nBSG ep 4.15: "No Exit" Talkback (SPOILERS)

[Bilbo]

When was the last time we saw Head Six? Did she just disapear or did something happen that made her go?

Maybe "Daniel" is Baltar. It would make some thing fit.

[CaptJodan]

I thought they met on the freighter too, after the war. As for the records, this was an all out conflict with a lot of displaced units, a desperate fight that we saw at least part of. I have no trouble believing that some guy walking in with a Colonial uniform and claiming to have been attached to some unit that was blown away, possibly with the addition of some background being put in by Cavil on the colonial side of things, wouldn't be too looked over. It's not like he could be a Cylon or anything.

[xerex]

When was the last time we saw Head Six? Did she just disapear or did something happen that made her go?

Maybe "Daniel" is Baltar. It would make some thing fit.

wasnt daniel and his line eliminated by Cavil ?

[CaptJodan]

When was the last time we saw Head Six? Did she just disapear or did something happen that made her go?

Maybe "Daniel" is Baltar. It would make some thing fit.

wasnt daniel and his line eliminated by Cavil ?

That, and you'd think if he was still around, Ellen would know about it. Especially if it was Baltar, or reasonably anyone else we know in the fleet.

[Bilbo]

When was the last time we saw Head Six? Did she just disapear or did something happen that made her go?

Maybe "Daniel" is Baltar. It would make some thing fit.

wasnt daniel and his line eliminated by Cavil ?

We know the line was eliminated. But it was eliminated by Cavil out of jealousy. For Cavil to be jealous that means at least one had to be made. Since Cavil didnt kill the Final 5 it would make sense that he did not kill the first "Daniel" that was created. It would make sense that he would plant him on the colonies with enough of the superior programming skills the Cylons had to get into a high place and with enough weakness to be exploited. If Daniel was Ellen's favorite then making Daniel/Baltar the instrument of humanities doom would fit perfectly with Cavil's sadism.

BTW, this would also fit with Cavil's hypocrisy. Cavil uses Daniel to create the perfect situation for a war, while he himself lobotomizes the recently free Cylons.

[Phantasee]

No one has mentioned that "angels" came to the 5 and warned them that Earth was going to get nuked. head 6/head baltar?

oh yeah forgot about that. some saw a man, some saw a woman.

HOLY SHIT

MIND BLOWN

dots connecting

Yeah, that fits: but then what would Baltar's role be? Definitely not "Daniel", because he's not an artist.

Unless they meant 'con artist'.

Except didn't Adama know Tigh during the war? Also, he's bound to have a service record that the Colonial Fleet would have had. It's not like he could have shown up at the Colonial version of MEPS, insisting that he was a veteran of the First Cylon war and an officer and getting let back into the Fleet without them checking.

Adama met Tigh in a bar.

That would explain missing details easily enough.

[Bilbo]

Yeah, that fits: but then what would Baltar's role be? Definitely not "Daniel", because he's not an artist.

To me everything about Baltar screams artist. The parts that dont fit is the scientist part. Everything but the scientific part of Baltar screams hippy love in artist type.

[Phantasee]

Yeah, that fits: but then what would Baltar's role be? Definitely not "Daniel", because he's not an artist.

To me everything about Baltar screams artist. The parts that dont fit is the scientist part. Everything but the scientific part of Baltar screams hippy love in artist type.

Like a Leonardo Da Vinci? All-around genius, does some good art, invents some cool shit?

I haven't heard anything about Leo's wild partying with the women, though. Other than him spending quality time with Captain Janeway...

[Steven Snyder]

Yeah, that fits: but then what would Baltar's role be? Definitely not "Daniel", because he's not an artist.

But you know who did do some painting in her youth?

[Bilbo]

The story is coming together. The part that I find fits the least is the Final 5. It would take massive luck to drop the Final 5 on the colonies and have them all survive the nuking of the colonies. Cavil couldnt know that they would spread out and just happen to be in the right places to survive the attack and make it onto the fleet.

