OK, I'm really getting confused on the timeline in the show and the last episode threw a lot more at us. Basically, I'm trying to figure out when and who went to Kobol in the first place and when/who went to Earth.

From what I gathered the 13th tribe went to Kobol some 3000 years ago

The Final 5 went to Earth then when the devestation happened they went back to Kobol and then on to where the humans had gone.(Caprica etc)

Hoping to break the cycle of artifical life but without FTL they arrived too late.

Everyone left from Kobol thousands of years ago, both the 12 human tribes and the 1 cylon tribe. The cylon tribe went to earth. The 'final' five backtracked their steps from earth (presumably to kobol) and then to the colonies and stopped the first cylon war.

Everyone has been to Kobol now, the final five 'first', then presumably the other cylons, then the humans.

Most everyone has been to earth, the final five left from there, and recently the humans and rebel cylons (also Starbuck before this). It seems that the cylons we all know and love (1-8, missing 7) had not been to earth before this the humans.

OK, I follow that, but I have a problem with the time involved.

13th tribe leaves the 12 colonies how long ago? VERY long ago. Long ago to only be rememberd in an ancient text. At this point, we're to understand there were Cylon servants?

Kobol tribe develops skin-job tech. That would take a long time. Cylons flee to Earth... without FTL. That would take a lot of time. Final Five return to Kobol, again without FTL. Again, a long time.

And what's been happening back in the 12 colonies? It doesn't seem like the original Cylons have made nearly as much progress in that time.

So the original Cylons didn't develop nearly as much as the fleeing Cylons? Strikes me as odd. And this timeline also means that the Cylons have been around pretty much forever... at least as far back as when a religious book was written and the humans wouldn't have the tech to even do such a thing. That doesn't seem to work either.

I'm not sure this will answer Trump's question, but try reading some Assimov or Orson Scott Card in terms of subuminal travel as you approach light speed, and the passage of time at relatavistic speeds.

I'm mostly curious as to how they're gonna explain Starbuck....

I was totally confused by the last episode and I'm losing interest rapidly. I think that if you can't follow a show's storyline without re-watching episodes or reading supplementary materials online, there's something wrong with the storyline.

Also, is anyone else as frustrated as I am that Ellen Tigh is the last cylon? Or apparently, second to last based on the dialogue about the missing model (Daniel? what's the deal with that?).

Frankly I think this show has gone downhill since the end of the second season. There have been a few episodes here and there in seasons 3 and 4 that were amazing (the trial of Gaius Baltar was pretty intense) but overall I'm disappointed with the direction they've taken.

Really? Seasons 3 and 4 have been 100% AMAZING! BSG is probably my favorite sci fi show of all-time now. The last episode did have a lot of info in it, but most fans probably had pretty close hypothesis anyway (I know I did) so it wasn't hard to follow or anything like that. Actually I had most of my questions answered last episode, and now have only a few big ones remaining.

Mattr0polis said:

The timeline or 'history' of the humans/cylons is what was confusing to me, not the storyline itself.

Also, while everyone is entitled to their opinion, 100% amazing is kind of an extreme judgement

The episode in season 3 where 'Bulldog' crashes into Galactica after escaping from the cylons is probably one of the worst episodes ever aired. I don't think anyone enjoyed that. It was just an annoying time-filler that contributed nothing to the plot and threw in a random character for no reason. Also, every episode featuring Kat made me want to gouge my eyes out.

Although, nothing can match the episode with the doctor who kills his Sagittaron patients. I don't like to make extreme statements, but I have no choice. That was a terrible terrible episode and I refuse to believe that anyone actually enjoyed those 42 minutes of their life. It was second only to the black market episode from season 2 in terms of awfulness. Someone please back me up here. I love BSG (for the most part) but I can't turn a blind eye to some of the shlock that gets churned out when they run out of ideas.

I do agree with you about the Black Market episode, and I think I remember reading that even Ron Moore was dissapointed with how that one turned out. The rest of the ones you mentioned though were all cool imo.

