Zak Adama is a Cylon

Alternative Ending

2009-03-23T12:06:00.002-04:00

The Zak Adama story is at an end, but I was so frustrated with the official ending that I've reimagined the finale and written my own alternative ending, that includes Zak Adama as a Cylon.

Battlestar Galactica 4x20

2009-03-20T23:12:00.003-04:00

I think I had a pretty good track record of predictions.
The solutions to some mysteries were rather more handwaving than I was expecting.
There were some surprises.

I was mostly ok up to first ending.

Second ending was terrible.

End of Line

1, 2, 3, 4... Cylons knocking at your door

2009-03-13T23:34:00.005-04:00

In case you were thinking, "I should go back and check what Hera was drawing..."

An arc that she carefully counts - there are 13 - presumably representing the First Five and the 8 models.

And the notes?

Also 13 - the open circle at the end... the missing Model 7 Daniel... ZAK ADAMA.

To you this I say, on this 13th day.

Battlestar Galactica 4x19 - in which we prepare for the end

2009-03-13T22:58:00.002-04:00

I didn't think Ron Moore would make the entire second half of the last season a long goodbye and leadup to a grande! finale! ... but he did. Oh well.

Didja see Zak? You've seen him in the past now... will you see him in the present...

Battlestar Galactica 4x18 - in which time passes

2009-03-07T07:50:00.005-05:00

SPOILERS

Not a lot to say. I thought Ron Moore would give us a double-peak - some action around 4x17 and 4x18 and then a grand finale, but it seems now certain it will only be Grand Finale.

Basically we're still in positioning mode, getting everything in place for a major Cylon space home (Cylon "colony") versus human space home (the fleet) final battle / lovefest.

It goes something like - Adama moves flag to baseship, farewell Galactica old girl,
Sam jumps Galactica to see The Beings of Light or whomever is running this show,
baseship Hybrid maybe jumps to Colony?

Zak Adama or The Architect or Beings of Light or somebody (14th colony of hybrid human-Cylons who found peace and enlightenment? Ascended beings? Lorne Greene? I'm running out of ideas) Explains All and then Cylon home and human home learn home is a place where love makes its nest or some damn thing, Hera projects a vision of the Opera House, Baltar and Caprica Six reconcile, the dying president smiles upon them and we all live happily ever after.

(Can you tell I'm getting a bit tired of Moore dragging this out?)

Anyway:
* Kara definitely human - which means her father was NOT Model 7 Daniel
* never plug a robot into your ship (it's like they've never watched Star Trek: The Next Generation - oh wait, that's where Moore practiced his craft)

More speculation:
* Sam has The Knowledge what with being some combination of ascended being and Liam with some access to the music of the spheres that unifies everything
(when you think about Cylon "organic memory transfer" technology, it has to be something about tapping into some sublayer of consciousness, otherwise how does it just pick consciousnesses out of the ether and install them in new bodies - which of course begs the question, why just Cylon consciousnesses? why can't you just pick ANY dying brainwaves out of the celestial harmonies and download them into a new body? surely that must be what happened with Kara?)
* Cavil will end up like Sam, becoming a ship (Cavil has stated pretty clearly he's more interested in being machine than man)

In summary, my current best guess is just an extension of previous "all shall be made one" theories:

Kara Thrace, thanks to Sam jumping her to the right destination, finds the puppet masters, who are either some beings tapped into the oneness of it all ("Beings of Light") or an unknown 14th colony of hybrid Cylon-humans. The future is Cylon-humans. "The end of humanity." Hera is their future. Baltar and Caprica Six are second human-Cylon couple. The end.

PS Ron Moore, please give us one last space fight at the Colony, before Kara and Sam jump in with the answers that bring Peace.

PPS Zak Adama is a Cylon

Battlestar Galactica 4x17

2009-02-27T23:04:00.007-05:00

SPOILERS

A good episode, but Ron Moore is running out of time.

Confrontation with Cavil coming.
We're still behind the schedule I anticipated - I thought it would be

4x17 - battle with Cavil
4x18 - more battle with Cavil

Boomer revealed as possibly very bad lady. Cavil we already knew was a very bad robot.

Kara Thrace - chain with ring and dog tag...
where was she for two months?

Dreams of Her Father - Dreilide Thrace - was he Model 7 Daniel? Or was he one of the Others, the Puppet Masters... whomever is sending visions of angels. Ancients? Gods? Beings of Light? 14th Tribe?

My personal opinion continues that he was NOT Daniel.

Hera & Roslin connected
Hera & Starbuck connected
Hera & the First Five connected

See a common element?

Hera knows the song that called the Four... it wasn't completely clear if this was Kara's childhood song but was certainly implied.

In the (paraphrased) words of Ellen: someone is manipulating them all.

Also: Zak Adama is a Cylon.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention one good theme, the theme of loss... remember we're all going to lose Galactica soon. The ship slowly coming apart at the seams, Kara's loss of Sam and her father, the Cylons and Humans lost home, the loss of Hera... one of the things when you come to the end of a series is to try to recognize that loss, the end of our collective experience.

UPDATE #2: We had heard a long time ago about Cylon "projection", when Baltar was on the Baseship and was saying something about it being rather dull, one of them told him something like the Cylons just projected and imagined themselves walking through a forest. This was the first time we saw a Cylon project to another Cylon though. It was also clear that it didn't require physical contact - Tyrol and Boomer were separated by glass. That ability is reminiscent in kind, if not in extent, to the visions that Baltar has of Six and (possibly) the vision that Kara Thrace was having of her father. Is there a Ghost in the Machine? Are they seeing remote projections?

UPDATE 2009-02-28: I should mention that in the webisodes when the 8 was checking the Raptor's computers, she also referred to this as projection - and one can assume the baseship computer interface technology is similar.

foreshadowing

2009-02-27T20:40:00.004-05:00

Kara Thrace: Ok, what the hell's going on? I'm off the ship for a few hours and...
Sam Anders: A few hours? Kara you were gone for over two months.

