No, not Quasimodo’s name, but…
Yes, there were elements of Hitchhiker’s Guide there, for sure. Although I feel there are more technicians in the fleet and fewer hairdressers than in HHGTTG. Although interesting the new president is a lawyer…
No, I was getting the 2001: A Space Odyssey vibe. And on several levels.
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The pre-history, pre-human, ‘teaching the dumb locals something useful because we are superior beings’ stuff.
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The ‘don’t trust technology because one day it will start desiring your women’ stuff. (Or, at least, it will turn on you and bite your arse.)
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The ‘Star child, unknowable god-like mysterious alien’ stuff.
Oddly, I’ve always considered 2001 my favourite sci-fi film - despite these ‘flaws’… LOL. And until this final episode, until this final hour of BSG I’ve considered it my favourite sci-fi non-book source. I guess it still is. But not quite as emphatically as in the past. (As in two days ago.)
So, why?
It’s not just the deus ex machina of the explicitly-revealed god and his angels. And it’s not just arriving in our (real) earth’s past. It’s not even the absurd and ridiculous implausibility of 35,000 humans abandoning all technology, medicine, shelter, food, clothing to voluntarily interbreed with an alien species. (Oh, and it’s not even the outright impossibility of an alien species having ‘compatible’ DNA. Hang on, yes it is.)
No, it’s what these mean, and it’s what they do to the context of the preceding four years. Huge fractures, more severe even than poor Galactica’s herself, now run through the seasons. If we are privy to these god-influences, how many such events have we not been aware of? How much meddling, what kind of influence, who really ever had a free choice to do as they wished?
Maybe Racetrack really was guided by an invisible friend to find the things she always seemed to luckily find.
Maybe Romo’s cat was really there.
All decisions, all courses of action are now called into question. This saddens me greatly.