Brad Ideas - The story of the BSG god. (Gog) - Comments

"I actually don't mind a

Che — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 11:45:18 -0800

"I actually don't mind a good religious story, but in this case it seems obvious that God is simply the last refuge of the bankrupt storyteller."

God and flashbacks, buddy. God and flashbacks.

Daybreak was Inevitable

Double Ugh — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 12:41:17 -0700

I agree with the previous comment.

By the time they got to Daybreak, the show was too much of structural and character mess to salvage in one episode, even at three hours. I think Moore did quit trying, because the heavy emphasis on flashbacks in the finale is just smoke and mirrors. Its beginner writing pretend profoundness trying to give the illusion that this is a complete story when it quit being one some time ago. I actually don't mind a good religious story, but in this case it seems obvious that God is simply the last refuge of the bankrupt storyteller.

The flaw preceded the finale

James — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 09:50:38 -0700

I think a lot of people are actually content with the idea that many dissatified are simply unhappy with the ending of the damn good series. I on the other hand I'm happy it ended when it did before the show went the way of too many other promising shows that evolved into stupidity. My dissatisfaction began around season 3 (as did many others), when I saw characters acting totally out of character, and plot direction that made no sense. Had I watched the show as it was broadcasting I would have merely scratched my head and waited until next eps to see if I got answers or not, but I watched the entire 4 season run on dvd each eps twice the second time with commentary. I knew pretty quickly that I was watching a show that hadn't been planned out, and these guys were making it up as they went along. My fascination came with seeing if they could satisfactorily write themselves out of the mess they had written themselves into. I became increasing aware that they couldn't, and eventually it seemed that they stopped trying altogether. In my mind Gog is just the fictional representation of R.Moore and Co.

Real vs Unreal argumentation

James — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 09:08:04 -0700

You can always tell a "fan" of some work or author, because they refuse to acknowledge that the work in question could ever be better than the result delivered. This is what separates fans from artists. It's quite possible that even Ron Moore himself is not totally satisfied with how BSG turned out, though I don't expect him to ever publically affirm it.
Fiction is not real (thats why it's call fiction) but as Brad succintly points out, even fiction has structure. It is not real life. As someone once stated, "Truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction is obliged to make sense." That's a paraphase, but I present it to people who say the ending of BSG is great because in life many mysteries are never answered. I don't need every thing answered, and I like to have to figure some things out (for an ex. watch the end of Inception). Still I see a lot of people making excuses for thing that don't make sense, or are just plain wrong because it's "Sci Fi". They would never let another genre slide in this way, and I say that "sci-fi" fans that take this road know nothing about what true Science fiction entails.
Another point, which Brad doesn't bring up in this particular blog is the problem of characters inexplicable acting out of character, which can only be attributed to gog. The most glaring example of this was Callie who was surely thrown under the bus in the last season. Roslin flipped so many times as the plot necessitated it I thought she really was a "real world" politician. Sure people are complex, but that's the point of fiction -- to show us how and why. It doesn't do any good to have people arbitruarily do something without having set it up. Otherwise you have bad fiction. Some people love this show, heck I do too, but I'm not ready to consider it the greatest SF show that has ever been written. I'm certainly not going to go to ridiculous lengths to plug in the plot holes, inconsistencies and undeniable errors in science that the show entailed that many fans are more than willing to do. Even though Brad and I differ on the use of Gods, or God in fiction (I'd love to see more films like Dogma explore the concept)Brad brings up facts that I hadn't even thought of and I have to contemplate. The least anyone could do before they automatically rebutt his argument.

The God problem

Ricalloo — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 19:25:12 -0800

I just finished BSG after a friend refereed me to it. I would say I agree a bit on the author here. Before I knew what the ending was , I expected it to be either:

1.) They show up on our Earth a few thousand years prior to the present.

2.) They show up to a future version of our Earth with equal or similar technology.

