Yeah, RDM didn’t have much use for male Cylons, did he? Doral & Simon were never really developed, Leoben was getting interesting, but then it all seemed to be about Cavil. The male Cylons could have provided some good material if Moore had wanted to.
I also missed that Sebastian Spence, who played Narcho, did not appear.
Must of had another job. The last we see of him is when he apologizes to Bill for his part in the mutiny.
Yeah, he was pretty cool.
[Mongo]Aw, 'Plant straight![/Mongo]
I hate to beat a dead horse here, but I was looking at an atlas the other day and found something interesting. The spot they chose to land on for Australia (the green area in the center) is called the MacDonnel Ranges.
Thought that was neat. Maybe just a coincidence.
Yeah, real life can definitely get in the way sometimes…
Bumping the thread. I’ve been watching the series for the first time starting around 6 months ago and BBCA just aired the finale last Saturday.
First, I’ve heard grumbling about the finale here and there and so I was pleasantly surprised with the reaction in this thread. It’s mostly been positive reviews.
I think there was a major shift in this series starting around the begining of season 3. Religion had always played a huge role in it but it was around that time when a shift happened and we went from “religion as faith” to “religion as fact.” In the finale, we got “religion as proof” so if you weren’t on board from the begining, I can see how you’d be disappointed with the finale.
I have two quibbles over the ending from a timeline perspective. First is that we’re to assume the ending is modern day Earth. That means that 150,000 years ago there were humans roaming the Earth who were functionally equivilant to those of today. So 7,500 generations and no evolution at all? That seems…unlikely.
Second, others in this thread stated that Ron Moore specifically denied that there was time travel in the finale. Is that still the case? Because without time travel, it really makes no sense. We learn from Caprica (and possibly BSG but I don’t recall) that Cylons were first invented around 70 years ago. But no one, not the humans, not the Cylons, not the Final Five ever said “holy crap! We were around 2,000 years ago on Earth. How did that happen? How is that possible?”
And without time travel, it’s just not possible. It was a loop. A loop that “God” keeps trying to tinker with and get right.
Finally, I like to think of the Angels of Baltar and Caprica Six not as Aziraphale and Crowley from Good Omens, but rather like the two voices from David Eddings Belgariad series. There was a prophecy and there were overseers on either side to help ensure the “correct” version of the prophecy was put into place. They were never allowed to explicitly come out and say what needed to be done, but they could be a guide when it was necessary to put the pieces back on the right path.
Oh, and getting rid of all their tech and flying their sole escape route into the sun? I guess they learned nothing from their experiences on New Caprica. There is no reason to do that, NONE, unless your goal as a writer is to find a way to remove evidence that would be a bit jarring to find 150,000 years in the future.
Overall though, a solid show and a great series.
They do go into that when they first discover the real Earth and when the final five remember their lives there. The real Earth and our Earth are two different planets.
About the timeline:
Everything starts on Kobol: 12 tribes, First Cylons on Kobol, lead to humanoid Cylons, everybody bugs out.
13 Tribes over 13 post-Kobol planets. Bear in mind that this diaspora may have used sunlight fleets.
Lines Split:
12 tribes form the current colonies, build new Cylons. New Cylons lead to war.
On Earth I, the previous Cylons build their own Cylons, war ensues.
Final five Earth I Cylons seek out the 12 Colonies.
Lines Merge:
Due to sublight effects, the trip takes 2K years. Final Five Earth I Cylons arrive during the First Cylon War in the 12 colonies. The Earth I Cylons get the colonial Cylons to stop fighting in exchange for stuff, including resurrection tech and humanoid type Cylons.
Earth I Cylons develop tech and eight humanoid type Cylons for the colonial Cylons. Model 1 hijacks the process and starts the second/final colonial Cylon war.
The date of 150,000 years for what are known as “anatomically modern humans” is supported by the archaeological evidence. The term “AMH” is used because we don’t know so much about how they acted, their thought processes or their culture. But anatomically, they look just like us.
So piecing together BSG and Caprica, there were original cylons from thousands of years ago who created newer Cylons. Then, 70 years before BSG, on Caprica, the Greystones created new-new Cylons completely independent from the old Cylons and with no knowledge that Cylon technology even existed 2,000 years previously?
Do I have that straight?
Fair enough. Thanks.
I still think, like others in this thread, that it would have been better to place them around 50,000 years before present day. But whatever.
Melodramatically, we now know.
Yes, two different planets that just happen to have the exact same continents and exactly the same constellations in their sky.
The simplest way to reconcile what happened:
1: The story starts on the one and only Earth.
2: The people of Earth (who are partly Cylon) colonize the planet of Kobol.
3: With the ravages of time and the decay of records, people get the colonists’ notes mixed up, and think the journey went the opposite way.
4: From Kobol, there’s another wave of colonization, out to the Twelve Colonies, which they name out of half-forgotten ancient mythology they brought from Earth.
5: Meanwhile, back on the One and Only Earth, the biologicals develop cybernetics to the point of building mechanical Cylons. War ensues, and the planet is devastated.
6: Five individuals on Earth with a high proportion of cylon ancestry develop resurrection tech. They finish it just in time to come back from the robot apocalypse.
7: Those five individuals set out for Kobol and its colonies to warn them about the dangers of mistreating their robots.
8: They find the robots in the colonies already at war, and strike the deal that ends the war.
9: New biological cylons start the new war, setting off the events of the series as we saw it.
10: By making an uncalculated jump from the close vicinity of a black hole, the Galactica accidentally jumps back in time to the prehistory of the one and only Earth.
11: The people on board Galactica at the time (and no others) find that without the black hole, they can’t retrace the jump, so it’s just them with this young planet.
12: The organic Cylons on board the Galactica introduce a new strain to the humanoid gene pool of the One and Only Earth, such that eventually everyone’s descended from them to some degree.
13: Everything that has happened before, happens again.
Yes, this does contradict what they said on the show in a couple of spots, but no more than does the official narrative. And I think this way makes a lot more sense.
Here is my biggest complaint about the finale, the element which is beyond just a plot direction I don’t agree with and is just flat a laughable mistake.
The epilogue with Ron Moore reading National Geographic in Times Square while the “angels” stroll by and then we see images of state of the art robots that are ALREADY becoming dated.
This was a very timeless and mythic series that dealt with contemporary issues in a way it can be viewed years from now and be mostly followed. The sets and props had a very classic almost 50s sci fi feel, nothing that could really be dated.
However that epilogue will be laughed at a decade from now.
I LOLd.
We didn’t see the continents, and the moon was a different color. The constellations could be problematic, but that would depend on how far it was.
Right:
Original Cylons originating from Kobol, forming Thirteenth Tribe.
OC descendants colonize Earth I, create Cylons Mark I. New war with CMkI wrecks Earth I. Final Five are descended from Original Cylons.
Twelve Tribe people develop Colonial Cylons, these lead to Colonial Cylon War I. Final Five from Earth I defuse this war. Final Five Cylons build eight models of new humanoid Cylons as part of the deal. Model I/John/Cavils hijack things and wreck the colonies and all but 50K of the Colonials.
So: types of Cylons:
Kobol Original Cylons
Earth I Cylons
Original Colonial Cylons
Humanoid Colonial Cylons
Does this stuff come from the Caprica series, or fan wanking?
Original Colonial Cylons - * see “Caprica” for details…
Humanoid Colonial Cylons - * I was hoping we’d see their introduction in the upcoming Battlestar Galactica: Blood And Iron, but it’s having problems…
It’s all in BSG, except of course, what Chronos offers above… and it is still debatable about the continents matching.
That’s a shame because it looks fraking badass.