GALACTICA

It's our future. That city was Manhattan.
 

If that was Manhattan, then where the frack were the talking apes?

I was getting the same vibes as Michael about the Viper being the fifth Cylon. But it doesn't make sense; the fifth should be humanoid, or they might as well reveal that Romo Lampkin is a heavy raider in disguise. Plus, the teaser at the end of the episode makes it pretty plain that the fifth is someone who is/was very close to you-know-who.

The ending on Earth was a little suspect. When Adama lifted his hand out of the soil, I couldn't help thinking that it looked oily. Then it hit me: Earth civilization was destroyed when a war for oil spoiled the environment! Not what I want to see, but it would be typical of what we have come to expect from RDM. I'll be mega ultra ticked off if he goes overboard with political commentary in the last few episodes.
 

Wow! I am pretty shocked. So shocked that I had to immediately get online to find a blog and then blog about it.

Yes, it looked like it was suppose to be the Broklyn Bridge and Manhattan... about 200-300 years after a dirty bomb or something.

I am so glad that there is a 2nd half to the season and not just one more episode (as indicateed by the trailer). When will the 2nd season air?

If the 2nd half is an apocolyptic Earth, I am afraid a lot of peeps will be turned off.

I believe thousands are like me... wanting to see what happens when they arrive at Earth and what it looks like. This is anti-climatic.

I pick Roslyn to be the 5th Cyclon... as she's the one with the visions. However, I bet she's the one that is dead int eh scene with Sr. Adama kneeling over a sheet (presumably body underneath).
 

That was certainly Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge. They were standing on the Brooklyn Side.
 

Dear Sci Fi,

You suck. I hate you.

I've been patient with your non-standard seasons. With your various changes for when season 4 would start. With "Razor". With your sometimes haphazard, sometimes desperate, sometimes brilliant writing.

Stop punishing me for being a fan. Why don't you just come and tell me when to expect the next episode? I don't like any other show on SciFi, and playing games with show schedules won't change that.

Stop fraking with me.

--Anonymous

P.S. The fifth cylon has to have been someone on the cylon base ship--that's why it wasn't "with the fleet". Either Laura or Baltar, most liklely. (Helo was also with them, but I dont' think it was him.)
 

Okay. This has all happened before. It will all happen again. Here's my theory.

Earth was plunged into a Terminator-style apocalypse between man and machines. A refugee fleet was put together to escape, let's say there were twelve ark ships, each named for the signs of the zodiac, which could be the foundation for the Hellenization of the culture. They flee flee flee across the galaxy and end up hitting various planets along the way, including Kobol. Then they get to the Caprica region of space and settle down for a few ten thousand years or so... long enough for their origin story to be forgotten. The refugees pull themselves up from ashes, turns back into an advanced civilization, forgets all the old lessons, make slave machines, who then revolt and plunge the human race into a Terminator-style apocalypse, forcing them to flee flee flee in a refugee fleet, etc. etc. etc.

All of the Earth culture references, from chopsticks to suits and ties to All Along the Watchtower make total sense to me in this theory as they are all deeply embedded cultural memories.

And that shit was Brooklyn. That's the view from my apartment.
 

Lat: 40°51'54.97"N
Longitude: 73°55'53.73"W

I think they landed in the bronx, and are viewing the GWB from the Cloisters.

Brooklynites: What is that gothic ruin they are walking through? Is there anything in Brooklyn that may serve?

Could it be the Manhattan Bridge?
 

It wasn't manhatten people, its the temple of aurora in some yet-unnamed megacity. Lee looks at the temple in the book of Pythia when the episode first starts, it happens right before he reminisces about his fathers desk. Specifically the dome patterns in city center match with the wreckage in the final scene.
 

This post has been removed by the author.
 

Did anyone catch the fact that as Admiral Adama reaches down for the sand, there is someone holding a ticking geigercounter next to the sand? I'm really hoping to see where they go with this. It's a real downer to end on.
 

