Bears, Beets...Battlestar Galactica.
Ok, lots in this post, and I'm having trouble keeping it all straight, so there might be a follow-up. But anyway!
Previously on Battlestar Galactica:
Ellen Tigh is the final cylon.
Tonight on Worshipper:
There is no fucking way Ellen is the final cylon.
I know, I know, the interview. Moore likes to fuck with fans, though, and the reasons he might like that are numerous. (See also: the Last Supper photo "guide" in EW, and most of youwillknowthetruth.com.) I've been putting off this post due to snow and back pain and all the other responsibilities I've been ignoring, but I wanted to get this up before the next ep airs, so I can be gloriously right if I'm right, and pilloried by the three or four people who read this if not.
So!
On Saul and Ellen. Saul thinks Ellen is the last cylon: okeydoke. Tigh has already hallucinated Ellen's face onto someone else's once before; in fact, since waking up, Tigh seems to spend a lot of hallucinating. Saul's belief is going to be drive some storylines, I think: it might come up that, contrary to popular belief, Gaius' cylon detector totally worked, at least on the Boring Seven line of cylons. And he tested Ellen under direct orders as a priority one. Gaius, being all religious and contrite now, might mention this fact, in the process copping to knowing about Boomer. (Note: some people have suggested there's something in S1 to suggest that he might have lied about Ellen's test as well, but I know not.)
My theory: we'll see that flashback again, and it won't be Ellen. An alternative theory from a commenter at Pandagon: what did Ellen look like when she was younger? Could she be what a Six would look like in a body that ages? God, I hope not, but whatevs. Oh, and that bit about D'Anna apologizing to one of the Finals? Saul was always the favorite, although it's unclear how much responsibility she takes for New Caprica. Dualla would work for some other reasons relating to D'Anna's first appearance. But really, why are we assuming she's only speaking to one of them? She's been part of an army that's been trying to kill at least four of these people for several years. The same army that destroyed what they thought of as their homes and killed quite a few of their friends. Having any number of the Finals aboard Galactica, from D'Anna's perspective, ought to raise some serious doubts about the morality of the cylons' actions from the first frame of the damn show.
On Dualla. Holy fucking shit, Anastasia Dualla just blew her fucking brains out. When she took off her ring, I thought, "oh no." When she shot herself, I thought, "well, I guess she pulled into the lead for Number 12." I'm guessing there's a resurrection facility somewhere on the planet, and I figured that's where we'd meet Number 12 conclusively--as for who, I'll get to that soonish. If Dualla is 12, her behavior upon reaching Earth might validate the theory that Twelve is, and always has been, fully aware of her origins and history. Lord knows Leoben seems to have been throw for a loop by Earth's status. Also, can we assume, from the symbols she was whippin' out on Earth, that she was pregnant? Or is there another child issue in the works?
On Starbuck. Not a cylon. Almost certainly the first human/cylon baby, however. Her mom was human, and crazy, and we know from Athena that human/cylon pregnancy's can change the mother's body, at least when the mother in question is a cylon. It's possible that Cally showed us the other half of the equation: when a human woman gestates a half-cylon baby, she goes a bit crackers. This would certainly be consistent with Mama Starbuck. Which raises the question of who her dad is.
Well, I've always liked to imagine that her mom boinked a centurion. As Spike once pointed out, sex with robots is a lot more common than people imagine. That said, dunno. Leoben has always been a possibility: incest issues aside, he is a mystic, and if Mary can simultaneously be the mother, wife, and daughter of God (that Oxford comma is for you, Beth Ann), then Leoben can be Starbuck's dad and pretend husband. And torture victim. I repeat: whatevs. Simon would be interesting given his entrance into the show, but he's probably out because, even in a post-racial world, I don't think Starbuck's dad was, y'know, black. These assume, of course, that Starbuck's crazy mom gave her daughter a fake story about her father.
Deborah floated a sound theory that Number 12 was, in fact, Starbuck's dad, the composer her mom told her about. The aforementioned website does have a still of someone presumed to be her dad, so...we'll see. Tigh has also been raised as a possibility, this time by Alana. Theories I'll get to soon would work better if her dad is one of the Final Five (Or "Final" Four, if Number 12 turns out to be a third type of cylon).
On Number 12, assuming I'm not a complete idiot and it's not Ellen. Or assuming there's a 13th, in which case mentally change that to Number 13.
