BSG Comix

Anyone know about these:http://battlestar.ugo.com/comics/default.asp

LB

circle jerk

Jerk (gaius balter)

First and foremost Mr. Gaius Balter is the undisputed man. His rant in the bathroom is the best 30 seconds of the entire series up to this point. His charisma along the way that the spaceships move in a manner reminiscent of pucks on an arcade ice-hockey table are the only real reasons to watch this series. As for who the 12th cylon is, it's not mr. Balthar. If Gaius is a cylon he is the 13th cylon, or the single cylon god. (as a side note, I fail to see how Starbuck is suddenly the pre-eminent choice for the last Cylon, granted her ship "exploded" in the murky atmosphere of whatever planet that was, but I fail to see why that would qualify her for immediate machine-hood. Also why would the cylons have tried so hard to foster a baby on her if she herself was a Cylon, doesn't that defeat the purpose of their interspecies eugenicism? I would guess that a more reasonable explanation for her fiery disappearance is that the ghost cylon ship she saw was leading her to earth, and the explosion was just some sweet effects to go along with the ride.)

Circle (cyclical time)

As for this mono/poly theism debate, my personal guess, is that the end of the series will somehow result in 13 ships heading off to colonize the universe. The human prophesies are correct because the same things keep happening over and over. So to break down, we have a 12 (or 13) part cycle...

1. 13 ships for 13 colonies, each with a god, 1 with a super-god-cylon-machine (see below)
   
2. 1 ship lost for earth, 12 ships found humanity
3. humanity creates machines
4. A machine hits the point where it can improve itself faster than people can (the singularity)
5. This machine bootstraps itself into higher and higher heights of machine smartness
6. This god-machine creates the 12 cylons, then figure out the cyclical deal and where earth is. At which point it abandons it's cylon children, and books for earth where it can see what happened to it's past self
   
7. The 12 cylons are left with nothing but the memory/knowledge of their 1 god (their creator, this machine)
8. The 12 cylons destroy the 12 colonies
9. The 12 cylons chase the people of earth through space
10. The humans then the cylons find earth
11. The cylons and the humans finally are successful in their mating, and a new race is born
    
12. Somehow (probably the work of the sneaky god-cylon) earth is destroyed, and the new human-cylon species is scattered in 13 ships. All cylons and humans are destroyed aside from the 7 functioning cylons, and the 5 remaining cylons (who may be people), and of course the super-god-cylon-machine. These 13 old-timers each take charge of one of the colonies
    
13. repeat, only now instead of humans it's half humans, half cylons and the species has bootstrapped itself up an evolutionary step, using the same process the super-god-cylon-machine used to smarten itself. Wheels inside wheels...
    

It appears the Erector has erected a house of cards, built on a foundation that lacks both strength and stability, but instead feigns power through cheesy quips and weak references. But first, I'd like to touch on the "holy war". The crux of the issue is not monotheism vs. polytheism, but more archetypal, i.e. opposing religions that share the same foundation. And even that is not necessarily the crux. What we have is two opposing groups that believe they are following a destiny. Those destinies appear to be somewhat similar, which leads me to believe we don't have a robust enough knowledge of the cylon faith. We understand after all that they believe in the same scripture as the humans, hence the urgency to reach the Eye of Jupiter, and a blatant recognition that the scripture holds the key. Is this Christianity in the Middle East, circa 622? Or perhaps a similar evolution of Hindu that Krishna offers up in the Bhagavad Gita, in which he explains that among all of the gods of Hindu, they are ultimately all Krishna, all is God.