VerdatPagan said:

Not only will it not answer my questions, but I have to wonder what in the world this has to do with anything we're talking about.

Trump said:

I'm not sure if this is correct or not, but I was assuming he was referring to the line Anders said in the episode. Something along the lines of: "time slowed down for us."

Trump said:

My understanding:

There is no 'Kobol tribe'. There are 13 tribes for the 13 colonies, 12 human 1 cylon. It seems from the 13th tribe is cylon, as stated in the first episode this (half) season when they realized all the remains on earth were of skinjobs.

Also, the earth/cylon/13th tribe probably left Kobol the same time as the 12 human tribes. They probably had FTL at the time, and have since lost it (like the resurrection technology). Think about the situation now for the humans: they have FTL ships, but could they build new ones? Probably not.

All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.

Quick recap:

A long time ago, thirteen tribes leave Kobol. Twelve of them go on to found the twelve colonies. The last goes to Earth - they are the original Cylons. It doesn't matter if the tribes had FTL at that point, since reaching Earth probably took the same time as reaching the colonies.

Some time (say 3000 years) passes.

The Cylons on earth develop skinjob technology, make themselves look like humans, and lose resurrection tech. Basically they become human.

Then a holocaust happens, which wipes the earth clean. It's possible that this catastrophe has something to do with the creation of other artificial life by the now humanoid Cylons.

Five people rediscover resurrection before the catastrophe, and are resurrected on a non-FTL ship in orbit arond Earth. They retrace their ancestors' steps to Kobol and then to the twelve colonies. This takes another 2000 years (for example).

In the last 5000 years (2000+3000) the colonials have established themselves as a new society on the twelve colonies. Roughly 50-60 years before the pilot series, they delveloped the centurions, which then proceeded to rebel, and started the cylon war.

The five arrive in the midst of that war (about 45 years ago), and cut a deal with the centurions - stop the hostilities, and we'll give you skinjob tech.

They build the (8-1=) 7 Cylon models, and are then betrayed by Cavil. Cavil kills them, wipes their memories, and then plants them back on the colonies for some obscure reason, soon after the war's end (that's about when Adama met Tigh)

Note that other cylons (and maybe even other copies of the Cavil model) are unaware of the identity of the final five, and what happened to them.

Questions?

Mattr0polis said:

That only says that the trips took essentially no time. Which doesn't reallt affect the vast periods of time spent on the planets.

Or it could say that they essentially went forward in time... which makes things even worse by allowing the 12 Colony Cylons even more time to develop. And they don't seem to have done so.

Without going back in time, I'm just not happy with how much time has passed resulting in such vastly different tech levels. Mind you, I don't WANT there to be any reverse time travel. That seems inappropriate in this sci-fi universe. I'm just trying to figure out how this could be.

AZURE : Hmmm. OK, so you're saying the 12 tribes left Kobol without any Cylons and it took them roughly 5,000 years to get around to starting over developing that tech? That doesn't feel right, does it?

I see the twelve tribes founding the colonies, and then regressing to a pre-spaceflight tech level. In it was an emergency exodus, they probably didn't bring everything they needed to maintain a technological society, which would result in a technological degradation. This probably lasted for millennia, while the colonies reaquired the knowledge needed for spaceflight and cylon building.

I really don't see the colonials as having a technological society for the last several thousand years, if that's what you're implying. Case in point - the scroll of Pythia. Note that it is a scroll , rather then a CDROM, or a memory chip. There was a time when such hi-tech devices were unavailable.

I believe the final 5 Cylons were made on Kobol. Since ancient texts of the humans mentions the 5 priests and leads them to the 13th tribe.

So it is most likely that the "skin jobs" were created on kobol, and after some sort of war, the"skin jobs" went to earth and the humans went to the colonies. As time passed the events on Kobol became legend and became part of the colonies religion.

The "skin jobs" on Earth created new Cylons which then nuked them, so they fled Earth to warn the other colonies to not repeat the same mistakes. It took them too long at sublight speeds though and thus a great deal of time passed.

The colonies probably had outlawed the development of more advanced technology, but over time this was forgotten and they eventually created the Cylons once again.

