Battlestar Galactica Comes To an End 852
On Friday evening, Battlestar Galactica ended its four-season run as one of the most popular science fiction shows in recent history. 2.4 million people tuned in for the finale, and reactions to the ending — positive, negative, and often a mix of both — are springing up all over the internet, as are tributes and retrospectives. Producers Ron Moore and David Eick held a Q&A session after the finale to discuss certain aspects of the story and spell out the final status of several plot lines. Fans of the show will have a chance to see the Cylon side of the story this fall in a two-hour TV movie titled "The Plan," and we've previously discussed the spin-off prequel series, Caprica, the pilot for which will come out on April 21st. Be warned: these links and the following discussion will contain spoilers.
Re:it rocked (Score:1, Informative)
All three of those questions were answered. You just didn't pay attention.
Re:it rocked (Score:1, Informative)
1) She's god. 2) They are angels. 3) God showed them the way through the song and Kara.
Deus Ex Machina is exactly what happened. In the most literal sense possible.
As for the technology, I think I understood the choice. I'm not saying I agree with it, but I think I understood why they chose the way they did.
PS. I'm not crying, I just have something in my eye
Re:Harbinger of Death? (Score:4, Informative)
Harbinger of death to the Cylons. Remember it was always the hybrids that called her that.
Re:I like it with one exception (Score:5, Informative)
We were mislead at the end of Season 3. After Starbuck reappears, we're taken on a tour of the galaxies and shown Earth, implying that this is what Starbuck found:
http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/File:Earth_(RDM).jpg [battlestarwiki.org]
You can clearly make out the United States of America.
I don't know if we saw continents once Galactica actually made it to Earth. Haven't found a screenshot of that.
Re:Two changes that could've been made (Score:4, Informative)
. What probably would've happened after Lee recommended all technology go away is a split between those who still wanted it and those who didn't.
I know, that was the moment I could no longer suspend disbelief. The writers worked so hard to make the 40-50 thousand refugees believable (with conflicts, indecision, even mutiny and greed). But on what would have been the most shocking decision to date they all suddenly agreed?
I agree with you on the split, but the dissenters could have lived on an island, away from the rest, along with all their culture and tech. Wasn't there a battlestar called Atlantia? So they could have explained the dissenters as one of the lost civilizations of myth by having them don the name of one of the lost battlestars of the fleet.
Re:Not always (Score:4, Informative)
The god explanation is such a cop out.
A lot of times when you see something like that, it is a cop out. But not in this case.
The story - in its entirety - was about something divine moving mankind/cylonkind like pawns. People have destinies in this show, real ones. All throughout.
So it's not like they just slapped a Deity into the ending to tie things up. Nothing else at that point would have sufficed.
We could get this board as ugly as the SciFi board or we could cite the number of flaws that a certain Digg poster did, but in the end, Moore admitted to making it up as they went.
Re:Two changes that could've been made (Score:3, Informative)
Except that they did not, in fact, get rid of all technology. They got rid of space ships. They kept "supplies", which presumably included things like antibiotics, books, pens, etc. What antibiotics they had. Bear in mind that the fleet likely had no way to manufacture antibiotics. That's what a lot of people here seem to miss...without the technological infrastructure to create supplies, those supplies will inevitably not last.
Hell, the most valuable bit of technology in their situation is not an unmaintainable spaceship that can no longer jump and is barely spaceworthy. The most valuable bit of technology would be a book on wilderness survival. Presumably they didn't launch those into the sun.
Re:it rocked (Score:0, Informative)
If you didn't see that there was a God/gods explanation coming up in BSG, then you really haven't been paying attention to the show. (Then again, I'd say much the same to the atheists of this world.)
Re:holes in the story (Score:4, Informative)
Those are the Seraphs (I prefer the old show term rather than Angels) that looked like Gaius and 6, not the actual people.
