Talk:Daybreak, Part II/Archive 1

Move

Why move this? The way I understand this, this is still episode 20, but it will be lengthened to actually be 3 episodes long. So in a away there are 21/22 episodes even, and not 19. However, This says that the season will be 11 hours and not 12, but that doesn't mean that we need to get rid of episode 19 already. Especially given that the finale will probably air in at least 2 parts. So it makes some sense to have separate episodes guides for two airings. By production numbers this would be one episode, but split apart by airdate numbers. Maybe we should wait for some further clarification. -- Serenity 06:45, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

It could be split up into 3 parts in reruns. I think it would be easier to start with a single article and then split as necessary after it airs. -- Gordon Ecker 07:41, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

If Sci Fi is gonna pull a Miniseries and air this thing in two parts, we should pull a Miniseries too and have separate articles. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 09:08, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Which we can do after we know where the break point is. -- Gordon Ecker 09:25, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

There's no reason to split the article at this time. We won't know how things will be aired until they're actually aired. All we know for now is that the finale's been extended... that's it. Creating two or three sections based on something we have absolutely very little information on is just... ill-advised. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 13:14, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

The proposal wasn't a split, but a merge with 419 I think (the article exists. It just isn't linked to, because it's an empty skeleton). But the result is the same. The way I understand it, 419+420 will be the finale then, with both episodes running 3 hours together (incl. ads I guess). We'll see. -- Serenity 15:02, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Ah, ok. Sounded like it would be a split, with at least one additional article, seeing as each article would cover an hour. Anyway, we don't have enough information to be certain; it's still really all up in the air, and they have now until doomsday to figure out how to release the thing. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 15:19, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Title

Daybreak, Part 2 (and Part 3) according to producer Mark Verheiden.--Werthead 19:34, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Can we PLEASE change the title of the page to Part II & Part III -- It is being sold on iTunes, Amazon, etc. and two completely different episodes and this actually screwed me up immensely because I ended up reading spoilers for Part 3 before I started watching it. Yes, this is how it aired, but it is not how it is being archived. -- Namtastic 13:38, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Analysis

"Ronald D. Moore appears in a cameo as the man holding a National Geographic magazine in New York City. "

I think there is much more to it. Ronald D. Moore is appearing as himself reading that article because his knowledge of "Eve" influenced the series. In other words, the series is a result of the events depicted in the series. With that scene, Battlestar Galactica becomes part of Battlestar Galactica.

This is impossibel since as of 2009 mitochondrial Eve's remains haven't been found yet, this scene is set in the future, after the series ended.

--Gully 20:02, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Checkout http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve. First articals apearred in 2003 ;)

It's not the same thing: we've known about mitochondrial Eve since before the series started, but her actual remains have not been found, there were never any bones of her found up to this day. It's possible that Moore knowing about Eve's existence may have influenced the show, but he has never read an NGC article about the finding of her remains, simply because those remains haven't been found and thus never made their way into an NGC article. --Gully 20:38, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Notes

I recognised it immediately when watching the episode (and it's already on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daybreak_(Battlestar_Galactica)#Outside_references ), the "Kodiak" spacecraft from Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun can be seen among the fleet during this episode.

(Un)answered questions)

The following Ron Moore interview clears up some misunderstandings about the show: http://www.nj.com/entertainment/tv/index.ssf/2009/03/battlestar_galactica_ronald_d.html

1) Kara Thrace's father was NOT the lost cylon Daniel.

2) The Missiles Racetrack's Raptor (accidentally) fires at the cylon colony were nukes that severely damaged the colony and made it fall from its stable orbit into the singularity (black hole) so the colony has been utterly destroyed.

3) The Earth which is discovered in this episode is not the same planet that was discovered in "Revelations." The Earth of "Revelations" was not the planet we now live on, but our Earth was named after it.

There are still a bunch of unanswered questions:

1) What is the nature of the divine power (although this was probably intentionally left unanswered.)

2) Who were the Lords of Kobol and what happened to that world?

3) How did the colonials get from Kobol to the colonies and if they were technologically advanced, how did they loose all knowledge of Kobol, save for some religious texts?

4) What happened to those who nuked the old Earth 2000 years ago, some of these victors would have survived, but they re never seen or heard from.

5) Why didn't Cavil and his cylons try to re-invent resurrection themselves as the technology wasn't that far ahead of them (it was re-invented by the final five on old-Earth in a civilization that hadn't even invented jump drives.)

6) How could the resurrection hub control all resurrection ships while there was never any mention of FTL-communication on the show and why wasn't the resurrection hub integrated into the colony rather than floating around in deep space, vulnerable and guarded by only 2 baseships.

7) Was the colony really the place where all cylons lived, was their civilization so small (and clearly no match for the colonial military before the holocaust) and are there no baseships left out there that still have cylons aboard who want to exact their revenge on humanity? They may die out like the article suggests, but there's nothing stopping them from taking Earth with them (provided they find it within their lifetime.)

8) What happened to the other rebel cylons? Was it just the 3 baseships that rebelled, and if not, where are the other 2's, 6's and 8's?

9) How did Lee get everyone to agree to give up technology (even medical)?

10) Had it not made more sense to build new cities on Earth and rebuild the advanced colonial civilization, when everyone understood how important equal treatment of cylons and humans is, instead of letting Earth's humans build their own civilization thousands of years later, humans who are likely to make the same old mistakes with artificial intelligence and repeat the cycle?

11) How come no intelligent alien life has ever been encountered by colonials or cylons in their histories, but when it finally happens these aliens are identical to humans, who somehow evolved separately from the Kobol humans? Somehow this amazing coincidence being an "act of God" seems like a rather unsatisfactory answer.

