Can someone explain Battlestar Galactica to a COMPLETE newco

[DPDarkPrimus]

If you end up buying the seasons to own, don't buy Razor separately, as it is packaged with Season 4.0.

[Anguirus]

Let's be honest - the we're told the cylons are morally ambiguous because otherwise the drama isn't edgy enough. Aww don't exterminate the poor widdle cylons they're people too!!

Even in the Miniseries you have Six falling in love with Baltar, and the background that the first Cylon War resulted from their slavery. Cylons as characters is the feature that makes the show work, as opposed to being the original series + grimdark.

[Stark]

It never 'worked' for me; certainly not in the terrible miniseries. I'd almost recommend a new viewer totally skip it, given it's so horrible and even the first episodes of s1 are better.

Poor widdle cylons GOT FEELINGZ.

[Count Dooku]

Thanks for all the info, it was greatly appreciated.

[JLTucker]

I would personally wait until a box set is released, Count Dooku.

[Vympel]

If you end up buying the seasons to own, don't buy Razor separately, as it is packaged with Season 4.0.

Yeah, that was such a fucking dickless move on their part. Why release Razor on DVD seperately if they were going to bring it out with the S4.0 box set anyway? To fleece people who didn't realise they would do that. Fuckers.

[Anguirus]

So I take it Stark is recommending that you simply don't watch the show at all?

I offer the opposite recommendation. You'll either like it, or you won't.

[K. A. Pital]

True, but the important point comes in the second part: the Cylons didn't just nuke the colonies out of the evilness of their hearts ("just for the sake of it"). Once you look at their history it becomes perfectly understandable why they would develop a religion that tells them to kill all humans

"Evilness of their hearts"? Who cares what their motivations are when the action is unquestionably evil beyond any redemption? The humans didn't even plan anything similar to the crap the Cylons pulled; the humans were un-suspecting, and at no point the humans decided to wipe out the Cylons.

Moreover, as infiltrators were there for a very long time before the attack, and one of them fucked with Baltar and knew everything about the human colonies how the hell did the Cylons not know that in reality humans aren't going to kill them?

No, their religion did force them to kill humans just for the sake of it; their religion is evil in itself then, and they are also evil for embracing it. I cannot also see them not having a free choice; after all, some of the Cylons reject their kind; especially the meatbag ones. As such, it's clear that the meatbags who participated in humanity's genocide are evil of their own will, there are no redeeming factors for them, none at all.

Also, in Russia we have two different dubs of Galactica (Sci-Fi Channel Russia and TV3). And yes, both are crap. But I prefer original sound anyway; once I'm done with watching it on TV, I'll get some sort of HDTV recording of the show with optional English audio tracks.

[Stark]

If you think 'the mini sucks compared to the series' means don't watch the show you're an idiot. I'd be surprised if this guy hadn't already seen the mini and he shouldn't judge the show by that poorly-paced contrived mess.

[Count Dooku]

I would personally wait until a box set is released, Count Dooku.

To buy it? I'm not looking to purchase anything at the moment. I'm just attempting to watch everything via NetFlix, without nuking the continuity.

[M]

"Evilness of their hearts"? Who cares what their motivations are when the action is unquestionably evil beyond any redemption? [Cylons are evil evil evil.]

So you think the Cylons are evil beyond redemption? Thanks for clearing that up, it totally didn't get through the first three dozen times.

Some people appreciate multi-faceted characters even when they're clearly evil. If that's not your thing, I suspect you'll have little fun the further the show progresses; by its end the writers have basically turned "morally ambigious" into "various degrees of evil".

[K. A. Pital]

So you think the Cylons are evil beyond redemption?

It's how it is, not how I think it is. And yeah, there's the "degrees of evil", as well as the possibility for turning against one's own cause (good "peaceful" Cylons vs. bad "genocidal" Cylons, good "stay with humans" Cylons vs. bad "change allegiance immediately upon knowing I'm Cylon" characters). However, the individual good Cylons only underscore the malevolence of the Cylons as a society, and their whole leadership especially. Also, during the time of the attack the Cylons acted as a monolithic force and thus were collectively guilty of the action - their government consisting of human replicas has unanimously approved the extermination of mankind.

What happens later doesn't mean a parole for past actions of such magnitude. Even if they save these 40,000 humans, that's 40,000 saved versus 20 billion exterminated, doesn't sound too even, eh.

[M]

Stas, it would be really helpful if you could tell me how far you've seen. I've got a feeling I could dispense with most of the spoiler tags, but I don't want to accidentally, well, spoil you.

What happens later doesn't mean a parole for past actions of such magnitude. Even if they save these 40,000 humans, that's 40,000 saved versus 20 billion exterminated, doesn't sound too even, eh.

Spoiler

I'm really curious what you think of Athena, Helo's girlfriend. At least in the first two seasons, while she seems to be sympathetic towards humans in general her actions can also be interpreted as just being protective towards her boyfriend and child. So... good er evil?

[K. A. Pital]

Sharon Athena participated in the genocide of the colonies as I understood. Her post-genocidal sympathies aren't much of a redeeming factor. Yeah, they do make the character more interesting to follow, and quite so. It might be though that this copy of Eight is not occupying a leadership position in teh Cylon society, which somewhat redeems her (i.e. the attack was not her decision).

As I gathered, there's another copy of Eight in the Cylon "ruling cabal", which is distinct from all other Eights. Is that not so?

[Anguirus]

If you think 'the mini sucks compared to the series' means don't watch the show you're an idiot. I'd be surprised if this guy hadn't already seen the mini and he shouldn't judge the show by that poorly-paced contrived mess.

Well, it's just that I have a hard time seeing the point of the show without multi-dimensional Cylon characters. It would just be grimdark Voyager, complete with Borg.

As for the morality of the Cylons, yes, they are incredibly fucked up. What I've observed is that they have a tendency to make HUGE decisions very quickly. A few of them get together in the space of minutes and make society-changing decisions. The bombing of the Colonies was insanely evil, but the ones that show remorse for it appear to be genuine, and genuinely changed by their interactions with humans.

I'll reserve my final judgment on Cylon morality until the end of the series, and "The Plan" movie afterward. It wouldn't surprise me if very few skinjobs knew squat about humans other than that they were a threat, before the decision was made to go to war.

[M]

Sharon Athena participated in the genocide of the colonies as I understood. Her post-genocidal sympathies aren't much of a redeeming factor. Yeah, they do make the character more interesting to follow, and quite so. It might be though that this copy of Eight is not occupying a leadership position in teh Cylon society, which somewhat redeems her (i.e. the attack was not her decision).

Heh. I suspected as much.
Spoiler

In "Six of One", a big deal is made out of one of the Eights siding with Cavil over "her" line, which has supposedly never happened before. As I understand it, the Cylons have a direct democracy where any Cylon votes (or at least can vote) on any measure, but typically all the copies of a given line vote the same. So if Athena was created before the attacks, she would have voted for the attack. That said, I'm not sure if Athena was actually alive at the time: she says in the season two premiere that she has Boomer's memories, so it might be she was created as a split from the original Boomer only after Helo was left behind on Caprica.

As I gathered, there's another copy of Eight in the Cylon "ruling cabal", which is distinct from all other Eights. Is that not so?

Spoiler

Well, there's the original Boomer, who takes on a leadership role in the Cylon society and ultimately convinces them that the whole extermination business was just a stupid mistake and what they should really do is proselytise mankind into the arms of their genocidal, eh, I mean loving God.