Daybreak, Part 3 (421)

[Cloud]

Well, I thought the end was a little long. I was like "enough already" because it reminded me of the Way Lord of the Rings 3 ended -- you kept on following all the ends of the characters, but really, you just wanted the credits to roll.

I did like the jump forward to 150,000 years in the future.

My problems with this episode:

1) 150,000 years later and Earth tech is pretty lame. Of course, we don't know if they have FTL capable ships, or even limited space travel. It just didn't seem high-tech enough for me.

2) Kara Thrace. They didn't explain her death/rebirth satisfactorily enough for me. Yes, I've read some of these posts, and the show pretty much spells out that she's an Angel. I just don't buy it. If she comes back to life, then how did she bring a brand new viper along for the ride? Did God give her the viper? The only thing that fits is that she had a Jesus Christ-like resurrection. No machinery was involved, God just brought her back to life. Along with a brand new Viper. In the end, Christ ascends to heaven; Kara Thrace just disappears -- kinda the same thing. I would've preferred a more scientifc approach to the Kara storyline instead of just saying "It was God's plan". That's just bad writing.

I guess the question is: Are you open to believing that supernatural acts can occur without any logical reason? That has been part of the BSG message all along, hasn't it?

[MIZA]

great ending to a fantastic show , i believe


i hope they bring it back somehow ??

[pbellosom]

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.

Human DNA and skinjob DNA needs to be pretty similar. Firstly they are capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring (Hera) and secondly if there was much difference then Baltar could have used this as the basis of his Cylon detector.

1) 150,000 years later and Earth tech is pretty lame. Of course, we don't know if they have FTL capable ships, or even limited space travel. It just didn't seem high-tech enough for me.

erm...that was set in our present. They don't have FTL.

[Splitsecond]

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

Good post. Nice to see scientific accuracy on these boards on occasion. Interesting note, the previous Mitochondrial Eve in the line would be Boomer. Was Boomer's Mitochondria created by the final five, or was it a sample from one of them or a human/hybrid? Under some definitions of a species, we could be classed a Cylons if we all have Cylon Mitochondria.

The flip side of this whole thing is that over 150,000 years, the chances of any one of us having nuclear DNA from Hera is roughly zero. The same is true for every Cylon, since the number of Cylons was statistically smaller than the population of the planet. We also don't know if any other Cylons reproduced. So our nuclear DNA would be statistically almost all human, but our mitochondrial DNA is Cylon.

[HAL2100]

Human DNA and skinjob DNA needs to be pretty similar. Firstly they are capable of breeding and producing fertile offspring (Hera) and secondly if there was much difference then Baltar could have used this as the basis of his Cylon detector.

Similar - but not neccessarily the same. Who ever the poster is/was kept stating that Humans and Human-Cylons were the same genetically based on their appearances and anatomy.

[TwiceBorn]

Hey everyone, here's my review of the little 3 hour finale dealio. Um, I've always known that I wouldn't be a fan of Battlestar, but I wanted to see the ending just to know exactly what it was like because everyone say that the new SGU is gonna be a lotl ike it.

Part of it impressed me, but part of it really turned me off. Manely the sex and drinking and totally worthless lives of everyone. I can't enjoy a show where every character is liveing a compleatly worthless and depressing life. Some of it was a little lame, for instance, I'm not into people floating in bathtubs pluged into ship computers and the like.

Now for the good. It was big and real. That impressed me. It took it'self seriously, and it wasn't afraid to pace it'self and take it's time. I never felt rushed. It was epic, dramatic, and big, scary, not afraid of sacrificeing people and things. It was an actual ending.
If SGU can take these good things and leave the bad, yet at the same time retain what is stargate, it can be incredible.

[HAL2100]

I'm surprised that no one has realized that something like this would have inevitably happened...

Spoiler:

Six and Baltar are walking away. Baltar stops, looks to the left, looks to the right and then completely turns around. Six: Gaius, what is it? what's wrong? Baltar: This may be New Earth and the hope of both human and Cylon - or collective promised land...but where are the toilets?

I rolled when that occurred to me this afternoon...

[shipper hannah]

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.

[snipped for length]

This is something that was niggling at me a bit, too. Even if Mitochondrial "Eve" was real, how could you possibly identify her?

[Splitsecond]

This is something that was niggling at me a bit, too. Even if Mitochondrial "Eve" was real, how could you possibly identify her?

It's a statistical certainty that Mitochondrial Eve has to have existed. The dates have been calculated based on statistical analysis. It would be highly improbable to ever identify the individual.

[Skydiver]

they've done various studies with the human genome, which is how they came up with the startling news about just how little genetic diversity there is. I don't remember what part it is, but i do remember that when they human genome thing started, they expected to find thousands and thousands of combinations, and realized that there were really much less.

since mitochondrial dna passes on unchanged from female to female, and if they've sampled the dna of a few thousand people from all over the world, they have a fairly comprehensive study of 'ok, there are X number of mitochondrial lines (which may be how the theory of there being only 20 breeding females alive at one point in time came into place, if there are only 20 mitochondrial lines....dunno, just guessing on that one)

anyway, if they have a finite number of different mitochondrial lines from around the world, they find an ancient skeleton that tehy can extract dna from, find that it contains part of the mitochondrial dna that is in the existing lines, that skeleton is the current 'mitochondrial eve' ....until they find an older skeleton that has those same characteristics, then that one will be the 'new' eve

Hera's remains that they found were simply the oldest remains with extractable DNA that had DNA that is still alive and active and reproducing today

[Splitsecond]

No, that's wrong. Mitochondrial Eve is the last female to have had an unbroken female-only line to all living people. Mitochondrial Eve has to statistically exist for all species that inherit their Mitochondrial DNA from the mother. The 20 breeding females thing is nonsense, it's not possible to have a human population like ours from just 20 breeding females. The absolute minimum number in any respectable theory is a few thousand humans, but even these theories are widely considered to have been deposed by a theory which does not call for a bottleneck. Mitochondrial Eve has been found for many species, however the human one will probably be too old to allow for Mitochondrial DNA to have survived.

[Arative]

No, that's wrong. Mitochondrial Eve is the last female to have had an unbroken female-only line to all living people. Mitochondrial Eve has to statistically exist for all species that inherit their Mitochondrial DNA from the mother. The 20 breeding females thing is nonsense, it's not possible to have a human population like ours from just 20 breeding females. The absolute minimum number in any respectable theory is a few thousand humans, but even these theories are widely considered to have been deposed by a theory which does not call for a bottleneck. Mitochondrial Eve has been found for many species, however the human one will probably be too old to allow for Mitochondrial DNA to have survived.

The 20 breeding females number comes from a special on the history channel that I watched, I want to say it was 7 ways the Earth would end or something like that. It is speculation that a global natural disaster 10's of thousands of years ago, a super volcanic eruption brought the human population to its knees and the number the special gave was as few as 20 breeding females left on the planet.

[Pharaoh Atem]

so would galen reaction to tory killing cally be a sign that he still loved her. even with the revelation of Nicky???

[Skydiver]

love or not, the woman cold bloodedly murdered his wife. even if he didn't love callie anymore, he still cared for her and it was friend avenging friend

[HAL2100]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve

A woman passes down mitochondrial DNA to her offspring. If she only has sons, then in one generation her mitochondrial DNA will be lost as her grandchildren will receive the mitochondrial DNA from their maternal grandmother.