but is she?

Stafford howls, "Starbuck is dead!"

But I'm not so sure. Her death, if that's what it is, seems rather sudden to me; if she has a "special destiny," it has to be something we haven't seen yet. Some fellow online geeks are arguing that Starbuck's "special destiny" was simply to die without fear, but during one of her final hallucinations, the Cylon named Leoben (who, in the vision, is neutral regarding whether he actually is Leoben) tells Starbuck that, having mastered her fear of death, she is now free to "become what you are."

If you start to dwell on the sheer number of ambiguities that "Battlestar Galactica" forces us to juggle, you may find yourself rather annoyed. With three seasons behind us, you'd think it would be time for some concrete answers. Thanks to the most recent epsiode, we have a new ambiguity to contend with: is Starbuck a Cylon?

The fans are suggesting that this is too obvious. Not only that, but making Starbuck a Cylon would violate some sort of unwritten rule: the central good guys have to be human, dammit. But I've seen rumors that Ronald D. Moore is planning to "blur the line" between human and Cylon. If that's the case, then so be it. As a mongrel myself, I'm all for miscegenation. I wonder: will Moore add any other races to the mix? About the only alien life we've encountered on the show is the suspiciously Earth-like vegetation seen on Kobol, New Caprica, and the algae planet (a.k.a., Vancouver Locales 1, 2, and 3).

But I digress. I think Starbuck is alive. I don't know what to make of the theory that she's been swept up by the Lords of Kobol or by the Ship of Lights (hat tip to the old BSG series). I'd like to think that Moore and his writers can come up with something truly inventive, without having to mine the late 1970s.

Here's a scenario for you. What if Starbuck truly was human and truly was killed in the Viper explosion? What if the Cylon raider she saw was real? What if the raider scooped up the shattered pieces of Starbuck and took her back to a base star? What if Cylon tech was advanced enough to put some or most of her organic parts together, supplement the rest with Cylon organics, and finally piece her consciousness together along with her body on the assumption that consciousness is fundamentally digital, composed of retrievable engrams that simply need to be put back in order?

The result would be Starbuck-as-Frankenstein-monster: a quasi-resurrected being with enough sentience to hate what it has become-- something a Cylon like Leoben would find glorious, but which Starbuck herself would find abominable. Oh, the horror of a reanimated Starbuck! The revulsion in Adama's eyes as he beholds what this woman, who was like a daughter to him, has become! The whooshing sound of Apollo's dick shriveling as he beholds this horrible new Kara Thrace shambling amorously toward him!

Or maybe the woman's just dead after all.


_