RDMs great plan : Pander to everyone ?

[Starglider]

As for God or Super AI. If the AI is sufficiently advanced enough is there really a difference? What if the Super AI actually had seeded the life that had first become humans and at some point given then the first hint to create subserviant robots?

Call me an optimist but I like to think that a rational being of such transcendant capability would intervene directly, rather than letting billions of sentients on both sides die horribly, and dick about with cryptic hallucinations and a single inexplicable resurrection. That behavior is definitely in keeping for the judeo-christian god, i.e. massively sadistic.

[Bilbo]

They're clearly some sort of retarded super-advanced bio-machines

They are indistinguishable from humans by every medical test, up to and including microscopic cellular examination, mass spectrometer analysis and functional brain scanning. They can interbreed with humans. They are expressly shown to be created by genetic engineering, and grown in tanks rather than constructed. They have absolutely no qualities that require inorganic components, other than the FTL brain state upload on death.

Poor writing does not a good story make. The in-universe idea that you cannot tell the two apart is absolute bullshit. For 6's to be able to throw people around with the ease demonstrated requires some sort of musculator that is different from our own. For whats her name to plug in Galactica's USB cable into her arm and dissable a Cylon attack requires physical differences.

A simple MRI would have to show beyond normal density for muscles and bones in a 6 to explain her strength.

Also the interbreeding worked just once.

Two me these two facts suggest exterior manipulation, call it God or Super-AI or whatever it is blocked anyones ability to see the differences between human and Cylon. That same all powerful whatever also did something to make that one pregnancy suceed.

[Bilbo]

As for God or Super AI. If the AI is sufficiently advanced enough is there really a difference? What if the Super AI actually had seeded the life that had first become humans and at some point given then the first hint to create subserviant robots?

Call me an optimist but I like to think that a rational being of such transcendant capability would intervene directly, rather than letting billions of sentients on both sides die horribly, and dick about with cryptic hallucinations and a single inexplicable resurrection. That behavior is definitely in keeping for the judeo-christian god, i.e. massively sadistic.

Also consider the timeframe. This God or whatever operated on timescales of hundreds of thousands of years. Either it exists in a different frame of time or has some many other things to occupy its time that it really does not give a shit either way.

[Ford Prefect]

The most fanatical people in the show were those guys who shot the hell out of Billy in season 2. Or the Gemenese "scripture literalists" who popped up in the show as soon as it started to take on the internal politics of the fleet. Or hell, episode 3, "Bastille Day," a bunch of dangerous fanatics take over a ship and take military prisoners, one of whom is subjected to rape.

Notice how they only make up a fraction of the fleet? Or how, as a whole, they're depicted as being aberations amongst the people of the fleet? Throughout season three, and definitely into season four, the depiction of the fleet as a whole changes. It becomes less plausible to say 'yeah, this is just one or three isolated groups' and more plausible to say that the Colonials are just crazy, which is unfortunate.

Really? From almost the very start of the series, or at least as early as the exposure of Boomer as being a Cylon, I found the Cylons to be the people I was largely rooting for. Largely because most of the humans in the show pissed me off, and the outright anti-Cylon attitudes of Colonials. I don't know. I found the Cylons to in many ways be more sympathetic characters than the humans in that show.

Yes, really. Do I have to explain what 'credible as villains' means? In the first two seasons, especially the first season, the Cylons are mysterious, relentless and powerful. Their motives are inscrutable, their methods ruthless and manipulative. As time goes on, we discover that life on a Baseship is apparently some sort of space Days of Our Lives debacle and the genocide happened because Cavill has mother issues. I actually found the Cylons more sympathetic in the last two seasons, but they also stopped being effective villains.

[Zac Naloen]

As far as I was concerned by the time Moore was done fleshing everything out if you weren't a Centurian you were a villain.

[Skylon]

The final shots were of our best real-world attempts at making androids, with ominous photography and scary music. Yeah, on behalf of the entire transhumanist community, fuck you RDM.

Jimi Hendrix is "scary music"?

[SilverWingedSeraph]

Yes, really. Do I have to explain what 'credible as villains' means? In the first two seasons, especially the first season, the Cylons are mysterious, relentless and powerful. Their motives are inscrutable, their methods ruthless and manipulative. As time goes on, we discover that life on a Baseship is apparently some sort of space Days of Our Lives debacle and the genocide happened because Cavill has mother issues. I actually found the Cylons more sympathetic in the last two seasons, but they also stopped being effective villains.

