Shuttle Diplomacy.(The Talk of the Town)(Battlestar Galactica)

In 1978, the word "frak," as in "Go frak yourself!," quietly entered and exited the lexicon, when the ABC science-fiction drama "Battlestar Galactica," which had introduced it, was cancelled after one season. Twenty-seven years later, the Sci Fi Channel brought back the show, sidestepping the channel's proscription against a certain expletive.

The other night, a few days before the show's four-year run as a cult hit ended, the United Nations opened its Economic and Social Council Chamber for a panel discussion on how "Battlestar Galactica" might inform the international body's approach to some problems of the day: terrorism, torture, religious conflict. (The evening was part of the U.N.'s new "creative community outreach" program.) Placards at the seats, which earlier had identified delegates from France and Venezuela, now read "Caprica" and "Aquarion." The panel included William Adama (played by Edward James Olmos), the admiral of the spaceship Galactica, and Laura Roslin (played by Mary McDonnell), the president of the Twelve Colonies, along with two producers from "B.S.G." and a handful of earthbound U.N. dignitaries. Whoopi Goldberg, a big fan of the show, had been enlisted to moderate. The line of sci-fi buffs snaked out the door. A sign on the wall reading "Smoking Discouraged" (the U.N. is not subject to New York City regulations) enhanced the feeling that the event was taking place in another dimension. What the frak?

"Battlestar Galactica" depicts a race of robots called Cylons, who morph into sentient beings in order to nuke the humans, a.k.a. Colonials, who created them, and thus addresses issues of wartime justice and moral relativism. In one episode, a Cylon is treated to the deep-space version of waterboarding. In another, President Roslin channels George W. Bush: "My job is and always will be to keep the people safe."

Dave Howe, the Sci Fi president, declared that, like the U.N., "great science fiction forces us to look at who we are and ask the tough questions: Where are we going? . . . And what can we expect to find when we get there?" The U.N. ...