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How many times do you watch every episode of Battlestar Galactica? The answer may depend, not just on how much you enjoy hearing Edward James Olmos' smoky rasp, but also on how eager you are to freeze-frame key moments every episode in search of clues. If you look hard enough, there are little details in recent BSG episodes that either give a crucial glimpse of where the saga is going — or they show that fans have an overactive imagination. Decide for yourself (with spoilers) after the jump.
The Mighty Hunter appears! The constellation Orion, aka the Mighty Hunter, appears a few times in last week's episode of Battlestar, "The Ties That Bind." You can see it in the background when the Cylon basestars start fighting, and then later when Tory introduces Cally to President Roslin's running mate. As various people have pointed out, this star formation would only look like Orion from Earth, or somewhere near Earth. So are our heroes closer to Earth than they realize? Or was this just a stock star backdrop that someone threw in there? [Cyn City]
Starbuck paints the Ship Of Lights. In the original 1970s Battlestar series, a ship called the Ship Of Lights appeared in an episode called "War Of The Gods." According to Galactica Watercooler, the Ship Of LIghts possesses technology far beyond that of either the humans or the Cylons, and it belongs to the Seraphs, glowing beings similar to D'Anna's vision of the Final Five. The Seraphs bring Apollo back from the dead after a fight with Iblis, who's sort of the devil. And the Ship Of Lights seems to turn up on Starbuck's latest masterpiece, painted on the wall of her cabin on the Demetrius. Her paintings have predicted the future before — is she predicting a meet-up with the SOL? Is it something to do with the final cylon? [Galactica Watercooler]
In fact, some viewers theorize that the reason Starbuck came back from the dead, with a mint-condition Viper, was because she already hitched a ride on that Ship Of Lights. Also, Starbuck mentions a comet. Could it be Halley's Comet, and was it near Earth? If so, then it might have been the year 1986 or 2071. [Colonial Fleet]
And speaking of astronomy, what's that "triple flashing star" Kara keeps mentioning? Is it Alpha Centauri? (Which fits the triple qualification, but not the "flashing" one.) The ringed gas giant is probably Saturn, but it could be Jupiter. [Battlestar Blog] Screen captures from Galactica BBS.
Comments
"Starbuck paints the Ship Of Lights"
If you ask me, this is further proof of my theory that we're seeing a future that is based on what happens after the original series occurred.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Ship of Lights was behind Starbuck's magical reappearance.
@holocron: All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again
Galactica 1986
Awesome.
Bring on the flying choppers!
Actually, the ship of lights might just be earth humans far more evolved. RM promised us no aliens. Thank the Gods.
"Any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic" Sir Arthur C Clarke. My guess the earth they get to is a very advanced form of humanity and the people in series aren't at their level because of all of the traveling they have been doing, first leave earth, then leave kobol for the colonies. You dont really get to sit around and advance human kind if you are always on the move.
It would be hard to take the Capricans seriously if they came back during this time period...
[uk]
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There's a BSG CGI tutorial on the web somewhere, put up by a disgruntled former employee. It makes it pretty clear that their normal behaviour is to use random starfields. So assuming they didn't change their workflow, the Orion thing is deliberate.
@Priam: Video = dead.
Also, the show would get cheesy beyond belief if they introduced aliens and shit. I want my BSG to be pure hard sci-fi.
@Aethyr: BSG was never hard sci-fi.
Its not even remotely close to it.
Just because you have no aliens does not make you hard sci-fi.
@Aethyr: Oh, I meant coming back to that kind of culture in general. Though for some reason, I can picture Tricia Helfer in legwarmers doing Flashdance.
@Falconfire: What would you classify it as, then?
@Priam: Rather than disturbing me, that thought made me start giggling uncontrollably. Save me.
I'd forgotten about the ships of light but that could make sense as a comet.
@Priam: I prefer Tigh in legwarmers.
Hes a dreamy maniac.
I hope the show ends like Planet of the Apes.
They were on Earth all along.
@OW-Holmes: How about Tigh in Trica's leg warmers and Trica in nothing at all?
I place galactica at least 5000 years into our future. thats plenty of passes for haleys if thats what she saw.
theres so many comets in our system alone though that i doubt it matters.
@Epaminondas: She's already been there in a past issue of playboy.
@TheRemedy: Yes, yes she was! :)
Sorry for the Friday afternoon spelling
!
