The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
Please vote in the Forum Structure Poll. Polling will close at 2PM EST on January 21, 2025.
Battlestar Galactica: Amicans Will Defeat the Commists! *SPOILERS*
Who says the Basestars can't be replaced? Clearly the modern basestar was constructed after the First Cylon War, since they were using older versions then. Presumably somewhere the Cylons have one or more production facilities for Basestars, resurrection ships, etc. The theory just goes that the Cylons had fewer basestars than the Colonials had battlestars by some large degree and that the Basestars chasing the fleet represent the bulk, if not the entirety, of what remains.
In reality though the # of ships Cavil has at his disposal (or the Cylons throughout the series) is entirely plot dependent.
But the only way a technologically more advanced civilization with far more automation and better replication facilities could have fewer ships than their lower tech, manual labour conterpart is if their ships are impossible to make now. As in, literally, no more basestars can be built, and it is impossible to train a centurion to operate some kind of automatic dreadnought without a Hybrid present.
That doesn't follow at all. The Cylons only had 40 years to set up their civilization; it's entirely plausible there were limits to what they could manufacture in that time.
But with a largely automated higher technology society with full observation and infiltration of enemy facilities every single moment that passes shifts the war in your favor. Every moment you Delay helps you and hurts the enemy. The only way to me that the weak Cylon fleet makes sense is if we find out that the Colonials genuinely did know where the Cylons were, what their raw fleet capacities were, and they had decided to attack immediately. The war would have been announced any day, and so the Cylons pre-empted it by the minimum possible time. Otherwise every month the Cylons delay means more Raiders, better Basestars and more manufacturing capacity.
Who says the Basestars can't be replaced? Clearly the modern basestar was constructed after the First Cylon War, since they were using older versions then. Presumably somewhere the Cylons have one or more production facilities for Basestars, resurrection ships, etc. The theory just goes that the Cylons had fewer basestars than the Colonials had battlestars by some large degree and that the Basestars chasing the fleet represent the bulk, if not the entirety, of what remains.
In reality though the # of ships Cavil has at his disposal (or the Cylons throughout the series) is entirely plot dependent.
But the only way a technologically more advanced civilization with far more automation and better replication facilities could have fewer ships than their lower tech, manual labour conterpart is if their ships are impossible to make now. As in, literally, no more basestars can be built, and it is impossible to train a centurion to operate some kind of automatic dreadnought without a Hybrid present.
That doesn't follow at all. The Cylons only had 40 years to set up their civilization; it's entirely plausible there were limits to what they could manufacture in that time.
Also building a basestar can't be cheap even with a restless robot workforce. They needed to design them, test them, build the industrial infrastructure to build the components to build them etc. And probably did all of this while constantly looking over their shoulders to make sure the colonials did not see them doing this.
Cheap or not, all that matters is whether its comparatively cheap. You're comparing a society which has highly advanced tireless humanoid servants capable of working in any environment to produce any good with which they can be programmed to a society which has to use conventional non-networked assembly line techniques. It's like blacksmiths vs a production line.
The (very) short version: the 12 Cylon human models are not Cylons. At least, not in the strictest definition of the term.
<snip details>
Flaws with the theory, at least off the top of my head.
1) The 12 skinjobs call themselves Cylons. Why would they do that if they're human?
2) The 12 skinjobs are not simply cybernetic-enhanced humans, but in fact have been shown to be genetically different from humans.
3) It was established that the Cylons were experimenting with biological evolution as far back as during the first Cylon War.
4) If the Final Five set off from Earth to rejoin the Colonies, why did they nuke them instead? If the Final Five are humans who wanted to rejoin the human race after the genocide of their world, why commit an ever bigger genocide once they got there?
5) Why would the Final Five then wipe their own memories and join the colonies, after putting plans in motion to have them nuked to hell?
6) If the Final Five only encountered the Cylons after the First Cylon War and before encountering the Colonies, how was Tigh serving in the Colonial Fleet during the First War?
About your last point we don't actually know if Tigh served in the first war or not, he certainly has memories of it but that doesn't mean much. He met Adama after the war.
But with a largely automated higher technology society with full observation and infiltration of enemy facilities every single moment that passes shifts the war in your favor. Every moment you Delay helps you and hurts the enemy. The only way to me that the weak Cylon fleet makes sense is if we find out that the Colonials genuinely did know where the Cylons were, what their raw fleet capacities were, and they had decided to attack immediately. The war would have been announced any day, and so the Cylons pre-empted it by the minimum possible time. Otherwise every month the Cylons delay means more Raiders, better Basestars and more manufacturing capacity.