[Tanner]

It sound like Geata would be more likely to be Daniel then Baltar.

[Aeolus]

Starbuck recognised the name Daniel. Could it be her father?

[Alyeska]

Except didn't Adama know Tigh during the war? Also, he's bound to have a service record that the Colonial Fleet would have had. It's not like he could have shown up at the Colonial version of MEPS, insisting that he was a veteran of the First Cylon war and an officer and getting let back into the Fleet without them checking.

No. They met ten years after the war.

[MarshalPurnell]

Let's see...

Back on Kobol there are 13 Tribes, with 13 gods. Twelve Olympians, and a One True God, called the jealous god by the followers of the polytheist pantheon. Artificial Intelligence is invented on Kobol, as is the Cylon resurrection technology, which is a form of electronic brain uploading and imprinting. Is the 13th Tribe the Cylons of Kobol, or a mix of Humans and Artificial Intelligences who worship the One God? In any case, 3000 years before the present, they left Kobol and headed to Earth. One thousand years later, 2000 years before the present, the Twelve Tribes of Kobol are forced to flee their homeworld and eventually settle the colonies.

The Thirteenth Tribe goes along the way to Earth, stopping at the algae planet to establish a temple to the One God. Ellen denies that the Five did anything more to the temple on their way back than stop to pray, and attributes the events of Deanna's vision to the One God. In any case, they eventually find and settle Earth, build up a civilization like that of the colonies, and sooner or later begin to procreate rather than use resurrection technology. Eventually they create another form of Cylon, and as the cycle goes the machines destroyed Earth and the Thirteenth Tribe in a surprise nuclear assault. The Five, warned by messengers only they could see, and experienced as different genders individually, began work on recreating the resurrection technology and when they were killed in the attack were uploaded into a ship in orbit. Apparently deciding to warn the other Tribes, the Five set out at sublight to find out what had become of the other civilization on Kobol and to warn them to treat AI with respect if they developed it.

Meanwhile the colonies are settled and the vibrant colonial civilization we all know and love comes to flourish. Beneath the veneer, though, there is a heretical sect of monotheists, presumably originating from Kobol and linked to the Thirteenth Tribe, challenging the mores of the colonies. When the daughter of a pioneering industrialist is caught up in the sect and subsequently killed in a suicide bombing, her greiving father uses mind-backups made by her before her death as a model for the very first artificial intelligence; the colonial Cylons. This means that the original Centurions, from the very first, are inculcated with a belief in the precepts of the One God, and when they eventually begin their war against the colonials they still want to become more human. Because that's what God wants. So they begin their own experiments which result in the hybrids, but are largely unsuccessful and going nowhere. On the other hand, they're really stomping the colonials something good. Cue the arrival of the Final Five, undoubtedly horrified to find that history is repeating itself with their cousins from Kobol.

They are discovered by the Centurions, and make the significant discovery that they share a belief in the One True God. This is apparently enough to convince Ellen and the rest to aid the Centurions to create the humanoforms they desire, so long as the Cylons call off their war on humanity. They do so, providing resurrection technology to boot, and the first humanoform, modeled on Ellen's father, is born and named John. He assists the Five in creating seven more models of humanoform Cylons, in upgrading the Centurions and Raiders, and in creating the infrastructure of the Cylon Empire, but he boils over with rage and humiliation at the weakness of the human condition and despises the God that the Five have created him and the others to serve. In perhaps the first act of rebellion he sabotages the line of the seventh model, named Daniel, a favorite of Ellen. Later on her corners the Five, kills them, boxes their resurrection models, and eventually sends the last of them into the colonies after being given a memory wipe and false memories in a process no doubt pioneering the sleeper models. He rejects mercy and by his own warped idea of justice, decides to destroy humanity in revenge for the enslavement of the Cylons; but no doubt rendering the Centurions non-sentient and adjusting the programming of the other Cylon models to prevent them from thinking about or recognizing the Five, though he clearly still knows everything.

