April 5, 2007
GWC Podcast #37
This bonus podcast continues last week’s listener cast as we take another group of the many calls we received regarding the season three finale. Highlights: callers challenge and enlighten us on the topics of the nature of the final four, Tigh’s history, the possible identity of the remaining unrevealed Cylon, the origins of humanity and the Cylons, and other music that might have replaced “Watchtower” — like “It’s Raining Men.” (P.S. If you’re concerned about all the long podcasts, don’t despair. This Sunday we return to our normally scheduled programming with our first commentary-style ‘cast for “33,” the next episode in the re-watch.)
Galactic Watercooler 
Modern Geek 
Save Eureka 
Eff This Week 
FitSmart
woohoo!
*high fives Joe*
I love the long podcasts. You guys dont have to sound apologetic AT ALL! Kepp up the great work!
I for one love the long podcasts. It makes the work go by so much faster. Of course, I think randomly bursting out laughing makes people think I’m kind of crazy, but so be it. I work at a pharmacy, so I can just blame it on powder from tablets getting into my brain or some BS like that.
I can’t wait to listen to it at work tomorrow (technically later today)! Again, thank you guys so much for doing all this. It’s always a blast listening to you guys.
who’s complaning? i fraken love the long casts! i still want my “craaaaaap” song!
I think Sanjaya’s going to sing that one soon. lol
“Hi Lisa!”
That was awesome! Ha ha!
Yeah, I caved in and listened to it tonight. It was totally worth it though.
Does anyone actually complain about a long podcast? You can always stop listening or continue later! I for one am happy with the extend-o-casts! IN fact, the others are TOO SHORT!
SS
Go long go long
p.s. audra im writting a BSG song to the tune of “Its the end of the world” by REM
i got a really good theory ‘boot the universi, the origin of humans and Earth ill call in later
Peter:go Geta i support Geta too see the people on galactica dont know abvout 6 and baltars rople in the genocide only rosilin knows that
Yes, I was in the bathroom at work. 🙁 Didn’t realize till later that it was THAT obvious (later being five minutes ago)
Starting to listen to the podcast. One comment on the cylon fleet jumping in and then not doing anything. It’s Tivo time! I didn’t notice this till I stop-framed parts of this sequence that was posted on u-tube. (before it got pulled) During the pullback from Starbuck and Apolo’s viper.. the pullback goes through the fleet, through the wave of vipers headed to the cylons.. then if you advance a few frames you do see Cylon raiders, along with the cylon raider sound effect as it pulls past that portion. Then it pulls beyond 4 base starts. So.. even though they didn’t show raiders launching from the base stars, there are fighters inbound to the fleet. It could be that missiles aren’t inbound yet because the base ships are simply too far away.
On another note, is it just me or has the fleet suffered no combat losses throughout the entie series. Apolo shot down the olympic carrirer, some ships were lost when the nuke went off, and they lost one or two on the way to the algae planet, but other than that the fleet has never suffered a combat loss of a civililan ship. I have a feeling that is going to change come the beginning of next season and we will see a significant drop in the running total of survivors.
Good point about Athena, but it can work the other way. Athena was a good Cylon, but do you remember Boomer? She accepted being a bad Cylon. I think that with the theme of moral ambiguity in BSG it is likely that some of the Final Four/Five will be good, and some would be bad. They might be convinced by other Cylons (didn’t that happen to Boomer?), or they might have very week willpower.
Continuing with the possibility of being convinced by other Cylons, could that be what Leoben was trying to do with Starbuck on New Caprica? It seemed very much like when Boomer was being convinced, or I just have a bad memory.
Maybe “fundamental difference” is supposed to be interpreted like “radical fundamentalists.”
Great ‘cast. Good calls people.
I like the Sunday schedule for the podcast (not BSG) because it brightens up Monday morning.
1. Gaeta lied because he hates Baltar for not living up to be the idol Gaeta thought he was and because he is smart enough to realize that without his testimony they had nothing, bubkis, nada to legitimately convict Baltar. If Gaeta testifies that the Cylons were holding a gun literally to Baltar’s head Baltar is not responsible for signing – there is no legal obligation to commit suicide.
2. I was really thinking this was going to be Judgement at Nuremburg “what are the responsibilities of being in power?” but instead we had the OJ trial – we all knew the defendant did it but the proscecution did not make their case. I really think RDM and co. had Marsha Clark in mind with the casting of the prosecutor.
3. I am currently voting for the final five being some sort of energy being cohabitating in the bodies of our four. This would allow them to be Cylons and human at the same time. Tigh’s Ellen comment was to me a lament that his love for Ellen perhaps wasn’t “real” and his determination to be the man he knows as a rejection of that possibility.
4. So to me that leaves the question of Starbuck. The 12th? The same as Tigh and co? Something else? Actually I would be surprised if even RDM had all the details of that one worked out yet.
