What Lightray said; Baltar was very clear about saying, We shouldn’t drink the water.
On the other hand, there is something about this plot development that’s been bugging me: I agree that people would melt down, give up, and leave the planet, as we saw; but I think that it happened a little too quickly, and was too consistently widespread among everybody. It seems to me that there should have been at least some small number of people who would have argued something to the effect of: The prophecies said we would find Earth, and hey, look, we did! They didn’t say what we would find, right? We obviously found it for a purpose! Yes, it’s a radioactive wasteland, and no, we can’t really live there, but this is all part of some sort of larger plan, we can’t just turn our backs on it and bugger out! Hey, come on! Seriously, you’re screwing up the prophecy here!
It didn’t need to be more than a splinter faction, and it could have been dealt with in a quick and offhand way, but I think it’s an oversight that nobody took this point of view.
Are they still around earth? Has that been established? There seems to be a glaring discrepancy between the webisodes and the show.
I agree that once they found earth, they wouldn’t quickly say “oh well, nothing to see here. Let’s go.” There’s clearly a lot of mystery and significance to earth.
If you aren’t going to live on Earth, then the next step would be to get as far away from Earth as possible. Cavil’s bunch is still out there, and Earth seems the most likely place for them to show up eventually. Let them have the burned out planet while the fleet searches for something better.
They left Earth at the end of “Sometimes a Great Notion”, as I mentioned above. By the webisodes, they were gone from Earth.
There was no reason for them to hang around Earth other than religious – I’m amused, after all the complaints here about too much religion in BSG, that now we’ve got people wanting them to make religious decisions.
The fleet is running low on supplies – it has been a while since the Algae Planet. And they’ve got Cavil on their tails. If Earth had what they needed, it might make sense for them to restock while waiting for Cavil to show up. But, it doesn’t, so they moved on.
Basically, the clock is ticking on them finding someplace to live before they run out of food and fuel and before the rag-tag fleet just falls apart around them. They’ve got to find someplace, and soon. That is why the Cylon jump-upgrade was deemed a military decision – expanding their jump range improved both their chances of escaping Cavil, and of finding someplace to live.
Hanging around Earth could’ve maybe answered some unanswered questions about their history and religion… but not high on the priorities when they’re under the gun. And, presumably, the Final Five have some of those answers, anyway, and they got taken along with the fleet.
I agree that this is the reason they left Earth. If they had the chance to find someplace better, someplace where Cavill doesn’t know, then why not try?
But what fun would that be for the viewer? Earth is the logical and sensible place for the Galactica and Cylons to meet up (and just think how awesome that battle will be!). It’s the place where all of the answers are to the questions that have been raised over the course of the show. And it would be awfully crummy to have watched them looking for Earth for so long to only see it in one episode.
The next show title is “No Exit”. This is just a guess but I’d place a bet that that is referring to Earth.
How did Starbuck get transported to earth, crash, get duplicated and transported back to the fleet? Surely the answer must involve earth and they can’t leave that mystery completely behind. It was so important that Starbuck find earth and then lead the fleet there. I could see if they’d found something on earth that pointed them to yet another destination, but they didn’t. It’s just hard to believe they’ve dumped earth so easily.
They have, explicitly, left Earth behind. There is no question of that.
However, they’ve got jump drives. If they absolutely have to get back to Earth, they can. Just like when Starbuck absolutely had to get back to Caprica.
Well, I don’t want to bicker about it. They probably have jumped away from earth. Adama told Gaeta to find him some promising looking stars, and Tigh told D’anna the fleet was getting ready to leave, but I don’t think we’ve explicitly seen the fleet jump yet. If the webisodes are canon, then Cavil is on earth, so no going back there any more than going back to New Caprica, Kobol, or the colonies themselves, for that matter.
They did jump away from Earth after the first show this season and they are a fair ways away from it at the end of the most recent episode. But they are still close enough to it for it to be a relevant factor in the story, unlike New Caprica or Kobol.
In the first episode of the webisodes, Gaeta gets on a Raptor, preparing for some R&R. While the Raptor is between ships, Cavil shows up and the fleet jumps. Gaeta’s Raptor malfunctions and misses the pre-arranged coordinates.
Cavil found earth within a few days of the Colonials finding it, supposedly.
In the regular show, the fleet is prepared to jump, but if we’ve actually seen it, I’d like someone to point to when that happened. I’m not arguing that they haven’t jumped, just that we never actually saw the fleet jump. Minor distinction, I suppose.
They probably have jumped, but in the show there’s no mention of “whew, that was a close one with Cavil there.”
What actually occurred in the webisodes was that the fleet thought Cavil had found them. The fleet, therefore, jumped away.
Later, Galactica realizes that it was a false alarm, and Cavil had not found them, so the fleet jumped back to where they had been.
I’m sure Cavil will find his way to Earth, eventually, but he hasn’t yet. Actually, I’m not even sure if he’s still alive, since he probably died when the Rez Hub went down. It may be Boomer on their tail.
There would’ve been multiple Cavil’s, I’d assume. No?
That model seemed pretty much in agreement, and Xena just got to kill the specific one who’d been fraking with her. But the rest are Cavil too. So to speak.
Anybody else eager to see a Boomer/Chief reunion, now that Chief knows that he too is a Cylon? She was his true love, according to him. That will be interesting and I hope we see it.
IIRC, they could only absorb another cylon’s memories if they died and were resurrected. (Isn’t that what the Eight tells Hera, that she was killed and had a chance to experience her memories?)
I think the Eight who partnered with Helo for the Rez Hub run said that she went and “downloaded” Athena’s memories. So it is not really clear whether that has to involve resurrection or not.
I do think we’re going to get some closure on Boomer’s story. I think that she’s too closely tied into the entire Cavil vs. rebel Cylons plotline, and none of the Final Five have had any interaction with that yet – so, (hopefully) inevitable.
The backstory of the Final Five, Starbuck’s return, the whole Dying Leader thing, the significance of Hera, and what will happen to Baltar are the other plot points I think they must inevitably deal with. (hopefully)
Of course, it may be as Kosh said, and it will all end “In fire.”