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Maelstrom

2007-03-09T01:22:21Z

Msimone: /* Questions */

{{Episode Data
| title= Maelstrom
| image= 3X17-Maelstrom-LeobenStarbuck.jpg
| season= 3
| episode= 17
| guests=
| writer= [[David Weddle]] [[Bradley Thompson]]
| story=
| director= [[Michael Nankin]]
| production= 317
| rating=
| US airdate= 2007-03-04
| UK airdate=
| dvd=
| podcast=
| population= 41,400
| prev= [[Dirty Hands]]
| next= [[The Son Also Rises]]
| itunes=http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=VWbyALbmqZY&offerid=78941&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZStore.woa%252Fwa%252FviewTVSeason%253Fi%253D218316472%2526id%253D200852806%2526s%253D143441%2526partnerId%253D30
}}

== Overview ==
:''[[Kara Thrace]]'s past comes back to haunt her when [[William Adama|Adama]] has doubts about her fitness for duty.''

== Summary ==

===Teaser===

*[[Kara Thrace]] is dreaming of her old apartment, trying to paint over the [[Eye of Jupiter|strange mandala]]. The dream is augmented when a [[Leoben Conoy]] comes behind her, and the two embrace and begin to have sex, rolling through the white paint that Thrace attempted to use to cover up the mandala. The mandala "pushes" itself through the white paint to reveal itself.
*[[Hot Dog]] looks over to question what Thrace was dreaming in her bunk.
*Thrace meets [[Helo]] in the head. He notes that [[Hera Agathon]] wakes up from frightening dreams as well. Helo suggests a psychologist, but when Thrace declines, he also suggests an [[oracle]] living in [[Dogsville]]. As Helo speaks, Thrace see in her mirror an image of a little girl standing by the hatchway, who appears bruised and beaten. When Thrace looks again for the child, she has disappeared.
*Thrace enters the oracle's tent and finds a small golden figurine of the angelic [[Aurora, Goddess of the Dawn]].
*The oracle, [[Yolanda Brenn]], appears, and tells Thrace to keep the figurine. She asks Thrace to sit before a pool of water. Brenn holds Thrace's hand and begins a reading.
*Brenn knows of the Cylon [[Leoben]] and the dreams. When she repeats the destiny foretold by Leoben, verbatim, Thrace is angered. The oracle continues to repeat Leoben's words which were originally spoken under interrogation ([[Flesh and Bone]]).
*Thrace wonders how the oracle could know what was said. The oracle tells her that her mother, [[Socrata Thrace]], was trying to tell her something.
*The oracle notes that Leoben is the answer, who can see the answers to Thrace. Thrace angrily leaves the tent.

===Act 1===

*[[The Fleet (RDM)|The Fleet]] is orbiting a cloudy gas giant planet as they refuel various ships after the fuel crisis had passed ([[Dirty Hands]])
*[[Samuel Anders]], after the two had a lovemaking session, is asking Thrace to join him for some leave time on another ship.
*He complains that the oracle wasn't helpful, and neither was her mother.
*Thrace notes how the two fought, and the injuries she sustained. Thrace recounts her mothers fear of insects, a holdover from the first Cylon war.
*To get revenge on her mother, Thrace placed rubber ants in her mother's closet, causing her to have a panic attack as she furiously tries to stamp the rubber bugs to death. In retaliation, her mother placed her hand in a door jamb and slammed the door on it, breaking Thrace's hand. Thrace states that it "was worth it".
*During a refueling operation, Starbuck and [[Hot Dog]] are on [[CAP]] when she believes she sees an enemy.
*''[[Galactica]]'' can't see the contact, but Starbuck identifies it as a [[Heavy Raider]].
*As Starbuck goes closer, she sees a storm system that looks remarkably like the mandala. The Raider flies close and, to Starbuck, appears to strike her fighter.
*Starbuck keeps descending into the storm, against [[Lee Adama|Apollo]]'s continuous attempts to warn her back up.
*Eventually, Starbuck struggles successfully to return to space, but not after, during the descent, she sees flashes of sights of an apartment with her mother standing there.

===Act 2===
*Starbuck is back aboard, but as [[Galen Tyrol]] and his deck crew inspect her Viper for damage, there is none.
*Starbuck's gun camera shows nothing, as several pilots including [[Sharon Agathon]], [[Lee Adama]], and [[Racetrack]] review it. They don't see Starbuck firing at anything but clouds.
*Admiral [[William Adama|Adama]] speaks with his son and questions Thrace's competency. The admiral believes she is close to burnout, but the younger Adama believes her "steely-eyed Viper jock" mentality is all that holds Thrace together. The admiral repeats the question: Can she handle the strain?
*Lee Adama and Thrace are standing in the [[memorial hallway]]. Starbuck asks Major Adama to place her photo next to [[Kat]] if she meets her end before him. Likewise, Adama asks to have his photo next to [[Duck]] and his sweetheart, [[Nora]], both lost on [[New Caprica]] ([[Battlestar Galactica: The Resistance]]).
*Thrace asks what Lee and Admiral Adama think of her flight readiness. Major Adama tries to give her encouragement but Thrace is distracted by a wax dripping that looks like the mandala.
*Thrace passes by the Admiral and President [[Laura Roslin]] without noticing them when Adama greets her with an [[Nothing but the rain|old tag line]] they shared before the new Cylon War ([[Miniseries]]). Before moving on, Thrace gives him the Aurora figurine from the oracle's tent as a masthead for his sailing ship models.
*As Thrace goes through inspection of her Viper, she again sees a little girl, this time in her cockpit--Thrace as a girl. Her face is bruised and bleeding. Thrace has flashbacks of her mother and is shocked into stopping her inspection.

===Act 3===
*A visibly shaken Thrace sits by her Viper when Lee Adama goes back to check on her.
*Thrace says she is not going back out to fly, not trusting herself. Adama volunteers to be her wingman to give her confidence.
*Thrace asks about [[Anastasia Dualla|Adama's wife]] and how their relationship was going. After a moment of discomfort after he notes things are going well, Thrace tells him that she is happy that things are working out. Thrace says that, as it was in the beginning, the two are back to being platonic.
*During Apollo and Starbuck's CAP, Starbuck sees another bogey and engages, but no one can confirm it on [[DRADIS]] again.
*Admiral Adama chooses caution and orders the Fleet to [[Action Stations|Condition One]] status, stopping refueling once more.
*Apollo is again trying to flag down Starbuck, but she is entranced once more and again flying downward in the clouds.
*Starbuck's Viper is hit by debris. Her forward canopy window is punctured, she is knocked unconscious, and her fighter begins to tumble. An alarm sounds in the cockpit, and the scene blurs to find a sleeping Thrace shutting off a radio alarm and awaking in her apartment, with a Leoben greeting her.
*Thrace believes she is being tricked again, unconscious or on a Cylon ship, but Leoben states otherwise.
*Leoben keeps noting how the mandala shape cloud attracts her, and that she has told anyone little about it.
*Leoben tells her of her tendency to cheat death ever since a day with her mother as they materialize to a small apartment, reliving an event six years ago, where Lieutenant Thrace stands before her mother as she reads a letter from a veterans administration. On the wall is a [[Colonial Fleet (RDM)|Colonial Fleet]] medal of honor, ostensibly from the first [[Cylon War]].
*[[Socrata Thrace]] first congratulates her daughter for being the first of her family to become an officer, then berates her for being only 16th in her class and having many demerits.
*Kara Thrace retaliates by discussing her mother never reaching officer status despite serving in the Cylon War.
*The lieutenant sees a doctor's report that tells that her mother has cancer that has spread rapidly.
*Socrata rejects any attempts of her daughter's sympathy, and Kara Thrace runs out the door, vowing never to return. The "real-world" Starbuck begins to cry as she relives the moment.
*Socrata Thrace stares at a filled dish of cigarette butts.

===Act 4===
*The scene shifts. Leoben tells Thrace how her mother waited at her apartment and died five weeks later.
*When Thrace tells her reluctance to return, Leoben presents her with another image, where she is able to walk to her mother's deathbed, Socata has a scrapbook of every doodle and letter that Thrace made, including one with the mandala.
*Thrace tells her mother that something is about to happen, the thing that her mother was preparing her for. Socrata tells her daughter that she is ready as she holds her mother's hand. As she presses Socrata's hand to her face, her mother takes her last breath. Starbuck cries and then smiles at being able to be there to hear her mother's final words.
*Leoben tells her that death is not hard to embrace, that this was the lesson her mother was trying to teach her daughter.
*When Thrace realizes that Leoben is not actually a Leoben. When asked, he replies that he never claimed to be - he is there to be her guide to see what lies "between life and death."
*The scene shifts back to the cloud where Starbuck fails to climb. She reawakens, but continues to drop and chase the Raider image. The planetary cloud boundary, the point of no-return, also called the "hard deck", is getting closer, upon which the air pressure would crush the Viper.
*Apollo finds Starbuck in her dive, and briefly sees the heavy raider.
*Starbuck finally calls out to Apollo: "Lee, I'll see you on the other side." As Apollo frantically calls her to wave off, she repeats, in a whisper, "Just let me go."
*Starbuck sees a vision of white light in her cockpit, and she smiles. Viewers also see an image of her as a young girl in the same white light.
*A view from the tail of Apollo's Viper clearly shows the Raider, then Starbuck's Viper appears, chasing it. The bogey vanishes into the clouds, and the view cuts to Apollo, looking straight forwarding, declaring "Visual!"
*Shortly after Apollo gains visual of Starbuck, her Viper explodes. There is no ejection or rescue chute.
*Apollo reports the grim news to [[CIC]]. Everyone, from [[Saul Tigh]] to [[Gaeta]] to Admiral Adama, is visibly heartbroken.
*William Adama tries to work on his sailing ship model, with the Aurora figurine now attached, which fits perfectly. But his anger and grief over the loss of Kara Thrace leads him to destroy the model and begin to cry heavily.

==Bonus Scene==
*The scene begins shortly before Act 3, where, as Starbuck inspects her Viper, she finds hydraulic fluid, and becomes visibly angry at Chief Tyrol. Major Adama moves in to attempt to calm her down.

== Questions ==
* Will Anders blame Apollo for the loss of Starbuck once the news of her death reaches him?
* Who is the being that was Starbuck's "spiritual" guide during her dream? Is he somehow connected to the makers of the mandala in the Temple of Five? Is he in any way related to [[Baltar]]'s internal [[Six]] and Six's internal Baltar?
* Is the cockpit truly damaged from space debris, or is it imagined just as the supposed damage that Starbuck initially believed happened at the first encounter with the Raider?
* Is Starbuck in the cockpit of the Viper as it explodes?
** Would that matter, since the gravity of the planet would "crush her like an empty soda can", according to Tigh?
* Is the Heavy Raider real or a hallucination?
* Did Apollo see the Heavy Raider, as indicated by this [http://www.templetons.com/images/leeview2.jpg point-of-view] shot?
* If the Heavy Raider was real, why would the Cylons not include a fighter escort or other ships within the vicinity?
* Will Helo experience any form of guilt or regret for showing the picture of the mandala to Starbuck?
* What did Starbuck mean when she told Lee: "See you on the other side."?
* Who will take Starbuck's place as ''Galactica's'' Viper ace?
* Will Starbuck's death have any lasting effect on Dualla's marriage?
* Considering the white light that appears to shine into Starbuck's cockpit and what the Leoben-figure mentioned about showing her what lies between life and death, is it possible that she is experiencing the same event that [[Number Three]] had on several occasions ("[[Hero]]", "[[Rapture]]")?
* Is the placement of Starbuck's Aurora figurine on Adama's model ship symbolic to Starbuck, in some way, guiding the [[The Fleet (RDM)|Fleet]] on their path to Earth?
* Based on what the oracle says, is it possible that the real Leoben model knows something about what may have happened during Starbuck's death?
* Did the real Socrata Thrace see Kara come to her before she died?

== Analysis ==

* Although Starbuck contemplated ejecting from her damaged Viper, the planet is a gas giant and doesn't have a solid surface. A Jovian planet has [[w:Jupiter|winds of up to 700 km/hour]] and may have extreme temperatures in the depths. The duration which her ejection system could sustain her life is unknown.
* The episode brings many story elements of Starbuck's history to a close as everything comes to a full circle, which is a general meaning of a mandala in spiritual contexts. A few of these elements include:
** Admiral Adama and Thrace's interchange of "What do you hear? - [[Nothing but the rain]]". This is first scene that introduced Kara and her overall relationship with Adama at the beginning of the [[Miniseries]].
** The scene between Apollo and Starbuck where she states that they've reached full circle as she is again the hotshot pilot who gives nothing but grief to her CAG.
** Admiral Adama's proposed rescue of her is similar to his actions in "[[You Can't Go Home Again]]" when Thrace's Viper goes down over a hostile moon. However, this time, Lee dissuades his father from the attempt because of the futility of looking for Starbuck's destroyed Viper within a gas giant.
**Thrace's initial reaction and eventual denial to pull the ejection handle illustrated the completion of her endless cycle of fleeing death, which she now embraced with joy.
** Her continued hostility and bitterness towards her mother finally reaches its close as Thrace is finally able to witness her mother's death and hear her final words.
** The final moment before Thrace's Viper explodes, an image of a younger Thrace being engulfed in light could either be symbolism or an event that represents Thrace's return to her childhood innocence.
** Her hostility towards Leoben comes to a close as she comes to welcome the help and guidance of her "Leoben" guide.

*It should be noted that the Leoben in her vision is ''not'' a Cylon, but an unidentified manifestation. Thrace says, "You're not Leoben." and the manifestation replies, "I never said I was." What this aspect of Thrace's vision means remains unknown.

* Thrace's death can be seen as the close of her original desire to die during the episode "[[Scar]]". However, here she is ready to embrace death and see a new beginning with it, while in "[[Scar]]" her original desire is fuel over despair of her belief that Anders was dead on Caprica. Both episode plots are motivated by a mysterious Cylon pilot.

* Admiral Adama is shown in the middle of building his model ship after the failed assassination attempt and the division of the Fleet ([[Home, Part I]]). The ship is finally completed at the moment of Adama coming to grips with his grief of Thrace's death. In reaction, the ship that was begun during a period of great personal turmoil within Adama is destroyed in the midst of another episode of intense grief and anger.

* Even though Lee Adama and Thrace decided to forge on with their marriages, it is Adama who has found contentment with Dualla while Thrace remained in turmoil with Anders. The scene after another love making session indicates that their relationship hadn't improved much since "[[Taking a Break from All Your Worries]]".

* The figurine that Thrace gives to Adama is an idol of the goddess Aurora, the goddess of the dawn and gentle breeze. The relationship between this goddess and Thrace seems to be highlighted prior to her Viper's explosion as she apparently is engulfed in light and wind within her cockpit.

* The connection and parallels between Major Adama and Thrace are furthered strengthened during Socrata Thrace's death scene. When Thrace confesses to her mother about her fear of taking the next step towards her destiny, her mother remarks that she knows that her daughter can meet the task. When asked how she knows this, her response is almost word for word exactly what William Adama said to his son in "[[The Hand of God (RDM)|The Hand of God]]": "'You are my daughter (son).'" Thus, similar to Adama's son, Thrace is finally able to bury the hatchet with her mother.

* The "Leoben" guide explains that his role is to help Thrace take the next step to the place "between life and death." Interestingly, this is the type of "location" that the model [[Number Three|D'Anna]] describes in "[[Hero]]" when she begins her suicide/resurrection chamber sessions in order to discover who the [[Final Five]] are.

== Notes ==
*Katee Sackhoff had to sign a confidentiality agreement relating to what happened to her character in this episode.
*Adama can be seen building his model ship in "[[Home, Part I]]".
* The introduction of the goddess Aurora increases the number of known gods within the Colonial religion. As before with the use of names such as Mars and Jupiter, Aurora is the romanized name for the Greek goddess Eos.
* An aurora is a radiant emission from a planet's upper atmosphere that occurs sporadically over the middle and high latitudes of both hemispheres in the form of luminous bands, thus forming the pattern of the mandala that Kara sees in her first flight over the planet.
* In a radio interview ([[http://www.cortandfatboy.com/index.php?id=489 Cort + Fatboy]]), Sackhoff notes she did not film the scene where she places her hand on the ejector level. That was added using another person's hand. She states that "Starbuck as we know it is dead."

== Noteworthy Dialogue ==
''[[Kara Thrace]] sees [[Socrata Thrace]] die in a vision guided by something appearing to be [[Leoben Conoy]]:''
:'''Thrace''': "Momma, something's about to happen, you know that thing you were trying to prepare me for, I don't know if I can do it."
:'''Socrata''': "Oh yes you can, you can."
:'''Thrace''': "How can you be sure?"
:'''Socrata''': "You're my daughter."
:'''Leoben''': "See there's nothing terrible about death, when you finally face it, it's beautiful. You're free now, to become who you really are."
:'''Thrace''': "You're not Leoben."
:'''Leoben''': "I never said I was. I'm here to prepare you to pass through the next door, to discover what lies in the space between life and death."

== Official Statements ==

Information from the [[Podcast:Maelstrom|podcast]]:

*The original script had Kara do three trips to the gas giant. It is during the second trip that she sees the Heavy Raider again, but panics and fakes a hydraulics problem with her Viper, which allows her to return to ''Galactica''. This was the original reason, not the lack of visual evidence of a Heavy Raider, that Lee and Adama had their conversation about her competency as a pilot.

*The model ship Adama was building over the course of the series was a very expensive rental prop which [[Edward James Olmos]] destroyed in an ad-lib expression of Adama's grief over the loss of Starbuck, much to the props crew's dismay as the model was worthed in the range of the $100,000s. Thankfully, the ship was insured.

*The original script was meant to be a payoff for the end of "[[Rapture]]" when Helo showed Thrace the mandala. It was supposed to have Thrace face her fear of death and resist its call, while at the same time the overall payoff would be somehow linked to furthering the Fleet's voyage to Earth. After several iterations of the script, [[Ronald D. Moore|RDM]] and company decided to go down the dangerous avenue of killing off one of the major characters.

*The original script had an interior scene of the Heavy Raider as the first place that Kara would wake up from after she is knocked unconscious. There she would find Leoben using a device that would delve into her memories. At the time, however, RDM didn't know if it was possible if the show could revisit Thrace's apartment. Once that possibility was available, the interior of the Heavy Raider was abandoned because of cost and storyline suitability.

*The last scene between Adama and Thrace was originally to have ended on a more sour note. Thrace was supposed to be in a meeting between Adama, Lee, and Roslin, upon which Thrace noted out loud the possible romantic undertones between Adama and Roslin. Afterwards, Adama would dress Thrace down and those would have been his last words to her before her death. The director argued with RDM about cutting this scene out and eventually RDM gave way to allow a more comforting departure between the two characters.

*According to Moore, "Maelstrom" is, for him, the first page of the third act in the series overall. He believes that with this episode, the show is well on its way to completion and is now on act three out of a 4 act series.

== Guest Stars ==

*[[Georgia Craig]] as [[Brenn|Oracle Brenn]]
*[[Dorothy Lyman]] as [[Socrata Thrace]]
*[[Leah Cairns]] as [[Margaret Edmondson]]
*[[Bodie Olmos]] as [[Brendan Constanza]]
*[[Samantha Ferris]] as [[Pollux]]
*[[Don Thompson]] as [[Anthony Figurski]]
*Erika-Shaye Gair as Child Kara

== References ==
<div style="font-size:85%"><references/></div>

{{Episode list (RDM season 3)}}

[[Category:A to Z|Maelstrom]]
[[Category:Episode Guide|Maelstrom]]
[[Category:Episode Guide (RDM)|Maelstrom]]
[[Category:Episodes written by David Weddle]]
[[Category:Episodes written by Bradley Thompson]]
[[Category:Episodes directed by Michael Nankin]]
[[Category:RDM]]

Humanoid Cylon

2006-03-12T04:39:50Z

Msimone: /* Note */

[[Image:Humano-cylon_group.jpg|thumb|Cylon copies of [[Aaron Doral]], [[Number Six]], and [[Leoben Conoy]] at [[Ragnar Anchorage]]]]
== Overview ==

Following the end of the [[Cylon War]], the Cylons withdrew from Colonial space to a planet of their own. For some 40 years, nothing was heard of them, and no apparent attempt was made by the Colonials to keep an eye on them. The only contact expected between the two was at annual meetings at [[Armistice Station]]. However, while the Colonials sent a repesentative to the station every year, the Cylons did not ([[Miniseries]]).

During their forty years of isolation, the Cylons developed or evolved a ''humanoid form'' that very closely mimics human form, down to the cellular level, but not completely at a molecular level.

'''Cylon agents'''{{ref|name}} have the capacity to emulate many human physical acts, including sex, as demonstrated by the Number Six and Sharon Valerii models.

Cylon agents can be programmed to believe that they are truly human. These are known as "sleeper" agents. Sleeper agents appear to have a low-level Cylon personality that can conduct operations while placing the human sleeper personality "on-hold". The [[Sharon Valerii (Galactica copy)|first copy of Sharon Valerii]], known by her callsign of "Boomer" on battlestar ''[[Galactica (RDM)|Galactica]]'', had little awareness of her true nature until her arrest for the attempted assassination of [[William Adama]] ([[Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II]]). This sleeper agent conducted or aided in sabotage operations within the [[The Fleet (RDM)|Fleet]] ("[[Water]]", "[[Litmus]]"). Most agent copies, particularly [[Number Five|Numbers Five]] [[Number Six|and Six]], imitate human personalities, but are fully aware of their true nature.

[[Image:Valerii_optic_input.jpg|left|thumb|A [[Sharon Valerii (Caprica copy)|copy of Sharon Valerii]] interfaces with ''[[Galactica (RDM)|Galactica's]]'' [[Computers|mainframe computer]] and communication systems by fiber-optic link. (c) Universal]]
Although they cannot do so remotely or wirelessly, Cylon agents can interface with a computer system or computer network through subdermal physical contact with input cables connected to the devices. Caprica-Sharon connected to the ''Galactica'''s computers by this method in "[[Flight of the Phoenix]]" when she inserted a fiber-optic cable through her left palm and into her arm.

Cylon agent brains are human in appearance, but are apparently still susceptible to damage from certain types of radiation. Upon the death of an agent's body, a Cylon agent transfers its consciousness into another copy of itself. This ability is limited by distance, signal integrity, and proximity to a resurrection node or, in space, a [[Resurrection Ship]] ([[Miniseries]], "[[Flesh and Bone]]." "[[Resurrection Ship, Part II]]"). Based on [[Sharon Valerii (Caprica copy)|Caprica Sharon Valerii]]'s conversation with [[Kara Thrace]] in the episode, "[[The Farm]]," it appears that all Cylon agents may share a ''collective knowledgebase'' of data from other active or deactivated Cylon agents. Valerii spoke of a conversation between Thrace and a captured [[Leoben Conoy]] copy in the Fleet. This information would only be known to that now-dead Leoben copy if sharing were not possible. Kara Thrace's call sign, Starbuck, was also a likely bit of information gleaned from the collective knowledgebase that [[Simon]] knew of the Viper pilot, although Thrace never told him of her call sign and used it to strike back at her abductors ([[The Farm]]). Also, during "[[Flight of the Phoenix]]," Caprica-Valerii asked [[Anastasia Dualla]] if she still carried her pocket knife, a fact which would have been known only to the ''Galactica'' copy. When under duress, the copy of Sharon Valerii known as "Boomer" on ''Galactica'' was able to tell [[Gaius Baltar]] the number of remaining Cylon agent agents in the fleet, information that would be impossible to gather without a collective knowledgebase ([[Resistance]]).

Some or all Cylon "female" models may have the capacity to bear children seeded by human males ([[33]], [[Flesh and Bone]], [[The Hand of God (RDM)|The Hand of God]], [[Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II]]). The Cylons tested numerous methods of sexual reproduction, yet these failed due to a known flaw in the Cylon agent design. Cylon agents cannot reproduce with each other biologically, and, attempting to subvert this deficiency, they have been trying to interbreed with humans to create hybrid offspring. "Farms" were apparently set up across all the occupied Colonies where survivors, specifically, young fertile women of child-bearing age, were rounded up, placed under heavy sedation and turned into "baby machines" through artificial insemination. However, this method has not met with success. Another drastically different approach was taken by attempting to conceive a child through a bond of love. It seems that [[Karl Agathon|Helo]] and [[Sharon Valerii (Caprica copy)|Sharon Valerii]]'s love-child is the lone success story of the relatively short history of Cylon sexual reproduction ([[The Farm]]).

== Known Cylon Agent Models ==
[[Image:Cylonagentdossier.jpg|right|200px]]
There are twelve models of humanoid Cylons ([[Miniseries]]). Thus far, seven models have been revealed to ''viewers'' as Cylon agents{{ref|dossier}}. However, only '''six''' models are actually known to the Colonial ''characters'' as agents as of the episode, "[[Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II]]."

=== [[Number Three]] ===

This model was witnessed by viewers posing as a reporter from the [[Fleet News Service]] and was revealed to be a Cylon at the end of "[[Final Cut]]" when a second copy was shown living on Caprica. Of all the Cylon agent models revealed to viewers, the Colonials are not yet aware that D'anna Biers is a Cylon agent as of the mid-season 2 cliffhanger, "[[Pegasus (episode)|Pegasus]]".

Part of Biers' mission within ''Galactica's'' fleet (which fits her work as a journalist) likely involves the relay of important intelligence within the Fleet, such as the status of the pregnant Caprica copy of Sharon Valerii.

A copy of this model has appeared under the name/alias "[[D'anna Biers]]".

=== [[Number Five]] ===

This model attempts to sow the seeds of discontent or confusion, particularly during crucial life-threatening situations, and endeavors to undermine authority that threatens his objectives. ([[Miniseries]]) Doral models are more covert, assuming an ordinary "everyman" appearance that's blended in what may seem to be insignificant behind-the-scenes issues (such as converting ''Galactica'' into a museum). Of all the models thus far, the Aaron Doral models are the most militant, fanatic and consistent in message and objectives to the Cylon objectives, whether he is dispassionately discussing the fate of humanity with his comrades or attempting to kill or maim Colonials in a suicide bomb attack ([[Litmus]]). Viewers first meet Doral during a tour of ''Galactica'' with other Colonial citizens (possibly the press) as we see the battlestar for the first time at the start of the [[Miniseries]]. The viewers aren't sure of Doral's true identity as the second Cylon agent they've seen until the end of the Miniseries, however.

Copies of this model have appeared under the name/alias "[[Aaron Doral]]".

Number Five is seen with Capira Six and Sharon at the end of Season 2, and seems to be in command of the others. While Six and Sharon express concern and warning to Baltar and the New Capricans, Five expresses threat.

=== [[Number Six]] ===

This model utilizes the human need / desire for sexual relations to her advantage. She is religious and monotheistic. She desires to know what it is to be alive.