5. This has all happened before will all happen again and what does it mean to be human in the philosophical sense not the biological sense are the main points of this story. I see this as a cycle that has in some fashion repeated itself who knows how many times before buth THIS time will be different.
6. I love that the Watercooler was in the show. I don’t care if it was intentional or not – it was great. ChuckSeanAudra you should have that frame as your computer desktop. Keep up the great work.
Remember guys, the length bothers no one and nothing but your server and your editing time. We have stop buttons on our iPods! =)
Besides, I’m not usually accomplishing absolutely nothing while listening. You guys make chores and busy work fly by.
Great podcast guys. Unfortunately I only got through a small portion during my lunch hour… Not complaining! I will listen to the rest tonight.
Loved the best running baseship in the fleet and the 32,000 Tyrols. It’d be covered in carbon fiber panels and never hsow up on draedis.
Hey, the best one would be the Baltar Basestar. Full of hot women who will through themselves at you even if you have a rat on your face.
MAX : I’m not convinced Athena is a good Cylon.
Audra: The “3200 Tigh’s, 1600 eyes” nearly killed me. You *are* the coolest.
I *love* the idea that Tori is the only one that’s really a Cylon, but I have the sick feeling it’s somehow, someway Starbuck. Who died? Starbuck. Who found earth? Starbuck. Who finds out “they’re” a cylon? hmmm….wouldn’t make much sense to me, but everytime I think I have the show figured out, it changes tone and direction. Except Lee, he just consistently keeps getting whinier…
…more Leoben, please.
and last thing…i think when Tigh said, “What about Ellen?”, he was wondering why he had to even suffer through loving her and losing her just to find out he’s a Cylon….but I don’t think he is. Say it ain’t so….
and yes, Leoben is my fav, but Tigh wins me over more and more everytime he’s on screen.
hope everyone is having a great day!
i think zarek is the final 5th
Fuzzyelf: WOOT! finally, a fellow Leoben fan. I’ve loved Leoben since Flesh and Blood (didn’t make that much of an impression on me in the miniseries).
And now i’m off the listen to the podcast, which i’m sure is A-W-E-S-O-M-E!
LONG PODCASTS ARE GOOOOOD
Also The Cylons did launch raiders and you could tell during the pull out.
Tanu: sweet.
GWC: i think you said something about getting an interview with Bear McCreary and how you wouldn’t have much to add ’cause he’s been on other podcasts, yadda, yadda, yadda…my question: There are other podcasts? I’ll not hear of it – would love to have that interview from you guys….
Oh my, I just got a bad mental image. Someone above mentioned 32,000 Tyrols. Well, Boomer does naked tai chi. I’ll let you complete the idea lol.
I have it on good authority that Dirk Benedict is the Fifth Final Five.
OK, not really. But c’mon…
Leon: >>Hey, the best one would be the Baltar Basestar. Full of hot women >>who will through themselves at you even if you have a rat on your face.
Lmao!
And, sorry to call you out on the bathroom thing. I didn’t expect to be right! It reminds me of a story Chuck tells about a guy he worked with years ago who was on an hours-long conference call. The guy finally couldn’t wait and tiptoed ino the bathroom and very quietly stood at the urinal while on the call. Chuck pranked him by coming in and flushing the toilet really loud so the guy was running out of there with his pants half off! (Seriously though – didn’t mean to embarrass you.)
Boxy – I’ll be waiting on that song!
Just a quick thought about the caller Slingshot comments –
Were Six, Roslin and Sharon indeed protecting Hera from the final five?! That would be a crazy twist and show some fundamental difference between the two groups of cylons. When I watched the show initially I thought that the President, Sharon and Six were all thinking of protecting Hera from some outside threat, and that when Six picked Hera up and took her into the theatre, that Hera was safe. But after a rewatch and with Slingshot’s comment, I think that when Six and Baltar had Hera, it looked like they were seeking the final five by going onto the stage, but then when they saw them above, they looked seriously spooked.
Also, I personally don’t think that Tory vomiting means she’s prego.
Hi Audra, Chuck, Sean, and everyone,
I’ve been listening for a long time, but this is my first post.
I just listened to #37, and thought that something I recently posted to my blog would add to the conversation. Audra, you mentioned that you were still gathering evidence about the final five, and I can’t stop thinking about the idea of authorial intent in a text like Galactica. If RDM throws curve balls into the text 3/4 of the way through, can we really go back and gather evidence?
Here is the relevent part of my blog post:
“Ronald D. Moore, the executive producer of Galactica (also a writer/producer on two more of my faves The Next Generation and Carnivale), disappointed me a bit recently. I’m not sure if it was in an interview or on his podcast, but he explained the process by which the season cliffhanger was developed. Four of the final five Cylons were revealed to be major characters, and RDM explained that this was a end-of-season decision made in the writers’ room.