It could very well be (and most likely is) Manhattan in the background. They gave us the bridge, how could anyone convince themselves otherwise? Perhaps it's far into the future.

As for the episode as a whole. I enjoyed it. I'm glad the writers decided to bring the fleet to earth now instead of at the end. I don't consider it anti-climatic. It would have been the most banal ending possible for them to reach earth at the very end. Now we get to see the characters struggle with earth and struggle to adapt to a more peaceful living between humans and cylons.

I'm glad they brought the music back and put it into perspective as a sort of signal to earth. Although I would have considered it a bold move to unapologetically use "Along the Watchtower" with no explanation. Personally, I am not bothered by a messy plot. It's science fiction after all, it has a certain amount of surrealism automatically alloted to it.
 

What a trip.

My big concern is all the subplots that seem to be dropping by the wayside.

I wonder why the higher powers or whatever that directed them to Earth wanted them to go to a nuclear wasteland.

Also - no surviving lifeforms at all? Even in a complete nuclear holocaust, I'd expect some forms of life to survive.
 

I've been looking for a blog to discuss this Earth issue. I agree with the author, that this is not our Earth. Recall how clearly they identified Earth before, with recognizable continents (back at the end of last season). This time, no continents. And I believe that's the Temple of Aurora that they're visiting at the end (what was pictured in the scripture book earlier in the episode). It's certainly the Earth of their scripture, but not OUR Earth. There may still be hope.

There is a precedent for this. Recall how this new BSG parallels the 70's series in many respects(example: the old series found Kobal, so did the new one, the old series had Pegasus, this new series had Pegasus). So remember in the old series that Galactica found a false Earth as well -- called "Terra" - and Luna 7 (one of Terra's moons) had a wiped out population as well. I'm guessing this new "Earth" is similarly a post-apocalyptic diversion like Terra was, but not necessary the end of the line.

So the speculation about why Earth is destroyed should give way to whether this is Earth, and if part of the population bailed out before it was too late.
 

I live in Brooklyn, near the waterfront. They landed in Brooklyn Heights, where the Promenade is today. The buildings look small because they've been reduced to rubble no more than a few stories tall.

Arguing that there is no such temple in New York city is silly -- hate to break the news, but there is no such temple anywhere on Earth. This is, after all, fiction.

It could or could not be a parallel world or false Terra, of course, but even so it would be Terra-Brooklyn.
 

I watch BSG off and on, but as far as i can remember, the previously identified signs to earth don't have anything to do with this raptor giving the coordinates to earth. So if they were supposed to follow these spiritual roadsigns to earth and they followed a viper thats picking up a colonial signal that nothing else is than they're in the wrong place.
 

Hey did you noticed there are 2 human /cylon kids? One male and one female.... anyone feel an Adam and Eve bit coming up?
 

Re: If this is Earth: Remember that Gaeta announced that "the constellations were what they should be" from Earth.
 

I am a little annoyed by how the ended the episode. I mean this is one of the most critically acclaimed writing teams in the history of Science Fiction TV to the extent that even mainstream critics have had to give kuodos where and when due. So I was a little annoyed when they landed on a burned out husk of Earth. I kept waiting for Heston to show up and start screaming "You did it... You finally did it.... YOU BLEW IT UP....DAMN YOU, DAMN YO...Hey wait, who the hell are you people?"

I hope that they bring this full circle.
 

I agree, there is nothing identifiable that confirms that the scene at the end is the ruins of NYC or the brooklyn bridge. The buildings are too far away and there wouldn't be water to the right side of the ruined city as they panned towards the bridge remains.

I thought that maybe it was a view from NYC from liberty island, but there isnt a bridge on liberty island.

No continents were shown during the landing or in any of the earth shots. No moon was shown either. It didn't look like any of the constellations that might be seen from earth were in the scene showing the fleet and earth.

The one interesting thing I did notice was a cross right after the camera panned from Adama and Roslin.

