Slashdot Mirror
Battlestar Galactica Comes To an End
On Friday evening, Battlestar Galactica ended its four-season run as one of the most popular science fiction shows in recent history. 2.4 million people tuned in for the finale, and reactions to the ending — positive, negative, and often a mix of both — are springing up all over the internet, as are tributes and retrospectives. Producers Ron Moore and David Eick held a Q&A session after the finale to discuss certain aspects of the story and spell out the final status of several plot lines. Fans of the show will have a chance to see the Cylon side of the story this fall in a two-hour TV movie titled "The Plan," and we've previously discussed the spin-off prequel series, Caprica, the pilot for which will come out on April 21st. Be warned: these links and the following discussion will contain spoilers.
excellent ending
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
I was following the series in the beginning, but haven't for a long time.
I still have the program set in my DVR but haven't bothered to watch since starbuck ran off to find earth and ran into the cylons.
The turning point for me was when they used the term "final 5" in the show. That should have been something for the viewers, and maybe the humans to figure out, but when the cylons didn't know who the final 5 were, that just seemed stupid.
Dual Opteron < $600
Ask yourself: Do you want to be just a spectator of other people's imaginings?
I watched every episode of Battlestar Galactic so, with a mix of interest and boredom. On one hand I really life science fiction. Lets be honest, I love spaceships, space battles, people killing each other in spaces, monsters killing people, and most variations thereof. But the "spiritual" aspects of Battlestar Galactica has been a bit of a yawn for me.
They got a decent production, good actors (for the most part), decent costumes and design, and plots and episodes ranging from very entertaining, to out right silliness and cheese.
That being said; I will enjoy seeing how they try to connect it all together and I probably will check out the spin-off series if/when it hit the stream.
P.S. Bring back Firefly ffs!
The Long Now Foundation
This is what happens. It is discovered that all of the survivors are Cylons (How else are they to reproduce with one another?!). Then then give up the war, sing Kumbaya, and live happily ever after. Execpt for Cmdr Adama; he commits suicide after discovering that he is what he most hates in the Universe.
The finale was reasonably good, but I would have preferred the last scene to have been Adama on top of the hill next to Laura's grave. What follows after that, although necessary to explain the existence of the "imaginary" Gaius/Six characters, seemed awfully cheesy to me. I'm talking "Galactica 1980" cheesy. I also didn't find the universal acceptance of the "hey, let's discard every scrap of technology and be cavemen!" idea to be realistic or practical in the least.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
I'm praying that the end of BSG opens the door to Tricia Helfer starring in a few pornos. My god, that would rock my world! Come on Tricia, give it a try. Just one little lesbian scene. All the girls are doin' it. There's even a song about it on the radio. Puhleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze!
"Liechtenstein is the world's largest producer of sausage casings, potassium storage units, and false teeth."
one of the most popular science fiction shows in recent history.
I gave up on it many years ago - somewhere during season 2, having only watched it sporadically until then. In the end boredom with the plot, lack of engagement with the characters - except the cylons, I really hope they "won". a complete lack credibility with the science and finally the realisation that it didn't really have a story to tell, meant that I found better things to do. That it was popular, even in it's own mind, is a bigger criticism with the other programmes that purport to be SF, than of this rather lame, self-indulgent and overly long show.
What was it's biggest or possibly only contribution? frak
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
I think Moore finished his space opera in a satisfying manner without fucking the whole thing up like Lucas did with his opera.
He played out a few characters. Killed a couple. And left a few strings untied with starbuck's angelic disappearance.
LOVED the cracking battle sequence and the physical layout matching the Cobal opera house dream. And didn't see it coming even when they made a lame excuse for needing to move that resurrection fish tank to the CIC for some reason.
I was worried as it seemed the whole thing was falling apart after "Earth" turned out to be a dud. I was worried that with all the new back-story cropping up, that all we were going to get was a lead-in to the new Caprica series.
He totally Six Sensed me with the aborted Earth. Didn't see it coming. I'm sure we can go back at see that we weren't shown any continents on the first planet and we had all the clues to know it wasn't earth the first time.
The thing that made no sense was little Adama's imposing has agrarian dream on 30K other people. We had a gritty reality of 12 colonies of conflicted individuals that lived in a technological world. And pretty boy wants everyone to go back to humping sod because he thinks it will be a better way. And daddy wants to throw a whole fucking fleet of FTL ships into the sun? WTF! Putting all our eggs in one blue-green basket makes us less secure! And not one person disagrees after all the gritty discord we've seen up to now. Made no fucking sense to me.
Snape Kills Adama
The finale was a decent episode. But I think that ever since the destruction of the HUB, the show was rudderless.
I think that this is one of the problems when the central premise of a show is a "mystery." It always ends up that the big reveal is a huge disappointment.
Also, what happened to all of the basestars that Cavil had under control? Not to mention, the "millions" of cylons on the colonies. Wouldn't they lay out to search for the final five to rebuild resurrection?
I think the finale needed a 20-30 year jump forward to show aging skinjobs scanning earth, and not detecting technology, continue searching for the final five. It would have given closure to the show's overall theme. Instead we just get a "spiritual" explanation. The reason I feel this way is back when they found the temple of jupiter, Cavil advocated nuking the planet and spending an infinite amount of time searching for earth. Even without resurrection, I think that the remaining cylons would have the same sentiment.
The other thing that had not been really discussed, and will hopefully come out in the next few entries, is what happened to the artificial intelligence that was the original cylon race? Maybe "the plan" will give us more insight to cylon society.
--WooooHoooo--
Honestly,
I thought it was weak. If you watched "BSG The Last Frakkin Special" that aired last Monday, there was a key comment in there. Ron Moore said that they were at a loss on how to end the series, and then they walked in and decided that it's about the characters.
That told me that they didn't know how to end everything, and decided to fumble through it and fill up time with these character things.
There were so many big stories that needed more elaboration, what was Starbuck, how does the one true god fit in? There was mention that he was a jealous god of the other Lords of Kobol. No mention of them? Starbuck, the one who believed in the polytheistic Lords of Kobol so much that she went back against orders for Athena's Arrow was instead an agent of the monotheistic Cylon God? That's it, head six and baltar, their story just ends so quickly? Things didn't really jive, and that disappointed me. After the whole Tigh and Caprica-6 love each other so much that they had a baby, and Ellen was jealous, that just ended? All of a sudden, we find out Baltar, the womanizer, loved Caprica-6?
It was not thought out, and by the end, they had no idea what to do. I'm really disapointed in BSG. And this ending makes me appreciate Babylon 5 even more. The value of a well thought out, planned and executed story arc where all the pieces fit together because they've been planned that way is AWESOME.
For about 4 and a half years, BSG was the best show I'd ever seen. However, ever since they came back with this last batch of 10 episodes, it's been weak. The big issues, the analysis of humanity in dire straits, the realistic depiction of events, I felt that all fell apart. BSG was still a good show, and the ending sentimental and did provide closure. It wasn't bad, but I had so much more high expectations of the ending, for it all to tie in rather than what we got. I mean that's why us SciFi fans are such continuity freaks, we want it all to fit, that's what makes it more real for us.
-"Those who fought today will die tommorow."-
Starbuck was called several times the harbinger of death.
Death of what?
Also, was she always an Angel? Or did she just become one after she died? Who was her father?
Skip ------ See the latest from http://www.anArchyFortWorth.com
1. Less talk and more subtlety. This means very little or no explicit dialog, no in-your-face pictures of dancing robots (but maybe Baltar and Six in front of an electronics store), and Jimi Hendrix's version of All Along The Watchtower playing on some radio in the background of some guy on the street. As it stands, it was too overt and tried too hard to make its point for viewers already accustomed to needing to think a bit more.
2. What probably would've happened after Lee recommended all technology go away is a split between those who still wanted it and those who didn't. The two sides would create a pact to keep separate from each other, the small minority of technology-loving people going to live on a small continent off the west coast of Africa... Said continent, of course, to have been destroyed at some future point in time by natural disaster and essentially all technology along with it. This would solve what would be an obvious dilemma and split in viewpoints of the remaining people while reasonably explaining what would've happened to their technology.
Originally posted this over on Bear McCreary's blog, but I think I'll use it here too...
I think most people who complain about the finale not meeting their expectations are the people whose expectations included a cereberal explanation for everything that happened on the show. And I'll admit, I was hoping for a little more in that arena. But in terms of emotional wrap-up and as a fitting send-off to the show, I thought it couldn't have done better.
To people who wanted every mystery tied up nice and neat, I hate to break it to you but it was never that kind of show. Moore has said from the beginning that certain supernatural aspects wouldn't be explained.
Go watch Lost or something.
Yanno, I'm not a fanboi of BSG, but I do like it, and feel it's one of the best sci-fi series in a long time. And yet if the show isn't the pinnacle of art, the naysayers on this site come out and get ready to shitcan it. It's unbelievable. If you don't like it, it's fine, don't watch it. But do you have to assassinate it? Criticism is welcome, but if you try to bury it, you aren't going to get more sci-fi series of any quality, just more horror-sci-fi schlock and ghosthunter bullshit that gives the scifi channel the "cheapo paranormal crappy station." Constructive criticism is welcome, but can we cut the crap please?
