Sometimes A Great Notion (411)

[VSS]

Hi- just another BSG newbie- I've only seen the series twice and clearly that's not enough - but I have some questions:

Nothing in the show suggests anything like that could happen. That's a very SciFi idea, and BSG doesn't do time travel, aliens, etc. that shows like Star Trek do. The only Sci Fi elements are robots turning on their masters, and space travel. If your idea turned out to be true, it'd be a huge disappointment and betrayal of everything the show is.

Well, how science-oriented is BSG supposed to be, exactly? I agree that they wanted to stay away from the more outrageous scifi themes. But if they gave any though to science at all, something is up with what was found on Earth. It doesn't fit.

The ruins did not look 2000 years old. There were dead plants on them. Skeletons in the sand? If cylons are indistinguishable from humans those skeletons would have been gone long ago. The attack appeared to have taken place when the colonies were wiped out or maybe when the toasters first rebelled- I was shocked when Baltar said 2000 years...

waht if 'they're all cylons' = your planet was going to be destroyed, so we downloaded the consciousnesses of every one into mechanical constructs as a way to preserve the race.

they're, for lack of a better analogy, all Harlan's Robots, perfect duplicates of those that died, so perfect that they're as good as human

the cylons 1.0 made the cylons 2.0 (1.0 being the five, 2.0 being the seven), the 2.0 cylons rose up against the 1.0 cylons, massacred them because they couldn't handle being lesser, or maybe the 2.0 knew that the 1.0 wanted to kill them.

a greater force resurrected the 1.0 cylons (the humans) into constructed bodies) and implanted memories into them of 2000 years ofhistory to cover up for the removal of the knowledge that htey are machines.

despite that reprogramming, the 1.0 have come to earth because some fragment of memory remained.

the 1.0 cylons/five WERE on earth, but i don't think it was 2000 years ago. the wreckage on the planet is too defined to be 2000 years old. 200 maybe, but not 2000

the timeline is nothing but revisionist history

I think you're on to something there... I think the Final Five created the seven and were overthrown by them more recently just as we were.

But I do think the planet was nuked 2000 years ago by cylons. Nuclear radiation doesn't seem to bother cylons- they are, after all, apparently thriving on Caprica. They then replaced the humans on earth and yet wanted to be like humans- and created a new civilization including the version 2.0 as you mentioned, who infiltrated the the twelve colonies and that's where the 7 skinjob models came from (D'Anna even says she wants to stay with "the bones of my ancestors."), and why they suddenly appeared as if from no where. After all, the colonies may not have known where Earth was- but the Earth inhabitants knew where the colonies were. Remember the beacon? It was also very old and clearly designed to kill cylons and spare humans. I think the 7 killed everyone off, including the Final Five, because "children are meant to replace their parents." It's cyclical and it doesn't matter who is human or cylon, it matters only who created whom.

Although it might explain why the 7 aren't supposed to talk about the Five. Not only are they the creators or "parents"- the children killed them off. Hard to make claims of moral superiority over humans when parricide is the foundation of one's civilization...

**** What defines "Cylon"?? ****
We know that Cylons cannot sexually reproduce. Or more accurately we know that the 7 cannot. The 5 do not seem to have this restriction.
We know that in the original miniseries Balter discovered compounds in the Leoben cremation that revealed the sample to be synthetic in nature. This was never referred to again and Baltar had to reinvent "the amazing nuclear cylon detector". This technology was supposedly related to cylon sensitivity to certain types of radiation, like that seen in the neighborhood of Ragnar or a plutonium core of the nuke. This technology is found to work correctly by identifying Boomer.
Now we see that the bones of the dead are found easily to be Cylon. They tested many samples and they are all found to by Cylon. But WHAT DEFINES CYLON-NESS? (Cylonocity? Cylonitude? )

Yeah, a bit surprising when Baltar manages to test two hundred skeletons over the course of a few days and find that they were cylons- and no one says "Hey! I thought you couldn't do that!"

But if the difference between cylon and human is really only how we react to various forms of radiation, whose to say what's synthetic and what isn't? As for the 7 not being able to reproduce- as in Jurassic Park- for safety's sake that's how they were designed (by the Five or their generation). I never believed toasters could figure out over the course of forty years how to make skinjobs. I don't think they did- I think the Final Five did it.

[BobBot]

Well, how science-oriented is BSG supposed to be, exactly? I agree that they wanted to stay away from the more outrageous scifi themes. But if they gave any though to science at all, something is up with what was found on Earth. It doesn't fit.

The ruins did not look 2000 years old. There were dead plants on them. Skeletons in the sand? If cylons are indistinguishable from humans those skeletons would have been gone long ago. The attack appeared to have taken place when the colonies were wiped out- I was shocked when Baltar said 2000 years...

