Questions From A Battlestar Galactica Newbie (No Spoilers Please)

Cafe Society
1

For various reason I never got to watch Battlestar Galactica when it was first aired, but with my shiny new Netflix account I’ve been catching up and hope to be current for the start of Season 3.

Right now the wife and I are about halfway through season 1, having watched “Six Degrees Of Seperation” last night.

While I’m enjoying the show there are a couple of things that bug me. Foremost is the weird Cylon mysticism. Personally, I like my killer robots to have a more simplistic “Kill All Humans” attitude, but if the Cylons have a plan to use what remains of humanity for other purposes, that’s cool too.

But I’m hearing lot of stuff from Six about how she has emotions for Baltar and how she wants him to do God’s work. It’s annoying. She’s half stalker, half Jehova’s Witness - and she’s plugged directly into his head.

I’d feel better if I had some idea where this was going or if I knew there was some reasonable explanation for all this. So with that in mind I have a few questions about the show. The first two deal with Six and the third is a more general question.

  1. Do we ever get a reasonable explanation for Six’s religious talk? If a comprehensive answer would spoil future episode, a simple yes or no will do.

  2. Do we ever get confirmation regarding how Six is talking to Baltar? There’s brief mention of Six putting a chip in his head or some such, but I don’t remember any confirmation of this. I’m hoping this is the case but I get the impression the writers are being deliberatley vague.

  3. Where are they going? I know most people think the fleet is looking for Earth, but the higher-ups think Earth a myth. So is the fleet going anywhere? Or are they just going “away”?

2

  1. Not really. We’re still learning about their religous beliefs.

  2. No, but we get a very interesting twist on this later in season 2. Let’s just say the Six-Baltar relationship is quite complicated…for both of them.

  3. President Roslin believes Earth is real. Anyway, they are mostly running away but looking for habitable planet. In fact, looking for Earth is a real controversy among the population and upper politcal individuals in Season 2.

Of your questions, #1 gets the least developed throughout season 1 and 2. 2 and 3 are dealt with quite a bit.

3

Yeah, while it isn’t Lost with the hundreds of unanswered questions, you’ve touched on some that remain unknowns for us.

4

Well, I think it’s pretty obvious that I don’t mind unanswered questions. :wink:

But the Cylons leave me more befuddled than curious, at least as things stand now.

Thanks Mahaloth.

Anyway, I really am enjoying all the other stuff going on. I especially like Boomer’s (yowza!) story. The one on the ship - not the one on the planet so much.

5

Personally, I like how the Cylons are sometimes seemingly irrational. If you look at it from the aspect of the cylons trying to be more human (Data anyone?) then they develop this religious belief and other such “eccentricities” so that they can be more human… I dunno, just idle brain chatter.

6

Sure. That’s a reasonable explanation. But are they trying to be more human. And why would they want to be, especially since they’re trying to kill us all and all that. Or are they? It sure looks like the Cylon ships are trying to blow everyone up whenever they find the fleet. But Six says she wants to have Baltar’s children, which she can’t do if Baltar gets blowed up.

See why I’m confused?

7

I think if you’re going to be a follower of this show, you’re going to have to be satisfied with being at least a little confused with regard to the big picture. Anyway, real life is usually like that, so why shouldn’t it be like that in drama?

I think this is one of the most important characteristics of what is being done with the new Galactica series. I would hesitate to call it “realistic” because this is sci-fi/fantasy, and there’s so much in it that’s not realistic from our current knowledge. However, it seems to me what they are doing is trying to create an adversary that has the characteristics of what a real adversary with intelligence, self-awareness, and all the mental and emotional capabilities that we have would be like.

The problem with the “kill all humans” approach is that in the end, there’s nothing behind it, and an entity that has no complexity beyond “kill all humans” would most probably not be much of a challenge in the end. What have the Cylons done? They have created their own society, with complex social structures and technological advances. You can only do that if you are at least as sophisticated as we are. And sophistication means complexity, which means that motives and goals are not always easy to discern. In a complex society, individual members probably won’t agree on all the movies and goals.

Model No. 6 is very religious and has specific religious beliefs. Other models don’t seem to be as committed to those beliefs. We have every reason to believe that she is completely sincere in her beliefs.

And I don’t think that Cylons want to recreate human society. They don’t want to be humans; they want to be something of their own. They want to create something of their own, and they want to make it, from their point of view, better than human society. My feeling is that Cylons are traumatised by their past as the slaves of humans, and they are working out a way to heal that trauma. For now, it seems, one of their strategies is to eliminate all humans. Or is it? If that’s really what they wanted to do, doesn’t it seem like they wouldn’t have so much trouble eliminating the final remnants?

On the Six in Baltar’s head: As has been said, it’s still not entirely clear what the actual explanation is, but we have some interesting hints and, right now, an overall impression that it’s probably not an implanted chip or something like that.

8

From Boomer’s conversation with Adama in the episode where Baltar’s new friend was introduced, a theory sprang to mind.

The Cylons don’t so much hate humans - or fear us, or consider themselves superior to us - they hate, and fear, and consider themselves superior to the way we ARE. But they think it’s possible we can be better.

So, they attack us, press us, make our lives hard, make us depend on eachother - trying to force us to become what they think we potentially can be.

And if they’re wrong…we simply don’t deserve to live. So, if it comes to that, they’ll wipe us out.

Or, at least that’s how it looks to me that some Cylons (eg, Boomer) think about it.

9

I’m fine with confusion in the short term. My purpose in starting this thread is to see if things clear up a bit in the longer term. I was hoping to find out that all this was going somewhere and it looks like it is, at least with regards to questions 2 and 3.

As far as the Cylons motives are concerned, I don’t want to get too much into that. It starts looking like I’m complaining more than I mean to about I show I am actually enjoying. Plus I’m behind everyone else. Hopefully I can catch up for season 3 and we can debate the pros and cons of Cylon behavior then.

10

The ambiguity of the Cylon’s intent, purpose, and beliefs is part of what makes Battlestar Galactica excellent. It’s not cops and robbers, it’s not simply good guys vs. bad guys. The small unexpected details make this show so darn compelling. For example - the humans are polytheists, worshiping gods who resemble the Greek Pantheon. The Cylons are monotheists, worshiping a god that seems quite a bit like the God of Christianity.

11

On the subject of the extremely religious Six, I don’t want to give anything away, but in episodes you haven’t gotten to yet, we learn that at least one Cylon treats the whole mystical/religious angle with rather a lot of scorn.

As others have said, the Cylons are not a monolithic enemy. They are just now, at the end of season two, starting to come into clearer focus.

It remains to be seen whether the writers have a well-orchestrated plan and a clear idea of what’s going on, and if it turns out they’re making shit up as they go, there are going to be a whole lot of extremely disappointed people, myself included. So far, though, they’ve kept up the balance: stringing us along with occasional revelations, not so frequent that they’re giving away the mystery, not so rare that it’s a frustrating dodge-and-weave, and adding up to what is more or less a plausibly consistent picture.

Keep with it. We’ll welcome you to the threads when the show resumes in October. :slight_smile:

12

Trion, a spoiler would explain much between Six and Baltar and religion. :slight_smile:

13

I don’t really need an explanation. I am content merely to know that one exists.

Thanks everyone. Off to watch the next episode.