Earth Angel

If you’re a Galactica fan who for some strange reason hasn’t yet seen the third-season finale, then stop reading now, because there’s SPOILAGE AHEAD.

The Final Five Okay, judging from the finale it looks as though my earlier guess (see here and here) that Ron Moore is intending to reprise the original Starbuck’s intended character arc from the 1979-80 show, including his eventual metamorphosis into an angel-being who returns to help the Colonial fleet, was right on the money. In that case, speculation about where season 4 is headed might well be guided by further reflection on the angel-beings from the original series.

If you’re not familiar with the original series, you might want to check out the following angel-related clips on YouTube so we can all be on the same page. In this clip a supernatural being calling himself Count Iblis visits Baltar in his prison cell and alternately threatens and reassures him in a manner interestingly similar to Six’s M.O. on the new series (well, mutatis some important mutandis). Iblis also reveals a thousand-year-old connection to the Cylons, his voice having served as the template for the Imperious Leader’s voice – thus anticipating the new show’s implied connection between Cylon and human mythologies. (Feel free to quit watching this clip midway through, around 5.52 when Iblis vanishes from Baltar’s cell; the second half isn’t especially relevant.) In this clip we learn that Iblis is identical with the Satan figure of Colonial mythology (no surprise, since “Iblis” is the Arabic name for Satan), and that he is in some sort of conflict with the angel-beings. In this clip we discover that the angel-beings are interdimensional travelers who were once as the Colonials are but have progressed to a higher level of being, that the Colonials may one day be raised to this same level, and that Iblis is a renegade angel-being. The angel-beings also raise Apollo from apparent death (explaining to the Colonials, as the Colonials in another episode – I forget which – would explain to a group of less advanced humans, that death is technology-relative), and offer to help the Colonials find Earth. Finally, in this clip we see Starbuck, given up for dead by the Colonial fleet, being judged worthy by one of the angel-beings, subtly named Angela. (In the unfilmed episode The Wheel of Fire we would have found out what Starbuck is being judged worthy of – namely to be raised to angelhood himself.)

Count Iblis Now I don’t expect Moore to follow any of this very closely. In particular, I don’t think we’re likely to see a Satan figure like Iblis; Moore is clearly more interested in conflicts among various sorts of flawed characters than in conflicts between pure good and pure evil. But Moore has followed the Starbuck part closely enough that it’s worth considering what further clues the original show’s angel-being arc might contain.

The similarity between the old show’s Baltar-Iblis interaction and the new show’s Baltar-Six interaction, together with Six-in-the-head’s claim to be an “angel,” invites speculation that Six-in-the-head is an angel-being (or whatever the new show’s equivalent is), and not a Cylon after all. And just as Baltar has a Six that nobody else can see, so Starbuck in “Maelstrom” had a Leoben that nobody else could see – and that Leoben admitted to not really being Leoben, and seemed to be an angel-being also.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that Six-in-the-head and Leoben-in-the-head are on the same side; they might represent different factions of angel-beings, and indeed the conflict between Cylon and Colonial religion may reflect some war among the angels (though probably representing a more complicated conflict than the original show’s analogous one). (Which side Caprica Six’s Baltar-in-the-head is on I couldn’t say.)

I'm back! Miss me? Baltar’s and Starbuck’s respective Cylons-in-the-head appear to share still further similarities; each keeps telling its host human that he or she has been chosen for a special destiny – almost as though the different angelic factions are grooming different candidates for human messiah. (Does the “Baltar cult” among the Colonials have anything to do with this?) And just as Leoben-in-the-head evidently has something to do with Starbuck’s miraculous recovery from being apparently blown to bits in “Maelstrom,” so Six-in-the-head presumably has something to do with Baltar’s almost-as-miraculous recovery from a nearby nuclear blast in the series pilot. (That’s one reason I don’t think either Baltar or Starbuck is a Cylon. Because they can’t both be ….)

So what’s the relation between the angel-beings and the Cylons? My guess is that the Cylons didn’t make the transition from toasters to skinjobs entirely unaided, that angel-beings were involved. (For what it’s worth, in one of the Galactica comic books it was Count Iblis who originally tricked the Cylons into making the transition in the other direction, from organic to cyborg.) Given that in interviews Ron Moore has told us that the Final Five are “fundamentally different” from the previously revealed seven, could it be that the two groups of skinjobs, the seven and the five, were raised up by the two competing factions of angel-beings? Some squabble among the Lords of Kobol, perhaps? (Though I’m still not sure why the Final Five in D’Anna’s and Roslin’s visions look like angel-beings themselves.)

