“There are some who say that life here began out there.”

The same is probably true on New Caprica. There, however, there is no threat of radiation poisoning and it is possible that a small human civilization could grow and even, eventually, thrive there. As Thunder Pig (what a great screen name!) points out, however, resources on New Caprica are scant so it is unlikely that they’d be able to develop very far and, in fact, might even “devolve” back into a bronze or even stone age, eventually.

I am of the feeling that this is precisely what will happen once the fleet (and/or the Cylon…Z) eventually finds Earth. They’ll find a rather primitive planet (in our very distant, possibly even prehistoric past) that they will then have to defend from the Cylons, colonize and slowly lead a civilization through the long path of growth.

I’ve also been thinking about what happened to those left behind on New Caprica. Although I think it’d be an interesting story arc to develop, I just don’t see it happening. From the way RDM’s been treating the subject of those left behind on both the non-Caprica colonies and those on New Caprica, I don’t think we’ll be seeing those survivors again anytime soon.

However, I don’t entirely disagree with the idea of having a side-arc involving those left behind on New Caprica. Answering your question Pike: I think the dramatic point would be the reference to both the Cycle of Time theme, as Cavatar said, but also to the recurring Adama theme of responsibility. It’s sort of an abstract point, but think of this – Admiral Adama openly took responsibility for mounting the rescue despite tremendous opposition, likely knowing that it’d be near impossible to rescue every single colonist. So, in a way, he’s responsbile for every person the rescue mission didn’t successfully being back to the Fleet. So showing how the stranded colonists survive when Adama’s responsbility to them fell short would be a good way to reference that whole theme, in my opinion.

And so, I think a minor story-arc involving the survivors on New Caprica that are stranded permanently would be an interesting little device to illustrate those two recurring themes. And on the plus side, the writers have successfully done something very similar before, like Cavatar said – anyone remember Helo being stuck on Caprica for the first season?

Anywho, that’s just my two cubits…

However, I’m thinking that they’re not going to go there for a couple reasons. First, there’s nobody there that we already care about, unlike Helo on Caprica. Second, what would the dramatic point be? With Helo it was his hooking up with Athena and getting off-planet. Since presumeably there’s no FTL ships left, anybody down there is going to be more interested in learning to survive than doing anything that might advance the BSG story.

On the other hand, it IS RDM’s story, so who knows?