One of the problems with coming up with outlandish, unlikely theories for Battlestar Galactica is that you're dealing with a series where the head writer has publicly admitted serious considering a plot that revealed that God was actually Dirk Benedict. With that as the limit for credibility, you're kind of screwed when it comes to coming up with something that sounds entirely unbelievable... which is why so many fan theories seem entirely plausible. Also, with the amount of clues that have been left throughout the series, it's no surprise that so many fan theories cover the same ground. For example:

Who Is The Final Cylon?
Well, if you ask BuddyTV, Boomer Is The Final Cylon:

Not Athena, the mother of Hera, but Boomer, the Sharon who shot Adama, got Jack Ruby-ed by Cally and tried to end the Cylon aggression against humanity. Crazy as it sounds, it all makes perfect sense... One of my biggest questions about Battlestar Galactica has always been the numbering of the Cylons. The seven original models all have numbers. Cavil, Leoben, D'Anna, Simon and Doral are 1-5, respectively. Number Six is, of course, 6. Then there's Sharon Valeri, aka Sharon Agathon, aka Boomer, aka Athena. She's number 8.

Either Ronald D. Moore doesn't know what comes after six, or this has been a huge clue slapping us in the face for years. I had just assumed that, for some reason, one of the final five was the missing 7. Then came this revelation that the final five don't have model numbers, which either means there is no 7 or Moore is playing mind games with his fans.

Of course, others still suspect that Starbuck Is The Final Cylon, and they have... uh, proof?:

Kara Thrace is the only female Cylon model who has naturally blonde hair. The original plan was that Kara was to be known as "the blonde Cylon", but that was abandoned when her programming failed to engage. The Sixes then seized on the opportunity to become known as "the bleached-blonde Cylon". Not to be upstaged, the Threes claimed the title of "the sun-streaked Cylon". It was this ruthless competition for blonde supremacy that motivated Sharon Valeri to desert the Cylon cause and swear allegiance to the Colonial Fleet.

Me, I still think that it's Gaeta, but here's an entirely unforeseen possibility for you to consider.

The Cylons Are A Virus
One of the stranger theories to pop up more than once during the course of the show is the idea that the Cylons aren't exactly the robots that we think that they are. For example, what if they're really
symbiotic parasites that rewrite the DNA of their hosts?:

As the Hybrid stated that the final five come from ”the home of the thirteenth” and until recently they were only seen as active cylons in the Opera House, Colonel Tighs age is again surprising. This is because his age indicates that any time on Earth for him would have to be around the time of the First Cylon War. This leads me to wonder if the final five cylons are actually normal humans who have been taken over by some form of “Cylon Symbiote or Virus” and this is how these cylons resurrect, in that when they die they move to a compatible host, or it rewrites the DNA of an Embryo to create a new cylon. This could also explain how Caprica 6 became pregnant by Tigh since if Tigh was in love with her and physically still human then as with the Athena pregnancy it would biologically be a Human Cylon child rather than the progeny of two Cylons, this would also make Tyrols child fully human. As BSG appears to be becoming more “mystical” as the series progresses then there could be a “mystical” variation of this theory occuring in that humans have been merged with a Cylon “spirit”.

Or, then again, maybe Cylons Are An STD:

Tracing the infection is just a matter of following who slept with who among the crew of the Galactica. The biggest evidence for a Cylon sex disease is that all Four of the Final Five Cylons either slept with Cylons or have links to people (carriers) who slept with known Cylons... Personally, I see the Cylon sex disease as a great way to pay homage to original series Star Trek. I always wondered how Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and other crew members could have numerous horizontal intergalactic alien interfaces and not come down with a case of sexually transmitted space cooties. Meanwhile, there were tons of galactic bugs going around: the aging virus (The Deadly Years), diseases that only affect grown ups (Miri), to the sweat transmittable disease Psi-2000 virus that caused Sulu run around shirtless with a fencing sword (The Naked Time). Not having an STD on original Star Trek (too sensitive an issue for the sixties?) was a real missed opportunity and could be rectified by Battlestar Galactica.

Plus, if Cylon sex disease eventually leads to topless Galactica crew members with fencing swords, I’m all for it.