Does Starbuck know the way to San Jose? Certainly the Final Five seem to have a special affinity for the Lords of Kobol and/or the 13th tribe; witness Tyrol’s ability to sense the location of the Eye of Jupiter, the Five’s connection with both the Temple of Jupiter and the Kobol opera house, and now their self-awareness as Cylons being triggered, apparently, by the fleet’s approach to the location of the next beacon left by the 13th tribe.

I note also that the revelation of Tyrol as one of the Final Five means that there are now two Cylon-human hybrid babies on board the Galactica – but one is a hybrid of a human with one of the seven, while the other is a hybrid of a human with one of the Final Five. (The angel-beings were interested in hybrid babies in Galactica 1980 too – remember Dr. Zee.) Roslin’s dream could be interpreted as implying that Hera, the non-Final-Five hybrid, is in some sort of danger from the Final Five. (A related question: the being on the Cylon baseship also called a “hybrid” presumably isn’t a Cylon-human hybrid; but in that case, of what and what is it a hybrid?)

Among the many further questions these speculations leave unanswered:

Do the Final Five come in multiple versions like the seven, or are they one-offs?

Do the Final Five date from the same period as the seven, or are they somehow earlier (thus explaining Tigh’s service record)? Could they, somehow, even be from Earth?

Who’s the fifth member of the Final Five? Is he or she in the fleet or elsewhere? Did he or she hear the music too?

Are the twelve Cylon models based on the twelve Lords of Kobol, with the division between the five and the seven somehow reflecting an analogous division among the Lords? (Maybe; but don’t try too hard to link up the known Cylons with the traditional Olympian pantheon – only six of the original Olympians were male, and we already have seven male Cylon models. Though of course we don’t know for sure that the Kobol pantheon matches the Greek one exactly, since we don’t know all the names of the former.)

What lies beneath? How did the other Cylons track the Colonial fleet?

What caused the power failure (and Roslin’s reaction) just before they showed up?

How does the real Leoben know about Starbuck’s destiny?

Back when our protagonists were running around on Kobol, it was mentioned that the original Athena had committed suicide. Do angel-beings commit suicide? Was it really suicide?

Anders, Tigh, Tory, and Tyrol were all drawn to a room with a large, prominent bulkhead/hatch on the floor, to which lighting and camera angles blatantly drew our attention. What’s under it?

Both Cylons and angel-beings have told us that “this has all happened before.” Meaning what, exactly?

Is the Earth we see in the final scene our past, our present, or our future? (Given the appearance of the North American coastline it’s presumably no more than a few million years distant from the present.)

Is the version of “All Along the Watchtower” that the Final Five (or four of them anyway) hear really supposed to be a song from Earth, or something else?

Do the song’s lyrics have some special significance? Are the “joker” and the “thief” the same as the “two riders … approaching,” and do they refer to characters on the show? or factions of the angelic war? (If they turn out to be Ron Moore and David Eick, and the closing animations after the credits of each show turn out to be actual parts of the plot, we’ll have to kill them.)

25 Responses to Earth Angel

  1. Norman Horn April 3, 2007 at 12:27 am #

    I don’t think the song has a special “earth meaning”. It’s the lyrics that are the important part. How so, I’m too tired to fully explain right now, but check out http://www.bearmccreary.com for some of the details of WHY they chose the song.

  2. Johnny Lemuria April 3, 2007 at 5:38 am #

    Why do we assume that the basestars we saw in the finale are “sevener” basestars? Considering that they are in a part of space that the modern-day colonials and “sevener” cylons have never been to, and that Starbuck and four of the final five reveal themselves at the same time these basestars reveal themselves, doesn’t that point to these perhaps being “fiver” basestars? I guess we’ll find out in *sigh* eight months.

  3. quasibill April 3, 2007 at 1:26 pm #

    I’m sure “the Kevins” thank you profusely for finally blogging about BSG…

    🙂

  4. Brian April 3, 2007 at 3:21 pm #

    If you freeze-frame Earth at the end of the episode, you’ll see that California has fallen into the ocean. At least it looked that way to me. The coastline change definitely puts BSG in our future.

