# Battlestar Galactica ending Spoilers **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 22, 2009, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-ending-spoilers/500642 "2009-06-22T20:40:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-ending-spoilers/500642/21 "2009-06-24T15:08:00Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > I feel like the abandonment of technology is akin to Frodo sailing West with the elves. The people are tired and finished with the world they knew, so they leave it behind. It’s less about a truly reasoned, logical analysis of what might be best for mankind, and more of a transition from an age and a story that has run its course to a new beginning for a new people. Except that Frodo left a backward culture for a highly advanced one. Which is the opposite case. That new beginning for those people includes dying of dysentery when it’s completely avoidable. Coming into contact with parasites and pathogens that they have no immunity for because they were more or less wiped out millenia in the past. To being killed by natives who distrust and fear the new invaders. To being eaten by wild animals who haven’t yet learned the fear of man. You’re right that it wasn’t a very logical analysis, that was damn clear. On the part of the characters AND the writers. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-ending-spoilers/500642/22 "2009-06-24T15:14:35Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Yes, there was no reason at all for them to start over at a neolithic standard. Other than their desperate desire to break the cycle on behalf of their species, that is. > [@](#): > > I don’t see why they couldn’t use the ships to build a city, skip that whole nasty feudal/industrial era thing. Because then all of this would happen again. > [@](#): > > How exactly did they transmit the ethical knowledge over 10,000 years to ensure that humans never created a robot slave race? They didn’t and couldn’t, of course. All they could do was their best on behalf of their races and their newly-redefined society, acting on their knowledge of the past and faith in the future. That was both optimistic and embiggening. What guarantees can you make about the next 75,000 years? > [@](#): > > Oh yeah, based on what we saw in the very end, they didn’t, they failed, it all happened over again. Maybe you’d better watch again. That was left as a very open question. Remember Angel Six and Angel Baltar wondering about that out loud, while they wandered Times Square? > [@](#): > > But then again the existance of the Angel Starbuck shows that God just wants them to repeat the same mistakes over and over again for all of eternity. His interventions all helped the escaping fleet get to where they ended up. If He wanted the cycle to continue, He could have simply let it continue. How you could reach your view while having actually seen the show is mystifying. **phouka** , the skinjob Cylons who had not joined the fleet were left alive but mortal and infertile on the Twelve Colony planets. There were Centurions there too, and we don’t know that there weren’t still Basestars and Raiders among them, either. The fleet gave the rebel Basestar to the Centurions that had joined them to go find their own future (that line about them having “earned it” was both noble and condescending, IMHO, echoing as it did the end of Jim Crow). So there was still some risk for a while to the new Earthlings of being found by vengeful skinjobs. At some point, only Centurions, of both persuasions, would be left to share the universe with them. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-ending-spoilers/500642/23 "2009-06-24T15:28:25Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Other than their desperate desire to break the cycle on behalf of their species, that is. Which they roundly failed at due to their inability to transmit ethical obligations to a pre-industrial race that wouldn’t really understand what robot slaves are about. > [@](#): > > Because then all of this would happen again. No, as a result of their actions, it happened again, as shown by the ending. > [@](#): > > They didn’t and couldn’t, of course. All they could do was their best on behalf of their races and their newly-redefined society, acting on their knowledge of the past and faith in the future. That was both optimistic and embiggening. Right they didn’t because they decided to go to a pre-technological society and had no sound method for transmitting ethical lessons thus insuring that it would all be repeated. But at least they were embiggened by it. > [@](#): > > What guarantees can you make about the next 75,000 years? None, but if I setup a technological society that had the proper level of technology at a modern level where they had the technology to build robot slaves but chose not to because it was enshrined in their history and the foundation myth of their civilization, there’d be a better chance of avoiding it by far. > [@](#): > > Maybe you’d better watch again. That was left as a very open question. Remember Angel Six and Angel Baltar wondering about that out loud, while they wandered Times Square? Yes. I don’t think it’s quite so open as you seem to. Times Square was just a hundred years out from robot slaves at that point. > [@](#): > > His interventions all helped the escaping fleet get to where they ended up. If He wanted the cycle to continue, He could have simply let it continue. And how do you know that he didn’t want to let it continue? To begin the same old cycle anew? Why would he have let the cycle continue in the past only to stop it there? > [@](#): > > How you could reach your view while having actually seen the show is mystifying. How you could reach your view isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![VunderBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/839c29/32.png) [@VunderBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VunderBob)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-ending-spoilers/500642/24 "2009-06-24T15:28:45Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > The Cylons came from the 12 Colonies - remember the whole “The Cylons were created by Man” tag? What’s the term for a colony settled from a colony? > > But yeah, the Cylons lived someplace. They all left, and moved to that crazy looking thing that they lived on in the finale. It was destroyed. So at best, there may be a few basestars of Cavils, Dorals and Simons flying around, but [fanwank] they’ll jump into the gravitational “safe area” around the crazy looking thing, since they don’t know it’s been destroyed, but in the absence of the CLT the safe area isn’t safe anymore, so they’ll be sucked in too.