Huh, I thought she was referring to some secret Cylon sexual technique that they’d shown each other on New Caprica.
That doesn’t quite follow. Over 3000 years, it’s not surprising that humans would forget or warp historical details. Quite a few generations pass, after all. However, we don’t exactly know about the lifecycle of the 13th tribe cylons. For all we know, they can live indefinitely. Yes, they dropped resurrection in favor of procreation, but they might have just been using it to replace people lost to war, disease, or accidents. Thus, it’s quite possible that they might have had some really old guys there who could vouch firsthand about what happened back on Kobol and it would remain as an historical fact, not myth.
Or, even if we completely disregard that, only 1000 years passed for the 13th tribe after leaving Kobol. They’d be more likely to keep their facts straight than the humans after 3000 years.
Great episode, IMO. So many little questions neatly sewed up. Of course, some of the answers beg further questions.
Who cares about the new show Caprica. I don’t want that backstory. I’d rather have a Kobol series, which ends with us learning why the earth Cylons would give up rez tech just because they can make babies.
I assume Kobol broke up over Cylon issues, but the Cylons there considered themselves the 13th tribe, so they must have gotten along with humans pretty well for at least awhile. But, how do Colonials know the 13th tribe went to earth? Someone had to have sent word back.
Where are the Centurions the earth 13th tribe Cylons made? They evidently won the earth war, so? What have they been doing for 3000 years? Why would earth Cylons even “recreate” Centurions? That’s pretty old tech.
Tyrol & Adama’s conversation bugged me slightly. “I can fix the ship, but it’ll take Cylon tech.”
“Cylon?”
“Yeah, biological.”
“No way!”
Now, c’mon! Are Cylons machines or not? If they’re machines, and they seem to keep calling themselves that, then why should Adama care if they use biological material? I could see Adama not wanting Cylon nano-tech on his ship, or something.
Yeah, “the swirl.” That’s Ellen’s special sexual technique for providing orgasms. Funny how Cavil wants to see gamma rays with a machine body but doesn’t want to give up “the swirl.”
Back when they were on New Caprica and Ellen had just finished servicing John he commented on how she ended with a “swirl” rather than a “twist”. She said she just liked to keep things original. That was a joke referencing Seinfeld*. Jerry had “The Move” that several characters were trying to duplicate. Depending on mood, they’d finish with either a swirl or a twist - IIRC a pinch was too forward.
*confirmed by Ron Moore’s commentary
It also seems likely that the human tribes might have gone through a “retro” period where technology was feared or abandoned - much like the humans who built Galactica.
The Earthlons would presumably have kept their records in better shape.
Maybe appropos of nothing, but I wonder something: Do the Colonials know about or believe in evolution? If apes were not to be found on the twelve colonies, and the fossil record of humantiy was somewhere else, would they ever have developed a theory of evolution? Or would it still be an article of faith that humanity had been created supernaturally by the gods? Clearly the Cylons know about it: Cavil’s remarks about the primordeal ooze, and Tigh sarcastically saying you can’t blame everything on the first microbe to split in two. I know Adama has referenced lions and foxes as wildlife.
They found a Centurion head, of an unfamiliar but unmistakable design, right there in Brooklyn.
That just reminded him that it was *Cylon *technology. Not only had Adama just barely put down a mutiny/coup over being too close to them already, he still remembered that the humans existed only because he had kept *Galactica *Cylon-resistant.
I am mortified to have forgotten that detail. Apparently I’m getting old.
Lumpy, there’s hardly another *lifeform *that we’ve seen. But of course there had to have been some (maybe the Tribes had arks in their fleets?) Even if the Colonials knew they themselves were transplants, they’d still have been able to see evolution in action among whatever other species they had, the same way Darwin did.
Right, but they were the ones to nuke earth, so didn’t they win the war, and they’re out there somewhere? Or did they have a system of MAD in place that managed to kill both sides? They just landed back on earth and did nothing until they died out?
The Sacred Scrolls open with the phrase “Life here began out there”. “Out there” being Kobol. For all we know there’s another passage of the scrolls describing evolution of life on Kobol. Which would mean that religious fundalmentalists (like the Gemonese) would accept evolution as an article of faith because the holy book tells them so. 
I thought it was an injoke when Tyrol told Adama that parts of the ship were not up to spec, and he angrily responded, “You’re telling me that we cut corners?”
So, we still don’t know:
- If “Earth” is our Earth. At the end of “All Along the Watchtower”, we were shown a planet that sure looked like the one we’re living on, but we were never shown that clear a view of the radioactive “Earth” found by the fleet.
I’m hoping it’ll turn out that “Earth” isn’t Earth, and that we end at the real Earth, far in our future. (Otherwise we have to buy the idea of the whole fossil record of this planet being a coincidence.)
-
What the deal is with Baltar’s virtual Six avatar. (Reminds me of the Damon Knight story “The Avatars”; somebody should make a movie out of that.)
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What ship in the fleet manufactures the booze. Adama and Tigh alone must have drunk up a truckload in the past four years, and it seems like most of the crew drink (and who could blame them).
