Daybreak, Part 3 (421)

[Espeon1962]

One of the biggest surprise I think for me was what heroes that Caprica and Baltar ended up being. Not so much her but Baltar certainly. They who caused the annihilation of mankind, what an irony.

Baltar's speech in the CiC to Cavil explains a lot of what head baltar and 6 are and what God or Gods are. Forces of nature, meant to guide. They are neither good nor evil.

My last post before I blow out for a while. This was the hammer striking the nail right on the head. The force(s) of nature, however you want to attribute it/them, wants to have a continuance of life, rather then endless destruction, and so sent its surrogates (Head Baltar, Head Six, Replacement Kara) to guide, and help assure the potential for that outcome. It/They are not good or evil, but rather simpy "are". Head Baltar and Head Six are not "God", but servants to nature, as were Baltar and Caprica.

Head Baltar made the remark about "silly me" as he understood that nature did not intend to be construed as "god" as that subscribed an emotional context to a force which has no emotion, only purpose.

Thats my take.

[Javair]

Well, there isn't going to be a man versus machine war any longer. When our earth humans enter the stars, we're going to be vastly outnumbered by a Centurion civilization, which has advanced technologies and the ability to reproduce themselves. The war is over. The Centurions won.

Detrius is wrong, if HeadCaprica is correct.
I know the following is taboo for BSG fans, but:
150,000 years is a long time. During that time, those Centurions that use ships with living tissue and blood, have many adventures and "thoughts," they develop over the centuries, using tissue, beings, and technology. Some "things" happen, ideas get changed, and in time they enhance their thoughts as a collective.
Meanwhile HeadCaprica noted to HeadBalter on current-Earth that she believed mankind had a chance to develop differently on this planet, that Earth would be the radical that would continue to simply use technology and not remake the conflict of the past. If she is correct, then when humans (or whatever we are) on Earth enter deep space with FTL drives, they will do so for different purposes than defense, they will unite to simply go exploring on starships rather than fighting on battlestars.
At some point a starship of this Earth-led fleet will encounter the descendants of the Centurions, who have become bent on delivering order to the universe with a collective mentality and an incorporation of cybernetic technological enhancements in humanoids.
(Do I really have to put a name on what the Centurions have become?)

[tricky]

I liked the ending: wasn't sure they were going to connect BSG to us (just infer that they might be our ancestors), but then they had that pull away shot from Hera, and then you realize the whole cycle.
Head-Baltar's comment about god not liking that name threw me a bit, mainly because I didnt hear the comment that lead to it, or hear what he said after. I did like the idea that Head-Six thinks that we will turn out differently this time. And then you get the song, and our feeble attempts at creating artificial life.

The angels walk amongst us.

[Arative]

Any thoughts about Kara's magic music?

If the view of the heavens from smoldering cinder Earth is the same as our Earth, then Kara's magic music FTL jump had to have been more than just a simple jump. There had to have been some forward time travel or shifting to an alternate universe involved.

What I mean is that smoldering cinder Earth and lush "Daybreak" Earth can not exist at the same point in space at the same time in the same reality.

The cinder Earth was the home of the 13th colony. It was the Earth of legends, of the scrolls of Pythia.

The planet they jumped too at the end, they named Earth in honor of the Cinder Earth. They were not same planet.

[LanDodger]

I loved the finale, thought it was immense, the centurions kicking the crap out of eachother (as well as the old style ones) was brilliant

and the part with the final five, and the download, Cavil is such a great character I loved his ending in that macabre yet humerous fashion

then on Earth V2, the end of the fleet, Roslin and Adama; Kara especially and the great ending with head 6 and head baltar

there was a lot to take in from this episode, like Baltars speech in CIC etc

But I thought it was brilliant

[tricky]

Just thinking outloud here; but Anders was linked up with the Colonies hybrids and datastream, right up until Galen broke the connection, right?

Who knows what would have happened if those nukes would have hit during the uninterrupeted download (remember, Anders was also linked to important ship systems)? Feedback and fry the FTL/Dradis? Random jump to no coordinates?