@X: The Eliminator:
ACK! I just had the biggest paradigm shift reading that. On IMDb there was a thread full of spoilers for this season and one was that when they get to Earth will be a shocker of Shyamalan proportions... The idea that this BSG taking place in the future, but in the same timeline, of the old BSG would totally fit the bill!
It's people! Galactica is made out of people!
I'm sure the "big shocker" is that the survivors are the forefathers of humanity.
@jamescole: Galactica is hollow--it goes on forever-- Oh my God-- Its full of Stars!
In one of the interviews with Olmos before the season started, he hinted that it could be another time line.
@irkedpenguin: Penguin you mean "Gestalt Shift" by definition one may not have a paradigm shift, it takes a group. Anyway, sorry I just had a semester of the Kuhn crap
I hope earth is super advanced and kicks the cylons butts.
can someone settle an argument? is that a picture of Kallie or Starbuck?
@perfectoon_0901: At the bottom? It's Cally.
My guess is that they get to present day earth and the final Cylon is Pres Bush LOL
the year is 0 around christ. A long haired, bearded dude blabbering about the one true god appears. Baltar finally gets crucified. [www.greatnewscanada.com]
It seems clear to me that they'll arrive during the second century B.C.E., Everyone will die but Balthar, and he'll become Jesus.
But seriously, what would I call this other than "hard sci-fi"? Bad fiction for one. The stories are so damn pat, and they've been following the "Issue of the Week" formula since half way through the second season. It's like some after school special in space, except with angsty speeches. Their idea of character development is to have people wake up one day and say "I'm going to cause unexpected, out of character mayhem today because dagnabit; everything's going to be back to normal tomorrow anyway." People need to stop mistaking conflict , emphatic voices, deus ex machinas and self-righteousness for good writing.
Yay for the pointless pic of spaced Cally!
@Aethyr: BSG has space-ships and robots, and that's about as far as the scifi goes. A huge part of the show deals with magic and mysticism, from the prophecies to resurrection to the 6 in Baltar's head to the FTL drives (obviously magic) to the heavy infusion of religion.
@Aethyr: Its a space opera. Maybe not as happy go lucky as Star Wars, but then most operas involve the death of 90% of the cast.
Take away the robots and the ships and you could have the same story between two people with no sci-fi elements present. It doesnt make it BAD its not hard sci-fi, not in the least.
But hard sci-fi is defined as fiction FIRMLY based on factual science concepts.
speaking of clues, turns out my astronomy professor is the head scientific consultant on the show...
Ill go ask him insider details lol
@AngryLagomorph: Or the character just has sex with Gaius Baltar. That seems to be a fast track to developing some personality.
I thought Halley's Comet was due back in 2061, per Arthur C. Clarke's 2061: odyssey three.
I am in full agreement with the future Earth hypothesis. I tend to believe, based on the timelines indicated on the show, that it will be somewhere between two to three thousand years in the future.
From what I have seen on the show, and contrary to what was suggested in the original series, it seems to me that Kobol was once a colony of Earth and not the other way around. Two to three thousand years in the future provides a timeline that is sufficiently long to allow Earth to colonize Kobol (perhaps due to some catastrophe?) and Kobol to be abandoned but not so long that either the continents or constellations would have changed to be unrecognizable.
Earth being the origin of humanity on the show not only coincides with reality but also explains why it is that constellations from Earth form the flags of the twelve colonies as well as explaining why it is that a "map" to Earth exists. If the 13th colony had left for Earth via the various landmarks, such as the temple of Jupiter or the Lionshead nebula, then someone would have had to return to provide the mythology for the colonists to later follow.
This scenario also provides an explanation for the cultural similarities between the colonists and our own world. The gods they worship may simply be the names of either the ships they used to leave Kobol or their AI's, which may have a connection with both the Cylon's and the reason they abandoned Earth in the first place.
I was also intrigued by Starbucks paintings and the similarity of the stars around what appears to be Jupiter with the SOL from the original show. Perhaps, if this is the future, than this would represent survivors of Earth living aboard starships? It strikes me that a possible parallel exists and that the colonists are to our descendants what the Cylons are to the colonists.
@AngryLagomorph:
I'd have to agree, there's very little to zero "hard" scifi in BSG. Battlestar is more emo soap opera mixed with lots of Christian biblical allegory, with an emphasis on Exodus.
@Chris Wren: Actually, quite a bit of it is Mormon also. Blame Glen Larson.