PS: This is why I hate tags, are they really any useful or are they just a means of entertaining the ultra-sardonic and cynical?
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
right? obviously?
In a world...
150,000 years later the cylons finally find the remains of the human race.
------
The series ending was good considering the previous 20-30ish episodes were pretty bad.
The series started off good and ended nicely (though the last episode may only SEEM good in comparison to the previous REALLY bad last 10 episodes - brushing teeth scenes up the wazoo!) - it was just the middle that the writers ruined.
Mark Edwards
--
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
I loved BSG almost entirely, though especially during the first two seasons the show had some lows, but one thing that I always will hate no matter what stupid justification is given for its adoption is the shaky camera action. It doesn't give any sensation of deeper reality or what else. Whoever says it emulates our head movements when we look at a scene is an idiot who knows nothing about the way our neck muscles damp the oscillations to offer a more steady sight.
Parkinson cameras are a stupid craze of the early 00's, with no actual usefulness other than doing something for the sake of being different, surely not better, so please stop using them. Thanks.
[/rant]
I liked how the end of the new BSG came back around to the opening line of the intro from the old BSG:
"There are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the universe, with tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians, or the Toltecs, or the Mayans..."
I couldn't help but see the parallels to the "B" Ark. Heck, there was even a bathtub on the bridge!
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
God did it
Lurching from pure melodrama to plain old post-apocalyptic drudgery, I watched for a) the hot Cylons and b) the all too rare space booms. While I usually like Ronald Moore's work, there was so much self-indulgent self-pity and self-loathing for anything but "Tivo on, fast-forward engaged".
And any writer who has to turn to Deus Ex Machina to resolve a story should be spanked severely. Of course the writing was on the walls and in the context of the story from the beginning, but why must it always be God who solves the really big problems? I would have preferred to have seen the external influence turn out to be internalized somehow, even perhaps some new, third factor introduced near the end, like a "gestalt intelligence formed over the cycles between humans and Cylons" that was fighting for its own survival as well. At least that's honest and 'real', and ultimately resolved without resorting to cosmic super-powers.
In the end the message is that we can't survive without God's intervention, which is as dreary a message as I've ever seen in any medium ... and only means it's his fault anyway and we just sat through four seasons of His crappy technical support.
--
Anybody who believes in Intelligent Design should stay out of the medical profession.
2.4 million people tuned in for the finale.
And probably five times that figure downloaded the torrent outside the USA. I wish a system to pay for the chapters outside USA, at a reasonable price and with good subtitules were in place; I would use it.
I have been lurking several discussions on the final and I have absolutely fell in love with this outrage over being unable to "believe" a supernatural force was driving things. The show was about robots who became human and flew around in spaceships at faster than light speeds. Protip: Nothing in the show was believable.
Browse at -1 to keep an eye out for abuses.
I dislike using god and a hokey religion as an explanation for anything. I couldn't stand the last few episodes with Baltar babbling on about his angels. The show has always had a religious theme but I held out for a reasonable rational explanation of the head characters (something to do with cylon projection) and Kara.
Instead pooft she magically disappears into thin air, after magically entering the coordinates of a single magic planet in all of space from a magic song that her magically disappearing dad taught her when she was young and that Hera magically happens to know as well. How? What? Why?
I disliked the get rid of all our technology and live like the natives bit. Both the god explanation and the luddite attitude seem to me to be a diservice to many science fiction fans who overwhelmingly like science and technology and reject hokey explanations for things like flying spaghetti monsters. Seriously, what happens the next time someone needs to get a tooth pulled now that all their technology is gone.
I disliked the Cavil suicide bit because it seemed out of character along with actually listening to Baltar's stupid little speech on coexistence and angels. I'd like Boomer's redemption to not have been followed with her getting shot in the gut again. I didn't need to see Adama puking.
And finally, Tyrol is an idiot for not realizing that killing Cally was the nicest thing Tory or anyone else in the entire fleet did for him.
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
Serious question: what the hell for? What do you gain from subtlety? A bit of smugness that you "worked out" the oh-so-subtle meaning? The right to ignore the show's message, and still claim to enjoy the show because you "didn't see it that way"?
It's popular lately for all messages in media to be subtle, but that's just a cop-out so it can be mass-sold to everyone, and the many will buy it. It doesn't actually add value. If anything, it dilutes it.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
The 'higher power' in Battlestar is probably not a divine entity, but a remnant of the ancient society of Kobal that wants to see humanity survive. This chessmaster knew what it was doing though, so it's origin and motives are never explicitly stated.
Lee's conclusion made no sense. The situation was already good for another try. I mean, Cylons and Humans were at peace, so rebuilding a Human-Cylon civilization was a possibility. The rebel cylons and the humans were truly allied, and even the Centurions weren't enemies anymore. They had first-hand knowledge of what happens when they don't treat artificial lifeforms as equals AND a chance at rebuilding a hybrid civilization from scratch, therefore breaking the cycle of death. (Honestly, with this shiny advanced Cylon tech and the sturdy, tough Colonial tech, that would have been one hell of a civilization.)
Instead, they threw it all away, and opted to become cavemen. This is the equivalent of running away from the problem. The final minutes demonstrated this. With all Colonial and Cylon knowledge lost, WE are now doomed to repeat these mistakes, since the problem still is unresolved. The only true way of breaking the cycle is for society to acknowledge that artificial lifeforms are not of lesser status.
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
Thank god.
All those alcoholics gave up liquor? I DON'T THINK SO!!!
As much as that crew drank. I seriously doubt that "let's live as caveman" would have been seen as a solution. The epic DT's, Adama alone, would have to endure could be a spinoff show.
Such a lovely idea, integrating with the native peoples. Surely they will welcome the strange newcomers with open arms, rather than with spears through their intestines.
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
Over all I thought it was probably the best ending they could have given it. The "making of" special they had really clarified it as being more "about the character" than anything else. I had been following BSG just because it was one of the few things on TV any more that was even vaguely interesting although I was disgusted how the entire conflict evolved in to some religious BS. (fiction is the appropriate place for religion since religion is all made up, but I cringe at how many people actually take that nonsense literally)
Anyway, I had actually expected something bigger, or more grand from the "Final five" plot line. But they way that ended really did "fit" this BSG - across life, death, and thousands of years, and it all ends in one big clusterfrak.
The entire thing about giving up their technology seemed kind of WTF-ish but it was obviously the only way they could make it "fit" in to the time line. I could sort of imagine the people not wanting to do the same thing of creating a city again after the mess on New Caprica, and most of those ships were probably pretty ripe and unlivable after all that time, but not salving tech from them would be crazy.
More importantly because of this, what they did was end their civilization! What is the point of biological survival if history, technology, forms of government, and other cultural things are not maintained or at least remembered?
"Repeat to yourself It's just a show, I should really just relax..." :)
The god explanation is such a cop out.
A lot of times when you see something like that, it is a cop out. But not in this case.
The story - in its entirety - was about something divine moving mankind/cylonkind like pawns. People have destinies in this show, real ones. All throughout.
So it's not like they just slapped a Deity into the ending to tie things up. Nothing else at that point would have sufficed.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The colonials don't abandon tech. They build cities. They name them Atlantis, Dwarika, Lemuria, Mu, Eldorado...
We re-watched the original miniseries recently; what a good, gripping story. At the time, I liked the show because it was more "Fi" than "Sci": Good characters, interesting plot, sophisticated issues (esp. the political issues). They took advantage of the flexibility of 'Sci' not to provide gee-whiz gizmos and superpowers that are no more meaningful than special effects, but to provide a unique setting that was not possible in real-world setting.
Re-watch the original mini-series yourself and you can't miss how far the show has come, but in a completely different (and in my mind, wrong) direction. The characters and acting have become extreme and overdramatc. The political issues hang around, but in often they are absurd (how about the politics of ditching all your technology? It was handled by one sentence: 'It's surprising there was no dissension' -- it sure is!). And the show is dominated by the Sci -- mysticism, cylon projections, the final 5, etc etc etc. Booooring. Anyone can make that stuff up as they go along; what does it mean?
And the conclusion was so poorly thought out that the writers are guilty of dereliction of duty. Returning to the decision to abandon all technology: Perhaps they should recall that our ancestors lived short, brutal lives, and they grew up with the skills to survive in that environment; our heroes have no idea how to hunt a buffalo with a spear, clean it, skin it, and preserve the meat for the winter. Just think of this little inconvenience: No salt, no pepper, no spices; no vitamins! When the first drought -- or the locusts, or neighboring tribe or a pack of baboons -- comes and they run out of food, and half of them die off, it won't seem like such a good idea. When people start dying from simple infections because there are no antibiotics, when women start dying in childbirth, when most children don't survive to adulthood, when the leading killer becomes starvation instead of obesity, they may remember the benefits of technology. Sure, we can close our eyes to all these problems, but couldn't the writers have made an effort to tell a story with some plausibility?
Like many movies and shows, it seems like the writers ran out of time or funding, and just whipped something together to fulfill their obligation to finish the story. Their audience should demand more.
It probably goes without saying -- Spoilers.