That is how I see it anyway

I really don't like the way the story turned out though, doesn't make much sense at all and I think the writers had no idea themselves how to explain what they had created, and so was born last weeks episode. This information should have been leaked into the show over many episodes and not all in one giant burst of "oh dear we are near the end of the show and need to make up terrible explanations for everything!"

Well, unfortunately, what you say dows not fit with what the characters in the last episode say.

For example, the five cannot have been made on Cobol, because the Cylons on Earth have forgotten all about resurrection, so when someone died, they just died.

azuredarkness said:

The regression doesn't seem right either. Sure, they didn't bring everything they could possibly need and they could have to step back a few tech steps, but that's not really enough, is it? Consider how far we've come in 2000 years. Now consider the 12 colonies would still be far ahead of where we were 2000 years ago AND they have 12 times the population to work with. And the cylons who founded Earth? How in the world did their tech get so regressed? And yet when it came down to armageddon, they re-invent resurrection???

Technological progress is not a given - some societies can survive for millenia without noticable changes. There are real world examples for this.

There is no reason to assume progress will be as rapid as in our society.

azuredarkness said:

I don't think you can find a real world example that applies here. It's one thing to never have plumbing when you've never heard of it. It's quite another thing to not ever get it once you already know such a thing can be made. The 12 Colonies are hardly equivalent to a primitive tribe that lives in a remote rainforest in the Amazon.

Trump said:

Lol, dude, it's just a show. It doesn't have to be 100% perfect and historically match up with our assumptions of what could have been done in that time frame.

Season 3 was a mixed bag of awesome and ****.

There's a quick formula to determine if an episode was good or bad, and it pretty much is fail proof.

Does the episode involve Baltar? Yes? Then it's awesome.

Does it not? (See Bulldog and the Boxing episode) it's awful.

The highlights of season 3 are easily new caprica and the baltar trial. everything else is a big meh. Baltar and Six are the reason to watch the show.

Here is what others on another board have deduced from this last episode

The 13 tribes were 12 human and 1 cylon (ie final 5) Dont know the exact reason for leaving Kobol but all left

the Cylons went to earth the humans the colonies.

The cylons created Centurian like Cylons (AI as the called them) to assist themselves and those same centurians rebeled and apparently the destruction on Earth killed them off as well. The survivors fled in attempt to warn the humans in the colonies about the dangers of pursuing the same (They visited Kobol along the way)

Because the lacked FTL it took them a very long time and they arrived at the colonies too late.

They encountered the Cylons and stopped the war by creating the 7(8 if you include Daniel) skinjobs and giving them resurrection. They planted the skinjobs in the colonies to help teach them to understand humans. Cain rebelled and wiped the 5 memories boxed Daniel and sent the 5 to live among the humans that would be slaughtered in the holocaust.

The 5 survived however and once Ellen was killed she regained her memories.

They played a cat and mouse game with the fleet until the rebel cylons began to understand what the 5 had originally intended them to by making them live as human.

Im still uncertain how Kara fits into all of this.

We are not entirely certain of why they all left Kobol or all the details of the deterioration of history/tech from the time of Kobol.

Could have simply been natural disaster etc.

Did any of you ever take into consideration that maybe ALL humans are cylons?

Mattr0polis said:

Absolutely true! I'm just trying to piece together what the story is supposed to be. I've found here (and elsewhere) that the areas that are grey to me are grey everywhere... so I guess I didn't forget an episode. Our efforts to "patch" the grey areas thus far haven't been satisfactory, but at least I'm more focussed for anything in the show that'll fill in those blanks.

Mike said:

I daresay that everyone who watches the show has considered that after the big Earth revelation. It make sense as far as history repeating itself over and over, but then you also have to allow that what a cylon actually is must change quite a bit. After all, I don't expect Adama to connect fiber-optics to his arm and get that to work. Still, there is a cylon/human child and that has to make you wonder. On the other hand, these aren't two different breeds of animal that have run into one another. One breed created the other so physiological similarities are to be expected.