Battlestar Galactica

Episode #211 - "Resurrection Ship, Part I"

This document is ©2005, John Larocque. All rights reserved.

49,604 survivors in search of a home called Earth.

The Cylons were created by man. They evolved. They rebelled. There are many copies. And they have a plan.

Synopsis

Stinger asks Lee, "That's no Raider, that's that stealth ship of yours. Who's flying it? It wasn't cleared to launch?" "You got me. I'm just a passenger back here." In CIC, Tigh asks what the Blackbird was doing out there and Gaeta responds. "It's Starbuck. She launched in the Blackbird a couple hours ago. Said she was running flight tests for Admiral Cain." Adama replies, "That doesn't sound likely." Tigh comments, "Another one of her crazy ass stunts. Thank the gods." Adama phones Cain and admonishes her, "You can either stand down, or we can start shoting at each other."

Aboard the Pegasus, CIC is receiving images of the resurrection ship. Cain asks Fisk, "Are these from our recon mission?" "No sir. The recon mission was aborted. These are from Blackbird." "Thrace. She took off and did the whole recon mission alone. My gods, look at these shots, Jack. She put her nose right up their backsides and they never even knew it." She tells Adama, "All right, joint recall. Both ships stand down to condition two. Then I want you to report to me directly, in person." "I have no intention of cooling my heels in your brig." "Fine. Neutral ground, Colonial One. No aides. Be there in 15 minutes."

Aboard Colonial One, Laura tells Adama and Cain, "Let's start this by admitting an ugly truth. What happened out there today was the result of failure in leadership of everyone in this room. We are the leaders of this fleet. As such, we need to set an example. We cannot continue to let the conflicts between..." "Oh, let's just cut through the handholding, shall we? Two of is men murdered one of my officers while protecting a Cylon. They're guilty, they admitted it. And under regulations, I have complete authority to try, convict, and sentence them. And you and I both know that the penalty for that crime is death. Admira, surely..." "The spirit of the law requires something more than summary executions." "Is this what the two of you have been doing for the past six months? Debating the finer points of Colonial law? Well, guess what, we're at war! And we don't have the luxury of academic debate over these issues."

"You wanna cut through it, fine. You have Pegasus, he has Galactica. Two heavily armed, very powerful warships. Now, I am sure the Pegasus would prevail in any fight." Adama quips, "I wouldn't count on that." "But certainly there'd be heavy damage and you'd take significant casualties. So you can go out there and fight it out with Galactica, or you can compromise. And those are the only two options on the table, period." "How the two of you have survived this long, I will never know. All right. Lieutenant Thrace has sent me detailed recon information on the Cylon fleet. I want that fleet. And I need Galactica to get it. So I'm willing to go this far. I'll suspend the execution until after the attack." Adama adds, "And I want them back on Galactica." "I don't give a damn what you want. You frakking lucky you're staring at your own warrant." Laura tells them, "The destruction of the Cylon fleet will take priority over all other considerations. After that, we will meet back here and we will resolve this issue. Thank you."

In Cain's office, the Admiral promotes Kara to commander of the Pegasus air group. "I need a CAG with guts and initiative to plan and lead the attack on this fleet. Now, I thought Stinger was that man. But he managed to let Captain Adama contact you and pull off that fly-by right under his nose, so, he's out." "And Captain Adama, sir?" "Truth be told, I came this close to throwing him in the brig. But I couldn't exactly charge him and not you, so I just revoked his flight status." "I want him on my team, sir." "And do you always get what you want?" "Most of the time, sir." "Good. Me, too. All right, you can have him. I hear you want to return to Caprica." "Yes, sir. We have peopel back there still alive." "Yes, and they deserve to be saved. I absolutely agree. In fact, I will go one step further and I will say that our ultimate goal is that we should return to the Twelve Colonies and kick the Cylons the frak out of our homes. What do you think of that, Captain?" "I think it's the best idea I heard all day, sir."

Aboard Colonial One, Laura makes an astonishing proposal to Adama. "I'm afraid this can only end one way. You've got to kill her... The two of you were willing to go to war today. Do you think she's going to step down from that? She's going to bide her time and hit you the first chance she gets. That's a given. I hate to lay this on you Bill, but she is dangerous and the only thing that you can do is to hit her before she hits you." "I'm not an assassin." "No. You're not an assassin, you are a Colonial officer who's taken an oath to protect this fleet. What do you think that she is going to do with the civilian fleet once she has eliminated you. You know I'm right. You just don't want to face it." "So the whole world's going mad?"

