Could You Be An Evil Person?
We all have evil within us.
In “Water,” the second episode of Battlestar Galactica’s first season, a saboteur blows up their water tanks, forcing all the ships in the fleet to ration their water. If they don’t find water quickly, the approximately 47,000 people who are all that remains of humanity will die.
They send out pairs of pilots to survey nearby planetary systems for water. One by one, the teams report back—negative for H2O.
Finally, only one team remains. Lieutenant Sharon “Boomer” Valerii and her electronic countermeasures officer, Crashdown, check the planets in their assigned zone.
“Still nothing,” Crashdown says. “And more nothing.”
The screen in front of Sharon flashes the words Positive for H2O. “I’ve got nothing here either,” she says, despite the results on her monitor. She blinks in confusion as her mind can’t make sense of what’s going on.
What we know, but Sharon doesn’t, is that she’s the one who destroyed the water tanks. She’s a Cylon sleeper agent programmed to believe she’s human. During the gaps in her memory, she’s planting explosives and letting other Cylons infiltrate the fleet.
Crashdown notices the strange tone in her voice.
“What’s on your mind, Boomer?” he asks.
“I don’t know. I have this feeling. Let’s run that sweep again.”
The screen flashes positive a second time, and Sharon hesitates. She tells Crashdown, “I’m having trouble saying it.”
You can see the battle between good and evil, human and Cylon, warring across her face. What she knows to be right, the love she has for her friends back on Galactica, wrestles with something deep within her that she can’t name, something dark and hateful and destructive.
Her hand slides down toward the explosives taped beside her seat. Her fingers tremble, hovering over the detonator.
It doesn’t matter whether you believe that humans are basically good or basically evil. When you bring both views down to their common denominator, we all have evil within us.
It’s easy to convince ourselves that, because we don’t steal or abuse or murder, we’re free from evil. But I do things I’m ashamed of. I’ve selfishly put my own desires ahead of someone else’s more than once. In the heat of an argument, I’ve said unkind, even cruel, things. And I struggled for years with a heart full of hatred for the drunk driver who killed my best friend. I wanted him to suffer. I wanted him to feel the pain that everyone who loved my friend felt at losing her.
Evil isn’t always big and flashy like a Cylon basestar come to blow up your ship. Sometimes it sneaks around in the dark and hides under the seats. And when we refuse to admit we could do something evil, the same way Sharon couldn’t accept that she might be a Cylon, that’s when we’re most vulnerable.
Having the potential to be evil is part of being alive. What matters is that, every day, every second, we fight it.
In the end, Sharon slowly pulls her hand away from the explosives and manages to tell Crashdown they’ve found water. She overcomes her programing—the inherent evil within her. She fought and she won. She’ll face more battles, but that day, in that fight, good prevailed.
Do you think evil is most dangerous when we think we’re immune to it? What helps you win the daily battle between good and evil?
Never watched Battlestar Galactica before? Find out why it’s not just for sci-fi fans.