12) Since all the fleet's decisions after the Ellen's reapperarance have been about breaking the cycle, is Lee afraid that by having superior technology on earth the cylons and colonials would "enslave" the native population, creating yet another cycle?

-- Gully 21:51, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

He doesn't actually say that about Kara. -- Noneofyourbusiness 20:00, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

You're right, I've edited my post. -- Gully 21:51, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd still like to know the origin of Kara's pristine Viper from her resurrection or how she died going into a gas giant with her corpse resting on a planet light-years away. And what the deal is with the Centurions from "Razor" and the Hybrid they deified. And while I understand his prophesy, I'd like to know why the old Hybrid didn't want Kara to lead a new civilisation to Earth. --Mars 02:36, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Her being sent back with a new viper was supposed to be an act of the divine power. I think the Razor centurions were explained as regular mutineers, they saw the first hybrid as some kind of prophet because of the way it talked and wanted to protect it from being scrapped. Seeing as how Kara was largely responsible for the end of Cylon civilization, except the few centurions that are still left, this explains why 'CYLON" hybrids call her the harbinger of death (it was never stated she was the harbinger of death for humanity.) -- Gully 20:48, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Gully, as for question four the Thirteenth Tribe's Earth got nuked by their Centurions. From the surface, not from space. M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Destruction). The Final Five secretly built a ship and rebuilt resurrection (Which the 13th Tribe hadn't needed since first achieving reproduction on Kobol). That was how they escaped. -- ZeldaTheSwordsman 04:24, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Alright, but being centurions the radiation wouldn't really hurt them, they could easily have created their own civilization after the dust settled (a bit like the machines in the "Terminator".) -- Gully 15:47, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Machines can be disabled by radiation, and the impacts themselves would have destroyed the Centurions. -- Noneofyourbusiness 18:34, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

From the article: “Since the notes of All Along the Watchtower lead to Earth, do they still serve a purpose on Earth?” answer: yes. -- LaloMartins 12:28, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Regarding point six, in Guess What's Coming to Dinner?, it was stated that, when the Resurrection Hub jumps, it transmits its' new location to the Hybrids, so FTL communication technology definitely exists. -- Gordon Ecker 01:13, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Adding a question on, the CGI Raptor launched 16 missiles, why were only 8 shown after the launch scene?--CHr0n0sPh3r3 06:51, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

What Precisely Killed Racetrack and Skulls?

The Marines in the rear of the cabin were killed by explosive decompression and vacuum exposure, but Racetrack and Skulls were in sealed pressure suits. I don't recall seeing suit damage in that quick shot of Margaret's hand falling on the missile-launch button. Did the one penetrating rock cause invisible crushing injuries to both of them? It didn't look big enough to hit both of them square on. -- Davidkevin 08:59, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Skulls whas hit in his face or chest by the rock and there was a small hole in Racetrack's helmet when her hand fell on the button.--Gully 00:13, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Delphi

In the episode "Downloaded" the cylons were rebuilding the Caprican city of Delphi and living in it. Was this effort completely abandoned when the Cylons decided to occupy New Caprica? Or has the effort to recover Caprica continued all this time and is it still occupied? Are there still a substantial number of human-Cylons living on Caprica? Will it become like first Earth before their holocaust, an entirely Cylon-populated society? Are any humans stragglers left alive on either Caprica or New Caprica? -- Davidkevin 09:33, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

They likely did leave the colonies after Downloaded, there may still be some baseships out there, but the cylons on them are aging and cannot procreate. Even if they found Earth within their lifetimes a handful of basestars probably don't have enough nukes to obliterate the Earth's surface, that is assuming they'll actually know humans are living on Earth: it's pretty hard to find a stone age culture or neolithic society from space, even when you're actively looking for them (sure the colonials found one tribe, but in order to kill all humans with a limited number of nukes you'd have to know the positions of every tribe on Earth.)

There may be human survivors left on the colonies but it's unlikely: sure, they may have survived the nukes and the radiation, but the cylons actively hunted them down, probably to populations too small to repopulate the planets.--Gully 00:13, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

The Cylons left the Twelve Colonies altogether in Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II, remember? -- Noneofyourbusiness 22:37, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Lost Viper

During the "back-breaking" of Galactica a Viper fell out of the bow of the port flightpod and floated downward relative to the ship, which was horizontal relative to the moon below. Has RDM mentioned what happened to it? Was it recovered to the ship, was it left adrift in Solar orbit (where it theoretically could still be), or did it crash onto the Moon? (Which would leave wreckage which could be discovered in the present or future.) -- Davidkevin 21:41, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Birch trees

(A notation rather than a question.) Birch trees don't grow and never grew in Africa, yet we clearly see them in /B/r/i/t/i/s/h/ /C/o/l/u/m/b/i/a/ Africa at the Colonial landing site. -- Davidkevin 21:41, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

The Angels Make Life In This Galaxy Boringly Homogenous.

I slept on this, but my original impression after watching Daybreak Park # 2 is that these Angels make things boring:

They create pidgins, dogs, cats, foxes, people, oranges, tuna, et cetera. I would not be surprised if the Angels dropped a big rock on the dinosaurs just so they can have a clean slate for creating rats.

Once they create people, they make the people invent pianos, worship Zeus, Yahweh, Thor, et cetera. They make the people play “All Along The Watchtower”. They see to it that the people create Cylons.

We are not descended from apes, but from # 8s — a little wordplay because 8 and ape sound similar. the mitochondrial DNA of the # 8s is so similar to that of Homo neanderthalensis that we apparently have a common ancestor, Homo heidelbergensis half a million years ago even though that is impossible.

