Let's Talk BSG
Feb. 15th, 2007 11:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sadlikeknivesThere shall be rambly musings and spoilers behind the cut. And then a poll.
1. I've been wandering a lot of the BSG bulletin boards lately, and one thing I keep seeing is people saying we don't even know if the civilian fleet knows Sharon exists, and how she would probably be in danger if they did. And, y'know, if I was Adama, the first damn thing I would have done after the dust settled a bit from the exodus from New Caprica would be call a press conference and say, "This is Lieutenant Sharon Agathon. She is an officer of the Colonial fleet, and she is married to an officer of the Colonial fleet. And yes, she is a Cylon. But more importantly, she is the reason any of you got off New Caprica. We all owe her a debt of gratitude, and anyone attempting her harm as she goes about her duties will answer to Galactica."
2. If Baltar was afraid Sharon would kill him when she found out she was a Cylon, and that's why he lied to her about her test, why the frak didn't he go straight to Adama and let the marines handle it? That would have solved the problem right quick.
3. Okay, first off, I've seen a lot about how old Hera is, and how she looks small for her age, and why isn't she walking or talking or at least making more noise when not screaming and blah blah blah, and let's start with some math:
Conceived about one month after the attacks. Born one month premature (nine months post-attacks). Time between her birth and the settlement of New Caprica unclear, but let's say one to two months there. Sixteen months on New Caprica, bringing her to seventeen to eighteen months, then maybe a few months in Cylon captivity. I'd say three tops, probably less--at any rate, she's less than two years old. And she was a month premature, a frail baby, and her mother was exposed to a lot of radiation, given poor nutrition, and beaten and almost raped while pregnant. Then, on New Caprica, she received poor nutrition both before and after the Cylon occupation, and who knows how the Cylons treated her while they had her, just because they didn't know any better. So of course she's small for her age; she hasn't had the nutrition to make good on those Agathon genes. She's also probably somewhat behind in her development because of the number of huge disruptions in her very short life.
4. The epidemic in the last episode confused me, because it moved very fast once people started getting infected with it, but where the hell did it come from? They've been in space for close to three years now, a closed population in a closed environment for much of that time. I don't think new disease clusters should be popping up now. A carrier could, of course, spread the disaese without getting sick themself, and have just arrived on Galactica, but there should have been an outbreak on whatever ship they were on before, and probably on New Caprica as well. Surely someone couldn't Typhoid Mary around the fleet for this long without being noticed.
5. And now the big one. Who's a Cylon?![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
juliedarling has an excellent "Fifth Column" theory, wherein the Final Five disagreed with the other seven over the attack on humanity and fled, wiping all memory of their identities, then infiltrated the human race to help as best they could (she explains it much better than I can), and she speculates that the five remaining Cylons are A) people we already know B) some sleepers, some active agents and C) spread out within the fleet, one in each sector: government, civilian, pilot, deck crew, CIC crew. For the moment, I'll be running with this theory.
My addition to the theory: I believe Boomer may have been acting on commands from the Fifth Column as well as the known seven models, making her a double-sleeper agent. Consider: she destroys the fleet's water supply, then finds the water they need. She shoots Adama twice, but neither wound, nor both combined, is fatal. The counterprogramming of the Final Five may have been unable to completely counteract her original commands, but perhaps they were able to mitigate the effects. And also, she found the tylium and Kobol for the good of the fleet. This is why when I look for Fifth Column agents, I tend to look at people who were either close to Boomer or Athena--I believe somebody has to have been/still be monitoring them on Galactica.
Government: Billy Keikeya or Tory Foster. Next!
Civilian: Maybe Ellen Tigh. Or Jake, that would be funny. I'm not sure on this one, largely because we haven't seen too much of the civilians. Possibly Baltar could be a Fifth Column sleeper (defense ministry, Cylon detection, etc, helping the humans!) who frakked up royally when he fell, ironically, for Caprica, with neither of them knowing the other was a Cylon. Thus, head-Six is a product of his fractured psyche, some part of him realizing how utterly he keeps failing in his mission, while head-Baltar is the Fifth Column frakking with Caprica. But I kind of doubt this one.
Pilot: I don't think it's Kara or Lee, as Lee's got a history stretching back to childhood and Kara, while she does seem to be important to the Cylons, would clearly have to be a sleeper agent. Also, it would be very odd for the Galactica to be that packed with Cylon agents preceeding the attacks (a deck crew member, a CIC person as I will get to in a bit, Boomer, and Starbuck or Apollo makes five). So I think the Fifth Column pilot on Galactica is someone who came in after the attacks, either a nugget or Crashdown.
Crashdown's history is a little iffy, after all. He was in the military, but somehow escaped the attacks? Did he jump away in his Raptor, or was he on a transport headed from one posting to another? I don't know. He completely frakked up on Kobol, yes, but he was with Boomer when she found water, tylium, and Kobol.
Then there are the nuggets. I doubt it's one of the glorified extras, or one that died fairly quickly, which leaves about three. And there's speculative evidence for all of them.
*Kat died of radiation poisoning in The Passage, but it did take a more than double (that badge went black long before she jumped out) lethal dose to bring her down, and she switched her badge with Helo, who as the father of the first Cylon-human hybrid would of course be important to the Fifth Column's idea of possibly unifying the two races. Her history was falsified. However, if she's a Cylon, and so is Ellen Tigh and Billy Keikeya, the Fifth Column is rapidly running out of agents. And that sleaze seemed to go way back with her.
*Racetrack is secretly in love with Helo, and he's been shown to be quite attractive to toasters, so she's certainly a possibility. Also, post-New Caprica, she volunteers as Athena's ECO. Keeping an eye on her, perhaps?
*Hot Dog was a fleet academy washout, which pretty much guaranteed him a place in the first wave of new recruits. If you're looking to insert an agent, you want to make them as appealing as possible, right?
Deck crew: The obvious suspects are either the Chief or Cally, but then Nicky Tyrol is also half-Cylon, which surely would have showed up in blood work or something at some point (no blood type, anybody?). Though Chief was, again, very close to Boomer, and if it was Cally, that would put a whole new spin on her shooting Boomer. The only two other deck crew members I can remember the names of off the top of my head are Socinus and Seelix, and Socinus died back on Kobol and Seelix was very into the secret tribunal proceedings, so really I'm not sure there either.
CIC: Three candidates here: Gaeta, Dee, and Adama himself. Gaeta is the obvious choice, so obvious I figure the writers won't go that way, but come on. Most people think he's a Cylon already. And then there's his stabbing potential sleeper agent Baltar in the neck with a pen over a secret, though he did miss. Dee's a good choice for much the same reasons as Gaeta, although she did get sick with a human illness in "The Woman King," and she has the additional factor of being married to Lee. Perhaps her transfer to the Pegasus was the Fifth Column's way of planting an agent there? It's certainly possible both Gaeta and Dee are Fifth Columners, as they have always seemed chummy, and there is no agent in either the deck crew or the civilian population.
Adama, if he is a Cylon, would probably have to be model number One. He has a history stretching back over forty years, after all. There would be so much delicious irony, though, with Leoben's claim to Roslin in "Flesh and Bone" that, "Adama is a Cylon," which he has to have said to frak her up (as it's been shown since he couldn't know), actually being true. And then Lee, who's been pretty cold about Sharon, is a hybrid himself (or, in the case of Dee, married to a Cylon). Oh, the irony.
[Poll #928353]
6. People who are NOT Fifth Column Cylons (it's a pretty short list)
1. Helo. How the hell are you gonna have a half-human baby if you're not human?
2. Hera Agathon. See above re: half-human baby.
3. Nicky Tyrol. Fairly unlikely any baby is a Cylon, really. Although I reserve judgement on Kaycee of frakking-Kara-up fame.
4. Okay, probably Jake the Dog.
1. I've been wandering a lot of the BSG bulletin boards lately, and one thing I keep seeing is people saying we don't even know if the civilian fleet knows Sharon exists, and how she would probably be in danger if they did. And, y'know, if I was Adama, the first damn thing I would have done after the dust settled a bit from the exodus from New Caprica would be call a press conference and say, "This is Lieutenant Sharon Agathon. She is an officer of the Colonial fleet, and she is married to an officer of the Colonial fleet. And yes, she is a Cylon. But more importantly, she is the reason any of you got off New Caprica. We all owe her a debt of gratitude, and anyone attempting her harm as she goes about her duties will answer to Galactica."
2. If Baltar was afraid Sharon would kill him when she found out she was a Cylon, and that's why he lied to her about her test, why the frak didn't he go straight to Adama and let the marines handle it? That would have solved the problem right quick.
3. Okay, first off, I've seen a lot about how old Hera is, and how she looks small for her age, and why isn't she walking or talking or at least making more noise when not screaming and blah blah blah, and let's start with some math:
Conceived about one month after the attacks. Born one month premature (nine months post-attacks). Time between her birth and the settlement of New Caprica unclear, but let's say one to two months there. Sixteen months on New Caprica, bringing her to seventeen to eighteen months, then maybe a few months in Cylon captivity. I'd say three tops, probably less--at any rate, she's less than two years old. And she was a month premature, a frail baby, and her mother was exposed to a lot of radiation, given poor nutrition, and beaten and almost raped while pregnant. Then, on New Caprica, she received poor nutrition both before and after the Cylon occupation, and who knows how the Cylons treated her while they had her, just because they didn't know any better. So of course she's small for her age; she hasn't had the nutrition to make good on those Agathon genes. She's also probably somewhat behind in her development because of the number of huge disruptions in her very short life.
4. The epidemic in the last episode confused me, because it moved very fast once people started getting infected with it, but where the hell did it come from? They've been in space for close to three years now, a closed population in a closed environment for much of that time. I don't think new disease clusters should be popping up now. A carrier could, of course, spread the disaese without getting sick themself, and have just arrived on Galactica, but there should have been an outbreak on whatever ship they were on before, and probably on New Caprica as well. Surely someone couldn't Typhoid Mary around the fleet for this long without being noticed.
5. And now the big one. Who's a Cylon?
juliedarling has an excellent "Fifth Column" theory, wherein the Final Five disagreed with the other seven over the attack on humanity and fled, wiping all memory of their identities, then infiltrated the human race to help as best they could (she explains it much better than I can), and she speculates that the five remaining Cylons are A) people we already know B) some sleepers, some active agents and C) spread out within the fleet, one in each sector: government, civilian, pilot, deck crew, CIC crew. For the moment, I'll be running with this theory.My addition to the theory: I believe Boomer may have been acting on commands from the Fifth Column as well as the known seven models, making her a double-sleeper agent. Consider: she destroys the fleet's water supply, then finds the water they need. She shoots Adama twice, but neither wound, nor both combined, is fatal. The counterprogramming of the Final Five may have been unable to completely counteract her original commands, but perhaps they were able to mitigate the effects. And also, she found the tylium and Kobol for the good of the fleet. This is why when I look for Fifth Column agents, I tend to look at people who were either close to Boomer or Athena--I believe somebody has to have been/still be monitoring them on Galactica.
Government: Billy Keikeya or Tory Foster. Next!
Civilian: Maybe Ellen Tigh. Or Jake, that would be funny. I'm not sure on this one, largely because we haven't seen too much of the civilians. Possibly Baltar could be a Fifth Column sleeper (defense ministry, Cylon detection, etc, helping the humans!) who frakked up royally when he fell, ironically, for Caprica, with neither of them knowing the other was a Cylon. Thus, head-Six is a product of his fractured psyche, some part of him realizing how utterly he keeps failing in his mission, while head-Baltar is the Fifth Column frakking with Caprica. But I kind of doubt this one.
