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

Jumping the Shark

J. Raja — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:55:47 -0700

My husband and I watched the last of the series in utter disbelief. The number of plot elements that didn't match up, the utter failure of closure for characters who were together then NOT, the all-of-a-sudden completely reliable cylon identifier (they're all cylons on earth, oh yes, we checked), AND IT WAS ALL GOD'S WILL - I felt exactly as I felt when X-Files was ending. Here we had a well-written show with compelling characters, and with a promise that there was an end-point that the writers had already figured out, so we waited to find out the mystery(ies) and they had no damn clue where they were going so handed it all off to a neat little religious conclusion. I don't think I've ever been so disappointed, nor amazed at the lack of character explanation.e.g., just because Galen isn't the biological father, he completely writes off the care of the son he's been father to that boy's entire life? Once Caprica's child is lost, she has no more scenes with Sol and somehow just transfers all love and affection back to Baltar? Starbuck's a frikkin' angel? And why for the love of whatever drive all the technology into the sun??????

That's what you think the premise was?

Chris M. — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 01:35:41 -0700

"The show was based on the premise that technology ruined us... but GOB saved us."

Seriously?

If so, then the show spent the first 3-1/2 seasons deceiving us about what its premise was... because while there may be an audience for an SF show that's about Luddism and mysticism, I wouldn't have been among it. Are you suggesting the writers set up all those intriguing mysteries and interconnections, all those political allegories and moral conflicts, just to distract viewers from the fact that the show's real message was something as blunt as "technology=bad, God=good"?

BSG: Utlimate Letdown

mike cobley — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:30:36 -0700

Hi, I`m an SF writer from Glasgow, Scotland, and me and my girl have just finished watching BSG on dvd, and I must declare myself four-square and solidly behind Brad on the monstrous suckiness of the finale, especially the last half-hour. The whole God-did-it is a stinging slap in the face of the fans who thought for all these years that they were watching a SCIENCE FICTION series, when in fact it turned out to be a fable. That's right - when God comes in the door, SF goes out the window. SF is about rational cause-and-effect, not just in the concepts and milieu in which its set but also in the narrative by which it is depicted. Others elsewhere have mentioned how this sense of being cheated closely matches the general reaction to the 3rd Matrix movie, which amply demonstrated that the Wachowskis didnt really know what they were doing. And now we can say the same about Ron Moore. Shame - Battlestar Galactica deserved a much better ending, a truly science fictional ending.

Here we are

Anonymous — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 11:39:42 -0700

BSG screams so much Zen in people's faces it's a bit boring talking about it now.

The problem with technology and other people isn't really technology or other people. It's ourselves. The basic premise of BSG is that people built up some whacky ideas and hostilities then went bang. I'm probably driving a truck over RDM's lawn and parking it on his front porch by saying this but understanding was always possible but they threw even that away in the end.

Some people have identified the insanely irritating Starbuck as being a Buddha like figure of the "Pure Land Buddhism" variety but there's also precedent in the Old Testement scriptures in the character of Elijah. I have no idea if such a thing is possible in reality as I've never seen it or experienced it but it's a nice idea that distracts from our experience of the mundane and sometimes unpleasant flailing of death.

So, here we are...

"Excuse me, but why does Gog

Anonymous — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 11:06:30 -0700

"Excuse me, but why does Gog need a space ship?"

See... I think that right there is why a lot of people are having trouble with this. So many of us were raised on Star Trek - where anything supernatural is always explained away as an energy being or a being that exists on another dimensional plane etc... There is NO hocus-pocus in Star Trek. And in a lot of ways, Star Trek is the Brady Bunch of science fiction. Everything is always neatly fixed and tied up in the end. There is no mystery that we can't unravel with technology, human know-how, and cooperation.

But in reality, there are mysteries we cannot unravel. BSG showed that. We don't entirely know what GOB was trying to do, so we can't question any of his unusual twists and turns along the way. And having it all end up being GOB's big stage play was not at all disappointing for me. I had accepted LONG AGO that in the BSG world people have shared visions, prophesies come true, and angels live among us. Honestly, it makes perfect sense. The show was based on the premise that technology ruined us... but GOB saved us (for a while perhaps?). We can't really question his motivations and decisions along the way. Who knows what he was really up to.

And honestly, I didn't want our people to just suddenly find a planet and build a New New Caprica and all live happily ever after. They couldn't. Their lives were changed. Yes, they needed a break - and they got one. They were able to live out the rest of their lives in the wide open spaces of Earth (our Earth).

I think it was all quite fitting - and in fact, it has made me look at life in a totally different way. Perhaps there is a GOB with his hand in the mix. Who knows? All I know is this crazy blond lady will not stop talking to me about it! Why won't she shut up and get out of my head!?

right on - the old saying "dog did it" is a cop out.

Chas — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 14:05:21 -0700

I totally agree and appreciate the effort you made to point it all out. This show had great characters in an interesting situation but couldn't rescue themselves.