If we explore the Galaxy, will only find humans and cylons. ¿What is the point? ¿Why bother exploring?

Arthur C. Clarke in 2001 had a similar idea of lonely aliens helping intelligent life evolve, but the beings did not care about the final form. In other words, diversity is the rule in 2001.

We still do not know the nature of these Angels other than that Starbuck seems to be one of them

I do not know how this fits into the article, but it fits into the article somehow. I figure that I should but this on the talkpages for Virtual Beings and Daybreak # 2.

---

From Act 10 section of article: "(This is in the year 1987 AD.)" How can it be 1987 when the flat panel TV clearly showed MSNBC logo at the bottom? MSNBC was created in 1996.--Steven512 14:43, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the robots you see in this scene were also developed after 1987 and as far as I know the remains of mitochondrial Eve have never been found.

In 1987 it was discovered that there had been a mitochondrial Eve, this was based on DNA-research among modern humans, her actual remains have not been found to this day so the scene takes place in the near future (it could even be tomorrow), not in 1987! --Gully 15:58, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Hera's Mate = Boxey?

From the notes section

On the second Earth Hera's mate that produced children was most likely human. Saul Tigh and the Leobens would be too old for her. While it was fairly common in ancient times for the men to be far older than their brides (particularly with royalty), for example with the female being as young as 12 and and the male being say 60 to take an extreme, Colonial mores, which are much like our own in real life, would forbid the Leobens from sexual congress with Hera when she reach the accepted reproductive age. On the other hand there were many human children about her age and slightly older in the Fleet. She could had also had children with a human child unborn at the time of the landing on Second Earth perhaps within five years to ten years of her age. It is possible that other hybrid children could had been born after the landing given that the Twos, Sixes, and Eights joined the humans. And it is possible that pure Cylon children could had been born to the age compatible Sixes, Eights, and Leobens but as noted in the series it is difficult if not impossible for a pure Cylon child to come to term making any pool of pure Cylon children that were successfully born very small. Cylon-Human mating with a human male with a Six or a Sharon is very possible with the example of Hera herself an significantly more likely than with a Cylon-Cylon birth, but it is harder than with human-human pairings making any pool of those pairing while much more likely and larger than Cylon-Cylon offspring, still quite small number compared to pure human offspring. Therefore Hera's offspring is most likely with a human. A more remote possibility is with another Cylon-human hybrid. Her producing children with a pure Cylon offspring is the least likely since pure Cylons are the least likely to exist.

Boxey could be Hera's mate. It would make sense.

Boxey as Y-chromosomal Adam? Or would that be "Adama"? heh--ManofTheAtom 15:42, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

The chromosomal Adam live tens of thousands of years after the Mitochondrial Eve.

Walabio 17:28, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Walabio is right and why would it be more likely for Hera to end up with Boxey instead of with one of the other hundreds of children from the fleet?

--Gully 18:11, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

The Y-chromosomal Adam reference was to make the pun based on Boxey being Apollo's adopted son in TOS :). As for why it would make sense, it be for no other reason that it would give the RDM version of the character some (belated) importance, which he lacked through the run of the show. Why have her end up with some random kid from the fleet than have her end up with a character who had some level of development? Plus, look at it this way, the original intent according to some references on this site say that the plan was to make Boxey, Tyrol, and Sharon (Boomer) a makeshift family. Having him end up with Hera accomplishes part of that intent as he'd be related to one version of Sharon (Athena)--ManofTheAtom 18:31, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

It is a moot point. He had NO relevant to BSG any more since they dropped him as a character. If they didn't drop him as a character I think the perfect end would had been making him that guy that was killed in the mutiny, you know the one that acted as a runner between CIC and some damaged area of the ship to get a damage report for Adama at the near the beginning of the mutiny? He was then later killed by Gaeta's trigger happy Marines when he pushed Adama to the deck, saving his life. That would had been a good way for Boxey to go. He would had been the right age (17) and would had gave his character an ultimate purpose, to save Adama when the time came.

Of course it is possible for Boxey and Hera to had gotten together. He would had been 14 years old when Hera was born but with Hera say 20 years old Boxey would had been 34, a reasonable age difference allowable in both our and Colonial Society. And further it would had been another of the shows many ironies and "what goes around, comes around" themes: Boxey, who was taken in by Boomer, an Eight as a quasi foster son, later marries the daughter of Athena, an Eight, who was stolen and then given back by Boomer who was then killed Athena. Imagine all the physiological turmoil that could case Boxey. This show thrived on that sort of thing. LOL Hunter2005 23:31, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Number Three

Couldn't they have sent a Raptor or an FTL-capable ship to find Number Three and bring her to the New Earth with them? It would have been the humane thing to do. --ManofTheAtom 15:53, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

She was left on a dead-to-humans world, where the only plant life we saw were grasses or other non-edibles, with a background radiation count above the safe level beyond short exposure: even the water was contaminated. She probably died within a few weeks of being left behind. -- Davidkevin 12:42, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Good point. --ManofTheAtom 14:59, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

It was established by Athena in The Passage that Cylons are far more resistant to radiation than humans are. In fact they bombed Caprica and the other Colonies with high yield nuclear weapons outside the cities so they could kill the humans but keep the buildings and infrastructure intact. We saw them settling in Caprica City in "Downloaded" even reopening the coffee shops, so radiation is of no problem to them (except for the rare special kind of Nebula radiation at Ragnar Anchorage) So it is possible for D'Anna Biers to survive the radiation of Earth One and even drink the rain water. Food on the other hand would be a problem and I saw no evidence of surviving animal life, and this all assumes that she wanted to survive, which I don't think she would due to staying on the radioactive rock in the first place. Still, it would had been a nice thing to try to find her. Maybe a miracle would had happened LOL. Hunter2005 00:05, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

"No Further Significant Revelations..."

