Well, it’s not quite dismantled yet though… the President is just in jail.
Give it a few episodes.
I think that the Cylons are running into some “problems” with having developed a consciousness akin to humanity, in terms of sticking to the common goal.
Boomer (in both places) seems to be genuinely conflicted. She’s obviously “human” when she’s not subverted by her programming, and she’s at least able to resist some of her programming (or at least, believe she is able to) like she did when she didn’t prevent the discovery/reclamation of water early in season 1 (the last bomb on her Raptor).
Six on Earth seems pretty clearly disgusted with Boomer, and her falling in love with Helo (and the other guy seems indifferent). Of course, every time I think about how the Cylons are trying to generate a Cylon/Human baby, most of that info/background comes from Baltar/Six discussions, and we really have no way of knowing how real those are (is there a brain implant? Is Baltar just batshit insane?).
The human-cylons seem to be more or less free-willed as long as they’re not in a position to achieve their ultimate goal (killing Adama, as an example), or trying to take action to prevent acheiving that goal (Boomer’s suicide attempt). They also seem to have been programmed “well” enough to at least desire death over betraying their friends/loved ones.
Either:
- The Cylons are in complete control of everything, the Cylons could destroy them on a whim, and the fleet’s battles and everything are basically just a high tech version of Helo’s adventures on Caprica pre Boomer turning.
or
- The Cylons are like the Greek gods. They squabble a bit. Some of theme just want to wipe the humans but other’s have bigger plans.
For me, number 2 is far more palatable.
I like the idea of #2. So we’ve got a bunch of squabbling greek gods that believe in a single god that can destroy the humans (who believe in multiple gods).
It’s like the Hasselhoff gif.
Ron Moore is my new hero.
If those screens are correct and they did get hacked, and it is not brought up for 3 or so episodes- making us speculate for weeks over a screenshot…man, it is practically Kaufman-esque. I mean really, he has been around the Star Trek geeks long enough to KNOW he can plant one frame of stuff and make it a plot point.
The soldier’s “knowledge” doesn’t really surprise me, as he’s more than likely privy to a minimal amount of information as to why the President is sitting in that cell, at least through the military side of things.
Adama is a very capable leader who would no doubt see that sending a soldier in to remove a standing President without a very good explanation as to why the military is legally taking over, even temporarily, isn’t a very good idea. It doesn’t have to be a detailed explanation, but to not have any understandable explanation will cause a reasonably competent soldier to question whether the order is legal, as is his or her duty.
Of course, I would almost expect that soldier to treat Adama the same way. After all, he did stand in front of his crew at the end of the mini-series and state that he and the President would take them all to Earth, a mythical place deep within their core religion. It’s not hard to see some of the survivors breaking down under a really stressful situation and praying to one of these leaders in charge of what is no doubt seen as their religious apocalyptic time.
Maybe I read the scene wrong, but I had thought that it was actually her Cylon programming that was made her injure herself in such a way that she wouldn’t go on the flight shot down over Kobol, which is instead flown by her radar officer, allowing her to stay on the Galactica and near Adama.
If that’s the case, it seems like there are far less suspicious injuries to sustain than the one she ended up inflicting. Her lover seemed pretty suspicious of the way she claimed to have gotten it, among other things. If you’re trying to avoid going on a mission, why not just shoot yourself in the leg/foot, which is much easier to explain with “cleaning my weapon”?
Also, all of the stuff Boomer has gone through on Galactica seem to indicate a conflict between “human” and her Cylon sides, I think suicide makes more sense.
Uh, trying not to be Koontzian myself…
I’m with the suicide theory. These new-generation cylons are very complicated. Emotions, desires, religion, and even politics (Six one time commented about a failing of the “Boomer” model being too emotional, then quietly letting slip her bitterness over not being able to achieve those emotions herself). God, as Six describes it in her oh-so-manipulative way, sounds kind of like the old “spreme leader” from the original series.
My guess would be that these cylons, with their ability to download their conciousness across space-time into a new body as my guide, have evolved some sort of gestalt entity. It embodies a bit of each of them, and grows or recedes with the growth or decline of the cylons themselves. Given how different the new generations of cylons are from each other, it’s not surprising that it would have a common goal, but be conflicted as to how best to attain that goal.
