Razor Flashback #5 Frak Party

[Jason]

interesting that lil’ adama finds this lab where skinjobs are being created, but later on- why all the surprise that cylons look like humans?

I don’t think that full-on skinjobs are being created yet, so I don’t think we’re likely to meet one in this flashback. Given the state of the severed limbs we see in the lab (which look like rudimentary attempts to hybridize human parts and robot parts), it seems their research is not that far along. We of course know where they’re going with it, but maybe all that is evident to Adama is that they’re engaged in some kind of human experimentation, which could be motivated by any number of goals. Maybe it’s only when he encounters Leoben in the miniseries that it finally dawns on him what they were up to 40 years ago.

If we do end up seeing an “original” Leoben, or whoever, that would be a dramatic change in the backstory, as RDM has repeatedly said that the models were not based on any specific individual, but that they were basic “types.”

That’s exactly why I don’t think we’re going to see an original human version of a skin job in the flashbacks. Not that RDM is incapable of a dramatic reversal, but it seems like far too big of a revelation to be tossed out in a minisode. Also it would make Adama go from being mildly unperceptive to incredibly dense for not figuring out sooner what the Cylons are up to.

so does this mean that doral is the voice? i really wanted to believe it was leoban, since it fits his philosophical musings.

I think it’s the voice of a Hybrid. Maybe the First Hybrid. (It seems reasonable that the development of the Hybrids would have been a necessary transition step to the Skinjobs.) Hybrids also wax philosophical/schizophrenic, and we’re led to believe that Leoben has gotten many of his ideas from listening to the Hybrids. The question is, why/how does Adama hear this voice? It’s after he’s taken his hand out of the mystery fluid, so where is it coming from?

i look forward to learning more about how the humanoid cylons were created. still, there must be a human scientist behind all this. given the subtlety (and bad aim!) of the original centurions, i don’t see them working in the lab. and they would rust from the goo.

I’m inclined to agree with you, though maybe there are other classes of toasters that we haven’t encountered yet. It doesn’t make sense that humans would have used a one-size-fits-all Centurion design for all purposes. Maybe there was a lab-assistant class of Cylon with more intelligence and manual dexterity?

Yeah, first thing I’d do when entering a lab full of partial human(?) remains is to stick my hand in the big vat of mysterious fluid.

I’m going to assume that the mystery fluid was exerting some kind of mysterious pull on Adama. What I find stranger than his ill-advised impulse to stick his hand in the tub is that it had an effect on him. I had assumed that only Cylon nervous systems could interface in this way and that the fluid would be completely inert for humans. So either Adama is a Cylon or this assumption is wrong.

This conclusion has led me to some wild speculations. What if the fluid/goo interface was actually invented by human scientists as a way for humans to more efficiently program and control computerized machines, and what if the humans unintentionally transferred their emotions and sentience to the machines though the goo? What if this is what led to the paradox of the Cylons revolting against humans while at the same time being obsessed with transforming themselves into humans?

And what if Adama not only got a glimpse inside the Cylon mind in this scene, but what if they also got a glimpse inside his? Is a copy of his consciousness now a part of the Cylon database? Is that what Leoben meant when he said Adama was a Cylon?

[suzanne]

I think it’s the voice of a Hybrid… The question is, why/how does Adama hear this voice? It’s after he’s taken his hand out of the mystery fluid, so where is it coming from?

the voice seemed too sane to be the hybrid, though perhaps early hybrids were less insane than the current ones…

i think the voice came from the being in the goo, rather than the goo as a repository of individual conscousnesses. it could have been an audio version of an-afterimage, much like looking at the sun then looking away and seeing spots…maybe the goo caused a form of sensory overload for him, and the message is what remained.

What if the fluid/goo interface was actually invented by human scientists as a way for humans to more efficiently program and control computerized machines, and what if the humans unintentionally transferred their emotions and sentience to the machines though the goo?..And what if Adama not only got a glimpse inside the Cylon mind in this scene, but what if they also got a glimpse inside his? Is a copy of his consciousness now a part of the Cylon database? Is that what Leoben meant when he said Adama was a Cylon?

good point about the goo/interface. in the show, when we see cylons download (or at least wake up after downloading), the cylons surrounding the tank keep their hands out of the goo, maybe because it would interfere with the downloading of a new consciousness. they do seem to interface with liquid for communication purposes-liquid troughs in the base star command area, just to name one.

as to the state of the lab, i think there are 2 parts to creating the humanoid cylons- one is cloning the body and the other is imprinting a specific consciousness. these would be attempted separately. i think the person behind the door could be someone with a cylon altered consciousness. maybe that is how the hybrids came about initially- failed attempts at imprinting consciousness through the goo- which gave the person? a form of insanity, or multiple personalities.

i suspect rdm will play a bit loose with the backstory, and explain it later.