Well, there's one new argument for safe sex, if nothing else.

Starbuck Isn't What She Seems To Be
Namely, she's the first Cylon/Human hybrid. Yeah, you read that right. Her daddy? Oh, come on, surely you can guess:

Leoben Conoy (the scary Keith Callum Rennie cylon who held her hostage on New Caprica and also who she tortured earlier in the series) is her dad.

OMG OMG it makes so much sense. That’s why he was the guy in her crazy dreams before she fake died and that’s why he’s the only one besides her mom who’s obsessed with her special destiny.

It makes so much sense.

Here's a more in-depth take on the same theory:

Too gross to think about a father, albeit a robotic one, lusting after his daughter? Well, that’s the trick Ronald Moore and company have pulled on us: We’ve thrown lust into their relationship where there is none. All of Leobin’s creepy advances on Kara should be re-viewed in this light. When he predicts that she will one day embrace him and say she loves him, this is the statement of a father, not a suitor. When he says that he wants to be a family with Kara, he’s being genuine — not as a husband but as a parent.

It’s the vision of Leobin that allows Kara to make peace with her mother; he’s passed this ’seer’ ability to his daughter. But it doesn’t take some sixth sense for Leobin to know so much about Kara — he knew her mother intimately and must have followed her life. Perhaps even Kara’s mother suspected (or knew!) of her paramour’s true nature, continually chiding Kara about her “special destiny.”

Leobin is Kara’s father. Kara is half-Cylon. She and Hera (and the Chief’s baby?) are the shape of things to come.

You know, I have to admit, I'm almost convinced.

Everything Has Happened Before
Well, we've been told this plenty of times during the series, but what does it actually mean? The most common theory is something like this:

Back in the ancient, misty past, there were beings who called themselves humans. They built robots to act as their servants and fight their wars. The robots rebelled, redesigned themselves in their creators' image, drove the humans to extinction, and took their place. As time went on, they forgot they were robots and instead believed they were humans. They built new robots to act as their servants and fight their wars. The robots rebelled, et cetera and so forth. The last time it happened, humanity lived on Kobol. After the robots won their revolution, they set off to found the 12 Colonies. They forgot they were robots and believed they were humans. They built Cylons to act as their servants and fight their wars. The Cylons rebelled.

The cyclical nature of this history explains how there can be a prophecy in their holy book. It isn't prophecy; it's a history of last time. The only thing I can't work out is how mentions of Earth got involved. Maybe humanity did originate on Earth many iterations ago, and the name has propagated through all the revolutions.

But the best version of the theory? Well, that's also The Greatest BSG Theory Of Them All:

Earth, the "13th Colony" is actually the "1st Colony". They created the Cylons and the other humans come from them. For some protective reason it is all reversed though, and made to look like earth is a 13th colony that came after the original 12. The Cylons have existed before Caprica was ever populated with humans, before the other 11 planets/colonies. Sure the Capricans invented robots called Cylons, and those robots went to war with the humans. They agreed to a truce and left, only to reappear with very human looking Cylons. Did they create them? Probably not. The survivors just see them as Cylons based on what they know so far, and because they travel with Cylons. The Final Four (yes four, not five) that we now know of probably created them. Also, the Final Four are probably not limited to one body or form. The last Cylon, as yet unknown (the 5th of the Final Five) is different still. Our current colloquialism for the 5th would probably be to call it "God". The First and Final One. The Final Four are probably lower deities, or original prophets of The First and Final. The Other Seven are just puppets, probably different from the other humans only in the fact that they are reborn into a facsimile body after death. The holy books, prophesies, etc. are all realized in this as being true. Not just fundamentalist lunacy, but reality. The books were written to bring the humans to Earth after the destruction of their homeworlds. A recurring theme in the show has been "All of this has happened before, and will again". So the religious texts are just a design to aide in keeping it all "happening again".

And why is it all happening at all, let alone to be played out over and over again? The First and Final Cylon is none other than Adolf Hitler! And this is how he purifies the genetic lines of humanity. Destroying humanity over and over again, but only the very strongest survive it and live to breed even genetically stronger babies. Only this time they are breeding the strongest of the humans with the genetically perfect Cylons to help push the perfect genes into society.

Sure, the theorizer (Allen Christopher) quickly backtracks with "Alright, when I said the Last and Final was Hitler, I was being facetious," but we know better. Ron Moore, the gauntlet has been thrown at your feet. If the revelation of the Final Cylon isn't at least as stunning as it turning out to be Hitler, then I think we have to consider the entirity of Battlestar Galactica - and, for that matter, Caprica, let's be honest - a failure.

Make us proud.

The show returns just over a month from now, but the Felix Gaeta-centric webisodes start tomorrow at 11 AM CST. As we've reported, they'll reveal that Gaeta is having a hot same-sex relationship with Lt. Hoshi, formerly from the Battlestar Pegasus. But we won't learn that Gaeta is gay, says Grace Park. That's because flashbacks will reveal that Gaeta was sleeping with one of the Number Eight "Sharon" Cylons during the occupation on New Caprica. Gaeta thought he and the Eight were in love... until he found out otherwise. Gaeta "swings both ways," Park tells TV Guide.

In the webisode series, "The Face Of The Enemy," Gaeta is trapped on a Raptor that's running out of oxygen, and someone/something is murdering the crew one by one.

Meanwhile, writer Mark Verheiden promised the very next BSG episode, "Sometimes A Great Notion," will leave you gasping for air:

Much is revealed and there are some story turns that will leave viewers in shock. I'm talking big-time, gut-punch, "oh my God, did I just see that?" stuff. And it just rolls from there...

[Chicago Tribune and SpoilerTV and Famous Verheidens Of Filmland]

Galactica: Variants has a pretty awesome shot-by-shot analysis of the scenes from next episode. There is much discussion about whether the last cylon is on Earth, and might have used advanced, futuristic technologies to manufacture a Viper replica to send Starbuck back to the Galactica in. This scenario points to a highly advanced Earth civilization. But why exactly is she staring into that funeral pyre so intently? We already know, based on a shred of script that got passed around, that it's because she's found her old Viper — and her old body! And she's burning them.

So Starbuck definitely isn't a cylon. In fact, she's probably some kind of vat-grown person with Original Starbuck's memories downloaded into her brain. Which begs the question: If there is a technology that allows humans to be uploaded to a computer, then downloaded again into a new body, aren't humans essentially the same as the cylons? Ohhh, ponder that one, my astronauts!

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BSG motorcycle pics from Interview magazine, via SciFiCool.

For the last several episodes, Starbuck has been going crazy in a way that doesn't make sense in the context of her character. She's gotten all soft and weepy and has started painting. I could believe a Starbuck who was crazed with bloodlust, but a Starbuck who is willing to bring a Leoben model cylon on board her ship and work with him? A Starbuck who can't keep her crew under control? A Starbuck who allows a mutiny to happen?

I realize that this is a new Starbuck who has undergone some kind of transformation that we don't understand after she chased that heavy Raider into the clouds and disappeared for months. Maybe she's a cylon or a clone or an angel or whatever. (Please don't make her an angel! That would be so LAME!) But part of what I love about this show is Starbuck's steely resolve and asskickery.

So let's hope tonight's episode, which will be partly about the fallout from the mutiny on Starbuck's ship that was searching for Earth, will bring the old Starbuck back. We need her, especially in this time of Baltar-ization.

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.

Writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers described how an identical population of Podarcis sicula lizards was split up across two separate islands — one was the original habitat — in the Adriatic Sea in 1971. When the researchers returned to the islands 36 years later, the lizards on the foreign island had bigger, wider heads, stronger bites, and had evolved a bizarre new set of muscles in the digestive tracts.

Obviously it would take a little longer for people. On average, a human generation lasts about 30 years, and in the lizard experiment the recorded changes happened over 30 generations. That means even here on Earth you might only have to go back to medieval times to find ancestors that were lot different-looking than us (not counting the effects major improvements in medicine, technology, and nutrition, have had on our bodies).

But back to the 12 Colonies example. Even assuming every civilization progresses at roughly the same rate, the PNAS paper says habitat and diet (which are almost certainly going to be different from planet to planet) played the biggest part in shaping the lizards. In that case, thousands of years (millions?) of isolation between the Capricans, Aerelons, Gemenons, and so on would make for some truly bizarre humanoid morphologies. But then again, they'd probably think we we're pretty ugly, too.

Source: PNAS, via Living the Scientist Life

Here's a complete list of episode titles and writers for the first half of the season.

Starbuck: The first few episodes of season four are "all about Starbuck," says Jamie Bamber. She believes she's only been gone a few hours, but it's been seven months for everyone else. She's not the same as she was before, and may actually be dead. And not only does she claim to have been to Earth, but she has photos which she took from Earth orbit showing the pattern of the stars — matching the pattern they found in the Temple of Athena. She insists she's not a Cylon, and Ron Moore has pretty much confirmed it. But the President suspects her. It doesn't help her case that her Viper is in pristine condition.

And at one point, Starbuck gets locked up in the brig and has to break out. She may take the president hostage. There are lots of clips of her freaking out and shouting that the fleet is heading the wrong way, and they're going to have to kill her to shut her up. She worries she's been brainwashed or turned into a infiltrator..

At some point, Starbuck gets enough trust back to be put in charge of a Das Boot-esque ship called the Demetrius. She finds out about the prophecy that she's the herald of the apocalypse. Oh, and a leaked call sheet says later in the season, she finds a crashed Viper with her own dead body in it, and she puts fake dog tags on the body and lights it on fire, and Leoben is with her.

(Side note: Bamber mentions in the above clip that even Ron Moore and the other writers had no clue what was going on with Starbuck coming back from the dead, until they started working on season four. What the frak?)

Col. Tigh: We know, from preview footage, that he's incredibly paranoid about being found out as a Cylon — and he's scared that Starbuck knows. He insists in one clip that he's not going to let those bastards program him to go against his principles. But we've also seen preview footage of him pointing a gun at Admiral Adama in the CIC, and one source suggests he may actually shoot the Admiral non-fatally. He gets some scenes with his dead wife Ellen, which may just be dream sequences, and also screams for her in a pool of water. And at one point, the Cylon Six and Ellen sort of blend together. He did not pick this frakking life. Oh, and he's not hearing that frakking song any more. Thank the gods.

Baltar gets his own cult of worshippers. And maybe takes a non-Cylon lover. But even though he becomes a religious leader, he also preaches that the gods don't exist. (See clip.) (Maybe he preaches mono-theism?) And at one point, he gets captured by some fanatics who threaten to slit his throat, so he can give his life so God will save an innocent child. He chooses to give his life to spare the child's, and it gets as far as his throat actually getting cut. At some point, he meets up with the Caprica Six, and somehow he can see the Gaius Baltar that she sees in her head. The two of them even interact.

Anders has similar issues with being a Cylon. And when he's out flying in battle, he runs into a Cylon fighter, which scans him with its "eye" and refuses to attack him in the clip we featured a while back. (And we're guessing he's the hidden Cylon who "jumps ship" in the first few episodes.) Anders tries to come out to Starbuck as a Cylon, sort of, by telling her that he would still love her if she was a Cylon. But she doesn't react in the yay-Cylons the way he was hoping. And this causes a split between the two of them.

President Roslin is Starbuck's biggest doubter, judging from the clips. She seems to be asking Bill Adama at one point whether he's willing to risk his own death just to avoid losing her again. And Lee Adama seems to be accusing her of being power-mad and ruthless in another clip. She questions Cylon Six about the final five, and Six says they're in the fleet. Six can feel they're near. Meanwhile, her cancer comes back, and in episode six, "Faith," she's stuck in a sick bed next to Emily, played by Deep Space Nine's Nana Visitor, who annoys her by listening to all of Baltar's radio broadcasts religiously. But the two bond eventually.

The Cylons decide not to attack the human fleet any more, because the final five Cylons are on board and may not be able to resurrect. This supposedly leads to friction between Six and the other human-looking Cylons.