Your assumption is mistaken. Before the genocide, the Cylon's biggest advantage was infiltration by skinjobs, which was only possible because the Colonies had no idea skinjobs were even possible. When you have spies everywhere, every moment that passes increases the probability one will be uncovered. For the Cylons, the risk was even greater; having even a single spy caught would reveal their two biggest secrets (the existence of skinjobs and their infiltration of the Colonies), and ruin one of only 7 infiltration models they have. If a single Six, anywhere, was found out, they also lost the one spying on Baltar, the one on the Pegasus, and who knows how many more in key places around the Colonies.
Their other major advantage the Cylons had, which was why they attack was so successful, is of course the fact they had installed a backdoor on the Colonial's new military software, which was then installed throughout the Colonies. Any time spent waiting increased the probability that someone would discover this backdoor. And even if no one did, waiting too long meant that a software update would take place, and there's no guarantee they'd be able to get a backdoor in the update as well.
So, no. Waiting didn't help the Cylons. Waiting would have made them lose their brief window for attack, as well as risked the discovery of all their secrets.
About your last point we don't actually know if Tigh served in the first war or not, he certainly has memories of it but that doesn't mean much. He met Adama after the war.
Well one would assume that the Colonial fleet keeps records of its officers. So if someone comes up and says "I served and have the rank of colonel", they would look it up and find that it's false. Even if Tigh could have forged the computer records (which is unlikely since the Colonies' computers were not networked at that time, so he would have had to add the forged update on every military computer throughout the 12 Colonies), his cover would have been blown when the people he allegedly served with would say they have never met him before.
But with a largely automated higher technology society with full observation and infiltration of enemy facilities every single moment that passes shifts the war in your favor. Every moment you Delay helps you and hurts the enemy. The only way to me that the weak Cylon fleet makes sense is if we find out that the Colonials genuinely did know where the Cylons were, what their raw fleet capacities were, and they had decided to attack immediately. The war would have been announced any day, and so the Cylons pre-empted it by the minimum possible time. Otherwise every month the Cylons delay means more Raiders, better Basestars and more manufacturing capacity.
Your assumption is mistaken. Before the genocide, the Cylon's biggest advantage was infiltration by skinjobs, which was only possible because the Colonies had no idea skinjobs were even possible. When you have spies everywhere, every moment that passes increases the probability one will be uncovered. For the Cylons, the risk was even greater; having even a single spy caught would reveal their two biggest secrets (the existence of skinjobs and their infiltration of the Colonies), and ruin one of only 7 infiltration models they have. If a single Six, anywhere, was found out, they also lost the one spying on Baltar, the one on the Pegasus, and who knows how many more in key places around the Colonies.
Their other major advantage the Cylons had, which was why they attack was so successful, is of course the fact they had installed a backdoor on the Colonial's new military software, which was then installed throughout the Colonies. Any time spent waiting increased the probability that someone would discover this backdoor. And even if no one did, waiting too long meant that a software update would take place, and there's no guarantee they'd be able to get a backdoor in the update as well.
So, no. Waiting didn't help the Cylons. Waiting would have made them lose their brief window for attack, as well as risked the discovery of all their secrets.
Then since they clearly have instantaneous communication, the first Cylon discovered kills themselves immediately and the assault begins instantly. You still want to wait till the last moment.
But with a largely automated higher technology society with full observation and infiltration of enemy facilities every single moment that passes shifts the war in your favor. Every moment you Delay helps you and hurts the enemy. The only way to me that the weak Cylon fleet makes sense is if we find out that the Colonials genuinely did know where the Cylons were, what their raw fleet capacities were, and they had decided to attack immediately. The war would have been announced any day, and so the Cylons pre-empted it by the minimum possible time. Otherwise every month the Cylons delay means more Raiders, better Basestars and more manufacturing capacity.
Your assumption is mistaken. Before the genocide, the Cylon's biggest advantage was infiltration by skinjobs, which was only possible because the Colonies had no idea skinjobs were even possible. When you have spies everywhere, every moment that passes increases the probability one will be uncovered. For the Cylons, the risk was even greater; having even a single spy caught would reveal their two biggest secrets (the existence of skinjobs and their infiltration of the Colonies), and ruin one of only 7 infiltration models they have. If a single Six, anywhere, was found out, they also lost the one spying on Baltar, the one on the Pegasus, and who knows how many more in key places around the Colonies.
