Unified theory of BSG in less than 350 words

Television, Movies Games and Books BSG-2003
#1

Apologies if this has been laid out by smarter people before me:

It begins with Kobol where there are Humans and Cylons.

Kobol has resurrection (for humans and cylons) - and an apocalypse.

The humans go one way creating 12 colonies and the cylons create Earth.

Resurrection is lost to the 13 colonies.

There are either 12 “survivors” (or one) left behind on Kobol, with some elements of resurrection intact. Say, the ability to upload but no bodies to download to. The consciousnesses nevertheless remain ‘live’ and hooked into the consciousness of colonial humans and Earth cylons.

They watch, knowing the pattern of cylon creation, servitude, rebellion and apocalypse will repeat itself.

The final five resurrect resurrection, with some help from (lets call them Lords of) Kobol. The final five travel subliminally to the 12 colonies but not in time. The five halt the war, help develop skin-jobs, get fraked over by Cavel and dropped back on the 12 colonies to witness the third apocalypse.

Cavel manipulates things to his end, as the Lords of Kobol (or Kobol crew, whatever) manipulate things to break the cycle using “head” people. Cavel gets Starbucks DNA at the Farm.

Either Cavel or the Kobol crew use Kara’s DNA to make a copy. The Kobol crew get into Kara’s head and lead her to Earth - knowing the journey will kill her. They use their remaining resurrection tech to squirt her consciousness into the copy-Kara body and send her back to the fleet. Kara is the first human in thousands of years to be resurrected and the line between humans and Cylons is blurred further.

Once Cavel is defeated and Humanity and Cylonity are reunited in mortality and peace the Kobol crew will point them to a new home via Kara, who will have led them to their end. Galactica goes squish and we’re done.

…Or maybe Anders wakes up and says, “Third planet on the left is habitable.” and they all go there.

P.S. This post has been edited to fix the misspelling of Kobol (as Cobol) proving I am neither a human or a cylon, but, in fact, a Muppet.

P.P.S. My previous comments were in no way meant to disrespect Muppets, who are well known for their wit, dexterity and ability to spell.

#2

If true, that would definitely explain what happened to Kara in the weeks between Maelstrom and Crossroads II. However, I don’t really see this as the BSG theory of life, the universe, and everything because it still doesn’t address a bunch of loose threads from the series. In my mind, a unified theory of BSG should at least explain the following:

  1. What is the “truth of the Opera House”? What connects Roslin, Athena, Hera, and Caprica Six so that they share the same simultaneous dream about it? What guided Hera to Natalie in order to recreate the Opera House dream in season 4? What made Roslin faint as Hera jumped away?
  2. Who or what is behind Baltar, Caprica Six, Roslin, and now Starbuck’s head characters? Is this the “Cylon God” or just someone who wants Baltar to remain alive and powerful?
  3. What is the significance of the Watchtower music? Why did it start when they reached the Ionian nebula? How did it guide the final four to Kara’s viper, which in turn guided the fleet to Earth? How is Hera able to spontaneously write down the music?
  4. What is Kara’s destiny? How did Kara 1.0 get to Earth? How did Kara 2.0 get created and put back in the fleet in the Ionian Nebula? Why can only Kara’s new viper detect the distress signal from her old viper?

These four things are interrelated enough that there probably is some elegant and simple way to explain them, but I don’t have any good guesses.

#3

1) What is the “truth of the Opera House”? What connects Roslin, Athena, Hera, and Caprica Six so that they share the same simultaneous dream about it? What guided Hera to Natalie in order to recreate the Opera House dream in season 4? What made Roslin faint as Hera jumped away?

If I’m right the Opera House is a mental projection by the Cobol “survivors” - the ones who uploaded but didn’t have bodies and are still aware in some way and who are literally “influential”. If they are hooked into key people and exist without bodies it stands that they have a version of Cylon projection (that’s how the head people can appear after all). They have picked their key people (who include Baltar, Roslin, Starbuck, Athena, Hera, Six etc) and engaged with them in order to shape events. Roslin fainted due to the Cobol connection - Hera is the most hooked in to the Cobol survivors and maybe on death’s door, so is Roslin.

2) Who or what is behind Baltar, Caprica Six, Roslin, and now Starbuck’s head characters? Is this the “Cylon God” or just someone who wants Baltar to remain alive and powerful?
I think the Head people are the projections of the Cobol survivors, it’s how they communicate - there could only be one, there could be more, I could be wrong! But I think that is how they engage with corporeal people - after all the final five appear to have had head people before the second apocalypse (Earth).

3) What is the significance of the Watchtower music? Why did it start when they reached the Ionian nebula? How did it guide the final four to Kara’s viper, which in turn guided the fleet to Earth? How is Hera able to spontaneously write down the music?
I think the music is originally from Cobol, not Earth - a signature of the Cobol survivors - something that Anders, like Hera, wrote because he was hooked into the Cobol head connection - just like the opera house for Roslin et al in some ways.

4) What is Kara’s destiny? How did Kara 1.0 get to Earth? How did Kara 2.0 get created and put back in the fleet in the Ionian Nebula? Why can only Kara’s new viper detect the distress signal from her old viper?