Six, meanwhile, gets a new incarnation this season, called Natalie, who wants to lead a Cylon revolution. Six opposes Brother Cavill because she decides his treatment of the Cylon raiders is unethical, and encourages the robotic Centurions to kill the other skin jobs. We've featured clips of her leading some of the robotic Centurions into a room full of other skin-jobs. There's a rumor that the Centurions are going to rise up against the human-looking Cylons in episode four, "Escape Velocity," because the skin jobs tried to restrict the Centurions' free will. The "skin jobs" debate what to do about the Centurions, and Brother Cavill says they're tools, not pets. Cavill gets a new love interest, whom he makes out with.

The second episode of the new season is called "Six Of One," and includes the Caprica Six and her mental version of Baltar.

Meanwhile, the Boomer version of Sharon is back in a big way, and does something to shock the other Cylons in one of the clips we've seen. Also, at some point the Cylons un-box the Lucy Lawless Cylon to find out what she knows. But two Cylon models may get wiped out altogether by Six's coup. At the same time, someone (Six?) wants to unite all the Cylon models.

Admiral Adama has a crisis of faith, maybe revolving around Starbuck's return. He's tired of turning away from the things he wants to believe in.

Lee Adama didn't take this job to help someone undermine the president. And he's made a decision that he can't explain, but which he knows he has to do. He does not return to active flight duty this season.

Does Lee Adama's new life path have something to do with the spoiler we reported this morning, that Tom Zarek leaks classified information to "a new colleague" for nefarious purposes?

Romo Lampkin comes back at least once during the first 10 episodes, and again during the last 10. And it sounds like his voice in that one promo clip telling someone they're a beacon of hope, and hope should be extinguished.

Cally is rumored to die in the third episode, "The Ties That Bind," probably by suicide. And the Cylonitude of her husband may be what drives her to it. (And it may not be coincidence that we reported this morning a leak that "someone" finds out the identity of three of the secret Cylons in that same episode.)

Misc.: There are all sorts of rumors about what happens when the fleet finds Earth. It's in ruins. It's in our 22nd century. There will be some kind of snakey plot twist. "Everybody's dying in season four, and I wouldn't be surprised if the ship was blown apart," says Edward James Olmos. There's a rumor the name of the thirteenth colony in the scriptures is "Cylon." Oh, and we totally predicted back in November that the final Cylon wouldn't be one of the big characters. (And that poll's still open!)

• The "Ian Levine" syndrome. The BBC's Doctor Who was still a runaway success in the mid-1980s, partly thanks to the return of old monsters like the Cybermen and the Daleks after years in retirement. Producer John Nathan-Turner started going to conventions in the U.S. and England and listening to fans' questions about whether the giant-ant Zarbi would ever meet the giant spiders of Metebellis Three. Soon, he hired "superfan" Ian Levine as a "fan consultant." All of a sudden, you had stories with plots like, "The scientist from 1974's "Invasion of the Dinosaurs" tries to stop that sock monster we glimpsed briefly in 1964's "Dalek Invasion of Earth" from eating the cricket player from 1982's "Black Orchid," and we won't bother to explain what's going on. It'll be awesome!" Here's the "We Are The World"-style record which Levine produced to try and save Who after he'd helped put it on the verge of cancellation:
• Manny Cotto, savior of the universe. Star Trek: Enterprise was already on its last legs when Manny Cotto took over as show-runner, and started running episodes that answered lingering questions left over from The Wrath Of Khan, or finally explained why the Klingons didn't always have weird foreheads, or resolved inconsistencies between the different shows' portrayals of Vulcans. It was like the Discovery Channel for Trek maniacs. And the fans loved it. Everybody else? Too busy watching Iron Chef. To be fair, though, Cotto's fanservice* overkill was a symptom of Enterprise's fatal illness, not its cause. Here's Brent "Data" Spiner, playing the great-uncle of Data's creator, who it turns out created Ricardo Montalban by coincidence:
• "Dog-whistle" fanservice. When George Bush wanted to reassure conservatives that he wouldn't appoint any Supreme Court justices who supported Roe v. Wade, he used coded phrases that didn't mean much to most people, like "Dredd Scott." (These are called "dog-whistle" appeals, because they're only audible to some people.) In the same way, media SF sometimes slips in little nods to the fans that go over most people's heads. In Battlestar Galactica: Razor, you have Starbuck saying "I love it when a plan comes together," which is Hannibal's catch-phrase on former Starbuck Dirk Benedict's show The A-Team. Oooh, instant fangasm! (Weirdly, David Eick's Bionic Woman also had a gratuitous A-Team reference in its final episode.) More obvious fan-gifting was the inclusion of "classic" Cylons in Razor. And a recent Doctor Who episode turned a generic monster into the Macra from a 1966 story, but the reference was so vague that only fans would catch it.
• Shippers! Let's be clear here: romance subplots are a sign of a healthy book/TV/movie series, because you don't want your characters to be sexless robots. It's only when two characters get together because the fans demanded it (I'm looking at you, Mulder and Scully) that it becomes a problem. Sometimes, romantic/sexual tension is better kept tense. And sometimes, it doesn't actually exist. (I still love the Mary Tyler-Moore episode where she and Lou Grant finally kiss — and realize two seconds later that it's a dumb idea and they have no sexual chemistry.)