I may be naive, but I was distraught to find out that a major plot twist like this wasn’t in the overall series outline. Moore has said multiple times that he has all three acts of the entire story arc already plotted out. Why, then, is he telling us that he and his writers assigned this earth shattering identity to major characters without some major premeditation?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not upset that these four people ARE Cylons. I can’t wait until next season — which we’re all forced to wait until January for. I LOVE the show, and the direction I hope it’s going. They’ve got me.
What disappoints me is that in such a great example of serial TV, this is just thrown in by the writers. WTF?? I had an idea of RDM sketching the entire 4 or 5 seasons out at the get-go, with his writing staff trusted to flesh out the hows and whys.
Of course, I could be way off base, and trusting him way too much here. RDM has a history of misleading his audience. Did I say misleading? I meant lying to. Two words – Serene Starbuck. Two more – She Lives.”
I love the podcast! Thanks for all of your hard work — you all do smart work.
nooooooo i posted the song and its not here noooooooooo i ddint save it noooooooooooo i guess il rewrite it it wont be thqat hard
EssBee: First of all, welcome to the discussion!
I’ve often wondered if the transparency that comes from publicising throne-room banter is a good thing. Personally, I get a big kick out of hearing how the writers, producers, directors, crew, and cast created the art I enjoy so much, and I’ve grown pretty addicted to hearing about it ever since the advent of DVD and the now-ubiquitous commentary track. But it’s definitely not for everyone.
Serialized stories like BSG almost always undergo change during the course of their runs. Consider this: ideas continue to gestate as the series progresses, and if the show succeeds, the producers have access to more and more writing, producing (and sometimes even acting and technical) talent — all of which generates new, exciting concepts in terms of the story. It’d be hard — and maybe wrong — to ignore them.
The first movie I ever saw with commentary was Clerks. I was (am) a big Kevin Smith fan, and back then (not long after Clerks was first available on VHS) DVD didn’t publicly exist. Laserdisk, however, did, and Smith was a big fan. (Remember some of the only words Smith ever had to eat? “F— DVD!” I guess he’ll have to settle for being right 75% of the time. And making bank by doing what he loves. I doubt he’s losing any sleep over it.)
Anyway, a friend I met on the View Askew discussion boards sent me a VHS made from the Laserdisk running with the commentary track selected, and I was in hog heaven! I heard all the stories first hand, from funding the movie by selling his comic book collection to the equipment he used and the realities of the Quick Stop. It was awesome. But after I heard the commentary, I never quite saw Clerks through the same “virgin” eyes again. When I saw the “guess that’s how it goes” ending, I didn’t think, “wow, this is like an extreme version of my life” like I did previously. I thought, “Man, I’m glad he didn’t use the alternate ending.” (You Clerks fans know what I mean.)
Over time, however, I’ve learned to “compartmentalize” my brain so I can get the most from both experiences. In one part, I think about the show/movie technically. It’s here that I notice things like cinematography, production concepts, and writing technicalities. In the other part I think about the story and the characters — what they mean to me. I’m generally in that second part when we do the GWC podcast, but don’t doubt for a second that the other part is operational, too. It’s just that keeping them separate lets me enjoy both.
On the topic whether or not we can gather any evidence by going back through the story to date, I’d say that RDM and the writing crew’s “curveballs” make the re-watch even more worthwhile. As I mentioned in one of the previous podcasts, we’ve already seen evidence of BSG’s creative group making use of previously “insignificant” bits of on-screen happenstance to support new plots. I’d bet a quarter that as they write what’ll surely be an explosive season four, they’ll be “re-watching” as well in order to tie it all together.
It’s an interesting feeling to imagine that we’re all doing the same thing — albeit in a small way — isn’t it?
Again, thanks for joining in on the fun.
(PS: While I imagine that the chances of Kevin Smith reading this are zero, if anyone reading this knows him or knows someone who knows him, would you pass on that while his new podcasts are cool, I really miss his blog? As GWC attests, blogs and podcasts blend together just like peanut butter and chocolate to make a tasty treat.)
Mmmm Reeses Peanut Butter Cups… another of the many wonderful things not availablie in France. Like good doughnuts and BBQ..
Do doughnuts exist in the BSG world? I certainly hope so. Chief certainly looks like a man or cylon who enjoys a good raised glazed..
Just saw Grindhouse (awesome experience- the fake trailers were awesome and the movies were incredible, too) and one of the characters said something like “Get him the frak over here!” It’s kind of cool to see that word being used all over the place for those of us who knows where it came from and all.
13th, Veronica Mars used it several times in the third season. Search youtube for “veronica mars frak” and you’ll get a whole bunch of clips.
Any other shows using it?
Yep, The Office as well. Well, maybe not frak, but Dwight (The Office nerd) has appeared on the show with a BSG sweatshirt on and has mentioned the show several times. Once he asked a man if he watched BSG and the guy said that he didn’t and Dwight replied “Then you sir, are an idiot”. Another time Michael (Steve Carrell) asked him about that “Battleship Galaxy” show he talked about lol. I know RDM has said that he gets a huge kick out of it when The Office and other shows make BSG references.
