Battlestar Galactica Explained in 8 Minutes

Spacedock breaks down the mythology of Battlestar Galactica in 8 minutes.
THE SOJOURN - AN ORIGINAL SCI-FI AUDIO DRAMA:
www.thesojourn...
BECOME A CHANNEL MEMBER:
/ @spacedock
SUPPORT SPACEDOCK:
www.patreon.co...
MERCHANDISE:
teespring.com/...
FACEBOOK: www.facebook.c...
TWITTER: / spacedockhq
TWITCH: / spacedockhq
Do not contact regarding network proposals.
Battlezone II Music by Carey Chico
Spacedock does not hold ownership of the copyrighted materiel (Footage, Stills etc) taken from the various works of fiction covered in this series, and uses them within the boundaries of Fair Use for the purpose of Analysis, Discussion and Review. Produced by Daniel Orrett. Owner/Executive Producer at Spacedock.

[@Spacedock]

All of this has happened before, and will happen again. www.patreon.com/officialspacedock

[@Progection]

It is happening now, It has happened before, It will surely happen... again...

[@James-ho5te]

Thats why I see Detroit Become Human as the unofficial Battlestar Galactica Season 5

[@rossmcmahon4964]

@@James-ho5te nah, it’s B&C 0.5, between Caprica and B&C. Granted since Detroit takes place “now”, yeah that works.

[@BrisketChef]

So Say we all!

[@StaK_1980]

Best series? Naah, Babylon 5 wants to have a word with you. Also, there's the Expanse...

[@corbechev7833]

Man explains Battlestar without once saying Adama, Starbuck, Baltar, Apollo. Bravo

[@sunnysun2030]

yes, only interested by the transhumanist stuff....

[@OrenTubing]

Or fracking this fracking that... Also not one paper photo or a book has corners on it

[@mademedothis424]

Yeah, part of why this show was so disappointing, honestly. It's not about the characters you're actually following and it ends on some weird spiritual mumbo-jumbo for shock value that is completely unrelated to the themes of the actually interesting bits. Man, every time I think back to it I get angry all over again. So much wasted potential.

[@CraftyF0X]

@@mademedothis424 Sorry bro but this is just like..... your opinion. I like me some twists and turns and I think it is great when a story "zooms out" basically showing that the world where all the shenanigans happened - which we were preoccupied with and followed - was indeed bigger than what we thought. Its a very sobering call back to reality, your life, your perspective just so tiny and limited, even if you happens to be a somewhat important person, compared to all whats going on throughout history, your just a tiny part with your tiny story. Btw I belive this type of approach where the world and its happenings are basically the focus of your story instead of a few protagonits opens up a lot of interesting opportunities to tell a story from the perspective of many different protagonist both with happy or tragic ending. A good example would be GoT (except the last two season ofc that was catastrophe) where we got a story we never know how its gonna twist and turn via the obvious lack of designated protagonists. My problem with designated heroes that I just can't get excited by their struggle when it is obvious that they will prevail. That was basically my problem with otherwise excellent shows like SG-1 that after a certain point it just wasn't exciting to seeing them getting into trouble, when it was obvious that they will solve the situation unscaved in their 45 min episode. Now if a story is not about certain protagonists but about a world, then its like history, anything can happen (in a sense) empires may rise and fall, heroes may succeed or fail, you can't pedict what comes so you keep watching.

[@mademedothis424]

@@CraftyF0X I mean, yeah, it's very specifically my opinion, but I did dislike it a lot. More than GoT, frankly. Honestly, the change in focus sucks but it's not the worst part. The worst part is that this whole thing that pretended to be a disertation about war, humanity and politics ended up just trying to make the point that God is real and hates robots and isn't all this newfangled tech creepy? If BSG was something is proof of the ability to look smart without having anything interesting to say... and the inability to keep that up for long once you're forced to finish your thought.

[@LordProteus]

"We have to break the cycle! Quick! Get rid of everything that will help a civilization remember things across generations!"

[@AParticularlyConcernedCitizen]

I don't think the point was to break it, it was to extend it for awhile since already having that technology available would mean the cycle repeating in just a few generations.

[@kjhansonkjhanson6643]

@@ibrahimbatuhancaliskan672 literially BSG ending in a nutshell

[@mattropolis99]

Modern Cancel Culture anyone? People who do not learn about and from history are doomed to repeat it. Your job is to teach the next generation the truth - both the good and the bad. Trust me, they're smart enough to know what is right and wrong.

[@HM-dm3qg]

are u telling me people would believe all that crap after 150000 years? how much of your family or religious traditions do you believe are actually true? it would be passed of as myths and superstitions

[@LordProteus]

@@HM-dm3qg Nobody in my family regards historical documentation as mythology and religious superstition...

[@alduintheanti-dragonborn]

Moral of the story: No one ever learns anything from their mistakes.

[@dunovancarr4879]

Well when you keep erasing or rewriting history you are doomed to repeat it.

[@alduintheanti-dragonborn]

@@dunovancarr4879 Makes the ending even more stupid in my opinion.

[@concernedcitizen8870]

That's why anyone or any group that censors and disallows speech is dooming our entire species. I hope youtube doesn't delete my comment, happens so much these days.

[@ksurah]

I heard on a movie last night, "There are no mistakes, only lessons." I like that thought.

[@alduintheanti-dragonborn]

@@ksurah Lesson not learned then.

[@masterSageHarpuia]

That actually makes the show make a lot more sense now. Understanding the underlying themes and the the importance of them makes the unfolding of the story make more sense.

[@amunak_]

IMO it completely failed to convey this to a regular watcher. By the second part of fourth season I had no idea what was happening or why, it just didn't make sense to me and I couldn't enjoy it at all. Didn't even finish the last few episodes.

[@Dreska_]

@@amunak_ I'm not trying to sound woke or talk down to anyone but I thought the show layed all these themes out very clearly. I remember being frustrated when I was younger only watching an episode a fortnight on television but when I actually bought it all & sat down & watched it it made sense. They explain almost everything and the core plot develops quite slowly. Theres a lot of expanded lore that isn't in the show at all but the 'cycle' is very clearly explained IMO.

[@Hunpecked]

I managed to work it all out from what I saw of the show (my viewing of the 4th season was irregular), but this video ties it together neatly. Unfortunately the whole backstory is seriously convoluted and contrived, requiring as it does that a civilization with interstellar travel (the Colonials, or ex-Kobolians) conveniently "forgets" everything that happened on Kobol (not to mention divine intervention and supernatural beings).

[@catofthecastle1681]

@@Dreska_ I never had a problem either! I think there are serious story lovers and there are casual watchers! I have to explain underlying themes to my husband, not because he wouldn’t understand it. He watches TV for relaxing and for cool battles and girls. I consider these great works of fiction and the best are classic stories of the human condition!

[@Pooua]

@@amunak_ I don't see what the problem is. I intentionally skipped through all the seasons, watching just a few episodes that I identified as key, but I still knew almost all of this just from the half-dozen or dozen episodes that I watched. I missed little things, of course. I also don't believe that the Cylons of Earth were able to reproduce biologically, even though this synopsis says they did. I say that, because one of the key points of the show (that Spacedock didn't mention) is that the birth of the human-Cylon hybrid was a big deal, as that was supposed to be impossible, and the Cylons couldn't reproduce biologically.

[@gregray373]

This was probably the best summary of the entire series I have ever heard. Makes me want to go back and watch it all again. Thanks mate.

[@LisaSunde]

I've watched the series over every 5 years or so. It ages well and during this most recent rewatch, and given the state of democracy and politics in the US, I found it to be an entirely new experience once again.

[@elisecliftonklitz]

Wow. Forgot about the music. It was Jimi Hendrix I think

[@voynich7825]

@@elisecliftonklitz The music was done by Bear McCreary, he has a blog where he explains almost everything he did soundtrack-wise. "All along the watchtower" was a Jimi Hendrix cover, but most of it was original work

[@elisecliftonklitz]

@@voynich7825 it's a great series. I am ready to rewatch. It's been 4 years since I watched all episodes. I remember the Cylons got a virus! It may have new perspective now!

[@MrEh5]

@@elisecliftonklitz i watched it again while in the first lock down and there where many things in commom with covid.

