08 April 2008

Bulldog's return

Lt. Danny 'Bulldog' Novacek spent three years in a Cylon prison because the Old Man, Bill Adama, gave the order to shoot down Bulldog's Viper. (A Viper is the equivalent of a fighter plane.) He ejected and survived long enough for the toasters to find him. One day they just left his cell door open and he walked out, stole a raider, and took off.
Saul of Tarsus was a bad man. He went to the temples and forced the pious to blaspheme, he imprisoned saints, he followed them to strange lands just to persecute them. One day he was on the road to Damascus to do a little afternoon persecuting, and he was surrounded by a light from Heaven, which drove him to his knees and struck him blind.
Bulldog found out that the Old Man had tried to kill him from Saul Tigh. Saul Tigh, who lost his wife down on that rock New Caprica, who had always hit the bottle a bit much, Saul was mad at Adama, but he was really mad at himself, mad at the toasters, he was feeling no small amount of guilt about Ellen. The Old Man tried to help Saul, but when you're looking through the bottom of the bottle, it's hard to be anything but angry when people try to help you. Saul got back at Adama, his friend of 40 years, by telling Bulldog that Adama had tried to kill him.
Saul of Tarsus, on the road to Damascus, driven to his knees, blinded, heard a thunderous voice from the sky: "Saul, why do you persecute me, Saul?" Saul said, "Who are you?" The reply came back: "I am Jesus, whom thou persecuteth." Jesus then told Saul that his new name was Paul, and that his new job was to spread the news of what he had seen and what God would continue to reveal to him.
Bulldog was angry, and I guess it was inevitable that he would attack the Old Man with a length of pipe, because that's exactly what he did. Nearly killed him, too, until Saul showed up and saved his friend. When Bulldog had been subdued, Saul talked to him, told him that the worst part of getting played was losing your dignity, feeling like you're not worth the oxygen you're sucking down. Adama was beaten nearly unconscious and bleeding from half a dozen head wounds, but he managed to reach out to his friend: "Saul, you put that bottle away, Saul."
Paul continued on to Damascus, and his conversion was true. He bore witness to what he had seen and what God continued to reveal to him, he was healed of his blindness in only 3 days. He did his new job so well, in fact, that he was persecuted for spreading the word. When questioned, he maintained that he said nothing other than what Moses and the prophets said must happen: "That Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should show light unto the people..."
Saul Tigh isn't doing very well. He is back at work, but he's still drinking, and there's the matter of that strange music he keeps hearing. A whiff of a melody, maybe a few words, "too much confusion." Sam Anders heard it too, and the Chief, and that girl who works for the schoolteacher. Sometime soon, driven near to madness by the music, all of them will come together, and a knowledge, a certainty, will come over each of them, a certainty that they are not humans at all, but cylons, created by the One True God in his own image.

1 comment:

a bonsai said...

"when you're looking through the bottom of the bottle, it's hard to be anything but angry when people try to help you."

i love the simple, raw honesty of this line. it is so true. Begs the question, why does a person protect that which destroys him or her, and feel threatened by those who care to help. Even if you can answer the question, the defensive armor doesn't necessarily come down. This reminds me of how Sawyer deflected every effort of Kate to care for him.