Well That Explains Some Things

I may be one of the few people who liked Battlestar Galactica but had no idea that its plot was heavily based on the Mormon religion.

Specifically, I will argue two things. First, I will perform a reading of the show that highlights the importance of religion to the plot, and argue that Mormon themes – both historical and theological – are integral to the story. The creator of the first BSG, Glen Larson, is a Mormon, and he stayed on as an advisor for the remake, which will be discussed here. The executive producer of the remake, Ron Moore, has stated that he was aware of the Mormon influences in the original series, and that he took that series as “mythos”.
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My second argument in this paper is more ambitious. To the political eye, the coming together of the two civilizations on the show, human and cylon, revolves around alliance politics. Pace Spinoza, however, alliances tend to fall apart once the threat they were formed against has evaporated or the gain it was supposed to realize is in hand. What we are seeing here is something much more, namely the merging of two polities into one. I will argue that this social coming together takes the major (but not exclusive) form of a religious coming together. What forges the new social group is first and foremost a set of practices revolving around the relationship between the here and now and what happens in another dimension, which runs parallel to our own and is also home to our pre- and post-mortal existence. Religion here must be understood not only in the classical, psychological sense going back to Tylor, as “belief in spiritual being”, but socially, as a question of  visiting other dimensions and have one’s view of our own changed as a result (Neumann 2006).

There's more than one site out there explaining the 1980s BSG plot and the modern one's connections to Mormonism. Maybe that's why the modern BSG plot fell apart halfway through. They just got too weird and detached from reality. Religion can do that to you.

Comments

[NVH]

Wait a minute. Lorne Greene as Adama in the Original BSG had that diatribe at the beginning of all those lost civilizations. And the BSG guys were one of them, looking for earth. So like the Mormons, the original BSG guys were looking for Utah?

-WTF?

[Sock Puppet of the Great Satan]

The original BSG had strong Mormon influences. But Ron Moore, the reimaginer of the second, far superior series, is a lapsed Catholic, and the second series is a *lot* more Catholic in (in the sense of all beings are capable of redemption or damnation, even sentient machines), and the exploration of free will, identity, grace, and "the plan" (which, of course, doesn't go as Number One/John plans it).

[J.]

Being a lapsed Catholic myself, that's an interesting point of view. thanks.

[Belphagor1527]

I was going to make a tasteless and sexist comment about the attractive possibility of being in a polygamous relationship with multiple number sixes but thought better of it.

Still...

[ry]

Um, considering that the show jumped the tracks when it went primarily into contemporary political commentary and got away from the Lost 13th Tribe stuff(hey, I'm conversant in Mormonism, though I'm non-practicing Catholic myself) of the original I think you might want to backtrack a bit, homes. The first season and a half were about the trek to the promised land with other stuff tacked on(Rosalin vs. Adama, faith vs reason, sorta. Thraace going back for the Spear was all about the religion, homes).

Though, I've got to admitt, the destruction of Pegasus episode was waaaaay cooler than the original's. Epic even.

Show fell apart. For lots of reasons. Mostly, it's, imo, because SciFi decided it wanted to go bargain bin b movie with in house stuff, and the defection of the '24' types after the colony was taken over really hurt in that regard with a show that required lots of time and money to develop, forced them to truncate the show a ton.

But that's me.

[ry]

I mean, look at how the axed a ratings winner in The Dresden Files. SciFi killed DF and BSG by going cheapo.