GALACTICA

BSG is getting was getting a little hard to watch toward the end of Season 1. In the original series, the Mormon theology was odd enough. In the new series, it is just plain confusing.

When I was a kid, I always though it would be cool if the found Gene Roddenberry's Earth. Federation vs. Cylons...even Kirk's Enterprise could take out Cylon baseships with a couple well-placed photon torpedoes.
 

Just so you know, I did hear they don't kill off the Old Man... he's Edward James Olmos, for cryin' out loud! =D
 

Nope, it's true, he's too cool to kill off. I like the series a great deal, but frankly the whole thing with the pregnant Cylon and all that . . . kinda chaffing the old sci fi nerves there. Just blow up more stuff and I'll be marginally happier :)
 

I have absolutely no inside info. But, based on various hints and brief previews, I've formed my own guesses about the new Battlestar Galactica season:

1. Sharon didn’t shoot Adama because it was her Cylon-assigned mission. Here’s what really happened and why: When she was on the Cylon Base Star, she began to tap into their thoughts. This revealed to her that Adama is a Cylon after all. Because she’s still loyal to the fleet, she blew the Base Star and hurried back to shoot Adama. This explains why the Sharons on board the Base Star were expecting her (they felt her coming) but didn't expect her to blow them up (they - and Adama - underestimated the effect that living with humans would have on her. He didn't really expect her to carry out the mission.)
2. There will be a scene in which she explains this. Sharon: “I shot him because he’s a Cylon.” Interrogator (Apollo?): “How do you know that?” Sharon: “Because, I’m one too.” Apollo: “He’s my Father!” Sharon: “No, he’s not. No more than I’m the real Sharon.”
3. Adama being a Cylon explains how the Cylons know so much about what’s going on (why 6 was waiting for Starbuck, how they could be waiting at Kobol, etc.) See below for the reason Cylon Adama has kept them alive until now, and why he won’t much longer.
4. Adama will not die, although he would have if he was truly human. This will make someone (possibly Apollo) question whether he is a Cylon. Someone will get the idea to secretly retest Adama’s sample (using Baltar’s Cylon detector).
5. With Tigh’s wife’s prodding, Tigh will declare martial law and will back Tom Zarek’s bid to become president. Once president, he will condemn Laura to death for treason. Tigh will catch onto his wife’s affair with Tom.
6. I envision a scene in which Tigh personally executes Sharon-who-shot-Adama. This will present us with the ultimate irony and injustice: Sharon, who’s given up everything for the Humans, even blowing up her “sisters” and sacrificing herself to shoot Cylon Adama, will be killed in one scene. In the next, we could see another Cylon Adama with the other Cylons (possibly holding Baltar's baby?)
7. Just as things look grim for Laura, Starbuck and Helo and a pregnant Sharon will make it back with the arrow. For awhile, it might be fun to have Starbuck and Apollo be fugitives in the fleet, giving us an insider’s view of the regular-joe’s plight.
8. At the last possible moment, the religious Humans will rise up and demand that Laura be restored as president, and that the arrow be used to find Earth. Tigh will finally make a good choice and back Laura, killing Zarek and possibly dying. His wife may or may not be a Cylon. Personally, I don’t think so, but Adama/Cylons could’ve easily put her aboard a ship just to undermine Tigh.
9. I agree that Baltar will finally become much more like the Baltar of the original series. He will purposely stay behind when the rest are rescued and will join the Cylons. His mind-6’s consciousness will be extracted into a new body (if it hasn’t been already). He’ll become even more convinced that he’s fulfilling god’s plan.
10. Eventually (possibly not even this season) we’ll discover that Adama’s mission was to keep the last humans alive just long enough to complete the “final step”. This final step has to do with the gods of Kobol and how and why the Humans were created. Humans were once the engineered servants of the “Lords of Kobol”, just as the Cylons were once the engineered servants of the Humans. This is why the Cylons keep saying that “all of this has happened before”. Humans killed the “Lords of Kobol” – all but one. That one survived for thousands of years and created the new Cylons. Thus, their belief in one god, and why they keep saying that he created them.
11. The final step, then, is to prove that they can reproduce by giving birth to children that contain the original DNA of the original race that started it all. This is possibly the reason that Humans were created in the first place: to keep the Kobol race alive, even though the Lords of Kobol could no longer have their own children. Humans were created in the gods’ own image, just as the Cylons have been. Thus, it becomes a final test to verify that the new version (Cylons) can continue that task. Once verified, the last of the Humans can be eliminated.
12. The final step will be verified when Baltar has a child with 6. At that point, Baltar will negotiate by offering to help the Cylons find the fleet. From that point on, he’ll be like the original Baltar - helping the Cylons hunt down the humans.
13. On the romance side of things: Apollo and Starbuck will finally become very involved (possibly as they are in hiding from Tigh). The second Sharon will have her baby and Helo will eventually trust her again as she proves useful in avoiding Cylon traps.
14. Finally, remember that the original series had a second Battlestar that showed up. It had survived the original attack, but took another route – attacking the Cylons instead of defending civilians. This would be a very interesting final episode for this season. Especially if the real Adama was in command of it, and maybe the real Sharon was one of its pilots?
 