Their other major advantage the Cylons had, which was why they attack was so successful, is of course the fact they had installed a backdoor on the Colonial's new military software, which was then installed throughout the Colonies. Any time spent waiting increased the probability that someone would discover this backdoor. And even if no one did, waiting too long meant that a software update would take place, and there's no guarantee they'd be able to get a backdoor in the update as well.
So, no. Waiting didn't help the Cylons. Waiting would have made them lose their brief window for attack, as well as risked the discovery of all their secrets.
Then since they clearly have instantaneous communication, the first Cylon discovered kills themselves immediately and the assault begins instantly. You still want to wait till the last moment.
They don't have instantaneous communication. We don't know how long it takes for a Cylon's consciousness to be transmitted across space to the resurrection hub. In fact, we've seen no evidence of FTL communications or travel aside from jumping, so it's entirely possible that Cylon consciousness download (which obviously doesn't incorporate jump technology) is capped at the speed of light. If they kept the resurrection hub hidden a few light-years away for safety before the genocide, then it would have taken years between the moment the first Cylon agent was caught and the moment it downloaded to warn the others.
Moreover, your theory assumes that the first Cylon caught would have an opportunity to kill itself. Maybe not. Gina back on Pegasus certainly didn't, and spent two years being raped and beaten in her cell wishing she could.
Finally, and more generally, no, you don't delay an attack for as long as possible. You delay an attack until the best moment possible. And I've already explained why, for the Cylon, that was when they attacked; everything was well in place, and every extra moment they waited risked having their secret advantages exposed and their plan fall apart. One or two more Basestars wouldn't have made a significant difference in the outcome at that point. There was no more reason to risk waiting.
The (very) short version: the 12 Cylon human models are not Cylons. At least, not in the strictest definition of the term.
<snip details>
Flaws with the theory, at least off the top of my head.
1) The 12 skinjobs call themselves Cylons. Why would they do that if they're human?
2) The 12 skinjobs are not simply cybernetic-enhanced humans, but in fact have been shown to be genetically different from humans.
3) It was established that the Cylons were experimenting with biological evolution as far back as during the first Cylon War.
4) If the Final Five set off from Earth to rejoin the Colonies, why did they nuke them instead? If the Final Five are humans who wanted to rejoin the human race after the genocide of their world, why commit an ever bigger genocide once they got there?
5) Why would the Final Five then wipe their own memories and join the colonies, after putting plans in motion to have them nuked to hell?
6) If the Final Five only encountered the Cylons after the First Cylon War and before encountering the Colonies, how was Tigh serving in the Colonial Fleet during the First War?
We know the Final Five encountered the Cylons because they (or someone) programmed the other models not to think about the Five. And the Raiders were able to recognize them, which would suggest having encountered them before.
We also know that there was at some point after the first war but several years before the start of the series some sort of revolution within the Cylon society both technologically and politically. That's why the original Hybrid is so different from the current ones, and why the Razor Cylons were hiding from the main Cylon group.
The simplest explanation for this upheaval is the arrival of the Five triggered the creation of the other skinjob models, the re-enslavement of the Centurions, etc.
At this point, it seems not impossible that the pasts the Five think they had did not actually happen. Or perhaps they are actually just one set and a different set of the Final Five went to the Cylons while they went to the Colonies.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
0
KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
edited January 2009
They are all in the Matrix.
Cylons AND Humans. The Matrix is controlled by none other than Aliens.
I hope the show ends with a slow motion hippy rave, just like I had wished the Matrix sequels would have ended at the hippy rave scene, instead of forcing us to watch four hours of mind-bendingly shitty dialogue and tension-free CGI action scenes.
I hope the show ends with a slow motion hippy rave, just like I had wished the Matrix sequels would have ended at the hippy rave scene, instead of forcing us to watch four hours of mind-bendingly shitty dialogue and tension-free CGI action scenes.
God, the Hippy rave was easily the low point even of a truly terrible movie. I wish they just hadn't made the movie, which is certainly not something you can say about BSG
tbloxham on
"That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
0
Mike Danger"Diane..."a place both wonderful and strangeRegistered Userregular
A thought, re: all of this has happened before, yada yada.
It seems obvious that on some level, there is a connection between Starbuck and the Cylons -- thus the prophecies about her being the harbinger of death and such. We know (as certainly as we know anything at this point) that she is not one of the 12 Cylon models, with the reveal of Ellen Tigh as the final fifth.