Typically she is the alpha female, as demonstrated on multiple occasions ([[Miniseries]], "[[33]]," "[[Water]]," "[[Six Degrees of Separation]]").

Copies of this model have appeared under the names/aliases "[[Shelly Godfrey]]" , "[[Gina]]", and "[[Caprica-Six|Caprica]]".

=== [[Number Eight]] ===

The Valerii model is generally a saboteur designed to infiltrate Colonial military units and is likely programmed to use any Colonial munitions to cause havoc ([[Water]]). The Valerii model is the closest witnessed Cylon agent model to show its abilities as a soldier. This model has shown naiveté in many matters. She is apparently not as religious as other Cylon models, but has demonstrated that she can love, and is capable of being impregnated by a human ("[[Six Degrees of Separation]]," "[[Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II]]"). She may be "defective", as the Cylon programming within the sleeper agent known as "Boomer" on ''Galactica'' conflicted multiple times with its human personality ([[Water]]). Also, the fully aware Sharon Valerii found by [[Karl Agathon|Helo]] on Caprica has fully switched alliances from Cylon to Colonial after falling in love with Helo and is now aiding the Colonials (several episodes, most notably "[[Flight of the Phoenix]]"). Valerii is the third Cylon agent introduced during the [[Miniseries]]. However, viewers do not discover her true identity until the very end of the Miniseries when a second copy appears at [[Ragnar Anchorage]] while retrieving the abandoned copy of Aaron Doral.

[[Sharon Valerii (Caprica copy)|Copies]] of this model have appeared under the name "[[Sharon Valerii (Galactica copy)|Sharon Valerii]]".

=== [[Leoben Conoy]] ===

Leoben Conoy was the fourth model witnessed by viewers (although viewers would not know until the end of the [[Mini-Series]] that they had already met the ''third'' humanoid Cylon, Sharon Valerii). The Conoy model has shown to be religiously oriented, using dogma and intermixing truth with falsehoods. It was first discovered on [[Ragnar Station]], claiming to be a scavenger / arms dealer ([[Miniseries]]).

He can be likened to the serpent of the [[Wikipedia:Genesis|Genesis]] tale in the Earth [[Wikipedia: Christian Bible|Christian Bible]], taunting people with knowledge then watching as the negative consequences come into devastating fruition. Leoben copies have likely been encountered by the [[Resistance (movement)|Caprica Resistance movement]], as [[Samuel Anders]] recites in jest some comments made by another Leoben copy captured in [[The Fleet (RDM)|the Fleet]] ("[[Flesh and Bone]]," "[[The Farm]]").

=== [[Simon]] ===

The Simon model was encountered by [[Kara Thrace|Kara "Starbuck" Thrace]] Cylon-occupied [[The Twelve Colonies (RDM)#Caprica|Caprica]]. Posing as a doctor, Simon was actually involved with the Cylon hybridization program. Simon resembles a tall, somewhat thin middle-aged black man who speaks in a comforting strong voice ([[The Farm]]) Unlike other models, Simon doesn't seem to have many military aspects to his physical or mental configuration, and was easily overcome by a wounded Thrace. Simon may be a model based primarily on human intellectualism.

=== [[Cavil]] ===

Brother Cavil provided council to [[Chief Tyrol]] after his maddened attack against [[Cally]]. Despite his disdain in prayer and religous pomp and circumstance ([[Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I]]), Cavil went through a prayer session with [[Laura Roslin]], the latter apparently hoping that prayer would aid her success in the elections. Another copy of Cavil was seen on [[Caprica]], informing the [[SAR]] team some 18 hours after the Cylons ceased their attack that the Cylons had left the Colonies. When the Caprica SAR team returned to ''Galactica'', Tyrol recognized and identified him as a Cylon agent. For a priest and especially for a cylon, he displays an utter disdain for religion, both the human belief in many gods and the Cylon faith in a one true god.

[[Cavil#Caprica-Cavil|Caprica-Cavil]] alleges that he was sent to ''Galactica'' as a messenger of peace. He relayed what occurred after [[Caprica-Six]] and [[Sharon Valerii (Galactica copy)]] were rescued from the wreckage of the cafe bombing ("[[Downloaded]]"). That they had used their new found celebrity to voice what many in the Cylon population felt themselves... The Cylon annihilation of the human race and occupation of the Twelve Colonies was wrong. Caprica-Cavil told [[William Adama|Admiral Adama]] and [[Laura Roslin|President Roslin]] that the Cylons would go their own way, and leave the Fleet alone.

This ended up not being true — whether or not the Cavils intentionally lied is a fact that remains unknown ([[Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II]]).

== Speculated Infiltrators ==

See the [[Cylon agent speculation]] article for analysis on characters and their likelihood of being a Cylon agent, based on episode information.

==Ron Moore elaborates on the twelve models==

In a 10/24/05 interview on "The Chase Show" on the SF webcast news site [http://www.thefandom.com/Article50.phtml TheFandom.com] with veteran "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" actress [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0557732/ Chase Masterson], Ron D. Moore is interviewed and directly answers two key questions in the Twelve Models debate and the origin of Sharon Valerii in particular. Here is a transcription of that interview segment.

:'''Chase''': ... I just have to ask something... is there one Boomer that's just human?
:'''Ron''': No, there's not. I mean, the idea is not there was one like an original human model that they were copied from. The idea was that these were... these models of Cylon were developed out of their own study of us. The Cylons on some level looked at humanity and said, "Well, you know what, there's really only twelve of you... and these are the twelve." And then if you look at them, they kind of represent different archetypes of what humanity is. Um, Sharon, in particular — Sharon-Boomer, went through quite a trans-metamorphosis because in the original mini-series script, in the first draft, she wasn't a Cylon at all. She was going to be just — I wrote her just — I wanted a youngish pilot, who was the rookie, who was sort of vulnerable in ways, who made mistakes in ways that you're not used to seeing your heroes on TV shows do, and I was really interested in this idea of the officer, the female officer in love with the male deck chief in violation of all the rules and I kinda thought, going forward, that she and the [[Galen Tyrol|chief]], in combination with [[Boxey (RDM)|Boxey]], who's really only in the mini-series and one or two other episodes, would form sort of our family unit, that that was kind of a family...
:'''Chase''': OK...
:'''Ron''': ... and actually, after that first draft was written, it was [[David Eick]], my producing partner, who said, "You know what, if at the end of this thing, at the very end when all the Cylons walk into Armistice — into the [[Ragnar Anchorage|Ragnar station]] at the end... if you turn around and Sharon is one of the Cylons, he said, we're definitely gonna get picked up for a series.
:'''Chase''': (laughs) OK... that did make... that really did seal the deal...
:'''Ron''': ... and I just really went... that's a great idea and I realized that, because I'd had laid... I had written a story straight, I really hadn't cheated. There was no hint of who Sharon might be, and it really did suck you in, and really sort of, you believed her as a person first, and then we revealed her as a Cylon.
:'''Chase''': ... Right....
:'''Ron''': ... And so what happened after that was, I assumed going into the first season — well I didn't assume, I just planned... to slowly, over the course of the first year, peel back the layers — that Sharon would only start to sort of discover her Cylon nature by the end of the first year.
:'''Chase''': Oh, God... and it was heartbreaking, watching that unfold, because I loved her much as human, and she was just adorable, with him and then with the kid, it was like, oh, what a great girl, she's um... you know, young and cute, and — who's the actress — and that whole thing, and then you're like, WHAT?
:'''Ron''': Yeah...
:'''Chase''': ... She's the enemy...
:'''Ron''': I know then, she's the enemy, then she's the one that is your most worry, what's she gonna do next.
:'''Chase''': Yeah. You really took us on quite a journey there. I was still hoping for a human one running around somewhere, but no, huh?....
:'''Ron''': No.
:'''Chase''': Oh, well...

With this information from the show's main creative leader, it is established as canon that:

* There are precisely twelve ''human'' Cylon models. The other varieties of Cylon spacecraft or fighters are not factored into this count of 12 models.
* Sharon Valerii was ''never'' an actual human, and neither were the other Cylon agent models.
* The twelve models are based on on archetypes determined by the Cylons that form what they perceive were the specific kinds of human behavior and/or personality, distilled into twelve varieties.

==Note==
*{{note|name}}Viewers initially lacked an authentic term to call the humanoid Cylons during season 1 of the series. Here on the ''Battlestar Wiki'', the descriptive term "Humano-Cylon" was used for a time. Dialogue in several episodes throughout season 2 have consistently used "Cylon agent" to describe the humanoid Cylons. Other names are also used, such as "humanoid-Cylons" (which [[Tricia Helfer]] often uses in interviews, but apparently more for convenience than an official name), or "Bio-Cylons" which is sometimes used derisively by fans of the Original Series.
**Some of the resistance fighters on Caprica refer to the Humano-Cylons as Skin Jobs, a reference to Blade Runner.
*{{note|dossier}}The term "Known Cylon agents" is shown on a dossier on the models shown on [[Laura Roslin]]'s desk on ''[[Colonial One]]'' in the episode "[[Epiphanies]]."

[[Category:A to Z]]
[[Category:Cylons]]
[[Category:RDM]]

Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II

2006-03-12T04:34:57Z

Msimone: /* Noteworthy Dialogue */

{{Episode Data|
Image = [[Image:Burdens2.jpg|300px]]
| Title= Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II
| Series= [[Battlestar Galactica (RDM)|The Re-imagined Series]]
| Season= [[Season 2 (2005-06)|2]]
| Episode= 20
| Guests= [[Richard Hatch]] ([[Tom Zarek]]) [[Kate Vernon]] ([[Ellen Tigh]]) [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001777/ Dean Stockwell] ([[Cavil|Brother Cavil]])
| Writer=[[IMDB:nm1093194|Anne Cofell Saunders]], [[IMDB:nm0894156|Mark Verheiden]]
| Story=
| Director=[[Michael Rymer]]
| Production=
| Rating=
| US Airdate= March 10, 2006
| UK Airdate=
| DVD=
| Population= 49,550
| Prev= [[Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I]]
| Next= TBA
}}

== Overview ==

: ''Everything turns on its head as the survivors vote for a new president -- and vote for their fate.''

== Summary ==

===On Caprica===

*[[Kara Thrace|Starbuck]], the marines, and the [[resistance (movement)|resistance]] continue to take fire from Cylon centurions and artillery. They make their way up a hill, and hold their position.
*The Cylons hold fire, and Sharon remarks that the Cylons will attempt to capture them with non-lethal weapons, such as gas.
*Eighteen hours later, they emerge to find that the Cylons have disappeared. [[Cavil]] -- who suddenly appears behind them -- announces that the Cylons have left the Twelve Colonies and that humanity was spared.

===In the Fleet===

*[[Cally]] is cleared back to work by [[Cottle|Dr. Cottle]], despite having her jaw wired shut (which elicits a sexist observation from the doctor). [[Tyrol|Chief Tyrol]] visits her, apologizing for the attack. Cally forgives him, saying that she's always cared for him.

*[[Gaius Baltar|Dr. Baltar]] continues to gain in the polls. On ''[[Colonial One]]'', Tory mentions there's always a victory plan. [[Laura Roslin|Roslin]] later calls a private meeting with Dr. Baltar, asking to deliver a joint statement of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_%28verb%29 tabling] the issue of colonization until after the election, which Baltar rejects.

*[[Kara Thrace|Starbuck]] returns to ''[[Galactica (RDM)|Galactica]]'', with the resistance fighters, much to the delight of Admiral Adama. She mentions the fact that the Cylons have left Caprica, and a man appearing to be Brother Cavill confirms it. He also says he has a message, but is attacked by Chief Tyrol, claiming he's a Cylon. Both Cavill and Caprica-Sharon are escorted to the brig under marine guard.

*The other Cavill (from last episode) is also taken to the brig, claiming he's not a Cylon, but changes his tune upon seeing his "brother", as he calls him. Both Cavills then talk about the fact that the “war heroes” (Caprica Six & ''Galactica''-Sharon) have talked about how the attack of the colonies and the pursuit of the fleet were mistakes. They were told to relay the message that man and Cylon will go their separate ways. Both Roslin and Admiral Adama are less than trusting regarding the message.

*Election Day has arrived and Baltar has an apparent five thousand-vote lead over Roslin with only a few ships left. On ''Colonial One'', Tory makes a call to ''Galactica'', putting a plan into action.

*Amazingly, Roslin initially appears to have retained the presidency. While most are celebrating, Lt. Gaeta makes a starting discovery regarding the votes, and informs the Admiral that Col. Tigh may be involved in a conspiracy to throw the election.

*Admiral Adama confronts Roslin regarding the conspiracy, saying he has a confession to rig the vote. Roslin admits her involvement and Adama is disappointed.

*Baltar is informed of his election as President. He's less than pleased, vowing to have full investigation in time. President-elect Baltar then orders a course for “New Caprica”.

*[[Gaius Baltar]] is sworn in as the new President of the Twelve Colonies, and orders the immediate colonization of New Caprica.

*''[[Cloud 9]]'' is destroyed by a nuclear blast, Gina being present before the explosion; in addition to the ''Cloud 9'', at least two other ships are destroyed in the blast. Admiral Adama reports to the president that this may be a Cylon attack, but Baltar ignores him and presses forward with colonization.

===One Year Later===

*[[Felix Gaeta|Mr. Gaeta]] is reporting to the President regarding a Union issue aboard Colonial One, now down on the planet. Baltar is upset, saying there have been no Cylon attacks but the people still complain. He has regressed, turning to alcohol, medication, and womanizing.

*Admiral Adama, now donning a mustache, is walking around a near-empty Galactica, the ship falling into disarray. Over half of the crew has moved down to the planet, and they are running on such a skeleton crew that they barely have enough pilots to fly training missions, much less a good CAP. Adama has a discussion with Tigh about going down to the planet, which Tigh reluctantly agrees to.

*[[Samuel Anders|Anders]], now Kara’s husband, is sick with pneumonia. Dr. Cottle is saying he can’t do much for him, saying there are no antibiotics available, but he is young and healthy, and with a little luck he "should" pull through.

*Kara runs into the Tighs as [[Tyrol]], now a union boss, is making a speech to begin a strike, a pregnant Cally by his side. Saul mentions that ''Pegasus'' keeps the backup medical supplies and that Apollo would spring some for Starbuck. Starbuck disagrees, which prompts Tigh to state that Apollo would be "over that by now".

*Roslin is doing what she does best, teaching the settlement's school, and manages to find enjoyment in her old position. [[Maya]] is with her, as is the now one year old [[Hera]], whom Maya has named "Isis".

*Kara calls Lee aboard ''Pegasus'', requesting the antibiotics. Lee's gained a lot of weight in the past year. Dualla is now an officer, serving by Lee Adama's side in ''Pegasus''' CIC. Before Lee can reply, Dualla catches something on [[DRADIS]].

*A fleet of [[Cylon]] [[Basestar (RDM)|basestar]]s arrive in orbit around New Caprica. The Adamas are having a discussion about what to do, when [[Helo]] asks if alert fighters should be launched. Admiral Adama keeps them in as the defense fleet jumps away.

*Mr. Gaeta informs the President of the Cylon approach. Later, before his assembled staff, copies of Number [[Number Five|5]], [[Number Eight|8]], and [[Number Six|6]] approach the President. The Cylons declare that as long as there’s no resistance, no harm will come. President Baltar declares surrender on behalf of the colonists, and as Cylon armies occupy the planet, Kara vows to resist.

== Questions ==

*What "number" is Cavil?
*Was Roslin's threat to put the two Cavils into space actually carried out?
**Most likely not, she had the election on her mind, much to do, and didn't actually make it an order. Baltar would have been unlikely to vent them into space.
*Where did the defense fleet jump to?
**Likely a prearranged rendezvous point, similar to that of the miniseries.
*Where is Caprica-Sharon?
**Most likely, still in ''Galactica'''s brig. This is probably why Helo is still aboard ship, having taken a CIC officer's position.
**In the podcast, Ron Moore vaguely hinted that they hadn't forgotten about Sharon, but that we'd have to "wait and see". Apparently, several of the early season 3 episodes will have flashbacks dealing with events that took place in the year that passed.
*What happened to Zarek?
*Why is Leoben looking for Starbuck, specifically?
** Could it be the same [[Leoben Conoy]] that Starbuck interrogated in "[[Flesh and Bone]]"?
*** As seen with ''Galactica''-Sharon, it is distinctly possible that that particular Leoben was lying when he said he'd actually die and not download.
** It is likely that, as the only escapee from [[The Farm]], they are interested in continuing with her. After all, there was an incision, and something had changed with her.
*Why has the population (until Tyrol's recent union speech) accepted Baltar's imperious rule? People were hardly so passive under Roslin. Indeed, Adama executed a military coup over a rather less important issue than giving a nuclear weapon to a Cylon agent.
**Admiral Adama wasn't conclusive as to how the weapon got on board Cloud Nine.
**Baltar pointed out there have been no attacks since he took office. Under Roslin the attacks were common. Perhaps for a year the people decided they preferred the safety Baltar gave them to their liberties.
**They did vote them in, and perhaps the struggle of trying to survive on this planet is distracting their attention, i.e. at first they weren't sure how much to blame on Baltar, or on the simple struggle of trying to rebuild. Howevever, it hasn't been a particularly smooth or easy presidency, as shown by the recent Union strike.
*Are the Six and Eight that Baltar surrendered to [[Caprica-Six]] and [[Sharon Valerii (Galactica copy)|''Galactica''-Sharon]]?
**Judging from Six's reaction to Baltar, almost definitely.
*Where did the Cylon fleets go, after they left the Twelve Colonies? Cavil was deliberately vague when asked if they simply returned to the [[Cylon homeworld]].
*Did the nuclear bomb ever get picked up by the fleet's radiological alarms?
*How many people died in the Cloud Nine explosion?
**The Cloud Nine explosion also destroyed ships near it. Given the stated size of the New Caprica population along with subtracting the minimal crew sizes needed to maintain the ships in orbit, you can estimate that approximately 3000 to 5000 people died.
***Actually, we have no idea how many people were still crewing the civilian ships in the Fleet when ''Galactica'' and ''Pegasus'' jumped away, so it could actually have been thousands less than that.
*When Gina-Six was instantly vaporized due to being only two feet from a nuclear detonation, did she still transmit her consciousness? Was she even capable of transmitting considering that any internal hardware responsible for this task would have been instantly destroyed?
**They have already established that with the [[Resurrection Ship]] destroyed, Cylons in the fleet that are killed will ''actually'' die. Gina expressed suicidal impulses as early as "[[Resurrection Ship, Part I]]".
**Additionally, since the Cylons found the planet due to the radiation, it is unlikely that Gina was resurrected, as she then would have told the Cylons the location of the planet.
*Given Roslin's memories of Baltar with Six, why didn't Admiral Adama suspect Baltar of handing over the nuke to the cylons? If he did suspect him, why not act on it?
**He had no real proof.
*Did the events of "One Year Later" actually happen, or were they a dream or vision sequence given to Baltar?
**Although Baltar has had elaborate visions in the past, this vision left Baltar's point of view several times, addressing issues such as the marriage of Kara to Sam Anders and Adama's friendship with Tigh that are of little knowledge or importance to Baltar.
***Ron D. Moore has stated in interviews that the first 4-5 episodes of season 3 will deal with the Cylon occupation of New Caprica, and unless a vast swath of episodes is going to be a dream sequence, all of these "one year later" events ''really'' happen.
***Moore actually discusses this in the podcast, saying that many people might just assume this is a dream, or a ''Dallas''-like season-erasing shower-dream episode, but he thought it was a bold decision to jump ahead a full year, and have all of it be definitely real.
*Why was it so easy for Adama to hide the collusion of the rigged election from the press, and why were there no consequences?
**So far as we know, Adama, Tigh, Gaeta, Dualla, Dualla's two associates, Tory, and Roslin are the only people that knew; 6 are military personnel, 4 of whom would be implicated, and the other 2 were directly involved civilians. All are strongly motivated to conceal the information.
* Why would it take the Cylons over one year to find New Caprica, alerted by the nuclear detonation prior to the inhabitation of the planet?
**It was stated in the previous episode that the interference from the gas cloud surrounding it would hide the planet fairly well. The Cylons were slightly over a light year away, according to the Number Five. Searching something as large as the gas cloud likely is for a planet or fleet is, given the sensor range limitations, quite impressive to accomplish in months, even with general directional information from a light-year out.
***Actually with the Cylon base 1 light year away, it would take 1 year for the nuke to show up on the Cylon sensors. Short of some FTL communication system, that's the only way the Cylons would have been able to detect the planet. Since the fleet is all in within non-FTL distances, all the FTL devices, if any exist would likely have been destroyed or disabled.
*If the Cylons really left the Twelve Colonies, leaving behind a nuked-out wasteland, what happened to all of the human captives in the [[Farms]]?
**Has it really been established that all that remains of the colonies are nuked-out wastelands? Yes, it's clear that they were nuked from the mini-series, yet in more recent episodes, it's also clear that the Cylons have been rebuilding them, in particular Caprica. The comment is bizarre in that Admiral Adama would know this as well, given the return of Anders who no doubt gave a full account of his experiences.
*Why have the Cylons returned? According to [[Cavil]], the two races were to go their "separate ways". The Cylons may have been worried about the humans retaliating at some point in the future, but the location of the Cylon world(s) is still unknown to the humans, so ensuring the safety of their society presumably isn't the motive behind the occupation of [[New Caprica]].
**This assumes that the Cylons were being honest in their announcement of withdrawl from all Human contact and association. It is possible that this was a tactical feint and the Cylons went looking for possible alternate locations where the Humans could have resettled.
*Did the Cavils lie about the pursuit of humanity being a mistake? Or were they telling the truth?
** If they were telling the truth, perhaps not all Cylons are readily able to admit and rectify their mistakes as the Cavils believed.
** It seems that the intent was truthful, given that Caprica-Six and Sharon are taking an active leadership role in this new occupation. What seems unclear is how their positions has changed from Downloaded, where they clearly felt that the Cylon destruction of humanity was wrong. This is especially so for Sharon, who still considered herself human. Why would she go along willingly with this new course of action of occupation and presumably other forms of experimentation.
*Will the Cylons resume their pursuit of the Fleet?
*How many people are left in the Fleet?
**The population of New Caprica City is given as 39,192. There were just under 50,000 people in the Fleet before establishing the settlement, so that gives a figure of roughly 10,000 missing. It is uncertain how many were killed in the destruction of Cloud 9 and surrounding Fleet ships but this loss along with any births and deaths that have taken place during the year since the election, leaves very few military personnel in the Orbital Defense. This almost certainly means that both ''Galactica'' and ''Pegasus'' will be extremely short on crew, as many military personnel will have been left on the planet. There was clearly no time to retrieve even selected members of the crews before the Fleet jumped.
***Will the Adamas resort to Cain's tactic of conscripting civilians to fill the gaps?
*What happened between Apollo and Starbuck?
**Colonel Tigh mentioned an incident that happened "a long time ago" that would prevent Apollo from giving antibiotics to Starbuck. When she contacted him aboard ''Pegasus'', he seemed very much not to want to talk to her.
***Problems may have arisen due to possible jealousy of Anders.
***What about all the mean stuff she said to Apollo when she was drunk, about him and Dee?

== Analysis ==
*Baltar's arrogance seems to have led to corrupt rule during his year on New Caprica—he replaces Roslin's modest desk with a larger, elaborate one, replaces the population count whiteboard with a portrait of himself, and keeps a harem aboard the landed Colonial One.
*After a whole year, everyone is still living in tents. There is a vital shortage of medicine, the military is of no use, and labor conditions are apparently intolerable. Baltar's administration is apparently as incompetent as Roslin feared.
**It is not clear whether these conditions are the result of admimistrative incompetence or the inherent difficulties of colonizing a marginally habitable planet.
***Of course, it was Baltar's idea to settle on a marginally habitable planet in the first place.
*It's ironic that the obligations of duty keep Lee Adama aboard Pegasus while everyone else goes planetside—he is a reserve officer, and promised to build his pilots a bar as soon as they found a habitable planet.
*Ron Moore has once again decided to play with viewer's expectations; in the podcast for "[[Resurrection Ship, Part II]]" Moore commented on how everyone assumed that ''Pegasus'' would be destroyed by the end of the episode, and thus he thought it would be a good twist to keep ''Pegasus'' alive as another ship in the Fleet. Here, many viewers assumed that the nuke that Baltar gave to Gina in "[[Epiphanies]]" would be used to destroy ''Pegasus'' this time, but it wasn't.
*29 people died between this episode and the preceding one? One or two Raptors were lost, and some Marines died on Caprica, but that doesn't seem high enough.
**Is it possible they took out all of the people who left in the raptors because they were not apart of the fleet at the end of the previous episode?
***They didn't remove Starbuck from the count when she left for Caprica at the beginning of Season 2.
****She left at the end of season one, before they started the count. But, they did not add her to the count when she returned with Helo, because the count rose by one.
**Maybe more people died during the attack on Caprica than was shown.
***Yet another possibility is the inclusion of the Caprica survivors in the count to offset many of the losses that had incurred in the rescue mission.
***Although they didn't actually talk about the losses, there was a shot of a wounded person being taken away on a stretcher after the Raptors returned from the [[Caprica]] [[SAR]] mission.
**There may have been a series of election-related riots or murders.

== Notes ==
* '''According to Ron Moore's podcast, although Scifi Channel was willing to air this episode as a 90-minute special, it had to be heavily edited down for international distribution; outside of the United States, viewers will only see a 1 hour version of the episode, which Moore regards as "almost incomprehensible".''' Many plot threads, such as the entire Cally/Tyrol subplot, were completely removed from the one hour version.
* Ron Moore's podcast for episode 13, [[Epiphanies]], states that the Nuke given to Gina will come back in this episode, to the benefit of the Cylons.
*In RDM's podcast for the previous episode, he said that in early drafts of this special 90 minute long episode, the writers actually tried to make it a 2 hour special, but this was soon dropped (these times are including commercials).
*The election board appears to have a definitive list of the names of all of the ships in [[The Fleet (RDM)]]. Not all of them are clearly visible, but this would seem to indicate that the writers do have an actual list that they get new ship names from. Ship names visible on the chart are: Demetrius, Diomedes, Embla Brokk, Enkidu, Epheme, Galactica, Gideon, Gemenon Traveller, Greenleaf, Monarch, Odysseus, Pegasus, Persephone, Prometheus, Swordfish
*The framed photo of President Roslin and [[Billy Keikeya]] was still on her desk during the election.
*When Roslin "won" the rigged election results, Roslin received 24,265 votes, while Baltar recieved 22,266. This means that the elligible voters in the Fleet number 46,531. In the podcast, RDM explains that he quickly came up with these numbers, to try to reflect roughly how many survivors are below the voting age.
*Toward the end of the episode, President Baltar refers to a government body called the "People's Council". This may be the proportionally elected lower house mentioned in by RDM in his [http://blog.scifi.com/battlestar/archives/2005/01/index.html#a000016 blog post] on January 30, 2005.
*[[Hera]] is seen on New Caprica in the same white cradle that Baltar had a vision of her being in in "[[Scattered]]", etc. According to RDM's podcast it's actually the exact same cradle.
*Tyrol's union speech is an almost word for word quote of Mario Savio's address during the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley in 1964. According to Ron Moore and David Eick in the podcast, they even got permission from Savio's widow to use it (even though, due to the way copyright laws work from back then, they could have just used it without permission, they felt they should get it). As a result, it's even listed in the credits: "Mario Savio speech excerpted courtesy of: Lynne Hollander Savio". Actor Aaron Douglas (Chief [[Galen Tyrol|Tyrol]]) actually studied film of Savio, so all of the hand gestures Tyrol makes when he gives the speech are gestures that Savio actually used.