I mostly agree with all of your predictions except the last bits:

The Caprica Boomer will be brought back. She is the link that will make people start questioning whether Cylons might have souls/"humanity". She is obviously a "continuing character" (because of the pregnancy and humanity threads).

2) The gaping holes I expect to not be gaping holes. I think the Cylons have a deeper plot than just "kill all humans". I think they _wanted_ Galactica to find Kobol. Why? I don't know. But remember their Helo experiment - what did they want out of that? I don't see how that would help their "destruction of mankind" plot. And this would explain why they didn't enter the nebula and blow Galactica away back in the pilot...

3) Part of 2 above: do the 12 different Cylon models have different agendas? This could explain some amount of inefficiency... And is Gaius' Number Six deviating from her agenda because she has fallen in love with Gaius (cf Sharon + Helo), or is she still following it?

Finally, I don't think Gaius will join the Cylons, because I think that the series wants to concentrate on the humans aboard Galactica... but I could be wrong. Maybe we'll follow him to learn more about what drives the Cylons...
 

Ok, so now we know that my first prediction did not come to pass. Sharon did not say "I shot him because he's a Cylon." It's been obvious for awhile now that Boomer can be controlled by the Cylons. From her reaction to the shooting, it now must follow that the Cylons want Adama dead. But does it follow that Adama is therefore not a Cylon? Almost, but not quite.

After all, we can assume that 6 would like the pregnant Sharon dead, since she ran instead of following the program. Maybe Adama (a very early model?) did the same? Maybe a Cylon Adama was sent to spy on the Humans in preparation for the new war, but became "corrupted" just as pregnant Sharon has been?

Let's consider this possibility. Assume that Adama was not a Cylon when his children were born. Assume, instead, that he was abducted and copied - maybe 15 or 20 years ago. The Cylons are preparing for the next war. Adama returns to the fleet and achieves something that he never did before: command of a Battlestar. So far, so good.

But then something unexpected happens. Adama begins to become too human. His interactions with them affect him. By the time the war comes, Adama's decided to save as many Humans as possible. He prepares for it as best as he can. Of course, he wouldn't have recognized Boomer as a Cylon; she hadn't been created yet when he left to become a spy for them.

Perhaps the real Sharon was abducted at some point (late teens maybe?) and copied, just as Adama had been. This would give her a verifiable background - a family and documented life - which would be necessary for her to pass security checks on the way to becoming a pilot. She might've been created with a single mission in mind: kill the traitor Adama. The war just happened before she could carry it out.

Under this scenario (at odds with at least one of my other pet theories, I admit) Adama becomes a traitor to the Cylons, just as pregnant Boomer has. This probably also means that the Cylons DO want the rest of the Humans dead ASAP. It also might mean that Adama kept the fact that Cylons can look human secret for a good reason. He would certainly save Boomer's life if he could, since he of all "people" would understand the inner struggle. Of course, he has to recover from some very serious surgery first. Look for an extremely rapid recovery as a first sign that this new theory is correct. Would anyone follow Adama if they knew he's been a Cylon for as long as most of them (with the exception of Apollo) have known him? For the sake of the fleet, would Tigh and Laura keep the secret? Who else would know? Who else would understand?

BTW, who here expects Boomer to return with a ship big enough to carry them all - a Raptor? That's a pretty easy prediction, I think.
 

Jarisha misses the point on the discussion of Adama being a Cyclon. Remember there are two Adama's on the Galactica. That is the great thing about Leoben's statement! Lee Adama is a Cylon.

There is more discussion on that at leeadamaisacylon.blogspot.com.