Battlestar Galactica: Frakking Hard Since 1978

[Deluge]

[quote name='Werthead' post='1654534' date='Jan 19 2009, 18.06']The slight problem here is that [i]Anders[/i] is credited as the writer of 'All Along the Watchtower' in the [b]BSG[/b]verse. It's possible they are going for a total parallel universe thing (maybe in this reality Tyrol wrote [i]Lord of the Rings[/i] or something?) but that risks going nerdtastic sci-fi overload and really switching off the casual, non-SF audience (whom RDM has courted since day one).[/quote]
I interpreted this as just him playing it for Tory once. Does he specifically say that he wrote it?

[Lord O' Bones]

[quote name='Werthead' post='1654534' date='Jan 19 2009, 15.06']The slight problem here is that [i]Anders[/i] is credited as the writer of 'All Along the Watchtower' in the [b]BSG[/b]verse.[/quote]
Really? I didn't get that at all. He played it for a woman he loved or something. Did he actually write it? That whole bit was confusing. Tory says something like 'you played it for all of us,' which I suppose could mean Anders was a famous rock guy. Or does it mean the five of them knew each other 2,000 years ago? :dunno:

[quote]At 39:35 in the new episode you do actually get a decent look at the planet from orbit. It's only for a few seconds and there's a lot of cloud, but none of the surface features remotely even resemble those of our Earth. That for me is a major clue, considering that we were explicitly shown North America on the [i]Crossroads Part II[/i] planet.[/quote]
I definitely noticed that.

Edit: Also, no recognizeable landmarks in the flashbacks could be seen as conspicuous in their absence

[quote]time travel[/quote]
Please no. And if they do, they'd better have at least one episode where they get trapped in the holodeck.

[Lord O' Bones]

[quote name='Deluge' post='1654644' date='Jan 19 2009, 16.57']I interpreted this as just him playing it for Tory once. Does he specifically say that he wrote it?[/quote]
For whatever reason, I got the impression that she was not the woman he was talking about.

[Werthead]

[quote name='Deluge' post='1654644' date='Jan 20 2009, 00.57']I interpreted this as just him playing it for Tory once. Does he specifically say that he wrote it?[/quote]

Just rewatched the scene and no, it doesn't. I then realised it's in the podcast. RDM said it got changed during production, but it was definitely the intention that Anders wrote the song.

[quote name='Lord O' Bones' post='1654647' date='Jan 20 2009, 01.05']Really? I didn't get that at all. He played it for a woman he loved or something. Did he actually write it? That whole bit was confusing. Tory says something like 'you played it for all of us,' which I suppose could mean Anders was a famous rock guy. Or does it mean the five of them knew each other 2,000 years ago? :dunno:

Please no. And if they do, they'd better have at least one episode where they get trapped in the holodeck.[/quote]

Well, he said he played it for the woman he loved, then Tory immediately says, "I remember." Then she says, "You played it for all of us."

As for the Five knowing each other for much longer than that, I thought that was pretty solid. The Five are presumably the same Five Priests of the One God who built the Temple of the Five on the Algae Planet, so they were around closer to 4,000 years ago. My guess is that the Five have been knocking around since Kobol and guided the 13th Tribe to Earth. When the planet was nuked everyone else died but the Five were reincarnated and went off in search of the Colonies.

They were in the holodeck in [i]Home, Part 2[/i], when they saw the vision of the night sky from Earth. RDM said in his Q&A on the SFC website way back then that they glossed over that bit quickly before people noticed the [b]Trek[/b] comparison ;)

Time travel [i]appears[/i] to be out of the running, although at one point [i]Razor[/i] was going to be a time travel story. Apparently it was changed because they thought it was lame.

[Lord O' Bones]

[quote name='Werthead' post='1654672' date='Jan 19 2009, 17.35']Just rewatched the scene and no, it doesn't. I then realised it's in the podcast. RDM said it got changed during production, but it was definitely the intention that Anders wrote the song.[/quote]
Interesting.

[quote]Well, he said he played it for the woman he loved, then Tory immediately says, "I remember." Then she says, "You played it for all of us."[/quote]
What's so confusing about that is if the woman was her, why no more reaction from either of them to follow? Who is all of us? The five? Was Ellen the woman he loved? Or some other woman he dedicated the song to during a concert in which "all of us" attended?

[quote]As for the Five knowing each other for much longer than that, I thought that was pretty solid. The Five are presumably the same Five Priests of the One God who built the Temple of the Five on the Algae Planet, so they were around closer to 4,000 years ago. My guess is that the Five have been knocking around since Kobol and guided the 13th Tribe to Earth. When the planet was nuked everyone else died but the Five were reincarnated and went off in search of the Colonies.[/quote]
So are they doing a PK Dick [i]Paycheck[/i] thing?

