That’s what happened at Jamestown. 'Course, they pretty much all died …
Colonial One was just a liner before the attack. Roslin turned it into the Presidential ship, sent the other passengers to other ships, and converted the space into offices for the government staff.
Colonial Heavy 357 (359?). Just a generic 747-Analog. We see a whole bunch of them parked at the dock on Caprica in the flashbacks in the last episode.
-Joe
Well, the whole point of the show was to get Hera to earth so her hybrid DNA could mix with the natives and “It” could run yet another human/Cylon experiment. Their giving up technology bugs me. So, here’s my possible alternate ending:
They find earth, and discover native humans. They take a vote and resolve to not let the natives eat of the forbidden fruit, as it were. They realize they are no longer the last hope of humanity. After voting, a few (maybe a 100 or 2) decide they want off this ride, particularly Helo, Athena, Hera and our tired, spent main characters. They agree to live off of food supplies until they adjust to the simple, wilderness life. They agree to use nothing but very simple tools that will degrade with time.
The main characters can do what they did.
Anders still flies the Galactica into the sun, along with any other ships that are close to failing and can’t be repaired. The rest of the fleet, free from the burden of being humanity’s last hope, agrees to keep the fleet, and their technology, and continue their journey (free from Cylon pursuit now) to find a virgin home without sentient people to corrupt. There is the understanding that once they leave, they may never return, and it will be written into their new scrolls that earth is forevermore inviolate.
We see the fleet leave, we never know what becomes of them, but we’re left with hope they did finally find a new home.
Hera’s or Hera’s descendants’ DNA still gets into the gene pool.
There’s no sense trying to fanwank how Greek mythology makes it 150,000 years, 50K years, or even 30K years. I think Ron Moore has said he likes to think there’s some sort of genetic subconsciousness that gets passed down leading humans to reinvent things that are mysteriously very similar to the Colonials.
I gotta disagree with killing off Baltar. I can’t see how it would be satisfying for him to die right after finally doing something unselfish. And it’s not like he was actively evil plotting to destroy the fleet. He’s just an easily manipulated narcissist.
Here’s an interview given by Moore that describes his initial idea for the ending. I think what we got was much better.
I missed that … what was it?
Yeah. That was the right decision to change, for sure.
I’m still amused by the fact that way back in Season One, Moore interviewed that his thought for the finale was to have Dirk Benedict meet Kara to tell her he was God, all in the Opera House while Jimmy Hendrix music played. I suspect that “All Along the Watchtower” may have been planned for much longer than it seemed…
All the BSG fleet folks ran around say “frack” all the time, often for good reason.
They landed on our earth and mingled with the barely speaking natives.
Over the millenia, the “ra” evolved into a “u” sound. The universe continued to suck dagget balls…
The rest is history. As are the alchohol, tobbaco, and porn industry 
It would have been TOO over the top, but: We could have seen AngelSix and AngelBaltar seeing some visual reference to the original Battlestar Galactica show, and AngelSix would have said to AngelBaltar “you just had to have your little joke, didn’t you?”
I was thinking these same exact two things before it aired!
I finished the series last night, and am left feeling like the writers dropped the ball on an otherwise brilliant series. Here’s how Battlestar Galactica should have ended, in a way that takes full advantage of the series’ mythology and revealed details, without recourse to magic or, umm, Starbuck being an angel.
At the nebula, when Starbuck flew into the eye of the storm, understood as a wormhole, she crash-landed and died on the post-apocalyptic, late Earth that Galactica later found, and that matched the astrological location of Earth. But the wormhole also created a temporal paradox, resulting in a second version of Starbuck in a brand-new Viper who travelled back in time and located early Earth. Six hours later in her timeline, at the far end of the wormhole she entered, and 2 months later in Galactica’s timeline, Starbuck reappeared, knowing the way to Earth, and she does, but it is the post-apocalyptic, late Earth, 150,000 years after the early Earth she found.
Another of Cavil’s Cylon agents tricked the humans into upgrading to the superior Cylon FTL drives (with the exception of Galactica), despite the initial mutiny. Then, Cavil jumps in and surrounds the fleet with several Cylon base ships, remotely disabling their Cylon FTL drives and compelling humanity’s unconditional surrender after destroying Colonial One in a show of force. Cavil wants vengeance, and seeks to make humanity the slaves of the Cylon race, to use them for experiments in order that Cylons might eventually reproduce.
