BSG -The Greatest TV Show Ever

Yeah, I thought the glowing spines were cool. Afaik, and they could have done more to highlight this at the end of the series, the humanoid cylons had fibre optic cables running through their central nervous system. The annoying thing is that you don't see any modules/connections in the catscan of Ander's brain. Although he is an original cylon, the fact that the other 4 could connect to each other's thoughts through the amniotic fluid would indicate that they also have fibre optics or some cellular circuitry that allows them to do this. I would say that like the ftl it's left unexplained, basically the cylons are masters of organic engineering and that's all we need to know beyond techno babble. Definitely we could posit that they have mastered genetic/organic computing, it's the same ideas except in a different (organic medium). But to go technobabble maybe every mind has a unique quantum signature and the cylons are encoded with an imprint which identifies them as cylons and allows the hub to keep a track of them. Maybe it involves manipulating quantum entanglement to transfer the data of their consciousness to the hub via the encoding?

I thought the cylon-human alliance was nice, basically the colonials were in space for four years, things were getting desperate and there were issues with the rebel cylons but basic survival and them getting acculturated to each other led to a shared interest in finding nu-earth. It also linked up perfectly with the theme of redemption through ending the cycle of hate/violence. In their quest to find earth the colonials were effectively purged of the worst aspects of themselves by God or as the series suggests a very advanced alien species or perhaps cylons from the future (those centurions at the end had 150,000 years to evolve so maybe they became godlike?) Also the final five weren't the cylons of the colonial era. Apart from having similar capabilities they were effectively a different breed of human, bio-mechanical humans (which is probably what we'll evolve into in the next hundred years), they had progressed much further from their mechanical origins than the colonial era cylons. Maybe they were genetically engineered humans with artificial implants and programming that were intended to serve the Lords of Kobol? Maybe there were no centurion cylons on Kobol or were no longer used? So you had a manufactured slave race of humans with some funky powers that won their freedom, established a colony on earth and were effectively just another race of humans. I think if anything is suggested it's that sentience transgresses material components, in a way discrimination against artificial lifeforms on the basis of being artificial isn't any different from racism, self awareness is self awareness regardless of the components.

I think finding earth in 2008 would have immediately dated the series, like in the way we might look at BSG 1980. At least going into the distant past allows them to avoid that problem. Although Starbuck is the type of person I would not get along with in real life I, for some reason, liked her character (hell I even dreamnt this week that she was giving me flying lessons, I was her favoured student haha). I thought the story arc here was problematic, specifically with respect to the music as "God" was effectively directly intervening rather than giving humans a choice, which would make their survival more hardwon, although this was represented more or less in the show as their survival didn't come easy. I think Starbuck basically went into a wormhole/space time anomaly on the planet, she ended up on old earth to remind the colonial fleet of the cycle and awaken the memories of the final five, in effect the humans/rebel cylons were being made aware of this cyclical violence so that they would be "purged" of their sins before they arrived at nu-earth. An informational copy was simultaneously created, effectively I would say this "God" being had complete mastery over the universe, as if it were a computer program, and just copy/pasted Starbuck, then deleted her or moved her to a different folder when her purpose was served. Which is why I think "God" was in truth an AI of some sort, perhaps comprised of the cylon intellect that evolved from the centurions, 150,000 years ago and human elements, that were amalgamated later on when us, (150,000 years later) managed to break the cycle and join up with the evolved cylons, as we had a slow enough timeframe to wrangle out at a deeper level, the flaws in colonial society that led to its destruction. I thought season 4 was hit and miss, the Baltar cult started off good, I really liked it when he was lifted up by Head Six, but it did get a bit convoluted. The finale was 40% good, 40% arrrrghhh and 20% hmmm, maybe it was alright after all.

I think "God" in the show was he who could not be named or the jealous god, one of the 12 lords of Kobol as at the end Head Gaius says "you know he doesn't like being called that", therefore he who shall remain nameless. Obviously due to some power coup he initiated a cycle that would replay itself and hence his involvement in trying to restart the cycle, the redemption narrative is as much one for the colonials as it is for him, he's basically cleaning up the mess he created.

This is a pretty good analysis which kind of highlights what the ending was trying to achieve:

http://www.overthinkingit.com/2011/08/01/battlestar-galactica-technology-evolution/

I found the arguments about technological convergence and evolutionary patterns really interesting. Finding humans on a planet which the colonials could exist on wasn't really improbable so the scriptwriters didn't need to say it was an astronomical coincidence. Imo it's more likely that advanced sentient life is informed by certain design parameters. It's a theory they could have gone with in anycase. I think the ending was quite poetic in a way, thematically at least I think it worked and it's quite cool that many of our narratives about AI can be traced back to a collective unconscious memory about the near extinction of humanity by machines!

In the original series the Cylons were created by a race of lizard aliens.