[tikey]

It was a lovely touch the TOS music as the fleet flew to the sun.

That's been heard before. Tis the Colonial Anthem, first heard in season 2.

I know, but it was a lovely touch to use it in that particular moment, regardless of having heard it before.

[Blue Lion]

Roslin introduces cancer to Earth.

[Axem]

I don't expect the show to cater to my every whim. However it gets a little clear on how the writers are trying to cram an means to the end they've been revealing for the past 4 years. But just its a small nitpick, it doesn't destroy my love for the show and I thought it was a very fitting end.

[Unknown Target]

I think they might have been images sent through time? I know that's a bit sci fi for BSG, but it's the only thing I could think of. And "God" is really just a person.

[a50callovenote]

[/quote]

The Opera scene was the confirmation of predestination as it relates between key people. It's the mystic bull**** I was referring to. It was meant to show how it's all been already set in stone, and the actors were just playing their parts faithfully, or to put it better, "how it all comes true in the end".

I think most of us wanted all that stuff to be more and have a better meaning, but it just wasn't. And that's fine, I mean, considering our entire species practices mass delusion in fantastic numbers on a daily basis, it's not like the show was catering that aspect to me, or people like me. A lot of the final episode, and Galactica in general now that we can look at it as a whole, was meant to straddle the line, entertain all sorts of people who believe or don't believe in things.

Just have to accept some things are not FOR you. At least, these aspects of the show were not for me. I can't speak for any of you.

   
not to get off topic....
I think mysticism is just to state the human imagination that drives us forward to understanding. Its natural for the mind to fill in the gaps.  The problem is when people dont realize they cant force their personal perspectives on others. rather taking in account of differences in understandings and maybe seizing the opportunity to see multiple perspectives. Mysticism may be a way to answer the questions that some paths of reason can not.

[Dark Knight]

Okay, I only had one problem with the whole episode, it was something that pulled me out of it and its something that bugs me every time it happens in a show. You know the way sometimes when a CGI team or artist has worked on such-and-such and so throws a ship from another show into background of a shot and it's a nice easter egg? Well that's okay. Like the when Enterprise can be faintly seen in some of the RTF shots in Season 1.

Well sometimes they don't leave these things in the back of shot. Sometimes they drop the easter eggs in centre frame and It's really jarring. A Key example of this is in the mini-series with the cameo appearance of Serenity. Well in this the final episode of Galactica they did it again. At about the 14 minute mark, during the segue into the “Admiral Hoshi” scene, the Kodiak, the ship from Command & Conquer 2: Tibirium Sun can be clearly seen as the camera pans through the fleet.

Other than that this is probably the best ending episode I've ever seen in a series, and best of all, as we didn't see much of the Viper action Diaspora has a clean slate

[Angreifer]

The Opera House to me wasn't predestination in the slightest. It was prophecy. At no point was it a prophecy that was certain to come to pass, but because of the choices that people made, it did. It was those choices that gave Cylons and Humans a chance to end the cycle.

[BlackDove]

Mysticism may be a way to answer the questions that some paths of reason can not.

I'm sorry, I'm not that advanced so as to take mysticism as fact for the missing pieces of logic. If you can do that though, and treat it as an acceptable existence, hats off to you.

[Herra Tohtori]

I liked the ending.

Here's my interpretation of Colonial-Cylon history as it relates to the show.

In the Great Cycle's beginning, humans evolved in Earth. They evolved, had first contact with Lords of Kobol (either an alien race which would explain the Deus Ex Machinas in the show, or Cylons variant of humanoid species). They ended up being deported to Kobol to live with their new overlords. Alternatively they ended up colonizing the Kobol, and abandoned Earth to be populated by artificial race of humanoids (cylon skinjobs), but as there's still need for a third party to explain some things, I think this is more unlikely.

