A look at human-cylon sexual relations on Battlestar Galactica
"I could tell you that I like your sensitivity but you know it’s the way that you walk" Elvis Costello
Love brought forth the Holocaust. Caprica 6 fucked the defence codes out of Gaius Baltar and 20 billion people lost their lives. War, children, is just a kiss away. You have to ask: Was it worth it, Gaius? He’ll say yes of course and he won’t be the only one. In the cold grim world of Battlestar Galactica everyone needs some joy in their life and if it comes in the shape of a cylon skinjob then why would anyone complain? You don’t look a gift toaster in the mouth – not when you’re onboard the Bucket and the only ankle you’ve seen in six months is Laura Roslin‘s. Balthar was the first but he wouldn’t be the last. Ever since they started looking like us, we’ve been fucking and falling in love with cylons like horndogs rolling up at a Real Doll convention. We’re in love, we’re in love we’re in love with your strict machine. Hit it!
"Love brought forth the Holocaust. Caprica 6 fucked the defence codes out of Gaius Baltar and 20 billion people lost their lives. War, children, is just a kiss away. You have to ask: Was it worth it, Gaius? He’ll say yes of course and he won’t be the only one."
Chief Tyrol was the first Galactica crew member to be dubbed toaster lover when his semi-secret fuckbuddy Sharon "Boomer" Valeri put two in Adama’s chest and revealed herself to be a metalhead. What we (and they) didn’t know back then was that Chief himself was a cylon, one of the Final Five no less. And although a devastated Chief called his honey a machine and told her that her feelings were merely software there was no doubt: this love was real.
Something Carl Agathon was to find out on Caprica when the Sharon model who would come to be known as Athena got Jungle Fever for his homo sapiens ass. Their love endured hostility, imprisonment, assault, attempted rape but it prevailed and, after appearing in more dreams than Tricia Helfer, their hybrid baby Hera became mitochondrial Eve and kicked off human life here on Earth meaning there’s a little cylon in all of us (and I’m not talking about Doral).
“Admiral Cain’s lesbian relationship with Gina 6 led to the cylon agent being tortured, raped and chained like a dog. There are consequences to breaking a war criminal’s heart”
Not all interspecies erotica on Battlestar Galactica had such a happy ending. Admiral Cain‘s lesbian relationship with Gina 6 led to the cylon agent being tortured, raped and chained like a dog. There are consequences to breaking a war criminal’s heart. Loopy Cain got hers when Gina escaped to pop a cap in her malevolent ass. "Frak you" said Cain with her final breath to her former lover. "You’re not my type" came the response, with a bullet. As Logan once said of Veronica Mars: the girl does love a good exit line.
And some girls will just do anything for their man. Ellen frakked the repulsive Brother Cavil just to get her husband out of detention on New Caprica. This sacrifice was complicated by the later revelation that Ellen is the final cylon and in fact mother of all the current humanoid cylons making the Cavil hook-up mother-son incest. Which is just weird.
D’Anna Biers and Baltar hooked up with Caprica 6 on the cylon basestar in a three-way flesh metal mash up for the ages. He would later hump Tory Foster. Baltar very nearly fucked away the human race. You’ve kind of got to be impressed."
Baltar holds the records for cylon fucking with three notches on his bedpost. D’Anna Biers and Baltar hooked up with Caprica 6 on the cylon basestar in a three-way flesh metal mash up for the ages. He would later hump Tory Foster who would in-turn pump him for information on her newly revealed Final Five status. Between Caprica Six, basestar orgies and Final Five pum-pum sessions Baltar very nearly fucked away the human race. You’ve kind of got to be impressed.
“Some see it differently. Carl Agathon looked into Sharon’s eyes and saw the pie ex machina – the pie in the machine.”
So what do human cylon pairings on Galactica teach us? Successful sci-fi is allegorical – it tells us something about the world we live in now and the Cylons are a race like any other. The first thing war does is dehumanise the enemy. It allows you to napalm a village of Vietnamese because they’re just gooks, wipe out 20 billion humans because they’re the descendants of slavemasters or rape a prisoner because she’s just a machine.
But some see it differently. Carl Agathon looked into Sharon’s eyes and saw the pie ex machina – the pie in the machine. She returned his gaze and saw not an oppressor but a man – her man. They dared to explore the similarity where others just trumpeted the difference.
Mere trivia separates us. We are more alike than we know. Toasters have feelings too.
So say we all.
Imagined: 8th April 2009