Who was that brunette Cylon in the infected Base Ship? I think it was a Six, but I'm not sure. At any rate, I was almost expecting her to choke out "Someone set us up the bomb..."
Glad Adama slapped some sense into Starbuck. I approve of this Sharon getting the Athena name -- but I'll miss the Boomer callsign.
Cool seeing more of the inner workings of the Cylon side of things. What do y'all think of the "Minority Report"-esque CPU of the Base Ships?
And Our Beloved Producers are teasing us mercilessly with the "remaining five" humanoid Cylon models. What the hell is going ON with that?!
--Jonah
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
She was a Six.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
The Hybrid reminded me somewhat of the Guild Navigators from Dune (the concept, not the look), though in truth it's probably more like the Leviathan pilots from Farscape. Either way it's quite a departure from the "cockroach" that sits inside the Raiders.
Anyone else notice how the Hybrid appeared to orgasum during an FTL jump? interesting concept. An here I was watching out for a dude with a big head and a very high chair shouting "speak centurion!" at everyone that happens to walk by.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
quote:Originally posted by Peregrinus: Cool seeing more of the inner workings of the Cylon side of things. What do y'all think of the "Minority Report"-esque CPU of the Base Ships?
I thought it was quite awesome. Very high-tech, advanced to the point that it seems incomprehensible to us. Because that's what the Cylons are.
quote:And Our Beloved Producers are teasing us mercilessly with the "remaining five" humanoid Cylon models. What the hell is going ON with that?!
I'm not worried. If this were Star Trek, that would've just been a throwaway line that wouldn't be revisited for eight years or so. *cough*KLINGONS*cough* But since this is Battlestar Galactica, you can bet that it's going to be an important plot point some time this season.
My guess is that they were all boxed for some reason. But what that reason might have been, I've got no clue.
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
We also learn that Cylons regularly use something called 'projection', which is basically a form of augmented reality, and very likely exactly the same mechanic that lets Baltar 'see' his Six.
I really liked the behind the scenes feature on the Cylons. It's good that it's never really made clear how, why or if there is any hierarchy within the humanoid caste. We do get to hear about God again, and the Hybrids are definitely a cool (and freaky) idea.
I did find one thing odd... when they sent Baltar to the diseased Basestar, why do they jump in with their own Basestar? Doesn't the Raptor have it's own jump drive?
So.. is Baltar a Cylon? He himself asked that question, and Caprica didn't seem to like it. I suspect he might have a Cylon element in him (seeing as he can't seem to control his 'projections'), but he's not one of the twelve models (which would make him.. the thirteenth Cylon!).
What's the timeline for the Thirteenth Colony? I thought Cylons were made by humans *after* the colonies were settled? And even then, that the organic Cylons are a new thing, from after the first Cylon War.
If it was really the Earthers that left that disease capsule near the Lion's Head, who was it for?
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
You might suppose that it was left by Pithia as she was an oracle that could forsee enough to know that Galactica would raid a Cylon refinery (Hand of God) and that Roslin would by dying of cancer.
On the other hand it may just be some strain of virus that has survived and mutated in the vacume and just happens to be leathal the the "genetic stock" that the cylons are made from. (more evidence that there's a link between the 12 models & the Lords of Kobol perhaps? Perhaps not.)
Posted by Johnny (Member # 878) on :
Considering that "this has all happened before" and there are quite a few people with precognitive powers, for want of a better description, it's quite possible that the capsule was left as long ago as the age of the object suggested(didn't look especially low-tech to me, but Baltar's obviously more familiar with this stuff...). Maybe it was even left during the original journey from Earth by the same people who wrote the scrolls.
Am I the only one who was knocked for six(so to speak) by a Sharon model randomly turning up naked? That girl really doesn't like keeping her clothes on...
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
Well, she was doing tai chi (or something like it) and I've frequently heard of people practising it naked. I had fun with Baltar's reaction.
--Jonah
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Yeah, considering how he normally reacts...
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Hmm do you get the feeling that the Earthlings are perhaps aware of the cylons and are anticipating this invasion? As for "this has all happened before", does this mean that there were cyclons before the ones we know who tried to reach Earth? Would thay have a connection to those models that are not spoken about?
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
My own guess (and this is just a guess) is that Moore's "Galactica" does NOT actually take place in the past (or present), as the original show seemed to. Instead, the whole idea of a "Thirteenth Colony" is actually a distortion of history, people mis-remembering the "first" exodus, AWAY from Earth.
