Daybreak, Part 3 (421)

[apollo123]

God could have prevented her dieing if it wasn't in the plan...

Assuming that God could've prevented her death. The only concrete things we know about "God" is that:

1) It can bring people back to life or at the minimum create an exact clone of them down to their memories.
2) It has the ability to recreate a Viper
3) It lives a long time (at least 150,000 years)
4) It has "angels" working for it that can enter people's minds, talk to them and make them see things
5) It is prophetic - can predict the future to some extent, but probably can't completely control it, i.e. it took 150,000 years for it to finally (maybe) stop humanity's cycle of destruction.
6) It doesn't like to be called "God"

So it's possible that "God" wasn't able to prevent her death and that bringing her back to life was actually the fallback plan.

[Espeon1962]

All I know for certain this moment is my friday night seems somewhat emptier without any BSG or Stargate or similar stuff to watch.

[hisg1fans]

I just saw the last two hours. I had to exercise extreme discipline the during last week as I missed the show last Friday and didn't want to see any spoilers. All I can say is WOW! I have to watch it again to catch more stuff.

The battles were amazing. Loved the 'red stripes'. Hated seeing Kara just disappear. I so wanted her to stay with Lee finally. The music was fantastic. Actually exclaimed out loud when Athena shot Boomer.

Now to catch up on the previous pages.

Again, WOW!

[SerpentGuard]

I think in this episode we saw what happens when galactica doesnt retract its flight pods..."she's broke her back, she'll never jump again"

[Arative]

Yes, I am. I specifically stated it would be unlikely that every colony of colonists (okay, that sounded weird) would be wiped out. If they were all in one place, I'd buy that argument, but they're not. Plus, they'd have to be wiped out rather quickly- before their knowledge had a chance to disseminate amongst the natives. (And we know for a fact they were not, because Hera lived to reproduce). But disseminate it would, and rather quickly, I might add. Writing, as I mentioned, is not high tech at all, and it would seem like very powerful magic to the indigenous people.

That's why Sequoyah is such a legend in the US. He recognized right away that the Cherokee needed a written language, and he made one up. He didn't even use our alphabet- just the idea of a written language was enough for him.

About 80,000 years ago, there was a super volcanic eruption that brought humanity to the brink of extinction, perhaps as few as 20 breeding females left on the planet, maybe as many as 2,000. So yeah even if they were spread out all over the planet, such a natural disaster as a super volcano would have spread global death and wiped out nearly all of the Colonials and indigenous people.

Also, Baltar specifically said they searched the entire planet and the group of people in Africa were the most advance they had found. From that statement one can most likely conclude that the group of Colonials around that group, which included Hera were more successful in interbreeding. That successful interbreeding also introduced cylon genes into the mix, which would have created a further advantage over other groups to survive on the planet in harsher conditions created by global natural disasters.

[Mamid]

My question: how many 8s landed with the colonials? After all, they would have the same mitochondria as Hera. And so would their children, and their female line descendants...

and do the 6s who survive have the same mitochondria?

The bones were simply those of an individual that had the "Eve Mitochnodria" not necessarily Hera even tho the Heads did say it was her.

It wasn't just the colonials that landed, but the skinjobs. Remember that.

[BobBot]

My question: how many 8s landed with the colonials? After all, they would have the same mitochondria as Hera. And so would their children, and their female line descendants...

and do the 6s who survive have the same mitochondria?

The bones were simply those of an individual that had the "Eve Mitochnodria" not necessarily Hera even tho the Heads did say it was her.

It wasn't just the colonials that landed, but the skinjobs. Remember that.

It doesn't matter about the skinjobs mitochondria - Hera is the only half-human/half-cylon, and there's nothing in the show to suggest others were able to be created. The birthing experiments earlier in the series suggested the cylons couldn't reproduce at all - Hera appears to be a one-off, either a statistical fluke or through the handiwork of God. That is at least partly why she was so important, it wasn't like she could be replaced. The rest of the Earth II skinjobs would have died off without any offspring, even Athena and Helo are unlikely to have had a second child.

I suppose it is possible that the male cylons could have fathered children with Hera, since she could be biocompatible with both species, creating a 3/4 Cylon hybrid - we've no way of knowing whether such a person could go on to have more children though.

[HAL2100]

All I know for certain this moment is my friday night seems somewhat emptier without any BSG or Stargate or similar stuff to watch.

I was wondering how many of us sat down and nearly just starred at the screen waiting for something...

[HAL2100]

I should point out that there's a slight problem with multiple Raptor doing a FTL jump from within the pod - if a single raptor can do the damage that Boomer's raptor did, then its probable that a raptor doing a FTL jump next to another raptor would cause just as much damage.

[Espeon1962]

I should point out that there's a slight problem with multiple Raptor doing a FTL jump from within the pod - if a single raptor can do the damage that Boomer's raptor did, then its probable that a raptor doing a FTL jump next to another raptor would cause just as much damage.

Agreed. That is one of the many inconsistencies I think all of us have noted.

