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"Enemies Among Us"
Battlestar Galactica (the mini-series, part 2,
hour 2)
(45:33-end)
TV episode
Written by Ronald D. Moore and Christopher Eric James
Based on a teleplay by Glen A. Larson
Directed by Michael Rymer
Original air date: December 9, 2003 |
Baltar warns of possible Cylon agents
aboard the Galactica; the fleet begins a lonely quest.
(This episode opens with Commander Adama
struggling to control his emotions over the seeming loss of
Apollo and ends with the revelation that Boomer is one of the
Cylon humanoid models.)
Read the
full story summary of Part 2 of the Battlestar Galactica
mini-series at the Battlestar Wiki
Notes from the BSG
chronology
This episode takes place immediately
after the events of "Flight".
Didja Know?
The
Battlestar Galactica mini-series was made up of
two 2-hour parts, originally broadcast on the Sci-Fi Channel
(now known as
Syfy). I have chosen to break down the
mini-series into four ~45-minute segments to more closely match
the running times of episodes of the ongoing TV series that
followed it. For this episode, I have assigned the title of
"Enemies Among Us" based on events in the story such as
Baltar's existence in the fleet, his warning that their may be
Cylon agents aboard the Galactica, and the revelation
of Boomer.
Characters appearing or mentioned in this story
Baltar
Lt. Gaeta
Head Six
Aaron Doral
Dee
Leoben Conoy (dies in this episode)
Colonel Tigh
Commander Adama
Apollo
Baltar
Starbuck
Zak (deceased, mentioned only)
Captain Kelly
Billy
President Roslin
Elosha
Cally
Chief Tyrol
Elosha
Didja Notice?
When Colonel Tigh learns from Commander Adama that some Cylons
look human now, he remarks, "They could be anywhere.
Anyone." Ironically, Tigh is (unknown to him) a Cylon
himself, as later revealed in "Crossroads" Part 2.
At 51:06 on the Blu-ray, notice that many of the books scattered
around Adama's quarters do not have the traditional diagonal
cuts on the outer corners normally seen on Colonial tomes. We
see it again at 1:21:23 (and in many later episodes). Most
likely, the props department was running behind on chopping the
corners off everything and hoped these books would slip past the
viewer unnoticed!
Though Leoben's autopsy showed normal organs and that he
appeared to be human, a tissue sample from the corpse yielded
unique chemical compounds that showed the sample to be
synthetic, and thus a Cylon. Adama and Tigh then tell Baltar
they need his help in developing a way to screen human from
Cylon. But they already know of a way...take a tissue sample and
analyze it for the same chemical compounds that showed Leoben's
sample to be synthetic! In fact, this is what Baltar claims to
have done in order to out Aaron Doral as a Cylon (with the help
of a special form of spectrum analysis that he claims he'd
been experimenting with for quite some time and a computer
subroutine he's written to screen the analysis for synthetics).
But did Baltar really do this? He had already singled out Doral
as a potential scapegoat for having planted the Cylon device
Head Six had pointed out to him in CIC. But, we do find out
near the end of this episode that Doral is, in fact, a Cylon.
But if Baltar now has this claim of a special form of spectral
analysis for screening Cylons, why is he still depicted as
trying to come up with a screening test in later episodes of the
regular series?!
In an attempt
to refute the accusation against him that he is a
Cylon, Doral tells Tigh
he's from Oasis, a hamlet a couple stops out of Caprica City and
that he went to school at the Kobol Colleges on Gemenon.
At 58:49 on the Blu-ray, as Adama enters the conference room to
meet with President Roslin, notice that she makes him wait while
Billy finishes going over his update on the status of the
civilian fleet. This is undoubtedly her way of showing him that
she is not a "schoolteacher", but the one in command, as the
newly sworn President of the Twelve Colonies.
Roslin asks Adama if he acknowledges her position as
President as duly constituted under the Articles of
Colonization. The episode "Colonial Day" states that the
Articles of Colonization were signed about 52 years before,
during the first Cylon War, to unite the Twelve Colonies under a
single government. The name is undoubtedly based on the Articles
of Confederation which united the original thirteen colonies of
the United States before the drafting of the United States
Constitution.
It's never really answered how the Cylons found the human fleet
at Ragnar Station. In the novelization, the command personnel
speculate that the Cylon device found in CIC was a transponder
or that Doral or Leoben managed to get a message out (of course,
unknown to them a message could have been sent by any number of
sleeper agents, including Boomer). And it is revealed in the
"previously on Battlestar Galactica" sequence at the
beginning of
"Kobol's Last Gleaming" Part 1
that the Cylon device is a transponder.
When Adama decides
the Galactica must flee the Colonies with the civilian fleet,
he orders Gaeta to plot a jump to the Prolmar sector, beyond the
"red line" where it is statistically safe to plot an FTL jump.
At 1:09:11 on the Blu-ray, notice that the Galactica
launches a mix of Mark II and Mark VII Vipers against the
Cylons.
During the memorial service for the fallen aboard the
Galactica, Adama says, "Life here began
out there. Those are the first words of the sacred scrolls, and
they were told to us by the Lords of Kobol, many countless
centuries ago." The phrase "life here
began out there" is also the first line of the preamble of the
opening credits of episodes of BSG70.
At 1:20:34 on the Blu-ray, a tattoo is visible on the back of
Starbuck's neck, mostly obscured by a tuft of
hair on the back of her head. This is an actual tattoo that
actress Katee Sackhoff has, the Chinese character for the word
"choice".