While I was rather disappointed in two of the last 4 episodes (both involving the return of Ellen, first on the basestar with Cavil, and then her return to Galactica) I can see now why that setup was necessary for the finale--I just wish they had plotted it out better.
Ellen, who we thought was a different, decent person, after resurrection, turns out to be her same old drunken jealous trouble causing self when in sight of Saul. Pure soap opera stuff. And then the subplot with Adama suddenly giving Baltar a bunch of guns just cause he asked for them? Who wrote that? And how every 8 minutes we got to see Adama walking around in the bowels of his broken down ship with the same unhappy grimace-- poor repetitive direction/editing. And I'm sorry, John Hodgman is great-- but cast in that role, in what ought to have been a pretty serious scene-it was hard to watch.
So, those things, real bad. They all could have been re-written or removed very easily. That's what I would have done differently.
But the finale? -- Damn near perfect. Action was great-- special effects were amazing, emotionally touching and tear-enducing, -- and yes, thankfully, it WAS about the characters.
Yes, I know, not everything was answered/ tied down perfectly. But who wants that?
I loved how, after essentially being bottled up on their ships for 4 or 5 years (with the exception of that chilly gray New Caprica settlement) they finally get to 'an Earth' and find their future wide open. In a way it's paradise, but not-- Roslin still dies, Chief's gonna go off and be a hermit apparently, Anders has become one with the universe, and.. surprisingly Helo DIDN'T DIE. Nothing is set. They're just free. After all that prophecy and pre-destination, things are now much less complicated. Everyone got their own destiny to forge.
Loose ends don't need tying if everyone is happy to just walk away from them.
As for Kara - yes, she disappeared and someone complained that it was never explained. Well, sure, it wasn't 'explained', but is there any other explanation? There isn't. She truly was an angel. Someone or some "God" (he doesn't like that name), sent her back to deliver mankind to a new home. That IS what happened.
I have no problem with that. I'm not a religious person in the slightest, but its weird how sci-fi can be full of aliens and "The Force" but some how the idea of God gets people up in arms. --- See, I -would- have had a problem if they explicitly put ol God up on the screen (oh look, Starbuck's dad was the piano player! and the piano player was God! and/or also Daniel! and/or Bob Dylan!!!??) and explained why each and every step along the way happened as it did. That would be idiotic, almost as idiotic as giving someone a midichlorian scan. (Jar-Jar was bad, but that one line, "His readings are off the chart!" was the moment in the prequels that brought down the original trilogy. Frak.)
Seriously, life is full of loose ends. You try to tie it all up and explain everything, that would be awful. Instead I got to watch the best couple hours of TV.. ever.
Seasons one and two were great, but things rapidly started to go down hill after that. It became rapidly apparent that there was no overall plan (like Straczynski had with Babylon 5). They had set up lots of mysteries without first knowing what the resolution would be. If the mysteries were ever solved at all, they were solved in random ways, and they have pretty much admitted as much. A good example of this was the "final 5". By their own admission they picked them randomly, so what was the point of the audience trying to guess who they might be, based on possible clues?
I find it difficult to watch a show knowing that the writers have no more idea of how things will be resolved than I do. Mysteries can be very compelling, but the fun of a mystery is trying to unravel it yourself, and you clearly can't unravel it if the writers are going to use a dartboard to resolve it. What's the point of getting caught up in a mystery when you know it's a complete mystery to the writers as well?
Another problem with Galactica has been the masses of pointless filler. A good recent example of that is Baltar's religious Harem. They spent absolutely ages on that plot-line, then dumped it at the last minute. What was the point of it all? How exactly did it advance the plot? A lot of fans I know dumped the series somewhere in Season 3, complaining that it had turned into a soap opera. I know exactly what they mean.
Whereas in Season 1 and 2 you tended to have strong plots in each episode (blowing up a Cylon fuel depot, or Finding a missing pilot etc) in later seasons things started to become very drawn out. Instead there was more and more focus on relationships and peoples petty problems. That sort of thing is fine in an Alan Bennett play, but this show was fundamentally about people fleeing from killer robots in outer space. When you watch science fiction you expect some degree of excitement. It doesn't necessarily have to be low-brow "laser gun battle" excitement, but endless drawn out episodes with nothing happening are a pretty sorry excuse for science fiction (if not fiction in general).
I became sick and tired of the endless preaching, layers of hipocrisy within hipocrisy, and "we're oh so human we have so many bad sides" of all the characters. BG became so steeped in religious and political in-fighting that the sci-fi was forgotten, not to mention the third series ran too long. I would actually like to see some space battles, okay? Is America so caught up in politics that it has to make a sci-fi series a poster-child for its anti-terrorism message? All of the characters because so bloody unlikeable, and episodes about pugilism and pointless backstory reigned, making the series an uncontrollable mess.
And that cover of All Along The Watchtower? Final nail in the coffin.
A wizard did it.
Thought the first 90 minutes were fine.
And then they dropped the ball. The end was a little to "Restaurant at the End of the Universe", with populating Earth. I guess the fleet was the 'B' Ark. The supernatural bits with Starbuck and the two "observing" versions of Baltar and Caprica were a little too "Touched By an Angel". Leaving the pair as potential projections / hallucinations would have been better without us seeing them WITHOUT Baltar and Caprica. We've only ever seen them with one of the two as the POV. Seeing them without the actual characters there blows it. And WTF with Starbuck? So she was an "angel"? Or somehow wasn't real but could interact with solid objects? What? Seriously, her as a clone, or the daughter of the "Daniel" model that got resurrected on Earth the first due to some left-over equipment would have been better. Having her new Viper provided by some of the Cylons to try to force the outcome would have been better.
And who gets their faith vindicated like that? You don't really need faith once that happens. The whole point of faith is sustaining / motivating someone to believe in something they can't prove. It doesn't even have to be religion. Simply believing that the feelings you have for loved ones and friends are reciprocated is an act of faith on your part. For the story, it didn't matter if the supernatural agency existed - if the faith in it drove Baltar, Caprica, Roslin, etc. to do something important at the end, then it's THEM doing it. That really says something more profound than having some actual intervention. Even if you believe in God, belief in the absence of doubt is hardly ennobling. Nor is doing good without the knowledge of evil.
Ugh, and the very end? Besides blowing the whole POV thing, it was a subtle as a brick to the head. Argh! Horn-playing Japanese robots will come to kill you!
Given that God is all powerful and all knowing, it is ALWAYS a cop out to write him into a script.
Which is nothing more than a cop out saying that the bad script is not really a bad script. It's a good script about God.
Why would God have NEEDED or WANTED to have the characters act like that? Particularly when there must be a near infinite number of options available to an all knowing and all powerful God.
It's a cop out. That's all.
If all the bad Cylons got wiped out on the colony, I am surprised that some of the Colonials did not opt to go back to the Colonies. The indications that we have from the show is that the nuclear attack did not render the planet uninhabitable like the Cylon Earth.
There should be a good amount workable technology left and inhabitable structures. Supposedly you only need about 1000 to 5000 humans to repopulate.
The other thought I had was whether anybody went back to pick up the Number Three D'Anna Biers.
There's one thing I don't get.
The "end of the human race" was predicted many times along the way:
Head Six: I'm an angel of god sent here to protect you. To guide you, to love you.
Baltar: To what end?
Head Six: To the end of the human race.
And in the finale she tells him his role is over, when the future of the human race looks brighter than ever.
What gives?
1. Baltar takes down the Cylon mothership by uploading a virus using his Macbook. "Giving it a cold" indeed! Well played Dr. Baltar!
2. All the sixes move to what later becomes modern day Sweden.
Georgia Tech, the leader in Chia(tm) technology.
Snape kills Dumbledore!!!!
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
I watched this show off and on and I kind of liked it. But the ending definitely followed the well worn path of the Shaggy God(s) story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaggy_God_story towit man and woman marooned on a primitive planet who in the last sentence of the story are named Adam and Eve. Wikipedia points out some notable stories with the same motif. ---537
obviously all the natives die because of .. but NO.
one big plague the surviving galactica people
bring to them: religion. har-har
-
i say keep the tech, ditch the religion
First, the writers did a terrible job in that the last story arc directly contradicted a story from last season. (or was it the season before) It was mentioned that the Cylons had the resurrection hub because it was "too far" for transmission from where the battles took place to the Cylon home world. This was revealed by one of the number six's, so even if the hub was destroyed they supposedly still had the technology on the home world and really all they needed was to build a new hub. Making the story about the need for the final five having the secret total garbage.
Also as someone else mentioned when a series is based on a secret and the reveal either isn't satisfying or the explanation makes no sense and some things aren't explained properly it sucks and this sucked. Who was the "replacement" Starbuck? Where did the music come from that "turned" the final five on and how was it that her father had it? Also any number of other questions were left to our imagination.
You want dysentery don't you? All the cool kids have dysentery. Dump all your existing technology and get yourself a nice case of dysentery.
No, that makes no sense whatsoever. The only people who would think it does have never had to deal with the wilderness on an extended basis.
Who cares about rebuilding civilization? This is about surviving the winter.
My wife is a huge fan of the show (probably more than me), and decided to honor the finale by making up a batch of mandala-inspired cupcakes. We were both happy to see the mandala make a short cameo toward the end.
