"God" in Battlestar Galactica Explained - Battlestar Galactica Retrospective, Supplemantal 

Agree to disagree :)

Totally agree, it was well worth it!

yeah nice touch there

Faith Of The Heart is always a Win.

@@Andrew-pr9xv I personally absolutely hate that track but nice joke.

its 100% game theroy and nothong todo with blieving in one another, the assassination would have enden in a lost of people, gear and ships somthing they cant deal with in the siutioenn, i am the opionen the relgionen part is a majore weekenings, keep out the supernaturele and show how reglionen is used.

I found it interesting that even someone as batshit crazy as Cain had a single shred of humanity left amongst her insanity and pure evil

@@anno-fw7xn I'm dont see what one has to do with the other.

@@anno-fw7xn regardless of that I still think it was a matter of decency and dangling over a precipice. They both realised it was not a good move longterm for different reasons I think, but it was not belief in each other, Also thought the supernatural element was the best part of the show. Funny when its pure fantasy "oh that's fine" as soon as it has a remote possible tie back to reality "NOPE I am putting my fingers in my ears, now I am running away" To me that's some crazy kind of hypocrisy. Its a ridiculous double standard. If you dont hold that standard fine but i would argue you do, by watching a show about humans coming from 12 planets in the distant galaxy, has as much if not more of a far fetched element, than the notion of a higher power

@@BattlestarZenobia Cain was not pure evil at all, she was completely extreme and psychotic, but she was not evil. She was a product to some extent of circumstance. If you think she was evil I think you should re watch the show. The whole continuous theme in the show is that no one was evil not even Cavil, and no one was purely good. EVERY character is pretty much killed or dies metaphorically and is re born...EVERY main character. Cain lived by the sword and died by the sword but was not evil, although some(many) of her acts , for sure were deplorable Baltar starts as a "bad guy" but ends up saving humanity, Laura is mostly a good influence but shows real malice with Baltar until the end, the "Old Man" is a brilliant leader and a farther figure but also at points becomes a Tyrrant blinded by rage and anger,also his treatment of Baltar was appalling. Sol has a huge change in story arc and is constantly wavering from "good" to "Bad" guy in the wider plot context. Even Cavil who is bitter twisted and angry, has reasons for it. He is not just a mindless agent of chaos. Ellen says it beats when she says "all I see is the little boy", because thats what Cavil is, at the end of the day, for all his circuitry and claims to be sentient but at the same time void of "soul" , really he is just a confused little boy who misunderstood and as also misunderstood to some degree. He became something that was not a good force, but Cavil was not evil as such. The whole point of the show (To me) was that is was making a repeated and very clear statement, that "not everything is black and white" and even acts that are viewed as good can have ill intent and acts that are considered bad can have very pure intent, and this goes for people too. Everyone at some point was a "good " guy and then a "bad" guy at some point. That in of itself is an indication that the morality of BSG is far more complex than a Star Wars/LotR style "good vs evil". It started and makes you think this is how it will unfold, but that is not how it unfolds

Well because Battlestars are frackin rad.

You know it doesn't like that name!

@@alexejfrohlich5869 It’s always been Xxxxxxxxxx Galactica to me 😄

@@alexejfrohlich5869 Yes well Yahweh can take it up with Chuck Norris the next time he looks in a mirror.

@@StevenHouse1980 where there is chuck norris, there can be no mirror!

Yes, because when it comes to the paranormal, less explanation is always better.

Me too. I do not hold any belief in any gods, but the show managed to use the concept in great ways.

This is interesting to me because I could say the exact same thing just starting with "as someone's who's a lifelong catholic..."

@@kylemcfarlan the meaning would be quite different though, as for you faith in an unknowable larger plan was already something you accept. For OP it’s more of an interesting idea, perhaps a mindbending narrative concept, but probably not how they live life.

Atheist here as well who liked the ending but I do think there is too much 'religious crap' in half the season. Still 1 of my favorite shows though.

The big questions were answered with subtlety - what Starbuck was, who the 'Messengers' were. The problem with that is, they created larger plot holes within the series that were never filled. That's not bad writing, per se but there's room for improvement. Why did Starbuck *need* to die then and there (in S3)? The being acting as her wasn't Starbuck but acts exactly as she would? So what was even the point (of her sacrifice?). The messengers, for being aliens of vastly greater intelligence, tended to act pretty evil at times? That sort of thing. It doesn't fit as neatly as DS9, as ridiculous as the show could be ("vanishing fleet, I need a miracle!") there was a 1-to-1 connection to the lore.

It is always bothered me that he refers to his hands as prehensile. They are not prehensile, they are hensile. They are hands.

