Battlestar Galactica Final Season Thread

[DanJW]

Episode 2.

Oh man, those crazy cylons. Go Six go!

Ahhg this waiting a whole week for the next episode is going to get difficult, I can tell.

[brkl]

I sort of feel those were the best cylon mothership scenes so far. It's been a long time since the previous ones though.

[Wrestlevania]

Now this is more like it; Season 3, stop sulking and pay attention!

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Can't wait to see how this civil war between the Cylon models pans out. And Gaius' every-more fragmented personality disorder took a rather tasty twist, didn't it?

Already liking the heightened tension permeating the 4th season--gives me hope for a fitting climax to the whole story.

[Marek]

Just got around to seeing Episode 2. Whoa. This is more like it. Awesome.

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Head Baltar ftw. So Kara is the final cylon. But... what about Baltar talking about a distant sort of music? For a moment I thought he'd be the final cylon... and was almost disappointed because Baltar always takes such a wonderful position in between the cylons and humans... so I'm glad he's probably not a cylon, but... I'm definitely a bit confused now.

Lee staying a civvie is an interesting move. I thought him becoming a lawyer was pretty abrupt in season 3, but the fact that they're sticking with his new direction makes it better retroactively.

I guess Anders will now essentially be Lee #2 / Backup Lee.

Cylon civil war = AWESOMEBURGER DELUXE.

Anyway yeah I am super happy with this episode.

[Marek]

  Ginger said:

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I think they felt they needed to find some way show Gaius' growing belief in God. Almost all people hate him so he can't interact with them, and his testing of God/faith has always relied on interaction with others. I think they could have found a better way to start the cult, like throwing him into the slums where people are most desperate and have him do some good/ miracles resulting in a cult forming around him. The way they the cult followers had decided to idolise him for no apparent reason (as well as throw themselves at him) was a bit meh. That being said Gaius has always required people to have faith in him to believe in himself and has always had a weakness for woman, I assume they were short on time in his arc so couldn't spend too long on the foundations of the creation of the cult and decided to dump him right into it.

Yeah this seems like a good theory. It's weird that this cult has somehow claimed their own private space in the battlestar and just sprang up out of nowhere and also consists mostly of young ladies who want some baltar penis, but they're probably taking massive shortcuts with this, and maybe that's fine... they seemed to be mostly gone in ep 2 anyway.

  vimes said:

So that was intentional? I don't see any point in putting humor in in BSG.

"No more mister nice Gaius!"

"You missed! BUTTERFINGERS!"

Etc.

Based on those lines from past episodes I'd say a lot of the cult humor was intentional.

[DanJW]

  Marek said:

Based on those lines from past episodes I'd say a lot of the cult humor was intentional.

Don't forget tge latest episode.

"Handle with care".

"Ooh I'd love to".

LOL? Only a lot.

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And having Virtual Baltar turn up in Baltar's own head was indeed a great little mix-up. I've been wondering when Caprica Six was going to see him again. Will she start seeing Virtual Six maybe?

[Scrobbs]

So is this actually worth watching? I must admit I enjoyed the first few of the first season, I think I saw up to where starbuck (?) managed to pilot a cylon fighter somewhere or other; I did like the political tension being built up too. Then I gave up. Shoudl I carry on? Is it as good as Trailer Park Boys for example?

[brkl]

It has more robots.

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Eh, what do you mean Kara is the final cylon? When did they reveal that?

[LOPcagney]

  DanJW said:

Don't forget tge latest episode.

"Handle with care".

"Ooh I'd love to".

LOL? Only a lot.

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And having Virtual Baltar turn up in Baltar's own head was indeed a great little mix-up. I've been wondering when Caprica Six was going to see him again. Will she start seeing Virtual Six maybe?

Yes! The in-head stuff is amazing.

One of my favorite Battlestar moments was when

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Six saw Baltar

[Wrestlevania]

The civil war is indeed an excellent, if logical and perhaps well-trodden move. But it's good that we're getting that fire - the passion - back into the key characters again.

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Gaius' ever-more fragmented personality disorder is telling I think of maybe the 'master' race theory. Moreover, the Final 5 suddenly become very intriguing as the root of Cylon civil war.

To see 1 so vehemently defend the sanctity of the Final 5 and yet be so completely opposed to change at the same time is a rather delicious juxtaposition. I'm looking forward to how that pans out. But let's indulge an idea I had earlier...

Why is Hera so valuable? Because she's the first human-Cylon hybrid, supposedly. But what if hybrids have been amongst humans, unknowingly, for much longer--say, almost all their natural lives? Kind of puts the whole divine aspect of the Final 5 into a new light - especially considering Anders' odd encounter with the Raider that instantly changed the Raiders' behaviour.

I'm thinking maybe the Final 5 were planted amongst humans by this master race a long time ago, in order to control and direct the inevitable conflict between humans and Cylons when it finally happened. The hybrids were secreted amongst humanity as an insurance policy, sent to collect all the data they could - without knowing who they were or what they were really for - and then, when the time was right, feed back this information to the current-generation Cylons in order to progress their evolution by absorbing all these valuable human experiences first-hand, en masse, leading to a sudden jump in their ability to think and behave.