She was Kara, who had transcended and become a Seraph. She went back to show the people the way and once done, rejoined them. Again this is parallel to the old series as there really is no reason to even have Kara disappear in the new series except to mimic the disappearance in the old series. In the old series the Seraphs were people who had transcended or evolved to that form. Starbuck joined them and then sent aid to the fleet to show them where Earth was in the form of a child. In the new series, Starbuck joined the Seraphs and then just went back herself to show them the way and then left to rejoin the Seraphs once her job was done.
Two lines of thought on this besides the short sighted "abandon tech" answer so many people are whining about. First, the fleet was all that much of an advantage. They'd been living on it for four years and steadily losing about 10% of their population each year. Life on the fleet was no fun ride. They had already run out of most supplies like toothpaste and almost starved once. Probably all the ships were damaged near as much as Galactica. They may have taken less damage but they were also built to take less damage. They stripped them and there simply really wasn't anything left of value, especially since most things of value for starting a colony has been used on New Caprica and left there. They were probably even running out of fuel and didn't have the means to mount another successful operation since they couldn't even mine it IIRC. Two, a large fleet in orbit, on the planet or even in the system would have been a large sign to any basestars that came into the system that they were there and defencless. Since the cylons didn't really seem all that intent on killing all life just that of the 12 colonies, chances are that basestars will jump into the system, scan and find no ships, just some primitives, and then jump away if they are looking for the fleet.
Also, as somebody else pointed out, the 12 colonies apparently also destroyed their ships upon founding the twelve colonies after leaving Kobol, so there is a heritage of such.
I imagine it did along with the initial ramming and the nukes. They were in such an hurry to jump out that I felt everything was in danger of falling into the black hole (which is pretty much only a plot device for stuff to fall into as the rest of the safe jump location stuff could have easily been explained as the asteroid feild to begin with).
Re:it rocked (Score:2, Informative)
Seemed fairly obvious to me:Jesus.
Died, resurrected, then ascended once the job was done.
Wow, I totally want to get in a three way with my girlfriend and Jesus now. Jesus is fuckin hot.
Re:Two changes that could've been made (Score:4, Informative)
I do pottery. I even built and fire a high temperature kiln based on 1500 year old technology: "anagama". The task would be incredibly daunting to find suitable clay and then dig it up. When I built my kiln, I did much of the digging with pick and shovel. The soil was a mixture of clay and rock that is almost indistinguishable from concrete. I bent a pick and broke shovels. I permanently injured my elbow such that I can't ever play video games or even use a hammer without having rather severe pain. About half the digging was done by my neighbor who had an excavator -- let me tell you, after two months of digging, watching that thing scoop out a wheelbarrow at a time was almost enough to bring tears to my eyes.
Now, what I did isn't so amazing -- I was able to buy shovels and other steel tools. I used hand saws and later after my elbow problem, power tools. I could buy pre-cut wood, cinderblocks, bags of concrete, and high temperature bricks. To do this all from scratch with nothing but sticks and antlers for picks would have take me years. Each firebrick weighs 9 pounds. I used about 3000. How long would it take a person to dig 27000 pounds of clay. Pulverize it and process it and move it to where the ore is? Just so you know, good high temperature bricks are low in iron so the deposits to make the bricks probably aren't near the area with the good ore.
Then you have wood. One firing in my kiln uses about 4.5 cords. That is a stack of wood 8.5' tall, 8' wide, and 8' deep. A good cord or more needs to be chopped down to kindling size. Ever tried to chop wood without a maul? I haven't either. How about cutting down trees with stones and antler bits? Me neither.
Etc. etc.
You people are underestimating the amazing amount of work we get from fossil fuel burning equipment, electrical equipment, or even simple human powered metal tools. Even if you manage to build the infrastructure, the energy requirements to smelt metal or make pottery are amazingly large. You only get to expend that energy after you have enough food to survive and have free time to work on other things. Knowledge is good, but without energy to put it to work and food to keep you alive, it is unlikely to prove of much value.