Unprovable "facts"

[MarkusB]

EJOFan said:

Great post!

But I don't think Dick Cheney is human.

LOL!

Thats' Gold. perhaps a ferengie (sp?)

[1987SilverOak]

LOL Dick Cheyney is the energizer bunny, he just keeps on ticking.

[MHall]

Unprovable "fact": There are only 12 models of humanoid Cylons.

What we were actually told (but still isn't fact):

SIX: Gaius, I can't die. When this body is destroyed, my memory, my consciousness will be transmitted to a new one. I'll just wake up somewhere else in an identical body.
BALTAR: You mean there's more out there like you?
SIX: There are 12 models. I'm Number Six.

Note that Six is saying "There are 12 models like me," with an implicit "like me."

And then there was the note, probably left by Baltar, so no new information there.

Over on sciffy I wrote:

Very few agree with me, but I am absolutely sure that there are different Sixes, Sharons, etc. Like so:

Black-dressed Six -> Ares
Red-dressed Six -> Aphrodite
Blue-dressed Six -> Hera
White-dressed Six -> Athena

And Baron_von_Richoven replied:

Here is a theory. What if when 'Six' said there where twelve models, she ment twelve types of herself not twelve models of human cylons? After all she said there where twelve models, and never acctualy said twelve human models. We all just assumed that is what she ment.

So, yes, it is possible that Six meant there are 12 types of Sixes. If so, then presumably the 12 Sixes map to either the 12 gods in the Greek Pantheon and/or the 12 signs of the Zodiac. Although I believe the mapping is to Greek gods, I would be amused if it turned out that the Cylons take astrology dead so seriously that they become the embodiment of the sign under which they were "born."

So, there may be more than 12 humanoid Cylon models.

[anotherquestion]

First of all, I'd like to posit my own small set of "unsupported assertations" rather than "unprovable facts" or "facts not in evidence" that appear in this and many other threads.

• Greek Mythology is a key plotting element and can be cleanly mapped to many of the principal characters. Although this has been asserted repeatedly, I have seen no definitive mapping nor any prediction based on mythology made before an episode aired that played out neatly, all of it has been after-the-fact retrofitting. A lot of the mythology may simply be baggage carried over from TOS but not in any way the basis of a plot outline.
• Ditto for Bladerunner references. Stop trying to map Deckert or Rachel to anyone. It's too much of a stretch and adds no value.
• The Cylons have a plan that controls every important action and event we've seen. This assertion seems to have been the most overused/abused. Starbuck's haphazard way of disabling a Raider was coreographed according to the Plan. Running out of water was part of the Plan. Finding water was part of the Plan. Running low on fuel was part of the Plan. Being steered to, and Finding Kobol was part of the Plan. Roslin's illness is part of the Plan. No creation of man could make a Plan that is so precise and exacting. If the Cylons are that successful at manuipulating the Colonials, then who really is the robotic race?
• There are many, many more human-looking Cylons or Cylon agents on Gallactica than have been revealed to us so far. I've seen speculations that, at one time or another, accounts every principal character to be a Cylon.
• Some have asserted that a single character is actually several Cylons (not the "simple" case of Gallactica-Boomer vs Caprica-Boomer, but that there are, in fact many Gallactica-Boomers and many Caprica-Boomers). What fun is that? That's a difficult burden of proof to make, I'd have to be convinced by something explict from RDM.
• The "clothes make the man/Cylon" assertion, that clothing styles or colors map to different personalities/gods/instances/traits of human-looking Cylon models. Admittedly some humans change clothes to match their moods, that's probably easier than the other way around.

Now, on to MHall's original list. All of his points are thoughtful. Many have been reasonably defended and reasonably disputed in this thread. Some of the "unprovable facts" are held because they do seem more reasonable, and likely, than any alternative explanation.

Here are two of the points I find most problematic.

* "Humanoid Cylons have consciousness transfer capabilities." Humanoid Cylons believe they have consciousness transfer capabilities. Almost. They don't always seem so sure, and I have posted an alternate mechanism that would fool them into thinking this exists. You can't be sure if they can't be sure. In any case, we have never seen a "reincarnated" Cylon with the memories of the dead one.

I've big problems with MHall's disputing this assertion. Doing away with it seems to raise many more problems than it solves. I've not been as perceptive, perhaps, to see clearly the Cylons' moments of uncertainty about this capability.

