[RAILhead]

Yeah -- what about all the ships and crap that should be scattered all over our planet now? We find bones, pottery, blah blah blah -- but no frakkin Raptors?

[jokell82]

Originally Posted by RAILhead 

Yeah -- what about all the ships and crap that should be scattered all over our planet now? We find bones, pottery, blah blah blah -- but no frakkin Raptors?

They were flown into the sun.

[MRTrauffer]

Originally Posted by jokell82 

They were flown into the sun.

Adama still had his Raptor after the fleet departed.

[RAILhead]

Originally Posted by jokell82 

They were flown into the sun.

The fleet was, yes. I guess we're supposed to assume that Anders remotely controlled the ships from Earth, and flew them into the sun as well.

[ThinkInsane]

Originally Posted by jokell82 

Actually if you look back, RM was *VERY* careful not to say anything like "our" Earth. He definitely said it was "THE" Earth many times, and in the context of the show it was. They also never pulled back to show the land masses of the Cylon Earth.

If I get the time, I'll have to go back and look for what I quoted. But here's the pic from S03E20:


Looks familiar enough

[jokell82]

Originally Posted by ThinkInsane 

If I get the time, I'll have to go back and look for what I quoted. But here's the pic from S03E20:



Looks familiar enough

That'll teach me to listen to people on other forums.

So the Cylon Earth has North America on it for sure, and the "new" Earth has Africa and Australia. Interesting...

Edit - Although to be fair, that is not the episode where the fleet actually finds Earth. That's simply a shot from when Starbuck says she has been to Earth and she knows how to get there. Granted that implies exactly what you are saying, but it could be that the plan was changed after this episode. Because during the episodes where they actually find Earth, you never see a recognizable continent.

[ThinkInsane]

Originally Posted by jokell82 

That'll teach me to listen to people on other forums.

So the Cylon Earth has North America on it for sure, and the "new" Earth has Africa and Australia. Interesting...

I do remember him saying in the podcast that he chose that shot specifically because the North American continent is so immediately recognizable. As it said in the last interview I quoted, the ending we got didn't come about until after the writers strike, so I imagine that when that scene was shot there was no intention of having a second Earth. Of course this is just supposition on my part.

[SpaceMonkey]

Would it be possible to interpret the final outcome in such a way that Kara initially found the second Earth, but the colonists first discovered the nuked Earth?

Edit to answer my own question: I guess that would make her crashed Viper even more confusing, then.

[lexapro]

I just watched the last ep again. When they talked about Mitochondral Eve the reporter clearly said a "young woman".

This implies Hera did not grow old. She possibly died young- teens or 20s. She likely did not have kids.

Her mitochondria would obivously be different than any other full-blooded human as mitochondria come from your mother, not your father. Thus future scientists would be astonished at her mitochondria.

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by lexapro 

She likely did not have kids.

I don't know how you can possibly infer that. It seems the writers want us to believe explicitly that she did have children.

[lexapro]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey 

I don't know how you can possibly infer that. It seems the writers want us to believe explicitly that she did have children.

I place more stock in plain spoken English than inferences. The audio clearly stated that Hera's bones were found as a "young woman". Thus she did not have any children.

She were only shocked at her finding as her mitochondia were so wildly and fundamentally different from the norm. However, Hera herself has zero children.

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by lexapro 

I place more stock in plain spoken English than inferences. The audio clearly stated that Hera's bones were found as a "young woman". Thus she did not have any children.

Huh? The phrase "young woman" in "plain spoken English" carries absolutely no significance in terms of whether or not someone has children (although the term "woman" would usually imply that the person is at least of child-bearing age).

[starman]

Does is REALLY matter if she had kids or not?

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by starman 

Does is REALLY matter if she had kids or not?

It ultimately makes her character more significant if she did, given what the series seems to want us to believe about Hera's role in seeding contemporary humans. I don't know what the larger "point" of the finale would be if she had died childless, and I don't quite understand how anyone could come to that conclusion.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by lexapro 

I just watched the last ep again. When they talked about Mitochondral Eve the reporter clearly said a "young woman".