[Werthead]

[quote name='Lord O' Bones' post='1654682' date='Jan 20 2009, 01.44']Interesting.[/quote]

Apparently a bunch of stuff got changed in production of this episode by the actors and director that the writers - on strike at that moment - couldn't change back by writing ADR material or anything like that, and the SFC wanted the episode locked so they could use it as the Season 4.0 cliffhanger (they didn't in the end). My guess is that the director thought the audience would go, "WTF?" at that bit and took it out.

[quote]What's so confusing about that is if the woman was her, why no more reaction from either of them to follow? Who is all of us? The five? Was Ellen the woman he loved? Or some other woman he dedicated the song to during a concert in which "all of us" attended?[/quote]

No idea. The other reason why it resonated was that Tory and Anders got it on when they started hearing the music but didn't seem too keen on it. I took that to be an indication of them being involved in their prior existence.

[quote]So are they doing a PK Dick [i]Paycheck[/i] thing?[/quote]

Never read it.

[Lord O' Bones]

[quote name='Werthead' post='1654693' date='Jan 19 2009, 18.03']Never read it.[/quote]
Oh.

Basically, if the five are such movers and shakers, why did they wipe their own memories?

Edit: Maybe a side affect of being "born" by human parents?

[Werthead]

[quote name='Lord O' Bones' post='1654699' date='Jan 20 2009, 02.10']Oh.

Basically, if the five are such movers and shakers, why did they wipe their own memories?

Edit: Maybe a side affect of being "born" by human parents?[/quote]

According to an Aaron Douglas spoiler:

SPOILER: BSG

The Final Five emerged from the holocaust and decided to find the humans and integrate in their civilisation to understand what is going on with the Cycle of Time. Presumably they removed their memories so they would believe they were human, allowing them to better integrate with human society and understand them better.

[AndyP]

Ok so here is my wild theory.

Building off of Baltar's ramblings about about tribes and hierarchy among the colonies. My guess is that Kobol had a caste system and the the 13 tribes were originally caste. That Cylon probably means servant or slave in much the same way the word robot is derived from a Czech word meaning forced labor. So the Cylons were kind of like untouchables and that some way was needed keep them apart from other humans, so their DNA was modified so that they could be identified via their bones. Their status was so low that is that they even shared it with mechanical Cylons that where invented. At some point the Cylons (both human and mechanical) where able to escape to Earth. The people of Kobol then forgot about their systematic dehumanization of the "Cylons" and forgot about mechanical Cylons altogether (whether this was before or after the destruction of Earth or migration to the colonies remains to be seen). The Cylons find Earth and settle it only to be later destroyed. It is unknown if this was an internal conflict or a conflict with other humans. The 5 then emerge and return to Kobol. My guess is that when the next batch of Mechanical Cylons are created and the rebel they then find the resurrection technology that had been keeping the 5 alive and then use it to create the 7 from captives from the 1st war. The 7 now share traits with the 5 because the same technology was used.

[Brude]

[quote name='Werthead' post='1654634' date='Jan 19 2009, 19.46'][url="http://www.bearmccreary.com/blog/?p=981"]In his blog[/url], composer Bear McCreary reveals he has seeded a 'clue' into the music of the episode about the end of the series.

SPOILER: BSG

At the moment Kara pulls the dogtags off her body and Leoben looks over her shoulder, in the middle of the original music being played we suddenly hear several notes from the 'Temple of the Five' theme from the [i]Eye of Jupiter[/i] two-parter.

Is this a clue that Kara was reborn via the same mechanisms that govern the Temple of the Five and the Opera House, which D'Anna seemed to reach via the Temple? Maybe the Opera House is a sort of 'download server' where the Five are stored between resurrections and somehow the same was done to Kara?

[/quote]

SPOILER:

Interesting about the opera house. I hadn't thought of it as anything more than just a vision. Maybe it is something more like what the Cylons see all the time in place of the reality we see - but it's a specific vision with a specific purpose, maybe as you say that's what they see when they are in the download buffer, or whatever. Or at least that's where the 5 go when they are in the buffer.

The more I think about it, the more my theory leans towards Kara being the secret love-child of Adama and Ellen - i.e., she's the first hybrid. I think maybe that's the incident Adama is alluding to when he's telling Tigh about how Ellen came on to him. He doesn't say he did it, but that might be the source of some of his pain there in that scene with Tigh, on top of everything else, knowing that he betrayed his best friend all those years ago, meanwhile Tigh is still by his side even after learning he's a Cylon.

[potsherds]

[quote name='Lord O' Bones' post='1654647' date='Jan 20 2009, 01.05']Please no. And if they do, they'd better have at least one episode where they get trapped in the holodeck.[/quote]
:rofl:

[Crazydog7]

Are Adama and Lee ever going to box again? Those scenes were always cool.

[Ser Paladin]

I have two questions and a theory.

First question... Why don't they turn their ships around and go back to re-colonize Kobol? It seemed temperate with a lot of vegetation, if I remember correctly.