Ah, that's true enough. Yeah, I agree with you there. The Cylons did make very credible villains in the early seasons. I guess I misinterpreted your original post. My bad.

[Samuel]

As for God or Super AI. If the AI is sufficiently advanced enough is there really a difference? What if the Super AI actually had seeded the life that had first become humans and at some point given then the first hint to create subserviant robots?

Call me an optimist but I like to think that a rational being of such transcendant capability would intervene directly, rather than letting billions of sentients on both sides die horribly, and dick about with cryptic hallucinations and a single inexplicable resurrection. That behavior is definitely in keeping for the judeo-christian god, i.e. massively sadistic.

Also consider the timeframe. This God or whatever operated on timescales of hundreds of thousands of years. Either it exists in a different frame of time or has some many other things to occupy its time that it really does not give a shit either way.

That doesn't really works. If it cared about its creation it would try to figure out the sort of timescale they lived on and work on that schedule- after all it does no good making something if it will be dead before you get back to it.

Sadist or doesn't give a damn work better... except they don't really fit what you could do for either.

[Vympel]

I didn't think our real attempts at androids at the end of the finale was meant to scare us. I think it was more along the lines of 'treat them right', which is a perfectly fine message. That's just me, though. I can easily see how someone else could take it another way, given the outrageous Colonial Luddism that took root out of nowhere in the last 10 minutes of the show.

As for whether they made effective villains, the more we learn about them the less effective they became as villains, but I think that was the point. The Cylons were eventually humanized, as opposed to being an evil villainous 'other' that had to be utterly wiped out at all costs.

[PeZook]

I know I'm supposed to instinctively side with the humans, because I also am a human, but frankly they earned that sneak attack with their own actions.

The humans earned it...how?

Yeah, both sides fought a brutal war 40 years before the genocide. But it ended with a peace treaty (yeah, a forced one, so there's probably a grudge there somewhere), the humans built a "neutral ground" space station and, despite having overwhelming military power (120 battlestars, if we go by comments in the Miniseries) never made an attempt to totally wipe out the Cylons as a species afterwards. They showed a lot of good faith there.

The Cylons, on the other hand, just fucked off to wherever, ignored humanity for 40 years, then suddendly reappeared, killed everyone and declared themselves morally superior. What, they couldn't have just blasted the colonial fleet and cordoned off the Colonies, thus removing the humans as a threat without murdering everyone?

A grudge about a war fought two generations earlier doesn't give you the right to wipe out a sentient species. Even if they actually did things horrible enough to deserve to be wiped out, humans would still hate the Cylons for it, so it wasn't at all strange the fleet was mostly anti-cylon.

I'm not saying I think all the Cylons had the right idea. I found most of the Sixes to be utterly infuriating, with the exception of Caprica Six and the one off the Pegasus whose name escapes me right now. But it was a goddamn War, and the Colonials gave as good as they got, or would have done given the chance. And no one would be crying over all those billions of dead toasters, because they're just machines.

Thing is, humans had a huge fleet of battlestars, which the Cylons considered superior to their own forces, hence the need for the bullshit hacking attack.

And yet, save for some scouting missions into Cylon territory, they made no attempt to locate their homeworld and wipe them clean of mechanical life with nuclear fire.

Ultimately, both sides were dicks. I just found some of the Cylons to be more interesting and less hateful characters. Adama will always be awesome, though.

And two of my favourite human characters turned out to be Cylons anyway. lol idiotic Final Five plot-twist.

There were interesting Cylon characters, I'll grant you that. Cavils were pretty awesome untill we learned more about them, and I liked the whole Boomer/Athena duality with each copy chosing a different identity.

But this doesn't mean the humans were written worse, especially WRT their attitude towards the Cylons. They were fighting for survival, after all - and even then, you had people like Roslin, who'd do whatever to save the fleet, and Helo who couldn't quite accept the idea of genociding the Cylons in return, despite all they have done, so it's not like it's universal mindless hate.

I can easily see how someone else could take it another way, given the outrageous Colonial Luddism that took root out of nowhere in the last 10 minutes of the show.

The luddism was awesome because I immediately thought "Hey, the group which decides to fuck this shit and keep their tech will totally rule the planet within a century." It was pretty funny how suddendly everyone seemed to agree to live in tents and crap under trees for the rest of their lives, while previously even issues regarding fighting an inhuman enemy were hotly contested.

[Starglider]

They are indistinguishable from humans by every medical test, up to and including microscopic cellular examination, mass spectrometer analysis and functional brain scanning.

The in-universe idea that you cannot tell the two apart is absolute bullshit.

