MovieChat Forums > Battlestar Galactica (2005) Discussion > supernatural events in the series, or no...

supernatural events in the series, or not?

posted 3 years ago by GuyVO (19)
9 replies | jump to latest

Many people say that there is a god or some other supernatural power involved in the series. I do have my little theories about the “One True God” (OTG) in the Galactiverse.
The One True God is clearly a real character in the series. It is certainly not a deus ex machina. This off-screen OTG plays an active and important role from the start of the series.
Is it a real god, or an alien with a special interest in the fate of mankind and cylons? It would be impossible to make this distinction. It/he/she is clearly very powerful. Very powerful can be very god-like for us. How could a person like us distinguish a god from a very powerful and extremely advanced alien? This is quite common stuff in SF. Arthur C Clarke, one of the best-known SF writers, is usually credited with this idea or statement: ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ Or the variant known as Shermer's Last Law: ‘Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God’

Apparantly this OTG (or whatever alien) took a special interest in the future of humans. The OTG manipulates mankind for his own purposes. It is futile to try to explain the motives of such a ‘god’ or an extremely advanced alien species. We probably could not understand those motives anyway. Just as ants wouldn't understand why we mess with their scent trails - it could be for scientific research, or just for fun, but anyway it beats the intellectual capacities of the ant by far.
In BSG, people (and cylons) are the ants. And apparently the OTG has a very long lifespan and lives in a totally different time scale. His experiments can take thousands of years.

My guess is that this higher force could be the Lords of Kobol, or at least one of them.
We know that on Kobol, people lived among these Lords of Kobol. The Lords of Kobol were considered gods by the people. We can assume that they were no actual gods but in fact a very advanced species. Powerful, with scientific capabilities we couldn’t even begin to understand. Godlike but not omnipotent. People (and Cylons) left Kobol long ago, but perhaps the Lords of Kobol never lost interest in them.

For one reason or another, the OTG chose not to show itself overtly. Maybe that would affect too much the results of whatever he did, or for some reason that is not understandable for our tiny brains. He gave a little push in the right direction here and there, or he used his messengers: the ‘head’ characters. Alien messengers appearing as acquaintances are not an oddity in SF. Think of 'Contact' with Jodie Foster’s character and her 'head father', or the messages send to all the people of the world in 'Childhood's End'.

But at one point, the OTG felt it necessary to make humans and cylons come to the conclusion that there is more in the universe than people and cylons. For that purpose he made a new Starbuck. Starbuck II was meant as a message for both humans and cylons: “Hey, look, there is a more powerful entity at work here, and here is all the proof you need”. At the same time, Starbuck II was an instrument to lead the fleet to new Earth. For some reason the OTG wanted this to happen. He recreated her to achieve a goal, and made her disappear again when that goal was achieved. (Note: in the original series (1978) dead Starbuck was also brought back to life by the godlike ’Beings of Light’ to lead humanity to Earth.)

One could speculate what the motivation of the OTG might be. It is possible he wants to create a species that will survive itself. Until now the previous attempts only led to species that eventually built their Cylons and destroyed themselves. He examines what is necessary to suppress this tendency to built artificial life, and is trying out specific DNA combinations. It is fun to think about it.
In our modern world we are trying to recreate extinct animals with a breeding process called "back breeding". Perhaps the OTG is doing the same: trying to bring back an extinct humanoid species.

Anyway: I see no gods at work in the series. No Deus ex Machina, no magic and no supernatural stuff. There is at least one other party that covertly plays an active role in the series, right from the start. Lords of Kobol, or other extremely advanced aliens, ... who knows? In the end, it really does not matter. The story has been told without specifying it, and it has been told in an astonishing and mindblowing way. Some questionable details in the show's finale, or how to interpret them exactly, don't detract from that IMHO.

[–] asom (6558) 2 years ago

"All Of This Has Happened Before And Will Happen Again". That someone guides humans to a path that always leads to cylons and then the war/annihilation. The goal? Maybe what has happened on Earth, cylons and humans living and evolving together in a new way.

