By moderately popular demand: The Battlestar Galactica Essay

So, a few people have mentioned a desire to see one of my wacky nerd-academic crossovers, so here is a paper which I wrote for my Religion and Psychology course last term - the prompt was basically to take something that involved religion and psychology in some way, and to analyze it in light of at least one of the thinkers (Jung, Freud, James) which we focused on in the class. So, without further ado, the essay (the endnotes, which will hopefully come out properly formatted, were originally footnotes, which I consider to be a much sexier reference style):

Peter Berry

Religion 160

3/10/06

A Futuristic Illusion: Psychology and Religion

In the New Battlestar Galactica

NOTE: Analyses and Battlestar Galactica facts will not be drawn from outside sources but from my own close watching of and rumination on the show; opinions expressed here are not necessarily that of the show’s producers or writers but are, in the interests of academic honesty, entirely my own. Also, this contains spoilers of the series.

Science fiction found its foundations in the probing works of authors such as Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Ray Bradbury, who questioned and challenged diverse topics such as ethics, totalitarianism, and the depths of the human psyche. For many, this age of science fiction greats is gone, and for many, ‘science-fiction’ has come to be synonymous not with intellectual questions or challenges but with shiny starships and the meaningless “technobabble” of the various Star Trek series. In the new Sci-Fi Channel show Battlestar Galactica (not to be confused with the 1978 series of the same name, which acts as a vague and comparatively tame inspiration for the new show of the same name, which began airing in 2003), we have a compelling and exceedingly well-written return to the classic days of science fiction as this show questions basic aspects of human nature and twists the audience’s expectations and emotions as the it poses difficult questions about human psychology and the nature of religion, two closely intertwined concepts addressed by the show. Though the plot and ‘philosophy’ of the show does not clearly follow a single school of thought on the matters of psychology and religion, aspects of both Freudian and Jungian thought, I would argue, appear in the bulk of psychological and religious subplots in the new Battlestar Galactica (BSG).

At the crux of many of the religious questions the show poses are the Cylons, for they are monotheists (in opposition to the Colonists’ polytheism[1]) and, as a race, are extremely zealous and base many of their actions on their God’s commandments.[2] Two Cylon characters in particular raise a host of religious and psychological questions throughout the series: one is Sharon Valerii, a pilot aboard the Galactica and a sleeper agent who is eventually killed and replaced by a second copy of herself[3] (who also has the memories of the copy who was killed but who is now fully conscious of her Cylon nature;[4] this is important for Jungian reasons which I will explore later). The other is “Six,” a female Cylon who seduced Dr. Gaius Baltar, one of the Colonies’ leading scientists, into giving her the military defense information which made the Cylons’ attack on the Colonies so overwhelmingly successful. Interestingly, though Six is killed in the attack, she frequently reappears to Baltar; the manner of her reappearance raises more crucial religious and psychological questions as it has been suggested at various times that she is a manifestation of Baltar’s psychosis,[5] a guardian angel sent from God,[6] or simply a computer chip in his brain.[7] These two characters will be the focus of my analysis of Battlestar Galactica in light of Freudian and Jungian theory.

Freud’s most basic definition of religion is “the universal obsessional neurosis of humanity.”[8] Freud states that religion “arose out of the Oedipus complex, out of relation to the father,”[9] referring to his earlier work Totem and Taboo, wherein he posited his “primal horde” theory. According to this theory, a group of brothers banded together to kill their father out of desire for his wife and possessions but, upon killing their father, they were seized with such intense guilt that they created and began to worship a surrogate father; his guilt was transmitted through the generations and became the Father or Lord God which appears in Judeo-Christian mythology. While this theory has since been debunked as lacking any historical or paleontological evidence and as not accounting for polytheistic religions or ones which worship goddesses, it is still important in highlighting the essential element of religious belief for Freud: repressed guilt. This repression of unacceptable desires or thoughts is the same function which causes the neuroses Freud sought to treat through psychoanalysis, and it is this system of repression which brings us to our discussion of Freudian theory in relation to Battlestar Galactica.

