::Head Desk::

[lls_mutant]

BSG article, may contain spoilers for Daybreak




Wondering what Ronald D. Moore was doing reading National Geographic
in the final episode of Battlestar Galactica? And was the lesson of
the series that love will save the day? A new interview answers both.

National Geographic spoke to Moore and co-producer David Eick about
the magazine's appearance in the final episode. Moore explained why it
happened:

We wanted the last voiceover to be in the form of a journalistic
article. It was about an archaeological find. It was in Africa, and we
wanted it to have a beautiful map on it. It felt like National
Geographic was the obvious choice... It's just more visual [for it to
be a magazine]. It's more interesting. And we wanted it to be outside
and on the street. It was either that or they're reading it off their
iPhone and that didn't quite seem as interesting.

And the point of the article? To show us how soppy that Moore and Eick
really are, according to Eick:

It's... sort of [an] uncharacteristically positive and optimistic
message because we had labored in the early part of the season to
establish this mythology that the reason why the Cylons couldn't
procreate is because love was necessary. They had all the biological
equipment but didn't have the emotional connection. It's like the
Beatles' song writ large: All you need is love. Love is all you need.

And so the idea that we are all partly Cylon sort of reinforces the
notion that only through love could human and Cylon procreate, so on
some base level [love] kind of what makes us who we are.

Admit it; you knew they were soppy all along, right?

http://io9.com/5187380/love-really-is-all-...ms-bsg-producer


:: HEAD. DESK. ::

I HATE THIS CONCEPT. HATE IT HATE IT HATE IT.

Look, I get the Cylons are fictional, okay? But love=babies? YUCK. I've watched friends desperately in love want babies. I've watched them struggle with infertility. I've watched them miscarry. And these have all been fantastic people with (as far as I can tell) great relationships, and it's not like Howard and I are any better of people or have any stronger of a relationship. We were just luckier. that was it. We were lucky, our friends were not (or got lucky later.)

Love has NOTHING to do with it.

Tell love has something to do with it to the teen mothers. Tell it to the women who get pregnant from being raped. Tell it to the woman who took precautions and had them fail. Tell it to the couple desperately in love that don't WANT children, and are sick of societal pressure and children being the ultimate expression of love.

ARGH.

Also? I still think the Cylons accepting mortality and therefore they could procreate solution some BRILLIANT person came up with was infinitely better than LOVE.

GAG.

Comments

[blue-crow.livejournal.com]

Thank you. THANK YOU. I agree entirely that the two concepts have nothing to do with each other and it just seems wrong and somewhat unsettling.

Do RDM and his wife have kids? I get the sense that he actually knows nothing about the themes he's worked into Battlestar (I think this came up re: the religious stuff as well). It just feels like he's thoughtlessly spouted opinions into the show that could have been better if not for them.

[blue-crow.livejournal.com]

Oh speaking of knowing nothing about kids- would you do me a huge, slightly odd favor? My beta and I are both childless 20-somethings, and I don't actually know anything about children or toddlers and yet for some reason I decided to do an AU Tyrol/Anders fic that employs a certain amount of a three-year-old Nicky. I don't really need a beta, but I'd love you forever if you could take a look at the section that has Nicky (like two pages) and tell me if he seems age-appropriate?

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

Gladly! Send it over! Toby's pretty advanced verbally, so I might not be the BEST beta, but I'll be glad to take a look.

Tyrol/Anders. I definitely want to read that :)

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

They do have kids, but my entirely uneducated guess was that they didn't have fertility issues or miscarriages. Hey, it happens. :)

I couldn't resist responding on the Skiffy forum. Mrs. Ron posted it, and I was the first responder, which meant there might be a chance that she or Ron would read it. But I kept it a lot nicer and less ranty than that, given that this is the first interaction I know of that I'd have with either of them. (I've responded to a few of the other threads I knows she frequents, but they've been overrun with fanwars and the like. This is one of the few I can believe they MIGHT see my response. )

(To save the trouble, here's my response (she posted a few other articles as well, including about the Streamys)

Congrats on the Streamys :) (I was glad they split into Comedy and Drama, because although BSG is awesome, Dr. Horrible was just not going to be beaten easily. Even if Gaeta and Billy have a lot in common. Heh.)

Neat articles as well. However...

And so the idea that we are all partly Cylon sort of reinforces the notion that only through love could human and Cylon procreate, so on some base level [love] kind of what makes us who we are.


Love the story, overall the series was awesome, but Eick and Moore? Please don't be around when I'm explaining pregnancy to my boys, okay? (Erm, not that I'm letting my boys anywhere near this series when they're at the age that I'll be explaining pregnancy to them.) Of course, I'm being glib here and vastly oversimplifying, but this was one theme that bothered me intensely, even though I get that Cylons are fictional and not subject to human rules. The idea of love being essential to procreation- or the implication of the lack of love being the reasoning behind the lack of procreation- bothers me. Like I said, I know that only holds true for the Cylons, but it just pings on that how-many-close-friends-have-I-watched-miscarry-babies-they-desperately-wanted sort of level. I'm sad to see that idea confirmed, because it was one that always bugged me.