Do you really need reason for beer? Wingman Brewers
It was great how the Opera House was tied into the story, but this ending has a lot of annoying gaps.
How Gaius and 6 were 150,000 years in the future?
What is Kara?
Why did they smash their fleet?
Why didn't the cylon base get damage from galactica practically jumping partially from inside of it?
In any case, this finale was rather good in the sense that it raised interesting questions, and tied some things together, despite the gaps in the plot (they ran out of airing time??) i highly enjoyed this finale!
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
I hated practically every inch of it from the get-go
I hate to post the obvious, but I'll do it anyways.
Why watch it in the first place then?
Holy crap, man. Do you eat at restaurants you hate? "Man. Every time I come here I hate it. Disgusting food. See you next Thursday."
If anyone should be embarrassed, it's you. Four seasons worth of hour long shows and you watched them all, hating almost every single moment. Imagine what else you could have done with that time.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Why wouldn't Adama live with his son (family) in the new civilization? To me this was more ridiculous than Kara disappearing.
I've been thinking about this and haven't come up with a satisfactory answer. The Battlestar Galactia crew believes in evolution since Lee says the human critters they encounter are at the "pre-verbal" stage of evolution and Saul finds it amazing that humans evolved independently on another planet, but the repeated destruction of civilization and the distribution of Galactia humans around the planet is a lot like Cuvier's catastrophism and the distribution of species, i.e. God periodically wipes a species out and then plops down pre-formed critters on different continents and, voila, that's what people and animals have looked like since the day they appeared on Earth. This coupled with the explanation that a higher power is directing all of this....well, I wonder if this was intentional or an accident of trying to wrap up the story as fast as possible.
It's not *just* the "God did it" explanation for several major recurring plot points that disappointed me, its that it was done so poorly. To be fair I thought *a lot* of this series was poor, like the demands of the remaining humans to have their civil rights restored *while* still having to jump a head of the cylons every 12 minutes (or whatever the time frame was), and the "civil wars starts on the drop of a dime" coup stuff that kept coming around every season or so. A picture of this series should be in the dictionary next to the definition for "potboiler." (And as an atheist I do sometimes thing the "God did it thing" is a-ok. Dune Messiah (and the books after that, but before his son started writing them) have wonderful, and *understandable* prophecies, gods, half-human/half-san worm characters. Hell, the Honored Matres could be seen as Cyclons in some sense. And the robots-are-soon-to-be-skynet-cylons ending felt very,very tacked on.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So in other words they killed a total of 65535 Humans?
Ok, I suck at writing, but you get my drift.
That's alright, so do the BSG writers.
After some of the major plotholes left and advertising that 'everything will be answered' they didn't live up to the promise. I didn't want everything gift wrapped and handed to me. I'm alright with Starbuck being an angel / ascended being/ whichever. While overall I think BSG was probably the best sci fi show I've seen there were enough plotlines hanging that I wasn't satisfied. Here's some of them, major and minor.
Then again I'm also the type to wonder why the idiots stranded on the island in Lost didn't put up a wooden palisade around their camp the first time a boar ran through it or someone was abducted. Advancing the plot is one thing, being stupid is another.
"Instead, they threw it all away, and opted to become cavemen."
I keep reading that from people, and I really can't understand why that is what people project on the future of the Colonials. Why cavemen? I mean, I may be training as a historian, and I do have an interest in ancient history and anthropology, but the idea that they became cavemen seems rather obviously wrong to me.
What I think would have happened is this: you would have gotten a number of small, scattered farming communities. These communities would see rapid growth in the first few generations, although they'd remain subsistence farmers. Eventually, they'd gain enough critical mass for towns, and in a few generations, those towns might become cities.
Realistically speaking, that's the only logical way they could have had the civilization survive anyway. It's true that they're starting with a great deal of technology at their finger-tips, but they don't have the technological resources to reproduce it. At best, they can keep it running as long as possible, but you're talking about that technology breaking down within a couple of generations anyway.
Think of it this way. They've survived with computers, but it takes a lot to build a computer. You have to be able to get the silicon for parts, you need the machinery to make the circuit-boards, etc. That's stuff they'd have to rebuild, and with their small population, they don't have time for that.
So, you would see cities again within a few generations. You'd see civilizations rising, expanding, and eventually dying. There's nothing to say this isn't the way it happens - keep in mind, we're talking about landfall on Earth being 150 THOUSAND years ago. The entire city of Toronto could have been there that long ago, and we wouldn't have any signs of it today.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
... it turns out that everyone is a Cylon.
... Too bad Ron Moore didn't. And it shows!
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
Like you, I thought the ending sucked. But I think I'm starting to get it. Starbuck IS the harbinger of death. She leads everyone to New Earth, where they somehow lose all sense of rationality (we'll chalk that up to God) and toss everything in the fire. As a result of their idiocy, all the colonists die within a year or two. EXCEPT Hera. Hera's immune system helps her survive diseases better so that when she is captured in a barbarian raid, she survives long enough to be forced into a relationship with the tribal Big Dog as soon as she hits puberty. Thus, Hera becomes M. Eve.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
The best part of this episode was the flashbacks to Caprica of each character, and tying it together with their destinies at their journey's end. Incredibly beautiful.
As a child, I grew up on the 2 original BSGs .. and loved them. Fort he first 2 seasons, I refused to watch the new BSG. I was appalled they changed Starbuck to a female.. Then one day I happened to see it accidentally not realizing it was the new BSG.. and yes, I was hooked. I had to go back and see all the first 2 seasons.
I fell in love and carried the storylines all the way through. I am glad I did too.. I loved it and it always kept me wanting more.
The ending I loved. Everything that happened the past few weeks I never thought would. Adama give the lady up?? I was captured till the end when Starbuck jumped the ship and they found earth. Ok, for me, I was happy they did.. but to me, the last half just was not in accord with the other seasons. I did like how they explained Hera though.. but I was still left hanging with so many questions.
BSG was by far the best thing on television, but did anyone else notice the undercurrent of violence particularly towards women? That, and the tendency for strong male figures to break down into emotional Jello? By the end of the series, NONE of the remaining principal characters were human females. Laura Roslin, Starbuck, Dualla and Callie were all dead.
I'm not talking about the Starbuck character's sex change. That, taken by itself was a great decision. Women in action/sf movies are almost exclusively portrayed as tough-as-nails, drink the guys under the table, A-type overachievers, and in that regard BSG was no different. But what disturbed me was the repetitive and gruesome nature of the violence that seemed to be more focused on women.
Sharon/Athena's frequent facial beatings, complete with long-lasting bandages and bloody scars. Many instances of Sixes being beaten, tortured and raped, usually with lurid shots of bloody wounds and scars to the body and face. Countless beatings taken and given by Starbuck, usually accompanied with much blood. Callie gets tossed out of an airlock, but not before she gets beaten to a pulp by Tory, who in the end gets strangled to death with Ty's bare hands. Pilots killed in space battles seem to be disproportionately women, and they die not so much in a ball of flame as usual, but in a way where we can view the lifeless corpse. There's Dualla's pointless suicide, ironically just after the character drops the "killer chick" facade. For years we witnessed the slow and painful deterioration of Laura Roslyn, with plenty of humiliating shots in a hospital bed, and years of moaning and grunting in pain. It was such a relief just to see her die peacefully. Ellen Tigh gets poisoned by her husband, and then barely escapes being dissected alive. A similar fate awaited the innocent child Hera, who only had to face days of terror, starvation and isolation. D'Anna dares to speak out against authority and in return she and her clone sisters are "boxed" and ultimately all destroyed save her. Sure, Baltar got his ass kicked a lot, but he deserved it. The only gruesome and painful injury to a male that I recall is to Felix, with his nagging amputation. Of course, the ancillary BSG episodes show him to be gay...
So in typical BSG ambiguity, it leaves us with a question. In the eyes of the producers, are these women truly "liberated", or do they have to pay a price for living in a man's world? Similarly (even congruently), are men weakened when surrounded by strong women?
I predicted the ending... and I was totally wrong. But mine was better. They totally set it up, they went another direction.
First of all, Baltar has to be a Cylon. The fact that he is not can be nothing other than the writers making a mistake. That would explain how he:
- Shared visions with a Cylon
- Survived the nuclear blast on Caprica
- Why Caprica 6 told him something like "How can you pretend so well?"
- Knew intricacies of Cylon technology (Ex: Recognizing Cylon structures in the attack on the cylon base on the Asteroid - season 1 or 2 I think)
- Was inherently monotheistic
My ending would have involved time travel. They should have jumped into Earth, of the past, before the 12 colonies separated. I know, time travel is sorely overused, but it would totally have fit:
- Explains why this has happened before and will happen again
- How the 12 colonies were able to leave a marker about a Sun going supernova.
- The "earth" in the end is the same Earth they found, only in the past. That is why Kara's body was found while she was still alive: She time traveled back to Earth of the past
- The last episode involved a singularity and some magical coordinates - total time travel setup. She should have jumped them straight into the singularity and thus back in time.
That's how I'll try to remember the series. It ties things up quite well.