I don't think that is earth
 

[IMG]http://i31.tinypic.com/seqdkh.jpg[/IMG]
 

The geiger counter- this war happend more recently than we think. Has everyone forgot what the Hybrid said about Kara being the "harbinger of death for them all"? I don't think the Hybrid meant of the Cylons, or the Colinal Fleet. I think this is Earth, and when she visited before- her presence started paranoia among the nuclear powers- like her ship was some new/secret weapon, and they ended up destroying most of humanity here.
 

answer pls!!!! is this the last episode of the season? i'm confused and there's so little info on the battlestar site! how long until another episode??

by the way, i think cally is the last cylon. she's not currently in the fleet when d'anna makes that comment, and she died before the resurrection ship went kaput. would be a great move to bring her back as the last cylon

also the prophet has said twice that kara will be the "harbinger of death" for the human race - maybe she had something to do with the destruction on earth
 

Here's what happened: remember that humans had to leave Kobol because one god wanted to be worshipped above all the others? There are 10 Lords of Kobol who are explicitly named. There is a deleted scene showing that the eleventh Lord of Kobol fell from grace because "it" wanted to be worshipped before all others. No twelf has been mentioned. Because of the series's love affair with the number 12 I conclude there is a twelf Lord of Kobol, just as there is a twelf unnamed Cylon, and undoubtedly this Lord of Kobol and this Cylon are one and the same. It is note worthy that deus ex machina may be "God on a machine" in literary criticism, but literally, is translates to "God from a machine (mechane)". So, who is the last Cylon, and hence, the last Lord of Kobol? The over-arching theme to the show is that everything has a reason. The reason for the entire journey is for the Cylons and the Humans to meet this last Cylon, or more correctly, for the Cylons and the Humans to bring Adam and Eve (these being the children of Tyrell/Kally and Athena/Helo) to him/her (the last Cylon and last Lord of Kobol).

A central tenate to Mormonism is that the Gospel of Christ has existed since Adam and Eve and that this message is "lost" into apostacy, therefore requiring God to restore this Gospel from time to time; the key religious "slogan" in this show is "all this has happened before and will happen again", echoing the restoration and inevitable fall of Christ's Gospel since the beginning of time (according to Mormon theology). I mention this because the original Battlestar Galactica was created by a Mormon and influenced heavily by Mormonism, as this reimagined show also is, albeit in more veiled form.

Further, Mormonism teaches that man will eventually evolve into Gods. This notion is manifest in the Cylons, who are created by man as machines but ultimately choose to assume human form, except for the final five, who come from Earth and were not created by "colonial" man, but rather were created by "Earth" man. One of these is the last Lord of Kobol.

"This has happened before and will happen again." Ultimately, we are left with a chicken and the egg scenario: which came first, the Lords of Kobol or man? This leads to a more basic question: did God create the universe or did the universe create God? Within BSG, the answer is that, like the concept of the cylical fall of the Gospel (in Mormonism), like the cylical fall of Israel (in the Old Testament and carried forward to today), man creates cylon who becomes "human", an Adam and Eve are created that represent the first fusion of the races, and that these fusions have children, who interbreed with cylon and man until, eons later, the two are indistiguishable and new species exists. It should be noted that only the decendants of Adam and Eve will bring Cylon and Man together, as the Cylon's now can breed with one another (Tigh and Tricia Helfer's love child). This show is at the stage where man/cylon are beginning this process anew. And during this stage the twelve Lords of Kobol will live in harmony with this new species. Which begs the question: who's #12? The answer is that the Cylon God is the fusion of the twelve Lords of Kobol, much as Mormonism teaches that the trinity is three distinct beings which, being always in agreement, are effectively one God. From three, one, or in this case, from twelve, one. Or, the Cylon God and the Lords of Kobol are one and the same. But who's #12? That has to be a decendent of Adam and Eve, much as Jesus Christ decends from Adam and Eve. And because this #12 Lord of Kobol is already a Cylon, this #12 already exists. #12 is the one who is speaking to the series prime movers (Baltar and Starbuck) thru "angels" who play to Baltar/Starbuck's basic need: for Baltar, endless vanity. For Starbuck, endless compassion. #12 is the one giving visions of Athena, to the President, to Baltar, to Xena the Warrior Princess, and to the woman who dies of cancer after getting to know the President. Or more correctly, the woman who dies of cancer guides the President thru a vision by example. Or more correctly, the twelf Cylon, the twelf Lord of Kobol, the redeemer, IS the woman who dies of cancer. She is the twelf facet of what the Cylon's call God, and her purpose is simple: to have lived as a human and as a Cylon, just as Christ lived as a human.