There are a lot of ships in the fleet without much to do, so I’d imagine a lot of people are perfecting the art of turning algae into booze. Is Zarek’s original prison barge still around? I’m sure those guys wouldn’t mind being the fleet’s distillery.
I suppose someone has to be making Cottle’s cigarettes too. I keep seeing this one ship that appears to have domes all over it where they are probably growing things.
Was that Moore’s story-arc plan, or are he and Eick just exceptionally good at fanwanking their own work?
Either way, it works, so what the frak …
levdrakon, Cloud Nine got destroyed when Gina set off the nuke just off New Caprica. BTW, that was the same model used as the Valley Forge in “Silent Running”. Great flick, a little dated, though.
Moore said in an interview that “it is Earth.”
I recall the Chief examining a still in the miniseries…or perhaps it was Tighe.
The part about being an artist is what made me think this. Still, that doesn’t tell us much about an Extra Dead Starbuck back on Earth, though. Does it?
The Cylon homeworld, I imagine. Something we haven’t seen yet, and I’m guessing won’t.
Is there any reason to believe that Daniel-the-prototype didn’t survive? His line got sabotaged, but that doesn’t mean the first one didn’t. Of course, Starbuck would be his child then, so we have a human/Nu-Cylon-Skinjob reproducing…
Interestingly, this episode can explain why there could be resurrection facilities for the Final Five but nobody can just walk in and see them. Only Cavill actually KNEW about them. Just keep people away from five snotbaths per ship and you’re set.
…except, we were very clearly told this episode that it would be possible to crack open someone’s head and read their memories. So, “Sam” is stuck on the potato body. The crack it open, read what they need, and then create resurrection technology. Then they take Sam off the ventilator.
Not necessarily. Maybe the 13th kept better records. Maybe their leaving Kobol is what caused all the bad shit to go down, so when THEY went they didn’t do it in the middle of a shooting war. Maybe their tribe was in a less-accessible area so they had time to pack before bugging out. All sorts of possibilities.
Maybe lots of radiation is involved in the process and it renders people sterile? Nah. I’m going to go with “if nobody ever dies, having children leads to unsustainable overpopulation so nobody has kids”. Hell, maybe the resurrection technology has practical limits (can only support so many 'bots at once). If you were immortal, and you COULD have a child, but you’d live forever and your child was destined to die and you knew it ahead of time…well, you probably wouldn’t have children.
Or when he was, you know, fucking her on New Caprica.
Umm…if we humans knew for certain we came from the moon it would be pretty silly to dig for monkey fossils on Earth.
What makes you think they nuked Earth from space? Hell, if they’d had space superiority I’ll bet they could have taken out the FF’s resurrection ship. But they didn’t. If the Centurions wanted nothing more than revenge it’s entirely possible they would have just triggered a nuclear armageddon to Kill All Humans. Or hell, maybe the Centurions were losing and they went for the nuclear option.
Or, as the ultimate hilarious irony, they took off for Kobol (and then the colonies) just after the Final Five did. Their ship wasn’t as fast (or they had to build them) as the Final Five so they are just getting there RIGHT NOW and they’re currently blowing the shit out of Cavill’s skinjob buddies.
-Joe
-Joe
Yes, Cloud Nine had a really big dome and was used as a resort. What I’ve been seeing is different.
Found it. The Botanical Cruiser. Lots of domes growing all sorts of [del]marijuana[/del] different plants for the fleet. Apparently it’s this ship that is an homage to Silent Running.
You’re confusing Cloud Nine (which only had one dome) with the Botanical Cruiser (several domes). In TOS they were called Argo Ships and the Fleet’s food was grown onboard. In the miniseries Roslin visited a Botanical Cruiser, spoke with a little girl who’s grandmother had a heart attack, and later left it behind to be attack by the Cylons since it had no FTL drive. Since a Botanical Cruiser is part of the ship at least some of them have FTL drives.
I played Inez in that play once. That’s a fun play to perform.
I replayed the exposition scene when the nurse interrupts. This is what Anders says:
Well, they aren’t exactly biological humans. The 13th tribe including the Final 5 are transhumans, people who downloaded their minds into perpetually reconstructed bodies that had no need for working reproductive organs (for obvious reasons). Thus, human-style procreation would have been a lost technology that would have had to have been rediscovered.
I am still not clear where and when the Centurions arose and whether this happened more than once, though I understand it was Ellen’s idea to download them into the humanoid bodies.
Oh, I just assumed they did it the same way the Colonial Cylons did. Seems like if the FFs people has space superiority the Centurions wouldn’t have been able to build an arsenal of nukes without getting blasted from space. I guess it’s doable though. Seems like space flight must have been pretty commonplace if the FF alone were able to build a Rez-ship and park it in orbit.
So anyway, Anders said when they left earth they didn’t have FTL, but they were pretty close to light speed. That puts the Colonies less than 2000 LY from earth, right? Did they have FTL when they left Kobol? If not, how close is earth to Kobol? If the earth Cylons spent 1000 years there, they must have gotten there pretty quickly. No?