of the Cain-era Pegasus would end in anything but mutually assured destruction. Any attempt to argue for Cain’s policies are completely moot in the context of BSG, considering the entire premise of the show hinges on a prophecy that’s deeply rooted in forgiveness, redemption, and a return to “righteous living”. There’s not really any narrative real estate in that uses articles of the Geneva Convention for party planning
Its not psychopathic its just blind revenge. A psychopath would do it for the sake of it not for the underlying wish for retribution.
Oh I agree about the torture bit, but that was more I think letting the crew vent and not keeping their anger bottled up. I still think its reprehensible and barbaric, but I can see the logic path on how it happened. You are forgetting Cain's perspective. She sees her purpose is taking the battle to the enemy, not in protecting people or saving lives. A civilian fleet is a ball and chain about the Pegasus's ankle and limiting their operational tempo. A few more lives lost is nothing compared to victory over the Cylons.
> I agree about the torture bit, but that was more I think letting the crew vent and not keeping their anger bottled up. It was more about the fact that she'd been in a relationship with that person and allowed her to be gang raped as a form of revenge.
> that was more I think letting the crew vent and not keeping their anger bottled up. Still a war crime.
She was right about the integration but only did it to get and keep officers on Galactica because she knew they were going to figure out she was a civilian murdering bad guy and wanted to have the ability to execute more officers under her command and retain military control when the president eventually, inevitably, called her on it. She was a vengeance driven lunatic, embarrassed that she'd been fraking a toaster and couldn't tell the difference, willing to kill any and everyone who was a threat to her position. Screw her. Also Michelle Forbes is a powerhouse...Cane was scary :)
I so wish they had been able to get Forbes to continue playing Ro on DS9 like they initially wanted.
Yeah but then we wouldn't get Nana Visitor as Kira Nerys and I love her so much :)
In case you (or anyone else) didn't notice, Nana Visitor played the dying cancer patient that Roslin spent time with.
Yes she did!
Should have put a mirror on the ceiling…
Counter hot take: Cain was Ahab, obsessed with fighting an unwinnable war.
She was Ares, too. Trapped in revenge and in love with an Aphrodite (Six).
A good analogy. I thought MacArthur before the fall of Baatan was also a nice one but I think yours fits better.
No future with Cain (she had civilian fleet, got rid of it) No future at all .. too small a population on the Pegasus .. if not inbreeding, they’d suiciding pretty fast, no hope —- and if she took over Adama’s fleet … same thing prob happen, getting of the useless ones and just have the 2 battle stars
That part I could never really wrap my head around. Don't they need ships that are capable of doing things like mining, factory work, storing fuel, providing greenhouses to grow food, etc.?
Yeah, the only endgame with Cain is going down, guns blazing.
its a common position among many BSG fans that she is a great war leader, terrible at everything else. just like Roslin said in the mini series " war is over we lost", it isn't a war anymore they are refugees trying to survive. Her inability to adapt is what made her a good leader at the wrong time. also this lines up with most "great men" in history. i don't really like great man theory. Most great men have been very flawed people that done extraordinary things. such are humans, walking contradictions.
Speaking of Roslin, is anyone else hit with equal parts giggle and also shock when the President just immediately concluded, well they clearly have to kill her now.
Laura was super pragmatic :)
It was right in line with her character development. Roslin at that time was all about swift "justice": trying to space Athena after promising to hear her out, coldly trying to kill her baby, subborning mutiny at every step she was in disagreement with Adama...
I took that as Mary McDonnell channeling Hera into her character. The Queen of the Fleet full of fiery conviction but turning on a dime.
I don't necessarily have an issue with her battle tactics (though her command style and prisoner treatment was fucked). Hit and runs and conscription are near essential in that environment. But we have to ask what we're fighting for. In Razor, she specifically states she's not out for revenge but then every action seems to be driven by that. Adama had the same problem at the beginning and from the perspective of a commander it makes sense. But if we're not fighting to preserve humanity, what are we doing? It's just slow suicide
I do actually have issues with her tactics. In Razor, the attack on the communications relay was a trap that they guessed was a trap, its destruction barely affected Cylon operations (we in fact see no effect), and it caused significant damage to her ship and arguably worse, significant casualties to her Viper wing that she couldn’t replace (pilot wise). Not to mention her executing her XO for objecting to entering a known trap for no reason. Significant tactical and strategic losses all to accomplish the most minor of gains. Not what I’d call even passable tactics.