== Noteworthy Dialogue ==
*''Dr. Cottle decides Cally is ready to return to duty:''
:'''Cottle:''' You're done here. I'm kickin' you out of here and sending you back to work.
:'''Cally:''' (muffled, because her jaw is immobilized) Work??? Like this?
:'''Cottle:''' You gotta love a woman who can complain even with her jaw wired shut.

*''Trying to bring order to a Union meeting:''
:'''Tyrol:''' Everyone, please be quiet. (''crowd ignores him'')
:'''Cally:''' Hey! Shut the frak up! (''crowd quiets down'')

*'''Admiral Adama:''' We're leaving. But we'll be back.

*''The Cylons occupy New Caprica:''
:'''Tyrol:''' "What do you want to do now, Captain?"
:'''Starbuck:''' "The same thing we always do. Fight them until we can't."

*''Brother Cavil is being brought into the brig:''
:'''Cavil:''' I'm not a cylon. (''sees the other Cavil in the cell'')
:'''Cavil:''' Oh. Ok, then.

== Official Statements ==

From the official site (http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/):
When Baltar wins the vote, Roslin considers stealing the election because she believes he is a Cylon collaborator.

== Guest Stars ==
*[[Richard Hatch]] as [[Tom Zarek]]
*[http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001777/ Dean Stockwell] as [[Cavil|Brother Cavil]]
*[[Michael Trucco]] as [[Samuel Anders]]
*[[Kate Vernon]] as [[Ellen Tigh]]
*[http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0722413/ Donnelly Rhodes] as Dr. [[Cottle]]
*[[Callum Keith Rennie]] as [[Leoben Conoy]]
*[[Matthew Bennett]] as [[Aaron Doral]]
*Rekha Sharma as [[Tory Foster]]
*[http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0443286/ David Kaye] as [[James McManus]]
*Alisen Down as Jean Barclay
*Winston Rekert as Priest

{{Episode List}}

[[Category: A to Z]]
[[Category: RDM]]
[[Category:Episodes written by Anne Cofell Saunders]]
[[Category:Episodes written by Mark Verheiden]]
[[Category:Episodes directed by Michael Rymer]]

Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II

2006-03-12T04:23:56Z

Msimone: /* Questions */

{{Episode Data|
Image = [[Image:Burdens2.jpg|300px]]
| Title= Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II
| Series= [[Battlestar Galactica (RDM)|The Re-imagined Series]]
| Season= [[Season 2 (2005-06)|2]]
| Episode= 20
| Guests= [[Richard Hatch]] ([[Tom Zarek]]) [[Kate Vernon]] ([[Ellen Tigh]]) [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001777/ Dean Stockwell] ([[Cavil|Brother Cavil]])
| Writer=[[IMDB:nm1093194|Anne Cofell Saunders]], [[IMDB:nm0894156|Mark Verheiden]]
| Story=
| Director=[[Michael Rymer]]
| Production=
| Rating=
| US Airdate= March 10, 2006
| UK Airdate=
| DVD=
| Population= 49,550
| Prev= [[Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I]]
| Next= TBA
}}

== Overview ==

: ''Everything turns on its head as the survivors vote for a new president -- and vote for their fate.''

== Summary ==

===On Caprica===

*[[Kara Thrace|Starbuck]], the marines, and the [[resistance (movement)|resistance]] continue to take fire from Cylon centurions and artillery. They make their way up a hill, and hold their position.
*The Cylons hold fire, and Sharon remarks that the Cylons will attempt to capture them with non-lethal weapons, such as gas.
*Eighteen hours later, they emerge to find that the Cylons have disappeared. [[Cavil]] -- who suddenly appears behind them -- announces that the Cylons have left the Twelve Colonies and that humanity was spared.

===In the Fleet===

*[[Cally]] is cleared back to work by [[Cottle|Dr. Cottle]], despite having her jaw wired shut (which elicits a sexist observation from the doctor). [[Tyrol|Chief Tyrol]] visits her, apologizing for the attack. Cally forgives him, saying that she's always cared for him.

*[[Gaius Baltar|Dr. Baltar]] continues to gain in the polls. On ''[[Colonial One]]'', Tory mentions there's always a victory plan. [[Laura Roslin|Roslin]] later calls a private meeting with Dr. Baltar, asking to deliver a joint statement of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_%28verb%29 tabling] the issue of colonization until after the election, which Baltar rejects.

*[[Kara Thrace|Starbuck]] returns to ''[[Galactica (RDM)|Galactica]]'', with the resistance fighters, much to the delight of Admiral Adama. She mentions the fact that the Cylons have left Caprica, and a man appearing to be Brother Cavill confirms it. He also says he has a message, but is attacked by Chief Tyrol, claiming he's a Cylon. Both Cavill and Caprica-Sharon are escorted to the brig under marine guard.

*The other Cavill (from last episode) is also taken to the brig, claiming he's not a Cylon, but changes his tune upon seeing his "brother", as he calls him. Both Cavills then talk about the fact that the “war heroes” (Caprica Six & ''Galactica''-Sharon) have talked about how the attack of the colonies and the pursuit of the fleet were mistakes. They were told to relay the message that man and Cylon will go their separate ways. Both Roslin and Admiral Adama are less than trusting regarding the message.

*Election Day has arrived and Baltar has an apparent five thousand-vote lead over Roslin with only a few ships left. On ''Colonial One'', Tory makes a call to ''Galactica'', putting a plan into action.

*Amazingly, Roslin initially appears to have retained the presidency. While most are celebrating, Lt. Gaeta makes a starting discovery regarding the votes, and informs the Admiral that Col. Tigh may be involved in a conspiracy to throw the election.

*Admiral Adama confronts Roslin regarding the conspiracy, saying he has a confession to rig the vote. Roslin admits her involvement and Adama is disappointed.

*Baltar is informed of his election as President. He's less than pleased, vowing to have full investigation in time. President-elect Baltar then orders a course for “New Caprica”.

*[[Gaius Baltar]] is sworn in as the new President of the Twelve Colonies, and orders the immediate colonization of New Caprica.

*''[[Cloud 9]]'' is destroyed by a nuclear blast, Gina being present before the explosion; in addition to the ''Cloud 9'', at least two other ships are destroyed in the blast. Admiral Adama reports to the president that this may be a Cylon attack, but Baltar ignores him and presses forward with colonization.

===One Year Later===

*[[Felix Gaeta|Mr. Gaeta]] is reporting to the President regarding a Union issue aboard Colonial One, now down on the planet. Baltar is upset, saying there have been no Cylon attacks but the people still complain. He has regressed, turning to alcohol, medication, and womanizing.

*Admiral Adama, now donning a mustache, is walking around a near-empty Galactica, the ship falling into disarray. Over half of the crew has moved down to the planet, and they are running on such a skeleton crew that they barely have enough pilots to fly training missions, much less a good CAP. Adama has a discussion with Tigh about going down to the planet, which Tigh reluctantly agrees to.

*[[Samuel Anders|Anders]], now Kara’s husband, is sick with pneumonia. Dr. Cottle is saying he can’t do much for him, saying there are no antibiotics available, but he is young and healthy, and with a little luck he "should" pull through.

*Kara runs into the Tighs as [[Tyrol]], now a union boss, is making a speech to begin a strike, a pregnant Cally by his side. Saul mentions that ''Pegasus'' keeps the backup medical supplies and that Apollo would spring some for Starbuck. Starbuck disagrees, which prompts Tigh to state that Apollo would be "over that by now".

*Roslin is doing what she does best, teaching the settlement's school, and manages to find enjoyment in her old position. [[Maya]] is with her, as is the now one year old [[Hera]], whom Maya has named "Isis".

*Kara calls Lee aboard ''Pegasus'', requesting the antibiotics. Lee's gained a lot of weight in the past year. Dualla is now an officer, serving by Lee Adama's side in ''Pegasus''' CIC. Before Lee can reply, Dualla catches something on [[DRADIS]].

*A fleet of [[Cylon]] [[Basestar (RDM)|basestar]]s arrive in orbit around New Caprica. The Adamas are having a discussion about what to do, when [[Helo]] asks if alert fighters should be launched. Admiral Adama keeps them in as the defense fleet jumps away.

*Mr. Gaeta informs the President of the Cylon approach. Later, before his assembled staff, copies of Number [[Number Five|5]], [[Number Eight|8]], and [[Number Six|6]] approach the President. The Cylons declare that as long as there’s no resistance, no harm will come. President Baltar declares surrender on behalf of the colonists, and as Cylon armies occupy the planet, Kara vows to resist.

== Questions ==

*What "number" is Cavil?
*Was Roslin's threat to put the two Cavils into space actually carried out?
**Most likely not, she had the election on her mind, much to do, and didn't actually make it an order. Baltar would have been unlikely to vent them into space.
*Where did the defense fleet jump to?
**Likely a prearranged rendezvous point, similar to that of the miniseries.
*Where is Caprica-Sharon?
**Most likely, still in ''Galactica'''s brig. This is probably why Helo is still aboard ship, having taken a CIC officer's position.
**In the podcast, Ron Moore vaguely hinted that they hadn't forgotten about Sharon, but that we'd have to "wait and see". Apparently, several of the early season 3 episodes will have flashbacks dealing with events that took place in the year that passed.
*What happened to Zarek?
*Why is Leoben looking for Starbuck, specifically?
** Could it be the same [[Leoben Conoy]] that Starbuck interrogated in "[[Flesh and Bone]]"?
*** As seen with ''Galactica''-Sharon, it is distinctly possible that that particular Leoben was lying when he said he'd actually die and not download.
** It is likely that, as the only escapee from [[The Farm]], they are interested in continuing with her. After all, there was an incision, and something had changed with her.
*Why has the population (until Tyrol's recent union speech) accepted Baltar's imperious rule? People were hardly so passive under Roslin. Indeed, Adama executed a military coup over a rather less important issue than giving a nuclear weapon to a Cylon agent.
**Admiral Adama wasn't conclusive as to how the weapon got on board Cloud Nine.
**Baltar pointed out there have been no attacks since he took office. Under Roslin the attacks were common. Perhaps for a year the people decided they preferred the safety Baltar gave them to their liberties.
**They did vote them in, and perhaps the struggle of trying to survive on this planet is distracting their attention, i.e. at first they weren't sure how much to blame on Baltar, or on the simple struggle of trying to rebuild. Howevever, it hasn't been a particularly smooth or easy presidency, as shown by the recent Union strike.
*Are the Six and Eight that Baltar surrendered to [[Caprica-Six]] and [[Sharon Valerii (Galactica copy)|''Galactica''-Sharon]]?
**Judging from Six's reaction to Baltar, almost definitely.
*Where did the Cylon fleets go, after they left the Twelve Colonies? Cavil was deliberately vague when asked if they simply returned to the [[Cylon homeworld]].
*Did the nuclear bomb ever get picked up by the fleet's radiological alarms?
*How many people died in the Cloud Nine explosion?
**The Cloud Nine explosion also destroyed ships near it. Given the stated size of the New Caprica population along with subtracting the minimal crew sizes needed to maintain the ships in orbit, you can estimate that approximately 3000 to 5000 people died.
***Actually, we have no idea how many people were still crewing the civilian ships in the Fleet when ''Galactica'' and ''Pegasus'' jumped away, so it could actually have been thousands less than that.
*When Gina-Six was instantly vaporized due to being only two feet from a nuclear detonation, did she still transmit her consciousness? Was she even capable of transmitting considering that any internal hardware responsible for this task would have been instantly destroyed?
**They have already established that with the [[Resurrection Ship]] destroyed, Cylons in the fleet that are killed will ''actually'' die. Gina expressed suicidal impulses as early as "[[Resurrection Ship, Part I]]".
**Additionally, since the Cylons found the planet due to the radiation, it is unlikely that Gina was resurrected, as she then would have told the Cylons the location of the planet.
*Given Roslin's memories of Baltar with Six, why didn't Admiral Adama suspect Baltar of handing over the nuke to the cylons? If he did suspect him, why not act on it?
**He had no real proof.
*Did the events of "One Year Later" actually happen, or were they a dream or vision sequence given to Baltar?
**Although Baltar has had elaborate visions in the past, this vision left Baltar's point of view several times, addressing issues such as the marriage of Kara to Sam Anders and Adama's friendship with Tigh that are of little knowledge or importance to Baltar.
***Ron D. Moore has stated in interviews that the first 4-5 episodes of season 3 will deal with the Cylon occupation of New Caprica, and unless a vast swath of episodes is going to be a dream sequence, all of these "one year later" events ''really'' happen.
***Moore actually discusses this in the podcast, saying that many people might just assume this is a dream, or a ''Dallas''-like season-erasing shower-dream episode, but he thought it was a bold decision to jump ahead a full year, and have all of it be definitely real.
*Why was it so easy for Adama to hide the collusion of the rigged election from the press, and why were there no consequences?
**So far as we know, Adama, Tigh, Gaeta, Dualla, Dualla's two associates, Tory, and Roslin are the only people that knew; 6 are military personnel, 4 of whom would be implicated, and the other 2 were directly involved civilians. All are strongly motivated to conceal the information.
* Why would it take the Cylons over one year to find New Caprica, alerted by the nuclear detonation prior to the inhabitation of the planet?
**It was stated in the previous episode that the interference from the gas cloud surrounding it would hide the planet fairly well. The Cylons were slightly over a light year away, according to the Number Five. Searching something as large as the gas cloud likely is for a planet or fleet is, given the sensor range limitations, quite impressive to accomplish in months, even with general directional information from a light-year out.
***Actually with the Cylon base 1 light year away, it would take 1 year for the nuke to show up on the Cylon sensors. Short of some FTL communication system, that's the only way the Cylons would have been able to detect the planet. Since the fleet is all in within non-FTL distances, all the FTL devices, if any exist would likely have been destroyed or disabled.
*If the Cylons really left the Twelve Colonies, leaving behind a nuked-out wasteland, what happened to all of the human captives in the [[Farms]]?
**Has it really been established that all that remains of the colonies are nuked-out wastelands? Yes, it's clear that they were nuked from the mini-series, yet in more recent episodes, it's also clear that the Cylons have been rebuilding them, in particular Caprica. The comment is bizarre in that Admiral Adama would know this as well, given the return of Anders who no doubt gave a full account of his experiences.
*Why have the Cylons returned? According to [[Cavil]], the two races were to go their "separate ways". The Cylons may have been worried about the humans retaliating at some point in the future, but the location of the Cylon world(s) is still unknown to the humans, so ensuring the safety of their society presumably isn't the motive behind the occupation of [[New Caprica]].
**This assumes that the Cylons were being honest in their announcement of withdrawl from all Human contact and association. It is possible that this was a tactical feint and the Cylons went looking for possible alternate locations where the Humans could have resettled.
*Did the Cavils lie about the pursuit of humanity being a mistake? Or were they telling the truth?
** If they were telling the truth, perhaps not all Cylons are readily able to admit and rectify their mistakes as the Cavils believed.
** It seems that the intent was truthful, given that Caprica-Six and Sharon are taking an active leadership role in this new occupation. What seems unclear is how their positions has changed from Downloaded, where they clearly felt that the Cylon destruction of humanity was wrong. This is especially so for Sharon, who still considered herself human. Why would she go along willingly with this new course of action of occupation and presumably other forms of experimentation.
*Will the Cylons resume their pursuit of the Fleet?
*How many people are left in the Fleet?
**The population of New Caprica City is given as 39,192. There were just under 50,000 people in the Fleet before establishing the settlement, so that gives a figure of roughly 10,000 missing. It is uncertain how many were killed in the destruction of Cloud 9 and surrounding Fleet ships but this loss along with any births and deaths that have taken place during the year since the election, leaves very few military personnel in the Orbital Defense. This almost certainly means that both ''Galactica'' and ''Pegasus'' will be extremely short on crew, as many military personnel will have been left on the planet. There was clearly no time to retrieve even selected members of the crews before the Fleet jumped.
***Will the Adamas resort to Cain's tactic of conscripting civilians to fill the gaps?
*What happened between Apollo and Starbuck?
**Colonel Tigh mentioned an incident that happened "a long time ago" that would prevent Apollo from giving antibiotics to Starbuck. When she contacted him aboard ''Pegasus'', he seemed very much not to want to talk to her.
***Problems may have arisen due to possible jealousy of Anders.
***What about all the mean stuff she said to Apollo when she was drunk, about him and Dee?

== Analysis ==
*Baltar's arrogance seems to have led to corrupt rule during his year on New Caprica—he replaces Roslin's modest desk with a larger, elaborate one, replaces the population count whiteboard with a portrait of himself, and keeps a harem aboard the landed Colonial One.
*After a whole year, everyone is still living in tents. There is a vital shortage of medicine, the military is of no use, and labor conditions are apparently intolerable. Baltar's administration is apparently as incompetent as Roslin feared.
**It is not clear whether these conditions are the result of admimistrative incompetence or the inherent difficulties of colonizing a marginally habitable planet.
***Of course, it was Baltar's idea to settle on a marginally habitable planet in the first place.
*It's ironic that the obligations of duty keep Lee Adama aboard Pegasus while everyone else goes planetside—he is a reserve officer, and promised to build his pilots a bar as soon as they found a habitable planet.
*Ron Moore has once again decided to play with viewer's expectations; in the podcast for "[[Resurrection Ship, Part II]]" Moore commented on how everyone assumed that ''Pegasus'' would be destroyed by the end of the episode, and thus he thought it would be a good twist to keep ''Pegasus'' alive as another ship in the Fleet. Here, many viewers assumed that the nuke that Baltar gave to Gina in "[[Epiphanies]]" would be used to destroy ''Pegasus'' this time, but it wasn't.
*29 people died between this episode and the preceding one? One or two Raptors were lost, and some Marines died on Caprica, but that doesn't seem high enough.
**Is it possible they took out all of the people who left in the raptors because they were not apart of the fleet at the end of the previous episode?
***They didn't remove Starbuck from the count when she left for Caprica at the beginning of Season 2.
****She left at the end of season one, before they started the count. But, they did not add her to the count when she returned with Helo, because the count rose by one.
**Maybe more people died during the attack on Caprica than was shown.
***Yet another possibility is the inclusion of the Caprica survivors in the count to offset many of the losses that had incurred in the rescue mission.
***Although they didn't actually talk about the losses, there was a shot of a wounded person being taken away on a stretcher after the Raptors returned from the [[Caprica]] [[SAR]] mission.
**There may have been a series of election-related riots or murders.

== Notes ==
* '''According to Ron Moore's podcast, although Scifi Channel was willing to air this episode as a 90-minute special, it had to be heavily edited down for international distribution; outside of the United States, viewers will only see a 1 hour version of the episode, which Moore regards as "almost incomprehensible".''' Many plot threads, such as the entire Cally/Tyrol subplot, were completely removed from the one hour version.
* Ron Moore's podcast for episode 13, [[Epiphanies]], states that the Nuke given to Gina will come back in this episode, to the benefit of the Cylons.
*In RDM's podcast for the previous episode, he said that in early drafts of this special 90 minute long episode, the writers actually tried to make it a 2 hour special, but this was soon dropped (these times are including commercials).
*The election board appears to have a definitive list of the names of all of the ships in [[The Fleet (RDM)]]. Not all of them are clearly visible, but this would seem to indicate that the writers do have an actual list that they get new ship names from. Ship names visible on the chart are: Demetrius, Diomedes, Embla Brokk, Enkidu, Epheme, Galactica, Gideon, Gemenon Traveller, Greenleaf, Monarch, Odysseus, Pegasus, Persephone, Prometheus, Swordfish
*The framed photo of President Roslin and [[Billy Keikeya]] was still on her desk during the election.
*When Roslin "won" the rigged election results, Roslin received 24,265 votes, while Baltar recieved 22,266. This means that the elligible voters in the Fleet number 46,531. In the podcast, RDM explains that he quickly came up with these numbers, to try to reflect roughly how many survivors are below the voting age.
*Toward the end of the episode, President Baltar refers to a government body called the "People's Council". This may be the proportionally elected lower house mentioned in by RDM in his [http://blog.scifi.com/battlestar/archives/2005/01/index.html#a000016 blog post] on January 30, 2005.
*[[Hera]] is seen on New Caprica in the same white cradle that Baltar had a vision of her being in in "[[Scattered]]", etc. According to RDM's podcast it's actually the exact same cradle.
*Tyrol's union speech is an almost word for word quote of Mario Savio's address during the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley in 1964. According to Ron Moore and David Eick in the podcast, they even got permission from Savio's widow to use it (even though, due to the way copyright laws work from back then, they could have just used it without permission, they felt they should get it). As a result, it's even listed in the credits: "Mario Savio speech excerpted courtesy of: Lynne Hollander Savio". Actor Aaron Douglas (Chief [[Galen Tyrol|Tyrol]]) actually studied film of Savio, so all of the hand gestures Tyrol makes when he gives the speech are gestures that Savio actually used.

== Noteworthy Dialogue ==
*''Dr. Cottle decides Cally is ready to return to duty:''
:'''Cottle:''' You're done here. I'm kickin' you out of here and sending you back to work.
:'''Cally:''' (muffled, because her jaw is immobilized) Work??? Like this?
:'''Cottle:''' You gotta love a woman who can complain even with her jaw wired shut.

*''Trying to bring order to a Union meeting:''
:'''Tyrol:''' Everyone, please be quiet. (''crowd ignores him'')
:'''Cally:''' Hey! Shut the frak up! (''crowd quiets down'')

*'''Admiral Adama:''' We're leaving. But we'll be back.

*''The Cylons occupy New Caprica:''
:'''Tyrol:''' "What do you want to do now, Captain?"
:'''Starbuck:''' "The same thing we always do. Fight them until we can't."

== Official Statements ==

From the official site (http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/):
When Baltar wins the vote, Roslin considers stealing the election because she believes he is a Cylon collaborator.

== Guest Stars ==
*[[Richard Hatch]] as [[Tom Zarek]]
*[http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001777/ Dean Stockwell] as [[Cavil|Brother Cavil]]
*[[Michael Trucco]] as [[Samuel Anders]]
*[[Kate Vernon]] as [[Ellen Tigh]]
*[http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0722413/ Donnelly Rhodes] as Dr. [[Cottle]]
*[[Callum Keith Rennie]] as [[Leoben Conoy]]
*[[Matthew Bennett]] as [[Aaron Doral]]
*Rekha Sharma as [[Tory Foster]]
*[http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0443286/ David Kaye] as [[James McManus]]
*Alisen Down as Jean Barclay
*Winston Rekert as Priest

{{Episode List}}

[[Category: A to Z]]
[[Category: RDM]]
[[Category:Episodes written by Anne Cofell Saunders]]
[[Category:Episodes written by Mark Verheiden]]
[[Category:Episodes directed by Michael Rymer]]

Downloaded

2006-02-26T17:25:18Z

Msimone: /* Noteworthy Dialogue */

{{Episode Data|
Image = [[Image:Cylon_resurrection.jpg|300px]]
| Title= Downloaded
| Series= [[Battlestar Galactica (RDM)|The Re-imagined Series]]
| Season= [[Season 2 (2005-06)|2]]
| Episode= 18
| Guests= [[Lucy Lawless]] ([[D'anna Biers]])
| Writer= [[Bradley Thompson]] and [[David Weddle]]
| Story=
| Director=[[IMDB:nm0941276|Jeff Woolnough]]
| Production=
| Rating=
| US Airdate= 24 February 2006
| UK Airdate=
| DVD=
| Population=
| Prev= [[The Captain's Hand]]
| Next= [[Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I]]
}}

== Overview ==
: ''[[Cylons (RDM)|Cylon]] society is revealed when a [[Sharon Valerii (Galactica copy)|Cylon's consciousness]] is downloaded into a new body following her death. The conquerors of occupied [[Caprica]] hail two "heroes of the Cylon," who both resist their new celebrity status.''

== Summary ==

===On Caprica===
*Episode begins with a flashback to "Nine months ago - Caprica" showing Baltar's house being destroyed in the [[Miniseries]]. The copy of Number Six who had a relationship dies... and then we follow from her point of view as her consciousness is downloaded and reborn into another body in a Cylon rebirthing vat. She fell so deeply in love with Gaius Baltar that ''she'' starts having hallucinations of ''Baltar'', because the emotional impact of falling in love affected her so much. We then cut to "Ten weeks ago" on ''Galactica'' when [[Cally]] shoots [[Sharon Valerii (Galactica copy)|Galactica-Sharon]]... and follow from her point of view as she is downloaded (no doubt aided by the [[Resurrection Ship]] at the time) and wakes up totally disoriented in a new body in another rebirthing vat. A copy of the same model of Cylon known to humans as [[D'anna Biers]] tells her she'll be fine, but upon seeing another Sharon-model, Galactica-Sharon starts screaming uncontrollably.
*On Caprica in the present day, the Cylons are rebuilding [[Delphi]] for their own use, even making gardens. A D'anna-copy sits down to talk with the Number Six copy that seduced Baltar. She has never told anyone that she fell truly in love with Baltar, and to this day hallucinates him as a result, because she thinks the others would destroy her for being defective. The D'anna-copy asks if she will go and see another Cylon who was recently downloaded into a new body, and is still having trouble adapting: ''Galactica''-Sharon, who is also something of a celebrity and war hero for her acts of sabotage and attempted assasintation on Adama. She points out that she even still calls herself "Sharon". She warns that if she cannot be fixed, there is talk of "[[boxing]]" her: putting her consciousness in cold storage and never loading it into a new body again.
*This copy of Number Six is considered a war-hero; she was personally responsible for gaining the information that allowed the near-total sabotage of the Colonial Fleet, and has actually become something of a celebrity to the Cylons. They even refer to her specifically as "'''Caprica-Six'''".
*In a short conversation while walking to ''Galactica''-Sharon's old appartment (which she moved back into), the D'anna-copy quickly lists off the Numbers of several Cylon models: "D'anna Biers" is '''Number Three''', "Aaron Doral" is '''Number Five''', and "Sharon Valerii" is '''Number Eight'''.
*Caprica-Six goes to ''Galactica''-Sharon's appartment, where she proclaims that she doesn't believe in the Cylon God or his "love" and that the only real love she had was with the ''Galactica'' crew. She expresses intense guilt at betraying them. Caprica-Six starts to manipulate her by trying to empathize with her, saying that she loved a man too — Gaius Baltar. Startled, ''Galactica''-Sharon says that Baltar is not dead, but is the new Vice President of the Colonies, on board ''Galactica''.
*Moving their conversation to a cafe on the ground floor of Sharon's appartment, Caprica-Six and Sharon wonder why Number Three never told Caprica-Six that Baltar was alive. Caprica-Six (through conversation with her hallucinated Baltar) realizes that Number Three manipulated her. Sending her to Sharon, and letting her find out that the man she loved was alive, might make her go crazy. Number Three could then use this as an excuse to have them ''both'' boxed.
*Meanwhile, [[Samuel Anders]] and two other members of the human [[Resistance (movement)|resistance]] are planning to plant a bomb in the garage underneath the cafe, and blow it up. They know the Cylons will all just download into other bodies, but Anders points out that from Caprica-Sharon, they know that Cylons remember dying, and it must be horrifically painful — they're going to show them that nowhere is safe, and they should leave Caprica if they want to stop painfully dying and being reborn over and over again.
*Number Three shows up at the cafe, and asks how things are doing. Having realized her plan, Caprica-Six lies and says emphatically that Galactica-Sharon will move out of her appartment and start adapting back to Cylon life. Galactica-Sharon takes the hint and goes along with the lie. Disappointed, Number Three offers to help her move out right now, and they leave the cafe and start going up the stairs to Sharon's appartment.
*The resistance members set up the bomb and all but Anders leave, but just before he can get out a Cylon Centurion starts snooping around, and he can't get back to the exit. It sees the bomb and Anders shoots it then ducks behind a car as the bomb goes off.
*All three Cylons survived the blast, because the stairwell protected them on the higher floor. Caprica-Six is buried under some rubble, and Number Three insists that she is dead and they should leave her (subtly trying to kill her so Three can have her boxed). However, Caprica-Six then moves and asks for help and they uncover her. Her knee is dislocated, and Three again suggests that it would be easier, if Six wants, to just kill her so she'll be reborn. Realizing Three is trying to have her boxed, she insists on not doing that.
*They see someone else moving around under some rubble, and Number Three clears it off only to find that it is Anders. She takes his gun away and prepares to kill him, but Galactica-Sharon protests. Caprica-Six agrees, but to avoid suspicion from Number Three, claims pragmatically that they shouldn't kill him to he can be interrogated. Sharon sees that he has Starbuck's dogtags, and Number Three explains that she was on the planet a few weeks ago. Sharon realizes he's someone important to her.
*Number Three cruelly toys with Anders, putting his gun on the ground and daring him to take it. Sharon tells her to stop, and Number Three retorts that Sharon is a broken machine that thinks she's human, but she's not. Sharon says that at least she has a conscience, and Number Three says she's a murderer. Caprica-Six realizes that's exactly what the Cylons have been doing: murder and the [[Fall of the Twelve Colonies|genocide of the human race]] cannot be the [[Cylon Religion|path of their loving God]].
*Caprica-Six realizes why Number Three wanted her and ''Galactica''-Sharon boxed: they are celebrities in a culture based on unity. Three realized that based on their love of two human beings, they have different perspective on the War, and due to their celebrity status as Cylon heros they could actually cause a change in the way many other Cylons think about their conflict with the humans, upsetting the ''status quo'' which Number Three upholds.
*Number Three says they've been corrupted by their experiences, and are a waste. Caprica-Six explains to Sharon that that is why Three wanted to get rid of them: because both of them now know the murder, vengeance, and genocide are sins in the eyes of God, and Sharon realizes that letting them tell the other Cylons this would make them all consider that the slaughter of mankind was a mistake.
*The rubble of the building shifts as Cylons outside are trying to clear their way to the survivors inside, and Anders makes a run for it and grabs his gun, shooting at Number Three before Galactica-Sharon knocks the gun out of his hands... which then lands near Number Three, who takes the gun. She stands up and just as Number Three is about to execute Anders, Caprica-Six hits her over the head with a large rock of stone from the rubble, then bashes it into her head again, killing her.
*Caprica-Six tells Anders to leave, and gives him back Starbuck's dogtags. Galactica-Sharon gives him back his gun as he leaves. Six realizes that with all of the Cylons dead in the cafe, it should be at least 36 hours before Number Three gets resurrected and tells the others what happened.
*Caprica-Six tells Galactica-Sharon that this is enough time to start changing things, start a new beginning for the Cylons: A way to live in God's love, without hate or lies. Together, these two Heroes of the Cylons can show them the way. Sharon says that she is with her, and they are dug out of the ruins of the building.

===On ''Galactica''===
*[[Sharon Valerii (Caprica copy)|Caprica-Sharon]] has gone into labor; she passed out and her placenta detatched, and Dr. [[Cottle]] delivers the baby by C-section. It is premature and its lungs aren't fully developed as a result, so it has to be put in an oxygen-incubator. As Caprica-Sharon predicted, it is a girl. Helo and Caprica-Sharon adore it together, and name her "[[Hera]]".
*Meanwhile, President [[Roslin]], [[Baltar]], [[William Adama|Admiral Adama]], and Col. [[Saul Tigh|Tigh]] debate what to do with it. Baltar points out that it is half-human. Adama realizes the Cylons want it, and that the Cylons still hiding in the Fleet will try to make a move for it if they know about it.
*President Roslin has decided to hide Hera to protect her, so she has Cottle convice Helo and Caprica-Sharon that their baby has died (using a fake). Caprica-Sharon goes into hysterics and nearly chokes Cottle before breaking down, sobbing.
*In fact, Roslin has given her to a woman named [[Maya]], who lost her baby in the Cylon attack. Maya adopts Hera, thinking she is a normal human child from a Pegasus officer.
*Helo, helped by Chief Tyrol, spreads the "ashes" of Hera (actually faked) out the back of a Raptor into open space.
*Number Six is devastated that Baltar "let" this happen and could not protect "their baby", though he says he did all he could. Number Six says that God's will was that Hera survive, that God's will was that "she would lead the next generation of God's children". In a rage, she says that Gaius has commited a sin, and his entire race will suffer God's vengeance.

== Questions ==
*What will D'anna do when she is re-embodied?
*Who is Number One?
*Based on reports of Lucy Lawless being asked if she wanted to "be God" and her current command behavior, could Number Three be based on a Count Iblis type character?
**No. Number Three is a just a physical Cylon which will ''claim'' to be a God, Count Iblis was actually a God (God-like being).
**Ron D. Moore has also stated in [[Iblis#In the Re-Imagined Series|interviews]] that he does not intend to bring a Count Iblis character onto the Re-Imagined Series.
* What model numbers are "[[Simon]]" and "[[Leoben Conoy]]" ?
**Based on the assumption that model number corresponds with age, Leoben Conoy — whose age is close to that of D'anna Biers — is probably number 2 or number 4, while Simon is likely either number 4 or number 7.
* Based on information mentioned in the Analysis, could the Cylons be patterning a [[Wikipedia: gerontocracy|gerontocratic]] form of leadship structure?
*Given that Baltar's home was destroyed and Caprica-Six "died" in a nuclear explosion, how did Baltar survive?
**In the [[Miniseries]] novelization, this is expanded upon; his house wasn't entirely destroyed (that is, not reduced to pebbles) and when Caprica-Six blocked the blast with her body it shielded him enough; he was thrown through the house against a wall and slightly hurt but did not die. (Note that novelizations are not typically considered [[canon]]ical.)
* This episode raises new questions about the nature of Baltar-Six. Is she (merely) a projection from Baltar's subconscious mind or has she somehow been implanted into his psyche by the Cylons? It has already been established by the brainscan performed by Dr. Cottle that there is no cybernetic implant in Baltar's brain, at least none that is detectable by human technology. Also, in Ron Moore's podcast he seems to indicate that she is no more than a hallucination, produced by Baltar's subconsciousness. Her actions, however, do seem to be aimed at advancing a Cylon agenda.
**Is it possible that in shielding Baltar from that blast, parts of each other's consciousness got imprinted on one another? That would not show in a scan, and would help explain why she has an imaginary Baltar.
* Does death hold any meaning to the Cylon's? If they can just be reborn then perhaps they don't truely understand murder and genocide?

== Analysis ==
*Apparently the documentary broadcast from [[the Fleet]] in "[[Final Cut]]" was not made widely available, since if Caprica-Six had seen it, she would have already known about Baltar's survival.
*In the scene where ''Galactica''-Sharon is downloaded into her new body, when another Sharon smiles and says "we love you Sharon", this mirrors how another Sharon said the same thing to her on the basestar in "[[Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II]]", at which point she also freaked out.
*There does not appear to be any pattern to the numbering scheme of the 12 Cylon models: Three (D'anna), Five (Doral), Six (Shelley Godfrey/Gina), Eight (Sharon), i.e. not all females are an even number, males an odd number.
**However, these models do seem to get progressively younger the higher (perhaps, "most recent") their Number is: Three is eldest and has the number closest to one, while Eight is youngest and has the highest number out of these four. The older models also tend to have more authority.
*Cylon society on Caprica appears to consist of mostly mimicking human behavior — clothing, apartments, cafe's, parks for relaxation, etc. In essence, the Cylons are merely trying to be what they have just exterminated — humans.
**They have established previously that they consider humans to be more "real" and closer to God than they are ("this form brings us closer to God..."); they think that humans are more "real" and that if they wish to be real, they should adopt ''some'' aspects of what humanity is, but this doesn't necessarily stop them from being quite different from humanity.
*Cylons appear to lead asexual lives — no Cylon "couples" were observed, or even any obvious signs of friendship between Cylons. While frequently talking about, and concerned with, love, Cylons are celibate except when interacting with humans.
*As Caprica-Six and ''Galactica''-Sharon pointed out, the Cylons' claim that they are superior to humans because humans still kill because of greed and jealousy, etc. is hypocritical. They point out the logical disconect of conducting genocide and murder in the name of an all-loving God. Further, Number Three's plan to "box" Caprica-Six and ''Galactica''-Sharon, which would ''in effect'' be murdering them, also makes her a murderer like the humans she claims to be better than.
*At various points in the series, Baltar's internal Number Six has been seen manipulating physical objects: a test-tube in "[[Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down]]", a chair in "[[Home, Part II]]", etc., which has led to the question of whether this is a continuity error, or if she is more real than she claims to be. In this episode, we seem to get an answer to this: Caprica-Six's hallucinatory Baltar makes a drink while in ''Galactica''-Boomer's appartment and hands it to her...only for the camera to shift angles, the hallucination-Baltar to be gone, and to show that Caprica-Six is actually grasping at air. Thus it can be inferred that this is just a stylistic choice by the production team: whenever Number Six ''appears'' to be manipulating a physical object on ''Galactica'', Baltar is hallucinating that she is doing this, and the camera is showing things that aren't "really" happening, from Baltar's perspective.
*The Cylons did not expect their initial attack to be anywhere near as successful as it was. This would explain the apparently large number of Cylon military vessels showing up everywhere as the Cylons expected to fight a more protracted war against a larger surviving human military force.
**That the Cylons felt it so necessary to sabotage the Colonial Fleet through Caprica-Six implies that they felt attacking without that advantage would have at best cost them many ships, and at worst resulted in defeat. The placing of the backdoor in the [[CNP]] was high risk; if the Colonials had discovered it before the Cylons attacked, they would have been forewarned of the coming assault, and could even have surprised the Cylons by acting as if they were unaware of the problem while secretly disabling the backdoor on all military spacecraft.
*Hera's being hidden away soon after her birth in order to protect her fits her messiah-status, as other messiah figures have often also been hidden after their birth in similar fashion, such as [[Wikipedia:Jesus|Jesus]], [[Wikipedia:Moses|Moses]], [[Wikipedia:Harry Potter|Harry Potter]], [[Wikipedia:Superman|Superman]], [[Wikipedia:Aragorn|Aragorn]], [[Wikipedia:Luke Skywalker|Luke Skywalker]], etc.
**This is also a common theme with tragic characters such as [[Wikipedia:Oedipus|Oedipus Rex]].
*It's strange that Roslin included Colonel Saul Tigh in the conversation about Hera's fate, but not Commander Lee Adama, who now outranks him.
**It is likely that Commander Lee Adama was busy adjusting to his duties as the new CO of ''Pegasus'' and was briefed seperately.
*"At least forty" humano-Cylons were killed in the cafe bombing. When Three was killed by Caprica-Six, she said it would take "at least 36 hours" for Three's consciousness to be downloaded to a new body. This implies perhaps a sequential (as opposed to parallel) processing of the download process. Why can't they handle more at the same time? Is it a technical limitation, or perhaps a religious one (i.e. they always try to treat the process with reverence)? That seems kind of inefficient though. In any case, it appears to take a little less than an hour per download assuming sequential downloading.

== Notes ==
*Anders refers to humanoid Cylons as "Skin Jobs" in this episode, another referrence to [[Wikipedia:Blade_Runner|Blade Runner]] by the Re-Imagined Series. The Cylon Centurions are being referred to as "Bullet Heads".
*The vision of [[Number Six]] that Baltar sees all the time is ''not'' the same person as the woman he was sleeping with on Caprica who used him to lower Colonial defenses: [[Caprica-Six]]'s consciousness was downloaded into a new body. Chip-Six might be a duplicate, or something else.
*[[Lee Adama]] is visible in a photograph in [[Sharon Valerii (Galactica copy)]]'s apartment in [[Delphi]]. However, Adama and Valerii had never served together prior to the events of the [[miniseries]]. This is probably a continuity error.
*Apollo and Starbuck do not appear in this episode. This is the first episode that Apollo has never appeared in, and the third episode of the season in which Starbuck has not appeared (after "[[Fragged]]" and "[[Black Market]]").
**As of this episode, the only characters that have appeared in every episode of the Re-Imagined Series are President [[Laura Roslin]], Admiral [[William Adama]], and Colonel [[Saul Tigh]]. Michael Hogan (Col. Tigh) is actually not one of the seven "regular" cast members, but he has still been in every episode to date.
*Ricky Worthy (Cylon "[[Simon]]") and Callum Keith Rennie (Cylon "[[Leoben Conoy]]") do not actually appear in this episode. In several brief shots, body doubles dressed as their characters are seen from behind or in the distance, but these actors did not return for the episode.
*We learn a lot of Cylon names in this episode: out of the 12 [[Cylon agent|humanoid models]] of Cylon, besides the already-known "[[Number Six]]", the one who posed as human reporter "[[D'anna Biers]]" is model '''Number Three''', the one who posed as PR representative "[[Aaron Doral]]" is model '''Number Five''', and the one who infiltrated ''Galactica'' posing as the pilot "Sharon 'Boomer' Valerii" is model '''Number Eight'''.
*A longstanding question has been answered: What do the Cylons call each other amongst themselves? They actually don't use the names of any human personas they might have infiltrated the Colonies with. "Number Six" is actually called "Number Six" in dialog for the first time in this episode (in the [[Miniseries]], we were left with the cryptic "There are twelve models, I am number six"). It is revealed that Cylons just call and think of themselves as "Number Three" or "Three", etc. It was speculated that individual copies might be distinguished by using a serial number or other ID, but apparently Cylon society is based so much on the idea of unity and lack of individuality that they simply ''do not have'' designations for individual units. When Number Three refers to ''Galactica''-Sharon, she just refers to her as "an Eight", etc. "Caprica-Six" is a makeshift nickname that was made up for the individual "celebrity" Number Six (probably because the Cylons had never developed a formal convention for naming individual units). Caprica-Six is sometimes called "Caprica" for short.
*This gets a little confusing, because even though all of the Number Six copies on Caprica look and dress identically, copies that Caprica-Six walks by still recognize who she is.
*"Caprica-Six" appears to be a take on the ''ad hoc'' naming convention developed by fans for telling the different Cylon copies appart: review sites and messageboards over time started distinguishing the copy of Boomer on ''Galactica'' and the copy of Boomer on Caprica as "''Galactica''-Sharon" and "Caprica-Sharon" for convenience. This loosley developed system then spread to other Cylons as they appeared ("[[Gina|''Pegasus''-Six]]", "Caprica-Doral", "Caprica-D'anna", etc.), though it isn't based on any official material (''BattlestarWiki'' eventually adopted these terms of convenience as well). When Number Three remarks to "Caprica-Six" that her nickname is a little funny, because she's only one of hundreds of copies of "Number Six" on Caprica, this might be a small joke by the writers at the expense of fans.
*Sharon showed difficulty in performing chin ups, but later showed no problem in moving pieces of concrete weighing at least 100 pounds.
**She could have just been angry, and not actually appearing strained because it was physically hard.
**One of the consistent features of both ''Galactica''-Sharon and Caprica-Sharon has been the conflict between her "natural" Cylon Number Eight personality and her human Sharon personality. While probably intended that the two personalities should remain separate, with the Number Eight personality primary, it never worked out that way. In "[[Water]]", for example, Sharon reasserts herself before Number Eight can finish planting the charges. At this point, both ''Galactica''-Sharon/Eight and Caprica-Sharon/Eight have their personalities all jumbled up, with the Sharon personality exerting the stronger influence but retaining knowledge of being a Cylon and being Number Eight. Anyway: the Sharon "code" would have to include imposed limitations on what she believes her own strength and physical abilities to be, or she'd be found out much, much more easily. Inconsistencies in her apparent physical abilities can therefore be explained along with inconsistencies of her mixed but not really integrated personalities.
*Number Three appears to have some command functions based on her actions and behavior. These apparently include determining final disposition of other Cylon personalities.
*Lucy Lawless once again uses her native New Zealand accent for [[D'anna Biers]], even though at the end of "[[Final Cut#notes|Final Cut]]" it was implied that her character normally doesn't.
*Galactica-Sharon's old apartment number on Caprica was "502"
*Much of the dialog in the episode recap is entirely new, and dubbed in to better summarize the segment.
*According to RDM's podcast, there was an entire subplot in this episode in which Lucy Lawless's character "D'anna Biers" would interview President Roslin about rumors that the pregnant Cylon prisoner's baby had been born. Then "''Galactica''-Three" would try to kidnap the baby off of ''Galactica'' in collusion with [[Gina]] (''Pegasus''-Six). The subplot was cut for time (they wanted to spend more time focusing on events on Caprica), and also because they felt it made the episode very confusing; cutting between many different Cylon copies both on Caprica and ''Galactica''. These scenes apparently ''were'' filmed, then cut, because promotional photos for this episode show pictures of D'anna Biers on Galactica (with her new hairstyle), so it will probably appear in deleted scenes released in the next DVD set.
*Sharon has a pair of hand carved, wood or stone, decorative elephants in her apartment. Caprica-Six asks her if they are from "[[Ithaca]]", which on Earth is an island off the coast of Greece and is the home of Odysseus in Homer's [[Wikipedia:Odyssey|Odyssey]]. She states that they were a gift from her mother for her graduation.
**''Galactica-Sharon said that her mother gave her the carved elephant statues when she left for fleet academy: this directly contradicts her statement in the [[Miniseries]] that her parents died (in the [[Troy]] mining colony accident) when she was little. Of course, either way none of it really happened.
***''The "mother" could be an adoptive parent who gave Sharon the gift.''
*[[Caprica-Six]] assumed residence on Caprica two years prior to the cylon attack, which matches both the beginning of her relationship with Baltar ([[Miniseries]]) and the date that [[Sharon Valerii (Galactica copy)]] was assigned to ''[[Galactica (RDM)|Galactica]]'' ([[The Farm]]).
*There are three cars in the underground garage. One clearly visible is a Citroën DS. When the Cylon enters the garage, the car on the right appears to be a Rover P6. The car on the left with a central headlamp appears to be a 1950s Citroën prototype.

== Noteworthy Dialogue ==

*''Caprica-Sharon has gone into premature labor with her Hybrid baby:''
:'''Cottle:''' I find it absolutely amazing you people went to all the trouble to appear human, and didn't upgrade the plumbing.

*''"Caprica-Six" and a [[Number Three]]-copy walk past a crowd of other Cylons of various models, and they all keep turning their heads to look at Caprica-Six:''
:'''Caprica-Six:''' I still can't get used to this.
:'''Three:''' Well you're a Hero of the Cylon now. You're our first celebrity!
:'''Caprica-Six:''' Oh, I'm just another Six.
:'''Three:''' You're too modest. I'm just another Three... and they're Fives (''motions at a Doral-model'')... and Eights (''motions at a Sharon-model''). But you, everyone calls you "Caprica-Six"... like you're the only Six on the planet!

*''President Roslin, Baltar, Admiral Adama and Col. Tigh discuss what to do with the Hybrid baby:''
:'''Roslin:''' If [[Hera|the baby]] does survive, the question is — what do we do with it?
:'''Baltar:''' Do? What are you suggesting? That we throw it out of an airlock?
:'''Roslin:''' I don't make suggestions Mr. Baltar, if I want to toss a baby out of an airlock, I'd say so.

*''[[Number Three]] prepares to execute [[Samuel Anders]]:''
:'''Three:''' Humans don't respect life the way we do. ''[loads pistol]''

*''Anders' gun is knocked out of his hands, and it miraculously lands near Number Three, who picks it up, stands over Anders and gets ready to execute him:''
:'''Number Three''': God loves me. (''Caprica-Six pops up behind Number Three and bashes her over the head with a big rock of debris'')
:'''Caprica-Six''': See you again soon! (''Caprica-Six bashes her head with the rock a second time, killing her current body, while her consciousness will soon download into another'')

== Official Statements ==
*David Eick's video blog shows the crew preparation for filming a Cylon rebirthing scene, most likely for this episode.

== Statistics ==

=== Guest Stars ===
*[[Lucy Lawless]] as [[D'anna Biers]]
*[http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0722413/ Donnelly Rhodes] as Dr. [[Cottle]]
*Kerry Norton as Paramedic [[Layne Ishay]]
*[[Matthew Bennett]] as [[Aaron Doral]]
*[[Michael Trucco]] as [[Samuel Anders]]
*Rekha Sharma as [[Tory Foster]]
*Alisen Down as Jean Barclay
*Erica Cerra as [[Maya]]
*Diego Diablo Del Mar as Hillard

{{Episode List}}

[[Category: A to Z]]
[[Category: RDM]]
[[Category:Episodes written by Bradley Thompson]]
[[Category:Episodes written by David Weddle]]
[[Category:Episodes directed by Jeff Woolnough]]

Downloaded

2006-02-26T15:31:28Z

Msimone: /* Questions */

{{Episode Data|
Image = [[Image:Cylon_resurrection.jpg|300px]]
| Title= Downloaded
| Series= [[Battlestar Galactica (RDM)|The Re-imagined Series]]
| Season= [[Season 2 (2005-06)|2]]
| Episode= 18
| Guests= [[Lucy Lawless]] ([[D'anna Biers]])
| Writer= [[Bradley Thompson]] and [[David Weddle]]
| Story=
| Director=[[IMDB:nm0941276|Jeff Woolnough]]
| Production=
| Rating=
| US Airdate= 24 February 2006
| UK Airdate=
| DVD=
| Population=
| Prev= [[The Captain's Hand]]
| Next= [[Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I]]
}}

== Overview ==
: ''[[Cylons (RDM)|Cylon]] society is revealed when a [[Sharon Valerii (Galactica copy)|Cylon's consciousness]] is downloaded into a new body following her death. The conquerors of occupied [[Caprica]] hail two "heroes of the Cylon," who both resist their new celebrity.''

