Battlestar Galactica 4.20 - "Islanded in a Stream of Stars" (spoilers)

Cafe Society
61

I’m getting seriously worried that the powers that be have no intention of saving humanity from extinction. We have yet to find out what was the point of dragging the fleet across the galaxy to an uninhabitable Earth,

Wild-A***d Guess: Somewhere, someone has a download of every human and Cylon who’s ever lived, ala’ Riverworld. The Powers That Be have to wait until the last sentient dies and the galaxy is empty before they can reboot and start over. See multiple hints about “embracing death” and “crossing over”.

62

The “necrotic blood” stuff makes no sense. There’s no sensible reason why dead tissue with Kara’s DNA proves her story about there being a whole 'nother Kara. She could have just dipped the tags in a scrape on her arm and ended up with the same substance. They pretty have a damn good explanation for what the heck Kara is.

63

I held my tongue the first week we saw Ellen back when I really wanted to post some “who really believes this crap” comments, but I’ll go ahead and say it here: do we really take Gaius “Yep, Boomer’s as human as they come” Baltar’s word for anything any more? The minute he piped up that the blood was an exact match for Kara’s was the first time I really doubted it.

64

I rewatched the first season recently, and I’m pretty sure Gaius said something about how everybody was just happier if they didn’t know there were Cylons around them. So I still believe he knows that Boomer was, and Ellen was (heck the Head Six could have told him, she’d definitely know Boomer). I think his Cylon detector worked. As for Kara - well he seemed to heat up the blood to get it off of the dog tags, and I doubt she could have scraped herself that badly without knowing it.

He’s just about as chaotic neutral as they come.

65

Well, Tigh said Cylons and humans aren’t strong enough on their own, and need to be together. I’m guessing the moral of the story is both humans and Cylons will be saved by simply learning to get along. That’s a metaphor for something; I don’t know what. :slight_smile:

66

And, of course, we know what that most likely means, now. So, it was right all along.

I caught it, but it’s only when I’m reading these threads that I remember that Galactica is ‘The Bucket’.

I didn’t think Kara was even capable of a “slap” setting. I thought she started at “Ass Whooping” and then worked her way up from there.

The wife commented, and I agreed that when they were talking about the Colony having been moved the Sixes in the scene looked kind of like they were holding something back. Now, unless they suspected a leak there wouldn’t be a reason to keep from saying anything, but there was an odd look there. Like maybe they had some sort of suspicion as to the location.

Oh, absolutely NO doubt that Baltar’s Cylon detector worked. He discovered Boomer, he was just afraid that he would reveal it (he WAS alone in a room with her) and she’d activate and kill him. From that point on he was just basically going for happy denial. I’m pretty sure Knead’s point was that nobody in THE FLEET would believe Baltar since he said she was most definitely human.

…but, do we know he ever revealed the results of that test to anyone? If I remember correctly, Boomer asked him to do the test on her of her own volition - he didn’t do it as part of his regular screenings. So, it’s possible that only Baltar and Boomer knew that he had performed the test on Boomer.

-Joe

67

yeah he did, I dont recall the ep but Tigh says something to him about his detector missing Boomer.

68

why do people keep speculating about whether Baltar knew Boomer’s identity. Of course he did. His detector worked, said she was a cylon. He may be manipulative and cowardly but he’s still very smart. Plus he had head six to help him. Dang, that’s the whole reason he tried to get Boomer to kill herself in season one.

This episode left me wanting more. No resolution, no new information, no progress. Ugh, this better end wonderfully.

Anyone else tired of seeing Bill Adama roll on the floor in tears? Seems to happen a lot in season 4.

69

Yeah… I don’t mind his radio broadcast and role as the outcast naysayer, but the harem stuff isn’t going anywhere special. And I miss him as a scientist.

Yeah whenever I see the title I have to mentally erase the “-ed” too.

I totally missed that. I must have been looking down at my food when they showed Jupiter.