And now she's dead, waiting to be reborn as a decendent of Adam and Eve.

But who is the eleventh Lord of Kobol who wanted to worshipped before all others? It was the manifestation of Oneness, incomprehensible to the polytheistic human, that was the eleventh Lord of Kobol. And when man/cylon live sufficiently long with the Lords of Kobol, this Oneness will emerge, and the man/cylons will have to decide if they were fulfill "all this has happened before and will happen again", or if they can transform and worship "One" God and not many. Cylons did, but the Cylons were not God's creation, but man's. And the Cylons are the representation of man's continued incomprehension of Oneness. Through the Cylons, momentarily favored by God but now torn asunder, man is redeemed.

Who are the characters? Baltar is the flood (he even says so). Starbuck is as well, unintentionally, like Baltar. Roslin/Adama are Moses (obviously). Lee Adama is Joshua. The man/cylon childrene are Adam and Eve. The cylons and their children, and the humans and their children, are those that, in Genesis, seem to appear to breed with Cain and Seth's children. The remainder of the characters exist to drive the story and give it texture, not to act as touchstones in a compare/contrast between Mormon ethos and the shows "biblical ideas".

What will happen in the subsequent episodes is that the source of the visions, the twelf Lord of Kobol, and twelf Cylon, will appear and explain that she was the first Cylon made, even before the machine versions, and that she is a machine only because she was grown artifically. Her DNA and the patterns of thought springing forth thus, were used to create the Cylons. Of the four other "Final Five", they too were created and used to create the Cylons. The fact that they were created on Earth also suggests the Cylons have existed for much longer than the human's think, and that the human's have always had Cylons as slaves. The Earth humans are long gone, having departed like the Kobolites, twelve groups going to find a new home whilst a thirteenth starts a new home apart from the rest, this home being Kobol. The opera house is important because it is where the twelf Lord brings Adam and Eve together. The vision of Adama drowning a baby Baltar and Head Six have represents the idea that the twelf Cylon, a child of the cylons and the humans, will die of a human malady (cancer). That she is reborn to speak to the characters does not contradict this. During these revelations, we at last discover the entire series to be the throughs of Ronald Moore, and that he is God.
 

Does anyone remember the original series? There was one episode where they thought they found Earth (which was nothing but ruins), they found out later that was a planet used as a half way place... so the search goes on.

Do you think that is what they were doing on the mid-season finally?
 

I have a theory about the condition of Earth at the end of Revelations. If someone else has posted this theory forgive me. I haven't read each and every comment. I think we must not assume the inhabitants of the 12 colonies - and the people who colonized earth - are from the future. I theorize that they are actually from our distant past - so distant that the architectural remains of the 13th colony (including its mega structures from its various cities) have never been found. Think 50,000 years or so, not the up to 10,000 or so years that most archeological digs investigate. Theory - it is our Earth, but it is not our time. The colonials from the fleet as well as the Cylons (who can procreate) are our ancestors - and we are all (in part) Cylons. This would explain why the historical theologies have adopted either a polytheistic or monotheistic position - from one culture to the next. There are other reasons for this (in reality), but in the conjecture of the Glactica universe it is interesting to ponder.
 

im thinking San Francisco, Blacksand Beaches and that could have been a Pier for the golden gate..... just a thought

they were checking radiation of the sand when Adama pulled his hand out ruins from an age old Nuclear Winter?

as to the 5th cylon model, its either dead or it was already on the cylon base ship, 3 was clear that the 5th was not in the fleet, if you remember back to the episode where she saw the final five... she was apologizing..
 