Last, all the cylons now, even the metal ones, seem to have biological-esque components. Why work towards being organic?
Because cells are cool.
I’d suspect the second picture indicates that since all the firewalls are down, the network is now “vulnerable,” but that it would take additional time to actually exploit and infiltrate the network as opposed to just preparing to break down another level of firewalls.
I wonder why he didn’t have more firewalls? Better yet, how can the Cylons “hack” it at all, why don’t they just turn off the wireless? I thought in the beginning that the Cylons were using electromagnetic pulses from the nuclear blasts to knock out the electronics but now it makes less sense!
apparently there was a system that was open to the outside that they had to plug the mainframe into, in order to get more processing time… yeah, I didn’t quite figure that one out either. It’s not like they’re running any kind of wi-fi. How do you hack into a closed LAN consisting of a couple computers and no outside access?
I think the idea is that there’s a system at the end of the network that takes in data from the outside (a scanner, for example). Baltar gives Six access to the entire schematic, which allows her to relay to the Cylons, who figure out how to exploit the open end to shut down networks.
I’m assuming that Galactica hasn’t tried to figure out how to network everything but the open end because a) Adama wouldn’t trust that anyway, b) They have no idea how the Cylons did what they did, and thus what could be networked and what couldn’t be, c) They’ve got more pressing issues, since everything works okay as is
I tend to think that the Cylons didn’t get anything in. All they knew how to do going in was shut systems down, and there wasn’t enough time plant anything (especially since it’s unlikely that they knew much about Galactica specifically because it was being decomissioned and was an outlier in the fleet).
Besides, they pretty clearly have Cylons in the fleet so it’s probably less important to inject a computer virus/worm anyway. The main reason for the initial “cyber attack” was just to allow them to wipe out the majority of humanity and create a small, herdable group (we think).
I suspect that they briefed this particular MP on why he was being ordered to keep the President of the Colonies in a cell.
I wonder why he didn’t have more firewalls?[/quote]
Yeah, I think their firewall count should have gone up to, at least, 11. Just to give it that extra edge.
I’d suspect the second picture indicates that since all the firewalls are down, the network is now “vulnerable,” but that it would take additional time to actually exploit and infiltrate the network as opposed to just preparing to break down another level of firewalls.
[/quote]
Not a chance. They did that to show the frame grabbers that they cylons got in.
Battlestar Galactica, sponsored by Symantec. Because you never know when a Cylon virus is going to hit.
Quaro covered this a few days ago (emphasis mine):
Any academy student who’s passed Plasma Mechanics 101 knows that data transmission is considerably weakened during a regular Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) effect, because of magnetic phase state changes. A reverse EPR effect would amplify data transmission; this amplification, combined with the high thoridium content in the Galactica’s hull, made the ship into a radio transmitter, broadcasting the firewall to every One-Eye within 100 clicks.
Seeing as how Cylons can track an FTL jump in 33 minutes on the dot, it’s obvious they know something about the universe that the humans do not.
well shit, I guess I stand corrected.
Actually, I think the explanation for the hacking comes from the miniseries/pilot. The virus that lets the Cylons control the Colonial ships is actually built into their navigation software–that was the reason Six was sent to get close to Baltar in the first place (Baltar created the navigation software for the military). The only reason the Galactica never got hit by the virus is because the software required a large network to run, and the Galactica’s computers were never networked. But the virus was still there, dormant. Gaeta was supposed to root it out, but apparently he missed something. Here’s the relevant exchange:
Gaeta: So let me get this straight. You are saying that the Cylons found a
way to use your navigation program to disable our ships?Baltar: Essentially, uh, yes. I think there using the C.N.P. to infect your
ships with some sort of computer virus which makes them suseptible to Cylons commands.Gaeta: Uh, well you can see, we do have your C.N.P. navigation program
here on Galactica. But our computers aren’t networked so it’s never been
loaded into primary memmory, or even test run.Baltar: Good, Well, that’s good. You shouldn’t have any problems then.
Still I should, uh purge all remaining references to it that appear on your
memmory tapes.Gaeta: Right. I should probably retrofit the newer vipers as well.
So the Cylons weren’t magically hacking them from the Base Star; the virus was already in their system, and was activated when they created the network.