And the critical scene:

Lee Adama: Dad, what if Zak had come back to us in that viper? ... If my brother had climbed out of that cockpit... would it matter if he were a Cylon? If he always had been? When all's said and done, would that change how we really feel about him?
Bill Adama: (silence)

Battlestar Galactica - 4x01

Battlestar Galactica 4x16 - little good came of it

2009-02-20T22:59:00.002-05:00

SPOILERS

Not much out of this badly written and rather wildly acted episode.

Baltar's angel likes big guns. Rather muscular monotheism, that.

Saul was... born... much like Zak... who gets a mention at the end of the episode.
Thanks Saul!

Sam Anders, one can speculate, had downloaded into Liam, and uploaded back into his own brain when Liam passed. Rather unexpected.

Cylon-Cylon babies apparently have a lovemeter and god help you if it is pointing at unloved.

Ellen, very calm and composed on the base ship, kinda freaky harridan back on Galactica.

And we got hammered over the head with blended this and blended that.
All shall be blended! Hera blend is the future!

Only four left. Hopefully they will be better than this one.

Kara Thrace, who are you, who who?

2009-02-15T20:47:00.003-05:00

SPOILERS

SAM ANDERS in 4x15: "[we resurrected] on a ship that we placed in orbit around the planet [Earth]"... "organic memory transfer came from Kobol, along with the 13th tribe"

(Note he didn't say it was a Cylon-specific technology.)

Starbuck scenarios

1. (my preferred theory) Humans can be resurrected. There is a resurrection facility operating that resurrects anyone who dies on or near Earth. Kara died and was resurrected there, where someone (Zak?) wiped her memory and sent her on her way.
1a. As #1 except it's "humans who've had intimate contact with a Colonies-Cylon" (Zak)
1b. As #1 except it's "humans who've had intimate contact with a Kobol-Earth-Cylon" (Sam)
1b. As #1 except it's "humans who carry an ancient gene that enables resurrection"

2. Half Cylons can be resurrected. Kara is half-Cylon. Father - Cavil? Saul? Daniel??

3. Ship of Lights deus ex machina

robots with visions of angels

2009-02-15T19:34:00.004-05:00

SPOILERS (as always)

I thought I should mention a very important part of Sam's revelations from 4x15, which passed so quickly that I actually missed this on my first viewing.

GALEN TYROL: "So, we knew the end was coming"

SAM ANDERS: "We'd been warned, yeah"

(later that day)

SAM ANDERS: "Back on Earth, the warning signs that we got, it looked different to each one of us - I saw a woman, Tori you saw a man... funny, no one, no one else could see them... Galen, you thought [unclear - possibly "you had a ship in your dream"] ... Saul stay with the fleet, it's all starting to happen, it's the miracle, right here, it's a gift from the angels"

This adds an entire new element, and points to a potential plot closure.
Baltar, we know, has been having visions of a Six from the very beginning.
Caprica Six, on at least one occasion, had visions of a Baltar.
And Kara had the dream/vision of visiting her mother, guided by a Leoben... who told her he wasn't Leoben.
AND Saul kept seeing Six as Ellen.

Men see women, women see men. Who do they see? Angels?

A few possibilities:
1. The gods (Zeus and the pantheon), from Kobol, are real.
2. The One True God
3. (Either 1 or 2 or someone else turns out to be) the creators of the "humans" on Kobol (i.e. all this has happened before...)
4. Some very advanced/enlighted people who survived the war on Kobol.
5. The Ship of Lights people (this would be pretty far out there)

Whomever they are, they have been sending visions for at least 2000 years, and it's possible they are the ones who resurrected Kara (although I think a more straightforward theory is more likely for Kara's resurrection).

As described in the Battlestar Wiki (from the original series):

The Beings of Light are a mysterious race that travel using the Ship of Lights. Called angels by the primitive people on Kobol, these creatures helped them develop the civilization that would become the Twelve Colonies (War of the Gods).

I've speculated on this before:

In case you're finding all the Galactica mysticism weird, be aware it's not new - I suggest you locate the only watchable episode of Galactica 1980,

"The Return of Starbuck"

As it happens, it was just on Space yesterday as well.
In it, Starbuck crashes alone on a desolate planet, and wonders whether he may have died and is in the afterlife. He finds a crashed Cylon ship and, bored with a lack of companionship, rebuilds a Cylon ("Cy") and befriends him (after he convinces the Cylon not to kill him). Eventually, the Cylon feels that Starbuck is bored with him, so the Cylon goes to find a wo-man for Starbuck. Rather surprisingly, he returns with a pregnant one. Cy says something like "I'm sorry if you don't like this one, there wasn't much selection". When Starbuck asks the woman where she comes from and how she got on the planet, she replies, "from another dimension, in the usual way". As a bonus, she informs Starbuck that she is carrying their "spiritual child". She also informs him that they must build a ship, because the Cylons are coming, and will bring Judgment Day with their arrival.

The child ends up being the incredibly annoying Galactica 1980 Dr. Zee, which is why I refer to New Galactica's hybrid baby Hera also as Dr. Zee.

from my posting "bg 3.04" - Sunday, October 22, 2006

And

The canonical set of classic Galactica glowy god-being episodes is

Galactica 1978 - 15 & 16 - War of the Gods

Galactica 1980 - 1x10 - The Return of Starbuck (the final episode of the old series)

Interesting geek sidebar: Buck Rogers also had glowy time lord guardians of forever people and a box full of Time.

BSG 4x1 - Sunday, April 06, 2008
(I can't believe they've been making us wait since last April to wrap this up.)