Dualla would be in the lead, dead or not, except she was shown on the bridge when D'Anna said there were only four aboard Galactica, and she didn't seem to receive the Dylan Signal. Neither of those are insurmountable. That said, my personal fave is still Kendra Shaw from Razor, and Deborah's Starbuck's Dad theory is also highly viable. I'd split my probabilities roughly evenly between them.
On Starbuck's corpse, the 13th tribe, and pulling it all together:
A couple of theories on dead!Starbuck. One, a timestream thing. Starbuck follows the phantom raider into the abyss, passes through a hole in space-time, crash lands (possibly already dead) on Earth. One possibility is that a Starbuck from a different point in the timestream exited at the same time, essentially fusing two potential realities. As to why the ship was like new...well, gimme a minute.
As for the 13th tribe, how do we know from the bones that they were all cylons? We wondered about this for a few minutes, thinking about Gaius' test and Cottle's talk about the virus and various genetic markers, and then smacked ourselves in the forehead and fell down, because the streets of Cambridge are currently covered in ice, and you shouldn't realize obvious things while walking on them. When we regained consciousness, it occurred to us that Galactica is carrying a fully staffed cylon base ship in the fleet, and those guys probably do know what to look for at an atomic level, if not a genetic one. The question is, can they tell the difference between Boring Seven and Final Five models?
Theory number one! After the split from Kobol, the 13th tribe heads out and finds Earth. While there, they develop resurrection technology: the dead reappear as babies in synthetic bodies that age realistically. Because these bodies weren't born-of-woman "real," there are going to be slight differences, and possibly a few upgrades, and they'd sure look like cylons to the people currently doing the looking. One of the few remaining distinctions we have between humans and cylons, after all, is the issue of lineage: we know that Caprica Six was built, presumably by centurions, but maybe not. Just as we know that any non-cylons on Galactica were probably manufactured in the, ahem, usual way.
I don't know how the weird tiki god centurion comes into play--still workin' on that one, my friends--but here's my General Theory of What Happened. Something went down on Earth, nukes went off, population exit. A failsafe in the resurrection system, built in for this purpose, sends out a signal containing the genetic data of several Earthlings, along with schematics for building the resurrection pods.
The signal travels through space for a while. (Just how far away is Earth from the other twelve colonies, in light years, anyway?) It gets picked up by...the First Hybrid, the result of a centurion weapons experiment begun during the first war and continued during the inter-war period. The First Hybrid, a.k.a. God, Avraham, whatever, impresses the centurions with his awesome monotheism, like you do, and instructs them to build the pods, along with...say, the four, maybe five individual profiles that were transmitted without errors by a system that probably wasn't working too well. That done, I'm...not really sure what to think about how they end up sleepers on Caprica/the Galactica. Moving on: the centurions, all caught up in that old-time religion, and still kind of at war with the human species, tries to make their own resurrection technology. They never quite get it right with silicates, but find it works great with cyborgs, notably the raiders and heavy raiders. They build organic bodies and make new hybrids, which they plug into base ships that might well have been based on Earthling designs. And finally, they build seven models of skinjobs, mimicking the Earthlings as best they can. It's not perfect; the new models don't/can't age, so they have to be born as adults. Also, at least a couple of them have these nodes on their spines that glow red when they're having sex, and because they have incredible bodies, missionary isn't really an option, but fortunately this problem is retconned out of existence shortly after the miniseries.
And now, the Starbuck corollary, which entirely Alana's: the resurrection technology on Earth is automated, but not working great after 2000 years of disuse and a very big nuclear war. Still, back in the day, when someone (who's not on their first, MacBeth-proof body) dies, the system "notices" and makes a new one. That said, an object crashes on it, and it...remakes it, molecule by molecule. Again, it's not perfect: Starbuck's ship appears to be right off the assembly line instead of the beat-up warbird it is. And something's gone wacky with her memory. More to the point, the tech might have "picked up on" Starbuck because she's already carrying some cylon genetic material, possibly Final--i.e., vintage Earthling--cylon genetic material. As for why it didn't bring her back as a baby...well, you do realize we're making this up as we go, right?
So that's my/our two cents. We might see if I'm right tomorrow, and we might not. Dualla might not be out, and she might not. The writers might have picked the most boring final cylon imaginable, they might not. Have.