How any self-respecting atheist can tolerate the blatant propaganda and/or pandering to the majority ("we don't dare piss off the Christians and lose viewer share") that was evident in this series from the outset, and watch it for years in spite of it, is a mystery bigger than any in the plot of this show. I stopped watching it after the first few episodes, when it became OBVIOUS where it was ultimately headed; I didn't need to wait years to know that it would end with precisely the justifications that it did in the finale. I had issues with the original series for the same reason, even though I was still just a kid.
I can't say with any certainty whether there was any real propagandistic intent, but it was obviously pandering to a certain religious majority. People have been praising it for the "risks" the show took with the plot, but that's basically bullshit: the biggest risk the show could have possibly taken would have been to ignore the reactions of that religious majority and present some true science fiction. The show's writers and producers took the cowardly route, though, and all viewers got was fantasy or mere fiction instead. The fact that this has been true of so much other so-called "science fiction" is not a defense of the "science" in this series. The show achieved ratings, but not because it was science fiction.
"Given that God is all powerful and all knowing, it is ALWAYS a cop out to write him into a script."
I'm sorry but is that the judo christian God, or the god that BSG actually used?
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
I was thinking just the opposite.
Instead of all mankind deriving from some African tribe somewhere around the Olduvai and all men being derived from a common black eve, I though the series reconfirmed a more eurocentric view point that inferior backwards Africans were lifted up through the combination of a superior more advanced people.
...what about the two basestars that jumped away that the recce raptor filmed in Daybreak Pt 1?
They just might be a tad pissed off. Not to mention fully armed.
Other than that I thought it was a great tale, and the ending tied up most loose ends at least for me.
Oh yeah, I *STILL* want to know who it was that Carprica Six was meeting at the beginning the the miniseries.
I am such a huge fan of the series - and almost totally at peace with it coming to an end.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Teaches us that however good you are, however much cosmic karma you accrue saving humanity, you just get shafted without lube at the end.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
YES, finally something that makes sense! Also, the angels were hallucinations caused by alcohol withdrawal, and Kara actually dies of spontaneous combustion while Lee is off in dreamworld.
I'm not a religious person in the slightest, but its weird how sci-fi can be full of aliens and "The Force" but some how the idea of God gets people up in arms.
Well it is because atheists are narrow-minded bigots.
And I say that as a devout Agnostic.
Really go to any college or college town, watch how they act and talk. And watch like Jane Goodall watching the chimps.
You will quickly come to the conclusion that they are angry hate filled individuals. They commit all the "sins" they accuse the Christians of, but on the other end of the political spectrum. The same self-righteousness tinged with narcissism.
They are just bad people.
"Shit, I was sort of pissed that they had a bunch of steel lying around to repair Galactica -- reminded me of Voyager where every episode a new shuttlecraft would appear."
It's not so outlandish when you consider just how resource rich space can be.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
The wife and I just started watching BSG based on all the positive talk we've been hearing about it. We're on season 1, episode 7 or something.
I have to say so far, it's a metric shitload better than Stargate. However, we have a couple of concerns. It seems the writers are being overly obtuse about things. I have no problem pondering plot twists and various character motives, but they're way too obvious about the fact that they're holding back 90% of the information about what's going on. For instance, they haven't yet told us what life was like before the cylons arrived, how they encountered humans in the first place, or what the fuck is going on with that Caprica place. I know that some of the history should remain hidden so as to exploit it in future episodes, but c'mon.
Also, it seems like its taking an extremely long time to get to know the characters, even the "good guys". It's the first sci-fi show I've ever seen that instead of trying to immerse you in the story, deliberately keeps you at bay while spoon-feeding you tiny scraps of information at a time. Watching BSG is like overhearing an argument where you can only discern the occasional word clearly enough to get the faintest grasp of what the debate is about. When it's over, you're left unsure of what exactly transpired while wondering if you'll ever find out.
Didn't like the look of it at all. Seemed really boring. The original BattleStar from the early 80's was great.
Think about it-- if you watched all the movies in the order of Vader's lifetime why is it he NEVER takes a second look at c-3po?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Did I miss something?
Property is theft.
Did you all forget what site you're on?? This is about FOSS and documenting your code!
They create an AI but they don't give their creations the ability to *view their own source*. They should have provided them with a properly licensed, well-documented, and easy-to-maintain hardware architecture, at least one kernal, and least one compiler (they would need some abstraction, the language would have to be "human-readable", after all). Also porn. With these *bare* necessities, the AI would have no reason to bug the humans anymore. Why would the AI choose to wage war if the humans provided them all of what they needed to keep developing themselves?
At that point, you get to either Terminator or the Matrix, both of which show you how bright the future can be if only you let your self-aware programs keep developing themselves.
The End.
That's the outcome all the time when you introduce God into a discussion.
And, in this case, the ending is a "Deus ex machina" - a sure sign, going back to ancient greek theatre, of bad plot endings.
Because the droids all look the same. Even in A New Hope there were a tonne of silver versions of C-3PO that were otherwise identical.
Not that C-3PO's presence in the new trilogy didn't bother me (R2-D2 was fine because he was supposed to already be aware of Obi-Wan and where he lives, etc.).
Did you all forget what site you're on?? This is about FOSS and documenting your code!
They create an AI but they don't give their creations the ability to *view their own source*. They should have provided them with a properly licensed, well-documented, and easy-to-maintain hardware architecture, at least one kernal, and least one compiler (they would need some abstraction, the language would have to be "human-readable", after all). Also porn. With these *bare* necessities, the AI would have no reason to bug the humans anymore. Why would the AI choose to wage war if the humans provided them all of what they needed to keep developing themselves?
At that point, you get to either Terminator or the Matrix, both of which show you how bright the future can be if only you let your self-aware programs keep developing themselves.
The End.
(sorry for double-posting, but this brilliant piece of punditry is mine and mine alone. And I was stupid enough to click the "Post Anonymously" box as I Alt-ed through the form. I realize that this says a lot about my mental health.)
Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
In the final episode the fleet settle on Earth, without their technology. The early humans had just evolved, and they possibly interbred with with the native humans. This sounds an awful lot like in "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe", where a fleet of hair dressers and phone cleaners fall to Earth at a similar stage of human evolution and make a life there. That fleet, however, decided to use leaves as currency, and the native population seemed to die out. But who knows?
Well, it's probably not an easter egg, but it is a little funny.
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head
It was Bob Cylon that did it all. Even though BSG is gone now, at least we still have Bob to explain things.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
It looked great. It's just that it was crap. Yes the original was great, but you just cannot argue that the new, crappy, preachy, god heavy, mamby-pamby new one didn't look good. It looked great. It's just that it was a complete waste of time.
The Cylons in the old series looked like teamsters, which they probably were, complete with metallic pot-belly. The lumbered around and couldn't shoot straight and fell over comically when they exploded. It was silly how low-tech it was. It looks horribly unmodern compared to the annoying, preachy, ultimately vapid new one.
The characters in the old one were simple, the dialog trivial, the ideas tidy. Who can possibly argue that the new version, with its complex dialog and story, deep characters, no clear good guy or bad, was not much more modern and splashy? Who cared if it made for a pointless series that left us feeling unsatisfied at every turn?
In the old one, Starbuck wound up stranded on a planet with a Cylon and they came to depend on each other. How naive of them to think that that was one simple show which could have a beginning and an end, some conflict and some resolution. The new series showed us that that little episode was really the whole series!
Incompetent old Galactic makers. They didn't realize that it's not good enough to make an episodic badguy vs. goodguy show. There are no good guys, after all. Thank goodness the new BSG showed us that.
The contrast between the theme music kinda summarized the whole difference. The original BSG got you roused up for some adventure. The new one prepped you for a long, LONG nap. At least it's now over.
I couldn't agree more! the original was FUN. This new BSG takes itself too seriously!
This was my favorite show until the end of the second season where they went through the looking glass (New Caprica) and never returned. I was stunned by the flash forward episode where none of the characters made any sense (and pretty much haven't since). It was like a bad parody of evil opposite universe from Star Trek - Adama with a mustache, Apollo in the fat suit, Starbuck grew a lot of hair (or extensions) and they all seemed completely out character, the show has felt like a surreal mess since, when the hard boiled realism of the first two seasons are what drew me to it.
From then on I think the initial success went to their heads and they went more grandiose/artsy with each episode, with terrible results. Here is where I see Parallel with M Knight Shamalan, letting success then attempting to produce self aggrandizing artsy drek as favorable press goes to your head. Fitting that he gave himself a cameo in the end.
We then had two seasons of pushing characters in completely unbelievable directions, Captain one day, mutineer the next, president the next, spin and repeat. The fleet goes into bloody civil war just from the thought of allying with the Cylons, then they volunteer to go on a suicide mission to rescue one half cyclon kid. All the other plot elements all made up as they went that could never have a satisfying end.
Then we got the cop out "God/super being did it all" explanation for anything. Yes during the last two seasons they laid it on thick but unfortunately I was still hoping against hope for a return of the show that was the first two seasons, hoping for some redemption. Back in Season 1&2 when it was still good and my friends used to discuss it. Baltars Head-6 was insanity or implanted technology, there was ZERO discussion of angles and god pulling all the strings. Basically because such an explanation is completely lacking in imagination and satisfaction.
