Sunday, April 06, 2008

My BSG Theory: Colonials Are Robots, Too

Beware! Geeky Battlestar Galactica theorizing ahead, as well as possible spoilers for whoever hasn't seen the entire first three seasons.

It is now a common theory to say that humans came from Earth to Kobol and not the other way around, but I don't think this is the whole story. The saying "All this has happened before and all this will happen again" leads me to believe that the Colonials are either actually descendants of humanoid robots or of human-robot hybrids.

Humans on Earth created robots, which I will call Earthbots to distinguish them from the present-day Cylons. The Earthbots rebelled and left Earth. Later, they developed humanoid-biological models who took over Earthbot society, eventually discarding the mechanical models and losing the ability to download into a new body. After a few centuries most of their descendants forgot their Earthbot roots and started calling themselves human. Only a select few, later to be known as the Lords of Kobol, were entrusted with the secret origin of "humanity" and with the ability to download, thus achieving immortality.

The Cylon god is a Lord of Kobol who wished to reveal the secrets and grant immortality to all colonials. The other Lords banished him and his followers to protect their secrets, and outlawed his worship. He became The One Whose Name Cannot Be Spoken. The five priests of the Temple of Five are actually this god (the Final Cylon) and his four main supporters (the four of the Final Five already revealed). These are what would later be known as the 13th tribe, which starts wandering across the galaxy separately from the rest. Shortly thereafter the twelve tribes settle on Kobol. Several centuries later, the 13th tribe finds Kobol as well and asks to settle there, sparking a war that would result in the Exodus to the twelve colonies and the annihilation of the 13th tribe, except for the five priests.

Two thousands years later, the Colonials, who still think they are humans despite being Earthbots (or the descendants thereof) create the Cylons. The Cylons rebel. They leave the Colonies, however they have extensive knowledge of Colonial religion, and they start worshipping the hated Lord of Kobol. They distort the message of this god, believing he wished to destroy humanity. He somehow discovers this and wishes to thwart their plans, however he doesn't think they'll believe him if he shows up and says "hi, I'm your Lord God", so instead he somehow manages to get himself and his four priests accepted as five of the 12 humanoid Cylon models, as counterweights to the 7 militant Cylons. He implants the four into Colonial society without them knowing who they are. Because the two sets of Cylons (or rather the seven Cylons and the five Earthbots) don't communicate with each other, the Lord of Kobol is unable to prevent the destruction of the Colonies, but he is determined to prevent the destruction of "Colonial humanity" by reuniting it with the "original humanity" of Earth.

I'm most likely way off about details like the origin of the Final Five and the Cylon god, but I'll be surprised if my basic premise - the robotic origin of the colonials - turns out to be wrong.

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