Caprica

[catsclaw227]

I have no problem with the fact that he, or any of the other corrupted or corruptible characters will work towards redemption (even if only imperfectly achieved at best) in the end.

That would be par for the course with the basic themes of Battlestar Galactica.

True. Very true.

One thing I can say for certain... This show is one of my favorites right now and it's only getting better.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Well, just as I was about to give up on this show, the Tamara Adama storyline has given me hope. I'm not listing it as a favorite show, but I am finally intrigued by the show itself, rather than just giving it the benefit of the doubt because I enjoyed BSG so much.

There is at last a storyline that is more science fiction than primetime soap opera.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Anyone notice how Graystone's PR assistant Priya, happens to be played by Luciana Carro who also played Kat in BSG. And that one of the Tauron gangsters in a previous episode was played by the same actor who was one of Tigh's suicide bombers.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

This episode was good, too. Two new important figures introduced.
And maybe a love interest for

Spoiler

Joesph Adama

?

I wonder if Verges will become a long-term antagonist and how much he will be in the foreground. It seems we have quite a few different parties going on. The One-True-Good followers seem split, Graystone vs Adama vs Verges, and Zoe, Tamara.

I don't know what to make of the creepy robot-loving creepy assistant and Zoe, though. Did I mention creepy?

 

[Jack7]

I think with the last episode we are seeing more and more of Graystone's true nature. This entire arc of events involving the Cylons hinges upon both an act of high-level corporate espionage, multiple murder, and now extortion and revenge. And I'm far form convinced that the timing of the bombing on the part of the boy and the stealing of the chip are or were incidental. For soem rason I suspect some connection, either directly or indirectly, between Zoe's old teacher and Graystone. I know she targeted the mother, but I suspect she knows far more about the father.

I don't know what to make of the creepy robot-loving creepy assistant and Zoe, though. Did I mention creepy?

I think I do. the Cylons will need human assistance, both to eventually rebel, and sources of encouragement to be autonomous enough to rebel. If I had to guess I'd bet the boy is either killed accidentally by Cylon action, or is killed intentionally by human action which precipitates a rebellion by involved Cylon leadership. However he may also go underground and help lead the rebellion.

In any case I think we now know the basis of the Cylon download capabilities.
A much improved future version of the Swipe Drive. Capable of operations at a much greater distance, and I would suppose capable of near instantaneous dual-directional interface.

The technological precursors are interesting devices, but also aimed at what I call God Technology (technology that in one way or another emulates capabilities previously ascribed only to God). Everytime I see things like this employed on the show I cannot help but think of Adama's admonition at the end of BSG that man should start all over again on Earth "without all of this stuff..."

In this series "the stuff" is simultaneously both the basis of all man is capable of achieving, and the Serpent in the Garden he has made with his own hands.
In this other world of man the serpent is made of Machine, and the Ghost in that machine is a sort of uncertain and unstable haunting.

 

[Jack7]

Another thing that just struck me is the fact that if the gods of the Colonies are anything at all like most of the Earthly gods they are named after, (or before) then these gods are hardly moral exemplars in behavior (as per the early holoband scenes) or even what would normally be considered psychologically stable by most modern, civilized men.

It is interesting to watch the populations of these worlds attempting to outgrow their gods in moral behavior (that is in the case of the holoband they still seek to emulate the behavior of violent, pagan gods, but to do so virtually, exercising the conduct of the old rituals, yet without real bloodshed, much like modern videogames, or even role play) and temperament, and yet simultaneously emulate the gods in other ways. It is also interesting for me to see the tension between the implied (underground morality of the gods) and the arising of monotheistic ideas about God (though perhaps not what would in most cases be considered "modern monotheistic ideals about God") at the near exact point in history where their technological capabilities allow them to emulate both their bets and worst ideals about the gods and God. In other words technology allows them to emulate God at the same time that ideas about what is the true nature of God are just forming for both human society and for Cylon construct.

Again, no accident, it is central to the underlying storyline. But it is an interesting situation to watch, and to see how they react religiously, morally, immorally, culturally, and scientifically. Imagine that ideas about a monotheistic God were just now spreading in our modern society, instead of having been developed for thousands of years, and also imagine that at the same time even more sophisticated scientific and technological developments than are occurring on our own world were afoot. It would create some fascinating and very confusing conditions.

 

[Dire Bare]

Another thing that just struck me is the fact that if the gods of the Colonies are anything at all like most of the Earthly gods they are named after, (or before) then these gods are hardly moral exemplars in behavior (as per the early holoband scenes) or even what would normally be considered psychologically stable by most modern, civilized men.

I've always gotten the impression, since the BSG days, that the gods of the colonies are to the ancient Greek gods of Earth as the modern Christian concept of God is to the Old Testament God. More civilized!

 

[Jack7]

I've always gotten the impression, since the BSG days, that the gods of the colonies are to the ancient Greek gods of Earth as the modern Christian concept of God is to the Old Testament God. More civilized!