This implies Hera did not grow old. She possibly died young- teens or 20s. She likely did not have kids.

Her mitochondria would obivously be different than any other full-blooded human as mitochondria come from your mother, not your father. Thus future scientists would be astonished at her mitochondria.

Read up on Mitochondrial Eve — she wasn't invented for the show. The use of that name means that not only did Hera have descendants, in fact everyone is her descendant.

And I'm not sure what age people have to be to have kids in your world, but young women do it all the time here on Earth.

[starman]

What I gathered from the show is not so much that Hera was important to the human race (38,000 survivors!), but that it was a chance to rescue someone who WAS important to the Cylon race, take her from them, and kill the toasters once and for all.

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by starman 

What I gathered from the show is not so much that Hera was important to the human race (38,000 survivors!), but that it was a chance to rescue someone who WAS important to the Cylon race, take her from them, and kill the toasters once and for all.

If we are to believe the show, Hera is the most recent common matrilineal ancestor of all humans alive today (note: this does not mean she was the only woman among the survivors to have children).

[starman]

Eh, you can look at it that way. Out of 38,000 survivors, if half were women, and let's say 60% of those had kids, that's a lot of mothers of the human race. Remember, finding Hera is just the tip of the iceberg. They still haven't found the skeletons of the rest of the colonists, or their raptors and equipment!

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by starman 

Eh, you can look at it that way. Out of 38,000 survivors, if half were women, and let's say 60% of those had kids, that's a lot of mothers of the human race. Remember, finding Hera is just the tip of the iceberg. They still haven't found the skeletons of the rest of the colonists, or their raptors and equipment!

I expect that the Raptors were entirely biodegradable!

Seriously, this episode and discussion prompted me to read up on the "Mitochondrial Eve" theory and I suggest everyone do the same. There is what's called the "identical ancestors point" (which scientists speculate to have occurred about 10,000 years ago, or well after Mitochondrial Eve existed) at which point you can divide the human population into two groups: those who are common ancestors of all living humans today, and those who left no ancestors. In other words, of the other 38,000 survivors who had children, they are either not ancestors of any living people, or they are ancestors of all living people. However, Mitochondrial Eve is by definition the most recent person with a matrilineal line of descent to all humans alive today, and thus is the only one of the 38,000 survivors to contribute mitochondrial DNA (in this case, human-Cylon hybrid DNA) to all humans alive today. The implication is that we all have some element of human-Cylon hybrid mtDNA.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey 

Seriously, this episode and discussion prompted me to read up on the "Mitochondrial Eve" theory and I suggest everyone do the same. There is what's called the "identical ancestors point" (which scientists speculate to have occurred about 10,000 years ago, or well after Mitochondrial Eve existed) at which point you can divide the human population into two groups: those who are common ancestors of all living humans today, and those who left no ancestors. In other words, of the other 38,000 survivors who had children, they are either not ancestors of any living people, or they are ancestors of all living people.

No, you are confusing the Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA) with the mitochondrial MRCA. Any descendants of the colonists whose ancestry passes through a male ancestor will be ignored by the mitochondrial DNA, but obviously they are still alive and contributing to the (non-mitochondrial, nuclear) gene pool.

However, Mitochondrial Eve is by definition the most recent person with a matrilineal line of descent to all humans alive today, and thus is the only one of the 38,000 survivors to contribute mitochondrial DNA (in this case, human-Cylon hybrid DNA) to all humans alive today. The implication is that we all have some element of human-Cylon hybrid mtDNA.

No, Hera's mtDNA would be all-cylon, since she got it from her mother.


BTW, do we really know that mitochondrial eve was supposed to be Hera herself? The article in the show just said mitochondrial eve was discovered, but all we have to connect that discovery to Hera is the quips and winks of ghost-Baltar and ghost-six. Are their half-truths and manipulative implications supposed to be reliable? And the article itself, how are they supposed to be able to tell that mitochondrial eve (a result of genetics and extrapolation) is the same as the skeleton they dug up?

