Ever try to make a wheel? Where do they get horses? Why presume the seasons are exactly like those they are used to? Breeding crops works a whole lot better when you can till the soil. Low temperature pottery has serious drawbacks, one being porosity which can cause spoilage and sickness. Not too many centuries ago, salt glazed stoneware was high tech -- finally a vessel and glaze that was impervious to acid, a very important thing when the method of preservation was often pickling. Even having storage jars where liquids will not seep in or out requires temperatures far in excess of pit firing. It would kind of suck if all those nuts you gathered spoiled because water got on the pot and seeped in.
These are all things that would be made infinitely more plausible with scrap metal to get them through the first couple years to self-sufficiency.
Everyone lives within their technological milieu. Let's presume Baltar has seeds -- and lets hope they're not hybrids as those are often sterile. His farming experience certainly involved tractors, tools, fertilizers, perhaps pesticides, soil characteristics of his home world. There will be a lot of experimentation to figure out if any of that transfers. Guess wrong early on = no food, starve to death. Of course, with no tools it will be a real pain to come up with shelter too -- I suppose food trumps shelter so they'll have to tough it outside. What happens when their clothes have rotted off?
The ending is totally ridiculous unless you presume it was meant to show the colonials die off.
I'm not a hunter but I'm guessing its not so easy as everyone wants to believe. As for gathering food -- they can't analyze the properties. How many people will die using "what happens when I eat this" test?
You saw the lines of people heading out with backpacks. The whole idea that a majority of those people don't die with the meagre resources on their backs is ludicrous.
Finally, it really doesn't matter how much specialized intelligence one has if you aren't going to get to use it because of death. Death from unsafe water, unsafe food, lack of water, lack of food, exposure, small injuries, etc. etc. We are so immersed in technology, we can't even see it. Things like cups, soap, cooking utensils, hand tools -- this is technology and without it, we get in trouble quite quickly. Now, someone who has an immune system accustomed to drinking out of rivers and eating poorly cooked game is probably going to survive long enough to reproduce. The colonials, especially the civilians waiting for a handout from Gaius -- they're tiger meat.
I do pottery. I even built and fire a high temperature kiln based on 1500 year old technology: "anagama". The task would be incredibly daunting to find suitable clay and then dig it up. When I built my kiln, I did much of the digging with pick and shovel. The soil was a mixture of clay and rock that is almost indistinguishable from concrete. I bent a pick and broke shovels. I permanently injured my elbow such that I can't ever play video games or even use a hammer without having rather severe pain. About half the digging was done by my neighbor who had an excavator -- let me tell you, after two months of digging, watching that thing scoop out a wheelbarrow at a time was almost enough to bring tears to my eyes.
Now, what I did isn't so amazing -- I was able to buy shovels and other steel tools. I used hand saws and later after my elbow problem, power tools. I could buy pre-cut wood, cinderblocks, bags of concrete, and high temperature bricks. To do this all from scratch with nothing but sticks and antlers for picks would have take me years. Each firebrick weighs 9 pounds. I used about 3000. How long would it take a person to dig 27000 pounds of clay. Pulverize it and process it and move it to where the ore is? Just so you know, good high temperature bricks are low in iron so the deposits to make the bricks probably aren't near the area with the good ore.
Then you have wood. One firing in my kiln uses about 4.5 cords. That is a stack of wood 8.5' tall, 8' wide, and 8' deep. A good cord or more needs to be chopped down to kindling size. Ever tried to chop wood without a maul? I haven't either. How about cutting down trees with stones and antler bits? Me neither.
Etc. etc.
You people are underestimating the amazing amount of work we get from fossil fuel burning equipment, electrical equipment, or even simple human powered metal tools. Even if you manage to build the infrastructure, the energy requirements to smelt metal or make pottery are amazingly large. You only get to expend that energy after you have enough food to survive and have free time to work on other things. Knowledge is good, but without energy to put it to work and food to keep you alive, it is unlikely to prove of much value.
