Brad: I posted this before on your other strand regarding Grazier's comments and the Tomb of Athena.
Sorry for posting it again here to you and readers who saw it already: it just seemed relevant to what you wrote about Mitochondrial Eve and I thought it fit here too, and thought readers might be moving into the new topics very quickly:

------

I believe the bogus science (or non-science) explaining modern human origins derives from a literary failing as well as it just being wrong science. So to those who are saying "well, it's science fiction so it doesn't have to be true to science", I'm going to argue that it's not only not true to science - it's not true to the whole storyline of BSG as a whole, as it preceded the finale.

I can't read Ronald Moore's mind, but I am speculating (why not?) that he became wedded, for whatever reason, to making the point that Hera is not just the mother of a future humanity, but the mother of present humanity. My view is that his insistence on maintaining this in the plot blocked what the story itself was calling for. By doing that, one ends up with inconsistencies in the story - like how did the Earth visible constellations get to the tomb of Athena - and the contrived divine interventions at the end, just to be able make the final point about Hera being our "mother". It forces the non-scientific presentation of human origins into the story: that we (modern humans) are the descendants of human aliens from Kobol, Cylons, and primitive humans.

It forces the colonials to dump all of their technology, so as to "fit" the BSG story of human origins into what we know today. The ending says, well, we integrated human and machine in a positive way (Hera) at incredible cost, but the best thing to do now is to just forget about all that and then, hopefully, everything will turn out OK. I think BSG has been a much better show than that: the whole BSG story is a story of redemption based on the union of human and machine, as symbolized by the Hera story (or at least the possibility of redemption). That's powerful stuff that just gets ejected in the ending, by having the major characters essentially say, let's forget the "true" history (true from the perspective of the story as told; false from the perspective of what we know about human evolution) of human origins, and let later humans figure it out all over again, maybe. What good redemption story does that? It fails scientifically, but also from a literary point of view, because the ending thematically undermines the story up to that point.

The plotline where the Earth constellations are seen from the tomb of Athena clearly indicate the story is saying, someone from Earth - our Earth, our future - came to Kobol and created this. The fact that the science advisor to the show, Grazier, acknowledges a problem with it given how the story developed, is relevant.

If you read things that writers say about their creative process, it's not uncommon for them to say that, as the writing unfolds, their characters' true natures inform the author of where the story should go. This is often different from what the initial conception might have been. And a good writer will listen to what his or her characters are saying. Even Moore has spoken of this sort of process multiple times. I believe that the Earth constellations at the tomb of Athena is an example of a story so well conceived, that even if Moore didn't have the ending worked out at the time this was written, the story itself was pointing in the direction that the Kobolian humans had origins on our Earth, in our Earth future.

By forcing Hera to be the "mother" of present humanity, the structural bounds and consistency of the story that enable its aesthetic meaning are therefore broken. This was not necessary from the story itself unless you really feel that the meaning of the story is bound up in Hera being our "mother"

So in contrast to what Moore himself has said - that the ending was all about characters and not plot - I think it's possible he messed up the ending for what was basically a plot point: that Hera is the mother of present humanity. Maybe he didn't view it as a plot point; maybe he thought the message and meaning of his creation are all contained in that ending. But I don't agree with that. I pointed out earlier the structural inconsistencies in the ending that derive from the story itself, to indicate that this ending doesn't really make sense based on the story alone.

I think a story where Hera is the mother of a future humanity, where human and technology are integrated and reconciled in a spiritual-religious context, is pretty powerful, more powerful than Hera as the "mother" of us, in the present. The future can still be left open, maybe the integrated humans and machines are susceptible to more cycles of war; but at least redemption is a possibility, and this is absolutely consistent with the symbolism of Hera.

I can't help but feel that Hera/mtEve is a damp squib, because there's no indication of what adding her DNA into the human gene pool achieved. If we accept that the natives aren't quite human yet, it's still hard to see why they couldn't have evolved the last .1% on their own. What did adding Hera's DNA into the mix actually do?

If they'd arrived at the Great Leap Forward, or at the dawn of civilsation/agriculture, that would have left a different unpleasant taste IMV, as then you're left with humans having evolved all the way then needing "outside help"- the Von Daniken thing of the natives being too stupid to do it on their own.

