27 Apr 08 My Own BSG Theories
So, these are a few of my theories about what’s going on regarding the remaining secrets of Battlestar Galactica.
Virtual Beings Explained
We’ve seen a number of “virtual beings,” i.e, people that other characters only see in their heads. The first and most longstanding was a virtual Number Six in Baltar’s head (Miniseries). Then, we saw a virtual Baltar in Number Six’s head in the second season (Downloaded). We also saw a Carolanne (wife) in Bill Adama’s head in a third season episode (A Day in the Life), as well as a virtual Number Two in Kara’s head in another third season episode (Maelstrom). Recently, we had a virtual Baltar appear to Baltar in a fourth season episode (Six of One). My theory is that these entities — which have guided the actions of the key players rather significantly — are in fact the “gods” of both the Cylon and Human-Polytheistic religions. It would explain why we recently saw VurtSix actually move Baltar in a way he couldn’t have done himself (Escape Velocity).
The Final Cylon
We have one Cylon left to meet: one of the “Final Five.”
The first type are the numbered, revealed “skinjob” models who’ve already appeared in the series: Nos. 1 (Cavil), 2 (Leoben), 3 (D’Anna), 4 (Simon), 5 (Doral), 6 (Number Six), and 8 (Athena/Boomer). The second type are what I’ll call TAFT-style Cylons1, a kind of Cylon which doesn’t have to match the “can’t be a Cylon” guidelines that had existed in the prior three seasons: Cylon possibilities couldn’t exist prior to the Cylon War, couldn’t have adult children or a verifiable family history. (For example, Col. Tigh has a long, established history amongst humans (i.e., not a fake implanted history) — we saw flashbacks with a young Tigh interacting with a young Adama long before humanoid Cylons were revealed in the Reimagined BSG Universe (Scattered).) Since this has proven no longer true, you really can’t use logic puzzles to narrow down the candidates any longer — and so you have to instead think about what makes the most in a “meta” sense — what serves storytelling purposes for the writers?
1To me, “final four” and “final five” get a little awkward, and, besides, I wanted to coin a phrase to describe the specialized type of humanoid Cylon these last four are — a model that breaks all previously existing understanding as to what limitations defined Cylon versus human. (TAFT is just Saul Tigh, Samuel Anders, Tory Foster, and Galen Tyrol.)
Based on others’ nerdity (and I don’t use that as a derogatory term — geek pride!), we do have a few guidelines we can use, however. First, we can say this: one of the show’s writers said, “The fifth (which may change) we’ve been kicking around [as a Cylon possibility] since about the end of Season One.” So anyone introduced after the end of Season One is most likely not a possibility. Second, the shows’ creators have confirmed that both Hera and Nicky are half-human, half-Cylon kids; that means that Karl Agathon isn’t, and Callandra “Cally” Henderson wasn’t, a Cylon. Third, there was an Entertainment Weekly picture in which the show’s head, Ron D. Moore, admitted that the Final Cylon wasn’t any of the people pictured. Pictured were both Adamas, Roslin, Baltar, and Starbuck, as well as three of the four TAFT Cylons revealed at the end of last season.
The main rationale I’d use is that a fifth Cylon has to have a very large punch to the series. The “skinjob” models led up to the revelation of four of the final five, which at the end of last season had everyone going, “What! The! FUCK?!?!?!?” The revelation of the four will be a similar buildup to the Fifth. (In other words, in terms of shock value, skinjob : final four :: final four : fifth.)
So, who is left? Assume that the Fifth is a somewhat major character — because if it’s Third Specialist Fifth Class Joe Schmoe, the fans would riot. When the above are removed, you’re left with Gaeta, Dualla, Zarek, Cottle, Seelix, Racetrack, and Hot Dog. If you bring in the dead as possibilities (never entirely out of the question), then you add to the equation Ellen, Billy, Jammer, Kat, Crashdown, Socinus, Elosha, Adm. Cain, and Kendra Shaw.
Of the dead, I think we can rule out Ellen, because of her appearance in the last episode in Tigh’s hallucination (Escape Velocity). Dramatically, they wouldn’t ruin the revelation by making it a gradual reveal. Kat’s cute but she didn’t appear in Season One and was more of a comic character (aside from her “noble death” episode) (The Passage). Adm. Cain’s story was too nicely wrapped up by Razor — to me, it just doesn’t seem like a good dramatic choice. Billy’s story, too, was too poignantly told for his reappearance to be a good dramatic choice: could’ve been President (Home, Part II), mom-son relationship with Roslin (Sacrifice), love triangle with Dualla (Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down) — great potential cut short and loving relationships severed by senseless gunshot (Sacrifice). And Kendra was only introduced just now in the fourth season, and the writers have been kicking around the fifth Cylon as a possibility since the first season.
