“Collaborators” is episode five of season three of the new Battlestar Galactica.
A bound and hooded Jammer is taken into a Viper launch tube on Galactica, his hood then removed. Six people, including Anders, Chief Tyrol and Colonel Tigh, are around him. They call themselves the Circle and have found him guilty of treason and crimes against humanity, including killing 23 civilians, some of them children. Does he have anything to say before sentence is carried out?
Jammer says he was trying to help. Tigh doesn’t think he was doing a good job. Jammer says he saved Cally, and explains. The chief says that Cally did get away somehow. The son of Connor, one of the others, was killed amongst the civilians and asks if that makes up for killing him. Tigh wants an answer from the chief. Tyrol asks Jammer if he did this, if he killed those people. Jammer starts defending his actions. The chief states that saving Cally doesn’t make up for it. The punishment is death. They leave Jammer in the tube, close it and then watch from inside as it is opened to space. Though Tyrol doesn’t watch and Anders isn’t happy. When Tyrol returns to Cally, he asks if anyone helped her get away. She says they did.
On Colonial One, Adama, Tigh and Roslin are saying it isn’t his fault; he was an impossible position. The someone is Gaius Baltar. Gaius states that mistakes were made and the past is the past. Number Six tells them they are being too lenient. And Adama responds to her. Gaius realises this is a dream. He wakes up in a room where a Centurion is watching him. Gaius is on a basestar, one of several, and a resurrection ship, making up a fleet.
Anders wakes in the pilot’s ready room. He moves the curtain and asks Starbuck if she got any sleep. She can sleep when she’s dead. Starbuck got her gear out of storage. She doesn’t seem right.
On the real Colonial One, Roslin is talking to Tom Zarek. Once the new Quorum of Twelve is formed, Zarek will nominate her as vice president, then resign and she will be sworn in. Roslin thinks he wants something, as he’s stepping down without a fight. What is it and is it a price she’s willing to pay? Zarek is a realist. He never had illusions about being in office long and the admiral has made it clear he will be put in a cell if he tries to hang on to power. He just wants to be included in the new government; he doesn’t want to be on the outside looking in any more. Roslin says he stood up on New Caprica and nearly lost his life. The vice presidency is his, if he wants it. That might be more than Zarek was expecting.
Galactica‘s CIC is being repaired from the damage done in the previous episode, “Exodus: Part 2”, when Gaeta arrives. Tigh is not happy to see him and demands to know what he’s doing there. Helo says it’s the admiral’s orders; communications took some serious hits and Gaeta offered to help with repairs. Tigh starts going on one about collaborators with the enemy until Adama calls him off. Adama talks to Tigh, telling him he needs to get some rest. Tigh is not going to let this go.
The Circle are now looking at more. There are 57 to go; Connor suggests deciding they are all guilty and putting them all to death at once. Tigh slams his head into the table. They are not thugs; this is about justice, not revenge. But he likes Connor; he’s a good guy.
Gaeta, as Gaius Baltar’s chief of staff, is, of course, one of those being looked into. Despite there being no evidence that he’s guilty of anything, the Circle seems to be determined to consider him a collaborator. Little knowing that he’s the source who supplied the insurgents with information they desperately needed. That’s got the potential for something really unfortunate to happen. The disappearances are getting noticed in the fleet and Starbuck is definitely not okay. She quite likely has PTSD or similar from the psychological torture inflicted by Leoben Conroy on her over several months. Meanwhile, the Cylons are trying to decide what to do with Gaius.