Lots of interesting stuff here. I do like the idea of Athena's suicide being a transencdence/downloading. (She killed herself on a cliff, I think, not at the opera house.) If you like, I might promote this comment to its own thread as a guest post. (Or you can create an account on the blog and it can appear under your own name that way.)

Many have wondered about the parallel between the Cylons and the ancient Jews. It's somewhat controversial to have the Jew-proxies be the genocidal attackers, but of course in the Torah that is just what they do when they come to the "promised land."

In reality, once you get AIs of this level, there would not be normal humans in a position of power any more, though the might be allowed to live in reserves. However, this is a story so they could write that the other way. However, it does appear that there are powers on Earth, since somebody took Starbuck from her exploding viper and immediately brought her there.

(They may not have physically taken Starbuck from the viper, of course. As they are all Cylons they can all download, but whether there is a body for their mind to inhabit is another question. For Starbuck, there was.)