I've discussed the specific scenario of the visions coming from the gods before, S3 or S4:

S1. Most likely: In the nuclear explosion that killed Caprica Six as she was holding Baltar, her upload got mixed in and crossed over with his brainwaves
S2. Baltar vision Six is an implant or some other technology used by the Kobol-Earth Cylons to guide Baltar, as part of their Plan (putting him roughly in the same class as Kara and Galen)
S3. Angel sent by God / Demon sent by Forces of Evil
S4. I think fairly unlikely: Angel / vision sent by Glowing Ship Gods (see original Battlestar)

(If it does end up being some Ship of Light literal deus ex machina I will be disappointed.)

the Cylords of Kobol - December 23, 2008

And all of this ultimately comes back to the questions I posted in who is the puppet master? (April 28, 2008)

It's clear that on one level, Cavil is the puppet master.
But whose puppet is he? Is he doing the work of the devil, or of angels?
One of the scenarios I suggested

Lords of Kobol / glowing god ship people

We also still have the Hybrid's prophecy to consider, most of it has come to pass except

A dying leader will know the truth of the Opera House.

Galactica 4x06 - Tuesday, June 03, 2008

(Unless "the Opera House is a pile of rubble" is the truth, but that's certainly not what was implied by the visions that Roslyn was having.)

Battlestar Galactica 4x15 - in which much is revealed

2009-02-13T23:00:00.007-05:00

MASSIVE EPIC SPOILERS

And much that was foreseen is true.

It goes something like this:
1. Human vs. Cylon war on Kobol
2. Kobol-Cylon vs. roboto Earth-Cylon war on Earth
3. "All this has happened before, all this will happen again"
4. Kobol-Earth Final Five Cylons are First Five, try to create a new race of humanoid Cylons that won't repeat their mistakes, based on a set of design decisions:
- rather than allowing full reproduction and diversity (as we saw on Earth), there are instead just 7 models, which embody different aspects of the human personality. This limited, balanced set of models will presumably be less likely to turn on one another, since they won't attack either their own models or their six fellow-models
- instead of violent gods of war and the rest of the pantheon, they give them a single, unifying religion of one god of love
- they program them to be unable to reproduce unless they feel true love

(from remembering the mysteries - February 8, 2009)

Other than the belief in God coming from the Centurions themselves, and an extra model, this is basically correct. Some details of reproduction are not clear.

(Also we now have a name for the Colonies-Cylons, generically "Centurions".)

We're slightly off schedule, but nevertheless, as predicted

4x15 - more about Resurrection and maybe we meet Earth Cylons (who are behind everything)

(from Battlestar Galactica 4x13 - January 30, 2009)

* Does Cavil know more about the Final Five and the history of the new Cylons than he's letting on? He is model #1, after all.

(from Battlestar Galactica 4x11 - January 17, 2009)
Speculation... correct.

Very, very early on in the show I had speculated whether it was all a bit "rats in a maze" - the Cylons allowing the fleet to progress, for their own reasons... this appears to also be basically true. It's all Cavil's elaborate revenge on his creators.

I think the remainders of the human race are just rats in a maze for the Cylons.

(from star of battle 2.8 - September 11, 2005)

So just to recap some of the Mysteries:

* What is the nature of the final five, what do they know? What have they been doing? Why are they important?

The final five worked together in a research facility to rediscover "organic resurrection technology" - a lost technology from Kobol. Saul and Ellen were together, Galen and whatshername (Tori?) were together, and then there was Sam. When Earth was destroyed, they resurrected in a ship near the Earth.

where is the Cylon infrastructure?

Presumably at the Secret Colony.

Is the Secret Colony also the Place of Resurrection? It's not clear.
Did the Five leave backup models of themselves, who are the puppet masters behind the behind the scenes? Or is the Place of Resurrection their old ship, still operating somewhere? Wherever it is, it's where Kara was resurrected, gently brain-wiped, and sent on her way.

Next up in the Place of Resurrection:
* Sam Anders

Possibly on the Resurrection lineup:
* Dualla (Dee)
* Zarek
* Gaeta

1 what the 5 have been doing for the last 2000 years

2 who "uplifted" the 12 Colonies Cylons to have humanoid bodies and a belief in One God (unless they uplifted themselves)
2a there is clearly SOME connection to the 5, what with Deanna's vision and the fighters recognizing Sam Anders - did the Five do the uplift? Are there Others?

3 what is the extent and nature of the remaining resurrection technology

(from Battlestar Galactica 4x11 - January 17, 2009)

1. on a very slow boat to the 12 Colonies, with a stop at the Temple of Hope to jigger it to reveal the 5.

Gosh, who could have predicted that. Oh wait, me. (I just had them going in the wrong direction.)

The more perfect union theory is something like: the first five Cylons have a plan to rebuild an integrated, peaceful society from the ashes of the split societies, unifying man and machine. They possibly went ahead to Earth, just in the last 50 years or so, stopping at the Temple of Jupiter along the way to rejigger it to reveal the Final Five, taking advantage of the existing mythology.

(from who is the puppet master - April 28, 2008)

2. & 2a. The Five did indeed do the uplift. Status of any Others (and Model 7) still unknown.
3. Possibly the original resurrection ship remains, possibly there are additional sekrit resurrection ships, and there's some technology at the Secret Colony.

New mystery: What's the deal with Model 7?

You know the answer.
There would be no reason to introduce an extra model this late in the game, except that...

ZAK ADAMA IS A CYLON

In case you're keeping track of models, that makes it

Known Cylon models
# 1 Number One (aka Brother Cavil) - "John"
# 2 Number Two (aka Leoben Conoy)
# 3 Number Three (aka D'Anna Biers)
# 4 Number Four (aka Simon)
# 5 Number Five (aka Aaron Doral)
# 6 Number Six (aka Caprica-Six/Head Six/Shelley Godfrey/Gina Inviere/Natalie)

# 8 Number Eight (aka Lt. Sharon "Boomer" Valerii/Lt. Sharon "Athena" Agathon)

Unknown Cylons
# 7 "Daniel" - ZAK ADAMA

That Model 7 gap was always there (see original list at who is the puppet master? - April 28, 2008) but its importance was not clear - I assumed it was one of the Earth Cylons who would be model 7.

