Unless this is all aeons from now, and the nebula has drifted by… um…
/got nothin’
Are nebulae expanding away from other nebulae as well as all stars expand away from all other stars?
Ya, I heard him say it too. But I don’t have Pork Rind’s rewinding capabilities.
My personal theory is that after the first Cylon war, the Cylons followed the Kobol clues to Earth. That is the world they left for all those years ago. So, they’re leading the remainders of humanity to their “mother” planet. Imagine how cool that would be? “Yay, we found Earth! Uh, why is it surrounded by basestars?”
Here’s my two cents:
The Lords of Kobol are/were a highly advanced alien race (a la the “beings of light” in the original BSG) with an advanced knowledge of interstellar travel. At the time of whatever catastrophe made Kobol unliveable, there was a split between two factions of the Lords over whether the humans should be evacuated or left there (hence Athena’s suicide when learning her faction had failed?) Those Lords who evacuated the humans divided them into 13 tribes and gave the twelve tribes each a name and a flag based on a constellation that would be visible in the sky of the far-distant thirteenth colony, which I assume was placed far away from the others out of concern over putting all humanity’s eggs in one basket. They then built the holographic map in the Tomb of Athena as a guide should it ever be necessary for the twelve tribes to find Earth.
Related speculation: If a civil war between the Lords of Kobol was responsible for the evacuation of humanity, perhaps there may be an analogue to the original series’ Count Iblis (Satan) that’ll come into play later on. Could he be the Cylon god, perhaps?
Forward! Into the Past!
Err, sorry 'bout that. Firesign flashback.
I’ve been thinking that as well. Only, I don’t think there was a “13th Colony”. I see it as the following progression.
- Settlers from Earth get to Kobol. This either happens in Earth’s distant future, or distant past with the help of aliens or something. I’m betting “distant future”.
- As time passes on Kobol, Earth becomes a mythological past.
- Something happens on Kobol, and humanity has to leave.
– A Thought –
I’m thinking that the event in question is that humanity created the Cylons (say, as “domestic servents”) and the Cylons’ subsequent rebellion killed off most of humanity. The survivors then found an extraordinary star system with twelve habitable planets. Somehow the ancient legends of Earth and its twelve constellations became important during this period, so the twelve planets were named for the twelve constellations.
- As time passes on the twelve colonies, ancient legends of earth mutate to where earth becomes the destination of a mythical “13th Tribe” that never existed.
I agree.
And when (or if) they reach earth, all they’ll find is a ruined planet – in fact, a planet that had been rendered uninhabitable long, long ago. The how and why will remain unanswered – or you know what? Maybe the Cylons were originally first created on Earth!
Think about it: The Cylons keep saying “this has all happened before”, like it’s a cycle that keeps repeating. Earth builds Cylons, Cylons mostly destroy humanity, humanity flees to Kobol. Repeat, to the twelve colonies. Repeat to present.
How do you keep the series running after you’ve discovered the burnt out husk of Earth? Easy – they find evidence that in the original diaspora from Earth, humanity fled in more than one direction …
Mind you, all of this leaves open the question, why do the Cylons keep allowing humanity to rebuild, only to mostly destroy them later? Are they hoping humanity will develop in a certain way, and when they fail, they restart the cycle, hoping for a different outcome?
It’s frak, dammit, frak! Quit making fun of the doctor’s accent! 
Bwa ha ha ha ha!!! Now, that’s comedy gold!
Hmm. Could be, could be.
Now that we’re all one big happy family and [ Bing Crosby & Bob Hope ] we’re off on the road to Earth [ / Bing Crosby & Bob Hope ], is it time to bring back in some more of the original-series elements?
Does Starbuck now need to start dating a male prostitute named Cepheus [sub]or perhaps Fred Garvey[/sub]?
Serina shows up next week - will she compete for Apollo’s affections? Boxey keeps getting edited out, but maybe the kid and the mechanical dog will finally get some air time.
Yeah, I thought of that when someone reminded us that the Cylons were “bringing in the heavy machinery”.
I just hope we’re not looking at some sort of lame-assed Matrix/Zion kind of thing.
Oh please oh please oh please…
-Joe
Stars don’t expand away from each other; they (along with nebulae such as the Lagoon Nebula) orbit around the Milky Way Galaxy’s center of gravity. Constellations will change, but it takes a long time.
I really enjoy the show; it’s just funny how often space-based tv shows can’t get basic, known astronomical facts right.
Good god I hope not.
Anyways, one other question that hasn’t been asked…
If the Cylons keep “almost” killing off humanity, well, how come there isn’t something in the scriptures saying, “Thou shalt not create intelligent machines or you’ll REALLY fucking regret - so sayeth we all”?
Also, if this is far future and Humanity originally came from a now-radioactive Earth, well, why aren’t the Cylons wiping everyone out? It all comes out to the Cylon god I guess.
-Joe
So the universe is not expanding?
I don’t think humanity is (re)creating intelligent machines. I’m thinking that the Cylons were created long ago, possibly on “ancient Earth”, and have been dogging humanity ever since.