I think this statement in the advisory tag is premature. There's still "The Plan", as well as, in theory, the Caprica series, both of which might provide further revelations with regards to Daybreak and the series itself. Certainly The Plan, anyway. Not to mention the presumed deleted scenes that will be on the DVD and there's a rumor Daybreak will be extended for the DVD as well. There's still a chance for some issues to be resolved. 23skidoo 13:42, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

That's interesting. I don't expect The Plan to reveal much of anything about what Kara became or who the Virtual beings were, but Caprica might explore it given the establishment that they appear at times when the cycle of time (machine on human violence) begins. Caprica might provide the answers to the lingering questions if for nothing more than to give fans of BSG a reason to watch. --ManofTheAtom 14:58, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Let's hope so, though I don't expect they will reveal much more about the divine powers or the angels, ever. It would take away the mystery and the sense that there is something bigger than us (humans and cylons), now we are left wondering if the divine power is a God, or just a very advanced race (maybe the perpetrators (or their descendents) of the first holocaust during the first cycle are feeling guilty) and I think that's how Ron Moore intended it to be. However, Caprica may reveal more about colonial history: what happened to Kobol, how did humans move from Kobol to the colonies, why was that history almost completely forgotten (was there a colonial dark age) and who or what were the Lords of Kobol? --Gully 15:34, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure that many people would agree, or at least theorize, that the virtual beings are Moore's version of the beings of light from the Ship of Lights, especially considering what happened to Kara, which I've seen (here or elsewhere, I forget) compared to what happened to the Starbuck from the original series on the last episode of Galactica 80. I think that the reason why Moore must have decided to leave things vague is that he didn't want to "cheapen it" by introducing something like the Ship of Lights into his show, which was more realistic than the original version. Now that I think about it, when Baltar tells Six that "it" doesn't like to be called God, it could be that "it" is the Ship of Lights or whatever version of it that exist in this version of the story. It would be cool if there was more exploration of this in Caprica, as well as further exploration of the "jealous God" from Kobol (which I'm sure we'll hear more of due to this headmistress in Caprica who doesn't believe in the Lords of Kobol) and all the other lingering questions from the show. In fact, given that religion is an important aspect of Caprica as it was in BSG (RDM) I wouldn't be surprised if we saw more of this down the line. --ManofTheAtom 17:49, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi, guys. Here's my two cents, since I'm the Senior Chief that added the special notice. "No further significant revelations" means "the story is generally over." BSG isn't Star Trek, guys. RDM has stated that there are some elements of the story that he wouldn't resolve, but that he would resolve the important stuff. Is that etched in stone somewhere? No. I'm sure Caprica may open a few new questions. But until that series debuts, what we have is what we have. Battlestar Wiki allows some speculation because we're talking about a work of fiction. But to speculate further when no further answers are likely and people are making what's otherwise original research--that's fanwanking, and it's not allowed on Battlestar Wiki. For the purposes of this episode summary because its so long (and must be), we have to keep focus and not overload the article. Episode summaries are the only articles where questions can be asked (provided they don't go out of control) but many questions will not be answered. As soon as the noise dies down we can move some pressing questions to our special Q&A page answered by BSG co-producer Bradley Thompson. In my opinion, the nature of the Virtual Beings and Kara have been answered as far as RDM wanted to do. They are beings of divine source--and folks, religion is one thing that RDM loved to keep close to his chest to add to the BSG mystique. --Spencerian 18:53, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not saying that The Plan is going to answer all the unanswered questions, etc. However The Plan has been acknowledged as the coda for this series, and just as important to it as Razor was. However the special notice as I saw it wasn't just in reference to Daybreak, but to the Wiki in general, and that's where I think it's premature. In terms of Daybreak itself, I agree that any additional revelations in The Plan will likely be minor and there are unlikely to be any in Caprica at all relating to that particular episode. But I think questions that come to mind are still worth asking with regards to characters that could be addressed in The Plan. And unless someone has already seen The Plan, or RDM has explicitly stated otherwise, we can't really predict which characters may or may not be addressed. Something that might be interesting once The Plan airs and is analysed is to go through the episode articles and compile the outstanding questions that the series has left unanswered. I think there will be fewer than some think, with the remainder being just enough to put this series into the same league as "The Prisoner" in that people will still be arguing over "what does it mean" 40 years from now. 23skidoo 02:06, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

How did the fleet reach Earth 2 / New Earth?

As far as I understood it before Galactica departed for the Colony they agreed to a rendezvous location with the fleet. But when jumping away from the colony Starbuck punched in the numbers of the song and Galactica jumped for its last time. But when it reappeared over New Earth the fleet also jumped right in. How did they get the coordinates (a raptor jumping to the rendezvous location?)? But how did they get them so fast? DJ Doena 14:02, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Galactica still had a few raptors left (we saw 7 of them landed on Earth) and 12 hours passed between the shot of Galactica jumping near the Moon and the rest of the fleet showing up, nothing fishy going on there. --Gully 15:30, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

The key here was time pressure. Someone had the coordinates, but with the chaos of getting sucked into a black hole, no one could give them to Kara in time before Galactica's final jump. When all was stable, someone remembered/recalled the Fleet's coordinates, sent a Raptor, and all was good. --Spencerian 18:56, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

You missed the letters onscreen spelling "Twelve Hours Later". -- Noneofyourbusiness 18:34, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Consolidation change

Hey everyone! I just wanted to take a moment to explain the format and consolidation change for Act I. This change is a test for updating the event summary because:

• Each detail does not require a bullet.
• Having bullets for every event make it look redundant.