But anyway, on the main point I don't think a non-mystery BSG would have worked. Let's be honest here, most of us were watching by the end to see how it all turned out and to get answers (which ended up disappointingly as GOD DID IT). Character is important in a story, but if a story is only about characters it tends to be soap or melodrama. It's hard to make an entire series-as-prequel work (though this can work in an individual episode) as people won't maintain interest. We tend to want to find out what happened at the end, at the end of a story, which is why people hate spoilers.

And I think ultimately, if somebody wants to tell a story without a mystery ending, well, BSG with its implicit "finding Earth" hook, isn't the right story with which to do it.

Finally, back with Hera, I got quite the opposite vibe from the one I think the writers expected me to get. That her bones were of a "young woman" only confirmed that her life was indeed "nasty, brutish and short".

Just wanted to add that there is some great analysis on this page.

Best I've read, actually about the finale.

I agree with all of it btw.

I can forgive a lot of things with respects to how a series plays out but it needs to be consistent. It needs to at least make some
sort of sense with what happened before. The finale threw all that in the air. "God did it" isn't an answer. It's a non answer. Just like
"because" or "I say so". Throwing away technology, Bill living out the rest of his life isolated when he still has a son and best friend, Kara going "poof" and being a tangible "angel". yada yada.

After the Gaeta mutiny, this show was in a tailspin. So many said, "don't judge it until you see the rest of the show," while many of us were screaming, "this is filler" and "where are the answers?!"

The bottom line was, they thought they were done due to the writer's strike and would end in the bombed out "earth." They got a second chance at the ending and blew it. What a disappointment.

My guess is that RDM threw in the Hera connection to "us" as a sop to the fans who, all along, were clamoring and searching and trying to discern whether the fictional BSG universe was part of "our" history, past or possibly in the future.

The whole "Hera is important" notion that suffuses the last half season was quite arbitrary in my view. They never say why. None of the characters (other than her parents) ever explore the "why" part. Turning Hera into mitochondrial Eve while, at the same time, giving a concrete answer about theorized tie-ins with our present situation was probably seen as the lesser of 2 evils. Or 3. Or more. RDM didn't ever have a good grasp of how he wanted to wrap the whole thing up.

I enjoyed the scenes of Adama and Roslin smoking weed. I think we have that activity to thank for the clusterfrak and mishmash storylines at the end.

I was disappointed with the ending. It failed on many levels. Notably as pointed out, how does Greek mythology make it 149000 years? What no predators on the Tanzanian plain? Herds of animals that large ALWAYS have predators hanging out so how the heck do the colonials just wander about without ending up a tasty snack. 150000 years ago? Weren't we in an ice age or something around that time?
Wasn't the Sahara green? Hell it would have worked better if they landed on some island in the atlantic, laid the foundation for a city and called it Atlantis! It just seems to me the writers got lazy in the end.

Yes, I know that Ron Moore promised no time travel - but time travel effected by a singularity and FTL technology is just as reasonable a "science" based answer to what happened as anything else proposed here. Indeed, if all of this has happened before, and all will happen again, perhaps what we have here is a circle of time where the ending is the beginning is the ending. Kobolians did come from Earth, in our future, and the Galactica returned to Earth in our past. And it all happens again.

And while all of the questions weren't answered, I propose that BSG's initial question - does humanity deserve to survive - was answered and that answer is us.

I say this, having really enjoyed Brad's Ideas for quite some time, but knew he was setting himself up for disappointment with his overwhelming desire that this be "hard" sci-fi. No, it was "naturalistic" - no bumpy-forehead aliens, no laser beams, an attempt at a consideration of physics - sci-fi which he always acknowledged was a story about people - about us, figuratively - and just happened to be set in space. I'm fine with that.

Just remember people. It's not a documentary.

I'll throw myself in with the other 'disappointed'. What bothered me the most was the stunning lack of imagination. In the same amount of time and budget, committed back-story and possible future-story the whole episode could have resolved some of the central mysteries, held on to the Hera plot hook and set up a follow-on on story in the future perhaps uniting the human and cylon elements in a quest to understand their origins - answer the big questions. But no.