I think that generally speaking you're really onto to something here DB, and again, generally speaking, I agree with you. If the pagan gods had been around for literally thousands and thousands of years and had never really been challenged by a competing religious ideal, and yet man had continued his process of civilization outside the direct influence of the gods, then you can expect that the concepts regarding the nature of the gods themselves would correspondingly change. Not so much by direct competition, though I'm not so sure some kind of underground monotheistic impulse has existed for a long time in the colonies, but by a slow, gradual process of evolution.

(I really wasn't arguing that the gods of the Colonies were the direct present-day corollaries of the ancient Greek gods, merely that they had retained vestiges of ancient and violent pagan impulses regarding such things as Bacchanalia and human sacrifice, etc. which could be clearly seen in the early holoband/Virtual World scenes. That is to say the gods had retained their early nature myths (psychological nature), but overlaying those had developed, over time, a civilizing myth, or a sort of veneer of civilization which is far more sophisticated than that of the more ancient incarnations of the gods.)

For instance the prophecies that kept surfacing in BSG seemed to me far more like the Old Testament prophecies of the prophets (looking dozens, hundreds, or even possibly thousands of years into the future, and concerned with the grand-scope and overall sweep of historical human events) than the more tactically targeted utterings of the Oracle of Delhi, which were almost always designed to address smaller and more specific problems. The Old testament prophets tended to speak on matters that were often cosmic, long term, and strategic (or at elates this is the way they were often interpreted), whereas Oracles usually addressed specific questions of a more local and tactical nature.

Yet the Pythian prophecies in BSG seemed to me far more sophisticated than a typical oracular reply, rather they seemed a coherent and cosmic prophecy of long term import and effect. The reason, I think, is that over time the gods transformed in nature from being squabbling, violent, self-involved mythological representations of individual character-personas, and more into "guardians and advisors and defender of peoples." In transforming over time to become more civilized their focus shifted from pursuits of personal power and interest to become more cosmic and grand in scope and shape. In other words the gods began to grow up (and in some ways I think they outgrew the Men of the Colonies who although they become more civilized and sophisticated, also retained far too much of their strictly more primitive nature).

I think then what you really have going on in BSG and in Caprica (religiously speaking) is the concept of the evolution of the gods and the parallel development of the monotheistic ideal of the One God form an underground religious force to serious contender for both "what really constitutes the nature of God, and what really constitutes the higher nature of man and civilized man." Over time the gods have become "civilized" as man has become civilized, and correspondingly the One God is only now becoming fleshed out in nature (still in an underground but nevertheless more public way).

(I have a personal theory that in interactions between God and man the perception of how God is envisioned and perceived is partially a reflection of how God presents himself, and partially a reflection of how man attempts to and wants to perceive God's nature. So how man perceives God, and in this case I'd bet how cylons perceive God is a sort of fluid suspension of God's nature and how man can, or will, or maybe both, perceive that nature.)

So to me as far as the One God ideal in Caprica is being formulated, you have conflicting ideas about the nature of God. On is that God is love and mercy, the other is that God is power and justice. These two natures are in conflict (this conflict is in my opinion not a necessary conflict, but from a human perspective it is an often understandable conflict), as far as the followers of God go, and these various followers are wrestling, as indeed in many respects the real world is and always has been, over what is the truer and more important nature of God. And that will determine how God is both perceived and presented.

And I think these ideas about God are intimately related to the nature of the cylons, the ideas surrounding technology and what role it plays, and the concept of the soul, human and cylon. For I can easily see, if the Cylons end up being irreproducibly analog in nature and in rebellion against men who they consider oppressors that they would then gravitate to the idea of a single, supreme God, and in that respect one must also remember how big a role numbers played in BSG, as regards the gods, the way in which technology functioned, the prophecies, and for the cylons and the followers of the One God. The cylons and Baltar's group were awfully close in many respects. Especially metaphysically.

But, and this is off the subject, speaking of the soul, the mind, technology, and numbers, it has interested me very much so far that Zoë has made no attempt whatsoever to really contact her father once she was emplaced within the body (or coprus) of the Cylon. She could as easily communicate with her father, through technological interface, as she could with her "boyfriend." But chooses not to. I think she has a very good reason for this. Or I should say very good reasons, and that she suspects far more than she has yet to let on.

Another thing I never really thought about before in this respect is the netflow of data signifying cylon thought processes. It is of a red that resembles fresh blood. It could have been of any color, but it matches the eye and looks like fresh, bright blood.

 

[catsclaw227]

I tell ya, I didn't expect:

[sblock] ... to see Zoe/CylonEve kill her new boyfriend. (The desperation of a teenage girl is not to be trifled with!) But I don't think she was leading him on just to get him to help her. Obvioulsy she enjoyed the attention and even started feeling something for Philo. [/sblock]

I am also beginning to wonder if the Zoe avatar will end up trapped in V-World and/or will she take on the same characteristics of Tamara Adama. Which one will be the precursor to Cylon Intelligence or will it be both of them?

I am still not sure how Tamara factors in to the story of the Cylon uprising yet, or the STO, but we'll find out when the season returns in the fall.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Well they certainly left the mid-season on a cliffhanger...

Though I'm sure that Zoe at least will survive.