Battlestar Galactica: a Closed-System Fictional World
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TV/Series 11 | 2017 Philosopher avec Battlestar Galactica Battlestar Galactica: A Closed-System Fictional World Florent Favard Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/tvseries/1993 DOI: 10.4000/tvseries.1993 ISSN: 2266-0909 Publisher GRIC - Groupe de recherche Identités et Cultures Electronic reference Florent Favard, « Battlestar Galactica: A Closed-System Fictional World », TV/Series [Online], 11 | 2017, Online since 11 June 2017, connection on 19 April 2019. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/ tvseries/1993 ; DOI : 10.4000/tvseries.1993 This text was automatically generated on 19 April 2019. TV/Series est mis à disposition selon les termes de la licence Creative Commons Attribution - Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale - Pas de Modification 4.0 International. Battlestar Galactica: A Closed-System Fictional World 1 Battlestar Galactica: A Closed-System Fictional World Florent Favard 1 The Colonial Fleet, which has been travelling through the galaxy for the last three years, faces a new challenge: its president, Laura Roslin, has disappeared while onboard a basestar on a mission to deal a critical blow to the Cylon forces – enemies of both the Colonials and the Cylon rebels. Apollo, feeling wary of vice-president Tom Zarek, pays a visit to Romo Lampkin, a literal devil’s advocate who helped him defend traitor Gaius Baltar a few months earlier. The Fleet needs Lampkin’s flair for “character,” Apollo says, in order to find another interim president. But Lampkin plays hard to get: LAMPKIN. Appearances to the contrary, I’m actually in this for the money. I have a reputation to maintain, after all. APOLLO. Okay, so what did Roslin offer you to defend Baltar? LAMPKIN. Room with a view. 2 He points to a small window looking out into pitch black interstellar space, with a few ships of the Fleet completing this much-coveted “view”, which Apollo himself admits he can’t “improve on.” While watching “Sine Qua Non” (S04E08), one might remember that this is a rare occurrence in Battlestar Galactica (Syfy, 2003-2009): besides Lampkin, only president Roslin has quarters with windows. Anyone else, especially the military – the focus of the science fiction series – sleeps in windowless quarters, even Admiral Adama. Unless they embark on smaller exploration or combat ships, they usually do not see the empty space they are lost in. They live in closed spaces. 3 The Fleet itself is cut from everything, barring the occasional Cylon armada, a recurring enemy throughout the four seasons of the series. The thousands of Colonials living in the Fleet are the last survivors of the destruction of the Twelve Colonies. Hoping to find Earth – our Earth, we are led to believe – they travel across the vastness of space with limited supplies and a lethal enemy tracking them. Their numbers decrease over the episodes, making the major question structuring the series’ long-term plot – will the Colonials ever reach Earth? – a matter of time as well as of survival. TV/Series, 11 | 2017 Battlestar Galactica: A Closed-System Fictional World 2 4 This paper aims at analysing the way Battlestar Galactica structures what I call a closed- system fictional world, i.e., a fictional world (created by the writers, and “reconstructed” by the viewers from the “instructions” contained in the text1) in which a seemingly isolated structure serves as the focus point of the story. Why? Because while television series, especially fantasy and science fiction, may often deal with closed-system in a given episode (say, a “pocket universe2” or an isolated town controlled by a computer3), it is another challenge to use a closed system as the main setting of a long-running program, since most series are still built on an “infinite model of storytelling” driven by ratings4. Since The Prisoner (ITC, 1967) and its strange village, very few series have pushed this concept further: the island in Lost (ABC, 2004-2010) seems isolated in the first three seasons, but before long boats and planes come bearing new or returning characters, and the line between the island and the rest of the world proves porous. Under the Dome (CBS, 2013-2015), which focuses on a town cut off from the outside world by a mysterious dome, is a textbook example of a closed system fictional world, but even then, one that cannot remain hermetically closed throughout its three seasons. By comparison, Battlestar Galactica does not feature a dome or an island, but finds alternative ways to structure a closed system and, most importantly, highlights this structure every step of the way instead of using it as a mere starting point. 