Zylon
1762
It occurs to me that incinerating the fleet, then dispersing the survivors all over the planet, was a near-perfect way to guarantee that the New Caprica scenario doesn’t happen again.
Instead we got Lee’s mush-headed justification, which was so contrived that even the writers couldn’t resist lampshading it.
Yeah, those Tanzanian winters are a real bitch.
Do you have video on demand on your cable service? It hit Comcast’s OnDemand system right at midnight last night.
Zylon
1765
They didn’t all settle in Tazmania.
There’s like a big ag ship in the fleet.
— Alan
I was thinking last night what a shame it was they sent it into the sun. What is this, Survivor: NotEarth? So many things about that plan didn’t make sense.
Yeah, that’s the botanical cruiser. They actually had two of them at one time, but had to abandon one early on when they were running from the Cylons.
My feelings on the finale are mixed. Parts of it I liked a lot–the flashbacks, the action scenes, discovering Earth, some of the character wrap-ups (Adama and Roslin, Baltar and Caprica). Other parts just didn’t work for me, though. I agree with whoever said that the Opera House scene was a letdown. It was nicely done in the technical sense–great cinematography–but in a narrative sense it just left me scratching my head, because the vision didn’t end up meaning anything. It was just a vision of Hera running while several characters chased after her, which then literally happened. Whee. Roslin might as well have had a grand vision of Starbuck brushing her teeth.
And while I didn’t really mind the mystical elements in the story, I was disappointed that the finale’s big revelation was simply a confirmation of what we had already been told. Yes, Head Six and Baltar really ARE god’s messengers, and yes, Starbuck really IS an angel. Really? That’s all you guys had? You couldn’t come up with even one new thing to reveal about them?
And I think there were some pretty big holes int he plot, like the fact that there should be a bunch of base stars still roaming around looking for humans to kill. They destroyed the colony, but what about all the other Cylons out there?
all the cylons have to do is jump to coordinates 1123, 6536, 5321.
let’s say 1,000,000,000 possible locations to take into account multiple basestar searches. if they search at a rate of one hour per search, then that’s around 114,000 years. and the cylons will die of old age within a hundred years max. so humanity got payback for the twelve colonies.
oh, and they had algae to eat (kat dies episode).
Oh, and one other thing: what was Hera’s significance? Yes, she ends up being mitochondrial Eve, the common ancestor of modern humanity. But that seems more like an accident of chance than some vital destiny that only she could fulfill. Lots of humans made it safely to Earth; are we supposed to think that without her, humanity would have gone extinct for some unspecified reason? Because that’s pretty weak. And how did she work out to be the savior of the Cylons, exactly? She sure didn’t pass on any of their traits, even though she seemed to possess some of them.
well, they found earth because they tried to rescue her. otherwise humanity would have still been on the run sans a battlestar.
Hugin
1773
Hera’s significance is that her existence catalyzed the human/cylon alliance and the destruction of the Colony and the jerk Cylons and the freeing of the robot Cylons and the discovery of Earth 2. Presumably she gets a little Cylon DNA into the general human genome, which might be useful, but mostly she acts as a pivot around which a lot of critical things happen.
Again, that’s just sort of an accident of circumstance. It doesn’t have anything to do with her, specifically–she could have been anybody. Or even nobody, since Starbuck already had the jump coordinates before they mounted their rescue attempt. You might as well say that Tyrol is the savior of humanity, because if he hadn’t killed Tory, then they wouldn’t have needed to make the fast getaway that leads them to Earth.
You could do this with any of the characters, actually, which is why it’s such an unsatisfyingly circular non-answer. Why did it have to be Hera that saves humanity? Because she’s the one that saves humanity. Duh! It’s like the show is telling me to stop asking so many questions.
from hera, and which would never have been used if they hadn’t been about to be destroyed.
You might as well say that Tyrol is the savior of humanity, because if he hadn’t killed Tory, then they wouldn’t have needed to make the fast getaway that leads them to Earth.
well, if tyrol hadn’t interrupted, racetrack’s corpse would still have launched nukes, pissing off the cylons, thus requiring a fast getaway.
Hugin
1776
No. If she’d been anybody the Cylons wouldn’t have been motivated to get her, make alliances or treaties based on her, etc. Producing and understanding Hera has driven the Cylons since season 1. She was uniquely valuable. The only thing of equivalent value would have been all the Final Five Cylons as a group. She’s also the one who first feeds Starbuck the musical notation.
According to Moore’s interview, it was meant to lead them to the CIC for the precise moment of Cavil’s Cylons assaulting it, Hera falling into their hands there, and providing a catalyst for Baltar’s epiphany where he (for a change) actually means the stuff in his speech. And for the subsequent negotiation, breaking of the truce, etc.
The vision merely meant to guide them. It may have been confusing from the way it was shown, but as I understood it these characters actually were in this vision in their minds, walking through the opera house, while we the audience got to see how this corresponded with the ship’s hallways.
Without this guidance, would these characters have made it to that precise location at that precise time?
If you’re talking large-scale farming operations (which I worked on from the age of 12 to 16), then no, it’s not simple because of the scale and other factors.
My point is that modern humans understand that plants come from seeds, and if you want a lot of a certain plant, you plant a lot of those seeds. We know that plants need water, that they need to be protected from insects, weeds, etc. We know that eventually we’ll have to harvest them.
Our ancestors figured that out, and they didn’t have faster-than-light engines. It’s not rocket science.
The Cylons were only trying to get her because their prophesies said that she was important. Why was she important? Because one day the Cylons would try to get her! The same applies to the rescue attempt. It’s just a big self-fulfilling prophesy.
And also, regarding the mitochondrial Eve thing, it’s worth pointing out that she can’t possibly be humanity’s only common ancestor, unless she conceived her children via immaculate conception, and then they sired future generations through incest. It’s likely that a bunch of the colonists are also common ancestors of modern humanity. Hera’s only distinction is that future paleontologists find her remains.
The whole farming question is kind of a silly nit-pick. Not only do some of the colonists, including Baltar, have first-hand experience working on farms and could teach others, but they almost certainly have access to all kinds of data available. Hell, a 1-terrabyte hard drive could hold every piece of farming knowledge known to man, so somewhere on one (or all) of the ships in the fleet they probably had all of that information stored in a library just because they could. That part didn’t bother me in the slightest.
