Starbuck - a Legacy of Awesome



"Sorry, I can't hear you over
the sound of how awesome I am."

 In going over some of our Battlestar Galactica inventory, I realized something that didn't really stand out as a kid.  If you look up "awesome" in the dictionary, it has Starbuck's picture (sure, and Captain Kirk, but let's stay on topic).  There are a lot of awesome archetypes, but this one took me longer to realize.  As a kid, you just assume anyone who flies a Viper and carries a gun is awesome.  The whole sexually awesome thing was lost on us.  Then with the remake of Battlestar Galactica you finally get it.

Sure, at first everyone, myself included, pooped a walrus over Starbuck being played by a girl.  The only thing POSSIBLY worse would be to make the feared cylons hot chicks.  Wait...what?

The hot chick thing quickly made sense.  The only thing more terrifying than a shiny metal death machine, at least to a geek like myself, was an army of hot babes that would kill you as look at you.  As a teenager, that was exactly how all the hot babes I saw were like.  Case in point: cheerleaders.  The prosecution rests.



"I will break things on you that you didn't know you had."

 But Starbuck a girl?  PUH-leeeze.  And she wasn't even as good looking as the Cylon girls.  She was kinda stocky, good upper body strength, realistic proportions.  The sort of body you'd expect on a Colonial Warrior.  And she smoked.  And everyone knows cigars stink like burning dog and are more of a turnoff than, say, dandruff.  So where was the Awesome?

And then finally I gave the show a chance and watched it.  It was good.  And not just good like as in Star Trek: The Voyage Home.  Not even Extra Large Good as in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.  But spooky good like having William Shatner as floor monitor in college.

She had the Attitude of Awesome.  She could kick your ass and make you thank her.  She could drink you under the table, taste like an oreo after smoking those rat turd stogies, and fly in ways that would make a lesser man's eyes explode out his nose.  Sex appeal rolled off her in waves you could see as if you were in a Loonie Toons movie with that pervert skunk, and men would lick the sweat off her old socks.  She was cooler than you and anyone you've ever met, and she damn well knew it.

That was Starbuck.  The original Starbuck managed to pull that off in a more subtle age, but you still got the point on a level that kids didn't care about.  Starbuck was cool. 

Starbuck was awesome.  And awesome is Starbuck.  So say we all.