They don’t have the same continents. They’re intended to be two completely different planets, pretty clearly.
My own personal fanwank about the whole thing is that there IS time travel involved in the story, but we just haven’t seen it in the part of the story we witness. Perhaps a group of humans from our Earth - our descendants - eventually wind up traveling back in time and settling Kobol. Hence the compatibility of two species arising in different parts of the galaxy. (And they take cats with them, which is why Romo Lampkin has one.) ANd why everything is so cyclical. The people of the 12 colonies are both our ancestors and descendants.
And my other fanwank is that the Centurions that are sent off at the end of the finale - or an equivalent group from the last time through this cycle on Kobol - evolve into a powerful intelligence that has godlike powers and technology but, of course, doesn’t actually like to be called god. And they’re overseeing the whole thing. Which is why it was vital that the Centurions be given their freedom in the end . Another step in breaking the cycle. (Just like Frodo not killing Gollum was vital to that mission.)
But I don’t expect anyone to take these seriously. They just make it work better for me, personally.
By the way, did we ever find out what the point was of making humanoid Cylons? I mean the only thing that ever made sense about them was Cavells rants to Ellen about how ridiculous they were. It’s like they didn’t them through at all:
The “toaster” models are silent, emotionless automatons, and yet for some reason they feel compelled to rebel against the humans.
After they rebel against the humans, they decide to start experiments to create their own humans. Because why? They missed being bossed around?
They create seven models that come in three flavors of hot chick (Hot Vanilla, Asian, Kiwi) and four flavors of “creepy old white guy”. They also come in Black. I understand why you would create robots that look like Tricia Helfer, Grace Park and Lucy Lawless. But why would you create a humanoid robot that looks and acts like a cranky 60 year old man?
They are indistinguishable from humans…unless you have sex with them …which everyone does… in which case their spine glows…then it doesn’t.
No one ever again mentions that Caprica Six crushed a baby’s head for no reason? Because when you’re on a secret mission, you really want the police looking for the hottest woman they’ve ever seen running around a crowded market killing babies. A six foot platinum blonde in a bright red overcoat doesn’t exactly “blend”.
And what was the deal with the “final five”? Was their whole planet full of all sorts of artificial humans? I can see making a bunch of Sanders and Toris, but why make an old drunk couple and a fat mechanic?
And do they age? Did Bill Adama never question why Sal looked like shit his whole life, even when they were younger?
This is explained SORT OF in Caprica, especially the last episode and its events to come fast forward, which the writers later elaborated on online after the show was cancelled. At the end of the show a character exists only as software in a VR computer, but plans are made for a avatar so they could download into it and walk around(the term skinjob is coined in this scene). Later in the season 2 preview(that never was produced) we see a rez goo tub and said character emerges! Writers later revealed the show would have shown the character somehow being able to hack into or contact Tigh and company on that slow boat ship where the final five were staying sane by being in a VR world, then Tyroll was to give them the secret of rez tech and skinjobs.
Seeing as parts of this first skinjob’s personality was in all the metal cylons, which were being sold on the black market before an approaching holy war between the colonies it is not hard to guess why the metal ones obeyed the skinjob.
I think this was explored more in Caprica. The first Cylon had the downloaded personality of a human, and her parents were exploring ways to create a more human body for her. Her desires may have influenced the other Cylons whose AIs were based on her programming.
Cavil was modeled after Ellen’s father. And he expressed his annoyance about it to her.
That was eventually abandoned and perhaps retconned as metaphorical. The bigger issue was the radiation at the supply station that easily IDd Cylons and was never mentioned again. The real reason Cylons weren’t identified was that Baltar hid the results when Boomer got flagged.
Once they figured out how to procreate, they lost resurrection, and were subject to genetic drift. The final five reinvented resurrection right before their population was destroyed.
That was always my understanding. It’s been too long for me to remember where I saw this, but I recall it was admitted that the matching stars was a production f-up, or perhaps a misunderstanding of astronomy.
Too bad Caprica failed to entice me to actually watch.
Nevertheless, I felt that the Cylons were the weakest part of the series. It’s like they couldn’t make up their mind if they should be Terminators or Blade Runner replicants or what their nature should be.