To argue that accepting the proposed crew members as cylons means we give up what we know cylons to be is idiotic. We know Cylons to be robots, period. That's it. There's no rule that mandates that all cylons must be ideologically aligned. We saw what they did with Xena when she tried to explore the truth on her on volition. I would imagine that a similar fate befell the original five which we are now debating. If anything was at the route of this, it was policy. Whatever it is that the five wished to unleash was the Pandora's box that the other seven ended up wrapping back up. We can imply from the episode where Xena sees the final five and apologizes to one of them that it's someone we know. With Starbuck there's some room for debate, but with the other four, I demand a concrete argument of why they all hear the music and go to that room in the final episode. Ty didn't get tested by Baltar. He shut down the tests once Boomer tested positive. All of the four people are next to the most powerful people on the show - Adama, Roselyn, Starbuck. I can't explain the baby issue - why Chief's isn't important. Except to say that there's no definitive indication that this fantasy 6 created around the baby was visionary or projection. As no one knows who the final five are, no one on the Cylon side is aware of Chief's baby. The only supernatural aspect of the show is the mystic revelation side, i.e. supernatural occurrences in relation to faith based destinies. Your theory would then indicate that the four are somehow indicated in the destiny of humanity. Since humanity's destiny at this point is intricately intertwined with that of the Cylons, it's hard to see how these four could be a part of it without being Cylons.

Now, for some baseless speculation (Erector-style). Let's just get wacked out for second. What if the 12 Cylons were created as Gods, i.e. the 12 gods of Cobalt. What if they actually predate the humans. They are able to exist in infinite form and unable to die. The reason they know of the one true god is because they are the 12 deities. They put their hands in the goo and they form the hive mind, the one true god. The 5 have been decommissioned. I think there's probably some significance to the fact that its a minority and I'll resume insisting that it was due to ideological differences. There's really no foundation here, but I think it's interesting that there are super religious monotheistic cylons who created 12 (number of gods) human form cylons to lead them to their destiny. There's more to be revealed . . .

Wow there is an epic amount of trash in the post preceding this. To sort some of it out, I want to propose that NWallach only write in bullet points. Regardless, here is, as Zappa would say, the crux of the biscuit: monotheism vs polytheism.

The toasters believe in a single God. The existence of that God, in corporeal form, in the BSG universe, is plausible. It need not even be supernatural. It might be the original builder of the first AI or something. It is clear that the toasters have biological research insanely advanced (umm they resurrect people...and stuff) so I have no problem with them keeping some old dude around for a long time. It might do nicely to wrap up a lot of the extraneous stuff related to Cylons.

Now here is the real ball buster: I think the Human religion is probably real as well. There is just too much stuff happening. Again, it doesn't have to be real the way that the Greek Gods were "real" but there is some decidedly supernatural stuff going on. First, Rosalyn is a prophet. Plain and simple. She had visions. Yeah she was on drugs, but she has seen the future and no drug makes you do that. Secondly, in all of our conversations about BSG I don't think anyone has harped on this enough: THEY FOUND KOBOL! The freaking Holy Book they are following is TRUE. They found a place where Human's used to be, and where the Greek Myth God's once lived. How do we know that? They found the map to Earth there. Now it might not have been magic that swept them off to God knows where to stare at the stars, but, as the old Sci-fi adage goes, if the technology is sufficiently advanced, it all looks like magic to us.

To me, the fact that there is a good chance both of these religions are not only "right" but REAL is the reason that it is possible that Season 5 is going to be the coolest thing ever: A HOLY WAR.

