Reader Theories: Zarek’s a Cylon. Or Roslin’s a Cylon.
Keith C. wrote:
I have a theory on who the revealed Cylon will be in Season 3. I believe it will be Tom Zarek for the following reasons:
1. He is one of the few people who could be a Cylon without having to be a sleeper agent (as far as believability is concerned). Also, I don’t think RDM will do another sleeper agent because he doesn’t seem to like to cover ground that he has already covered.
2. Zarek is a master at pulling strings/manipulation (seems to be a prerequisite for a Cylon).
3. He has sowed dissent in the Colonial government as the leader of a Sagittaron terrorist movement (“Bastille Day”), worsening the relations between Sagittarons and citizens of other colonies.
4. In late season one he tried to become vice president and had his eye on the presidency should “something” happen to Roslin.
5. Helped turn Roslin against Adama and helped split the fleet (early Season 2), getting many to go to Kobol in order to find the way to Earth (I think Earth has always been the plan of the final-five Cylons).
6. He convinced Baltar to run for president and came up with the New Caprica settlement issue in order to hand Baltar the election (the Six in Baltar’s head has always believed he had a special destiny — maybe the final-five share this belief).
7. He has never had any problem having people killed to serve his goals (Season one & “Collaborators”). This also seems to be a prerequisite to be a Cylon.
8. The seven known Cylons imprisoned Zarek for 4 months and were going to execute him on New Caprica, giving D’Anna a great reason to apologize to him when she saw his face.Well that is it. Of course the plausibility of this theory also depends on how long ago he was a Sagittaron terrorist (I figure the Cylons would need at least 10 to 20 years after the 1st Cylon war to develop humanoid bodies). It would also depend on whether he has any known/verifiable family (he was pretty well known before the fall of the Twelve Colonies).
On the other hand…MikeL989 wrote:
Roslin is the cylon.
1. Most of the female Cylons have affairs with powerful men (President Adar, Admiral Adama(?)), or people of influence.
2. Deanna Biers’ Cylons noted to the final five Cylon she recognized as “so beautiful,” and had she known who this Cylon was should would have treated her differently.
3. She is manipulating people: especially Adama, Lee, the Quorum, and Baltar. She regained the presidency through manipulation of Zarek. She attempted (poorly) to manipulate the election.
4. The hybrid child cured her “cancer.” If nothing else she now has Cylon in her.
5. She behaves differently when not wearing her glasses.
Personally, I think Zarek’s too cool and messed up and valuable a manipulator as a human- sort of like Ellen Tigh. He doesn’t need to be a Cylon. And, if Roslin’s manipulation of other people is a red flag for her being aCylon, then we need to add in about thirty other people to that list for consideration.
All right now, this is for the spoiler-free audience who’s still speculating, so let’s behave…
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I think the only thing we can say with any certainty is that we know almost nothing about the Final Five. Their origins, their alleigences, their intentions, I don’t think we know anything about them other than they glow in the dark.
So as far as I can tell the conventional rules don’t apply. We can’t necessarily discredit people on confirmed history or family, I don’t know what we can discredit them on, so basically it could be anyone.
Here’s a theory that I don’t think anyone’s suggested yet, I don’t believe it’s really possible, but I think it was a funny idea:
What if Cavil is one of the Final Five spying on the Plain Old Seven? D’anna let Baltar shoot him just before she saw the shiny guys in the temple, that might merit an apology. No? Just a random thought anyway.
I think Zarek is a much more interesting character as a human than he could ever be as a Cylon. He’s not evil, and he’s usually got the interests of the fleet in mind, at least as he sees them, which may or may not track with Adama and Roslyn’s intentions or beliefs.
I’m always surprised when people pan Zarek as a ‘bad guy’. I’ve never really seen him as such. I see him more as a hardline, ‘by any means necessary’ type of guy, but still working for humanity. As Laura’s cancer progresses, it’s going to be interesting to see how Zarek fits into the power structure of the fleet as VP. . . unless he does turn out to be a Cylon!
I don’t think Zarek will be revealed as a Cylon for a couple of reasons. First off, we haven’t seen much of him all season long, revealing him as a Cylon now would have little to no dramatic effect, no setup = no payoff. Secondly, I think the angle they will take with the final five will be that these Cylons are not allies of the rest of the Cylons and do not seek or agree with the destruction or involvement with humanity. Zarek’s implications with humanity does not reflect that.
Having a third player (final fives) as a third antagonist would open up a lot of possibilities in a fourth season, to have humans playing Cylons against each other in order to defeat them. I can’t see the rag tag fleet eventually settling on Earth, just hoping the Cylons dont find it. Eventually they have to be defeated or their ideology has to be changed.
Dammit!!!
And I would love to speculatate too!!!
Sigh….
Its true, as lost as we can get in the story, it is just that…. a story.
So, I concur totally with Luc’s assesment when it comes to Zarek: “no setup = no payoff.” And Zarek just has been too idle of late.