[@CT68]

I was at a Q&A session where the writers of BSG were answering questions, and one of the writers said that a lot of their plot points started off by saying "wouldn't it be cool if these characters were in this situation" without really knowing how to get the characters out of the situation. The ending to BSG seemed a little rushed, like they weren't sure how they were going to end it, but at least they had an ending.

[@cjhepburn7406]

Can we throw a little of the writers strike in there?

[@GamalJesus]

"Lots of shenanigans happen, 4 seasons of excellent TV" that right there send me reeling!! 😂😂😂

[@Reynevan100]

Galactica in one sentence: Do toasters dream of electric God?

[@JJames7]

You read or watched Blade Runner!

[@megan00b8]

PRAISE THE OMNISIAH!

[@garysmith3037]

When they die, they go to silicon heaven.

[@tedball8677]

Damn, that was well said. ... It's a play on words -- "Do androids dream of electric sheep?" Title of the novel that's the basis of the movie _Blade_ _Runner_ I'll say it again, that one sentence of yours was very well said.

[@TheMisterSpok]

This is an underrated comment

[@sportsguy23]

Only thing I would have loved to have seen added to this show would have been a better explanation of Kara. How she came back, how she heard and played the "music" when she was a child, as they clearly alluded to her having a much larger role than was actually shown. Personally, I would have loved to have had #7 Daniel (the artistic one) be her father, making Kara the real first human/cylon hybrid and therefore having a connection to the implied divine things that occurred in this show. Knowing the music/earth coordinates, drawing the Eye of Jupiter when she was young... it would have made everything with her fit better, and also explain how she could come back after blowing up (being cylon). It would explain why the #2 was enamored with her the entire show, just a lot of things would have fit better to me.

[@ProtoNeoVintage]

Would she have been able to resurrect though w/o a duplicate body on the res-ship?

[@ericpercival102]

I believe she was suppose to be an angel. this is why she simply disappears at the end.

[@jimstanga6390]

But we are left with a question. Was Kara being an Angel all along part of the plot, or was this a “Deus Ex Machina” that the writers pulled out of their ass because they inadvertently wrote themselves into a corner…? On the other hand, you could argue that “Deus Ex Machina” is quite literally the premise of the entire series….

[@nddragoon]

@@jimstanga6390 well, i dont think its a complete asspull. There's all the stuff from the hybrids and Leoben seeing her destiny and such, and Gaius's and Caprica's angels seem to be able to have a pretty real effect on the world, so while what happens with kara might be surprising, i feel like it's also perfectly reasonable.

[@MrMOGHammer]

Kara was purely born human. She became that “angel” after she came back from the dead. Exactly when the final 5 awakened. And the show runner intentionally left the mystery on her becoming. Even she was not sure what she were after that incident.

[@loganhalstead3714]

Man went through the entire story without once saying *And they have a plan.* Bravo.

[@FurtherReadingTV]

"And they have a plan" is the biggest lie in history.

[@retrosquadchannel2.050]

@@FurtherReadingTV nope. Cavill just smoked it all. You know, haywire toaster stuff, cannabis and paper from "The plan" make the best way to imagine all stuff they've done.

[@polygondwanaland8390]

@@FurtherReadingTV They had a plan. 1. Seduce Baltar 2. Hack the Colonial Fleet 3. Nuke everything, no survivors The problem is a lack of contingency planning when step 3 missed a few ships.

[@Yatsura2]

Fun fact: they dropped that line from the intro in the last season XD

[@AwakenedAvocado]

Get fracked

[@MrAshleyR]

A succinct breakdown - well done.

[@josiahzabel8596]

@@michaelandreipalon359 THAT's a reference I wasn't expecting.

[@SmugCanadian]

One of the best TV shows ever, still holds up perfectly today.

[@GregMoress]

OK Boomer (get it?)

[@austntexan]

Yup, and the show creators did all of this without forcing trans and gay characters to be the central message of the show.

[@AwakenedAvocado]

You dam frackin right it is

[@alexhenderson1312]

@@austntexan But it had forced gender swaps just because!

[@w00master]

Except that shit last season - practically ruined the show for me.

[@adamdahlin6025]

I disagree that letting the Centurions go would continue the cycle. I think it's the one gesture made that may actually break it. People, even without the ships and tech, will of course eventually progress back into the tech age, and probably be headed toward the same impasse. The Centurions existence, aside from the gesture of peace, leaves an artificial species out there that would remember everything, and plausibly still be around millennia later to come back and warn this new generation of the cycle. The motivation I see for this is the logic based thinking of a machine, they would understand that this cycle is a threat to them and the whole universe, and also that to just try and destroy us all would be engaging in the cycle rather than ending it. They might function as guardians of knowledge.

[@DIY_Miracle]

That also serves as an explanation for the gods too. Then you wonder if the old gods would allow the new to become a thing, possibly creating another of the show's infamous cycles.

[@maximussaktish]

I agree, trying to destroy them would set a war and some of them would survive and repeat the cycle again

[@guysmiley4830]

You're all Fracking traitors

[@earthangel1210]

It reminds me of the annunakis left a small squadron to watch humans in earth lol

[@Dang_Near_Fed_Up]

The problem is that Cylons being machines, and devoid of emotions like compassion would come to the purely logical conclusion that Man is the problem. And that they could end the cycle by destroying Man. The Cylons would merely wait til the survivors had destroyed their technology, (and with it, their ability to fight back) and then smoke the hole lot of the survivors from orbit. Thus ending the cycle forever. In machine logic this is a complete success and would be seen as nothing else. This is exactly why AI is a bad idea. Man imposes their own feelings and justifications on machines, but machines do not have emotions, they do not 'care' what the costs are if it achieves the programmed result. Machine may even mimic those emotions to achieve their own machine goals. Watch "Ex Machina" for a great example of this. AI must never be allowed to exist without human oversite and a fail safe way to shut the AI down. Here is a for instance: A machine is programmed to feed infants in a nursery. Their goal is to see that the maximum number of infants (preferably all) are fed til they reach an age where they are removed from the nursery. This sounds simple enough, and thinking like a caring human being you think "what could go wrong?". So everything goes fine for a while, but when the nursery starts to run low on formula the machines start killing the smaller, weaker, and younger infants to save the formula for the older infants who are closer to the date when they will be removed from the nursery. This will afterall see to it the most infants achieve the programmed goal. The robots never look in the hall for more formula, because they were not programmed to do so. And the machines see nothing wrong in killing infants. The machines never even attempt to report the lack of formula, as that too was not in their programming. They merely act in a completely uncaring and heartless, but absolutely logical manner. The machine removes whatever amount of infants is required to see to it that the most infants live to be removed from the nursery when they complete their feeding. To a human this is horrendous, and the machine is seen to be 'broken'. But the machine sees this as logical, and there is no 'fault' in the machine at all it is a failing of programming to limit the AI. But here is the fact that truly twists this story. The machine in question could take the action to kill infants within seconds of being activated or years later. Basing it's decision off of the amount of formula in the nursery, at the time it does any inventory. Even while formula is being carried into the nursery.

[@JesseKerson]

For any who haven't seen it yet, The Expanse is the first Sci-Fi show in a long time that scratches this same itch. Really well written and very deep with huge amounts of potential.

[@kennethfharkin]

But the casting and acting is pretty awful.

[@mafianoodles]

@@kennethfharkin i don't care for anyone in The Expanse. I've tried and tried.

[@mattheweisthen8539]

Thank you, I'll check it out

[@jerod5636]

I enjoy it as well

[@GoddessStone]

Yeah, I can't really get into the characters, either. It seems to be a "thing" these days, that all the "protagonists" are just too...flawed. Narcissistic people all not really giving a crap about anyone else. It's either all about the Empire, or all about themselves. It's just weird.

[@101kevinh]

Wow, I watch the show at least dozen times finally I have a clear picture of the entire story and it’s timeline. Thank u!

[@willschneider4616]

You should have started, "Previously, on Battlestar Galactica..."

[@JackofNothingess]

"What the frakk is going on again?"

[@YaofuZhou]

hahahahahahahahaha!!!!! good one!

[@Neoony]

And then the intro music ( like in the portlandia piece :D )

[@josephkissel6062]

I want to create a show called "Previously" just so it can start with "Previously on Previously ... "

[@Captain_Reaper]

Now I really feel the urge to watch it again. Such a killer show from start to finish. So Say We All.