With the author of this thoughtful and articulate posting, I would agree that the ending should have only taken place a few thousand years before our current time. Ending around the suggested time of the "Great Leap Forward" would have explained how otherwise primitive humans could have began civilization. This could have also explained the polytheism of the Greeks and Monotheism of the Jews and Persians. They could have worked it in so much better. Instead they went the way of the Mitochondrial Eve which, as Brad pointed out, wasn't even accurate let alone coherent.

I would have preferred option 2, with a thriving future Earth where the colonists were the descendants of humans who left thousands of years earlier only to finally find their way back. This would have closed the loop and made the relationship fit perfectly.

My problem here with Brad comes from the line, "...creationist concept of intelligent design is one of the most pernicious types of anti-science out there." I found this highly pretentious and somewhat close-minded. I am one of those people who believes in anything science can prove. I also put some measure of faith into what science cannot yet prove, but can at least theorize with some measure of veracity. I find it very unscientific to say that intelligent design is an absolute fallacy. I think some of the author's problems with this show stem from this preconception. BSG was always heavily based on God or gods from its very first episode. If not God, some supernatural force was at work. It should have come at no surprise it would end this way.

I would say I like the idea of mixing theology into science fiction a little bit. As stated in another post, it seems some people had a problem putting God into their otherwise atheistic science fiction. On an about-face, I think trying to use the science cop-out of midi-chlorians to explain the otherwise supernatural "Force" in Star Wars ruined it for me.

At the end of the day, each of us is allotted his or her own opinion. No opinion on whether the ending was good, bad, or somewhere in between is more correct than any other. Lets just say we all had our own inclination on how we wanted it to end, and when we compared that to the true ending we were left with what we felt was a satisfactory or disappointing feeling.

The Basic Issue

Pomegranate — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 12:01:38 -0800

I don't agree with everything Brad says, but his arguments are thoughtful and detail oriented. It's kind of funny to see someone sighing at him who came here because they googled "How many humans did the Cylons kill?"

Set aside all the God, deus ex machina and free will stuff. You're still left with a big matzah ball staring at you. And it's not hard to understand. All this carrying on, all this advertising about how "you will know the truth," and all this preening about great drama boils down to one of the oldest, most routinely mocked cliches in the science fiction handbook: Adam and Eve. What's even worse, it's a botched Adam and Eve. the desire to appear cutting edge leads to an incorrect use of Mitochondrial Eve that undermines the whole point. Not to mention that future archaeological discoveries will inevitably make it look even more wrong and lame.

That's the kind of thing that if it happened in an episode of, say, Star Trek, you'd just think "well that was kind of dumb" and move on. But you'd think that because you only invested an hour in it and there's always next week's episode, which very well might not be dumb. But here you have four years of carrying on and pretension that boils down to cliched hack work that can't even execute the cliche properly.

The technology part is simply the cherry on top. In order to hammer this square peg into a round hole, everyone decides to live and die (soon) as cave men, which would be a horrific experience, especially for modern women, thus condemning their children to a practical eternity of primitive savagery. That's mind-bogglingly stupid. No amount of carrying on about "technology tried to kill you" can make sense of that. After all, being able to farm won't kill you. There's lots of basic stuff from the Fleet that would allow stable, sizable agrarian communities that could defend themselves. But, hey, it's a brutal fang-and-claw hunter gatherer life for our stalwart crew simply because they've ceased to be characters. They are the writer's objects who have to do something obviously stupid to support a tired Adam and Eve ending that doesn't work anyway.

God and his mysterious ways are simply the only means left to try and tie up that package. But since what's in the package stinks, God inevitably stinks, too.

??????

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 23:11:56 -0800

How is discovering a planet that already existed, with life that had already evolved without them ever showing up, supposed to represent their last, best triumph? Especially when they did nothing but commit mass suicide after they got there.

And how was it hope for us? They didn't do anything for us. We were already pretty much genetically identical if they could breed with us (yuck). As presented, the Cylon contribution would have diluted down to pretty much nothing over 150,000 years, which is why the show lamely misstaed what Mitochondrial Eve was to try and obscure the point. So we're pretty much what we would have been if they'd never arrived, with all the exact same faults they had absent any of the hard-earned experience they could have given us. Thanks for nothing.