Conciousness transfer, even before the moment of death, does explain neatly the quality and quantity of intelligence the Cylons possess about members of the fleet.

It "rationalizes" the sacrifice of individual "sixes" and Centurions in the Caprica Boomer-and-Helo field experiment. It accounts for the lack of motivation for the Basestar "Sharons" to disable the nuke, when they had a minute or two to do so, or to ship it out on a Raider. After all, they weren't in any danger of dying, just of "transitioning".

You can argue all day that it doesn't matter if the capability doesn't exist so long as human-Cylons believe it exists. In fact, it does matter. Bad decisions will be made by human-looking Cylons who believe something that just isn't so. Bad military tactical decisions and bad strategic decisions. Human-looking Cylons would have a marked advantage over Colonials if the assertion were true. Events so far certainly haven't disproved the assertion.

I wonder, too, how hard it is to get the audience to "bite" on such an "inhuman" proposition. It has to be repeated many times by different characters. Main characters that we respect have to buy into it. Adama bought into it. We've all seen how Adama's made mistakes at points in the first season, both in his beliefs and in judgement. Could this just be another one? Somehow I don't think so. If you believe that the Cylons are fundamentally different from the Colonials, this is biggest reason why. Otherwise the show becomes a much less interesting "clone war" scenario.

* "And there has only ever been one Boomer on Galactica." Ditto to the above. There is evidence that this is not true.

I haven't been been convinced by the evidence to the contrary. It will take more that alterations in mood, changes of clothes, or mythological precedents to make me believe that there's been a lot of Boomer-swapping on Gallactica. It is simpler and more reasonable to assume that we've known only one instance of a Cylon Gallactica Boomer. It's also more coherent.

[MHall]

Uh, you spoiled.

Time will tell about the rest.

Soul transfer...

Whether you regard Cylons as basically computers or basically humans, the soul transfer mechanism could be "faked" in a very obvious way.

Let's first regard the Cylon minds as computers, and so their memories and consciousness are data. When your PC's hard disk totally dies, what do you do? That's right, you buy a new hard disk and restore the data from backup. (Or cry that you didn't make one.) Soon your PC is back on its feet and talking to all its PC buddies, who accept him as the same PC, like nothing happened. Almost. Your PC is missing the "memories" that occurred after the backup. Having no direct knowledge of how your PC was ressurrected, the other PC's shrug this off this discrepency. So, each PC comes to believe that when its hard disk dies it will have its consciousness transferred to a new hard disk.

Let's now regard the Cylon minds as biological. Now I unfortunately need to assume a replicator (Star Trek style.) But assuming the replicator can copy biological things, then everything can happen as above. The backups could be stored as data, or, if that is not possible due to the amount of data, as bodies in comas or in stasis.

In either case, the chrome toasters may do the job of undertaking and ressurrection, and so the humanoid cylons may not realize that their soul transfer mechanism is a hoax.

All I am saying in this thread is that because there is this obvious way the soul transfer mechanism could be faked, we should not assume that soul transfers work the way the humanoid Cylons seem to be saying. Additionally, there is no evidence that any form of soul transfer has taken place, be it faked or real. It appears that the Cylons believe in soul transfers, and that enables them to carry out suicide missions. The 9/11 terrorists believed they would live ever after in Paradise; should we believe they do?

Occam's razor says that restoring from a backup is simpler than whatever other mechanism you are likely to propose for soul transfer.

[anotherquestion]

Sorry for spoiling. It's moot by tomorrow anyhow.

I don't think we're as far apart as it might seem. The mechanisms you stipulate to "fake" a transfer of conciousness would, in fact, be a mechanism for achieving it if you expand the notion only slightly.

Since you so fond of comparing the brain to standard files and databases I'm sure your aware that massive sytems aren't generally backed up in bulk. Instead, a "delta extraction" is recorded (or something known as an "incremental" backup). If a "recovery" is needed, the deltas are applied to an older full backup.

Maybe the silica relays are exactly that. They relay new information in near real time to another instance that is analogous to a "hot standby" server. Ergo, high availability Cylons.

If you're granting a mechanism for full replication, how much of a stretch is it to stipulate a way to capture and transfer a single day's experience? You've already conceded the hardest part to swallow, that a reliable way exists to map and copy memories from a base standard wetware.