Hey guys, thanks for liking my Nazi/German analogy
The question came up “in the end, aren’t we all machines?” I say yes, but the difference between a human and a cylon flesh job is that cylons can resurrect and interface with computers directly, they have some kind of nanny component to their workings and we do not.
Although I’ll admit to the philosophical similarities between us and them, I feel the need to remind you that they are machines in a real measurable way, and they did kill billions of people. It’s not a philosophical difference between the two races. remember the picture behind Rosolin’s desk? Never Forget.
~Peter
Wacko after that post it’s got me thinking about Fiona Apple…
I can hear Athena singing
Be kind to me or treat me mean
I’ll make the most of it I’m an extraorindary machine
No other decent place to put it, but we all love those wonderful webisodes lol. That was when I knew GWC was great, when you could take a 2 minute clip and make an hour long podcast about it funny and interesting. Anyway, there’s talk that they might expand those webisodes for the DVD and make them like a “Season 3 Episode 0”. That seems likely and reasonable and would be a good way to flesh out the stories of Duck and Jammer. Now the other part of the rumor is that they’re considering a series of webisodes for pre-season 4. I really don’t see that happening because of the very nature of the idea- what would we get in them? I don’t see how they would be able to do stuff after S3 without infringing on S4 since we were left in mid-action. Time will certainly tell, though.
GWC thanks for putting my mad ramblings on. Just to clarify what I meant when I was trying to get my thoughts in less than 2 minutes, the split and not mixing of races was meant to be about something 4000 years ago not the current Cylons hoping to get it on with humans to procreate since the Dorals couldn’t get the job done. 🙂 They did go in different directions way back then which made me consider that the latest batch of Cylons might not be on the same page as the ones from 4000 years ago. But I freely admit this is all crazy speculation.
Hey guys, great podcast as usual.
Haven’t commented much as have been seeing the eps and the cast a few days late but i’m posting to address the issue of Tigh the Cylon.
Now, I’m working on the assumption that the information and time line as presented in the series so far is correct. That the Cylons faght in the first war were all “Toasters” and that the Human form cylons are a more recent development.
Hey guys, great podcast as usual.
Haven’t commented much as have been seeing the eps and the cast a few days late but i’m posting to address the issue of Tigh the Cylon.
Now, I’m working on the assumption that the information and time line as presented in the series so far is correct. That the Cylons fought in the first war were all “Toasters” and that the Human form cylons are a more recent development. The main reason for this is that the most basic concept that the show presents is restated to us the viewers every week. “The Cylons were created by Man, they rebelled , they evolved, and the have a plan…”
Anyway. The primary reason most people feel that Tigh cannot be a Cylon is his long history. However, thinking about this we know nobody who actually served alongside Tigh in the first war do we? His oldest friend is Adama and as demonstrated in the Episode Scattered , there first meeting occurred some years after the Cylon war had ended. They met in a Bar and recognized each other as War vets but were both very much down on their luck. Could Saul Tigh , hero of the 1st war be as real as Sharon Valerii’s Family?
Food for thought..
Later
Sorry guys for the double comment… 🙁
13th, SyFy Portal has a bit about the Season 3 DVDs having the webisodes on the DVD (which was expected) and them being formed into an ‘episode zero’ (which really wasn’t, and I’m curious to see if that works.) Do NOT expect webisodes for a frakin’ ever* since there isn’t a consensus in place on how that should be renumerated for the writers. (It’s a union thing)
Sling, got all that from your original call in. You did a much better job than my first attempt (after all, they used it…)
fnord, you may be on to something. It always struck me as just slightly weird that Tigh and Adama hadn’t acutally met while in the service (the first time.) Based on their relationship, you’d think they had some kind of back-watching going on. Hmmmmm….
Completely OT (hey, but that’s how we roll here) I just have to commend (pay attention, aspiring podcasters) CA&S for having the perseverance to make this site/cast what it is. I was particularly struck by the call-ins this past week. I’m (almost) as OG(WC) as it gets (Leon Kensington and a few others beat me to actually posting here,) and I remember thinking, roundabout the middle of the season, that they should just drop the call-in line thing, because nobody was calling in. They stuck with it, and sure enough, they’d get a call now and again. Then they did the Xmas break call-in special and a lot of us (even I) called in to help fill the gap. Now they’ve got so many calls that they can’t even get to them all in two casts (I know, because mine is still on the back burner. Or at least that’s what I tell myself…)
Larger point here is, they had a vision. Hey who doesn’t? But they stuck with it during the (what I’m sure was an agonizingly) slow momentum build. In the end, it paid off in spades. But if you want to see what this site looked like in the beginning, start here (http://galacticawatercooler.com/2006/page/11/) and work your way through. If that’s not a lesson in perseverance, I don’t know what is.
