November 6, 2006
I was talking to Evan a few days ago about my thoughts on where Battlestar Galactica is heading, with both Cylons and Colonials trying to find Earth. With the tack the episode "Torn" took Friday night I figured I'd better get everything out here now, just in case I turn out to be right :)
The premise of the show is that, after the destruction of their civilization by the Cylons, the Colonials go off in search of a new home. According to their scriptures, which tell the tale of their exodus from their homeworld of Kobol about 2,000 years ago, the first colony to leave wasn't one of their twelve, but a thirteenth colony that found a planet called Earth.
In the original series there was a heavy dose of Egyptian influence, including the pharoh-like helmets the human fighter pilots wore. In the new series the influences are much more Greek and Roman. This works better for viewers because Western European civilization ultimately derives from Greco-Roman underpinnings -- the show becomes slightly more accessible to viewers that way.
But it also opens up a possibility, and one I hope the writers created on purpose.
The twelve colonies left Kobol 2,000 of their years ago. But before they left they set up the "map" that Galactica's crew found at the beginning of season two. That means the "thirteenth" colony (really the first) left Kobol before the others, and had time to send back their message detailing that from Earth's sky they could see the flags of the other twelve colonies in the stars -- the constellations we now call the zodiac.
Skipping up to Friday's episode, they also had time to head back out and leave markers for any future travelers. (Or maybe they left the beacons on their way, but I prefer the first option for a reason I'll get to.) That means that they were on Earth for a while before the mass (and near-apocalyptic, to see the effect it had on Colonial civilization) exodus from Kobol.
Accounting for the fact that their years might be longer (the twelve colonies were twelve planets, all co-orbiting the same star -- they'd have to orbit a larger star farther out to avoid screwing up each other's tides, thus having longer years) puts the initial landing on Earth at well over 2,000 years ago; about the time that Greek politics, science and technology started to come into its own. The Greek Solon, teacher of Plato, was born in 638 BCE -- 2,644 years ago. And Solon was born in Athens, Athena in Greek, the city named for the same goddess whose tomb the Colonials found the map in last season.
Granted, this is all reading (far too much) into a television show that we have fewer than 40 hours of footage of, but it sounds like a good case for who the thirteenth colony is and their impact on Earth. It would also explain how Earth could be the thirteenth colony even though we now know that (our form of) human life evolved here. A small group of Colonials, on a (self-imposed?) exile from Kobol, found our world and opted to settle it together.
They would have to have known that they were practically assured to not be genetically compatible with the humans they found here -- they may not have the same number of chromosomes as us, maybe not even the same DNA components -- so in order to propogate their colony they would have stuck together. Maybe they chose the Greek city-states for some reason, maybe they landed the first place they could. Maybe they built the Greek city-states. But a sudden influx of new ideas and technologies could explain how the Greeks managed to get a leg up on the civilizations they were competing with.
Which leaves the Colonial beacon that I said I'd get back to. It seems to me that after finding Earth, some of them went back to Kobol to tell their tale and maybe bring back some things. (We haven't seen evidence that I can remember to tell us Colonials have faster-than-light communication, so messages would have to be delivered by ship.) That could explain dogs... I can suspend disbelief that one species of theirs looks like ours (people) but the more there are the more of a stretch it is. Maybe they brought them back because they make good pets. Have we seen any other forms of life on the show?
Which means they may have dropped the beacon on the way back to Kobol, after they knew they'd found a place to live. A probe that, after exposure to our atmosphere, was covered in Earth pathogens. Bacteria and viruses that had 2,500 or so years to be bombarded by interstellar radiation, waiting to be warmed back up.
And the Cylons found the beacon and brought it into their ship. And the nasties, that probably are no more severe than a common cold or the bacteria that live in our guts, that had been dosed with millennia of radiation were fruitful and multiplied. And started killing off the Cylons. If they were colonial germs the Cylons would have figured it out and possibly saved themselves. But they didn't know what it was. They'd never seen it before. Because it came from Earth.
So that's how I think the first colony comes into play later on, and who they are and who we are. Whether a small cadre of Colonials still exists in the hills of Greece, hiding their spacecraft from view, and whether BSG happens in our past, present or future, is one I'll graciously leave to the writers ;)
Edit, 11/12/06 8:45 PM: Well, the writers shot down part of my theory handily: The bug on the probe was an old Colonial disease that the colonies had developed an immunity to. There was also an electro-something-or-other property to the virus, which explains how it affected the cylons at all. Helo's Sharon was immune due to mumble-mumble antibodies mumble-mumble baby mumble-mumble. So anyway, she won't die. Now, the last major outbreak of that particular disease (carried by rats) was 3,000 years ago, so the beacon was still left either by the first colony or by someone on Kobol who wanted to make a billboard for future travelers.