Thanks for sharing the tidbits! smile.gif

[prophetkristy.livejournal.com]

I am awed by your class. I'm not sure I could have been that nice about it. I'm trying not to think about the angel stuff, but I'm already "whuh?" about the message of the series apparently being "technology = bad", so...I'm boggled once again.

[tin-o-biscuits.livejournal.com]

<-- my reaction to that article.

Love does not work that way! Good night!! [/Morbo]

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

"It's too bad you never were in love," Dee smirked, putting her feet up on the couch and munching on some popcorn.

Felix nabbed a handful from her stash. "Oh yeah? Who says?"

"You never had a baby," Dee said smugly.

"Neither did you."

"But everyone knows Lee never loved me. He loved Star-buck." Dee singsonged the name. "But you and Louis were supposed to be epic."

"Um, Dee?"

"Yes, Felix?"

"How do you suggest that Louis and I were supposed to have biological children together?"

"I don't know. But our Creator says that love equals babies, no love equals no babies. You and Louis were sure doing it enough, so by the rules of our universe, I'd have to say no love for you."

He threw a kernal of popcorn at her and it bounced off her head. "That's the stupidest thing I ever heard."

"Hey, just repeating what I've been told." Dee munched another handful. "Hey, does that mean Helo and Athena either don't have sex or aren't in love anymore?"

"What do you mean?"

"Hera's, what, three? And they still haven't had another baby?"

"Oh." Felix chewed thoughtfully. "Maybe they're not trying to?"

"But they're in LOVE. You know what would have made more sense?" Dee mused.

"Anything?" Felix guessed.

"Mortality. Cylons accepted mortality, and then they could reproduce. And the reason Ellen and Tigh never had kids was because they designed the resurrection technology. See how easy that is?"

"And I'm supposed to be the smart one," Felix sighed. "Ow!" he cried as Dee elbowed him in the ribs. "Well, fine then. In light of this, I propose we start lobbing popcorn at various people's heads."

"Sounds good," Dee agreed. "There's my lout of a husband." She tossed a kernel. "And you know what? We could even hit a Raptor...."

[prophetkristy.livejournal.com]

WTF, R&D!? TAKE YOUR HEADS OUT OF YOUR ASSES PLZKTHX.

Also? how does that message come from his lame-ass cameo?!

[prophetkristy.livejournal.com]

This is reminding me of what pissed me off the most about Episode III: Padme spending the whole movie sitting in her apartment wringing her hands. And then apparently dying of a broken heart when she had newborn children to live for. Apparently GL knows NOTHING about women. (srsly, did his children come from a stork?)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Totally agreeing with you, on all points.

the reason why the Cylons couldn't procreate is because love was necessary. They had all the biological equipment but didn't have the emotional connection.


Tell it to the women who get pregnant from being raped.

What kind of world do they live in? Had they never thought of that? Arg.

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

I also, if we're going to go with this theory, have a hard time believing that two Cylons never fell in love. ::gets crack idea for the only two Cylons ever being in love being a Two and a Four:: It's baffling. ::Sigh::

[rap541.livejournal.com]

Well... after 150,000 years of one half cylon interbreeding with pure humans.... The part Cylon is extremely negliable.

Also agree the love explanation is the worst sort of crap. Look, one of my major MAJOR issues with the Cylons is that as a species, they are impossible. I mean really, love doesn't make babies between different species. This isn't my only problem with the world building surrounding the Cylons, but its a major one. Inter-species breeding rarely results in living, fertile hybrid. A deer and a monkey can fuck all day long, and nothing with happen. A horse and donkey can fuck... and you get a mule. Which can't breed. For Hera to be Mitochondrial Eve is basically slapping the notion that the show is science fiction in the face.

Thats before I get into some of the nonsensical religious issues.

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

You know, for all that I am a scientist I never thought of the species point, which is outstanding. Heh. Oh well, this is why I specialize in things that have been dead and compressed for millions of years, not things that are living now :)

I still am not sure how the machine thing works, anyway. ::shrugs::

[thistlerose.livejournal.com]

YES.

God, I hated Ellen's line of reasoning in... I can never remember episode titles. That awful one where Caprica miscarries. Liam's conception was proof positive that Saul and Caprica's Wuv was Twoo? Please. Of course, I always thought it was Ellen's jealousy speaking, and she was just spewing bullshit deliberately. Given Moore's assessment of the finale...I dunno.

Although...since God (or some supernatural entity with a stake in human and Cylon survival) exists in this universe, maybe He or She only allowed a truly loving human/Cylon couple (Helo/Athena) to conceive and carry a fetus to term because He/She knew they'd be the most nourishing and nurturing. I don't know. I still think it's silly. And that isn't quite what Moore said. I'm just trying to make it work in my head.

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

Deadlocked actually tied (or maybe even surpassed) Black Market for me as Worst. Episode. Ever. That's how much I hated it.