Returning to the alive characters, I don’t think it’s Seelix, Racetrack or Hot Dog — they’re good characters, but they’re very peripheral to the show, and it’d feel almost as bad a cheat as Third Specialist Schmoe. (Although with Hot Dog being played by Edward James Olmos’s son, y’never know … )
Of the remaining four — Gaeta, Dualla, Zarek and Cottle — my guess is this: I think the Final Cylon is Doc Cottle. And unlike the Final Four already revealed, I think he’s always knows he’s a Cylon and is going to be an explanatory vehicle for the writers as to the existence of the Final Five, why they break the aforementioned Cylon guidelines, the storyline, etc. I think he’s the oldest character on the show, too, which would make making him a Cylon and letting him be an explanatory vehicle be a natural choice. (It even could be that Tigh was introduced as a Cylon to more gradually acclimate the fans to the idea of long-amongst-humanity Cylons, so that when Cottle is revealed, the concept doesn’t feel as if it was a last-minute shoehorn into the plot.)
It also makes nice symmetry, as I think there are six kinds (not models, kinds) of Cylon.
| Humanoid Cylon, sleeper: Valerii | Humanoid Cylon, always knew it: Nos 1-6, other 8s | Half- Mech, Half- Skinjob: “Hybrids“ | Full Mech: Centurion, Raider brains |
| TAFT1-style “Mystical Cylon”, sleeper: Tigh, Anders, Foster, Tyrol | TAFT1-style “Mystical Cylon”, always knew it: no characters yet revealed with this trait |
Having a TAFT-style Cylon who always knew he was a TAFT-style Cylon would complete the symmetry perfectly.
Of all the possibilities, Cottle also is the one who has repeatedly interacted with and affected the fate of the very top-level characters (Roslin, Adamas, Baltar, Starbuck, Valerii/Agathon). He treated Roslin (cancer) (Act of Contrition), Adama (gunshot) (Fragged), and Starbuck (leg) (Six Degrees of Separation), was an effective opposite to Baltar in a number of scenes (Epiphanies), and delivered Hera (Downloaded). He had no qualms about treating Cylons during the occupation (Exodus Pt. 1), yet wasn’t treated as a traitor by the Circle (Collaborators). Arguably, also, he’s one of the best choices to still get a reaction out of fans: everyone likes cranky ol’ Cottle. Throughout the series, he’s been the truthteller, the character who consistently “told truth to power”; he’s been a nice lovable grump for the entire series — making him a Cylon would definitely get significant fan reaction.
And as a nice cap to the idea, in D’Anna’s last appearance prior to being boxed, we saw her recognize one of the Final Five Cylons and be surprised and apologize (Rapture). Earlier, during the occupation on New Caprica, D’Anna had interacted with Cottle and had a brief but amiable conversation in which D’Anna was a little smarmy, even, to boot (Exodus Pt. 1).
Earth
At the end of the third season, the final shot had us rocketing through space and ending up in Earth orbit (Crossroads, Part II). The continents displayed on the Earth resembled ours; from that, we can at the very least assume that Earth isn’t so far back, or so far forward, that everything’s merged into a supercontinent like Rodinia or Pangaea.
I tend to think Earth will be us: 2008’s humanity. The show, although it has been its own consistent universe, has had plenty of homages to the original series, and the original Battlestar Galactica series had them end up in orbit of contemporary humanity, which was the series Galactica 1980. I don’t think Galactica 2008 is in store for us, but they could make the choice to create that parallel as well, having them end up arriving at present-day humanity. (Were they intending to be particularly dark, they could then have 2008 humanity attack the Fleet with nukes and wipe everyone out — since nukes are referenced repeatedly as being dangerous to the Fleet ships, contemporary humanity could conceivably do so.)
Note: many think that the TAFT Cylons hearing “All Along the Watchtower” means that the show’s timeframe is at the very least post-1968. (Bob Dylan released “All Along the Watchtower” on December 27, 1967.) In reality, the show’s creator/writer has indicated that this version of the music they are hearing comes from a Colonial citizen, so it is not coming from our Earth (composer’s blog, and The Music). The appearance of the song, existing but in this instance not composed by Dylan, probably somehow ties in with the aspect of the Colonials’ religion known as the Cycle of Time: “All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.”
A Big Shock
My big theory about the series’ ultimate surprise is that the humanoid Cylons will be revealed to simply be humans. The biological differences demonstrated between humanoid Cylon and human are almost nonexistent, and could easily be explained by “gods” (the Lords of Kobol and the Cylon God?) taking a branch of humanity and splitting it off and then altering it in the ways we’ve seen in the series: a tendency towards infertility; asexual reproduction, cloning or severely restricted genetic variation; bioluminescent spines during sex; a heavy kick forward in terms of technological advancement; baby blood that cures cancer (super-stem cells?); etc. After all, even the Cylons don’t know who initially programmed them.
How much of a a mindfuck would that be, to find out that the entire series has been human-on-human violence — to retroactively strip the emotional distance that science fiction imparts upon us from all the violence and death that we’ve seen in this series? Humans nuking humans, humans killing humans, etc.?