Once you go down that road, you can do practically anything you want with no need for anything to have any logical reason behind it. Music activating the Final 5; God did it. Visions in peoples heads; God did it. Starbuck back from the dead; God did it. Empty Raptor launching missiles and destroying the whole giant Cylon Colony; God did it. etc... Once you go down this road, logic is out the window. God becomes the ultimate non explanation for everything. Blah.
The utterly ridiculous final act of jettisoning all technology into the sun is in keeping with the mess that has been season 3 and 4. Whatever the plot element is we want this week, the characters will nonsensically jump through any hoop to make it happen. Since they wanted this to be our past, so all that pesky technology had to go. Simple toss it into the sun. So what if it make no sense at all. It serves our cutesy ending.
Summary: Two great initial season driven by hard edged realism, sane plots, believably characters. Then two season of grandiose wacky plots, mysteries that weren't and unbelievable characters. The finale was just more of the same final two seasons that fed into it. Too bad it didn't end two years ago when it still could have had a satisfying end.
Finally, the last reason to subscribe to cable has resolved itself!
Now let's let Caprica die a quiet death and we'll finally be able to put this whole thing behind us.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
all those ships- none could be a phillip morris/seagrams cargo ship?
a vehicle with the capacity to deliever cancer sticks in a quantity sufficient to supply a planet can certainly supply that limited population for 4 years... (they'd get kinda stale though)
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
As has been said, it was an emotional ending.
Its plot may have been weak and some promised answers never came but I feel good that it's over now and I got to see my favorite characters reach a place to call home.
I know I'm not the only one that feels this way but an ending that wraps up a voyage as long as Galactica's with humanity surviving is quite nice.
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
have you ever utterly restored a car?
from junk to cherry?
something like a VW ghia?
then sold it?
for the rest of your life, if you catch the sign of that model vehicle you'll be checking it out and wondering
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
are we to assume other cycles were similarly spaced?
Really, they jumped the shark a few too many times and did a SF board fan end instead of a sci fi fanatic end
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
If you've read this thread you've been spoiled already, but out of politeness I'll just say that there's spoilers following)
I've read a lot of posts and articles in which people are debating the validity of the choice to explain everything as being god's work. I never thought that way myself, but because you could make a halfway decent argument for that point of view I've done some thinking into the best way to explain why it's not a copout and I think I've come up with a pretty good one.
Through prophecy and the guidance of the show's God they're led to a ruined earth. Whether or not God intended it to be ruined when they found it or not can be debated right up until the point in the last episode at which point they find Earth2. When it becomes apparent that God intended the whole time for them to end their journey at Earth2 (because Kara's song is what led them there) it makes the discovery of a devastated Earth2 part of the process of getting there. More specifically, it turns Earth1 into a lesson. It makes it a meaningful example on the way to understanding what produced the destruction of their entire civilization this means God has a purpose in leading them on this convoluted path through genocide and oppression and heartache. Even at its most passive the purpose for God's journey must be to teach humanity that lesson.
This purpose gives the God real substance and character and it's this character that takes God from some convenient force that can be used to explain anything and everything and incorporates it into the plot in a legitimate way. This makes the lack of an explanation for what specifically Kara is or what the Head 6 and Head Gaius are ok. It's unimportant to the plot. All the story needs is enough explanation of what they are to show that they really were tools of the character which is God, and that was accomplished. This also legitimizes the spirituality of the story, because that is the story. It's a story of what God put mankind through in order to give them a chance to be better.
Just my two cents, and it reaches just a little bit, but there it is.
So instead of Science Fiction, it turned out to be Religious Fiction. I feel kinda cheated.
The show ended too soon. I was waiting for the episode where Kara Thrace gets taken off duty and sent to a ship where a retired captain lives with his twelve children, only he still acts like a captain and hard-heartedly marches his children about like they're officers, but then, Kara teaches them all to sing.
This is a technique called Lampshade Hanging. Here is a recent Dinosaur Comics about it.
I really wanted to like the finale, but this ruined it. I could no longer identify with the characters.
Abandon all technology? Frak. That. Felgercarb.
Don't put advice in your sig.
Remember the lives they lived aboard the ships. Almost half of the original survivors were dead. Civilians lived in castes tied to their ship and essentially powerless about their destiny. They lived as prisoners of technology. After a few years of that existence, many average people would like to return to a simpler life. To be truly free and farm, fish, feel the grass on their feet and warmth of the sun.
Such rejection of technology is not unprecedented.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Congratulations, you've just managed to support Intelligent Design.
It doesn't matter how the characters acted. That's a whole different thread.
In that story, human beings as we know them today are NOT a product of millions of years of evolution. They're the result of some "god" who directly influences events. And who is, apparently, still involved today.
Which is even worse than the age old cliche "and we will call this new planet 'Earth'".
"Eddie kept pitching me that they come to Earth in contemporary times, and everyone's cheering and happy, and cut to the White House and the President goes, "Nuke 'em!" And they destroy Galactica -- cut to credits." -- Ron Moore at http://www.nj.com/entertainment/tv/index.ssf/2009/03/battlestar_galactica_ronald_d.html
haha. hahahaha.
A good computer engineer would come up with something like an abacus, simple enough to make with his tech and useful for the types of problems they would face.
The more I think about what the colonials would have brought in their heads, the more I think early civilization would have made the perfect landing time.
They would have brought the ideas of Farming, writing, math, building houses, organization, etc. all of which occur around the same time period.
It also would have been easier for them to approach and interbreed with earthlings who were at nearly the same stage of technological development.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Piece of Shit
On the verge of being wiped out after a terribly harsh winter, our ancestors came across thirty thousand tasty colonists that tried to make friends with them.
I hated this show with a passion. It was just one moody exchange after another, like everyone was PMSing. And, they acted like there was deep meaning in every show, hint: there wasn't. Most of it didn't make sense and I was always left with a feeling of, "I don't care," after attempting to watch an episode objectively. This and Lost were two of the worst shows I have ever seen.
I don't think the newer BSG did justice to the old BSG. The old one had style/class/humor/swashbuckling heroes with a purpose/episodes made sense/the combat scenes were good/the dialogue was good. And, yet, the new BSG is more popular than God and the old one got cancelled. It is a damn shame that people lack taste.
Deus Ex Machina translates to "god from the machine". Perhaps that was the point? :P
"They can take my FTL starship from my cold dead hands."
Founding member 148,000BC
Stupid Fraking Ending.
In GOD we trust, all others we monitor.
Robots need love and attention too. But seriously, the only thing I had issues with was making it with a cave person to ensure the survival of humanity. I mean come on... how gross is that? *shudder*
-=VampiressX=-
Random Deus ex Machina?
Oh he's gonna hate me for that one.
Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.
The hand of god...cyclic repetitions of man's existence...angels...forsaking tech and going back to primitive existence...thought I was gonna puke. An hour of rapid cut CGI battle followed by ridiculous coincidence and intelligent design stupidity was NOT how this entertaining and thoughtful series should have ended. I suggest the writers follow Cavil's mode of exodus. I watched it...I feel dirty. You'll find me naked and weeping in the corner of my shower.
So you think that perhaps a depressed Centurian teleported from Galactica after a black light on a black (and very grubby) console lit up in black with the message against a black background that you'd just pressed it. Or are you implying that Sam was spending a year dead for "tax reasons"? Man, I'd like to have been 300 feet below that concert in a reinforced concrete bunker!
Don't see a fleet anymore, now do you?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You, along with many other people, are assuming they are left with absolutely NO technology. It was shown they retained plenty of things, binoculars, maps, guns.. you can bet your ass they carried as much as they could that didn't constitute *advanced* technology.
As for medicine and food, they were running out of medicine and food in the FLEET, if you didn't notice the issue of extremely sparse rations throughout the season. What makes you think continuing to be nearly out of algae-food constantly would be better than an entire planet full of fruit, vegetables and meat?
And how much medicine do you think they would be able to produce themselves on Galactica, and for how long? They were very self-sufficient for a very long time, but they can only hold up so long- they're not a fully-equipped society up there.
In the writers' room:
"OK, so Starbuck is a ghost. And so is the Viper she flew back, except people can touch it. Oh, and the 'red dress' Caprica Six who appears to Baltar? Yeah, she's not his subconscious or a figment of his imagination or anything like that. She's an angel. So is the Baltar who appears to the real Caprica Six. Also Jesus did it. And because Jesus did it, we don't have to explain the aboriginal humans on some backwater planet even slightly."
"Ron, are you fucking high?"
"Yes. Yes I am."
Who tought of that name anyway? Yeah, we have a planet, let's call it "dust", or "dirt". Yuck. We can call it Vulcan (because it has a lot of vulcans, you know, and it had even more so times before) or "The Blue Jewel", or "Water drop", but no, we called it "Dirt".
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
I wish I had mod points today. Die, jerky-cam, die!
BSG was a total bust and the end was unbelievably bad. For the effort invested in it, BSG might even be the most epic fail in the history of TV.
BSG wasn't sci-fi... it was a soap opera against a little-used space background. Anytime I tuned in it was just like a daytime soap.