So they are leaving nothing behind but possessions, not the knowledge that made those possessions.
Take the smartest most adept computer engineer in the world, put him/her out in the woods with a set of clothes, a tent, and a pocket knife. Call me when he returns with a functioning computer.
Take the smartest most adept metalurgical expert, put him/her out in the woods with a set of clothes, a tent, a pocket knife, and one friend. Call me when they manage to find enough ore, which they can dig out in sufficient quantity with sticks, to blast into metal which they can then work into a simple thing like a spoon.
This could go on and on. The fact is, they needed the remnants to get a start on what they'd need to learn to survive. Throwing it away means most won't survive. In essence, it was a stupid and suicidal ending. It's no different than if they found earth and then decided to commit suicide by staying on the ships and flying into the sun. Either ending is just ridiculous contempt for the viewers. At least most viewers.
You make the mistake of thinking that "technology" means computers etc. Technology also includes shovels, food storage receptacles, cloth, etc. etc. They've gone and chucked everything.
And the pieces of the ships would have immense value while figuring out how to survive. They could act as shelter while they learn how to build things from wood and grass.
The "throw it all in the sun" bit was suicide, not a wise or reasoned choice.
Yeah. But why would one willingly choose a short, dirty, uncomfortable existence in which you play immune system roulette?
The whole chuck everything makes no sense unless god intervened to eliminate rational though in the colonists so they could finally and forever be finished off. The whole god+irrational behavior fits together perfectly. It is clear that they all died out without reproducing if Hera is considered M. Eve.
True, but up to 11 months till harvest depending on the time of the year they landed -- could be really bad for the ones who spread out to cooler climes. Too bad they sent all their glass into the sun -- no green houses.
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.
I was dissapointed in the ending but this Slashdot discussion has made me understand it completely. And yes, God was completely necessary:
Starbuck is the Harbinger of Death because she leads them to earth, where
God intervenes and causes everyone to lose every bit of rationality and common sense.
This enables them to make a decision which ensures that all of the Colonists die in short order from malnutrition and disease...
EXCEPT for Hera. Her immune system helps her get through the first couple years.
A band of indigenous hunters either decimates Hera's family as they represent a thread to game and forage resources, or adopts her after finding her family dead from hunger and disease.
Shortly after puberty, Hera begins pumping out babies with the better immune system.
* Starbuck is the Harbinger of Death because she brings them to earth. * God causes them to lose all sense of rationality and throw everything into the sun. * Within 24 months, they are all dead from starvation or disease, except for Hera. Hera's immune system helped her survive the first few ravages. Clearly, none of the non-Hera Colonists pass on their genes. * During an attack on Hera's group by the indigenous hunters who are concerned about competition for game and forage foods, the band's "Top Dog" decides to keep Hera. Soon after puberty, Hera has a couple kids. She dies before she's 20, but her kids have a better immune system which makes them more fit. Hera thus becomes Mitochondrial Eve.
It's a whole lot easier to learn how to smelt metal from ore when you have enough food to live and at least a little time to experiment. Throwing all their metal into the sun means that farming or hunting food will take all of everyone's time, always be inadequate in terms of volume and nutrition, and essentially doom them all to an early death.
Stupid raw death was the plan -- this is how Starbuck is the Harbinger of death. Once Starbuck gets them to earth, God makes them all lose all sense of rationality. They all die in the next 24 months, except for Hera. She has a better immune system so doesn't die off immediately from disease. One of the head guys in an indigenous band decides he wants her after attacking Hera's group and killing everyone else to get at the gazelle they had managed to bag. Thus she manages to live just long enough to become mitochondrial eve.
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.
It was your comment that made me finally understand. Starbuck did lead them to their death. Their stupid decision to throw away all tech meant destruction by starvation and the common cold, except for Hera who had a better immune system. Hera survived long enough to reproduce and became Genetic Eve.