  5. Administrator April 3, 2007 at 5:34 pm #

    It doesn’t look that way to me. Here’s the pic.

  6. Administrator April 3, 2007 at 5:39 pm #

    quasibill,

    I think only one of the Kevins was sincere ….

  7. Kevin April 3, 2007 at 7:20 pm #

    Here’s one Kevin saying: Thanks so much. I was really close to posting some bad pun like “I can’t get no relief … from your not blogging about BSG.”

    As usual, though, your thoughts help quiet my lust for theories.

  8. quasibill April 3, 2007 at 7:57 pm #

    I know, but it made me laugh out loud when Kevin #2 said that 🙂

  9. Brian April 5, 2007 at 11:46 am #

    It’s really hard to tell about California falling into the sea. It looks to me like Baja California is a little longer than it is today, and that San Diego is gone. But I could easily be wrong. It’s not as obvious as I had thought when I was watching this my living room, that’s for sure.

  10. Administrator April 6, 2007 at 5:28 pm #

    San Diego is gone? Must be the Babylon 5 universe then! 🙂

  11. Tim April 12, 2007 at 1:26 am #

    There is an interesting interpretation of the All along the Watchtower lyrics and it’s relevance to the BSG saga here.

  12. Administrator April 12, 2007 at 1:39 pm #

    Thanks, Tim — that interpretation makes more sense than most of what I was thinking.

  13. Administrator April 13, 2007 at 1:32 pm #

    Strong evidence that Starbuck is not the fifth Cylon, here.

    Remarks that Moore made in one of the other interviews has me thinking it’s not Adama, Apollo, Roslin, or Baltar either.

    So who?

    Heh. Would be funny if it were Cally. (And for all we know fivers can interbreed even if seveners can’t.) But … no.

    Can’t be Helo, or the whole Hera plot is frakked.

    Not Zarek, I’m thinking. That would be too odd.

    Well, it would have to be someone for whom there’s an explanation why they didn’t show up in the storeroom with the other four. Maybe someone’s who not on Galactica? If so, that might mean they’re elsewhere in the fleet, or it might mean they’re not in the fleet at all, and if it’s the latter, it might be someone we haven’t even met yet.

    Or … heh. Bring back Billy Keikeya as Imperious Leader!!!

  14. Otto Kerner April 14, 2007 at 2:31 am #

    Gaeta! Gaeta! Gaeta!

  15. Adam June 1, 2007 at 12:25 pm #

    The show’s “other” type of hybrid (on the Cylon baseship) is a mix of mechanical and organic Cylons.

  16. showustheway,starbuck June 19, 2007 at 6:55 pm #

    firstly, excuse my sometimes circuitous english….i’m from austria…

    my bet is on romo lampkin aka mark sheppard as the final one. why?
    because he would perfectly fit into the scheme. (even though we could not “see” him “hearing” the watchtower melody 😉
    1) he almost seemed to be all-knowing, always stayed cool and i’ve got the impression that he’s pulling the strings in nearly every matter…
    2) his parents had been kidnapped and murdered (right?)…so, no real evidence of his relatives
    3) he just left galactica before the final four gathered…

    do you know more reasons ?

    so say we all,

    mike

  17. showustheway,starbuck June 19, 2007 at 7:20 pm #

    forgot one important reason myself: 4) either d.eick or r.moore said in an interview, that there is a really good chance that we’re gonna see romo in the fourth season….why ? didn’t he say (to lee adama) that after the trial he wouldn’t like to be linked to baltar anymore and he has other tasks to fulfill ?

  18. G Byrne November 7, 2007 at 11:10 am #

    OK… fine… it’s me, everyone! I AM THE 5TH CYLON!!!

    Sorry to ruin the final season for all of you, but I have been hiding here on Earth for a long time now and I am tired of hiding!

    I thinking about hooking up with Six and trying for a child. When you guys see her, send her my way and we’ll be sure to get started.

  19. Administrator April 14, 2008 at 4:36 pm #

    By the way, although those YouTube videoes I linked to are long since yanked, the unproduced Galactica 1980 script can still be accessed here.

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