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Hybrid utterances

From Battlestar Wiki, the free, open content Battlestar Galactica encyclopedia and episode guide
Revision as of 05:44, 12 May 2008 by Tuzaa (talk | contribs) (→‎Dying Hybrid: change to rebel hybrid)

Hybrids, the central computer of a Cylon baseship, appear to constantly utter incoherent phrases and thoughts, punctuated by what seem to be computer or system observations, results, or instructions of the basestar's operation.[1] Despite their seemly nonsensical nature, they sometimes seem to relate wider world around them, perhaps with a prophetic nature. Number Twos believe that the Hybrid's words have religious significance.

Gaius Baltar and other humanoid Cylons are present when one Hybrid is speaking:

  • Two protons expelled at each coupling site creates the mode of force, the embryo becomes a fish that we don't enter until a plate, we're here to experience evolve the little toe, atrophy, don't ask me how I'll be dead in a thousand light years, thank you, thank you. Genesis turns to its source, reduction occurs stepwise though the essence is all one. End of line. FTL system check, diagnostic functions within parameters repeats the harlequin the agony exquisite, the colors run the path of ashes, neuronal network run fifty-two percent of heat exchanger cross-collateralized with hyper-dimensional matrix, upper senses, repair ordered relay to zero zero zero zero. (Torn)
  • Mists of dreams drip along the nascent echo and love no more. End of line.
  • The five lights of the apocalypse rising struggling towards the light, the sins revealed only to those who enter the temple only to the chosen one. (Staring at Baltar:) The chosen one. The chosen one. The chosen one. The chosen one.
  • One degree angle nominal. Seascape portrait of the woman child cavern of the soul. Under pressure-heat ratio ides of evolutions have buried their fears.
  • Gestalt therapy and escape clauses.
  • Throughout history the nexus between man and machine has spun some of the most dramatic, compelling and entertaining fiction.[2]
  • (Grasping Baltar) Intelligence. A mind that burns like a fire.
  • Find the hand that lies in the shadow of the light. In the eye of the husband of the eye of the cow. (The Passage) [3]

At least one Hybrid has spoken utterances that suggest a knowledge of the 'activation' of the Final Five:

  • The excited state decays by vibrational relaxation into the first excited singlet state. Yes, yes and merrily we go. Reduce atmospheric nitrogen by 0.03%. It is not much consolation that society will pick up the bits, leaving us at eight modern where punishment, rather than interdiction, is paramount. Please, cut the fuse. They will not harm their own. End of line. Limiting diffusions to two dimensions increases the number of evolutionary jumps within the species. Rise and measure the temple of the five. Transformation is the goal. They will not harm their own. Data-font synchronization complete. (Six of One)

Rebel Hybrid

Kara Thrace travels to the rebel basestar to hear their Hybrid, whom Leoben believes will guide her on her quest for earth. She finds little sense in its ramblings:

  • The obstinate toy soldier becomes pliant
  • The city devours the land, the people devour the city...
  • Intruders swarm like flame, like the whirlwind; Hopes soaring and to slaughter all the best against our hulls/house
  • All these things at once and many more, not because it wishes harm, because it likes violent vibrations to change constantly.
  • You are a spark of God's Fire.
  • The children of the one reborn shall find their own country.

Just as the hybrid is being disconnected from its basestar she delivers one final, and unusually coherent, message to Thrace:

  • Thus will it come to pass. A dying leader will know the truth of the Opera House. The missing Three will give you the Five who come from the home of the Thirteenth. You are the harbinger of death, Kara Thrace. You will lead them all to their end. End of Line. (Faith)

First Hybrid

The first Hybrid also says several prophetic phrases, although this Hybrid's behavior displays far more coherence, grammatically. The First Hybrid also shows self-awareness, speaking in complete sentences when addressing Kendra Shaw (Razor).

  • At last, they’ve come for me. I feel their lives, their destinies spilling out before me. The denial of the one true path, played out on a world not their own, will end soon enough. Soon there will be four, glorious in awakening, struggling with the knowledge of their true selves. The pain of revelation bringing new clarity and in the midst of confusion, he will find her. Enemies brought together by impossible longing. Enemies now joined as one. The way forward at once unthinkable, yet inevitable. And the fifth, still in shadow, will claw toward the light, hungering for redemption that will only come in the howl of terrible suffering. I can see them all. The seven, now six, self-described machines who believe themselves without sin. But in time, it is sin that will consume them. They will know enmity, bitterness, the wrenching agony of one splintering into many. And then, they will join the promised land, gathered on the wings of an angel. Not an end, but a beginning.
  • Kara Thrace will lead the human race to its end. She is the herald of the apocalypse, the harbinger of death. They must not follow her.
  • As my own existence comes to a close, only to begin anew, in ways uncertain.
  • All this has happened before, and it will happen again...again...again...again...again...again...again...

References

  1. The behavior of speaking with little pause in an incoherent fashion is a condition known as logorrhoea, and is generally considered a type of illness in humans. This differs from glossolalia: constant nonsensical speech, and xenoglossy: speaking in a language not ordinarily known by the speaker. Glossolalia is also known as "speaking in tongues." While the Hybrid speaks the same common language as the humanoid Cylons and Colonials, the content of her speech contacts religious and prophetic messages related to the series storylines as classic glossolalia is claimed to exhibit.
  2. This "fourth wall" dialogue references the drama of man/machine conflicts in science fiction as seen in the Battlestar series' themselves as well as movies and novels such The Terminator, I, Robot and The Matrix.
  3. These two lines are quoted in the music for "Rapture" as theme for the Temple of Five and sung in Latin.