Sharon is in sickbay with Dr. Cottle and Adama. "Your fluid and electrolytes levels are stable. But I think the baby's going to be fine. You do have a cracked rib though. Hairline fracture, which means it's gonna hurt like hell for a while. But, I'm not seeing any signs of permanent damage from the attack." "The attack. Is that what we're calling it now." Adama tells her, "They were not from the Galactica." "They were from the Pegasus. So what? What about Helo and the Chief? I heard a rumor they're going to be executed." "I'm not going to let that happen." "Well, how are you going to do that? Isn't Admiral Cain in command?" Adama continues, "What happened to you..." Cottle adds, "... was unforgivable." "... Happened aboard my ship, on my watch. And it's my responsibility. So I just want you to know that I personally apologize." He instructs Cottle, "See that she's okay, then back into her cell."

Helo talks to Tyrol in the brig. "Aren't we supposed to be dead? Everyone said execution in an hour, it's been at least two." "Ah, I'm not complaining." Lee enters the brig. "So. Just how many different kinds of stupid are you." Helo replies, "More than we can count." "What's going on, Captain?" "Good news, you're not dead... yet. Bad news, it's a delay, not a pardon. There's a big op coming up and the firing squad's on hold till it's over. Yeah, the Old Man went to mat for you guys on this one, and then some. We were this close to a shooting war with the Pegasus." "Frak me." Tyrol asks, "What the hell's going on? Thought the Cylons were the enemy." "Yeah, now it's us."

Baltar imagines he's on his home on Caprica and tells her he's lost interest in the place. "I suppose I don't really miss it any more." "You know what I miss? Sports." "You're joking." "No. I used to go the pyramid court just before game time. Scalp two tickets. If I timed it right, I'd just be sitting down at the horn. Sit back, let the energy of the crowd flow over me Waves and waves of emotion like an electric current." Baltar asks, "Why did you get two tickets?" "One for me, and one for you. I know I'd never get you Pyramid was far too lowbrow for you, but... I always liked to feel that you were there with me."

Baltar is wakes up in the cell of the Cylon prisoner. Cain comments, "Well, I see that you got it to eat. That's progress, I suppose. Can you get it to roll over, beg? See what it can make of these." She preseents Baltar the recon photos of the resurrection ship. "You know this thing used to sit in our mess and eat our food, and listen to our stories. Didn't you? You just sat there, listening to us, pretending to be our friend didn't you?!" Cain kicks the prisoner in the ribs. "Admiral, please! Any... physical contact with the subject will only to set my efforts back at this point." She spits on the prisoner. "Find out about that ship." After Cain leaves, the prisoner attacks Baltar and throttles him, and then stops. She tells him, "I want to die. WIll you help me do that? Will you kill me, please?" She starts to cry.

In the hangar, Laird converses with Adama and walks away. Adama asks Cally about him. "He's not military, is he?" "No, sir. He was a civilian aeronatucial engineer on a ship called the Scylla." "Civilian? Do you how he got on the Pegasus?" "Scuttlebutt is that the Pegasus used to have a civilian fleet but something happened to them." Elsewhere in the toolroom, Tigh is with Fisk. "Laird's ship was the Scylla." "Scylla was, uh... civilian transport. We found her and a few other civvies about a week after the attack. They were good ships. FTL drives and weapons even. A lot of potential spare parts that we could use on Pegasus. So... the Admiral made a decision. Military needs are a priority."

Tigh is incredulous. "You stripped the ships for parts? Sweet mother of Artemis. How much equipment did you take? You take their jump drives? Left all those people marooned out there?" "No, not all. Admiral Cain looked over the passenger list and she made a decision about who was valuable and who wasn't. Scylla was the toughest. Laird and fifteen other men and women, they were all traveling with their families -- wives, husbands, children. The selectees... they refused to go. There was resistance. So the order came down to shoot the family of anyone who refused to come. So we did. Two families, we put them up against the bulkhead. And we shot them.

Lee is in the Pegasus CAG office with Kara. She asks how he's doing. "Oh, you mean apart from being demoted? Finding myself working for one of my pilots. Great. Never better." "You know I had nothing to do with that, right?" "Never thought you did. I, uh, just checked in on Helo and Tyrol. They're hanging tight for now. " "Good. Help me plan this op. I've been staring at this roster. You wanna just carry on? As if nothing's happened?" "Lee, she's in command, what do you want to do? There's nothing we can do."