Ellen's jealousy would be completely believable, because Ellen is a vindictive, manipulative shrew (and I say that with love). But I have to laugh, because when Saul tried to explain that he was thinking of Ellen the whole time and she scoffed that he was using her as his mental porn... well, that WAS what was happening. Neither Cap Six nor Tigh were seeing each other. It's very odd.

I'd thought something similar- actually- to your allowed theory. That maybe whoever designed the skinjobs felt that the best environment for a child was two parents who loved each other, and so they programmed the Cylons not to conceive unless they were in love. Silly, but then it puts the blame on that human or Cylon who programmed them, not basically saying "God wants it this way" when it's so clear that God doesn't give a frak about love and conception.

It's one of the truly baffling aspects of the show to me.

[kappamaki33.livejournal.com]

Exactly! Thank you for saying that so well!

No matter what the powers that be say, the only way I can make this work in my head is that what the Cylons believe about why they can't procreate is not necessarily gospel. Mythology is full of stories meant to explain why things happen the way they do, and I just choose to think that the Cylons, confronted with something that their somewhat limited understanding of biology and genetics didn't automatically reveal, decided that love was the answer since they couldn't figure out what was really going on.

Although, the mortality idea is philosophically and thematically very nice, much more in keeping with the "parents have to die (or get drunk and drool all over their kids' hands) for children to come into their own" idea.

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't mind the Cylons believing it- it's Ron Moore saying, "no, they're right" that annoys me. Blech. (Also, are you really going to convince me that no Cylon has ever loved another?)

I really wish I could remember where I first saw the mortality theory. I didn't come up with it, and I wish I knew who did because it's perfect. I LOVE it. I might have to start searching.

::Sigh::

[puszysty.livejournal.com]

John and George are rolling over in their graves. :/

That's really all I have to say about that.

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

Couldn't agree more :)

[rinelk.livejournal.com]

As someone who had fertility issues for quite some time, I'm with you on the idea that it was stupid. But it makes me feel better to read that the creators knew it was a silly indulgence in emotion. It makes me happier turning off my most critical side, and instead trying to see something good in it, and there is something: imagine being Hera, or any other Cylon child. If ever you doubt your parents' commitment to one another, your very existence is powerful evidence that it was genuine pretty recently, thus prima facie evidence that they still feel warmly toward one another. Obviously, feelings can change, but I can imagine it mattering to people. Similarly, for those who might be inclined to wonder whether their love is returned, or even whether one's own emotion is true love, there's a direct test available. Setting aside the troubling fact that this might cause people to conceive for reasons other than desire to parent, I can see that being something which would fill an emotional need. So when someone admits to adding a sort of arbitrary emotional component to a story, I'm happier for it to have had SOME merit.

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

I do have to admit, I can understand putting something in just because you like the idea. And hey- ideally children would have two loving parents, and two loving adults could have children. But other situations are good, too.

I also have to admit that as much as I wasn't crazy about Part III of the finale and as much as I was convinced Helo and Athena were going to die, it really made me smile when they showed the shot of Hera holding both her parents' hands, looking up at them and smiling. The poor little thing's been through so much, she deserves a happy family. And cupcakes.

But Athena REALLY needs to get one of those leash things. Sheesh.

[brennanspeaks.livejournal.com]

(blows loud raspberries at RDM)

So much for my happy delusion that the love-baby theory was intentional crap that they threw in to make the Cylons seem irrational. This show is not nearly as good with women's issues as it got credit for being. I mean, we had Starbuck being told that one pregnant momma was worth more than a whole squadron of Viper pilots, Athena constantly the victim of something-or-other, a trail of female bodies in season four . . . oh well. What's a good lovable show if there's nothing that makes me want to throw popcorn every once in a while?

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

I actually didn't have an issue with Starbuck being told that her greater value was as a childbearing woman, because, well... he was right, in his way. (Except that she could do BOTH.) She doesn't have to raise the kid, but with the info they had then, if they wanted humanity to continue, childbearing women were definitely at a premium. But yeah, talk about a trail of dead bodies. Hey- Zarek's got to be delighted. It's him, a bunch of hot chicks, and Gaeta in the afterlife. :)

[safenthecity.livejournal.com]

Aaaaand I continue to vomit in my mouth every time I think about this.

I keep telling myself, (and I have made this my own personal canon, just so I can hate it less) that the reason Laura approached Caprica about the baby was because Laura secretly killed it. Because that would be badass of her, and makes me much less sick than the idea of Caprica miscarrying from a lack of ~*~love~*~.

It's a sad day when infanticide looks like the better option of any situation.

[nicole-anell.livejournal.com]

It was either that or they're reading it off their iPhone
Am I the only one who giggled at that? The only thing that could've made that ending more amazingly corny was a blatant Apple product placement.

I SECOND YOUR HATRED FOR LOVE = BABIES. JESUS CHRIST. SHUT UP, EICK. *hits him with a rock*