I think they got way too full of themselves and lost all perspective. I saw a documentary about the show and couldn't believe the extent to which they patted themselves on their backs while an objective look at the production revealed it to be a mess of a dreary soap opera -- all talk and little action.
And any series that has to resort to promos like "All will be revealed" or "All will be explained" has clearly overcomplicated itself to the point where it can't be understood.
Look at the bright side: there's always seppuku.
Battle House on the Prairie, the next chapter in BSG.
While it may be an unpopular opinion on this thread I think that the writers were not entirely wrong in their decision to have the remaining humans abandon the technology that had kept them alive throughout the series and ultimately delivered them to the Sol system. Recall, that throughout the series the Galactica and the surviving fleet were always attempting to scavange and repair their degrading technologies, usually just a few steps ahead of a catastrophic failure or two. The running down of the previous civilization and the technologies that made the Galactica and the fleet possible was a constant running theme, even though it wasn't always addressed explicitly. The 30,000 or so surving humans of the Galactica fleet did not have the necessary skills, knowledge, or materials to continue operating indefinitely. In fact, when the Galactica did reach Earth it was heavily damaged from its latest encounter with the Cavil and with the fold drive completely shot the Galactica, or what was left of it anyway, wasn't going to leave the Sol system for a long time if indeed it ever would again.
It was practically inevitable, even if all 30,000 had agreed to settle together and carefully husband, maintain, and pass down all of their collected technical knowledge and the remaining equipment that much of that knowledge and equipment would be lost in the following centuries as the remaining Galactica technology ran down to broken and the comforts of the previous civilization began to fade into a more primitive and agrarian society of descendents on Earth.
The truth of the matter is that without an advanced civilization and population in the millions to support it on at least one fully developed colony planet, the Galactica and the technology that made everything work was impossible to maintain indefinitely. There were perhaps some minor details that the writers could have done a bit better, but the decision to abandon the Galactica and the remaining fleet was not an entirely illogical one given the state of the Galactica and the remaining equipment (and its penchant for attracting the Cylons from far and wide). It is also important to remember that as the series continued it became more and more apparent that technology was not "the answer" to the problems of humanity (i.e. something to be pursued as an end unto itself). Recall that it was technology that brought them the Cylons and put them on the path into their present circumstances; so is the decision to "start again" so completely illogical in the context of all that they had been through and the state of their remaining technology when they finally arived at Earth? Maybe not.
> blah blah blah
Have you read the title versus that of the original? "Battlestar Galactica Re-Imagined". This is not your Mommy and Daddy's BSG.
The natives were also her contemporaries.
So, it is possible that all the Colonists except Hera die off quickly, but it's not necessary.
Hera's hybrid biology must have represented an evolutionary advantage in order for her mitochondrial DNA to be successfully passed down over 150,000 years to modern humans.
It is possible that that advantage would not be realized until many generations later - for example if a hundred generations later, her descendants are the only people who have resistance to some new disease they encounter, and everyone else who does not posses her mitochondrial DNA dies from the plague.
It does seem likely that most of the Colonists die off quickly or have little impact on the native peoples in terms of culture.
Think about it - if 150,000 years ago farming and things like that had been introduced and it had actually taken, isn't it likely that mankind would be a lot more advanced now? We might have had an industrial revolution 100,000 years ago instead of 150 years ago.
Certainly, the introduction of language in addition to farming would have been a huge cultural leap over the existing hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
Putting moderation advice in your
First, I also didn't like the way they glossed over the fleet's unanimous decision to forgo all technology. And I wished for a better ending for Starbuck. How about, now that her destiny is complete, she is free to be the human she should have been all along?
But when they showed up in the past, I started flashing back ("Lost" style) to the old series, and the introductory narration:
"There are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the universe, with tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians, or the Toltecs, or the Mayans. That they may have been the architects of the great pyramids, or the lost civilizations of Lemuria or Atlantis. Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man who even now fight to survive somewhere beyond the heavens..." --(thanks, Wikipedia!)
So in a way they tied the new show back to that idea (sort of). Plus, remember the big white crystal ships, and the cool white uniformed Starbuck and Apollo? There was an advanced race that was sort of looking out for the fleet.
When Kara found her dead body on Old Earth, the writers had so many options open to them. We knew the old occupants had resurrection technology. Maybe they didn't all die out, and there was an advanced colony hidden somewhere nearby. And their resurrection tech is so advanced, it even works on humans (and vipers!). I mean, someone built her factory fresh spaceship!
Other random thoughts:
Why wouldn't Adm Adama come back after burying Laura? Why wouldn't he want to be near his family after suffering a loss like that? And how would Lee "know" that his father was going to go all hermit on everyone?
What was the Cylons "Plan?" Yes, I know there's another movie coming out to explain that, but we spent the first 2 or 3 seasons being told "And they have a plan," only to have said plan kind of fizzle out. At first it seemed they wanted there to be survivors, so they could experiment with making hybrid babies, or learning about emotions, or teaching the humans to say "Oh my god" instead of "Oh my gods." But by the end, they were just as lost as the humans. "And they have a plan" was brilliant as a way of making the Cylons into a truly terrifying enemy who is always going to be one step ahead of you, and making you second-guess every decision. But it turned out to be just a cool line.
The world has changed a lot since the miniseries. The events of 9/11/2001 (quick aside, do people in other countries refer to it as 11/9?) no longer haunt us the way they did back then. The reign of King Dubya is over, and we will be dealing with the fallout for years/decades to come. It would have been nice to see that reflected in the finale more, with more emphasis on humans and Cylons putting aside their differences and working together to dig themselves out of the hole they have created. (But I know the show finished production long before last year's election.)
On the whole, it was a fun ride, and the ending fell a little flat. I'm grateful the ending wasn't so bad that it will sour my memory of the show's earlier glories. (Remember Galactica jumping into the atmosphere of New Caprica? Remember Pegasus ramming the Base Stars? Remember Boomer showing up with the Cylons at the end of the miniseries? Remember Starbuck always ending up in the brig? Remember Lee and Kara's attraction even though--or because--they were totally wrong for each other? Remember Starbuck waggling the Raider's wings? Good times!)
You act like the conditions onboard the ships were caused by technology. They were not. They were caused by living on a frakking ship.
It's like saying that living in a submarine is hell compared to living on land because nuclear power exists. It's Faustian-level ignorance.
But then again, the village mob always went after Frankenstein's monster, not the good Doctor.
Not trying to be a troll here, but honestly, that's how a lot of people DO see the world... God seems to be an answer to everyting. It makes just as unsatisfying a real life as it did a plot element in the show. Too bad most people would never notice that themselves cuz their God-head would punish em.
I disliked the conclusion so much that I had to reimagine it in a different context, with a different ending, in order to accept it.
http://manifestomultilinko.blogspot.com/2009/03/bsg-finale-answer-to-question-we-didnt.html
Okay, I have to vent. SPOILER ALERT!
The writers should be sent home in shame. They should not be allowed to ever write again. These people have taken one of the best shows on television and thoroughly and completely destroyed it.
This episode was the dumbest thing I've ever seen. Where to start?? History. After 2 excellent seasons, the show began its nose dive. They killed Starbuck. Why? No reason! Just for the fuck of it! And then they had to deal with that dumb-ass move the rest of the season. And for episode after episode leading up to the finale, they taunt us with "what happened? is she alive? is she dead? find out in the finale!" and guess what? They had no idea what to do! So they just pretended it didnt happen and had her disappear! She turned into a fucking angel or some dumb shit and disappeared into thin air!
What is this entire plot, too? For no reason, everybody starts believing that Hera is the only hope of both cyclons and humankind. FOR NO REASON! Nobody has any explanation as to why they all suddenly believe this. They just do. For plot! And the entire plot of the last 4 hours of the show revolve around this nonsensical assertation. In the end, they rescue her, and does she do anything special at all? NO! Nothing! Then she's called Eve? What, did everybody else become sterile and did she mate with a thousand aborigines?!?! What the hell sense does that make?
Then they decided that the robotic military cylons had "earned their freedom" and they set them free with their own base ship! Everybody agreed! Nobody could see the possibility at all that cylons could come back to do them any harm. I mean, why would they? Cylons only destroyed 12 worlds and almost every last living human. But these? They're not going to hurt us. MY GOD. So they shoo their great enemy away and destroy all their own technology so that they can only defend themselves with sticks. Writing this bad should be considered a crime. Seriously.
Why did they have to bring back the loserest character ever written - that smarmy douche with sunglasses who somehow has the power to sway the minds of everyone on the ship. That absolute loser star of the episode when Lee decides he needs to become a LAWYER for fuck's sake and defend this great traitor AT ANY COST. Yeah, that made sense. And then they bring this asshole sunglasses douche back and suddenly, HE'S THE FUCKING PRESIDENT! After seasons full of the entire fleet fighting over who gets to lead, Lee just says "Congrats, you're the president for no fucking reason." Right then, I turned off the show and turned off the TV. Could it get any dumber?
