03-29-2009, 10:06 PM
Spoiler tag, yadda yadda yadda. I know I'm a bit late to the thread, but I think I can clear up a few things for you MEAT.
Ellen Tigh provides plot exposition explaining this bit, although I'm afraid I don't know which episode. As you've previously mentioned, the Final Five went to the Colonies to try to prevent the inevitable war between the Colonials and the centurions they would invent; however, they arrived after the war had already begun. In order to achieve peace, the Final Five agreed to help the centurions develop "skinjob" models in return for armistice and self-imposed Cylon exile. (For some reason the Centurions were interested in making organic models - Bill Adama's Razor webisodes show some of their early efforts.)
Whether Resurrection technology was part of the deal with the Centurions, or if it was simply the only way to keep the new skinjob models from dying off (as they couldn't reproduce biologically), is unclear to me; but that's tangential to the bigger picture.
I agree, I've got some mixed feelings about it myself. A few things struck me after reading over this thread's discussion on the abandonment of technology and Earth2 resettlement:
1) It seems that the colonials purposefully renounced their technology. Someone upthread mentioned hearing Adama talk about making "provisions" for technology distribution amongst the settlers; his quote is something like "we will drop settler groups with provisions here, here...(pointing to the map)" so to me it's pretty clear he's talking about provisions meaning food. Speaking practically, the best way to ensure survival of technology information would have been under the centralized urban scheme that had already been rejected.
Lee Adama's speech about how their "minds had outgrown their hearts" also indicates that everyone understands that they will profoundly regress technologically. That being said, it looks like more than a few weapons and tools made it planetside (I saw more than one sidearm or optical device; Bill Adama kept a whole Raptor!) but after a couple generations the knowledge to manufacture or maintain such things would be lost anyway.
2) The Cavil-faction Cylons still possess a formidable fleet. Before the assault on the Cylon Colony, it is mentioned that the scout Raptor saw several base ships jump in-system (this is how the Galactica crew knew where it was safe to jump in). As these ships weren't there for the battle, they have to be in service somewhere; this makes settling on Earth2 a bit risky in the short-term, and getting rid of the fleet gets rid of a big "Colonial Parking" sign. Long-term, the Cylons can't reproduce and will die off (in theory at least; although we don't know what a "normal" Cylon lifespan is).
3) Making Hera the ancestor of humanity has some pretty bleak implications for the rest of the characters. This makes it very unlikely that any of the other scattered groups of Colonials survived or had offspring which survived. And unless Hera went around popping out kids with a bunch of different mates, it seems very likely that almost none of the descendants of the Colonials survived aside from her. Quite frankly, the idea that Lee Adama died childless, or that his descendants were eventually killed off, is pretty depressing.
Personally, before it was revealed that Tyrol's son wasn't really Tyrol's son, I had been assuming the series would end with him and Hera getting together to father humanity, making everyone today a half-Cylon. I'm pretty sure that was what the writers intended after the New Caprica story arc, but for some reason they decided to hang a lampshade over Tyrol's son. In fact, we don't even know what happened to him - Tyrol implies that he's not taking anyone with him to his hermitage, and the last we see of Hot Dog is flying a fighter in the final showdown. In fact, pretty much all the fighter pilots in the last battle were probably killed in Galactica's sudden jump out.
Quote:He also states that the Cylons#1 created the Cylons#2, but does not state why.
So Humans find Caprica and create AI in the form of Centurions? Or did the Cylons give them Centerions? How did the humans on Caprica forget about the skin-jobs when they coexisted with them in Kobol? Maybe because 4000 years had passed I presume.
Ellen Tigh provides plot exposition explaining this bit, although I'm afraid I don't know which episode. As you've previously mentioned, the Final Five went to the Colonies to try to prevent the inevitable war between the Colonials and the centurions they would invent; however, they arrived after the war had already begun. In order to achieve peace, the Final Five agreed to help the centurions develop "skinjob" models in return for armistice and self-imposed Cylon exile. (For some reason the Centurions were interested in making organic models - Bill Adama's Razor webisodes show some of their early efforts.)
Whether Resurrection technology was part of the deal with the Centurions, or if it was simply the only way to keep the new skinjob models from dying off (as they couldn't reproduce biologically), is unclear to me; but that's tangential to the bigger picture.
Quote:So my main gripe is with how the survivors all decided to give up their technology to live on Earth#2. I just don't buy that.
I agree, I've got some mixed feelings about it myself. A few things struck me after reading over this thread's discussion on the abandonment of technology and Earth2 resettlement:
1) It seems that the colonials purposefully renounced their technology. Someone upthread mentioned hearing Adama talk about making "provisions" for technology distribution amongst the settlers; his quote is something like "we will drop settler groups with provisions here, here...(pointing to the map)" so to me it's pretty clear he's talking about provisions meaning food. Speaking practically, the best way to ensure survival of technology information would have been under the centralized urban scheme that had already been rejected.
Lee Adama's speech about how their "minds had outgrown their hearts" also indicates that everyone understands that they will profoundly regress technologically. That being said, it looks like more than a few weapons and tools made it planetside (I saw more than one sidearm or optical device; Bill Adama kept a whole Raptor!) but after a couple generations the knowledge to manufacture or maintain such things would be lost anyway.
2) The Cavil-faction Cylons still possess a formidable fleet. Before the assault on the Cylon Colony, it is mentioned that the scout Raptor saw several base ships jump in-system (this is how the Galactica crew knew where it was safe to jump in). As these ships weren't there for the battle, they have to be in service somewhere; this makes settling on Earth2 a bit risky in the short-term, and getting rid of the fleet gets rid of a big "Colonial Parking" sign. Long-term, the Cylons can't reproduce and will die off (in theory at least; although we don't know what a "normal" Cylon lifespan is).
3) Making Hera the ancestor of humanity has some pretty bleak implications for the rest of the characters. This makes it very unlikely that any of the other scattered groups of Colonials survived or had offspring which survived. And unless Hera went around popping out kids with a bunch of different mates, it seems very likely that almost none of the descendants of the Colonials survived aside from her. Quite frankly, the idea that Lee Adama died childless, or that his descendants were eventually killed off, is pretty depressing.
Personally, before it was revealed that Tyrol's son wasn't really Tyrol's son, I had been assuming the series would end with him and Hera getting together to father humanity, making everyone today a half-Cylon. I'm pretty sure that was what the writers intended after the New Caprica story arc, but for some reason they decided to hang a lampshade over Tyrol's son. In fact, we don't even know what happened to him - Tyrol implies that he's not taking anyone with him to his hermitage, and the last we see of Hot Dog is flying a fighter in the final showdown. In fact, pretty much all the fighter pilots in the last battle were probably killed in Galactica's sudden jump out.