In the brig, Baltar brings the Cylon prisoner a fresh set of clothes. He also asks here, "Were you aware of your true nature as a Cylon when you boarded the ship? Or would you describe you as a sleeper agent?" As she dresses, he sees scars on her back from her torture. "I knew what I was. I was a soldier. I had a mission, I carried it out. I thought that when it was done I was going to die. That you would kill me. Then I -- then I would download into a new body... be reborn. But you didn't kill me. The things you did to me." "What they did to you was evil. But I'm not one of them. You have to believe me. Things are going to get better for you. From this moment on. I promise. "I don't want things to get better. I want to die." "But you know you can't die. You do know that, don't you? Your consciousnessill merely transfer and you'll wake up in another body. " "Not if you destroy that." She points to the recon photos. "Tell me. What's so important about this ship?"

Baltar reports back to Cain and Kara in the briefing room. "The Cylon's call this their resurrection ship. At the moment, we are too far away from the Cylon home for the normal downloading process to work, which is why they built this ship. It contains the entire apparatus necessary for Cylon resurrection. Now this ship has been traveling with the fleet trailing Galactica for the last several months." Kara asks, "So it's a safety net? A place where they fall back to when they die?" Cain asks Kara, "And if they lose their safety net." "Then any Cylon who dies out here..." Cain continues, "Would be dead. As in, really dead. I daresay they won't like that." "No, sir. They might even stop chasing us. Why risk getting killed if you can't just wake up all nice and cozy in a brand-new body?" "Doctor, I think you just identified the most important ship in the galaxy."

Adama is with Laura aboard Colonial One. He tells her, "You were right about Cain. Pegasus had a civilian fleet with her, fifteen ships. Cain stripped them. For parts, supplies... people." "I wish I could say I was surprised, but it's who she is. She's playing for keeps, you've gotta do the same." "What's gotten into you? You've become so bloody-minded." "I know that as long as Cain lives, your survival is at risk, I know that." She coughs. "What can I get you?" "A new body. Perhaps, one of those young Cylon models from the resurrection ship." "I can't see you as a blonde." She laughs, "You'd be surprised." "We'll see you tomorrow?" "Mm-hmm. Commander? She won't hesitate to kill you. Don't let her."

Tyrol tells Helo he's finished with Sharon. "It's done. I mean, really done, I can't do it anymore. I mean don't get me wrong. LT, what we did, I would do again... in a heartbeat. But I've gotta let it go. I so thought I had let go." "Yeah, I know what you mean." "You?" "Yeah, me. What? You think I don't have second thoughts sometimes You think I don't wonder I'm losing my frakkin' mind. I'm in love a woman I know isn't a woman. I'm having a baby that's -- that's what? Half machine?" "You really do love her, don't you?" "Yeah. Yes, I do. And I can't let go of it. But if you can, let it go."

In the Pegasus war room, Kara outlines the mission. "Our primary objective is a vessel named Resurrection by the Cylons. It's guarded by two Basestars which have been following us throughout this sector." Lee continues, "Our plan, simply put, is to let them find us. We will wait in this system here and appear to be conducting mining operations." "When the Cylons launch the raiders, Galactica and most of the civilians will jump away. A small group of civilians will be left behind." "To the Cylons, they'll appear to be having trouble with their FTL drives and attempting to escape at sub-light speed." "The Cylon raiders pursue the civilian decoys pulling the raiders farther away from the Cylon Basestars as they can." Lee tells them, "O?nce the raiders have been drawn off by the decoys, Galactica and Pegasus will jump in and attack the Basestars. While I jump in, in the Blackbird stealth fighter and take out the FTL drives on the resurrection ship, preventing it from jumping away."

Tigh asks, "Why not have the stealth ship carry nukes and destroy it right at the start?" Kara replies, "We ran simulations on that. We determined that the Cylons would detect the nuclear warheads and destroy the stealth ship before it got within weapons range. When the FTL is destroyed Galactica and Pegasus will take on the basestars and our attack squadrons will go after the resurrection ship itself." "How many squadrons? "All of 'em." Cain asks Adama, "Is there a problem, Commander?" "I need time to study the operational details." "Suit yourself. I've gone over the details and I'm satisfied." "I want your CAG to stay and help me. Answer some of my questions." "One hour, Thrace." "Yes, sir." He tells Lee, "Stay focused, son."