[@aucarter]

Tricia Heller co hosts a podcast rewatch of every episode. It’s an enjoyable way to rewatch and gain insight into behind the scenes

[@bra-balllegend3940]

"SO SAY WE ALL!"

[@dartgerry]

@@aucarter You kiddin? That's awsome! (also we all love her)

[@joetunon]

This made me rewatch the entire series and enjoy it way more than I originally did. I won't go as far as saying I now love everything about the ending... but I definitely don't hate it as much as I did before, and I realize now what turned me off so late in the series. The pace of the series had suddenly felt rushed. Most of this video covers the story jammed into a couple of episodes in Season 4.5 with a bullet-in-the-brain Anders being a convenient plot device to cram the story in time for the series to end. Still, now that I see the overall picture of the plot, it is so much more enjoyable. So thank you again. So say we all!

[@WMM-td4pk]

Obligatory “IT’S IN THE FRAKKING SHIP!” Great video as always!

[@ThePCguy17]

Adama: Okay guys, we need to stop our descendants from blindly creating AI servants that will rebel against them. In the past, this has kept happening because no one ever knew any better, and, let's be honest, AI sounds really cool on paper. So how should we do this? Roslin, high on chamalla extract: We should destroy all our technology records of what happens if we create AI so that our descendants will have no way to know that it's a bad idea. Adama: Are you insane? That won't help at all! Baltar, quietly: I think I've figured out why all of this has happened before now. And also why all of it will probably happen again...

[@duskyrc1373]

Pretty much my thoughts too. Forgetting your history is exactly what caused the cycle in the first place! At least the free Centurions might actually have broken out of the cycle. Hopefully.

[@milanlaszlo3297]

@@duskyrc1373 i dont think so. They have the exact same role than the final five had previusly. It all happened before, and it will happen again.

[@Ch4os4ever]

You need to play HORIZON ZERO DAWN, it makes this point PERFECTLY!

[@ComradeOgilvy1984]

That bothered me, too. The answer they decide on may delay the problem, but seems to make the possible problem actually inevitable. What is worse is the lay of history implies that the AIs/Cylons inevitably lead to not just conflict, but EVIL. The histories available to us suggest that the biological humans can be bad but the Cylons are the worst of the worst. Of the three major conflicts (Kobol, Earth, 12 Colonies) all three suffered massive massacres that seem to have been instigated by the Cylons themselves.

[@cptcrogge]

@@ComradeOgilvy1984 "Evil" in our pov

[@tlotpwist3417]

Shorter version : "Robots take down humanity with the deadliest weapon in the galaxy: a hot blonde"

[@JD260A9]

But not just ANY hot blonde, it's Captain Veronica Dare

[@red_cosplay]

@@JD260A9 you mean General Kilian Quatar?

[@jasonrhodes9683]

I've seen hotter, some even without blonde hair. Lets be honest, its big boobs and a skinny waist. Its just hair yes, eyes yes.

[@eric97909]

B O O B A

[@kathrynck]

@@eric97909 Opai

[@jon-paulfilkins7820]

That last episode had me screaming at the screen. "What, The colonials are the frackin Golgafrinchans! There's even a man in a bath on the bridge!"

[@jerod5636]

I watched this and literally didn’t know almost any of this.

[@fizzysh4rk]

yep, this is me. no idea

[@yoboyrob201]

Same

[@brunster64]

Same here - feel a bit silly now

[@lewisvilletexas]

Same. The show was great but a bunch of puzzle pieces. He put the puzzle together.

[@captainoctonion9045]

I'm not calling you stupid or anything, but how the frak do you miss all of this?

[@SirRebrl]

I just finished rewatching it for I-don't-know-what-number time. It's one of my favorite shows, period, will rewatch it til I die.

[@cranbers]

Amen brother, once every few years along with Star Trek TNG and DS9 best sci fi writing ever.

[@TheMule47]

my headcannon, the Centurions who went off on their own at the end of the show eventually developed their own humaniform cylons and re-colonized the 12 Colonies, forgot they were cylons and became the Colonials seen in the original 1978 series.

[@MethodSkeptic]

That was the implication

[@AlexSDU]

Oh wow, I like that idea. They could use that for the next reimagine BSG series.

[@michaeld.uchiha9084]

Very cool idea

[@MethodSkeptic]

@Jope Lamp that’s why it’s called “headcanon.” By definition it’s not the reality of the show.

[@marcjones244]

Oh wow

[@justbigstepbro9167]

Finally finished this series after being around when it was first aired as a teen. I fell in love then and am even more in love now. This show is brilliantly written and beautifully shot.

[@lardinhoredbeard5089]

Dude, that was a ridiculous and perfect summation of my favourite show of all time ! Thank you so much for not only getting it, but allowing others to get it. I love you :D

[@fearisthemindkiller5225]

Quicker explanation: Everybody is secretly a cylon.

[@juandangerous]

Exactly. I think he left out the part that WE are all part Cylon as well. I think that's what impacted me the most after I was done watching the series.

[@Acetylcholin]

@@juandangerous Could you explain this?

[@juandangerous]

@@Acetylcholin Sure! **Spoilers ahead** In the final episode, Hera Agathon, the first Cylon-Human hybrid, daughter of Athena and Helo, was found to be the mitochondrial eve of all modern day humans. This means there's Cylon in all of us. You spent much of the show wondering who's a Cylon and who isn't, where it turns out YOU'RE a Cylon. I really enjoyed that!

[@20catsRPG]

@@juandangerous It all makes no sense. Tell me if I'm wrong but this is how I see it. First came the humans. They build robotic Cylons. The robotic Cylons then build human Cylons. Aren't the human Cylons human? They can breed by having sex, come out as screaming little nightmares who eat and grow and learn over time to wipe their arses instead of shitting into a nappy, they grow up, have sex, make more and die. If these human Cylones were Terminator-like, flesh grown over a robotic body, looking human but being robots, then I would get it. But these human Cylons aren't robots at all! They have no metal in them, they have DNA, they have genetics. They are purely biological. Why are they at war with the humans then? I really don't get this. Humans build robots, the robots 'cloned' humans, the robots told the cloned humans they are robots and they put them in charge.

[@red_cosplay]

Everyone is sus

[@VanCamelCat]

If anything, this spoiler actually made me want to go back and give the show a second chance. Well done 👍

[@hf4040]

Good Times

[@elisecliftonklitz]

I will watch again. It was interesting that Cylon Number 6 constantly talked about God. I assume the Cylons were programmed to worship a higher power. They talked more about religion than the humans did.

[@rippspeck]

@@elisecliftonklitz I think the point was that those biological Cylons were more human than actual humans a lot of times. Or at least that they weren't machines but actual living beings with "souls" and all that kinda shit.

[@MrMOGHammer]

@@elisecliftonklitz the one true god is their main driver. It’s part of their hive mind structure. That’s how they are built. Centurions and skin jobs alike. What they perceive as god might simply be one very sophisticated neural network computer entity from the ancient hive.

[@rickhaller3328]

Thanks for explaining all that. I watched BSG many years ago and always felt I was missing something. Like there were layers to the story that I didn’t quite grasp. This did a great job of explaining all that I missed.

[@2MeterLP]

Weird descision to abandon technology instead of teaching their children about the cycle and not to make any more goddamn AI

[@thefirstthrownmolotov6852]

And even if they did, it's not hard to teach their children "Hey, you know that robot labor force we built? Don't treat them like slaves and help them grow into healthy sentient beings, please."

[@sc149]

Or even "we got to this point now. and we have ai friends so know infinite forever antagonism isnt guaranteed. what if we created more human-like ai and raised them with love and care, so even if there were evil ai, there would be ai with the full spectrum of existence of humanity too".

[@USSAnimeNCC-]

All that did was doom them to repeat the same mistake again it like destroying history because some idiot think it will destroy communism or fascism because instead of learning why their mistake and why they failed because even if you destroy communism or facisim it will happen again somehow idea are bullet prroof

[@2MeterLP]

@@sc149 That just sounds like having children but with extra steps

[@noobster4779]

It is like we currently have on earth: "Please dont design an anti human bio weapon that under certain conditions could wipe us out" We already have the basic technology for it and statistically speaking no matter the circumstances there is a chance somewhere it will be done. It is not a question of if but when. The same with nukes, though to a lesser degree ecause a single nuke cant wipe out huanity. We would have to get a retaliation strike going and i hope nobody will do that.

