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Galactica Season 4 (Spoilers Within)

Transcript of the episode "The Hand of God":

Roslin: I've been taking chamalla for a medical condition.

Elosha: So what have you seen?

Roslin: It started out as dreams of the Cylon that we had executed but I had the dreams before we captured him. The images were...

Elosha: Prescient?

Roslin: Uncanny. And now I'm seeing things while I'm awake.

Elosha: What kind of things?

Roslin: Snakes, there were snakes crawling all over my podium during the press conference.

Elosha: How many?

Roslin: About a dozen.

Elosha: You're kidding me, right? You read Pythia and now you're having me on.

Roslin: No. Who is Pythia?

Elosha: One of the oracles, in the sacred scrolls. 3,600 years ago, Pythia wrote about the exile and the rebirth of a human race. And the lords anointed a leader to guide the caravan of the heavens to their new homeland and unto the leader they gave a vision of serpents, numbering two and ten, as a sign of things to come.

Roslin: Pythia wrote that?

Elosha: She also wrote that the leader suffered a wasting disease and would not live to enter the new land. But you're not dying... are you?

So, "their new homeland" and "the new land" doesn't necessarily mean Earth.
 
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So (assuming Roslin is the dying leader) Earth isn't necessarily the new homeland either.

So far we've seen sixteen planets in BSG that could support human life. They are:

The Twelve Colonies, currently highly radioactive.
This new Possibly-Earth planet, less radioactive but still not the best place in the galaxy to settle.
The Algae planet, currently inside a supernova.
New Caprica, inhabitable but not exactly pleasant -- going by what we saw of it.
And we have Kobol. Lovely little planet, nothing wrong with it at all. Only reason they left was because the Cylons knew about it too.

With the destruction of the Resurrection Hub, the defection of the Centurions and half their models, the remaining hostile Cylons could probably be persuaded to leave Kobol alone. So the fleet should jump back to Kobol -- a long backtracking trek, I know, but if the rogue basestar helps out they could probably do it faster -- and they should settle down there and start having babies, like Roslin said back at the beginning.

But I really think they'll learn the history of this new place (which probably is Earth), be confronted by humanity's fundamentally flawed nature, and the series will end with no real home for humans because we're bastards to the core, and the Cylons not much better.
 
Well, "its end" doesn't necessarily mean death or a trap, just wherever they end up at.

Yea I was thinking the same thing. End doesn't mean destruction. Could just mean end of their journey.

Like GKE said, we can spend the next 7 months guessing, but that is all it will be. In the end, as long as the conclusion SOMEHOW could be fit back into the context of some of these prophecies, then things will make sense. It might not be how we see it now, but there are other ways of making all this add up.

I'm leaning toward the Kobol camp as well. Especially with all that "rebirth" of the human race thing. Seems sort of anti-climatic to me though. Spend all this time looking for Earth. Oops. Everyone is dead. Hey, lets go back to Kobol where we were in Season 1.
 
I still think, despite all this thought-provoking stuff, that the best scene all season was when Adama was reading the book to Roslin in sick bay.

Oh, and has anyone else realized that if anything happens to Doc Cottle, the entire human race is screwed? Kill Bill Adama and Saul Tigh or Lee could take over. Kill Roslin and watch the fur fly as Zarek or Lee take over. Send off a whole raft of your top officers on a wild goose chase with Kara Thrace, and you'll find some folks to fill the gaps. But kill Doc Cottle, and you've got nothing left.
 
I have precious little to back this up, but I'm currently going with Helo as the final Cylon, regardless of what they say about the final one not being in the infamous picture. Note that he was on the baseship when they discussed the final five and she corrected them to four. Note also that Tigh has demonstrated the ability of the final five to reproduce with the other Cylons.

"But it can't be him, because they said the final model wasn't in the picture!". Maybe as a fan of nu-Who, I'm used to the show's head writer lying to us to protect a secret. That's my thinking on the matter.

That's my choice and I'm sticking to it, until such time as I change my mind.. probably next week.
 
So (assuming Roslin is the dying leader) Earth isn't necessarily the new homeland either.

So far we've seen sixteen planets in BSG that could support human life. They are:

The Twelve Colonies, currently highly radioactive.
This new Possibly-Earth planet, less radioactive but still not the best place in the galaxy to settle.
The Algae planet, currently inside a supernova.
New Caprica, inhabitable but not exactly pleasant -- going by what we saw of it.
And we have Kobol. Lovely little planet, nothing wrong with it at all. Only reason they left was because the Cylons knew about it too.