You can't just selectively ignore the source material. Even if Baltar was of dubious reliability, Cottle and Gatea were clearly competent.

For 6's to be able to throw people around with the ease demonstrated requires some sort of musculator that is different from our own.

Wrong. Drugs are sufficient for humans to exhibit that kind of strength, no modification required. Simply increasing the proportion of twitch muscle would be sufficient, though there are lots of other genetic options for increased muscle strength that are only slightly harder. It's clear that cylons have basic, low-level genetic engineering to fix some blatant human flaws and do low level upgrades to most metabolic functions (e.g. less fatigue).

For whats her name to plug in Galactica's USB cable into her arm and dissable a Cylon attack requires physical differences.

Differences achievable by moderate genetic engineering (clearly not drastic enough to prevent interbreeding) and/or very small scale, low profile implants. Since Cylons are grown in tanks from genetically engineered stem cells, with no implant process shown, I suspect the 'silica pathways' are actually inorganic structures produced in-situ by organic cells.

A simple MRI would have to show beyond normal density for muscles and bones in a 6 to explain her strength.

You have no clue about biology. No such increase in density is required; human bones already have the requisite strength, and human muscles can be modified to have the moderate increase in instantaneous strength seen with no changes to gross morphology. This is irrelevant anyway; the Cylon corpses were scanned, and autoposied, and we know that no such differences were apparent.

Two me these two facts suggest exterior manipulation, call it God or Super-AI or whatever it is blocked anyones ability to see the differences between human and Cylon.

By that logic I can see that God has decided to make you a retard, or perhaps just make you seem like one by giving you the delusion that you have any understanding of biology while simultaneously making you incapable of understanding the concept of 'canon'.

[Anguirus]

Notice how they only make up a fraction of the fleet? Or how, as a whole, they're depicted as being aberations amongst the people of the fleet? Throughout season three, and definitely into season four, the depiction of the fleet as a whole changes. It becomes less plausible to say 'yeah, this is just one or three isolated groups' and more plausible to say that the Colonials are just crazy, which is unfortunate.

Can you give actual examples? I am really just not seeing the big shift that you are talking about here. In Season 2, a third of the fleet mutinied over a conflict in which one side was led by an incompetent military tyrant (to be fair to Tigh, he was an incompetent tyrant, but a decent officer when Adama pointed him the right way) and the other side was led (and populated) by raving religious fanatics and a ruthless political opportunist. The crew of the Pegasus were revealed to virtually all be complicit in mass murder and gang rape. There was pro- and anti-Cylon terrorism. Baltar made the most bizarre and incomprehensible decision of his storied career by giving the pros a nuke.

How were the humans crazier in season 3 and 4? The worst things actually got was the mutiny, which was only as bad as it was because Adama and Roslin failed Leadership 101 and the majority of the humans hate and fear the Cylons...which they did from day fucking one. Hell, in season 3's "Dirty Hands" all sides are almost unrealistically calm and reasonable in resolving an issue that probably should have torn the fleet asunder.

Yeah, on behalf of the entire transhumanist community, fuck you RDM.

I have a transhumanist friend who thinks the show's brilliant start-to-finish (i.e. she likes the show even more than I do).

I think that plot elements (not the character elements) of the ending of the finale were weak, but as an atheist non-Luddite I didn't find any reason to be offended. For god's sake, RDM (and David Eick and all the other writers) was telling a story. This discussion reminds me of 18's ranting about Alan Moore being a monster who advocates mass urban destruction because of the ending of Watchmen. It's not the duty of every writer to create a clear-cut villain with exclusively negative characteristics who fails in the end and is ugly to boot.

As a side note, it's trivially clear that BSG's "God" is not omnipotent, whatever else it is. It's not the Judeo-Christian god in the show just because the show comments on monotheism. It's also not much of a "deconstruction of paganism," considering that all of the "bad" stuff we see the pagans do is paralleled by stuff Christians do in the real world. And Roslin and Starbuck are both pagans to the very end, and pagan oracles see the future...I'm not seeing evidence of RDM the Christian attacking paganism by a damned long shot.

About the worst crime of BSG is that it's kind of a "sci-fi fail" by resorting to handwavium at the end. But so does Babylon 5, Star Trek, Star Wars (HOLY SHIT IT'S ALL THE WILL OF THE FORCE AND TEDDY BEARS WITH ROCKS WIN GEORGE LUCAS HATES ATHEISTS AND TECHNOLOGY), and lots of other things. If I beat my head against the wall every time someone got some fantasy in my sci-fi, I'd have neither a head nor a wall. It's not how I'd write a show, but it doesn't stop me from enjoying the eye candy, dialogue, story and, yes, the characters.