Second question... Starbuck's prophecy, as she shared with Leoben, states that she will lead the fleet to "blank". The blank was not Earth. It sounded vaguely like "Gammon", but I'm not obsessive enough to have kept the show in my DVR and go back for another listen. But, that leaves wiggle room that the planet they landed on is not the planet from which civilization originated in the BSG universe.

In fact, by saying that it was the planet that the thirteenth tribe landed on and called earth, RDM is explicitly stating that this planet is not the planet on which human life evolved. There is a difference.

Now, on to my theory...

The cycle of time is one in which the robots of the BSG universe eventually improve themselves and become sophisticated enough to pass for human. They then evolve the capacity to interbreed with humans. This precipitates a war between the full robots, the humans, and the ever growing cadre of half-breeds.

This war inevitably ends catastrophically (see both "Earth" and the 12 Colonies). The survivors of both sides come together to rebuild civilization, starting nearly from scratch. The non-reproducing, inorganic robots, in a pre-industrial society, eventually fail and then disappear into the mythology of the ancient past, leaving a new breed of "humanity" built on both human and cylon stock.

However, even the "human" stock in that mix is built on a previous civilizational rebuilding and interbreeding wth Cylons. They are just so far removed from their techological beginnings that they [b]seem [/b]human by comparison to the first generation of human like cylons that were introduced in the miniseries. If you can barely tell the difference between humans and the 7 models, imagine after 15 generations of interbreeding. Or 100 generations (2000 years), which is the timescale we are working with.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

Ser P -- I'm pretty sure her destiny is to lead the human race to its end. In fact, I just found this, which I'm pretty sure is accurate:"Kara Thrace will lead the human race to its end. She is the herald of the Apocalypse, the harbinger of death. They must not follow her."

[Ran]

Paladin,

The Cylons know where Kobol is and already have a presence there, IIRC. It was the first thing I thought of but I know there was some issue with Cylons around. I think Adama even proposed maybe settling Kobol, but the Cylon presence was too dangerous.

[TrackerNeil]

[quote name='Ser Paladin' post='1655150' date='Jan 20 2009, 09.30']I have two questions and a theory.

First question... Why don't they turn their ships around and go back to re-colonize Kobol? It seemed temperate with a lot of vegetation, if I remember correctly.[/quote]

There's also that small matter of the "any return to Kobol will exact a price in blood" thing. It may just be legend, of course, but then again every single time the Colonials have set foot on the planet at least one person dies. Socinus and Elosha probably didn't believe in the curse either, and they're pushing up daisies now. In any case, if I were in the fleet and someone proposed a return to Kobol I'd say, "Fine...you first."

[Ser Paladin]

[quote name='Marie-Angélieef' post='1655161' date='Jan 20 2009, 09.41']Ser P -- I'm pretty sure her destiny is to lead the human race to [b]its end[/b]. In fact, I just found this, which I'm pretty sure is accurate:"Kara Thrace will lead the human race to its end. She is the herald of the Apocalypse, the harbinger of death. They must not follow her."[/quote]
Thanks. That's probably what I heard. I just knew it wasn't "Earth" in that blank.

[Blaine]

[quote name='Werthead' post='1654672' date='Jan 19 2009, 19.35']Just rewatched the scene and no, it doesn't. I then realised it's in the podcast. RDM said it got changed during production, but it was definitely the intention that Anders wrote the song.[/quote]
This is exactly why I don't bother with podcasts and sources other than what airs on the TV. Because from what I saw, Anders played the song for a woman. Along with 8000 billion other Earth musicians who've managed to "play" that song for people - including myself. It's three chords. Even the most famous version, Hendrix's, is a cover.

And what would be the value in having Anders have written it? Writers too lazy to write a song as Anders? Couldn't get a band to write a song specifically for the show? Or why not just pick a more obscure song instead of one of the most common cover songs of all time?

If the intention was to imply that Anders wrote the song, they did a pretty crappy job of conveying that. I officially give up on this show making any fucking sense. I'll just let it be whatever RDM "intended" it to be. Then only by listening to podcasts, it will make sense to only him. Christ.

[Werthead]

[quote]First question... Why don't they turn their ships around and go back to re-colonize Kobol? It seemed temperate with a lot of vegetation, if I remember correctly.[/quote]

As others have said, there is the 'curse' that means anyone who settles on Kobol dies. Even if you don't buy that, there's the fact that the Cylons know where the planet is and may have left a presence there in case the Colonials should return.

However, even more of a concern is the fact that Kobol is now many tens of thousands of light-years away across the Galaxy. The Fleet has been through a lot since then, with the [i]Galactica[/i] suffering considerable damage on New Caprica and in passing through the star cluster around the Algae Planet. It is questionable if the Fleet could survive the return trip or even if the civilian populace could hold it together after everything they've been through for the months it would take to get back there.