And it's possible that the species that control all that is the initial species that resulted from the very first human-cylon conflict.

[–] TheGutterMonkey (292) 2 years ago

I always preferred an idea more akin to this, as well. Whether it's true or not, hell if I know, but as far as my headcanon goes: an advanced alien species is what the gods and angels were all along.

Also, I somewhat like the idea this could present. And I find it fitting with the rest of the series.

Like with many stories involving AI (from Star Trek, to Bicentennial Man, to Detroit Become Human, and so on) it always eventually boils down to the question of what makes someone human. Or, rather, what makes someone alive/conscious? If it appears to think, bleed, love, fear death, and so on... then isn't it just like the rest of us? Does the fact that these beings were created by us change any of that?

We ourselves, after all, are arguably "preprogrammed" as well via evolution. Cognitive biases, our environments, and other various genetic factors dictate how we think, what we think about, the decisions we make, and the feelings we have. We don't truly have as much free will as we believe we do. We just abide by the blueprints of our DNA. No differently than the Cylons. The only difference, really, becomes that we were created by nature and they were created by us. The outcome, though, is the same.

The idea I like about the "gods" in this series actually being higher beings is that it flips all these questions back onto the "humans". It implies that the humans weren't created by nature either. They're just robots designed by a more advanced species, made with biological components; exactly like the Cylons were.

Then, of course, the series ends with a montage of the people of earth (us) starting to repeat this cycle all over again. Making little advances in AI that, presumably, will lead us to yet another new creation of life. And questions how we'll handle this when our time comes.

[–] FootOfDavros (6923) 2 years ago

Did you watch Caprica? After watching that and it's emphasis on VR worlds I began to view the possibility the Battlestar Galactica was set entirely as a simulation run through.

Different take again on a supernatural/ God presence in the show rather than looking at an advanced / evolved scientifically superior race.

I think this works when considering Starbuck's return in a brand new spaceship and subsequent vanishing into thin air. She was just put back into the simulation and then removed in order to identify the effects and make alternations to the starting variables when "all this has happened before" happens again...

[–] TheGutterMonkey (292) 2 years ago

I actually never got around to watching it. For whatever reason, I was pretty cynical about a prequel series when it came out (not really sure why) and just kind of let it pass me by. Is it fairly good?

[–] FootOfDavros (6923) 2 years ago

It was okay.

Went a bit too heavy on the teenage soap opera territory I think which is probably what killed the viewing figures and subsequently the show.

Was a bit of a shame though as it got a bit better towards the end.

[–] GuyVO (19) 2 years ago

Thank you for this thoughtful reply!

[–] ExTechOp (2770) 2 years ago

The last exchange between Angel-Baltar & Angel-6 sorta spelled it out for us.

"You know it doesn't like that name [after 6 called it "God"]."

Then, "Silly me [for caring about such a trivial point]."

From that I think we can guess that "God" is a real thing (obvious) and that Angel-Baltar & Angel-6 must be very close to this being to (a) know what it likes being called, (b) actually care about pleasing it and (c) understanding that it has a grand plan next to which other concerns are trivial, like what it likes to be called.

Even they don't know whether modern humans will repeat the same mistakes, but they're both hopeful that real progress will be made this time around.

I note, too, that the series has been absolutely "religious" about not showing any form of alien life whatsoever.

So yeah, agree there's nothing supernatural ... just a clearly advanced force at work that wants humanity and Cylons to break the cycle and evolve to the next step. Comparisons to "Childhood's End" and "Contact" are very apropos in that regard.

BTW, I think it was Apollo who was resurrected by the Beings of Light (if you're talking about the character whom Count Iblis killed).

[–] GuyVO (19) 2 years ago

I stand corrected - it was Apollo.

[–] ILJtheFirst (1933) a year ago

I like this theory. Starbuck died then suddenly reappeared. It wasn't explained in the show at all. She shows up with visions of having been to Earth, but had never been there. It made no sense at the time.