Now, the same premise can also be used to disqualify others, but there are marginally significant characters that are not on center-stage but on stage and not in the wings like Zarek:
– Cally
– Anders
– Geata
– Tory
– Dee
But this doesn’t rule-out the biggies like Roslin, Tigh, Lee, Chief, Starbuck (Godz Rest Her Soul). Using one of these folks packs more punch to the gut, which I believe is the whole purpose of an end-of-season cliffhanger?
If GALEN Tyrol or Cally is a reveal, that would make Lil Nicky a Hylon, which leads me to another possibility….
There has been significant speculation as to whether Starbuck may be a so-called Hylon, but nothing rules out the angle that Hylon(z) ARE the Final Five – Hera being the first that we know of. 3’Anna could certainly recognze her as an adult in glowing form and thus apologize, right?
Finally, as tempting and delicious as Ray’s posit is: “What if Cavil is one of the Final Five spying on the Plain Old Seven?” we’d have to rule that out – the math doesn’t add-up – he’d be counted twice. There is a semantic argument in there but thats not a tool that RDM, et al rely on when they have so much more talent to leverage than word-play.
Roslin might be a cylon: she dreams of the temple.
Roslin might not be a cylon: she was 42nd in line for the presidency; why would a Cylon make herself minister of ed? Besides, she has cancer.
Don’t forget Leoben said Adama is a cylon.
AND SO AM I.
I think it’s totally gonna be Chief.
Much as I love Starbuck and don’t think she’s gonna be a TRUE Cylon if any kind at all, we probably have to look no further than her uttering the word “copasetic” to Lee during Maelstrom for circumstantial evidence. The girl had never said a bigger word than “frakking” before this.
But yeah, it’s Chief. Not just for the Hylon progeny but a million other things about Chief. He loves machines. He uses machine related metaphors. He was lovingly caressing the wounded Vipers a la Boomer in Flight of the Pheonix.
All amusing coincidences you say? We’ll see.
Neither Roslin nor Zarek can be a Cylon, in my opinion.
Assuming that Cylons want important people as moles, they would not “turn” the woman 42nd in line for the Presidency, much less a prisoner whose prison ship just happened to be one of the lucky ones Galactica was able to save.
Roslin has made many choices that cannot be explained by simple division among the Cylons, like the choices made by the existing moles. Unless I’m mistaken, the only actions the Cylon moles have taken are: Tracking the fleet, assassinating the Admiral, and negotiating peace (Cavell). The first two were, we believed, so that the Cylons could more easily exterminate humanity, for whatever reason. So all Cylon effort thus far has been toward either exterminating or enslaving humanity. Roslin clearly has done little towards either of those goals.
Besides, the Cylons tried to kill both Roslin and Zarek.
I don’t necessarily buy Roslin or Zarek as a Cylon but I concede Roslin is marginally more likely.
Eyeless:
However, do you suppose an argument could be made that on NC some of the cylons’ scruples regarding other models may have evaporated? Obviously if either Roslin or Zarek was a Cylon they could download. And it wouldn’t precisely be a case of them [Cylon collective] not wanting to lose assets. At that point it was unclear or even doubtful that any rescue was underway and the Cylons may have considered the sleeper agent to have run all possible courses and been useless.
But there’s no reason to kill off your sleeper agents even if they have no apparent use. The two people highest in human power structure besides Baltar are never useless. They could be used for persuading people to join the NCP, for example.
Gray, I like the Chief idea. Maybe that’s why Boomer didn’t get pregnant while Athena did. Boomer was inadvertently hooking up with another Cylon.
Writch, right on, it’s gotta be all about the Hylons! I’m reminded of an old quote by some military-related person. My memory is very fuzzy on it, but to paraphrase: “We can’t outgun them, so we’ll out-breed them.”
Seems to me that the idea behind ‘The Plan’ is to create a new, combined race of Hylons, hence the importance of Hera, Head Six’s and Baltar’s ‘baby’, the sequences in the Kobol Opera House, etc. I won’t get into it in-depth here, since I submitted a pretty detailed reader theory about this and it will be better to discuss it in that post whenever the GWC three can get to posting it (hopefully before tomorrow), but in essence, I think it’s gonna be Galen, Kara, Anders, Tori, and Tigh as Hylon Final Five sleepers.
I am becoming a convert to the Chief theory. I still think that Adama or Roslin would carry a larger “pay-off” for shock value.
As Gray says “He loves machines. He uses machine related metaphors. He was lovingly caressing the wounded Vipers a la Boomer in Flight of the Pheonix.”
Also, let’s remember how he acted in the temple and in the end could not blow it up.
The Chief is carrying some baggage that could be exploited. This could still leave D’Anna apologizing to many others (Baltar, Kara, Tighclops, etc) for a later pay-off.
With 22 episodes secure for next year there is plenty of time now to tidy a lot of story lines up prior to wrapping up the series.
