$ SET SOURCEFORMAT"FREE" IDENTIFICATION DIVISION. PROGRAM-ID. SomeCommentsPlusJokes.
PROCEDURE DIVISION. DisplayPrompt. DISPLAY "Things are getting tense in the Colonial fleet!". STOP RUN.
I don't actually have too much to say about the episode, other than it was awesome, and that between a president who seems to have taken a worrisome fundamentalist turn and a vice president who is plain crazy (and, you know, a Cylon collaborator) humanity is in a lot of trouble, Kobol or no. I liked the hints of Six's internal state re Gaius. I'll be a little disappointed if part two doesn't hand out a few genuine answers in regards to all this prophecy stuff.
Roslin is convinced that Leoban was correct about Kobol and Earth, but what about Adama's cylonness?
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Oh, and when Baltar is gently goading Boomer into suicide I'm surprised she didn't say something about his Cylon detector.
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
I dunno if she's aware of his deception. It did seem to be rather a turn for the cold there. Which is pretty awesome.
Also we've said nothing of Helo and Caprica Boomer. Because that's heating up, Eh?
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
don't forget that starbuck is heading back towards caprica
Posted by HerbShrump (Member # 1230) on :
When I read in TVGuide that Starbuck ends up on Caprica, I wondered what in the world kind of lame idea was that.
Then I saw the episode... It all makes sense now.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Well, what I was thinking was, Boomer thinks she is a Cylon, but Baltar said she wasn't. So I'd think either she'd confront him with that disparity, or try to reassure herself with it.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Well, she may just have assumed he was wrong. After all, since he claims everyone he tests is non-Cylon, whetehr they are or not, he has yet to prove to anyone that his device is anything but a sham.
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
Were I the one requesting such a detector I'd want to see some positive and negative results before I started relying on it too heavily. Yeah, for as cool a sequence as it was, spacing Leoban2 might not have been the best strategic choice as far as intelligence gathering/weapons/analysis testing. But then that seems to be a farily common occurance on this show. I guess the BSG colonies wouldn't have had the historical lessons of Bletchley Park in designing their spycraft.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Okay, finally saw Part 1...
I'm quite disturbed by this fundamentalist turn the President is taking as well. Considering all the twisted psycho crap that Leoben was spewing, just why the heck would she choose to believe the part where they would find Kobol? Just because it conveniently coincided with Humanity's other prophecies from two thousand years ago?
The disturbing possibility I'm wondering about is based on the fact that there was a Cylon basestar waiting for the Raptors the second time... if the Cylons have known where Kobol is (and seem to consider it important enough to send a whole basestar to it rather than just a few fighters like most other episodes this season) all this time, it seems to me as if the Cylons might have found records of the old prophecies independently on Kobol. (I'd previously assumed that the Cylons just had knowledge of the theology stuff based on what they gleaned from Humanity before they rebelled.)
That raises another question... where exactly did the Cylons come from, anyway? Considering the emphasis on "the cycle of history" that this episode placed, I wonder if there might have been some sort of external cause to the Cylons' rebellion. Or even weirder, what if the Cylons are a whole lot older than we've been led to believe, and instead are -- oh wait, that would turn them into a ripoff of B5's Shadows, and we don't want that.
One thing I was incredibly confused and disappointed over was that thing going on between Starbuck and Baltar. Okay, neither of them is the smartest or most careful on Galactica, but it really still seemed to come completely out of the blue -- partially because the show dumped us right in the middle of the bedroom (er, bunk) scene. I suppose it's actually an interesting storytelling tactic, since it saved a lot of time, but I'm still really wondering how.
And then there's Boomer and Helo... how likely is it that Helo and Starbuck are going to cross paths? I kinda hope not, because despite the depressing aspects, I've really enjoyed Boomer's role in the story so far. I somehow doubt that there'd be room for two inside Starbuck's raider, but who knows? Ron Moore's pretty much said that the finale's going to be a cliffhanger, after all...
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Baltar was attracted to Starbuck from the beginning, though, and they had a sort of combatative sexual tension thing going on.
