Starbuck Paints Original Series Ship Of Lights?
Long-time GWCer Solai points out in the GWC forums that Starbuck's painting from last week's BSG episode "The Ties That Bind" closely resembles the "ship of lights" that appears in the original Battlestar Galactica series episode "War of the Gods." As you can see from the screen captures above, they sure look similar.
What does this mean for the series? It could simply be a shout-out to the original series, sort of like the more obvious "weapons locker 1701D" in the same episode. Then again, the last time Starbuck painted something -- her mandala -- it showed up later to change the course of the series forever.
Wikipedia indicates that the original ship of lights represented technology advanced well beyond that of both the Colonial and Cylon fleets. It traveled very quickly and "its drive system emits an extremely loud sound "which somehow travels through the void of space and can be heard by people in nearby spaceships." The sound also appears to render humans unconscious.
Maybe more tellingly, in "War of the Gods," the ship's inhabitants -- glowing beings similar to D'Anna's vision of the "final five" called "Seraphs" -- bring Apollo back from the dead after a botched encounter with "Count Iblis." (The Seraphs "indicate that they are natural enemies of Iblis," whom the show "implies" is Satan and whose voice the fully-evil (Count) Baltar recognizes as that of the Cylons' "Imperious Leader.")
So who's up for a quarter bet on whether or not we'll see any of these related story elements incorporated into the re-imagined BSG?
Feel free to join the discussion about this here in the GWC Forum.
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That one image certainly looks like the Ship of Lights…I also had noticed that one of the images was of a comet…Starbuck did mention that she remembered seeing a comet as well.
She is painting what she saw in a vision in the ep. Does anyone have a screen shot of that?
Suggestion, from a new-school fan who knows zilch about the old series: Maybe, for the podcast, a longer discussion of some of these next-level concepts and characters from the old show? Maybe with a call-in guest, like a listener who’s extra-well-versed in Original BSG (O-bs-G for short) lore?
I was pointing this out with a friend of mine yesterday. I’d take the quarter bet and say that we’ll be seeing a ship of lights concept pan out before the series is over, though I hope to the Lords of Kobol that they pull it off in much better fashion than the original series ever did.
Didn’t RDM say at one point that he had no intention of redoing the ship of lights arc? (Of course, we know for a fact that just because he said something doesn’t mean he wouldn’t, and he could certainly have changed his mind.)
I’m not keen on introducing the ship of lights though… I’d rather not have any more Deus ex Machinas than we have to.
I for one believe it is ABSOLUTELY a clue. Look at the way it was shot. When she was lying in bed naked…they made sure to give us a LONG CLOSE look. They’ve never used that angle before. It’s a clue. Plus if you look closer…the ‘comet’ referred to above is ACTUALLY an orb of light.
My take? It’s probably either the cylon programmers…OR…the Lords of Kobol. Odds are that we’ll find out and soon however.
In her vision the comet does look like a comet, not sure it really looks so much like the ship of lights. Need to see a screen shot to be sure though.
Her mysterious paintings just add to her overall hotness.
I’ll preface by saying that I have no insider information in this case and these are simply my thoughts based on what everyone has seen. In fact most of you have probably seen and heard more than I since I only watch the RDM series and don’t listen to the podcasts.
I have never seen the original series – it was well before my time – but being a genre filmmaker and noting how they leverage and evolve the original material: I have theorized since the season III finale that Starbuck & the four Cylons are not Cylons but in fact the RDM version of whatever those “being of light” things were. Basically some kind of heavy hitters/big 5 for the humans or some variation of that idea. (No one agrees with me.) 😉
Dramatically/story mechanics wise, it would be amazing if the four humans falsely think they are Cylons. Especially in Tori’s case in terms of the way she’s behaving and what has come to pass. The writing’s great either way, but that might have been my direction if I were writing the series picking it up at end of season 3. That would also mean we still have many more Cylons to discover.
Anyway I’m not giving up my not-a-Cylon theory until I see some of those fools wake up in goo baths with new bods kthanxbye!
I agree Mindcrime – it’s a MAJOR clue. The angle was totally making it obvious, I agree. Unfortunately, I have no clue what it means.
I’ve been thinking that the final five are hybrids, not really cylons, not really human.
I’ll take the quarter bet that we’ll see a Ship of Lights theme either visually or in the plot lines.
Irrespective of whether that is the ship of lights, Starbuck’s return in a spotless white viper recalls the white uniform Apollo wears after being on that ship.
I don’t know if the final five are hybrids, but I think the story will end up being that humanity on earth are descended from both Cylons and humans.
All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again…
http://exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com/2008/04/bartlestar-theodica.html