Very well put, and very succinct. My impression too is that writers think food comes from supermarkets and have lived an altogether too comfortable life to produce a believable ending.
I don't understand how having less technology would make them safer from the cylons. It seems that the cylons were hard enough to kill with guns (though easier at the end of the series than the begining) -- what is a rock and a stick going to do if some remnants of cylon culture found them and came back?
If humanity suffered a nuclear holocaust, I'm not sure that we'd be clamoring to rebuild the same society that produced such a horrible event.
While we may not have a wish to rebuild the political system that caused the event, we would certainly want to rebuild a place to live, preferably without a heat source that fills the living quarters with smoke or CO. People would treasure any technology they could find.
One of Pirsig's comments in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance comes to mind -- about "back to the land hippies" and farmers. The hippies feared technology, farmers don't because they see its practical application and value.
The BSG writers are acting like hippies -- how many hippy farms went on to become totally self-sufficient? Not many if any. And even they used metal tools. I suspect that the ending would have been different if the writers had, even once, attempted to break ground for a 1/4 acre garden with nothing but a shovel. And remember, a shovel would be a luxury to the people of BSG after tossing all of their metal into the sun.
I ignored that part because it is completely outside what happened in the show. I'm sure Adama sent his raptor off to the sun. In the end, the picture we get is of lines of people walking off with a few things strapped to their back. The ending was dumb, but it would have been dumber if it was something like "we throw away all technology, except for Adama who keeps a raptor." That would be totally inconsistent with their chosen ending of everyone unanimously choosing to die of starvation and mosquito bites.
I agree with you though I might have been able to accept them going to "Amish-Tech" -- Even metal plows, wood cutting tools, leather tanning, etc. etc. were all high tech of a certain age or other. But to drop down to sticks and stones is just ridiculous. After working so hard to survive for years, they're now going to ensure that at least 95% of the survivors die in the next two years from simple things, like lack of food, or lack of gear to analyze berries and roots aside from the "what happens when I eat this" test. They should have just pulled a Cavil -- at least they'd have avoided the suffering.
Slashdot Mirror
ever have mayo and corn pizza in Japan?
Ever try to make a wheel? Where do they get horses? Why presume the seasons are exactly like those they are used to? Breeding crops works a whole lot better when you can till the soil. Low temperature pottery has serious drawbacks, one being porosity which can cause spoilage and sickness. Not too many centuries ago, salt glazed stoneware was high tech -- finally a vessel and glaze that was impervious to acid, a very important thing when the method of preservation was often pickling. Even having storage jars where liquids will not seep in or out requires temperatures far in excess of pit firing. It would kind of suck if all those nuts you gathered spoiled because water got on the pot and seeped in.
These are all things that would be made infinitely more plausible with scrap metal to get them through the first couple years to self-sufficiency.
Everyone lives within their technological milieu. Let's presume Baltar has seeds -- and lets hope they're not hybrids as those are often sterile. His farming experience certainly involved tractors, tools, fertilizers, perhaps pesticides, soil characteristics of his home world. There will be a lot of experimentation to figure out if any of that transfers. Guess wrong early on = no food, starve to death. Of course, with no tools it will be a real pain to come up with shelter too -- I suppose food trumps shelter so they'll have to tough it outside. What happens when their clothes have rotted off?
The ending is totally ridiculous unless you presume it was meant to show the colonials die off.
I'm not a hunter but I'm guessing its not so easy as everyone wants to believe. As for gathering food -- they can't analyze the properties. How many people will die using "what happens when I eat this" test?
You saw the lines of people heading out with backpacks. The whole idea that a majority of those people don't die with the meagre resources on their backs is ludicrous.
Finally, it really doesn't matter how much specialized intelligence one has if you aren't going to get to use it because of death. Death from unsafe water, unsafe food, lack of water, lack of food, exposure, small injuries, etc. etc. We are so immersed in technology, we can't even see it. Things like cups, soap, cooking utensils, hand tools -- this is technology and without it, we get in trouble quite quickly. Now, someone who has an immune system accustomed to drinking out of rivers and eating poorly cooked game is probably going to survive long enough to reproduce. The colonials, especially the civilians waiting for a handout from Gaius -- they're tiger meat.