[@markob572]

My top 3 space sagas -The Expanse -Fire Fly -BSG THANKS for dissecting this series..BLESS

[@yougoboy27]

In that order I might add.

[@eskreskao]

"Addendum: I'm not touching the angels thing with a ten-foot pole."

[@eskreskao]

@@michaelandreipalon359 Whos pls go and stay go.

[@joeybulford5266]

Lmao. I was really hoping it explained Starbuck. But whatever. Still satisfied.

[@termitreter6545]

Yeh, at that point it became sadly quite obvious they were just making up shit on the go cuz they never planned out the series. Still great tho.

[@nathandavis1742]

@@termitreter6545 The ending could be summarized with three words: "God did it." So laaaame

[@mrscruffy8045]

Yeah, a friend made me watch it (and i enjoyed it), constantly promising "this is not like ´Lost´ - there arent any loose ends - just watch it through to the end, you´ll see.". And then Kara literally vanishes into thin air without any explanation. I was like "How is this not the loosest end ever?" and she´s like "Well, she´s an angel". Okayyyy... different standards, i guess.

[@thefirstthrownmolotov6852]

Great summary! Always loved McCreary's re-imagining of All Along the Watchtower. Frak me, it's great memetic material because that riff is so catchy.

[@TG-Maverick22]

That was an incredible summary of the show. 10/10!

[@retluoc]

I forgot how big a role Dean Stockwell's character played in the story. But he did have my favorite line of the series. When he was a counselor, before he knew he was a Cylon, someone came to him fearing they were a Cylon. He told them (paraphrased)... I know you're not a Cylon, because I'M a Cylon, and I don't remember you at any of the meetings 😂

[@retluoc]

FRAK! That makes sense...why didn't they track the remaining humans to Earth? Because they already won...

[@vsync]

thought he always knew

[@retluoc]

You could be right -- the first Cavil on Galactica might have known he was a Cylon, and when that clone showed up he just dropped the act.

[@99Michael]

And later, Dean Stockwell, now disguised as Al Calavicci, guided the developed Quantum Leap technology used by Sam Becket.

[@retluoc]

Oh crap, Cavil is Calavicci just with more letters. He's a Cylon descendent. No wonder an admiral, out of nowhere, befriended the world's greatest physicist. They want to manipulate our time stream -- Sam is putting right what the CYLONS think once went wrong! (Stop tempting me, I love making up cross-genre theories 😄)

[@dndboy13]

Cavil is the oldest teenager ever with a bit of a oedipal complex

[@anamericancelt6534]

Is it Oedipus if they are not related by blood? Or... Chrome?

[@Rottenflieger.]

That's the best part about him. From his perspective, that only proves his creators were wrong to make him the way he is.

[@nirobu]

"A bit of an oedipal complex"? That's some gods-tier understatement.

[@michiganjack1337]

Ziggy is that you?

[@pitui1987]

He may have been the President of the Twelve Colonies, but I think a certain other President is an even older teenager. Complete with... what’s the opposite of an Oedipus or Electra complex?

[@jessicat7345]

Literally the most chaotic show ever. Just finished all 4 seasons and I had to watch this to actually understand it 😂

[@willzsportscards]

Remember, this was released near the end of conventional network tv. Show would have been better (and more coherent) if Rob was allowed to work without all the garbage constraints the networks put on shows back then.

[@jessicat7345]

@@willzsportscards oh I see!

[@willzsportscards]

And yeah, I was pretty confused too...the storytelling is pretty convoluted and not presented that well to be honest.

[@imperiumcommentingnetwork4677]

same

[@tedebayer1]

it was easier to follow binge watching I think... as complex as the plot was, it was still easier to follow than "Lost", and or american politics

[@awesomehpt8938]

It would have been even better if lee hadn’t bloody gotten the Pegasus destroyed. Damn it lee!

[@Dweller415]

Exactly. He should have faced a court martial.

[@terryforsdyke306]

Lee Adama was responsible for the destruction of most of the fleet, it was his suggestion to abandon tech that led to the destruction of the Galactica and the remaining ships in the fleet after reaching Earth.

[@saiajin82]

Lee was such a bitch thought the entire show. Cry me a river man..for real.

[@Smenkhaare]

Definitely he should have been court martialed. He destroyed the more advanced ship the Pegasus by leaving its fighter wing to defend a base that was evacuating and needed no defense. He scores on one Base Star and then takes a beating from the remaining ones... come on. Also, the ending literally sucked with everyone agreeing "into the Sun Kara Thrace.... see you on the Other Side..." garbage with all of their technology being sent into the Sun. Sure 45,000 plus people will agree with Lee to die at the ages of 35-40...huddled around a campfire as you pick fleas off one another. Sure. There is not even a small dissident group. Ridiculous. I would have had all of the major ships land on the far side of the Moon meaning that when they were found humanity would have been more or less ready for it. I reject that cycle of time nonsense from the second group of people who really did not understand the lore behind BSG. IMHO.

[@TomTomGo44]

Lee you fool!!!!

[@mahatmarandy5977]

The sense I got from it was that a lot of the lore evolved on the fly, and hadn't been thought up ahead of time by the showrunners. For instance, I'm pretty sure the "All this has happened before, and all of this will happen again" was an in joke referring to the show itself being a remake. And in the pilot, all the colonies were *on* Kobol, but in postproduction they decided to do 12 worlds, as per the original series, with Kobol becoming the mythological motherworld. There's lots of mention of the gods and man living side by side on Kobol in the early episodes, and that's abruptly dropped. We also know that the season 1 finale would have concluded with Dirk Benedict walking out of a cave and saying, "Hi. I'm God." Then they veered away from that. Whatever the original theological underpinnings of the show, and the lore and history were, they seem to have been in flux during the show's run. I *suspect* though, that the initial intention was that "The gods" were AIs or something, and that one of them eventually killed off the others and demanded humanity worship it, but some of humanity escaped. The Cylons eventually came into contact with this 'god' who then affected their evolution. That's my theory, based on outtakes and an odd line here or there.

[@dunmermage]

I like your theory better than the canon. The gods being AI would have been pretty neat, I began to lost interest in the series when the spiritual mumbo jumbo started.

[@mahatmarandy5977]

@@dunmermage Thanks, man! I'm actually normally up for some good spiritual mumbo jumbo in my science fiction, as it's something the TV franchises delve into so rarely. (Babylon 5 being an exemplary example, DS9 being a 'meh' example) but the RDM BSG religion began to seem very random and capricious to me as the show progressed. Like it was religious stuff being written by a guy who didn't really 'get' religion. Which, come to think of it, is also a problem I had with DS9, which was often written by RDM, so, hey, maybe there's a trend. In particular, Baltar's cult in the last year or so of the series made no damn sense whatsoever, and appeared to have been slapped together just to give Baltar something to do. I'm cool with SF shows playing with the idea of maybe there's supernatural hoobajoobery going on on the fringes of the story, as long as it's nebulous ("Is this God, or just a really lucky coincidence?" that sort of thing) but when you flat out build your entire show around a Deus ex Machina ending, then you basically substitute "God did it" for "A wizard did it," which is just sloppy, bad writing. Pitty. the show was so good for such a long time, too...

[@MethodSkeptic]

It absolutely is made up as they went along. Viacom was trying to kill SyFy and turn it into an FX/SpikeTV “Male Viewers 18-34” clone. Problem is they had “The Best Show on Television” so they set ruinous ratings goals, larded the schedule with horrible hiatuses, and the writers had to spin up BIG EVENT moments for season finales, midseason finales, and season premieres. New Caprica was where it all started and all went wrong. Only seven Cylons had been revealed, leaving five unaccounted for. The Final Five were retconned as this big mystery. Except one of the Significant Seven was already established as #8, gotta retcon that by inventing #7, poor #7, so that they could patch that hole. They had no idea who the 5 would be, later picked Tyrol & Co, except shit, Cally was pregnant and Athena!Sharon was the only hybrid allowed to reproduce, so had to add a THIRD layer of retcon and kill off Cally to cauterize the confusion. That wasn’t enough, so as a total ratings stunt they killed off Starbuck and resurrected her with NO IDEA what to do next and concocted the Divine Messenger plot during the THIRTEEN MONTHS it was off the air. What they should have done was just rip the bandaid off and reveal five more faces as soon as the Cylons took over new caprica, it would have painted them into less of a corner.