[/fanwank] This is probably fanwankery of my own, and definitely a tangent. The way I understand things Cylon goes like this: - The original Cylons, The Chief, Col Tigh, et al, were absolutely human as we know it. They broke away and established Earth 1 because they culturally adopted cybernetics and developed resurrection tech. - The Model Cylons with GSOPs were genetically engineered humans, optimized for the resurrection tech stuff. In the process of optimization, they lost/gave up the ability to reproduce biologically the old fashioned way, and had to be cloned. - The mechanical Cylons used human and maybe non-human brains for control. Developed by the original human Cylons, who took them when they established their own colony, but also redeveloped by the other colonies in the recent storyline past prior to the 2 wars. Yeah, I’d walk away from all that and take my chances with the indigenous critters, too, if I were a colonist. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-ending-spoilers/500642/25 "2009-06-24T15:53:18Z")
> [@VunderBob](#): > > - The original Cylons, The Chief, Col Tigh, et al, were absolutely human as we know it. They broke away and established Earth 1 because they culturally adopted cybernetics and developed resurrection tech. They were part of the 13th Tribe that left Kobol, and as such were an earlier generation of Cylon skinjob. That race in turn created an earlier generation of Centurion. The Five were scientists in a secret lab that was recreating resurrection technology, when all of this happened again and they escaped. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-ending-spoilers/500642/26 "2009-06-24T15:59:03Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Which they roundly failed at due to their inability to transmit ethical obligations to a pre-industrial race that wouldn’t really understand what robot slaves are about. They created the basis for a society that didn’t have that problem. They gave the future a chance it had not had before. Their eventual descendants might fail, but they did not. > [@](#): > > No, as a result of their actions, it happened again, as shown by the ending. Open question. Already pointed out. > [@](#): > > Right they didn’t because they decided to go to a pre-technological society and had no sound method for transmitting ethical lessons thus insuring that it would all be repeated. But at least they were embiggened by it. Was that an actual rebuttal, or mere sarcasm? > [@](#): > > None Well, there you go then. > [@](#): > > Yes. I don’t think it’s quite so open as you seem to. Times Square was just a hundred years out from robot slaves at that point. Did you miss the part where _it hadn’t happened yet_? :dubious: > [@](#): > > And how do you know that he didn’t want to let it continue? Because He intervened in ways that helped them avoid it. I already pointed that out. > [@](#): > > Why would he have let the cycle continue in the past only to stop it there? Why does God do _anything_? Maybe He got sick of it too. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-ending-spoilers/500642/27 "2009-06-24T17:20:28Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > They created the basis for a society that didn’t have that problem. They gave the future a chance it had not had before. Their eventual descendants might fail, but they did not. Based on what? What do they do that changes things? > [@](#): > > Open question. Already pointed out. So you say. > [@](#): > > Was that an actual rebuttal, or mere sarcasm? It was a rebuttal. Read it again. > [@](#): > > Did you miss the part where _it hadn’t happened yet_? :dubious: There were no safeguards in place to ensure that it wouldn’t, so it will. > [@](#): > > Because He intervened in ways that helped them avoid it. I already pointed that out. And you base this belief on what? > [@](#): > > Why does God do _anything_? Maybe He got sick of it too. Maybe, or maybe it just repeats again. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-ending-spoilers/500642/28 "2009-06-24T17:25:19Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Except that Frodo left a backward culture for a highly advanced one. Which is the opposite case. > > That new beginning for those people includes dying of dysentery when it’s completely avoidable. Coming into contact with parasites and pathogens that they have no immunity for because they were more or less wiped out millenia in the past. To being killed by natives who distrust and fear the new invaders. To being eaten by wild animals who haven’t yet learned the fear of man. Except I always viewed the undying lands as heaven. Basically, an afterlife. Frodo and the Elves are still alive, sure, but for the purposes of Middle Earth, they are dead. Their age in this world has passed. At least that’s how I read it. Similarly, the colonists decided that their time was up. They had achieved their great quest, and now it was time to lie down shed their burdens and obligations to the past and the future. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-ending-spoilers/500642/29 "2009-06-24T18:10:29Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > Except I always viewed the undying lands as heaven. Basically, an afterlife. Frodo and the Elves are still alive, sure, but for the purposes of Middle Earth, they are dead. Their age in this world has passed. At least that’s how I read it. > > Similarly, the colonists decided that their time was up. They had achieved their great quest, and now it was time to lie down shed their burdens and obligations to the past and the future. Right, but they set down the obligation to make sure it never happened again. I guess that’s part of my problem. The idea that at one point you collectively lay down your burdens rather than carrying those burdens forever and ever, because that’s what life is about. There is no reason they couldn’t settle down on the lush verdant fields and setup a society with a common philosophical agreement about enslaving robots and still maintain things like running water and electricity. The whole idea that it’s technology that caused the problem is hokey beyond belief. It’s not technology that is the problem, but the ends to which it is put. As far as it goes the Cylons have mindless robot servants that they don’t mind keeping enslaved, such as the various working parts of the ships. It seems like it was ok to have robots doing work as long as they weren’t intelligent robots. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-ending-spoilers/500642/30 "2009-06-24T18:22:36Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Based on what? What do they do that changes things? Basically, abandon the technology that led them to create second-class members of their society in the first place. > [@](#): > > So you say. > > It was a rebuttal. Read it again. Got anything of substance? :dubious: > [@](#): > > There were no safeguards in place to ensure that it wouldn’t, so it will. Then the pessimism you complain of is your own, not the writers’. > [@](#): > > And you base this belief on what? On watching the show. :rolleyes: God sent the angels to make Baltar open the colonial defenses, so New Sodom could be destroyed and the way cleared for a restart. God intervened to show the colonists the way to Earth. God sent Starbuck 2.0 back to help make sure of that. God guided the rebel Cylons to form the alliance, via the Opera House dream and the Xenabot’s visions of the afterlife. > [@](#): > > As far as it goes the Cylons have mindless robot servants that they don’t mind keeping enslaved. The rebel Cylons _emancipated_ the Centurions, by removing Cavil’s V-chips, and treated them as equals from then on (despite “Operation Get Behind the Toasters” when they invaded the Colony, but never mind). They even stopped Cavil from lobotomizing the Raiders. Even the Five treated the Centurions as equal fellow sentient beings. How the hell did you miss all that? > [@](#): > > Maybe, or maybe it just repeats again. See above re your own pessimism. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-ending-spoilers/500642/31 "2009-06-24T18:27:18Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > Similarly, the colonists decided that their time was up. They had achieved their great quest, Which was what? > [@Eonwe](#): > > and now it was time to lie down shed their burdens and obligations to the past and the future. And do what, knap flint and eat grubs? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-ending-spoilers/500642/32 "2009-06-24T18:33:45Z")
And frak the Cro-Magnons. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-ending-spoilers/500642/33 "2009-06-24T18:44:31Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > And frak the Cro-Magnons. With what? The locals are a lot better at bashing folks with rocks, I’ll warrant. 🙂 Oh you mean literally. Presumably they will teach then to make soap. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-ending-spoilers/500642/34 "2009-06-24T18:47:00Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Got anything of substance? :dubious: Are you serious? I guess there’s no point. Stick with the exposition that was handed to you on a platter with a ham-fist I guess. I only talk to people who actually give even a modicum of thought about what I have to say, this isn’t great debates, I don’t need to deal with obnoxious attitudes here. Good day. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-ending-spoilers/500642/35 "2009-06-24T18:50:56Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > With what? The locals are a lot better at bashing folks with rocks, I’ll warrant. 🙂 > Oh you mean literally. Presumably they will teach then to make soap. Doubtful. The training it would require to play Pyramid would result in a better physical training than your average savage. Kinesiology is a science, and has been developed over thousands of years via various sports/martial arts/dance and other physical activities. An organized group made up of marines and viper pilots will hand any pre-writing tribe their ass. Basic military discipline, communication and knowledge of physiology will give the advantage by far to the more advanced people. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-ending-spoilers/500642/36 "2009-06-24T18:55:57Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > An organized group made up of marines and viper pilots will hand any pre-writing tribe their ass. Basic military discipline, communication and knowledge of physiology will give the advantage by far to the more advanced people. Consider the Zulu regiments being disciplined enough to jump up and down on thorns. I don’t think the colonists will have much experience throwing rocks, either. They’ll also be better at communication, which without technology will consist of hollering at each other. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-ending-spoilers/500642/37 "2009-06-24T19:02:24Z")
And remember that the colonists have been eating nothing but algae for two years. Their conditioning has to be suffering from malnutrition. And anyway, how are they going to get sexual access that way? **mswas** , it’s a pity you’ve chosen this approach instead of actual discussion. It’s a frakking TV show. ---
**Author:** ![kasuo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8c91f0/32.png) [@kasuo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kasuo)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-ending-spoilers/500642/38 "2009-06-24T19:11:48Z")
Worn-out colonials vs. primitive homo sapiens? Sounds like a similar match up like an astronaut vs. a caveman. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-ending-spoilers/500642/39 "2009-06-24T19:13:39Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > **mswas** , it’s a pity you’ve chosen this approach instead of actual discussion. It’s a frakking TV show. You really are that clueless aren’t you? If what I have to say is substanceless why do you even want to talk to me? It makes no sense. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-ending-spoilers/500642/40 "2009-06-24T19:14:58Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Consider the Zulu regiments being disciplined enough to jump up and down on thorns. I don’t think the colonists will have much experience throwing rocks, either. They’ll also be better at communication, which without technology will consist of hollering at each other. > 🙂 Zulu regiments are not neolithic tribesmen. They were a highly advanced warrior tribe compared to neolithic tribesmen. Throwing a rock is not significantly different from throwing anything else. They clearly have sports where they throw things. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-ending-spoilers/500642.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-ending-spoilers/500642.md?page=3)