I thought Sam as HyBro was a cool idea. Since the goo isn’t working structurally it now has a reason to exist plot wise, as a Galactica nervous system. I too kept waiting for Sam to yell “JUMP!” or for at least Kara to start playing the Final Five song.

Yeah, I was wondering what the frak that meant. I know somebody who reads these threads finds links for these things every week - where’s this week’s commentary about what was deleted?

70

I expect we will get a satisfying conclusion to the story of the characters.

Most of it has been set up already. The plot itself? Not so much.

I expect these characters will get their dues:

  • Adama (Nearly there - it’s a very short jump.)
  • Roslyn. (Will die. Vindicated in her earlier beliefs, probably.)
  • Starbuck. (The time remaining is too short for any character-changing arc, so it will probably be something that is key for all humans, not just herself. A forerunner of some sort.)
  • Gaius Baltar. (Vindication or an ignominous and thoroughly deserved, gruesome ending? It’s an open question.)
  • Cavil. (As the villain, he’s done for.)
  • Galactica herself. (Out in a blaze of glory, going by the set-up.

The supporting characters will probably get sacrifiecd to facilitate the changes for the main characters or the plot.

  • Helo and Athena will most probably lose Hera. (As they knew her, at least.)
  • Tigh. (Tied to Adama and Galactica. Probably goes down with the Captain.)
  • Ellen, Tyrol, Tory & Sam. (At this point they’re inconsequential bystanders.)
  • Baltar’s harem. (Vindicated or foppish fools? Open question.)
  • The Quorum. (Vindicated or idealistic morons? Open question.)
  • The fleet. (Landed, stranded or destroyed? Open question.)
  • Lee Adama (Open question.)

Battlestar Galactica has always been about the characters, not the plotline. It has been refreshing to watch a show that tells an exciting story arch as a vehicle for great actors to refine and master their characters. But it is also time it ended. Adama’s closeted grief is getting very played out. Starbuck’s temper at herself and the world is getting old.

Lee Adama’s “trying to do the [USA] Right Thing[tm]” schtick is getting obnoxious. (Well, more so.) Tigh’s love for the Old Man is getting fairly one dimensional. Roslyn’s dying, disenchanted leader act can’t go much further. And Cavil’s set himself up nicely to get a Battlestar-shaped object shoved up his arse.

To be honest, I think Baltar’s the only really undecided (and therefore exciting) character left in the cast. Chaotic neutral, as someone upthread called him, is a very nice summary. IMHO, it would be perfect to see the last throes of the plot through his eyes. And see where he lands. He’s also a very obvious Judas character.)

My own wild theory, based on nothing but a hunch, is that the following characters will die during the finale:

Adama, Helo, Athena, Tyrol, Sam, Starbuck, Caprica, Baltar, Lee, Tigh, D’Anna and Roslyn.
I think D’Anna will be central to the finale. She may have been the mastermind behind Cavil again. She may even have been the connection between Starbuck and That Other Force.

71

Yeah, but characters set in motion or react to the plot i.e. form and function are flip sides of each other. That, and the whole “they have a plan” thing at the beginning of each episode, means I’d like a non-contrived ending.

At the very least, they should neatly clear up the Head-Six and Virtual-Baltar apparitions. The scene where Baltar is blatantly dragged along towards the quarters of his ‘disciples’ in front of many witnesses doesn’t leave any good options, AFAICS.

72

You mean the one where we see Baltar as other people are seeing him, which is basically someone miming getting dragged along?

-Joe

73

I haven’t seen that scene more than once, but I believe his legs were stiff, so not a mime. Is that clip online?

74

Yes, another tragic waste of time. So Cavil (who IS alive) has Hera (and that was his plan, after all). Who are the “playmates” he says she’ll soon have, though?

Boomer is maternal (loving?) now - so is she fertile? Got Helo’s Pop Tart in the toaster, or wasn’t her love circuit turned on yet?