Pilot: I don't think it's Kara or Lee, as Lee's got a history stretching back to childhood and Kara, while she does seem to be important to the Cylons, would clearly have to be a sleeper agent. Also, it would be very odd for the Galactica to be that packed with Cylon agents preceeding the attacks (a deck crew member, a CIC person as I will get to in a bit, Boomer, and Starbuck or Apollo makes five). So I think the Fifth Column pilot on Galactica is someone who came in after the attacks, either a nugget or Crashdown.
Crashdown's history is a little iffy, after all. He was in the military, but somehow escaped the attacks? Did he jump away in his Raptor, or was he on a transport headed from one posting to another? I don't know. He completely frakked up on Kobol, yes, but he was with Boomer when she found water, tylium, and Kobol.
Then there are the nuggets. I doubt it's one of the glorified extras, or one that died fairly quickly, which leaves about three. And there's speculative evidence for all of them.
*Kat died of radiation poisoning in The Passage, but it did take a more than double (that badge went black long before she jumped out) lethal dose to bring her down, and she switched her badge with Helo, who as the father of the first Cylon-human hybrid would of course be important to the Fifth Column's idea of possibly unifying the two races. Her history was falsified. However, if she's a Cylon, and so is Ellen Tigh and Billy Keikeya, the Fifth Column is rapidly running out of agents. And that sleaze seemed to go way back with her.
*Racetrack is secretly in love with Helo, and he's been shown to be quite attractive to toasters, so she's certainly a possibility. Also, post-New Caprica, she volunteers as Athena's ECO. Keeping an eye on her, perhaps?
*Hot Dog was a fleet academy washout, which pretty much guaranteed him a place in the first wave of new recruits. If you're looking to insert an agent, you want to make them as appealing as possible, right?
Deck crew: The obvious suspects are either the Chief or Cally, but then Nicky Tyrol is also half-Cylon, which surely would have showed up in blood work or something at some point (no blood type, anybody?). Though Chief was, again, very close to Boomer, and if it was Cally, that would put a whole new spin on her shooting Boomer. The only two other deck crew members I can remember the names of off the top of my head are Socinus and Seelix, and Socinus died back on Kobol and Seelix was very into the secret tribunal proceedings, so really I'm not sure there either.
CIC: Three candidates here: Gaeta, Dee, and Adama himself. Gaeta is the obvious choice, so obvious I figure the writers won't go that way, but come on. Most people think he's a Cylon already. And then there's his stabbing potential sleeper agent Baltar in the neck with a pen over a secret, though he did miss. Dee's a good choice for much the same reasons as Gaeta, although she did get sick with a human illness in "The Woman King," and she has the additional factor of being married to Lee. Perhaps her transfer to the Pegasus was the Fifth Column's way of planting an agent there? It's certainly possible both Gaeta and Dee are Fifth Columners, as they have always seemed chummy, and there is no agent in either the deck crew or the civilian population.
Adama, if he is a Cylon, would probably have to be model number One. He has a history stretching back over forty years, after all. There would be so much delicious irony, though, with Leoben's claim to Roslin in "Flesh and Bone" that, "Adama is a Cylon," which he has to have said to frak her up (as it's been shown since he couldn't know), actually being true. And then Lee, who's been pretty cold about Sharon, is a hybrid himself (or, in the case of Dee, married to a Cylon). Oh, the irony.
[Poll #928353]
6. People who are NOT Fifth Column Cylons (it's a pretty short list)
1. Helo. How the hell are you gonna have a half-human baby if you're not human?
2. Hera Agathon. See above re: half-human baby.
3. Nicky Tyrol. Fairly unlikely any baby is a Cylon, really. Although I reserve judgement on Kaycee of frakking-Kara-up fame.
4. Okay, probably Jake the Dog.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-02-16 06:18 am (UTC)...but only cause I miss the big dumb bastard.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-16 10:50 pm (UTC)Always wondered about #2 myself.
Love your theory that Boomer was a double secret agent! That really would explain a lot.
I am starting to think that Gaeta's too obvious to be a Cylon, also. Which is sad, because he's been my guess from Day 1!
I think Lee and Dee (hee) are both Cylons, which makes the whole thing funnier.
Great post! Thanks for the shoutout!