# Battlestar Galactica Question (Spoilers Warning) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 12, 2006, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-question-spoilers-warning/364151 "2006-07-12T06:38:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-question-spoilers-warning/364151/21 "2006-07-13T21:05:29Z")
> [@anu-la1979](#): > > After the first wars they severely restricted advances in technology and research because of their bad experiences. I had an idea for a “homage to the original BG” scene based on this: Lee is in his father’s quarters aboard the Galactica, searching through some old personal belongings stored there. There he discovers his old long-lost Daggit™ doll, a miniature toy version of the one from the original show. It’s explained that after the first Cylon war, the Cybernetics Laws banned almost everything controlled by a computer chip- even something supposedly as harmless as a child’s toy; but Adama didn’t have the heart to throw it out. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-question-spoilers-warning/364151/22 "2006-07-13T21:06:07Z")
> [@anu-la1979](#): > > Exactly what do the Cylons hope to get out of their breeding programs? Do you guys think this is part of the “plan” that always used to be referred to in the intro?? Yeah, well, your post slipped in ahead of mine, so see that. The Big Question, of course, is What the frack is The Plan? I hope like frakking Hell there reallly is one. Based on what’s been stated explicitly, the Cylons are basically fundie fanatics. They want to follow God’s commandments, and one of those is to be fruitful. For some reason, they’ve got it in their heads that they need to reproduce sexually to accomplish this. Thus far, despite their rather spectacular biomechanical prowess, sexual reproduction has been a bust. Attempts to impregnate human females, captured after the destruction of the Colonies and kept as living incubators in “farms”, have also failed completely. The Cylons speculate that perhaps a love bond is required to achieve fertility, and set up poor Helo to fall for Boomer II on Caprica. I think the entire reason 6 was so disappointed with Baltar in the miniseries was because _she_ also was trying to have a baby, and unfortunately Balter was a lecherous cad right up until the attack, and didn’t want to be tied down. During Baltar’s prescient vision on Kobol of Baby Toaster, six says something also about the perfection of both the Cylon and human species being accomplished by 6 and Baltar’s little adoptive love chile, but doesn’t elaborate. So, is that it? Is the plan simply to make babies because God gets quite irate otherwise, and hence come up with the Skinjob Mark II? If so, they’ve already accomplished it, which they are well aware of, since they got the footage of the “documentary” that 3 (posing as a reporter) beamed them. I assume half the reason they didn’t just nuke New Caprica from orbit is because they can’t risk little B.T.'s life (I also assume they’re not privvy to the ruse that she died shortly after birth of pulmonary complications), and perhaps also they feel they have to keep some portion of humanity alive to produce more love children. Beyond that, and assuming _any_ of the above is correct, I have no idea. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-question-spoilers-warning/364151/23 "2006-07-13T21:19:42Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > T Do you recall how reliable that was? True, they killed off the aide because he got another series. I read this in some print article, literally while waiting in an office to get my teeth cleaned, and I don’t know what magazine it was. However, I’m quite certain that’s what I read: The original concept was for Helo so sacrifice his life to save Baltar’s, making his courageous act all the more poignant and ironic, blah blah blah. Then, prior to the go-ahead for Season 1, hoards of lusty fans demanded information about what happened to that poor studmuffin they left on Caprica, and the rest is history. > [@carnivorousplant](#): > > He’s too cool to do that. > Too cool. > Keep repeating, > Too Cool. > All together now, > Too Cool We’ll see, won’t we. ---
**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:** [July 13, 2006, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-question-spoilers-warning/364151/24 "2006-07-13T21:26:53Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > The Big Question, of course, is What the frack is The Plan? I think the Big Question is how the heck did Six and Boomer-the designation escapes me-go from smashing with chunks of masonry (No Jack Armstrongs, they) the heads of Toasters who were going to “come back” in something like 48 hours to rat on them and wind up running the show? If indeed they did. How many factions of Toasters may there possiblly be? Are there factions that want to whack ‘em, factions that want to breed them, factions that, I suppose will show up at the end of the series, Who Realize the Error of Their Ways and Want to Help the Humans ala’ Deux e Machicna or however you spell it? Are the factions working at odds with each other? It’s not going to turn into V, nor will all the humans turn out to be Cylons. Hell, this guy used to wrote for Trek. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-question-spoilers-warning/364151/25 "2006-07-13T21:27:14Z")
Well whaddya know: A google search for “Karl Agathon supposed to die on Caprica” yields, as its first hit, [[Portal:Characters - Battlestar Wiki](http://battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Portal:Characters)]this reference. The relevant quote, under “Did you know?” > [@](#): > > Karl “Helo” Agathon was originally supposed to have died after being stranded on Caprica in the Miniseries? The production team enjoyed actor Tahmoh Penikett’s performance and fans kept asking them if Helo was going to appear again, because we didn’t actually see him die, so they wrote him back into the Season 1 premiere, “33”. Even then, the writers were still trying to figure out the Helo storyline: although Caprica-Boomer encountered Helo in “33”, it was only by around the fifth episode, “You Can’t Go Home Again”, that they created the storyline that the Cylons were trying to create Human/Cylon hybrids, which ultimately became a major plotline for the entire series. Now that Helo and Caprica-Sharon have been tricked into thinking that their hybrid daughter Hera is dead, where will their relationship go next? OK, this scares the living crap out of me (though I’m grateful to have my memory jogged about the name Hera, since I’m tired of Baby Toaster). They didn’t have this figured out until ep. 5?? Don’t ask me what their sources are, I don’t know. I didn’t even know there was a special Wikipedia dedicated to BG, for crying out loud. Anyone who puts so much attention into it must know their shit, I assume. ---
**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:** [July 13, 2006, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-question-spoilers-warning/364151/26 "2006-07-13T23:20:07Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > OK, this scares the living crap out of me They didn’t have this figured out until ep. 5?? Thanks, Loopy. Why does that scare you? Whether he croaked or not is no big deal to the plot. Having the alien kid around is a distrubing possibility, but I don’t see that connected to Helo. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-question-spoilers-warning/364151/27 "2006-07-13T23:45:39Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Thanks, Loopy. > Why does that scare you? Whether he croaked or not is no big deal to the plot. > Having the alien kid around is a distrubing possibility, but I don’t see that connected to Helo. It scares me because The all-imprtant Plan we speculate about feverishly involves making human-Cylon hybrids, and the writers didn’t even have this Plan in mind until the fifth episode of the 1st season. It involves Helo because keeping him on was the catalyst for The Plan. The Plan, you see, is rooted in “Tahmoh Penikett is teh hawt!!1!!11!” The BG story is clearly still developing radically and on the fly, so not only do _we_ not know how it’s going to end, the _creators_ don’t know how it’s going to end. See my statements on the X-Files above for further clarification of why that’s not a comforting thought. ---
**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:** [July 13, 2006, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-question-spoilers-warning/364151/28 "2006-07-13T23:59:42Z")
Calm down. I believe your thesis to be unsound. Starbuck wouldn’t know what that meant. 🙂 I don’t see that Helo’s survival leads to the breeding of hybrids. Maybe someone else was to be the father. Maybe the kid will be a minor plot point. I hope so. I hate kids in tv shows. I volunteer to go back and see if the hybrid concept came at the same time as Helo’s survival. Anyway, the plot seems to have diverged for the time being. Have a drink before you bust somethin’. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2006, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-question-spoilers-warning/364151/29 "2006-07-14T00:17:47Z")
Beyond the virtues of serentiy, I’m having a hard time parsing your last post. ---
**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:** [July 14, 2006, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-question-spoilers-warning/364151/30 "2006-07-14T00:43:26Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > Beyond the virtues of serentiy, I’m having a hard time parsing your last post. Thanks. I think… I don’t see that saving Helo required him to be in the hybrid breeding buiness; they may have meant to have the hybrid concept in the story arc without Helo. Did the ova factory require Starbuck? Besides, even the Cylons knew that Starbuck would make the best hybrid Mother! I don’t see that the hybrid plot required Helo. “Hey, we have to save Helo. My Mother likes to oolge him!” “Uh oh, better plan a hybrid breeding program for an excuse to keep him alive!” ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2006, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-question-spoilers-warning/364151/31 "2006-07-14T01:19:14Z")
Well, the quote I provided states quite clearly that the program of Cylon-human hybrids was developed circa the 5th episode, and became “a major plotline for the entire series.” Unless this article is simply wrong, I don’t see how it could be more obvious that the issues around Cylon breeding were a development that grew out of keeping Helo alive on Caprica. Had Helo died during the final stages of the Cylon holocaust, as originally planned, Starbuck never would have been in the Farm. The Farms wouldn’t have been invented. ---