In the war room, Adama is plotting Cain's death, at the same time that Cain is plotting Adama's death in her office. Adama tells Kara he has a mission for her. "Anything for you. You know that." "Don't accept too quickly. You won't like this one. I don't like it. But I've decided that it has to be done. After the attack is completed and you've accounted for your pilots I want you to land your bird on the Pegasus to report directly to CIC. You'll take Lee with you. He'll watch your back. There'll the normal chaos emotional high after the attack. They'll keep their guard down. I will ask for you over the wireless."

Elsewhere, Cain tells Fisk, "Jack, I want to transfer a detachment of marines to Galactica. And I want you to handpick them. Completely reliable. Completely loyal. Razors. I'm transferring you to Galactica, as well. I'll tell Adamathat you're there to be my eyes and ears. He'll hate it. He'll think you're my spy and try to freeze you out of decision-making. But he'll accept it. Now I want you to stay in throughout the attack. Stay with Adama. Position marines in key positions throughout the ship and keep a squad posted just outside CIC. They'll be slapping each other on the back, celebrating the victory. Security will be lax."

Cain tells Fisk, "I will call you directly, and when I have you on the line and you hear me give the command, 'Execute case orange,' you are to signal the Marines to terminate Adama's command. Starting with Adama." Adama tells Kara, "When you hear me say 'Downfall,' I want you to pull out your weapon, and shoot Admiral Cain in the head."

Ron Moore's Commentary

1/4/2006 -- The journey that character was on, [Laura] wasn't thinking of the presidency or anything like that, and the responsibility to lead was thrust upon her. She grapples with the fact that the survival of literally the entire human race is on her shoulders. She's moving in a direction where she's more apt to take harsher measures and do things she'd never do before. The weight of these decisions weights heavily on her. The fact that she's dying has brought [her situation] into sharp focus. She doesn't have a lot of time left. She wants to leave the fleet and the civilians in a good place, and she knows that Admiral Cain is an incredibly dangerous person. She could not die in peace knowing that woman was in charge of the fleet and wrecking everything that she and Adama have achieved. (source: Chicago Tribune)

1/6/2006 -- We often find ourselves with episodes that are running ridiculously longer than anticipated no matter what our best efforts at holding the line at the script stage. This one in particular was a good 20 minutes longer. It's a lot to cut out of a show, it's essentially two full acts... We really felt that completely eviscerating the show by cutting 20 minutes out was wrong, and this time, another option opened up before us... Because the show leant itself so neatly into simply chopping it in half, we were able to really make two dynamic interesting episodes about it, instead of having to cut out the guts out of all the things we loved. We were able to preserve everything we liked, and also because neither episode was quite up to time, we had a chance to actually go back and shoot additional scenes. It really worked out to everybody's benefit and we got a lot more bang for the buck and we were able to go in and really goose up additional scenes that we felt were lacking even back at the script stage and flesh out the whole show. (source: Resurrection Ship, Part I podcast)

1/6/2006 -- In the original draft and in the original cut of "Resurrection Ship," you never saw this mission of Kara's. Kara simply went off-camera in "Pegasus", did this stealth thing, doing the recon mission against the Cylon fleet, and then she showed up, sort of in the middle of the battle... It was OK, it would have worked, but it wasn't as good as being able to see the recon mission. In this case, you did want to go and see the stealth ship do its thing for once. By shooting additional scenes, we were able to then go in, shoot this stuff in the cockpit with Kara, and then we had additional funds available, because we were creating a whole other episode to do some neat visual FX work to really go see the resurrection ship. (source: Resurrection Ship, Part I podcast)

1/6/2006 -- There was even a version we considered at the script stage where they actually did shoot at each one other, where the Vipers started opening up at each other, and exchanged gunfire for a few moments before Kara's stealth ship came in. But ultimately I felt that once these guys actually pull the trigger and once these guys actually shoot at each other, there was really no going back from that. That there was no way that they would ever really be able to get along with each other ever again in any kind of realistic way. So I was glad we pulled that out. (source: Resurrection Ship, Part I podcast)

1/6/2006 -- This little beat was something that we were able to restore, the game of chicken between Narcho and Kat. We were able to put that back in when we did the big recut. It's also an interesting dynamic. We're starting to establish that Kat is the next hotshot pilot behind Starbuck, which will play very strongly in subsequent episodes, especially "Scar". (source: Resurrection Ship, Part I podcast)

1/6/2006 -- Now this is a later insert, this little piece of business here. Where "boom, boom," you go in and there's all these naked Sixes hanging out in the resurrection ship, which is such a great actout. Gary Hutzel who is our visual FX supervisor was really tickled on the idea that were going to have all these naked Sixes hanging out on the resurrection ship. He needed more time to work that shot up to really make it work. So that was something that he slipped in after all the footage was shot. (source: Resurrection Ship, Part I podcast)