== Summary ==

===On Caprica===
*Episode begins with a flashback to "Nine months ago - Caprica" showing Baltar's house being destroyed in the [[Miniseries]]. The copy of Number Six who had a relationship dies...and then we follow from her point of view as her consciousness is downloaded and reborn into another body in a Cylon rebirthing vat. She fell so deeply in love with Gaius Baltar that ''she'' starts having hallucinations of ''Baltar'', because the emotional impact of falling in love affected her so much. We then cut to "Ten weeks ago" on ''Galactica'' when [[Cally]] shoots [[Sharon Valerii (Galactica copy)|Galactica-Sharon]]...and follow from her point of view as she is downloaded (no doubt aided by the [[Resurrection Ship]] at the time) and wakes up totally disoriented in a new body in another rebirthing vat. A copy of the same model of Cylon known to humans as [[D'anna Biers]] tells her she'll be fine, but upon seeing another Sharon-model, Galactica-Sharon starts screaming uncontrollably.
*On Caprica in the present day, the Cylons are rebuilding [[Delphi]] for their own use, even making gardens. A D'anna-copy sits down to talk with the Number Six copy that seduced Baltar. She has never told anyone that she fell truly in love with Baltar, and to this day hallucinates him as a result, because she thinks the others would destroy her for being defective. The D'anna-copy asks if she will go and see another Cylon who was recently downloaded into a new body, and is still having trouble adapting: ''Galactica''-Sharon, who is also something of a celebrity and war hero for her acts of sabotage and attempted assasintation on Adama. She points out that she even still calls herself "Sharon". She warns that if she cannot be fixed, there is talk of "[[boxing]]" her: putting her consciousness in cold storage and never loading it into a new body again.
*This copy of Number Six is considered a war-hero; she was personally responsible for gaining the information that allowed the near-total sabotage of the Colonial Fleet, and has actually become something of a celebrity to the Cylons. They even refer to her specifically as "'''Caprica-Six'''".
*In a short conversation while walking to ''Galactica''-Sharon's old appartment (which she moved back into), the D'anna-copy quickly lists off the Numbers of several Cylon models: "D'anna Biers" is '''Number Three''', "Aaron Doral" is '''Number Five''', and "Sharon Valerii" is '''Number Eight'''.
*Caprica-Six goes to ''Galactica''-Sharon's appartment, where she proclaims that she doesn't believe in the Cylon God or his "love" and that the only real love she had was with the ''Galactica'' crew. She expresses intense guilt at betraying them. Caprica-Six starts to manipulate her by trying to empathize with her, saying that she loved a man too: Gaius Baltar. Startled, ''Galactica''-Sharon says that Baltar is not dead, but is the new Vice President of the Colonies, on board ''Galactica''.
*Moving their conversation to a cafe on the ground floor of Sharon's appartment, Caprica-Six and Sharon wonder why Number Three never told Caprica-Six that Baltar was alive. Caprica-Six (through conversation with her hallucinated Baltar) realizes that Number Three manipulated her. Sending her to Sharon, and letting her find out that the man she loved was alive, might make her go crazy. Number Three could then use this as an excuse to have them ''both'' boxed.
*Meanwhile, [[Samuel Anders]] and two other members of the human [[Resistance (movement)|resistance]] are planning to plant a bomb in the garage underneath the cafe, and blow it up. They know the Cylons will all just download into other bodies, but Anders points out that from Caprica-Sharon, they know that Cylons remember dying, and it must be horrifically painful: they're going to show them that nowhere is safe, and they should leave Caprica if they want to stop painfully dying and being reborn over and over again.
*Number Three shows up at the cafe, and asks how things are doing. Having realized her plan, Caprica-Six lies and says emphatically that Galactica-Sharon will move out of her appartment and start adapting back to Cylon life. Galactica-Sharon takes the hint and goes along with the lie. Disappointed, Number Three offers to help her move out right now, and they leave the cafe and start going up the stairs to Sharon's appartment.
*The resistance members set up the bomb and all but Anders leave, but just before he can get out a Cylon Centurion starts snooping around, and he can't get back to the exit. It sees the bomb and Anders shoots it then ducks behind a car as the bomb goes off.
*All three Cylons survived the blast, because the stairwell protected them on the higher floor. Caprica-Six is buried under some rubble, and Number Three insists that she is dead and they should leave her (subtly trying to kill her so Three can have her boxed). However, Caprica-Six then moves and asks for help and they uncover her. Her knee is dislocated, and Three again suggests that it would be easier, if Six wants, to just kill her so she'll be reborn. Realizing Three is trying to have her boxed, she insists on not doing that.
*They see someone else moving around under some rubble, and Number Three clears it off only to find that it is Anders. She takes his gun away and prepares to kill him, but Galactica-Sharon protests. Caprica-Six agrees, but to avoid suspicion from Number Three, claims pragmatically that they shouldn't kill him to he can be interrogated. Sharon sees that he has Starbuck's dogtags, and Number Three explains that she was on the planet a few weeks ago. Sharon realizes he's someone important to her.
*Number Three cruelly toys with Anders, putting his gun on the ground and daring him to take it. Sharon tells her to stop, and Number Three retorts that Sharon is a broken machine that thinks she's human, but she's not. Sharon says that at least she has a conscience, and Number Three says she's a murderer. Caprica-Six realizes that's exactly what the Cylons have been doing: murder and the [[Fall of the Twelve Colonies|genocide of the human race]] cannot be the [[Cylon Religion|path of their loving God]].
*Caprica-Six realizes why Number Three wanted her and ''Galactica''-Sharon boxed: they are celebrities in a culture based on unity. Three realized that based on their love of two human beings, they have different perspective on the War, and due to their celebrity status as Cylon heros they could actually cause a change in the way many other Cylons think about their conflict with the humans, upsetting the ''status quo'' which Number Three upholds.
*Number Three says they've been corrupted by their experiences, and are a waste. Caprica-Six explains to Sharon that that is why Three wanted to get rid of them: because both of them now know the murder, vengeance, and genocide are sins in the eyes of God, and Sharon realizes that letting them tell the other Cylons this would make them all consider that the slaughter of mankind was a mistake.
*The rubble of the building shifts as Cylons outside are trying to clear their way to the survivors inside, and Anders makes a run for it and grabs his gun, shooting at Number Three before Galactica-Sharon knocks the gun out of his hands...which then lands near Number Three, who takes the gun. She stands up and just as Number Three is about to execute Anders, Caprica-Six hits her over the head with a large rock of stone from the rubble, then bashes it into her head again, killing her.
*Caprica-Six tells Anders to leave, and gives him back Starbuck's dogtags. Galactica-Sharon gives him back his gun as he leaves. Six realizes that with all of the Cylons dead in the cafe, it should be at least 36 hours before Number Three gets resurrected and tells the others what happened.
*Caprica-Six tells Galactica-Sharon that this is enough time to start changing things, start a new beginning for the Cylons: A way to live in God's love, without hate or lies. Together, these two Heroes of the Cylons can show them the way. Sharon says that she is with her, and they are dug out of the ruins of the building.

===On ''Galactica''===
*[[Sharon Valerii (Caprica copy)|Caprica-Sharon]] has gone into labor; she passed out and her placenta detatched, and Dr. [[Cottle]] delivers the baby by C-section. It is premature and its lungs aren't fully developed as a result, so it has to be put in an oxygen-incubator. As Caprica-Sharon predicted, it is a girl. Helo and Caprica-Sharon adore it together, and name her "[[Hera]]".
*Meanwhile, President [[Roslin]], [[Baltar]], [[William Adama|Admiral Adama]], and Col. [[Saul Tigh|Tigh]] debate what to do with it. Baltar points out that it is half-human. Adama realizes the Cylons want it, and that the Cylons still hiding in the Fleet will try to make a move for it if they know about it.
*President Roslin has decided to hide Hera to protect her, so she has Cottle convice Helo and Caprica-Sharon that their baby has died (using a fake). Caprica-Sharon goes into hysterics and nearly chokes Cottle before breaking down, sobbing.
*In fact, Roslin has given her to a woman named [[Maya]], who lost her baby in the Cylon attack. Maya adopts Hera, thinking she is a normal human child from a Pegasus officer.
*Helo, helped by Chief Tyrol, spreads the "ashes" of Hera (actually faked) out the back of a Raptor into open space.
*Number Six is devastated that Baltar "let" this happen and could not protect "their baby", though he says he did all he could. Number Six says that God's will was that Hera survive, that God's will was that "she would lead the next generation of God's children". In a rage, she says that Gaius has commited a sin, and his entire race will suffer God's vengeance.

== Questions ==
*What will D'anna do when she is re-embodied?
*Who is Number One?
*Based on reports of Lucy Lawless being asked if she wanted to "be God" and her current command behavior, could Number Three be based on a Count Iblis type character?
**No. Number Three is a just a physical Cylon which will ''claim'' to be a God, Count Iblis was actually a God (God-like being).
**Ron D. Moore has also stated in [[Iblis#In the Re-Imagined Series|interviews]] that he does not intend to bring a Count Iblis character onto the Re-Imagined Series.
* What model numbers are "[[Simon]]" and "[[Leoben Conoy]]" ?
**Based on the assumption that model number corresponds with age, Leoben Conoy—whose age is close to that of D'anna Biers—is probably number 2 or number 4, while Simon is likely either number 4 or number 7.
* Based on information mentioned in the Analysis, could the Cylons be patterning a [[Wikipedia: gerontocracy|gerontocratic]] form of leadship structure?
*Given that Baltar's home was destroyed and Caprica-Six "died" in a nuclear explosion, how did Baltar survive?
**In the [[Miniseries]] novelization, this is expanded upon; his house wasn't entirely destroyed (that is, not reduced to pebbles) and when Caprica-Six blocked the blast with her body it shielded him enough; he was thrown through the house against a wall and slightly hurt but did not die. (Note that novelizations are not typically considered [[canon]]ical.)
* This episode raises new questions about the nature of Baltar-Six. Is she (merely) a projection from Baltar's subconscious mind or has she somehow been implanted into his psyche by the Cylons? It has already been established by the brainscan performed by Dr. Cottle that there is no cybernetic implant in Baltar's brain, at least none that is detectable by human technology. Also, in Ron Moore's podcast he seems to indicate that she is no more than a hallucination, produced by Baltar's subconsciousness. Her actions, however, do seem to be aimed at advancing a Cylon agenda.
**Is it possible that in shielding Baltar from that blast, parts of each other's consciousness got imprinted on one another? That would not show in a scan, and would help explain why she has an imaginary Baltar.
* Does death hold any meaning to the Cylon's? If they can just be reborn then perhaps they don't truely understand murder and genocide?

== Analysis ==
*Apparently the documentary broadcast from [[the Fleet]] in "[[Final Cut]]" was not made widely available, since if Caprica-Six had seen it, she would have already known about Baltar's survival.
*In the scene where ''Galactica''-Sharon is downloaded into her new body, when another Sharon smiles and says "we love you Sharon", this mirrors how another Sharon said the same thing to her on the basestar in "[[Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II]]", at which point she also freaked out.
*There does not appear to be any pattern to the numbering scheme of the 12 Cylon models: Three (D'anna), Five (Doral), Six (Shelley Godfrey/Gina), Eight (Sharon), i.e. not all females are an even number, males an odd number.
**However, these models do seem to get progressively younger the higher (perhaps, "most recent") their Number is: Three is eldest and has the number closest to one, while Eight is youngest and has the highest number out of these four. The older models also tend to have more authority.
*Cylon society on Caprica appears to consist of mostly mimicking human behavior - clothing, apartments, cafe's, parks for relaxation, etc. In essence, the Cylons are merely trying to be what they have just exterminated - humans.
**They have established previously that they consider humans to be more "real" and closer to God than they are ("this form brings us closer to God..."); they think that humans are more "real" and that if they wish to be real, they should adopt ''some'' aspects of what humanity is, but this doesn't necessarily stop them from being quite different from humanity.
*Cylons appear to lead asexual lives - no Cylon "couples" were observed, or even any obvious signs of friendship between Cylons. While frequently talking about, and concerned with, love, Cylons are celibate except when interacting with humans.
*As Caprica-Six and ''Galactica''-Sharon pointed out, the Cylons' claim that they are superior to humans because humans still kill because of greed and jealousy, etc. is hypocritical. They point out the logical disconect of conducting genocide and murder in the name of an all-loving God. Further, Number Three's plan to "box" Caprica-Six and ''Galactica''-Sharon, which would ''in effect'' be murdering them, also makes her a murderer like the humans she claims to be better than.
*At various points in the series, Baltar's internal Number Six has been seen manipulating physical objects: a test-tube in "[[Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down]]", a chair in "[[Home, Part II]]", etc., which has led to the question of whether this is a continuity error, or if she is more real than she claims to be. In this episode, we seem to get an answer to this: Caprica-Six's hallucinatory Baltar makes a drink while in ''Galactica''-Boomer's appartment and hands it to her...only for the camera to shift angles, the hallucination-Baltar to be gone, and to show that Caprica-Six is actually grasping at air. Thus it can be inferred that this is just a stylistic choice by the production team: whenever Number Six ''appears'' to be manipulating a physical object on ''Galactica'', Baltar is hallucinating that she is doing this, and the camera is showing things that aren't "really" happening, from Baltar's perspective.
*The Cylons did not expect their initial attack to be anywhere near as successful as it was. This would explain the apparently large number of Cylon military vessels showing up everywhere as the Cylons expected to fight a more protracted war against a larger surviving human military force.
**That the Cylons felt it so necessary to sabotage the Colonial Fleet through Caprica-Six implies that they felt attacking without that advantage would have at best cost them many ships, and at worst resulted in defeat. The placing of the backdoor in the [[CNP]] was high risk; if the Colonials had discovered it before the Cylons attacked, they would have been forewarned of the coming assault, and could even have surprised the Cylons by acting as if they were unaware of the problem while secretly disabling the backdoor on all military spacecraft.
*Hera's being hidden away soon after her birth in order to protect her fits her messiah-status, as other messiah figures have often also been hidden after their birth in similar fashion, such as [[Wikipedia:Jesus|Jesus]], [[Wikipedia:Moses|Moses]], [[Wikipedia:Harry Potter|Harry Potter]], [[Wikipedia:Superman|Superman]], [[Wikipedia:Aragorn|Aragorn]], [[Wikipedia:Luke Skywalker|Luke Skywalker]], etc.
**This is also a common theme with tragic characters such as [[Wikipedia:Oedipus|Oedipus Rex]].
*It's strange that Roslin included Colonel Saul Tigh in the conversation about Hera's fate, but not Commander Lee Adama, who now outranks him.
**It is likely that Commander Lee Adama was busy adjusting to his duties as the new CO of ''Pegasus'' and was briefed seperately.
*"At least forty" humano-Cylons were killed in the cafe bombing. When Three was killed by Caprica-Six, she said it would take "at least 36 hours" for Three's consciousness to be downloaded to a new body. This implies perhaps a sequential (as opposed to parallel) processing of the download process. Why can't they handle more at the same time? Is it a technical limitation, or perhaps a religious one (i.e. they always try to treat the process with reverence)? That seems kind of inefficient though. In any case, it appears to take a little less than an hour per download assuming sequential downloading.

== Notes ==
*Anders refers to humanoid Cylons as "Skin Jobs" in this episode, another referrence to [[Wikipedia:Blade_Runner|Blade Runner]] by the Re-Imagined Series. The Cylon Centurions are being referred to as "Bullet Heads".
*The vision of [[Number Six]] that Baltar sees all the time is ''not'' the same person as the woman he was sleeping with on Caprica who used him to lower Colonial defenses: [[Caprica-Six]]'s consciousness was downloaded into a new body. Chip-Six might be a duplicate, or something else.
*[[Lee Adama]] is visible in a photograph in [[Sharon Valerii (Galactica copy)]]'s apartment in [[Delphi]]. However, Adama and Valerii had never served together prior to the events of the [[miniseries]]. This is probably a continuity error.
*Apollo and Starbuck do not appear in this episode. This is the first episode that Apollo has never appeared in, and the third episode of the season in which Starbuck has not appeared (after "[[Fragged]]" and "[[Black Market]]").
**As of this episode, the only characters that have appeared in every episode of the Re-Imagined Series are President [[Laura Roslin]], Admiral [[William Adama]], and Colonel [[Saul Tigh]]. Michael Hogan (Col. Tigh) is actually not one of the seven "regular" cast members, but he has still been in every episode to date.
*Ricky Worthy (Cylon "[[Simon]]") and Callum Keith Rennie (Cylon "[[Leoben Conoy]]") do not actually appear in this episode. In several brief shots, body doubles dressed as their characters are seen from behind or in the distance, but these actors did not return for the episode.
*We learn a lot of Cylon names in this episode: out of the 12 [[Cylon agent|humanoid models]] of Cylon, besides the already-known "[[Number Six]]", the one who posed as human reporter "[[D'anna Biers]]" is model '''Number Three''', the one who posed as PR representative "[[Aaron Doral]]" is model '''Number Five''', and the one who infiltrated ''Galactica'' posing as the pilot "Sharon 'Boomer' Valerii" is model '''Number Eight'''.
*A longstanding question has been answered: What do the Cylons call each other amongst themselves? They actually don't use the names of any human personas they might have infiltrated the Colonies with. "Number Six" is actually called "Number Six" in dialog for the first time in this episode (in the [[Miniseries]], we were left with the cryptic "There are twelve models, I am number six"). It is revealed that Cylons just call and think of themselves as "Number Three" or "Three", etc. It was speculated that individual copies might be distinguished by using a serial number or other ID, but apparently Cylon society is based so much on the idea of unity and lack of individuality that they simply ''do not have'' designations for individual units. When Number Three refers to ''Galactica''-Sharon, she just refers to her as "an Eight", etc. "Caprica-Six" is a makeshift nickname that was made up for the individual "celebrity" Number Six (probably because the Cylons had never developed a formal convention for naming individual units). Caprica-Six is sometimes called "Caprica" for short.
*This gets a little confusing, because even though all of the Number Six copies on Caprica look and dress identically, copies that Caprica-Six walks by still recognize who she is.
*"Caprica-Six" appears to be a take on the ''ad hoc'' naming convention developed by fans for telling the different Cylon copies appart: review sites and messageboards over time started distinguishing the copy of Boomer on ''Galactica'' and the copy of Boomer on Caprica as "''Galactica''-Sharon" and "Caprica-Sharon" for convenience. This loosley developed system then spread to other Cylons as they appeared ("[[Gina|''Pegasus''-Six]]", "Caprica-Doral", "Caprica-D'anna", etc.), though it isn't based on any official material (''BattlestarWiki'' eventually adopted these terms of convenience as well). When Number Three remarks to "Caprica-Six" that her nickname is a little funny, because she's only one of hundreds of copies of "Number Six" on Caprica, this might be a small joke by the writers at the expense of fans.
*Sharon showed difficulty in performing chin ups, but later showed no problem in moving pieces of concrete weighing at least 100 pounds.
**She could have just been angry, and not actually appearing strained because it was physically hard.
**One of the consistent features of both ''Galactica''-Sharon and Caprica-Sharon has been the conflict between her "natural" Cylon Number Eight personality and her human Sharon personality. While probably intended that the two personalities should remain separate, with the Number Eight personality primary, it never worked out that way. In "[[Water]]", for example, Sharon reasserts herself before Number Eight can finish planting the charges. At this point, both ''Galactica''-Sharon/Eight and Caprica-Sharon/Eight have their personalities all jumbled up, with the Sharon personality exerting the stronger influence but retaining knowledge of being a Cylon and being Number Eight. Anyway: the Sharon "code" would have to include imposed limitations on what she believes her own strength and physical abilities to be, or she'd be found out much, much more easily. Inconsistencies in her apparent physical abilities can therefore be explained along with inconsistencies of her mixed but not really integrated personalities.
*Number Three appears to have some command functions based on her actions and behavior. These apparently include determining final disposition of other Cylon personalities.
*Lucy Lawless once again uses her native New Zealand accent for [[D'anna Biers]], even though at the end of "[[Final Cut#notes|Final Cut]]" it was implied that her character normally doesn't.
*Galactica-Sharon's old apartment number on Caprica was "502"
*Much of the dialog in the episode recap is entirely new, and dubbed in to better summarize the segment.
*According to RDM's podcast, there was an entire subplot in this episode in which Lucy Lawless's character "D'anna Biers" would interview President Roslin about rumors that the pregnant Cylon prisoner's baby had been born. Then "''Galactica''-Three" would try to kidnap the baby off of ''Galactica'' in collusion with [[Gina]] (''Pegasus''-Six). The subplot was cut for time (they wanted to spend more time focusing on events on Caprica), and also because they felt it made the episode very confusing; cutting between many different Cylon copies both on Caprica and ''Galactica''. These scenes apparently ''were'' filmed, then cut, because promotional photos for this episode show pictures of D'anna Biers on Galactica (with her new hairstyle), so it will probably appear in deleted scenes released in the next DVD set.
*Sharon has a pair of hand carved, wood or stone, decorative elephants in her apartment. Caprica-Six asks her if they are from "[[Ithaca]]", which on Earth is an island off the coast of Greece and is the home of Odysseus in Homer's [[Wikipedia:Odyssey|Odyssey]]. She states that they were a gift from her mother for her graduation.
**''Galactica-Sharon said that her mother gave her the carved elephant statues when she left for fleet academy: this directly contradicts her statement in the [[Miniseries]] that her parents died (in the [[Troy]] mining colony accident) when she was little. Of course, either way none of it really happened.
***''The "mother" could be an adoptive parent who gave Sharon the gift.''
*[[Caprica-Six]] assumed residence on Caprica two years prior to the cylon attack, which matches both the beginning of her relationship with Baltar ([[Miniseries]]) and the date that [[Sharon Valerii (Galactica copy)]] was assigned to ''[[Galactica (RDM)|Galactica]]'' ([[The Farm]]).
*There are three cars in the underground garage. One clearly visible is a Citroen DS. When the Cylon enters the garage, the car on the right appears to be a Rover P6. The car on the left with a central headlamp appears to be a 1950s Citroen prototype.

== Noteworthy Dialogue ==

*''Caprica-Sharon has gone into premature labor with her Hybrid baby:''
:'''Cottle:''' I find it absolutely amazing you people went to all the trouble to appear human, and didn't upgrade the plumbing.

*''"Caprica-Six" and a [[Number Three]]-copy walk past a crowd of other Cylons of various models, and they all keep turning their heads to look at Caprica-Six:''
:'''Caprica-Six:''' I still can't get used to this.
:'''Three:''' Well youre a Hero of the Cylon now. You're our first celebrity!
:'''Caprica-Six:''' Oh, I'm just another Six
:'''Three:''' You're too modest. I'm just another Three...and they're Fives (''motions at a Doral-model'')..and Eights (''motions at a Sharon-model''). But you, everyone calls you "Caprica-Six"...like you're the only Six on the planet!

*''President Roslin, Baltar, Admiral Adama and Col. Tigh discuss what to do with the Hybrid baby:''
:'''Roslin:''' If [[Hera|the baby]] does survive, the question is: what do we do with it?
:'''Baltar:''' Do? What are you suggesting? That we throw it out of an airlock?
:'''Roslin:''' I don't make suggestions Mr. Baltar, if I want to toss a baby out of an airlock I'd say so.

*''[[Number Three]] prepares to execute [[Samuel Anders]]:''
:'''Three:''' Humans don't respect life the way we do. ''[loads pistol]''

*''Anders' gun is knocked out of his hands, and it miraculously lands near Number Three, who picks it up, stands over Anders and gets ready to execute him:''
:'''Number Three''': God loves me. (''Caprica-Six pops up behind Number Three and bashes her over the head with a big rock of debris'')
:'''Caprica-Six''': See you again soon! (''Caprica-Six bashes her head with the rock a second time, killing her current body, while her consciousness will soon download into another'')

== Official Statements ==
*David Eick's video blog shows the crew preparation for filming a Cylon rebirthing scene, most likely for this episode.

== Statistics ==

=== Guest Stars ===
*[[Lucy Lawless]] as [[D'anna Biers]]
*[http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0722413/ Donnelly Rhodes] as Dr. [[Cottle]]
*Kerry Norton as Paramedic [[Layne Ishay]]
*[[Matthew Bennett]] as [[Aaron Doral]]
*[[Michael Trucco]] as [[Samuel Anders]]
*Rekha Sharma as [[Tory Foster]]
*Alisen Down as Jean Barclay
*Erica Cerra as [[Maya]]
*Diego Diablo Del Mar as Hillard

{{Episode List}}

[[Category: A to Z]]
[[Category: RDM]]
[[Category:Episodes written by Bradley Thompson]]
[[Category:Episodes written by David Weddle]]
[[Category:Episodes directed by Jeff Woolnough]]

The Captain's Hand

2006-02-19T17:13:46Z

Msimone: /* Summary */

{{Episode Data|
Image = [[Image:Adamas.jpg|300px]]
| Title= The Captain's Hand
| Series= [[Battlestar Galactica (RDM)|The Re-imagined Series]]
| Season= [[Season 2 (2005-06)|2]]
| Episode= 17
| Guests=[[Richard Hatch]] as [[Tom Zarek]]
| Writer=[[IMDB:nm0900599|Jeff Vlaming]]
| Story=
| Director=[[IMDB:nm0590790|Sergio Mimica-Gezzan]]
| Production=
| Rating=
| US Airdate= February 17 2006
| UK Airdate=
| DVD=
| Population= 49,584
| Prev= [[Sacrifice]]
| Next= [[Downloaded]]
}}

== Overview ==

''When two Raptors go missing after a training mission, new ''Pegasus'' commander [[Barry Garner]] challenges Admiral [[William Adama|Adama]]'s orders by sending his battlestar directly into the rescue zone--and a trap.''

== Summary ==
*The episode begins as two [[Raptor|Raptors]] begin a training mission outside [[Pegasus (RDM)|''Pegasus'']], which is near a [[Wikipedia:Binary star system|binary star]], causing [[Dradis|DRADIS]] and communications interference. The Raptors pass through a nebulus cloud, upon which they pick up a transmission. In the ''Pegasus'' C.I.C., the Raptors disappear from DRADIS, the Comm officer believing that they may be in distress.

*On ''[[Galactica]]'', [[Tyrol|Chief Tyrol]] and the deck crew are in the process of unloading containers, when [[Cally]] mentions she heard movement from inside a fallen container. Against waiting for the [[Colonial Marine Corps|Marines]], Tyrol decides to investigate by entering the container. Inside, Tyrol finds a pregnant teenager who asks for [[Cottle|Dr. Cottle]].

*[[Lee Adama]] travels to the [[Mercury class battlestar|battlestar]] ''[[Pegasus (RDM)|Pegasus]]'', where he meets up with [[Kara Thrace]]. Lee has been promoted to '''Major'''. The two encounter Commander [[Barry Garner]], now in command of ''Pegasus'', who orders Kara to the flight deck while he and Lee proceed to [[CIC|C.I.C.]]

*[[Barry Garner|Commander Garner]] and [[Lee Adama|Major Adama]] talk in private about the discipline on [[Pegasus (RDM)|''Pegasus'']]. Garner thinks that [[Kara Thrace|Starbuck]] is a huge part of the problem, but Adama defends her, citing her excellent piloting skills. Garner thinks that the virtues learned in his experience as an engineer would do the ship some good.

*Back on ''Galactica'', Dr. Cottle & Admiral Adama discuss the fate of the young woman found in the container. Admiral Adama speaks to the young girl, [[Rya Kibby]], as to why she is a stowaway. Rya mentions the fact that she doesn't want to keep the baby, but Admiral Adama (upon Rya's parents request) is intent on sending her back to her family. Dr. Cottle suggests that she request asylum aboard ''Galactica'', getting a hard stare from the Admiral. Rya affirms that's what she wants.

*While reviewing the last transmissions from the Raptors, [[Kara Thrace|Starbuck]] makes a startling discovery, in that the reason for the disappearance may be the result of answering a supposed distress call. She attempts to bring this up with Commander Garner, who flatly rejects the theory.

*News of [[Rya Kibby|Rya's]] asylum request has raised a stir amongst the Fleet. On ''Colonial One'', [[Laura Roslin|President Roslin]] discusses the issue with Admiral Adama, [[Tory Foster]] (her new aide following [[Billy_Keikeya|Billy]]'s death), and Delegate [[Sarah_Porter|Sarah Porter]] from Gemenon. Delegate Porter mentions that the abortion is a travesty & demanded the girl be returned to her parents. President Roslin responded by saying the asylum request is under review.

*Over wireless, [[Barry Garner|Commander Garner]], [[Lee Adama|Major Adama]], and [[William Adama|Admiral Adama]] discuss the situation. Commander Garner feels they should jump to the location of the missing Raptors to bring them home. The Admiral asks Lee if he concurrs, in which Lee discusses Starbuck's theory that they were drawn to a Cylon trap. Admiral Adama is inclined to agree with the Major and Starbuck, and orders a recon mission to ascertain the fate of the two raptors. Garner is furious over the decision, and orders Major Adama off the C.I.C.

*Garner decides to make the jump regardless, causing a heated discussion in C.I.C. between him and Lee. By the end of the discussion, Garner asks the Sergant-at-arms to have Major Adama removed from the C.I.C., while the Major asks the same for Garner, relieving him of command. Drawing his weapon, the Sergeant asks for the '''Major''' to leave.

*Raptors are launched from ''Pegasus'' towards the now located raptors. One of the pilots is able to look inside their cockpits, only to find both Raptor crews dead. At that moment, a [[Basestar (RDM)|Basestar]] jumps into view of the pilots. ''Pegasus's'' own DRADIS indicates the arrival of two additional Basestars, which begin attacking ''Pegasus'' with conventional and nuclear missile barrages.

*During the course of the assault, [[Pegasus|''Pegasus's'']] [[FTL]] drive is disabled. Garner attempts to determine the cause from C.I.C., but is unable to do so due to the confusion of the Engineering crew. Major Adama, still being held by the Sergeant-at-arms, suggests that the Sergeant has better things to do and returns to [[Pegasus (RDM)|''Pegasus'']] C.I.C. Commander Garner decides to head down to the engine room to ascertain the damage, and transfers command of [[Pegasus (RDM)|''Pegasus'']] to Major Adama.