[Jason]

it could have been an audio version of an-afterimage, much like looking at the sun then looking away and seeing spots…maybe the goo caused a form of sensory overload for him, and the message is what remained.

That’s a great analogy, and I think you’re right.

maybe that is how the hybrids came about initially- failed attempts at imprinting consciousness through the goo- which gave the person? a form of insanity, or multiple personalities.

A very interesting idea.

[Lucky]

With these last two “sodes” I am beginning to wonder if this entire experience that Adama is going through has had some sort of lasting importance upon the cylon. I almost wonder if the cylon saw something in Adama that made them go, “holy frak, this guy is a threat”. I say this because at the beginning of the miniseries the BSG has the cylon agents; Doral, Boomer, and Tigh on the ship. Remember this is an outdated and soon to be de-commissioned vessel. Compare that with the Pegasus, which only had one cylon agent aboard. Plus throughout the series the cylon have repeatedly attempted to kill Adama through assassination attempts. Plus in exodus part 2 the cylon seem ready to craaaaap themselves when they hear “Adama has returned”.

So the point of my rambling? I think the cylons are either scared of adama or view him as a major threat. And I think the reason why might be somewhere in either razor or eventually the flashbacks.

[Glimfeather]

Frak me, there’s some good theorizing going on here.

Maybe it’s only when he encounters Leoben in the miniseries that it finally dawns on him what they were up to 40 years ago.

Exac-Tly. It makes so much more sense for Adama to make that leap of logic in the mini if he’d seen these mysterious experiments 40 years before.

I think it’s the voice of a Hybrid. Maybe the First Hybrid. (It seems reasonable that the development of the Hybrids would have been a necessary transition step to the Skinjobs.)

Good line of reasoning. All the Hybrids we’ve seen so far have been female, though. I was also thinking the voice might be the Final Cylon, but I kind of think/hope that the Final Cylon will be female, just to give a greater male/female balance to the 12 (it’s 7 to 4 right now, and RDM’s statements that each model was an exploration of a facet of humanity had led me to believe originally that it would be half-and-half).

Maybe there was a lab-assistant class of Cylon with more intelligence and manual dexterity?

Man, for the toasters’ sake, we’d better hope so. “Hey, number 615, pass me that flask…”

What if the fluid/goo interface was actually invented by human scientists as a way for humans to more efficiently program and control computerized machines, and what if the humans unintentionally transferred their emotions and sentience to the machines though the goo? What if this is what led to the paradox of the Cylons revolting against humans while at the same time being obsessed with transforming themselves into humans?

And what if Adama not only got a glimpse inside the Cylon mind in this scene, but what if they also got a glimpse inside his? Is a copy of his consciousness now a part of the Cylon database? Is that what Leoben meant when he said Adama was a Cylon?

Frak me! Totally awesome if this is true!

the voice seemed too sane to be the hybrid, though perhaps early hybrids were less insane than the current ones…
as to the state of the lab, i think there are 2 parts to creating the humanoid cylons- one is cloning the body and the other is imprinting a specific consciousness. these would be attempted separately. i think the person behind the door could be someone with a cylon altered consciousness. maybe that is how the hybrids came about initially- failed attempts at imprinting consciousness through the goo- which gave the person? a form of insanity, or multiple personalities.

A very interesting idea.

Ditto.

With these last two “sodes” I am beginning to wonder if this entire experience that Adama is going through has had some sort of lasting importance upon the cylon. I almost wonder if the cylon saw something in Adama that made them go, “holy frak, this guy is a threat”…in exodus part 2 the cylon seem ready to craaaaap themselves when they hear “Adama has returned”.

Kick ass! It would help so much to explain why the Galactica seems to have been singled out for survival all this time.

Since I’ve requoted nearly the entire thread, I suppose I should add an original thought. After reading the cast list for the 'sodes, I tend to think it’s not a Cylon behind the door (though possibly a Hybrid or some other twisted Cylon creation or victim), and that Doral will appear not in the flashbacks but in the present day. EJO is listed in the credits, after all, so I suspect that in the next or last 'sode, we will return to the present to see where and why Papadama is having these flashbacks.

[suzanne]

i also wonder if whatever adama experiences on the planet will explain why he is eventually able to trust sharon/athena later on, before anyone else (other than helo) does.