Earth Cylons (no model numbers)
- Ellen
- Galen
- whatshername
- Sam
- Saul

Zak Adama awaits. In the meantime, you can read his Twitter.

PS John Hodgman? What the frak? I guess the Cylons run Windows. That explains a lot.

remembering the mysteries

2009-02-08T18:06:00.003-05:00

Ron Moore has been busy distracting us from the core mysteries of the show, so let's remember them:

* What is the nature of the final five, what do they know? What have they been doing? Why are they important?
* What is the secret of the Opera House and Hera? How are Baltar and Six involved with the Opera House?
* How did Kara's ship explode in some sort of vortex in the middle of space, end up far away on Earth, and how did she return alive in a new ship?

The past couple episodes have been a deliberate focus away from these issues, to an extent that stretches credulity

- the final five is a big deal, and then all of a sudden everyone's all "oh, yeah, we know who they all are, probably they'll get thrown out an airlock, whatever".
- Athena kills a Six who merely bends down to talk to Hera, but is then fine with a different Six holding Hera as they're running around the ship in mortal danger
- One Will Be Revealed... and then it's Ellen and... no one cares? (Some of my fellow theorisers remain convinced it's NOT Ellen.)

So in the remaining six episodes, one would hope some of these issues get resolved.
I assume it is going to involve a whole lot of resurrection, a visit from Zak Adama, and Much Ado about various combinations of humans and Cylons having babies.

It goes something like this:
1. Human vs. Cylon war on Kobol
2. Kobol-Cylon vs. roboto Earth-Cylon war on Earth
3. "All this has happened before, all this will happen again"
4. Kobol-Earth Final Five Cylons are First Five, try to create a new race of humanoid Cylons that won't repeat their mistakes, based on a set of design decisions:
- rather than allowing full reproduction and diversity (as we saw on Earth), there are instead just 7 models, which embody different aspects of the human personality. This limited, balanced set of models will presumably be less likely to turn on one another, since they won't attack either their own models or their six fellow-models
- instead of violent gods of war and the rest of the pantheon, they give them a single, unifying religion of one god of love
- they program them to be unable to reproduce unless they feel true love

Unfortunately for the Kobol-Earth First/Final Five Plan

5. "All this has happened before, all this will happen again" so the 7 attack the colonies anyway
6. And then the Colonies Cylons break into civil warring factions anyway
7. So all that remains as the hope of stopping the cycle is to find a final peace between the Cylon factions, and reunify the three broken strands of human, Kobol-Cylon and Colonies-Cylon... and the children shall lead them.
8. This is important because resurrection can apply to anyone, so without peace, the future would instead just hold an endless battle of the resurrected.

Battlestar Galactica 4x14

2009-02-06T23:11:00.004-05:00

SPOILERS

Not much going on, very dramatic, but mostly just more positioning.
To my surprise, neither the Admiral or the XO on the Resurrection Train, instead Zarek, Gaeta, and possibly Sam Anders have gone for a ride.

Was that imaginary Six that Baltar was talking to?

Notice Yet Another excuse (FTL chamber damage) for not going far from Earth (and the Place of Resurrection).

It was cool to see the FTL drive.
Zarek's interesting solution to democracy surprised me a bit too.

I'm not convinced about how often half of the fleet can start shooting the other half (and killing at least 50, by the population count) and then all make up and be chums.

Zak Adama is coming soon.
He told me in his Twitter.

the ideas of Galactica

2009-01-31T09:47:00.004-05:00

Darren Barefoot asks "Is Ronald Moore Out of Ideas?".

First, here are the thoughts (comments) I left there:

I think that Moore is in a way stuck with the clock running out. It’s kind of like the X Files situation, where there’s this complicated Smoking Man story running in parallel with episodes that are just entertainment. Some fans are coming for the long story, some for the short story. As the show nears the end, the pressures of wrapping up the long story, of answering questions, can overwhelm the per-episode storytelling. And the unfortunate thing is that usually mysteries are more interesting than their solutions. That being said, I was surprised to see the storyline take a turn to Yet Another mutiny, plus Much Ado about babies.

@Darren I’m trying to track the major unresolved issues in my Zak Adama is a Cylon blog. (And the BSG wiki and other fan sites are probably doing so as well.)

As I said, I think Moore is in the same place as any successful “first big idea” show - like Lost, Heroes, X Files, and others, the explanations are a lot less entertaining than the mysteries themselves. Particularly in a highly-constrained format like BSG, where you’re basically doing a four-season long submarine drama, your only choice is to mix and match all the existing players in every different way you can think of.

I thought the miniseries and the first season were extraordinarily strong, but I don’t know if it would have been possible to sustain that level of drama, tension and mystery while also moving towards resolving the show and all of its plot points.

SPOILERS

I think you need to consider the idea of the long story, the story arc. As I said, most of the "One Big Idea" shows have had trouble sustaining once they had to start answering mysteries:

* Lost
* Heroes
* X-Files

The only time I have seen it done really well, the entire multi-season arc of the show was planned out in advance, in Babylon 5. Since they knew from the beginning what plot points they needed to hit, they were able to do arcs that ran across years, with someone saying something that would connect to an episode that happened several years later.

You also have to recognize that most shows have some constraints of cast - if you've got half the cast who are good guys, and half who are bad, you can't lose too many from either side. This is a common situation in all drama - if you have a really compelling good guy, and a really compelling bad guy, all you can do is situations in which one or the other almost prevails... but both survive. BSG initially turns this a bit on its head as the humans are clearly the losers, but you can see in the original BSG what it could have turned into - in each episode Baltar almost gets the humans, or the humans almost get Baltar, but nothing ever actually changes.

Moore is playing out about as much of his canvas as he can, without changing the major players: BSG fleeing, then an occupation that reminded of Vichy France or Iraq, then more fleeing, then an alliance with former enemies. The only thing he has left is resolving mysteries, including some final unification.