**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:** [July 14, 2006, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-question-spoilers-warning/364151/32 "2006-07-14T01:35:36Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > Had Helo died during the final stages of the Cylon holocaust, as originally planned, Starbuck never would have been in the Farm. The Farms wouldn’t have been invented. I don’t remember how she got into that. Where were the survivors, her main squeeze and the arrow found? I don’t read Wikki, I could make it up. I don’t know who to trust about a TV show; not TV Guide or ET! I hope neither of us is dissapointed. ---
**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:** [July 14, 2006, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-question-spoilers-warning/364151/33 "2006-07-14T01:53:37Z")
Sorry, I was musing over this on the way home, but the satellite modem had crapped out when I got home. I had to beat it with a larger hammer. I have confidence in Ronald D. Moore. Remember, he used to work in Trek. I’m not sure he was there when they killed off Tasha Yar, but he would have known about the famous incident. He would have heard the story of how angry fans crowded around the writer outside a Star Trek Convention, how they dragged him down onto the oily, dank cold ground in the alley behind the convention center and how they ripped his throat out with their teeth. No my friends, Ron Moore will not let us down. He dare not. ---
**Author:** ![tanstaafl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba8739/32.png) [@tanstaafl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tanstaafl)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2006, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-question-spoilers-warning/364151/34 "2006-07-14T02:40:09Z")
Well, there is evidence from Moore himself that he is making this up as he goes along. Go listen to the podcast for the last episode of season 1. (I’m pretty sure that’s it; one of the late-season podcasts anyway.) He is talking about the sequence where they have crashed on Kobol and Six has led Baltar off somewhere. He admits that they really had no idea what they wanted Baltar to find. The _original_ idea (so he says) is that Six would lead Baltar to a tunnel and tell him to go through it, saying that she wasn’t allowed to enter herself. Baltar would enter and hear some music, which we would recognize as Jimi Hendrix. He would eventually find himself in some living quarters and meet Dirk Benedict, who would identify himself as God. (No, really.) This was to be the ending of the first season. Supposedly there was a lot of discussion among the writing staff as to if this was a good idea or not and someone finally comes up with the idea of letting Baltar find a cradle. Moore jumps on this and says he thought it was a great idea because it would let them tie together the storyline back on Caprica with the fleet storyline. So, until that point, _they had no idea where they were going_! Assuming this is true, I think that so far they have done an _amazing_ job of “winging it”, but I wonder if the house of cards is going to collapse on them at some point. I’ll try to listen to the podcast again when I get a chance and see if I can get a more exact quote (assuming I didn’t imagine all of that somehow). ---
**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:** [July 14, 2006, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-question-spoilers-warning/364151/35 "2006-07-14T02:49:08Z")
> [@tanstaafl](#): > > Well, there is evidence from Moore himself that he is making this up as he goes along. > > Go listen to the podcast for the last episode of season 1. I’ll do that, and I hope he refreshes his memory of the Tasha Yar Writer in the mean time. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2006, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-question-spoilers-warning/364151/36 "2006-07-14T04:28:38Z")
> [@tanstaafl](#): > > Go listen to the podcast for the last episode of season 1 I will! Erm…where? > [@tanstaafl](#): > > Baltar would enter and hear some music, which we would recognize as Jimi Hendrix. WTF? > [@tanstaafl](#): > > He would eventually find himself in some living quarters and meet Dirk Benedict, who would identify himself as God. (No, really.) This was to be the ending of the first season. Dirk Benedict. The Face Man. As God. Was he _high_ when he came up with that? It would explain the Hendrix, anyway. > [@tanstaafl](#): > > Supposedly there was a lot of discussion among the writing staff as to if this was a good idea… I imagine the conversation when something like “Ron. I love you. No, I do, you’re like a father to me. But if you do this…I’ll kill you. I will _kill_ you. And then I’ll quit. M’kay?” > [@tanstaafl](#): > > Assuming this is true, I think that so far they have done an _amazing_ job of “winging it”, but I wonder if the house of cards is going to collapse on them at some point. Well, there’s that. It’s also sinking in that trying to figure out what The Plan is is a waste of time if the people writing the show have no idea. Kinda takes some of the fun out of it. I hope with a full season ahead of them they’ve fleshed out the far future a bit more, so there’s actually something that _can_ be figured out. ---
