My example of katabasis in modern popular culture is from the (2004) science fiction television series Battlestar Galactica, created by David Eick and Ronald D. Moore. The basic premise of the series is that a human civilization is nearly driven to extinction after a surprise attack by a cybernetic race known as the Cylons and subsequently the survivors embark on a journey to find a legendary lost homeland. I thought this series would be a good example because of all the motifs it borrows from Greek and Roman mythology. First of all, the surprise attack where the series begins is essentially the story of the Trojan Horse, except that the horse is a Cylon known as Caprica, presented in the form of a woman. She is then able to trick Gaius Baltar into accessing the defense mainframe, thus disabling the defenses and allowing the Cylons to invade. In retrospect, I think the entire series is an allegory of Greek myth; Caprica is Aphrodite normally presented in a bright red dress, an image of sex and desire, while Gaius Baltar is Adonis given his vanity, death and rebirth and possible predominantly female cult dedicated to him. Anyway, my example of a katabasis from this series would be Kara Thrace known as “Starbuck”. She is a rather hot-tempered and wild heroine, who really personifies many aspects of the katabasis of both geek and Roman myth. An example of this would be when Laura Roslin, the president of the surviving humans, ordered Starbuck to return home to Delphi to retrieve Apollo's arrow so they could open Athena's tomb and find the legendary homeland known as Earth. This plot is straight from the story of Aeneas and the Golden Bough. Laura Roslin plays the Pythia or Sibyl of Cumae an old woman...... middle of paper ......nation on the journey to salvation, Apollo turns to Kara Thrace to ask her what she will do with her newfound freedom, hoping that he will no longer have any excuse to deny his love. Once he turns to her to hear her response, she simply vanishes into the wind, in a way every bit as disturbing and somewhat heartbreaking as Eurydice's fate in the story Orpheus and Eurydice. So, in summary, after reading chapter eleven of the sixth edition of Powel's Classical Myth and just realizing that a show I had seen over a year ago was just a rather complex allegory of Greek myth dealing specifically with Orphism, polytheism colliding with monotheistic Christian beliefs. I feel like Kara Thrace personifies the katabasis for her journey and her role in the overall plot takes on every aspect of a katabasis, merging all the Greek stories of a katabasis into one..