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

No, you are confusing the Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA) with the mitochondrial MRCA. Any descendants of the colonists whose ancestry passes through a male ancestor will be ignored by the mitochondrial DNA, but obviously they are still alive and contributing to the (non-mitochondrial, nuclear) gene pool.

Right. I don't think I am confusing it with the MRCA, which would occur much more recently. My point was simply that you don't have to believe that Hera was the only one among the 38,000 having children to recognize her as "Mitochondrial Eve." The other 38,000's lineage to present day humans either passes through male ancestors or some of them in fact are not ancestors of living people.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

BTW, do we really know that mitochondrial eve was supposed to be Hera herself? The article in the show just said mitochondrial eve was discovered, but all we have to connect that discovery to Hera is the quips and winks of ghost-Baltar and ghost-six. Are their half-truths and manipulative implications supposed to be reliable?

I think so. They weren't manipulating anyone there — just talking amongst themselves in an "As you know…" kind of manner. It seemed like something we're supposed to take as fact.

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

And the article itself, how are they supposed to be able to tell that mitochondrial eve (a result of genetics and extrapolation) is the same as the skeleton they dug up?

I started to ask the same thing, but I decided that's covered under the MST3K Mantra. They could tell somehow, and I really wouldn't feel any happier if the show suddenly stopped and went into a painstaking, fanwanky explanation of how they knew that this was Mitochondrial Eve and that it was Hera.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey 

The other 38,000's lineage to present day humans either passes through male ancestors or some of them in fact are not ancestors of living people.

But nothing prevents them from being ancestors of some-but-not-all of those living today.

Edit: what I said was consistent with what I just quoted, but not consistent with what I first quoted from you.

[mrtew]

Originally Posted by lexapro 

I place more stock in plain spoken English than inferences. The audio clearly stated that Hera's bones were found as a "young woman". Thus she did not have any children. She were only shocked at her finding as her mitochondia were so wildly and fundamentally different from the norm. However, Hera herself has zero children.

I know young women with many many children. Maybe you're 17 and think "young woman" means aged 12-14.

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Read up on Mitochondrial Eve — she wasn't invented for the show. The use of that name means that not only did Hera have descendants, in fact everyone is her descendant.
And I'm not sure what age people have to be to have kids in your world, but young women do it all the time here on Earth.

Yeah, most Earthlings have young women for mothers. Middle aged and old mothers are actually very rare.

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

Any descendants of the colonists whose ancestry passes through a male ancestor will be ignored by the mitochondrial DNA, but obviously they are still alive and contributing to the (non-mitochondrial, nuclear) gene pool. No, Hera's mtDNA would be all-cylon, since she got it from her mother.

Except the Cylons probably have human mitochondria. They're practically identical to humans as it is without having to re-invent everything from scratch. They were probably grown from cloned human tissue and have 99.9% human nuclear DNA as well. But I guess if she really did have cylon mitochondria and she's Eve then all of us have cylon mitochondria 100% right?

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

BTW, do we really know that mitochondrial eve was supposed to be Hera herself? The article in the show just said mitochondrial eve was discovered, but all we have to connect that discovery to Hera is the quips and winks of ghost-Baltar and ghost-six. Are their half-truths and manipulative implications supposed to be reliable? And the article itself, how are they supposed to be able to tell that mitochondrial eve (a result of genetics and extrapolation) is the same as the skeleton they dug up?

They obviously tested the skeleton's DNA. Pretty amazing that they'd just happen to find that one, and pretty pointless except for the storyline of the show but Hera made it pretty far over the years so it kinda figures that she could make it onto the science page too.

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

But nothing prevents them from being ancestors of some-but-not-all of those living today.

Edit: what I said was consistent with what I just quoted, but not consistent with what I first quoted from you.

My understanding of the "identical ancestors point"* is that at a certain point in the human population's past approximately 10,000 years ago, everyone then alive turned out to be either an ancestor of every living person alive now, or to have no living descendants at all. Therefore, as I understand it, you can extrapolate backwards to the 38,000 colonists and say that individually they have to be either ancestors of everyone on alive on earth today, or they are ancestors of nobody alive today.