You're blindly arrogant if you label everyone dissatisfied with the resolution a hater, and compeltely missing the point if you think "technology solves everything" is the complaint. Technology can't solve us. We have to do that ourselves, and it's a painful, difficult process. That's what we thought the show was about when it pretended to be serious drama. That's what the best drama is always about. And you were pleased that it dissolved into some half-ass excuse for a fictional God posing tests that don't go anywhere, which we're just supposed to pretend are profound even though the presentation indicates they're stupid? If so, more power to you, but don't think you've ot some brillaint insight others are lacking.

The technology complaint is simply more poor storytelling. In order to achieve that silly excuse for an ending, the writers forced 30,000 people to decide they wanted to live in the wild with no safety net, distributed in small groups to preclude mutual support as they fucked cave men and died of disease and predation. I'm sure that was a lot of fun for the women and children. Especially when preserving some basic life-saving capabilities having nothing to do with making sentient robots would have left them dancing in the fields as much as they wanted. It's an absurd postulate made simply to force a poorly conceived attempt at a symbolic ending. That reveals the desired symbologies bankruptcy from a storytelling persepctive, which robs it of any real power. And as far as your toaster argument, they didn't ditch the toaster that tried to kill them. They kept the robots that did kill them, set others that had tried to kill them free with no guarantee how that would turn out. They only launched into the sun non-sentient, basic technologies that could have kept them alive.

It was, in truth, just a very poorly thought out attempt to be clever.

What's happening

DensityDuck — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 15:21:28 -0800

"In other words, what I think is happening..."

What's happening is that the creators of the show went for the "A Wizard Did It" ending, which was a massive cop-out, and the fans are desperate to invent some consistent logical framework by which the ending isn't a cop-out, so that they don't have to admit that the show they loved had a badly-done ending.

Cycles and Cylons

Code Name Razor — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 21:13:27 -0800

*Sigh*
I came here because I was doing a Google search for "How many humans did the Cylons kill" and found... this.
I've done more than a few defenses of the BSG finale in depth, but I'll try to be brief here. It seems to me that 99% of the issues people have had with the show is with the last hour of the four seasons, one mini-series, multiple webisodes, and two tv movies (although, I will grant you that "The Plan" was just a touch over "Meh" with regards to learning anything new of consequence). So I'll keep my focus on what seems to be the big bitching point: G-d vs technology, with the haters on the "technology solves everything" side.

As was pointed out in an earlier post, The BSG universe was soooo ambiguous, I think the "neat" ending took most people by surprise. I'm one of those smartass people who can tell you how the murder/detective mystery is going to end just after the first break, so I "knew" how the show "had" to end, but it seemed like it was never going to get there, until it did. I'm still confused by the reactions of people to a show that promised that anyone could die, and in fact showed that everyone did die. This just in: No amount of tech will be able to prevent a human from becoming plant food, just ask Walt Disney or Ted Williams. And as for the Colonials' decision to ditch the ships into the sun, let's be honest here. If the brand-new toaster you got from the bank tried to kill you, and then then next day tried it again, but looking like your Second Life avatar, you'd ditch it (no matter how good the toast was). Or, as Adama put it so succinctly in his decommissioning speech:

You cannot play God then wash your hands of the things that you've created. Sooner or later, the day comes when you can't hide from the things that you've done anymore.

He should have added: "... and that's why we barely tied the first war, and lost the second. We need to do something different." But Adama didn't come to that realization until Roslin "explains" it to him. Is that moment more important than any of her visions, or in the role of "dying leader?" She's definitely no angel, but her conviction convinces Adama NOT to stay and fight and doom the not-quite-yet-formed civilian fleet. That's a choice. Free Will. Starbuck didn't HAVE to fly into the eye of the storm. She chose to. Roslin would have flushed Tigh out the airlock with no compunction. But since she decided to board the base ship, that decision fell to Apollo (and also gave Tory HER excuse to rejoin her Cylon brethren). And as I recall, no angel told Boomer to sacrifice her life to return Hera to the Colonials (just good old-fashioned love/remorse).

