While I find the attempts to try to explain the "mythos" of NuBSG in a somewhat rational manner interesting, ultimately they still fall apart. And the reason is quite simple - RDM did not have any underlying plan for the whole series and as such there are contradictions that they tried to retcon out and plot issues they simply ignored (probably because there was no good way to retcon it out). Among these issues are:
1) Cylon baseships in Season 1 at least were giant Cylons. Suddenly they became more like normal ships but with a "hybrid" to control them. This is a component part of the next issue.
2) 12 models of Cylon, not 12 models of "humanoid" Cylon. That is right out of the mouth of Six in the miniseries; and she specifically told Gaius that the Centurions were one of the 12 models. Of course like the first point they tried to retcon-sweep away this whole point in order to make room for a "Final Five" plot that obviously was non-existent until Season 3.
3) The Cylon Plan has always been a big problem. At first it was this mysterious underlying program drivng their actions then it basically disappeared then it reappeared much later in a vastly changed form (and was extensively retconned in "The Plan" TV movie).
4) The total illogic of the Cylons trying to destroy the Fleet when the Final Five were on board. And they WERE genuinely trying to destroy the fleet. To try to cover this they assigned Cavil a sort of "super Cylon" role never even hinted at previously. This of course does nothing to explain exactly how it was that in the chaos of the destruction the Five all ended up on the fleet.
5) The Five themselves create serious plot problems. Tigh for example was Adama's best friend and they knew each other and palled around from before the first Cylon War. However, per Season 4 the Five did not come to the current Cylons until after that war. So Tigh inherently cannot be a Cylon in this fashion.
6) Tigh and Six concieving a child. Also Tyrols baby with Cally, Note the need to retcon again in both cases (they had Cally cheat on Tyrol to get pregnant and Tigh/Six's child died). They had to because both cases have the effect of making Hera unimportant.
7) Hera as "mitochondrial" Eve. Sorry but it does not work. If true then no one else left any descendants and also all of the natives died likewise without descendants. This flows from the definition of Mitochondrial Eve. This is just one of many problems created by the manner in which the series was ended.
8) The whole concept of the Cylon "God" was never properly explored. It was setup very well in Season One then it just sort of fell away.
I could go on, but the basic point should be pretty clear. And I LIKED NuBSG (at least the first 2 Seasons). However I cannot excuse the poor writing on display in Seasons 3 and 4.
OK I SHALL EDIT AND CREATE PARAGRAPHS EVEN IF THEY SHOULD NOT BE ONES.
well, where to begin
-Ok--Tigh did not meet Adama until the end of the war--after the final five were 'brainwashed' by Cavil.
-At the time of the attack, the skin job cylons were in unison in their "patricidal" resolve to destroy humans. The only one who knew of the f5 was Cavil, as the leader of the cylons all others followed his order. It was not until Caprica 6-hero of the cylon-was brought back and met the Sharon-Boomer-that shot Adama-that the two and many of their sidter models began to sow discontent.
-Throughout the basestars are still bio=mechanical.we see this when the rebel cylons basestar-heavily damaged-begins to re-grow and heal itself once they join with Adama. Hybrids have always been the control interface used between the skin-jobs and the basestars
-Dont know where you got that 6 said the centurions were one of the 12 models. She did tell Baltar that there were many copies of her and that she (the precise, individual model speaking at the time) had never met all of the models.
-How many other shows and movies have plot changes later that take you away from what was at first believed? (ie Tyrol and Cally having the kid when in fact Cally had cheated) Hera is still important even if the other if 6 and tyighs kid lived--he would have been total cylon, we know the skin job cylons of earth 1 were capable of biological reproduction, this is stated in the show, thats why the f5 had to 're-discover- resurrection tech. Had Tyrol's kid actually had been his, still not that big of a deal because Hera is the 1st child of the latest iteration of skin job/human breeding.
-I have also said here that I think Moore's use of the Mitochondrial eve thing was just his way of trying to 'spoon feed' the implications of the colonial/cylon landing on our earth. Also, at the time, this issue in the real world was a fairly current one and I think that Moore just had a personal fascination with it. The MEve theory is just that, it is also one that does not have much spt in the scientific community. If true, it is not meant to be taken literal, there is no way that all modern humans could be descended from one ancient woman-Eve, no matter what any scientist or religious person says. I would have liked to have seen them land closer to out own time, say about 10,000 bc-the period when man started making the 'jump' from hunter gatherer to a more domesticated lifestyle on a larger scale. This would have been a good fictional explanation for the clear advanced tech that some ancient cultures had for the time (pyramid building, cutting granite without metal tools, perfect geometry way before Pythagoras, etc).
-The cylon god concept-though not addressed by name-was further fleshed out in CAPRICA (again-required Moore's 'between the lines' understanding/another reason why CAPRICA could not be viewed as a 'stand alone' series as Syfy wanted). The "one true god" is the monotheists god, this is the cult that Lacey ends up being the head of and is also the cult that fosters the 'soldiers of the one' terrorist group. Clarice, after her downfall and Apotheosis failure, takes to teaching cylon workers and servants of all types about the one true god. They are about the only large group she can get in v-world (or anywhere else) since she is persona non-grata to both mainstream colonial society and to the STO and the monotheists-she made enemies all around.
