In the pilot, right after Clarice doodles with the water ring:

Lacy: So then, Ben did have something to do with the bombing. He was the terrorist.

Clarice: Labels like ‘terrorist’ are what this corrupt and decadent culture calls people who are trying to fight the real evil in this world. Ben was eager to strike against all that was slowly choking this world to death and so he did something premature, something unauthorized. But was blowing up that train evil? Wrong? No! He was fighting evil with all his heart.

In “Reins of a Waterfall”, Clarice goes virtual to connect with Arvo. The “us” mentioned several times is clearly not the “us” of the general Caprican society. My pure speculation is that the “us” is an ultra-secret group of breeding Cylons from the Thirteenth Colony (the destroyed Earth) who have managed to remain hidden for thousands of years.

Arvo: Clarice.
Clarice: Arvo.
Arvo: You were told not to contact us.
Clarice: I’ve made progress of which you should know.
Arvo: Progress.
Clarice: Yes, I’m getting closer to finding the Zoe Graystone avatar.
Arvo: And lost control in the process, causing us a premature explosion that’s brought retribution on our heads.
Clarice: My life is dedicated to serving Soldiers of The One. The Zoe Graystone avatar is going to help the soldiers to serve the Lord through apotheosis. Or do you deny that prophesy?
Arvo: Not everyone shares your view of apotheosis. Your search for this avatar is putting us at risk.
Clarice: I’m not [unintelligible] God’s plan. I know that Zoe Graystone was beloved of God. And that she was given the spark of life itself. And that was her gift to all of us. And it will save all of us.
Arvo: For your sake, I hope you’re right, Clarice. Work quickly.

Since I don’t have cable, I’ll have to wait until tomorrow when iTunes makes “Another Sky” available for download. I hope the rest of you enjoy the show tonight.

I’m not real sure how Zoey didn’t see the problems with STO, but perhaps she was never shown the part of the organization that deals with blowing things up. Also, if Zoey was so damned important to STO, who’s bright idea was it to have her boyfriend blow up the tram she was on when she was leaving for Gemini.

As far as Zoey’s plan for her avatar, I really don’t know what was goin on here. Only thing I could come up with was that she was working towards some way to create resurrection style technology.

As far as the STO goes. Isn’t it great how the show mirrors life in that people only ever see what the fanatics of a religion do and consider all members of that religion bad. For instance, if you mention arabs and islam you immediately think of al queda don’t you?
Even though this isn’t necessarily the case, the fanatics always seem to drive the public image, and the populace seems to forget that the fanatics tend to make up less than 10% of the total followers.

Rolling the hard six,
Timmy

I agree and think that Daniel deserves misfortune as the rightful consequence for his creation of a permanent – and sentient – slave caste in Colonial society. In the end, his suffering is ultimately disproportionate to his crime and this disparity contributes to the tragic nature of his character. Yes, what Daniel did was wrong – and he knew it – as you clearly showed. However, the total destruction of his planet and near complete genocide of his entire race exacts a payment beyond his crimes.

Using the “American Experience” as a point of reference, the price of slavery – exacted during the Civil War – was painfully high, but the nation as a whole survived its great tragedy.

Daniel currently demonstrates a stunning ambivalence toward the sentience of his Cylon creations that quite possibly belies an underlying subversive – perhaps even wicked – character flaw. Nevertheless, Daniel – as the tragic hero – cannot be all evil, otherwise the audience will be unable to identify with him and the emotional responses of pity and sorrow will be lost – undermining the entire tragedy.

At this early point in the series, I can’t say that Daniel is a “very wicked person”. I think Daniel’s true nature will be fully revealed – just as you predicted – at that moment of epiphany when he realizes the full magnitude of what he has done. His reaction will become the definitive answer to the question.

Question: Is Daniel a classic tragic hero who “does not deserve his misfortune” or a “very wicked person” who does.

I think Daniel’s own words convict him. From the board-room scene in There is Another Sky:

Daniel: Beyond artificial intelligence, this is artificial sentience. Do you feel it? I feel it, don’t you? I feel like there is a being inside this machine, something alive, and vital, and special. And it’s not our imagination, look at the test results. There is a brilliant mind in here.

Cyrus: So, in terms of practical applications….

Daniel: Are you seriously asking about the practical applications of creating another race that will walk beside us? [You] do not understand the enormity of this creation. It’s more than a machine. This Cylon will become a tireless worker, who won’t need to be paid. It won’t retire, or get sick. It won’t have rights or objections or complaints. It will do anything and everything we ask of it without question.

At this point Daniel issues the command: “U-87, rip your arm off”.

Daniel fully understands that the Cylon is “more than a machine”, just as the 15th Century Portuguese explorers fully understood that the Africans they were capturing were more than giraffes or lions.

Although no one would condone someone commanding a dog to chew its leg off, it’s a moot point since no dog would do this. But people do train dogs to kill other dogs in dog fights. Great theater for those who enjoy that sort of thing.

My point is that Daniel knows exactly what he’s doing; creating a slave race with a being inside each and every copy. (Presumably he’s solved the copying problem if he’s ready to start selling Cylons).

Perhaps we have the advantage of our American Experience to understand just how wrong this slavery thing is. Plus we have a very large corpus of excellent Sci-Fi literature covering the ramifications of artificially-created sentient beings (e.g. Asimov’s ‘I Robot’ series of stories). In my opinion, that would be Daniel’s only defense, that he couldn’t possibly imagine that enslaving the Cylons was somehow wrong.

I will enjoy watching Daniel react to his own Epiphany when he fully realizes what he’s done.