What's important is that I have snow to shovel, and my fucking back hurts, and it's more fun to write about Battlestar than to, y'know, do that.
Previously on Battlestar Galactica:
Ellen Tigh is the final cylon.
Tonight on Worshipper:
There is no fucking way Ellen is the final cylon.
I know, I know, the interview. Moore likes to fuck with fans, though, and the reasons he might like that are numerous. (See also: the Last Supper photo "guide" in EW, and most of youwillknowthetruth.com.) I've been putting off this post due to snow and back pain and all the other responsibilities I've been ignoring, but I wanted to get this up before the next ep airs, so I can be gloriously right if I'm right, and pilloried by the three or four people who read this if not.
So!
On Saul and Ellen. Saul thinks Ellen is the last cylon: okeydoke. Tigh has already hallucinated Ellen's face onto someone else's once before; in fact, since waking up, Tigh seems to spend a lot of hallucinating. Saul's belief is going to be drive some storylines, I think: it might come up that, contrary to popular belief, Gaius' cylon detector totally worked, at least on the Boring Seven line of cylons. And he tested Ellen under direct orders as a priority one. Gaius, being all religious and contrite now, might mention this fact, in the process copping to knowing about Boomer. (Note: some people have suggested there's something in S1 to suggest that he might have lied about Ellen's test as well, but I know not.)
My theory: we'll see that flashback again, and it won't be Ellen. An alternative theory from a commenter at Pandagon: what did Ellen look like when she was younger? Could she be what a Six would look like in a body that ages? God, I hope not, but whatevs. Oh, and that bit about D'Anna apologizing to one of the Finals? Saul was always the favorite, although it's unclear how much responsibility she takes for New Caprica. Dualla would work for some other reasons relating to D'Anna's first appearance. But really, why are we assuming she's only speaking to one of them? She's been part of an army that's been trying to kill at least four of these people for several years. The same army that destroyed what they thought of as their homes and killed quite a few of their friends. Having any number of the Finals aboard Galactica, from D'Anna's perspective, ought to raise some serious doubts about the morality of the cylons' actions from the first frame of the damn show.
On Dualla. Holy fucking shit, Anastasia Dualla just blew her fucking brains out. When she took off her ring, I thought, "oh no." When she shot herself, I thought, "well, I guess she pulled into the lead for Number 12." I'm guessing there's a resurrection facility somewhere on the planet, and I figured that's where we'd meet Number 12 conclusively--as for who, I'll get to that soonish. If Dualla is 12, her behavior upon reaching Earth might validate the theory that Twelve is, and always has been, fully aware of her origins and history. Lord knows Leoben seems to have been throw for a loop by Earth's status. Also, can we assume, from the symbols she was whippin' out on Earth, that she was pregnant? Or is there another child issue in the works?
On Starbuck. Not a cylon. Almost certainly the first human/cylon baby, however. Her mom was human, and crazy, and we know from Athena that human/cylon pregnancy's can change the mother's body, at least when the mother in question is a cylon. It's possible that Cally showed us the other half of the equation: when a human woman gestates a half-cylon baby, she goes a bit crackers. This would certainly be consistent with Mama Starbuck. Which raises the question of who her dad is.
Well, I've always liked to imagine that her mom boinked a centurion. As Spike once pointed out, sex with robots is a lot more common than people imagine. That said, dunno. Leoben has always been a possibility: incest issues aside, he is a mystic, and if Mary can simultaneously be the mother, wife, and daughter of God (that Oxford comma is for you, Beth Ann), then Leoben can be Starbuck's dad and pretend husband. And torture victim. I repeat: whatevs. Simon would be interesting given his entrance into the show, but he's probably out because, even in a post-racial world, I don't think Starbuck's dad was, y'know, black. These assume, of course, that Starbuck's crazy mom gave her daughter a fake story about her father.
Deborah floated a sound theory that Number 12 was, in fact, Starbuck's dad, the composer her mom told her about. The aforementioned website does have a still of someone presumed to be her dad, so...we'll see. Tigh has also been raised as a possibility, this time by Alana. Theories I'll get to soon would work better if her dad is one of the Final Five (Or "Final" Four, if Number 12 turns out to be a third type of cylon).
On Number 12, assuming I'm not a complete idiot and it's not Ellen. Or assuming there's a 13th, in which case mentally change that to Number 13.
