\"Classical Antiquity and Western Identity in Battlestar Galactica\"

Classical Antiquity and Western Identity in Battlestar Galactica Vince Tomasso In the first season of the science fiction television series Battlestar Galactica (2003-2009) Lieutenant Kara “Starbuck” Thrace travels to the planet Caprica in order to obtain the Arrow of Apollo (“Kobol’s Last Gleaming, Parts I and II”, 1.14-15). She undertakes this mission on the orders of President Laura Roslin, who, inspired by a prophecy in the sacred Book of Pythia, believes that the Arrow will show them the way to Earth and, ultimately, the salvation of humankind. Caprica is a charred wasteland, having been devastated by nuclear weapons used by the Cylons, the robotic civilization that annihilated much of human society at the start of the series. The Arrow is housed in the Delphi Museum of the Gods, which Thrace finds in ruins: rubble strewn on its front steps and throughout its galleries, exhibits smashed and mutilated, and broken pipes leaking water. It has become a tomb for religious artifacts, many of which, though badly damaged, are vaguely identifiable as statues and vases from classical antiquity.1 From these ruins Thrace is able to retrieve the Arrow, which is a key step in the teleology of the series: the search for an inhabitable planet and the resolution of the endless cycle of violence between humans and Cylons. This scene demonstrates how Battlestar Galactica meditates on the construction and meaning of human, and more particularly western, identity via classical antiquity. Humans in the series articulate their identities in part through religion, which is predicated on what the series’ audience associates with classical myths. Using classical myths in this way creates what literary critic Darko Suvin calls “cognitive estrangement”, a central aspect of the science fiction genre as he defines it: “SF is, then, a literary genre whose necessary and sufficient conditions are the presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition, and whose main formal device is an

2 imaginative framework alternative to the author’s empirical environment” (1979, 7-8).2 “Estrangement” means that the text’s narrative universe is distanced from the audience’s knowledge of their own world—that there are some similarities with the ‘real’ world but also a “new set of norms” (ibid. 6). “Cognitive” means that the estrangement impels the audience to reflect on the differences between their world and the narrative world. Battlestar Galactica‘s cognitive estrangement is achieved via a setting distant in time and place from the audience’s own, populated by beings whose culture and society are both similar to and different from the audience’s, as well as a variety of technological factors that have parallels in the audience’s world, especially space travel and the creation of artificial intelligence that becomes self-aware. Indeed, the finale strongly implies that the latter process is already underway in the audience’s contemporary world through footage of various kinds of robots, including one that mimics the human form and appearance very closely.3 In short, Battlestar Galactica’s cognitive estrangement causes the audience to simultaneously identify with and be distanced from the series’ human culture. In this chapter I argue that Battlestar Galactica uses cognitive estrangement to give its audience a broader perspective on themselves and their western identity, and that this perspective is informed by the series’ message that the mythic approach to the universe, rather than the cognitive one, will save humanity.4 Classical antiquity is thus positioned in a complex way as both a source of salvation through its myths and a source of destruction through ancient Greece’s cognitive inquiry and Rome’s decadence. This attitude reflects uncertainties about the western tradition and its future role in the formation of identity. Battlestar Galactica aired for four seasons on the SyFy cable channel from 2003 to 2009. It is a reimagining by Ronald Moore of a 1978 television series of the same name and premise that was created by Glen Larson, although this chapter will focus on the re-imagined series

3 exclusively.5 The narrative of Moore’s series begins with the destruction of a human civilization called the Colonies by the Cylons, a society of robotic organisms that were created by humans as servants. The nuclear attack is the culmination of several years of conflict between the two sides after the Cylons became self-aware and waged war on the Colonies. The series chronicles the journey of the nuclear attack’s survivors in a fleet of spacecraft composed of the military ship Galactica and a number of civilian ships as they try to find another inhabitable space while surviving the pursuit of the Cylons. The Colonials are polytheists and worship beings that they call the Lords of Kobol, whose basic attributes, spheres of influence, and relationships with one another are almost identical to those that the deities depicted in classical myths have. For instance, the call sign of Lee Adama, a high-ranking Colonial officer, is “Apollo”, whom another character identifies as a son of Zeus, “good with a bow, god of the hunt, and also of healing” (“Bastille Day,” 1.3); similarly, various classical texts also attribute these characteristics to the Greek and Roman god Apollo.6 Gods mentioned and/or directly worshipped in the series are Aphrodite, Apollo, Ares, Artemis, Asclepius, Athena, Aurora, Hera, Poseidon, and Zeus. Characters call these deities by their ancient Greek names almost exclusively, but in a few cases they use the Roman equivalent. “Aurora” is the Roman name for the goddess of the dawn (Greek: Eos), and although characters most often refer to the king of the gods as “Zeus” and the god of war as “Ares,” in a few cases they use the Roman equivalents “Jupiter” and “Mars.” These exceptional cases could be mistakes made by the producers and writers, but they also demonstrate that in American popular culture ancient Greece and Rome are often conflated. For this reason I speak of Battlestar Galactica’s engagement with classical antiquity, classical myths, and the classical tradition rather than with ancient Greece specifically.

4 The series’ connection with classical antiquity extends beyond narrative to practice. Oracles, Colonial religious personnel who are integral to the teleology of the series, articulate knowledge received from the Lords of Kobol in much the same way as oracles did in classical myth and ancient life.7 In the episode “Exodus Part I” (3.3) the Colonial oracle Dodona Selloi plays an important role. Her name is derived from the ancient site of an oracle of Zeus in northwestern Greece and the names of the priests who worked there. The Greek warrior Achilles describes Dodona in Book 16 of Homer’s Iliad: “Zeus, Pelasgian lord of Dodona, dwelling far away, ruler of wintry Dodona, around you the Selloi dwell, oracles with unwashed feet who sleep on the ground” (!"! "#$ %&'&#$#" (")$*+,-$ ./)01, #$2&#/%&'3#/4 µ"'5&# '6*7",µ5896, %µ:& '$ ;"))9&/*9& #$296*' '