That is, after the Earth got used up.... er, that is, once Humanity developed interstellar travel... a large chunk of people up and moved out, to a planet that came to be known as Kobol. Many thousands of years probably passed, then there was a conflict, and Humanity fled Kobol (the second exodus) to settle the Twelve Colonies.
Perhaps there really WAS a "Thirteenth Tribe," though, that (regardless of any other historical distortions) did try to make its way back to Earth. This could mean that that tribe left the little probe thingy, or even that the probe was first left on the way FROM EARTH. (Because I wonder just how Pythia managed to write down all the things that happened to the Thirteenth Tribe when there was no contact between them and the Twelve Colonies?)
Also, it could be that the probe was not a bomb at all, it just contains a little microcosm of life that's undergone millennia of cosmic radiation bombardment and mutation, and the fact that it's harmful to the Cylons is pure coincidence.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
I think it's stated pretty clearly that the departure of the 13th tribe was sometime before that of the other 12, hence the image from Earth in the tomb of Athena and the writings of Pithia making their way back to Kobol.
Posted by Mikey T (Member # 144) on :
So they left Earth, settled on Kobol, left Kobol to make 12 colonies but a 13th one decided to go back to Earth in the meantime?
And if thousands of years passed, shouldn't the technology be more advanced... wait that's Star Trek-ish of me.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Well if you want to be Trek-ish, haven't we learned from Trek that recovering ancient probes is always a bad idea?
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Well, remember that in the miniseries they mentioned that they DELIBERATELY designed Galactica to be low-tech.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
"Doesn't the Raptor have it's own jump drive?"
Remember that the Cylons are capable of jumping much farther and more accurate than the Colonials -- I think its just as much a result of more accurate computing and more advanced tech on part of the Colonials. I don't think the Raptor could've made it without being a passenger on the Basestar.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Plus I don't think the Cylons especially want Baltar to go jumping on his own. Short leash and all that.
As far as the technology goes, who's to say that the technology that brought the tribes from Kobol to Earth & the other colonies was theirs to begin with? It's more likely the "Star Gallion" or whatever it wa scalled belonged to the Lords of Kobol, whom/what ever they really were. And has already been mentioned, the Cylon war itself is going to have an impact on how much "high-tech" (read automated) gadgets are going to be in use. Doubtless there was a cultural backlash against automation that set the general use of machines back quite a bit. Indeed in the Miniseries they only just seam to be complacent enough to start using intigrated systems again.
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
How very Dune...
--Jonah
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
That probe looked to me like a cross between Nomad and the Valiant's recorder beacon. I'm a bit suprised that they didn't destroy the infected Basestar.
It was a bit creepy looking seeing all those Raiders' prongs sticking out of their berths.
Did anyone make out what the other suggestions for Athena's callsign were? The only one that I can remember was "Chrome Dome" (I think).
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
It's baseSHIP, no? BattleSTAR, baseSHIP.
I'm still missing chunks of season 2, but has the interior of the baseship changed? Were corridors like this before? I remember in season 1 Boomer was infiltrating away, and the place looked more like the Gigered terraformer set from "Aliens" than these antiseptic corridors...
As for the interior, weren't they just in the hangar area before? Sure it looks a lot different, but there's no reason it should look the same as the corridors and control center.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
quote:Originally posted by B.J.: That probe looked to me like a cross between Nomad and the Valiant's recorder beacon.
B.J. you read my mind. When I saw the probe I said to myself, "Is that a Trek reference?". It could be considering that Moore worked on TNG.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
quote:Originally posted by B.J.: No? I've seen it both ways, but mostly Basestar.
Aye, but has it been called "Basestar" in dialogue, in either series? In this episode, it was definitely called "Baseship" by the Cylons, and I can recall the same from the recent Exodus battle dialogue.
Mark
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
One of the other suggestions for Sharon sounded like "Digital K" or something to that effect.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
I'm pretty sure it was Basestar in the original series. I was just wondering the same thing about whether they'd changed it.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
quote:Originally posted by B.J.: No? I've seen it both ways, but mostly Basestar.
As for the interior, weren't they just in the hangar area before? Sure it looks a lot different, but there's no reason it should look the same as the corridors and control center.
Those were the docking bays and if you watch where Baltar's Raptor landed, it did indeed still look all soft an gooey in the hanger. As for the black corridors and funky disco command centre, I imaging that is just in the central core of the ship, between the the dorsal and ventral halves. I think this episode had a closeup of that bit and you could see it was the only area with windows.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
I've only heard "baseship" in this series.
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
Yeah, I rewatched it last night, and they do say "baseship" several times.