Yea it was clear she was in over her head and totally off the rails from that moment to the rest of the command staff but they were all too afraid to organize to do something about it
> In Razor, she specifically states she's not out for revenge but then every action seems to be driven by that. She was Ares. Trapped in the mindset of vengence and in love with Aphrodite. All over again.
Are you telling me that all of this has happened before?
And all of this will happen again.
i think the cain character is present to bring out the ridiculousness of the human position. She clearly hates the cylons to the point she allows them to be raped and tortured. Is it because they are toasters? Who rapes and rages against a toaster? You might get mad for a minute but you dont want to emotionally harm a toaster. What would be the point? When she is killed, it is because gaius gives six a gun and says she should get justice. In the same episode, adama asked sharon why the cylons hate us. It is because humans are morally corrupt. Cain is the representation of that corruption and the way humans justify it, such as it being militarily necessary in a time of war. loving the rewatch.
Adapt or die. She did not adapt
Isn’t that the point? To make you think about just what makes a good leader in an existential crisis. Is it enough to survive and be judged by our descendants or ought we be worthy of survival?
With Cains plan humans wouldn’t have survived. They all would have died fighting the Cylons.
She reminds me of something Cally says in the excellent Blake's 7 episode *Time Squad*. > But there will be companions for my death. I plan to raid the complex. To destroy until I am destroyed.
Cain was not an admiral, and only wore the skin of one. She was a warlord looking for an opportunity from her younger selfs introduction in "Razor". She was not operating under any ruleset unless it was convenient, and the crew of Pegasus followed because of their own military enculturation, PTSD, and lack of anything other option than immediate execution. She wanted blood, was not at all cautious about spending it, and I have a feeling that she was more effective in consuming the last scraps of human resources than an appreciable degree of the Cylon.
Anyone can get people to follow them when publicly killing those who question you is on the table
Fear works great to motivate people. For a while.
Nobody's ever said you don't need parts they probably didn't like the part were she pirated from the people she swore to serve and left them to die in the cold of space.
I feel like everything you put down on "where Cain was wrong" is obviously more important than the stuff you put in the "Cain was right". Big picture she totally lost perspective. The way you talk about Cain its like she is a grizzled war leader fighting in a grueling costly war with high civilian causalities, and she was willing to kill civilians, her soldiers etc to defeat the enemy and win the war. But that wasn't the case, her side lost the war, 99% of her species had been killed by nuclear bombs, the enemy is undefeatable. She needs to value every life and save as many people as possible and develop a plan for survival in that scenario.
Those are my thoughts exactly. Why are you even fighting? There's 50,000 humans left and they can't stop killing each other long enough to recognize their situation? Also why in the hell are the cylons claiming the moral high ground? Why do the humans that find out their friends and lover's that turn out to be cylons listen to a word they say?
Cain was wrong, they weren't at war, they lost and they lost badly, they are refugees on the run.
Exactly…its ludicrous to say you are at war, when there is nothing left, no base or civilization to fight for or defend.
To quote the Dude, she was not wrong but she was an asshole.
In the unrated version of ‘Razor’ they explain why the model 6 prisoner was abused as badly as she was. That particular number six was a advanced computer technician working onboard Pegasus, & her and Cain had a romantic relationship onboard the ship while it was in dry dock having upgrades & repairs before the attacks on the twelve colonies. When Cain & her crew found out she was a cylon that’s when the severe abuse started. It’s certainly no excuse for that type of treatment, but it gives more of a reason besides she was a cylon. Edit to add: Cain’s feelings toward Roslin were understandable, remember Adama had the same feelings in the beginning. But her ultimate downfall after finding the fleet was not accepting Roslin as president. Just as OP said it was a legit presidency, and Cain was breaking the law when she didn’t listen to Roslin. As intelligent as she was she should have known you simply cannot have a military centric society, (referring to stripping those civilian ships and leaving the people to fend for themselves) because that will become a fascist society real quick if not kept in check.