**Author:** ![anu-la1979](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/47e85d/32.png) [@anu-la1979](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anu-la1979)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2006, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-question-spoilers-warning/364151/37 "2006-07-14T17:51:49Z")
I’m actually going to have to agree with **Loopydude** here that if they don’t have a brief outline/idea of what the driving “plan” is for the Cylons this show is eventually going to peter out as fans begin to get increasingly irritated that there’s really no point at all. Kind of like, as he said, it did for X-files. That’s the thing about serialised narratives-it gives you an enormous amount of flexibility to adjust but if you don’t have an underlying outline that gives people a sense of where you’re going, people tend to get bored and drift off. Although, at the risk of whetting **Loopydude** ’s ire, I _am_ glad they brought Helo back because he’s pretty easy on the eyes and I’m a :wally ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2006, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-question-spoilers-warning/364151/38 "2006-07-14T18:04:55Z")
I have absolutely no problem with keeping Helo on. In fact, I’m kind of surprised they opted to kill that character off in the beginning, because I actually think that Mr. Penikett is a very likable presence, not a bad actor, and if lovers of hunky men everywhere find him appealing for that reason alone, who am I to complain? I don’t mind ogling some of the _BG_ ladies myself, and have no trouble admitting I’m a little shallow that way. It’s not the marketing angle that bothers me, it’s the fact that the marketing angle has obviously had a major impact on the story arc, for the simple reason that apparently there’s no advance concept of what that arc is going to be. Helo’s expanded role is an example of that butterfly effect that can ruin an arc-driven serial. I know full well that creators of epic storylines change course wildly when developing a story, but those course changes are usually most successful when preserved only as _drafts_, kept by the creators to mine for odd ideas when fleshing out the narrative. If the series itself is a work in progress, with the drafts preserved as extant episodes which cannot be rescinded or redacted later to maintain consistency with better, more mature ideas, the whole vehicle can get very creaky very fast. Again, the X-Files is an excellent example. I think Helo is great! Bully for Helo! They should have kept him alive in the first place, and the Caprica storyline was wonderful. You are quite correct to point out that they’re winging it brilliantly, and I think these episodic fantasies usually can in the beginning with good minds behind them. But do the often end well, following that model? Not that I can see. ---
**Author:** ![tanstaafl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba8739/32.png) [@tanstaafl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tanstaafl)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2006, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-question-spoilers-warning/364151/39 "2006-07-14T18:14:48Z")
OK, anyone who wants to listen to the podcast themselves you can find it [here](http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/). The podcast in question is the one for episode 113 - _Kobol’s Last Gleaming, Part 2_. But, to save you listening to 45 minutes of podcast for the relevant 3 minutes, I have transcribed it here. > [@](#): > > (Starting around 21 minutes into the podcast) > > Here on Kobol, as I said earlier, there was originally the two temples; there was a temple on Kobol and the temple on Caprica, and the temple on Kobol storyline always had Baltar going into the temple and discovering something huge and amazing and sort of ending the season on a revelation. > > In the first draft of _Kobol’s Last Gleaming_, he went into the temple and Six took him towards some subterranean passage and it was very dark and she says “this is as far as I can go” and he says “what” and she makes him go further and he’s just kinda finds himself walking in a void, a black void, and doesn’t know where it’s leading and at the end of that he comes into a room and he hears music and it’s a, it’s a recognizable Earth tune, to the audience and to him. It was Jimi Hendrix that was playing, actually. And he goes, “God, I recognize that”. And then somebody… or somebody, a voice says “You recognize that?” and he, and he says “Yes” and he turns and its Dirk Benedict. (Laughs) And Dirk Benedict said “Hi, I’m God”. And he just cut, we just cut out on that. > > (Commercial beep) > > Just to continue that thought about Kobol, you know, it was Dirk Benedict and he said “Hi, I’m God” and they shake hands and that was, we were going to cut and that was going to be the end of that whole storyline and the episode. > > I liked it. I thought it was wacky, I didn’t quite know what it meant. I thought I was looking for a surprise; something sort of interesting that fed into the mythos of the show and also to the audience and something that would be really unexpected and different. Frankly, I didn’t