13thcolony | Resistance

I liked this episode. I liked this episode a lot.

A few thoughts, in no particular order:

I've seen a lot of people saying the only reason Adama isn't angry at Tigh is because he doesn't realize how badly Tigh has fracked things up, and as soon as he finds out, Tigh will be punished. I disagree. Adama knows Tigh, has known him for a very long time, and knows what his strengths and weaknesses are. He will also, I think, realize the situation could be a lot worse – Tigh may have fracked up the political situation beyond repair, but he successfully held off the Cylons in the first two episodes. Whatever problems he has caused, he's also the reason they're all still alive to have these problems. Adama is not going to punish Tigh. What's more, I don't think he should.

Tigh has a lot of weaknesses that are very dangerous, but he also has strengths that are too rare and too badly needed to throw away right now. He has shown himself to be very good at his job. He's not very good at doing Adama's job, but he is a damn good XO and a damn good military commander in a combat situation. And the Cylons are still out there. The war isn't over, and the fleet is going to need all the good combat officers they've got – and the crew that's on Galactica now is all that's left.

It would be very nice if Adama had an officer who was old enough to remember the first Cylon war and recognize old Cylon tactics, who was cool under fire and could command the ship in a combat situation, who wasn't a drunk, who didn't have a wife who's evil, who didn't fall apart as soon as the combat was over, and who could deal politely with civilians and politicians. It would also be very nice if he had an entire fleet of battlestars and a map pointing the way to Earth. But he doesn't. You don't fight the war with the army you want, or the army you need – you fight it with the army you've got.

It's like what he says to Tyrol at the end of Litmus: Yes, you deserve to be in the brig. I can't afford to put you there. You're the only one who can make my planes fly, and I need my planes to fly. What Tigh deserves is irrelevant at this point. Removing him from his position entirely, either by throwing him in the brig or firing him, is not an option. It's not like Adama can call up his superiors and ask them to send him a new XO.

The knowledge that he has let Adama down is, for Tigh, a far worse punishment than anything else anyone could do to him. He knows exactly how badly he's screwed things up, and no reprimand from above could tell him anything he doesn't already know.

I think Adama needs Tigh at his side for reasons that have nothing to do with strategy, especially now that both his kids have turned against him. Lee can say "it's not about you and me" as many times as he wants, but Adama is never going to get that Lee siding against him isn't personal – because for Adama, everything is personal. On an emotional level, Adama needs to have at least one person beside him who he knows will never act against him, who will back him up right or wrong. It's not fair, and it's incredibly sad for poor Lee, but I think Adama's going to be far more angry at Lee for what he sees as a personal betrayal than he will be at any actions Tigh has taken.

And I'm not at all certain Adama is going to realize, seeing the mess Tigh has made of things, that martial law is a bad idea. After all, the coup was his idea, and none of Roslin's actions in the last four episodes are likely to make him any more kindly disposed towards her than he was when he got shot. She has now turned both his kids against him, and deprived Galactica of two skilled pilots – who also happen to be the CAG and the only qualified military flight instructor – and a captured Cylon raider. Not only that, but she has now openly declared herself to be a prophet and admitted that Adama doesn't know where Earth is. If he finds out she's allied with Zarek, that's going to make her even worse in his eyes.

My initial reaction to seeing Adama again was, "the Commander's back, everything's going to be okay" – and I think most of the crew is going to think the same thing. But I'm not so sure him being on his feet again so soon is going to improve the chances of democracy being restored any time soon.

Given the way Dee and Gaeta and the marine and nearly everyone was willing to help Roslin escape, it's a fair bet within a few days, if Adama had stayed unconscious, Galactica's crew would have mutinied against Tigh. They would have replaced him with someone who probably would have realized the need to resolve the situation and restore the civilian government, and while a lot of damage might have been done, before and during the mutiny, in the end the situation would have been resolved fairly quickly.

The crew is not going to mutiny against Adama. Whatever his actions, legal or illegal, democratic or not, the crew will support him. The scene between Tyrol and Tigh at the beginning of this episode is very revealing – Tyrol doesn't say I would not shoot a superior officer, he doesn't say I respect the Commander. He says I love the Old Man. And I think he means it, they all do. Adama makes everything personal, and that includes his duty to his crew - he sees himself as a father figure to his entire crew, and I think his affection for them is real and goes beyond just duty and responsibility.

And it's not surprising that they return this affection in kind – he's not just a good leader and a competent officer, someone they trust to make the right decision and take care of them. He is a very competent commander, in most situations, and a brave and honorable man and a war hero, but he's also someone who cares about them, and so they love him, too.

The fact that he is universally beloved on Galactica does not make him always right, though – and his tendency to take everything personally gives him huge blind spots, particularly with regards to Lee, Kara, and Tigh. It also doesn't make him hugely popular with the civilians in the fleet, who haven't worked with him for years or served under his command and come to know him as "the Old Man".

But any of the crew who were ready to mutiny against Tigh to restore the civilian government are going to change their minds as soon as the Old Man says Roslin is dangerous and needed to be removed. They trust him, in a way they didn't trust Tigh, and his resuming command is only going to divide the military even more sharply from the civilians.

I'm really hoping we get to see more of the ordinary civilians in the next episode – not just Roslin and Zarek, although watching those two together is going to be fun. *g* I want to see some civilians who aren't happy with the military coup, but who aren't necessarily happy with the direction Roslin wants to lead them in, either. Religion is a powerful force, and in a population that has recently suffered such a catastrophe and is now on the run and lost, many who would not ordinarily be religious may seize on this prophecy as a message of hope, or find the religion they abandoned when they were younger. But there will undoubtedly be others among the civilians who do not believe in the gods, and who see following the scriptures in the hopes of finding Earth that way as a dangerous wild goose chase.

If people find out she's hiding with Zarek, that may cause her other problems. Zarek is a charismatic politician and a very smart man with a very dedicated following among some of the citizens of his home planet. But I'm sure there are plenty of other civilians in the fleet who see him as a terrorist and a dangerous man and someone who doesn't belong anywhere near a position of political power. By embracing her religious role and her alliance with Zarek openly, she will gain a lot of supporters, but she's also going to alienate a lot of people.

I think she did what she had to do, and I'm not sure she had any other options left to her, both in this episode and the last one. But I can see how a lot of her decisions, while they may have been the best available at the time, could make things complicated in the long run.

Did I mention that I loved this episode? *g*