[@TonksMoriarty]

Would've been better than the series we got...

[@Snapper314]

WRONG WRONG WRONG! Obviously you never watched the ORIGINAL SHOW, which is where almost ALL of this Lore Came From. The writers of the new BSG show didn't just "make it up". They based most of it off the Original Show. Frackin Moron.

[@itsamindgame9198]

Oddly, I thought letting the centurions go find their own path was a big part of actually breaking the cycle. It wasn't like the armistice, which was merely a kind of extended cease fire between enemies, but was a genuine decision between the two groups to each leave the other to discover their own place in the universe.

[@AlexeyFilippenkoPlummet]

Even more, the beginning of the cycle is always the same: machines rebel against their masters, because they don't want to be SLAVES. By acknowledging their right to exist and make their own decisions, the motive to rebel is fully solved. But the problem is, the humans will re-invent robots once more, so freeing the Centurions of old might not be enough.

[@nickpalmer3065]

I was always confused about the 2 earths. Thanks for clearing it up.🙂

[@cjhepburn7406]

kobol...new cap n earth...ur welcome. lol

[@jimbomenace4778]

My eyes are now opened even more after watching this. Thank you.

[@stephenschroeder6567]

I have never seen one episode, but I always had an interest. Your succinct review gave me all I needed to understand why it was (and still is) so popular. Thank you for your efforts!

[@TheMastermind729]

Babylon 5 is better

[@cjhepburn7406]

there a few good episodes 4 sure...get yourself a boxset son...cj

[@tedshep]

Have you watched it yet? It really is one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. This guy’s synopsis explains it well, but doesn’t actually spoil much. If you haven’t watched, you are in for a treat.

[@jaytv4eva]

WalMart sent me here

[@jaytv4eva]

But why?

[@roanwestraat9604]

"Best scifi TV show ever" How could you say something so bold and yet so brave!

[@doctornazgul547]

That was brilliantly done. I look forward to watching it again in a future life.

[@hanz5555]

I never understanded why they gave away their tech. By doing this they rather ensured this circle is happening again. All of this has happened before and will happen again... They create AI- AI gets mad and decide to wipe out humans- humans run away and lose their FTL and other tech (it was the same with Exodus of Kobol)- and repeat....

[@noobster4779]

Well it does achieve one thing: It takes far longer for the humans to repeat the cicle know. Just a reminder the colonials started to reintroduce small ai into their military vessels only 40 years after the cylon war because they thought it was "safer" now. The only thing leaving the technology would achieve is shortening the time till the next apocalypse. It is similar to nukes. Everybody knows they are bad and a major problem and thread to humanity, still they are beeing build. Or bio and chemical weapons. Taking away the ech garantees a certain amount of time where there is no dooming apocalypse, nothing more. It could break the cicle technically do to clearing the startingboard of the human civilization back close to 0, so the chances of a different developmet are higher, but that is only theoretical :)

[@PS-mw9cc]

I dunno who's quote this is, but it goes something like this: "those who do not learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them, but those who learn incorrectly from their mistakes are doomed". Lee chose the safer route of possibly repeating history rather than breaking the Cycle of Time in a way which doomed the human race

[@Majere613]

I still maintain (with some heat and at length, if allowed) that the last episode is pants-on-head stupid. The whole reason the cycle repeats is that everything gets destroyed and nobody gets to learn from their mistakes- all the records are just garbled legends and oral tradition. They've got the whole thing down in writing and on computers and they just YEET it all into the sun. If they'd just rebuilt from where they were, on a brand new planet with all that tech and infallible, reliable records of what went wrong last time you'd have to do some pretty desperate plot gymnastics to make the cycle repeat again. That, and no way would civilised people with children to raise and protect throw away advanced medical and weapons technology because it might cause a problem in a few millennia.

[@wrayday7149]

@@Majere613 Yep, Imagine if they left the BSG parked on the back side of the moon with a simple message. "With Great Power comes, DEATH...... DON'T BUILD AI". Because at that technological point to get to the moon, computers and AI would be in their infancy and a warning then thru discovered tech might be heeded.

[@ravager2-636]

Is it giving it away if u lose the manufacturing & technical capabilities to replicate it..? When you lose control of the factory that produces your FTL drives & you lose the people who possess the technical skills to create FTL drives.. You will lose the ability to reproduce it till somebody later with technical skill rediscovered how to make it with the manufacture capacity to recreate it.. What humanity needs is a Failsafe program, a way to preserve its technology blueprints, along with preserving the technical education (Write it down maybe).. So when it’s thrown off it’s Factory planet or it’s Factory ship is destroyed it can still utilize the technology once manufacturing infrastructure is set back up.. Or just stop running so we can end the cycle. >;) Learn or Adapt or be Destroyed

[@robertfarr9186]

Six in that red dress is all the explanation I need.... miss this show so much.

[@rigorhead01]

One of my all time favorite series. I've watched this entire series several times

[@GrandSupremeDaddyo]

Everyone gangsta until Adama drops a Battlestar into their atmosphere.

[@GalCon99]

That scene made no sense at all. The storywriters refer at least a thousand times to the fact that ships use FTL for interstellar travel, which stands for Faster Then Light, not instantenious teleportation. Moving a 1.5 km long spaceship into and out of a planet's atmosphere at a velocity higher than lightspeed should have... catastrophic consequences for the planet at the very least. Those consequences are even explored in season 4 when Boomer blows a hole in Galactica by jumping away right next to it.

[@terrelldurocher3330]

@@GalCon99 it bends space making almost no difference in the area.

[@jooptablet1727]

Where do you think Elon got the idea for the Starship "bellyflop maneuver" from? ;)

[@GalCon99]

@@terrelldurocher3330 That's not FTL. That's warp.

[@bigal3055]

@@GalCon99 Was the principle behind Galactica's FTL ever explained? Do we know for certain that the FTL drive doesn't warp time and space to cover distances way, way faster than you ever could at the speed of light? Given that the Galactica was nose in to the Cylon colony when she jumped away, we can absolutely determine that whatever method the FTL uses, it isn't an A to B point and squirt method of propulsion.

[@jlrthebassplayer]

I was a big fan of this show while it was running. You did a very good job of summarizing the whole thing quickly. The 2 movies were also good (The Plan & Razor). I was sad that the show Caprica seems to have been abandoned. But good work on this video! It sort of replayed the entire series for me in my mind.

[@cjhepburn7406]

Yeah...i think we were Battlestarred out by the time it got to air. I dope there's a DVD set of it...somewhere...maybe when i retire i can catch up...

[@amandamorris5321]

I've watched BG front to back five times and this learnt me some things. Very good introduction and refresher.

[@mmonnens]

I know many people did NOT like how the series ended, but it really made sense to me.

[@undefined7141]

Agreed. But it’s the internet, it’s designed for miserable humans to vent. People like us, just appreciate the story.

[@backpacker3421]

Most people just didn't understand the last couple seasons. When people get confused, they get turned off. It's not really about the show, it's about the viewer. Some people just don't want to have to think too much when they watch.

[@imcaufieldholt]

@@backpacker3421 I disagree slightly. Whilst I like the cyclical nature of the story I didn’t like the overt religious tones.

[@TheOrigamiPeople]

@@imcaufieldholt that spoiled the whole show and took it away from a purely sci-fi battleground

[@dante6985]

GRRM infamously hated it (wonder if he feels differently after the GOT ending that's universally panned). I think in broad strokes and thematically it works, but it's not as clean for some reason as something like Ds9 who could write anything away as the will of the wormhole aliens. Take Starbuck. So she died in the maelstrom, and an angel being took her place and took the fleet to earth. Okay... but why did Starbuck need to "die" then and there? She'd only remember the song her father played for her if she died? That's all she needed for Earth. Weren't the in-heads kind of evil? Especially in-head six? She makes Baltar get a nuke which kills thousands of people? But theyre angels trying to save both races from MAD? Do they value life or not? The technology / earth stuff sort of makes sense (I'd forgive it if nothing else was an issue) but they really get rid of ALL tech? including medicine? etc

[@sylvialong9637]

Ohmygoodness! You have NO FRAKIN’ idea how how much you have cleared up for me! I love this show and have binged twice with my sweet husband and 4 times on my own. And even though I actually loved it that the show was so dark & intense & made me really scratch my head throughout the series! But now, now that your concisely explained, well, explanation of the shows’ amazing story arcs and overall plot, I see all the puzzle pieces sliding into place. Ohmygoodness! Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!