*''Pegasus'' manages to jump away, with [[Barry Garner|Garner]] sacrificing himself in the process.

*In [[William Adama|Admiral Adama's]] quarters, he and [[Lee Adama|Major Adama]] review the reports from the incident on ''Pegasus'', pointing out that Lee was more forgiving of the late Commander than Starbuck was. Admiral Adama then asks what Garner's fatal flaw was, and Lee responds by mentioning that Garner was good with machines, but that command is about people. The Admiral asks Lee to keep that in mind, as he offers Lee the job of commanding ''Pegasus'', along with a promotion to Commander. Lee takes a moment, then shakes his father's hand, accepting the promotion.

* [[Gaius Baltar|Gaius Baltar]] proclaims his candidacy for President of the Colonies in the forthcoming Presidential election, hi-jacking a press conference called by [[Laura Roslin|President Roslin]] to announce the criminalization of abortion in the Fleet.

== Questions ==
*Would Adama allow Dr. Cottle to be arrested? From the episode, he is of the opinion that he would do what is necessary.
*Was Baltar's report real, or was it just invented to produce the opportunity to drive his wedge?
**With the constant Cylon attacks to the Fleet (barring the unexpected return of ''Pegasus'') the population is almost always declining, as noted by Admiral Adama.
*Who will replace Baltar as Roslin's Vice President?
**Can Roslin actually pick another Vice President, under Colonial law, if Baltar refuses to resign? One of the reporters at the end actually directly asked if Baltar would remain as Vice President. Perhaps Roslin cannot forcibly remove Baltar from his office just because he's running aginst her.
***If Colonial law works similarly to American political protocol, Baltar was elected in his own right. For example, George Bush cannot force Dick Cheney to resign, only Mr. Cheney himself can elect to resign. Interestingly, 204 years ago, US President John Adams faced a similar situation: His own Vice-President, Thomas Jefferson, plotted Adam's political downfall.
*How will Zarek position himself in the Baltar campaign?
**It is likely that Zarek hopes to become Vice President himself.
***Does Zarek plan to have Baltar killed, as per his plan in "[[Colonial Day]]"?
****Zarek actually seems willing to make a beneficial alliance with Baltar, which Roslin would never agree to.
****Baltar may be a political novice but he's no fool; he would spot that a mile away. In fact, Baltar specifically asks Zarek what he (Zarek) would want in return. Zarek gave a diplomatic answer rather than openly ask for the VP slot.
*Will Tigh accept the fact that Lee Adama now outranks him and has command of a ship? Or does Saul have no interest in command and already told Admiral Adama that before the posting was offered to Lee?
**As mentioned in "[[Scattered]]," Col. Tigh was never really interested in commanding a battlestar.
***Fleet protocols, as in the real-world US Navy and other naval services around the globe, would require Tigh, as the senior officer to take command, as he did when Adama was incapacitated.
****This is true for an intra-ship command structure, but if other qualified officers were available, Col. Tigh probably had the privilege to pass up the command of ''Pegasus,'' citing XO's prerogative (or something similar).
*What will happen to Rya, now that she had been granted asylum on ''Galactica''?
*Why was Lee promoted straight from Major to Commander? Can a Colonel not be placed in command of a battlestar for long-term purposes?
**No. Colonel [[Jack Fisk]] was promoted to Commander of ''Pegasus'' before his death. It appears to be something of a rank nomenclature formality, as Garner was promoted up from being head of engineering. Compare to the [http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Captain established terminology convention] on ''Star Trek'' for always referring to the commanding officer of a ship as "Captain", even if that officer does not hold that specific rank.
***The use of "captain" is done in real life as well. In the US Navy, a person in the command of a vessel is referred to as "Captain" even if his actual rank is Lieutenant Commander, Ensign or even if he/she is a Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO).
*Had Garner been serving as XO to ''Pegasus's''' previous commander, the late [[Jack Fisk]]?
*Does the fact that the Cylons had such a large force waiting to ambush ''Pegasus'' indicate that they have a new [[Resurrection Ship]] in place?
**Given that there were three basestars in wait, it is more likely that the Cylons opted on surprise and sheer numbers to succeed. Still, ''Pegasus'' caused one basestar to retreat, despite being outnumbered. It is likely that the ''lack'' of a Resurrection Ship resulted in the basestar's retreat.
*How does the double layer flight pod system on ''Pegasus'' operate? Just before the battlestar jumps away from the ambush, there is a short sequence of Vipers returning to the ship that shows them landing on two distinct levels of the flight pod, with Vipers landing on the lower level being upside down with respect to ''Pegasus''. Both the Colonials and Cylons obviously have some form of artifical gravity on their spacecraft, so this explains why such an arrangement is possible.
**For more on the use of artificial gravity, see the article, [[Science in the Re-imagined Series]].

== Analysis ==
*When Baltar announces his candidacy for the Presidency, Number Six applauds with a slow clap. This reflects how then-Commander William Adama led the entire crew in a long, drawn-out slow clap in respect of President Roslin when she was re-instated to her office in "[[Home, Part II]]".
*Survivor count is decremented by six from "[[Sacrifice]]", but seven people died in that episode - terrorists [[Sesha Abinell]], [[Vinson]], [[Page]] and [[Chu]], two unnamed marines, and civilian [[Billy Keikeya]]. At least one birth must have taken place to offset the population count between the two episodes.
*Based on the ''[[Colonial One]]'' whiteboard seen toward the end of the episode, only five people died as a result of the ambush on ''Pegasus'': [[Richard Bayer|Richard "Buster" Bayer]], [[Lyla Ellway|Lyla "Shark" Ellway]], the unnamed crew of [[Raptor 314]], and Commander [[Barry Garner]].
**This casualty figure is conspicuously low, considering that ''Galactica'' lost 85 crewmen as the result of a hit by a single nuclear missile in the [[miniseries]], while ''Pegasus'' is hit with no less than three in this episode.
**On the other hand, it is at least consistent with the surprisingly low number of casualties incurred in the [[Battle of the Resurrection Ship]], and may indicate that the hull armor on ''Pegasus'' is significantly stronger than on ''Galactica'', which has many conspicuously bare structural ribs.
*In the course of this episode's timeline, [[Lee Adama]] rises from the rank of Captain (CAG of ''[[Galactica]]'') to Major (No details are given on that posting except Adama was assigned to [[Pegasus (RDM)|''Pegasus'']]), to Commander and CO of [[Pegasus (RDM)|''Pegasus'']] in the wake of Commander [[Barry Garner|Barry Garner's]] death saving his ship.
**Major Adama's duty was intended as a temporary stint as ''Pegasus'' acting XO, to familiarize himself with the duties of a senior officer. In the opening scene, he tells [[Anastasia Dualla]] that he expects to return to ''Galactica'' "in a couple of weeks".
*Garner's decision to mount a rescue operation in contravention of his commanding officer's orders is an explicit parallel to "[[Pegasus (episode)|Pegasus]]", down to the choice of words:
:'''Adama:''' "I'm getting my men."
:'''Garner:''' "I'm going to get our men."
*Two Raptors are lost in the beginning of the episode, but the officers refer to ''four'' missing pilots. This indicates that the ECOs aboard the Raptors are also qualified pilots—although, given that this is a training mission, they may in fact be instructors assigned to coach the pilots in training.

== Notes ==
*Timeline-wise, Baltar says that he made an initial projection of the fleet's population "over seven months ago". This would have been before the arrival of ''Pegasus'', since he said he factored in the arrival of her crew subsequently.
*It has been "almost a month" since Apollo was shot in "[[Sacrifice]]".
*The recap at the beginning of this episode shows a scene we have not yet seen in the series. It is the scene where Admiral Adama says that he is choosing Garner as the new Pegasus Commander, possibly a scene that was cut from "Black Market" and will most likely appear on the next DVD set.
**Actually, this scene is really use of existing footage from "Black Market" when Adama and Tigh are telling Apollo to go to ''Pegasus'' on the hangar deck: the scene has been cleverly redubbed, so that Adama is saying entirely new lines when the camera is pointed at ''Tigh'' (not at Adama's face), and then Tigh says new lines when the camera is pointed at ''Adama'' etc. The following exchange never happened in that episode:
::Adama: "I'm putting Garner in command"
::Tigh: "He's an engineer, not a command officer"
::Adama: "He's the best they've got"
*There is also another case of this redubbing when Baltar is talking to Gina during the "previously" montage: when the camera is pointed at Baltar, we hear [[Gina]] saying "You must betray Roslin and run for President in the upcoming election", but this was never heard in the aired version of "[[Epiphanies]]".
*Col. Tigh does actually appear in this episode, seen very briefly in the ''Galactica'' CIC with no dialog. He also contributes the "Previously on ''Battlestar Galactica''" voiceover, and a few lines of dialogue in the above-mentioned redubbed scene from the recap.
*[[Roslin]] references Shakespeare's ''Merchant of Venice'' when she asks [[Quorum of Twelve|Delegate]] [[Sarah Porter]] if she wants her "pound of flesh". It's unclear if analogues of his work exist in the [[The Twelve Colonies (RDM)|Colonies]].
*[[Mercury class battlestar]]s do not need to retract their flight pods prior to a jump, unlike the [[Galactica type battlestar|Galactica type]].
*The adjectival form of "Gemenon" is "Gemenese".
*Under Gemenese law, minors are the "property" of their parents.
*Capt. [[Cole Taylor|Cole "Stinger" Taylor]] is still onboard ''Pegasus'', mentioned by Capt. Thrace as being in the brig for insubordination.

== Noteworthy Dialogue ==

== Official Statements ==

== Statistics ==

=== Guest Stars ===

*[[IMDB:nm0001334|John Heard]] as Commander [[Barry Garner]]
*[[Richard Hatch]] as [[Tom Zarek]]
*[http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Aaron+Douglas Aaron Douglas] as Chief [[Galen Tyrol]]
*[http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Nicki+Clyne Nicki Clyne] as Specialist [[Cally]]
*[http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0722413/ Donnelly Rhodes] as Dr. [[Cottle]]
*Rekha Sharma as [[Tory Foster]]
*Brad Dryborough as Lieutenant [[Hoshi]]
*Christian Tessier as [[Tucker Clellan|Tucker "Duck" Clellan]]
*Amber Rothwell as [[Rya Kibby]]
*Kavan Smith as Lt. [[Richard Bayer|Richard "Buster" Bayer]]
*[http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2015903/ Stephanie von Pfetten] as Cpt. [[Marcia Case|Marcia "Showboat" Case]]
*[http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Patricia+Idlette Particia Idlette] as [[Sarah Porter]]
*Aaron Pearl as Ensign [[Abel Thornton]]
*Christina Schild as [[Playa Palacios]]
*Tammy Hui as ECO [[Lyla Ellway|Lyla "Shark" Ellway]]
*James Bell as Lt. [[Steve Fleer|Steve "Red Devil" Fleer]]
*Kurt Max Runte as Ensign Charles Bellamy
*Kimani Ray Smith as Pegasus Sergeant

{{Episode List}}

[[Category: A to Z]]
[[Category: RDM]]
[[Category:Episodes written by Jeff Vlaming]]
[[Category:Episodes directed by Sergio Mimica-Gezzan]]

Scar

2006-02-07T01:00:08Z

Msimone: /* Questions */

: ''This article deals with the episode. For information on the ace Cylon Raider, see "[[Scar (Raider)]]"''

{{Episode Data|
Image = [[Image:Scar-Firing.jpg|300px]]
| Title= Scar
| Series= [[Battlestar Galactica (RDM)|The Re-imagined Series]]
| Season= [[Season 2 (2005-06)|2]]
| Episode= 15
| Guests=
| Writer= David Weddle and Bradley Thompson
| Story=
| Director= Michael Nankin
| Production=
| Rating=
| US Airdate=February 3 2006
| UK Airdate=
| DVD=
| Population= 49,593
| Prev= [[Black Market]]
| Next= [[Sacrifice]]
}}




== Overview ==

: ''An ace Cylon Raider, nicknamed "[[Scar (Raider)|Scar]]" by the [[Viper (RDM)|Viper]] pilots, has been causing problems for the Fleet. [[Kara Thrace|Starbuck]] and [[Louanne Katraine|Kat]] compete to hunt it down while Starbuck pines for [[Samuel Anders|"a dead guy"]].''

== Summary ==

* Several [[Viper (RDM)|Viper]] pilots have been killed while guarding the ''[[Majahual]]'', an ore mining ship located on top of metal ore-rich asteroid. The Fleet's goal is to gather sufficient ore there to create two new squadrons of Vipers.
* With the [[Resurrection Ship]] destroyed as well as most of the nearest Cylon fleet, the Cylons are far less brazen in attacks, sending only a few Raiders to harass the mining operation.
* ''Galactica'' stays behind to guard the mining operation with their [[CAP]], while ''[[Pegasus]]'' stays with the civilian fleet at a remote location.
* There is too much debris in the system to use [[DRADIS]] to quickly sight and kill the Raiders. [[Combat Air Patrol]]s are needed instead, using their [[Mark One Eyeball]] to find the Raiders.
* One particular Raider, known as "[[Scar]]" is the cause of the pilot deaths.
* [[Kat]], now a seasoned and very talented pilot, challenges [[Kara Thrace|Starbuck]] over the "Top Gun" beer stein (currently held by Thrace) with the downing of Scar.
* Thrace's depression over the inability to convince Admiral [[William Adama|Adama]] and President [[Laura Roslin|Roslin]] to return to Caprica to rescue [[Samuel Anders]] and his [[resistance (movement)|resistance]] causes her to drink excessively and behave very rashly. To surpress her feelings on the inability to fulfill her promise, Thrace begins to tell herself that Anders is dead.
*Thrace turns to [[Sharon Valerii]] for advice regarding Scar. Valerii explains that Raiders can reincarnate as well, and with the [[Resurrection Ship]] destroyed, Scar will do anything to survive.
*Valerii also mentions that "he probably hates you (Thrace) as much as you hate him", as well as asking "how many of us" ''[sic]'' did Scar kill. In an unguarded moment, Valerii and Thrace reminisce over old times, but when Valerii reaches to touch Thrace in friendship, [[marines]] on guard make it clear that it is not permitted. As a distraught Thrace leaves, Sharon tells her to be careful.
* When a rookie pilot from ''Pegasus'', [[Brent Baxton|BB]], is killed, Kat berates Starbuck for giving him "textbook" advice. Later, Kat berates a hungover Starbuck again for being late to lead her own pilot's briefing as well as assigning [[Joseph Clark|Jo-Jo]] in her place on CAP, which leads to his death at the hands of Scar.
* Thrace and [[Lee Adama]] talk over drinks, when Thrace propositions Adama for a "quick lay." The two pilots attack each other, clothes flying, but Thrace is too aggressive, which turns Adama's desire almost completely off. He asks her what was wrong, and she admits that her feelings for Samuel Anders are very confused. When Adama tells her that its the "living guys" she can't deal with, Thrace is so confused that she slaps Adama, then kisses him for his thoughtfulness in reminding her that he is her friend before she leaves his quarters.
* Starbuck is on patrol with Kat as her wingman when they spot a Raider. Both chase the Raider, but Scar is using that second Raider as a decoy and tries to ambush them from behind.
* Starbuck's instincts tell her to check their "six" (rear), which successfully locates Scar but leaves her Viper with moderate damage when Scar scores hits on her Viper.
*Starbuck leads Scar into a canyon on an asteroid, flips, and flies at Scar on a collision course. Kat shouts at Starbuck to break off as Scar is a machine and won't break off. Starbuck realizes this; she is making a suicide run, as her mind begins to drift out of focus as she thinks of Anders.
* At the last moment, Starbuck breaks off her [[CBDR]] run, and Scar chases her. Starbuck instructs Kat to ambush him from behind while Starbuck lures him into Kat's killzone, in a similar ambush that Scar attempted on them. The ambush is successful, with Kat winning her challenge over Starbuck.
* Starbuck fills the "Top Gun" beer stein for Kat and congratulates her. Then, Starbuck praises the memory of the many pilots lost to Scar and past battles. Admiral Adama and Colonel [[Saul Tigh|Tigh]], both laudable Viper pilots themselves in the [[Cylon War]], attend the celebration. Admiral Adama ends the tribute with "[[So say we all]]."
* Training with Helo in the gym, Starbuck says that she could have killed Scar, but she would have killed herself in the process. Helo tells her that backing off and letting her wingman get the kill was the right thing to do. Helo notes that Starbuck didn't make the suicide run, because she has something to live for now in Anders.

== Questions ==


*Is Scar a reincarnation of the Cylon Raider that Starbuck captures in "[[You Can't Go Home Again]]?"
*The Fleet has obtained enough metal ore to (eventually) construct two new squadrons of Vipers: will they be Mark II's, or Mark VII's?
**It is likely that the ''Pegasus'' production facilities will create Mark VIIs, as the ''Pegasus'' is a more modern battlestar than ''Galactica'' (which does not have these facilities). Since the Mark IIs are outdated models that were only on ''Galactica'' for museum purposes, the blueprints and equipment molds in the production facilities are most likely not set to produce equipment for the older Vipers.
**They may also decide to produce more of the stealth fighters, as they have now seen their combat and surprise capabilities.
*Did Starbuck and Apollo actually have sexual intercourse briefly and then stop, or did they never actually get that far?
*With Thrace serving on ''Galactica'', who is instructing [[nugget]]s on ''Pegasus''?
*If Raiders reincarnate so that Cylon forces can benefit from their learned experience, why don't Centurions? (It was noted that Centurions cannot reincarnate in [http://blog.scifi.com/battlestar/archives/2006/01/#a000114 RDM's January 20 blog entry].)
**The three basic Cylon models represent something of a spectrum of advancement: from their original, purely mechanical form (the Centurions), to the almost-entirely "organic" forms (the humanoid Cylons). The Raiders are described (podcast, "[[Six Degrees of Separation]]") as supposed to be "in the gap" between [[Number Six]] and a Centurion. Centurions cannot resurrect, and they also contain none of the more advanced bio-mechanical technology the Cylons have developed (as demonstrated by destroyed Centurions, etc). Raiders, on the other hand, ''do'' contain "bio-mechanical" technology, albeit not as advanced as that used in the humanoid Cylons. Perhaps the resurrection technology is based on that bio-mechanical "wetware".
**It is possible that Centurions are not reincarnated, as so relatively few were lost in the [[Fall of the Twelve Colonies]], that to reincarnate any lost to resistance attacks may not be cost-effective when compared against the need to have experienced fighters against ''Galactica's'' battlegroup.
*As Apollo was not flying in this episode and is in a supporting role, could the events of "Scar" be taking place concurrently with the events of "[[Black Market]]," given that neither Starbuck or Kat are featured in that episode?
**Based on the population counts or Fleet status, it's not likely that the episode events are running concurrently. In "Black Market," the Fleet is united (else, Apollo could not fly to ''[[Cloud Nine]]'' or the ''[[Prometheus]]''). In "Scar," ''Galactica'' and the ''Majahual'' are in one system while ''Pegasus'' guards the rest of the Fleet in another location.
**As CAG of two battlestars, Apollo need not fly in every mission now with the relatively high levels of existing pilots and new recruits from ''Pegasus'' as well as ''Galactica's'' own pilots. Since Starbuck appears to have returned to her 2nd pilot in command status (acting as CAG in Apollo's absence), she manages some CAG responsibilities on ''Galactica'', such as pilot briefings. Kat appears to brief pilots as well, suggesting she is higher in the pilot command chain than before.

== Analysis ==
*The title "Scar" refers to the "ace" Cylon Raider this episode centers around. While all Cylon Raiders appear visually identical, this particular unit has extensive hull damage, whether from asteroid impacts, scoring from near-misses or other debris, giving it a weathered, craggy look - essentially, "battle scars".
*Many of the pilots Starbuck toasts are minor and recurring characters who have died in previous episodes. In the order she lists them:
**[[Dwight Saunders|Flat Top]] - killed in deck accident in "[[Act of Contrition]]", along with twelve others.
**[[Perry|Chuckles]] - killed in action during the [[Battle for the Tylium Asteroid]] in "[[The Hand of God]]".
**[["Jolly" Anders|Jolly]] - killed in action in the [[Miniseries]], along with nineteen others.
**[[Crashdown]] - shot by Dr. Gaius Baltar in "[[Fragged]]".
**[[Flyboy]] - killed in action by a Cylon Centurion in [[Valley of Darkness]].
**[[Stepchild]] - killed in action during the [[Battle for the Tylium Asteroid]] in "[[The Hand of God]]".
**[[Fireball]] - killed in action during the [[Battle for the Tylium Asteroid]] in "[[The Hand of God]]".
*Among those not mentioned were Capt. [[Jackson Spencer|Jackson "Ripper" Spencer]], KIA in the [[Miniseries]], and [[Karma]], KIA in "[[Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I]]".
**This may be truthfully reflecting Starbuck's earlier comment that she can't remember the names of all of the pilots that have died. This is acknowledged in the podcast.

*During the "previously on Battlestar Galactica" intro, a clip of a scene which has never actually aired before in any episode was played. Judging by Adama's rank insignia, it appears to be from the time when he was still a Commander. In the scene, Starbuck argues to Adama and Roslin that they must mount a rescue operation to save the Caprica Resistance, but Adama and Roslin are in agreement that it is impossible and tell her they can't. What episode this was originally meant for is unknown:
**'''Thrace: '''The Resistance base camp is here (''points at a map'') 300 klicks north of the only Cylon airbase in the area...
**'''Roslin: ''' I respect what you're trying to do here, however...
**'''Thrace: ''' We have a ''duty'' to the people we left behind.
**'''Adama: ''' We understand that.
**'''Thrace: ''' We ''have to'' find a way to Jump back to Caprica, and go get them--
**'''Adama: '''--Kara!
* This episode was the third of the most recent four episodes to begin ''[[Wikipedia:In medias res|in medias res]]'', after [[Resurrection Ship, Part II]] and [[Black Market]]. Though the technique was used well in this episode -- aside from the use of the same endpoint, with Starbuck and Scar charging toward each other, for both acts III and IV -- its apparent prevelance in the series here detracts from the episode. (However, [[RDM|RDM's]] [[podcast]] for "[[Black Market]]" indicates that beginning that episode with Lee's confrontation with [[Phelan]] was not part of the original script and was done as an act of "desperation".)
**This episode's use of the flashbacks, going back and forth between past and current events, resembled "[[Act of Contrition]]" than either of the Season Two episodes mentioned above.
**While the openings of "[[Resurrection Ship, Part II]]" and "[[Black Market]]" were a quick teaser from the end of the episode, jumping back to the beginning (to "hook" the audience), this entire episode was structured around such flashbacks. RDM stated that the flashbacks in the other episodes were done to get the audience's attention, (as stated above, "Black Market" wasn't even supposed to have this). "[[Epiphanies]]" also had flashbacks, but these were not ''in media res'' flashfowards to later events, but straightfoward flashbacks.
*Regular series writers David Weddle and Bradley Thompson seem more responsible than anyone else for expanding the minor pilot characters as the series has progressed. They wrote "[[Act of Contrition]]", in which the nuggets were introduced, then "[[The Hand of God]]", which was the second time they all appeared (and when Chuckles died). Kat and Hot Dog then reappeared in "Scattered" and "Valley of Darkness", which Weddle and Thompson also wrote. The character of Kat received more development since "Flight of the Phoenix", the writers' most recent entry before this episode.

== Notes ==

*As most of this episode is told in flashback, the survivor count is a little confusing. The episode begins with Kat and Starbuck's final mission against Scar, then flashes back to 4 days earlier, within the teaser. The survivor count is then shown to be 4 less than last weeks. Does this include the pilots killed by Scar? (because most of what we seen in the episode happens in the "past"?)
**At least three people died onscreen in Black Market (Fisk, Phelan, and Fisk's killer), and there was more than 1 pilot killed by Scar, so presumably the survivor count is for the "96 hours previously" section.
*As the episode begins, mining ship ''[[Majahual]]'' has been conducting operations in a thick asteroid field for 29 days.
*Kat is now qualified to fly Viper Mk. VIIs.
*New nuggets are still being trained and added to the Fleet's ranks. Kat's assertion that "no replacements are coming" in "[[Final Cut]]" appears to no longer be relevant with the arrival of ''Pegasus'' and her resources.
**It was mentioned in "[[Act of Contrition]]" that ''Galactica'' didn't have any flight training simulators and so preferred to train pilots that had prior flight experience. With the arrival of Pegasus it is likely that the fleet now has Viper flight simulators and so pilots can now be trained more easily.
*Nuggets enter the [[Colonial Fleet]] at the rank of Ensign after completing flight training.
*Pilot training apparently takes place on ''Pegasus'', with recruits being assigned to ''Galactica'' afterward.
**This is probably a result of the circumstances imposed by ''Majahual's'' extended mining operation. ''Pegasus'' is outside of the combat zone, guarding the civilians, while Galactica was constantly on guard for attack. Logically, trainee pilots would not be deployed to the combat zone until after they got their wings. Now that they have finished mining and have moved on, training may continue on both.
*Kara Thrace retains the rank of captain, but is now serving as a pilot on ''Galactica'' under CAG Lee Adama.
*The Fleet has found an asteroid containing large supplies of vital metals needed to build completely new Vipers in earnest (instead of making do with what spare parts they have). The Fleet has obtained a large enough supply of metals to create two entire squadrons of Vipers. (It has never been definatively stated how many Vipers are in a "squadron", but based on non-official concept outlines various interviews, it is probably 20.)
**''Pegasus'' has Viper production facilities, one of her more modern capabilities that ''Galactica'' lacks. During the episode, the ''Pegasus'' production team finishes its first combat-ready Viper.
*Anders appears in flashbacks (re-used footage) in this episode.
*[[Gaius Baltar]] and [[Number Six]] do not appear in this episode.
*Chief Tyrol appears very briefly in this episode. Cally is mentioned, but does not appear.
*Lt. [[Gaeta]] and [[Dualla]] appear in this episode, seen in CIC, but have no speaking lines.
*Starbuck and Kat use the word [[frak|motherfrakker]] in this episode, its second use since it was introduced in "[[Valley of Darkness]]"
*In the podcast, it is revealed that a scene was cut of the pilots auctioning off Reilly's possessions, a tradition from the British Navy during the Napoleonic War Era. This auction, RDM explains, was a tribute to the fallen, as well as serving the practical purpose of recycling resources. There would be a shot of Apollo holding up Reilly's "skin" magazine and taking bids, etc. This "skin" magazine can be briefly seen when Starbuck is packing it into a box of Reilly's personal effects. (Its name appears to be "[[Nympho]]".) During the following scene when they're talking about Scar in the pilot's loungeroom ("88 hours ago"), if you look closely in the background, you can see [[Brendan Constanza|Hot Dog]] reading it, presumably having won the auction.
*Lee Adama doesn't fly in this episode, and is never seen in a flight suit. A lot of the day-to-day work of being the CAG, such as assigning and briefing pilots, falls to Starbuck.