BSG asks a couple big questions: what do you do when you lose, and what do you do when you win? These are fundamental questions of war and peace. Because of our terrorism preoccupation, we related them mostly to Iraq, but I think you'd get more out by considering the situation in Israel. When you fight each other, year after year after year, how can you ever sit with your opponents and reach a peace? What happens to all the people who dedicated their lives to fighting, when a truce is declared?

Moore's position om these issues are fairly clear - politics is painful, but it's the only way out. It's a striking repudiation of the Bush-Cheney "power comes out of the barrel of a gun" philosophy. By any conventional measure, the Cylons won a stunning "shock and awe" victory. All should be contentment for the Cylons now, right? Moore brilliantly recognizes that we're in a world of 4th Generation Warfare, where the old assumptions no longer operate - tiny bands of insurgents can make life hell for the "winners" - the war never ends, while a single member of the enemy lives. As well, he recognizes that winning, on such a scale, with such destruction, could tear a society apart as it faces the regrets and recriminations due to its actions. And so the Cylons, having achieved a great victory, find that their worst enemy is themselves.

The BSG miniseries and first season (and for that matter most first seasons of "ideas" shows) are compelling because it's all new - the world, the characters, the issues, and the mysteries. It was particularly well constructed to connect to the terrorism fears of the day. It was always going to be hard to sustain that. I think they did ok in the second season. New Caprica I hated. The endless talking at the trial I hated. Whenever they made their connections to real-world events too obvious, I disliked it. When you compare with all the time-travelling incomprehensibleness that the Lost and Heroes writers are using, Moore is actually taking us in a fairly straightforward way to the end, with some entertainment along the way.

So I don't think Moore has run out of ideas. I do think he's running low on plot points to hit as he wraps up the mysteries. Solutions to mysteries are almost always less satisfying than the mysteries themselves. And I do think it's maybe hard for Canadians to identify fully with this idea of enemies coming to a peace, but the mutiny plot actually works on many levels - whether it's the US Civil Cold War, where Obama is trying (without much obvious success) to bridge the gap between Democrats and Republicans, or it's the situation in Israel, where it's clear the only solution is for two peoples who have been fighting for decades to come to a peace agreement - peace is hard and complicated and messy, and often people aren't as enthusiastic about peace as one would like.

Battlestar Galactica 4x13

2009-01-30T23:11:00.009-05:00

SPOILERS

Well, they certainly do still know how to do dramatic.

On the other hand, they are really seriously running out of time.
Which inclines me to think they don't have a whole lot left to reveal.

Plus which in fairness, if you're wrapping up a series, you want to give the actors one last chance to show their chops.

Kara shooting the guys was surprising but in her defence, she's quite right that as soon as they mutiny, they are the enemy. Perhaps not the most astute move politically in terms of future reconciliation, but the correct from a ground-level military perspective.

Issues

1) There's a single phone line to the CIC? Err, single point of failure, anyone?
2) If they can block Baltar's wireless at the flick of a switch, why didn't they do that months ago?
3) Admiral staying with the ship is a valid justification. Admiral staying in tiny undefensible room after transport has already left, not so much.
4) They're in a tiny, crowded fleet, on a military ship which is usually on a submarine model, which is to say, every inch of space used AND monitored. I don't get this "forgotten areas of the ship" thing with Baltar's compartment and Secondary Storage.
5) There is a big, big outstanding issue: where is the Cylon infrastructure? There was Cylon space on the other side of the treaty line, one would expect that, if not Cylon planet(s), it at least contained Cylon ship-yards and Cylon people-yards (where the mechanical and humanoid Cylons are built/grown). Six says something like "they are going to kill us because reproduction is the future of the Cylons", but surely they can just make more Sixes? Where is the Six factory?

Prediction

A bit of a risky prediction, but Adama and Tigh both dead, and resurrected in The Place of Resurrection, wherever that may be.

Otherwise, it will be kind of weak drama - a grenade in a small enclosed space and they survive? I don't think so. If they come out bandaged, I will consider it pretty lame.

Also I do have to wonder about the cavalier way in which people run around spaceships with machine guns. Err, there are critical systems in the walls, and oh, the vacuum of space right outside. They do the same thing on Stargate where they machinegun the hell out of the replicators on their ships, while apparently never damaging the ship itself.

The Art of Misdirection

When a magician wants to move a playing card into a particular position, she doesn't make it obvious, she makes it look like she's doing something else very important and entertaining, while accomplishing her goal.

Ron Moore and his team have the same challenge, they have to get everything "positioned for the reveal", leading to surprising answers about the long-term mysteries, while appearing to be running another storyline. There are challenges that BSG faces in trying to tell both the short story (each episode has to be entertaining even for casual fans) and the long story (surprising long-term dedicated fans while answering mysteries).

So Tyrol's baby had to be human so that he could run around doing stuff during the mutiny (with apparently very little concern for the baby). Otherwise he would have been either in the brig, or spending all his time baby-rescuing and escaping.

So it looks to me like they are positioning people for near-Earth resurrection.
It's not clear how far they've gone from Earth, but the implications are that it's not very far.

* Tyllium ship disappears - this means the fleet goes nowhere
* FTL drive upgrades - this means the fleet goes nowhere while they wait for all the upgrades

If we continue with my assumption that anyone who dies on or near Earth gets resurrected (as implied by Ellen Tigh's statement and the fact that Kara is resurrected) - then that means everyone who just died in the firefight on the ship is resurrected, as well as the Admiral and the XO.

Then I think they may discover that you can use the resurrection technology, once it's reconfigured, not just to resurrect people who die near Earth but people who die anywhere.