[Jason]

Exac-Tly. It makes so much more sense for Adama to make that leap of logic in the mini if he’d seen these mysterious experiments 40 years before.

It does indeed. And may I compliment you on your enunciation. Chuck would be proud.

I kind of think/hope that the Final Cylon will be female, just to give a greater male/female balance to the 12 (it’s 7 to 4 right now, and RDM’s statements that each model was an exploration of a facet of humanity had led me to believe originally that it would be half-and-half).

I’m also bothered by the gender asymmetry. If you count the fact that the D’Anna line is boxed, it’s even worse. It seems like the Final Cylon would have to be female, unless the Cylons find 8:4 a more mathematically appealing ratio than 7:5. But 6:6 would be so much more elegant. Hey, maybe one of the male Cylons will reveal that “he” is really a “she.”

Man, for the toasters’ sake, we’d better hope so. “Hey, number 615, pass me that flask…”

Hilarious!

I tend to think it’s not a Cylon behind the door (though possibly a Hybrid or some other twisted Cylon creation or victim), and that Doral will appear not in the flashbacks but in the present day. EJO is listed in the credits, after all, so I suspect that in the next or last 'sode, we will return to the present to see where and why Papadama is having these flashbacks.

Now that you should bet a quarter on.

[Kappa]

I’m also bothered by the gender asymmetry. If you count the fact that the D’Anna line is boxed, it’s even worse. It seems like the Final Cylon would have to be female, unless the Cylons find 8:4 a more mathematically appealing ratio than 7:5. But 6:6 would be so much more elegant. Hey, maybe one of the male Cylons will reveal that “he” is really a “she.”

This may be a bit of a stretch (and definitely devolves into a tangent), but maybe the gender ratio of the twelve Cylons reflects the gender ratio of the 12 Lords of Kobol/12 Olympian gods and goddesses. It varies from myth to myth, but some of the configurations of the gods who get to sit at the table on Mount Olympus are 7:5 ratios…

Males that are always Olympians:
Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, Ares, Hermes, Hephaestus (6)

Females that are always Olympians:
Hera, Artemis, Athena, Aphrodite (4)

As for the final two seats,
Sometimes Hades (M) is replaced by Demeter (F), since Hades lives in the underworld
And Hestia (F) gave up her seat to Dionysus (M)

So if both Hades and Dionysus got the extra chairs, you’d have an 8:4 ratio, but it’s more common to see one of the up-for-grabs chairs go to a goddess and one to a god, bringing the gender ratio to 7:5.

So, if the “this has all happened before, this will all happen again” doesn’t include a relationship or parallel between the 12 Cylons and the 12 Lords of Kobol (I think it does, but there’s no way of knowing), then I guess all this shows is that there is another model in our world in which a bunch of personality types are summed up in a 7:5 configuration. If they are connected, though, the Cylons might have based those 12 personality types off the 12 personality types represented by the Colonials’ main gods…

I think a lot of people on other boards have tried to come up with ways to make the 11 known Cylons fit parallels with the Olympians, but since some of the Cylons have complex characters, and since it’s hard to even tell who is actually an Olympian, it’s pretty tough. Yeah, Six=Aphrodite pretty clearly, and Athena=Athena, but after that, what is there to go on? Leoben=Apollo (both dig prophecies)? Tyrol=Haphaestus (similar professions, and similarly, erm, failed relationships with Athena)? Tigh=Dionysus (both associated with alcohol)? And then we’ve got non-Cylon 12ers matched up to Olympians, too: Hera=Hera, Lee=Apollo, Adama=Zeus, Starbuck=Artemis (or is she Aurora?). You can see how this becomes a messy theory really, really fast.

Anyway, sorry for the digression. This thread is just so fascinating that it’s blown my mind a bit…

[Glimfeather]

Thank you for the digression, Kappa. I wasn’t aware that there was a table of 12 on Mount Olympus. It’d be great to think the writers were basing the 12 Cylons on that, but sadly, I think it’s been pretty clear that they just made it up as they went along. For instance, if Billy was still alive, would he have been one of the Fab Four instead of Tory, which would have made the ratio 8:3?

But Tigh as Dionysus? Brilliant, my friend. I would have gone the dumber, more obvious route of calling him a Cyclops.

[battlestarearth]

So say we all.

[Locke]

Interesting 'sode… first one that has driven me to post on it, bear with me a bit if I get too scattered.

I’m gonna go ahead and assume that the Adama in this time frame has yet to meet a particular individual named Saul Tigh. I see this lab as proof that the Cylons had the technology (invented by themselves or given by others) to create a skinjob in the near future (in terms of this period of time) this would put to rest some timeline anomalies, specifically Tigh.

