By the end of BG’s second season, at least some of the Cylons have resorted to tough love. It would appear wiping out humanity completely can create serious guilt issues. Six and Sharon may be the leaders of a new sect of Cylons who believe their God does not demand genocide, it’s hard to say.
What the end of Season II does appear to suggest rather strongly is that the skinjob Cylons might be too perfect a copy of humans. They make great sleepers and infiltrators of other sorts, but they’re at least as susceptible to psychological trauma, and perhaps even mental instability, as their human adversaries. I personally would find a conclusion where the humans win because the Cylons had a collective nervous breakdown pretty unsatisfying. I kind of liked my Cylons generally formidable, relentless, and without the inhibitions of human remorse. I figured the Cylons were smart enough to anticipate skinjob meltdowns, and limit the potential damage caused by the transmission of deleterious psychology during reincarnation. Maybe they’re not so smart, though.
What kind of software filter are you going to run that keeps psychological traumas from accumulating while simultaneously allowing people to learn from those same traumas?
If I tell you that the plate is hot, what’s the first thing you’re going to do at least once?
Apart from that, it’s always possible that the Cylons have decided to not wipe out the humans simply because they understand that extinction is kind of irreversible. And it’s not like a small group of barely-armed humans are going to be a threat (bahahahaha! Foolish toasters!).
Besides, you need to keep in mind that “They have a plan.” If their big plan is “kill all humans”, it’s kind of a shitty plan.
But what were they up to, then? Maybe keeping a few breeders around for procreative purposes would suit them until they sorted out the whole sexual reproduction thing, but other than that, nothing about their behavior would have suggested up to now that the Cylons had anything in mind other than to hunt down every last colonist and either kill them.
Then, olla sudden they vacate Caprica, and a pair of rebelious units (who were about to be “boxed”) show up on New Caprica and declare Cylons are now humanity’s protectors. Under threat of death, of course, but they’re definitely approaching human-Cylon relations from a different angle. This was part of “the Plan”?
The Plan has been revised. It is clear that there is a break in the Cylon uniformity. How this will play out is up to the producers. Don’t jump to conclusions just yet. Trust Ron until he really betrays us. For all we know he is setting up the war to go from a 2 way battle to a 3 or more way battle. Furballs like that are always interesting, although usually from a distance.
3 or more? Yikes, who would that involve, the Lords of Kobol?
I hope you’re right, though. The other thread about Nerfing the Borg got me wondering about the universality of the Nerfing phenomenon. Badass adversaries, who we love for being so badass, suddenly develop an Achilles heel as big as their head. Cliché ensues. One thing I’ve found fascinating about the whole religious issue is the humans are the Pagans. As the creator is a Mormon, it’s rather fascinating to make the apparent baddies the monotheists, and has made me wonder about who is going to win in the end. I’ve taken seriously the possibility that the series will not end on a happy note for humanity, and even if it didn’t, the tension that possibility creates keeps the show interesting. If the Cylons start to look beatable too soon, things get less interesting mighty quick.
Didn’t I hear or read somewhere that the whole Cyclon occupation arc is only going to take up a couple of eps? that does not bode well for a non-nerfed Cyclon show. That said, I’m going to wait and see, and hope Ron Moore =/= Chris Carter. I want to believe!
I’ve pondered this question, and don’t really have an answer. You’re right that it would be very difficult to decouple negative emotion from effective learning. The very interesting episode featuring Scar made explicit that death itself was extremely traumatic, and in the case of Scar, made him/it hate humans with a deadly passion. But Scar’s past traumas served to mold him into a highly effective and motivated killer, which is just the sort of thing I would have figured the Cylons wanted out of reincarnation. Raiders don’t seem to develop any kind of post-traumatic stress, so peraps they’re designed to be resistant, or have such a limited emotional repertoire that exessive fear or remorse could never take root. Maybe a filter isn’t needed so much as built-in failsafes that turn negative experiences into focused hatred and the desire to act in it appropriately.
Clearly the skinjobs are more subtle and unpredictable.
I’m thinking that the Cylons’ plan is not necessarily the extinction of the human race. Whatever the master Cylon plan is, I think only two characters that we’ve actually “met” know it.
<Gozu Tashoya’s crazy BSG conspiracy theory>
I was told recently that Balthar was the leader of the Cylons (or something) in the original BSG. That leads me to think that he is either the 12th or possibly a “hidden” 13th model of Cylon, possibly the first of them all.
There’s one copy of him, and he rigged that one to “hallucinate” a Six.
He also rigged a Six to hallucinate a Balthar. He, “true Balthar” speaks to both through their respective “hallucinations.”
That’s a lot of quotes, and a lot of conspiracy theory, but it unifies everything we’ve seen so far to my satisfaction, and that’s good enough for me.
BY YOUR COMMAND. Christ, I hate sitting next to these guys. Oil stains on the cushions again. Betray the human race, you’d think a guy would get his own furniture. Dammit.
Has anyone here read the Hyperian Cantos by Dan Simmons?
Because I’m pretty sure Ron Moore has. There are some very interesting parallels between BSG’s Cylons and HC’s TechnoCore:
(Spoilers for one of the best SF series ever written)
In the Hyperion universe, several centuries earlier the superintelligent AI computers - the TechnoCore - had “secceded” from human society, taking their physical components off to parts unknown. It seems as though they had left mankind (who they secretly despised) behind in order to pursue their monumental plan to bring about the creation of “UI” - the Ultimate Intelligence, a “machine god” of galaxy-crushing power and 100% predictive capability. To that end, the Core split into three factions: The Ultimates, who focus only upon the UI; the Volatiles, who believe humanity to be a potential threat to their plan and as such needs to be exterminated; and the Stables, who urge caution, and believe mankind’s continued existence (subservient to them, of course) can potentially still be useful.
(I am, of course, simplifying enourmously, as the story also contains among much, much else: time-travel, a parallel-evolving human god, and 19th-Century English poet John Keats,)
See the parallels? Looking at it that way, the Volatiles have dominated Cylon policy since the beginning of the war; CapricaSix and GalacticaBoomer represent the Stables, who believe that humanity should be preserved in service of their Plan. I don’t see it as a “nerfing” at all - rather, it’s ading an extra level of complexity to an already complex enemy.