• However, having bullets between major events makes the summary flow a little better. This was the approach I used when summarizing Daybreak, Part I. It gives each scene a sense of distinction, like this example.

Are there any other opinions regarding this proposed change? If it's OK, I can start work on the other acts. -- Sgtpayne 20:52, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Given the massive data, it's okay to condense a few points. But keep it to maybe three or four lines condensed. Any larger and it's hard to follow. Try to keep it looking like the other episode guides as much as possible for consistency. --Spencerian 21:57, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the working guideline. As of this writing, Act I & II are done, and starting on the rest. Hope you guys like it! -- Sgtpayne 07:46, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

The robot at the end

I corrected an addition in Story Notes that suggested the female robot at the very end is the one that was unveiled only a few days before the broadcast. That would have been very cool, but it's actually the "Actroid" which was unveiled 4 years ago. Interestingly I found Actroid, a 4-year-old technology, to be more lifelike than the one unveiled last week... 23skidoo 02:06, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

The model on the cover of "Sports Limited"

Here's a challenge for those who watched this on HD sets... I've heard it suggested that the model on the cover of "Sports Limited" (the SI-like magazine seen on the newsstand) might actually be Tricia Helfer. I can't tell at all on the computer-screen I'm using, but it might be a neat bit of trivia (not to mention it would open a line of speculation as to whether the Sixes have survived to the present day) if it's true. 23skidoo 16:30, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Questions Section

I can never be more blunt than I tried to be before on these last two guides. The questions sections follow strict rules Battlestar_Wiki:Standards_and_Conventions/Episode_Guides#Questions_Section is the policy on this section. I am going to again clear out the questions section with the bad stuff. Users who do not follow our polices on the BW:SAC will be warned and if after being warned by doing it again, will be banned. Shane (talk) 02:56, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Lie-dector test "question"

In the Questions section, somebody asked: "During the lie detector test in the flashback scene of William Adama's attempt to secure a civilian job, why did the interrogator ask him if he was a Cylon?"

This was a control question in order to get a baseline from which to compare the real questions for deception. Such as if a polygraph-operator were to ask "Are you a dinosaur?" This fact was made immediately clear in the dialogue. This was in no way left unclear. It's not a mystery. It's not even a debate.

I've deleted it.

What year is it "question"

Another rediculous addition to the Questions section: "What year is it on Earth during the final scene?"

That too was answered by the title: "150,000 Years Later". Go back 150,000 years from 2009 AD, and you have the answer: 148000 B.C.E.

I've deleted the question.

Regarding my edits to Questions Section

I've removed these three questions:

• Why so many zeros in the Model 0005?
• Does either Battlestar Galactica TV series exist in some form on the new Earth?
• Who or what is God exactly?

The first two are completely and utterly ridiculous and do not have any merit as questions. They will never be answered, and it's simply beneath the scope of what questions should be in that section in the first place.

The third question has been pretty much answered in the series by Baltar, who is essentially the mouthpiece of the writers coda on that subject. In the universe of BSG, God is a force of nature who doesn't like the name "God." -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 15:57, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Galactica breaking her back

Just noticed, Galactica made her final jump with her flight pods out, maybe thats what caused the damage? I mean the extra forces exerted on the ship because of the higher amount of ship to effect. It makes sense that Galactica jumping without her pods retracted would place extraordinary amount of stress on the ship. Every other time even when dropping through the atmosphere at New Caprica the Galactica always had her pods retracted fro a jump. --CHr0n0sPh3r3 08:24, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

That could very well have been a contributing factor, but there are many other factors in play, too, namely

• her age,
• compromises made during construction,
• accumulated stresses and fractures from past battle damage and the sheer number of jumps,
• lack of proper dock repair and maintenance,
• her last sustained pounding at close-range, and ramming into the Colony.

And consider that Adama and Tigh were told that she only had a few more jumps in her before she suffers structural damage. The old girl was already falling apart.-- Fredmdbud 13:24, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

I remember that one of the specialists told Adama that Galactica had 5 jumps left max, but nevermind it I just took notice of it and wanted to see what everyone else thought of it. EDIT: Also noticed that Glactica's flight pods went up and down of their own accord after the jump, maybe thats why they retract the pods? I think the Mercuries could non-retract jump because of the way their support struts are placed. By the looks of it the movement of the pods was absolutely massive and that kind of stress would most certainly break Galactica's back no matter what sort of structural damage she had before. --CHr0n0sPh3r3 07:12, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

A suspension bridge's cables snap, and the road buckles. Overwhelming stresses on the road deform it, and the cables snap. A similar arguement can be made for the flight pods. There could have been torque forces on the pods, but the loss of lateral supports could have affected the ship's rigidity that caused the body to flex, which could also cause the flight pods to sway, too.-- Fredmdbud 07:28, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Cylon Longevity

According to No Exit, Ellen and the others created Cavil in the image of her father, so it stands to reason that, 40 years prior to the fall of the colonies, he was already a man in his 70'(s?) and in fact had not aged in those four decades. It can be assumed that the same holds true for the other six humanoid cylons, all of which were considerably younger than him.

The point here is, if humaoid Cylons don't age then the surviving Cylons who didn't make it to Earth wouldn't have died out as it has been speculated, be it from old age or lack of mates to reproduce with. Their longevity could surpass human longevity and they could be alive at the end of the series.