Yeah, a bit surprising when Baltar manages to test two hundred skeletons over the course of a few days and find that they were cylons- and no one says "Hey! I thought you couldn't do that!"

No reason to think the ruins weren't 2000 years old, or that skeletons wouldn't survive in sand. We find skeletons and other tissues that are more than 2000 years old. We don't know what conditions prevaled over 2000 years. The skeletons may have been frozen for most of that time, or dessicated, or the radiation might have sterilised most of the planet (so no bacteria or animals to consume it). I don't get why people think the ruins didn't look 2000 years old. What should ruins look like, after being nuked and left abandoned? They'll be collapsed, they'll be overgrown. When we see ruins in tourist sites, archaeologists have excavated them and cleaned them up.

Baltar could have had help to test the skeletons, and the test didn't necessarily take very long and could have done many skeletons at once. We also know Cylon blood is different to human blood, so we can assume the bone marrow (where blood is made) is different. And maybe the Cylon rebels helped with the testing and identification. So really, there's nothing to suggest that there isn't valid science, it's just that the show doesn't go into the details because it's only the result that's valid. Star Trek would give monologues involving lots of technobabble, but BSG doesn't.

[Skydiver]

I don't think it's really been 2000 years. We see the ruins looking pretty intact. You could tell what some of them had been.

then look at earth. Where Jamestown was buried by and reclaimed by the river in just a few hundred years, where abandoned farm houses built in the 1800's are piles of stone on the ground in a little over 100 years. where parts of the roman ruins of Londinium (the original London) are only intact because they were found and are preserved...and they had to be dug out in the first place.
Look at Chernobyl and towns near there and how fallen apart they are in just 20 years. There's no way those ruins would be that intact in 2000 years. wind, rain, storms, silting...the planet would reclaim its own. And this is stuff that's already been weakened by the blast

maybe it's just poor visual effects and they needed there to be recoginzible ruins, but look at how little exists in our world from the year zero, and the items that do exist really only do because humans continue to use and maintain them

[L-S]

According to (and expanded from) comments by the Moore fellow on the hulu commentary for this episode:

Kobol = Cradle of Civilization - Greece, Athens, Mesopotamia, Sumer, Ur - Inana and Mithra - (the beginning of the modern species, and a long time ago).

Or, Eden, or Olympus, prior to Prometheus (who stole the creator's magic, and gave it to his fellow humans).

Humans lived with the Gods, 'Prometheus stole fire,' - humans became technological - used technology to refashion nature - to create something very much like itself. (Like Apple does with its machines).

A war ensues between the creator and the created (as with the humans and Gods in the first round). Human and Cylon bash-bash. Everybody leaves.

According to Moore, the 12 tribes of humans take off for planets, one for each (neat trick); the Cylon creation take off for one planet (they call "Nerf".. Earf. Earth. Why not "Cyclone? Cyclonia? Cylon-ville? Levittown?).

And then?

Well, a lot of silly nonsense, clearly. So, we're being pulled this and that way -

Are they all machine descendants? If Starbuck, our drunken hero, is just a replicant, then who cares about any of it? Is our lovely Dualla really gone for good!

All herky-jerky questions, coming out of the soapy drama.

The best of the show was always its analysis, or really, its demonstration of our self-deceiving, self-contradicting nature; that, coupled with our ability to use technology - and to be its slave; our native spiritual nature - but the difficulty of pinning down the details of the ephemeral...

So, as they end, I hope they let much mystery survive.

An over-explained ending will do no good for anyone, long term. I think they're pro enough to know that.

What a nice blend of Hindu eternal creation/destruction cycle, Catholic mysticism, Protestant work ethic, Greek pantheism, and Roman law...

Neat-o.

[BobBot]

I don't think it's really been 2000 years. We see the ruins looking pretty intact. You could tell what some of them had been.

then look at earth. Where Jamestown was buried by and reclaimed by the river in just a few hundred years, where abandoned farm houses built in the 1800's are piles of stone on the ground in a little over 100 years. where parts of the roman ruins of Londinium (the original London) are only intact because they were found and are preserved...and they had to be dug out in the first place.
Look at Chernobyl and towns near there and how fallen apart they are in just 20 years. There's no way those ruins would be that intact in 2000 years. wind, rain, storms, silting...the planet would reclaim its own. And this is stuff that's already been weakened by the blast

maybe it's just poor visual effects and they needed there to be recoginzible ruins, but look at how little exists in our world from the year zero, and the items that do exist really only do because humans continue to use and maintain them

I don't agree. The main reason we don't have much left from 2000 years ago or so (there was no year 0!) is because those locations have been in use continuously since they were established. Settlements grow, and evolve through a slow process of remodelling either by removing what already exists or just by building over it. That's why you find Roman ruins under streets, or old medieval streets under churches.