Instead we get an ending where the human/cylon group just gives up and commits racial suicide in slow motion. The will to live apparently drained from them so they live out their last days which would have been Hobbsian as they are fully ill-equipped to survive on a wild world such as earth 150,000 years ago.

The Hera/Eve hook falls short as well. Who today would think that passing on a few genes would be satisfactory if all the collective value of your civilization would soon be lost? Especially if those genes that had cost oh-so-much to deliver turn out to be no better than our current lot. This led me to the idea that the genes themselves other than providing perhaps vessel for basic intelligence are nothing special; that it is the civilization i.e the 'programming' that is the essential value, and that after fighting so hard to improve the core of their civilization, the hard fought for enlightenment of the survivors - that which was truly valuable - was given up, they role over and die. Are these characters we can or even want to get behind?

So why is the 'cycle reset' the genocide or suicide of the race? Is this some punishment for sins? Even after learning the hard lessons, no forgiveness? This group isn't allowed a 'pass' to develop as a peaceable civilization that can perhaps move onto the next level? Rather this version of the 'experiment' is terminated like bacteria in a Petri dish? Kind of a 'HitchHikers' view of things, just keep running the experiment to see what happens. One of these times they don't 'play god' or they get the singularity right and win a pass to the next round. Oh please.

The idea that 'god did it' is also a bit ludicrous. This shows a level of contempt of the characters and the viewers. This is where I think the ending especially let the viewers and the characters down. Certainly some more could have been revealed to the characters to give them meaning - this is why you went through what you just went through, these are the consequences of certain decisions you've made, here's a bit of reality you didn't understand before. And, more could have been given to the viewers. Here's at least a hint of who we (god) are and our origins, and oh by the way, here's what's behind curtain number 3 for the rag tag group of survivors. I mean dudes, didn't you study Greek theater? Don't you understand the essential concept of deus ex machina? Lost opportunity.

Looking for others out here just as unhappy with the entire mess that was season 4.0 and 4.5, as well as the finale, I stumbled across this blog. On reading the comments, I see that I am not alone. One thought, perhaps the Earth constellations appear in the Temple of Athena because dog, er., god put them there...ok, I jest...

In the temple, when the arrow is put on the statue, the entire temple interior changed into a grassy field where the 12 constellations were easily visible. One burning question, where was that holographic kind of technology on Galactica or anywhere in the fleet??? And, if that kind of technology, after thousands of years was still on the planet, why not start knocking down some walls and see what else is there?

Maybe what Hera brought to the "human" gene pool was a genetic trait obviously missing from the "humans" of the 12 colonies - the ability to be curious about life.

PS - the fight scenes were great, the flashbacks with Laura in a nighty, Adama taking a polygraph, etc., were useless. Give me Asimov any day. Oh, and after 150,000 years, where is Adama's gold ring he put on Laura - since gold does not rust or degrade? Or their bullets, or axes, or any glass they brought down? It would have been much more interesting for Moore's paper headline to read "African settlement had glass beakers 150,000 years ago" or maybe "Unknown metals and structures found on African grave site, bones appear to have been made of some unknown metal" or something equally dramatic...

People taking words out of context makes me laugh. Have fun listening to the podcast where you find out Hera was M-Eve since her character was conceived and even in season 1 our Earth was the future. Can't wait to see your reaction to what, "It's the characters stupid," was actually about, and how it had nothing to do with the plot, but the flashbacks and how the final episode was "structured".

And the truth about assumptions rings true again.

Brad I just wanted to say I stumbled across your blog analyzing the BSG series and I'm glad I found it. I share most if not all of the frustrations you have with the series and you've made all of your points very well. I'd never thought I'd see a *literal* Deus Ex Machina plot device used in a TV show. And you're right, if it was just about the characters, there should not have been any mysteries to mislead us into thinking the plots were of any importance. I don't buy that excuse, and it sounds like Ron Moore was simply rationalizing to himself for not knowing how to get out of the corner he wrote himself into.

it sounds like Ron Moore was simply rationalizing to himself for not knowing how to get out of the corner he wrote himself into.