In other words, what I think is happening is that people are trying to reverse-engineer the 90+% of the show that had already occurred not considering that the OTG indicated in the show was doing the same thing we were: Watching events unfold as they go and determining at what point to intervene... or not. I'd ask of all of those claiming Deux Ex Machina to consider that the OTG was/is working the long game, allowing entire civilizations to ebb, flow, live, and die out dependent on their ability to master certain critical points of evolution or development. The Cylons failed their test, nuking themselves into extinction. Unfortunately for our characters, the Colonials also failed, being unable to perceive that their technological marvels had become sentient, and had decided to kill their masters. Perhaps the plan was actually to observe the development of humanity towards an ideal state, allowing those that failed certain tests or signposts to eventually sow the seeds of their own destruction even as he (Six called him "he") was starting a new civilization (experiment?) on another world hundreds of light-years away. That the "visions of a chosen few" actually led to the discovery of "earth" is the last, best triumph of a dying civilization, and the first glimpse of hope for ours... according to RDM & Co, or just myself

Process, nitpicking, and semantics questions will be answered gleefully at a later date.

Confirmation In Caprica?

Anonymous — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 10:54:27 -0800

I don't know if you still check these, but I and others noted something interesting on this subject in an episode of Caprica before it was yanked.

I agree with you that there really is no way to add up Battlestar without coming to the conclusion that Gog, far from gently nudging, is simply driving the whole show. But Caprica seemed to actually confirm that. Specifically, we saw what can only be characterized as a Head Zoe in flashback and present day. It saves the actual child Zoe from a fire, gives her the idea that will become Cylons, and drives a wedge between her and her father. Then we see the same entity giving career advice to the Avatar Zoe in the V-world, advice that will not end well. The upshot seems to be, exactly as one would conclude from your article, that GOG is simply making all this happen. Actively driving the Cycles for reasons that, based on the last thirty minutes of Battlestar, seem self-evidently stupid. So God is not only an idiot--he/she/it is "The Big Bad" as well.

Now, mind you, I'm not particularly interested in watching years of a show dedicated to the simple proposition that God is a dick. But that would at least be conceptually coherent. Unfortunately, I got the impression from that Caprica episode, just like the last year and finale of Battlestar, that they really don't understand the "story-with-a-beginning-middle-and-end" implications of what they're writing. Or maybe they just don't care. Maybe it was always pure smoke and mirrors, and they think the left over BSG viewers (a small group, apparently) are so mindless we'll just say "A head person. Cool!"

Would be interested in your opinion if you have the time.

No time travel

brad — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 10:31:17 -0700

Moore had promised no time travel. He did not quite keep the promise but this would be a gross violation of it.

And the line, “silly, silly me” was actually written to a different purpose, and the lines before it were cut. There are clips of the original scene on the web.

Who the Gog and the Angels are. Explained!!! or not? or Yes!!

The Zeitgeist — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 17:08:38 -0700

My THEORY on the whole God and angels issue is somewhat simple. Also, if my theories are true, then if they creators would have made it clear, it would have been a fairly original and interesting move by the creators of a science fiction television series. (sorry this is longish)

1- angels are the future/timeless selves of the actual person. 2- gog is the head writer. (One somewhat leads into the other.)

First: the angels- I think that the angel versions of Gaius and Six are simply the future angel versions of Gaius and Six. They died in the future on earth after the series was done. They have already lived the future. They KNOW what will happen. They know there is a God because they spoke to his angels (themselves) and were resurrected by him. They lived with each other for a long time, so they know each other and what the other needs, they love each other. Thus, they are the perfect people for god to send back and craft their past counterparts into the people they will need to be. I mean Kara was resurrected as an angel and god gave her a spaceship, its not too far fetched to believe god could send Gaius and Six as his angel representatives back in time to affect their past selves. Thus, the reason why Six makes love to Gaius all the time in his head, is not JUST because she is a whorish angel, but also because she actually loves him. Also, she/he knows when and what their past selves will need to do, because she/he saw it happen before and saw who they will become. (Example: this is kind of like in Bill and Ted's excellent adventure when the future Bill & Ted help their past selves get out of jail by leaving a stereo of themselves singing. They knew what would happen if they did it, because they lived it.) Also, this would explain why 150,000 years in the future the two angels are still in Gaius and Six's bodies, even though there is noone around who would recognize them. They are in those bodies because they are their bodies.