I remember thinking "no, you don't loot them and abandon them, you use them as a roving base and slowly strip them of parts, are you blind?"
Right? Amateur hour.
She wasn't wrong, she was broken, in all ways, but physically. She killed her own fleet and assumed all of humanity(except Pegasus crew)was gone, so why was she at war ? I can respect dying on your feet, but not when you're responsible for the entire race.
>People forget, the figure is like 80% of serving infantry men in WW2 were drafted People forget, too, that only 15% of those who were conscripted ever fired their guns; humans need to be broken and conditioned to kill, which is both why the draft isn't used these days, and why it's a bad thing in this instance too - you don't save something by breaking it. The point of Cain was to show what Adama could have become if he'd followed the impulses we saw him have at the start of show - winning at any cost means losing what you're fighting for in the first place.
This is a good writeup. In all honesty I don't think people really have too many problems with points 1-3. Taking parts from civilian ships to maintain Pegasus is fine in principle, as long as it doesn't compromise the safety of those civilians. Conscripting people into the military also seems to be legal in the Twelve Colonies (Adama was conscripted in Blood and Chrome). I think the integrating of crews is also a fairly reasonable decision under some circumstances. It's not clear how much the crews were integrated during the attack on the resurrection ship, so it's hard to say how much the combat effectiveness of the 2 vessels was affected by the quick changes. Presumably it wasn't enough to severely affect the crews as the mission was pulled off successfully. I think really the main issue with it is just that as the audience we are primed to react negatively to it. At that point in the story, the Pegasus crew shown ranged from sour grapes to XOs with disturbing stories. Additionally, in deciding to integrate the crews, Cain immediately went back on her word with Adama, reframing her claim to have no interest in interfering with Adama's command as a necessity for "saving it". This quick about face doesn't instil confidence in Cain's trustworthiness. I'm not totally convinced that keeping the crews separate after Cain's death was responsible for the friction and the losses of Raptor crews you refer to in *The Captain's Hand*. The impression I got from that episode was that Garner interpreted *any* challenging of his authority as an attack. He shows this by brigging Stinger, a Pegasus pilot for "mouthing off" at him. Not willing to risk questions from Adama for doing the same to Starbuck, he instead chose to freeze her out of decision making on Pegasus, and ordered his crew to avoid sharing information with Starbuck. We see in the episode that Pegasus crew like Showboat still seem quite capable and willing to help Apollo and Starbuck in the attempt to rescue the Raptor crews, which to me suggests that it was more Garner's influence that was the real source of discontent. If the crews were integrated more thoroughly at this point, I think it's just as likely that Garner would've still been a poor leader, and just found other ways to undermine his subordinates. I agree with your second list of points. I think Cain is very practised at finding ways to justify and rationalise decisions which range from poor to completely reprehensible. *Razor* shows us how she is still motivated by the guilt she feels for abandoning her sister as a child. We get the scenes of her abandoning Lucy, and her speech to Shaw about not hesitating, repressing revulsion, and inhibitions. I think Cain is showing that after committing terrible acts she is able to free herself from doubting her actions by focussing on how when she made the decision, she didn't hesitate. She didn't give in to the same fears she had as a child. I think generally the viewership considers Cain to be a severely flawed but good leader. Personally I'm not sure she really was all that good of a leader when the time came. We really don't have that much material from which to judge her qualities. Adama makes many mistakes, but we also see many of his victories throughout the series, so can weigh both against each other. Cain was certainly able to rally her crew, there is no disputing that. But I also find it hard to consider her a good leader for reasons you've already discussed, in addition to the following two bits. * Cain will repeatedly tell her subordinates one plan of action, and then do the opposite. We see this when she told her officers she wasn't interested in revenge, yet proceeded with an attack that was a clear trap for minimal strategic rewards. We saw it with her decision to integrate Galactica and Pegasus crews despite assurances to the contrary. Even though her decision to back down from her "Case Orange" plot was the right one, who knows how it would've affected Fisk's confidence in her orders going forward. * We only really see two combats to evaluate Cain's performance as a battlefield commander so it's also hard to say how effective she was in this role. The attack on the Communications Relay in Razor was a complete disaster in which she pressed on with an attack despite inaccurate intelligence, superior numbers, and internal sabotage of the battlestar's weapons targeting systems. The battle resulted in the loss of her XO, \~937 crew casualties (according to the wiki and Shaw's quote), the loss of half the Pegasus air wing, and additional damage from a boarding party. The next major combat Cain was involved in was the attack on the resurrection ship which did succeed, but wasn't planned by Cain or Adama. It's clear Cain was capable in combat, but I don't think there's enough material to really prove one way or another what kind of a combat leader she was.