*Un/Fortunately, we HAVE got ‘for frakin’ ever,’ so who knows?
Hey everyone. Was thinking about the final final fifth cylon and I think there’s even another bit of evidence that its Starbuck. In re-watching both Crossroads Pt. 2 and Malestrom, the power outage seems to give a clue. When Starbuck encounters Admiral Adama and the Prez in the hallway of Galactica and she gives Adama the small trinket, there is a moment where some crew members are working on a light in the background and the light is fixed and being put back into place at the beginning when Starbuck passes that way the light goes out for a moment. When she comes toward camera and Adama and the Prez, the light comes back on again. It also seems that that might have been the moment she realized what her destiny was and knew what she had to do. The same power outage occurs on a much much larger scale in Crossroads Pt. 2 when the final four come together and there is that fleet-wide outage as they “realize” what they are. I think these two events are connected and the most likely commonality seems to be Cylon self-discovery.
On Ty being a Cylon…I’m really going to have to wait to see the explanation of his back story. But I would say that his one eye seemed like some kind of crazy metaphorical clue. I suspected Ty might be a Cylon back on New Caprica.
I know this may be blasphemy, but I’m also hoping that this coming season 4 of BSG is its last. Its such a fantastic show, but its turned a corner and I have a hard time imagining a season 5. I hope they end on a high note and its hard to imagine this storyline going more than the coming 22 episodes and being strong.
Great show guys!!!
Pike, thank you for the recognition. We’re glad to have y’all here and appreciate each and every call and comment.
Your link brought me back to one of my favorite earliest posts, which it seems no one ever read (but I like it):
http://galacticawatercooler.com/2006/09/26/bsg-and-gender-equality-beyond-the-bathrooms/
Audra 🙂
Pike- I certainly remember the whole fiasco about teh union stuff concerning the webisodes. NBC Universal said that it was promo stuff and wouldn’t get paid and the union was none happy about that at all.
Manicorn — If you are right about that light being a clue to Starbuck’s Cylon nature, that would be amazing. Wow! Good eye to catch such detail.
Speaking of details, has anyone wondered if the number of jumps left to the Nebula at the beginning of “Crossroads” — an “even dozen” — is somehow connected to the number of Cylons (or the number of tribes, for that matter)? I would say it is probably coincidence, although nothing much else on the show seems like coincidence… Perhaps this has been discussed elsewhere on the blog (“This has all been blogged before; this will all be blogged again…” ), so forgive, if so.
I also want to vote to have Bear McCreary on GWC. I haven’t heard his interviews elsewhere, and I can’t help but think that the three of you would make excellent interviewers and would know enough to cover material that had not been covered elsewhere. I think the passacaglia he wrote for “Kobol’s Last Gleaming” (and its faster, “encore” version in the track “The Shape of Things to Come” on the season 1 disc — it also made a brief apperance in the last vision sequence of “Crossroads II”) is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I’ve heard anywhere — it could stand-alone as a classical composition.
Another great podcast! Thanks so much for the time and effort in putting a really quality show together.
Bear McCreary is the roommate of Peter, one of the geeks over at the Geeks On podcast. They had an interview with him here: http://geekson.com/archives/archiveepisodes/2005/episode100305.htm
Their show is awesome by the way. In response to the fans asking them for Bear to return to wrap up season 3 with them, they said they went “one better.” Can’t wait. =D
Bear McCreary is probably my favorite member of the Galactica team. (Besides RDM of course.) Without his music, I never would have continued watching.
Just listened to this episode and thought I’d chime in on the feedback everyone’s given so far. First time posting here, but I’ve been following the podcast for a long time.
Regarding the final zoom-out sequence for the season finale, I played it frame by frame so that I could see what was happening. To add to what Nick has said above about the Cyclon Raiders, from looking at the undersides of some of the ships coming into view they look like the classic Cyclon fighters from the original series! They seem to have that oval shape and the distinctive twin under-engines that that those ships had. There might also be one or two of the newer fighters in the group as well. I’m going to try to get a better quality screen shot to look at. I might be wrong, but they don’t have the very long “tooth-like” shape of the newer Raiders.
What does this mean? Well, in the miniseries, we see one of the original Centurion units in the museum. This leads easily to the existance of the original-style fighter ships at some point in the past, probably during the first Cyclon War. Plus, we have Starbuck with her no-insignia shiny viper. Where did that come from? It looks very much like a Mark II, of which there were only a few still in existance, mostly on Galactica as part of the museum exhibit. If she’s in another Mark II then it must have come from the first Cylon War in some way, because the Mark VIIs ended up superceding and replacing the Mark IIs.
Expanding on what others have said, this group of Cyclons coming into view are possibly not those that have been chasing the Galactica and the fleet since the beginning. It’s possible that in the Ionion Nebula there was a listening device, a watchdog, that was waiting for ships to arrive. As soon as ships did, an EM pulse was transmitted to stop ships from moving too fast until they could be intercepted. When the signal was sent, the watching fleet of Cyclon ships had their jumps already programmed and just needed to jump in once the EM pulse was gone. There’s a very short period of time that passes after the Galactica and fleet arrive, and creating this boobytrap would ensure that no ships could leave using FTL drives.