It seems that the fleet is currently splitting into factions, including (but not limited to) groups led by...
-Adama and Roslin
-Baltar
-Gaeta and Zarek (wouldn't be surprised if Gaeta and Zarek turn on each other)
-The Quorum
-The Cylons
Is it possible that these factions will ultimately decide to go their separate ways in the interests of mutual survival, splitting into several colonies? Perhaps 12 or 13 colonies?
Now, consider what this situation will look like in a few thousand years. You'll have descendants of the major characters around, obviously. This includes the fact that there will, in all likelihood, be many descendants of Hera who will still have a genetic connection (albeit a minor one) to the Cylon race.
Is it possible that when "all of this happened before", there was a Hera-like half-human-half-Cylon child, and that Starbuck is a distant descendant of that child?
So due to the general hype of the last season and PA's unanimous love for this series I decided to start in on it through Netflix. Just watched the Miniseries last night and I'm pretty much hooked as I have dumped all the available seasons on my queue.
Obviously I'm gonna stay out of this thread's discussion but I thought I mention that you guys converted another person to the fanbase.
I'm still not very happy about Boomer being a Cylon
So due to the general hype of the last season and PA's unanimous love for this series I decided to start in on it through Netflix. Just watched the Miniseries last night and I'm pretty much hooked as I have dumped all the available seasons on my queue.
Obviously I'm gonna stay out of this thread's discussion but I thought I mention that you guys converted another person to the fanbase.
I'm still not very happy about Boomer being a Cylon
Man, if you think you're hooked now, it only gets better from here on out.
Ok, still not reading the thread because I'm catching up as fast as I can, but I just finished episode 17 of season 2 (The Captain's Hand) where Gaius announces he's running for president.
Gaius, I hated you so much before, but you are a fuckin' playa.
God I love this show.
Raiden333 on
0
KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
edited January 2009
Yeah I kinda wanted Boomer and Starbuck to be two pals boozing, floozing, and bruising their way through the fleet.
But alas.
Kagera on
My neck, my back, my FUPA and my crack.
0
shanisLCDR, US NavyMaryland, USARegistered Userregular
edited January 2009
Enough talk about the technical details of the show. Let's talk characters.
I'm horribly disappointed at where they're heading with Lt. Gaeta. He was always a man of principles, and the loss of his leg gave him mucho sympathy points. Now he's a hate-mongering, festering pool of malice and we're supposed to swallow that as self-pity? His current self-destructive behavior seems out of place, and it doesn't look like he can redeem himself if the previews for the next episode are any indication.
Is anyone else saddened by "Chief" Tyrol's choices? He keeps getting shit on, granted, but he's also the best at his job and it's obvious that he belongs on the flight deck. But he practically makes Admiral Adama demote him, and now apparently he's resigned from the military altogether and living on the basestar? I love the old Chief, walking the flight deck yelling at techs to get the birds in the tubes. The new Chief sucks ass. By the end of the series, I hope to see him back on the flight deck. Hell, I hope to see most of the characters come full-circle and return to their old roles (Apollo flying again, etc)
Overall, since the start of season 4 I feel like BSG has been drifting way far away from where it started. I can't decide whether that's a good thing to me or not -- I love going back to season 2 and watching the characters in their "starting" roles with Apollo as the CAG, Starbuck as the asshole flygirl, Gaeta in CIC, etc. Now everyone has moved on or become so complicated that their jobs no longer matter. Or maybe that's a good thing because there really is a lot of depth to these characters and you can clearly see a progression to how it go to this point. I love it and hate it at the same time, but I have to wait until I can look at the series as a whole before I can pass "judgement."
shanis on
Origin(BF4) - hunter28100 / Steam - Shanis
"Uh, I have never said that you are not good at what you do. It's just that what you do is not worth doing." -S.C.
I have to wait until I can look at the series as a whole before I can pass "judgement."
This is where I'm at currently. I can't tell you how much I loved seasons 1-3. It's been steadily drifting away from what I thought made season one so damn amazing, but there is still room for things to be tied up nicely in the end. These first couple of episodes haven't exactly given me much confidence that it'll end like I'd like it to, but the writers might surprise me.
Unrelated, I picked up the board game today, and it's like an interactive season one. Frakken awesome.
Enough talk about the technical details of the show. Let's talk characters.