Running with this idea, you could say they've just had a serious empathy upgrade. Which is why the Raiders suddenly gained sentience and changed their behaviour. It also makes me wonder that if there is a master race, are they just fucking about with humans, via the Cylons, just to prove a point about humans' overriding intolerance of difference? Maybe this race even created the Cylons to prove this, but 'gifted' the knowledge to humans surreptitiously.

Anyway, I don't want to divest any more theory as it's not my intention to completely kill it. Assuming I'm right in the first place of course.

(I've also got a theory as to why Kara has divine powers, why she disappeared for 6 months and saw Earth - and knows the way back - but remains apparently as she was.)

</fanboy>

[eljay]

  brkl said:

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Eh, what do you mean Kara is the final cylon? When did they reveal that?

They really didn't, marek is clearly just insane.

[DanJW]

Yes, my list of candidates are:

Kara Thrace, obviously

Baltar, as Marek said, makes a surprise return to the running

The Oracle

Admiral Adama ("If you're a cylon, just tell me" "If I'm a cylon, you're all frakked").

Wrestle, did you see my theory in the previous BSG thread? It joins up on a few points there.

EDIT: Oh, and Norfolk, would we be overanalysing it and spooging about it like this if it was just OK? No. Go catch up. I actually envy you, having all that awesomeness to look forward to.

[LOPcagney]

  DanJW said:

Yes, my list of candidates are:

Kara Thrace, obviously

Baltar, as Marek said, makes a surprise return to the running

The Oracle

Admiral Adama ("If you're a cylon, just tell me" "If I'm a cylon, you're all frakked").

I hope the final cylon doesn't let us down. Honestly, at this point, I think it would be too easy to turn Kara or Baltar into a cylon. I'd be personally disappointed because it would take away from their sort of arc struggles. Baltars so interesting because he's human. I seriously doubt it's Adama as well. I've heard people mention Gaeta, but though he's a great character, he doesn't have a huge roll in the show. In fact, part of me hopes that in the last ten episodes, some totally unheard-of civilian walks in and just completely turns the series upside-down. Finding out that almost half the main characters are cylons would feel funny to me just because of the sheer unbelievability of it. The first 4 are being handled pretty well so far, I jsut hope the fifth doesn't feel like a last-minute switch.

[LOPcagney]

  Wrestlevania said:

The civil war is indeed an excellent, if logical and perhaps well-trodden move. But it's good that we're getting that fire - the passion - back into the key characters again.

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Gaius' ever-more fragmented...

...knowledge to humans surreptitiously.

Anyway, I don't want to divest any more theory as it's not my intention to completely kill it. Assuming I'm right in the first place of course.

(I've also got a theory as to why Kara has divine powers, why she disappeared for 6 months and saw Earth - and knows the way back - but remains apparently as she was.)

</fanboy>

Please share your theory!

And you reminded me...

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...if Adama or (more likely, in my opinion) Bulldog (frog? that pilot from season 3) were the final cylon, that could open up new possibilities for the cylons to have actually started the second war intentionally.

Also, people spend too much time talking about who the final five could be, but not who created them an why. Is the reason they are unknown to the other 7 that the two groups were created independently, even perhaps with some human or outside influence? Are we meant to believe that the original centurions created the humanoid cylons and then allowed them to become their superiors, depriving the centurions of their sentience?

[Wrestlevania]

  LOPcagney said:

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Also, people spend too much time talking about who the final five could be, but not who created them an why. Is the reason they are unknown to the other 7 that the two groups were created independently, even perhaps with some human or outside influence? Are we meant to believe that the original centurions created the humanoid cylons and then allowed them to become their superiors, depriving the centurions of their sentience?

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This is where the whole 'divine super race' idea fits in and what I was alluding to in my long spoiler above.

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that 'God' - or even 'the Gods' - is/are actually a third faction. And they're toying with humanity (having created the Cylons) much like the traditional Greek gods did.

[Nachimir]

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Three guesses as to the planet such a faction would inhabit?

wrt to feedback on the first episode showing characters changed a lot, it could easily just be their passing moods, so to speak. Still, even if that's the case they weren't very well contextualised.

[Marek]

Erm. I guess I sort of assumed Kara was the 5th because of this:

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"I'm not afraid to die."

"It's a little easier once you've been through it once"

"Harder - especially now that I've seen things so clearly"

Of course this could still be interpreted as "she died but not really because a miracle happened" and they were speaking metaphorically, but when I first watched this bit I just interpreted as she actually died and resurrected, and they both know it. This would make sense as this would explain her teleportation to another place and her brand spanking new Viper, which she could have stolen from someplace near where she resurrected? Maybe there's a 1000 holes in this theory but at the time of watching my brains just immediately assumed Kara is a cylon.

Maybe I'm insane.

BTW being reminded of Hera and other stuff like the farms in this thread really makes me wish for some of the different elements in the Cylon mythology/plans to be tied together, because it's still really messy.