So I think the show will go something like
4x13 - mutiny
4x14 - continuation of mutiny, with Revelation of Resurrection of Admiral & XO at the very end
4x15 - more about Resurrection and maybe we meet Earth Cylons (who are behind everything)
4x16 - more about Resurrection and possible return of Zak Adama
4x17 - battle with Cavil
4x18 - more battle with Cavil
4x19 - wrap up
4x20 - more wrap up

the children of gods and men

2009-01-27T23:39:00.002-05:00

So a few things going on:

1. Baltar cursing God. Is he still seeing Six? Because if there was one constant with Imaginary Six, it's that she wanted Baltar to believe in God, and follow His teachings. I can't see her being very happy about him cursing God. Is she gone, is that what has him angry? Or is he angry that his vision of himself and Six and Hera going off into some glowing future on Earth has failed?

2. Which leads us to: the children.
Remember that there are prophetic visions involving a Six, Hera, and possibly Baltar.

So it seems the most likely scenario is that only Hera is viable
* Earth-Cylon + human = dying baby (Callie & Galen's son) ??
* Earth-Cylon + Colonies Cylon = unviable baby (Tigh & Six) ??
* so then probably Six ?kidnaps? the only viable human-Cylon baby left, Hera,
the only option left for a sustainable future

That's the best I can make of the signs in 4x12, along with previous prophetic visions.

Battlestar Galactica 4x12

2009-01-24T22:08:00.004-05:00

SPOILERS

There's not a lot to say about this episode, it's mostly setting up for forthcoming ones.

I wasn't really clear what the big deal was about the ex-Chief's non-baby.

We've got Hera who is (as far as we know) Colonies-Cylon + human,
whatshisname who is (apparently) human + human,
and Six baby who is Earth-Cylon + Colonies-Cylon.

It's not entirely clear what the big deal is,
other than these are maybe the three potential paths for the future (of which only one will succeed?),
or perhaps these represent the three forces that must unite in peace.

Other than that, this whole "dissent in the fleet" thing seems like All This Has Happened Before, All This Will Happen Again.

The scene with Tyrol and "their... our technology is better than... ours" was good.

It seems to me they could be doing more to find out what the deal is with the Five, they don't seem to be even trying to find out any more about the fragments of history that were revealed in the Earth flashbacks.

what Dee found

2009-01-19T18:30:00.003-05:00

I had speculated that Dee found the locket on Earth, but upon reviewing it, that doesn't appear to be the case.

It looks more like she found a watch and a set of jacks (including a rather improbably preserved 2000-year-old ball) and this added to her planetary depression, and that she looked at a locket with pictures of her ?parents? at the end.

Unless there is a major continuity issue, the watch she finds at the beginning is clearly much bigger than the locket at the end.

watch?

locket

jacks with ball (ball highlighted with red box)

Battlestar Galactica 4x11

2009-01-17T20:16:00.004-05:00

SPOILERS

Prophecy is tricky.

So far I'm doing ok.

one guesses that something like most of the humans left to form the 12 colonies, and most of the Kobol Cylons left to form the 13th colony (Earth)

the Cylords of Kobol? - December 23, 2008

Prophecy... correct.

So we have to wonder, is resurrection possible beyond the ships?
Is resurrection possible for everyone?

There's this problem of Kara.
Her ship clearly exploded.

Was she resurrected on Earth, or in some other Earth-built resurrection centre?

resurrection beyond the resurrection ships? - January 6, 2009

Prophecy... correct.

The Final Five, including Zak Adama, await on Earth

who is the puppet master? - April 28, 2008

Prophecy... wait a second, Ellen Tigh is a Cylon? What the frak?

UPDATE: You can now get your very own Ellen Tigh tshirt. A tigh-in, if you like. ENDUPDATE

Ok, so new mystery: Dee's suicide.
It looked like she found a locket on the beach (along with some jacks), and that made her go crazy. Either
1) The prospect of endless death destroyed her
2) The people in the locket were her ?parents? ?grandparents? and she thought she was the 5th Cylon

Which brings us to the key question: We know the resurrection technology worked for Ellen, and for Kara, and presumably for Chief Tyrol, Colonel Tigh, and Sam Anders.

So either it was just 5 of them who build a sekrit resurrection machine that now resurrects anyone in range (which, you will note, means Dualla will be resurrected),
or it may be broader than that. There were probably billions of Cylons on Earth 2000 years ago when it was destroyed by nukes. Were... ALL of them resurrected? Does their technology resurrect anyone, who dies anywhere? IS ZAK ADAMA RESURRECTED?

Just to recap:
* Baltar's visions: status unknown
* Caprica Six's pregnancy: apparently everyone has forgotten about it
* Kara: definitely resurrected
* Dualla: maybe resurrected
* Zak Adama: maybe resurrected?
* Final Cylon: Ellen Tigh (WTF?) - and maybe resurrected
* puppet masters: status unknown
* Earth nukers: status unknown

So we need to find out:
* what happened to Earth (presumably endless Final Five Flashbacks are Forthcoming)
* what the 5 have been doing for the last 2000 years
* who "uplifted" the 12 Colonies Cylons to have humanoid bodies and a belief in One God (unless they uplifted themselves)
- there is clearly SOME connection to the 5, what with Deanna's vision and the fighters recognizing Sam Anders - did the Five do the uplift? Are there Others?
* what is the extent and nature of the remaining resurrection technology
- clearly someone or something not only resurrected Kara, but also gave her a new and identical ship... some kind of robotic resurrection along with biological?
* Does Cavil know more about the Final Five and the history of the new Cylons than he's letting on? He is model #1, after all.

I still prophecy we will end up with a mix of "all this has happened before, all this will happen again" and Grand Cylon-Human Unification Theory. The Five, trying to break the cycle of war, trying to build a sustainable peace for humanoid Cylons, robotic Cylons, and humans.

And I still want to see Zak Adama.

Webisodes - The Face of the Enemy

2009-01-17T20:14:00.002-05:00

Interesting revelation about Gaeta and an 8, also starts the Gaeta - Mr. Hoshi storyline.

resurrection beyond the resurrection ships?