Of course, due to the mystical nature of the show, the loss of power could also be part of the convergance of both’s paths. With everything being tied towars a cyclic existance, with a multitude of pre-determined realities (if you follow superstring theory with the idea of multiple realities and time points all existing at the same time in the same/different place) then everything is pre-determined. This then begets the nature of free will in the place of Colonial society across multiple cycles, and especially within a particular cycle. “All the world’s a stage”, as Shakespeare says.
Great work on the podcast. Looking forward to hearing more during the off-season.
Teh Bagder, great post. I so hope that you are right. But… from what I can make out, they look like they might be Heavy Raiders.
Just finished listening to this great podcast 🙂 I too would really welcome a podcast dedicated to Bear McCreary’s incredible score. As to other songs that might have been a good replacement for “All Along the Watchtowers”, I cannot get out of my head a scene where Tighe, his ear on the wall, starts singing “I like big butts and I cannot lie…” 😉
OK, I’ve think I’ve gone through all the comments and don’t remember seeing this one yet, but if I’m repeating someone; sorry…
Anyway, when Tyrol says “We’re all Cylons”, maybe he isn’t referring to the four of them there in the room. Maybe he’s referring to all of the humans in the fleet. Consider…
“All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again.” OK, let’s take this literally. Suppose that long, long ago (in a galaxy slightly less far away) a group of humans existed and created a race of intelligent machines known as Cylons. Said Cylons eventually rebelled, fought a war, then left. Later, they created humanoid versions of themselves, returned and attacked and destroyed the humans.
The humanoid Cylons settle on the worlds formerly occupied by the humans. Or, maybe, the humans were on a single world (let’s call it Kobol) and the new humanoid Cylons leave it to settle colonies elsewhere. Twelve of them, maybe. Maybe a few humans escape and their rag-tag fleet flees to a thirteenth world somewhere.
At any rate, our humanoid Cylons settle down on their worlds and go about their lives. Now, these humanoids are a lot like humans. Some of them even reproduce with humans, producing human-cylon offspring. After a while, the majority of the population consists of these human-cylons and the original humanoid Cylons become less and less common. After a while, the human-cylons even forget they were even real and start thinking of them as Gods and worship them. Maybe they call them the Lords of Kobol.
Of course, once they forgot where they came from the human-cylons forget they were ever Cylons and think they were just human. (The original humanoid-Cylons were a lot like Humans, remember?) Then, after millenia, they build a race of intelligent machines and call them Cylons (based on some long-forgotten bit of their original programming still embedded in their minds). Maybe they even recreate clothing styles or even music from that old programming.
Then, the new race of Cylons rises up and attacks its creators. It happened before, it happened again.
They had no choice. After all, it was in their programming all along.
Tony, good one. I think I posted this here before, but this is my vote for the “song from earth” contest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-fS6vJodpM
Of course, it does tend to support tanstaafl’s idea that everyone on that show is a Cylon…
Pike: I thought they were possibly Heavy Raiders too, but as I check screen captures of the HRs they look altogether too boxy and square-cut. The new Raiders tend to be concave on the top and convex underneath with very little changing the shape from the 1-3 angle curves. Old school Raiders have that disc shape and then various square/rounded structures sticking out in the midline. As I say, I’m going to try to get a better quality capture and go frame by frame. It could just be artifacting and light tricks that are making it look this way to me.
I will be really disappointed if “we are all Cylons” means all “humans” are Cylons. I think the show should play by the rules it established, namely: “The Cylons were created by man” — man being the human race we see week in and week out on BSG. Although tanstaffl’s idea is intriguing and novel, I think it ultimately requires too much explanation and violates one of the show’s central premises, as established in the mini, that “a day comes when you can’t hide from the things you’ve done.” Kara has to face what she did in passing Zak… Baltar is (repeatedly) facing up to what he did in allowing Caprica Six access to the defense mainframe… The whole boxing episode was abou facing up to what happened on New Caprica… Roslin is facing up to taking chamalla, both “then” and “now”…
The series seems to be about human responsibility and accountability, somehow — not sure what the larger message *is* exactly, yet, but I think that will be the theme — and to have the whole thing be “in the programming” absolves of such responsibility and, for me, would run counter to the show’s ethos.
This is also why, as intriguing as Peter’s theory that “cylon = child of God” (or something similar) is, I also really, really hope they don’t go in that direction. Ok, we have established within the series that Cylon doesn’t necessarily mean “bad guy” — witness the episode “Downloaded” and thenceforth. But I think we have to maintain that, by definition, a Cylon is an artificial life form — a “machine” in the plain, commonsense usage of the word (so no arguments about how we are all really machines).
