Issues I've been pondering...

[agtsmithreloaded]

A few things have crossed my mind since I rewatched the miniseries and read about the new series, and I'd like to see what you think.

1. How intelligent are the Cylon Centurions (the metal ones, I mean)? They seem to be the worker bees for the Cylons at this point in time. Six referred to them passingly while talking to Baltar ("They still have their uses"), and that made me think the human Cylons consider the Centurions lesser versions of themselves. I'm told they're much more nimble and strategic in battle. Have they spoken at all yet? It wouldn't matter to me if they didn't...their silence makes them more ominous.

2. With Ron Moore's policy of "no aliens", does this eliminate the possibility of seeing the Ship of Light? I actually have an idea that would allow for its existence without breaking that rule: the Ship of Light is little more than a delusion, an image in the minds of these pilots so weary and despondent by repeated attacks and deaths of their fellow pilots. One looks for hope in the most unlikely places; why not look beyond for it?

3. Going back to the Cylons, did they create the physical forms for the 12 models, or were they taken from original humans? If the latter was true, that would have to mean there were human versions of Six, Leoben, Aaron, and Sharon out there at some point in time. One can't help but wonder if they're still alive, though I doubt the Cylons would let them live.

4. Is it illogical for the Cylons to speak of God? To my mind, I suspect their belief in God stems from their origins as human creations. Perhaps their human makers wanted the Cylons to be so much like them that they were able to form their own beliefs in God. However, you can't help but wonder if the Cylons do indeed have their own "God" that they worship like humans do. If so, where did THAT belief originate from? Their own self-awareness, perhaps?

I'm interested in seeing what you think on these issues.

[Big Brother]

agtsmithreloaded said:

1. How intelligent are the Cylon Centurions (the metal ones, I mean)? (Snippage)

Assuming the metal ones also serve as ground troops, they'd have to be at least as intelligent as the average human infantryman...which, despite obvious jokes by ex-pilots and navy men and such, is pretty high. Nukes can only take out cities and such, if the Cylons want to USE the ex-Colonial planets, they'll probably have to keep the nuking down to a minimum, just enough to smash the Colonial tech base and take out any major troop/equipment concentrations. Survivors on Caprica and such will likely need to be dug out of every hidey-hole and mountain redoubt on the planet for decades to come. (Note that I haven't seen the new eps yet...I've heard Helo and a Boomer doppelganger run around on Caprica during the series, but can't be sure what they see there yet).

Also, as soldiers/guards intended to fight or guard captured humans, I'm sure they've at least got a loudspeaker with some memorized phrases, even if they do most of their talking to each other over wi-fi or somesuch, and to report to the fleshy-variant cylons and take orders and such, since the fleshy ones don't seem likely to have wifi abilities (or it would be a lot easier to tell them apart from humans).

agtsmithreloaded said:

2. With Ron Moore's policy of "no aliens", does this eliminate the possibility of seeing the Ship of Light? I actually have an idea that would allow for its existence without breaking that rule: the Ship of Light is little more than a delusion, an image in the minds of these pilots so weary and despondent by repeated attacks and deaths of their fellow pilots. One looks for hope in the most unlikely places; why not look beyond for it?

In the old series, the Ships of Light inhabitants describe themselves and their relation to humans like this: "As you are now, we once were. As we are now, you may become." I always assumed the Ships of Light were the Lords of Kobol themselves, survivors from Kobol who DIDN'T go through a stage of preindustrial barbarity after the fall and have to claw their way back to spaceflight over millennia. Tribelets from Kobol who continued to advance technologically and perhaps evolutionarily as well. They could always go that route, make the Ships of Light merely hyper-advanced humans, either non-degenerated descendants of Kobol, or perhaps the ancestors of Kobol itself. After all, as Clarke pointed out, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from Magic...

agtsmithreloaded said:

3. Going back to the Cylons, did they create the physical forms for the 12 models, or were they taken from original humans? (Snippage)

I wouldn't be at all suprised if the Cylons sent some stealthed ships to quietly abduct a few humans on lonely backroads or in small spacecraft in the middle of the night. Even the Colonials probably have a few missing persons who were never accounted for...and yes, such people were almost certainly killed once the Cylons got what they wanted from them.

