Ariel Chen (ac47386)Classical Mythology and Occult05/08/15

Mythology and Religion in the Reimagined Battlestar Galactica

In 1978, a television series called Battlestar Galactica aired, and it lasted 24 episodes. The creator was Glen A. Larson, who was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and many Mormon themes were incorporated into the series yet never fully explored due to the cancellation of the show after one year (Beliefnet). Beginning December of 2003, a reimagined Battlestar Galactica began airing on the Sci-Fi Channel and it continued through four seasons, ending its run in 2009. It takes its cue from the original series in many ways, including the inclusion of religious aspects in the story, but the new show took it a step farther. The reimagined series was developed by Ronald D. Moore, who describes himself as agnostic in the truest sense of the word and says that though he was raised Roman Catholic, he has always been interested in various religions, such as Hinduism and other Eastern religions (Hickerson). Moore wanted to explore mythological ideas and the basis of faith in his show, so the reimagined Battlestar Galactica (BSG) has strong religious themes in its core, pervading the entire length of the show and its story, despite the fact that it is categorized as science fiction.The story arc of Battlestar Galactica is set in a distant star system, where a civilization of humans live on a group of planets known as the Twelve Colonies. In the past, the Colonies had been at war with a cybernetic race of their own creation, known as the Cylons. With the unwitting help of a human scientist named Gaius Baltar, the Cylons launch a sudden sneak attack on the Colonies, laying waste to the planets and devastating their populations. Only approximately 50,000 humans survive, most of who were aboard civilian ships that avoided destruction. Of all the Colonial Fleet, the eponymous Battlestar Galactica appears to be the only military ship that survived the attack. Under the leadership of Colonial Fleet officer Commander William "Bill" Adama (portrayed by Edward James Olmos) and President Laura Roslin (portrayed by Mary McDonnell), the Galactica and its crew take up the task of leading the small fugitive fleet of survivors into space in search of a fabled refuge known as Earth (Wiki).Despite the fact that the majority of the show is set in space and aboard spaceships, the series seemed far more interested in the socio-political happenings in the surviving human population than the science in science fiction (Beliefnet). The human beings, or the Colonials, follow a polytheistic religion that has distinctly Greco-Roman roots, and various characters have varying degrees of piety and faith. The primary driving narrative of BSG is that of the Colonials seeking out a planet they know as Earth by following divine signs as well as a sacred scroll of prophecy called the Book of Pythia. An entirely separate theology is also portrayed in the religious faith of the Cylon race, which is a monotheistic religion with some resemblance to Christianity and, some argue, Gnosticism. Like the Colonials, the different humanoid Cylon models are shown to have varying degrees of faith. Throughout the show, beliefs are challenged as events the audience should take to be divine occur, and certain characters are ultimately revealed to be actual messengers of God.Many of the Colonials practice polytheism, worshiping the Lords of Kobol. This religion appears to be the state religion as well, with government oaths making references to the gods and with public museums housing sacred artifacts. The Lords of Kobol closely resemble the Greek Olympian pantheon and myths of the Greek classical and Hellenistic periods. Some of the gods mentioned by name in the show include Zeus/Jupiter, Aphrodite, Apollo, Ares/Mars, Athena, Artemis, Hera, Hecate, and Asclepius. The Colonials appear to use Greek and Roman names for their gods interchangeably. The Greco-Roman zodiac is featured prominently throughout the show as well, as the Twelve Colonies of Kobol are named after the signs in the zodiac: Aerilon (Aries), Aquaria (Aquarius), Canceron (Cancer), Caprica (Capricorn), Gemenon (Gemini), Leonis (Leo), Libran (Libra), Picon (Pisces), Sagittaron (Sagittarius), Scorpia (Scorpio), Tauron (Taurus), and Virgon (Virgo). The basis of their religion is contained within the Sacred Scrolls, which are said to record the history of humanity, when humanity and the gods lived together in a kind of paradise on the planet Kobol until the humans left the planet in tribes. This is the mythology that the show creates that many characters within their world subscribe to.The gods are understood in different ways by different characters and groups in BSG, with some seeing them as literal and others as metaphorical. The show itself seems to lean towards the literal, the non-metaphorical interpretation; relics and artifacts supposedly left behind by the gods are discovered, such as the Arrow of Apollo, the Tomb of Athena, the Gates of Hera, and the Eye of Jupiter. No deity or divine being is ever shown, but it seems to audiences that there seems to be a level of reality behind the colonial faith that is not merely metaphorical.Prophecy plays a significant role in the show as well, with characters consulting with oracles on more than one occasion. In the Colonial religion, the oracles seem to possess prophetic insight on the directions and motivations of the Lords of Kobol and can interpret dreams when characters seek counsel regarding them. The Sacred Scroll cited most often on the show, the Book of Pythia (similar to the Greek Oracle of the Delphi named Pythia), contains a prophecy that discussed the exile and rebirth of the human race, and that a dying leader would lead the Colonies to the promised land. One of the major characters, President Roslin, began the series fairly skeptical of religious faith but comes to believe that she is the dying leader described in the Book of Pythia due to the fact that she terminal breast cancer. Her character has quite a few parallels to Moses: both prophetic figures intending to lead twelve tribes in search of the promised land, yet are weak in faith and the promised land was not intended for them. Also contained within the Book of Pythia is the phrase all of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again, which recurs significantly throughout, is emphasized