I do pottery. I even built and fire a high temperature kiln based on 1500 year old technology: "anagama". The task would be incredibly daunting to find suitable clay and then dig it up. When I built my kiln, I did much of the digging with pick and shovel. The soil was a mixture of clay and rock that is almost indistinguishable from concrete. I bent a pick and broke shovels. I permanently injured my elbow such that I can't ever play video games or even use a hammer without having rather severe pain. About half the digging was done by my neighbor who had an excavator -- let me tell you, after two months of digging, watching that thing scoop out a wheelbarrow at a time was almost enough to bring tears to my eyes.
Now, what I did isn't so amazing -- I was able to buy shovels and other steel tools. I used hand saws and later after my elbow problem, power tools. I could buy pre-cut wood, cinderblocks, bags of concrete, and high temperature bricks. To do this all from scratch with nothing but sticks and antlers for picks would have take me years. Each firebrick weighs 9 pounds. I used about 3000. How long would it take a person to dig 27000 pounds of clay. Pulverize it and process it and move it to where the ore is? Just so you know, good high temperature bricks are low in iron so the deposits to make the bricks probably aren't near the area with the good ore.
Then you have wood. One firing in my kiln uses about 4.5 cords. That is a stack of wood 8.5' tall, 8' wide, and 8' deep. A good cord or more needs to be chopped down to kindling size. Ever tried to chop wood without a maul? I haven't either. How about cutting down trees with stones and antler bits? Me neither.
Etc. etc.
You people are underestimating the amazing amount of work we get from fossil fuel burning equipment, electrical equipment, or even simple human powered metal tools. Even if you manage to build the infrastructure, the energy requirements to smelt metal or make pottery are amazingly large. You only get to expend that energy after you have enough food to survive and have free time to work on other things. Knowledge is good, but without energy to put it to work and food to keep you alive, it is unlikely to prove of much value.
Well great. With that correction, the ending just reverts to being stupid again. Anyway, I should have added IANAB (biologist) to my original post.
Take the smartest most adept computer engineer in the world, put him/her out in the woods with a set of clothes, a tent, and a pocket knife. Call me when he returns with a functioning computer.
Take the smartest most adept metalurgical expert, put him/her out in the woods with a set of clothes, a tent, a pocket knife, and one friend. Call me when they manage to find enough ore, which they can dig out in sufficient quantity with sticks, to blast into metal which they can then work into a simple thing like a spoon.
This could go on and on. The fact is, they needed the remnants to get a start on what they'd need to learn to survive. Throwing it away means most won't survive. In essence, it was a stupid and suicidal ending. It's no different than if they found earth and then decided to commit suicide by staying on the ships and flying into the sun. Either ending is just ridiculous contempt for the viewers. At least most viewers.
Exactly. That's why it's so perfect. ;-)
You make the mistake of thinking that "technology" means computers etc. Technology also includes shovels, food storage receptacles, cloth, etc. etc. They've gone and chucked everything.
And the pieces of the ships would have immense value while figuring out how to survive. They could act as shelter while they learn how to build things from wood and grass.
The "throw it all in the sun" bit was suicide, not a wise or reasoned choice.
Building a shovel is easier with:
A) rocks and sticks.
B) scrap metal and sticks.
Yeah. But why would one willingly choose a short, dirty, uncomfortable existence in which you play immune system roulette?
The whole chuck everything makes no sense unless god intervened to eliminate rational though in the colonists so they could finally and forever be finished off. The whole god+irrational behavior fits together perfectly. It is clear that they all died out without reproducing if Hera is considered M. Eve.
True, but up to 11 months till harvest depending on the time of the year they landed -- could be really bad for the ones who spread out to cooler climes. Too bad they sent all their glass into the sun -- no green houses.
