The Mythology of Battlestar Galactica

POSTED BY: AnonymousPost
UPDATED: Friday, April 11, 2008 09:08
VIEWED: 4247
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ANONYMOUSPOST

Thursday, October 25, 2007 2:11 PM

Here's a theory:

In the dawn of the 22nd century, a new religious movement became very popular all over the world. Although its followers were worldwide, more than half of them resided in North America. This new religion was a neopagan faith based upon ancient Greek mythology and theology. However it had several unique features. One was an "aesthetic cultural regression." Believing the early 21st century to be the peak of human intellectual and cultural curiousity, the members of the religion mimicked various Western cultural aspects of the early 21st century - such as clothing style.

After decades of being marginalized, this religious group decided to leave Earth upon the discovery of the space-folding drive that enables space ships to make instantaneous "jumps" across vast distances in space. It took them many years to build the ships to do it, but they eventually left Earth on twelve gargantuan space ships they called "space galleons." These so-called galleons where each named after a sign of the zodiac and the people aboard them where almost entirely from the United States, Canada and Great Britain. A large majority where American.

It took them more than a century before they found a world suitable for permanent human habitation. But eventually they did. They named their new home "Kobol", after the ancient Persian word for "heaven." During the Great Exodus, each of the galleons developed their own cultural mores. They became twelve different cliques who each shared common ideals and beliefs, etc. about life. They became twelve distinct "tribes."

After many centuries on Kobol, global sophistication levels grew in terms of social structure, technology, art, music, astronomy and religion, eventually attaining the level of a unified civilization of humankind ruled by a quorum of twelve leaders, each representing one tribe of Kobol. Upon the advent of automated life supporting systems (food production, waste management, etc.), people began to forget how technology functioned and was created, since it became irrelevant to their lives.

Some scientists still continued to develop technology. Eventually, one man discovered the means for giving humans immortality by transforming human consciousness into a form based entirely upon electronic digital information transfer rather than electrochemical interactions and then transferring it into a vat-grown bioengineered synthetic human body with a brain capable of holding this new advanced digital mind.

An innovative feat of synthetic biology, the brain along with the rest of the nervous system of these bodies was composed of neurons that possessed many internal components and chemical compounds that do not exist anywhere in nature. The unique properties of these "silica pathways" enabled the neurons to sustain and even generate electrical signals that were digital in nature. This meant the bioengineered bodies were actually highly advanced organic computing platforms that were still able to function as a normal human body would. Once that body fails their digital consciousness could easily be downloaded to a new one, or could exist on another plane, possibly just as what could loosely be thought of as "software", with corporeal forms only required if interaction with corporeal life is needed.

This technology was presented to the twelve tribal leaders, and they used it to allow them to shed their original bodies and transfer their consciousness into these new vessels to harbor their minds, becoming Cylons. (It must be noted that the Lords didn't call themselves "Cylons", for that is a term that would be created by humans thousands of years later.) Seeing the threat of having immortal beings with infinite power (effectively) but who could not control it (the human psyche still containing many primitive traits such as anger, aggression, jealousy, etc.), these transcended beings decided to hide the true method of ascension to the public but laid out for them a plan of personal and spiritual development which would shed these primitive feelings (the Sacred Scrolls) w

MISSTRESSAHARA

Friday, October 26, 2007 12:52 AM

Ok, so just WHY have you been going around pasting the history of every show out there? It starts to get annoying reading 12 paragraghs of this stuff.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
~Peter*Peter*Power>~re-peater~

HEROES IS MY CRACK!

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ANONYMOUSPOST

Friday, October 26, 2007 2:11 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Misstressahara:
Ok, so just WHY have you been going around pasting the history of every show out there?

Because I'm a geek...and proud of it!

CHRISISALL

Friday, October 26, 2007 7:10 PM

I'm impressed with the level of comittment and fanboy-ish-ness it takes to put out stuff like this...

Do one for Dark Angel willya Chrisisall

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Saturday, October 27, 2007 4:33 AM

It’s imaginative, but it’s wrong.

The mythology of Battlestar Galactica plays on the ancient astronomer idea. This dude with his anonymous posting histories is probably too young to remember the original series, but as an avid watcher of said series, I remember well the opening monologue:

There are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the universe, with tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians, or the Toltecs, or the Mayans. That they may have been the architects of the great pyramids, or the lost civilizations of Lemuria or Atlantis. Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man who even now fight to survive somewhere beyond the heavens...