I also caught a couple more callsign suggestions - "Toaster Chick" and my personal favorite, "Titania".
Posted by FawnDoo (Member # 1421) on :
I'd have to rewatch but I think they might be referred to as Basestars on the DRADIS displays: I think the second part of "Lay Down Your Burdens" would be the best bet, when the Pegasus picks up the Cylons jumping into the nebula. I might be wrong though - can always check.
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
Wow nice site you found there!
Posted by bX (Member # 419) on :
I feel compelled to point out that the hybrid was not a six, but was portrayed by an entirely different actress. The beautiful and tallented Tiffany Lyndall-Knight, actually. Fans of beautiful women in dorky television series may recall her from an episode of Stargate SG-1 (yes, I'm finally watching Stargate) called "Touchstone" where A) she played the strident daughter of the leader of a less-advanced civilization whose weather-control device got stolen and B) she was wearing some sort of midriff-baring costume. She was evidently in another ep, but I haven't gotten that far in the series yet.
In a similar vein, Tricia Helfer looks great in a bikini and Grace Park still looks great naked. It's like these producers know their target audience.
Also the hybrids were creepy and strange and awesome and most importantly (to me) new to the show so it was interesting. And I loved the fear the Cylons had of the virus/contagion/whathaveyou. The look of terror on Baltar's face while choking the Six was perfect. I'm now completely interested in that storyline.
Less so Starbuck and Tigh being whiney a-holes. The old man coming in and laying it out for them was classic, but Tigh crawling inside a bottle and Starbuck lashing out at everything was pretty much done last season.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Has Baltar gotten worse at lying, or are the Cylons just better than humans at telling when people are lying? I suppose it's unlikely they'll find out he choked SickSix, but why lie about the probe/beacon? How is having the Cylons think "you sent us here, and everyone died, because of this ancient probe" worse than "you sent us here, and everyone died, but we don't know why?" Especially when he had photographs of the bloody thing? Is he hoping that by not even noticing it as unusual, and pretending to think it's a bit of Cylon kit, he can avoid the sort of blame SickSix laid at his feet?
I note that they've gone from having more Vipers than pilots, to the reverse. Was Apollo a Major before he got made Commander (and the old rank left painted on his Viper)? Starbuck still presumably holds the rank of Captain - what rank is Cat? And Helo, for that matter, now he's XO?
Casey is two. And still looks way too much like my daughter for comfort.
Athena, eh? Was the granting of that name, to someone who's been very much playing the role of Adama's adopted daughter, in the same ep that Adama virtually disowns his original adopted daughter Starbuck, intention, I wonder?
Posted by HerbShrump (Member # 1230) on :
Good point about Athena. Never thought of that.
I don't think anyone was mistaking the hybrid for a Six. There was a brunette Six on the basestar, though. I know I wondered why she was brunette.
What is up with the hybrids? Why are they there? What are they a hybrid of? Are they hybrid human/machine or hybrid Cylon/machine?
Apparently this disease is a programming virus. How else could it be transmitted when a Cylon dies and is resurrected? Yet another way to distinguish a Cylon from a human.
Where did the probe come from? How did the probe makers KNOW the virus would affect Cylons? These humanform Cylons are a new thing. I don't think they were around when all this "happened before."
So, was the virus just a coincidence (like the atmospheric conditions at Ragnarok) or intentional?
The Cylons are obsessed with humans, they just don't want to admit it. First they destroy Caprica so they can claim it for themselves, then they follow to New Caprica and now state they want to make Earth their new home. Give us a rest, you toasters!
The Cylons made a good point about humans not leaving them alone. Humans would tell their children and grandchildren about the evil Cylons and, in time, the decendents would seek out and destroy the Cylons.
But the Cylons refuse to see their own role in that animosity. Look, the war happened long ago and there was a 40 year peace. Humans weren't out looking for the Cylons. Armistice station was built with the purpose of diplomatic contact and peaceful negotiations with the Cylons.
Humans had accepted the peace and weren't after the Cylons.
Had the Cylons really wanted peace, they could have been above-board and negotiated. They could have quietly infiltrated human society and blended in.
Instead they commit genocide and eradicate the 13 colonies. If that wasn't enough, they then have pursued the Humans from starsytem to starsytem. They have tried to enslave or eradicate the sole survivors of the holocost.
No wonder humans would hunt the Cylons down like the dogs they are.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
quote:Yet another way to distinguish a Cylon from a human.
Er, how? You expose someone to the disease, kill them, and if they DON'T reappear infected, then they're not Cylon?