Second: Who is Gog?- Gog is Moore. The ending of the series gives us a series of the most blatant clues as to who gog is.

-First, when angel Gaius tells Six that gog doesnt like to be called "god", then he says "oh silly of me" (or whatever he says exactly). Basically, this is a THICKLY veiled attempt by the actual head writer of Battlestar Galactica to insert himself personally into the series. He is the god of the Battlestar Galactica series. He has a real name (Moore), and most likely doesn't like to be called god by his creations (namely Six and Gaius (and maybe Moore's real friends)). But Gaius realizes in his head, after telling Six not to call Moore god, that the writer of Battlestar Galactica also wrote the line where Six called him god. So it is silly of Gaius to try and correct her, when technically the god himself made her say it.
-Second, in 150,000 years the Angels still look exactly like Gaius and Six. There is no-one left alive who would recognize them in that form, so why do they still look like that? What purpose would it serve?(regardless of whether they are simply angels and not future versions of their past selves. Wouldnt they switch forms somewhat in 150,000 years? Get a little tired of the same suit? All the other times angels appeared they did so in order for a particular person to recognize them)Like the story keeps saying, angels appear all the time as people close to us. We the viewers have grown close to Baltar and Six.They look like they do 150,000 years in the future simply because WE the Audience would recognize them. It is not some god acting within the realms of the universe using his angels, it is the writer self-imposing himself into the story, so that we the viewers might recognize him as the god. Basically, in the end, the show breached the 4th wall without saying it out-loud, and tried to give us other more alluring "outs" which we could try to figure out (like aliens and super AI).
-(Other Examples where this was done, except THINLY veiled: in the graphic novel "Animal Man" when Grant Morrison literally wrote himself into the book and had a conversation with his novel's hero Animal Man. Or how Deadpole in Marvel comics knows that he is a comic book character. Or that Adventures of Spiderman episode where Spiderman meets Stan Lee).

-Third, If that is not evidence enough, (that Moore made himself literally the God of the universe, and NOT in some "all writers are gods of their stories" way), Moore put HIMSELF IN THE LAST SCENE OF THE SERIES. He is literally there, in person, in the background, in NY. Right there, watching over his angels and giving them things to talk about. Its not just a joke or tribute to him for creating BSG, its a hint. Also, in Baltar's speech to Cavil, Baltar says that god is not in on anyone's side, "there is no right or wrong", "he is a force of nature." Moore is a Buddhist, one of the beliefs of many Buddhists is that there is no right or wrong, there are only actions. Thus, Moore would not believe that his actions were right or wrong, they simply happened. So when his ultimately enlightened disciple describes God, Moore would like Gaius to describe God using Moore's own views of himself. So, if you look at it in this view, Giaus Baltar basically states that Moore is God, and what Moore likes. Also, this explains why there are so many superfluous magical things that happen in BSG. They are there simply because Moore likes them.
- (examples in the show. why do Lara or Athena need to see visions of the opera house all the time in the series? Its not an opera house! The 5 cylons never glow and dress all in white! And Hera does not ever get hurt! Six and Baltar dont even take Hera for long, they dont raise Hera! They just hold on to her for a minute and give a speech. There is no reason for the god to reveal those images to the characters in that constantly traumatic way except to torture them, and to make the viewers wonder why its happening. Really, Lara and Boomer have very little to do once that moment in the series actually comes up. (yet the whole series references it constantly) Also, why does the god make a supernova go off and also allow Xena Warrior Princess to view the five's Cylon's faces in the opera house, at the temple? Sure, it kind of moves the story along, but not really, it was magic for magic's sake. Which viewers get intrigued by. How the hell did the 13th colony of Cylons leave a beacon in space with a disease that kills cylons. Wouldn't it of killed them? Why did they leave any signs behind? Why make such a huge temple on some algea world when its only going to be used once and it will blow up? Couldn't they of made it easier? Where the hell did Starbuck get a spaceship from? Is it a holy spaceship? Why did Starbuck need to die at all, couldn't they of gotten this whole, way to 13th colony thing in another way? How the hell did the spaceship go from a exploding in some atmosphere of a world to landing on earth? Wouldn't an angel be more self confident she is? (she was like a hidden angel, like Boomer was a hidden Cylon, with images and such, constantly questioning if she was going to do something in the future, but she didn't know what, and she was uncertain of WHAT she really was. Then just like Boomer, Gaius determined what she was through a blood sample.)
The answer to why all this happened? It was because Moore thought it would look pretty. It was interesting, it was a great show, but he had all these questions and mysteries dangled in front of us for 4 seasons, and in the end Moore popped out behind the curtain and said "ha, just kidding. But look at how happy they all are now." (Except he didn't pop out.Like the rest of the show's revealed mysteries he didn't come out and say it, he made it mysterious. And he has kept us guessing down other paths.) (Heck, the reason angel Six is probably so pissed when Gaius doesn't believe in God, is because she is scared Moore will write her out of the series if she doesn't convince Gaius to believe.) Most people don't realize that Moore has done this, because he did it in a tricky manner, people might be pissed if they found out, and writers just don't normally do it.)
(one interesting thought, is that if Moore is the gog, and these angels of Gaius and Six are from the future where they already know what will happen, then technically in the begining of the show they know alot more than the actual god (Moore), who has yet to write alot of the ending, they just know it will work out, and gog knows he will write it so it looks like it made sense to them all along).