Dualla would be in the lead, dead or not, except she was shown on the bridge when D'Anna said there were only four aboard Galactica, and she didn't seem to receive the Dylan Signal. Neither of those are insurmountable. That said, my personal fave is still Kendra Shaw from Razor, and Deborah's Starbuck's Dad theory is also highly viable. I'd split my probabilities roughly evenly between them.
On Starbuck's corpse, the 13th tribe, and pulling it all together:
A couple of theories on dead!Starbuck. One, a timestream thing. Starbuck follows the phantom raider into the abyss, passes through a hole in space-time, crash lands (possibly already dead) on Earth. One possibility is that a Starbuck from a different point in the timestream exited at the same time, essentially fusing two potential realities. As to why the ship was like new...well, gimme a minute.
As for the 13th tribe, how do we know from the bones that they were all cylons? We wondered about this for a few minutes, thinking about Gaius' test and Cottle's talk about the virus and various genetic markers, and then smacked ourselves in the forehead and fell down, because the streets of Cambridge are currently covered in ice, and you shouldn't realize obvious things while walking on them. When we regained consciousness, it occurred to us that Galactica is carrying a fully staffed cylon base ship in the fleet, and those guys probably do know what to look for at an atomic level, if not a genetic one. The question is, can they tell the difference between Boring Seven and Final Five models?
Theory number one! After the split from Kobol, the 13th tribe heads out and finds Earth. While there, they develop resurrection technology: the dead reappear as babies in synthetic bodies that age realistically. Because these bodies weren't born-of-woman "real," there are going to be slight differences, and possibly a few upgrades, and they'd sure look like cylons to the people currently doing the looking. One of the few remaining distinctions we have between humans and cylons, after all, is the issue of lineage: we know that Caprica Six was built, presumably by centurions, but maybe not. Just as we know that any non-cylons on Galactica were probably manufactured in the, ahem, usual way.
I don't know how the weird tiki god centurion comes into play--still workin' on that one, my friends--but here's my General Theory of What Happened. Something went down on Earth, nukes went off, population exit. A failsafe in the resurrection system, built in for this purpose, sends out a signal containing the genetic data of several Earthlings, along with schematics for building the resurrection pods.
The signal travels through space for a while. (Just how far away is Earth from the other twelve colonies, in light years, anyway?) It gets picked up by...the First Hybrid, the result of a centurion weapons experiment begun during the first war and continued during the inter-war period. The First Hybrid, a.k.a. God, Avraham, whatever, impresses the centurions with his awesome monotheism, like you do, and instructs them to build the pods, along with...say, the four, maybe five individual profiles that were transmitted without errors by a system that probably wasn't working too well. That done, I'm...not really sure what to think about how they end up sleepers on Caprica/the Galactica. Moving on: the centurions, all caught up in that old-time religion, and still kind of at war with the human species, tries to make their own resurrection technology. They never quite get it right with silicates, but find it works great with cyborgs, notably the raiders and heavy raiders. They build organic bodies and make new hybrids, which they plug into base ships that might well have been based on Earthling designs. And finally, they build seven models of skinjobs, mimicking the Earthlings as best they can. It's not perfect; the new models don't/can't age, so they have to be born as adults. Also, at least a couple of them have these nodes on their spines that glow red when they're having sex, and because they have incredible bodies, missionary isn't really an option, but fortunately this problem is retconned out of existence shortly after the miniseries.
And now, the Starbuck corollary, which entirely Alana's: the resurrection technology on Earth is automated, but not working great after 2000 years of disuse and a very big nuclear war. Still, back in the day, when someone (who's not on their first, MacBeth-proof body) dies, the system "notices" and makes a new one. That said, an object crashes on it, and it...remakes it, molecule by molecule. Again, it's not perfect: Starbuck's ship appears to be right off the assembly line instead of the beat-up warbird it is. And something's gone wacky with her memory. More to the point, the tech might have "picked up on" Starbuck because she's already carrying some cylon genetic material, possibly Final--i.e., vintage Earthling--cylon genetic material. As for why it didn't bring her back as a baby...well, you do realize we're making this up as we go, right?
So that's my/our two cents. We might see if I'm right tomorrow, and we might not. Dualla might not be out, and she might not. The writers might have picked the most boring final cylon imaginable, they might not. Have.
What's important is that I have snow to shovel, and my fucking back hurts, and it's more fun to write about Battlestar than to, y'know, do that.