Battlestar Galactica, Discuss..

[The Overlord]

Spoilers for Battlestar Galactica: Someone to Watch Over Me 02/27/09  DO NOT, DO NOT Read Any Further If you Have NOT Watched It!!!!!!!!!! DO NOT READ IF YOU DO NOT WANT SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!












































































Tyrol is a sappy ass fool!!! See he and women are just doomed.. Boomer, Cally and then Boomer again.. Just shot him and put him out of his sad little state.

I don't know if he's completely doomed in that department but I think the one girl he has to save now is the Galactica herself. If he can't pull that off, nothing else will mean a damn.

[Silver]

I don't know if he's completely doomed in that department but I think the one girl he has to save now is the Galactica herself. If he can't pull that off, nothing else will mean a damn.

Indeed nothing else will matter then. Chief and the ship were just mean to be together.... he loves his job, nothing else should have mattered..

*shakes her head*

[Aysleen]

I don't know if he's completely doomed in that department but I think the one girl he has to save now is the Galactica herself. If he can't pull that off, nothing else will mean a damn.

Galactica is not long for the world.  Her demise is necessary to force everyone to just make a decision as to where they're going to rebuild.

[Apple of Eris]

You know... when they do the camera pan to show the Galactica and how fracked up it looks now it makes me feel sad. Especially when compared o how she looked in the beginning. Yeah, and old ship but in good repair and looking sharp. Now she looks held together with duct tape and chicken wire. I kinda feel like Adama, like my kid is dying and I have to watch it.

I love kara, she's my fave by far. I'll be honest though, I hate when she's all whiny and stuff. I like her edgy and tough but still vulnerable. Good to see her getting some of that back. I think if she isn't the 7th, her dad had to have been. Too much coincidence otherwise.

The chief was an idiot I admit, but even as I was watching it I was completely fooled at first. I really wanted Boomer to have changed and felt remorse and really still love the Chief. So much for being sentimental. *sigh*


I gotta add this though, as much as I hate this show sometimes for making me crazy and dragging me through the mud emotionally and bringing me to highs and lows that I shouldn't be getting from a fracking TV show, I think the whole series has been amazing overall. The writing has for the most part been outstanding. The acting has been great (still not sure about john hodgman as a surgeon though) and the cinematography wonderful. Every episode I find myself totally engrossed, and I fracking hate tv. I can't wait for the series to be over so I know everything going on, but at the same time, I don't want it to end! Argh!

[FM]

This Friday's episode was the first I've seen to do two things:

1) Feature rectangular paper.

2) Actually reference how all the Cylons except for a specific few seem to look exactly alike.

And, I also find Starbuck to be my favorite character...or one of them.  I'm writing a story that I've been working on for years.  Two (or rather three) were partially inspired by Kara on BSG...the sort of "badass yet emotional" thing, I dunno.  In addition to that, I got the backstory idea from a theory I had about the BSG backstory:

Humans originated on Earth, had a mass dispora that led them to Kobol.  They then went to the twelve colonies, in the process forgetting all about their past, at least for the most part.

[Karma]

*offers olive branch to Apple and Silver* Just watched the most recent episode... and it wasn't bad.

[Silver]

*offers olive branch to Apple and Silver* Just watched the most recent episode... and it wasn't bad.

*takes it and eyes her*

No hating in this thread, well at least not the show as a whole.. you can hate certain characters.. I myself hate certain characters..

*nods and goes back to wedding stuff*

[Karma]

Boomer's plot was worthy of the earlier seasons, indeed. Makes me hopeful for the end.

[Silver]

Series Finale tonight in t-minus 30 minutes.. at least for me..


sorry about no recaps for the past two episodes..

[Karma]

Wow, 2:11 long. I'll probably wait for the torrent so I can watch in HD, though.

[Silver]

[size=8]OMFG!!!

Best Fraking Show Ever!!!

The End![/size]


*more to come later when I am not so hyped up*

[Phaia]

AGREEESS WITH SILVER!!!!

WHAAA!!! ITs overrrrr!!!!

[Silver]

If a Cylon has sex on the internet is it still considered Cybering?

*snickers a bit*

[The Overlord]

No spoilers here for any that might have missed it tonight, I will only say that my faith in television has been restored, if only in part. With a plot this complex and convoluted, Battlestar had many, many opportunities to jump the shark.

It did not do so for four seasons, but I think despite a stellar track record, I'm willing to bet the majority of the audience was holding its breath tonight. The endgame was a point even the original series never reached, and I believe you'll agree with me that, depending on how it was handled, they could have brought the show in for a beautiful landing, or nose-dived and crashed in the final half hour.

Fortunately, they did the former. In fact, when Baltar delivered one of his best quotes to date, I barely kept from jumping off the couch and as I exclaimed 'beautiful!'

Absolutely godsdamned frakking brilliant. I had become jaded enough with the idiot box in general that I had thought it incapable of this degree of brilliance.