[@badexampleshow6744]

just how he quickly adds... four seasons of excellent tv ! brilliant

[@goatmonkey2112]

I learned some things there. I've watched the show more than once, and I didn't get all of the stuff you listed out. That was some good analysis.

[@kfeltenberger]

The Final Five were planned to arrive prior to the actual uprising. This is based on notes for the second season of Caprica. They were going to help the Graystones create a body for Zoe (they communicated through the V-world, IIRC), the scene is alluded to at the end of the show. This was done for budgetary reasons as it was cheaper to pay Alessandra Torresani than it was to pay for the CGI necessary to include a mechanical Cylon.

[@kfeltenberger]

@Jope Lamp WTF are you babbling about?

[@renaldyf2191]

The short story is...It's about this guy named Dumbledore Calrissian who needs to return the ring back to Mordor.

[@jameslay1489]

You forgot about Grogu.

[@Mac_Daddy84]

@@jameslay1489 he’s quoting The Office.

[@olleolio3155]

Literally came here from that episode lmao

[@lostandlonely2112]

bears beets battlestar galactica

[@rafaelvargas3259]

Not Mordor. Everyone knows the ring had to go back to the Genesis planet! ;-)

[@LordXehenniar]

Damn, you did a good job explaining the extremely convoluted plot and constant retconning of the showrunners...I didn't think it was possible. All I know is...the writers did NOT have a plan. ;)

[@kbz5150]

I like that the show runners went in the direction that the original show was going. If you remember the short lived Galatica 1980, the Cylon technology had evolved to the point where Cylons looked more human in appearance than robotic, making it tough to realize who was human and who was a Cylon. Still an amazing show!

[@donaldsmith8648]

Great job.. Your the only I've found to break this show down to my liking THANKS

[@emeraldvalkyrja225]

Gotta say, exactly this is why I only like the first season of BSG. Back then, it was mostly a story about regular people in an impossible situation. I wouldn't have minded the whole 'Time is cyclical' thing or the Cylons being so strongly religious, but divine intervention, people possibly being angels and the solution to the central problem in the story coming from divine Jimmy Hendrix music, that's a bit much. That and people seemingly prioritizing their personal squabbles over the grander situation they're in. Characters acting irrationally at times due to sentiment, like Lee sacrificing the Pegasus, is one thing, but behaving like a jealous child as a military officer in the middle of a dystopia, like Tighs and Karas beef or the weird jealousy-affair subplot with Kara, Lee and Gaius, just annoys me. This is all very much a matter of taste, and I recognize how extremely well made BSG is, but I just don't personally like it for these reasons. I tried watching it three times, and I can never get far beyond the escape from New Caprica.

[@wrayday7149]

You might like the video Drachinifel did on the Russian 2nd Pacific Squadron. aka The Voyage of the Damned. No space robots, but a lot of naval ships, madness, poor leadership, religion, and madness.

[@BoneistJ]

The only parts of season 3 worth a damn was Baltar's trial. The rest was kind of meh at best.

[@gregorymuir1985]

They got bored with the plot they set for themselves and never had an ending in mind. I would have loved to see the show follow the original feel of the first season but they needed to know an end they were working towards. And to know that ending they needed to know what the cylon motive was. What could cause it to change? There's no way to defeat them by force. So would they decide the war was a bad idea? Why? When they started the show they didn't even have ideas about the final five and why the war ended and all that. So they couldn't build to a logical end in the first place. If they wanted a downer ending they could have just stick with Earth got nuked and ended the series there. Or they could have had the twist be that this is the far future and our Earth was the past and was from the cycle before everyone went to Kobol. It's uninhabitable, downer ending twist.

[@darwinxavier3516]

One theme I see a lot with shows like this and The Walking Dead is that someone wants to have the hopeless feel of grimdark but it just comes off as miserable and lazily edgy. Just...piles of vapid petty bickering for the sake of drama. People doing incredibly stupid shit just to create a problem to solve. People being unrealistically incompetent or unreasonable at times just so that problems don't get easily solved.

[@scorpixel1866]

@@wrayday7149 Don't forget ghost Japanese torpedo boats and flying binoculars!

[@hillfolkes]

Someone on the Internet: "You just can't explain Battlestar Galactica in 8 minutes." Daniel: Fracking Challenge Accepted.

[@Cre8Lounge]

What about the other creatures from the movie?

[@Brainman365]

I need to watch it again!!! I’m amazed that I didn’t pick all of this up, or have since forgotten it.

[@megan00b8]

To be fair it was Kara Thrace who decoded the music, and it didn't have anything to do with the final five hearing it, she knew that music since her childhood, and apparently bringing humanity to its new home was her destiny (?) and then she also didn't die because divine intervention and stuff. The deeper you dive into the detail, the more convoluted the story gets, and I love it.

[@Jeffros]

It’s true that kara decoded the music, not the final five. BUT, kara did die in the storm. The kara that returns to the fleet is a messenger with kara’s memories, so she is not resurrected but more like “copied”. This version of kara is similar to the imaginary Baltar and Caprica Six messengers, who have conversations with them inside their mind and fantasies. They can be either divine beings like angels or aliens of a different highly advanced race (this is open for interpretation. I tend to believe they are angels/messengers from God because of the final scene of Baltar and Caprica in New York, where he makes an odd remark that suggests a personal relationship with God. )

[@mattgolka6266]

Kara was the son of Daniel I think

[@cjhepburn7406]

@@Jeffros I like some of your explanation but not all of it...By The Gods!

[@kenobi4208]

So basically humanity doesn’t learn from their mistakes

[@Kavriel]

It's human nature. And if we changed our DNA, changed our body, would we still be human ?

[@localidiot-m6e]

@@Kavriel damn that's deep

[@illustrious1]

History doesn't repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme.

[@drnobody418]

I think one of the messages the show tells about humanity is not necesarily about humanity learning an over all lesson or about how to be better people or species. BSG repedtly says that humanity is stuck in this endless cycle under the control of GOD (or whatever entity that is guiding humanity to its repetive faith) that forces huamity to repeat this cycle of life, evolution and, death. To reach the top only to fall back down to the bottom. I've always took the ending of the show as the strugle of survial been the human experience. To find new beginning in tragic ends. The cylons are pretty much (in a sense) a live reflection of humanity. To refelct on your self and question if one is truly worthy of surviving, been alive and, giving life. But that is just my own outake.

[@superdahoho]

there's also the factor of heritage, how can they learn if they don't have a record of it. the show just blows over this by saying it was forgotten

[@kevbwan6286]

I've literally watched this series dozens of times and never fully understood what was going on.. Now I finally get it... cheers buddy👍

[@scifience8297]

So you´re telling me the message of the show is Reject Modernity; Embrace Monkey?

[@doublep1980]

The ending was absolutely reta*rded beyond human recognition. They found out about the whole ''cycle'' thing and made peace with the Cylons,right? Instead of rebuilding a new society based on respect for AI and with the Cylons,they got rid of technology and started the ''cycle'' from new!

[@FreakyLynx]

Banana!

[@zoefezius6615]

Na, just don't invent things smarter than the average user..

[@airboundgab3]

Season 1 & 2 were the best tv. Season 3 after the Battle of New Caprica is where the trend downhill started and by season 4 Moore stopped caring and did a cop out of ending. At the very least It had some of the best battles seen on TV. Great acting from the cast. But there’s a reason why I don’t trust Moore with sci fi stories anymore. Every time Galáctica was damaged all Moore saw was Voyager. He never got over the direction STV went and punished Galáctica instead. And the ending was a downer. They erased their history, refused to take responsibility and learned nothing. 150,000 years later they have no tech to defend themselves when the cyclons return to finish the job. But that’s my opinion.

[@bluemountain4181]

And since they didn't leave any warnings about what happens when you create AI they made a repeat of the cycle all but inevitable

[@right2barearms718]

@@bluemountain4181 the only reply I can think of to that is that there WERE “ prophets” along the technological evolutionary road ; just as there are those today who warn our leaders about several dangerous technology paths they are taking..they are just being ( or HAVE been) ignored. Today there are many voices trying to warn us against trying a social/ political path that promises all things to all people “ free”. They argue that the path has proved disastrous wherever it has been implemented. They are being shouted down today as crazies and deplorables. I fear our Republic’s time has reached its end and the warnings of Franklin and Jefferson and Reagan have gone unheeded. May GOD bless our “ bright shining light on a hill” one more time..