2009-01-06T11:18:00.002-05:00

So someone built all this resurrection ship technology.
Presumably the Kobol-Earth Cylons.

So we have to wonder, is resurrection possible beyond the ships?
Is resurrection possible for everyone?

There's this problem of Kara.
Her ship clearly exploded.

Was she resurrected on Earth, or in some other Earth-built resurrection centre?
When Zak died, did he wake up in the same place?

Can only new Cylons be resurrected?
Or Kobol-Earth Cylons (the final five) as well?
Or half-Cylons (Hera, maybe Kara) as well?

Or... and this would be interesting... can ALL humans be resurrected?
Maybe the billions from the 12 Colonies are not so dead after all, just awaiting a Cylon-Human reconcilation? (This latter scenario seems unlikely, as the signs seem to point to an "End of Humanity" future of Cylon-Humans like Hera.)

the Cylords of Kobol?

2008-12-23T07:18:00.005-05:00

How can we try to fit together a likely scenario for Zak?

Well, we need to understand the new BSG universe.
So let's start with Ron Moore's last universe, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (DS9).

It had some elements that we see in BSG:
* religion plays an important role
* One is Chosen (the Emissary)
* prophecy is true (connected to hard-ish science by the fact that the ability to see the future comes from the wormhole aliens, who exist outside of time)
* interpersonal relationships are important
* "gods" are real (the Bajorans worship the wormhole aliens)

BSG is harder SF than DS9, but one fantasy element does remain:
* prophecy is true, and accessible to all persons (humans, cylons, human-cylon hybrids, and cylon ship Hybrids)

BSG also draws very heavily on Classic Greek and Roman mythology.

So a likely scenario is something like this:

Humans on Kobol built humanoid robots (call them Kobol Cylons) with some godlike characteristics (immortality), but human characteristics (much as the Classic gods like Zeus had supernatural powers but very natural appetites).

The Book tells us that humans and their gods lived together for a time on Kobol.
Then one guesses that something like most of the humans left to form the 12 colonies, and most of the Kobol Cylons left to form the 13th colony (Earth). There may have been some mixing (humans going to Earth, Kobol Cylons going to the 12 colonies - perhaps particularly as priests).

Now, say 40-50 years ago (or maybe longer), some catastrophe befalls Earth, maybe a war between various Kobol-Earth Cylons, or a war between K-E Cylons and K-E humans.

The Kobol-Earth Cylons decide to bring about a reunification of the Cylon and human races, in a sustainable peace. They locate the New Cylons (the 12 colonies Cylons) who have already developed Hybrids, and add the technology of resurrection, more bioengineering, and humanoid Cylons. As with the Kobol Cylons before, the humanoids are given human characteristics and failings:

* Brother Cavil as the New Cylon Zeus?
* Six as Aphrodite?
* Athena as... Athena?
(remember Athena is a huntress, as well as being wise)

Rather than teaching their New humanoid Cylons that they are gods, they teach them that there is a higher God, a God of love.

They send Kobol-Earth Cylon emissaries to watch and learn from the 12 colonies humans.

Perhaps one emissary is Kara Thrace's father? (Making her a Kobol-Earth Cylon - 12 colonies human hybrid.)

Then, by mistake? intentionally? 12 colonies humanity is wiped out.

And then we have the Great Experiment - can the New Cylons and the remaining 12 colonies humans learn to come to peace? Can they learn to love, because otherwise the humans will die, and the Cylons will be immortal but childless.

(Remember the Cylons Have a Plan - which may be the Great Experiment Plan, without the 7 known models even knowing about it.)

So Sam, President's Aide, the Chief and Tigh are all Kobol-Earth Cylons programmed with Deep Cover. As is/was Zak Adama. All placed in ideal positions to observe 12 colonies humanity.

Once they work their way towards peace, they will rejoin with Kobol-Earth Cylons (and any remaining Kobol-Earth humans, if there's any difference, and All Live Happily Ever After).

This addresses most of the mysteries of the show:

* Who are the Final Five Cylons and why are they different from the other 7?
- We know (from the ship Hybrid) that they come from Earth.
- Sam, President's Aide, the Chief (Galen Tyrol) and (Colonel Saul) Tigh are all Kobol-Earth humanoid Cylons programmed with deep cover who came to the 12 colonies starting 40-50 years ago
- Zak Adama is a Kobol-Earth Cylon programmed with deep cover who was ?replaced at birth? ?implanted in the womb? ?never actually seen born - Adama's wife knew?

* What's the deal with Kara Thrace and her rebirth and special destiny?
- Kara is probably a Kobol-Earth Cylon + 12 colonies Human hybrid
- she was probably resurrected by the Kobol-Earth Cylons, and her ship repaired / rebuilt as well by them (this means of course that at a minimum all Cylon-Human hybrids can also be immortal if they choose)
- she, along with Galen, were chosen/created to be key parts of guiding humanity & New Cylons back to Earth

* what's the deal with Roslin's visions, Kara's visions, shared visions with Roslin-Hera-Six, Hybrid vision, 12 colonies priest/prophet visions
- as I said before, in BSG prophecy is real, and any person (Cylon or human) can have prophetic visions

* What's the deal with Baltar/Jebus, particularly his visions of Six, and what's the deal with Caprica Six's visions of Baltar (which we only saw a few times)
- This is the only part that is not really clear. There are a few possible scenarios:

S1. Most likely: In the nuclear explosion that killed Caprica Six as she was holding Baltar, her upload got mixed in and crossed over with his brainwaves
S2. Baltar vision Six is an implant or some other technology used by the Kobol-Earth Cylons to guide Baltar, as part of their Plan (putting him roughly in the same class as Kara and Galen)
S3. Angel sent by God / Demon sent by Forces of Evil
S4. I think fairly unlikely: Angel / vision sent by Glowing Ship Gods (see original Battlestar)

(If it does end up being some Ship of Light literal deus ex machina I will be disappointed.)