At 1:21:35 on the Blu-ray, one of the swords seen hanging on the
wall of Adama's quarters is a Cylon sword, carried by Centurions
in episodes of BSG70.

At 1:24:05 on the Blu-ray, the painting
by Monclair of a scene from the first Cylon War that was given
to Adama by Commander DiMarco in
"Endings and Beginnings"
is seen hanging in Adama's quarters. It hangs there throughout
the series.
As Tigh enters his quarters at 1:25:14 on the Blu-ray, notice
there appears to be a display case of medals hanging on the
wall. Seconds later, we see the logo of Squadron 3, the
Vigilantes, of which he was presumably a member in his old war
days as a Viper pilot.
Although it's never actually revealed in the course of the
series, according to the audio commentary on the Blu-ray, the
note that Adama finds in his quarters about there being 12
models of Cylons was, in fact, left for him by Baltar. His role
is also hinted at in the TV movie that acted as a coda to the
series, The Plan.
At 1:27:43 on the Blu-ray, notice that there is an unfinished
portion of the rings of Ragnar station. Was the station
still under active construction at this time? Or was it built
during the first Cylon War and left unfinished when the war
ended? It does seem that the station was built within the gas
giant planet Ragnar's formidable atmosphere in the first place
because the Colonials had discovered that something about the
place was destructive to Cylon technology.
At 1:27:46 on the Blu-ray there almost seems to be some
kind of pattern to the Cylon Raiders that are flying above
Ragnar station. Is there any significance to the pattern?

The shot of the fleet at 1:15:15 on the Blu-ray, has the
starship Enterprise from
Star Trek in it
in the top right corner! It looks like the refurbished
Enterprise that first appeared in Star Trek:
The Motion Picture. This shot also appears in the opening
credits of the Season 1 episodes.

The final spoken words of the episode are a Number Six saying,
"By your command." The phrase is used only a few times in
BSG2000, but was frequently used by Cylons in the original
series.
Notes from the deleted scenes on the Blu-ray
Boxey is given a bunk in the pilots quarters aboard
Galactica by Tyrol. Tyrol tells him that it belonged to a
pilot called Carrot who was killed in the Cylon battle.
Billy tells President Roslin that Colonel Tigh is third
generation Colonial warrior, his father a celebrated pilot, and
his grandfather a chief of staff to President Mueller as well as
a war historian and author. It may be that this scene was
written before it had been decided that Tigh would later be
revealed as one of the Final Five Cylons, since it seems like it
would be hard to have such a high profile family history for
someone who was not born of human parents and, in fact, not even
"born" in the Colonies.
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Notes from the
novelization of the Battlestar
Galactica mini-series by Jeffrey
A. Carver
(The page numbers come from the 1st printing, paperback edition,
published July 2006) |
Chapter 42
Pages 257-260 feature a modified version of a deleted scene that
appears on the Blu-ray disc of this episode. It establishes that
Billy won the Siltzer Prize for his paper on Diplomacy and
Leadership Models. The Siltzer Prize is likely a play on the
Pulitzer Prize, an award in the United States for achievements
in journalism and literature.
Chapter 43
On page 269, Head Six is impressed with how Baltar managed to
alert Colonel Tigh to the presence of the Cylon device in CIC
without implicating himself and framing Doral for it instead,
saying, "We should really make a copy of your brain
patterns at some point." In the BSG70 novel
Redemption, it is
revealed that the Cylons have created cloned duplicates of
Baltar's brain and they have an organic computer based on one of
the cloned brains.
Chapter 45
Page 282 states that the Prolmar sector the fleet jumps to is
about 30 light years away from Ragnar and in the opposite
direction from Armistice Station.
Chapter 46
On page 286, the human fleet is described as motley and ragtag.
In BSG70, the fleet is described as a "ragtag, fugitive fleet"
in Adama's closing coda at the end of most episodes.
Chapter 48
Page 301 states that the prayer Elosha reads at the memorial
service for the fallen is from the seventh scroll of Kobol. The
Sacred Scrolls are the basis of the mainstream polytheistic
religion of the Colonies.
Chapter 50
On page 315, Tyrol reflects that they lost 8 Vipers in the
battle at Ragnar, with 14 more seriously damaged.
Coda
It is implied here that Doral was a sleeper agent, not realizing
he was a Cylon until he is confronted by a group of them who
rescue him from Ragnar Station when his true memories emerge
spontaneously.
Memorable Dialog