SarahPhrase

As you know, I am both a fan of Star Trek and BSG. And, last night's episode of BSG, "Maelstrom", was certainly a watershed one, ending in poor Starbuck going kablooie. There's a lot of conjecture about what REALLY happened to her, with half the people thinking she's dead and the other half thinking she's not. Did she hit the ejection lever? Was Leoben in a heavy raider? Are there parallels to the original series and the Angels? Is Lee a whiny baby? Sorry, no, I added that part myself.

My immediate thought is, Moore is far too enamoured with Kara to truly let her go, even if he is enamoured with his own plot trickery nearly as much. All of the goodbyes throughout the episode were a little too heavy handed. Her death seems too obvious to be true. So the real question is, then what happened?

After spending far too long delving into the scifi this morning, I had a very nerdly epiphany. To illustrate, let me tell you a little story 'bout a man named Ben. Sisko, that is, from Deep Space Nine, otherwise known as, Ronald Moore's previous project.

Now, this is very traumatic for me, because Gul Dukat was my favorite character in all of Star Trekdom and, when they made him evil, I stopped watching DS9. Except for the last episode, during which they made him Even More Evil, and I howled in protest and threw several things and was extraordinarily glad the show was over so they couldn't screw up any more of my favorite characters (re: Worf, Dax, Vedek Bareil, and Garak). If you are a Trekkie and know who those people are, you can see why I don't gamble. But, because this is for scientific purposes, I do this for you.

*deep breath*

Once upon a time, there was a man named Benjamin Sisko. He was traumatized from his wife's death at Wolf 359 and thought his life was worthless. Lo and behold, the Prophets, aka the Bajoran gods, begged to differ (or, as one former student put it, begged to defer)(she also used to ask if people were smoking "refer" which I thought was hilarious).

Anywho, nobody ever found out who those Prophets were, because they like to talk through visions of people you already know in order to reach Your Linear Mind, even though they are definitely Not That Person. But one thing was for sure--they lived in a wormhole.

Also, they thought he was just swell. And special. So special that he had a destiny. A destiny they went on and on about in their prophecies. They even nicknamed him the Emissary. Occasionally they'd zap him up into the Celestial Temple. And who was there to convince him of his destiny? Why it was his dead wife.

One day the Emissary had something important to do. So, he said goodbye to the woman he loved and who would ultimately go totally nuts as Sherry Palmer on 24 and have to be shot dead. That particular fact may not be terribly important. Nevertheless, RIP President Palmer. *sob*

Back to the story. Ben Sisko got in his shuttle.

He went to a very scary place...

...fulfilling his destiny by saving all of humanity (and alienity), and died.

You know...kind of.

Except that he didn't really die. He ascended. Or lived with the Prophets. We never got to see exactly what for, because the series was over 5 minutes later.

Now let's take a look at Starbuck, shall we?

Kara...my density has brought me to you...

Bye bye, Lee and your subpar acting in this scene:

I feel my destiny calling me through my dreams. And so I must leave in my Viper...

And head towards a gigantic whirlpool...

...in which I have a vision of my dead mom, because of whom I have always felt worthless, telling me to embrace my destiny. And let's not forget Leoben, who says most definitely that He Is Not Leoben.

Dead Mom:

NOT Leoben:

Boy, it sure is scary in here!

Now I'm feeling the need to embrace my not-yet-revealed destiny which undoubtedly has to do with saving all of humanity and die.

Or DO I?

Mhm.

Need any non-RDM parallels? Please see Wizard, The White (LOTR) and Prophet, The Blind (Dune).

But, really, you don't need non-RDM material, because we already know he reuses old ideas. Hence the last scene:

Hey, it's Adama, breaking his little ship! Look familiar?

Hey! it's Jean Luc Picard, breaking his little ships! Guess who was a staff writer on that movie? You'll never guess.

I'm just saying, don't be all surprised if you see this scene next season, with a little BSG coloring and change of uniform.

And don't expect them to admit it's coming, either. Because, please.

Literary extra credit: A Descent into the Maelstrom by Edgar Allen Poe. Here's the most important clue to Starbuck's fate, from the final paragraph, bolding my choice:

The barrel to which I was attached sunk very little farther than half the distance between the bottom of the gulf and the spot at which I leaped overboard, before a great change took place in the character of the whirlpool. The slope of the sides of the vast funnel became momently less and less steep. The gyrations of the whirl grew, gradually, less and less violent. By degrees, the froth and the rainbow disappeared, and the bottom of the gulf seemed slowly to uprise. The sky was clear, the winds had gone down, and the full moon was setting radiantly in the west, when I found myself on the surface of the ocean, in full view of the shores of Lofoden, and above the spot where the pool of the Moskoe-strom had been. It was the hour of the slack — but the sea still heaved in mountainous waves from the effects of the hurricane. I was borne violently into the channel of the Storm and in a few minutes, was hurried down the coast into the 'grounds' of the fishermen. A boat picked me up —exhausted from fatigue — and (now that the danger was removed) speechless from the memory of its horror. Those who drew me on board were my old mates and dally companions — but they knew me no more than they would have known a traveller from the spirit-land. My hair, which had been raven-black the day before, was as white as you see it now. They say too that the whole expression of my countenance had changed. I told them my story — they did not believe it. I now tell it to you — and I can scarcely expect you to put more faith in it than did the merry fishermen of Lofoden.

And of course, I could be wrong about all this. But, you know, maybe not.

Labels: BSG, Star Trek, TV