Maybe Apollo brought a Scrabble set.
The trick is to bang the rocks together, guys.
The locals died out because they had trouble spelling “felgercarb”.:mad:
that’s great information NickB, it’s fun reading it.
That is an awesome paper title. Seriously awesome. I’d go to that talk 
Thanks Hansioux and Casilda - you’re very kind 
I feel a kind of compulsion to write said paper - it’s just a question of finding the time. I have one that’s way overdue but all I can think about in terms of writing just now is Farmer Gauis and how he would fit into the grand sweep of human social evolution!
Hi NickB. Your work sounds fascinating. My partner has worked on Bronze Age Agean archaeology and (from being a very non-SciFi person) she really got into BSG too so she’ll be very interested in your other comments on civilisation and scarcity. They certainly made me think. Like the idea of GOD/IT being a more ancient civilisation - something like the post-physical beings in Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels perhaps. Maybe this could get explored in Caprica.
BTW: maybe this has been posted up already, but there’s a great little piece by Charlotte Higgins in the Guardian on BSG and the Aeneid. Lots of meddling deities there too if my hazy recollection of Greek Mythology class serves me right here.
You can also find Richard Vine’s episode by episode commentary BSG on the Guardian plus a cover page article ‘Better than the Wire?’.
On a personal note (Everyone) your responses have helped me work through some of my disappointment with the finale. I’m no longer dejected; just sad that this great series has come to an end. At least this forum is still around. It’s easily the coolest and most convivial I’ve found on the web.
Wow, NickB! I’m fascinated by your work! That just sounds so exciting to me. I was first swept up by the past probably the same way many are. In the 6th grade I had to do some sort of report & stumbled on the King Tut tomb treasures in an encylopedia in the school library. I’ve long toyed with the idea of taking the courses for a degree in it, but keep coming up with one excuse after another. I dunno, maybe I should just take some courses & see what happens. I just don’t know how much of a career I would be able to get out of it.
Blah I’ll stop, too much about me on this one. Suffice it to say, that sounds fascinating NickB!
Your thoughts are generally similar to mine (if you can’t the from the many posts on the subject), but I was quite a bit more enthusiastic about the finale than you. As I said perviously, I too really wanted to avoid a von Daniken ending as well.
Regarding the genetic compatibility I like to put forward the (completely untestable) hypothesis that the Colonials are genetically compatible with the Earthlings because, in fact they too are descended from Earth. Possibly the ‘mystical force’ at one point say 10K-30k years prior took a population of humans from Earth to Kobol to act as their primitive slaves, much like humans have been treating Cylons for multiple cycles. Thus the mystical force would have been the original Lords of Kobol. In this way it was actually the ‘mystical force’ that started the cycle by advancing the self awareness of early humans yet treating them by servants. Now with the destruction of the 12 Colonies they saw their opportunity to make amends by leading the colonist and cylons back to Earth via a path the reveals the destructive nature of the cycle (by showing both Kobol and Erf).
My one comment about seeing an ending with a lush planet Earth, but long destroyed past civilization was kind of already seen at Kobol…
So say we all.
I think BSG has drawn in a lot of thoughtful people who wouldn’t otherwise “do” sci-fi. It seems to strike a chord with those of an academic bent - all that philosophy…
I saw Richard Vine’s piece in the Guardian, but didn’t see Charlotte Higgins’ one, so thanks for the heads up - I’ll take a peek.
It’s great to have the GWC forum as a kind of support group to get us through the end - I’ve been away from it for a while but needed to visit as soon as I’d watched the finale! I think we all had so many hopes, fears and expectations for the ending that we need time to come to terms with it. I’m sure I’ll end up being more-or-less totally happy with it after a rewatch or two and some more mental digestion. I can see what RDM was doing in making a direct link from the RTF to “us”, so fair dues to him and the writers for doing the best they could with it. And I can see how they might have found neat explanations for the Head Characters and Starbuck a little trite and ended up feeling mystery worked better. But maybe down the line they could revisit this…
As for all the nice comments about my archaeological work, and at the risk of using the forum inappropriately for a cheap plug, we do take volunteers (no experience necessary) to help cover the costs of some of our field seasons. It’s expensive, but one hell of an experience…
One thing that I did like was Roslin’s burial - this looked very much like the kind of burial monuments or tumuli that we find all over the Sahara (from when it was green), albeit over 140,000 years too early. Some time ago I told my wife that I’d like to be buried in a tumulus in the Sahara (when I’m dead that is). She wasn’t keen on the idea. So at this scene I immediately yelled out “see - Laura Roslin got a tumulus!” Also nice that it’s looking east - most of the burials we find are oriented in an easterly of southeasterly direction towards the rising sun.
NickB, any thoughts on the “V” Adama placed over the tumulus? Was that just poetic license or is there evidence of such things as well?
Nothing specific to say on that. It looked like it was sticks or some other degradable material, so it wouldn’t be preserved for us to find associated with our Saharan tumuli. Audra did say something in the 'cast about this shape being symbolic of femininity, and that does ring a bell somewhere. I’ll keep an eye out and see if I can find any sources about this kind of symbolism in prehistoric or early historical societies, or even contemporary hunter-gather or herding cultures.
I thought he’d just buried her with antlers.
I thought antlers at first but on a second look I think they were sticks. Good excuse for a third watch though…
Here’s a real tumulus from the Sahara. I wonder how Adama did with the burial chamber - these are very carefully constructed, and these tumulus monuments are not just piles of stones, but have a complex internal structure that much take quite a bit of practice and expertise to put together.