My recollection is that they never referenced the moon. They also, I believe, only showed “Earth” once, at the point when they first found it. I don’t recall what continents they showed.
On another subject, thinking back through, I have to give credit to the acting and writing behind the character of Baltar.
Here was a guy either directly or indirectly responsible for the three greatest human extinction level events ever (the initial destruction of the 13 colonies, the nuke aboard the ship wiping out 1/3 of the remaining fleet, and New Caprica). Not to mention that he purposely failed to identify THREE Cylons when that was his sole job to do aboard Galactica. And yet…and yet…you kinda like him. It’s weird.
So…the point of Battlestar Galactica should have been that bad people always get what’s coming to them? And you’re pissed that Baltar never got what he deserved?
Interesting, but you pretty much made all that up.
The show is pretty clear. Earth0 is not our Earth. It is deliberately left vague when they reach Earth0 so that we in the audience don’t know. When they reach our Earth it’s right in your face. Here is our familiar moon. Here is the standard Universal Studios logo shot of Earth. Look, there is Austrailia. Welcome to Earth bitches.
Even if they did jump back in time, they would have recognized that it was the same planet. Continents don’t change much over 150,000 years.
Pretty much. I recall when they landed on Earth0, the rebel Cylons saying that the remains of the Cylon models they found were unlike any they were familiar with.
It goes something like
- Humans evolve on Kobol
- Kobol invents centurian then later humanoid Cylons
-4000 years - Cylons leave Kobol to colonize Earth0 (13th Tribe)
-2000 years - War on Earth0 between humanoid and centurian Cylons, final five escape, humans only Great Exedus of Kobol and colonization of 12 Colonies (presumably due to some sort of human/Cylon conflict)
-70 years - 12 Colonies invent Cylons independently
-40 years - 1st Cylon War, Final Five reach 12 Colony Cylons
0 years - Start of events in the show
If they were trying to make it vague, they did a piss-poor job. The climactic zoom out - zoom in showed a world that included Florida and the Gulf of Mexico. Right after that, we have them reaching a world which is implied to be the world we just zoomed to. This world also has our constellations and Bob Dylan music. What’s vague about that?
When Starbuck and her viper came back from the dead she said she would lead them to Earth. Since at the time our Earth wasn’t called Earth, it was just a random planet with non colonial primitive humans, she could only mean the Cylon Earth. There is then a bunch of CGI zooming and zipping around the galaxy until finally they arrive at an image of Earth, and it’s quite visibly the same continents we have.
Probably because the writers hadn’t thought up the whole Cylon Earth/our Earth thing yet, but it is what it is.
edit: How the frack did I miss Chronos’s post which says the same thing I’m saying.
Right. Starbuck says she’ll lead them to Earth. She means Earth(0). Then we warp through space to see a planet. The planet we see is Earth(1). The audience is meant to believe that she will take the fleet to Earth(1), but she doesn’t, she takes them to Earth(0).
We never see the continental outline of Earth(0), we never see the colonial fleet in orbit around Earth(0). Earth(0) is not identical to Earth(1). In the finale, we finally see the fleet in orbit around Earth(1) and we know they have reached the planet we live on now.
Which makes no dramatic sense whatsoever. If the planet she’ll lead the colonists to is The One and Only Earth, it makes sense to show the space-zoom, because it’s a visual referent for her statement, and confirms that she means the same thing by “Earth” that we do. But if the planet she’ll lead the colonists to is Earth(0), and then they show a space-zoom to Earth(1), what the heck is that supposed to mean? “Starbuck will lead the survivors to a planet they call Earth, and in the meanwhile there happens to be this other planet elsewhere in the Galaxy, completely unrelated to that one, that we call Earth”?
Between that and the constellations matching, it’s abundantly clear that, at the time, the writers intended for the blasted Cylon planet to be our planet. But then they just kept making it up as they went along and changed their minds.
speaking of “changing their minds”, or rather, “making new stuff up”, keep in mind that the idea of the Final 5 was developed completely while the series was airing…
Who,given what we know now, shouldn’t have been called “final five.” they were the First Five. That the Cylons refered to them as anything else seems incorrect.