So you see, the mythology of BSG does not originate with the people of earth, but rather the people of earth originate with a super-advanced race of people from the planet Kobol, that was ruled by a succession of nine dynasties each identified with a specific leader or “lord” – the so-called “Lords of Kobol.” The last Lord of Kobol initiated the emigration from Kobol. From Kobol, man spread out amongst the heavens in twelve colonies divided along ethnic and religious lines. These twelve colonies eventually established themselves on several different worlds. The last colony to leave Kobol was the so-called thirteenth colony, although it wasn’t really a thirteenth ethnicity or religion, but rather a mixture of the other twelve.

There are some assumptions we can draw from this. First, from the fact that Kobol was completely abandoned and all but forgotten and that the last Lord of Kobol purposely organized an exodus from the planet, we can assume that something catastrophic* occurred to force the people of Kobol to search for a new home. Second because the thirteenth colony was the last to leave and composed of many different ethnicities and religions, we can assume that this thirteenth colony may actually have been the ruling dynasty – the world government of Kobol, which after assuring the same departure of the last colonies fled themselves.

The thirteenth colony established itself on a planet inhabited by a race of humanoids, we now call Neanderthals, about 20,000 years before present. We don’t have much information about what this super-advanced culture did in those early days, but following their arrival the Neanderthal became extinct. The thirteenth colony couldn’t have lasted too long because there is little evidence of its existence. In fact, it seems to have collapsed almost completely leaving a diverse group of people who had to relearn all that they knew, remembering their once advanced society only in mythologies and ancient architecture now preserved only in the archeology of the Greeks, Egyptians and the Mayans. This advanced society must have had contact with the other twelve colonies, but the existence of these twelve colonies is preserved in the zodiac. The other twelve colonies, for whatever reason, maintained their advanced societies, but lost contact with the thirteenth colony after it collapsed.

So that’s the actual idea behind the original series. I think, for the most part the new BSG has preserved this back-story.

*In fact, I believe that in an episode of the original BSG, Apollo explains that Kobol was abandoned because over population and pollution had lead to a failing environment.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

CHRISISALL

Sunday, October 28, 2007 3:21 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:

*In fact, I believe that in an episode of the original BSG, Apollo explains that Kobol was abandoned because over population and pollution

Perhaps they abandoned technology (like the peeps in Star Trek Insurrection) to avoid another catastrophe here on Earth?

Big original series fan Chrisisall

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Sunday, October 28, 2007 10:08 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
*In fact, I believe that in an episode of the original BSG, Apollo explains that Kobol was abandoned because over population and pollution
Perhaps they abandoned technology (like the peeps in Star Trek Insurrection) to avoid another catastrophe here on Earth?

Actually, I think that is exactly the idea. I remember something about how when the colonies were founded after the evacuation from Kobol, that they destroyed their interstellar spaceships. So one imagines that the idea is that there was probably a period in the histories of all colonies, including the one on earth, that went through some kind of anti-technology hippy type era.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

CHRISISALL

Sunday, October 28, 2007 10:56 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
the idea is that there was probably a period in the histories of all colonies, including the one on earth, that went through some kind of anti-technology hippy type era.

Finn, you mean that you and I are descended from inter-galactic space hippies?!?

*Headen' out to Eden, yea, brother!*

Gonna crack my knuckles and jump for joy...Chrisisall

STINKINGROSE

Sunday, October 28, 2007 10:58 PM

Hippies were cool with technology, man.

You're thinking of Luddites.

Someone managed to pull in the 12 tribes of Israel (with one lost one as well), to round out a mythos based on Greek/Roman.

Let us all remember that the show was created by people living in modern day Earth, and is not a docudrama.

"Write what you know" also extends to "Write what may seem vaguely familiar so your audience does not wander off to raid the fridge."

Let us not descend into name calling if someone's posting seems redundant to us. (See the above request at the head of the page when you go to reply.)

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Sunday, October 28, 2007 11:17 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Finn, you mean that you and I are descended from inter-galactic space hippies?!?

*Headen' out to Eden, yea, brother!*

That’s the story.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

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