Overall, gog is Moore, so you as the character are not merely influenced by gog, he writes exactly what you do. However, in that world, you might think you did have free will. Thus, Gog may or may not know what you are going to end up doing later, but when it comes, he will write it so that it looks like he knew all along. Thus, Moore secretly broke the 4th wall of stories, and he made himself literally the god of Battlestar Galactica. And this explains why everything is why it is. (The real 5th cylon is YOU!) (Just a theory)

Only some events were truly extreme

brad — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 00:53:07 -0700

The one most extreme event was the supernova at the Temple of Five. Making that happen required true godlike powers. There was a lesser explanation, that the string puller was just manipulating events (and there seemed to be good evidence of that) to bring everybody to that location on that day. But even that was extreme.

Thank you, Brad

Alex R. — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:32:27 -0700

Just finished watching all the seasons and found this blog. I know this comment is a bit late, but I wanted to say a big "Thank you, Brad" for this in-depth analysis... Reading these posts regarding the ending of the show was a cathartic experience for me after the let-down of the overall "Gog" ending.

However, I did want to point out that we all really already knew that Gog was behind everything - the events that we've been privy too in seasons 3 and 4 (and a bit in season 2) were WAY too far-fetched and supernatural to have any other reasonable explanation... we all knew what was coming, and it was quite painful to watch the last season in expectation of the inevitable "God's will" explanation...

Overall - if we forget about Gog and just concentrate on the "human condition" events - the Pegasus stand-off, the father/son roller-coaster, the Sol and Adama friendship, the mutiny - it is undeniable that those events and those characters are what made the show truly great...

Watched the DVDs and just

T. Norry — Tue, 25 May 2010 17:36:42 -0700

Watched the DVDs and just stumbled across this. Obviously long past the party, but I think the reviews by Mr. Templeton are spot on. What seems like a great show does simply degenerate into nonsense with gaping plot holes that ends with a pitiful lunge at God as an excuse. And "Jumping the Shark" is spot on about the characters as well. They are simply rewritten and manipulated at whim in the fourth season for whatever illogical sequence comes next. There isn't any actual drama when you reduce characters to such obvious puppet's on the writer's chain, which make the whole "God did it" even more ruinous. Their actions don't make sense because they were never making meaningful choices in the first place--they were just doing what Gog needed them to do.