Now that is a good question. It’s hard to believe that humanity simply “ditches” the Cylons like the Shaft ditching his police tail, only to have the Man – I mean, the Cylons “find” them again millenia later. It has to have something to do with the Cylon religion. Doesn’t it?
Baldwin caught it before I did, but he’s right. Gravity holds galaxys together and negates any movement between stars caused by the expansion of the universe. Even without gravity, I think the degree of expansion at that proximity would be tiny. Only distant objects such as galaxies and quazars can be observed to recede from us.
Re gods, some of you might not be aware of how close the Cylon religion seems to be to Christianity. The human religion uses ideas and terminology from Greek mythology, Judaism, and Christianity, but in its details and its overall shape, it is purely, AFAICT, an invention of the show’s writers. On the other hand, almost every element of Cylon religion seems to be taken directly from Christianity: God’s command to “be fruitful and multiply,” the necessity of repentance and the offer of forgiveness, the rejection of “false idols,” and the possability of communication with the divine.
I don’t know if this is meant to be a plot point indicating Cylon contact with Earth or with Christians, or simply a dramatic device to make the Cylon beliefs creepily similar to beliefs we’re familiar with or even share, but I suspect the latter. I don’t think the Cylon God is an uber-computer or anything similar; I think it is a genuine object of spiritual faith.
Just a WAG, but I wonder if the Cylons didn’t discover that humans turned on the “Lords of Kobol,” killed them, and turned them into Gods out of guilt. (Freudian understanding of religion!) In their apparent attempt to become/replace humanity, the Cylons might be attempting to do the same to the humans. This would seem to conflict with the already established Cylon religion, but in fact, the Christian parallels would be hightened by the focus on a hybrid Cylon-deified human hybrid as saviour. Perhaps the Cylons think they need a “human” religion to really supercede us, and see killing and deifying your master as necessary to human religion (or just being human). Especially if the LoK had their own myth like that–a galactic tradition of suicide by Uplift, perhaps?
OK, probably not, but either way, I have a strong feeling we’re going to end up being the decendants either of Cylons or Cylon-human hybids. Painfully bad from a scientific perspective, but it makes dramatic sense, unfortunately.
And finally (sorry for the long post!), I don’t remember for sure, but I don’t think the Cylons have ever come close to wiping out the entire fleet–the attacks have generally concentrated on Galactica. That makes sense since taking out Galactica would naturally be an offensive priority for anyone attacking the fleet, while Galactica naturally tries to interpolate herself between the fleet and any attackers. It also makes sense, though, if the Cylons want a defenseless fleet of humans thay can herd, follow, enslave, mate with, or whatever.
OK, try this thought experiment on for size.
Sometime in our future, self-aware robots are created – the Cylons. Being sentient robots, someone decides they must have souls, and preaches Christianity to them.
And the Cylons Believe. In fact, they take to it a bit too well and they find humanity Wanting. So they decide it is time for the Apocalypse, and decide to do it themselves. They pick those humans that they decide are Righteous, and take them into “heaven” – to Kobol. What they do to the Earth remains a mystery, but they probably nuke it from orbit.
They set themselves up as the Lords of Kobol. That’s right, the Cylons ruled Kobol.
Despite what the Cylons undoubtedly saw as a Benevolent Rule, humanity rebelled (rejecting Christianity in the process) and fled. For some time after they founded the Twelve Worlds humanity prospered because the Cylons couldn’t decide what to do next; maybe even had a schism as they blamed one another for what happened.
But eventually one side won out and decided to restart the whole process. They would destroy humanity and herd the survivors to a suitable location where they can once again be ruled by their benevolent Cylon masters and be force-fed the religion of the One God.
I’m not sure I buy all that, but it is an interesting thought.
Okay, to be fair the “humanity created the cylons…they rebelled…” could mean they were created a looooong time ago. If you want to play symantics. That seems a like a cheap out to me, though.
Besides, if it’s a neverending life and death struggle between humanity and cylons it seems to me that at some point the humans are going to decide it’s time to take the fight to the cylons.
I kind of got the impression that ‘The Cylon Rebellion’ happened right at the time of the war 40 years go. Oh look, an archetypal number. 
It’s also seemed (to me at least) that the Cylons got themselves some religion very recently…so why the wipeout didn’t happen before is yet another question.
-Joe
Hehe. I hate to double-post, but if you reread your post and go for a very open reading of…
“The Cylons were created by man…the rebelled” well, hmmm…
-Joe
I think the Scrolls are entirely self-referential - “All this has happened before” etc. means “all of what you read right here” etc., not that nothing *else * has happened or will happen too. The phrase also doesn’t necessarily mean it will keep happening; it only implies at least 3 occurrences.
The Scrolls say nothing of a race of mechanical men or a war with them. That can well be a first. AFAWK the Scrolls only talk about the Olympian Gods and the Exodus. *That * will happen again, but there’s no guarantee about anything else.
Can we call the Cylon God “Imperious Leader”, huh, can we please?
Hey, if it turns out the Cylon God is just another Cylon who doesn’t really believe in anything and is using religion to manipulate his fellow Cylons, can we call him “Impious Leader”? 