Furthermore there's the issue of boxing. They could have boxed themselves as a form of suspended animation to ensure their survival and programmed Guardian Centurions to watch over them.

All in all, there are many number of ways in which the humanoid Cylons that didn't make it to Earth could have survived. --ManofTheAtom 20:38, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Edit: Now that I think about it, what about the Cylons who did make it to Earth? If they don't age, how did they die out? --ManofTheAtom 00:33, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps aging was only a non-issue when they had resurrection tech. -- Noneofyourbusiness 18:34, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

You mean, they did age but then transfered their conciousness to younger bodies? That's possible. What about the option to box their conciousness? They could still survive that way (sure, their bodies might die out without some form of suspended animation given that they are biological, but their conciousness could survive as 1s and 0s that could be downloaded into new bodies 150,000 years later). --ManofTheAtom 20:21, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Removed questions

I've removed the following questions:

• Who were/are the Lords of Kobol?
  • Good question, but not one with any connection to this episode.
• What year is the present day?
  • I'm not sure what this is asking. We are shown that the Colonial's present is 150 000 years before our own.
• Who is the dying leader? Laura Roslin? Galactica? Starbuck?
  • The narrative gives us many explicit statements that it is Roslin, and she fits the role perfectly, making it unnecessary to try and jam someone else into the position. Doing so without clear indications from the show is speculation.
• What’s the deal with Kara Thrace?
  • She was sent back by "God" as an angel to guide the people to the new Earth. Covered fairly conclusively, if not explicitly.
• What is the true nature of the Head People?
  • They were angels, as was stated many times.
• Who or what is guiding events?
  • Something akin to "God", though it doesn't like to be called that. I think this is covered sufficiently in the earlier question about why "God" is guiding events.
• Is Virtual Baltar really the archangel Gabriel? If not, is Virtual Leobon? (Assuming they're not actually the same being, that is.)
  • Theory without basis in the show.

--Hylas 23:41, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Parallel evolution

It is implausible scientifically that Earth humans and Colonials just happened to evolve in parallel without outside influence (possibly from the head beings). Therefore, I wouldn't state it as fact that they're alien to each other -- there is no support for that in the show. The facts are that they can mate and that the characters are surprised about humans existing on Earth, but I wouldn't go as far as drawing conclusions about the origins of Colonials and humans. -- Graf Iblis 19:11, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

It could be that in the Galactica universe humans are the standard of life across the universe, which is why they never encountered other life forms during their travels. --ManofTheAtom 14:19, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

And yet no one remarks about the fact that New Caprica and the Algae planet's trees look like Earth trees. -- Noneofyourbusiness 18:36, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I covered this on this very talkpage here. Basically, the Angels guide evolution subtly by such means as dropping huge asteroids on the dinosaurs so that they can create dodos in their place. Because of these Angels life is the same everywhere right down to identical pianofortes playing All Along The Watchtower.

Walabio 18:48, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Most importantly, don't forget the suits and ties, which were reinvented by accident or through the collective unconscious. Back to the topic, though - all I'm saying is that the fact that Earth humans are primitive in that era does not necessarily imply that the Colonials evolved totally independently on Kobol and are therefore aliens, as the note in the article stated. No need to make such bold conclusions for the sake of "You know what that actualy means?"-type trivia; we know the visible facts, and they should be reported as such, and we know there is a LOT that we don't know about the head beings, which opens up any number of possibilities for future storytelling. -- Graf Iblis 20:15, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

"And yet no one remarks about the fact that New Caprica and the Algae planet's trees look like Earth trees" The Algae planet could have been terraformed by the 13th Tribe before they reached Earth (maybe they intended to settle there but then learned of the supernova and changed their minds, but not after they had terraformed the planet and built the temple). New Caprica had trees? Wasn't it mostly a desert? --ManofTheAtom 20:50, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I shall address the remarks of Graf Iblis, None Of Your Business, and Man of the Atom together:

What Graf Iblis says could make sense:

Let us suppose that the Angels scooped up humans from Our Earth, took them to Cobol taught them to talk and ruled over them as the Lords of Cobol 160 thousand years ago. That makes sense.

About the trees on New Caprica, trees on our Earth come in 3 shapes:

• - Cone-Shaped

• - Mushroom-Shaped

• - Palm-Tree-Shaped

For all 3 shapes one can find both angiosperms and gymnosperms. For the Palm-Tree-shaped we even have some ferns too. Convergent evolution like sharks and ichthyosaurs probably can explain the trees looking alike.

Walabio 23:55, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

If the same tree species, and foxes, and chickens, and so on, can evolve on different planets without terraforming, humans aren't a stretch. -- Noneofyourbusiness 19:10, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

But the trees need not be the same species on New Caprica.. Indeed, they may have only a superficial resemblance to each other. Despite looking externally similar ichthyosaurs and sharks are very different. For foxes, pidgins, humans, et cetera to be on both Cobol and our Earth, the Angels would have to stear biological evolution on both planets or scooped up these organisms on our Earth where we know for a fact they evolved and taken them to Cobol.

— “⸘Ŭalabio‽” 00:46, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

And the Twelve Colonies, if humans didn't bring them from Kobol (and I doubt they did). -- Noneofyourbusiness 03:25, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

It was mine understanding that the Colonists brought life from Cobol and terraformed the 12 planets orbiting a few stars in an open star-cluster.

— “⸘Ŭalabio‽” 04:25, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

No one ever said this. Was it in the role-playing game? -- Noneofyourbusiness 14:32, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

No. It just 1 of only 2 ideas making sense:

1. - The Colonists terraformed several planets orbiting several stars in an open starcluster.
2. - The Colonists rearranged 12 planets and moons of a star so that they all orbit stably within the habitable zone of a star and then terraformed them.