repeatedly, and is a major theme of the entire series. This theme can be associated with the concept of Eternal return, which is found in Indian philosophy, ancient Egypt, and was later taken up by the Stoics (Eliade). Time is seen to be cyclic, unlike the Jewish and Christian concepts of linear time (Eliade). All in all, the Colonial religion most closely resembles Greek Stoicism, but it definitely contains influences from a gamut of real-world theologies.On the other end, the Cylon religion is particularly interesting because it is debated even within the show the extent to which the Cylons should even be considered beings or individuals as opposed to mere machines, because they did begin as machines created by humanity. One of the strongest cases for Cylons being more than machines is the fact that they have their own monotheistic faith, even launching a war on the human beings on the basis of their beliefs. The Cylons use a great deal of Christian language when talking about their religion, but it is debated what school of thought their theology most closely resembles. Some argue that they Cylons are monotheistic fundamentalists, while others say that the Cylons are actually mystics (Wetmore). Yet others point out the similarities they have to the Gnostics.The Cylons believe in a single divinity they simply term God that created humanity. Yet they see humanity as a flawed creation, one that is sinful and has essentially thrown away the gift of the soul and of God's love. They believe that God directed humanity to create the Cylons as a more perfect entity that they were to take the place of the flawed humans in the cosmos and become, essentially, the next generation of humankind. The Cylons, seeing themselves as humankind's children, believe they cannot not truly come into their own until the human race is gone. The logical conclusion they reach is that they must commit genocide of the human race in order to evolve and mature. Their theology is rooted in the idea that the Cylon race is a chosen people and that God loves them. The Cylon beliefs are not stagnant through the series though; their views change significantly throughout the show in response to events. A Cylon civil war breaks out due to differences in beliefs towards the end of the show and many of the Cylons ultimately see their attack on the human race as a mistake.Similar to the Christian God or the God of the Hebrews, the Cylon God is not just the Cylon God but God to all, and they inform the human beings when they can that they should form a relationship with God, which is reminiscent of evangelical Christianitys understanding of the nature of the relationship between humanity and divinity (Wetmore). Those that argue that the Cylons are mystics base their arguments on connections between Cylon theology and the anonymous fourteenth-century text of Christian mysticism, The Cloud of Unknowing (Wetmore). God cannot be known intellectually, as the Cylons understand it, and they pray to Him and experience His love but otherwise know nothing of Him. They do not have theological texts, doctrines, rites, or rituals. This is very similar to what is said in The Cloud of Unknowing (Wetmore). The Cylons have similarities with the Gnostics, as well, even though the Gnostic idea that true salvation comes from knowledge is contradictive. The similarities lie in that the Cylons, much like the Gnostics, believe that a chosen few have special insight or secret instruction outside of the canonical scriptures. The idea that God is concealed from much of humanity is also another aspect of Gnostic belief that fits in with the Cylon view of the hierarchy in which they seem themselves as above humanity. To the Cylons, humanity resembles the antagonistic Demiurge, creator of the material, and their God is the highest, unknowable God of the Gnostics (gnosis.org).Besides the main religions of the Colonials and the Cylons, in the fourth season of the show a theology somewhat distinct from both is introduced in the cult of Gaius Baltar. Baltars theology is also closely tied to Gnosticism. He preaches that the polytheistic human theology is wrong and that there is only one true God. There are no sacred scriptures, relics, or places of worshiponly God and his messengers, or angels. God must be obeyed totally and unquestioningly. They must surrender to Gods divine plan. The cult sees Baltar as a prophet. God speaks to the angels, the angels speak to Baltar, and Baltar preaches to the people. This contrasts with the Cylons, who have an imperfect understanding of the God they worship; Baltar gets his words directly from an angel of God. With the revelation at the end of the series that Virtual Six, the image of a Cylon that only Baltar sees and hears is an angel of God, it would seem that Baltars teachings are real within the show. His theology appears to have the strongest basis in divine reality and is the most sound (Wetmore).The religious themes and storylines of the show all culminate in the finale of the show in which Gods divine plan is revealed to be the creation of our reality, the one audiences know, on the planet they find called Earth. The scrolls of Pythia that the human beings believed were demonstrated to be accurate, but it seemed that the Cylons and Baltar were the ones that understood the true nature of the divine. The show itself is a rather fundamentalist text in a way because the prophecies were shown to be true and manifesting literally. Through the presentation of different theologies, Battlestar Galactica was a much richer show, thematically, than the original series, and the complex mythologies the writers created elevated it above the typical science fiction fare.

Works Cited

Battlestar Galactica (2004). Moore, Ronald. Sci-Fi. 2003. Television."Born-Again 'Battlestar'" Beliefnet. Web. 6 May 2015. Eliade, Mircea. The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History. 2nd Pbk. ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2005. Print. "The Gnostic World View: A Brief Summary of Gnosticism." Gnosis.org. Web. 6 May 2015. Hickerson, Mike. "Ronald D. Moore on the Meaning of God in Battlestar Galacticas Finale." Slice of SciFi. 24 Mar. 2009. Web. 6 May 2015. Wetmore, Kevin J. The Theology of Battlestar Galactica American Christianity in the 2004-2009 Television Series. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2012. Print. Wiki, Battlestar. "[Various]." Battlestar Wiki. Web. 6 May 2015.