It is interesting how little human elements led to the ending:
Racetrack's fear of not being ready caused her to arm her nukes, thus allowing the colony to be destroyed.
Galen in a fit of rage and remorse, broke the link, there by ending the cycle of rebirth, resurrection and genocide.
Baltar's faith actually reaches Cavil (i kept waiting for someone to shoot him), setting up the true end to the war.
Lee seeing that the Colonials were already heading back to the same problems they had before (you know someone was already thinking 'yeah, and we can get the centurions to help with the labor...or we can build new ones!!!' while they were planning the city) takes the bold intiative to start anew.

[Mamid]

the saddest moment of all was watching Galactica break her back after the jump. I was freaking out believing she'd start venting atmosphere and break apart. I'm really surprise they didn't have her do that.

Husband said "I know who Kara was. She's Moses. She led her people to the promised land but was not able to live on it."

[Detox]

The Frakkin’ Finale -- lame ending for an otherwise great show

I understand the appeal of deus ex machina for the writers; it’s an easy way to wrap up loose ends without having to exert much effort. I also understand that the ending will resonate well in the show’s core market. The US is by far the world’s most religious developed nation and an even greater percentage of Americans believe in angels and ghosts than believe in god(s). The prospect of a relatively detached prime-mover deity seconded by angels is a good fit for a disturbingly large percentage of US society.

However, the show used to be anchored by rigorous thought. Unlike the typical sci-fi fare, the command center was buried deep inside the ship instead of out on the vulnerable surface. Characters were defined by realistic emotions. They were conflicted: sometimes brave sometimes cowardly, sometimes rational sometimes emotional, sometimes noble sometimes petty. Even close to the end, and with the fate of two civilizations in the balance, Galen allowed his personal pain and anger to destroy the opportunity for humans and cylons to live in peace.

That was the last real moment in the show. What came afterwards was a load of mushy headed spiritualistic schmaltz. Presto! Angels intercede and everyone suddenly becomes noble and voluntarily reverts to bucolic pre-technological society. What claptrap.

For a show that had been so hard hitting it was embarrassing to see the writers take the coward’s way out. So much of the series dealt with the realistic weight of real responsibility in the real world. But never fear -- there are actually angels out there nudging humanity in the sanctified direction of God’s Plan. And so a great show dissolved into a puddle of spiritualistic dreck.

Have you never seen Battlestar Galactica? It's always had ties to religion and spirituality from the beginning.

Galatica is the only show that I can think of that weaves religion into science and does it quite well.

[Jameshunter]

To be fair, we are very different from the colonies, I mean we're actually thinking about machine minds (all be it in SF) ahead of time we're not just all going "YAY! Slaves!" like the colonies did, so with luck we'll be able to avoid their mistakes. With luck when AI comes along we'll actually see them for what they are humanities Kids rather than our property.

You know for some reason I wonder if one day we'll all suddenly hear a voice out of our computers saying "Hello." I just have this feeling all those computer programs and records crashing together might eventually produce a random spark like happened in the goo all those billions of years ago. Of course if the Internet became sentient it might end up a bit kinky with all that porn rattling around on it.

[Noxchild]

Wow, that was bad. After 5 years, I find out that BSG never was a science fiction story -- it was Ron Moore's religious creation mythology. The Book of Moore.

Very disappointing.

I watched and enjoyed the first 3 seasons of BSG, thinking I was seeing an intriguing science fiction story. I have only watched a few episodes of season 4 because I felt the storyline really went off the rails with the New Caprica and silly Final 5 arcs. I did tune in for the finale to see how they wrapped up the story.

God did it. Angels can do anything. Or not. Sometimes they need help from music written by other angels. Bob Dylan is an angel. It's not even a coherent, internally-consistent religious creation story!

Settling on Earth without metal tools or antibiotics? They are all going to be dead within a year. These folks don't have the required knowledge to be a viable Stone Age society! Athena and Helo became hunters? Using stone arrowheads? They'd starve before they learned to work stone and hunt as primitive people did.

Yea! The Cylons got away with murdering 20 billion people and making 12 planets uninhabitable. They live happily ever after! Lead by the top butchers, Caprica and Baltar. God is Great!

This was horribly lame. Not worthy of being called sci-fi, or even syfy.