Kara’s destiny is to lead “them” to their end, i.e. find a new home for the alliance fleet I suspect. (Or be the fleet leader when Adama passes as I can’t see him surviving the end of the ship if it goes down before the climax. President Lee and Admiral Starbuck:D)

The Maelstrom was a way to get Kara into the hands of the Cobol survivors in some key way. They needed to show her Earth. The Maelstrom was a gateway to Earth but not one that someone could travel through and survive. We know that there was a resurrection facility near Earth that the final five used. Kara was sent through, died on the way, was resurrected on/near Earth and a viper was copied for her (hey they can do all this stuff, building a Viper would be easy…) then pointed her back toward the fleet in a ship that had been “tweaked” to show the way back to Earth (and who knows where else) when the time came. I think the Maelstrom was projected at Kara for a very long time - the Cobol people would be very old and could have had influence over Kara’s destiny from a young age. They could even be responsible for so many surviving the third apocalypse. (the 12 colonies one).

How am I doing so far? Sound plausible?

Also BSG has a Joss Wheedonesque number of apocalypses!

#4

I like the gist of your theory because it’s one of the only reasonable (to me) theories about what the head characters are. Some people think they are “the one true god” but don’t think so.

Plus, I like your theory about humans being able to download/resurrect. I mean, why not? Cylons are nearly human. The final five are probably even more advanced than the others. And one view of humanity is as really complicated machines - in that light, why couldn’t the humans do what the Cylons do?

#5

I like your theory here, and it’s pretty original. But I’m having trouble imagining the writers creating these Kobol survivors and having them exist in some ubiquitous cyperlimbo state. I think if they’re going with a real technological answer to all of this, they’d have these survivors “upload” to some specific Hub or server or something, in which case I don’t think they’d be able to jump around a appear whenever or wherever.

However, if they are going to blend technology and mysticism then maybe the Kobol survivors uploaded but since there were no bodies they ended up in some afterlife-type of state, from where they do their manipulation. I’d go for that!

That resurrection facility was on board the ship in orbit over Earth. When the FF resurrected on it, they took off in it trying to find the 12 Colonies. So it’s not there anymore. Starbuck would’ve had to be resurrected by some other means.

#6

Good points Radio Picon- if the Cobol people uploaded to a hub of some sort, it could be a ship. I do think there is something about these people in the ether though, the Cylon Baseship hybrids appeared to be loosely able to plug-into something other-worldly. But I can happily live with a hub-ship of some sort.

The head people have also come and gone at various points - proximity to the fleet?

Your point about the resurrection facility of the final five being on a ship they used to travel to the Colonies is well made. If my theory is to hold up, then the Cobol hub-ship, with resurrection intact would enable them to be at/near Earth or the Maelstrom planet. They pick up what’s left of Kara 1.0 and copy her or they already have their “hands” on some of her from the Farm. Then they catch-up with the fleet and drop Kara 2.0 off.

#7

character didn’t know what she didn’t know, so I assume for all other Head Characters. They are an imaginative creation by the person who sees it. To be able to do this could have been coded in, since everyone is cylon to some degree.

As to the opera house, the Temple of the Five was created by their worshippers, so says Ellen. So those people may well be the Lords.

Of course, I never never been right about the show.

Anybody know what the maestrom was? It had to be more than a celestial body to be featured in the Temple

#8

There are people called the colonials and cylons, and they are trying to live, but douchebags such as Cavil, Tory and Boomer keep taking a crap on the rest.

fin.

#9

They were programed in COBOL? That does explain why they can’t shoot straight…

Sorry, couldn’t resist.

#10

that’s why they say don’t use commercial programming language for military use.

#11

With some speculative elements…

Somewhere in our future humans leave Earth and settle on Kobol. Humans develop cylons on Kobol, cylons revolt, peace is made, but Kobol destroyed and humans leave for colonies. Some cylons leave for Earth, find it still populated, so settle in a nearby system on Erf. Erf and Earth go to war, humans from Earth destroy cylons on Erf. Some cylons escape Erf and head for colonies bent on helping colonials avoid same mistakes. Get there too late, stop war between colonies and cylons. Help centurians develop humanoid cylons, starting with Cavil. Cavil has other ideas, betrays FF and destroys colonies. Before FF are brain wiped, Daniel implants code to be activated by Watchtower, which he teaches to his daughter, Kara Thrace. Cavil finds out that Daniel is against his plan and boxes him, brainwipes FF. Eventually FF realise who they are as are reactivated when Kara comes back from dead. After cylon and human civil wars joint human-cylon fleet finds real Earth after originally ending up at Erf. Earth populated by humans, humans destroy fleet. Some of fleet survive and create hylons society on new colony elsewhere. After some time hylon agents infiltrate Earth and whole cylce starts again.

#12

Didn’t “No Exit” confirm that Erf was destroyed by its own AI? We know they had their own centurions, so I don’t think a third party nuked them. It was their own centurions. That’s why the FF wanted to stop the cycle for the 12 Colonies.

#13

Fantastic! - Sorry, a freudian slip on my part - Boomer, based on her general flakiness, was possibly programmed in COBOL, but I meant Kobol. My bad:o

#14

Ah, may have missed that. Pity - I like the Erf versus Earth idea! Ho hum.

#15

The Lords of COBOL: The Horn-Rimmed Gods

000100 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
000200 PROGRAM-ID. BYYOURCOMMAND.
000300
000400*
000500 ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
000600 CONFIGURATION SECTION.
000700 SOURCE-COMPUTER. RM-COBOL.
000800 OBJECT-COMPUTER. RM-COBOL.
000900
001000 DATA DIVISION.
001100 FILE SECTION.
001200
100000 PROCEDURE DIVISION.
100100
100200 MAIN-LOGIC SECTION.
100300 BEGIN.
100400 DISPLAY " " LINE 1 POSITION 1 ERASE EOS.
100500 DISPLAY “By Your Command, Imperious Leader!” LINE 15 POSITION 10.
100600 STOP RUN.
100700 MAIN-LOGIC-EXIT.
100800 EXIT.