The story of the BSG god. (Gog)

brad — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:42:34 -0700

As is obvious to any reader here, I was quite disappointed with the god-did-it ending of BSG. However, we’ll need to examine this god a bit more because in some way, it’s the only other character, besides Young Bill Adama, who we will see in the upcoming Caprica series.

The god appears to some extent, as an underground monotheist cult exists and 2 of the 3 initial Cylons are patterned after its members. It has to be assumed it is from here the Cylons got their own monotheist religion.

The first question concerns whether the monotheist religion is indeed related to the Gog (God of Galactica). Did Gog appear to its founders, or is this simply a human-invented religion that hits upon something true by accident.

The second question is just who is Gog, and how does it relate to the Lords of Kobol? Moore’s podcast comments say that on Kobol, man lived with the gods, and then became like gods when they created their own artificial life (the 13th tribe Cylons.) So the Lords of Kobol were real, and lived with humans. How does this make sense in the context of Gog? Is Gog one of the Lords of Kobol, or does it predate them? If so, why did it tolerate them and who were they?

Gog has at least two angels who are independent beings, who I will call H6 and HB. Possibly more than 2. We don’t know if Kara’s Leoben and her father were manifestions of those two. Likewise Roslin’s Elosha, of the Final Five’s messengers. If the messengers were independent, it seems there are at least 5 of them. These angels appear to be mostly incorporeal and immortal. They talk about Gog as a distinct being, but also as a force of nature. However, Gog has likes and dislikes, and a plan for both humanity and individual humans.

For a long time I was supposing that Gog was a very advanced A.I., as were the Lords of Kobol. However, it’s meant to be supernatural. It is a big strange to have a story where there are both false gods, who exist (the Lords of Kobol) and a real god as well.

Gog is described as beyond good and evil, a force of nature. It certainly moves in strange and mysterious ways. For most of Kobol, colonial and 13th colony history, Gog allowed the polytheist worship of the Lords of Kobol to thrive. We are told that in “Caprica” the story involves a banned monotheist cult, from which the first Cylons arise, thus giving them their religion. But prior to this, if there has been monotheism, it is not very common. The Final Five were polytheists. Kobol was openly polytheist, and the gods lived with the humans. Baltar was rather taken aback by H6’s preaching about Gog.

H6 is not a cylon of course, but appears to Baltar as one. The god she preaches about appears to be the Cylon god but we can’t be completely sure of that. She is in touch with the real thing. Yet the Cylons who speak of god believe that it was god’s will that they destroy their “creators.” Did that come to them from Gog, or is it a result of the way Cavil reprogrammed them to forget about their actual creators and upbringing. The Cylons see the Final Five in the space between life and death — is this a repressed memory, or is this something Gog sends them? We presume that Gog is the master of the space between life and death, and Gog is the one who called Starbuck into it.

Gog is highly interventionist when it suits it. It may have triggered the Cylon destruction of the colonies. It certainly allowed it to happen. Gog speaks directly to various characters to make them do things. When a being of this level whispers in your brain, it does so knowing exactly how you will react and what you will do, and says the right things to attain the desired results. A god whispering in your brain is like the control a computer programmer has over a program, or the ability of an owner to trick a pet.

Gog may or may not know the future. The angels H6 and HB don’t appear to know it, other than what they are told by Gog. Gog sends a vision of the Opera House chase to various characters. Is this knowledge of the future, or a vision that Gog plans to bring about? Is Gog outside of time and watching its plan unfold, or is Gog making its plan unfold? If so, it’s making rather fine-tuned control, orchestrating the final confrontation, making sure the F5 will be up on the balcony and so on.