[DanJW]

Marek, I think that exchange was Adama basically accusing Kara of being a cylon. Her reaction is to be very upset and retort with the "No, harder".

Talking of Adama and his cutting comments, his final word to Roselyn in their cabin was both brutal and amazing. I practically cheered.

Cylon Mythology: I picked up on something pretty throway in ep 2. Cavil mentioned "The programmers", so before the skinjobs there must have been some cylon mainframe or something capable of serious creativity and R&D. Of course we're not talking humans here, so such a mainframe might have recognised when it had made itself obsolete with the creation of the Hybrid, and then deleted itself. Or maybe that was the centurions.

Talking of the hybrid, here's the First Hybrid speech at the end of Razor. It mentions the revealing of the first four of the Five, and has some clues as to the identity of the Fifth.

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At last, they’ve come for me. I feel their lives, their destinies spilling out before me. The denial of the one true path, played out on a world not their own, will end soon enough. Soon there will be four, glorious in awakening, struggling with the knowledge of their true selves. The pain of revelation bringing new clarity and in the midst of confusion, he will find her. Enemies brought together by impossible longing. Enemies now joined as one. The way forward at once unthinkable, yet inevitable. And the fifth, still in shadow, will claw toward the light, hungering for redemption that will only come in the howl of terrible suffering. I can see them all. The seven, now six, self-described machines who believe themselves without sin. But in time, it is sin that will consume them. They will know enmity, bitterness, the wrenching agony of one splintering into many. And then, they will join the promised land, gathered on the wings of an angel. Not an end, but a beginning.

Finally, here's a recap on my own pet theory.

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Going on the "this has all happened before, and will happen again" tagline, I suspect that the Galactica universe is one of cyclical nature. Every few thousand years the human race creates artificial intelligence, which then evolves to the point of perfectly immitating humans. Eventually this immitation becomes so perfect that the cylons actually become human, and either replace or integrate with the human race. They then head off from their home planet and form a bunch of colonies. Essentially, all humans are cylons of a past age.

A few cylons remain "programmed" and perhaps are immortal. They are there to make sure the next turn of the cycle goes smoothly (for instance setting up a hidden thirteenth colony incase the others get wiped out). They are the Final Five, and also perhaps the people behind the "God" faction, manipulating both the humans and Cylons to make sure everything works out. Or maybe the God faction is actually the residual programming left in all "humans" and cylons alike.

[Coldkill]

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KARA IS NOT A CYLON! Sorry to put a plug on the theory there but there's an interview somewhere where that is said.

Enjoy...

[Nachimir]

Yeah

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Katee Sackhoff said she's been told her character isn't a Cylon

, so the implications could be a red herring... or the interview might be a bluff. I'm thinking the former though.

[vimes]

Could the president be a cylon ?

[DanJW]

Yeah Coldkill, we know, but the writers can always change their mind. Or they might have lied to Sackhoff in order to keep her performance genuine.

I'm doubtful that Roselyn is a cylon, because of her cancer. Cylons seem to shrug off illness and injury more easily (Remember how Tyrol faired much better than Cally after being sucked out into vacuum? And Anders recovered quickly from his illness too). Plus she's a been a constant target for the cylons.

On the other hand, she did share the vision of the Opera House.

[LOPcagney]

  DanJW said:

On the other hand, she did share the vision of the Opera House.

Some people attribute that to the fact that she has cylon blood in her from Hera.

I'm operating optimistically under the principle that anyone who's been alluded to as being a cylon thus far is not the fifth.

And Wrestle, I can't tell you how badly I want your theory to be true.

[Wrestlevania]

  LOPcagney said:

Some people attribute that to the fact that she has cylon blood in her from Hera.

I firmly believe that's the only reason for the President's visions. Although...

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-maybe it's something latent, and the blood - plus the kamalla (sp?) - have reawakened/activated/augmented this in some way? Could she be a past generation, in the sense Dan's alluding to? More over, could Kara be a similar messenger too?

And how about if 'the Gods' are, in fact, some sort of overriding persistence of every human/Cylon cyclical generation (again, working off Dan's theory)? An effectively immortal master race, which perpetuates itself through the on-going absorption of human and Cylon experiences, feeding hundreds of years of data into some kind of main frame, whilst ever-planting seeds amongst the generations to ensure these cycles perpetuate and it continues to learn?

Anyway: I've had beer for dinner, so I need to sleep.

[n0wak]

It sounds like some of you have been playing too much Mass Effect lately:shifty:

Anyway, it's sometimes hard to negotiate between what is our lack of knowledge of the plot and actual holes in the plot, which are often very large in shows heavy on the mythology. I like the cyclical idea, but it's been done and I'm not entirely sure if it fits with what the show's been doing so far. Sure, there's the whole "resurrection" thing with the cylons but somehow I feel -- or maybe hope -- that the ending to this show will be more absolute than that.

As long as they don't spring some weird Baltar goes to Earth and becomes Jesus or Adam and Eve or some weird Mormon religious bullshit (thirteenth tribe and all that, not to mention the Mormon connections in the original series) in the finale, I'll be good.