Or should we? Could Ron D. Moore handle it in a way that fit with the hard-scifi nature of the show and didn’t seem cliched? What about the Cylon God? Do you think he’s a former Lord of Kobol? If so were there originally 13 Lords or is he one of the 12? Or did 12 entities named for Greek gods exist on Kobol along with an oddball named Yahweh?
I think that is what is being setup with Baltar… possibly a descendant or something… too many scenes add up to him being more than he appears, atleast to the cylons… or atleast some of the cylons believe him to be.
We’d better not ever meat a Count Ibis… would like to meet a Lucipher.
I don’t know. It seems to me that early on in Season 2, the writers abruptly backed away from the spiritual/religious aspect of Galactica that had been building steam over the whole first season. I think they realized that any possible resolution to that part of the story would be a lot less compelling than letting it simmer in myth and mystery. Of course, that can only last so long. I’d be willing to bet that the series will end before any Gods or other supernatural phenomena appear, but I think they’ll leave the door open.
Six is the re-imaged Lucipher.
And I think that Moore’s mentioned in podcasts from seasons past that he’s not going to use the Count Iblis / White Ships storylines.
Given that Moore has stated that both the Cylon and Colonial religions are valid, I don’t foresee us ever seeing one of the twelve gods, nor the Cylon god. Despite Internet fanwankery that the Cylon god = Number One, or somesuch.
I do think we’ll get more of the backstory of Kobol revealed – probably to Baltar, as the Cylons have been hinting that they know more of the story than the humans do.
What the heck did he mean by that, exactly? Is Hera going to be their prophet of Baha’i or something? Otherwise, polytheism vs. monotheism does seem to introduce certain problems of mutual exclusion.
Not if the mono is part of the poly on an elevated platform with a name change.
I guess. Thing is, the Cylons who’ve commented on it at all claim the Colonists worship “false idols”, and that only theirs is the “one true God”. This is an explicit denial of the validity of the others’ religion, a denial that appears to be integral to the Cylon religion itself, so it’s again rather difficult to see how they’re equally “valid”, at least in their present form. How can a doctrine have covalidity when part of it is that the other doctrine is false? It’s a simple logical paradox. The faiths could be reformed, of course, to acknowledge one another more affirmatively, but I’ve seen no sign of that.
Did Moore say that both religions were “valid,” or that both were “equally valid?” Because the latter leaves open the idea that they are both wrong. 0 = 0.
It’s in a podcast. I think he said, “Both right but not completely right”.
That would be kinda funny!
I was coming back to say something equal to this… buy you beat me to it.
I think it would be a huge mistake to introduce an actual Lord of Kobol, or whathaveyou, into this story, and fortunately it appears that such is extremely unlikely to happen.
It would be roughly analogous to setting a modern day story in India and having the characters meet Vishnu.
yeah, but at some point they could have Six/Cylons recognize Hera as the ‘messiah’ (30 years later) or Baltar as the “one that leads the way” and still keep it just under the surface of interpetation/lunacy by all parties involved… keeping with the overall theme of belief vs reality.
I dunno. I kind of wondered if maybe the Cylons are more-or-less right about the Lords of Kobol not being gods. One thing the Cylons and the Colonists do seem to agree on is that there really were Lords of Kobol, whatever they were. Maybe that’s what RDM means. So, say the Lords are/were aliens of some sort. Maybe we’d not have to meet them, but it would be kind of cool to learn more about them if that was in fact their nature. How would the Colonists react if they got some kind of compelling physical evidence that the creatures they worshipped as Gods were actually just highly advanced aliens that kidnapped some Greeks from Earth? Maybe these creatures carted them off to Kobol, posing as the gods they worshipped, living with them in a pseudo-Elysia for purposes yet-to-be revealed. Later, after some crisis (apparently involving human sacrifice and “Athena” offing herself), we get the history of the Colonists we’ve learned from the Sacred Scrolls and the visions 6 revealed to Baltar.
Sorry, Elysium.
I’m trying to make a joke about the Lords of Daggit-town, but I can’t figure out how to make it work.
…Which might have literary merit. Vishnu interacts with otherwise common folks in the Hindu texts.
Damn. Vishnu had what, something like 12 avatars, which are sometimes worshipped separetely. There’s 12 models of Cylons. Could it be that the Cylon god is the persona behind the many faces of the Lords of Kobol?
Could the 12 Cylon models be the Lords of Kobol?
These are from the podcasts so I’m not sure if they count as spoilers or not, but I guess I’ll err on the side of safety.
RDM on the 12 Cylon models
RDM has said that the Cylons looked at humans and decided that there were really only 12 distinct personality types and that the 12 skinjob models are based on those “archetypes” as it were. They are original creations of the Cylons and are not based on any actual existing person.
And on the Lords of Kobol
The “Lords of Kobol” really existed, in that there were actual beings who went by that title and that this group was responsible for humans leaving Kobol and going to the 12 colonies. This does not mean that they were gods, just that some group known by that name did exist at that time.
Given the vague science Moore has for BSG, is it really any surprise that he’s as equally vague for the religions on BSG?
Pondering the logical inconsistencies of Colonial polytheism vs. Cylon monotheism is about as futile as wondering why artificial gravity hasn’t impacted more areas of Colonial or Cylon science.
Well that settles that:
Ellen Tigh is not a frakking Cylon!