NEW PARAGRAPH
Somewhere in the ensuing war (which maybe will see particulars on in B&C?) the centurions morph and corrupt the teachings of Clarice (and most likely Lacey as she is the new monotheist 'mother superior' and also commands a large army of centurions) in the manner that many fundamentalists corrupt the teachings of their parent religions-to that of the 'one true god' being the cylon god, and that cylon god has most likely been revealed to them in the form of either a human helper (Lacey/Clarice?) or the first (this time around) skin-job-Zoe--a cylon savior and prophet of the cylon future.
NEW PARA
By the time we get to BSG's time-this belief among cylons has become a minority one due to Cavil's teachings in the "perfect machine", the only believers are in the centurions (new models and old); somewhere we see a 6 saying that she/they learned of the one true/cylon god from the centurions. Later, we begin to see a definitive line being drawn between the 'one true god' (possibly the higher power in charge of the head/angel creatures?) preached of by Baltar and the cylon god. The head creature 6 of Baltar speaks of "god' and once Baltar has his "Saul/Jonah" moments of doubt and desperation, she reveals to him that she is a messenger and servant of the "one true god" not the cylon god.
NEW PARA
AND-as Greybrew can attest to in our conversations-we have talked about how every show sees change between the pilot/movie it is based on and the first or later seasons. Canon is changed as necessary to meet the needs of the script (heck-I was just re-watching STARGATE with Russel/Spader on HBO GO--when they finally make a successful connection to Abydos, they are looking at the space map and following the mouts track-one of the tech's say, to the effect of "there, it has stopped in the (unintelligible spoken name) galaxy, on the other side of the universe"!!! then of course in sg1 everything,at first, is within the milky way galaxy.)this is also done because they can. back to SG as an example. I watched it for the 1st time on netflix, back to back with no months long between season breaks of course. You can see many small changes between seasons. Like when att he end of one season (season 3 maybe?) the team is stuck on a planet, with little more than their basic gear--next season starts they get back, Teal'c is sporting his blonde goatee and carter has a new hair style! How was this possible on a deserted planet with a couple of canteens of water and basic survival gear?! It is possible because TPTB now that American viewers have short attention spans and the long breaks create 'alibis' for the changes.
NEW PARA
You also have to remember that Moore and Eick (yes some of it was on the fly to meet syfy requirements after the mini-series got good reviews and the network ordered season 2) deliberately left things out. things that would normally be called a plot-hole-on purpose. they despise the shows where there are three acts in 42 minutes where we go from intro to catastrophe to saving the world with nothing left to imagination or the mind's eye. Like they say, being a "bsg believer" requires acts of
active 'faith' in the unseen (which many of us do in other arenas all of the time), using what you have observed and heard on the show and applying it to filling in the blanks. Starbuck's dissapearance and re-appearance is one of the biggest examples of this. You can see in the deleted scenes and with podcast on, that for her to re-appear, she was going to just 'pop-in' to Apollo's room, something that would have been very "science-fictiony" for BSG, and would have also been easier for some fans to except over the re-appearance actually shown. We are never shown nor told the circumstances of this. On forums and elsewhere, when it was said that Starbuck is not a cylon-the show lost viewers, ppl cried and complained because they could not accept--they didn't have that 'faith' spoken of. When she just disappeared in DAYBREAK, many fell apart then too. We are not supposed to be told--just as in life many things are left to our imagination and interpretation.
NEW PARAGRAPH
My personal take on it, was that when she died, it was not in keeping with the plan of the "higher powers", those who sent the head creatures (this is also a 'play' taken from TOS with the seraphs and beings of light saving viper pilots),they/she-he/it still require Starbuck as a key part of their plan. We see where she has been getting clues to the location of Earth her whole life--in her father's music, her paintings, etc--if they lost her that the plan would need amended. Just as she said in DAYBREAK "her work/time was done"-they took her back. Remeber what Baltar says "angels appear in the forms of those most dear to us", STARBUCK was dear to just about everyone of importance in the fleet--the person we see may have looked like and even believed itself to be her but in fact could have just been another one of these angels/head creatures on "mass reveal mode."
NEW PARAGRAPH
The stories of BSG and CAPRICA are interconnected in more than just standard prequel-series ways. Yes we got the backstory of the cylons-to a point. But we also needed to see all of BSG to know why it seems that he ppl and society of BSG were more primitive and less tech developed that those of their past in CAPRICA. We needed to hear that "angels appear in the form of those most dear to us" to know why/who Clarice was seeing in the v-world chapel at the end (amanda greystone's visions of her brother were probably going to lead to something as well but cut short due to cancellation).
Many liked only the first two season due to the action and space fighting, etc. and dropped out when there was less of this.
END OF LINE NOTHING FOLLOWS
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I wished they had tried a more imaginative ending...like them hitting earth NOW or post apocalytic. just my take on the show.
. I would buy them all from the bargain bin, though I can not think of one new show I would pay full price for:icon_e_sad:
so like most of nuBSG , that scene can be interpreted many ways.
so you can ask her.