Dr. Gaius Baltar, upon hearing that he has aided the Cylons in their genocide of the human race, is not initially the poster boy for guilt; his first thought upon hearing of his complicity is to phone his attorney.[10] However, after escaping the nuclear holocaust, he begins to show clear signs of guilt until what seems to be a hallucination of Six appears to him.[11] This Six, whom only Baltar can see or hear but with whom he regularly carries on conversations, is the source of the first hint the audience has that the Cylons are not only religious but appear to worship a deity closely resembling the Judeo-Christian God.[12] Six plays with Baltar’s mind throughout the series and eventually convinces Baltar that he is an instrument of the divine will of God.[13] This conversion is especially significant because before these events, Baltar was an avowed atheist.[14]

What does this conversion have to do with Freudian psychoanalytic theory? Baltar’s situation and its religious outcome can be seen as a corollary to Freud’s “primal horde” theory: the primal horde killed their father and manifested monotheistic religion as a result of guilt over these events; Baltar effectively killed the human race and, understandably, repressed many of the emotions resulting from this. This repression, in Freudian theory, leads to the neurotic genesis of Six, a devoutly religious Cylon who exists solely in his head. To further the connection to Freudian theory, his repressed guilt generates not simply a neurosis[15] but an “obsessional neurosis” which brings Gaius Baltar, former atheist, to worship God. Freud’s statements about the roles of gods are also applicable to the situation in which Baltar’s and the entire human race’s[16] religious fervors arise. Their home worlds have been nuked and occupied by robots of their own creation, and humanity has been reduced to a tiny number of people fleeing a vastly overwhelming force and who, on top of all that, have no real idea where they are fleeing to. This is an excellent example of the latter two of Freud’s roles of the gods: “they must reconcile men to the cruelty of Fate, particularly as it is shown in death, and [the gods] must compensate them for the sufferings and privations which a civilized life in common has imposed upon them.”[17] For both Baltar and for the entire fleet, fate has been extremely cruel to them and the very costs of maintaining the existence of human civilization are now far higher than the prohibitions to which Freud refers, so it would be no surprise to Freud that the “universal obsessional neurosis of humanity”[18] would flourish throughout the fleet.

Gaius Baltar’s religious experiences play very closely to Freudian theory but, true to the show’s questioning nature, nothing is clear cut. At one point Six practically quotes Freudian theory to Baltar, saying, “Wake up and smell the psychosis already. I’m not real – you’re not really getting secret messages from the Cylons. You’re just crazy.” When Baltar asks who she (Six) is, she responds, “I’m you. I’m your subconscious fracking[19] with your mind….You helped the Cylons commit genocide against your own people, and your fragile little mind couldn’t it so, poof! I appear and start telling you how special you are and how God has chosen you. Yeah, right.”[20] There is no point at which Baltar is more clearly showcasing Freudian theory than in this scene, but even so it is important to note that Baltar’s hallucinatory Six and their God appear to have real power at many places in the series[21] and that the potential truth of religion is nowhere denied and in some places embraced by the plot of BSG. The relevance of Freudian interpretation and theory to the events portrayed in BSG cannot, I think, be construed as an acceptance of those theories by its creators.

A similar caveat should be made about Jungian theory, which also has a place in the BSG plot. As mentioned in the briefing, the Cylons cannot truly be killed and instead, upon the destruction of their body, their consciousness is downloaded[22] into a new body, which then retains those memories and that personality, allowing it to build on them as the Cylon continues its life; there also appears to be some ability to transfer memories and personalities between living Cylons.[23] This process is, I would argue, very much like Jung’s “transcendent function” connecting the consciousness and the collective unconsciousness. Each Cylon is an individual, but thanks to the “resurrection” process there is an “unconscious” connection to the others; in BSG, this connection exists literally as the downloading process which ties each Cylon to the other iterations of their “model.”

Importantly, there are only twelve models of human-like Cylons, but multiple “copies” of each model exist and go about their lives simultaneously. Each “copy” of each model has a personality similar to but distinct from the other copies of that model.[24] In this way, each Cylon model is an archetype at which there is an unalterable “core,” in Jungian terms, which could be considered that model’s core personality programming.[25] Around this core is a more mutable layer for the archetype which changes with each individual Cylon’s situation, experiences, and personal consciousness. This archetypal mutability is exemplified by the two “Sharon”-model Cylons we see in the series who, incidentally, could also be seen to represent the individuated and unindividuated personalities theorized by Jung.

