# I've just discovered Battlestar Gallactica **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 11, 2019, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-just-discovered-battlestar-gallactica/827602 "2019-01-11T17:36:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**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:** [January 14, 2019, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-just-discovered-battlestar-gallactica/827602/61 "2019-01-14T17:51:36Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > I would have volunteered to hold Moore down while he did it. I would have helped. Hell, I’d _still_ like to do that… ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2019, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-just-discovered-battlestar-gallactica/827602/62 "2019-01-14T18:39:19Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#): > > I tend to find that the people that hated the finale were those that really wanted BSG to just be a military hard sci-fi and originally thought the metaphysical/religious aspects were just world building and were increasing dismayed that the metaphysical/religious aspects became more and more pronounced. No, I liked the metaphysical/religious aspects throughout the start of the series. What disappointed me was the revelation at the end definitively proving that the supernatural powers exist. I would preferred a more realistic ending, in that, whatever you might believe about metaphysics/religion/supernatural powers, in the end, there’s never a definitive answer. It’s always ambiguous. _That_ kind of ending would have been true to the tenor of the series. But what bothered me most about the ending was the ridiculously impossible and patently unrealistic development that we evolved from humanoid beings from a faraway planet. That’s what really pissed me off the most. I expected more than that. ---
**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:** [January 14, 2019, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-just-discovered-battlestar-gallactica/827602/63 "2019-01-14T18:53:12Z")
Deus ex machina. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2019, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-just-discovered-battlestar-gallactica/827602/64 "2019-01-14T19:23:15Z")
Hopefully **Chefguy** has stopped reading by now, but in case not, I’ll spoiler my issues with the finale. [spoiler]While I didn’t love the “life on earth evolved from the BSG crew” part, I can live with it. It doesn’t make a lot of sense if you start thinking about it too much, but it fits OK within the framework of the show and its world-building. Sure, the final scene was cheesy, but still fits completely with the rest of the show and the continuous thread of those two characters. But I was bothered by what I saw as a copout with Starbuck. What was she. how did she come back? Who knows, who cares. I’m all-in on nebulous endings like _The Sopranos_, but this didn’t seem nebulous to me. It just felt like the writers painted themselves into a corner and didn’t care enough to do anything with it. “Eh, just make her disappear and no one will ask questions because we’ll distract them with this final scene.”[/spoiler] ---
**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:** [January 14, 2019, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-just-discovered-battlestar-gallactica/827602/65 "2019-01-14T19:36:23Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > Hopefully **Chefguy** has stopped reading by now, but in case not, I’ll spoiler my issues with the finale. > > [spoiler]While I didn’t love the “life on earth evolved from the BSG crew” part, I can live with it. It doesn’t make a lot of sense if you start thinking about it too much, but it fits OK within the framework of the show and its world-building. Sure, the final scene was cheesy, but still fits completely with the rest of the show and the continuous thread of those two characters. > > But I was bothered by what I saw as a copout with Starbuck. What was she. how did she come back? Who knows, who cares. I’m all-in on nebulous endings like _The Sopranos_, but this didn’t seem nebulous to me. It just felt like the writers painted themselves into a corner and didn’t care enough to do anything with it. “Eh, just make her disappear and no one will ask questions because we’ll distract them with this final scene.”[/spoiler] Was that Earth? I agree with you about Starbuck, but I thought that was also Deus ex machina. ---
**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:** [January 14, 2019, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-just-discovered-battlestar-gallactica/827602/66 "2019-01-14T21:35:21Z")
The planet they ended up on was definitely, unambiguously proven to be our Earth. And the planet before that that had the Cylons on it was also definitely, unambiguously proven to be our Earth. And they were definitely, unambiguously two different planets. I can’t square that circle. Make just a few minor changes, and I’d say it was time travel (which they actually did a pretty good job of setting up for), but they ruled that out, too. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2019, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-just-discovered-battlestar-gallactica/827602/67 "2019-01-14T21:45:33Z")
Remember, spoiler tags are broken on the new theme. ---
**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:** [January 14, 2019, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-just-discovered-battlestar-gallactica/827602/68 "2019-01-14T22:18:15Z")
Specifically, spoiler tags in quotes. But there’s really not much of a good workaround for that. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2019, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-just-discovered-battlestar-gallactica/827602/69 "2019-01-14T23:27:39Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The planet they ended up on was definitely, unambiguously proven to be our Earth. And the planet before that that had the Cylons on it was also definitely, unambiguously proven to be our Earth. And they were definitely, unambiguously two different planets. I can’t square that circle. Make just a few minor changes, and I’d say it was time travel (which they actually did a pretty good job of setting up for), but they ruled that out, too. The first planet they found was very much not definitely, unambiguously proven to be our Earth. We never saw the moon, we never saw the continents, we didn’t see anything that would make us think it’s this planet. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2019, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-just-discovered-battlestar-gallactica/827602/70 "2019-01-14T23:33:27Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > Ronald Moore has talked about how Scifi wanted that line in there and how he was very hesitant to put it in since they were not sure what it was. He aquiesced and that is how it ended up there. > > I forget Brother Cavil’s quote later, but it is spot on. Something like, “The plan? The plan was to wipe out all of humanity in one quick swipe and watch as the universe bathes in the glory of the justice of it all. _That_ was the plan.” > > Note: I found the quote and it actually goes: > > **“The plan is everything blows up a week ago. All the humans are dead, and we Cylons all download, and the universe basks in justice. However…It didn’t frakking happen.”** Dean Stockwell is gold. ---
