About Me
Battlestar Galactica RPG - "First in the Fleet" | BSG Talk | "Upon Uncharted Seas" William Adama @ Livejournal
| Galactica Invictus | "A life After Presidency..." - Laura Roslin @ GJ"
What makes you unique?:
Unique? Nothing. We are where we are. I do my duty because that's what is called of me. At times the mantle of command is a jealous mistress, it can become an unwieldy weight especially under these circumstances, but I make my decisions and I stand by them. A man takes responsibility for his actions, lives with consequences. In short, I'm far from unique. I'm a soldier. I seek out the enemy and I protect the people of the twelve colonies.
Scratch my last.
What makes me unique is that in these dark days, after the burning of our homeworlds I'm a father who still has his son. More than that; I'm a man who was given a second chance. If I prayed to the God's I'd thank them for that.
What are you afraid of?:
Depends who is asking the question.
If it's one of my crew, my family? Then nothing. Command doesn't allow for the luxuries of self doubt, reflection or fears. It's about commitment. The people who trust you to lead them, to stave off their fears and to bring them home alive at the end of it all they deserve your total commitment to the job and to the responsibility. Leaves little room for anything else.
And yet, I think it would be an insult to anyone's intelligence to suggest that they don't know what scares me.
What I'm afraid of is losing those close to me.
It's cold comfort to me, to any Commander, to know that those who wear the uniform know the risks and accept the real possibility that they may be called upon to lay it on the line for their shipmates or for remnants of humanity of whom we find ourselves the guardians.
Every time the alert klaxon sounds, each time Galactica charges her guns I have to suppress that fear. Losing Lee or Kara or anyone, it doesn't bear thinking about. But I won't deny that fear, master it, but never deny it. It's part of what makes me who I am.
If its Saul asking the question; then answer is that I'm afraid of failing in this sacred duty that we have been handed. Afraid that some day the Cylons will get me on the ropes and there will be nowhere left for me to turn. No chance to for life to go on. Out gunned, out fought and defeated. But that's the fear I won't give in to.
If I ask myself the question: What am I afraid of? Then the answer comes quickly and inescapably to mind. It's been burning there for the past two years. I'm afraid Lee might be right. Maybe I did put Zak in that plane and if so I am responsible for the death of my son.
What is your biggest regret?:
It'd be easier to say that I had none. There is a difference in accepting the consequences of our actions or inactions and in having no regrets.
Do I regret not taking a different career path? No. I could have compromised I could have kept my objections to the updating of the fleet private. I could have let my criticisms of Adar remain silent instead of levelling the accusation that the relaxation of the AI laws was betrayal of the memories of the thousands who fell in the Great War. Maybe if I had then my corpse could have burned with Admiral's chevrons on my collar.
Do I regret what happened with Caroline? I regret that I couldn't be the man she wanted me to be. I'd been a soldier my entire adult life before I met her. It wasn't what I had originally planned, I was supposed to finish the Bar and go into practice with my father. He understood when I enlisted, he'd always taught me never to sit by when I saw a wrong being done. By the time the Armistice was signed and we got married I guess I was too set in my ways. Maybe I regret not resigning my commission sooner, given myself more time to adjust to civilian life more time to pursue that career as an attorney. The boys were in school by the time she finally pressed me to make good on my promise. With a family to support there was no time then for studies and I ended up putting food on the table by hauling freight. The damage was done though. More absenteeism only served to deepen the chasm between us. Turned out that the uniform wasn't the root of the problem after all.
Maybe I regret allowing myself to resent her for that.
Overall I regret not being the kind of father I should have been. Not giving my sons the same type of father I had. Maybe if things were different I might have understood them better.
What pisses you off?:
It will take everything we have just to survive. Political naivety played it's part in letting the cataclysm happen. Forty years passed but people allowed themselves to forget that there was no real peace between us and them. It angers me that we have fifty thousand souls who have slipped the noose and yet instead of banding together and learning from our costly lesson, already divisions are starting to emerge.
The people should recognise the ceaseless job of my men and women. Not only is their very existence due in no small part to the efforts of President Roslin and the protection of Galactica; many of them are dependent on my crew for maintenance, supplies and water. It's the military who go on short rations to make sure there is enough food to go round and yet my crew are held up as objects of scorn.
It pisses me off that people sleep soundly under the blanket of security that we provide and then criticise the means by which we provide it.
What keeps you going?:
I walk the decks of Galactica once a day when if my schedule will allow it. I see pilots, deck hands and crew some of them on their first float, some more seasoned. Everyone one of them knows that there is no relief, no reinforcements to call on, limited supplies and we face an enemy that knows no fear, never tires and vastly outnumbers us. Yet everyone of them gets up and gets on the line day in day out. They pull double rotations and when not in action spend their time shoring up our defenses. Although they have a duty to perform, oaths to uphold; that's not the reason why they work so hard. They do it because they are depending on each other, just like the fleet depends on us. Every small victory keeps us going.
What Commander could ask for more?
What or who speaks to your heart?:
What? In short, the tenacity and resilience of the human spirit.
Who? That's a more searching question. I've know Saul Tigh longer than anyone else we have left. He's a good soldier and steadfastly loyal. I accept his counsel and I know that when it comes right down to it I can depend on him.
But the one who speaks to my heart? It's become clearer to me that shared responsibility and the weight of leadership has made Laura Roslin my only real confident. It is ironic that I, that we, allow issues to act as source of division.
If she is the one that speaks to my heart, then I've got to start letting her know I listen.
