‘Battlestar Galactica’: Speculative Spoiler for Season 3: an Eye for an Eye

After Frederick Meekins’ Battlestar Galactica round-up at the end of Season 2 earlier this year (and because of its value as a diversion for NRO contributors) I finally broke down and watched the series myself, beginning with Season 1, episode 1.

I can now report that Battlestar Galactica is a metaphor for the war between and within civilizations. It’s also an exploration of how principles and moral rules define us as human beings and as citizens in our respective societies.

A seminal instance of BSG’s moral endeavor was represented at the beginning of Season 3, when the newly one-eyed Executive Officer of Battlestar Galactica, Saul Tigh, advocated and planned a suicide bombing of the graduating class at the police academy. In a later scene, Admiral Adama and President Roslin poignantly agreed that suicide bombing is morally repugnant.

Recently, Ron Moore, the writer-producer of Battlestar Galactica, told the Chicaco Tribune, “There’s a pretty big loss coming midway through the second half of the season. You’ll be pretty shocked about what happens to somebody.”

More bluntly, Moore is about to kill off a major character in the series.

From the Chicago Tribune article:

One of the central themes of “Battlestar Galactica,” which has its mid-season finale at 8 p.m. Friday on Sci Fi, is sacrifice. What are people willing to give up in order to survive, the series asks, and is it always worth it? Are people willing to die, or even kill their own kind, for the greater good?

We have already witnessed a major character, Saul Tigh, “sacrifice” his own wife in the name of a principle: an eye for an eye. If the arc of Moore’s storyline holds true to this theme, then Saul Tigh is the most logical choice for the next ’sacrifice’.

When Admiral Adama and President Roslin agreed that suicide bombing was an immoral act, Saul became damaged-goods ipso facto. The execution of his wife as a collaborator was Saul’s secondary crime – committed under cover of ‘an eye for an eye’.

But of course, as we all know, the rule of ‘an eye for an eye’ leaves everyone blind in the end.

Therefore, Saul’s only hope for redemption will be an act of sacrifice for the greater good. Saul Tigh will lose his life but save his soul. Roll credits. Curtains.

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