posted
I'm not equipped for exhaustive reportage, so, to sum up: Torture does not always work, Starbuck makes a lot of assumptions about Cylon psychology that seem baseless (or, rather, based on what the Cylons were like a long time ago), and the general paranoia level gets knocked up a few levels.
Also, surely the Cylon corpse they've got ought to have been thoroughly dissected by now?
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
I've missed a few episodes of Battlestar Galactica, so I might have missed references to the Cylon corpse. However, I was under the impression that the corpse of the Cylon that attacked Adama in the miniseries was incinerated after it was brought onboard the Galactica? Am I mistaken about this, or is there another corpse I missed?
-------------------- The philosopher's stone. Those who possess it are no longer bound by the laws of equivalent exchange in alchemy. They gain without sacrifice and create without equal exchange. We searched for it, and we found it.
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Balaam Xumucane For instance, I believe Baltar mentions that they detected sythetic elements when they cremated the Arms-dealer Cylon. Why in the fuck would you destroy the singular prototype, presumably already incapacitated, of a brand new, and horrifyingly not-understood weapon.
From the miniseries thread. So the only Cylon bits they have to work on right now are the captured Cylon raider and whatever bits and pieces of Doral (or whatever the name of the public relations officer was) when he blew himself up in "Litmus". Of course, this leads to wonder how related the Cylon-humanoid tech is to the biological components of the raider.
And now that I'm actually watching this episode... so they didn't incinerate the Cylon from the miniseries at all. It's in the morgue. And this leads back to Sol's point: shouldn't it be dissected by now?
-------------------- The philosopher's stone. Those who possess it are no longer bound by the laws of equivalent exchange in alchemy. They gain without sacrifice and create without equal exchange. We searched for it, and we found it.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
What I noticed in the episode is the fact that the cylon guy kept referring to "God" as if he was implying that the cylons have some sort of monotheistic religion and that they view the humans worshipping the "Lords of Cobalt" as infedels worshipping false idols. So are we to believe this war between the cylons and humans some sort of holy war?
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-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
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posted
The God thing was present in the first part of the miniseries, if I recall correctly, not to mention every Baltar hallucination since.
I don't see why anyone would be concerned about cremating a tissue sample. I mean, as I said, I don't really recall the details, but I seem to remember the implication being that they had destroyed the Cylon body out of fear that it might come back to life, or transmit their location, or, in general, behave in ways unbecoming to human corpses. I mean, Cylons are bad enough, but zombie Cylons?
Another thing: Starbuck insists that since Cylons are "artificial" they can control what sorts of sensory input they receive, but what reason does she have to think this? Until this guy broke his restraints there was no indication that replicants were different from humans in any serious way. I mean, OK, so they are apparently grown in tubes somewhere, but if they look like human beings down to the molecular level, then it stands to reason that they will function like human beings. Like, OK, so apparently they are stronger than people. Well, that strength has to come from somewhere. Replicant muscles should be different than human ones, somehow. Or consider the haphazard design of living things. Have the Cylons improved upon it? Because if they have, any of those changes should show up in a suitably thorough examination, some more readily than others.
Of course, Starbuck was interested in asserting the mechanicalness of the Cylons in the hopes of getting this one to respond to her questions out of, I don't know, wounded pride. I'm just wondering, I guess, how much she or anyone knows about how the replicants are put together. I realize they've got plenty of other things to worry about, but this should be a high-priority intelligence issue. (Which also makes me think they really ought to have kept their prisoner alive for study, the toxicity of his notions notwithstanding. They could just post a sign, "Don't listen to this guy.")
Speaking of which: it seems to me that if either Adama or Roslin are Cylons humanity is hopelessly doomed.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
I'm curious as to why the Cylon was running about in the President's head? That, and she seemed to "see" what would happen in the near future. I don't know if she's got a chip in her head or what, but that was definitely wierd. No idea what it was supposed to mean, either.
As for the cremation, I don't think it's that important. The only thing I remembered was that they used his body to figure out that the humanoid cylons were slightly different. Other than that, it was a *minor* continuity error. Considering how good they've been at continuity so far (including injuries from fights, like Apollo's), I'll forgive them this.
posted
Lots of people make assumptions all the time and believe those assumptions. All the Cylons Kara had ever heard about were the old robot Cylons the Colonies fought a war with. Her perceptions of the new Cylons are colored by those old stories. I've got no problem with Kara assuming the new Cylons are still, deep down, machines that can turn components ands inputs on and off.
Is she right? Is she wrong? Who knows? She believes it though and that is consistent with how people are.
Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
What I was wondering was why a mid-level fighter jock like Kara Thrace would have been so well-versed in interrogation techniques. Now, training to resist interrogation, I can understand, but actually running one?
However, given how little the Humans obviously know about what the humanoid Cylons are like now, it seems perfectly logical to figure that they are still machines on some level or another.
That doesn't answer why any of the Cylon bodies haven't been dissected, though...
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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quote:Originally posted by B.J.: I'm curious as to why the Cylon was running about in the President's head? That, and she seemed to "see" what would happen in the near future. I don't know if she's got a chip in her head or what, but that was definitely wierd. No idea what it was supposed to mean, either.
Just wait for the next episode to learn the answer...
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posted
From what I could tell, she was an awful interrogator--she didn't get anything out of him, and she let him get to her. But Adama only had her, so she's the one he sent.
-------------------- Fell deeds await. Now for Wrath... Now for Ruin... and a Red Dawn... -Theoden, TTT
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(My point isn't "these are unreasonable assumptions to make" but simply that these are assumptions that would be ((and, indeed, were)) detrimental to an interrogation.)
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posted
Yeah that was a pretty shitty interogation. Was it because Leobon got to her? Surely they would have someone better qualified than the best pilot/sniper in the fleet.
I did particularly enjoy thinking about the ramifications of Roslin's prescient dream (from Starbucks persepctive, was it?). It was also interesting that Leobon wanted(needed?) to know Starbuck's name so badly. He wasn't too effective up to that point and so perhaps this indicates a weakness in Cylon strategy. Adama made a point of saying "this model" is a headfucker and whatever. You know, to distinguish it from the Doral model or something.
None of this is even getting into the theologies of the Humans and Cylons.
Did someone say they look like us "down to the molecular level" at any point? I don't remember that. In the miniseries the ship's doctor reported that at first glance everything in the arms dealer Cylon (also named Leobon) seemed to be human; organs, lymphatic system, etc. This doesn't necessarily entail a disection but I would think that would be prudent. Silicon pathways in the brain? Surely there would be some way of seeing this without the use of a nuclear device.
It could be that "Flesh And Bone's" Leobon was able to artificially stimulate his adrenal glands which might give him the speed, but I would imagine busting through handcuffs would require some cyber muscles.
For those who care, in the miniseries Gaius talks about the tissue sample yielding unique chemical compounds during the cremation that reveal the sample to be synthetic. Somehow that got twisted around in my head to mean "the tissue sample from the cremation of the body and not just a cremation of a tissue sample." Sorry.
It does seem like there is far too little actual analysis of the Cylon intelligence materials. Like, say, looking for genetic markers in the human models they've discovered or the nature of the biological bits of Starbuck's Cyclopian raider or the inner workings of the device they pried off the command console. You'd think those would be a priority. Nature of the enemy and all that.
OTOH, it is just a TV show.
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