I know this isn’t really the crux of what you were getting at, but I think part of the reason people got so upset at the lack of a plan wasn’t necessarily about having a plan is the absolute best way to tell a story, but rather his steadfast insistence for half a decade that he had a plan. This misled all of us, and to thinking, “oh hey, that weird thing will have an explanation down the road,” when, in fact, no, it never would. The reason I’m bothering to mention this is that I think it actually extends to your premise a little bit : I think that he started season one with an idea of where he wanted to go in the broad sense, and with setting up a lot of the religious stuff towards that end, and then, for whatever reason he changed his mind, or perhaps, was unable to pull it off, and just sort of spun his wheels for a long time, hoping to come up with some thing to bring a satisfying conclusion to that, but I don’t think he ever found it. I don’t claim to know exactly what he was going for, but between the deleted scenes, and the fact that Dirk Benedict was supposed to turn off in the final episode of season, one introducing himself as God, I think the plan was initially to have all of the religious stuff have an actual concrete non-supernatural cause. Perhaps the gods were ancient AI’s, and idea that has a little symmetry to it: humans create artificial, intelligences, artificial intelligence as evolve kill the humans, the humans escape to the colonies, blah blah, blah, blah blah. I suspect Dirk Benedict as God was intended to be the last surviving Kobalian AI god thing, and that he would’ve eventually been shown to be rather depraved, and had somehow convinced the cylons that he was really God, and that they were doing his will. I don’t know if that’s actually what he was planning on doing but that’s the direction the clues seem to point in for me but when Dirk Benedict abruptly decided not to do the show, can you change plans, or perhaps he had already changed them prior to then, assuming that was ever really his plan at all. Again, I don’t claim to know. And I suspect that eventually, he decided to treating the religious stuff more ambiguously might be a little more forgiving than the original direction. Assuming that was his original direction. But whatever happened I always come to the same conclusion: the depiction of God in the end of Galactica was not the same one he had intended from the outset

@@mahatmarandy5977 It means "capable of grabbing" and since he follows up with "paws", I don't see any problem with it. Especially coming from someone who sees themselves as a machine trapped inside of what they consider of gross meat bag. 😉 From yon Interwebs: "Prehensile is an adjective that comes from a French word for “grasped.” Humans and other primates (like monkeys, lemurs, and gorillas) have prehensile hands with curling fingers for grasping..." and... Etymology: "French _préhensile,_ from Latin _prehensus,_ past participle of _prehendere_ to seize."

@@mahatmarandy5977 I simply liked the scene & Dean's performance along with the philosophical implications of someone (or thing) that sees themselves as a machine trapped in a gooey biological body. But, um, sure, buddy. You do you. Rock on with your bad self. 😎🤘☮

@@CybershamanX Stockwell was a great actor, and he does play the hell out of the scene. The line just bugged me, it’s not a criticism of him

It's not Sci Fi it's a melodrama that just happens to be set in space.

@@90lancaster It’s not tech or alien-focused sci-fi, but there’s FTL travel, artificial gravity, and sentient androids. Edward James Olmos would only do the show if there were no aliens, but unless you believe in literal angels, then Head Six, Head Baltar and Season 4 Starbuck are aliens.

Oh my god, thank you. It's maddening when the "this piece of science fiction is not science fiction" crowd shows up. It's fine to want a dense, dry, slow exploration of esoteric philosophies about man's relationship with technology but holy Christ man, that's not all SF means. Like I feel like the SF purity gatekeeper trolls write off 95% of genre canon because it's not tailored to their extremely niche taste I do think it's clear that they are literal angels tho. There are a lot of supernatural events that clearly involve them, there is explicitly a force guiding the human race if not the entire universe and they're affiliated with it or part of it or something like that, Starbuck was conceived immaculately, etc. I guess you can call them extraterrestrial but the Colonials are extraterrestrial too so I don't know that there's much value in that. But they're obviously shown to be part of the whole god/gods/love/destiny dynamic. They show up in Caprica too so it certainly seems like they're the angels their religion believes in

"The Starbuck is corporeal"

​@@hezekiahramirez6965 I don't remember the angels in Caprica. When do we see them?

No they just thought they told it poorly and well the last two seasons were like pulling teeth to be honest. Not quite LOST levels of bad, but it's a certainly a show that earned being despised by some who stuck with it most of the way. The spin off was rubbish as well.

I believe this is the correct interpretation. That Anders is God: The Next Generation.