I don't think the Cylons need to have known where Kobol was prior to its discovery in this episode. For one thing, it was discovered by a Cylon. (Though you could just as easily think that Boomer already knew where Kobol was. Anyway, it could go either way.) It's established in this episode that Cylon FTL drives can get from the vicinity of Kobol to Caprica in one jump. So all that really needs to have happened is that she transmitted this information to the Cylons in the time between her return to Galactica and next survey mission. (We don't know if the Cylons in the fleet are out of communications range or not.)
A larger problem might be: Kobol is only fifty or so days away from the home system. Now, granted that the fleet made a huge number of apparently random jumps deeper and deeper into space between the miniseries and "33," but that still isn't very far away, relatively speaking, and apparently a jump is instantaneous. Have they never sent out serious expeditions? It should be fairly trivial to explore a pretty sizable volume with this kind of technology. Just what have they been using their FTL drives for, anyway?
Though perhaps, as soon as engines small and cheap enough to be fitted to craft like Raptors were developed, such an expedition was undertaken, only they sent out a fleet of robotic probes with Cylon brains. "Find anything interesting out there, ship?" "Uh. . . no. . ."
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sol System: A larger problem might be: Kobol is only fifty or so days away from the home system. Now, granted that the fleet made a huge number of apparently random jumps deeper and deeper into space between the miniseries and "33," but that still isn't very far away, relatively speaking, and apparently a jump is instantaneous. Have they never sent out serious expeditions? It should be fairly trivial to explore a pretty sizable volume with this kind of technology. Just what have they been using their FTL drives for, anyway?
Well, it was established in the miniseries that Galactica hadn't made an FTL jump in something like 20 years. And the ship that later became Colonial One was making an STL trip several hours long to travel between Galactica and Caprica.
However, so many of the fleet's ships obviously had FTL capabilities (including a very lowly prison ship, conveniently), so it has to be a fairly commonplace technology. I like your idea of automated probes with Cylon brains...
Also remember the sheer number of jumps the fleet made in the first five days -- it was something on the order of 250, right? If we assume that the FTL drive can make jumps on the order of around 5 light-years (which would be about the average distance between star systems out on the galactic disc), that would mean that they could've traveled up to 1,250 light-years within the first week. (I seriously doubt they were traveling in a straight line, of course, and they must've also varied the distance of each of their jumps, since they were trying to lose the Cylon pursuit. Still, that figure makes for a useful baseline, right?)
Anyway, seeing as how the colonial Humans don't seem nearly as interested in exploration for the sake of exploration (as compared to Starfleet, for example), and considering the sheer volume of space involved (there are 1340 stars located within 75 light-years of Sol, for example), I'm not the least surprised that they hadn't found Kobol before this.
Posted by Alshrim Dax (Member # 258) on :
I really enjoyed this episode...
quote:And then there's Boomer and Helo... how likely is it that Helo and Starbuck are going to cross paths? I kinda hope not, because despite the depressing aspects, I've really enjoyed Boomer's role in the story so far.
I just can't wait to see what happens between Boomer and Helo... at first i didn't see the whole point of the Helo Boomer part of the story - but i've really come to enjoy it .. and now that Helo knows that she's a Cylon ... I'm trying to think how I'd react to that..
I still think, however, that the Galactica-Boomer suspects that she's Cylon.. i'm pretty sure that is still nagging away at her, but we haven't seen too much of her since she's been told she's not by Baltar.
Does anyone get the feeling like that Baltar is just finding out who his army is going to be with this Cylon Detector... would seem to fit the orginal series.. where he's the "Grand-PooPah" of Cylons.
Has there been any hint to how many Cylons are in the Fleet? There's the Boomer Clone .. and the XO's wifey, I think right?
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
Ellen Tigh is not a Cylon.
Posted by Alshrim Dax (Member # 258) on :
I thought that they hinted to that when the Adama ordered her tests ahead of his .. and when the results were in, Six and Baltar's reactions were hinting that she was...
I dunno - maybe i took it the wrong way.
Posted by Kosh (Member # 167) on :
quote:Originally posted by MinutiaeMan: Okay, finally saw Part 1...