(Daniel, incidentally, is the Old Testament prophet most closely associated with visions of the Apocalypse. Take from that what you will...)

And that is a vastly more coherent explanation for everything that I ever expected. If Moore really did make this all up as he went along he is quite a maestro at improvisation. The only thing really up in the air is the nature of the "angels" which I presume are the same phenomenon as head-Six and head-Baltar, and maybe head-Elosha for that matter. He may leave that unanswered, though.

[xerex]

The story is coming together. The part that I find fits the least is the Final 5. It would take massive luck to drop the Final 5 on the colonies and have them all survive the nuking of the colonies. Cavil couldnt know that they would spread out and just happen to be in the right places to survive the attack and make it onto the fleet.

He didnt intend for them to survive. Ellen said so. However once he relaized they had he began sadistacally toying with them.

[Bilbo]

The story is coming together. The part that I find fits the least is the Final 5. It would take massive luck to drop the Final 5 on the colonies and have them all survive the nuking of the colonies. Cavil couldnt know that they would spread out and just happen to be in the right places to survive the attack and make it onto the fleet.

He didnt intend for them to survive. Ellen said so. However once he relaized they had he began sadistacally toying with them.

If he didnt mean for them to survive then it becomes even more incredulous. Put 5 people into a society of 50 billion or so. Now kill all but 50,000 of them. The odds of all 5 surviving is really really really small, and if that is the story then its pretty damn good evidence that Moore has a "higher power" directing things to some degree.

[MarshalPurnell]

I really want to know more about what they said regarding the Cylon's belief in God coming from the original Centurions.

At least, that's what it sounded like they said.

Spoilers from the casting call of Caprica indicated that the One True God belief was present on Caprica before the invention of the Cylons, as a proscribed monotheistic sect. The brilliant daughter of an industrialist who happened to develop brain-uploading technology was also a believer in the One True God. Her somewhat more fanatical boyfriend killed her in a public suicide bombing, and the grieving father used her work to create the first true artificial intelligence. The resulting Cylon had a brain modeled on uploads left by his daughter, which included the belief in the One True God.

[Gil Hamilton]

No. They met ten years after the war.

Even so, it doesn't explain how he could have entered the Colonies after the War when there MUST have been some sort of military record. Otherwise, his story would have fell apart when he attempted to get "back" into the Colonial Fleet.

[Skylon]

Let's see...

And that is a vastly more coherent explanation for everything that I ever expected. If Moore really did make this all up as he went along he is quite a maestro at improvisation. The only thing really up in the air is the nature of the "angels" which I presume are the same phenomenon as head-Six and head-Baltar, and maybe head-Elosha for that matter. He may leave that unanswered, though.

That was a pretty damn good summary. Thanks!

The writers did manage to connect their dots pretty well from the looks of things.

[xerex]

aslo

Tyrol and Tori--- madly in love

loved tyrol's reaction

[Skylon]

No. They met ten years after the war.

Even so, it doesn't explain how he could have entered the Colonies after the War when there MUST have been some sort of military record. Otherwise, his story would have fell apart when he attempted to get "back" into the Colonial Fleet.

There probably was a Saul Tigh, who fought in the first war and who knows what the heck happened to him. If he was used as an accurate template it is entirely possible he drank himself to death/committed suicide, in some dark corner of the colonies unnoticed. In the flashbacks about Tigh's past from season 2 we see Tigh was about to kill himself before he got drafted back into the fleet (spraying lighter fluid all around him as I remember).

[CaptJodan]

aslo

Tyrol and Tori--- madly in love

loved tyrol's reaction

Guess it explains why she was trying to get him to hook up with her before, and why she was such a bitch to Cally. Wonder how that will end, if he finds out.

[Alyeska]

No. They met ten years after the war.