As for the goo, whatever it is, I feel that everything he saw from the moment his hand went in the goo to when he ripped it out, away from the “hand” that was grasping his glove and dissapeared, was a hallucination at its simplest level, more specifically a hallucination as a result of errant data being transmitted through the goo, and into his body. I feel that this data is part of the neural package that they’re trying to pump into freshly made cylons to get them up and running, after all especially since they’re in the experimental phase why not try and just transfer a complete data package from one of the classic functioning cylons, complete with AI, to the new body they’re trying to get going, makes sense for those in the trial and error phase

a couple other thoughts ran through my head as i watched this, one of them is the thought that maybe Tigh is behind the door, waiting for adama to “rescue” him… but on thinking about that I seem to recall a flashback courtesy of Tigh showing him and Adama introducing themselves to eachother, so that idea got shot out of the water(goo?)

Logic would dictate that none of the main group of cylons could be behind that door, barring those Adama didnt see until around the New Caprica event. It’s possible that one of the final five are behind the door and they were “rescued” by Adama, but looking at the 4 we have sofar, Tigh is out due to my earlier recollection, Anders, Tori, and Tyrol are all too young to have been the figure behind the door as he was roughly adult size at least, and his voice was matured to that point as well(of course since its a male and Tori is female that cuts her out automatically).

This cuts it down to the Final Cylon, or somebody else who up to this series of events hasn’t been necessarily important, which is a pretty wide field.

Of course it could be that nobody of consequence is behind there and the person exists simply to push a character development by Adama

umm… what else. The half arm prop was awesome, Adama needs to learn some Horror movie etiquette(as others observed), not much else i can think of except the voice.

I can’t recognize the voice, but I suppose the message is what’s important… All of this has happened before and All of it will happen again. This message has been hammered into our heads since the beginning of the series and its especially prevalent now with Razor being released, just before the 4th and final season begins. This leads me to believe that this line is gonna be the key to the whole story, there have been alot of theories up to this point concerning that line, and I feel that now is the time to make a major push and try to figure out that that quote means, because I definately believe that it’s going to be revealed before the show ends… or perhaps as it ends, and it’s going to be the vital element

btw, good theorizing in this thread, I especially enjoyed reading the research and comparison on the Olympic Gods/Goddesses, true it does seem to get messy, but it seems like the core theory is a sound one

[Starbuccaneer]

If we do end up seeing an “original” Leoben, or whoever, that would be a dramatic change in the backstory, as RDM has repeatedly said that the models were not based on any specific individual, but that they were basic “types.”

Yeah, you know, because RDM has never used/abused his position as a minor God of the Galactica Universe to lead us poor mortals astray for his own unfathomable purposes…

Of course, I was thinking that we’re all quick to jump on the “it’s the original human Leoben/Doral” train, considering that we don’t know what, exactly, the Cylons were doing to their prisoners other than hurting them and making them scream a lot. They could have been doing vivisections to learn more about human physiology. Perhaps they were using that station to test on humans before trying their hypotheses out on their own people (the way we test drugs on mice and primates before running human clinical trials). Or, maybe that lab was run by Larry the Misfit Centurion’s cousin Barry, who just couldn’t quite get the hang of the whole Cyborg-ification of Humans Thing.

One thing I do know- Adama the Elder has thought of this event many, many times since the toasters resurfaced. Not least of which with Leoben at Ragnar.

[Jason]

So, if the “this has all happened before, this will all happen again” doesn’t include a relationship or parallel between the 12 Cylons and the 12 Lords of Kobol (I think it does, but there’s no way of knowing), then I guess all this shows is that there is another model in our world in which a bunch of personality types are summed up in a 7:5 configuration. If they are connected, though, the Cylons might have based those 12 personality types off the 12 personality types represented by the Colonials’ main gods…

That is really interesting. Thanks for educating us about this!

A question: After the Eye of Jupiter adventure, I believe that Roslin or someone makes a connection between the Final Five Cylons, the Temple of Five, and the five priests who serve the “god who must not be named,” or something like that. Based on this, I assumed that the Five were/are not themselves Lords. Am I wrong about that? To your knowledge, does this Five-serving-One motif occur anywhere in mythology?