At some point, there was some event that forced the Kobol to be abandoned. My guess would be the Disease that ended up destroying majority of the Cylon population. Human complement of the planet was sent away to populate the Twelve Colonies, while the 13th tribe (lords of Kobol aka skinjob cylon (sub)species) travelled to Earth and took over as the dominant species of the planet for several thousand years. There they continued to develope their technology, figured out or re-discovered resurrection, had a nuclear holocaust with themselves, and only five of them got resurrected onboard the Cylon Colony (presumably an orbital habitat at the time) and started their travel towards the 12 Colonies.

At this point the Imperious Leader or Powers that Be - which are an unknown factor at the time and most likely source for the avatars that appear to some people, as well as responsible for anomalies such as Kara Thrace's second life and the Watchtower-related stuff - either formed a plan to start anew, or alternatively the cycle started from the beginning.

Kara's Watchtower co-ordinates made the FTL drive into a time machine. Basically FTL drive would be a 4-dimensional vector manipulator instead of just three-dimensional, and in fact the reason why such apparently complex calculus is needed for preparing jumps is to keep the timeframe constant. The co-ordinates fed to Kara Thrace the Second (and the final Five at some point, they just didn't end up figuring it out entirely) ended up moving the fleet to Earth as it was 150000 years ago on this reality's timeframe (as it's depicted in the show). It's possible that the Cylon Centurions on the Base ship ended up in Kobol, and developed themselves into biomechanical humanoid form. Or, they become the unknown Third Party for the next cycle, should it start again. That would suggest that the unknown third party in the series would be the remnants of the cylon faction from the last cycle (or whatever they like to be called with).

Why then is the Earth they ended up the same Earth that they discovered nuked to oblivion earlier in the series? Why, constellations and continents of course. I don't recall we saw the continental features of the Earth that Was when they found it "first" time; however we know that the constellations are a match to what we're seeing on night sky right now. On the other hand we saw the map of the Earth that Is very clearly on multiple occasion and it is, without any lingering doubt, Earth. And it is unreasonable to assume that there would be a planet with same continental features somewhere else in the universe - possible, but unlikely.

So this leads me to conclude that the Earth they found in this final episode is the same Earth, but on earlier time. The Unknown Third Party is probably Imperious Leader of the cylon survivors from the last cycle, and apparently doesn't want to be called God.

Kara Thrace's disappearance at the end of the show is free to interpretations; mine is that Lee's monologue took longer than he thought and Kara simply walked away... somewhere. Another is that he really disappeared, having fulfilled her purpose.

As to what comes to her father learning her to play that song and therefore being related to Daniel... two words, implanted memories. The pianist in the bar was, in my interpretation, a projection similar to Head-Baltar, Head-Six, Head-Elosha et al. Kara was likely just picked by the Imperious Leader to be a contingency plan in case the Final Five failed to break the cycle (which they did thanks to Galen snapping Tori's neck); she's been seeing things for a long time starting from the Eye of the Jupiter drawings and ending up in the Watchtower popping up from her subconscious as a "memory". There's no real evidence that she ever learned that song from her father besides what she says, and she can't really be trusted on this.

Head Leoben's nature is a mystery; either he was actually a result of psychological damage done to Kara in New Caprica, or a genuine projection resulting from Imperious Leader messing up with Kara before the series even started.

It's also possible - though not necessarily - that Baltar was also resurrected after the initial nuclear strike. That would explain his ability to project the Head-Six, although she could just as well be a messenger of the Imperious Leader. Or maybe ability to project can be transmitted via bodily fluids...

Roslin... well, she obviously had visions in the very beginning of the show with Snakes on Colonial One and all that jazz, but I would be willing to blame the Chamalla extract and other herbal products for that. Does anyone recall if she actually had the ability to project before or after Hera's hybrid blood made the cancer go into remission?

"Harbinger of Death" probably refers more to her having gone through death than leading humanity to destruction.


Any other threads to tie into nice clean knot?


EDIT: Why is this post being shown in several font sizes? 

EDIT2: D'oh. Can't use (sub) in bracket parentheses...

[a50callovenote]

Mysticism may be a way to answer the questions that some paths of reason can not.


I'm sorry, I'm not that advanced so as to take mysticism as fact for the missing pieces of logic. If you can do that though, and treat it as an acceptable existence, hats off to you.

right on.