Even so, it doesn't explain how he could have entered the Colonies after the War when there MUST have been some sort of military record. Otherwise, his story would have fell apart when he attempted to get "back" into the Colonial Fleet.

Easy, assume an existing identity. There could have been a real Saul Tigh and they had him assume that identity.

[JLTucker]

Wasn't there a government official named Daniel on Caprica? I keep remembering Roslin mentioning the name. Vice President Daniel? I could be wrong.

[Anguirus]

Questions that I'm glad were answered:

-How the Final Five are connected to the Centurions and the others.
-That there was a Number Seven, and what happened to it. (Though we may not know it all)
-What Cavil knows and why (I KNEW he had knowledge regarding the Final Five, and as early as "Exodus" he took a distinct interest in the Tighs).
-That an agency (Cavil) was indeed involved in the survival of the Five of the holocaust, though we don't know all the details.
-What was happening in Cylon space that caused the Guardians to flee (answer: the conversion of the Cylons by the Final Five into their present form. Bailing probably saved them from Cavil, though not from the Pegasus).
-Why Boomer took such a militant stance against the Final Five and the humans (though this answer still seems incomplete...perhaps she and Tyrol will get a scene in the next ep to explain her frakked-up psychology further).
-Why Two through Eight are forbidden to think of the Final Five.

Questions that I didn't even KNOW would be answered:

-Why the Cylons stopped fighting.
-Why they REALLY started the 2nd war.
-How there are Hybrids despite Tigh and others predating them.
-Why there are skinjobs at all, and why they are so similar to humans.
-Why Cavil is so different from the rest. (Watching the New Caprica arc, including the season 2 finale where Cavil was introduced, makes a LOT more sense now. Cavil went from a complete mystery to one of the most compelling characters on the show now that this missing piece of his character has been filled in, and his arc to date is pretty consistent and complete.)
-Why the various models of Cylon have preferred names (Ellen seems to have named them, except for Six...wonder why she tends to pick all different names? And I suppose this goes for Threes as well, since only two ever referred to themselves as D'Anna).

Questions that now need answering:

-What else does Ellen know about Starbuck, the "angels," and God? And did she build some kind of fail-safe into the Temple that would reveal the faces of the Five and then destroy the system? (If so...well, damn. But as Cavil notes, the sequence of events is quite bizarre.)
-Can the Final Five still resurrect, as per Cavil's plan to get revenge on them, or has that apparatus been totally destroyed for the Five as well?
-What will become of Anders? The end of the episode is certainly rather ominous...but the doctors are convinced he'll be fine.
-What exactly ARE the differences between Cylon and human physiology? Thus far I was going by the assumption that Cylons have very different nervous systems, as has been shown by both Twos and Eights conclusively. But then we see a human brain surgeon successfully operating on Anders' brain, which ought to be the most different part of him. (And we KNOW that his eye has some kind of apparatus in it.) However, at least now we have a reason for skinjobs to be highly similar to humanity.

Questions that I hope are answered:

-A biography of Tigh that explains all the weirdness there...though a handwave about falsified records would probably do.
-What the HELL are the angels? (Head Baltar and Head Six may have appeared to the Final Five thousands of years ago...who are they, what are they, and what's their angle?)
-On a quite possibly related note...who was/is Shelly Godfrey?
--Why did Caprica-Six know about the Final Five and tell Baltar of their existence, when it would be in Cavil's interest for her not to know anything about them?
-Who informed Adama (in the Miniseries) that there were twelve Cylons? (I always figured it had to be Baltar...but considering just how much of the events of the show have proved to be orchestrated, I now wonder...)
-Is there a Seven still out there?

Overall...best "solid hour of exposition" I have ever seen! The actors truly made this show work. And on a non-Cylon related issue, the plight of Galactica is interesting and I'm quite glad that Adama made the call to save it...though I wonder why it took till right now for a crack to show up in his quarters.