Anything else would be as though the original “Star Trek” series had decided, in some season finale, to reveal Kirk as a Klingon — “but he’s not a Klingon like any you’ve ever seen before.” It would so betray what that series had established about Klingons as to make the term meaningless.
I also tend to have a gut feeling that Steve may be right, and that the season 3 ender is not meant to be a hopeful one… So, if “We’re all Cylons” is to have any ominous import at all, it can’t just mean, “We’re basically humans by another name.”
Cylons can be bad or good, but they must — must — be *other.*
(Background: I have some medical training, so this post covers some basic genetic stuff I’ve been thinking about.)
The one thing that strikes me about the Humans and Cyclons is their ability to interbreed. If one species are biological and other mechanical then this means incredible advances in nanotechnology and artificial intelligence. IRL there’s an incredible amount of debate about where consciousness and the soul comes from; is it separate from the mind and body or inherently linked? How have the Cyclons been able to not only replicate consciousness in a host mobile unit (body) but the ability to download across time and space after the host body is damaged or destroyed? It might just be RDM and the writing team using liberal writers’ strokes to enable a plot device, or is there some underlying sub-space communication continually occuring synchronously all the time (I’ve got some ideas about this popping around in my head, but not ready to put them down…yet).
For Humans and Cyclons to interbreed, this means that their genetic material must be incredibly similar to each other down to the cellular level. What this could mean is that to be Cyclon, certainly a skinjob, is to have the biological shell of humanity, but something extra. Nanotechnology that lives inside cells and can manipulate RNA and DNA. When a cell splits, the nanobots replicate themselves and inject themselves into the new cell. This creates a cluster of nanobots that all operate as networked consciousness, much like some theories of human consciousness are being put forward – that the cells very much play a key role in consciousness – but that end up controlling the host body. Sort of like a parasitic symbiote that controls the body.
Going into some biology here now…This might partially explain why Cyclon women can get pregnant but the only with Human men. It might not truly be about love, but about being able to be in the position to pass on the nanobots. Out of all the spermatazoa that might attempt to get into an egg, usually only one does. Having the egg automatically contain the nanobot ensures that no matter what sperm get into the egg, there will be a pregnancy. Perhaps there’s a problem with Cylon sperm not being able to impregnate the egg. It’s a fairly normal occurance in real life for eggs not to be fertilized because the sperm are just too weak.
The Final Five can also be explained by this symbiote nano-net concept. True Humans are just biological. True Cyclons are human clones born in-vitro with nanotech from the beginning. The Final Five are Humans that have the nanobots introduced into their DNA at some point after having a normal life, which is moe complicated because cells have diversified and aren’t being created as readily, meaning less nanobot infestation without having to fight natural human immune systems and cell structure.
This would make Roslin the 5th FF possibly because of the blood transfusion, but possibly not. We saw that the immune systems of both races are strikingly similar (leading me to believe that Cyclons are human biological in origin, possibly from very old DNA). It’s possible that her immune system got rid of any of the Cyclon blood after the cancer was sought out and destroyed.
Of course, this complicates things with Hera and Nicky. Hera would have True/True parent heritage leading to her being a new form of Cylon – not a clone with nanobot symbiotes, but a real gestalt of both parents with nanobot symbiotes, just as children are of their parents. This would mean being able to go behind 7 models, with 5 additional hacked models to make 12. Nicky is a bit more complicated because of having a Cyclon father and human mother. Perhaps the process is different there. Perhaps the child is not Cyclon at all, but fully Human because sperm can’t pass on the nanotechnology. Or perhaps he is just the same as Hera.
This leads me to two other points to consider:
1) What if Hera and Nicky are the origination of Adam and Eve in the monotheistic religion on Earth?
2) What if Hera is a smokescreen and Nicky is really the most important baby?
Just putting some thoughts out there and frakking with your brains 😀
Badger wrote: “True Humans are just biological. True Cyclons are human clones born in-vitro with nanotech from the beginning. The Final Five are Humans that have the nanobots introduced into their DNA…”
Wow, that is an amazing theory, and it also satisfies my concern that Cylon be preserved as a category fundamentally other than Human.
As for your first question, I do hope, as I’ve stated before, that BSG doesn’t become a “how humanity on Earth got started” / Garden of Eden story. That’s been done to death in science fiction, and will feel like a long and incredibly rich set-up for a pretty lame punchline (to me, anyway).
Mike: “Wow, that is an amazing theory, and it also satisfies my concern that Cylon be preserved as a category fundamentally other than Human. ”
In essence it means that everyone is really Human, but Cyclons are a subspecies, a la Homo Cylonus. The truth is that in some ways we’re not that far away from that anyway. Current medical science can create nanotechnology that can exist and operate in the body, and scientists have recently been able to create quantum molecular machines built from simple molecules.
