Baltar 2024

The other day Sweet Tea and I were talking about the president getting covid and I expressed my wish  for the president to die (is that illegal?)  and she said that she wanted him to recover because she would rather have him be defeated in the election than win by default.  I says to her I says “but then he might win” and it wasn’t clear to me but it seemed like she was saying she would take that chance. 

It was a fun little example of the differences between us.  In some ways I’ve never met anyone more like me.  But we’re different too.  Which is cool.  The Dead Weather have a song called The Difference Between Us.  I think it’s great.  One time she asked me what song I would want the young people to be introduced to me and I said “Fly Me to the Moon”.  She scoffed.  At the Chairman!

What this discussion put me of a mind of was the election in BattleStar Galactica because everything reminds me of TV.  It’s too bad that TV is going away.  I think that’s going to be the stupid thing that I’m wistful about.  It amuses me when my peers get all bent out of shape because the damn kids these days would rather watch other people play video games than play them – the death of TV is going to be my dumb thing like that.  I’ll get all weepy about the old days when TV was a thing and it will be absurd. 

Anyway, Gaius Baltar was going to win the election because he is the absolute worst and people love ruining their own lives for some reason.  It’s probably an evolutionary thing – you’re supposed to have a baby at 16 and then die so your body tries to get you to kill yourself the entire you’re older than that but it has to be subtle about it.  That would explain overeating and smoking and pretty much 88% of human behavior. 

So the guy from American Me who got all those people killed in real life and didn’t seem to care and the lady from Major Crimes are going to rig the election so Major Crimes can be the president instead of Baltar.  But then at the last second they decide that that would be wrong – that it’s better to let Baltar be president and have everyone die because otherwise they’re no better than Baltar. 

This always struck me as in insane decision.  I feel like the message was supposed to be “if we rig this election then we’re saying it’s okay to rig elections and then bad people will do it”.  But that makes no sense because the bad people will rig elections regardless.  Because they’re bad.  I was just saying to Sweet Tea the other day that you can’t win by fighting fair if your opponent is fighting dirty.  You have the moral high ground but what the hell good does that do? 

It’s like in Copland when the guy from the Chantix commercials tells the guy from Copland “Being right is not a bulletproof vest Freddie!”  Or like in that movie about the Russian Revolution where the one guy whose name I don’t know tells the other guy whose name I don’t know that being innocent doesn’t make the beating you take any less painful.  I’m glad I haven’t lived through a violent political revolution yet. 

The choices Major Crimes and the real life murder had were –

• Everyone dies
• Do something dishonest and everything is fine

I mean the first one seems like a no-brainer to me and I want the human race to go extinct!  In the Watchmen the smartest man in the world stages an alien invasion to avert nuclear Armageddon.  This other guy called Rorschach finds out about it and he says “you better explode me into blood and guts because otherwise I’m gonna blab”.  And they tell him “just don’t blab” but he says he can’t not blab and so he gets exploded.  He couldn’t let them get away with it but he also knew it was the right so he killed himself essentially.  That’s the right way to go about it. 

It’s tougher in the BSG case though because both people involved in the scam were pretty important to everyone not dying.  I suppose what they should have done is had Major Crimes rig the election for someone else who was better than Baltar and keep the real life murder out of it and then she could kill herself to preserve the honor or the truth or whatever.  Zarek would have been fine as president. 

It’s possible I’m remembering the details wrong, I haven’t watched that show in years.  The last season was so awful and the finale was so pukatronic that I forget that it was a great show before that.  I think maybe the president didn’t know the election was being rigged until later. 

Remember when Dee killed herself?  That was pretty messed up.  Was that because Adama Jr. ditched her for Girl Starbuck?  I suppose that’s an oversimplification of why someone might commit suicide.  Remember when Boomer shot herself in the face and didn’t die?  I do.  Boomer would make a good cat name but that’s what Marc Maron called his cat so I can’t use that because people would think I copied him. 

I thought the lady that played Girl Starbuck would become a big star after that show.  And maybe the nude blonde lady too.  But they didn’t.  I thought the guy that played Jaimie (Jaime? Jamie?) Lannister would be a big movie star after Game of Thrones also.  That didn’t happen either.  I find it interesting when there’s a hugely popular show and then none of the actors go on to do much else.  I wonder what it means.  Were they just good at that one role and actually they suck as actors?