Battlestar Galactica Revelations – What the FRAK is going on?
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Apollo
It’s a colonial locator signal – and no other wireless in the fleet is picking this up?
Starbuck
Gaeta’s confirmed it. The channel is empty except for this Viper. It’s got to be a signal from Earth
Apollo
You’re reaching Kara.
Starbuck
Common Lee, add it up. I vanish into a storm and ride this Viper to Earth. Coming back I get a vision that leads me to the BaseShip. Its hybrid tells me that the final five Cylons have been to Earth but we need the missing 3, D’Anna, to bring them out into the open.
Apollo
And now we’re starting to get messages from the beyond.
Starbuck
You heard the signal. The final Cylons led me to it. If it’s Earth, they’ve given us the home of the 13th tribe just the way the hybrid said it would happen. Like it or not Lee, something is orchestrating this for a purpose.
Apollo
A higher power?
Starbuck
Call it whatever you want, but it seems to what us to find Earth with the Cylons.
Written above is some dialog from the “midseason final” (Damn you Sci Fi Channel! Damn you all to hell! Wait until Jan 2009! Frak You!) of Battlestar Galactica. This little scene is probably the most important piece of dialog from the entire series as far as trying to figure out what exactly is going on. What? You say that you haven’t seen the “midseason final” (Damn you Sci Fi Channel! Damn you all to hell! Wait until Jan 2009! Frak You!) episode “Revelations” yet? If you haven’t, watch it now. I’ll wait …
La de da de da. Dooby dooby do ….
Ok, you’ve watched it? Good. So, in the final scene, the colonials and the rebel Cylons reach Earth. What’s more, they land on it (didn’t see that coming!) However, horror of horrors, the big blue marble isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. As Adama runs his fingers through the apparently radioactive soil, the camera pans to show us a desolate landscape. There was a thriving civilization here at one point. However, it has gone through some kind of holocaust, and is now a smoking ruin. No one looks happy. We came all this way for this? Any guesses as to what the Frak is going on? Well, I’m willing to take a stab at it. However, if you’re going to solve any mystery, the first thing you need is clues (that’s what I learned from Scooby Doo, anyway). Let’s look at some, first by piecing together some of the history of the colonies.
Significant Battlestar History Before Cylon Holocaust (BCH)
- The human race originates on Kobol. Human beings live side by side with their gods, known as the Lords of Kobol
- One of the Lords of Kobol, known as the “jealous god” turns on the other 12. The jealous god is cast out, or flees Kobol, on a Starship called the Galleon. There is mention of something called “The Blaze”, which sounds like some kind of Nuclear Warfare.
- 4000 BCH – a group of humans leaves for Earth. Perhaps they are followers of this jealous god?
- 4000 BCH – The Temple of Five is constructed on the Algae planet. It is constructed by five priests who belong to a heretical colonial sect who worships “He whose name must not be spoken”. Although this sounds like Voldemort, it is most likely the “Jealous God”. The fact that there are five Cylons and five priests is not a coincidence, I’d wager.
- 2000 BCH – The rest of Humanity leaves Kobol and founds the 12 colonies
- 55 years BCH – Colonials create Cylons to perform heavy labour
- 52 years BCH – Cylon Revolt begins.
- 42 years BCH – Cylon / Colonial war ends
Now, consider the following events and questions from the series that we have seen so far …
- something saved or recreated Starbuck. Something made her brand new Viper
- something knew how to create a colonial distress beacon, and have it only picked up by that Viper
- Why don’t the Cylons create more than 12 Cylon models? Why can’t they create a new Hub? - The answer (I suspect) is because the Cylons didn’t make the Hub, and they didn’t create the human Cylons. Something else did.
- Saul Tigh met Adama approx. 30 years BCH. Is it possible that a he could be created and then just inserted into human society as a man in his late 30’s? When he joined the colonial fleet, they don’t do background checks? They wouldn’t realize that this guy joining them has no history for the previous 30 years? Adama said that he has watched Tigh age. This means that Tigh started life as a baby, and has otherwise lived a normal human life. However, Saul Tigh is more than 60 years old. He predates the colonial creation of the Cylons by at least 5 years.
- Where did the Cylons get their one god religion from? How do the hybrids come by their prophecy?
- The final five Cylons have all been to Earth? How is this possible?
As of this writing, the final episode of Battlestar is being filmed, and will wrap on June 30. (So why is Sci Fi Channel waiting until January 2009 to show them! That’s a mystery I want solved. Frak!) Here are some thoughts from the cast and crew:
- Ron Moore has hinted that Leoben’s line “all this has happened before and will happen again”, which he spoke in the mini-series is significant.
- Tricia Helfer has stated that reading the final episode was like “a punch in the gut”. Also, it will make fans want to re-watch the original mini-series.
- The song “All Along the Watchtower” is meant to remind viewers that “Battlestar Galactica” takes place in a world that parallels our own. The song played on the show isn’t the Jimi Hendrix or the Bob Dylan version, but an original “Battlestar-ized” cover — performed by, among others, the guitarist from Oingo Boingo. As the show’s composer Bear McCreary put it on his blog, it’s not that Bob Dylan exists in the world of “Battlestar,” but that the idea of Bob Dylan does. Might this not indicate that the Earth the colonials find is not our Earth, but a parallel Earth with its own unique history?
- Both Edward James Olmos and Aaron Douglas cried when they read the final script. Mary McDonnell felt a rush of adrenaline. (I’m just putting in this last point to indicate that the final episode is good. It doesn’t look like Galactica will suffer an Enterprise like fate)
Ok, reading all of this, what can we piece together? Ready for some wild speculation and crazy theories? Well, ready or not, here they come!
