Brad Ideas - Could they really live together? - Comments

Didn't learn more

brad — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:46:52 -0700

The attempt to use special software to get out more resolution didn’t work. Probably just a poster they put of for fun and made sure we could not read.

Cylon Poster on 13th Colony

Lisa — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:18:27 -0700

What were your conclusions about that Cylon poster that Tyrol walked passed in his flashback to when he was killed initially? IIRC, the Cylon on that poster had wings. Y'know, like an "angel."

Total war

brad — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 11:43:46 -0700

I can imagine a war, waged by the 13th colony centurions, where they use nukes to kill the humanoids and destroy their infrastructure, and then seed long-lived radioisotopes all over the planet to make it so they can never come back, or if they are hiding in bunkers, stay there until they starve.

Then you could add to this a secret counterstrike from the bunkers that wipes out the metal guys. Eventually everybody is dead, planet is uninhabitable by the bio crew.

This was, we are led to believe, yet another war of slave rebellion. The metal guys were kept as slaves, and were really angry.

What's the reason of using nukes?

ravel — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:24:27 -0700

If we wanted to destroy our planet, we could do it - in many ways. But why would we want to do it?

If I remember correctly, using all our nukes in a combat setting would not kill all the people. It might create a nuclear winter and a lot of people would die, but millions would still live through it. Also, if you want to inflict critical damage to the enemy's infrastructure, you can do all that with only 10 % of the nuclear arsenal of USA or Russia.

Even in a total nuclear war, the aim is not to kill everybody. It is a war and a war still has some kind of reason and a target - they don't launch missiles by random. Also, radioactivity is bad for you, and you don't want to kill your own soldiers with it either, and you want to use the enemy's infrastructure and possessions for your own benefit. Because nukes cannot do everything, you need ground forces to do assaults and so on.

It is difficult to imagine a scenario in which a nuclear war would destroy ALL infrastructure on a planet (but still leaving visible ruins after 2000 years), kill everybody (with most of the animals and vegetation too) and leave a LOT of lethal radiation. What would be your motivation to use some kind of super-nukes that would destroy the planet instead of your enemies? Unless, of course, this planet is your enemy, and you nuke it from the orbit! Could this be what happened to "Earth"?

Cavil's Answer

JerseyCHUD — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 08:37:55 -0700

I think Ellen realized that she would be wasting her breath. Cavil seems to think that the Cylon identity was transferred from the Centurions to the 7 flesh models, making the Centurions into "tools" at this point. He sees them as little better than cocoons for the cylon consciousness, much like the newer Centurions have scrapped the older models.

Long lived radioactivity

Coolmoose — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 08:33:34 -0700

The problem with your assertion regarding a "scorched Earth" bomb is that you can't have it both ways. You can either have really hot, short-lived particles, or you can have more "benign", long-lived particles. You can't have both. To do what you would like would mean you'd need to create a "factory" bomb - one that explodes, and using nearby material, create massive amounts of long-lived particles. It would require many many bombs over an over again, or it would require essentially a nuclear reactor. There is nothing in the show that shows either. They are using standard sized nukes, and even if they are thermonukes, they don't carry enough material to do what you suggest.

This relates to one of my proliferation concerns regarding terrorist nukes. Dropping a nuke on, say NYC, will create terror, and a huge problem in the short run. But the area becomes inhabitable again in a matter of months or years. Contrast that with Chernobyl, where literally tons of nuclear material was ejected in that event, and you have a much bigger, longer running disaster. We always think that a terrorist will nuke a city like NYC... but if they are smart, they'll nuke a nuclear power plant. They'll get the best of both worlds in such an event - a big mushroom cloud, and the dispersal of tons of lower level, but long lasting nuclear material, thus creating a catastrophe for decades, perhaps a few centuries...

But in the BSG world, had the really smart Cylons done that, they would still end up with a habitable planet 2000 years later. You can't kill a world with nukes.

Not our bombs

brad — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:34:38 -0700

One could imagine the construction of bombs designed to release lots of long-lived radioactive products (even pre-manufactured, not made in the explosion) for a “scorched Earth” attack, meant to make the planet unihabitable for a very long time. It’s hard to imagine an attack so comprehensive it does this to the whole planet, but not impossible to imagine.

"Ruined" planets

Coolmoose — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 21:36:06 -0700

One thing that will stick with me as completely unrealistic after the end of this series is the notion that the Cinder planet, Kobol, and even Caprica, are "ruined" planets because a nuclear war was fought on them... The problem I have with it is that it just isn't true. A planet that had a nuclear holocaust fought 2000 years in its past would be a planet that, besides visible ruins, would have virtually no sign of a nuclear war in its past. There would be no radioactive soil, or at least none that would be any more radioactive than the soil in Pennsylvania today. Radioactivity is everywhere, all the time. It comes in the form radiation from the sun. It comes in the form of radon gas. It comes from burning coal. It is ubiquitous in low amounts in our environment, even before the dawn of the nuclear age.

After a nuclear war, you are left with fallout, especially if most of the bombs exploded at ground level. But most warheads are detonated as airbursts, as these cause far more damage. But airbursts produce far less fallout. And even if most of the nukes went off at ground level, the resulting fallout would be over a large area, and for a short time, very very hot. But the hotter a radioactive element is, the faster it decays. So really hot stuff doesn't last long... a matter of weeks/months and most of it is basically gone. Some of it will decay to longer lasting isotopes to be sure. But these isotopes, because they are long lasting, aren't very radioactive.

As an example, you can hold a sample of Uranium 235, even highly enriched, in your hand with just a rubber glove. Why? Because it doesn't really decay fast - it's very stable. If it weren't relatively stable, we wouldn't have any - we'd have to make it instead of mining it. It would have long ago decayed. (The rubber glove is just so you don't end up ingesting it, and irradiating yourself from the inside out over a long period of time)

Long story short, assuming the cinder planet nuclear war was 2000 years ago, the soil shouldn't have been radioactive. According to science, that planet should long ago have become inhabitable again. If you accept my position here, after years of traveling in space, they could go back to Caprica and inhabit the planet right now. (Heck, they had "freedom fighters" there continuously after the war)

I understand for the show, they've decided to alter that scientific reality. So from a story telling point of view, the cinder planet is uninhabitable...

It is worth noting this, as their science adviser would have known all this, and so if they are taking such strong liberties as this, we should expect lots of other liberties too... such as the FTL communication problems, naked singularities, and constellations in the sky. Scientifically speaking, the show is inaccurate in so many ways as to make any plot conjectures using scientific principles completely useless.

Terra-forming?

Bobby — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 19:04:51 -0700

Terra-forming?

Finale is running 11 minutes long

Eric — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 17:33:26 -0700

Note to those recording tomorrow's finale: Sitrep is reporting that it will run 2 hours, 11 minutes.

Sorry, I meant how, not why.

brad — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 17:26:55 -0700

What I meant was how they would reconcile it. If Caprica were Earth, they would look in the ground and see the fossil record of the origin of species and the descent of man. That would not mesh with their scriptures that say that they came from Kobol and “Life here began out there.” One way to reconcile it would be the truth. That the line was written on Kobol, and on Kobol, life did begin out there (on Earth/Caprica in this theory.)

The problem is there is no sign of this. And there’s the Crossroads Earth and, I think but don’t recall exactly, all the other shots of Caprica from space where it wasn’t Earth.

As for simplicity, I am all for it. I think that like the Planet of the Apes ending I have referred to before, you can tie up the answer in 1 minute. They didn’t explain everything in that one minute (they had 3 sequels to explain it) but nonetheless the explanation was clear.

If they land on Earth, and you see the ruined Pyramids or Mount Rushmore or New York or other well known site, in 5 seconds they can get the message through. The audience then traces it out themselves, Kobol must be a colony of Earth etc. etc. This is simple because the audience already knows the history up to today, you don’t need to explain it.

This is unlike the no-Earth scenario where the history (Kobol) remains a mystery forever.

You like theories

Alvin — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:52:55 -0700

"We have to ask why the reasonably advanced colonials would reconcile their “life here began out there” credo with all the fossils in the ground."

You've admitted to liking the idea that civilizations rise and fall and forget their history, but you can't reconcile this?

Frankly, as we get closer to Daybreak Pt. 2, I am more and more thinking that the solution will be a mind-blowingly simple one that has evaded us because we're thinking too hard. Whether we like it or dislike it is another matter, but the answer is going to be deceptively simple. Count on it.

I don't mind

Alvin — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:27:16 -0700

I don't think of anonymous there as a troll, by any means. He's had a lot to contribute, and I don't mind-- and often value-- his presence, as opposed to most trolls who you just wish would leave. I do find his obsession with the two other shows odd (as I find neither very impressive), as he's referenced them all too often as if they set the bar that BSG is to be measured by.

His recent post admitting that he has a nostalgic fondness for them helps me understand it better. Likewise, my father grew up on the original Star Trek and compares everything to it, despite it being a highly flawed show. By the same token, I grew up on TNG, and despite it's shortcomings (and believe me, I see them) every sci-fi show since has been measured against it for me.

Being that anonymous is clearly from the UK (right?) his tastes and critical eye are bound to differ from ours beyond the spectrum between people due to cultural and societal differences.