And.... that movie they are making about a Plan? Not interested. Laughing at the very notion. Caprica? double not-interested.

[toby1kanobi]

There's a story that I am writting myself in which not all answers will be provided. Its the writer's choice as to what is to be revealed and what won't be. In the process of developing the story, it may very well be that specific details aren't neccessary to the story and thus don't need to be fleshed out. Case in point, in my story there are seven disciplines, seven forms and seven weapons - a phrase which is repeated frequently - but when I tried to define them all, I couldn't. I then realized that the I didn't have to simply because the story isn't about them explicitly. Thus I've decided to leave them undefined.

I might point out that while I would have liked to have known about the Lords of Kobol and what exactly happened there, it isn't critical to the story. Somethings, like the Angels and God are to be taken at face value. They are what they are. The whole thing with Dumbledore being gay (Yes, he's gay) was nothing short of ridiculous simply because his sexuality doesn't come into play in terms of telling the story. It's like Rowling putting in a simple line that Ron noticed that Harry had starting taking unusually long showers since he started dating whatever her name is. Its nothing but a superfluous detail.

i have no idea where your coming from with the potter trivia.

and the Golgafrinchan B ship referance you made at one point you forgot joggers

[tricky]

Rather than discuss the finer points of the ep, I'm going to just throw out some parts that stood out for me; feel free to add your own, or shoot mine down:

Centurions and humans, working together as allies; Looking back at the Caprica/New Caprica eps, you'd never think you'd see that.

Gaius Baltar: Man of action. I was worried his role was to betray the humans, but instead he's "Born again Hard", as the Marines might say. He fights to hold the line, risks life and limb to save Hera. And he redeems himself (the guy who helped the Cylons in their sneak attack) by being the guy who talks Cavil down. OH, and his knowledge of agriculture lead to me being able to have corn with my dinner! Good job Doc!

Oh Sh*t moment #1 : When Ellen said "We'll all share each others memories." And I realized that there wasn't going to be resurrection tech for Cavil.

Cavil, realizing he wasn't long for this world, and possibly to doom the Galactica, utters those famous last words "Frack this!" and puts a bullet through the organic brain he hated so badly...

His own.

Hearbreak #1: Heilo bleeding out; tells Athena to get their girl.

Oh sh*t #2: Racetracks Raptor fires a full volley of nukes.

Oh, Sh*t #3 Kara uses Hendrix as jump coordintes. And they don't die

Double oh sh*t 4 the Galactica jumps next to a very familar moon orbiting a very familar planet, with a pretty familar continent (btw, north Africa wasn't a desert back then....)

Heartbreak #2: Galactica's shuddering return to normal space.

Surprise: nope, they didn't run into the hubble, but they did find extras from 10,000 BC!

Tearful goodbyes: all of them. Well, Kara's reminded me of Quantum Leaps ending, for some strange reason.

Big finish: We are all Cylon/human hybrids, and god is still watching us! (for our sakes, stop the Japanese from making more robots!!!!)

[Bruman]

So there are presumably still a bunch of skinjobs out there, that can't reproduce.

But just as there were some human survivors on Caprica, there must be others on Picon, Tauron, Virgon, Gemenon, Sagitaron, Arion, Libron, Scorpion, Leon, Canceron, Aquarion. Maybe the remaining skinjobs go there to figure out how to reproduce...

And what became of starbuck's ovary?

There's room for more stories, I think...

[HAL2100]

I'm ROFLing so very hard. Sadly I'm not allowed to green you

...and unexpectedly the missiles were transformed into a giant sperm whale and a pot of petunias. In the last moments before it the Earth, the final thoughts of the pot of petunias was simply - "Oh no, not again", which in some languages roughly translates to "All this has happened before, All this will happen again."

..excerpt from the lost chapters of Pythia.

[toby1kanobi]

Tearful goodbyes: all of them. Well, Kara's reminded me of Quantum Leaps ending, for some strange reason.

Big finish: We are all Cylon/human hybrids, and god is still watching us! (for our sakes, stop the Japanese from making more robots!!!!)

how did it remind you of quantum leap, sam beckett never returned home where as kara could rest as she had got them to a new home. Al quit the quantum leap experiment and joined the cylons