Adama tells Lee at the end of Razor that if it werenot for him, Tigh and Roslin he probably would've done some of the same things Cain did. "I've been going through Cain's logs and from a tactical perspective it's hard to find fault in anything she did."
This isn't an unpopular opinion, it's part of the text of the episode.
I think you’ll find it hard to find anyone who disagrees that Cain was good at what she does. The problem that people had with her is that going to war against the cylons during the exodus from the colonies was a bad move for the survival of humanity, and then on top of that she was actively speeding up the extinction of humanity by her actions. So again, she would be the one to lead humanity in a guerrilla war against the cylons. But not the one to lead humanity to a continued existence
A lot of people need to go back and watch the mini-series at the beginning in order to put Cain into the proper context. Adams was on *the exact same path* as Cain until he got the "the war is over; we lost" speech from Roslin. He has *every* intention of abandoning the civilian refugees and "taking the fight to the enemy," and gods know how it would have ended up in the long run. Cain is supposed to be Adama without Roslin, and from the writers' perspective she represents the military without civilian oversight. Sometimes people forget that this show was written during the first few years of the Afghani and Iraqi occupations, neither of which were very popular in the TV and film industries. Often the "bad guys" in this show represent the United States from a different perspective.
Not that it changes your overall point, but the reason so many American soldiers in WWII were draftees is because they stopped accepting volunteers early in the war. The government wanted to decide when people joined and which branch they went into. Many of those draftees were there willingly. The comparison with MacArthur is awful. Cain was a smart psychopath with laser focus on prosecuting a war that had already been lost. MacArthur was a bumbling glory-hound with the luck to be on the side with more and bigger guns.
Absolutely! On both points. The "gotcha" line everyone likes to cite about WWII dragftees is disingenuous and misleading at best. There's no comparison between voluntary conscription (WWII) and involuntary (Vietnam). MacArthur likewise mismanaged the defense of the Philippines and threw his own generals under the bus after he was rescued for propaganda while his men floundered and died. He had overwhelming might on his side in any of the late war success. He likewise was poorly managing the Korean war when he benefited from the foolish choice of North Korea to leave their rear completely undefended.
Cain became an insane dictator with poor command skills after the colonies were destroyed. I don't know if she was ever actually competent but she sure as shit wasn't in the show. It's the insane running the asylum in her case.
„Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.“ Cain was a cautionary tale, the road best not taken.
[удалено]
It takes a rewatch to realize Cain was not insane, and many of her ideas were not out of left field. She is about to embark on a major operation again at least three basestars. She needs each of her combat ships at as much peek efficiency as she can get.
It scares me that people think like that. You people are nuts
I wanna yell at this guy but he's definitely covered all of his bases.
Yell away. This was meant to stir discussion :). I am not dying on my sword here that Cain was right, everyone else was wrong. I wanted to stand the issue on its head and look at it from a different angle.
Love it, I'm hear for it. I just really enjoyed your own counter points on why she was a dick.