I'm horribly disappointed at where they're heading with Lt. Gaeta. He was always a man of principles, and the loss of his leg gave him mucho sympathy points. Now he's a hate-mongering, festering pool of malice and we're supposed to swallow that as self-pity? His current self-destructive behavior seems out of place, and it doesn't look like he can redeem himself if the previews for the next episode are any indication.
Is anyone else saddened by "Chief" Tyrol's choices? He keeps getting shit on, granted, but he's also the best at his job and it's obvious that he belongs on the flight deck. But he practically makes Admiral Adama demote him, and now apparently he's resigned from the military altogether and living on the basestar? I love the old Chief, walking the flight deck yelling at techs to get the birds in the tubes. The new Chief sucks ass. By the end of the series, I hope to see him back on the flight deck. Hell, I hope to see most of the characters come full-circle and return to their old roles (Apollo flying again, etc)
Overall, since the start of season 4 I feel like BSG has been drifting way far away from where it started. I can't decide whether that's a good thing to me or not -- I love going back to season 2 and watching the characters in their "starting" roles with Apollo as the CAG, Starbuck as the asshole flygirl, Gaeta in CIC, etc. Now everyone has moved on or become so complicated that their jobs no longer matter. Or maybe that's a good thing because there really is a lot of depth to these characters and you can clearly see a progression to how it go to this point. I love it and hate it at the same time, but I have to wait until I can look at the series as a whole before I can pass "judgement."
Well, I agree with you. The show as it's best during the season 1, 2 and early 3. I really loved the dynamics of the Fleet running away from the Cylons, the logistics of surviving in space, the hunts for resources, inter-fleet politics and of course above, all the amazing ship fights. I loved it when the Cylons were cold evil robotic monsters who stumbled around, trying to emulate humanity to the best of their abilities and worshipping a "God". I loved Baltars discussions with the Head Six and the mindgames it put him through, all the time. The current show is still good, but it's not as good as it used to be in my opinion (though the latter half is already way better then the earlier half of season 4). Season 4 just started insanely adding in the suspension of disbelief that the earlier seasons did not have. The show was much better when it was more down to earth (pun, hehe).
Oh, and I also hope that they make a goddamn game out of this thing.
I disagree completely about season 4. I think it blows the other three seasons out of the water, precisely because the characters are in such different places. Going back to watch earlier seasons, it's amazing to look at people and think where they'll be only a few years later and why.
Season 4's got no fat, it's moving fast and it's putting the characters through a meat-grinder. I love it. We got what we got in the earlier seasons; now we're getting something that inverts and plays around with the assumptions we made from the start, challenging us to adapt. It's great.
I disagree completely about season 4. I think it blows the other three seasons out of the water, precisely because the characters are in such different places. Going back to watch earlier seasons, it's amazing to look at people and think where they'll be only a few years later and why.
Season 4's got no fat, it's moving fast and it's putting the characters through a meat-grinder. I love it. We got what we got in the earlier seasons; now we're getting something that inverts and plays around with the assumptions we made from the start, challenging us to adapt. It's great.
Agreeing with all of this.
Likewise. It's very refreshing to be watching a series with such a defined end.
It means the characters can get other jobs, they can snap, they can die.
It's much better than just series after series of being chased, with everyone in their comfortable secure roles
But with some characters changing, they are removing the traits that got us to like them in the first place. Like with Gaeta, for example. He's an asshole now. Or Starbuck. Or the Chief. Hell, even Tigh isn't as enjoyable as he used to be, at least to me.
But with some characters changing, they are removing the traits that got us to like them in the first place. Like with Gaeta, for example. He's an asshole now. Or Starbuck. Or the Chief. Hell, even Tigh isn't as enjoyable as he used to be, at least to me.
And isn't it amazing to see Gaeta, who once was just a competent professional with a man-crush on Gaius Baltar, degenerate so thoroughly? He's like a man possessed by bitterness, it's beautiful.
Tigh got challenged by the one last thing they could take from him and survived. The man is made out of leather. Learning he was a Cylon undermined the two things he knew himself to be: A friend of Bill Adama and a loyal Colonial officer. He killed his wife for the second, and crawled back from that for the first. And yet, there he stands, intact and ready for duty. If anything, Tigh is even more Tigh-like than he used to be.
The same is true for the others. They're still the same characters, they're just in very different places. The Chief might be undergoing a really bizarre journey, but he's still the Chief, just the Chief after a really bizarre journey.