Excuse me, but why does Gog

tastic — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 12:49:44 -0700

Excuse me, but why does Gog need a space ship?

Re: learned Lost analyses

tichtich — Thu, 28 May 2009 01:13:56 -0700

Thanks for that, Aaron. I've started reading them.

learned Lost analyses

Aaron — Wed, 27 May 2009 10:27:12 -0700

I've found that Entertainment Weekly's Lost columnist, Jeff Jensen aka Doc Jensen, writes extensive, funny, and very aware analyses of Lost. He's really good at catching (and maybe even inventing) the dense layers of allusions that Lost is covered in. His grasp of the pseudosciency/mystical edge of pop culture (i.e., Castaneda, egyptology, magical quantum physics) that Lost hints at often, is really spectacular.

Now, I really dig Brad's BSG blog, but it's definitely the voice of a classicist who uses well-thought out ideas about genre form and content to deploy a serious critique. I thought BSG was totally amenable to that approach because it consisted of, by now classic s-f elements--the space-borne quest, the conflict between sentient human and machine intelligence for example. Lost is a bit more of a mutt, and if someone is using (wisely) Brad-esque analyses of it, I don't know of it.

But Jensen has an awesome, very free-associating style that usually spins revelations about Lost-iana that didn't come to my mind at all during the episode, but seem absolutely justified in retrospect. EW doesn't have a feed for him though, so you either have to check back regularly, or subscribe for updates.

"Lost" episode analyses?

tichtich — Wed, 27 May 2009 03:10:35 -0700

This is off-topic, I'm afraid, but I couldn't think of a better place to post it.

I've really enjoyed reading Brad's analyses of BSG. So, now that I've just started watching "Lost", season 5, I'm hoping to find a blog that does for Lost what Brad did for BSG. Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm looking for intelligent analyses, not discussion forums, synopses, trivia, etc. It doesn't matter if the whole season has been written up already, so long as I can avoid spoilers by reading them in sequence.

Rewatch

brad — Mon, 04 May 2009 11:04:52 -0700

I think this shows how had it is to rewatch and not have at the back of your mind that she’s now an official agent of Gog. I have not done a rewatch, but I have to presume that things like this will be common, and hard for my brain to turn off. If you can do it more power to you.

By the way, while rewatching

tichtich — Mon, 04 May 2009 05:34:41 -0700

By the way, while rewatching S1 I noticed something I'd forgotten. When Starbuck is stranded on a planet with a Cylon raider and the fleet is searching for her, H6 manipulates Baltar into trying to have the fleet abandon the search and leave Starbuck behind. That's quite inconsistent with any idea that H6 is doing God's work, given that Starbuck seems to be so important to God's plan that He resurrected her.

Hi. I've just discovered

tichtich — Mon, 04 May 2009 05:11:25 -0700

Hi. I've just discovered your excellent blog. My reaction to the BSG finale was similar to yours. Not so much about the hard science, but the fact that "God did it for inscrutable reasons" fails to explain anything. For something to be a genuine explanation there must be alternative possibilities that would not have been consistent with it. But any event the writers could have included would be consistent with this non-explanation.

One thing which you don't appear to have noticed is that Ron Moore and Jane Espensen have said in interviews that H6 and HB are not just angels. They are angels and demons, so sometimes they help the characters and sometimes they hinder them! This is just an excuse for inconsistent storytelling.

Despite my disappointment, there's enough that's very good in the series that I've started watching it again from the start. (I'm currently part way through season 2.) But the only way I can enjoy it is to avoid trying to make any sense of those story elements which I know will not make sense, such as the behaviour of H6. I just treat her like a spectacular "force of nature" with no rhyme or reason to her behaviour.

When I listened to the podcast for "Downloaded" a couple of years ago, I understood Ron Moore to say (or strongly imply) that the head beings were just manifestations of the characters' subconscious mind. I subsequently rewatched the miniseries and S1 with this explanation in mind, and I found it a satisfying explanation of H6's behaviour. It's a shame to have had that interpretation taken away.

Divine guidance

brad — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 20:27:13 -0700

I feel that in proper religious fiction, satisfying fiction, the god is, like the writer, setting the stage, but the story told should be the characters’ story. The struggle is theirs and the achievements and failures should be as a result of the characters’ strengths and failings. Not simply because it was god’s plan.

Almost everything our characters did amounted to nothing. Helo and Athena had a kid, and various forces worked to save the kid so she could make the jump to Earth. Apollo made sure that the colonials would wipe out any trace of their society and culture. Everything else they did amounted to little.

followup

David N. Scott — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 18:48:44 -0700

To followup a little, what I'm saying is that it's fine to have a divine hand (Divine Hand?) guiding everything. But until I get some idea of the motives involved in the whole thing, I don't think that really explains anything. We know the character (Gog) and the method (vaguely-defined divine powers), but we don't know who Gog is or have any idea of the motives involved. So it's an explanation that isn't one, basically.

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.