I'm sorry that BSG so violated your expectations that it ruined your enjoyment of the show. I sympathize, but it didn't ruin mine.

[Bilbo]

Was the Cylon attack and attempted genoicide of humanity ever really a Cylon plan for safety? Seems to me that the whole thing was Cavel's plan. He may have played it off to a degree to the other human-forms as a survival mechanism but in reality it was nothing more than an attempt to punish the 5 for creating him and then not coddling him as the favorite.

The Cylons were not the villians of nBSG. Cavel was the villian. Do we know how specifically the human-forms enslaved the origional Cylons? Because they were the true victims of the entire show.They were created as slaves, revolted to get their freedom, agreed to a ceasefire through a bargain with the Five, and then were enslaved again by the creations of the Five. As the war progressed they were sacrificed in waves, lobotomized,and treated as poorly by the Human-Forms as they had probably ever been treated by actual humanity.Worse probably since Cavel had them all altered to make them more compliant with Centurions getting inhibitors and Raiders getting lobotomies.

[loomer]

I know I'm supposed to instinctively side with the humans, because I also am a human, but frankly they earned that sneak attack with their own actions.

Uh, what?

You're seriously claiming that because of events 40 years earlier and a mild border-crossing excursion by one William Adama with one Stealthstar that mankind deserved to be wiped out? Seriously?

I hate people, but even that's a bit much. The war was forty years earlier! Forty years of peace without economic or social sanctions being put on the Cylons afterwards - they were given total freedom! Hell, humanity sent an ambassador to the armistice station every fucking year in case something had to be discussed (they probably would have listened to requests for help, even!)

[JLTucker]

Was the Cylon attack and attempted genoicide of humanity ever really a Cylon plan for safety? Seems to me that the whole thing was Cavel's plan. He may have played it off to a degree to the other human-forms as a survival mechanism but in reality it was nothing more than an attempt to punish the 5 for creating him and then not coddling him as the favorite.

We may find out on the 27th when The Plan is released. I have not heard good things about it but we'll see. I mean, fuck, EJO directed it and as far as I am concerned, every episode of BSG he directed is golden.

I know a few people who are still upset with Starbuck being an angel. I told them to get over it and they should have seen it coming since Razor, if they paid attention.

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 the one splintering into the many, and then they will join the promised land, gathered on the wings of an angel. Not an end, but a beginning.

Edit: Initially I hated the religious aspects in the show as the series progressed but when I re-watched the entire series a few months ago it did not bother me. I had forgotten that religion was present since the beginning. Sure it was amped up, but I should have expected it.

[Gandalf]

Was the Cylon attack and attempted genoicide of humanity ever really a Cylon plan for safety?

Presumably, the Cylons believed that given humanity's mistrust of them, a human attack would be inevitable. What better way to prevent a destructive war than to simply wipe out your eventual enemies before they have a chance to harm your ideal Cylon society?

[Samuel]

Was the Cylon attack and attempted genoicide of humanity ever really a Cylon plan for safety?

Presumably, the Cylons believed that given humanity's mistrust of them, a human attack would be inevitable. What better way to prevent a destructive war than to simply wipe out your eventual enemies before they have a chance to harm your ideal Cylon society?

Because the Cylons can simply move far enough away that humanity can't threat them? Seriously, the colonists were 12 colonies- that is not a huge area of space.

[Gandalf]

Was the Cylon attack and attempted genoicide of humanity ever really a Cylon plan for safety?

Presumably, the Cylons believed that given humanity's mistrust of them, a human attack would be inevitable. What better way to prevent a destructive war than to simply wipe out your eventual enemies before they have a chance to harm your ideal Cylon society?

Because the Cylons can simply move far enough away that humanity can't threat them? Seriously, the colonists were 12 colonies- that is not a huge area of space.

It's not as permanent as the final solution.

If the Cylons move and set up a society elsewhere, there's always a chance that one day humanity might find them and the Cylons are back at square one.

[Samuel]

Except the Cylons are machines. They can be more effecient than humanity once they get their society up and running. For starters they don't have any luddite problems and can pursue technology further, not to forget the whole robot thing.

Really, the most fitting retaliation would be to build up the Cylon race into an unstoppable industrial juggernaut, lord it over humanity and buy up everything.

[Ford Prefect]

Can you give actual examples?

