October 29, 2006
GWC Podcast #12
“Collaborators” answered a number of our questions from last week and managed to further deepen the backgrounds of our favorite characters. Highlights: Tom Zarek’s questionable motives and past, Tigh’s back-to-normal-but-not post-traumatic stress disorder, Baltar’s nude fainting couch appearance, and My Little Pony resurrection ships.
Galactic Watercooler 
Modern Geek 
Save Eureka 
Eff This Week 
FitSmart
First I wanted to say great pod cast…I just listened to it and I wanted to comment on the models of Cylons (I am still holding with Audra on Cylon(s)). We know that Caprica Six told Baltar that there are 12 models in the mini-series. We also know that in that same conversation Baltar made reference to “walking chrome toasters.†Six then said; those “models†are still around. They have there uses.
Sharon later told Starbuck that Raiders were alive but not sentient.
So if you go from there you can devise that the of the 12 models Six made mention of, she might have been including the Raiders, the Centurions, the Base Stars, and maybe even the Heavy Raiders. You might even include the resurrection ship in there also, because you have the 7 “Skin Jobs,†the Centurion, and 4 ship classes. That does add to 12.
The reason you don’t have the other 5 models voting is because they are not sentient models and are considered by the other 7 to be more animal like. It may not be the answer, but it would fit with what we know.
Cavatar
Isaac and Ishmael were the two half-brothers that Audra was talking about at the end of the podcast.
Love the podcast guys.
First comment, Adama was never established as definately being a human via the cylon test in season 1. That episode ended with the 6 in Baltar’s head saying “Now tell me the real results of the test” Baltar says “No.. everybody will be human reguardless of what the test says. It’s just easier that way”
Another crazy thought on why only 7 cylons were voting. Could it be that the other 4 didn’t have copies among the voting council of the cylons because they haven’t been downloaded? Or.. we could just be reading way too much into this. It may just be a continuity error that the writers didn’t catch/consider important at the time.
Now..
***CRAZY CONSPIRICY THEORY ALERT***
I think the Galactica and the fleet ARE the 13th colony. “Life here began out there” “All this has happened before and all this will happen again” “And they have a plan” I think that in the process of going to Earth there will be some sort of time travel event which will find the survivors of Galactica becoming the founders of ancient Greece. That the final battle with the cylons either on or over Earth will leave only a few survivors who have lost all of their technology. Among the survivors will be at least 1 cylon who, having experienced this chain of events, preserves the knowledge through the ages, and eventually it is a Cylon who writes the book of Pythias. It was talked about how everybody had roles to play in a story that was replaying itself. During the miniseries the cylon device planted on Galactica was a transponder. I think this was to purposefully mark Galactica as being the ship which must survive. Leoban’s predictive powers are not predictions at all, but are in fact remembered history passed onto the cylons who need to play out this series of events. They need to do this because if they don’t Earth will never exist, Kobol will never exist, there will never be an exodus from Kobol, and subsequently there will be no humans who eventually create Cylons, unless this whole chain of events plays itself out. At the end of season 1, why did the Cylons allow a base star to be sacrificed? They knew that Sharon was on that raptor. They knew she was planting a bomb. They allowed it to happen because it was a catalyist for the chain of events which followed.
I’m famous! Woot!
Sean, good one on the “heartbeat” of Baltar’s room. My take on it was that it was supposed to suggest the red eye of the Centurions. It seems to pulse side to side, if you look closely. (And yeah, they’re definately dialing the look back a little. Note, too, that everyone is clothed.)
As for the seven models voting, there’s a mention in a couple interviews that there’s a difference b/t these seven and the other five. I’m not expecting to see new models for another season or two.
Dualla can take a walk out the airlock, as far as I’m concerned. I hope Apollo ditches her like she did Billy. (Note to white guys in sci-fi shows. Stay away from the black chicks. You’ll end up dead (Wash, Billy) fat (Lee) or cancelled (Kirk))
Chuck, as to the Cylons being bored, Cavil said somethinig like “We didn’t have a destiny, so we hijacked yours.” So it’s not too far from, “We didn’t have anything else to do…”
Hi guys, great podcast!
In regards to the drastically smaller number of survivors, the drop was referenced at the beginning of the season. The population of New Caprica was listed as 39,000ish. There were also more on Galactica and Pegasus, probably around 2000 (Adama said both ships were operating at half of normal staff, which had been estimated at 2000 at one time, so 1000 for each ship). What I think really dropped the population was the destruction of the Cloud Nine (and the 3-4 adjacent ships). Not to diminish or deny any deaths that occured during the occupation, but I don’t think they were as drastic as 7 or 8 thousand. If anything, I think the Cylons refrained from killing humans until the insurgency was really starting to hit them hard. Just my theory 🙂
Re: The other Cylon models,
I sort of thought the other models didn’t buy into the whole “let’s live in peace on New Caprica” faction and just stayed home. That would explain why only 7 models voted in “Collaborators”. The ones we see now are off on their own.