Farmhouses in the 1800s were built of totally different materials to today's high-tech buildings. We have skyscrapers, which need to resist huge weights and torques on all axes. Even weakened by nuclear blasts (and remember, we don't know the megatonnage or proximity of the blasts) buildings can survive. There is a bank in Hiroshima very close to ground zero, and it is still recognisable. Across the Tay river, the old railway line supports have survived untouched for over a hundred years, even through the bridge collapsed due to poor construction just after it was built. There's a WWII PoW camp and command centre near where I live, and they survive with even their glass windows intact!

Silting requires running rivers etc, and these wouldn't cover over skyscrapers. Maybe the streets inland are deep in silt, but it wouldn't ever become deep enough to bury skyscrapers. As for Chernobyl, I haven't personally been, but it's not in bad condition really. I'm not saying the buildings are habitable, there's probably a lot of rot in the plaster and wood and insects/animals will have taken their toll (but these don't consume the glass and metals of larger, western buildings) But just because the structures we see in BSG are standing doesn't mean they are inhabitable either.

I'll agree to disagree with everyone who thinks the ruins are unrealistic, that Dee is a Cylon, Ellen is the Cylon leader, Kara is from an alternate universe and those who think the final five have yet to be revealed. Which seems to be many of the people who post in this forum...

[Mongoletsi]

Exactly what BobBot said!!

[smortt]

Exactly what BobBot said!!

yes!! I second that

[Mongoletsi]

Btw, if there was a massive cataclysmic nuclear event (or series of such) which affected the entire globe, I think it would mean that - as everything is irradiated - stuff would take much longer to rot, as pretty much everything bar a few isolated/tiny pockets of low-level life would be gone. You cannae have rot w'out rotters!

I could be wrong, but that's my understanding of how such an event would stop the rot.

[Skydiver]

if you live in the states, check out the history channel's 'world without people' sometime. it starts from the presumption of 'people suddenly vanish' and goes by week by week, then year by year, how the planet reclaims itself over time.

They go to one town in russia, not chernobyl exactly, but a town within just a few miles. initially, yes, all the animal life died. but it's reclaimed. animals now see it as a haven because humans wont' live there. trees are growing in the middle of the soccer fields and the only way you know that they are soccer fields is because the grandstands are standing.

animals move into human shelters and use them for shelter themselves. grass is reclaiming the streets, asphalt is turning back into gravel, trees and vines are tearing down structures.

and that's just in 20 years.

Nothing kills everything. tons of creatures survived the planet killer asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.

And i also remember a special i saw on the titanic, and the victims that are buried in new foundland i believe. in the past almost 200 years, the caskets have rotted away and the bones are lying in mud...and they're so damaged that, when they tried to exhume one of hte unknowns to run thier dna, parts of it were already gone, consumed by the earth.

I think that the almost perfect skeletons in the sand on the beach are just a fiction stretch and a story telling device.

the only way you get bodies and bones well preserved is if they're cold and dry or hot and dry (ice mummies or dessicated mummies) the only wet skeletons/corpses they've ever found have been bog bodies, and those are preserved because the excessive amounts of tanin in the bog basically 'tan' the bodies to a leathery consistency

and, like others have mentioned, the jacks and the rubber ball existing for 2000 years? the wood of the guitar?

not that long

[BobBot]

and, like others have mentioned, the jacks and the rubber ball existing for 2000 years? the wood of the guitar?

not that long

The TV show you quote doesn't sound like it was based on a nuclear holocaust. Radiation sterilizes - I'm a medical physicist, radiation meeting living tissue is what I know!

As for the rubber ball - I don't remember it bouncing, are you totally sure it was made of rubber as we know it today?

The bones - sterilisation from radiation slows decay. That's why we use radiation to preserve foods and to sterilise stuff. And what temperature were they at? For all we know the BSG crew are visiting at the height of an unusually warm summer. Bones can decay quickly, but it depends on a lot of environmental factors. Acidity, temperature, creatures, humidity, movement, chemical composition, bacteria, animals. We saw the bones weren't in mud, so your non-irradiated bone example is not relevant. (Also, the Titanic - 200 years ago? Seriously?)

The writers wanted to get on with the story rather than bore us with the details of how bones could survive that length of time. It's plausible that they could survive, the buildings are plausible - that's all we need to know. If you want to be pernickity, the FTL drives are not plausible. Totally impossible and unrealistic, but a necessary story device.