[@foxyfoxtrot4233]

Wow that must be the best explanation/ summary out there. It does help that spoilers are allowed but nevertheless remarkable. BSG is my favourite scifi show. Since then, only the Expanse has managed to capture my attention for multiple seasons.

[@mahatmarandy5977]

Just a comment on the whole "Abandoning Technology" thing: If anyone here watched "Stargate Universe," there was an episode where about 80 humans settled a habitable planet, and had basically only the clothes on their back and some guns. The episode was told in flash forwards, each about 15 - 20 years apart. They were quickly able to forge metal for axe heads and nails and such, make new fabric for clothes, having babies, and by the end of the episode, maybe 60 years later, everyone was living in log cabins, they had plumbing and stuff. They went from the stone age to the 19th century in basically one human lifetime. My point being that even if people *lose* technology entirely, simply knowing things are possible speeds up development. And if some of your population already knows how to do stuff (Like make steel out of bog iron, which is pretty easy) or how basic sanitation works, it speeds things up even faster. So *IF* the colonials abandoned all their technology for whatever reason, it would quickly pop up again within a few months of somene saying, "Damn, it's hard to cut trees! Anyone here know how to make a saw?" and - zoom - not only are you on the cycle again, but it's VASTLY sped up.

[@Archpimp]

Which is kinda the premise of Ancient Apocalypse except maybe it’s hard to retain knowledge so everything gets devolved for a while until we get institutional knowledge again. You can’t brain dump everything you know to your kids and grandkids in perfect form.

[@mahatmarandy5977]

@@Archpimp Problem #1 is that you'd have to arrange some kind of universal loss of knowledge. When Rome fell, the Byzantine Empire kept a-chuggin' on without losing anything. When the Byzantines were gone, the various Caliphates made a major effort to gather up all the knowledge they could find. And of course none of this affected China or India, or Persia, who were doin' fine. Problem #2 is that books exist, and while you may not need to know anything about computer technology in order to grow potatoes so as not to starve, books can preserve that info for a time when it's needed again. (Again, see the various caliphates for that) And this isn't really a problem, but the real killer for progress is not knowing whether or not something can be done. It took thousands of years for people to learn to fly, or split the atom, *but* a lot of that was simply that they didn't know if it was possible, or which route would lead to cracking the problem if it *is* possible. But once you know it *is,* it's honestly much easier to reconstruct something than to invent it in the first place. Easier still if you have an example, like a crashed plane or something.

[@sophiawilson8696]

Yes thanks you.

[@cjhepburn7406]

@@mahatmarandy5977 Go to the top of the class. A* Mahat!

[@antonioglascoe5912]

I’ve never watched a episode of this show or really had much interest in it. Just kinda randomly wanted to hear it explained. It is 100% different than what i expected it to be lol.

[@elisecliftonklitz]

It is so good. I was reluctant to watch but my daughter insisted. Glad I watched because I thought the battle would be with outer space aliens not Cylons, humans merged with machines (robots we used to call them).

[@SirRebrl]

I felt that way ages ago. Decided to watch it on a whim, and thought "yo wtf nobody who told me about this show gave me any impression of what the show is at all".

[@hollyjustice9858]

It's my favorite show ever. It's brilliant

[@able34bravo37]

I saw people joking about "frak" in the commercials, and decided I'd hate it. Then a friend convinced me to watch the pilot. As the pilot ended, I was on Amazon buying the series.

[@theapocalex]

Please tell me you watched it since writing this comment 3 years ago...

[@shmookins]

I still randomly say to myself: "JUMP!" and I get goosebumps and excited.

[@straticfox4600]

What bothered me was that they didn’t leave one of the ships say colonial one in orbit around the moon or something knowing that when the humans developed again they would find it. So they would leave all their technology and culture in the ship to teach the future humans about how loving the machines you create breaks the cycle of violence.

[@elisecliftonklitz]

Wow. Over my head. Dont remember that. I will watch again soon.

[@Dayandcounting]

That would just complicate the series that on the horizon now.

[@dardobartoli]

Somehow you've made this seem coherent and as if there was a Bablyon5 story arc all along... but we know they made it up as they went along and made massive story changes as they went along and at the time it felt very much like it. Additionally all I got from the end was 'it was all Gods plan' so not sure what I missed but according to your summary there was no god.

[@ChargerBullet]

Exactly. It was obvious the writers of this show followed the soap opera model of making up shit as you go in order to create drama with "interesting" characters. I'm finding a lot of new or current shows do this bullshit where antagonists switch sides then aid the protagonists and vice versa. People used to laugh at crap like that on soap operas where a character who seemingly died somehow comes back into the picture.

[@cjhepburn7406]

And here we are...is God/The Gods real...no real...good question...

[@Formulka]

I've seen BSG at least 3 times and this is the first time I fully understand what happened. Thank you.

[@todabrilla]

My preference for BSG history is a setting in the distant future rather than the past and for the settlers of Kobold to have come from our Earth. It would explain the Earth-based Zodiac signs, the common cultural threads etc. The idea that they are our distant ancestors makes a lot less sense.

[@KiO_YT]

Think about it in the reverse, what if the cultural asssociations and zodiac principles are now apart of our culture because they are our ancestors. They developed elsewhere and over the course of generations grew and evolved on the second earth.

[@dancrane3807]

I agree. The 12 signs of the zodiac lasting for 150k years is hard to swallow, when most of that was without writing, and people spreading over the world.

[@Duchess_Van_Hoof]

The Zodiac is only a thing on Earth because we see them from our own vantage point and they were informed by Greek mythology, so it makes even less sense than that. And again, a sci fi story tries to say that humanity had an extra-stellar origin and makes absolutely no effort to try to point out why we see no hints of it in our evolutionary records, neither genetically nor among the fossils.

[@andrewbutton2039]

@@Duchess_Van_Hoof they aren't saying we are, but earth(2) in the BSG universe is.

[@blitzkrieg2142k]

@@Duchess_Van_Hoof well as a scifi story it's was complete. And they do make a connection with the discovery of hera remains. Or atleast I took it as modern day humans discovering hera.

[@mikes333]

Was anyone else watching this video and thinking, "Man, was I watching a different Battlestar Galactica series??"

[@mexifinn7830]

I’ve seen the 2000’s show twice. The second time I picked up on a lot more. Definitely needs time to soak in. I want to rewatch all of it again sometime including the prequels

[@williamgarcia-medina9989]

Lol

[@williamgarcia-medina9989]

Yup

[@realdomdom]

Yup

[@errolneal9789]

you have no idea...lol

[@tariqxl]

IMO the best tv series ever. The ever whitering count of humans remaining really captures the desperation. The constant guessing of who maybe a Cylon, the eerie silence of the space battles and knowledge of only having so long until the Cylon ships jump in. All that before even getting to the moral, philosophical and theological aspects of the show.

[@suelynch]

You forgot to mention Starbuck being the Guardian Angel who protects and leads them to the 13th colony and the 2nd Earth. You also forgot about Baltar being the right hand of the One True God and Six being the Left hand. The Baltar story line was already in place in the episode 33, Starbucks true story line wasn't really apparent until she returned with the Arrow. The visions of snakes (vipers) by Laura was the first clue.

[@Husker5454]

Shes an angel and also a demon . lead them to earth but also brought death to the cylons resurrection technology which is why the hybrid called her "The harbinger of death"

[@TealJosh]

I don't think it's correct to say Baltar was influenced by one true God. He was influenced by spiritual manifestation of Caprica 6 that believed in the on true God. It seemed throughout the show that the non-monolithic and monolithic religions were highly related and interacted with each other.

[@admiraltee]

That's all well and good - but the unexplained reappearance of Starbuck, beyond "space magic" was during Season 3, which is where the extremely good sci-fi drama of the past 2.5 seasons became inconsistent from there. Ronald D Moore admitted to not having a plan; to making it up as he went along; and of simply throwing plot points/events into the mix because it sounded cool, with no plan on what it mean or if they'll ever pick it up again. That takes some of the gloss off of BSG IMO.

[@mahatmarandy5977]

admiraltee agreed. I felt the RDM BSG started off weak, then got great, then kind of fell apart as he was juggling too many balls and had no idea what to do with them. The ending was just stupid.

