There were many who went in huddled procession,
They knew not whither;
But, at any rate, success or calamity
Would attend all in equality.
There was one who sought a new road.
He went into direful thickets,
And ultimately he died thus, alone;
But they said he had courage.

Adama watches from Olympus as they get the birds ready on the deck, recon for a dead woman. Romo takes off his glasses on approach, and Bill asks WTF he's bugging him for: "Writs of forfeiture for the ships you're borrowing. The Captains want to be absolved of any blame should anything untoward happen." Bill takes them: this is a piece of his heart he can look at: the lives of the people on those ships, he can weigh them in his hands. Sign off on their deaths, one page at a time. Civilians: his people. "One of the less ennobling consequences of a legal culture -- no one wants responsibility," Romo patters, handing Bill a pen. "Lee said you once gave him something before a mission. A lighter, was it?" (I so wanted Romo to produce the lighter at this point and be like, "Was it this lighter right here? I am incorrigible!") Adama, signing: "It belonged to my father. Foolish to think a hunk of metal could keep him safe."

"And yet that's what we do, isn't it? Hang on to hope, in every hopelessly irrational way that we can. But not like those poor bastards, giving away their luck, just when they need it most." The crew, pilots, ECOs on the deck: laughing, embracing. "It's like they've given up." Adama tells Romo, as a non-combatant, that he knows less than total jack about it. "I always imagined you a realist, Admiral. Not one to indulge a vain hope at the cost of lives." Really? Because maybe you should rethink your instincts about people. Especially today.

Except not: Romo doesn't tell the truth, he tells the lie that tells the truth. He takes off his glasses and he lies right to your face. Not the pretty picture but the cracks in the canvas; Bill is a cat in a box. Talk to the Admiral, dazzle him with something shiny in your hand, talk about his son, about his imperative, so the Cabin-Builder can show his face. And then strike: "But then, everyone has his limits. Sine qua non, as they say." Adama ignores him studiously: "Without which not," he grunts. His father's language, paterlingua, lawyer talk. Logos. Romo nods. "Yes. Those things we deem essential, without which we cannot bear living, without which life in general loses its specific value. Becomes abstract."