The Cycle, Angels, Spoilers

Television, Movies Games and Books BSG-2003
#1

First, if you haven’t seen it, skip this.

Next, I am not happy. I dislike the conclusion. I console myself with the following: the Cycle didn’t break. I further console myself with the idea that angels = programs and that Caprica will show us this. Also that Earth is Earth and that makes sense, but not in the way the show would have us prefer.

Will Caprica give us God’s Plan? Are you as agitated as I am science fiction had to slip to fantasy? I’m one of those which saw nearly no fantasy in the show and liked it.

So what say you?

#2

I saw nothing fantasy about it.
Having religious elements, in my opinion, doesnt make it a fantasy story.
I was very pleased with it.

#3

I loved the finale, I’m satisfied.

And I agree that religious elements doesn’t make it fantasy. it’s ambiguous for a reason…

#4

the jump to the future explained a lot. You cant begin to imagine God’s plan for us. it is always in motion. Great ending!

#5

Penn Jillette said something along the lines of “God works in mysterious, inefficient, and breathtakingly cruel ways.” The cycle is god’s way of producing a robot free society. Perhaps in the BSG universe He-who-doesn’t-really-like-that-name lacks either the intelligence or the power to do things in a way that doesn’t require the regular slaughter of billions.

Given the heavy-handed Beware-the-Asimo cheese at the end, I’m going with insufficient intelligence.

#6

If an all knowing God created everything, then he’d always be right. If there was a flawed God, he’d simply be more powerful creature than human. Although it would be a rough universe to live in with a semiknowing God. It’s cool to have a show look seriously raise questions about reilgon,and spirituality without taking a side.

#7

How about this?

A million years ago human evolve on our Earth. They make Cylons. There is a war. Some humans and Cylons survive, but one group has a mix of both. Most of the humans go off and colonize, do the cycle, colonize, get to Kobol, etc.

But the other group decide to play Foundation and pool their assets and try to get things to work. They are long lived, mix of human and cylon, and can appear in people’s head. Their leader is good at planning but got an unfortunate nickname after a drunken party.

#8

I don’t mind the ending too much , but only because I realised that it is not really God. Head Baltar’s line at the end about not liking being called god is very telling.
To me it simply confirm what I’ve grown to realise recently, that there is s ‘higher/more advanced/older’ being at work here.

We might find out more in Caprica. Remember Tigh saying to Ellen that they even had to invent a religion for the cylons, and Ellen commented that they didnt do that - it seemed an odd line to stick in there that had no real relevence to the story. But it could be setting up finding out more about this being in caprica.

Plus we’ll find out more from the wirters and their intentions in the future I think.

Dylan

PS Oh , and in the end isn the cycle not being broken all down to Chief ? If he had not broken his link and killed Tory, then there would have been a peace between the humans and cylons.

#9

This reminds me of some heated discussions last summer (during the hiatus when we were just trying to get by!) about the role of a possible higher being in the show. Part of it makes me happy because I was right! About something! Finally! (actually I was pleased that a couple things I thought might happen actually did.)

But I just want to reiterate that while we have characters like Kara and Baltar explicitly saying that there’s probably a higher power out there watching things unroll and nudging things in certain directions, and we have the Head characters in their varied functions (as messengers of a higher being, certainly), one of the coolest things for me about BSG is that God/Gods/whoever is left totally ambiguous. Read into it what you will.

#10

And while there were Head Characters giving clues, the actual actions were dependent on hard decisions made my the characters them selves…

#11

First, I feel I was a bit too emotional when I started this thread. I still dislike the finale, but for more emotionally free reasons.

Next, I disagree the god bits are ambiguous. Six said she was and Angel of God. Leoben said Starbuck was an angel. On reflection, there’s a lot of direct mention of God by Six and the finale has Baltar and Six as 150,000 year old angels. I think god it is–and that is outside the parameters of science fiction and into the realm of fantasy, literarily, theatrically speaking.

I wanted to make the head characters programming–and I can, but I have to ignore the discontinuity that brings, I believe.

Man, I got too excited about this stuff!

#12

I have to disagree about God not being ambiguous - there are lots of different ways to think about God and angels, none of which are directly pointed to in the show. In the realm of the show we don’t know that God is, in fact, divine. We also don’t know what is meant by angels other than the examples we are given by Six and Starbuck (if we can belive Six’s self-description and Leoben’s naming).