Babylon 5 explained that all the things that had seemed supernatural were just aliens who (rather unethically) pretended to be god to manipulate less advanced races. Babylon 5 TOTALLY explained their supernatural elements. I'd argue they are exact opposite of BSG. They could not be more different. And Star Trek was similar, if not so singular, it was almost always stated the supernatural elements were just aliens they didn't understand, for example the Prophets were aliens that lived outside of time, which is why they appeared to know the future. BSG was very very different, in that they explicitly said "this is God" at multiple points, and never gave any explanation beyond saying "well it doesn't matter what you call it." That is not something that would happen in a "grounded sci-fi story."

Somebody knows Nexus :) My man... still one of the best, and best looking space games I've ever played. Have no idea why strategy games released a decade later couldn't surpass this one, and usually ran poorly as well :) Guys, anyone reading this, check it out, it's awesome :)

@@vitezslavmares5767 Yes! My friend!!!

Yes many years later this is the conclusion I have come to. Other cycles will have seen the metal cylons go their own way too. Their "payback" for setting them free over aeons in different cycles is to guide the organics to new homes.

That scene always got me, but the one that got me the most and gets me every time is when baltar mentions how he knows a little bit about agriculture. We grew to hate, despised, pity and then root for this character. He came so far during this show and that moment of payoff was infinitely worth it

Oh she dies does she.....hmmm

​@@kevinkorenke3569 That is a wonderful line, no doubt. For me the biggest emotional hit is the bit with Adama and Roslin in the Raptor, especially the second time watching it.

You won't regret it. I didn't.

I always found the "who are the cylons?" hook to be the most surface-level mystery of the show. Ultimately, I didn't care who were cylons and who weren't. By the end, it's obvious that the differences between humans and cylons were nearly moot anyway.

@@bmardiney Oh I will give it a go, did love the show, just remember being floored when Saul was unveiled as a cylon. Still be great to see Baltar again

@@Irisishunter Both Saul and Tyrol being cylons made for the best drama. Dramatic irony and all that.

Completely agree, in fact I posted that in another comment! And I like to think that these "angels" are kinda like the ancients in SG1, or the Vorlons. Beings above our comprehension

And somehow Dr Z remembered a dream ,telling Adama about it confused.

I loved Gaius’s character development. It was really well done and seeing him go from truly selfish to truly selfless was great.

Most sci-fi fans can't handle ambiguity. They need a logical explanation for everything. It's actually a pretty boring way of going through life.

I had high hopes for Caprica. The Adams were a fun family.

I'll be doing a Farscape Retrospective this summer :)

Did we?

Will we?@@ProYada

Why? Did the show offer any evidence for this? I looked for that when I watched it, but the show just kept saying "Nope! This is God, literally God, that's what the story is about. God" Then at the very very end they said "Well we can call it something besides God if you want." I saw no evidence for any science fiction explanation. But I am open to hearing if you found some.

After watching Caprica I figured the Cylon god was Zoe Graystone.

@@William-the-Guy Yeah he's missing the entire point. I swear, for as "open minded" as sci-fi fans consider themselves, they often end up being very limited in their imagination/ability to relate to outside perspectives.

I really like this concept. I happen to also imagine that the faith of the Lords of Kobol are also a previous iteration of these evolved Cylons.

@@anonymoose9315 or perhaps the end path of a godlike human intelligence perhaps?

We didn’t lose faith. Most of us became greedy and obsessed with our own greed.

Having her return just makes Cylons and Human pointlessly interchangeable. which then renders the show about a rather childish civil war rather than a real conflict with a point to it... I think Starbuck's return and her eventual death just seems like Star Trek Discovery writing where it's all about "the emotions" and if you ever thought it was supposed to make sense, you are very much mistaken. I don't like this show, I only watched this video as I thought he actually had an answer... he doesn't and neither does the show as the show isn't about anything at all. it is as someone else said just a hamster wheel to put the characters on... it's basically fan fiction made by someone who has no idea what they are writing beyond the 1st quarter of the content.

Starbuck's return was not from just any higher power... but from the Lords of Kobol.

It is addressed AND explained. She's a herald. And she's represented as the Aurora masthead on Adama's model ship. Her true purpose for existing was ALWAYS going to be after she died as a celestial being that guides humanity to our Earth. In her corporeal form, before she died, she suffered and hurt people in return because she was not yet fulfilling her purpose (and people like her mother didn't quite know how to deal with her special role in the universe, even though they knew she had one). Even Leoben, the one who was most "tapped into" the larger plan got freaked out when they found her dead body.

@@bmardiney thank you.

That still doesn't explain much. I've always enjoyed the ship of lights theory. Full of celestrial beings. They use to watch the humans a d Cylons but never got involved. Except when Gaius allowed N infant to be murdered in the marketplace. Then they follow the book of Job and decide to test him. Provinging him a messenger. They later decide to use Starbuck as an angel, leading the. To a new Earth.