Comments on: BSG: a divine wrap-up? http://www.deepgeeking.com/2009/03/24/bsg-a-divine-wrap-up/ Too Much Time On Our Hands: Opinions, Theories and More Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:59:00 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Charlie Benjamin http://www.deepgeeking.com/2009/03/24/bsg-a-divine-wrap-up/comment-page-1/#comment-129 Charlie Benjamin Sun, 03 May 2009 14:28:44 +0000 http://www.deepgeeking.com/?p=64#comment-129 I think the reason for having the colonists disperse across the continents of new Earth was to be able to accomodate the two competing theories about human evolution. The first is the 'Out of Africa' theory which has modern humans leaving East Africa and colonizing the rest of the world about 150 thousand years ago. The second theory has multiple human populations for the last 2 million years or so leaving Africa and colonizing the various continents, and evolving in parallel. Mitochondrial Eve is the evidence that supports the out of africa theory, but there is evidence of ancient humans who do not have Eve's mitochondrial DNA, thus supporting the multi-regional evolution theory. The important point about Hera being mitochondrial Eve is that she and any other female human-cylon hybrids who went on to give birth to girls, represent an identififiable origin of present day humans. They of course would have also had male children, but only females pass on mitochondrial DNA to their daughters, making them identifiable. One can assume that with populations of 2s, 6s, and 8s dispersing with the human population, there would be many human-cylon hybrids and thus multiple mitochondrial eves around the world (it just happens that the fossil remains of Hera in East Africa were found). And natural selection would always mean that a human-cylon mix would be stronger than a pure human or pure cylon (pure human not as strong, pure cylon unable to biologically reproduce with another cylon, though this may not necessarily be the case since Tigh and Six almost had a child showing that it was technically possible, meaning that in BSG's present day Earth, there might be one or two individiduals who are pure cylon). I like to imagine that free of all the stress, Tigh and Ellen are finally able to have children. On the subject of the colonists and cylons giving up their technology and living more primitive stone age lives, this isn't what happens. They abandon their technology, but what they have with them is language, writing, astronomy, science, agriculture and so on: the building blocks of an advanced civilization. So, why did it take them 150 thousand years to go from practically nothing to modern technology? Why did it take so long? This question is based on the assumption that the 21st century is the pinnacle of civilization. However, take a look at the ancient Hindu Baghavad Gita, part of the Mahabharata, written more than 2 thousand years ago. It describes very explicitily a time in India's past when their technology was extremely advanced, even more advanced than ours. It describes ships fueled with mercury heated to immense temperatures that had wings of lightning, and which could fly amongst the stars, and from one continent to another. There is a description of what seems clearly to be a nuclear war, and while their technology and cities were destroyed, the ancient texts describing in words, and with detailed diagrams illustrating the designs for these ships etc. still remain. The diagrams are so detailed that NASA, the UN, and the Chinese Space Agency take them seriously. Soooo....within the BSG universe, one could say that it didn't take long for the cylons -human colonists, maybe 50-100 thousand years to reach a space fairing level of technology again, only to almost destroy themselves again. Anyway, I've writen a 2 part review of BSG on my blog for scifi uk, which you can read here http://www.scifi.co.uk/blog/battlestar-galactica/bsg-final-episode-review---par/ I think the reason for having the colonists disperse across the continents of new Earth was to be able to accomodate the two competing theories about human evolution. The first is the ‘Out of Africa’ theory which has modern humans leaving East Africa and colonizing the rest of the world about 150 thousand years ago. The second theory has multiple human populations for the last 2 million years or so leaving Africa and colonizing the various continents, and evolving in parallel. Mitochondrial Eve is the evidence that supports the out of africa theory, but there is evidence of ancient humans who do not have Eve’s mitochondrial DNA, thus supporting the multi-regional evolution theory.
The important point about Hera being mitochondrial Eve is that she and any other female human-cylon hybrids who went on to give birth to girls, represent an identififiable origin of present day humans. They of course would have also had male children, but only females pass on mitochondrial DNA to their daughters, making them identifiable. One can assume that with populations of 2s, 6s, and 8s dispersing with the human population, there would be many human-cylon hybrids and thus multiple mitochondrial eves around the world (it just happens that the fossil remains of Hera in East Africa were found). And natural selection would always mean that a human-cylon mix would be stronger than a pure human or pure cylon (pure human not as strong, pure cylon unable to biologically reproduce with another cylon, though this may not necessarily be the case since Tigh and Six almost had a child showing that it was technically possible, meaning that in BSG’s present day Earth, there might be one or two individiduals who are pure cylon). I like to imagine that free of all the stress, Tigh and Ellen are finally able to have children.
On the subject of the colonists and cylons giving up their technology and living more primitive stone age lives, this isn’t what happens. They abandon their technology, but what they have with them is language, writing, astronomy, science, agriculture and so on: the building blocks of an advanced civilization. So, why did it take them 150 thousand years to go from practically nothing to modern technology? Why did it take so long? This question is based on the assumption that the 21st century is the pinnacle of civilization. However, take a look at the ancient Hindu Baghavad Gita, part of the Mahabharata, written more than 2 thousand years ago. It describes very explicitily a time in India’s past when their technology was extremely advanced, even more advanced than ours. It describes ships fueled with mercury heated to immense temperatures that had wings of lightning, and which could fly amongst the stars, and from one continent to another. There is a description of what seems clearly to be a nuclear war, and while their technology and cities were destroyed, the ancient texts describing in words, and with detailed diagrams illustrating the designs for these ships etc. still remain. The diagrams are so detailed that NASA, the UN, and the Chinese Space Agency take them seriously. Soooo….within the BSG universe, one could say that it didn’t take long for the cylons -human colonists, maybe 50-100 thousand years to reach a space fairing level of technology again, only to almost destroy themselves again.

Anyway, I’ve writen a 2 part review of BSG on my blog for scifi uk, which you can read here

http://www.scifi.co.uk/blog/battlestar-galactica/bsg-final-episode-review—par/

]]> By: Arkle http://www.deepgeeking.com/2009/03/24/bsg-a-divine-wrap-up/comment-page-1/#comment-121 Arkle Fri, 03 Apr 2009 00:07:52 +0000 http://www.deepgeeking.com/?p=64#comment-121 If it had been something that just "happened" then yeah, people would be right to be pissed off, but the fact is the mystical angle has been present as far back as Season 1 with Laura's visions that were coming true. It's not as if this was hard, Red Dwarf "there is no God" style SF all the way up until Starbuck disappeared and head-Six and head-Baltar walked through Times Square. I find it ironic that on Twitter it was I, the atheist, who defended this artistic choice. I don't want mysticism in my government or my schools, but unlike say Scott Sigler, I don't mind it in my sci-fi/fantasy. If it had been something that just “happened” then yeah, people would be right to be pissed off, but the fact is the mystical angle has been present as far back as Season 1 with Laura’s visions that were coming true. It’s not as if this was hard, Red Dwarf “there is no God” style SF all the way up until Starbuck disappeared and head-Six and head-Baltar walked through Times Square. I find it ironic that on Twitter it was I, the atheist, who defended this artistic choice. I don’t want mysticism in my government or my schools, but unlike say Scott Sigler, I don’t mind it in my sci-fi/fantasy.

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