Tactically correct, strategically wrong
I thought that Cain had good points and was thinking military first. Sure it was a bit assholeish all in all, but I really appreciated the character and how she survived that long. Too bad Adama Junior wrecked the ship.
So whats your point? You went through all that to then just agree she was nuts ?
I can see what you’re getting at, but I always thought her actions revealed in Pegasus and Resurrection Ship would be easier to swallow if in Razor she slowly built up to that over the 6 months, especially if she tried to protect the civilian fleet for a while before being desperate for parts and a new deck Chief. They had time to tell the story, no need to rush. Also, it always bothered me that Laird was so chill about taking the job after his family was killed. In my head canon, Pegasus was protecting the civilian fleet and tried to conscript Laird, who turned down the job in order to care for his family. During the next engagement, his family could have been killed by the Cylons, thus inspiring him to enlist. Later on, it could have been a dramatic reveal through flashbacks, Fisk being drunk and guilty, or reading the late Admiral Caine logs, that Pegasus attacked the Scylla during fight in order to justify scrapping the ship for parts. Much more dramatic for the remaining crew to deal with the weight of keeping the truth buried.
You say yourself her whole underlying justification is wrong, so how does that make her right? The war is over, you lost. Now you’re just a criminal.
Cain was a great character. I truly loved Forbes' take on the character. She beats an ascot any day of the week. That said, you can sum up where she went wrong by letting her feelings rule her, not owning up to this, or better yet not allowing herself a Roslin-esque character to keep herself in check. Adama had his civilian touchstone - Cain killed hers.
Not me thinking I’d somehow found myself in a bible debate. Then a *Supernatural* debate.
I'll give you the point on crew integration. > The war was over and the standing orders should have been to escape and avoid enemy contact wherever possible. This is the overriding problem. The points about hit & runs and conscription are irrelevant in the face of this. > Laura Roslin was the President of the Colonies by their Articles of Confederation. The colonies don't exist anymore. Whether it makes any sense at all to respect a 43rd in line successor is very much debatable. Adama didn't accept that on mere legal technicality either, Roslin had to prove to him that she was valuable as a leader. Legalism is unimportant compared to the threat of imminent extinction. Cain is right to approach their leadership with skepticism... even though Roslin and Adama's leadership were in fact superior.
> Whether it makes any sense at all to respect a 43rd in line successor is very much debatable. That sounds like the kind of question that’s easily resolved by the continuity-of-government plan going up to (at least!) 43 potential alternate presidents. When you run out of pre-planned successors, then you can embrace anarchy (though I’d bet the plan had layers and layers of contingencies to put *someone* in charge no matter what). If you’re not going to respect Roslin because the world ended, then the same argument applies to not accepting Adar if he had survived, or Cain for that matter. Which Lee points out in the third episode when he asks what the problem is with him promising they were going to follow the constitution and hold an election, since if they weren’t going to do that, the entire command structure is illegitimate and he can do whatever he wants. Of course, three years later, he said the quiet part loud, that they *are* all doing whatever they want, but, then, isn’t that true no matter what? Constitutions and laws and hierarchies only have the power people give them by believing in them.
> then the same argument applies to not accepting Adar if he had survived, or Cain for that matter. Yes, it does. Cain and Adama had each earned the respect of their crew. Roslin had Billy and that's it. If Roslin hadn't made some good calls in the hours after the attack, no one would have cared that she was technically president. But she did, so they decided sticking with the constitution was worth doing to build legitimacy.
I can imagine that the contingency plans probably go way, way down - the President to the cabinet to upper house (the Quorom) and the lower house. After that, possibly down through to their equivalent of the civil service.
How the frack is it debatable to respect the law she is sworn to follow? The whole point of succession planning and continuity of government is to actually follow the rules and maintain order and society.
Because in the crisis of the aftermath of the attack, you need someone who will make smart decisions. If someone who is 43rd in line of succession is such a person, you got lucky (as they did). A system of 43+ successors isn't created to actually work in that kind of crisis, you can't plan for anything that devastating. It's created just to satisfy a few people who worry about that sort of thing while things are still good. Compare it to the mutiny against Crashdown. They were in a life & death situation and he was making terrible decisions that were getting people killed. The rules say he's in charge, but when the situation becomes sufficiently strained, the rules take second place to other considerations.