Kobol as old Earth

brad — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 14:13:26 -0700

This has come up before, and would indeed be a very nice resolution to all the issues. My recollect is that this fell out of favour because the shots of Kobol from space, as shown at this photo are quite different from Earth.

I would personally love this explanation. Earth falls and rises many times, eventually forgets its own name and origins, though the name remains in ancient legends and is used by the 13th tribe. But in Crossroads we saw the real Earth and real continents, so Kobol is not the same planet.

Thumb twiddling

Anonymous — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 13:28:55 -0700

Both Earth and Kobol look like candidates once the Cavil thing gets dealt with. The question is do they discover the real Earth or return to Kobol. It's slim and I haven't been paying attention but could Earth be Kobol? I don't expect so and the spoilers have something to say but we've all got our thumb twiddling gloves on until the next episode airs.

Could they really live together?

brad — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 01:48:46 -0700

We’ve been told since season one that “god’s plan” is to unite the Cylons and humans, in particular through a hybrid race in Hera. The Final Five can breed with the 7, and I suspect with the humans, but I suspect the Final Five will all die, their race entirely wiped out.

But could a society of such unequals really work out? We suspect, though can’t be sure, that the 7 Cylons don’t age. If they do age it would have been cruel of Ellen to make John in the form of an old man. They’re much stronger, much more physically capable, smarter on average (Baltar things his six is the smartest woman he has ever met) and can talk to computers through their fingers. They can communicate through projection and live in projected worlds.

Which of those attributes the mixed-breeds will have we don’t know, but Hera at least can project. Indeed, they might not all be the same. Some might have more of mommy, some might have more of daddy.

We’ve had a hard enough time with racial tension in a world where the races are physically and mentally on the same level. What kind of world would it be with two different and differently capable races, and their mixed children of different abilities. Unless almost all the humans die, most of the children in this world will be human. Only Hera and a few others to start will be mixed. And all this is not even counting the resentments of “you enslaved us” and “you genocided us.” How can the race wars not flare up again?

It’s a hugely tall order. Another commenter wonders what happens if the “good guys” mostly die in the attack on the Colony leaving Baltar and the mutineers to lead the mixed society. Is Adama thinking through what happens if he fails? Is he thinking through what happens if he succeeds?

You’ve probably read of a bunch of podcast revelations:

Daniel is not Starbuck’s father, or much more than a way to explain the numbering gap.
No, the very Jupiter like red giant that Boomer stops at is not the real Jupiter.
The Final Five’s original ship is buried inside the giant Colony structure. The Centurions built it with the Five after the war.
The head beings are real, they are “Messengers” and this will be explained.
Oddly, the Colony is the “Cylonia” home base of the Cylons they never planned to show.
As he’s said before, the final will be about the fate of the characters more than it is about wrapping up the plot.

One thought about the F5 ship. It of course was able to resurrect the final 5 on its own. Unless that equipment was actually removed to go into the now destroyed hub, it’s not out of the question that it might still work for the Final Five. The 7 are different, so it would not work for them, though the Five designed the 7’s hub and equipment to work on themselves. This might offer a plot opening — a member of the Five, killed in the assault, would suddenly appear, with full memories, deep in Cavil’s lair.

However, I do expect the Final Five to all die, so this would be a one time use, if it happens at all.

Another interesting thought from the comments: If the virus plot is to happen (and it’s looking less like it will) it would be cute if the notes of the song turn out to provide access to the Colony network, courtesy of the OTG. We can imagine Baltar and Six coming to look at the notes, and Six saying, “that looks like of the access codes to our computer network” or to a Centurion inhibitor. OK, I can still hope for this plot because I like the full circle nature of it. But the numbers in the music are going to give them something; perhaps a weapon, perhaps the coordinates of a planet.

Moore’s podcast comment about Cylonia is difficult to reconcile, because John/Cavil says that the other Cylons don’t know about the Colony. Simon and Doral, as I said before, surely have to have asked, “Why don’t I remember this place?” Perhaps, in spite of the language we have been using, the “Colony” is a small and hidden subset within this Cylonia.

And for the brotherhood of us hoping for the “Real Earth,” the fairly decent (I normally detest making-of shows) clip show “The Last Frakking Special” which aired Monday and will air again this week included the famous “Zoom to Real Earth” clip from the end of the third season. Many fans have wondered about this clip, showing a real, present-day (though that may not have been their intention) Earth with the obvious North America, when none of the scenes of the 13th colony Earth showed any recognizable features or stars. That clip kept people hoping, and still does, though Espenson’s offhand remark about humanity coming from Kobol dashed a lot of that hope. While Ron Moore and the rest probably had very little to do with the clip show, the inclusion of this clip makes you feel they are not wishing they had never included it.