I should add I just watched it again tonight (3rd time is the charm they say), and there were parts I both loved even more, and hated even more. Overall I still rank it as much much better then average, but there are certainly still parts of the last hour that drive me batty. If I focus on the characterization only, then I love all the intimacy and little vignettes and how it all intertwines. If I put it in context of the grand arc, then some stuff does not wash as well.

But in the end, my friday evening is much emptier, lonelier and forlorn. And as the time passes I am really looking to a sequel more and more....

[Espeon1962]

About 80,000 years ago, there was a super volcanic eruption that brought humanity to the brink of extinction, perhaps as few as 20 breeding females left on the planet, maybe as many as 2,000. So yeah even if they were spread out all over the planet, such a natural disaster as a super volcano would have spread global death and wiped out nearly all of the Colonials and indigenous people.

Also, Baltar specifically said they searched the entire planet and the group of people in Africa were the most advance they had found. From that statement one can most likely conclude that the group of Colonials around that group, which included Hera were more successful in interbreeding. That successful interbreeding also introduced cylon genes into the mix, which would have created a further advantage over other groups to survive on the planet in harsher conditions created by global natural disasters.

Your referring to Lake Toba, Sumatra I believe. But while it impacted earth greatly, the current belief is at least 40% of humanity survived. I know there is conjecture based on one study that a human bottleneck occurred about that time reducing humanity to only thousands of people, but it is speculative.

Does make you wonder what would happen if there were another?

[Skydiver]

the plague killed off 30% of Europe, and by all the studies i've seen, it emerged healthier and stronger after it.

There have been multiple mass extinctions over the millennia

[T.C.]

The episode's mention of Mitochondrial Eve has prompted many posts about that subject, and it seems that there are some big misconceptions. In the interest of real science, I'd like to offer the following clarifications about Eve:

1) Mitochondrial Eve is the name given to the most recent common maternal ancestor for all living humans. Note that she is, by definition, the youngest, not the oldest common ancestor. This differs from what most people would expect the name "Eve" to mean.

2) Mitochondrial Eve is a theoretical concept. We have no fossil or other physical evidence of a real person we can identify as Mitochondrial Eve. Recent news about the "discovery" of Mitochondrial Eve refers to theoretical conclusions that have been reached by projecting backward from modern DNA, not to any discovery of prehistoric evidence. In fact, even if we did find the bones of Mitochondrial Eve, there is no way we could identify them as such. When the Battlestar Galactica episode refers to the discovery of Eve's "fossilized remains", it is taking artistic license.

3) Mitochondrial DNA is different from nuclear DNA. Mitochondrial DNA contains only a small part of the human genome; the vast majority of our inherited traits come from nuclear DNA. Mitochondrial DNA is inherited from the mother, but nuclear DNA is inherited from both parents (via sexual reproduction). Even though all living humans inherited their mitochondrial DNA from our shared maternal great-grandmother (Mitochondrial Eve) we inherited our nuclear DNA, and most of our human traits, from a vast pool of people.

4) Eve's success at propagating her mitochondrial DNA may have been caused by promiscuity and/or superior genes, but probably had more to do with luck. In fact, Eve wasn't necessarily promiscuous. The only certainty is that she had at least two daughters.

5) Eve's success does imply a failure of other women to propagate their mitochondrial DNA, but not a failure of other women to propagate the important stuff -- their nuclear DNA. In fact, it is certain that many of the women alive at the time of Eve are common ancestors to us all, albeit through a mixed maternal/paternal lineage, and not an all-maternal lineage as Eve is. Put simply, the existence of Mitochondrial Eve does not imply that any other bloodline came to an end.

6) The existence of a Mitochondrial Eve is a statistical certainty. We just don't know when she lived. The details are influenced by population fluctuations. However, even if there were no fluctuations and the human population remained permanently stable, Eve would still be a statistical certainty. In other words, we don't need to show that there was a catastrophe in our past to prove the existence of Eve.

7) Mitochondrial Eve is our shared maternal great-grandmother, but all living humans probably have many shared great-grandparents of mixed maternal/paternal lineage who are much younger than Eve. Every one of those ancestors has contributed as much to our nuclear DNA and our adaptive success as Eve. In other words, Eve isn't that important. She just fills a special conceptual niche.

8) By implying that Hera is Eve, the episode was implying that we are all descended from Hera. There isn't any need to deconstruct the episode any further than that. My notes above are intended for those interested in understanding the science, not for those interested in picking apart Battlestar Galactica.

-TC

[HAL2100]

That reminds me...

Someone either in this thread or another kept thinking that because Cylon skinjobs, the Final Five and Humans all look 'Human' that they're all the same DNA wise, which is not true nor does it need to be true for them to all look the same, have similar internal organs or be compatible on a reproductive level.

If I take a pound of ground beef, and a pound of ground turkey and a pound of ground lamb and brown them all in three different pans and season them identically in the end you won't know which is which. They'll all appear the same, taste the same, but genetically they'll all be different.

[madk99]

Wow !!


... and Ron --
Thanks !!!