Did James Callis and Tricia Helfer have a falling out or something? Because i'm still not quite getting this Tigh/Six thing. We rarely see Six and Baltar anymore and it feels oddly as if the writers are keeping them apart for no reason... which given the whole Opera House thing that will hopefully come to fruition soon, I was kind of expecting more Baltar/Six/Sharon/Roslin/Hera stuff rather than... 'the fleet is unhappy again. Also, Tigh has a baby' - both of which I just cant see being very fulfilling given the small number of episodes left.. its not what I want to know about you know?
I do like that characters change, but I just cant help but feel at this point that there are going to be alot of things unresolved.
Also, that the only human characters I still like are Kara (and thats suspect) and Baltar makes it hard to feel much sympathy for Gaeta and his 'frak those toasters' plight... though maybe thats the point and the audiences perceptions have changed since s1... though to read the twop forums that does not seem to be the case, and the Cylons are still seen as big evils.
Enough talk about the technical details of the show. Let's talk characters.
I'm horribly disappointed at where they're heading with Lt. Gaeta. He was always a man of principles, and the loss of his leg gave him mucho sympathy points. Now he's a hate-mongering, festering pool of malice and we're supposed to swallow that as self-pity? His current self-destructive behavior seems out of place, and it doesn't look like he can redeem himself if the previews for the next episode are any indication.
Everything in Gaeta's life got taken away by and for the Cylons.
He resigned from the Colonial fleet because he believed in "the dream" of New Caprica, and that got taken away by a Cylon occupation. He helped the resistance, only to be labelled a traitor and almost killed by what turned out to be a group of Cylons & Cylon sympathizers.
Back on the fleet, he tries to serve to the best of his abilities, but when he gets injured his Cylon-sympathizing CO refuses to return to Galactica to treat him, instead following a Cylon's advice on a wild chase to rescue a Basestar. Meanwhile, he ends up losing his leg.
Later, stranded in space, he learns that the one Cylon he trusted on New Caprica was fucking with his head, and using the info he was trusting her with to kill resistance members. He's forced to kill her while she laughs at him.
Once he makes it back to the fleet, Cylons everywhere, his XO is a Cylon, and he learns that the Admiral is seriously considering giving Cylons citizenship and committing human lives to protecting them.
True, but thus Caprica is pretty much THE six when it comes to Baltar, or HeadSix maybe. But as i said, I can't say i've seen much of any six in the vicinity of baltar since Caprica came aboard that galactica, to the extent that I wondered if it was an actor dispute.
Remember, Baltar seemed to love Caprica as much as he was capable of loving... which wasnt much, and she loved him a hell of a lot, or claimed to . For almost a season now we've had maybe one or two Baltar/Six scenes of any description... it just strikes me as odd.
Posts
But with a largely automated higher technology society with full observation and infiltration of enemy facilities every single moment that passes shifts the war in your favor. Every moment you Delay helps you and hurts the enemy. The only way to me that the weak Cylon fleet makes sense is if we find out that the Colonials genuinely did know where the Cylons were, what their raw fleet capacities were, and they had decided to attack immediately. The war would have been announced any day, and so the Cylons pre-empted it by the minimum possible time. Otherwise every month the Cylons delay means more Raiders, better Basestars and more manufacturing capacity.
Cheap or not, all that matters is whether its comparatively cheap. You're comparing a society which has highly advanced tireless humanoid servants capable of working in any environment to produce any good with which they can be programmed to a society which has to use conventional non-networked assembly line techniques. It's like blacksmiths vs a production line.
1) The 12 skinjobs call themselves Cylons. Why would they do that if they're human?
2) The 12 skinjobs are not simply cybernetic-enhanced humans, but in fact have been shown to be genetically different from humans.
3) It was established that the Cylons were experimenting with biological evolution as far back as during the first Cylon War.
4) If the Final Five set off from Earth to rejoin the Colonies, why did they nuke them instead? If the Final Five are humans who wanted to rejoin the human race after the genocide of their world, why commit an ever bigger genocide once they got there?
5) Why would the Final Five then wipe their own memories and join the colonies, after putting plans in motion to have them nuked to hell?
6) If the Final Five only encountered the Cylons after the First Cylon War and before encountering the Colonies, how was Tigh serving in the Colonial Fleet during the First War?
Their other major advantage the Cylons had, which was why they attack was so successful, is of course the fact they had installed a backdoor on the Colonial's new military software, which was then installed throughout the Colonies. Any time spent waiting increased the probability that someone would discover this backdoor. And even if no one did, waiting too long meant that a software update would take place, and there's no guarantee they'd be able to get a backdoor in the update as well.