== Noteworthy Dialogue ==
*''Drinking heavily late at night, Apollo and Starbuck commiserate over all of the pilots that have died:''
:'''Apollo''': You know what gets me? I know that in two weeks, I won't remember his face. I can't remember any of their faces after they're killed. No matter how hard I try, they just fade.
:'''Starbuck''': I don't even remember their names.
:'''Apollo''': Names. Oh, let's see, there was- there was [[Flat Top]]. (Starbuck spits some of her drink on him) Who bought it on his thousandth landing. There was [[Chuckles]]. (Starbuck spits out some more beer) Stop it, already. Please, not funny. All right. It's not funny.
:'''Starbuck''': It is funny. You know [[Laura Roslin|the President]] says that we're saving humanity for a bright, shiny future. On [[Earth]]. That you and I are never gonna see. We're not. Because we go out over and over again until someday, some [[Cylon Raider |metal mother frakker]] is gonna catch us on a bad day and just blow us away.
:'''Apollo''': Bright, shiny futures are overrated anyway.
:'''Starbuck''': That is why we gotta get what we can. Right now.

*''After Starbuck pours Kat a drink in her new Galactica Top Gun mug, she raises a toast to nearly every pilot that has died since the re-imagined series began:''
:'''Starbuck:''' To BB, Jo-Jo, Reilly, Beano, Dipper, [[Dwight Saunders|Flat Top]], [[Perry|Chuckles]], [["Jolly" Anders|Jolly]], [[Crashdown]], Sheppard, Dash, [[Flyboy]], [[Stepchild]], Puppet, [[Fireball]]...(''stops, crying'')
:'''Apollo:''' To all of 'em.
:'''Admiral Adama:''' So say we all.
:'''Crew:''' So say we all!.
:'''Starbuck:''' So say we all.

== Official Statements ==

*According to an interview on Subject2Discussion.com on January 3rd, 2006, along with "Home" (Parts [[Home, Part I|One]] and [[Home, Part II|Two]]), this is one of Katee Sackhoff's favorite episodes.

== Statistics ==





{{Episode List}}

[[Category:A to Z]]
[[Category:Episode Guide (RDM)]]
[[Category:RDM]]

Home, Part II

2006-01-10T10:52:37Z

Msimone: /* Notes */

{{Episode Data|
Image = [[Image:tomblobby.jpg|300px]]
| Title=Home, Part II
| Series=[[Battlestar Galactica (RDM)|the Re-imagined Series]]
| Season=[[Season 2 (2005-06)|2]]
| Episode=7
| Guests=[http://us.imdb.com/name/nm1489668/ Leah Cairns] ([[Racetrack]]) [http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0001664/ James Remar] ([[Meier]]) [[Richard Hatch]] ([[Tom Zarek]]) [http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0722413/ Donnelly Rhodes] ([[Dr. Cottle]])
| Writer=
| Story=
| Director=
| Production=
| Rating=
| US Airdate=August 26th, 2005
| UK Airdate=
| DVD=
| Prev=[[Home, Part I]]
| Next=[[Final Cut]]
}}
== Overview ==

''Adama leads a mission to Kobol to find President Roslin and her team of tomb-hunters, reconcile with his son, and reunite the divided fleet.''

== Summary ==

== Questions ==
* How did Adama and the others return from the map of Earth?
**What exactly was the map of Earth? Were they in the same room in the Tomb of Athena, and a 3D hologram was projected around them? Could it have been "all in their heads?" If so, would it even be perceived by the Cylons if they tried to view it?
***In Ron D. Moore's blog on the official Scifi.com site, October 14, 2005 entry, Moore says that the map was "probably a holographic projection of some sort". As for what was preventing the Cylons finding the map now that the Tomb was open, Moore said that they planned to have Cylon Centurions attack again at the Tomb, destroying the hologram projector, however it was decided not to do this because it didn't flow well dramatically.
****Presumably, the Colonials took the Arrow with them and without it the map won't turn on.
**Did they retrieve the Arrow of Apollo? Is the map still active? If the Cylons find the map in working order and can use it, could they use the strength of their information networks to find Earth before the colonials do?
*Just who or what is the copy of Number Six that Dr. Baltar sees all the time? It is firmly established that she is not some sort of computer chip in his head, but at the same time it is established that she can't possibly be just a hallucination by Baltar's guilt-ridden subconscious mind. Baltar himself has come to the realization that she is aware of actual facts (like that a Cylon copy pregnant with a hybrid child would be brought into the new brig) that his own subconscious couldn't possibly have known of. Six herself simply said that she's "an angel of God sent here to protect you [Gaius]". Is she truly some form of supernatural force (like Count [[Iblis]] in the Original Series)? Repeated medical scans showed no foreign objects in Baltar's mind.
**Could [[Gaius Baltar]] himself be a Cylon?
**Could the Cylons simply have developed an "organic chip" that would be indestinguishable from Baltar's normal brain tissue when scanned? (Cylons do seem to have mastered much of bio-mechanical engineering.) If so, does Six exist more like a transponder from a nearby Cylon source, where his body and mind can be monitored by what he sees and does, and responses and an image of Six sent to him. Obviously, from his virtual sex with Six, the connection also can control his senses and manupulate him like a marionette: Six's image could even assault Baltar ([[Six Degrees of Separation]]).
**While the Cylons have made notable advancements in macro-bioenginering, they may still lack the required expertise in micro-bioengineering as it relates to cells, most notably demonstrated by their inability to create human/Cylon embryos at will ([[The Farm]]). If there is not a chip in Baltar's head, and he is not hallucinating, could this add more to the speculation that Baltar himself is a Humano-Cylon? (See [[Gaius Baltar]]'s page for arguments for and against this theory in the Speculation section.)
**How was Six capable of moving the chair in the Cylon holding cell? The chair was seen in both positions in "objective" shots (i.e. shots not from Baltar's POV that didn't include Six.)
***This may be a simple continuity error or it might suggest that Six can selectively appear as a physical manifestation, as hinted at by the appearance of [[Shelly Godfrey]].
***Baltar could have simply hallucinated that she moved it.
*Caprica-Boomer reminded Adama that he asked her Galactica counterpart's corpse "why" in [[Resistance]]. How did she know, without also knowing that Galactica Boomer had been killed? Or, was Boomer answering Adama's question of "why" from his attack: that humans have always abused Cylons as he had just done?
**Along that line, in the previous scene with [[Helo]], Caprica-Boomer mentions how she able to remember portions of her life (such as getting her wings), and not others (such as the assassination of [[William Adama]]). Is the communication between copies delayed or possibly selective, even in death?
*How can Adama use the Messier number M8 to refer to the Lagoon Nebula? The Messier catalog was created in 1774, on Earth. Possible answers:
**Language and nomenclature in the show is allegorical. Same reason the Colonials speak English, same reason Adama references the game of craps ("gotta roll a hard six"), same reason all the characters have Western names.
**Parallel development between Earth and the Twelve Colonies extends past attire, vehicles, medicine and government documents to include highly specific astronomical nomenclature.
**The show is set in the past, and Galactica arrives at Earth in time to influence 18th century astronomy.
**The show is set in the distant future, and the inhabitants of Kobol are actually descendents of an Earth-based population, some of whom returned after a vaguely-alluded-to disaster.
***This is supported by otherwise difficult to explain terms such as the Battlestar [[Columbia]], which appears to be named for the 15th century Earth explorer [[Wikipedia:Christopher Columbus|Christopher Columbus]].
***It is also supported by the setup of the map itself. Only someone who could have been on Earth originally could have properly plotted out the Zodiac constellations as seen from Earth. Unless of course the map was created by the Lords of Kobol, whoever or whatever they were.
*What are Tom Zarek's true motivations? We see in [[Home, Part I]] that he had a desire to become the next "Fleet Commander", like [[William Adama]], and willing to go along and eliminate anyone in his way, such as [[Lee Adama]]. Yet during the foray on Kobol, he reverses his position and applauds [[Laura Roslin]] when she re-assumes the presidency.
*Caprica-Sharon's claim that the Cylons know more about Colonial religion than the Colonials raises interesting questions. The Cylons had direct access to the Arrow of Apollo and had at least a token presence on Kobol. If all of them knew where the Tomb of Athena was as Valerii claims, why didn't they use this knowledge to locate Earth themselves?

== Analysis ==
*The map to Earth is believable and satisfying: no goofy special effects or flaming letters spelling out "Go This Way," just basic astronomy. It gives the Colonials both a "compass" and "landmarks" to follow.

*The compass is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagoon_Nebula Lagoon Nebula], an actual nebula visible from both Earth and the Colonies. Assuming the Colonials' astronomical instruments are advanced enough to permit them to see the nebula from a greater distance than we can, the Lagoon Nebula gives them a general direction to head toward. They also know that Earth is within realistic traveling distance, and they know that Earth will be in a sphere centered on the Lagoon Nebula. The twelve star groupings that appeared on the Colonies' original flags are actual constellations, the twelve signs of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac Zodiac] (Aquarius, Aries, Cancer, Capricorn, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Pisces, Sagittarius, Scorpio, Taurus and Virgo). These constellations will serve as landmarks: at the right planet, or within perhaps a few light-years of the nebula, these constellations will begin appear as they do on the Colonials' flags, assuming that they compensate for the natural drift of stars relative to Earth over time, as constellations are not static.

*If each of the Twelve Tribes had an associated symbol that the Thirteenth Tribe identified in their constellations, did the Thirteenth Tribe have one of their own? There is a thirteenth constellation in the Zodiac, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiuchus Ophiuchus] the snake-bearer, which is not included in astrology.

:Ophiuchus may, however, be included in Greek mythology, as it is speculated that the snake-bearer represents Asclepius, the healer. The story of Asclepius is that he learned the secrets of life and death while watching one snake cure another snake he had wounded. Zeus struck Asclepius down out of fear that, under his care, the human race could become immortal.

*As the nebula and constellations in the map to Earth are recognizably ours, this would appear to indicate that the Tomb of Athena isn't a Cylon construct intended to lead the Colonials astray.

*Even so, it could take the Colonials years of searching within the vicinity of the Lagoon Nebula to find Earth.

* This may be the first episode where Adama and the President call each other by their first names, and not formally: "Bill" and "Laura." By the end of this episode, it appears that Adama realizes that, while Roslin did step over the line with her redirection of Starbuck, that there was a logical need to get information on Earth in any way possible. After his near-death experience, Adama seemed more resigned that they should all meet their doom or glory together rather than separate. Roslin reinforced the fleet's hope and gave it direction and purpose. Adama's rousing formal applause generation for Roslin at the end of the episode shows that Adama has firmly buried the hatchet between himself and the President.

* Commander Adama's sense of humor is returning: first in his talk with Billy about Roslin's comments on his future of being president someday ("Don't let it go to your head: [[Adar]] was a moron.") and in his glib comment on how well their luck was going so far, as their Raptor's descent subjected them to several G-forces and pressed both of them firmly, visibly and uncomfortably against the bulkheads.

* Helo is already experiencing repercussions regarding his relationship with Caprica-Boomer. First by Apollo, who voices his uneasiness about the pair to Starbuck and then later, indirectly, by Commander Adama himself who makes a point of leaving Helo outside the Tomb of Athena with Zarek, Boomer and Tyrol. Tyrol was given the order to guard them which indicates that the chief is the only one of the four left outside that Adama trusts.

== Notes ==
*Population is 47,855, a loss of three since Part I. Two of these were seen on-screen in the last episode (Elosha and a [[Laura Roslin faction]] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshirt_%28science_fiction%29 Redshirt]). The other may have happened offscreen in the same ambush.
** At episode's end, the count is now 47,853, with the death of [[Meier]] and one of [[Tom Zarek]]'s lackeys.
*The fleet has been reunited, and Commander Adama has restored Laura Roslin to the Presidency.
*The Fleet now has a general idea of the direction they need to take to find Earth.
*Helo still loves Caprica-Sharon, although he knows she's a Cylon.
*Caprica-Sharon's hybrid child is a girl. She claims to just "know" this.
*The child that Six claims she and Baltar will have ([[Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II]]) is actually Caprica-Sharon and Helo's biological daughter.
*Caprica-Sharon does not "remember" shooting Commander Adama, and she was unaware that Galactica-Sharon was killed by [[Cally]] (she thought she was just in the [[brig]]). Sharon thinks of herself as a "person" and not simply "a machine".
*Caprica-Sharon possesses the memories of Galactica-Sharon's two years aboard the ''Galactica''. She "remembers" how exhilarating it was to get her wings and how it felt to be a member of the "family" that is the Galactica's crew, and she considers Chief [[Tyrol]] a dear friend of sorts, even though she admits she herself has never actually met him. Caprica-Sharon herself acknowledges that it's weird that she has deep-seated memories of things she fully knows she's never actually done.
*Caprica-Sharon apparently still believes that there is only "one true God" and that the Colonials "worship false idols".
*Caprica-Sharon flat out says that the Cylons know more about the Colonial religion than the Colonials themselves.
*According to Starbuck's observations, the Cylons have a plan for Caprica; "they're cleaning up the bodies, moving in the heavy machinery to repair the infrastructure..."
**Ron D. Moore has stated in interviews that this is actually a major plot point. Also, while the Cylon [[Farms]] (the hybrid experiments) are logically ''a'' plan for the Twelve Colonies, RDM said that it is not their ''only'' plan.
*Dr. Baltar has had a medical scan performed on his head, and it appears that there are no "foreign objects", like a metallic computer chip containing a copy of Number Six's mind, within it.
*Baltar has come to the realization that the copy of [[Number Six]] he sees cannot be just a hallucination, because she knows things his subconscious mind couldn't possibly know.
*This episode probably begins a few hours after [[Home, Part I]], although it could conceivably begin immediately after it.
*If the map displayed in the Tomb of Athena was from the perspective of an earth-bound viewer, the Lagoon Nebula should have been in Sagittarius, not Scorpio.
**This could be accounted for by drift through time. The map was made millenia ago, by now the angle of view could have changed significantly.
*Between Sharon's Heavy Raider that's been returned to the fleet in this episode and the Heavy Raider from [[Scattered]] and [[Valley of Darkness]], the fleet may have up to two captured Heavy Raiders by this point. However, the one that crashed into the starboard flight pod may have been too damaged to be salvageable.

== Noteworthy Dialogue ==
* ''On "Earth":''
*:Cmdr. Adama: I thought we were in the Tomb of Athena.
*:Starbuck: I think that was just the lobby.

== Official Statements ==

In the podcast for this program, Moore and Eick commented on their attempt to have a more colorful turn of phrase in the dialogue on the Raptor from Chief Tyrol and Adama. Tyrol's original line, in his frustration on reading a map was, "Topography's for pussies, anyway." Likewise, Adama's comment about President Adar to Bill was originally "...Adar was a prick." Both lines were changed at the behest of the studio's standards and practices unit.

== Statistics ==

{{Template:Episode List}}

[[Category: Episode Guide (RDM)|Home, Part II]]
[[Category: A to Z|Home, Part II]]

Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down

2006-01-09T03:32:32Z

Msimone: /* Questions */

[[Image:bsg-1-09.jpg|thumb|"Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down" (credit: Sci-Fi Channel)]]

: ''This episode is also known under its draft title, "Secrets and Lies". Its official title is "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down".''

== Overview ==

: ''[[Saul Tigh|Colonel Tigh's]] world is turned upside down when [[Ellen Tigh|his wife]] arrives on ''[[Galactica]]'' -- but is she all she professes?''

== Summary ==
* [[Laura Roslin]] comes aboard ''[[Galactica]]'' as [[William Adama|Adama]] receives a report that [[Gaius Baltar|Baltar’s]] [[Cylon detector]] is operational.
* Unable to shake [[Leoben Conoy|Conoy’s]] words to her ([[Flesh and Bone]]), she wants Adama to take the test first; he reluctantly agrees.
* When a lone [[Cylon Raider]] shows up, [[Lee Adama]] is ordered to intercept, and [[Saul Tigh|Tigh]] is stunned to learn Adama is off-ship.
* The Raider is crippled, and a [[Raptor]] is dispatched to gather intel on it, particularly how its [[FTL]] drive operates.
* Adama returns to ''Galactica'' on a [[Raptor]] with a further shock for Tigh: his wife, [[Ellen Tigh|Ellen]].
* Roslin calls Baltar to check on the progress of Adama’s Cylon test – only to find Adama has cancelled so that a woman called “Ellen” can be tested. Roslin orders Baltar to restart Adama’s test immediately.
* Roslin summons Tigh to ''[[Colonial One]]'' and reveals her suspicions regarding Adama, and challenging a defensive Tigh over Adama’s behavior in leaving ''Galactica'' unannounced.
* Tigh takes the wind out of Roslin’s sails when he states Adama was off-ship so he could collect Tigh’s missing wife.
* After Tigh has left her office, Roslin calls Baltar and orders him to stop Adama’s test and resume Ellen’s.
* Later, at a dinner in Adama’s quarters, Ellen behaves with a mixture of her old self – trying to play footsie with Lee Adama under the table, and trying to flirt with him over the table – and a strange curiosity concerning [[Earth]].
* Adama deflects her probing by asking how it could be that she got aboard a ship, the ''[[Rising Star]]'', without anyone having any knowledge or her or of treating her during her alleged 3 weeks of being unconscious.
* Ellen simply shrugs off the questions in her apparently drunken state and breaks up the party with her “drunken” playing.
* As she and her husband return to their quarters, they encounter Baltar, with whom she openly flirts, both annoying Tigh and raising [[Number Six|Six]]’s curiosity.
* After Baltar has departed, Ellen deflects her husband’s anger at her behavior by claiming Adama wants her, then dragging Tigh after Baltar.
* In Baltar’s lab, a row is brewing over the various tests that should have been carried out; things become more complicated when Tigh and his wife arrive, and the disagreements and suspicions become a three-way argument, which is broken up when Adama, Lee and Tigh are summoned to [[CIC]].
* The Cylon Raider has stopped behaving oddly, and is on an collision course for ''Galactica''. [[Alert Fighters]] are dispatched at Tigh’s order, and the Raider is destroyed.
* Later, back in Baltar’s lab, Ellen’s test results come through and are apparently green. Baltar, however simply states to Six that having everything turn up green makes life a lot easier.

=== On Caprica: ===
*[[Karl C. Agathon|Helo]] and [[Sharon Valerii#Caprica Valerii|Valerii]] are trying to avoid the Cylons by running through the storm drains under a city.
*Valerii has a plan -- she claims to have overheard the Cylons discussing a huge base at [[Delphi]], she believes they can steal a ship from there and get off the planet.
*[[Aaron Doral|Doral]] and [[Number Six|Six]] are definitely affected by the fact that even though Valerii has run off, she is experiencing emotions they have never had -- as is Helo.

== Summary from scifi.com ==
President Roslin's fears that Commander Adama is a Cylon are stoked when she learns he's making secret wireless calls to other ships. Then, to make things worse, a single Cylon raider appears near the Galactica and begins acting strangely after being damaged in battle.

When Adama returns to the ship with Tigh's wife, Ellen, an earthy temptress and irrepressible flirt who claims to have been in a coma since their civilization was destroyed, Roslin's suspicions increase. She orders Baltar to screen both Ellen and Adama with his newly completed Cylon detector.

Meanwhile, Col. Tigh and the rest of the crew watch warily and gather data as the wounded Cylon raider jumps in and out of space.

On Caprica, the Cylon overseers fear that the Cylon Sharon is developing a strange feeling toward Helo — love.
--This section ©2005, [http://www.scifi.com SCI FI]. All rights reserved.

== Questions ==
*Is [[Ellen Tigh]] an [[Humano-Cylon]]?
*What is [[Gaius Baltar|Baltar]] hoping to gain from keeping the test results secret?
**Answer: The official season 1 companion book explains this more fully. Basically, Baltar does not know if the Cylons in the Fleet are capable of communicating with each other. That's why in "[[Flesh and Bone]]" he didn't call in the Marines to grab Sharon as soon as she left his lab; if he reveals one or two of the Cylons, while more are still at large, he is afraid that the others will then target him for assasination. More or less, Baltar's plan is to screen out as many people as he can to find all of the Cylons, and then reveal them in one fell swoop. Even if they don't possess a communications net they might just realize his Cylon detector works if one of their number like Boomer is revealed by the test; he wants them to think it doesn't really work. Alternatively, as it might take years to test the entire Fleet, Baltar would do what he will do later on in "[[Resistance]]"; find one Cylon, then interrogate it to find out who the other Cylons are, etc. For the moment, he is biding his time.

== Analysis ==

An episode that cleverly mixes intrigue and humour to conjure a rich tapestry that is somewhat different from earlier episodes – but no less entertaining in the questions it raises.

The intrigue is initially driven out of Roslin’s paranoia towards Adama, but quickly re-centres on Ellen Tigh.

Roslin’s paranoia is fed by Leoben Conoy’s last words to her in “Flesh and Bone” – she is genuinely concerned that Adama is a Cylon, and his pre-occupation with Ellen Tigh doesn’t help calm her fears. But even when the mystery surrounding Adama’s actions is resolved, the intrigue doesn’t let up: just who or what is Ellen Tigh? Human or Cylon?

The weight of evidence for her being human is almost overwhelming. She is vindictive, manipulative, calculating (witness her ability to play footsie under the table with Lee Adama after hearing about his brother's death), but human nonetheless. She has clearly been a destructive force in Tigh's life - and most likely the reason for his drinking problem, and despite her claims to want a reconcilliation, it is clear that little has really changed within her: she is man-hungry, and delights in sowing the seeds of mischief.

BUT - and there is always a "but" in BSG, the writers throw in just enough to create doubt:
*Why is it that - as Adama points out - no-one can remember her either being aboard the Rising Star or being treated for her injuries until the last few days?

*Why can’t the Captain of the Rising Star remember how she came to be aboard his ship. Her "rescue" from Picon sounds so dramatic, surely someone would remember her coming aboard the ship, whether she was conscious or not?
*And why is her interest at the dinner table focused singularly on the subject of Earth? Is it really the "talk of the fleet", or is there something behind her persistence?
*She operates in a manner strikingly similar to a cross between Six and Conoy. Like Six, she is not afraid to use her sexual mores against men; like Conoy, her words seem laced with half-truths and are frequently manipulative and border on the insidious
*Finally, there is her comment on meeting Baltar, “Oh, I know exactly who you are.” On the one hand, it could simply be a result of her recognising Baltar as a leading scientist and (no doubt) playboy, and her predatory nature kicking-in. On the other hand, knowing exactly who someone “is” usually means a person is not fooled: they know intimate secrets about the individual they are meeting, and so the comment is usually taken as a thinly-veiled threat. Does Ellen Tigh know more than she is letting on?

Even the denouement concerning Ellen Tigh’s heritage is open to interpretation: Baltar proclaims her to be human, but then admits to Six he’s decided all results are going to be “green”; as he puts it: “no muss, no fuss”. He won’t even reveal the true result of the test to Six.

Six’s reaction to Ellen Tigh is equally interesting: “Something here, isn’t there?” she states after Ellen’s unconventional introduction to Baltar – and it is doubtful she is referring to the flirting that takes place; rather, her words are a warning, as is her follow-up comment: “You should be watching her.” Six has sensed something in Ellen Tigh, and it is something she doesn’t trust.

So, could it be that Ellen Tigh is a Cylon? Certainly, it has been established that there are 12 models of Cylon, so again, this leaves room for her to be one. But – again – if she were, that would raise an interesting precedent: it would mean that that Cylons can replicate living (or once-living) humans. Were this to be the case, it would significantly alter the balance of things. For this reason, more than any other, it is unlikely Ellen Tigh is anything more than a human woman with an agenda of her own.

Meanwhile, on Caprica things also continue to take an interesting turn. Now fugitives together, Helo and Valerii are finally making an attempt to get off the planet, and Valerii is reaching the point where if she doesn’t admit her status to Helo, he’s going to guess. Above them – literally - we are given further insight into Cylon motivations for what was occurring around Helo, and once again it all seems to boil down to the emotions generated by love: loyalty, need, protectiveness, desire, generosity, anguish, the motivations it creates – all of which appear to be beyond Cylon understanding, even though they are capable of other, baser emotional responses, as witnessed by Six’s tears and Doral’s hurt envy. And there is still that small matter of procreation hanging in the air... This is also the first mention of the city of Delphi and Helo's hostile reaction to the news of its being used as a Cylon hub. Plausibly the emotional reaction is due to Delphi as a spiritual center for the Twelve Colonies.

Perhaps the one weak link in the episode is the arrival of the Cylon Raider. Despite all the material the production crew have to play with in this episode, this one thread sticks out from the rest and almost screams “Padding!” at the top of its voice.

As an attempt to heighten concern about Adama’s real motivations (the Raider turning up while he is out and about in a Raptor), it is nothing short of clumsy. As a means of confirming the fact that the Colonials don’t have FTL systems of a comparable size to those contained in the captured Raider, and are thus keen to find out all they can about a “working” version, it is short on drama. Was the Raider really crippled? Was it playing a game with the Colonials - if so, to what purpose? What caused Starbuck to come to this conclusion? None of the answers to these questions are even hinted at - much less explained, leaving the entire Raider situation something that has a big “So what?” hanging over it.

But this aside, “Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down” serves up another interesting blend of character-driven drama that demonstrates that Battlestar Galactica is also capable of some fine humour.

== Questions ==
*The test themselves apparently take 11 hours to generate results (although Boomer’s result in “Flesh and Bone” was obtained in far less time than this – "a couple of minutes", according to Baltar, and about 60 seconds of screen-time.)
**Baltar claims in [[Resistance]] that he allowed Boomer to believe she was human "for [his] own purposes". Does he have the ability to determine other Cylon infiltrators in a much shorter timeframe than he chooses to admit in this episode? Perhaps he was just going through the math in his head - but then why the half-serious jokes about suicide as he contemplates the task?
*Is it possible that the Cylon Raider is there to transmit instructions to other cylons within the fleet? In [[Final Cut]], we see that they can receive messages from their agents.

== Notes ==
*The script was originally called "Secrets and Lies". However, "'''Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down'''" is the official title for the episode, according to [[Ronald D. Moore]].
*It is 3 days since the events of "[[Flesh and Bone]]".
*There are now 47,905 survivors in the fleet, a loss of 49 since "Flesh and Bone". Compared to other casualty figures in the first season, this is unusually high for a three-day period.
**Are Boomer (tested last episode) and Baltar himself included in this figure?
*Billy’s relationship with Dualla is picking up, despite his attempts to pump her for information
*Tigh’s alcoholism was more than likely kicked-off by his wife – either directly or through her infidelity – or possibly both.
*Baltar apparently has no intention of being honest about the results of his Cylon tests.
*''Galactica'' has a forward observation lounge that has become a much sought-after trysting-place, with individuals and couples rotated through it at regular intervals.
*The Cylons have established a major base at [[Delphi]], another major city on Caprica.
*Helo curses the Cylons for choosing Delphi as their base.
*The opera music that Baltar is listening to in his lab while talking to and getting intimate with Number Six is sung in Italian, and directly relates to Baltar's situation. The lyrics translate: "Woe upon your Cylon heart / There's a toaster in your head/ And it wears high heels / Number Six calls to you / The Cylon Detector beckns / Your girlfriend is a toaster / Woe upon your Cylon heart / Alas, disgrace! Alas, sadness and misery! / The toaster has a pretty dress / Red like its glowing spine / Number Six whispers / By your command" (translation given in the liner notes for the [[Soundtrack (Season 1)]].)