[The E]

*really long theory*

Not bad at all. However, your theory uses time travel, something that we don't know is possible in the BSG universe. If it were, and if it was as easy as picking the right FTL Coordinates, then it would have been used, and there is no evidence of that.

My personal theory is that the Lords of Kobol (or whatever the third party really is) are more like transcendent, strongly superhuman AIs that evolved on Kobol as part of a hard singularity. They deported and de-technified the Humans to what would then become the 13 Colonies, in order to allow them to live in peace. The Cylons were the first to recreate the circumstances for a hard AI takeoff, which resultet in the destruction of Earth 1. 2000 years after that, the Humans were also once again able to manufacture AI on a large scale, with the consequence being the first cylon war. After that, the Lords of Kobol decided that Humanity needed some more direct intervention in order to ensure its survival, thus the "Angels" were created to subtly guide events in the right direction.
Now, I don't know why these Godlike beings decided that Humanity was worthy of survival, but then I'm no God (or TV-Show writer)...

[Herra Tohtori]

*really long theory*

Not bad at all. However, your theory uses time travel, something that we don't know is possible in the BSG universe. If it were, and if it was as easy as picking the right FTL Coordinates, then it would have been used, and there is no evidence of that.

I know, and I don't like bringing time travel into it either.

But, the way I see it, it's either that or a massive cosmic plot hole in the astronomy of Galactica; The constellations they were seeing on the Kobol's Earth-simulator and on Earth as they found it nuked were the same as we see now, which is 150000 years from the series ending point and them founding another earth.

If the Earth they found first was the original one and constellations haven't drifted too far from present-day configuration, and the Earth they found at the end of the series was a different planet in different place but no timetravel involved, then the logical conclusion is that all this is happening in the Hitchiker's Guide to Galaxy universe and the other Earth has been made by Magratheans or something completely different.

It's also a vague possibility that the "Earth" they first found was not actually Earth but some planet "close enough" on galactic scene not to cause too much distortions on the constellations, but I find that unlikely at best.

Time travel, unfortunately, is the simplest way to explain how they found an Earth in a location with matching constellations, and later found another planet with matching continents and no nuclear holocaust history (or much else either). I guess we should just be happy that no hoverbikes were involved.

Magratheans aren't a better explanation either (YMMV).


As to time travel being possible... I would guess that you would need to feed very very specific 4-vector inputs into the interface in order not to cause bad things to happen. Kara Thrace and the First Five had this information in the form of the Watchtower... or alternatively, Kara just had the information and thought it was hidden in the song (and in reality the song was just a subconscious access point to the information).

Weak points of the theory of time travel are:

-going to past is impossible based on General Relativity. Establishing a connection to future via time-differentiated wormhole is hypothetically possible, and traveling through an established wormhole from future to present may be possible, but all this is just speculation.

-A raptor was able to jump into the rendezvous co-ordinates from Earth 2, which suggests they were within Raptor range in 3-dimensional space and more importantly, likely that they were still on the same timeline and timeframe as well. Unless FTL as a time machine can jump between timelines (or alternate universes if you will) in addition to just back and forward in it's own timeline.

-time travel sucks as an explanation


Anyhow... either someone fails astronomy forever which unfortunately might be the more probable reason for the plot hole (it wouldn't be unheard of either, remember Lagoon Nebula as the first leg towards Earth way back then...), or there's time travel involved.

The ending left a lot open for interpretation while still giving closure to the most of the things we wanted to know. The biggest thing I would've wanted to know is who resurrected Kara Thrace, and who was responsible for "encoding" information into "Watchtower"...

[The E]

I know, and I don't like bringing time travel into it either.

But, the way I see it, it's either that or a massive cosmic plot hole in the astronomy of Galactica; The constellations they were seeing on the Kobol's Earth-simulator and on Earth as they found it nuked were the same as we see now, which is 150000 years from the series ending point and them founding another earth.