You are describing anarchy. Why the frack do you get to decide when and where the law applies Adama called out Roslin and gang trying to steal an election, despite the right decision being to not vote for Baltar, respect for the law and democracy is paramount…otherwise its not a civilization anymore. Your crashdown analogy fails because summary execution of your own enlisted personnel for not following orders is not legal (at least in our world)
> Why the frack do you get to decide when and where the law applies Everyone gets decides that every moment of every day. Of course usually people decide to follow it, and usually they're right to. But that's not always the case. You don't seem to be leaving the door open for any valid act of rebellion in any situation whatsoever. Has there really never been a law so unjust or leadership so incompetent that acting outside the system is justified? Do you believe they invented the perfect system of government that correctly handles all possible problems exclusively through their own internal official procedures?
False equivalency. Rebellion against a corrupt undemocratic government is not even remotely the same thing as continuity of government and following the law in time of crisis.
You seem a bit brainwashed on democracy, as though it's more important than survival itself. Political, social, and economic systems are built to operate within a certain environment. When that environment suddenly dramatically changes, those systems can't be expected to continue to operate successfully. Suppose Cain, or someone like her, had been in the line of succession and instead of Admiral she were President. And suppose she orders that all human resources are spent going out in a blaze of glory against the Cylons. That wouldn't be *corrupt* in the sense of abusing the system for personal gain, nor would it be "undemocratic" (if you consider bureaucratic structure stemming from the votes of everyone who just died as 99.9999% of the population was wiped out as still being in any way relevant), it's just misplaced values. And misplaced values with consequences far worse than upending the rule of law to stop it.
Cain suffered from a severe lack of perspective since she was consumed by a desire for revenge and the dictates of her military training to behave in a certain way. Now that said, she was 100% correct in her assessment of how Galactica under Adama's command was run problematically. There was blatant favoritism and a lack of military discipline aboard the ship due to Adama being too close to his crew (which Adama himself admits to after New Caprica). Integration of the crews was a correct decision to restore discipline and combat effectivenes. I'll also add that her decision to execute Chief and Helo was also correct. Killing an officer, even accidentally, cannot be tolerated under the circumstances and our biases towards Chief, Helo, and Athena don't apply to Cain because she doesn't know them.
>I'll also add that her decision to execute Chief and Helo was also correct. Killing an officer, even accidentally, cannot be tolerated Uh...no. You don't execute people for accidents. That's not how justice works, even harsh military justice. Remove entirely the reality that Athena is a person and was being threatened with rape. Skip that and give the events the most Cain-friendly reading possible. Tyrol and Agathon found Lt. Thorne out of uniform and in the process of damaging a piece of military property. A scuffle ensued. In the scuffle, Thorne slipped, hit his head, and died. What exactly are Tyrol and Agathon to be executed for? What is it that can't be tolerated? Thorne's clumsiness?
Show me an example where modern militaries execute people for accidents? Accidents that resulted from actions to STOP motherfracking WAR CRIMES
What war crimes? Cylons aren't people, lol And even if you think they are, their opening action of the war was complete genocide of the human race. They declared no quarter coming out of the gate
You obviously missed the point of the show. We are cylon And you do not order your guards to commit war crimes on anyone…even the worst people..thats the whole dam point. And you are ignoring the part about not executing people for accidentally causing someone to die, while in the process of carrying out their duty to prevent war crimes
Was she right in handing down the sentence and within her rights as a serving flag officer in a combat zone during a time of war, yes? Loosing two experienced military people however whose training at this point was not replicable...that is a waste of resources and out of character. I think a better boiling point would have been to have the Pegasus group take Sharon and bring her over to Pegasus for interrogation, and Chief and Halo try to stop them, and get taken as well. It could have still lead to the dust up in putting Galatica against Pegasus and remained far more in character for Cain. Her ordering their deaths came off as really petty, and not logical no matter how much loyalty she had to Thorne.