I told my brother last week we're probably going to get an ending to this show will be discussing clear into next year. We certainly will be.


...and maybe after that too.

[Apple of Eris]

*Sigh*

Best fracking show on TV in a long time. I'm both sad and happy it's over. Happy because I would get so emotionally wrapped up in the characters on the show like I really haven't with other shows and well, that was draining; sad because i'm so going to miss seeing more about my favorite cast of characters on television.

Truly a great show all around.

But now I need a new anti-social activity on fridays

[Erebus]

I 'll have to agree with all of you.

Best frakking show and excellent ending.

[Karma]

Apart from the fairly inaccurate portrayal of Earth...

[Doktor Sleepless]

Good ending, great show.

[The Overlord]

Yahoo linked an article on the fueled debate about the finale, where the purists were going over the finer points and the physics of the story.

Such as, you have the remaining 30,000 roughly that survived at the end of the journey in the ragtag fleet. So, even beaten and battered, a space-faring society is going to settle onto a Neolithic planet and just bury all its technology?

Lee- "Well guys, looks like Mastodon for dinner again tonight, but you'll have to throw spears."


Riiight. Sure buddy.


Right after I go hide my laser gun for a rainy day.


Which begs the question; even if they shot the main fleet into the sun. In 150,000 years they found Hera/Mitochondrial Eve...ok, they didn't exactly explain the science there either. She's a hybrid Cylon baby...didn't she have any extra parts that were questionable? I don't know...a CPU or something?

But point is, they found the little girl ages later...but nobody dug up a Raptor or a Viper?

What the frack I say?

Biggest thing that made no sense...Adama building his little cabin in the hills even after Roslin dies. Was he so sick of humanity after his mission that he just wanted to die alone? After four seasons, that just doesn't jive with anything we saw of the old man. He's tough as nails, but he's also got a heart as big as his ship. Why would he abandon his family and friends?


And then the final question that's going to be on everyone's lips for at least the next year-


What the frack was Starbuck?


Personally, I think she was an angel, loosely speaking. After she finds her body, it's conceivable that she was some sort of Cylon model, or did some funky time travel thing worthy of Star trek, but now I don't think that's it at all.

All this time she's the harbinger of doom, but then in the end she makes the fateful jump to Earth that saves humanity. I think there was two Starbucks...one harbinger, one savior. The harbinger is somehow what could have happened, or perhaps did happen, when she arrived at the first Earth and somehow triggered a war. How she got 2,000 years in the past I can't say.

Anyhow, Starbuck the savior came back to the fleet with the way to Earth. Her ship was all new because I think they sort of pulled a Gandalf with her; it wasn't her time to go yet. To make a classic Battlestar reference; ships of light.

But then the way we saw her last; Lee is talking to her and she just bamfs away. In a sense I don't think she was really there, not in a true human sense. She was physical and not just a vision in someone's mind like Six, but she returned to the fleet inexplicably and slipped away like a phantom in the end.

I don't think she was entirely human or Cylon at the end- she was something more, that transcended normal existence.

[dafatkat]

I think you are underestimating peoples willingness to go with a clean slate. I mean look at the chain of events.

1) Twelve Colonies Nuked
2) New Caprica taken over
3) Earth is a cinder
4) An armed insurrection in the military
5) the final battle with Cavil's cylons

You pile those huge events and just being stuck on a ship for four years, anyone would trade away technology for just a quiet slice of heaven.

Also I doubt that any raptors or vipers would of survived 150,000 years of erosion. Even at best I think the models say that if humanity left right now, most buildings would last 1000 years tops.

[The Overlord]

I think you are underestimating peoples willingness to go with a clean slate. I mean look at the chain of events.

1) Twelve Colonies Nuked
2) New Caprica taken over
3) Earth is a cinder
4) An armed insurrection in the military
5) the final battle with Cavil's cylons

You pile those huge events and just being stuck on a ship for four years, anyone would trade away technology for just a quiet slice of heaven.

Also I doubt that any raptors or vipers would of survived 150,000 years of erosion. Even at best I think the models say that if humanity left right now, most buildings would last 1000 years tops.

Well, impossible to say with certainty, as I have neither survived a civilization-ending apocalypse, nor do I know anyone who has.


I am reminded here of the old saying; guns don't kill people, people kill people. Humans have the capacity to wipe each other out regardless of the tech level. High-tech just makes it easier.

Now, let me plug in a real-world analogy here. Here, in the United States we have a very wide spectrum. We have people like you and I, who choose to spend considerable on the net, posting, gaming and whatever else we do here. On the other hand we have US citizens like the Amish that choose to live with simpler ways.

I can't see the remaining human population subscribing wholesale to this idea without even so much as a vigorous debate. Much more likely, I can see a schism where the various groups spread out, and some may have adapted to simpler ways and others did not.

Even going low-tech makes no assurances: At an Amish-level of technology I can use my axe to fell a tree and raise a barn, or lay it upside someone's head. It's not the technology, it's the mind that wields it.