*This is distinct from the most recent common ancestor, which would have occurred some 5,000 years ago. The idea is that the ancestors of the MRCA are also common ancestors by definition. The further you go back, the more common ancestors you will find, until you reach this sort of inflection point.

[synthfiend]

Originally Posted by ThinkInsane 

I was thinking Ireland. Galen was a traditional Irish Celt name, and that alto flute in the background definitely made me think of the old country.

Has to be Scotland. Galen's an Engineer.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by RAILhead 

The fleet was, yes. I guess we're supposed to assume that Anders remotely controlled the ships from Earth, and flew them into the sun as well.

Anders was on BSG and flew it and the whole fleet into the sun.

[Andrew Stephens]

Missed a crapload of eps but caught the final few. Liked the last few very much so now I have to go back and catch up.

Two things, one plotwise, why was Baltar still alive 150,000 years after? Must have missed why he appears to be immortal.

Given the pivotal nature of Galactica herself in the show would have been nice to see her and the fleet heading into the sun in more detail. Seemed a shame that her final demise effectively happened off screen. Should have diverted the effect budget from her final jump to her final voyage.

[Eriamjh]

Originally Posted by Andrew Stephens 

Two things, one plotwise, why was Baltar still alive 150,000 years after? Must have missed why he appears to be immortal.

That was HEAD Baltar and HEAD Six. You weren't paying attention during the last half-hour.

[RAILhead]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

Anders was on BSG and flew it and the whole fleet into the sun.

So he piloted Adama's -- and all the other Raptors -- off the planet surface? Didn't see that.

[MRTrauffer]

Originally Posted by RAILhead 

So he piloted Adama's -- and all the other Raptors -- off the planet surface? Didn't see that.

Those are still unaccounted for. Adama still had his Raptor after the fleet departed.

[jokell82]

Originally Posted by MRTrauffer 

Those are still unaccounted for. Adama still had his Raptor after the fleet departed.

I think it can be safely assumed that they were remote piloted as well.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by jokell82 

I think it can be safely assumed that they were remote piloted as well.

Except we saw Adama flying a raptor around after we saw Anders take the fleet into the sun.

[jokell82]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

Except we saw Adama flying a raptor around after we saw Anders take the fleet into the sun.

I think it's easier to believe that things were edited together slightly different than they should have been than to think that a single raptor was left on the planet and was never discovered by future humans.

Or how about this one - Adama pointed it at the sun and set the auto-pilot. Doesn't really matter, the raptor was gone.

[ThinkInsane]

How long would a raptor last sitting in a field? I remember watching one of those "life after humans" shows on the History Channel and the show claimed that it wouldn't take anywhere near 150,000 years for manmade materials to disappear.

[jokell82]

Originally Posted by ThinkInsane 

How long would a raptor last sitting in a field? I remember watching one of those "life after humans" shows on the History Channel and the show claimed that it wouldn't take anywhere near 150,000 years for manmade materials to disappear.

How long could a raptor last in a field unnoticed, though?

[RAILhead]

Yep. --^

I think we can safely say that RM screwed the pooch on this portion of the story.

[jokell82]

Originally Posted by RAILhead 

Yep. --^

I think we can safely say that RM screwed the pooch on this portion of the story.

I wouldn't call it screwing the pooch, I'd call it people making a mountain out of a mole hill.

[RAILhead]

Originally Posted by jokell82 

I wouldn't call it screwing the pooch, I'd call it people making a mountain out of a mole hill.

So we're just supposed to ignore the idea that there could have been "fossils" of the ships, and no one ever found them? Metal in the Earth? No one found it? Ever?

How many years does it take for metal to break down?

[jokell82]

Originally Posted by RAILhead 

So we're just supposed to ignore the idea that there could have been "fossils" of the ships, and no one ever found them? Metal in the Earth? No one found it? Ever?

How many years does it take for metal to break down?

Or you can believe that the ship was not left on the planet, like I do. Makes more sense than anything else to me...