The Sharon Valerii Cylon who begins the series on board the Galactica is an unindividuated personality; she has not, in Jungian terms, integrated all of her opposites, especially her “shadow.” For this copy of Sharon, who is a sleeper agent and does not know her true nature until late in the first season,[26] the shadow is her Cylon programming which causes her to, against her will, sabotage the Galactica’s water supply[27] and near-fatally shoot her friend, the Commander of the human fleet.[28] There is, however, another copy of Sharon Valerii who later joins up with the crew of the Galactica and who appears to have achieved Jungian individuation: she is no longer controlled or influenced by her greatest opposite, her shadow. The individuated Sharon states, when pointing a gun at the Commander that her unindividuated “copy” was programmed to kill, that “I need you to know something. I’m Sharon but I’m a different Sharon. I know who I am. I don’t have hidden protocols or programs lying in wait to be activated. I make my own choices, I make my own decisions and I need you to know that this is my choice.”[29] She then hands the gun to the man that her “shadow”/unindividuated programming was telling her to kill, proving that she has reconciled her Cylon nature with the parts of her personality that are also inextricably human, something which the other Sharon was never able to do. In the Cylons we see Jungian individuation, as well as the transcendent function and a form of the collective unconscious, presented in an intriguing way.

Though none of the above parallels between Battlestar Galactica and Freudian or Jungian theory are perfect, I think that they are compelling and above all interesting takes on old theories that have, for the most part, been set aside in favor of more scientifically rigorous theories of psychology and better-researched and more supportable theories of religion. The presence of these theories forces the audience to think about the characters, and thus about humanity, in ways which would not be evoked by other, less contentious presentations. Thus, science fiction looks to the past even as it looks to the future and presents old theories in a new, compelling, and extremely entertaining television series.

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[1] See attached briefing, “Brief Summary of Battlestar Galactica”.

[2] BSG Ep. 205: “The Farm”. There is no precise real-life corollary for this religion, and I don’t think this is necessarily a value judgment on the part of BSG’s creators.

[3] See attached briefing.

[4] BSG Episode 207: “Home, Part 2”

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] BSG Ep. 101: “33”

[8] Freud, The Future of an Illusion, p. 55

[9] Ibid.

[10] Battlestar Galactica: Miniseries, 2003

[11] See attached briefing.

[12] BSG Episode 107: “Six Degrees of Separation”

[13] BSG Episode 110: “Hand of God”

[14] Battlestar Galactica: Miniseries, 2003

[15] Interestingly, the subject of Baltar’s hallucinations is an extremely attractive and sexually motivated Cylon woman (played by ex-Victoria’s Secret model Tricia Helfer) who, despite ostensibly being a non-corporeal being, routinely has sex with Dr. Baltar. There is an entire sexual sphere of Baltar’s neuroses and personality which could be examined in light of Freud’s ideas but will be temporarily set aside due to space limitations.

[16] As mentioned in the attached briefing, the President of the Colonies takes on the role of religious prophet and leads the fleet on a search for the mythical Earth; despite the irrationality of the action, over a third of the fleet follows her on a “suicide run to Kobol” in an effort to find the map to Earth. In this effort they use only scripture and religious artifacts which were obtained from the Cylon-occupied Colonies at great risk and only via an “illogical” sacrifice of military assets. Baltar is not the only one who acts questionably in the name of religion, and acts in this way in desperation at the terrible situation humanity finds itself in. BSG Ep. 206: “Home, Part 1”

[17] Freud, The Future of an Illusion, p. 22

[18] Ibid., p. 55

[19] “Frack” is a multipurpose curse word used frequently in BSG.

[20] Six, BSG Episode 207: “Home, Part 2”

[21] Some examples of God’s powers in BSG are Six’s prediction of the birth of the human-Cylon hybrid which will be the Cylon’s Savior (Ep. 113: “Kobol’s Last Gleaming, Part 1”), God’s guiding of Baltar’s hand when assessing targeting information before a strike against the Cylons (Ep. 110: “Hand of God”), and the delaying of the Cylon assault force immediately following Baltar’s repentance (Ep. 101: “33”).

[22] There are limits on this process (Ep. 211: “Resurrection Ship, Part 1”) and the process by which two “Sharon Valerii”-model Cylons with the same memories exist simultaneously has not yet been made clear to the audience, but these issues can be ignored, for the sake of academic discussion, until further details are revealed to audiences of BSG.

[23] BSG Episode 218: “Downloaded”

[24] My apologies if this is confusing. I’ve watched the show from its inception and at times I still get confused by the Cylon “resurrection” process; it has yet to be entirely revealed to the audience.

[25] Cylons are, after all, machines, though the question of programming versus sentience is another classic science fiction concept addressed by BSG.

[26] BSG Ep. 113: “Kobol’s Last Gleaming, Part 2”

[27] BSG Ep. 102: “Water”

[28] BSG Ep. 113: “Kobol’s Last Gleaming, Part 2”.

[29] Caprica Sharon Valerii, BSG Ep. 207: “Home, Part 2”