Time Immortal

Spoiler Warning: this entire article is pretty much one big act of musing about the direction the series is going to go in the second half of its fourth and final season, which is set to begin airing episodes on January 16th. As such, pretty much everything I’m about to write should be considered to be a potential spoiler.

You’ve been warned, good Reader. If spoilers aren’t your bag, it’s best to skip to the next article and be done with it.

As I noted previously, series creator Ron Moore has said that he is committed to telling a story from within the framework of naturalistic science fiction, which means that the show more or less conforms to the scientific realities that we, the viewers, should know and be familiar with (apart from a set of core assumptions concerning Macguffin-esque technology that is necessary to drive the plot forward).

In other words: jump drives and artificial gravity are in. Aliens, transporters, replicators, phasers, and all the rest are out.

Because the show is built around a naturalistic sci-fi framework, its purpose won’t be to tell an “origins story” — the Colonial fleet will not be the “latest new Ark,” and its people will not be the “latest new Adam and Eve.” The emergence of humanity as a product of millions of years of evolution is reasonably well-documented, and it would defy Ron Moore’s stated commitment to that naturalistic framework were he to suddenly pull back the curtain and reveal, say, William Adama and Laura Roslin, or Lee Adama and Starbuck, to be the real Adam and Eve.

If anything, I think it will be revealed that humanity initially came from Earth and that BSG is set many thousands of years in the future. I think it will be revealed that at some point, pace Firefly, humanity fled Earth and found Kobol, and that centuries or millennia later they were forced to flee Kobol as well. I’m not sure if, or how, the Lords of Kobol will play into the story as the season progresses, and whether or not any revelations will be made about who, exactly, these beings were (if indeed they existed).

The arrival at Earth, then, will not be a discovery so much as it will be a return.

In the main, looking again at the above-linked reflection some months after having written it, and especially in light of the last episode of BSG that aired (in which what was apparently Earth was discovered), it seems that my basic assumptions were correct. What’s been interesting to observe, as the series has progressed, is that as the Colonial fleet has drawn steadily closer to Earth and discovered artifacts of either their ancestors or the Thirteenth Tribe, the age of those artifacts has been steadily increasing. The ruins on Kobol were about 2,000 years old. The beacon found in the nebula was about 3,000 years old. The Temple of Five, on the algae planet, was about 4,000 years old.

This suggests one of two things: it could, on one hand, be taken as tacit confirmation of the fact that humans originated on Earth, and subsequently took to the stars…or it could be confirmation of the fact that the Thirteenth Tribe left Kobol well in advance of the other tribes, went to Earth, and then voyaged back to Kobol at some later point in time.

This latter theory would, at least, explain why the Pythian scrolls that are so often quoted in the series would seem to chronicle a journey to Earth. At the same time, this theory is contradicted by the fact that in at least one episode, it is suggested that all thirteen tribes departed Kobol at roughly the same time. On the other hand, it is supported by the observation that the Zodiac signs that represent (and give name to) the Twelve Colonies are all constellations which are visible from Earth. Then again, that could just as easily be indicative of the fact that humanity originated on Earth, and that even though Earth itself became myth as the centuries rolled on, aspects of that history were nevertheless preserved.

I find, more and more, that I’m tending toward the theory that the Pythian prophecy speaks of a cyclical history that has now fulfilled its event arc three times: human habitation of Earth ended in catastrophe, so humanity fled to Kobol. That colonization in turn ended in catastrophe, so humanity fled in turn to the Twelve Colonies. Now those colonies have ended in catastrophe, and humanity has once again fled to the stars. But rather than flee to someplace new, they are fleeing to someplace old: Earth, much as the Thirteenth Tribe fled to Earth after the Exodus from Kobol.

And I think — still think, really — that BSG is shaping up to be an “eschatological myth” for our times. It’s not a story about humanity’s beginning, but about humanity’s end. The cyclical nature of history has been a recurring theme in the show; I think, before the end of the show, the cycle will be broken, and history “as it is known” will come to an end — and then, quite possibly a fiery, sudden end. The show is not so much a re-working of the Book of Genesis as it is a re-working of the Book of Revelation.

To my thinking, this theory was given strong support indeed by the last episode to air, Revelations, which dealt with the theme of breaking out of history’s brutal cycle. But now the question becomes: if history is indeed cyclical, within the framework of the show, then what does breaking the cycle mean? Does it perhaps signal the end of history.

Consider, for example, Edward James Olmos comments concerning the end of the series:

Edward James Olmos has said that audiences will not be prepared for the upcoming finale of Battlestar Galactica, in a panel at London’s MCM Expo and an exclusive interview with SciFiNow.

“It’s not a happy ending, we end up with almost nothing,” the 61-year-old actor told journalists from the magazine over the weekend,

Meanwhile, rumours swirl that the show’s finalé will feature a full-scale conflict and “gigantic, never before seen effects.” Coupled with Jamie Bamber’s revelation that the last scenes he shot for the series invovled Lee Adama “running around ’shooting at stuff’ with extras,” this suggests that massive battles and destruction may be the order of the day for the closing moments of the show. Numerous other hints of just such a battle have also emerged.

The series finalé seems to be shaping up to also incorporate a number of flashback-type sequences. In particular, several scenes featuring Laura Roslin were shot at Simon Fraser University’s Academic Quadrangle, which was used as the backdrop for the “Riverwalk” district in Caprica City earlier on in the series.

And then there’s Tahmoh Penikett’s statement to consider:

Everybody dies. We have a dark ending…Obviously you know, those last couple of episodes, they’re going to blow your mind. They are going to go down in history as the best television ever done.

