Commander Thrace?

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

frolicndetour raised an interesting point in our discussion of Kara's promotions the other day. Apparently the writers planned to make her the Pegasus commander at one point. What avenues do you think that would have lead the show down? What would her time as Commander have been like? Would she be more in the vein of Adama or Cain or her own leader entirely? What would change about canon if the only switch was that she was head of Pegasus instead of Lee (with Dee as her XO? Heh.)

ETA: Tomorrow is Friday and because of that happy reason, we will be having a Kara Love meme here! Bring yo' gifs, Bring yo' toasts, get ready to raise a glass to the incomparable Kara "Starbuck" Thrace!

Comments

[sugarhaven.livejournal.com]

P.S. I don't want it to sound like I'm completely bashing Kara, because I love the character with all her obvious flaws, but I want to give a few examples when Kara is a bit selfish and gets her personal feelings in the way of her job.

1. passing Zak
2. not accepting Tigh's apology in Mini: he really tried hard to put their differences aside and start with a clean slate
3. Washing out the nuggets in AoC
4. Scar
5. Pegasus: "Your plan sucks". Truth, but diplomacy or sneaky behavior would have been a better option.
6. Not being able to communicate with Garner: more Garner's fault, but her behaviour didn't help.
7. Going back for Sam: Kara is really mean and desperately trying to get the approval for the Caprica rescue mission (not caring about the dangers and insanity of the mission), when it is obvious that it's not about blowing the farms, or rescuing all the people but about her obsessive need to find Sam alive
8. Collaborators: it was all about trying to punish someone else for her own pain
9. Her treatment of Kat in "Passage"
10. Yelling at everyone when she came back from "dead" instead of trying to communicate with them
11. Demeterius

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

But don't they all? You could come up with a much longer list of Adama and Cain's failures of command I'd bet. ;)

I know I could anyway. (In fact, there's very little that Bill does after New Caprica that I enjoy.)

[sugarhaven.livejournal.com]

Well yes, but Cain was an extremely bad commander so not much competition there. And I agree that PapAdama had his bad moments too but Kara is way more extreme.

[sugarhaven.livejournal.com]

I think I'm mostly comparing Kara's commanding style to Lee's, which I think is closest to ideal from all the BSG characters (you can't make a list for him), rather than to people like Cain. PapAdama is far from being perfect and he has a temper that gets in his way, but he has way more experience and to a degree learned how to control it (or at least swallow his pride and change his decision later). I agree that Laura and Lee are really good influence on Bill, and if they weren't around, Galactica would be much closer to what Pegasus was under Cain.

I think that Lee had a potential to becoming better leader than Adama cause he is a much better diplomat and politician and listens to people around him, but Bill and Kara might be better at the strictly military stuff like getting in the head of their enemy, making risky plans or rolling the hard six. I think Kara would be bolder with Peggy than Lee and took more risks. She'll probably get away with it and survived (she always does) but I guess I still rather serve under Lee.

Gods know Kara has all the good reasons to be completely messed up but I think that her instability and flipping from extreme to extreme would really get in the way of her job. I think she can be a great instructor (or CAG) one day, but the next day, something happens and she treat's her pilots like a piece of garbage. She might learn to control that but initially I think it wouldn't be easy to work under her.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

I could totally make a list for Lee, but it'd be short because we only saw him as a commander for what, six episodes including Razor? And for the bulk of his command (Fat!Apollo pun intended) that we saw he was lazy and selfish and cynical and negative in the face of everyone's hope and planning. His dad calls him out on it and his wife does and so does his CAG.

And I don't think that means Lee was a bad leader in every situation. He shined in Revelations. But he was not necessarily a very good battleship commander honestly.

It's hard to know what Kara would have been like but I think some of the qualities that served her very well in the position would have been her cleverness, strategic thinking, her loyalty to the fleet and the president and her willingness to never leave her people behind.

"She treats her pilots like garbage"? Wow, that seems way harsh to me. What about the caring she shows in Scar when she gives that toast at the end where clearly she remembers ALL of their names, what about her being pissed in Captain's Hand when she finds out those pilots are missing and figuring out the code so they can save them? What about talking Kat down in Final Cut and screaming that they need to get *her* pilot to sickbay? Does she lash out at people and make mistakes? Yeah, but I guess I never felt that it's because she thinks they're garbage and doesn't care about them. :(

And no, it wouldn't be easy to work for her, but...to paraphrase...they all might have been a lot safer with her. ;)

[sugarhaven.livejournal.com]

"She treats her pilots like garbage"? Wow, that seems way harsh to me. What about the caring she shows in Scar when she gives that toast at the end where clearly she remembers ALL of their names, what about her being pissed in Captain's Hand when she finds out those pilots are missing and figuring out the code so they can save them? What about talking Kat down in Final Cut and screaming that they need to get *her* pilot to sickbay?

Treating like garbage might have been going too far, but your list basically proved my point. What I was saying that Kara is very moody and emotionally unstable: one day she is the perfect solider and next day she is a wreck. Everybody does that to an extent and people can handle it when she is the hotshot pilot, but it's a bit harder to deal with when she is the CO.

Good point about Fat!Lee, certainly not Lee's best time.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Well...people ARE inconsistent. I mean that's life pretty much. They're all somewhat unstable and lash out at people from time to time, especially Adama! I mean he treats his own son horribly. I guess I don't see Kara as being any worse.

Anyway, I still wish the show had explored that potential idea. A good leader, a bad leader, or somewhere in between, I think it would have been really interesting to see it play out. I certainly would've preferred it to what DID happen with her and Adama's relationship I think. :(

[sugarhaven.livejournal.com]

I still wish the show had explored that potential idea.
Absolutely. Me too. Her character is just so multi-layered that the possibilities of how this could go are endless.

Nice talking to you.