If the Earth they found first was the original one and constellations haven't drifted too far from present-day configuration, and the Earth they found at the end of the series was a different planet in different place but no timetravel involved, then the logical conclusion is that all this is happening in the Hitchiker's Guide to Galaxy universe and the other Earth has been made by Magratheans or something completely different.

It's also a vague possibility that the "Earth" they first found was not actually Earth but some planet "close enough" on galactic scene not to cause too much distortions on the constellations, but I find that unlikely at best.

Time travel, unfortunately, is the simplest way to explain how they found an Earth in a location with matching constellations, and later found another planet with matching continents and no nuclear holocaust history (or much else either). I guess we should just be happy that no hoverbikes were involved.

Magratheans aren't a better explanation either (YMMV).

The problem with time travel in your theory is that it propably would need to work in both directions, since Kara's jump coordinates were propably not the pre-agreed rendezvous coordinates. The way i see it, Galactica jumped to Earth, then sent a Raptor to rendezvous with the fleet. The Fleet then jumped to Earth. The problem is that jump coordinates are dependent on the location you are jumping from (established in 2x1, IIRC), meaning that whatever enabled the time travelling for Galactica must have been worked into the Fleet's jump coordinates. That's just my fridge logic, of course. For me, anything involving time travel in the BSG universe is plain wrong. I've had enough of that particular subject since Star Trek, and I don't want it to intrude on my BSG enjoyment.

EDIT: Damn. All those points, and then you go making them yourself. That is not nice. I guess the reason for the plothole is that, when they introduced the constellations back in Season 2, they didn't know what the ending would look like, and that when they wrote the ending, they didn't really care.
As for Kara, I guess that whoever the third party is, it realized that the Humans and Cylons needed another whack with the cluestick and sent Kara a few visions of Leoben to get her into a position to get killed, then resurrected her with a few extra informations thrown in to get the fleet where they need to be faster.

[Mr. R]

I think this episode could have done without the last two minutes tying into the 'real world', making such a blunt cautionary tale. It wasn't enough to ruin a mostly-satisfying ending, though.

EDIT: A few thoughts, that I suspended while watching:

- None of the potential 'dying leaders' didn't make it to New Earth.
- Why was the opera house projection so important and forshadow-worthy? The role of Baltar and Caprica Six in getting Hera to the CIC was very minor, compared to all the other things that happened to the girl. In fact, what was so important about Hera? Why couldn't anyone else be the mitochondrial Eve? Was she just a rallying symbol for leading Galactica to the final battle?
- The nature of Starbuck and the motives of the 'Head angels' were left unexplained, which is diappointing, considering how much of the series was invested in these mysteries. 'Something has been guiding us all along' is nothing that hasn't been said before.

Nailed it, agreed.

[Locutus of Borg]

about the 'You know he doesn't like being called that...'

They were referring to god, and it was meant to reinforce that they are angels.

[Polpolion]

One thing that makes me angry is that in the end, it didn't matter at all if the fleet survived or not. Think about it: they didn't bring any technology to the new world, they threw it all into the sun. They didn't start again and try and continue with their lives, they just sort of stopped. They set back the human scientific understanding of the universe by tens of thousands of years. They did bring knowledge, thought, but not the means to use all of it. They have enough knowledge to survive, but that's essentially it.

If the fleet was destroyed, say at the beginning of the fourth season, it's perfectly possible that the same end result would have happened: with people on "Earth" being a technological civilization 150,000 years later.

Other than that (the last half hour or so), it was an excellent ending. It's just that the above lingers in my mind and gnaws at it.

[General Battuta]

One thing that makes me angry is that in the end, it didn't matter at all if the fleet survived or not. Think about it: they didn't bring any technology to the new world, they threw it all into the sun. They didn't start again and try and continue with their lives, they just sort of stopped. They set back the human scientific understanding of the universe by tens of thousands of years. They did bring knowledge, thought, but not the means to use all of it. They have enough knowledge to survive, but that's essentially it.

If the fleet was destroyed, say at the beginning of the fourth season, it's perfectly possible that the same end result would have happened: with people on "Earth" being a technological civilization 150,000 years later.