Earth has to be the planet of origin. Why else would they speak English? Or more to the point, have names of the types that we currently use on Earth? Since there was a time in the history of Earth that names like William and Laura didn't exist, those names couldn't have existed on Kobol first. So, Earthlings must have taken those names to Kobol, then to the rest of the 12 colonies, conveniently named after Earth constellations.
Everyone is a cylon. That's the only way the mysticism really works, without pulling things over into fantasy. Original, biological humans were wiped out eons ago, and skinjobs have been repeating the cycle for ages.
Maybe.
@Logan5: I think you're right, Kobol was settled by people from Earth. The map room on Kobol could only have been created by people who knew what Earth's night sky looked like, which means they had been there at some point. The gods the Colonials worship are the Greco-Roman Pantheon of Gods...Baltar's rant when he led the attack on "pagan" services in yesterday's episode confirmed it. The Cylons seem to know more about the true history than the Colonials do. Back on Kobol Athena kept trying to tell them things but was told to shut up each time...and none has thought to ask her about it since.
@Seth L: I was just about to post this same crackpot theory! I also think that the 12 cylon models are based on the 12 gods/signs of the zodiac.
@Seth L:
Agreed.
@IntoAshes: That proves it -- BSG isn't full of clues, it's full of crackpots!
Thankfully, some of them are in charge. That way we have a snowball's chance to figure this shite out!
Was I the only person who REALLY wanted Saul Tigh to tell Six to....
"Get your hands off me you damn dirty toaster."
It was just OH so close, but not quite right...
@eirenicon: While I agree that BSG isn't hard SF, I don't think the FTL drives alone disqualify it. FTL drives and time travel have a long history in SF and are generally given an exemption, except by extreme purists. (The exemption only holds if you acknowledge that these "inventions" require a physics beyond that which we know; obviously, just accelerating to 400c is right out.)
I would prefer Farscape over BSG, but thats just me...give me more wise ass John Crichton and pop culture references in the far reaches of space with only aliens for comfort :)
@darcymcgee: Probably....I doubt many men would be able to tell a Six to get her hands off them, even if she was a robot. And since Tigh is a toaster too, he may as well give in and tap that ass like he had always wanted to but couldn't admit.
@inconstant_reader: If FTL doesn't disqualify it as hard scifi, then the sound in a vacuum and the lack of proper physics certainly does.
@darcymcgee: I was actually expecting it.
@Sihanouk-s-Poodle: I always thought the sound in vacuum was for dramatic effect, which is why it's generally muted.
@Tibeerius: Six doesn't do it for me. Of course, she's a blonde and I only date brunettes....she's local too. Hometown girl.
Anyway...
I actually thought that the fact that Tigh is a Cylon would have made it even better.
This show is going nowhere fast. It's like LOST, but in space.
I find it hard to believe that the show would be in Earth's future rather then the past. The concept of one god is more abstract the multiple-gods. Thus, human civilization would have to regress in religious terms over the next "whatever" years to revert to religions dominated by multiple deities. Not impossible, but highly unlikely.
I'd rather place them somewhere around 400-500BC, maybe even a little earlier. They could become the Atlantians.
You know, the future theory is an interesting notion... perhaps Baltar is the second coming of Christ? This would piss off a lot of Christians I think though... who knows... they haven't pulled any punches before in the show.
I think that, when they land, humanity, or what was left of it before the 13 colonies departed, will have evolved or reverted to a time "Before Christ". When they land, and for whatever reason, the twelve cylon models and Gaius will be the only characters from the show that make it. Gaius will become Jesus, and the 12 models will be his apostles, because "all of this has happened before, and will happen again".
or
When they reach Earth it will be the "second coming".
12 colonies in bsg = 12 tribes of israel? (twelve kin groups of ancient Israel each traditionally descended from one of the twelve sons of Jacob)
combine the survivors-as-the-origin-of-humanity theory with the monotheistic aspect and that might make some sense. might explain the dissemination of the various mythologies the show references into the world/humanity as both develop
If the SOL is there, it would be the worst deus ex machina ending ever.
@Logan5: "From what I have seen on the show, and contrary to what was suggested in the original series, it seems to me that Kobol was once a colony of Earth and not the other way around."
I'm starting to think the same thing. The "map to Earth" has always bugged me b/c that means someone would have to return to Kobol/Colonies to write it down in the scriptures.
What if the Final Five are what happens when the Lords of Kobol try to procreate?
@froggy: Currently there is a Neo-pagan movement that includes both people literally believing in a polytheistic pantheon and those believing in a pantheon as archetypes. I don't see this as a regression, necessarily.