I can’t believe we only have one more day…..until a 10 month hiatus.
Pike- Whoa! That idea sent my head spinning. I hadn’t thought of that (pregnancy theory).
I’m imagining if Chief and Boomer had stayed together, gotten married, and couldn’t seem to get pregnant.
At the fertility clinic:
Boomer: We’ve been trying for over two years. It doesn’t make sense.
Chief: Yeah, doc, can you tell us anything that might help?
Doctor: Well, there *might* be a problem with that, Chief…
(Armed guards arrive)
Pike–
I hadn’t even thought of that angle. The more I think about it, the more I’m ready to put my money all in on the Chief.
Saberhawk, Nice. The (seemingly?) dropped plot point of Chief’s mashed-potato moment was something I was bitching about. It’d be cool if they fold that into his Cylon heritage.
Wow, and I was loving the idea of Cally being a Cylon, just in terms of how freaked out Tyrol would be finding out. This is even better.
Here is my take on things consider:
The war of the Lords of Kobol are still happening. One of the lords (lets call him Lord X) is at war of the rest of the lords and humanity is the key to ending the war.
After the Cylon-Colonial War the cylons leave the colonies to find a home. They are co-oped by Lord X. Lord X enhances the cylons over 40 years. Look at the evolution:
1. The lowest level is the Centurian, all mechanical, no biological, no soul.
2. The next level (and more biological are the Raiders and possibly other cylon ships. The are bio-mechanical, can reincarnate, but are function specific.
3. The third level, the last bio-mechancial, is the Hybrid. It may have had a soul but has been “driven mad by god” and is considered inferior to the next higher class.
4. The forth level, the most biological, the only spirtual model are “The Seven.” They worship Lord X, believe they follow his directives.
5. Is it possible the Final Five are purely religious, spiritual or “angelic/demonic” creations of Lord X?
In that case the Lord X has activated the “final five” because the lesser models have not finished the job of destroying humanity. The lower castes have been a failure. The Di’anna model questioned Lord X by trying to see beyond to the next step, in the realm between life and death, so the other six box the entire model. Two of the models (Caprica Six and Athena) changed sides and sided with the humans. Leoben is only interested in studying humanities flaws. The only model to truly hate humans is the Cavil model but can’t convince the other models to finish the job.
In that case, the revelation of any new “human” Cylons may merely be spiritual possessions of normal colonial humans by the Final Five? If that is true then the “music” that Tye, Anders, and Tory heard was the Final Five’s attempt at possession.
This would explain “head Six.” This is an early attempt by one of the Final Five to try to manipulate events through Baltar in favor of Lord X. That failed, but almost, since “head Six” did help Baltar develop a Cylon detector, elected him President, and guide Baltar to Hera. Baltar does exhibit signs he are demoniacally possessed or going mad.
On the other side this would explain “head Baltar” a spiritual being of the other twelve lords of Kobol. “Head Baltar” has manipulated Caprica Six into becoming sympathetic to the plight of humanity. It is possible that what happened to Kara was a result of intervention by the twelve lords of Kobol, since she was very spiritual, and the “Leobon” she encountered stated she was going to the realm between life and death, a spiritual level similar to the final five. This might be an attempt by the Lords of Kobol to level the playing field for the final battle.
Mike, interesting points… sure is something to think about, although I think I would be a bit disappointed if they pulled a ‘puppet-master’ type character, like your ‘Lord X’. Then again, stranger things have happened, and RDM and Co. have yet to disappoint.
Pike, very very interesting… I was thinking of a variation on your pregnancy theory in terms of why Kara couldn’t make things work with Anders… assuming they both turn out to be Cylons or Hylons. Could it be that Cylon/Cylon (or Hylon/Cylon) love is too much like two magnets with the same charge, even without the context of trying to get pregnant? Sure would explain Kara’s comments of “I love Anders, but I hate Anders”. Definitely food for thought.
so with chief being a cylon…that makes his and cally kid a hylon.
discuss…
What if chamala (kamala?) allows Roslyn to hallucinate on the Cylon frequency?
Roslin is a cylon because in the season three finale she was hit with a wave of confusion just before the fleetwide blackout, just like the other revealed cylons. The only reason she didnt join Tory, Tigh, Chief, and Anders was that she had to be there on the bridge at the time representing the people of the fleet, a top priority. Tory, Tigh, Chief, and Anders submitted to the signal that the cylons sent because they had less responsibility than Roslin. Tory has no political power and Roslin is beginning to need her less and less so she didnt need to be at her station. Tigh had been replaced by helo (Tigh had temporarily been taken off military service) he didnt need to be at his station. Chief had Cally covering for him in the hangar so he didnt need to be at his station. Anders was still in pilot training so I don’t think people would trust him with a viper, and he has a broken leg so he definitly didnt have to be at his action station. So Rosilin is a cylon but the reason she was not revealed with the other former humans was because her responsibilities on the bridge kept her from meeting with the others.