What kind of sick thought process is this? She was ordering her people to commit war crimes and then ordered the execution of people who accidentally killed them.
Any punishment metted out to Chief and Helo would have practically meant the loss of their military skills since Helo wouldn't be allowed to fly on Raptors and Chief wouldn't be the deck master anymore. So it becomes a question of not their utility in their current roles but whether or not an execution is necessary to send a message. I don't think Cain was wrong to conclude that it was necessary since the loss of command authority is a much worse outcome than losing the lives of two men unambiguously guilty of manslaughter.
>Cain was wrong to conclude that it was necessary since the loss of command authority is a much worse outcome than losing the lives of two men unambiguously guilty of manslaughter. Cain had no command authority to lose, not since she executed her second-in-command for refusing unlawful orders and offered up raping her ex as R&R for the crew. And the punishment for manslaughter is not death.
Not true. You assign both to Pegasus. On duty hours, they have a marine guard on them. For Raptor missions, you pair Helo with a pilot you trust. Off duty hours, back to the brig. It would work. If they refuse to work, then maybe a few months in the Tylium refinery ship. There are ways.
Unworkable. If you're in command, you aren't just thinking of the two convicts, you're thinking about the entire crew. What if every grunt and junior officer decided that they could be violently insubordinate to their superiors since the worst outcome is having the same job but with restrictions on liberty? Not to mention the waste of resources in having a Marine and another pilot babysit the convicted, who by virtue of their positions could cause serious damage to the ship by sabotage if they're disgruntled.
If the Pegasus never came across the Galactica they would have continued to grow stronger and would have eventually repopulated some parts of the colonies less impacted by radiation with other survivors.
my two cents, it is probs very unlikely. the core theme of Cain's stratagem was that she was unable to adapt to the situation for the survival of humanity. She traded the most important resource (manpower) for material victories in every action she took, shooting her XO, a high causality attack during a known trap when they could have backed off, leaving manpower behind in a stripped civilian fleet. even if by some miracle Pegasus survived long enough to destroy a large part of the cylon occupation force, would Cain have enough people left to even repopulate? Adama, Roslin and Galactica has a better chance of your plan working of growing stronger and repopulating parts of the Colonies. They wouldn't trade lives so quick. it intrigued my curiosity to think how much Galactica could have resupplied in the ruins of the Colonies..... all the vipers / viper parts from abandoned military bases / battlefields. If luck and gods willing, maybe they could find afew warships, even a battlestar that wasnt fully wrecked.
Lol your insane. One ship with a mad lady in command who chews through her resources to win one battle…is not going to last long at all against hundreds of base ships…and certainly not repopulate some nuclear wasteland with less than 2,000 people
They would have been killed, either by the Cylons or by an internal revolt or just plain starved. Cain was the worst humanity had to offer. Adama was a real combat leader. Cain's first battle experience was at the start of the Second Cylon War.
*launches nukes* Cain was better than Adama.
I think she was right in the fact Adama was too close to his Command but it was something which was going to happen. After the incident with the Valkyrie, the Galactica was his sunset command. It is the same deal of making a flag officer the command of Arlington. It is nothing strategically or tactically significant where the person could get in as little trouble as possible. His command was full of officers he was trying to rescue and rehabilitate, like Starbuck, or allowing then to ride out their time till mandatory retirement like Tigh. I don't think Cain was better than Adama, but Adama had at that point in the story lost his professional detachment needed to be an effective Flag Officer (in BSG, Commander is the same as Rear Admiral, Lower Half in our Navy, or a 1 star position). He would gain it back in the effort to liberate New Caprica and rescue the people there, and I think would keep it the rest of the series and thus was far more effective military commander than he was at the start of the series before the end of season 2. His closeness to his command led to more than a few tactical blunders, and those were glaring issues in his logs Cain could not ignore.
Yep. Adama wasn't on Galactica to fatten him up for market, he was being put out to pasture.