I'm quite disturbed by this fundamentalist turn the President is taking as well. Considering all the twisted psycho crap that Leoben was spewing, just why the heck would she choose to believe the part where they would find Kobol? Just because it conveniently coincided with Humanity's other prophecies from two thousand years ago?
The disturbing possibility I'm wondering about is based on the fact that there was a Cylon basestar waiting for the Raptors the second time... if the Cylons have known where Kobol is (and seem to consider it important enough to send a whole basestar to it rather than just a few fighters like most other episodes this season) all this time, it seems to me as if the Cylons might have found records of the old prophecies independently on Kobol. (I'd previously assumed that the Cylons just had knowledge of the theology stuff based on what they gleaned from Humanity before they rebelled.)
That raises another question... where exactly did the Cylons come from, anyway? Considering the emphasis on "the cycle of history" that this episode placed, I wonder if there might have been some sort of external cause to the Cylons' rebellion. Or even weirder, what if the Cylons are a whole lot older than we've been led to believe, and instead are -- oh wait, that would turn them into a ripoff of B5's Shadows, and we don't want that.
One thing I was incredibly confused and disappointed over was that thing going on between Starbuck and Baltar. Okay, neither of them is the smartest or most careful on Galactica, but it really still seemed to come completely out of the blue -- partially because the show dumped us right in the middle of the bedroom (er, bunk) scene. I suppose it's actually an interesting storytelling tactic, since it saved a lot of time, but I'm still really wondering how.
And then there's Boomer and Helo... how likely is it that Helo and Starbuck are going to cross paths? I kinda hope not, because despite the depressing aspects, I've really enjoyed Boomer's role in the story so far. I somehow doubt that there'd be room for two inside Starbuck's raider, but who knows? Ron Moore's pretty much said that the finale's going to be a cliffhanger, after all...
It is my understanding that you can download deleted scenes from Sci-Fi's site, and some of them explain what happened between Baltar and Starbuck, and Lee overheard them talking, which explains how he knew, and that he wasn't just guessing.
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
Oh my god, its Kosh!
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
I kind of got the feeling that they were intentionally making no implications about Ellen Tigh one way or the other. That Baltar knows whether she's a Cylon or not, but that we, the audience, still have a 50/50 chance of guessing.
As for not having discovered Kobol before: maybe the ship that discovered it had a hard drive crash or something. Since they don't network computers, all the data was lost.
(But, I kid. Because that thing about computer networks is still totally nonsensical.)
Posted by Alshrim Dax (Member # 258) on :
TSN: Ya - i figured they were leaving us hanging because - you gotta know she's gonna be trouble, and, we as the audience, will begin to suspect that Ellen's a Cylon...
But I, for some odd reason, pegged her as a Cylon right away... too fishy how she was missing - and by some miracle she turns up with no records of her being aboard the Rising Star... Dunno .. smells fishy to me.
I guess we'll have to wait and see.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I don't think she's a Cylon. Now, the mysterious benefactor who rescued her and nursed her back to health before vanishing. . .
Posted by Alshrim Dax (Member # 258) on :
Ahhh... good point!!
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
But she could very easily be one of those Cylons who doesn't know she's a Cylon!
However, one thing that the show has very cleverly avoided suggesting so far, is any idea whether the humanoid Cylon models are based on real human templates, or whether they created their own appearances themselves. (Translation: Is there a real human woman who looks like Number Six, a real Boomer, a real Leoben?) My guess is that they're original Cylon creations, because Boomer was obviously working on the Galactica for several years at the least. Or otherwise, the Cylons used the real Boomer as the template, and replaced her with one of the Cylon models.
My bet is that there's no original human template. Therefore, Ellen Tigh is not a Cylon. That is, unless you consider the extremely unlikely possibility that poor Colonel Tigh actually married a Cylon however many years ago, and she's been a Cylon all this time. My guess is that the humanoid Cylons are a much more recent development.
So, assuming that the little bit of intel about there only being twelve models of humanoid Cylons is correct, that means that Ellen Tigh is almost certainly not a Cylon.
...Which I think is a bit of a shame, seeing as how the fleet is likely to be in much more trouble if she isn't a Cylon.
![[Wink]](wink.gif)