know what the hell it meant. I didn’t know “is he lying” or “is it true”. It threw a lot of puzzle pieces up in the air in an unexpected way which, you know, to me was a reason to try to do it and see if it worked. And by and large the reactions sort of ran the gamut from “Huh?” to “That’s really wild and cool.” And, ultimately in a discussion with the network, I think it was Mark Stern who’s our production executive at the network just said “You know what? You don’t need this, you really don’t need to go this far. It seems like you’re pushing, it’s pushing too far, it’s winking at the audience for the first time and you haven’t done that.” And I said, “You know what? You’re right.” He was right, it was a misstep. But, you know, you have to sort of be willing to take chances on the page, because, you know, that’s where you want to take your chances. You want to, like, risk things and do the unexpected moment on the page and see if it works and in this case it was an idea that didn’t work. So I just dumped it. > > Then it became a question about, well, what _do_ you see in the interior of the temple when we were still talking about a temple and that went through a few iterations, which I’ll come back to in a minute. > > (Short digression to discuss what is happening on-screen.) > > There was always going to be a temple, it was always a question what he’s going to find on the inside of it. Once we got rid of the temple we went for this idea of ruins and I liked it that they were true ruins, they weren’t like a big, elaborate, you know giant, Roman kind of thing, they were just these simple ruins that Baltar and Six were walking through. And, in earlier drafts, he… there was an idea that was sparked by Michael Rhymer about going into the ruin and finding yourself in another space and that the other space would turn out… and it’s really hard to talk about the opera house when Six and Starbuck are beating the crap out of each other. > > (Long digression to discuss what is happening on-screen. Resumes about 38 minutes into the podcast.) > > In the initial drafts, he (Baltar) came into this room and there was an orchestra playing on the stage and it was a recognizable piece and he knew the piece and there was dialog with them walking down the aisle much as they are now and Baltar… it was all about him taking his place and it was about the universe, you know. She talks about music here and talks about, you know, the melody of life and there was a point where the extension of the metaphor was him going up onto the stage and there was an empty chair and a violin and he didn’t know how to play it but he sat down and he picked up the violin and he joined in the orchestra and you kind of went out with Baltar playing as a member of the orchestra. And an orchestra of what and what did that symbolize and what did it mean and what kind of thing had he transcended and what did it mean to take his place as the orchestra in God’s symphony, you know, or whatever it was? > > And that, you know, we talked about that at length and there were lots of discussions with James and the director and myself and no one ever got quite satisfied with it and then we came to this… I believe it was Michael, it might have even been James… I hesitate to say who’s idea it was; this idea of the child, of the cradle, of them talking about, you know, Baltar being involved with the baby. And who’s baby is it? Well, it’s probably Sharon’s baby, don’t you think? He’s dealing with the Cylons and that the Cylons have been trying to get Sharon pregnant all season and that God has a plan for Baltar and is Sharon coming back to Galactica… It seemed an interesting, fascinating place to go where you suddenly all the plot elements… Whoever said, made that suggestion was brilliant because it suddenly made all the plot threads you start to come together in a nice, clean line. Suddenly all these disparate elements start to line up and you start to feel that it all has a sort of coherence, it all has resonance. It’s not all random events happening for no reason. And that was something I always wanted, I always wanted a sense of, you know, the “Unified Theory of Galactica” that these things are all relevant and that they may not be apparent why they’re relevant and that maybe you don’t understand why they’re relevant for quite a while, but they do. But they are, they do have meaning and they do all sort of track in together. So, you can see that there were quite a few ideas bouncing around. Moore admits that he didn’t know where things were going and it actually took _someone else’s suggestion_ to bring some of the plot threads together. He claims that’s what he wants, but I dunno if he knows how he’s going to get there. As I said earlier, he seems to be doing pretty well at making it up as he goes along so far but I don’t think we’ll ever be able to tell where he’s going because I don’t think even _he_ knows yet. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2006, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-question-spoilers-warning/364151/40 "2006-07-14T18:34:34Z")
Holy crap. Thanks for the hard work transcribing! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-question-spoilers-warning/364151.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-question-spoilers-warning/364151.md?page=3)