Perhaps you missed the part where the Chief found a cold northern island. Or the part where they would spread out around the globe.
For those who will stay in Africa: Good luck when the bottled water, purification tabs run out.
I was dissapointed in the ending but this Slashdot discussion has made me understand it completely. And yes, God was completely necessary:
They kept supplies they could carry on their backs. Good luck come winter. Good luck when the energy bars run out.
I finally understand completely.
* Starbuck is the Harbinger of Death because she brings them to earth.
* God causes them to lose all sense of rationality and throw everything into the sun.
* Within 24 months, they are all dead from starvation or disease, except for Hera. Hera's immune system helped her survive the first few ravages. Clearly, none of the non-Hera Colonists pass on their genes.
* During an attack on Hera's group by the indigenous hunters who are concerned about competition for game and forage foods, the band's "Top Dog" decides to keep Hera. Soon after puberty, Hera has a couple kids. She dies before she's 20, but her kids have a better immune system which makes them more fit. Hera thus becomes Mitochondrial Eve.
It's a whole lot easier to learn how to smelt metal from ore when you have enough food to live and at least a little time to experiment. Throwing all their metal into the sun means that farming or hunting food will take all of everyone's time, always be inadequate in terms of volume and nutrition, and essentially doom them all to an early death. Stupid raw death was the plan -- this is how Starbuck is the Harbinger of death. Once Starbuck gets them to earth, God makes them all lose all sense of rationality. They all die in the next 24 months, except for Hera. She has a better immune system so doesn't die off immediately from disease. One of the head guys in an indigenous band decides he wants her after attacking Hera's group and killing everyone else to get at the gazelle they had managed to bag. Thus she manages to live just long enough to become mitochondrial eve.
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.
YES! Permanent boycott of the Sci-Fear genre.
It was your comment that made me finally understand. Starbuck did lead them to their death. Their stupid decision to throw away all tech meant destruction by starvation and the common cold, except for Hera who had a better immune system. Hera survived long enough to reproduce and became Genetic Eve.
Very well put, and very succinct. My impression too is that writers think food comes from supermarkets and have lived an altogether too comfortable life to produce a believable ending.
I don't understand how having less technology would make them safer from the cylons. It seems that the cylons were hard enough to kill with guns (though easier at the end of the series than the begining) -- what is a rock and a stick going to do if some remnants of cylon culture found them and came back?
While we may not have a wish to rebuild the political system that caused the event, we would certainly want to rebuild a place to live, preferably without a heat source that fills the living quarters with smoke or CO. People would treasure any technology they could find.
One of Pirsig's comments in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance comes to mind -- about "back to the land hippies" and farmers. The hippies feared technology, farmers don't because they see its practical application and value.
The BSG writers are acting like hippies -- how many hippy farms went on to become totally self-sufficient? Not many if any. And even they used metal tools. I suspect that the ending would have been different if the writers had, even once, attempted to break ground for a 1/4 acre garden with nothing but a shovel. And remember, a shovel would be a luxury to the people of BSG after tossing all of their metal into the sun.
I ignored that part because it is completely outside what happened in the show. I'm sure Adama sent his raptor off to the sun. In the end, the picture we get is of lines of people walking off with a few things strapped to their back. The ending was dumb, but it would have been dumber if it was something like "we throw away all technology, except for Adama who keeps a raptor." That would be totally inconsistent with their chosen ending of everyone unanimously choosing to die of starvation and mosquito bites.
I agree with you though I might have been able to accept them going to "Amish-Tech" -- Even metal plows, wood cutting tools, leather tanning, etc. etc. were all high tech of a certain age or other. But to drop down to sticks and stones is just ridiculous. After working so hard to survive for years, they're now going to ensure that at least 95% of the survivors die in the next two years from simple things, like lack of food, or lack of gear to analyze berries and roots aside from the "what happens when I eat this" test. They should have just pulled a Cavil -- at least they'd have avoided the suffering.