[andi*pandi]

perhaps they melted the raptor down to make tools, and thus invented smelting for the primitives.

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by RAILhead 

So we're just supposed to ignore the idea that there could have been "fossils" of the ships, and no one ever found them? Metal in the Earth? No one found it? Ever?

There's still plenty of dinosaur fossils we haven't found yet, too. Assuming they stayed on the planet and the material in fact lasts for 150,000 years, I don't know why not having found Raptors is such a big deal.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by jokell82 

So the Cylon Earth has North America on it for sure, and the "new" Earth has Africa and Australia. Interesting...

I'm watching the episode again where they discover Cylon Earth and I'm not seeing NA...

[jokell82]

Originally Posted by goMac 

I'm watching the episode again where they discover Cylon Earth and I'm not seeing NA...

Which I posted about later in the thread - the shot with North America on it was from an earlier episode and implied that it was Cylon earth...

[goMac]

Originally Posted by jokell82 

Which I posted about later in the thread - the shot with North America on it was from an earlier episode and implied that it was Cylon earth...

Moore has already said it wasn't. He said it was a shot of real Earth, not Cylon Earth.

[ThinkInsane]

Originally Posted by goMac 

I'm watching the episode again where they discover Cylon Earth and I'm not seeing NA...

I fixed the image link I posted above. It was the last shot from S03E20.

[selowitch]

I really didn't like this notion of scrapping all technology, interbreeding with primitive humans (Eeeew, think I'll pass!! Reminds me unfavorably of one of my exes), and above all separating all the characters who are so closely bonded with each other so they each take off to their own little corner.

It's not logical that splitting up increases their chances for survival. Hasn't anyone heard of "safety in numbers"?

There's nothing in BSG to this point that would lead me to believe that the Colonials would genuinely prefer a pre-technological existence. It's not just a matter of giving up space travel, energy-based weapons, and faster-than-light travel -- it's giving up the means to treat disease, extend life, perhaps use hydroponics for agriculture.

The last hour of the finale seemed very out-of-character, and Head Six and Head Baltar in Times Square 150,000 years later was unnecessary and too cute, IMO.

[jokell82]

Originally Posted by selowitch 

The last hour of the finale seemed very out-of-character, and Head Six and Head Baltar in Times Square 150,000 years later was unnecessary and too cute, IMO.

And that was one of the few things planned from day one.

[selowitch]

I have mixed feelings about Chief Tyrol killing Tory. Sure, she deserved it in some sense, but was it worth giving up peace between the alliance of the Colonials and the "good" Cylons on one side and the "bad" Cavil-led traditionalist Cylons on the other? Maybe he just didn't have time to think.

I guess the Cylons had never known where Resurrection technology came from and didn't have the ability to replicate it after the Resurrection ship was destroyed, right? But somehow the Final Five possessed the Secret of Resurrection and were prepared to hand that over to Cavil in exchange for peace. Sounds like a reasonable thing to do. Tyrol has to end up feeling like a total schmuck.

That said, there were many things I really liked about Daybreak 1 & 2. The ending with Laura and Bill was genuinely touching (although him abandoning Lee and Kara made no sense to me). The battle scenes were awesome. I liked the idea of Galactica herself being the Opera House from the shared Laura/Boomer dream, and the idea that the song All Along the Watchtower was the key to escaping and finding the Earth they settle on, even if it's not exactly "our" Earth.

Don't quite understand why Cavil found it necessary to shoot himself. Perhaps he was afraid of being captured and/or tortured (as happened with one of the Sixes).

Interesting that they dropped the whole Galactica-is-dying plotline by simply having her commit suicide along with the rest of the fleet.

Oh, and it's interesting (though not entirely satisfying IMO) to think of Adama being something akin to Adam of Earth's Bible. Someone else besides Laura Roslin must have been his Eve.

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by selowitch 

Don't quite understand why Cavil found it necessary to shoot himself. Perhaps he was afraid of being captured and/or tortured (as happened with one of the Sixes).

My theory is that he momentarily forgot that they didn't have resurrection anymore. It seemed like some sort of weird reflex reaction.