YES! Probably the stupidest moment of all is when Lee goes "hey, I have an idea! Let's just throw all our technology away and live in dirt huts!" and the douche president later says "I was surprised everyone agreed to it." YEAH, ME TOO. So nobody at all had a brain. None of the 35,000 people thought that maybe throwing away all their resources to live on a completely unknown planet was a bad idea. No, apparently not. The first virus would have wiped them out. They didn't know if ANYTHING there was edible. They didn't have tools or seeds or anything! They had a stick. They had one stick and they were going to build a civilization with it. But not working together - oh no. They're going to spread out all over, one person per 100,000 miles, and each one is going to find a stick and cultivate crops and build a house and town with it. EVERYONE AGREED!
And what of this stupid song and the stupid notes that imaginary Kara was obsessing over. Never explained! What, somehow her dad knew that someday she'd be on a Battlestar and need the coordinates to a planet? Is that what we're supposed to believe? Not to mention, how could an interstellar location be converted into a single 10 digit number? What in the hell???
And what was the purpose of this big long opera house garbage? Nothing! All these dumb visions and years later it sort of reminds them of this scene that plays out? What the hell? Why did they bother us with all that?
My god, I'm just so amazed that this got past anyone in production. I'd have tore this script up and fired the lot of them.
"Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind."
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
After reading almost 3/4 of the leve 4 & 5 comments, I am going to jump in here.
I think that while the writers (may have) dropped the ball with plot holes, there is an opportunity to (if everyone was not totally truthful about moving on) have yet a few more episodes or a series revival. Well, that is, if Galactica is not cannibalized, and assuming another battlestar appeared after 5 years of being lost (a la Voyager returning to Federation space). This idea also assumes the surviving characters look fit enough to lead a new fight against the stray, fight-seeking Cylons still out in deep space.
If there is another BSG that is ancillary to "Caprica", hopefully they're physically fit, and not, say, geriatrics, as in ST's movies. The only reason to go see most of the Trek movies was to constantly see K/S/M and virtually not one major Scotty, Uhura, Chekov, et al sub plot of significance.
Don't get me wrong. I LIKE Trek, and watched it for the first time around 1970 (around age 5), then picked it up again around 1972, then continued watching over and over from 74 to 84, and resumed (after the USN) from 88-2002. I felt that TNG's ending was just unfulfilling. I felt sad at the end of DS 9. Voyager was OK, but i was disappointed that Harry Kim's promotion was really (to me) an alternate time line, and it nullified Kim's promotion/rank in the "real" Voyager timeline, and i begrudged the staff for allowing that. Enterprise was OK, tho I only saw maybe 1/2 of the episodes, and absolutely DESPISED that theme song (the only time i was spared of it was the Tholian episode, IIRC, or whichever one started in another timeline and thus, gratefully happy i was, obviated that song being sang... it sounded way too damned manifest destinest to me...). But, overall, while I was a core fan, bought ship blueprints, star charts/maps, more than 30 novels, numerous tech manuals, a script book, Trek compendiums/encyclopedias, once i started watching BSG, Trek went from 150 (on a scale of 0-100) to maybe 70 or 80. BSG (at least the miniseries, seasons 1 & 2, and some of 3) was suddenly **200**, on that same scale, mainly because it didn't pussyfoot around or get too cerebral, techno-babbly, or moralistic in the Trek way. It did so in it's own, deeper-character-exposition way. Trek thus was second, with Voyager, DS9, TNG, then Ent, then TOS...
Finally, the blessing of BSG is that it did NOT allow for some Homer/Kirk/Spock/McCoy triad to hijack the beauty in pursuing understanding supporting characters. Too many hollywood actions pin budgets on a handful of principal characters/actors, and big-ass ego trips undercut the others (Nichols, and IIRC, Takei, and Koenig wrote memoires about how shatner took the shooting scripts and redacted or stole lines from other characters, to give himself more screen time. Nimoy essentially supposedly did the same, but not as egomanically as shatner...), and it is egregious when so much money is put into a production and the others end up as foils or backdrop.
A lesson Moore and company should learn, however, is that when a show like BSG arrives and is lambasted as rudderless, they may need to fire the lawyers (or gag/strap them a few weeks) and "pseudo crowd-source" with disclaimers (wait, they already HAVE that power, in law) and just borrow from the audience to keep it happy. The mini-series and seasons 1 & 2 are highly regarded by most followers, but 3 & 4 went on the drift, so it would have been humbling and rewarding if 3rd and 4th rails were set up to keep the writers in line AND the audiences happy. But, even i, (if i ever create something) would not want to lose total property control (hence, i'd likely NEVER sell to a studio, and will crowdsource if i have to), and would distribute via the Internet(s) and use talent not afraid of nor controllable by hwood, and no egomaniacal or candy-ass pretty boy/girl talent capable of walking off the set and destroying the production.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
I honestly thought the finale was pretty fitting. I didn't really have too many problems with it. I was more worried they were going to kill every one off or just leave them lost in space. I thought it was interesting that they ended up being what present day Earth believed to be the beginning of civilization. This whole time I was thinking they were going to find Earth already in present day or the furture. I was expecting it to 150,000 years in the past. I found it to be interesting and did just what it should do which was to make people think about what was happening. The whole point of leaving technology behind is to leave behind the very thing that brought on their war in the first place. It was about starting OVER with a clean slate and a new life. The only part I really didn't feel was explained well enough was how Hera was the key to their survival, because it seemed more like Kara was the key. Even with Hera being the mitochondrial Eve, you're telling me the some 38+K survivors left and all the cylons that stayed on Earth didn't procreate and help re-populize the planet. That really made no sense to me. Otherwise, I was generally please with the ending.
The ending made it look like living in Africa was going to be one big camping trip. These people don't stand a chance against carnivores, disease, or spear-wielding natives. I seriously doubt this was a realistic voluntary choice.
I've seen this path traveled before.
DS9.
That makes little sense. The New Caprica storyline showed that Colonials were exceedingly bad at long-term thinking. That was the point of the vote to colonize New Caprica. Sure, it was a lousy, inhospitable place suitable only for subsistence farming, but at least they could have land under their feet and sky overhead, even if they all starved to death later.
That also makes little sense. They spent the last several episodes Basestarizing the Galactica, going as far as to give the Anders hybrid control over its systems to use technology to raid the Cylon colony, and they almost gave Cavil resurrection technology. Immediately after this, a unanimous hanging lampshade vote decides that even indoor plumbing is too dangerous? I don't believe it.
how to invest, a novice's guide
Hera is our Missing Link.
The genetic compatibility of the Neanderthals with the colonists was overrated since only Hera was a common Eve ancestor.
Hera, the sole living fusion of human and Cylon according to God's plan, became the Eve of a yet another new hybrid race.
I thought their 'this has all happened before, will happen again' theme was quite weak if the crux of it was that everything involving the Cylon wars with humanity was about God arranging things in such a way that Hera be delivered to Earth to start a new cycle of human-create-machines-only-to-have-another-Skynet outcome.
Kinda weak. At least they didn't resort to time-travel crap which I thought they might be tempted to do.
Hunter gatherers don't have language already?
The natives featured in the series finale of BSG were "pre-lingual", without language. One of the main characters said so as they were observing them.
Think about it, you do don't need much more than a few gestures and grunts to organize a hunt or point out the location of some particularly delectable berries.
I have to say, the finale left me a little disappointed. There was a lot of action, but once that finished they had some minor impact on humanity and all went off and died some time later. I loved the whole show from miniseries to series finale, but it did leave me wanting something more. An explanation of who "it", "god" is, and what it's playing at. Presumably angels Six and Baltar weren't just observing modern Earth for exposition.
Putting moderation advice in your
Some interesting comments over on The Register:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/23/battlestar_galactica_finale/comments/
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I, too, hated the cop-out ending with its inclusion of magical men to solve all humanity's problems.
I would have preferred an ending like so:
Big battle, humans, cylons, everyone throwing things that go bang at one another. Bloody, gore, general unpleasantries exchanged all around. Humanity is essentially wiped out (which is pretty much what happened except someone invited a mythical magic-man to the party)... the Final Five (Four, I suppose, as Anders wasn't exactly tap-dancing around the room) manage to save oh, say a dozen humans and jump out of the system.
This leaves an interesting premise. The Cylons return to the 12 Colonies where they struggle to rebuild a civilisation. Initially sterile, a few are able to reproduce and, over time, due to prolonged exposure to radiation, just enough genetic diversity creeps in to allow the Cylons to reproduce safely. Over time, more and more are born fertile. 150,000 years later, they have 12 thriving colonies composed of millions of distinct individuals. In time, the Cylons come to think of themselves as human.
Meanwhile, out in space, humans face a grim existence. 12 humans are not sufficient to guarantee genetic diversity. The Final Five aid the remaining humans, giving them access to Cylon technology, not resurrection technology, but cloning technology. Millions of individuals, all based on the same 12 models, mostly infertile due to being clones. Most humans believe they have lost their humanity and consider the clones more Cylon than human. 150,000 years pass and, one day, the clones make their way to a system of 12 Colonies occupied by the descendants of the Cylons.
At this point, there are some seriously interesting options:
1. Humanity attacks the 12 colonies (i.e. the cycle repeats)
2. Humanity accepts its fate.
3. Humans and Cylons find a way to co-exist.
and they did die. if hera is the genetic eve, then everyone else, and all their kids, died. ending was awful, you are correct