Except it isn't true. God, Kara the agent of the diving and Hera as M-Eve will be revealed as the end of the series since they began talking about it late in season 3. Moore says so in the podcast for Daybreak and he has said he plans on releasing the writer's retreat tapes (which will prove it), so he isn't lying, or rationalizing, you just never got it.

I hate the idea that "God did it' - but I think there's a way out that can rescue (almost) all of the plot's scientific mistakes and be consistent with a more SCI-FI than religious interpretation.

The clue we can use for this purpose is the 'Angel' Gaius' comment in the last scene that 'It hates being called God'. Let's take this to mean that the 'God' of the story is not an omniscient being but an advanced intelligence, be it biological or mechanical. Perhaps It is the culmination of the work of an ancient race; in any case, It's not 'God' but It merely allows the characters in the story to call it God for the sake of convenience.

Let's imagine that this Being has an interest in the development of civilisation in the universe. We can imagine that it has fostered many races in many galaxies. Some four million years ago it noticed the emergence of intelligent hominids on Earth (OUR Earth) and decided to 'abduct' a small group (with mixed racial characteristics) for ‘foster care’ on several other worlds throughout the galaxy. That way the Being could learn about the nature of humans and figure out how to guide us in the best way to becoming an advanced, peaceful civilisation – It needs to work this out, because every intelligent race in the universe would be likely to be vastly different from each other, so the same rules would not apply for assisting in the development of all civilisations. The Being also wants to limit Its own interference to the role of a Guide - for it is morally wrong to subject an intelligent race to Its own will. That's why It doesn't directly interfere on Earth itself. Take note that It also 'abducts' a small selection of animals observed to be useful to humanity or for domestication - cats, dogs, pigeons, insects etc.

So the Being teaches and instructs the first 'abducted' groups of humans - and uncovers our creativity and passions, as well as our cruelties and faults. It also discovers that inevitably, at some technologically advanced point in our civilisation, humanity discovers the secrets of AI and - in our dumb human way - our first thought is to enslave our creations to our own purposes. Not only is this tendency an intergalactic no-no (you don't enslave anything intelligent), it also inevitably gives rise to bloody revolution on the part of the AI - the Cylons - and war between man and machine. Nuclear holocaust is therefore inevitable too - and the Being must have seen this cycle happen time and time again in the course of its project. A few million years into Its program and It theorises that the only way forward is to interbreed humanity - resourceful, bad-tempered, headstrong human beings - with humanity's cool, calculating and emotionally naive creations, the Cylons.

This is after the Kobol colony - with which it intervened directly (where Gods and Man lived alongside each other) failed spectacularly despite being a short-lived settlement (no widespread ruins of cities; in fact Kobol seems to have been colonised very lightly and is therefore certainly not a candidate for an evolutionary starting point for a branch of the human race).

So the Being intervenes on Kobol before the planet’s complete nuclear destruction by sending out the 12 colonies (under the Zodiac banners of their original homeworld, our prehistoric Earth) and sending the Cylons in turn to a 13th planet which would be called Earth (the first planet to actually bear this name). This forced separation also gives the Being the chance to see if the Cylons will do OK on their own when allowed to flourish as an independent civilisation without their human creators. Sadly, no - the Cylons repeat the cycle and make their own AI slaves, resulting in holocaust.

Resurrection technology is able to save the Final Five, but the downside is that within range of resurrection devices, Cylon males are rendered sterile. This is something not immediately obvious to the Cylons. When the Final Five reach the colonies, just in time for the first Cylon war, they help the Colonial Cylons develop humanoid bodies and resurrection at the same time - and when these 7 Cylon models of our story discover they too are sterile, they incorrectly presume it is because they are unable to experience true human 'love'. Only interbreeding with a male human (unable to resurrect and therefore devoid of the harmful chemical substances necessary to allow resurrection in Cylons) can result in pregnancy. Simon's interbreeding experiments on Caprica were unsuccessful because he was trying to impregnate human females with sterile Cylon male sperm. Incidentally, Tigh manages to father a child with Caprica Six as a result of spending some time on Galactica when it was out of range of the resurrection ship, thus restoring his potency. The foetus's death was a result of stress brought on by the return of Ellen.