Nowhere in the show do we see any hint of the capability to move planets.

— “⸘Ŭalabio‽” 00:52, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Or there were twleve habitable planets. It's not that far-fetched in light of Earth and Kobol both having humans. If you think that both did naturally. Which I do, since the Colonials had the concept of evolution. -- Noneofyourbusiness 02:31, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

> “Or there were twleve habitable planets.”

You want something that cannot be. One cannot have twelve planets forming the habitable zone of a star. Even if one could, not all twelve would be habitable.

> “It’s not that far-fetched in light of Earth and Kobol both having humans. If you think that both did naturally. Which I do, since the Colonials had the concept of evolution”

> They could not both have evolved naturally. Biological evolution has 2 components:

1. - Natural Selection
2. - Random Mutation

Natural selection is not random, but random selection is random. The solution-space is too large and the process to stochastic. One would not have humans and chickens arising on other worlds. ¿Does Australia have bison or kangaroos? Even with extreme convergent evolution like sharks and ichthyosaurs, they do not become the same species like Colonials and the humans on our Earth.

— “⸘Ŭalabio‽” 04:00, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

"Let us suppose that the Angels scooped up humans from Our Earth, took them to Cobol taught them to talk and ruled over them as the Lords of Cobol 160 thousand years ago. That makes sense." It goes without saying that BSG left people wanting more. One thing I would like to know more about is who the Lords of Kobol were, what their relationship with the Angels/Messengers was, and who the jealous Lord that Elosha mentioned in "Kobol's Last Gleaming" was meant to be. Was he Iblis? Was he God? Was Iblis meant to be God? According to some text on the first season finale's page, RDM wanted Dirk Benedick to play Iblis and introduce himself to Baltar as God. Could this still happen? Did RDM change his mind and made God a "force of nature", or did Iblis/Jealous Lord EVOLVE into a force of nature? Is it that he (it?) doesn't like to be called God because he prefers to be called "Iblis"? Wasn't Iblis refered to as Lord in the original show? (Lord Iblis sounds right to me). Iblis as the one true God who orchestrated everything that happened to the Colonials and the Cylons... wouldn't that be a twist (just like Starbuck being a woman was a twist) on the original? Iblis goes from being Satan to being God... I HOPE that this is explored more deeply in Caprica... How could it NOT be given that it features a religious school, right? What else will those characters talk about if not Colonial theology and the Lords of Kobol (as well as the jealous Lord of Kobol). --ManofTheAtom 00:19, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I doubt that Ronald D. Moore will ever directly answer these questions. He will probably just frak up our minds even more.

— “⸘Ŭalabio‽” 00:46, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

There's a chance that RDM intended to answer these and other questions on BSG, but when the opportunity came to develop a spin off (Caprica) he could have made the choice to abandon these plots and focus on the survival aspect of the story instead and keep them to be developed later in Caprica. With characters like the teacher/nun who believes in the "one true God", locations like the Athena school (is is Athena? I forget), and the cult of religious believers that Zoe Graystone's boyfriend belongs to, there's considerable evidence to believe that these topics will be explored in the series, either as fully-developed plots or just casual conversation (i.e. dialogue spoken in a classroom, a conversation between this teacher/nun and maybe a younger Elosha in the school's quad)... It would stand to reason that given that Caprica seems to be more deeply rooted in the theology of BSG that it would explore these ideas, which might be why they stopped being an issue in BSG, which was more about finding Earth/a new world than in about discovering the "truth of God". --ManofTheAtom 01:12, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I always figured that it is just another crazy cult. On our Earth, people blow themselves up in the name of the one true god all of the time. The one true cylon-god is nothing more than the one true god of the cult of the of true god.

Both Joseph Adams and William Adama are atheists. Lee Adama seems indifferent to religion. I wonder whether this is nature or nurture.

— “⸘Ŭalabio‽” 04:25, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

It could be a result of their loosing their family in the explosion. It could be that Joseph decides that religion only results in hatred (it is religion that pushes Zoe's boyfriend into detonating the bomb). The question is in finding the link between the Cylon's worship of the one true God and the cult that Zoe's boyfriend belogns to. Why would Daniel Graystone instill religion into the Cylons? If not him, then who, how, and why? Is it Zoe's friend? Is it the teacher/nun? Is it Virtual Zoe? Why would any Graystone believe in the one true God whose followers caused the death of Zoe, Adama's sister and mother, and all those other people?... Speaking of Virtual Zoe, will she be connected to Virtual Six and Virtual Baltar? Is the one true God really a divine being (i.e. a Lord of Kobol), a "force of nature", or a man inside a space ship (a ship of lights, if you will) who uses Graystone's Cylon and Virtual echnologies to influence Colonial life (well, that might not track given that the messengers visited the 13th Colony 2000 years prior to the creation of the Cononial Cylons, but wouldn't it be cool if it did, heh?). --ManofTheAtom 13:12, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

The messengers saw Kobol and Earth as well as Caprica, so they can't be the product of Graystone technology. Right now, the best answer for the Centurions' monotheism is that they're Zoe's descendants. -- Noneofyourbusiness 14:32, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

--ManofTheAtom 18:52, 8 May 2009 (UTC)== The Colonials were NOT "human" (in the modern sense) == I've restored the bit about the characters not being "human" in the modern sense of the term and that the series was fundamentally the saga of an alien race. If you actually listened to Dr. Cottle, he said the DNA of the early Earth humans is "compatible" to Colonial DNA. He didn't say it was exactly the same. Going by that, it's completely fair to conclude that the Colonials and early humans were NOT genetically identical. They simply had analogous DNA structures. We already know they had at least one physiological difference: the Colonials didn't have a universal blood donor type.