Flashbacks, dark endings, and people left with almost nothing…yet at the same time, a satisfying, organic ending which signs everything off really well? That sort of mixture of hardship and hope is the same sort that would seem to accompany eschatological tales of virtually every sort, including (and perhaps especially) Christian eschatology. Great suffering, followed by hope and the promise of a future beyond all imagining, a future beyond the brutal confines of history and sin.

Update: One potential wrinkle in all of this could be if Ron Moore takes the story in a different cyclical direction, escaping humans and Cylons from their cycle of violence and exodus only to reveal that they represent a kind of evolutionary cycle in terms of species development. There are scattered rumours emerging that Cylon remains will be found on Earth, suggesting that the extant humans of the BSG universe are, in fact, descendants of the Cylons that the original people of Earth, or possibly Kobol, developed.

This would also tie in to the plot threads surrounding Cylon reproduction that have swirled through the show’s four seasons.

Dani writes in all the way from Barcelona to offer his opinion on my final Cylon theory, which I recently expanded a bit toward the end of this article.

Hey there!

Well, first of all I want to apologise for my poor english… (I’m from Barcelona, by the way) So please, consider this if at any moment I could use rude or innapropiated words… It is really NOT my intention!

Second, the way I arrived to your site. I just looked for “Helo final cylon” on Google

Why I did it? Well, I’ve allways suspected about this issue about Helo (I’ve heard it many times) “it was planned for him to death at the beggining of the show, but just because he did quite well the producers — or whoever — decide to keep him”. I’ve never swallow it, sounds to me like the producers pretends to divert the attention from him. Don’t you?

And third, I would really like to say congratulations for your fantastic theory regarding Helo like the final five. Absolutely, deep and precise. I’ve really enjoyed.

But the point is I need just one more answer. What about the Moore sentence: “the final five is NOT in The Last Supper picture”. Maybe you have wrote something about this, but I really didn’t find it out… So, was Moore cheating us? Or maybe there is anything else behind the picture that we can’t see yet?

I would really appreciate if you could send me just a few words…

Many, many thanks! And, again, congratulations! I’m sure you’re right!

There was certainly some debate, O Reader, as to whether Tahmoh Penikett’s charachter — Karl Agathon — was supposed to be a “one shot” personality who would have been assumed to have perished after the miniseries had ended. The rumour goes that Penikett’s performance was well-liked by the producers, and so the writers kept him in the plot first as a survivor, then as the Cylons’ mark for a possible “mate” for the Number Eight who eventually became Sharon Agathon, and finally as one of the more important recurring characters in the series.

But right there, the Reader should be able to note that while the genesis of Helo makes sense within the narrative of BSG, Helo himself has climbed pretty far up the totem pole for someone who was supposed to be a “one-shot” character. It’s certainly quite possible that the rumours concerning his supposed expendability are a clever bit of deception on the part of Battlestar Galactica’s producers. Then again, maybe not — the whole idea of the Final Five had not yet been formed during the series’ first season. Of course, that’s just another rumour.

As to the last question that Dani asks, concerning the “Last Supper” photograph, I did actually take into account what Ron Moore had said regarding the identity of the final missing Cylon and its relationship to the picture. Concerning this issue, I wrote: “I wouldn’t put it past Ron Moore, good Reader, to mislead people a little bit, especially if there was a danger of too much being revealed in some way. Equally, it’s entirely possible he was telling the truth. I do know that he later remarked that he “probably shouldn’t have said” what he said about the people in “The Last Supper,” but whether that was because he felt he’d given too much away or because he had now put himself into a position whereby he’d have to contradict himself later on, I can’t say.

…I think the main point here is that whoever the final Cylon is revealed to be, he or (possibly) she will be the parent of one of the babies currently believed to by half-Cylon and half-human. The whole series has revolved around the issue of the “humanity” of the Cylons and their apparently inability to reproduce. I think that the revelation of the final Cylon will necessarily accompany the additional (and simultaneous) revelation that Cylons can, in fact, reproduce successfully.

And I still think that [Hera Agathon] will be revealed as the fully Cylon child, given that Season 3 spent an awful lot of time trying to build up her significance. I’ve only read the first Dune book, but it seems to me that there is a parallel between the Kwisatz Haderach and what Hera is.

Which brings us back to Helo.

So, did Ron Moore lie to us? Time will tell…but I will say that I have no problem believing that Ron Moore is trying to deflect speculation down incorrect avenues.”

Now, I will admit, O Reader, that I lost one bet; Hera turned out not to be the first fully Cylon child revealed to the viewers (that honour goes to the child of Caprica Six and Saul Tigh). That said, I don’t think this diminishes Hera’s significance in any way. And as I noted more recently, we must come back to “the issue of the First Hybrid’s prophecy that the final Cylon would be revealed only in the “howl of terrible suffering”. Given Sharon Agathon’s passionate defence of Hera in the past — including her willingness to kill any Cylon who might even remotely threaten her child (even by way of mere proximity) — it stands to reason that if D’Anna harbours any designs on Hera, that fact will bring Sharon and D’Anna into direct conflict in the near future.

And perhaps neither Sharon nor D’Anna will survive the encounter. Perhaps Hera will be gravely endangered. And perhaps Helo will weather that terrible suffering only by discovering, and somehow coming to terms, with his Cylonity.”

---

Mind the spoliers, please!

---

Given that the current rumours suggest that the character of Number Three — D’Anna Biers — will only be on the show for another episode or two, it’s quite possible that just such a violent resolution will come to pass. After all, D’Anna has to disappear from the narrative somehow, and she could well turn out to be the first casualty promised by the producers when they said that the Cylon Civil War would result in the death of three Cylon models.

---

Ding! Spoilers are done.

---

Time will tell, O Reader.

I do have to say, though, that I’m more than a little surprised that something I wrote is being read in as far away a place (from Edmonton, at least) as Barcelona. Thanks very much for writing in, Dani — that’s really cool.