Anyway, Cavill rebels, gains control of the resurrection technology and the Final Five, and manages to reprogram the other Cylons, raiders and centurions. He orchestrates a holocaust on the colonies. Fortunately the Being has anticipated this possibility and has already arranged things so that a single hybrid - Hera - will be able to escape along with a smattering of humanity and humanoid Cylons. Along the way as we follow their journey, we certainly note that humanity is rash and petty even in small numbers, that political scheming is rife even while on the run from an enemy, that pure humans have unbelievably short memories and act in thoroughly illogical ways. The Cylons, by contrast, are emotionally like children: observe Galen's petty short fuse, Tigh’s alcohol dependency, Six's lasciviousness and Eight's covetousness and teenage-like manipulative behaviour to charm what she wants. It's just further proof that in order for either race to become a fine civilisation, the Cylons and the Humans have to merge.

Why doesn't the Being just prevent all the wars and killing? Well, that’s not part of what the Being is there for. It's not a benevolent God, Its only interest is in the flourishing of our species. This is certainly not a new concept in Science Fiction. It has already concluded that humanity's inevitable destiny is self-destruction by war with AI Cylon creations. Our best shot at survival is interbreeding. It's time at last for the Being to return Its attention to Earth, and deliver the result of its project with the abducted humans - Hera, along with an assortment of cohabiting Humans and Cylons dispersed across the Earth to ensure a good genetic melting pot.

Just remember that Gaius's assertion that the Colonial humans' ability to interbreed with the native humans of Earth (who have not changed much in these 4,000,000 years) is the divine will of God is JUST HIS OPINION - and he is now a religious leader after all. The Scientist in him - and in us - should be enough to inform him (and us) that Earth is obviously the origin of all humans, and that the Being has been involved in Human affairs for a long, long time.

So what happens next? It's not necessary to assert that the Colonial settlements around the world all fail just because we have no record of them in human history. They probably do interbreed with the natives, and over the generations the traces of Colonial life disappears, probably with the help of the Being, whose whole project has been to assist with the natural development of humanity, not to equip it with cultural advances. To allow modern civilisation to be unleashed on the origin planet, Earth, would be against Its principles.

After the life spans of the fleet personnel, the Being would gradually discourage the passing down of the cultural technologies of the Colonies, originally bestowed by Itself to the abducted groups anyway. It wants humanity to make its own cultural discoveries, and the result of its project has been the introduction to the human gene pool of Cylon DNA, which serves to improve the rationality and cultural stability of the human species. It's important that Cylons have been invented by humans and not by Itself, further allowing humanity to be responsible for its own destiny despite the influence of the Being.

Humans are naturally religious – the natives that the Colonials discover on Earth already practice burial of the dead. The Being doesn’t approve (It hates being called God) but recognises this is a useful and admirable natural tendency in humans: to look for greater truth and deeper meanings. Not on the Being’s agenda to argue with religiosity.

One of the overriding moral points of the show is that it's wrong to enslave other intelligent creatures or bend other intelligences to your own will, even when you are the creator and master of that species. This moral point is thoroughly consistent with my proposed 'Being' solution to all the problems brought on by the show's seemingly religious ending.

One final point - Starbuck. An Angel - a servant of the Being and of a similar nature - necessarily inserted into the action in order to safeguard the Being's interests just in case things didn't go according to plan (and when Cavill rebelled, they certainly didn't, requiring the 'activation' of the role of Starbuck). For reasons of non-intervention, Starbuck has to become human, or at least experience humanity as thoroughly as possible. At the right time, Starbuck's physical body has to die, so that she can be reassembled and play a more explicit role, and be withdrawn at the end of her journey.

As an Angel who has lived as a human, Starbuck probably has a great fondness for the Caprican culture she was brought up in. Even though it was the insistence of the Being that the writing, language and technology of the Colonial civilisation had to die out after their reinsertion amongst the human race on Earth, we can imagine that Starbuck ensured that the religion and written script of the Colonies be allowed to re-emerge in Classical Greece and Rome, and that the language of the colonies be allowed to re-emerge in Mediaeval England. Perhaps for sentimental reasons, if nothing more. She may have appeared on Earth at various points in history to teach these stories, but certainly only at times appropriate in humanity’s own cultural evolution and no earlier. That way the insertions of long-lost Colonial culture cannot pre-empt natural human cultural development on Earth.