Other than that (the last half hour or so), it was an excellent ending. It's just that the above lingers in my mind and gnaws at it.

Except Hera was for some reason necessary.

[Herra Tohtori]

Oh by the way, for anyone who happens to have a keyboard instrument (or can play them on their head):

Assign E=1 F=2 G=3 A=4 B=5 C=6 D=7 (though the last doesn't matter).

Then take a look at the co-ordinates on the FTL drive: 1123 6536 5321, and press the corresponding keys. Behold the unbelievably complex mathemathics to derive the jump co-ordinates.

EDIT: In case it hasn't been posted yet in the thread, Ron Moore's post-finale press conference seems to say that the "Original Earth" was the nuked one, and the "New Earth" is in our past. He doesn't say if timetravel was involved.

Fail at astronomy seems to creep up as the more likely answer to the question of why there are two Earths.

Was there ever any clear shot of the "Original Earth" that would show that it has different or similar coastlines as "New Earth"?

[Rainman]

The ending was OK, but it deserved to be 5 hours long at least. Then it would have been beyond amazing. They just didn't have time to keep the drama going with so many questions to be answered.

And anyone else notice a lot of holes in the story? Raptors jumped from inside Galactica and didn't tear it apart? Galactica jumped from inside the colony and didn't tear that apart or even leave a scratch? And that conviniently placed and timed nuke launch was wierd as hell too. It would have been better if it occured hours later and if the nukes homed in on the colony after being fired the wrong way. When the losses were called out, 7 raptors seemed realistic... but 4 vipers? That's it?

But there were so many brilliant ideas too, I just feel like Adama should have had a backup plan if Anders couldn't disable the hybrids. That's the whole time factor again. If there was more time they could have showed that. I would have liked to see the battle plan in progress, not just hey look, theres a problem, and then they just jump to the solution.

There were two moments that I felt like laughing in the show:

1) The cylon on cylon hand combat, they looked like they were breaking it down on the dance floor, and it was priceless. The room even had the perfect dark lighting for a club.

2) At the end with the whole "the moral of today's story is don't mess with robots"

That being said, the episode was great with the time given. They answered EVERYTHING. And the battle, especially the ground combat with the centurians backing up the marines, that was epic. The blank slate, everyone knows they want a blank slate. Even though it seems like a waste throwing those ships into the sun, that was the best thing I've ever seen. After seeing the worst that life had to offer, they decided to throw away their past and start over. And baltar finally growing a pair? That made the whole story worth it. He was a little trigger happy though i'm not going to lie.
And the red paint centurions? They looked like they were right out of Braveheart. I loved it. It made them look even more badass than they were before. And the fact that they didn't wash it off by the end of the show shows they liked it too.

All in all, it was a great ending, all questions answered, even though it might have seemed a little like a fairytale happily ever after ending. The theme I saw with the ending is that you have to enjoy life, live it to the fullest without letting the technology and mad rush and stress of modern times get you.

[Kyle_K_ski]

I feel that this was a very strong and satisfying way to end the series. 

The way Cavil went was brilliant.  It was really the only path that he could take.  Even if he could fight his way off of the ship, everyone else back on the Cylon Colony would just relegate him to the dung heap, and there's no way that he could've handled that.  Had he returned to the Colony, it would've even made sense to have had a Cylon kill him for his foolishness.

I'm surprised that nobody brought up one of the largest revelations in the show, that has enormous repercussions in how we see a major character, Baltar.  Over the past couple of weeks I've read on several sites one very consistent "criticism" in regards to if Baltar "grew a pair" in the series finale and did something other than serve himself, and that was it would be "totally out of character" for him to suddenly switch from being such a ruthless and selfish pig to one who would be willing to lay himself down for the benefit of others.  I was pretty much speechless when they showed the moment where he discloses to Six that he'll let her take a peek at the defense grid's code.  I certainly wasn't ready when he told her WHY he was doing it, because he LOVED her.  Wow!  That completely opened up a whole new way of seeing him.