There could be other explanations, but there definitely seems to be some kind of Cylon rift. The question is where did it start? Maybe the other 5 models never even agreed to the initial genocide and are still living somewhere outside known human space?
It doesn’t seem right that the raiders or centurions count as models. It’s an idea I hadn’t thought of, but not being fully sentient makes it doubtful to me.
Nick- Regarding your time travel theory… Do they ever deal with the relativistic effect of FTL travel? According to Einstein you should “move backwards” in time relative to an outside observer if you can break the light barrier. Of course this is overlooked in just about every Sc-Fi show ever made, so I could forgive Galactica for doing the same.
Hmm, then again we don’t know what time it is on Earth in the BSG universe. For all we know it could be the time of the Ancient Greeks currently.
Just a thought I had about Laura Roslin, now I am not saying that she was bad as the President nor am I suggesting that giving her the office back is a bad idea. However has anyone else noticed that she has never been elected???
I could make the argument that her first term had more legality then her second one does, she was a member of and the lone survivor of the Pre-Holocaust presidential cabinet. This would make her the legal president.
However her new current term in the office was done by a backroom deal. The ethics of this could be challenged greatly, and I would also add that she lost an election bid. Regardless if Admiral Adama wants to approve of Tom Zarek as president, he really has no legal choice. If he would jail him for keeping the office, which is legally his to keep; Adama would be committing a second military coup.
An outsider seeing all of this might conclude that democracy has been lost in the “Second Exodus.â€
Great Podcast!
I wanted to comment on the whole number of cylon issue and integrate it with the question about Starbuck’s child.
I was wondering if the other models were indeed ‘boxed’ and if so was one recently ‘unboxed’ to aid in the effort to subjugate Starbuck? Could Kacey be a nacent cylon recently downloaded? A point was brought up in this podcast that there might have been more apartment-prisons where-in Leoben was working his magic on other human women–possibly Kacey’s ‘real’ mother? If so Kacey could be a new model planted in the fleet for future use.
Another topic adressed was Dualla’s possible cylonic heritage. Although it was touched upon it really wasn’t dealt with in-depth. Dualla does try very seriously to deter Lee from going to his father’s rescue. She has a long soliloquy in which she tries to convine him to head to earth. In convincing Lee to abandon his father she removes a central leader and a huge cadre of warriors in the death of New-Caprica. Leaving a fattened and weakened Lee to lead a civilian contingent. Without a sizable part of the fleet Lee’s command would be nothing more than fodder for the cylon–and provide the Cylon with an easy trail to follow to earth.
Just a few thoughts
Great podcast.
What I am going to say harkens back to the Miniseries.
Rember how in the CIC partway through the Miniseries, Baltar seest the Cylon transmitter. What if Sharon or another Cylon (being that media Aaron, D’Anna? were on the ship) put it there because the Cylon had to have a journey.
Many religions have a pilgrimage somewhere in them, of either one done by self (Mecca for Islam) or others (Children of Isreal etc.). The Cylon holy book may state that they must have a pilgimage in order to get to Heaven or something along those lines.
Also, to the statement about the divergent thinking Lord of Kobol. If he did create the Cylon, and the Cylon are made in his image, then would it not be possible for him to clone himself and hence Baltar? I know it is crazy but just a thought.
Again great podcast.
Maybe there were only seven Cylon models voting because, like us, only around 60% of them can be bothered to get up and vote in major elections?
Bill, LMAO. Good one.
LOL, way to go Bill! Yeah I am thinking Leoben’s busy stalker schedule doesn’t allow him to get to the voting table as often as he’d like to.
This podcast is becoming one of my favorites. I look forward to it every weekend. Would love to see a midweek podcast talking about the upcoming episode.
One of the best things about BSG is that ANYONE pretty much could be a Cylon. Leaves alot of room to speculate and guess. I just hope they don’t throw and unrealistic curve ball and make someone a Cylon just for shock value.
dave
Good job, folks.
One comment on the inside of the base star. Is it just me or did it seem like a loud allusion to 2001: a Space Odyssey’s last scene? It may well just be me because I listened to Ron Moore’s podcast, and he didn’t bring up the connection. Still, the juxtoposition of loud, victorian-ish furniture with jarring lights and a mimalist setting — in a clearly non-human environment — made me think of the Kubrick classic right away. You can see the 2001 room here: http://iit-iti.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/projects-projets/paintings-tableaux-2001_e.html
I just listening to number 12 and I have to argue with your guy’s theory that leobin doesn’t see the future. While I agree with this, I think that his model of cylon may be built, and this seems the case for me, to see patterns. I would suggest the fact that he can see patterns and surmises possible outcomes; how one can see patterns in the universe that become less than random and could give meaning. He knows to much for him to simply be manipulating all the time (ex, Kobol). All things equal though, his largest function does seem to be that of a manipulating pain in the ass.