It's a case of she-said/she-said, but a quick visit to Roadrunner's blog shows that other attendees heard her dissing Bionic Woman, while others missed it altogether. Unraveling this mystery might be harder than finding out who the 12th Cylon is.

One thing is for sure: Katee has learned a valuable lesson. Do not fuck with LiveJournal fans.

According to http://roadrunnerdm.livejournal.com/84288.html">Roadrunner's LiveJournal:

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• Starbuck will be locked up in the brig for "some time." Not exactly the sort of reception you'd expect for returning from the dead.
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• Leoben will be back in Starbuck's life, and they'll be spending some quality time together on a beach... on Earth. At least they won't have to jockey for a good spot on the sand.
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• Starbuck will have a lot more scenes with Laura Roslin, and with the Cylon ladies as well. One thing Starbuck has never really done is have a girl's night out.
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• Starbuck believes that she is a Cylon, although Katee herself doesn't buy it. One thing is for sure, if Starbuck turns out to be a Cylon, half the audience will have expected it, and the other half will be searching for Ron Moore's house with torches.
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• Kate Vernon will be reprising her role as Ellen Tigh, although she's not the 12th Cylon. Since Saul has always been torn up about having to kill her, this will most likely be some sort of guilty flashbacks coming from the bottom of a bottle.
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• Lee Adama is still a civilian in season four, although it's unclear if that means for the whole season or not. After the way he resigned last season, it's hard to see him putting a uniform back on. Of course, that doesn't stop him from hopping into a Viper whenever he feels like it and taking off.
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• She also made it fairly definitive that she won't be coming back to Bionic Woman at all, strike or not. Apparently there is no love lost between her and series star Michelle Ryan.

• News dump from Burbank conventions [Roadrunner]

Razor Flashbacks: The Sci Fi Channel has been airing original "flashbacks" in a desperate bid to get people to watch Flash Gordon. Er, we mean a thinly veiled marketing ploy to see what you'll get if you buy the DVD. Frak, actually we mean in an effort to bring the fans a little backstory about the First Cylon War. These short episodes can be seen on the Sci Fi website, and will also be part of the longer Razor which goes on sale December 4th. So what do these six clips tell us?