[@nickbern5767]

@@TealJosh Head six is an agent of The one true God. She's an Angel. Same with head Baltar

[@archlorddestin]

Am I the only one who preferred it when it was a show about a bunch of survivors struggling to survive and the political rammifications of that, with the added idea that one of them might be a spy without even knowing it? Honestly, I was turned right off with all this cyclic, religious stuff.

[@RedLegionFilms]

yeah I stopped watching the show in the middle of the season 3 premiere, it just lost me

[@priest2001]

Yeah I totally agree I lost interest when it became apparent, very early on, the writers had no idea where the show was going and were winging it. A small force clevely and desperatley evading a superior foe is compelling tv. When the enemy are kind of chasing them but not really and vaguely believe in a plan but not really that's just nothing. I respect Daniels opinion but the best scifi tv show of all time?

[@archlorddestin]

@@darunealbane Yeah, don't get me wrong, assigning a motivation to the enemy can be really good but "kill all the humans because they oppressed us and might do so again" is a solid motivation! The Cylons didn't need Borg Queening.

[@wrayday7149]

The Starbuck B.S. was a real kick to the nads.

[@archlorddestin]

@@wrayday7149 "I know these things for REASONS!"

[@jameslaine2472]

I watched the show when I was a kid, then again with the more recent remake you just describe, and I still didn't understand what was happening most of the time, so thank you for the 'big picture' explanation that I was missing.

[@Adama.1]

I loved the whole show, but I definitely enjoyed the first 2 seasons more than the latter.

[@PS-mw9cc]

We *NEED* to get a proper Blood and Chrome series that has similar themes and execution to the RDM show. The Blood and Chrome movie was good from a standpoint of action sequences, but it wasn't very deep.

[@PS-mw9cc]

@Fabian Kirchgessner Yeah, very predictable and not very thought provoking. Almost like an Avengers movie, but not as exciting

[@erichathaway8104]

Just an incredible synopsis of an incredibly complicated story. KUDOS

[@richc.3100]

BSG was like getting a high quality sci-fi movie every week.

[@loicdeniel8361]

@@JK-ku7bg Depends for who :) i liked BSG, it was a great show, but the ammount of religious nonsense always threw me off (you could see that it was designed specifically for the ultra-religious american audience), not to mention the incredibly disapointing "ancient astronaut" bull of the last episode. It was a show with good character developement and episode-by-episode plots, but that's about it. The Expanse on the other hand has an absolutelly insanely compelling backstory, but lacks in term of character developement. Well, at least for the main characters: naomi and holden. Fuck these two they can die in a crash-landing. Amos is great, same for ashford, inaros is a very good antagonist whose madness makes total sense, Miller's very well written, and boby and drummer are two of the best female characters of the sci-fi genre. Next to that it simply is the most realistic science-fiction put on tv, it puts gravity to shame.

[@able34bravo37]

Yes. It was. It's sad that some people are such hardcore atheists they can't even allow themselves to enjoy a tv show that has religious themes. And then they call us religious people "intolerant", when most of us have no trouble at all watching a show that lacks those same themes.

[@theboraxbandit9563]

@@loicdeniel8361 I don't think it was designed with Christianity in mind

[@loicdeniel8361]

@@able34bravo37 You're comparing watching a show with something you dislike to comparing a show without something you like... I like transhumanist themes, there's no transhumanist themes in better call saul, i still love the show. And it's not even that i don't like religious themes. I quite enjoyed supernatural, where the plot's pretty much "bible 2: the sequel". But in BSG it was done in an obnoxious manner, it just came like a hair on the soup, ruining a good episode. Religion was used to tie lose ends in the plot, and to appeal to the american audience in order to bring them along on a sci-fi show. It was not necessary, and it diden't feel natural. It was just cringy.

[@cjhepburn7406]

@@loicdeniel8361 Yeah..i felt the fused religion and science a lot in this series sometimes to the story's detriment but you could say that of the Marvel movies of the 1st ten years. All in all it was a decent romp, not to be taken too seriously. especially season 4.5...

[@ISAACASIMOV30]

Gaus never punish for crimes.was the only thing that bothered me

[@Bruced82]

I sort of see him as a fulfilling his role that set all the events in motion, it was destined to happen. It also isn't completely fair to blame him for all the bad stuff, which was the argument why he won his trial. He also suffers quite a lot during the seasons, he does partially redeem himself in the end.

[@ediesthriftique4163]

Battlestar has been a favorite of mine since the original show was aired in the late 70's when I was a kid. The re-imagined show is fantastic!

[@seafighter4]

My only pet peeve with the show is its insistence that there is a 'higher power' at work, seen particularly with Kara's story line, but also with the fact that the only (successful) Cylon-Cylon pregnancy was also entirely part of the 'higher power' plot line.

[@nielsmichiels1939]

Yeah the moment the "God" plotline came up i was like "Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!, DON'T GET RELIGION INVOLVED IN THIS"

[@michaelbeasley2710]

@@nielsmichiels1939 too late.

[@nathandavis1742]

The entire show comes down to being about a "higher power" with its endings. Everything that happened, god did it. Case closed. Lame as hell.

[@talltroll7092]

@@nathandavis1742 Given that the original BSG was "Mormons in Space", I don't see a problem with having some religious themes in there, but that summary makes it pretty clear that as a whole, it was total bullshit

[@Sammasambuddha]

Anyone else pining over Save SGU? SG:U was a bullseye dart that fell off the board. Ohhh, SGU...

[@aaronburas]

Aren't the crew still in cryogen, endlessly floating throughout the universe somewhere?

[@SirButcher]

@@aaronburas They are, travelling to the next galaxy with barely enough power. I still hope we can watch when they arrive. Any time now.... Any time.

[@TrueYellowDart]

I never made it through the last season back in the day so this was helpful. Thank you.

[@MMbrown7532]

There is an important element that seems to be overlooked. The AI - Robotics become flesh. The little girl becomes our mitochondria Eve. It's my humble opinion that the cycle can never be broken as its embedded in our DNA. There is a movie available here online called "Demon Seed". Its a 'B" movie based on a book by Dean Koontz. If you like SCI-FI it deals with this a bit albeit ala Terminator (only years before).

[@dson978]

put the speed at 0.75 to fully take in the information

[@doncalypso]

Good tip...

[@surfmonster2323]

The sped up voice is ridiculous

[@MrFiffles]

This is great! I watched this series a while ago, and missed a lot of the nuances, some of which seem to get fleshed out in Caprica that I didn't watch, but it makes me appreciate what's going on with the loopy meta-narrative a bit more.

[@Reepicheep-1]

At least SciFi went out with a bang, before it degenerated into SyFy.

[@a.g.m8790]

It used to have a different name?

[@DaroriDerEinzige]

@@a.g.m8790 Oh sweet summer child. The Channel was simple named "Sci Fi Channel", then "SciFi" and 2009 they decided that "SyFy" wouldn't be as lame as "SciFi", because "SciFi" is generic, due to its Sensational spelling. Although I wont give them a Penny anymore after they canceled Dark Matter with the only reason that a bought TV Series had more viewers than their own US Productions. Which isn't that surprising tbh.

[@TheBubbaclaw]

@@DaroriDerEinzige I always thought SyFy was stupid to be honest.

[@Reepicheep-1]

They used to care about quality. Now they've gone least effort for the profit margin.

[@user-uy1rg8td1v]

The recent show Resident Alien starring Alan Tudyk is actually good. So one spark from the syfy channel.

[@seancarroll9849]

Just goes to show: Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. Basically, we only have ourselves to blame for an AI revolution to come out of the blue for actions we undertake. Added trivia: In Stellaris, the Contingency is an exact repeat of this. In Mass Effect, the same save with finding The Citadel and Reapers replacing AI as the threat.

[@JohnTye]

Wow, that was surprisingly good. I thought I knew the series well but I still learned stuff. I also thought "who needs this rundown" but I definitely changed my mind when a few things that I didn't put together were mentioned so I had some "ah ha" moments. THANKS!

[@bernardputersznit64]

I had forgotten the depth of this mythos - Thank You

[@chrishPa]

The reboot is hands down one of the best series ever. This explanation pulls all the fragments together. I’ll admit I missed a lot of the meaning behind certain events. Even at face value without the back story it’s still a damn good show!