[GateGipsy]

The titanic sank in 1912, so that's not even 100 years. In fact (it must be because I saw it on CSI ) bones could be soup in just a few years, it depends on the conditions. Hence why we get bones from the Egyptians that were just buried in the sand (not mummified) thousands of years later, and why the peat bogs in England and Ireland are still spitting out almost entirely preserved bodies (hair and skin) a few thousand years later.

[Mongoletsi]

The TV show you quote doesn't sound like it was based on a nuclear holocaust. Radiation sterilizes - I'm a medical physicist, radiation meeting living tissue is what I know!

I'll accept whatever you say on the subject then

[Skydiver]

ok, so the titanic was 1912, which i knew, the 200 was a brain fart.

and the show was simply based on 'bang, everyone's gone', no cause, no reason, just all humans gone.

I don't buy that it was 2000 years. not gonna beat the topic to death, but i don't buy it.

time will tell if the show ever confirms/denies the topic

[Mongoletsi]

I don't buy that it was 2000 years. not gonna beat the topic to death, but i don't buy it.

time will tell if the show ever confirms/denies the topic

Well everybody is entitled to their opinion sir!

Personally, and from what I remember about ionizing radiation, it's very feasible indeed that a massive global nuclear event would leave a world in this state. As you saw, grass (the hardiest, most wide-spread form of life on Earth) and a few basic flowers* were evident. This would suggest life wasn't entirely destroyed; a few pockets of "simple" life (grasses and whatnot) survived. Grass would definitely spread on the wind.

I'm not sure of the effect of irradiated water on grasses is in the longterm though. Presumably the reproductive system of grass isn't as affected as that of more complex organisms.

The fact of the matter is that if *everything* has been sterilised, then there's literally nothing to rot, and nothing to assist the rotting. So bones, rubber balls, old strands of hair. All totally feasible. Even now we find well-reserved remains, far older than 2,000 years. Preserved due to lack of oxygen, thus slowing down the decay.

A massive (global) nuclear event would simply burn off pretty much all the oxygen in the atmosphere (I believe). No oxygen = no life.

Again, the fact only grass and a few flowering plants are evident, does actually suggest the passage of at least 2,000 years.

* Flowers can pollinate via the wind, but insects or birds are a massive help. Was it a thistle of some sort which Roslin picked up?

[VSS]

The TV show you quote doesn't sound like it was based on a nuclear holocaust. Radiation sterilizes - I'm a medical physicist, radiation meeting living tissue is what I know!

As for the rubber ball - I don't remember it bouncing, are you totally sure it was made of rubber as we know it today?

The bones - sterilisation from radiation slows decay. That's why we use radiation to preserve foods and to sterilise stuff. And what temperature were they at? For all we know the BSG crew are visiting at the height of an unusually warm summer. Bones can decay quickly, but it depends on a lot of environmental factors. Acidity, temperature, creatures, humidity, movement, chemical composition, bacteria, animals. We saw the bones weren't in mud, so your non-irradiated bone example is not relevant. (Also, the Titanic - 200 years ago? Seriously?)

The writers wanted to get on with the story rather than bore us with the details of how bones could survive that length of time. It's plausible that they could survive, the buildings are plausible - that's all we need to know. If you want to be pernickity, the FTL drives are not plausible. Totally impossible and unrealistic, but a necessary story device.

Then as a medical physicist you know that the radiation it takes to kill a human being is much less than what it takes to kill off simpler organisms such as plants and especially bacteria. People are easy to kill. That's why you have a job.

And the greatest biomass on earth is actually bacteria- in the soil. Where it's shielded from radiation- and this blast didn't even kill off all the plants on the surface. There are literally bacteria everywhere one can imagine- even in the most inhospitable of places like the hot springs in Yellowstone, the marine vents in the deep sea trenches and maybe even on Mars (personally I don't think so, but... some scientists do). Earth would have to be a blackened shell of a planet not to have bacteria. All we can do is knock them down temporarily but they'd spring right back, mutate, and fill every available niche.

And really, putting bones by a seashore- or any buildings- they'd be gone even faster. The physical action of the waves, the presence of bacteria in wet areas- nothing lasts 2000 years on a seashore even if it were sterile, which it isn't.

Although I do think there was a nuclear holocaust on the BSG of earth 2000 years ago- Nuclear decay rates are the most reliable indicator of age and that's what Baltar was measuring.

BSG just got their science wrong in a major way, a way that was big enough to distract me from the story they were trying to tell, and I find that irritating. So I'd rather believe that there was a more recent battle than think they don't have any science advisors. FTL drives bother physicists, frakked up biology bothers me.