GALACTICA

I saw the movie Troy yesterday, and naturally I couldn’t help but think of the similarities with Battlestar Galactica.

Of course the most obvious similarity is in the names! Apollo is the Greek sun god that looks over Troy, and Apollo is also our hero from Battlestar Galactica. And let us not forget Apollo’s sister Athena, who in the Greek mythology is the god of love and war.

King Priam in Troy has the same role as Adama in Battlestar Galactica. Both Priam and Adama play the wise elder leader, and both wear their religiosity on their sleeves. They both have a son who is the greatest warrior of their people. Apollo is the greatest warrior aboard the Galactica, and Hector, Priam’s eldest son, is the greatest warrior in Troy. In both Battlestar Galactica and in Greek mythology, the children have an important role as warriors. Don’t forget that Commander Cain, the commander of the Pegasus, had a daughter Sheba who was his greatest warrior.

Writing these comparisons is getting tricky because so many of the characters from Battlestar Galactica were named after ancient Greek gods and heroes!

The Apollo from Battlestar Galactica had a younger brother Zach, who also wanted to be a Colonial Warrior. He was very eager to go on his first combat mission, where, alas, he died. This is very similar to two subplots from Troy. Achilles’ younger cousin, Patroclus, desires to taste the thrill of battle, and like Zach, he dies in his first outing. Similarly, Paris, the younger brother of Hector, engages in his first battle, but essentially loses to Menelaeus who is the more experienced warrior. Only Paris’ cowardice saves him from death. The common theme is that the younger brother, or younger cousin, lives in the shadow of the elder, and therefore has a need to prove himself, but in attempting that he comes to a bad end.

Apollo from Battlestar Galactica reminds me a lot of Hector from Troy. In addition to both being great warriors, they both have long black hair, and they are both straight arrows who value loyalty to family and they both have deep religious convictions.

So if Apollo’s counterpart in Troy is Hector, who is Starbuck’s counterpart? Well Starbuck doesn’t really have a counterpart. But we do see a little of Starbuck in both Achilles and Paris. Like Starbuck, both Achilles and Paris are good with the ladies.

Comparing Starbuck with Achilles, both have long blonde hair, and both have a more unstructured and carefree approach to war than do Apollo and Hector. But Achilles is much more philosophical than Starbuck. And Brad Pitt has way more muscles than Dirk Benedict. Back in the 1970s, a great warrior could be skinny like Dirk Benedict, but now they have to look like steroid freaks.

Comparing Starbuck to Paris, while both are more carefree then Apollo and Hector, unlike Paris, Starbuck is a great warrior. Starbuck cracks a lot more jokes. And Starbuck won’t commit to a woman, while Paris knows that he wants to be with Helen for the rest of his life.

There is no Helen in Battlestar Galactica. But I’d like to say that I think the Maren Jensen, the actress who played Athena, is way hotter Diane Kruger, the actress who plays Helen. In the new Battlestar Galactica that appeared recently on the Sci-Fi channel, Helen would be the hot Cylon who seduces Baltar. But that analogy doesn’t go that far, because the hot Cylon is an evil agent of the enemy, while Helen is just a foolish but innocent (not in the sexual sense) girl who places her own desire to be with Paris above the interests of peace between the Greeks and the Trojans.

I guess if I had to pick a Helen from Battlestar Galactica, I’d pick Cassiopeia, since Cassiopeia is blonde like Helen, and Cassiopeia has a name from Greek mythology. Starbuck sort of has the role of Paris, and Cassiopeia is Starbuck’s love interest, so Cassiopeia is the logical counterpart of Helen. In the episode “The Living Legend”, we discover that Cassiopeia also has a thing going on with Commander Cain. And in Troy, Helen had a thing going with Menelaus before she dumped him for Paris. However, Diane Kruger is far prettier than Laurette Spang who played Cassiopeia. I never understood what Starbuck saw in her.

In Battlestar Galactic, the ultimate downfall of the Colonies comes about when the Cylons dupe them with a fake peace offer. The real goal of the peace offering is to get the Colonial fleet gathered together, where they are then destroyed in a surprise Cylon attack. Troy is destroyed in the same manner as the Colonies. The Greeks leave a giant horse as a fake offer of peace. The Trojans take the horse within their gates (against the advice of Paris), everyone celebrates peace and gets drunk, which makes it easy for the Greeks hidden inside the horse to sneak out at night, kill all the guards, and open the gates for the Greek army.

I have written before that the Cylons represent the Soviet Union, and the destruction of the Colonies by the Cylons was meant as a warning to 1970s America to not believe in any of the peace offerings from the Soviets. However, as we see from the story of Troy, the idea of the fake peace offer is ancient indeed. When we see terrorists like Yassir Arafat talking about how they want peace, remember the stories of Troy and of Battlestar Galactica.