I also think that God or the divine isn’t necessarily outside the realm of science fiction - many, many classics of the genre feature divine figures and that doesn’t make it NOT science fiction.

#13

Personally, I am honstly puzzled by people who feel the need to make hard distinctions between genre’s of anything. Fantasy steals from sci-fi, sci-fi steals from pop culture, pop culture steals from fantasy. They are art forms, the story takes them where it takes them. I would be mad if a writer changed a story because it didn’t fit into a box rather than write the story itself.

Art is art, it will go where it will. Labels are inadequate & ultimately, limiting of the work.

#14

Spot-on, Aset. BSG was awesome because it was so beyond the typical sci-fi we see on TV, no pointy ears, green skins and technobabble. It was about universal human conflicts, one can transplant the basic BSG plots to any point in space and time, just replace Cylons with a foreign enemy or an invading tribe, the Battlestar with ships etc and there you go.

As I said in some other thread, RDM could have explained all the head character, prophecy questions with words like “quantum” and “nanochips”, but would it really be any more satisfying? I don’t think so. It’s just that the typical sci-fi buff (myself included) grew accustomed to accept these buzzwords as explanation for anything, after watching and reading too many Star Trek and other hard sci-fi works, but at the end of the day “god”, “angels” are just words just like “quantum” and “nanotech”.

End of rant…

#15

Yes!

(lol I’m having flashbacks to my PhD oral exams… I hate having to classify stuff…)

#16

Yeah, I dont see how including elements of the spiritual and or divine somehow turn scifi into fantasy. I was so so so pleased with the revelations of these elements in the finale, and so glad that the writers did not subject the story to being closed minded.

#17

especially since it really is left ambiguous in this series. If the “god” in the show doesn’t like to be called that, and if the cylons believed that the lords of kobol weren’t really gods, the show leaves it up to the viewer to decide if the messengers are sent from god or are a highly advanced 3rd party that was never fully explained.

#18

When watching the finale, I got the idea that Head-Six and Head-Baltar were actually the souls of Caprica Six and Gaius Baltar, made angels after they died (much like Starbuck). We did not actually witness their deaths, but it would have eventually come after they settled on Earth, if only from old age.

As part of “he-who-does-not-like-that-name’s” plan, they were sent into their own past to orchestrate each others redemption, and also insure the future of the human race by saving Hera.

Now they are still together into current times - literally soul mates.

#19

Hey, thats a pretty cool idea. I like that.

#20

I’m sure I’m not the first person to consider this, but I’m of the opinion that if we are indeed talking about “God” and not “Really-Powerful-Third-Party”, then I would say that Head Six and Head Baltar are not angels of God, perhaps something more like agents of the devil,… but I’ll come back to that.

I look at Starbuck, who in my opinion was an Angel. She came back from the dead to lead the humans to their “end”, a role that was pre-destined going all the way back to her childhood. Only after she has fulfilled her role, does she become aware of who or what she is.

“God works in mysterious ways” - Can you think of a more apt expression of that than Starbuck? Here we’re given an angel that isn’t even aware of what she is, takes on a corporeal form and can be seen by everyone, who incidentally all thought she was dead, demanding from them a leap of faith. Almost as if this requirement of faith was a test.

On the other hand you have Head Six, who only makes herself known to one person (not counting the finale), someone easily manipulated, as if they were a piece in an elaborate “game”. The only object of the game is to keep the game going,… to keep the cycle (of death?) going. She appears to take great pleasure in what she does, and is very confident. Head Baltar for what little we’ve seen of him, seems to act in much the same way. He is also very confident, to the point of smugness (could also be because he’s fashioned after Baltar :).

The idea was sparked when Head Baltar says the “you know he doesn’t like to be called that” line, and that’s when I look and realize how pleased they seem to be with the fact that, though it may have taken 150,000 years, the cycle is continuing after all. The game goes on.

Didn’t the final five also have Head visions? Someone to warn them, save them and lead them to the colonies so that the cycle could be allowed to continue once again?

Sounds like the work of the Devil to me. Sit back and watch mankind destroy itself, something you know will eventually happen due to their nature, but then save just a few, be it 5 or 50,000,… just enough to keep on playing.

Thoughts?