More (:() Starbuck Agonistes, but at least she’s coming to terms with being dead.

I too have seen Olmos’ molars, with bits of scenery stuck between them, in loving closeup way too often already. Enough. Get the frak over whatever it is this time, Bill.

Did the Wacky Weed Adama and Roslin were bogarting in the ICU come from New Caprica, or did the botanical ships have seed stock?

The rebel Cylons included the Twos and Threes, right? We’ve only seen Sixes and Eights since Earth, though. More “right-sizing” of the show’s payroll?

Yes, it’s “obvious” that Galactica is going to take out Cavil’s ship in a final kamikaze mission, except that (1) the producers studiously avoid the obvious, as we know well, and (2) (Preview alert for the squeamish!) Adama will ask for numerous volunteers for a “mission” which is only “probably” one-way - that looks more like using the last few jumps she has left, into a planetary landing that will likely leave her unflyable, no? (Preview alert Off. Satisfied now, folks?)

75

Sure, the necrotic blood thing makes no sense – but neither does the fact that you can’t tell a cylon from a human on an MIR! I mean, Boomer could plug cables into her arm, but that sort of thing couldn’t be detected by a scan? They can download themselves and have some sort of non-human pathways that were interfered with by the nebula in the pilot (I think) but that can’t be detected by a scan?! The whole thing is ridiculous and the writers obviously haven’t been bothered by the lack of “science” in their science fiction to this point, so why start now?

And as for having a good explanation for Starbuck? I wouldn’t count on it. The actress was interviewed and said there is a good wrap-up for everybody but her…

76

:rolleyes:

You ARE the one who predicted that we’d never see Dean Stockwell in this second half of the season, right?

-Joe

77

Problem is, as far as we can tell, and whatever happened to her, she’s no more dead than a Cylon whose downloaded into a new body. She has all the same memories and feeeeeeelings.

As for the implausibility of Cylon detection, I can actually sort of buy it in the sense that the “pathways” of Cylons and cylon technology are based on special arrangements of actual human-like nerves, too fine to detect: Boomer can jam Cylon tech into that and it interfaces with her specially designed nerves directly… because that’s the tech and her nerves are designed to do.

Think of the connections in the human brain: they are WAY too complex in normal humans for us to really understand their networking even now. Cylon brains could still be hunks of gray and white matter, but the actual nerve networks are wired in a very different, perhaps more efficient way.

Even the spine-lighty-up-when-fraking thing could simply be cells the nerve that have the ability to pump out bioluminescent proteins at certain times, but which when not active would still look like regular cells.

Cylon bodies, since they are made and reared rather than born, wouldn’t even necessarily have to have any of this extra information stored in their DNA: it could be stuff that’s built in the fetal development process and the remainder hide/reside in something parallel to DNA but too small to detect.

78

No, I thought we’d see a cameo of Cavil to wrap up that storyline. You could look it up. We have indeed seen such a cameo, ya know.

But even if you were correct about what I wrote, so what? We’re only guessing at what will happen, really. We have discussed this show’s unpredictability in such depth, so often, that by now we should all know not to take our own predictions or anybody else’s as anything more than guesswork.

Better luck at your next Gotcha attempt. Here’s a :rolleyes: back atcha, Joe.
TooCool, we haven’t seen anything else to make us believe she’s a Cylon - the others talk of 13 models only, and they’re all accounted for. At this point, I’m going with “Angel” - a true harbinger, sent by the One True God or Gods or Whateverthefrak, to help guide all of humanoidity out of the allofthis cycle. I’m abandoning the Beings of Light reprise theory because it’s just too godsdamned late now to bring in that kind of shit.

79

Missed this:

I interpreted as meaning the Captains have lost so much confidence in Adama and Roslin, in the wake of the mutiny, that they look more to Baltar for leadership now.

80

It was more than a cameo, was it not? I think we will see him again. :slight_smile: