[SPOILERS] nBSG - on the nature of skin jobs.

[weemadando]

OK. So the final five have been to Earth and back. The other skin jobs didn't know who they were.

Did the final five create the other 7 models?

Did the final five destroy earth?

Who is the last member of the final five?

There's a shitload of plotholes popping up.

Where did the skin jobs come from? The time lines don't seem to mesh if the skin-jobs were created by Cylon experimentation in the last days of the war. Of course, this is all dependant on Tigh's backstory and the reliability of the "narrator" in depicting that he was in fact a combatant in the last war. Perhaps this is a Terminator type thing, where they chose Tigh as a template for one of their models. It could also explain why he sees Ellen in Six, as it's entirely conceivable in this scenario that Six is modelled of a younger Ellen.

But this leads to the problem of why create the skin-jobs initially? Is there some kind of Cylon over-mind which is going to be unveiled that is actually their "God"? And how did the final five get split off from the rest, and when? Do any of the Centurians, Hybrids or anyone else have any memories of Final Five, or is it just the skin-jobs who "forgot them"?

I did have ideas, but they seemed a lot more coherent in my head. Feel free to discuss.

[Old Plympto]

I'm trying to fomulate a case with some evidence that they're all in a simulated reality, and the skinjobs are avatars (or different aspects) of whatever A.I that's controlling the reality they're in.

The simulated reality has been recycling the Colonies Holocaust for many times now with different iterations. The Glen A. Larson series is one iteration of the simulation. The skinjobs are inserted into the reality to guide or herd the human race to Earth for reasons unknown.

This would explain why their names, technology and culture is a hybrid of elements from current and historical Earth. They might be in the far future and everyone's either into the Matrix so to speak and their roles are changed a la Dark City every time.

This is the quote from Ron Moore that gave me the idea:

And then as we got into Galactica in the first year, I was starting to think ahead about ways of saying that, you know, things that happened on Galactica were tied into our reality here on Earth in some way, in the past or the future, or some other connection. And one of the ways that I thought of making that connection explicit was at some point, to have a song we recognize playing in the background on one of their jukeboxes. It's another way of saying, "Well, why do they wear suits and ties? Why do they use many of the expressions we use in contemporary culture?"

From the A.V. Club.

The only problem with my theory is I don't have any definite relationships between the 7, the 4 and the final Cylon, as well as the Centurions and Raiders. Why are they all called Cylons if only the skinjobs are avatars of the A.I.? Why do the Seven have copies and the Five (presumably) only have one copy each?

But if this theory is true somehow, it would also fit into what Edward James Olmos said in this interview:

“It’s ugly. It’s not a happy ending,” says the star of the Sci Fi Channel’s critically acclaimed series “Battlestar Galactica,” which begins its final season on April 4.

“The final season is not a way of resolving anything,” Olmos adds. “Happy would be tying things in a nice bow. There are no bows being tied.”

Perhaps they realize what they are in the end and although they're working towards something important for the A.I., in the end it doesn't matter because their memories are erased and the cycle starts again. All this have happened before and will happen again.

Again, this is all conjecture and theory. Feel free to point out errors from episode details that I haven't taken into account.

[Bug-Eyed Earl]

http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Five_priests

According to the Sacred Scrolls, the Temple of Five was built to recognize five priests who worshiped "The one whose name cannot be spoken," according to Laura Roslin ("The Eye of Jupiter", "Taking a Break From All Your Worries").

Nothing more is told about these priests, or who they worshiped. Given that the passage was found in the Scrolls, the being may be some "fallen" Lord of Kobol or other historic or spiritual figure.

By coincidence or design, the Cylons have five humanoid models that the other seven have been "programed" not to discus or even think about ("Torn", "He That Believeth In Me").

While the Colonials believe the Temple as an artifact of the Thirteenth Tribe, one Cylon model, Number Three, believes it as a place that would reveal the faces of the final five Cylons, despite the Cylons not being created until 4,000 years after the temple's construction.

After Three uses the holographic mechanisms of the Temple to reinforce a vision she had experienced before, the knowledge of one face she recognizes is lost again as the other Cylons are compelled to box every one of her model (Rapture).

I think the connection between the final five and significants seven has to do with the cycle of time ("all of this has happened before...") and the fact that the seven have no knowledge of them. If there really is a cycle of destruction, the five may be catalysts of it, and they certainly predate the seven.

[Old Plympto]

Also, the very existence of the upcoming Caprica mini-series blows my theory out of the water, unles there's some sort of storytelling framing method that they've devised for it.

[The Yosemite Bear]

They are lookng for Rutger Hauer and Harrison Ford. Time to die blade runenrs

[Gil Hamilton]

I'm thinking that the Final Five were sent by Earth, after the disaster that resulted them in being nuked out. Those same people sent the Final Five to the Colonies while modifying the still mechanical Cylons to become skinjobs just like the Final Five.

However, I don't think the Cylons bombing the Colonies out of existence was part of the plan. There would have been absolutely no way to assure that the Final Five would have been in a position to survive the destruction of the Colonies and it was only a staggering coincidence all four of them ended up in the same place (for example, Anders, who was encountered and met on Caprica, was sheer luck). All of them could have been easily killed, particularly the ones in the Navy, since exactly two Navy ships pulled though. That's not a controlled plan.

[Hades]

The flashbacks to the first Cylon War in Razor dont neciserily show the Cylons developing Skin--jobs, In fact there is much evidence that all they were developing there were the Hybrids that run their ships.

