The Girl On The Pale Horse

S04E06

If it echoes, if it ripples, if you're caught in it, you might never know that the war's already ended, that you're in the wreckage of somebody else's mistake. But you still have to clean it up: "From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, it shall be required of this generation."

The shining waters of the Styx become the light on Kara's face; she awakes from lacuna in the arms of the enemy. Sam and Leoben tend to her wounds, the bleeding scratch on her head, as she slowly comes to. Everybody lived. She reaches for the wound -- she's Kara Thrace -- and Sam pulls her hands away. Together, Sam and Leoben take her out of the wrecked Raptor, out into the belly of the dragon.

CENTRIFUGAL FORCE REACTS TO THE ROTATING FRAME OF REFERENCE
(What makes us rather bear those ills we have, than fly to others that we know not of?)

Athena checks the Raptor as the docking bay curtains on the Basestar close, at once grotesque garage doors and beautiful shimmering flesh. There is a hand on her shoulder and she whirls, shouting, startled, cocking guns. It's the usual homecoming, the usual welcome committee of Sharons, who love her and always will. Last time, they had not fallen from Eden: there was no celebrity among the Cylon. This time, they've put on clothes.

"They call you Athena now," says the girl in front. "You even wear their uniform, like you're one of them." Athena looks at them warily. In their twinsets and sweaters and t-shirts, like they're ones of us. "You were the first to say no." To what? "The entire Plan." To kill their parents and to multiply: "You joined the humans. You had a child. You showed us that we don't have to be slaves to our programming." Athena rolls her eyes; Athena knows they never were. Without love, where would you be right now?

The Eights nearly weep, in frustration and shame: "We wanted the same thing, but it turned out to be a disaster." She swallows. "The Sixes have made one mistake after another. They have to be stopped before they get the rest of us killed." Another Eight urges her, to ask. "You could help us." Athena is sickened: "You want me to lead a mutiny against the Sixes?" The Eights are confused: why is she so angry? Why this disgust? What aren't they getting? What are they still frakking up? Why won't she just tell them how to be strong?

The word "turncoat" was once more than a metaphor: it was an answer. It meant to turn one's coat literally inside out, to hide who you really are. To take that piece of your heart you can look at, and turn it into something else. Sharon turned herself inside out, once upon a time; her strength is based on keeping herself inside that newfound skin. She's still learning to inhabit it; has tacitly allowed outrages against her own people, to prove to herself that she's earned this skin. She is more human than human, and thus proves her humanity to herself and everybody else. You can't explain that, any more than you can sell anybody independence. Not even Athena has outgrown war: she thinks you have to pick a side. And in war, you do.