[Solai]

I wish I could take credit for this…over on Scifi boards someone started yet another discussion about the lab 'sode. However, the tagline of their thread made me laugh out loud:

[i]“the proof is in the cylon pudding”

[/i]

[The_Alpaca_Herder]

Yeah, you know, because RDM has never used/abused his position as a minor God of the Galactica Universe to lead us poor mortals astray for his own unfathomable purposes…

Injecting RDM into the show itself as either the Final Cylon or something else would keep that going. In my mind…it would fit…

[Kappa]

A question: After the Eye of Jupiter adventure, I believe that Roslin or someone makes a connection between the Final Five Cylons, the Temple of Five, and the five priests who serve the “god who must not be named,” or something like that. Based on this, I assumed that the Five were/are not themselves Lords. Am I wrong about that? To your knowledge, does this Five-serving-One motif occur anywhere in mythology?

Seems that there aren’t too many fives in Greek and Roman mythology, at least. Plenty of threes, sevens, and twelves, but I can only think of one five reference, and it sort of fits, but like the 12 Lords of Kobol/12 Olympians, there are some problems…

Zeus is considered the ruler of the gods, and he got that gig by how he overthrew his father, Cronus. Cronus, one of the Titans, himself overthrew his dad, Uranus (Sky), because Cronus’ mom, Gaia (Earth), was mighty upset with Uranus for how he was treating their first rounds of kids, which included the Cyclopes. After he subdued Uranus, Cronus turned around and locked up the Cyclopes and all the other monsters Uranus had sired, and he and the rest of the Titans took over.

Cronus was told that like his father before him, one of Cronus’s sons would one day unseat him from the throne. His solution? As soon as his wife Rhea, a fellow Titan, gave birth, he ate the child. He did this five times–with Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon. The sixth time, when Zeus was born, Rhea tricked Cronus and fed him a big rock instead. Zeus grew up in secret, and eventually when he got old enough, he poisoned his dad, making Cronus vomit up Zeus’s five siblings (You can’t accuse the Greeks of lacking imagination). Then they all banded together, freed the Cyclopes and the other children of Uranus and Gaia that Cronus had locked up, and overthrew Cronus and the rest of the Titans, whom Zeus then locked up in Tartarus like Cronus had done with Cylcopes and Company. Since Zeus masterminded the plan that freed them all from their father’s innards and made them masters of the universe, Zeus’s siblings didn’t exactly fight Zeus when he decided he should be in charge.

As a sidenote, according to Prometheus Bound, there was a prophecy that Zeus, too, would be overthrown someday by one of his sons.

There are a few ways in which the story relates to the Cylons. The repetition of sons overthrowing fathers only to be overthrown by their sons fits in nicely with “all this has happened before, all this will happen again” and with the idea that the Cylons are “humanity’s children” (including Doral’s comment in S1 that “parents have to die”). Also, it’s a good reminder that the Olympians were comprised of two generations: Zeus and his five siblings, and then the children of those siblings (for the most part; Aphrodite’s parentage is a bit ambiguous). This would fit with the idea that the Final Five are Cylons from a previous cycle of history, an earlier “generation” than the Significant Seven.

Like I said, it has its problems, though. One of the biggest is that the numbers don’t work out. There are five gods and goddesses raising up a sixth god from the total of twelve Olympians. The generational split is six and six, not seven and five, though that’s not taking into account how the gods play musical chairs with who’s an Olympian and who’s not. I also have a hard time believing that the Final Five would want to lift up one of the other Seven as the supreme ruler; it seems more likely that they’d support an outsider. Another big problem is that if you follow this model, the five priests are not separate from the 12 Lords; they themselves are a faction of the Lords.

It always seemed to me, too, that the way they were described suggests that the priests are something separate from the 12 Lords of Kobol, even though the one god they worship might be the one Lord that tried to raise himself above the rest on Kobol. Then again, I also assumed they were humans, since they were a part of the humans’ scripture, which isn’t true if the Final Five are the five priests. I guess that’s a good question: are the Final Five and the five priests one and the same, and if not, why are they both associated with the temple? And there’s nothing that says that that one Lord who tried to raise himself is the same as the one god the priests worshiped, or that any of them are the same as the one Cylon god. Which of these are actually connected, and if they are connected, how so?

I googled around a bit, and the only other references to fives I could come up with are the five rivers in Hades and the five elements according to many Asian traditions (think the five Captain Planet rings, only with “metal” instead of “heart”). Who know, maybe Captain Planet is the answer to everything…

[suzanne]

Also, it’s a good reminder that the Olympians were comprised of two generations: Zeus and his five siblings, and then the children of those siblings (for the most part; Aphrodite’s parentage is a bit ambiguous). This would fit with the idea that the Final Five are Cylons from a previous cycle of history, an earlier “generation” than the Significant Seven.

really interesting point…thanks for all the info.

[Pike]

And this is why I love this corner of the interwebs.

[battlestarearth]

So say we all.