5 How can writers sustain a closed system in the long term while staying coherent with this aesthetic choice, and avoiding running in circles within their own fictional world? Following Marie Laure Ryan’s call for a “storyology,” a “study of the logic that binds events into plots5”, I intend to explore Battlestar Galactica’s use of the Fleet as a closed system throughout its four seasons, building on the intentions of the writers (as far as they can be known through the bible of the series) and on the close reading of episodes. I will start with the crisis at the heart of the series’ main plotline, before moving onto the visual aspect of the Fleet in the establishing shots, and the survivor count, a peculiar feature of Battlestar Galactica. I will then analyse how the idea of a closed system influences the series at the thematic level. A Fleet in Crisis 6 Ronald D. Moore, the creator of Battlestar Galactica, is no stranger to space operas, having previously worked as a writer on the Star Trek series The Next Generation (Syndication, 1987-1994), Deep Space Nine (Syndication, 1993-1999) and Voyager (UPN, 1995-2001). He denounces some of the aspects of the genre in his manifesto, “Naturalistic Science Fiction or Taking the Opera out of Space Opera”, and insists on “reintroduc[ing] realism into what has heretofore been an aggressively unrealistic genre6.” Beyond the ban on evil twins and time-travel, Moore proposes a realistic visual style and a Fleet composed of “a variety of civilian ships, each of which will have unique properties and visual references that can be in stark contrast to the military life aboard Galactica,” an interesting point I will return to later. 7 The television series follows this realistic take on the space opera genre, for example when Saul Tigh, practically quoting the series’ bible, makes the following claim in “Water” (S01E02): TIGH. Most planets are just hunks of rock or balls of gas. The galaxy’s a pretty barren, desolate place when you get right down to it. TV/Series, 11 | 2017 Battlestar Galactica: A Closed-System Fictional World 3 8 In line with our current understanding and observation of the galaxy, and directly constructed against space opera series bursting with aliens and lush worlds, this idea in turn emphasizes the isolation of the Fleet. In the miniseries that serves as “pilot” for the series, Adama, in his speech after the Fleet leaves Ragnar, starkly verbalizes the series’ concept: ADAMA. […] We’re a long way from home. We’ve jumped way beyond the Red Line, into uncharted space. Limited supplies, limited fuel. No allies, and now, no hope? Maybe it would have been better for us to have died quickly, back on the Colonies with our families, instead of dying out here slowly, in the emptiness of dark space. Where shall we go? What shall we do? 9 The mythical Earth is then sold by Adama to the human survivors as the refuge that will save Colonial civilization, and as the reward for a long journey into “uncharted space” with no help, no reinforcements, possibly no supplies or fuel. The Colonials do not willingly embark on a journey, they are thrown “into the emptiness” of space, an emptiness emphasized by the series’ most typical shot, the Fleet against a dark backdrop full of distant stars, a far cry from the richly colored nebulae of Babylon 5 (PTEN>TNT, 1993-1998) or the planet of the week around which the Enterprise systematically orbits in the Star Trek franchise. 10 Of course, this “closed system” is nowhere near the thermodynamics definition, as the Fleet does exchange energy and matter with its surroundings, whether it be a planet stripped of its water, or a Cylon armada welcomed with a “nuke”. One could also argue that the narrative shifts back and forth between the Fleet and Caprica in the first two seasons “open up” the system. 11 But on a more practical level, the Fleet is a closed system because the narrative uses it as such – a rich but limited part of the fictional world that is decaying as time passes and it finds itself under almost constant Cylon attack: Caprica is conceived as a dead end that Helo is trying to flee, and that the Cylons later abandon. The series’ bible also insists on the absence of external forces such as the “strange space phenomenon7” (a classic Star Trek plot device) or a third party. While the Colonials do find supplies, they are always hard to come by: harvesting water leads to a prison mutiny aboard the Astral Queen in “Bastille Day” (S01E03); getting fuel requires taking out a Cylon refinery in “The Hand of God” (S01E10) or defeating “Scar” (S02E15) while protecting the mining ship Majahual; food is painfully extracted on the algae planet (“The Eyes of Jupiter”, S03E11), reached only through a deadly radioactive nebulae (“The Passage”, S03E10). 12 As the series’ bible indicates, the Fleet is always in crisis, and even without the Cylons lurking, space is a hostile environment.