Totally off-topic, but it’s amazing how much bigger Galactica looked in the mini before they started storing everything they owned in the corridors.
If memory serves - early in the series there is a scene with Kelly walking among flag shrouded bodies on Galactica (not unlike the Cain scene) - but I might be misremembering.
Is Cavil going to get his come-uppance? heheh 
I keep saying this until someone listens! They can NOT go back to Kobol. Kobol was first season, PRIOR to the algae planet. PRIOR to the HUGE radiation field that killed Kat due to exposure. Have you taken a good look at what the Galactica’s hull looks like right now? Stress fractures are appearing in the engine room…there is no way in (sorrybarb) they can make it back through that radiation a second time. Kobol is long gone.
…unless the cylon upgrades let them jump right over it. I doubt they’d go back though, especially if the 145s are still after them.
It would take many more jumps than Galactica is currently capable of given the state of the hull.
Also - if there was a return to Kobol (and I agree, Galactica appears to be in no shape to make it), then there is little doubt but that the cycle has started again. I take it most of us believe that would be a “bad” thing.
Maybe the proper term is for what Tigh did is to Ellen is ‘execute’?
I’m on Livejournal a lot and read a lot of BSG fanfic, and I came across one that really hit me. I think it shows brilliant insight in to Gaeta’s character.
The beneath is the first paragraph.
[Gaeta’s Lament.
He wanted to be a great humanitarian, like his father.
Alexis Gaeta was his first hero, silent and strong, confident and caring, a pillar of his community. Felix idolized the man and wanted to be just like him from the moment he was old enough to understand what idol worship meant; that it was something more than just paying tribute to the household gods. It was something even bigger than that. It was about wanting to stand in the sun and absorb the rays, and become a god yourself.
Then one day his father was arrested for embezzling millions from his own charitable trust.](http://pacejunkie.livejournal.com/47194.html)
Wow, great points, BSGinNC! I never realized, either, that Head Six had pointed out that Ellen may be significant. Very cool!
Captain Kelley indeed did walk through the shrouded bodies in the miniseries.
While I doubt we’ll see Galactica reverse course and head back to Kobol (I’m taking it that the Cylons abandoned the Colonies years ago and the Cylon Civil War has left the Cylon fleet as fractured as the Colonial fleet, with a very small number of Cavil-led baseships out there to be dealt with…), I believe the issue with the radition cloud which surrounded the algae planet was that by the time the fleet jumped around it, everyone would have starved. (They were able to jump away from the planet in both episodes of the two-parter without going through the field.) They could easily jump around it this time around, although it very well could have been wiped out by the supernova and may not be an issue.
My spoiler-free prediction links with I believe something Chuck said in the podcast - Galactica has a shelf-life, they’re going to lose the ship, and they need to launch a final preemptive strike against the Cylons before they lose the ship.
Other point I noted on the rewatch - the Chief may need some reconstructive surgery if Cottle has any free time. Watch the scene where he notices the fissure in the hull. His fingers were grinded into the machinery he’s holding.
To make the Kelly thing even better, here’s the dialog from that scene…
Commander Adama, if I may?
Captain
I just wanna say what a pleasure it’s been serving with you in your command, sir
Captain Kelly, it’s been my honor, good luck in your next assignment
Thank you sir.
ok, now i’m stuck watching the mini again… the ship was so clean 
Yeah, I stopped the podcast right when you guys are talking about Rosalind resigning, which I admit I was yelling for her to do when she was having her jog through the ship and the conversation about wanting to live a little. That would so put Lee in charge because he is the ONLY surviving member of the Quorum of Twelve.
Lee was trying to make the case before Zarek showed up and fear-mongered that an alliance with the Cylons was necessary. Yes, he was doing it because his father told him to but at the same time he’s got enough military experience to see that the ships will only take so much more and they need the superior technology to get to a habitable planet before they all die.
So I’m all for Rosalind establishing Lee as Vice-President, resigning, Lee takes over as President, have elections to refill the Quorum, pick a new Vice-President out of the Quorum, and then fill that seat. As far as Lee’s character goes, I can’t see him not insisting on this. However when Ellen and Cavil show up, this plan may have to wait to see if they all live through that.
OH, those were stress fractures in the FTL/engine room. They show the episodes too late for me. I was trying to figure out what in the BSG universe could claw up the ship like a T-Rex. 
But I am so surprised that no one has brought up the number jump as yet another reason for the mutiny! When I first saw it, I know I scratched my head and said “I thought we had WAY less than that.” By the second 4.5 episode I realized that we still had around 40,000 (yes, I know it is less than that but simple math right now) humans. The Sixes, Eights, and Twos on one basestar equal 320,000. If you are one of the people in the mutiny who can’t accept an alliance with the Cylons or can’t forgive the Cylons for the attack on the Colonies, you must have went through every clean pair of underwear you had and started borrowing from your neighbor.
These numbers also mean I don’t envy Doc Cottle or whichever nurse he puts on the job of making sure there’s genetic diversity when they get to rebuilding the population. The Tylons and Cylons can reproduce (Tigh and Caprica Six’s baby), Cylons and humans can reproduce (Hera), and probably Tylons and humans can reproduce; so where exactly do you count inbreeding with the various copies?