As for "our" connection with them; within the Battlestar Galactica universe, modern humans are NOT Colonials. We are a hybridization of Colonials AND the native humans. So the characters of Battlestar Galactica were indeed "aliens" and not "human" in the sense of what we consider human today. By the nature of them not evolving on Earth, they were most certainly extraterrestrial. -- Troyian

Extraterrestrial and alien have different meanings. The former simply means "not from Earth", the latter is a relative term for something the speaker has no relationship to. It is obvious that Colonials are extraterrestrial. They are not alien to us, just as the Cylons and the Earth natives are not.

There's no evidence that they didn't have a universal blood donor type. The copy of Baltar's Lab Notes sold at the big auction shows that Hera's blood was unusual because it had no antigens whatsoever, not just ABO. -- Noneofyourbusiness 19:21, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

---

Here are my problems with the paragraph:

1) The revelation that the Colonial "humans" evolved separately from Earth humans...

Where is this demonstrated in the series? All we know for sure is that practically identical Colonials arrived on our Earth more than 150,000 years ago. We have absolutely no idea how they came to be on Kobol. Why are you so eager to jump to conclusions about totally separate evolution processes of practically identical races, especially with the huge uncertainty factor of the "God" entity taking an active part in everyone's life? I would be extremely careful - if the "God" entity is so powerful and capable of surviving over 150,000 years, it could have manipulated life on Kobol based on life on Earth. No need to ignore the scientific facts of evolution in that case. Therefore, I propose to stick to the facts, and not espouse anyone's theory of how the two groups evolved, either yours or mine. The Colonials arrived on Earth 150,000 years ago and they can mate with the local population. That's it.

2) ...means that fundamentally none of the so-called "human" characters of the series were actually human in the sense of what we consider human today. Instead, they were an outwardly indistinguishable from Homo sapiens extraterrestrial species with compatible DNA to Homo sapiens as a result of a parallel evolution.

Again, no evidence for parallel evolution, which would be extremely unlikely. The facts are: Colonials came from Kobol as far as they know, although they don't know much about their early history.

3) The reimagined Battlestar Galactica was actually the saga of an alien race.

No proof. In order to prove that it is an alien race, you have to prove that they evolved completely separately, despite all the physical similarities and an extremely influential "God" entity observing the events over hundreds of thousands of years and taking an active part in them.

It is extremely important to stick to verifiable facts on such shaky ground, with so much about the "God" entity remaining unknown. -- Graf Iblis 19:48, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

• Jane Espenson (one of BSG's writers and executive producers) has confirmed in an interview that Kobol was indeed the "original origin point for humanity" (i.e. Colonials) [1]. -- Troyian 21:25, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I think this is likely the case, but unfortunately her wording is "I've always taken it to be Kobol." -- Noneofyourbusiness

Jane, Ron, any writer or producer. If you see this, could you please clear things up for us? --- Troyian 21:30, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

---

As noted, she assumed it to be Kobol. If you quote her exactly, I don't mind, but that does not mean that Ron Moore shares the opinion absolutely, without possibility of change, or that any other writers do. Remember how fluid and unpredictable BSG writing tends to be? She also indicated in another interview that the Angels may be aliens, which is something that Ron Moore wasn't specific about; they really prefer to leave a lot of this to our interpretation. Again, quoting her on that is fine, but it should not be stated as undisputable fact. If you include the source, the reader will know that the statement does not have the same value as an onscreen demonstration, and that there are alternative explanations as well. -- Graf Iblis 21:57, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

---

Wouldn't the Colonials fall within the category of Missing Link between modern humanity and the "Colonial-compatible human life" they found on Earth (2). meaning that, since modern man is the child of the mating of Colonials and those humans, he shares more in commun with them than he does with the humans they found here?

In other words, modern man, as the child of the Colonials, is the result of mating between aliens and human ancestors who shared communalities wth those aliens, thus making the Colonials humans in the modern sense since the modern sense of what means to be human is the result of that mixture of races.--ManofTheAtom 12:57, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Which is closer to modern man depends on the ratio of Colonial to Earther in the mix. -- Noneofyourbusiness 14:28, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Modern Man = The mating of a Colonial/Cylon hybrid (Hera) with either a human from the planet (which might be unlikely given their state of evolution), a Colonial (i.e. Boxey), or a Cylon (which would have to be Leoben since he was the only male Cylon that joined the Civil War on the Sixes' side, right? Simon and Doval stayed with Cavil). How likely is it that Hera would have mated with a native during her lifetime? Would the Colonials and Cylons have integrated themselves that early into the populace, or waited until they achieved a higher degree of evolution (i.e. invent the wheel)? --ManofTheAtom 18:52, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Daybreak Three-Parter

In Latinamerica, Daybreak is airing as a three-parter. Today, part II just finished airing here and it had the following differences from the two-hour version detailed in this article (in all likelihood this is the syndicated version. I don't know if that has already aired in the US).

The following two summaries from the article are the two scenes that have been omitted from the second chapter of the three-parter version of Daybreak:

• Elsewhere, Laura Roslin greets her date, Sean Allison, at her home. She eventually recognizes him as a former student from years ago. Despite the age difference, Roslin decides to let him stay the night.

• A flashback scene shows what Boomer meant: a time back in her days on 'Galactica, as Adama and Tigh redress her but give her another chance to be a better pilot.