With the destruction of the Resurrection Hub, the defection of the Centurions and half their models, the remaining hostile Cylons could probably be persuaded to leave Kobol alone. So the fleet should jump back to Kobol -- a long backtracking trek, I know, but if the rogue basestar helps out they could probably do it faster -- and they should settle down there and start having babies, like Roslin said back at the beginning.

But I really think they'll learn the history of this new place (which probably is Earth), be confronted by humanity's fundamentally flawed nature, and the series will end with no real home for humans because we're bastards to the core, and the Cylons not much better.

Another good theory, definitely. It's all up in the air. =)
 
Something that is still bothering me. In the episode before the last one, you had Adama reading to Roslyn on her deathbed (vision/basestar jumping, etc.) I watched it again and Adama is reading to her and he is talking about this lovely garden, then he says, "and the cylon raider Scar who saved my life, blah blah," just thrown in there in a really weird way. Someone tell me that's not weird.
 
Alluveal that's another good reason to doubt that this is Earth that they have found, it tells me that their Journey is not at its end yet. There is mentioned in a column on the Syfy portal that they are going to be doing the Adam and Eve thing, with regard to the ending. I'm not at all sure I like that possibility.
 
Just watched it again, Alluveal. It's actually this:

"I collected seeds from the few fruits the island offered, and planted them in long, straight furrows, like the ranks of soldiers. When I finished, I looked at what I had done. I did not see a garden. I saw a scar. This island had saved my life, and I had done it no service."


Okay, folks, that crystallized a few things for me. Bear with me: I'm about to pull out the KoshFan Grand Unified Theory of Small Hints and Big Themes for BSG Season 4:

Adama's been reading his very favorite book to Roslin, "Searider Falcon." It seems to be a book about survival at sea, since in the one chapter we hear, the protagonist says "The raft was not as seaworthy as I hoped." While it is his favorite, Adama has never finished the book. Roslin remembers reading it long ago, but can't remember how it comes out. Adama either knows parts of the book by heart, or identifies so strongly with the protagonist that he inserts his own feelings and emotions as the protagonist's words.

If we assume that the excerpt I just quoted to help Alluveal is from the same book -- and it seems to be in the same style and theme, so much as I can determine from the small samples available -- then the survivor spends some time on an island, perhaps before or after his raft episode. The island keeps him alive, but when he begins planting crops (a sign not of passing through but permanent settlement) the survivor feels dismayed by what he's done, and feels he is harming the island.

My interpretations:

1) The survivor represents Adama. That's plain enough already.
2) The raft stands for Galactica, or more generally the whole fleet, which has indeed proved less space-worthy than they hoped (although not entirely disastrous).
3) The sea is for space, obviously; that's an old metaphor. We talk of spaceships and astronauts, nautikos being Greek for ship or sailor.
4) The island signifies Earth. They arrive and discover that human settlement has marred the planet (since there wouldn't have been a nuclear war without people there).
5) Adama has been reading this book his entire life, signalling that guiding the fleet was his destiny, but he doesn't know the ending -- indicating the questionable future ahead of them.
6) Roslin has read the whole book -- indicating that for her, it's already happened before and will happen again -- but doesn't remember the ending, signifying her own confusion over what comes next.

My conclusion:

The arrival on Earth will trigger not only questions of what happened and what now, but also the question of whether or not Humans and Cylons deserve to exist, since all they do is fight, harming each other and the world around them.

We've already had this question raised by Romo Lampkin a few episodes back, where (in a speech that calls Lee "a shining beacon of hope" -- it must have been all RDM could do to not add "all alone in the night" too) Lampkin argues that humanity is doomed and it's time to simply accept it and go quietly. Lampkin decides to kill Lee and end humanity's best hope because other humans killed his cat (again notice the harm done to the natural world around them). His words: "They killed my cat! They, those debased dregs of humanity out there. Now we're a lost tribe in search of a new home so they can roost and rot again!" He doesn't want humanity to survive; we're unworthy of it, in his eyes.

We've also had this question of humanity's worth raised by Bill Adama himself, way back in the miniseries. And the question has also been raised at many points between.

My further prediction, on a more tenuous basis: there will be a conflict between father and son (again) as Bill Adama gives up hope and Lee clings to it. Adama Sr. will take Galactica out on a suicide mission to annihilate the last Cylons and himself along with them, trying to end the cycle of violence in one final explosion; Lee (perhaps with the rebel Cylons) will attempt to end the cycle of violence by settling down in peace. But while Adama's suicide run is questionable, Lee's is equally so since he perpetuates the cycle...