It seems to me that Moore's message regarding the dangers of technology are far more profound than many of us here are contemplating, in the finale he seems to be shouting it out.  It's more than just the evolution of robotics/AI, but a whole questioning of how we've structured our entire current civilization, which is barely sustainable.  Just look at what Moore established:

Baltar's father was a farmer, who Baltar condemned as being "dirty minded" and a "pervert", but who, actually, was practically swinging his cane around in frustration at his son's inability to see that the world that he embraced was what was dirty minded, unnatural, and perverted because it was oblivious to the hard realities of life. 

On New Earth, when the words "we can have the main lines for a city drawn within a couple of days" were spoken, Lee said, "No.  No cities..."  Why choose those specific words?

Other than bare essentials, the survivors tossed all of their technology into the sun, and Sam certainly didn't seem to mind his sacrifice to make it happen.  They didn't even keep any vehicles to work the land!  This is no minor detail. 

Moore certainly could have ended the series with some dialogue describing how they would keep their technology and take steps to see that AI wouldn't be abused, or that robotics wouldn't be developed into a Cylon form, but he chose NOT to take this path, a path that most of us would certainly find reasonable.  No, instead, he aimed for the very symbolic base of empire: cities.  Enormous collections of people surrounded by a technological framework that is so rigid, that if it wasn't for the massive exploitation of land through agriculture everyone within would literally starve to death.  And "yes", I am being literal here.  What would happen if the cost of oil became too high?  There'd be no more high tech fertilizers and pesticides that are absolutely essential to maintain our enormous food production for our modern cities, no more antibiotics needed for massive meat production, and no more chemicals to treat water with, and without clean water there can only be Death to those that require it.  And I haven't even hit upon what the loss of tractor-centered farming would mean.  In the 1920s, it took 1 calorie of oil to produce 1 calorie of food.  Today, it takes 10 calories of petroleum to produce 1 calorie of food.  How much of a drop in petroleum does one need today to create an utter catastrophe?  With those ratios, not very much at all.     

Notice that the word "agriculture" isn't uttered even once, but rather the word "cultivation."  There IS a BIG difference between the two words, not just in meaning put more importantly, in practice. 

"Cultivation" means working WITH nature.

"Agriculture" means to disruptively EXPLOIT nature (which is what we have now).

The selection of language and tone is too consistent to be an accident.  Especially when combined with the visuals.  We see numerous scenes with small groups of people trekking across virgin lands, and then we sweep from Hera on the beautiful rolling plains to a modern day concrete and steel behemoth city that is unsustainable in every way, packed to the gills with people who are about as disconnected from The Land as one can get.  This isn't just about a lack of technical (not technological) know-how, but it also includes how that lack of natural connection leads to profound spiritual immaturity as well. 

One doesn't have to be religious to be spiritual.  Listen to just about anything Carl Sagan has ever spoken, and you'll instantly know what I'm talking about here.

Our last scene with Baltar on New Earth has him mentioning that he knows how to cultivate land, and he suddenly loses control over his emotions, because he's finally learned that the greatest gift he's been given is how to grow food to nourish others, and that this gift came from his father who he abused by trapping him within an abode most of us would consider heaven, with all of the modern and most beautiful conveniences of life.  But this "heaven" was really a hell, and only his father could see it.  What he wanted was to be able to grow things, and stay connected to The Land, the only real and meaningful relationship a human can have, anything else is an illusion of empire.  All of that which he cursed his father for was EVERYTHING he later HAD TO HAVE in order to LIVE.  What a terrifically powerful path to character development.  So much is said with so little. 

Wow.  What an epic and powerful conclusion. 

I still feel that Babylon 5 is the single greatest science fiction TV series ever made, but it was almost nudged out of its spot by BSG.  And that's an enormous compliment to an enormous achievement, especially when compared to all of the other crap Hollywood routinely produces from its diarrheaic butt.

The Diaspora team has quite a challenge with Galactica's final assault, and I can't wait to see the team NAIL it perfectly!

Wow!

Just WOW!