So, no. Waiting didn't help the Cylons. Waiting would have made them lose their brief window for attack, as well as risked the discovery of all their secrets.
Then since they clearly have instantaneous communication, the first Cylon discovered kills themselves immediately and the assault begins instantly. You still want to wait till the last moment.
Moreover, your theory assumes that the first Cylon caught would have an opportunity to kill itself. Maybe not. Gina back on Pegasus certainly didn't, and spent two years being raped and beaten in her cell wishing she could.
Finally, and more generally, no, you don't delay an attack for as long as possible. You delay an attack until the best moment possible. And I've already explained why, for the Cylon, that was when they attacked; everything was well in place, and every extra moment they waited risked having their secret advantages exposed and their plan fall apart. One or two more Basestars wouldn't have made a significant difference in the outcome at that point. There was no more reason to risk waiting.
They were.... security guards o_O
We know the Final Five encountered the Cylons because they (or someone) programmed the other models not to think about the Five. And the Raiders were able to recognize them, which would suggest having encountered them before.
We also know that there was at some point after the first war but several years before the start of the series some sort of revolution within the Cylon society both technologically and politically. That's why the original Hybrid is so different from the current ones, and why the Razor Cylons were hiding from the main Cylon group.
The simplest explanation for this upheaval is the arrival of the Five triggered the creation of the other skinjob models, the re-enslavement of the Centurions, etc.
At this point, it seems not impossible that the pasts the Five think they had did not actually happen. Or perhaps they are actually just one set and a different set of the Final Five went to the Cylons while they went to the Colonies.
Cylons AND Humans. The Matrix is controlled by none other than Aliens.
TAKE THAT Edward James Olmos.
Kobold is actually Earth 2.
Oh god, they are going to start eating Grendlers.
Starbuck is actually an amnesiac Doctor and her new Viper is the TARDIS.
Now let's do the Memento ending!
God, the Hippy rave was easily the low point even of a truly terrible movie. I wish they just hadn't made the movie, which is certainly not something you can say about BSG
I would pay serious money for this.
It seems obvious that on some level, there is a connection between Starbuck and the Cylons -- thus the prophecies about her being the harbinger of death and such. We know (as certainly as we know anything at this point) that she is not one of the 12 Cylon models, with the reveal of Ellen Tigh as the final fifth.
It seems that the fleet is currently splitting into factions, including (but not limited to) groups led by...
-Adama and Roslin
-Baltar
-Gaeta and Zarek (wouldn't be surprised if Gaeta and Zarek turn on each other)
-The Quorum
-The Cylons
Is it possible that these factions will ultimately decide to go their separate ways in the interests of mutual survival, splitting into several colonies? Perhaps 12 or 13 colonies?
Now, consider what this situation will look like in a few thousand years. You'll have descendants of the major characters around, obviously. This includes the fact that there will, in all likelihood, be many descendants of Hera who will still have a genetic connection (albeit a minor one) to the Cylon race.
Is it possible that when "all of this happened before", there was a Hera-like half-human-half-Cylon child, and that Starbuck is a distant descendant of that child?
Obviously I'm gonna stay out of this thread's discussion but I thought I mention that you guys converted another person to the fanbase.
Man, if you think you're hooked now, it only gets better from here on out.
Gaius, I hated you so much before, but you are a fuckin' playa.
God I love this show.
But alas.
Is anyone else saddened by "Chief" Tyrol's choices? He keeps getting shit on, granted, but he's also the best at his job and it's obvious that he belongs on the flight deck. But he practically makes Admiral Adama demote him, and now apparently he's resigned from the military altogether and living on the basestar? I love the old Chief, walking the flight deck yelling at techs to get the birds in the tubes. The new Chief sucks ass. By the end of the series, I hope to see him back on the flight deck. Hell, I hope to see most of the characters come full-circle and return to their old roles (Apollo flying again, etc)
Overall, since the start of season 4 I feel like BSG has been drifting way far away from where it started. I can't decide whether that's a good thing to me or not -- I love going back to season 2 and watching the characters in their "starting" roles with Apollo as the CAG, Starbuck as the asshole flygirl, Gaeta in CIC, etc. Now everyone has moved on or become so complicated that their jobs no longer matter. Or maybe that's a good thing because there really is a lot of depth to these characters and you can clearly see a progression to how it go to this point. I love it and hate it at the same time, but I have to wait until I can look at the series as a whole before I can pass "judgement."