The Lords of Kobol were an advanced race of aliens (although most likely still humanoid in nature), perhaps the last of their kind. The “Jealous God” wanted to have followers that would only worship him. This is why he was jealous, he was jealous of the other gods. A war broke out, and the “Jealous God” fled Kobol, and a significant number of humans followed him. The most important of the Jealous God’s followers were 5 human priests. These are the priests that set up the Temple of the Five on the Algae planet. When the Jealous God and his followers reached Earth, their religion obviously became monistic in nature. At some point Earth developed intelligent machines, similar to the Cylons, thousands of years before the 12 colonials did. They may have done this even before the colonials left Kobol. At any rate the Earthlings machines turned on their creators in the same way that the Cylons eventually did to the colonials. This resulted in the destruction of Earth (it has all happened before, and it will all happen again). However, the Jealous God remained in some form. Perhaps he realized that any advanced race is at some point going to develop a machine so advanced that it really is a new form of life ( like the Cylons). When this happens, the race that creates it is in a great deal of danger. How to get the two races to live together, so that both may prosper? Perhaps out of a sense of guilt for what happened to his Earth followers, the Jealous God decides to “help’ the colonials. It creates the final five Cylons based on its five loyal priests (who set up the temple of the five on the Algae Planet) and inserts them into Colonial society. It finds the Cylons and creates for them the Human Cylons and the Hub. Its goal is to keep both races alive long enough to realize that they must work together to survive, rather than wipe each other out. It wants to bring both races together so that they realize they have to work together to survive. It constantly interferes in both human and Cylon affairs to make this happen. The means of doing this? Recreating Earth. Rebuilding it. With Earth reborn and populated with humans and human Cylons, intermarrying and breeding, the differences between the two races will vanish. The Jealous God will have recreated the planet the he/she/it had originally created in his own image.
Obviously, this theory is full of educated guesses on my part. Still, I think it holds together somewhat. I’m still interested in Tricia Helfer’s comment about re-watching the original series. I think I’m going to do that now and see what I can learn. Why not? I’ve got 8 Fraken months to wait to see if any of my theories are correct! Damn you Sci Fi channel!
June 16th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
If that isn’t the true explanation for the show, it should be.
June 16th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
After you watch the miniseries, be sure to tell us what you think you might have found! Thanks.
June 16th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
I think you have part of it right.
The “Jealous God” may just be Count Iblis.
(See original BSG episode “War of the Gods”)
I think we are seeing Pre- History Earth and the soon to be sunken city of Atlantis.
“The continent of Atlantis was an island
which lay before the great flood
in the area we now call the Atlantic Ocean.
So great an area of land, that from her western shores
those beautiful sailors journeyed
to the South and the North Americas with ease,
in their ships with painted sails.
To the East Africa was a neighbour, across a short strait of sea miles.
The great Egyptian age is but a remnant of The Atlantian culture.
The antediluvian kings colonised the world
All the Gods who play in the mythological dramas
In all legends from all lands were from fair Atlantis.
Knowing her fate, Atlantis sent out ships to all corners of the Earth.
On board were the Twelve:
The poet, the physician, the farmer, the scientist,
The magician and the other so-called Gods of our legends.
Though Gods they were -
And as the elders of our time choose to remain blind
Let us rejoice and let us sing and dance and ring in the new
Hail Atlantis!”
June 17th, 2008 at 6:34 am
> The human race originates on Kobol
Wrong. The colonials believe that the human race originates on Kobol. But why should the flags of the twelve tribes include star patterns that can only be seen from earth?
Because earth is not a 13th colony, it’s humanities birthplace. Kobol was colonized from there an the 13th tribe was either returning to its origin or is just a myth. Maybe there was never a 13th tribe on Kobol and stories about the “brothers on earth” became stories about a “13th tribe of humanity, who left Kobol to settle on earth”.
June 17th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Wow. That is one of the best theories I have encountered. It accounts for everything that we have seen and ties up all of the dangling plot elements that we’ve been left with. Great work! We’ll see how it turns out…in seven LONG months.
June 18th, 2008 at 11:06 am
FanFiltration - I think the Jealous God could very well be some form of Count Iblis. I actually had an earlier post on this. I’ve thought for awhile that there must be a “third force” in some form that has been manipulating events. I think we’ve already seen some parallels between those “ship of light” episodes” and the current BSG. For example, in the original, Apollo being returned to life and returning in a white uniform and Viper is similar to Starbuck dying and returning in a pristine white Viper.
StormKing - I think this is a very good point. I actually have some new thoughts on BSG, and I’ll be posting them soon. Thanks for the comments!
June 18th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
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June 19th, 2008 at 12:32 am
Hello David,
There are other indications. The closer to earth the fleet gets, the older the artifacts of the “13th tribe” become. Kobol was abandoned 2000 years prior to the current events. The lion’s head beacon was said to be about 3000 years old. The Temple of Five 4000 years.
June 22nd, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Some good thoughts. There also seems to be some similarity to Asimov’s Foundation saga - Look to the moon and the need for a human/tech hybrid. I would not be surprised if the final Cylon is hiding out on the moon awaiting the return of the other 4 and the remaining humans/Cylons.
July 10th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
I don’t think it’s OUR Earth but another planet. The few images of the 13th Colony planet didn’t have our familiar continents. If BSG is in the past then perhaps the 13th Colony was on Mars, our dead and mysterious neighbor.