The Frakking Nukes

"You maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!"

-- Charlton Heston, gun enthusiast

Thus ends Planet of the Apes, the 1968 sci-fi parable about mankind's lust for self-annihilation, starring a guy who once called legal restrictions on automatic firearms "draconian." So it goes.

And so it went Friday in the mid-season finale of Battlestar Galactica, the best science fiction TV series ever made about people who wear backwards tank tops. In Planet's famous end, Charlton Heston, having escaped from the people in the rubber masks, discovers that the Planet of the Apes used to be the Planet of The Stupid Humans Who Wiped Themselves Out With Nuclear Weapons That Somehow Didn't Affect All The Talking Apes. He reacts to this revelation in the calm, dispassionate manner you would expect from Charlton Heston (see above quote). Battlestar's cliffhanger ending is this same scene filtered through a Calvin Klein ad. As the most attractive of the last surviving humans in the galaxy (in the future, Edward James Olmos is sexy) stand around looking bewildered, the camera pans to reveal that Earth -- the planet they've been seeking for 3 ½ seasons, the same one you and I and the other three people reading this all live on -- has been charred blacker than Lou Dobbs' soul. In case you don't get the hint, a Geiger counter is shown going batshit crazy.

When Battlestar returns in January, the crapification of earth will no doubt be attributed to killer robots. It's not that Battlestar is a stupid show (it is, in fact, one of TV's best). It's just that it's a show about killer robots -- killer robots created by humans who turn against their masters and try their hands at interplanetary genocide. So when you see a scorched landscape, killer robots are a safe bet.

But one of the reasons Battlestar works so well is the same reason Planet became a classic: In both, humanity's demise is rooted in its Alfred E. Neuman-esque attitude toward the machines of war. And it's no coincidence that when the Cylons (the politically correct term for killer robots) and humans shoot at each other, they fire not photon torpedoes, but nuclear missiles. It was only a matter of time before one of those nukes went off in more than just a physical sense.

Here on earth, nuclear weapons don't get talked about much except in connection to Iranian reactors or the War on Brown People. That's a shame, because there's so much crazy stuff happening in the world of doomsday technology. A May 12 cover story in the Washington Post reported that, "At least 40 developing countries from the Persian Gulf region to Latin America have recently approached U.N. officials to signal interest in starting nuclear power programs," which prompted one heebie-jeebie stricken U.S. official to wonder, "At what point do you reach the nuclear tipping point?" Weeks later on June 9, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced after visiting the A-Bomb Dome in Hiroshima, Japan, plans to form an International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament with the goal of reinvigorating the 40-year-old Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Rudd then shotgunned a Foster's and killed a kangaroo with his bare hands.

Back in May, a day after the Post story, the Decider informed Congress of an agreement with Russia on civilian nuclear power that the administration believes will help combat proliferation. Congress responded by simultaneously pooping its pants and vomiting (though it's worth noting that the pooping and vomiting were bi-partisan in nature). But Richard Luger and Sam Nunn hailed the agreement as an important first step toward greater anti-proliferation cooperation between the two nations in a New York Times op-ed. Nunn, of course, -- co-founder with Ted Turner (yes, Ted Turner) of the Nuclear Threat Initiative -- is believed to be on the Chosen One's Vice Presidential short list. So the question begs: Will either McCain or Obama do at least as much as some guy who talks like Paul Hogan to fight nuclear proliferation? Luger and Nunn recognized "a remarkable consensus among the presidential candidates about this imperative," which is good to know but boring to read. McCain was slightly less boring when he said in a May 27 speech, "I don't think any of us, Republican or Democrat, can take much satisfaction in what we've accomplished to control nuclear proliferation," while back in October, a halo of pure light energy surrounded Obama as he proclaimed that his administration would seek "a world in which there are no nuclear weapons," adding, "It's time to stop giving countries like Iran and North Korea an excuse."