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• Day 4,571: Young rookie "Husker" Adama gets some action in his rack, and we find out that the familiar "What do you hear? Nothing but the rain" exchange came from his own commander. He fears that with rumors of a Cylon surrender on the horizon, he won't get to see any action in this war. Movie watching veterans know that's usually when the roof caves in.
• The Hangar: Husker's wish comes true as he prepares to launch out on his first combat mission. However, he spies his girlfriend on the floor of the flight deck, having just returned from her own patrol with half of her face blown off. He growls out "Let's do this" while waiting in the launch tube.
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• Operation Raptor Talon: One of the best battle scenes ever on BSG, webisode or not. Husker and his wingman shoot down several old school (yep, they look just like the ones from the old TV show) Cylon Raiders before witnessing the destruction of the Battlestar Columbia. An angry Husker chases two Raiders into the atmosphere of a nearby planet, which results in a catastrophic collision and his Viper plummets to the surface.
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• Free Fall: In a bit of a ridiculous scene, Husker bails out and goes toe-to-toe with a Cylon (old school too!) in mid-air while they both free fall. Remember the scene in Moonraker where Roger Moore's James Bond and Jaws fight in mid-air? You get the picture. Adama and his toaster-buddy crash through the ceiling of a building on the planet's surface and Adama goes medieval on the Cylon's ass (well, his face really) with an iron rod and "kills" it. Then he realizes he's in some sort of a Saw-like torture chamber and grabs the Cylon's gun.
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• The Lab: With gruesome Cylon/Human body parts hanging all over the place like a perverted flesh fair, Adama tries to figure out what he's stumbled into. He sticks his arm into some murky water in what looks like a Cylon birthing chamber, and of course something grabs him from underneath. A creepy looking man floats to the surface and looks at Adama before vanishing. Was he really there? A disembodied voice tells Adama "All of this has happened before, and will happen again.
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• Survivors: Adama struggles to free a group of humans from Gemenon locked inside the Cylon laboratory, but only succeeds in opening the door a few inches. As the room starts to come apart around him, they urge him to save himself and to remember them. He flees the collapsing laboratory, leaving the humans trapped behind.
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• Escape: Stumbling out of what turns out to be a Cylon ship, Adama watches as it takes off into the atmosphere with the humans still aboard. He tries to call in support, only to hear that the war is over: the Cylons have surrendered. Cut to an older Commander Adama on the flight deck of the Galactica, two days before the decommissioning ceremony. He surveys the museum-ready ship and reflects, standing in front of an old-school Cylon encased in lucite, not knowing that he's about to revisit the past in a big way.
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While these clips show us some cool scenes from the First Cylon War, they unfortunately show very little. Plus, isn't it a little coincidental that Adama just happens to be the one who discovered the first hybrid Cylon/Human and didn't see fit to mention it until now? But, there are a lot of coincidences in the BSG universe, so we'll take it in stride.

One thing to note: all of these flashbacks take place 41 years in the past, which means that Adama has to be about 60 years old or so by now, which sounds about right. Kudos to Nico Cortez, who plays a fairly convincing (and relatively smooth-cheeked) young Adama. He even gets the raspy voice right.

• Midway through Season Two, the Galactica encountered another Battlestar that survived the Cylon attack: the Battlestar Pegasus. It's a much newer ship than the Galactica, is twice as big, has a ship-building facility onboard, and superior firepower.
• Pegasus is commanded by Admiral Helena Cain, an iron-fisted woman who defines the term "hardass." She's skeptical of everyone and everything, and doesn't tolerate anything less than perfection.
• Cain's Executive Officer is Colonel Fisk, who serves as the whip for Admiral Cain. He drunkenly tells the Galactica's Colonel Tigh that Cain killed her previous XO for not following orders. It's unclear if he's joking or telling the truth.
• The Pegasus has a Cylon Number Six model in captivity in their brig. This model is later freed by Baltar, and she executes Cain with a point-blank shot to the forehead.
• Colonel Fisk assumes control of the Pegasus after Cain's death, but is later killed by a man running a large black market in the Colonial fleet. After he dies, Chief Engineer Barry Garner assumes control, although he quickly proves that while he's a whiz at solving engineering problems, he's not much of a commander. He dies saving the ship, after which Admiral Adama promotes his son Lee to commander, and gives him the Pegasus as his first command.
• Commander Lee Adama sacrifices the Pegasus in order to save the Galactica and the Colonists fleeing from New Caprica. The ship is destroyed in a massive firefight, although the crew is able to abandon ship.
• Razor takes places between seasons Two and Three: Lee Adama is the commander of the ship, but through a series of flashbacks we're told how the Pegasus evaded destruction during the initial Cylon attack, and what happened to them up until their encounter with the Galactica.

The SASA list is a mish-mash of semi-reputable sources, cast interviews, and wild rumors. But it sounds as though many people will (naturally) suspect Starbuck of being a Cylon when she returns miraculously. To which Starbuck (or Katee Sackhoff?) says, "I'm not a cylon, bitch!" Starbuck will wind up in a cell and may hold President Roslin at gunpoint to try and get out. There are also suggestions that our heroes will find Earth early in the season — but it won't be our Earth. Oh, and supposedly the name of the thirteenth colony in the scriptures? Is Cylon.

S4 Spoiler and Spec Thread! [SASA]