1/6/2006 -- Cain, in the original story and the original script, had a plan to attack the resurrection fleet. And part of her tactic was to use the civilian fleet as a decoy. That idea is still in this episode, but a key difference was that, in the early days, Cain required civilian ships to purposely set themselves up as bait, and she needed Laura to approve it. And it all came down to an idea of whether Laura could trust Cain to ultimately come to the rescue of those civilian ships... In that storyline it came down to Laura essentially realizing that she was dying very soon, she didn't have very long to live. She had to make sure that they wiped out the resurrection ship, because that gave the fleet the best chance of survival. And there was some line to the effect that Laura, having faith in that eventuality, if there's one constant in the universe, it's that what goes around comes around, and Cain would get hers in the end. It wasn't a really great resolution and we struggled with it...

In the original, after Laura agreed to let the civilian fleet be used as a decoy, Cain of course broke her word and would not protect the civilian fleet. The fundamentals of the old story were that Cain was not going to protect the civilian fleet which she said she would, and that was when Adama would have to stand up to her and take her down himself. I eventually pounded out a different version of the script where the assassination plot was going to be the big turn. The asassination plot worked better, it was a better choice to play it this way. That Laura -- Laura -- comes up with the idea of killing Cain, and that Adama would be taken aback by it. It's one of the dymanics that I love in the show, the reversal of the traditional roles of playing against type of who's the hawk and who's the dove... There comes a point where Laura looks at the situation coldly and says, "Given who this woman is, and the way she's behaving, this can only end one way, and you've got to kill her." And I love the fact that Adama's reaction is just, "Has the world gone mad?" (source: Resurrection Ship, Part I podcast)

1/6/2006 -- [Baltar] is finding less and less satisfaction with the fantasy life that he sort of invented for himself, and that [Number Six] has sort of invented for him. And he's becoming more rooted in the reality of the Galactica world, for good or for bad. Part of that is an outgrowth of his developing relationship with Gina. (source: Resurrection Ship, Part I podcast)

1/6/2006 -- This is a pretty dark story. In part this was sort of a result of the network giving a note at some point in the process, "Why is Cain so bad?" ... You can justify everything she did in "Pegasus". The woman really didn't do anything wrong by her own lights and the way she read the law and the way she read the situation. She acted in the way she thought best to protect her ship and her crew. Even the shooting of her X.O. was something in a combat situation she thought had to be done. The network felt like, given where we're going with Cain by the end of the resurrection saga, we need somthing really dark to justify the fact that Adama's thinking about killing this woman, and that he's actually gonna get to a place where he's going to say, "Yeah, go assassinate that woman." We need something nasty in there... The story of the Scylla was a pretty good way to go. (source: Resurrection Ship, Part I podcast)

1/6/2006 -- There was a whole show that was abandonned about going on a raid, called "The Raid," where they were going to infiltrate a Cylon base and get inside. And once they were inside they got some kind of clues about this resurrection ship and where was it and if they could knock it out that would really be a major boon to them. That storyline ultimately fell apart and didn't go anywhere, but we held on to the idea. Then that idea became the kernel of what was so important that Cain was going to destroy, come hell or high water. (source: Resurrection Ship, Part I podcast)

1/6/2006 -- This is one of my favorite scenes of the season, this scene between Laura and Adama. The performances here are just tremendous. You really get a sense that these two people in this scene have walked such a road from where they began in the miniseries, where they barely gave each other the time of day, to the point where Adama had relieved her of the presidency and instituted a military coup, and Laura had broken out and led a rebellion, and they had gone to Kobol. They had just travelled such a journey, and now in the middle of this other crisis, Laura is dying, and Adama's there to give her a glass of water and just be there with her... When Eddie goes away, he wipes away a tear. It's such a small, intuitive actor's instinct at work, and it's so honest and it touches me every time I see it. (source: Resurrection Ship, Part I podcast)

1/6/2006 -- Case Orange is actually a reference to a battle plan of the American Navy prior to World War II. Case Orange was a certain idea of what the Japanese would do and what they would do in response. Downfall is a reference to a film about Nazi Germany and the last days in Hitler's bunker... That little beat where Cain is saying, "Terminate Adama's command, starting with Adama," is an homage to Apocalypse Now. (source: Resurrection Ship, Part I podcast)

Commentary