Admittedly, this solution doesn't resolve the problem of the time-discrepancy with the exodus of the colonies from Kobol and the destruction of the Cylon civilisation on the 13th Tribe's Earth - I don't think anything can (maybe, at a stretch, time dilation caused by sublight drives of the Kobol Cylons?) and otherwise has to be left as a mistake. Everything else can be made to fit without contradicting the events of the show!

Let me know what you think.

I was trying to get to the notion of what you posted so eloquently in earlier threads about how abduction could have played the key role in colonizing Kobol and creating the 13 tribes...thus ensuring DNA compatibility. You've taken it much farther... Excellent narrative, and it fits very well. Indeed, it's too bad they didn't have you on the writing staff...

Since prequels are all the rage (Caprica), it would be nice if they did just what you described to tie this series together in a neat bow... perhaps pieces of it might appear in Caprica, but frankly, I'd be more interested in a prequel called Kobol, just as you wrote it.

Firstly, I enjoyed the battle portion of the finale, mostly since it is an element that has been missing from the show for some time. The last portion with it's reliance on "angels" and its requirement to suspend analytical thought did not work for me at all.

What I find distracting to remaining immersed in the story, is how the supposed "don't call it god" is very much concerned with the cycle of human\humanoid creating robot, robot rebelling causing war concept, but apparently has no issues with all the human propagated human genocide in our past.

We see both head figures walking in New York, and they are focusing on dancing robots and how the cycle might repeat. Where were they (or the not god) during the Second World War and all the other instances that occurred after the colonials landed on Earth-2. No doubt similar instances occurred on Kobal, Earth and the colonies.

Humans creating robots that try to kill us might not be a problem if the larger issue of humanities constant need to destroy itself was solved...

Brad’s latest blog entry helped me finally understand my own lukewarm enjoyment of the ending. Even worse than the giant mysteries of the show were the many, many hints of deeper meaning to characters or events which turned out to amount to nothing. These teases such as Baltar’s identity as the “chosen one” imbued certain characters or events with a deeper meaning but ultimately were irrelevant to the overall resolution of the plot. The greatest tease was Hera’s “connection” to the cylon god which had nothing to do with her true destiny as Metachlorian-Eve.

Other teases included the hint that the Final Five built the Temple of the Five in the scriptures or were servants of the “one whose name cannot be spoken.” That D’anna seemed to have a conversation with one of the F5 during “Rapture” is a joke considering they were only representations of the F5 and not even alive. Also, if “god” was a force of nature and not somehow artificial himself then why would he have a deeper connection with artificial life, like hybrids, than natural life? This implication that god might be related to the cylons was just about the longest running tease of the show. The most ridiculous tease, however, was the hybrid prophecy about Starbuck from Razor which said “they should not follow her.” That deeply ominous warning ultimately meant absolutely nothing, a kind of TV writer’s “bait and switch”.

In the final analysis, the show made so much seem deep and significant which turned out to be nothing more than a hook to keep interest in the plot or characters.

seriously brad, get over it LOL its just a show.

They took the show pretty serious at the UN before the finale. I wonder how that would have gone if it happened after the last episode instead of before it. At no point was it discussed that divine intervention was behind everything. Makes me nervous to think the World Government could be influenced by a show based on divine intervention.

Brad, we know there are some prequels coming. But it seems to me there is plenty of material for a sequel. With the Cylons (good and bad), other human survivors, and plenty of FTL technology out there, is this really the end for Adama and company? C'mon, we know Lee wants to explore, and he must have one of those Raptors, that sounds like an adventure, and won't he be tempted to go back offworld after a few years. (if he still has the fuel?) After all, they have brought all the major Star Trek characters back to life at least once, haven't they? After all, as long as Hera dies on Earth, otherwise they have thousands of years to play around with and everything still fits, right?