By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
The Battlestar Galactica remake is fairly traumatizing in many respects…after all, this is a series whose backdrop is the apocalyptic near-genocide of all mankind. Interestingly, one of the show’s most traumatizing moments came early on in the Season 2 episode “Valley of Darkness,” which showed a dream vision of Commander Adama drowning a baby. Producers were concerned that this might be too traumatic for viewers, but Battlestar Galactica showrunner Ronald D. Moore insisted on keeping the scene because he felt like it built up the show’s lore in defining the relationship between Adama and Dr. Baltar.
Battlestar Galactica Goes Hard For Its Lore
This particular Battlestar Galactica episode was already pretty dense in lore because it had our characters visit Kobol, the original ancestral home of humanity before mankind began colonizing the stars. While many things happen in this episode, the most surprising is that Baltar begins receiving dream visions about a mysterious baby, one that he hands to Adama. The Battlestar Galactica Commander drowns the baby in a very horrific moment, but Ronald Moore insisted this scene was vital to the show’s lore because it showed that Adama was destined to be Baltar’s adversary.
As with so many things in the Battlestar Galactica remake, fans weren’t able to understand the full implications of this episode’s lore until much later. For example, we eventually learn that Baltar’s vision was about Hera Agathon, the human/Cylon child of Karl Agathon and Sharon Valerii. She was the first such hybrid and was considered instrumental to God’s will by the version of the Cylon Six that resided in Baltar’s head.
Therefore, the dream sequence of this early Battlestar Galactica episode set up some important lore about this baby and her eventual importance as well as the antagonistic relationship between Commander Adama and Dr. Baltar. Producers wanted to cut the scene because they thought it would be too traumatic for viewers, but showrunner Ronald Moore insisted on keeping the scene to build up the show’s mythos. The final scene was something of a compromise: it showed Adama drowning the baby, but some of the more violent moments (like seeing the baby’s air bubbles on the surface of the water) were ultimately cut.
In retrospect, this Battlestar Galactica episode’s infanticide dream sequence is very confusing from a lore perspective. Sure, it sets Adama up as an obstacle to Baltar, but the Commander was never really an enemy to Hera Agathon…in fact, the climax of the series finale was Adama leading his crew to rescue the child, and he teamed up with Baltar to do it. Arguably, this dream sequence is one of many things from the show that prove what Ronald Moore later admitted: despite the show’s opening insisting the Cylons “have a plan,” the showrunner did not have an iron-clad plan for the series’ mythos or its finale.
Those nitpicks aside, it’s fun for any Battlestar Galactica fan to get insight into how Moore created the show’s lore. In this case, it was apparently a bit of vibes-based storytelling where the most important thing was establishing Adama and Baltar as foes. Regarding the fact that Moore wasn’t afraid to traumatize viewers to build up that lore, well…what else did you expect from a showrunner who never hesitated to make fans cry with one emotional gut punch after another?