Just as North Korea and the USSR kidnapped Americans, Japanese, and other Westerners to provide unwilling instructors to their spies in the fine art of blending into Western society, I'm sure the Cylons (in addition to copying their DNA and brain patterns) milked them for data on how to greet a stranger, how to rent a motel room, recent celebrity and sports gossip, and so forth. Otherwise, even a fleshy Cylon who looked like Tricia Helfer would get odd looks for making unconscious faux pas every five minutes.

agtsmithreloaded said:

4. Is it illogical for the Cylons to speak of God? To my mind, I suspect their belief in God stems from their origins as human creations. Perhaps their human makers wanted the Cylons to be so much like them that they were able to form their own beliefs in God. However, you can't help but wonder if the Cylons do indeed have their own "God" that they worship like humans do. If so, where did THAT belief originate from? Their own self-awareness, perhaps?

Well, as far as this Atheist is concerned, it's illogical for HUMANS to speak of God. But this isn't the proper forum for real-life religious discussion.

Recall that (at least in the old series, and the miniseries seems to follow this trend) the "Gods" the Colonists worshipped seem to be the "Lords of Kobol" themselves. In other words, their own very-human ancestors. Many theories as to how religion developed in real-life primitive societies focus on ancestor worship as an early stage.

If the humans are polytheist because their ancestors are legion...do the Cylons worship the lone human scientist who "invented" them? The first Cylon to break his programming and turn on the Humans? Some misanthropic rogue human who programmed his pet Cylon to hate humanity as much as he did?

There is a theory that the Judeo-Christian-Muslim Yahweh/Jehovah/Allah was originally a War God when the pre-Israelites were still just another polytheist tribe, and before that he was a dimly-remembered tribal war-leader who achieved mythic status and was only much later elevated to godhood. If this theory is true, then this still doesn't change the fact that, no matter the origins of the belief, the CURRENT belief is that Allah/Jehovah/Yahweh was never human (aside from a brief stint as Jesus according to only a few heretic sects -- from the viewpoint of Jews and Muslims at least) and never will be. Even if Cylon religious belief originated as adherance to the programming of a rogue misanthropic madman, their current belief may be that their God has nothing to do with those filthy, smelly humans.

Or perhaps it's as simple as the notion that monotheism reacts better to logic than polytheism. Early Greek philosophers first attempting to describe natural phenomena in a semi-scientific manner found it very easy to dismiss the idea of anthropomorphic deities with individual responsibilities for things like lightning and rain and earthquakes and making the sun rise each day. Those phenomena they couldn't explain, however, were very tempting to assign to some god or other...and it just made more sense, logically, to make it one, big, all-encompassing God than a bunch of gods with complicated geneologies and limited responsibilities.

Perhaps the Cylons simply made the same logical conclusion? A bunch of gods is a silly idea, hard to justify logically or scientifically. Cylons with logical electronic brains would find it easier to accept one god, albeit this line of reasoning would lead to a sort of Unitarian vague-benevolent-force/creator-god who doesn't do much after touching off the Big Bang, rather than to a fire-and-brimstone sort of Pentacostalist God who cares deeply about whether women wear skirts or slacks and who sleeps with whom and who is willing to set aside the laws of physics and causality in order to help Bret Favre win football games.

Of course, a scientifically-rational God would be unlikely to order a genocide, but even the most rational among us can show a vast capacity to rationalize any decision that has already been made.

[Xenu]

Welcome to the board, guys!

There is an in-depth discussion of the Cylons, their religion & their 'god' on this thread HERE.

[classicpony]

If I'm not educated on Cylons, after reading all this, I am now! WoW!! This is deep.