Death, Sex and the Cylon: Battlestar Galactica’s Existential Kink

Abstract

The re-imagined Battlestar Galactica (BSG) (2003–2009) is a remarkably philosophical creature. Strange as it may seem, the second half of BSG’s four-season narrative arc constitutes an extended, energetic and effective commentary on one of the twentieth century’s most important philosophies of death. This philosophy was initiated by Martin Heidegger in his 1927 masterpiece Being and Time. The subject matter of Being and Time’s chapter on death is, by Heideggerian standards, relatively straightforward, and is largely expressed in the chapter’s title: “Dasein’s Possibility of Being-a-whole, and Being-towards-death.” As I shall argue below, these also become the fundamental concerns of BSG’s cybernetic organisms, the Cylons. Being and Time is concerned with Dasein or “being-there,” the entity for whom being is an issue (Heidegger 1927/1962: 32). In the chapter on death, Heidegger argues that Dasein is defined by the way in which it comports itself towards death, its being-towards-death. He speaks of an attitude which truly recognizes death as the ultimate limit of Dasein’s possibilities, an attitude that derives meaning from that limitation. Heidegger dubs this attitude “authentic,” and seems to endorse it. So the chapter on death appears to be an existential cry for us to embrace our finitude. But as we shall see, everything depends on the meaning of “death.”