I think they are back on Caprica. One of the characters will realize they are the Final Cylon and remember they're all standing on the bank of the Caprica River in the ruins of Caprica City on the Planet Caprica, next to the Golden Caprica Bridge.

"This has all happnened before, and it will happen again".

The universe is nothing other than a big circle and no matter how far you travel, you end at the beginning.

Then all the Cylons and Colonials will realize how silly it was to make war not love, make up and live happily ever after.

All the fanboys and girls will then have a collective orgasm in their pants and scream how this is the GREATEST SHOW EVER, and what a genius Ron Moore is for puttin in this incredible plot twist.

Meanwhile those of us who actually a enjoy consistant universe that doesn't change episode by episode, will pop "Babylon 5" into our DVD players, and forget about Starbuck.
 

You think that's Earth they're breathing? Hmm.

The constellations at the Revelations planet match the constellations in the Tomb of Athena, which don't match the constellations from Earth. See for example:

http://www.galactica-science.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/battlestar-galactica-s02e07-home-part-2-pisces-virgo-taurus-earth-versus-tomb-550x470b.jpg]galactica-science.com
 

It better not be earth, i know the writers are good but surley they lost there marbles to send galactica and co from NUKED PLANETS TO ANOTHER NUKED ONE! why!
I beilieve this strongly to be terra, and i will be annoyed if it is earth. Any ideas on clyon no.5 cant be apollo or starbuck and is COMFIRMED not to be baltar roslin or adama so if its sumone who hasnt been in the fleet as D'ANNA says then maybe... Zak adama... he has been signed up for an appearance...
 

I am currently writing the ending for Battlestar Galactica. Do take a look. www.crazyovertv.blogspot.com
 

Hi I stumbed across this page. I finally saw the Revelations and I have to tell you, it was cool.
I agree with many of the comments that this is probably not Earth.

1) No radio emissions! Not one.
2) No landmasses except the part of the cloud covered one that was partially seen could have been Africa.
3) No artificial sattelites in orbit. Granted if 10,000 years went by then o.k. they probably would have dropped
from orbit.
4) I got a feeling, Ron Moore borrowed many, many things from the original BSG. I think a way to make things work
and the popularity of the show, he once again dipped into the original BSG. For instance. Apollo and Starbuck
(the male actor; Dirk Benedict) landed on a planet that was Terra. Turned out it was also called Earth, but its
technology and culture was NOT Colonial, but more like an advanced Earth in say, 23rd or 24th century Earth.
My guess is this...Ron Moore is using this tidbit to cause the story to flow...what's next? Will the run into
Earth descendants? Did the Ancient 13th Tribe stop on this "Terra" and then move on to Earth. This could be an
adventure of another kind. This franchise is making big bucks and I think the scifi producers are saying...Wait!
you can't kill our cash crop...think of the money we could make. Think of the DVD sales we could earn.
5) All of this could be wrong, I did see the group standing on a ice/dirt plain and they passed a giant stone crucifix.
Thats right! They did. Then pan to the futuristic city and then the last scene was Leoben standing on what looked like
the bow of a U.S. Navy ship, a sub or air craft carrier, but I think a sub, like the Los Angeles class subs.

Oh! I ended that with the final five number! lol What do all of you think?

One last thought. The signal was a similiar one that was used in the original series "The Hand of God" where Apollo discovers
an old Gamma frequency, radio to us. Its the Apollo moon landings. Ron Moore is teasing us, using this as Terra. The geiger
counter scene as Adama picks up dirt is kind of odd and we can guess they are being safe due to the scenery and damaged city.
I seriously doubt Adama would have picked it up if it was radioactive or let Roslin out with cancer. It was probably a precaution.

Best Regards,

SG07
 

Helo is the final Cylon.