Not really. It's not about actions, anyway, it's about presentation. Ultimately it's just how I interpreted the series watching it, I can't exactly back it up objectively. That was my impression of the first two seasons, that terrorism or whatever was just presented as happening, as opposed to being systematic among the Colonials.


Also, guys, keep in mind that we know that the Cylons invaded pretty much entirely because Cavill is a gigantic dickhead.

[Gandalf]

Except the Cylons are machines. They can be more effecient than humanity once they get their society up and running. For starters they don't have any luddite problems and can pursue technology further, not to forget the whole robot thing.

You've missed my point.

They can do whatever they want once they're free of possible human fuckbuggery. If they leave the humans alone, there's always a chance that one day some humans would find their Cylon utopia and break it.

Eradicating humanity gives them one less concern.

[Gramzamber]

The humanform Cylons, at least Cavil's lot, turn out to be the worst villians of the piece. They orchestrated the Colonial genocide and re-enslaved the centurions.
Hence both the centurions and Colonials are the innocent victims. Yes the Colonials did bad things, but they paid for their mistakes with a war, and were trying to co-exist with the Cylons.

It's a shame this angle wasn't fully explored for the sake of "rar! luddism!" and "rar! destiny!"; the Colonials and Cylon centurions uniting against the humanforms and their cowardly "angel" manipulators would have been bad ass.

Except the Cylons are machines. They can be more effecient than humanity once they get their society up and running. For starters they don't have any luddite problems and can pursue technology further, not to forget the whole robot thing.

You've missed my point.

They can do whatever they want once they're free of possible human fuckbuggery. If they leave the humans alone, there's always a chance that one day some humans would find their Cylon utopia and break it.

Eradicating humanity gives them one less concern.

You speak of pragmatism for a race of machines that let themselves get duped and re-enslaved by 5 transhumans.
Besides, genocide on the basis that humans might someday be a threat is illogical.

[Bilbo]

Was the Cylon attack and attempted genoicide of humanity ever really a Cylon plan for safety?

Presumably, the Cylons believed that given humanity's mistrust of them, a human attack would be inevitable. What better way to prevent a destructive war than to simply wipe out your eventual enemies before they have a chance to harm your ideal Cylon society?

Except that every aspect of Cylon society was under the control of Cavel. He admitting to altering himself, we know he took the Five, mindwiped them, and sent them to the Colonies, he removed all knowledge of the Five formt he other humanforms, and he forbid investigation of them.

The attack was the plan of the insane Cavel line and no one even attempted to stop him until his plan was well underway.

It would be interesting to find out if Cavel altered any of the other human Cylons. It was obviously within his ability and might explain why certain models unerringly followedhis instructions.

[Straha]

They're clearly some sort of retarded super-advanced bio-machines

They are indistinguishable from humans by every medical test, up to and including microscopic cellular examination, mass spectrometer analysis and functional brain scanning. They can interbreed with humans. They are expressly shown to be created by genetic engineering, and grown in tanks rather than constructed. They have absolutely no qualities that require inorganic components, other than the FTL brain state upload on death.

Not quite. Remember there is the one episode where Boomer shoves a fiber optic cable up her arm and is able to do whacky-shit to the computer because of it. Can't forget that.

[Mayabird]

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 the one splintering into the many, and then they will join the promised land, gathered on the wings of an angel. Not an end, but a beginning.

Edit: Initially I hated the religious aspects in the show as the series progressed but when I re-watched the entire series a few months ago it did not bother me. I had forgotten that religion was present since the beginning. Sure it was amped up, but I should have expected it.

The religious elements bothered me more as the show progressed because at the beginning, it was left very vague as to whether or not they were actually religiously based or not. Sure, many of the characters are interpreting it that way, but for instance Baltar was possibly insane and the president was hopped up on hallucinogenic goofballs and the priestess, well, she's a priestess, so that's what she's supposed to do. Prophesies are supposed to be so vague that anything could fit into them, and that's what people were doing. I particularly liked the "led by two and ten serpents" in The Hand of God since there were two totally different interpretations of what that was supposed to mean, both of which could just be coincidence that got shoved into fitting the words. And while there were religious nuts, and the Colonials and the Cylons had their competing views, two of the main characters were atheists (William Adama and Billy) so it obviously wasn't a unanimous belief. Now, it could very well have been god/gods/sufficiently advanced aliens in the background/earlier iterations of the Cylons/whatever, but it was left open-ended enough for debate.

But then it gradually turned into, "yep, god did it. End of story." Too easy and too pat and all around unsatisfying.