"Uh, I have never said that you are not good at what you do. It's just that what you do is not worth doing." -S.C.
This is where I'm at currently. I can't tell you how much I loved seasons 1-3. It's been steadily drifting away from what I thought made season one so damn amazing, but there is still room for things to be tied up nicely in the end. These first couple of episodes haven't exactly given me much confidence that it'll end like I'd like it to, but the writers might surprise me.
Unrelated, I picked up the board game today, and it's like an interactive season one. Frakken awesome.
LoL: BunyipAristocrat
Well, I agree with you. The show as it's best during the season 1, 2 and early 3. I really loved the dynamics of the Fleet running away from the Cylons, the logistics of surviving in space, the hunts for resources, inter-fleet politics and of course above, all the amazing ship fights. I loved it when the Cylons were cold evil robotic monsters who stumbled around, trying to emulate humanity to the best of their abilities and worshipping a "God". I loved Baltars discussions with the Head Six and the mindgames it put him through, all the time. The current show is still good, but it's not as good as it used to be in my opinion (though the latter half is already way better then the earlier half of season 4). Season 4 just started insanely adding in the suspension of disbelief that the earlier seasons did not have. The show was much better when it was more down to earth (pun, hehe).
Oh, and I also hope that they make a goddamn game out of this thing.
Besides the excellent board game?
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Season 4's got no fat, it's moving fast and it's putting the characters through a meat-grinder. I love it. We got what we got in the earlier seasons; now we're getting something that inverts and plays around with the assumptions we made from the start, challenging us to adapt. It's great.
Likewise. It's very refreshing to be watching a series with such a defined end.
It means the characters can get other jobs, they can snap, they can die.
It's much better than just series after series of being chased, with everyone in their comfortable secure roles
2009 is a year of Updates - one every Monday. Hopefully. xx
And isn't it amazing to see Gaeta, who once was just a competent professional with a man-crush on Gaius Baltar, degenerate so thoroughly? He's like a man possessed by bitterness, it's beautiful.
Tigh got challenged by the one last thing they could take from him and survived. The man is made out of leather. Learning he was a Cylon undermined the two things he knew himself to be: A friend of Bill Adama and a loyal Colonial officer. He killed his wife for the second, and crawled back from that for the first. And yet, there he stands, intact and ready for duty. If anything, Tigh is even more Tigh-like than he used to be.
The same is true for the others. They're still the same characters, they're just in very different places. The Chief might be undergoing a really bizarre journey, but he's still the Chief, just the Chief after a really bizarre journey.
I do like that characters change, but I just cant help but feel at this point that there are going to be alot of things unresolved.
Also, that the only human characters I still like are Kara (and thats suspect) and Baltar makes it hard to feel much sympathy for Gaeta and his 'frak those toasters' plight... though maybe thats the point and the audiences perceptions have changed since s1... though to read the twop forums that does not seem to be the case, and the Cylons are still seen as big evils.
He resigned from the Colonial fleet because he believed in "the dream" of New Caprica, and that got taken away by a Cylon occupation. He helped the resistance, only to be labelled a traitor and almost killed by what turned out to be a group of Cylons & Cylon sympathizers.
Back on the fleet, he tries to serve to the best of his abilities, but when he gets injured his Cylon-sympathizing CO refuses to return to Galactica to treat him, instead following a Cylon's advice on a wild chase to rescue a Basestar. Meanwhile, he ends up losing his leg.
Later, stranded in space, he learns that the one Cylon he trusted on New Caprica was fucking with his head, and using the info he was trusting her with to kill resistance members. He's forced to kill her while she laughs at him.
Once he makes it back to the fleet, Cylons everywhere, his XO is a Cylon, and he learns that the Admiral is seriously considering giving Cylons citizenship and committing human lives to protecting them.
Yeah, I'd be pissed, too.
True, but thus Caprica is pretty much THE six when it comes to Baltar, or HeadSix maybe. But as i said, I can't say i've seen much of any six in the vicinity of baltar since Caprica came aboard that galactica, to the extent that I wondered if it was an actor dispute.
Remember, Baltar seemed to love Caprica as much as he was capable of loving... which wasnt much, and she loved him a hell of a lot, or claimed to . For almost a season now we've had maybe one or two Baltar/Six scenes of any description... it just strikes me as odd.
and yeah Gaeta's assholishness has been brewing since New Caprica it's hardly surprising