And hasn’t anyone brought up the possibility that maybe Boomer was on birth control while with Tyrol? She was making the military her career, after all. And now I need to scrub my brain because a Leoban could mate with Tory and that child just shouldn’t exist even in theory.
Great 'cast as always, guys! The interview with Kate Vernon was awesome–I can’t wait for Ellen’s return next week.
Re: Audra on Delphi, Pythia, and Snakes:
The connections are pretty compelling, eh? I’d never even thought about the snakes on the podium before.
A couple other things to add: the myths surrounding how the oracle at Delphi became dedicated to the service of Apollo in particular. Originally, Pythia was the priestess of the original earth goddess, Gaia. Apollo slew the female earth dragon/serpent, Python, in the place where the oracle sat. Apollo took over after that and named the oracle Pythia, after the battle with the serpent, and partially in deference to the fact that he’d violated a holy spot by killing there. So, the myth has an element of the old gods being supplanted by the new gods that Head Six was talking about back in S4.0.
Kappa - thanks for filling in those gaps! I’ll have to make some notes and mention it to my humanities students.
Honestly though, it looks like the Galactica isn’t going to get very far regardless; there might be a closer habitable planet, but since they’ll be going back and forth searching instead of travelling in a straight line to it (what with having no idea where one might be) it wouldn’t seem likely that the Galactica would have that much better of a time getting to an unknown possible habitable planet first. As a sidenote, I’m not sure we aren’t all jumping to conclusions about what the fractures imply…it seems almost certain now, true, but chickens and hatching and etc.
On the other hand, the Basestar (as said in the podcast, Basestar Galactica!) seems to have been able to just skip along through (I certainly don’t remember Baltar having any worries at the time), so with improved FTL it might not be any problem for at least the Basestar and the rest of the fleet (likely the basestar can hold quite a few more people itself now too, after the assault on the Resurrection Hub, so if some of the civillain ships break down…well actually, I half expect that to be a plot point soon one way or another).
As per the cycles starting again, I’m not convinced that’s a bad thing. For one, it’s probably a better path than having the humans and the cylons both die out completely, no? (Depending on whether one takes existence as a positive or negative, I guess you could be philosophical about it, no more future generations does mean no more suffering, and if it’s all going to end in near-genocide every time is it worth it?).
Secondly, there might be a reason that it starts on Kobol, perhaps it’s the only decent habitable place around other than the 12 colonies. Might be another reason why the cylons were so quick to pack up and leave their (unseen to us) homeworld; maybe they never even had much of one, not a livable one for the human models at least. Also would explain (in addition to maybe bad blood) why the 13th tribe went so very, very far away, took that far to find a planet they could actually “call Earth”. If it’s a choice between a slow death on some place like New Caprica or the Algae Planet (and hey, one of the above doesn’t even exist anymore, but still pretty ominous indicators of the general state of the galaxy) or re-starting the cycle on Kobol, hey, leave instructions somewhere with the information on jump technology and hope that the next time around people do a survey of the galaxy before they go and get all the good planets nuked (maybe leave a cryptic tablet or two encouraging exploration?).
I really should call in, but here are a few of my predictions for the rest of the show:
-
Starbuck is the 13th Cylon - For so many reasons it makes sense for her to be not only a cylon, but an unexpected clyon. I think that it would totally like this show to set up an expectation (ahem, earth), and then show us that there’s an even bigger situation. Another reason is the time that it took her to meet-up with the fleet after her death. It was about 2 months and wasn’t Ellen gone for about 6ish weeks? They both said that all they could remember was “just dreams” and then bam, there they are. Also, I think that even if the final five have reincarnated or what-have-you for 2,000 years, Starbuck’s coming is different. I think she is ‘born’ when it is time to bring the human race back to earth, i.e. Kara Thrace is the harbinger of death. She will lead them to the end of humanity. And finally, Head Six only said cryptic “they’re important” type things about 4 women; Boomer, D’Anna, Ellen & Starbuck.
-
The Galactica (wether the dying leader or not) will be destroyed before the series ends.
-
Lee & Kara will end up as President and Commander of the fleet - Parents have to die for children to reach their full potential… These two are the kids if Roslin and Bill are mom & dad of the fleet.
-
Roslin and Bill Adama both die: Sad, but probably true. See above.
-
Boomer will eventually show-up and help save the day! - This character needs some serious redemption and escaped the destruction of the Hub. The writers wouldn’t let her do that without a purpose. Also-
-
Boomer & Chief have got to get together - My own silly dream, but come on! Both of these characters have been so unhappy and have both survived. Now they each know who they truly are, and Chief’s statement about being with the one he truly loved in the ep. after Cally’s death could set this up. The character Boomer is, I think, one of the most unhappy, tortured character’s on this show and that’s saying a lot. We never saw her happy AGAIN after Chief broke up with her during the first season. Dang, throw us and them a bone!
Okay, enough for me for one night. Chuck, I love ‘Cavilry’! Nice phrasing!
I’d love to hear what up all think about any of these theories, especially the Starbuck/13th Cylon thing.
(Also, what if Starbuck is Tigh’s, and maybe Ellen’s, child? Wouldn’t that be nuts if she is some sort of immaculate conception cylon hylon? She and Tigh are sooo much alike, it might be cheesy, but I don’t think I’d mind!
That was a really great interview with Kate Vernon - I was chuckling to myself while listening 
New on SciFi: “Pimp my Head Six”