Call me The Erector.So, all your "blog" proves is that you don't know how to watch television, follow stories, incorporate data into a logical and consistent worldview, or notice when a hot robot mama's entire spine is pulsing bright red, coincidentally the color your mother turns when i pump her furiously.Starbuck is not a cylon, nor is Chief, nor is Tye. Sam and Indian Political Aide Lady (henceforth known as IPAL) are unknowns, although, to reference the doggie-styling problem that leon, willie, and i have discussed at length, you'd think Kara would notice sam's back glowing red whilst she entered him.Here's the deal: if they're cylons, then "cylon" doesn't mean what we thought it meant, and some of the stated goals of the cylons, esp. the 6 in Gaius' head, don't mean shit.And didn't Tye get tested for cylon blood in 1st season when Gaius was testing everyone?Blogger Schlager obviously didn't think this through and that, dear friends, is the most disappointing of all.I don't think they're cylons. I think those five are connected supernaturally and the show is going to flesh out the human side of the magic after taking us through some of the cylon mythos (like "projecting," that truth in death shit that Xena was doing, the poetry-spouting hybrids, and the monotheism and holy baby shit). Kara's place in the human, pantheonic, religion has to be separate from the cylon stuff b/c the ancient human religion is pre-cylon and the 12 colonies of Kobol are, presumably, also pre-cylon.so, those five mean something else, something along the lines of roslyn's place in the story. especially since Chief has been at the center of religious stuff, anyway, like his parents being priests, he understands the symbols in the Temple, and he's really the mouthpiece for the common man's religion, and roslyn for the martyr-leader aspect.Other theories:everyone's a cylon in this universe; kara's alive because human beings, once they die, go get reincarnated on Earth, which is just one giant resurrection ship. I still think that Earth is probably the original planet and the 12 colonies of Kobol is some sort of propaganda.Also, as discussed last night, there TOTALLY needs to be an AllToaster, some sentient network thing, a la matrix, that exists on the cylon homeworld or something.Things that should be explained or seen by the end of the series:1. Cylon's homeworld2. how lovers routinely get trapped in each other's heads3. who was caprica 6 speaking to at the very beginning of the first miniseries episode; she's been waiting for him or something and we never find out who4. a superbaby of human origin explodes from Adama's forehead; her name is Athena and she looks just like jessica alba5. fuck, new-boomer's name is athena, isn't it?6. old-boomber and chief should hump again, or do something. that storyline went nowhere, and adama still hasn't faced the boomer that actually shot him7. flashback episodes of Tye and Adama killing whatever the fuck they want to8. MORE BULLDOG EPISODES!9. Shatner. I don't really need to say anything else, except the only way this series ends well is when Adama, after having found Earth, lands the BSG near the Earth capitol and shakes the Earth King's hand: Archon Shatner warmly welcomes the humans back to Earth. THen adama and shatner make out as the sun sets and the screen fades to black as Pearl Jam's "Alive" crescendos.
May 21, 2007 1:47 PM

Welcome to the Awesome Battlestar Blog!

Welcome to the Awesome Battlestar Blog. This blog has been created to squash the unintelligible nerd babble that currently dominates the Battlestar blogosphere. It is by default therefore, not just a Battlestar blog, but an awesome Battlestar blog. The quality will subsequently be supported by viewers like you! This consequently is really going to be more of a discussion forum for the meeting of the minds (only great ones) to discuss between now and 2008 where the show will go, with some hopeful garnering of revelations provided in the two hour special this fall. So without further ado, let the fun begin! Please remember to be unruly and disrespectful while making your arguments, because any other approach will just make us part of the masses.

I’d like to open a proper can of worms by making the simple argument that Starbuck is a Cylon. While some have argued that in the season finale she’s but an imaginary figure in Lee’s head, I would argue to the contrary. The entire season built around this destiny that she was pursuing. We can conclude that this destiny was either A) Death or B) Cylon. I think death is a lame destiny and that the BSG writers are not lame. I’ve heard some interesting arguments about her back lighting up during sex – if anyone is going to argue this point, then I’ll require episode citation of when we see her in the act with her back exposed . . .(Side note – do people dating cylons religiously avoid doggy style?)

We have to assume that at some level, these final 5 have a lot to be revealed about them. One of the things we have yet to learn is what went wrong. We know that they’re not in service on the cylon side. Were they somehow flawed, or was this the result of some kind of internal politics over how to live with the humans. My feeling is that the final 5 had a more cooperative approach, hence we see the fierce loyalty of the four at the end of the season 3 finale. But their cylonocity itself stands to be debated. The point here is that Starbuck has found her destiny, which is to lead the humans to Earth. The problem of course is with her survival. I could’ve bought a wormhole theory, but her ship clearly exploded. What about an extension of the aforementioned theory: the five actual split off and represent a faction of separatists, living on Earth in great populations?