This would be the moment where I come back around and compare the words and actions of humanity's real-life leaders to those of the head honchos on Battlestar Galactica. I can't do that. On Battlestar, Admiral Adama and President Roslin exercise what TV bloviators would call a "muscular foreign policy." This is because, as was mentioned, they're fighting killer robots. Thankfully, we live in a world free from killer robots, so comparing the fictional people who do battle with them to those who don't seems a bit unfair. But like most good sci-fi, Battlestar does hold a lesson for us: Blowing up the world is never a good thing. Even Charlton Heston could have told us that.

Comments

[1will]

You are confusing Charlton Heston's quote about gun laws. He was referring to semi automatics not automatic weapons. There is a difference although it seems to regularly escape lefty anti gun types.

[brendanm]

Also, for all of those confused about what is going to happen, just wait until the advanced humans/Cylons make contact with the fleet.

[brendanm]

Was my long, insightful post deleted because I thought the references to Obama were dickish, or are you just jealous of my superior knowledge and understanding of Battlestar Galactica?

My guess, and hope, would be the former.

[wayoutleft]

any kind of militarized future, fantasy or otherwise, condemns human beings. there's absolutely no possible way humans will be a morally positive force in a cosmological context. i want to see a human character conflicted by his realization that humanity must be destroyed for interplanetary societies to flourish in safety, which will prove to be the truth. behemoth human militaries have been very thourough in prempting human presence in space. there is no question that an encounter with extraterrestrial beings would end in attack and annihilation. it will be played out just like european encounters with other human beings in history. there is no possible alternative. we are being prepared psychologically for this by the de rigeur casting of other beings as horrible powerful enemies. (drumroll- now the 2 exceptions to hundreds of examples like BSG, please...)

[sethrp]

Um... what makes you so sure they reached Earth? Starbuck said she had seen Earth, and it was green and pristine. And when they were landing you saw none of the recognizable continents you saw in Starbuck's visions.

Not to mention that Earth may (obviously) not be their final destination. If only we had the luxury of such planet-hopping. Glad you're also enjoying BSG, still the best and most relevant show on television.

[BlackJAC]

The producers did say "We're calling it 'Earth'" when pressed on the subject. Given there's twelve hours of show remaining in the series (the finale's going to be three hours), this thing will certainly be resolved.

[brendanm]

Most importantly, I totally called it that they would find the Earth after a nuclear holocaust. But you are wrong to blame it on sexy evil robots; the point of the show is that the destruction of others is ultimately an act of self-destruction, so while the Cylons committed genocide on the humans this time. last time it was the evil humans and who knows who will be at fault next time. It is a never-ending cycle of violence, or, in other words, "all of this has happened before and will happen again." Our coup in Iran and the subsequent revolution sparked the Iran-Iraq war and the invasion of Afghanistan where we supported the mujahadeen who became the Taliban whose allies al-Qaeda attacked us on 9/11 which was the pretext for invading Iraq from which we'll launch our attack on Iran by which point we'll be able to burn the surface of the Earth with nuclear hellfire just in time for the human/Cylon fleet to arrive and find us all dead. Think about. I think about this stuff all the time (which, by the way, is a reference to Repo Man).

[Riverwolf]

I agree—the nuclear holocaust we saw may turn out to the humans’ fault. Which, I’m guessing, led to their flight in to space where they eventually established the 12 colonies.

But the Cylons have to figure in somehow. Hmmm—my brain hurts!

[brendanm]

Also, with references to the Planet of the Apes, Mad Magazine, Lou Dobbs, and even Crocodile Dundee, you'd think you could mention the greatest single film about man's self-destr­uctiveness and distrustful nature, The Day the Earth Stood Still. Too high brow? Your final point, that "blowing up the world is never a good thing...ev­en Charlton Heston could have told us that" rings hollow considering that is precisely what Chuck did in the second of the Apes series, Beneath the Planet of the Apes.