I think The Skin jobs came from elsewhere and helped the colonies developed cylons develop the Hybrids.

Posibly from earth

[Srynerson]

I'm trying to fomulate a case with some evidence that they're all in a simulated reality, and the skinjobs are avatars (or different aspects) of whatever A.I that's controlling the reality they're in.

The simulated reality has been recycling the Colonies Holocaust for many times now with different iterations. The Glen A. Larson series is one iteration of the simulation. The skinjobs are inserted into the reality to guide or herd the human race to Earth for reasons unknown.

This would explain why their names, technology and culture is a hybrid of elements from current and historical Earth. They might be in the far future and everyone's either into the Matrix so to speak and their roles are changed a la Dark City every time.

Although I personally think this would a cool resolution to the show, I'm pretty Ron Moore knows that the other 99%+ of the fan base would hunt him down and hang him from the closest lamp post if the whole series was revealed to be "virtual" in nature.

[Uraniun235]

How would that be "cool"?!

"oh hey guys everything that was weird doesn't actually have a reason or purpose, it's all just arbitrary scripting by some mega-AI"

It's on the same level as Baltar waking up one morning in bed back on Caprica, turning to his wife and saying "you'll never believe the dream I had, honey... you were this vicious robot that subverted me into betraying all of humanity to some genocidal lunatic robots", and then going to work at the local high school where he's the advanced science teacher, Roslin is the principal, and Bill Adama is the fucking football coach (and everyone else is some position or another, ad nauseum).



...Actually okay that would be hilarious, but still aggravating as hell.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

It's on the same level as Baltar waking up one morning in bed back on Caprica, turning to his wife and saying "you'll never believe the dream I had, honey... you were this vicious robot that subverted me into betraying all of humanity to some genocidal lunatic robots", and then going to work at the local high school where he's the advanced science teacher, Roslin is the principal, and Bill Adama is the fucking football coach (and everyone else is some position or another, ad nauseum).

...Actually okay that would be hilarious, but still aggravating as hell.

Oh my God, you just turned nBSG into Eva's Girlfriend of Steel 2!

[Mayabird]

As per the quote from Bug-Eyed Earl, one of the twelve gods of the Kobolian pantheon apparently went bad. This "god" is probably now the Cylon God, and is in actuality an AI that was built on Kobol, as were the other "gods." Very advanced AIs in android or artificial humanoid bodies, maybe like the skinjobs as the goddess Athena could throw herself to her death. If this surviving "god" found the Cylons, after centuries of wandering the stars searching for the remnants of humans, it could have created the twelve models based on the original twelve gods, or the seven it liked best plus its five priests.

Now why it would do so, I'm not sure. Might've gone deranged. Probably have to be crazy to become a god of destruction in the first place. Doesn't make that much sense, but I can at least see that one "god" being the One True God of the Cylons, worshipped because it's definitely real, and a computer.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Along that line of speculation, maybe the "Jealous God" became self-convinced of its own godhood.

[tim31]

*snip witty banter*

...Actually okay that would be hilarious, but still aggravating as hell.

It would be killer in a have-cake-and-eat-it way if they did that as an April Fool's prank and then screen the read deal the following week.

[DPDarkPrimus]

Turns out the Cylon God is Durandal.

[Old Plympto]

Although I personally think this would a cool resolution to the show, I'm pretty Ron Moore knows that the other 99%+ of the fan base would hunt him down and hang him from the closest lamp post if the whole series was revealed to be "virtual" in nature.

He might have a death wish. You might never know.

But...

"oh hey guys everything that was weird doesn't actually have a reason or purpose, it's all just arbitrary scripting by some mega-AI"

... we have 10 more episodes for Mr. Moore to weave a reason and purpose based on the story elements we've learnt over the past four seasons if he concludes with a mega-AI story.

Which he probably wont because of Srynerson's reasons of "hang him" and "closest lamp post".

[Rye]

Plus the Wizard of Oz conclusion is unfulfilling supershit, as a general rule.

I suspect this religion stuff is actually for the most part cultural and subliminal programming and they're going to work that out in the next chunk, perhaps with Baltar leading the crowd into writing their own new religion like in that Messiah thing with Christopher Ecclestone ages ago.

I like Mayabird's idea, there's probably some reason there's 12 cylon models and 12 signs of the zodiac and perhaps a computer is the explanation. Perhaps the lords of kobol were all skinjobs and they had a falling out, probably over humanity's fate, leading to the separate cylon and human sides hence why most of the final five are in the fleet and have fought against the cylons for years, and why the cylons say "all of this has happened before and will happen again". Perhaps the cylon god is the last model who remained neutral and is manipulating both sides to come to him to reuinite the family so to speak.

Head six is the mystery I most want explained.

[Questor]

Although I personally think this would a cool resolution to the show, I'm pretty Ron Moore knows that the other 99%+ of the fan base would hunt him down and hang him from the closest lamp post if the whole series was revealed to be "virtual" in nature.

He might have a death wish. You might never know.

But...

"oh hey guys everything that was weird doesn't actually have a reason or purpose, it's all just arbitrary scripting by some mega-AI"

... we have 10 more episodes for Mr. Moore to weave a reason and purpose based on the story elements we've learnt over the past four seasons if he concludes with a mega-AI story.

Which he probably wont because of Srynerson's reasons of "hang him" and "closest lamp post".

Moore knows that fans won't hang him from lamposts. He worked with Berman, remember?

Berman may be the most hated name in Sci-Fi, but I don't think he's doing to badly either.