In humanity’s last stand, all remaining humans are evacuated onto Galactica under the guise of supply runs, and while Galactica prepares to jump to the Cylon colony on the event horizon of a black hole, the remaining fleet attacks the Cylon base ships in coordinated suicide attacks. Galactica, meanwhile, prepares for total war against the Cylon colony, humanity’s last stand, and if they die then they take the Cylons with them into that dark night.
Galactica succeeds in destroying the Cylons forever the way they did in the final battle against the Cylon colony, but Galactica’s FTL drive is destroyed and Galactica is unable to escape the gravity of the black hole. Drawn into the black hole, and having known all along that this was a one-way mission, humanity faces its demise with universal love for one another, and strange coincidences abound as the laws of space-time collapse.
Badly damaged and facing imminent structural collapse, Galactica survives its passage through the wormhole, shuddering apart, and it comes upon an Earthrise from the far side of the moon. It is early Earth, matching the astrological location of Earth, the same one Starbuck located, 150,000 years ago, and it is a garden planet. Admiral Adama successfully crash lands Galactica on the horn of Africa, near an active volcano, and humanity flees the broken ship and its immanent immolation in the lava flow, to begin again.
All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again, it is spoken, and Baltar endeavors to create a new mythology, a mythology that teaches the universal love humanity discovered at the moment of its apocalypse, and a mythology that will prevent it from happening again.
“this has happened before, and it will happen again”
how can one child restart the human race?
i think humanity needed the survivors from the 12 colonies to kind of jump start them, technologically (but not at such a rapid pace, ala flying their ships into the sun).
also baltar and caprica six saw humanity end its course in the way it ended on the show, but who knows how many tens, hundreds, thousands of times they’ve watched it unfold in their existence.
i think it ended just fine, and a lot of fans of the show just didn’t take all the facts of the show into consideration when watching the ending.
Baltar should have died.
I would have ended it this way:
The Colonials finally get to Earth, but discover they have no future there. They just don’t have the resources to keep their technology going, and there are too many microorganisms they have no genetic resistance to. The current colonials are protected because of broad spectrum immunizations they’ve all received, but without advanced medical technology their children won’t have a chance. Except Hera, thanks to her unique human/Cylon DNA. AngelSix explains to Baltar that this is the end of Homo Kobolus; there’ll be a human race, but it won’t be them. Hera (or her children with a last male Colonial) will pass along the divine spark of conciousness to the pre-sentient natives and a new human species will arise.
Baltar dies.
Eviscerated by wolves, who eat his gut before his eyes.
I like that Baltar survived. His combination of virtues and faults is almost iconic of classical human tragedy. It’s fitting that he is one of our progenitors.
Horse pucky.
No really. He’s us. Look around. Baltar is everywhere. He’s s perfect archetype of human weakness.
I really, really like wolves eating his entrails while he watches and screams.
Some additional “should have ended”:
Chicxulub Event Ending:
A T-Rex looks up in the sky and roars as the Galactica careens into the Yukatan Penninsula. 66 million years later, it all happens again.
The Dark Tower Ending:
They find the lost colony at about their same tech level. They integrate with the population and live in peace for years until the silence is broken by the sound of air raid sirens and the flash of nuclear strikes in the distance.
The Galactica jumps across the red line…and the Cylons followed…
The “It Was All A Dream / VR” Ending:
Starbuck sees her body on Earth I and wakes up screaming in the holding cell on New Caprica…or the hospital on Old Caprica…or on planet she crashed on in Season 1…or a base star somewhere…or at wherever point you want the series to have stopped.
The Boogie Nights Ending:
“You’re a fraking star!”
The Galactica jumps into our solar system and discovers that we are in the middle of our own ‘Cylon War’ but not at the same level of technology (say the mid 2060’s our timeline) - realising that to stay would mean more fighting Adama gives the ships of the fleet a choice:
[ul]
[li]those who are tired of running can go to Earth and join the fight against the machines (probably tipping the fight in favour of the humans) but the FTL drive on their ships will be destroyed so that they can’t fall into the hands of the Earth ‘cylons’. [/li]
[li]the rest of the fleet will keep going, hoping to find a new home without the threat of conflict.[/li][/ul]
The final shot is of the fleet dividing into two groups, one making its way towards Earth while the Galactica and the others who wish to go on, jump out.
It’s left to the viewer to decide who went with which group.