== Noteworthy Dialogue ==

* ''As Commamder Adama and Laura Roslin talk in the CIC:''

:Commander Adama: Madame President, we are the proud owners of the universe's first bona fide Cylon detector.
:Laura Roslin: Well, that is great news. So... when do we begin?
:Commander Adama: Doctor Baltar would like to start widespread testing as soon as possible, but there are some serious limitations, because he can only do one person at a time and verification takes hours.
:Laura Roslin: So, who's going to go first?
:Commander Adama: (thinking for a second) The test... right. I think people in sensitive positions should go first.
:Laura Roslin: I completely agree. How about you?
:Commander Adama: Excuse me?
:Laura Roslin: If you're a Cylon, I'd like to know.
:Commander Adama: If I'm a Cylon, you're really screwed.
:(Adama and Roslin both start laughing)
:Laura Roslin: Seriously, I do think you should go first. Show everyone in the fleet that they can trust the people at the top.
:Commander Adama: Well then, maybe YOU should go first. (silence) All right... I'll go first.

* ''As Commander Adama, Colonel Tigh, Ellen Tigh, Apollo, and Laura Roslin are eating dinner:''
:Ellen Tigh: So Bill, now the question on everyone's mind -- and, I do mean everyone -- is "Where's Earth?" and "When are we going to get there?"
:Commander Adama: Yeah... that's classified information.
:Ellen Tigh: Oh, there's that word again!
:Colonel Tigh: Ellen, leave the man alone.
:Ellen Tigh: Come on! If there aren't privileges to being an XO's wife, then what's the point? I mean, Bill, we're all family here, so come on!
:Laura Roslin: The need for secrecy is paramount, Ellen. Oh, I'm sorry. Perhaps you don't know that the Cylons look like us now.
:Ellen Tigh: Oh... that. Yes. Yes, I knew that.
:Laura Roslin: It's recent news. Most people just found out a few days ago.
:Ellen Tigh: (thinking) A thing like that would travel fast.
:Commander Adama: Any one of us could be a Cylon.
:(the entire table goes silent)
:Ellen Tigh: BOO!
:(everyone jumps in their seat, but Ellen and Saul start laughing)

== Official Statements ==




*"'Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down' was originally called 'Secrets and Lies', or 'Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down' by [[Jeff Vlaming|Jeff (Vlaming)]]. And when I saw those titles on the script, I knew we had to go with 'Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down'. It was too good. Too good a title to let lie on the cutting room floor." -- Ronald D. Moore [[podcast]]
*"'Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down' began life as a very different episode than it ultimately came out to be. It was originally going to be a riff on 'Crimson Tide'." -- Ronald D. Moore [[podcast]]
*"It did feel right that, perhaps, there was one place; that perhaps there was one area of the ship, which accepted a window or a port to look out and that it would be a fairly confined space for the crew on these very long, deep space missions that probably lasted months, if not years. And that there might be a place where they can go to and just stargaze. And in this situation, it seemed like there would be a lot of people lining up to try and look out at the stars, you know, a break from the monotony of staring at metal walls." -- Ronald D. Moore [[podcast]], talking about the observation area of the ''[[Galactica]]''
*"The long and the short of it was that we had just come out of a very heavy, very dark, very [[Flesh and Bone|disturbing episode]]. And the very next episode was supposed to be 'Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down' which was all about a very disturbing, very dark, very (sort of) unhappy episode where our two -- two of our lead characters started pointing guns at one another. So there came a point when I just decided, well, lets just punt. Lets not do the dark and brooding episode. Lets try a different tone. Lets see if the show can withstand something lighter. Lets try something that's closer to a comedy, or as close to a comedy as ''Galactica'' can withstand." -- Ronald D. Moore [[podcast]]

== Statistics ==

{{S1Cast}}

=== Guest Stars ===


*[http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Michael+Hogan Michael Hogan] as Colonel [[Saul Tigh]]
*[http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Tahmoh+Penikett Tahmoh Penikett] as Lieutenant [[Karl Agathon|Karl "Helo" Agathon]]
*[http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Aaron+Douglas Aaron Douglas] as Chief Petty Officer [[Galen Tyrol]]
*[[Kate Vernon]] as [[Ellen Tigh]]
*[[Bennett, Matthew|Matthew Bennett]] as [[Aaron Doral]]
*[http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Slex+Green Alex Green] as Deckhand




=== Writing & Direction ===

*Written by [http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Jeff+Vlaming Jeff Vlaming]
*Directed by [[Edward James Olmos]]




=== Production Notes ===
*Series 1 (2004 / 2005)
*Production Number: 1.09
*Airdate Order: 9 (of 13)

=== First Run Air Dates & Releases ===

*UK Airdate: 13 December 2004 (Sky One)
*US Airdate: 4 march 2005 (Sci-Fi Channel)
*DVD Release: 28 March 2005 (UK)

== External Links ==
[http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/episodes/season01/109/ "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down"] at scifi.com

{{Episode List}}

[[Category: A to Z]]
[[Category: Episode Guide (RDM)]]
[[Category:RDM]]

User:Msimone

2006-01-08T11:57:37Z

Msimone:

Although I was introduced to the series relatively late, I have become somewhat of a rabid fan. I am drawn to the depth and richness of the characters, as well as the spirituality and fascination of the plot.

Humanoid Cylon

2006-01-02T09:31:15Z

Msimone: /* Ellen Tigh? */

[[Image:Humano-cylon_group.jpg|thumb|Humano-Cylons -- Doral, Number Six, and Conoy on Ragnar (Credit: Sci-Fi Channel)]]
== Overview ==

Following the end of the [[Cylon War]], the Cylons withdrew from Colonial space to a planet of their own. For some 40 years, nothing was heard of them, and no apparent attempt was made by the Colonials to keep an eye on them. The only contact expected between the two was at annual meetings at [[Armistice Station]]. However, while the Colonials sent a repesentative to the station every year, the Cylons did not ([[Mini-Series]]).

During their forty years of isolation, the Cylons developed or evolved a humanoid form that very closely mimics human form, down to the cellular level, excepting the molecular level.

Humano-Cylons have the capacity to emulate many human physical acts, including sex, as demonstrated by the Number Six and Sharon Valerii models.

Humano-Cylons can also be programmed to believe that they are human.

Although they cannot do so remotely or wirelessly, humano-Cylons can interface with a computer system or computer network through subdermal physical contact with input cables connected to the devices. Caprica-Sharon connected to the ''Galactica'''s computers by this method in "[[Flight of the Phoenix]]" when she inserted a fiber-optic cable through her left palm and into her arm.

Like other [[Cylons]], humano-Cylons utilize a synthetic, silicon brain that is susceptible to damage from certain types of radiation. Upon the death of the "body," a Humano-Cylon transfers its consciousness into another copy of itself, though this is limited by distance and perhaps signal integrity (hindered by interference) ([[Mini-Series]], [[Flesh and Bone]]). Based on Caprica [[Sharon Valerii]]'s conversation with [[Kara Thrace]] in the episode, "[[The Farm]]", it appears that all humano-Cylons may share a ''collective knowledgebase'' of data from other active or deactivated humano-Cylons. Valerii spoke of a conversation between Thrace and a captured [[Leoben Conoy]] copy in the Fleet. This information would only be known to that now-dead Leoben copy if sharing were not possible. Kara Thrace's call sign, Starbuck, was also a likely bit of information gleaned from the collective knowledgebase that [[Simon]] knew of the Viper pilot, although Thrace never told him of her call sign and used it to strike back at her abductors ([[The Farm]]). Also, during "[[Flight of the Phoenix]]", Caprica-Sharon asked [[Dualla]] if she still carried her pocket knife, a fact which would have been known only to the ''Galactica'' copy. When under duress, the copy of Sharon Valerii known as "Boomer" on ''Galactica'' was able to tell [[Gaius Baltar]] the number of remaining humano-Cylon agents in the fleet, information that would be impossible to gather without a collective knowledgebase ([[Resistance]]).

Some or all Cylon "female" models may have the capacity to bear children seeded by human males ([[33]], [[Flesh and Bone]], [[Hand of God]], [[Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II]]). The Cylons tested numerous methods of sexual reproduction, yet these failed due to a known flaw in the humano-Cylon design. Humano-Cylons cannot reproduce with each other biologically, and, attempting to subvert this deficiency, they have been trying to interbreed with humans to create hybrid offspring. "Farms" were apparently set up across all the occupied Colonies where survivors, specifically, young fertile women of child-bearing age, were rounded up, placed under heavy sedation and turned into "baby machines" through artificial insemination. However, this method has not met with success. Another drastically different approach was taken by attempting to conceive a child through a bond of love. It seems that [[Helo]] and [[Boomer]]'s love-child is the lone success story of the relatively short history of Cylon sexual reproduction ([[The Farm]]).

== Known Humano-Cylon Models ==

There are twelve models of humanoid Cylons ([[Mini-Series]]). 
[[#Note|'''*''']]. Six models have so far been identified as humano-Cylons, although only five are actually known to the Colonials as Cylon agents as of the episode, "[[Pegasus (episode)|Pegasus]]."

=== [[Number Six]] ===

This model utilizes the human need / desire for sexual relations to her advantage. She is religious and monotheistic. She desires to know what it is to be alive.

Typically she is the alpha female, as demonstrated on multiple occasions ([[Mini-Series]], [[33]], [[Water]], [[Six Degrees of Separation]]).

Copies of her have appeared under the names "Shelly Godfrey" and "Gina."

=== [[Leoben Conoy]] ===

Leoben Conoy was the fourth model witnessed by viewers (although viewers would not know until the end of the [[Mini-Series]] that they had already met the ''third'' humanoid Cylon, Sharon Valerii). The Conoy model has shown to be religiously oriented, using dogma and intermixing truth with falsehoods. It was first discovered on [[Ragnar Station]], claiming to be a scavenger / arms dealer ([[Mini-Series]]).

He can be likened to the serpent of the [[Wikipedia:Genesis|Genesis]] tale in the Earth [[Wikipedia: Christian Bible|Christian Bible]], taunting people with knowledge then watching as the negative consequences come into devastating fruition. Leoben copies have likely been encountered by the [[Resistance (movement)|Caprica Resistance movement]], as [[Samuel Anders]] recites in jest some comments made by another Leoben copy captured in the [[Fleet]] ([[Flesh and Bone]], [[The Farm]]).

=== [[Aaron Doral]] ===

This model attempts to sow the seeds of discontent or confusion, particularly during crucial life-threatening situations, and endeavors to undermine authority that threatens his objectives. ([[Mini-Series]]) Doral models are more covert, assuming an ordinary "everyman" appearance that's blended in what may seem to be insignificant behind-the-scenes issues (such as converting ''Galactica'' into a museum). Of all the models thus far, the Aaron Doral models are the most militant, fanatic and consistent in message and objectives to the Cylon objectives, whether he is dispassionately discussing the fate of humanity with his comrades or attempting to kill or maim Colonials in a suicide bomb attack ([[Litmus]]). Viewers first meet Doral during a tour of ''Galactica'' with other Colonial citizens (possibly the press) as we see the battlestar for the first time at the start of the [[Mini-Series]]. The viewers aren't sure of Doral's true identity as the second humano-Cylon they've seen until the end of the Mini-Series, however.

=== [[Sharon Valerii]] ===

The Valerii model is generally a saboteur designed to infiltrate Colonial military units and is likely programmed to use any Colonial munitions to cause havoc ([[Water]]). The Valerii model is the closest witnessed Humano-Cylon model to show its abilities as a soldier. This model has shown naiveté in many matters. She is apparently not as religious as other Cylon models, but has demonstrated that she can love, and is capable of being impregnated by a human ([[Six Degrees of Separation]], [[Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II]]). She may be "defective", as the Cylon programming within the sleeper agent known as "Boomer" on ''Galactica'' conflicted multiple times with its human personality ([[Water]]). Also, the fully aware Sharon Valerii found by [[Helo]] on Caprica has fully switched alliances from Cylon to Colonial after falling in love with Helo and is now aiding the Colonials (several episodes, most notably "[[Flight of the Phoenix]]"). Valerii is the third humano-Cylon introduced during the [[Mini-Series]] but Viewers do not discover her true identity until the very end of the Mini-Series when a second copy appears at [[Ragnar Anchorage]] while retrieving the abandoned copy of Aaron Doral.

=== [[Simon]] ===

The Simon model was encountered by [[Kara "Starbuck" Thrace]] Cylon-occupied [[The Twelve Colonies (RDM)#Caprica|Caprica]]. Posing as a doctor, Simon was actually involved with the Cylon hybridization program. Simon resembles a tall, somewhat thin middle-aged black man who speaks in a comforting strong voice ([[The Farm]]) Unlike other models, Simon doesn't seem to have many military aspects to his physical or mental configuration, and was easily overcome by a wounded Thrace. Simon may be a model based primarily on human intellectualism.

=== [[D'anna Biers]] ===

This model was witnessed by viewers posing as a reporter from the [[Fleet News Service]] and was revealed to be a Cylon at the end of "[[Final Cut]]" when a second copy was shown living on Caprica. Of all the Humano-Cylon models revealed to viewers, the Colonials are not yet aware that D'anna Biers is a Cylon agent as of the mid-season 2 cliffhanger, "[[Pegasus (episode)|Pegasus]]".

Part of Bier's mission within ''Galactica's'' fleet (which fits her work as a journalist) likely involves the relay of important intelligence within the Fleet, such as the status of the pregnant Caprica copy of Sharon Valerii.

== Speculated Infiltrators ==

=== Ellen Tigh? ===
In light of her statistic-defying survival of the Cylon holocaust and her manipulations of her husband during Commander [[William Adama]]'s incapacitation ("[[Scattered]]" through "[[Resistance]]"), Ellen Tigh's actions have demonstrated the possibility that she may be a Cylon agent. For someone who seems so intelligent and far-sighted, she should be well aware that pushing her husband to strong-arm the rest of the Fleet to conform with his (and her) views would only end in chaos. If she ''is'' a Cylon looking to destroy the Fleet from within, then the best weapon in her arsenal is the man she's married to.

In an October 2005 webcast, [[Ronald D. Moore]] indicated that the likelihood of Ellen Tigh being a Cylon was low. Essentially, this was due to the feeling that having her be a Cylon agent would not only be convenient, but unrealistic from a story point-of-view as well. Moore's comments don't eliminate Ellen Tigh from consideration, but reduces the likelihood of this speculation. Some viewers surmise that Moore may have meant that revealing Tigh as a Cylon in her [[Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down|debut episode]] in addition to the character's many other complexities, would stretch the overall believability or integrity of the character at that point, but that he was not refering to her actual status as a Cylon or not at the time.

=== Gaius Baltar? ===
[[Gaius Baltar]]'s ability to see and communicate with a virtual Number Six was initially attributed to some kind of device implanted in his body. However, after tests performed on him by Dr. [[Cottle]] ([[Home, Part II]]), no devices were found, suggesting three possibilities: that the Cylon device in Baltar's brain is, like Cylon technology in general, indistinguishable from other tissue; that Baltar is a Humano-Cylon; or that his Six is a supernatural being, as she claims to be. How did Baltar survive the outer shockwave of a nuclear blast near his home on [[The Twelve Colonies (RDM)#Caprica|Caprica]], shielded only by Six's body, which is just as frail as a human's? Is the Baltar we see in fact, a copy? See the [[Gaius Baltar#Speculation: The Real Baltar?|Speculation]] section of Gaius Baltar's article for arguments for and against this possibility.

=== William Adama? ===

Of all the suspected infiltrators, the case against William Adama appears to be the weakest.

In the Mini-Series, Adama seems to know that the Humano-Cylons have "silica relays" in their brains, and that they would be affected by the storm around [[Ragnar Anchorage]]. In "[[Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down]]", Commander Adama disappears mysteriously and returns with Ellen Tigh. Around the same time, a Cylon Raider shows up. However, this was all explained later in the same episode, when Adama reveals that he was reluctant to openly announce Ellen's sudden appearance because he was afraid she could be a Cylon.

Adama also has exhibited strange behavior, from expressing vague Cylon sympathies (both in his speech in the Mini-Series and in his discussion with Tyrol in "[[Home, Part I]]" where he seems to concede that Boomer was more than a machine). While not openly friendly to the Cylons, Adama seems to at least respect them as persons in that he does not treat the Caprica copy of Sharon Valerii inhumanely, despite what was done to him by the Valerii copy known as "Boomer".

William Adama is the father of two children, [[Lee Adama|Lee]] and [[Zak Adama|Zak]]. Before the conception of Valerii's hybrid child the Cylons have been unable to produce children through sexual reproduction. Further, Adama is a veteran of the well-documented [[Cylon War]], back at a time where Cylons were purely mechanical and not biosynthetic.

When the recent revelation by Ron Moore that Humano-Cylons are unique beings and not copies of existing humans is added to this, the likelihood of William Adama as a suspected infiltrator could be all but ruled out. This also throws the validity of Leoben Conoy's final words to Roslin accusing Adama as a Cylon in "[[Flesh and Bone]]" into question (which were almost certainly meant to just spread paranoia).

=== Felix Gaeta? ===

Lt. [[Felix Gaeta]] is in a good position for a Cylon—not conspicuous but nonetheless in a position where he can help the Cylons quite a bit. Gaeta arguably seems to hand something to Boomer in "[[Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II]]" before she shoots Adama (a frame by frame analysis shows that their hands are not in frame, leaving the question unanswered). Gaeta can recognize Cylon devices, and is close to [[Gaius Baltar|Dr. Baltar]]. Gaeta has plotted coordinates to a water planet, a Cylon [[tyllium]] base, and [[Kobol]] with uncanny accuracy. He "forgot" to send updated coordinates to the fleet in "[[Scattered]]", leaving ''Galactica'' vulnerable to Cylon electronic attack after having to network the ship [[Computers|computer]] systems together.

Gaeta's recent behavioral changes from the stress of working at evading the Cylons shows by "[[Final Cut]]" as Gaeta is shown in his interview drunk, smoking, and wearing a new tattoo. By the following episode, "[[Flight of the Phoenix]]", Gaeta angrily snaps at Colonel Tigh for giving a difficult order, causing surprise throughout [[CIC]] since Gaeta is normally a calm, reserved officer even under the worst of conditions. Contrast this behavior with Boomer, the ''Galactica'' copy of Sharon Valerii, who still appeared quite alert after 5 continuous days of combat status. Note the following dialogue from the first regular series episode, "[[33]]":

::'''[[Lee Adama|Apollo]]''': Hey, how about you, Boomer? [[Cottle|Doc]] tells me you're holding up better than anybody in the squadron.
::'''Boomer''': I'm tired, like everybody else.
::'''Apollo''': You never seem it.
::'''[[Kara Thrace|Starbuck]]''': 'Cause she's a Cylon.
::'''Boomer''': You're just gonna make me come over there and kick your ass, aren't you?

While even Humano-Cylons develop severe behavioral and physiological issues after extended work and abuse ([[Number Six#Gina|Pegasus]]), Humano-Cylons appear to be more resilient than humans, which may limit the likelihood of Gaeta's possible Cylon connection. On the other hand, if he were a Cylon, Gaeta's human personality may have finally been overtaxed by that time, suggesting that an actual human might have snapped earlier in their exodus in contrast.

=== Jammer? ===

[[Jammer]] has exibited suspicious actions numerous times. Along with [[Cally]] and [[Socinus]], he serves under Chief [[Tyrol]] on the flight deck. Jammer consistently makes remarks that seem to be trying to divide the humans against each other. When it was revealed to the Fleet that Cylons now can look like humans in "[[Litmus]]", he kept arguing that everyone should stop trusting each other and that it was "every man for himself now", while Socinus said that if they didn't trust each other they wouldn't survive. Cally even pointed out that Jammer's kind of thinking is ''exactly'' what the Cylons want: for everyone to become suspicious and paranoid. Jammer keeps doing this through the second season: when Tyrol is accused of being a Cylon in "[[Resistance]]" he immedieately yells at Cally that the Chief must be a Cylon. Whenever Jammer appears he seems to be trying to sow mistrust among the crew. Also, he told the emotionally unstable Cally that she should be angry at Galactica-Boomer, not himself, for Tyrol being suspected, and that she should take it up with Boomer; thus Jammer can be seen as having manipulated Cally into killing Boomer (Cally need not be a Cylon; Jammer could tell she was suffering from post-traumatic stress after Kobol and that she would go after Boomer if he suggested it to her).

One of the biggest pieces of evidence against Jammer is that when the ''Galactica'' was boarded by Cylon Cenuturions in "[[Valley of Darkness]]", Apollo and his group of marines found him hiding in a small arms locker, completely unharmed, even though the room was littered with the corpses of crewmen the Cylons had killed. He claimed to have just hid then snuck inside, but perhaps he was already there and the Centurions spared him because they knew he was a Cylon as well. ([[Anastasia Dualla]] was also found alive in a room filled with dead crewmen, but she was just in the head (lavatory), which isn't a vital area of the ship, while Jammer was in a small arms locker. Further, Dualla was wounded; she had a light concussion and presumably a Centurion knocked her unconscious, assumed she was dead, and moved on. Jammer was just standing around inside of the weapons locker).

Jammer continues to exhibit pessimistic, counterproductive, and morale-draining behavior. When Chief [[Tyrol]] was trying to construct the [[Blackbird]], he vocally tried to convince the other deckhands that it couldn't be done and it wasn't worth trying. He may have done this to undermine the military assets of the Galactica: the Cylons may be hoping to wear down the Galactica's Viper numbers through gradual attrition, while because the Cylons have dedicated manufacturing capabilities for Raiders on the [[Cylon homeworld]] and possibly on Basestars, Raiders are easily replaceable. With this in mind, the last thing the Cylons would want is for ''Galactica'' to start constructing her own replacement fighters ([[Flight of the Phoenix]]).

=== Bell? ===

D'anna Biers' [[Bell|cameraman/assistant]] is another possible candidate for a Cylon infiltrator, as he has been shown willingly taking part in the same devious and manipulative activities as D'anna ([[Final Cut]]). Whether he is a Cylon working in tandem with D’anna, or just a nosy human journalist following his superior’s equally devious wishes has yet to be determined.

==Ron Moore elaborates on the twelve models==

In a 10/24/05 interview on "The Chase Show" on the SF webcast news site [http://www.thefandom.com/Article50.phtml TheFandom.com] with veteran "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" actress [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0557732/ Chase Masterson], Ron D. Moore is interviewed and directly answers two key questions in the Twelve Models debate and the origin of Sharon Valerii in particular. Here is a transcription of that interview segment.

:'''Chase''': ...I just have to ask something...is there one Boomer that's just human?
:'''Ron''': No, there's not. I mean, the idea is not there was one like an original human model that they were copied from. The idea was that these were...these models of Cylon were developed out of their own study of us. The Cylons on some level looked at humanity and said, "well, you know what, there's really only twelve of you...and these are the twelve." And then if you look at them, they kind of represent different archetypes of what humanity is. Um, Sharon, in particular--Sharon-Boomer, went through quite a trans-metamorphesis because in the original mini-series script, in the first draft, she wasn't a Cylon at all. She was going to be just--I wrote her just--I wanted a youngish pilot, who was the rookie, who was sort of vulnerable in ways, who made mistakes in ways that you're not used to seeing your heroes on TV shows do, and I was really interested in this idea of the officer, the female officer in love with the male deck chief in violation of all the rules and I kinda thought, going forward, that she and the [[Galen Tyrol|chief]], in combination with [[Boxey (RDM)|Boxey]], who's really only in the mini-series and one or two other episodes, would form sort of our family unit, that that was kind of a family...
:'''Chase''': OK...
:'''Ron''': ...and actually, after that first draft was written, it was [[David Eick]], my producing partner, who said, "you know what, if at the end of this thing, at the very end when all the Cylons walk into Armistice---into the [[Ragnar Anchorage|Ragnar station]] at the end...if you turn around and Sharon is one of the Cylons, he said, we're definitely gonna get picked up for a series.
:'''Chase''': (laughs) OK...that did make...that really did seal the deal...
:'''Ron''': ...and I just really went...that's a great idea and I realized that, because I'd had laid...I had written a story straight, I really hadn't cheated. There was no hint of who Sharon might be, and it really did suck you in, and really sort of, you believed her as a person first, and then we revealed her as a Cylon.
:'''Chase''': ...Right....
:'''Ron''': ...And so what happened after that was, I assumed going into the first season--well I didn't assume, I just planned...to slowly, over the course of the first year, peel back the layers--that Sharon would only start to sort of discover her Cylon nature by the end of the first year.
:'''Chase''': Oh, God...and it was heartbreaking, watching that unfold, because I loved her much as human, and she was just adorable, with him and then with the kid, it was like, oh, what a great girl, she's um...you know, young and cute, and--who's the actress--and that whole thing, and then you're like, WHAT?
:'''Ron''': Yeah...
:'''Chase''': ...She's the enemy...
:'''Ron''': I know then, she's the enemy, then she's the one that is your most worry, what's she gonna do next.
:'''Chase''': Yeah. You really took us on quite a journey there. I was still hoping for a human one running around somewhere, but no, huh?....
:'''Ron''': No.
:'''Chase''': Oh, well....

With this information from the show's main creative leader, it is established as canon that:

* There are precisely twelve ''human'' Cylon models. The other varieties of Cylon spacecraft or fighters are not factored into this count of 12 models.
* Sharon Valerii was ''never'' an actual human, and neither were the other Humano-Cylon models.
* The twelve models are based on on archetypes determined by the Cylons that form what they perceive were the specific kinds of human behavior and/or personality, distilled into twelve varieties.

==Note==
* The term "Humano-Cylon" is ''Battlestar Wiki's'' popular descriptive term for the humanoid Cylons, and [[Canon|not a canonical name]] found in episodes or revealed in podcasts from [[Ron D. Moore]] or [[David Eick]] as yet. Other names are also used, such as "humanoid-Cylons" (which [[Tricia Helfer]] often uses in interviews, but apparently more for convenience than an official name), or "Bio-Cylons" which is sometimes used derisively by fans of the Original Series.
* Within the show, the beings are usually just referred to as "Cylons", or "the human models" when they need to be distinguished from [[Cylon Centurion]]s.

[[Category:A to Z]]
[[Category:Cylons]]
[[Category:RDM]]