I can say I'd never be willing to relinquish my level of technology- it's not just about the conveniences, after lots of research on the topic, I am thoroughly convinced that high-tech is going to help save all our asses in the real world. Going to improved transpiration and housing, alternative and renewable energy sources, and taking the massive strain off the planet we're in danger of ruining.

Like I said, I'll help you hunt mammoth...right after I get my laser gun.


As far as the technology goes, if Hera can be found as a fossil and soft tissue can be found inside Tyrannosaurus bones after 65+ million years in the ground (an actual documented find), then they could find Raptors or Vipers.

Sure, they'd mostly disintegrate over 150,000 years, but even if the colonists deliberately destroyed their ships, unless they flew them all into the sun, anything on the ground would leave remains. Paleontologists and archeologists would find anomalous metal alloys they couldn't explain, incongruous to the local geology. In fact, coming from who knows how far away in the galaxy, the ships' remains might even contain elements we don’t know of on earth. Or, isotopes known by modern humanity on Earth, when found, may reveal half-lives that match nothing terrestrial, making it possible to not only date the relics, but determine they are of extraterrestrial origin. Even bits and pieces are likely to reveal signs of artificial manufacture.

And it doesn’t even have to be a colonial spacecraft; a toaster that survives in the strata layers (an actual toaster, not a Cylon) would still possibly have enough remains to reveal itself as a relic from a previous technology level.


And you’re correct; if humanity just up and stopped right now; most of what we have built will have collapsed within a millennium. However, the materials we built them with, relics of our modern day, would endure for a very long time. Enough to prove that we were here.



So there, I've had my uber geek moment and picked the final plot apart on surgical scale, but I've examined what makes sense.



.

[Apple of Eris]

I'd have to say this, keep you r laser gun, but what happens when the charge runs out? There only 30K of you, hardly enough to keep a high tech civilzation going indefinately.

Aside from the fact that I don't recall humanity having laser weaponry, rather projectile weapons, and from that were there even toold around to continue manufacturing those? Even if humanity wanted to hold onto the high tech in certain fields, medicine for example, there would have to be sacrifices simpley because of lack of machinery/tools, and a lack of skilled people. Of the 30K people left it's doubtful you'll have enough with all the tech know-how to rebuild everything, and somehow I doubt all the blueprints for those machines we all depend on would be found on the ships. They wer efleeing in a panic, not a planned exodus.

In a generation or two, even if they had certain machines, I doubt there would be anyone left who could truly maintain/rebuild one. Honestly, how many machine operators could build the machines they use in a forge without detailed blueprints. I don't think it was even really a matter of choice, but one of practicality.

That though, is just my opinion :)

[The Overlord]

Well, I was speaking more figuratively with the laser gun reference since it's such a staple to sci-fi in general. Add to that, that the original Batltestar had vipers with laser/blaster/energy weapons, and I still tend to think of the real Vipers as the originals.

All that aside, they generally had the means to maintain the weapons they did have all through the escape from the colonies and to both Earths. The obvious thing were no dry-dock or proper facilities for refitting the Galactica, so sadly the old girl was fated to wear down over time.

But as for the rest, they had the means to repair and keep the fighters and smaller ships running all the way from the colonies, they could have cannibalized a tremendous amount of technology from the fleet before losing it.


I mean, shit, look at Jamestown colony. They came to North American shores in far less numbers and wooden ships, and survived tremendous hardships. They eventually brought about one of the world's greatest countries. Somehow I see an interstellar-capable bunch able to handle at least that.

They had people among their numbers who were clearly technically skilled and could train the next generation. And what about the skinjobs that came with? How long do they live exactly? If they're cyborg, who knows if Six and Boomer would have lived for centuries with the knowledge they needed to not just survive but advance?


Hell, just look at the Chief: He’s a Cylon with god-only-knows how long of a life span, and is one of the most technically skilled members in the fleet.


Thing is, I know we're not going to see a series or even a single movie regarding the A.G. era, After Galactica, but I do hope an official novel is released explaining what happened in the first few centuries.




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[dafatkat]

I don't think that there is really anything to hint that they skin jobs live longer than regular humans. For all we know they could have the same lifespan. In fact whats not really gone into any certain detail is what makes a skin job different than a human?


And I do think you have a point that perhaps if the 30,000 people had stayed together they could of probably done something similar to a Jamestown expedition. However would seem that they split up amongst 4 different spots (Africa, The Tigris/Euphrates, the Amazon, and the Yellow are the ones I saw). Now its true that they would of eventually lost the expertise, eventually.

But the series makes it a huge point to show that Nomadic Humans at the time, did not have a written speech, and Lee makes mention of this. So perhaps we have to ask ourselves maybe they did leave their laser guns behind but they took with them the basic knowledge needed to foster civilization. The wheel, the plow, the cart, simple mathematics, concepts of language and communication, astronomy, etc. etc. So in my opinion they gave to the indigenous peoples they best of themselves and just decided to blend in.