**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:** [January 14, 2019, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-just-discovered-battlestar-gallactica/827602/71 "2019-01-14T23:48:21Z")
We saw the constellations. Nowhere else would the constellations look the same. IIRC, they even pointed them out, by the same names we use. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-just-discovered-battlestar-gallactica/827602/72 "2019-01-15T00:03:36Z")
I remember seeing constellations, don’t recall their being named. In any case, that came later as they were getting closer to our neck of the woods. Our planet was named (by Adama?) ‘Earth’ in memory of the Cylons’ planet. They’re different planets. Moore was messing with heads. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-just-discovered-battlestar-gallactica/827602/73 "2019-01-15T04:18:06Z")
Spoilers We arnt just the descendants of the Colonials but of Cylons too. We all came from the baby…the implication being that only someone with the combined genetics could survive the quickly approaching genetic bottleneck. Also Starbuck was Starbuck. God brought her back til her mission was done and then she ‘went home’. Full disclosure: Their was a ton of braying on the USenet BSG group after the finale. Mostly from atheists who had been peddling "Baltar is a Cylon/has a chip’ for over four years. I took great pleasure in saying “It was all there in episode one. You chose to disbelieve it.” Not that I’m some evangelist. I just thought it was funny. HERE in this thread, I respect everyones opinions and reasons for disliking the finale. You lot are reasonable chaps. Finally, I thought the point of the little dancing robot was to show we have avoided The Colonials mistakes by using AI as a toy and not a weapon. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-just-discovered-battlestar-gallactica/827602/74 "2019-01-15T05:03:06Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I agree with you about Starbuck, but I thought that was also Deus ex machina. > [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > Also Starbuck was Starbuck. God brought her back til her mission was done and then she ‘went home’. This is about the most literal “deus ex machina” you can get. That’s not a good way to end a story. ---
**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:** [January 15, 2019, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-just-discovered-battlestar-gallactica/827602/75 "2019-01-15T13:59:03Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > That’s not a good way to end a story. This is true. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-just-discovered-battlestar-gallactica/827602/76 "2019-01-15T14:45:30Z")
Don’t say “God”. You know it doesn’t like when we call it that. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > The metaphysics during the show were great, but at the end they didn’t hold up with the hard SF feel of the show. That’s the thing - it was never more than a hard SF _feel_. BSG was not “hard science fiction”; in fact, it was so “soft” that it made \*Star Wars \*feel like _The Martian_. I’ve encountered few science fiction stories that cared as little about actual science, as this show. You know how they say how SW was just Tolkien, with spaceships? Well, BSG was just 2004 America. With spaceships. And magic. And that’s fine by me. Hard SF, Space Opera and Science Fantasy are all equally legitimate sub-genres, with an equal number of great works in each. If pressed, I’d even argue that I don’t think science should stand in the way of a good story. It’s just that people mistook mature storytelling and complex characters for “hard SF”, which is a term that has absolutely nothing to do with story or character. ---
**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:** [January 15, 2019, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-just-discovered-battlestar-gallactica/827602/77 "2019-01-15T14:54:47Z")
I didn’t actually have any problem with “Entity-that-doesn’t-like-to-be-called-God Did It”. I have a problem with how hamhandedly Entity did it. Giving Starbuck a dream of a song that can somehow be interpreted as jump coordinates for right where they needed to go, sure, that feels like appropriate divine intervention. Making that planet be already populated by people genetically identical to the crew of the Galactica? No. That’s not subtle, that’s just “nothing else in the entire show matters”. Oh, and while we’re at it, if you’re going to toss in “You know that It doesn’t like to be called God”, you really ought to include some clues to what It does like to be called. The way they did it, it’s just pointless mystery for the sake of being mysterious. ---
**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:** [January 15, 2019, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-just-discovered-battlestar-gallactica/827602/78 "2019-01-15T14:55:08Z")
I wish I hadn’t read this thread. I’m going to have to increase my blood pressure medicine. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-just-discovered-battlestar-gallactica/827602/79 "2019-01-15T15:05:18Z")
Since the spoilers are being flung with open abandon now, what I was alluding to is that the “they were really Adam and Eve” twist ending was already ensuring that submissions to the cheap pulps never made it out of the slushpiles _in the 1950s_. It was already a gigantic overused silly cliché a half century before BSG used it. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2019, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-just-discovered-battlestar-gallactica/827602/80 "2019-01-15T15:29:27Z")
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