As far as with Starbuck, I agree with you all that she told him that she couldn’t see him becuase she loved him. After an experience such as that it seems to me that it would be unbearable to have someone look at you with love again. Starbuck has just spent 4 months with a mad man saying that he loves her. She can’t deal with love anymore becuase of that and losing Casey so rapidly. She still loves Anders though and that was why she sent him away.
You guys are doing a great job, I look forward to next week.
Matt
Just listened to this, my first of your podcasts. Consider me an addict – you guys do a great job.
Quick theory on the unseen Cylon models: now it may be because I’m a horror writer by trade, but it seems to me that given the sort of complicated genetic work that went into creating the first it’s pretty likely that one or two of the early models may be boxed because it didn’t work right. I keep flashing on John Carpenter’s version of THE THING; I could see one hell of an episode in the future in which the humans would un-box a model (with any available Cylon telling them not to). Once its out, it could be any sort of terrifying, well, thing.
The point is, we may not be seeing the hidden models (or some of them) because they’re *broken*. But broken things can still make some pretty great drama.
Keep up the great work. I’ll be listening.
Alex
Long time fan, first time caller…
Leoben can’t psychologically (“cylonchologically”?) be normal even in skin job standards.
Consider Cavil’s complaint about being killed and downloaded and how it hurts alittle more each time. Now note Leoben’s being killed and downloaded practically every day for 6 months – even if it’s every OTHER day, that’s still close to 100 D/Ls. Ouch. Talk about mental and emotional scarring.
“Scarring?” …. Scar. Hmmmm. Maybe he’s the skinjob incarnation of the Raider from the self-titled episode Scar? The Starbuck dynamic fits on this one too. (Wasn’t she inside the raider’s head, so to speak, when she stole that model… and now he’s returning the favor?)
Meh. Just a little tangental morsel to nibble on.
Oh and… Links to fuel speculation:
(From the BG Wiki) http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Scar_%28Raider%29
“It is postulated by Sharon that the cause of Scar’s unusual aggressiveness was pent-up rage after repeated painful deaths and resurrections.”
and from the Notes section at the bottom of that article:
“Scar may be the reincarnation of the Raider Starbuck dueled, killed, and flew in “You Can’t Go Home Again,” as hinted by Sharon.”
C’mon, Leoben and Scar aren’t the same incarnations of the same download… maybe when you’re “boxed,” you’re doing Centurian or Raider duty.
Just saw Torn (to be continued??!! Is every show this season going to be a two-parter? ) and I have to blather for a minute.
Holy Frak! Cylon Projection? Infectable Heavy Raiders? Downloads as carriers!? What the hell kind of virus is this?!
Imagined outtake:
Six: “This all looks the same to you.”
Baltar: “Well, yeah, they only built the one hallway.”
Oh, and congrats on your increasing popularity. Keep up the good work.
Just a thought here, and I know we really don’t understand them as anything else aside from robots that receive commands, but…we can assume that the original Cylon were the all the metallic form from the original show. Therefore we can also assume that somehow those models evolved and changed to the point where they deiced to create the flesh and blood model.
And now, the flesh and blood models obviously think themselves far superior to the “old” mechanical models (Sex herself said when asked about the older Cylon that “Those models are still around, they still have their uses” dripping heavily with sarcasm). If that is so, how long do you think the mechanical models are going to put up with being the slave labor for the skinjobs? Aren’t they just being relegated to the same menial positions that they suffered under the “humans” to begin with?
I see a civil war on the horizon…
I was trying to put myself into Starbucks shoes after seeing the Episode Torn. I know I’m a little ahead here but I wrote this, now it has no theories just a side of Starbuck that I don’t think we’ll ever see but apart of her own demands she faces that are left for us to ponder and this is my take. Tell me what you think.
I’m told I’m trouble
Stay away from her they’d say.
I keep my Word,
If I don’t it’ll destroys me.
I’ve learned not to trust people easily
Keep them at a far distance.
Can’t let them get close to me or I to them.
I try to harden my heart so I don’t feel the pain.
The pain of when I trust.
When I keep my word.
When I’ve loved them as my own.
I’ve become to close
I’ve screwed up
Let my guard down, became vulnerable.
Cried showing weakness only to myself.
How I hate to cry.
I trusted you,
Gave you my word,
Never judged you.
What do I get in return for this?
Lies,
Betrayal,
The mistake is mine, for ever letting you into my life.
But I never seem to learn.
I can’t harden my heart.
Can’t protect it.
When they’ve taken every piece of my soul they needed from me.
I will continuously be discarded to the side.
I must be the problem
For I am alone.
By: Katrina Meier