“As for your first question, I do hope, as I’ve stated before, that BSG doesn’t become a “how humanity on Earth got started†/ Garden of Eden story. That’s been done to death in science fiction, and will feel like a long and incredibly rich set-up for a pretty lame punchline (to me, anyway). ”
The M. Night Shamalyan “twist”, if this was to be done, was that Earth is being re-seeded after global warming destroyed much of the world habitat. If all of the animal life died off on Earth, in particular the domesticated animals, then humanity would suffer greatly because we’re currently so dependent on animals for so many thinigs. If in the future another world was discovered that could be colonized, then perhaps the 13 tribes that left Earth originally are actually 13 colony ships that ended up taking over a star system after Earth ended up pretty much human-less. The predominance of the greek language could be explained by reconstruction of a base language based on English, one of the predominant languages today, which has its roots in both Latin and Greek languages.
Someone else mentioned the idea of fetuses being delivered by colony ship with robot caretakers. This could be used to explain the solidarity of the multiple tribes. If everyone of the Colonial Peoples were seeded in the Colonial worlds from fetuses after travelling for 2000 years, it would explain a lot of history being lost.
Alternatively, it could be that there was a power struggle between those that survived travel and those that won were descended from a Greek subculture, leading to a takeover off society. Those in power have the ability to shape culture and society as they see fit, after all.
Badger clarifies, “In essence it means that everyone is really Human, but Cyclons are a subspecies, a la Homo Cylonus.”
Yes, but it still preserves the “ground rule” that “The Cylons were created by Man.” It preserves the fact that there is some objective, biological-technological difference between the two. They would be, as you say, a *sub*species — perhaps fighting to be recognized as a species in their own right.
I like your idea of a twist on the old “I’m Adam, you’re Eve” trope. That might make it bearable. Great suggestion!
lol! brilliant editing Pike, thx 🙂
Where things could get really interesting is if in the future, everyone becomes a member of Human Cyclonus, and the next cycle occurs with the Cylons trying to become pure humans again by removing the nanotechnology from their bodies. The next cyle then takes you back through the Cylonification process again, creating a strange cyclical mobius strip that inverts on itself again and again.
My theory is final five were created by humans toward the end of the first Cylon War. This would explain why the final five are “fundamentally different types of Cylons.”
My guess for the fifth of the “Final Five” if its a man is Doc Cottle a woman its Dee.
I just listened to #37 and that was so funny when a caller said, “Hi my name is such-and-such and I’m a Galacticaholic” and you guys all chimed in with “Hi Lisa.” Hilarious!!!
My theory on Tory is that she’s like the expendable crew members on the original Star Trek series who always die. You never really get emotionally involved with them…they just serve to push the plot along…and poof!…they’re blown up or disintegrated. I think Tory is pregnant and this will create a soap opera-like triangle between her, Anders and Starbuck.
Lovin’ the cast as usual!
Audra – I haven’t forgotten about your request to elaborate on my Christ-as-a-cylon theory. Stay tuned. And thanks for the nice compliment on my theory. I was jazzed (pun intended). 🙂
And that water cooler HAD to be in the scene on purpose. I’ve worked on film sets in production and everything a set designer puts on a set is there for a reason. And there’s really no good aesthetic reason for it to be there. I’m sure they were giving GWC a nod!
Hey this is a interesting take on “The Watchtower” song, it makes since to me:
http://mycropht.wordpress.com/2007/03/26/all-along-the-watchtower-bsg-style/
Thanks Mike! And thanks for the great link. I think the blogger was a little superficial in analysis, but I liked it anyway. 🙂
I left the 1st message concerning the cylon raiders not coming out of the base stars and after watching and freeze framing, agree that something was shown coming out of the base stars at the pull out at the end of the show, so I guess I’ll have to retract my statement.
On another note,I work a 2nd shift job and love listening to your podcasts at work and look forward to them every week and when I called people were coming in and out of my office and I was trying to keep people from overhearing my explanation about theories of a fictional scifi show for fear of them not letting me play in their reindeer games, I am a closet geek and I’ll have to let my red nose shine and let them go frak themselves if they don’t like it.LOL Ha Ha Ha… Really… You should have seen me sneaking around when I was talking, it really was funny when I heard myself on the podcast, I busted out laughing. Well I just thought I would share that geek moment with you all and I think we’ve all had them. “Live Long and Prosper”
Sorry for the late post, but I’m relatively new to Galactica Watercooler, and catching up on podcasts.
I had a slightly different read on Roslin’s/Sharon’s shared vision than you had in the podcast. When Roslin and Sharon first saw each other across the gallery, I think they each saw the other as a threat, and were racing to get to Hera before the other did. Once they both arrived at the bottom of the stairs and saw Six with Hera, I thought they had a sort of, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” moment. Sharon doesn’t want Hera under Roslin’s control, and Roslin doesn’t want Hera under Sharon’s influence, but neither of them want Six and Baltar to be the ones responsible for Hera’s upbringing.