No Exit (415)

[Mongoletsi]

Just because someone is brain dead and there is no sign of activity doesn't mean they are actually dead-dead. People have been brought back to life after one has been brain dead.

Indeed, I'm of the informed opinion though that once higher function is lost (as with Anders) then when/if they come back, they retain only basic functions. There was a Discovery program about it

[HAL2100]

Indeed, I'm of the informed opinion though that once higher function is lost (as with Anders) then when/if they come back, they retain only basic functions. There was a Discovery program about it

You're making the assumption that the Earth-Cylon brains function in the exact manner as human brains.

[Corona]

You're making the assumption that the Earth-Cylon brains function in the exact manner as human brains.

Or Terminator brains (processors) for that matter. We have seen the automatic reset a couple of times.

I still would like to disassemble a Skinjob to see what makes it tick. How much is human?

[s09119]

I think I get it now; the 13th tribe, they weren't Cylons at all. Not in the sense we think of them. Now before you shout, hear me out:

We know that all 13 tribes arose on Kobol as humans, and that eventually they broke with the "gods" and were forced to abandon their homeworld for the Colonies and Earth, respectively. Now my guess is that the people who would one day become the 13th tribe began experimenting with ways to become immortal, but creating copies of their bodies and, upon death, transferring their consciousnesses into those copies, essentially carrying on life in an identical form.

The "gods" were displeased by this, as were the other tribes, who believed that it was death that gave meaning to life, and thus the resurrectionists were breaking their sacred covenant. Eventually, they were exiled for their blasphemous ways, and the 13th (or, in actuality, the 1st) tribe set off in their generational ships to try and find a new home, perfecting their immortalizing technology all the way. That said, they were still humans, not machines; there was nothing mechanical about them, they were all still their original species, just with the ability to transfer their minds when they died via an external device.

Thousands of years pass and the 13th tribe settles on Earth. They create a thriving civilization and eventually build Centurions to defend themselves and provide a steady labor force. Seeing that, perhaps, death was no longer something to be feared, they abandoned the use of resurrection to give more meaning to their existences (finally coming to terms with their ancient brothers and sisters). Now they just lives as normal humans once more, but the Centurions had grown jealous of their masters and their comfort... and they launched an unprovoked nuclear attack on the 13th tribe, all but destroying them.

So now we're back to the Colonials, who do exactly the same thing and suffer the same fate, with one exception; their version of skinjobs really are part machine, which, in a way, makes them far less-perfect than their ancestors from Earth. The Cylons will never become the ultimate machine because they can never rid themselves of their need to add more and more to themselves. Only the 13th tribe succeeded there; they made themselves as perfect as they could, and then gave it all up to be at peace with the universe.

Thoughts?

[Wake]

not sure why i thought there were toasters on kobol, guess i misheard it somewhere.


i remember seeing the slightly different centurion on earth so we know the earth/cylons made centurions as well as the colonial people.


another comment i have is how coincidental is it for tyrol to land on earth like 50 feet from where he died thousands of years ago heh heh.



someone just said colonials were working on artificial life. but obviously not skin jobs, since they were totally shocked by them. were you referring to the centurions who rebelled?



what else. so when the ff showed up at the colonies to warn them about artificial life, they only talked to centurions? they didnt go down and talk to the humans and let them know they might have found a way to help?

[BobBot]

I still would like to disassemble a Skinjob to see what makes it tick. How much is human?

We know that they react to radiation differently, and that their blood lacks antigens. It's a bit of an oversight that no-one created a 'real' cylon detector, since these differences were known early on. Certainly this implies that there is some noticeable difference at the cellular level. We also know that optical data can be fed into their nervous system by sticking a cable into their arms. Presumably this ability has something to do with organic data transfer, but it means the nerves can handle data in a way we can't. Also, the brain would need to be able to integrate the memories from a download, so there must be some sort of structural/and or neuronal differences. But Ander's brain seemed perfectly human, and was treated as such by the neurosurgeon.

I believe the skinjobs are as human as possible due to organic memory transfer being built for human resurrection, a way to cheat death. I know I wouldn't want to come back in some non-human form, so I expect it was the same for the 13th tribe.

I'm looking forward to finding out why the Centurions agreed to stop the war in exchange for Skinjob tech. Why was it so valuable to them? I suspect that...

Spoiler:

...cylons were created to resurrect Graystone's daughter, from what we know of the Caprica tv show. If she had enough 'human' aspects in her personality, she would resent the mechanical form and seek to be human again. She may well have helped develop the rest of the Cylons (we know of several types of Cylons already - Skinjobs, original Centurions, Raiders, Hybrids, proto-Cylons from Caprica, 'new' Centurions, Heavy Raiders) in much the same way as Cavil helped with the Skinjobs. Perhaps she implanted the desire to be human into the rest of them, either deliberately or by inheritance. She may also be what the Cylons call the one true god, or she may have 'seen' god in much the same way that the Hybrids - stuck between human and machine, life and death - are in touch with something.

[HAL2100]

We know that all 13 tribes arose on Kobol as humans

While RDM has confirmed that Kobol is the origin of human life, we do not have any evidence to support that all 13 were comprised of humans. All we know is that by the time of the holocaust on Earth, the 13th tribe was comprised solely of Cylons. This does not indicate that the 13th tribe was all human, all Cylone or a mix of either at the time that they resided on or departed from Kobol.