The new head of the Cylon Detection effort:
It seems a bit of a stretch to assume that a virus designed to affect robotic Cylons would affect the androids as well. Especially given they need some sort of hybrid to act as a machine interface. Or maybe the virus affected nachines first, then got passed to replicants via the hybrid? We'll find out, probably.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
quote:What is up with the hybrids? Why are they there? What are they a hybrid of? Are they hybrid human/machine or hybrid Cylon/machine?
Although it's not exactly clear the way they (re) shot the Hybrid, it's actually just a head, shoulders, arm, some chest & ribs, but from there on down it's all pipes, conduits and mechanical. At least that's basically what RDM says in the podcast.
quote:So, was the virus just a coincidence (like the atmospheric conditions at Ragnarok) or intentional?
IIRC the effect Ragnar had on Cylons was due to a susceptibility to certain types of radiation (a fact used as a basis for Baltar's Cylon detector)
Assuming this is a contagion, I'm not sure how it's supposed to follow a Cylon back to the resurrection ship. Perhaps when a Cylon downloads perhaps it's more than just memories, maybe there's a certain amount of genetic information that's imprinted on the new body to preserve something of the individuality of a given Cylon (hence Raven Haired Six.) If that were the case then the contagion would have to be corrupting the Skin Jobs' DNA, which to a machine that seams to have taken cybernetics to the biochemical level, is analogous to corrupted code.
quote:Where did the probe come from? How did the probe makers KNOW the virus would affect Cylons? These humanform Cylons are a new thing. I don't think they were around when all this "happened before."
What if the 13th Tribe were Replicants?
As for the Cylons behavior towards humanity, I'm sure they're mostly motivated by paranoia that SOME DAY a generation of humans will seek them out and kill them all. For machines, some day could be 10,000 years down the line would be as real a threat as one coming tomorrow or a decade from now, so I'm sure the initial attack on the colonies was seen as a preemptive strike.
Everything since then has been the act of a young and confused child-culture, trying to decide what the hell they're supposed be doing and floundering in a sea of good intentions and misguided belief.
Posted by HerbShrump (Member # 1230) on :
Interesting. I gave it a fleeting thought that the 13th Tribe might be replicants, but it was just fleeting. That'd be a twist.
quote:Er, how? You expose someone to the disease, kill them, and if they DON'T reappear infected, then they're not Cylon?
My impression from the end of the episode is that Sharon/Athena is infected, and all they did was just show up. Baltar was in the ship waking around and not affected.
If the disease is that swift and works over that range, through the vaccuum of space, then just having the virus around the fleet should be enough defense.
Or, if Sharon is infected, then the transmission must be on some neurological level, radio/subspace frequency/etc... If that's the case, then there is some receiver unit built into the Cylons. If the humans could develop some method of detecting that receiver unit, or triggering a mild reaction using the same method this virus does, then that can be a detection method.
Other notable differences:
Cylon replicants can distinguish individuals of a same model on sight. There must be some signal or something given off. If the humans could figure this out, a detection method could be developed.
Cylon replicants appear to have superior strength when compared to a human of their size and build. There must be some internal mechanism or difference in their musculature or adrenal systems to account for this. Could some blood test be developed to detect this? Or some X-ray/internal scan?
Cylon replicants can directly interface with human computers either through their blood cells or nervous system. Could some technical box be constructed to access this? "Here, stick your finger in this box. If the green light flashes, you're human; red, you're Cylon"
quote:IIRC the effect Ragnar had on Cylons was due to a susceptibility to certain types of radiation (a fact used as a basis for Baltar's Cylon detector)
By coincidence I meant that the Humans didn't construct Ragnarok or intentionally seed it with the radiation that is lethal to Cylons. My impression is that was a discovery that humans happened upon. So, my question was the probe an intentional trap/weapon for the Cylons, or was it just happenstance?
Of course, the need to detect Cylons may be moot at this point. Surely after 4 months of occupation anyone in the fleet will recognize one of the known seven models of Cylon on sight, despite any disguise or hairstyle.
On the other hand, Adama (at least) knows there are 5 other Cylon models. The humans may still worry that Cylons walk among them. They don't know that these other 5 models are a taboo subject for the Cylon community and, therefore, probably not a threat to the fleet.
From Six's statements, I'd conclude those other 5 models do not include the Raiders, Baseships or Centurions (past and present).
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
Oh, and THEIR SPINES GLOW RED when they have sex/
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
Bit awkward to design a detection program for that, though.
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
Well, I'll do whatever I can for the continued survival of the Colonies.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Have fun with Leoben.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