I think that covers most of the mysteries.
* As in the First Hybrid and later Hybrid prophecy, Kara did lead the fleet to "the end of humanity" (in this case, both the literal end at destroyed Earth, as well as the figurative end, as the future of humanity is hybridizing with Cylons)
* The final five are from Earth as the Hybrid said, and the One Who Will Be Revealed (Zak) is not on the fleet, as Deanna said
* (Zak) Adama is a Cylon, as prophecised by Leoben
* The final five are different from the other 7 because they are Kobol-Earth Cylons, not New Cylons
* The Final Five Cylon that Deanna recognized and was sorry about was probably Tigh, and she felt sorry because #1 he'd spent 40 years fighting the Cylons and #2 they ripped out his eye and (maybe) #3 he killed his Cylon-collaborator wife

Anything I've missed?

the current situation

2008-11-02T21:15:00.003-05:00

SPOILERS if you haven't watched all of Season 4 Part 1.

Known Cylon models

# 1 Number One (aka Brother Cavil)
# 2 Number Two (aka Leoben Conoy)
# 3 Number Three (aka D'Anna Biers)
# 4 Number Four (aka Simon)
# 5 Number Five (aka Aaron Doral)
# 6 Number Six (aka Caprica Six / Head Six / Shelley Godfrey /Gina Inviere/ Natalie)

# 8 Number Eight (aka Lt. Sharon "Boomer" Valerii/Lt. Sharon "Athena" Agathon)

Known "other kind of Cylon" - Cylons in the Final Five

* Sam Anders
* Galen Tyrol
* Tory (President's Aide)
* Colonel Tigh

One Will Be Revealed - the Final Cylon - (in my opinion)

* Zak Adama

(D'Anna says the final Cylon is "not in the fleet".)

Others with Special Powers

* Starbuck (visions) - and apparently back from the dead, along with her ship
* President Roslin (visions, shared dreams)
* Hera (probably shared dreams)
* Cylon ship Hybrids (prophecies)

* (possibly) various human priests and oracles (prophecies)

Battlestar Galactica will return in Canada on Space channel January 16, 2009 (Season 4.5 / Season 4 Part 2). These are the final episodes.

the store of the blog

2008-10-19T21:36:00.001-04:00

Show everyone you've figured it out with one of these stylish, yet comfortable tshirts.

http://www.cafepress.com/zakadama

who is the puppet master?

2008-04-28T16:23:00.005-04:00

"...and they have a plan"

So there are three main mystery threads to wrap up:
* what the hell is up with Starbuck and her perfect ship and special destiny
* what's the deal with Baltar/Jebus
* what's the story with the final five, particularly the Chief

and a minor thread
- how was Roslin able to have visions of the future? how was she able to have shared visions with Six and Eight?

Known Cylon models
# 1 Number One (aka Brother Cavil)
# 2 Number Two (aka Leoben Conoy)
# 3 Number Three (aka D'Anna Biers)
# 4 Number Four (aka Simon)
# 5 Number Five (aka Aaron Doral)
# 6 Number Six (aka Caprica-Six/Head Six/Shelley Godfrey/Gina Inviere/Natalie)

# 8 Number Eight (aka Lt. Sharon "Boomer" Valerii/Lt. Sharon "Athena" Agathon)

Unknown Cylons
# 7 [Sam Anders, for sake of argument]
# 9
# 10
# 11 [Galen Tyrol, for sake of argument]
# 12 [presumably the One who will Be Revealed - Zak Adama]

I think Sam Anders is definely a Cylon, what with the barcoded eye, so slot him in at #7.

So who is doing all this? What is the Plan?

I can think of a few possible scenarios:

The First Hybrid / the Hybrids collectively

The Architect (i.e. some Mysterious Cylon Creator / Puppetmaster)

The thirteenth tribe (Earth)

monothestic religious splinter group (possible 13th tribe leftbehinds) hidden for thousands of years within normal society

the Final Five themselves (who would actually turn out to be the First Five)

Lords of Kobol / glowing god ship people

What are they doing?
I can see either:
- building a more perfect union, i.e. a better society
- building a more godly union, i.e. a monothestism-only society

The monotheism theory goes something like this: cult of "the one whose name must not be spoken" (or whatever it was Roslin read from the book) secretly program the Cylons to follow their beliefs, nuke all the unbelievers, give the remaining humans a chance to discover the true path before the arrive at Earth to be tested.

The more perfect union theory is something like: the first five Cylons have a plan to rebuild an integrated, peaceful society from the ashes of the split societies, unifying man and machine. They possibly went ahead to Earth, just in the last 50 years or so, stopping at the Temple of Jupiter along the way to rejigger it to reveal the Final Five, taking advantage of the existing mythology.

Galen is definitely one of them, since he was summoned to the temple, perhaps with memories of one of his model-brothers.

The Final Five, including Zak Adama, await on Earth, to examine whether their Cylon models and human families have learned the necessary lessons.

Or there could be two competing factions, the Kobol-Earthlings, sending Kara her destiny and Baltar his angel visions, and the Final Five, with their separate Plan.

My predictions:
* Sam Anders is a Cylon, model 7
* Tory (President's Aide) is not
* Tigh is not
* Chief is, maybe model 11
* Baltar is just nuts
* Starbuck is not a Cylon, but maybe has some lord-of-kobol-earth thing going on
* Earth fixed up Starbuck and her ship
* [Possibly: Earth is full of monotheistic human fanatics and is going to nuke almost everyone remaining in the human fleet]
* The Final Five, led by Zak Adama, model 12, will bring about a final peace between Earth, the remaining humans, and the Cylons, and will have completed their Plan of Peaceful Union
* Roslin either a Cylon, or she's whatever Starbuck is, special Kobol destiny vision woman

Note: Final Five as First Five aspect of this theory from Steve.