more on BSG

[coraa]

More BSG thoughts I typed out over lunch -- mostly things that the miniseries left me curious about/wanting to find out more about. While most of these are in the form of a question, please don't answer them! I want to find out for myself, without being spoiled. ;)



* Is Gaius a) completely insane, b) mentally unbalanced due to guilt, terror and exhaustion, and hallucinating, but otherwise stable, or c) totally sane, and actually in touch with a Cylon? At first I thought b, now I'm leaning toward c.
* If c, shouldn't he be more concerned that she's reporting back their every move? I guess there's not much he could do about it, but....
* Did Gaius actually know that Doral (Doral? Was that his name?) was a Cylon? Was he picking a likely scapegoat, or did he really have the evidence he said he had? When I first saw the scene where he was going on about hair samples, I was sure he was BSing at triple-speed, but then he turned out to be right.
* If he didn't have the evidence he said he had, did he have other evidence? Did Hot Cylon Chick(tm) (Number Six, I think?) tell him, or give him clues? Did he notice other things about him -- plausible, since he had the most direct (cough cough) interactions with a Cylon of anyone? Or was he just really lucky?
* Does Boomer know she's a Cylon? I'm almost positive that the answer is 'no,' especially since Number Six made it clear that not all Cylon infiltrators know they're Cylons, but since they are designed creatures it's possible she was just designed to be an excellent actor. (I hope not.)
* How many Cylons are on the Galactica? Assuming for a moment that the note that Adama got is correct -- and that the count doesn't include the models that look, as Gaius so charmingly put it, like toasters -- there could be as many as ten, counting Boomer. I assume they wouldn't send duplicates, so there is presumably not another identical Doral twin on there, or a doubled Boomer, because that would be awfully suspicious; and I assume that there's no model of Number Six either, because Gaius would notice.
* Does Number Six actually have the sympathy for Gaius that she claims and acts like she does, or is she also acting?

I'm looking forward to seeing more of a lot of the characters, but especially Apollo, Starbuck, and President Roslin. And the kid. Poor kid. (Especially if his one friend on the ship is actually a Cylon!)

Comments

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

Oh, the "who's a Cylon" game. I remember it well. Once you learn how many models of "skinjob" Cylons there are, it's great fun going down the checklist and seeing how many you have spotted, and how many you THINK you've spotted. In the end only one of my picks ended up being correct, and it's a charact- *SPOILER REDACTED*.

Doral was indeed his name-o.

And as far as which of the above options Baltar really is... well, I won't spoil it for you, but I will say that at some point in the series it will be revealed to you. They tell you much earlier than most people think, actually, but folks either missed it or wrote it off as Baltar being Baltar, and don't twig to it until the second, much more dramatic and explicit reveal.

[thegreatgonz.livejournal.com]

I missed this the first time through, but the note isn't the only source of the 12-Cylons count; Number Six tells this to Baltar (before the attack, when she's indisputably real). Not that that really proves anything.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'd forgotten that.

I'm tentatively assuming that the note is correct, but it wouldn't shock me if it was a lie, either. It'd suit the Cylons' purposes for the humans to be incorrect about the count (if they can profile X models, they might not look for the X+1 secret infiltrator).

[thegreatgonz.livejournal.com]

Apologies if this constitutes a spoiler, but at least so far as I've gotten, there are almost no further in-show references to the Cylon count, so I've tended to assume the count is intended for the audience, as a way to keep score. Maybe that makes it more reliable, maybe not.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Oh, interesting.

The potential to use it as a scorecard does seem to spur on speculation, at least for me.

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

Sho' nuff. How many do you think you've spotted so far? =D

[coraa.livejournal.com]

:D I'm not sure, since I wasn't looking for them until right at the end of the miniseries, at which point it was over -- but I will be looking for them when I watch the next chunk (probably/hopefully tomorrow)!

[donaithnen.livejournal.com]

Even though i was still a couple seasons behind at that point i remember the massive amount of speculation about who the "last" Cylon was after the first 11 had been revealed. I think they pushed that the big draw for a significant amount of the last season. (I still don't know myself who it is, or if it really was the last Cylon, though i expect i probably would have noticed a significant vocal backdraft if they'd "cheated" on that.)

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

The number of Cylons is a rather important issue by the end of the series.

[geekjul.livejournal.com]

This is fun to read :) I have been watching the series on DVD, slowly, and just finished Season 3, so I'm a bit ahead of you and am keeping my mouth shut on spoilers, except to say you ask very relevant questions, just keep watchin'...

[bellwethr.livejournal.com]

Oh yay, I remember these games well, too.

The miniseries is a tad bit different than the actual seasons; it was produced before there was a commitment to making the seasons. My personal theory is that it's pacing is a bit more frenetic than most of the episodes due to the desire to really amp up it's reception.

You will get answers to most of your questions. You may not always be happy about those answers, but you will get them. :)

[donaithnen.livejournal.com]

Huh, i don't remember who the kid is.

But anyways, you've touched upon one of my major complaints about BSG, which was especially present in the miniseries and early episodes. Their tendency to put characters in situations where they're forced to make hard choices, and then providing the viewers and sometimes the characters themselves with information that robs those choice of a lot of their impact.

When they knew the Cylons were going to be showing up soon and had to decide whether to risk sticking around for awhile to evacuate more people or run right away, and they decide to run. But then conveniently they see the Cylons show up just as they're getting ready to warp out! Which means that they wouldn't have had time to evacuate anyone anyways so they obviously made the right choice!

Does Gaius frame an innocent person to save his own ass, or does he refuse and face up to the consequences? He chooses to save his own ass and frame an innocent person! The bastard! But wait! It actually _was_ a Cylon, even though he didn't know it, so maybe he's not an irredeemable bastard? (At least the emotional appeal certainly seems to be there even though from a logical perspective it shouldn't make a difference at all since Gaius didn't know at the time.)

There are other examples that i won't cite for obvious spoilery reasons :)