Let’s look at some of the things in Gog’s plan

Billions of years earlier, breeding two planetfuls of life with genetically identical humans.
It probably inspired the sacred scrolls.
It knew of the war on Earth-1 and sent the angels to the final five. It must have put the song into Anders’ head, including an opening line which, when translated to numbers, will be jump coordinates for use 2,000 years in the future from the singularity to the Moon.
It modified the Temple of Hopes to be the Temple of Five, a chamber where the Final Five could be seen when the star explodes.
It presumably timed the arrival of the Final Five to the first Cylon war.
If behind the monotheism, it’s also behind the rise of the Cylons on Caprica and what personalities were uploaded into them.
The placing of Tigh and Tyrol on Galactica, and of Foster and Roslin there at the start of the war.
It put the song with Earth’s coordinates into the head of Starbuck’s father, and various compulsions into her brain, such as the mandala.
It was probably behind the destruction of the colonies. And the survival of the Pegasus, and of course the Galactica.
It manipulated Baltar in all sorts of strange ways, causing him to act strangely, sometimes helping the Cylon cause, sometimes the human. A rewatch is necessary to get a list of all the things H6 manipulated Baltar to do.
It probably put in Shelley Godfrey to cause Baltar to be suspected and then cleared.
It made sure Baltar would keep his Cylon detector results secret. (When Boomer is figured, H6 scares him into keeping it quiet.)
It arranged for a nuke for Gina, and for Baltar’s election, and thus for the halting of the tribes on New Caprica
It probably arranged the jump glitch which found New Caprica, and the Cylon detection of Gina’s nuke.
It arranged for the Cylons to recapture Hera, sending a message to an Oracle.
It probably arranged the circumstances where Ellen would die and be recreated.
It talks regularly to the Cylon ship hybrids and the first hybrid to manipulate their activities.
Likewise it appears to talk to oracles from time to time.
It contaminated the food to force the fleet to the Algae planet.
It arranged the meeting of the forces at the Algae Planet. Did Three’s activation go with Gog’s plan or against it?
It exploded the star at the Algae planet, or timed the meeting perfectly to match it. Now that’s interventionist!
It gave compulsions to Starbuck to kill herself, which she did.
It then planted Starbuck’s dead body and Viper on Earth
It then created a brand new Viper and put Starbuck in it, over Earth
It probably directed the Cylons to the Ionian Nebula, as it planted clues to send the fleet there.
It probably disabled the fleet at the Ionian Nebula, to force the battle, recognition of Anders and Cylon civil war.
It gave various visions to Roslin and Sharon and Hera, as well as the regular ones to Baltar and Six.
It put the music into the heads of the final five at the Ionian Nebula, and then let them remember they were Cylons.
It teleported angel-Starbuck to the Ionian Nebula, with compulsions in her head about finding Earth.
It probably lead Leoben to Starbuck, and Starbuck to the region of space with Leoben.
During the standoff, it compelled the Final Five to check out the Viper. It made the Viper show a tracking signal for the crashed original Viper on Earth
On Earth, it made the Final Five regain a few more memories.
From there, a long series of events were necessary to create the Opera House scene including:
- Sam getting shot, regaining memories and then becoming like a Hybrid who can be hooked into Galactica on the balcony.
- Boomer’s return of Ellen and capture of Hera
- Raid on the Colony
- Various tactical elements of raid on colony leading to standoff in the CIC.
- Circumstances where Starbuck has to program an escape jump
The abandonment of technology, and interbreeding
The complete loss of Colonial culture and knowledge.
All of modern Earth history.
Further repeats of the cycle, until one day some civilization breaks it after enough repetitions. That too is part of god’s plan.
Once our Earth arises with dominant monotheism, it no longer likes to be called god.

That’s a lot of intervention and complexity if you consider the result: All colonial civilization and knowledge is lost, and all that remains is a bit of synthetic DNA from Hera/Athena present in the gene pool on our Earth. The same could happen just by teleporting Hera and some others directly here.

Gog certainly does work in strange and mysterious ways.

Or rather, the writers do. For they did not have most of this plan laid out in advance. Yet everything on the list, and in some way everything that happens because of it, is a result of the intervention of Gog and its angels. And this lays out another reason why you don’t want real gods in your fiction. It’s too much. In some sense it’s everything in the show. No longer a result of our characters and their natures and motivations, but the result of divine intervention. But if I wanted to see “Touched by an Angel” I would watch that. I prefer a drama where the characters have some control over their destiny, if they have a destiny at all.