# Can someone explain the last season of Battlestar Galactica to me? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 13, 2012, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-last-season-of-battlestar-galactica-to-me/612744 "2012-02-13T21:09:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-last-season-of-battlestar-galactica-to-me/612744/21 "2012-02-14T15:32:09Z")
I stopped watching sometime in early season three. (I forget why. I wasn’t a concious decision.) They never found any other alien life, right? There’s just the Cylons, and the Humans, in the galaxy? ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-last-season-of-battlestar-galactica-to-me/612744/22 "2012-02-14T17:12:26Z")
> [@mlees](#): > > I stopped watching sometime in early season three. (I forget why. I wasn’t a concious decision.) > > They never found any other alien life, right? > > There’s just the Cylons, and the Humans, in the galaxy? Yup. Edward James Olmos has said in interviews that the first time they had an alien show up on an episode, Bill Adama would suffer a massive heart attack. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-last-season-of-battlestar-galactica-to-me/612744/23 "2012-02-14T17:17:36Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > Yup. Edward James Olmos has said in interviews that the first time they had an alien show up on an episode, Bill Adama would suffer a massive heart attack. Heh. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-last-season-of-battlestar-galactica-to-me/612744/24 "2012-02-14T18:14:38Z")
> [@mlees](#): > > They never found any other alien life, right? > > There’s just the Cylons, and the Humans, in the galaxy? Well…um…about that. They did encounter native intelligent-yet-primitive life on Earth-2, which presumably did not originate on Kobol or in the Colonies. That could arguably count as alien life… And then there’s…whatever Head-Six, Head-Baltar, Starbuck and maybe Leoben are. Angels? Demons? ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-last-season-of-battlestar-galactica-to-me/612744/25 "2012-02-14T18:21:20Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Well…um…about that. They did encounter native intelligent-yet-primitive life on Earth-2, which presumably did not originate on Kobol or in the Colonies. That could arguably count as alien life… Did they say it was genetically compatible with the colonists off the fleet/Galactica? The odds of that “naturally” occuring are rather low… > [@](#): > > And then there’s…whatever Head-Six, Head-Baltar, Starbuck and maybe Leoben are. Angels? Demons? Um. Ok, I got nuthin’. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-last-season-of-battlestar-galactica-to-me/612744/26 "2012-02-14T18:45:02Z")
They did find alien _life_, but just algae and the like, no alien _people_. And I don’t remember seeing any stars on Kobol. ---
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-last-season-of-battlestar-galactica-to-me/612744/27 "2012-02-14T20:08:50Z")
The stars we see on Kobol are those in the projection inside the Temple of Athena. Which matched Earth constellations exactly, IIRC. And which were supposed to point the way to Earth… somehow. Presumably, the way pointed to led to Earth 1, as all the other signs were supposed to have (the Eye of Jupiter, the Lion’s Head Nebula) but, eh. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-last-season-of-battlestar-galactica-to-me/612744/28 "2012-02-14T20:22:03Z")
> [@Lightray](#): > > The stars we see on Kobol are those in the projection inside the Temple of Athena. Which matched Earth constellations exactly, IIRC. And which were supposed to point the way to Earth… somehow. > > Presumably, the way pointed to led to Earth 1, as all the other signs were supposed to have (the Eye of Jupiter, the Lion’s Head Nebula) but, eh. The episode with the arrow? I don’t remember them using hand computers while gazing at the planetarium display. But Adama says “It’s a looong way from here.” [or words to that effect] without even consulting one. If the constellations were showing what it looks like from Earth, how would he be able to get a fix on location or direction without a computer? I assume that for galactic navigation, they use known 'landmarks", like the Magellanic Clouds, Andromeda, quasar/pulsars, the Gallactic Core, etc. I guess if he saw the Magellanic Clouds clear on the wrong side of the disk… ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-last-season-of-battlestar-galactica-to-me/612744/29 "2012-02-14T21:25:58Z")
> [@](#): > > The stars we see on Kobol are those in the projection inside the Temple of Athena. Which matched Earth constellations exactly, IIRC. And which were supposed to point the way to Earth… somehow. They pointed the way to Earth by showing what the stars look like from the vantage point of Earth. Those weren’t Kobol’s skies; you wouldn’t need a fancy projection system for that, just a window. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-last-season-of-battlestar-galactica-to-me/612744/30 "2012-02-14T23:00:12Z")
> [@mlees](#): > > I assume that for galactic navigation, they use known 'landmarks", like the Magellanic Clouds, Andromeda, quasar/pulsars, the Gallactic Core, etc. I guess if he saw the Magellanic Clouds clear on the wrong side of the disk… That scene does have one of the crew (I forget who) recognize the Lagoon nebula and even call it by the old term “M8”, which implies that it looks the same from Earth-1 and Earth-2 as it does from the Colonies. When you consider that the show takes places 150,000 years in the past, axial precession would mean the constellations wouldn’t even be recognizeable from our Earth, so it’s fair to say that pretty much any reference to astronomical landmarks in BSG is a red herring. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2012, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-last-season-of-battlestar-galactica-to-me/612744/31 "2012-02-14T23:55:06Z")
> [@panamajack](#): > > I think there was a crucial scene cut where Adama pulls Scrabble tiles out of a bag and they end up explaining everything. > > I can’t have been the only person who thought, “Wait.. they’re the Golgafrinchams?” Damn. The mice are gonna be pissed. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-last-season-of-battlestar-galactica-to-me/612744/32 "2012-02-17T01:29:32Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > I’m not disagreeing with you, but I don’t remember it that way. I distinctly remember not being able to recognize any distinguishable continents when I saw Earth[sub]1[/sub]. I just saw a rerun of the end of the episode a few weeks ago on BBCA when I was waiting for the next show to start. I could clearly make out several continents, including North America. It wasn’t the one where they actually go to the planet, so I suppose there could be some copout type answer about why they showed new Earth instead of the cylon Earth they were actually headed for at that point (like they hadn’t thought that far ahead yet) but whatever, planet I saw was most def our Earth. Looking it up, the episode I saw it in must’ve been the season 3 finale “Crossroads” edit: found a youtube [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/eHSVlYV5vgI/hqdefault.jpg "Battlestar Galactica Crossroads galaxy zoom, no sound") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHSVlYV5vgI) can clearly make out florida and michigan there ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-last-season-of-battlestar-galactica-to-me/612744/33 "2012-02-17T01:41:41Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > In the 4th season proper, Starbuck comes “back from the dead” to everyone’s surprise Except the viewers of course. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-explain-the-last-season-of-battlestar-galactica-to-me/612744.md?page=1)