There's been a whole lot of talk about suicide in this show. Tyrol tried it a few eps. back, and also had dreams of suicide back when he suspected he was a Cylon (well before he discovered that he was). Lee told his father that waiting for Roslin was suicide. There have been a whole lot of suicide missions, such as the last fight of the Pegasus, not to mention Kara's apparent suicide plunge into the maelstrom. I think they've been laying groundwork for Galactica's last ride.

And we have Baltar, oscillating from man of reason to man of faith, covering the political gamut from President of the Colonies to prisoner, even covering the whole social spectrum if you take his rags-to-riches story as truth; he represents all of humanity. Think about it. He thinks so highly of himself, and acknowledges his tremendous crimes; he's brilliant and simultaneously dense; he stands for all that we've done, good and bad. What are his drives? His own advancement, and sex. He can be painfully honest and vulnerable; he can be a completely lying thief. He is a masterful summary of all mankind in one person. And there is always the question before us: does Baltar deserve to live? As with everything else in his tangle of contradictions, the answer is a resounding "maybe."

So does humanity deserve to live? They set up the question and close without answering it, leaving it up to all of us to decide.


If I'm right, folks, I will not say BSG is the best show ever -- but I will say it is the bravest, for calling into question the whole existence of humanity. Asking whether or not we deserve to continue as a species. I don't think anyone else has ever done that on TV before...
 
KF, you rule.

For some reason it hadn't occurred to me to place emphasis on that book Adama is reading to Roselyn, but it would totally make sense if it was all metaphorical-like.
 
Interesting, KoshFan! I'll read it again here later and put more than .00005 cents in. It's worthy of a good response!
 
Yeah, I was pretty pleased when it all clicked like that. And Alluveal, you get credit for the assist because I wouldn't have come up with it if I hadn't been trying to answer your question.

Of course, if they don't take it in such a dark direction now, I'll be profoundly disappointed.
 
Interesting theory.

I can't believe they WON'T take it down a dark path for the ending, and yours sounds pretty good. Hopefully their real ending is as good. Who knows, you might be very VERY close.
 
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Good stuff KF. Sounds very plausable, and a bit like the plot of Watchman, where a kid is reading a pirate comic that spells out the plot of the whole thing.

Your concept of the show challenging humanity's right to exist is interesting. Its also a direct juxtaposition against Star Trek. Given Moore's background, that makes your theory rather plausible.

I also like the dark ending idea, so lots to look forward to anyway ;)
 
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very good ideas KF, but i think it will go somewhat differently, everyone seems to think humanity heading towards salvation and Kara leading them to their end are separate, however i think they are in fact one and the same. As the final series continues, i think we will see greater integration between the rebel cylons and humanity, leading to more hybrids (over the longer term), as time continues the reconciliation will lead to even greater intermarrying effectively destroying humanity as we (or rather they) know it, in a similar way to how on earth as intermarrying between different racial groups becomes more commonplace, we as a species will eventually eradicate race, and be slightly brown, rather than black, white, asian, "generally latin american looking" and whatever ("destroying" those racial groups, but giving us the next step in our evolution), for the show simply change the word "race", to "cylon or human" (if anyone comes up with something better than "cylon or human" please say so, I'm tired and can't think straight)
 
The interview snippets I've read from EJO lead me to believe the darker path (darkest path, more likely) is what they will take. When he makes comments like "sick" and "I can't believe the network is letting them do that", then I don't see things ending well for the rag-tag fugitive fleet on a lonely quest. (although I don't know what tone he made those comments in, so I cannot say whether he approves or disapproves)
 
I haven't really read any of those and I'm not sure I want to. I'm actually surprised he would leak that sort of information. Still, I remember how RDM was so jealous of how the series Sopranos ended and he was quoted as saying "I wish I had thought of that." I wonder if he has a burr up his ass about ending HIS show in an even more shocking and controversial way.
 
I haven't really read any of those and I'm not sure I want to. I'm actually surprised he would leak that sort of information. Still, I remember how RDM was so jealous of how the series Sopranos ended and he was quoted as saying "I wish I had thought of that." I wonder if he has a burr up his ass about ending HIS show in an even more shocking and controversial way.

It's all Baltar's dream!
 

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