[Mongoletsi]

You're making the assumption that the Earth-Cylon brains function in the exact manner as human brains.

I think we can safely say that in this case, we're to assume the same principal applies. I don't think Anders, as we know him, is going to come back - at least not without a huge amount of angst and trauma and pseudo-mythological babble!

[Mongoletsi]

Quote:
Originally Posted by s09119
We know that all 13 tribes arose on Kobol as humans


This does not indicate that the 13th tribe was all human, all Cylone or a mix of either at the time that they resided on or departed from Kobol.

So basically we can draw no conclusions, is what you're saying

I would tend to agree, but I suspect that - as they regained the ability to reproduce sexually on Earth - that they left Kobol either as a mixture or "all Cylon". I certainly don't think they'd have been "all Human".

Edit: Meant to say though, that they MUST have been human to start with, resurrection technology couldn't exactly evolve could it!

[Sela]

Some answers from the writers.
http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune....omer.html#more

Clears some things up
Earth was destroyed by their own metal cylon's
Cavil blocked the other 6 memories
Kobol is the origin of humanity
Final five didn't believe in one god until they met the centurions.

Thanks so much for the link. It clarified quite a few of the questions I had from this episode. Glad to have read this before the next episode.

Thanks again!

[Matt G]

1. OK...I can sort of relate to how Cavil feels about his human body but overall...he's in denial about a lot of stuff. Seen that story before though so fine by me!

2. OK...current theory on Final Five is...they 'were' originally human. The cycle on Earth went from humans to AIs(I'm not caling them Cylon) and back to humans again. To be 'Cylon' is to be able to resurrect into a replica body. The FF made themselves 'Cylon'. Furthermore, Kara changed history and made herself a Cylon.

3. President Lee Adama. Fine.

4. Galactica is fracked!

[HAL2100]

I think we can safely say that in this case, we're to assume the same principal applies. I don't think Anders, as we know him, is going to come back - at least not without a huge amount of angst and trauma and pseudo-mythological babble!

Actually, no we can't assume that it functions the same and there is evidence to support that - Cylon resurrection. We know that the human form bodies are essentially clean slates until the download. We know also that there has to be some mechanism that triggers the download. Both would suggest that there's at least some difference in the brains to facilitate ressurrection.

[HAL2100]

So basically we can draw no conclusions, is what you're saying

We can make no assumptions.

I would tend to agree, but I suspect that - as they regained the ability to reproduce sexually on Earth - that they left Kobol either as a mixture or "all Cylon". I certainly don't think they'd have been "all Human".

Edit: Meant to say though, that they MUST have been human to start with, resurrection technology couldn't exactly evolve could it!

1) Saying that the 13th was all Cylon or a human/cylon mix is an assumption. The only fact that we know is that by the time of the holocaust the 13th tribe was all Cylon.

2) The fact that the Human-Cylons were able to eventually reproduce sexually can not be taken as evidence that the 13th tribe was all human, all cylon or a mix thereof upon departing Kobol. We know that the Human Colonial-Cylons appear to be biologically the same as a human being down to the ability to have intercourse and the means to carry a pregnancy (Number Six and Boomer).

3) Stating that the 13th tribe MUST have been human because of the resurrection technology is also an assumption.
-Whats to say that the Humans didn't create the Cylons on Kobol, the Cylons evolved and in the course of their evolution figured out how to resurrect? (There's plenty of references in SciFi of machine creating machine.)
-Whats to say that the humans created Cylons & resurrection and then grouped them all into the 13th tribe?

Speculation and suspicions are fine.

[Back40]

someone just said colonials were working on artificial life. but obviously not skin jobs, since they were totally shocked by them. were you referring to the centurions who rebelled?

No, I'm thinking that the organic memory transfer technology that came with the 13th tribe from Kobol was first used to transfer into humanoid synthetic lifeforms while the 13 tribes were still on Kobol and that that technology created a rift between those who embraced the technology and those who opposed it. The Colonials may simply not have retained the knowledge of the synthetic humanoids after three or four thousand years.

what else. so when the ff showed up at the colonies to warn them about artificial life, they only talked to centurions? they didnt go down and talk to the humans and let them know they might have found a way to help?

I know, that's a bit odd...you can see that on the one hand, they may not want to reveal themselves to the humans as Cylons seeing as the humans are at war with the Cylon, but....maybe after their own experience with Cylons, they figured that eventually the machines would win if they weren't stopped, and the only way to stop them was "bribery", so they dealt directly with the Centurions rather than the humans??

[BobBot]

No, I'm thinking that the organic memory transfer technology that came with the 13th tribe from Kobol was first used to transfer into humanoid synthetic lifeforms while the 13 tribes were still on Kobol and that that technology created a rift between those who embraced the technology and those who opposed it. The Colonials may simply not have retained the knowledge of the synthetic humanoids after three or four thousand years.



I know, that's a bit odd...you can see that on the one hand, they may not want to reveal themselves to the humans as Cylons seeing as the humans are at war with the Cylon, but....maybe after their own experience with Cylons, they figured that eventually the machines would win if they weren't stopped, and the only way to stop them was "bribery", so they dealt directly with the Centurions rather than the humans??

It makes sense that they went to the Cylons, since the war was already in progress. What I don't get is why the Centurions didn't just kill these humans-who-claim-to-be-Cylons. Presumably there was some sort of Cylon leader they spoke to, but how did the FF get to talk to it?