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[twillight]

I just want my view up somewhere. The series disappeared from sight and rightfully so, I say, but I watched for some reasons, and I think I CAN explain the mysteries, questions, The Ending of the series, and I want to tell that.

First the rules how I "analyse" a series (or movie):
1) find the classification of the series! BG is NOT sci-fi. It has SOME sci-fi parts, mostly in season 1, but it is more L. Run Hubbard theology than anything else. Season1-2 is the story of Noah (the boat being BG, the cylons being the wrath of God), season 3 is Jehova's Wittnesses with its Watchtower references, and season 4 is mormonism with the Choosen Nation sailing to America and everyone inherits their own planet in the afterlife.
2) find what is Red Herring. BG has plenty of this from "The cylons have a plan" being "kill the humans, download (delete?) the cylons - what did you expect?" to "yep, there are 12 cylon models. Here they are. Nothing to see, move on, move on".
3) the creators of the series at times flat out lie, especially if the series was unsatisfying. Take example Lost, where the answers are clear, you just don't like/think of them, as the modern society is secular, aka. don't care for religion. So when the creators say "oh, we just leave that to the audience" it is not necessarily true. Many times the answers are there, deliberately, but is denied because it is emberassing.
4) the official position is not necessarily what is on the screen. Many times desipte the intention the editing, directorship, or simple lazyness and mistake leaves in or cuts out sceenes which makes a difference between the intended version and the actual product. And as the crew most of the times can't even keep track of who had which gun, this is many times an issue.
5) take all canonical source at once! Do not leave out in this case any of the movies or miniseries. The ARE important, or if not, part of the experience.

To answer the questions of Battlestar Galactica you must consider all of the above. I say BG is NOT character-drama, and you should not go after datafragment mysteries, like "who gave the note about 12 cylons only at the beginning" (although for this particular one there is a clear indication in BG: The Plan).

So, what are the questions of Battlestar Galactica, being a religious drama, if you ask me? I'd gladly discuss your questions of course too, but the questions from my point are:
- who made the cylons? What is their origin?
- what does the recurring sentence "this happened already, and will again and again and again" mean?
- what is the position of the series towards god? Not to its existance, that is a minor question, but its activity, purpose, usefulness? Why is religion in the series? Is it a good thing for the characters, or a bad thing, or with other words: is God Good, or Evil?
- what's with all the fuss 'bout Starbuck and the Earth? What's with Vision Six and Vision Balthar? You know, the supernatural elements of the show.
- how the factions relate to each other? What makes the conflicts of the show? This ultimately leads to the question, how much humans effect the events during the events of Battlestar Galactica, and how much the cylons do? (and in case there is a Third Party of God, can anything be told 'bout them)

To answer these questions I created a timeline:

"At the beginning":
1) at an unknown time humanity arrives to Kobol, and lives under the 12 gods, likely cylons.
2) Kobol (or at least the 13 tribe on Kobol) has "resurrection technology".
4000-2000 years ago:
3) at "the early times" the 13th tribe goes to Earth, reason untold (human-cylon conflict on religious basis?). The 13th tribe (or at least The Five) believes in One God.
4) Earth is scorched by metal-cylons. Fate of metal-cylons is unkown. Probably mutually ensured destruction happened. The Five escapes for being warned by Vision-Balthar and Vision-Number Six, and travels to the other 12 tribes.
5) Kobol is abandoned because of a war between the greek-pagan-traditional religion of the Twelve Tribes, and the One God worshipped by The Five.
58 years before the Fall of theTwelve Colonies:
6) the first metal-cylon of the Twelve Colonies is made by instructions given by "god", and ends up with the mind of a religious fanatic.
7) the First Cylon War breakes out from simple religious fanaticism.
40 years before the Fall of the Twelve Colonies (aka. The Second Cylon War):
8) The Five makes a pact with the Cylons of the Twelve Colonies and creates The Eight humanoid cylon.
9) Number One rebels and captures The Five, destroys Series Number 7, places The Five amongst humans in the hope they'll start to favour the cylons over humans. The Embassy Station is built.
Season 1 and so on:
10) Battlestar Galactica and some civilian ships flee from the remnants of the Twelve Colonies. Balthar is continuously influenced by Vision-Number Six.
11) The First Hybrid tells "Kara Thrace will lead the human race to its end. She is the herald of the apocalypse, the harbinger of death. They must not follow her."
12) The remainings of humanity settles on New Caprica, where they'd live in peace with the cylons if The Five cylons would not create a "resistance", or call it on name: terrorist group.
13) The Five are "reactivated", meaning they from this signal remember they are cylons. Origin of signal: unknown.
14) Starbuck dies (blows to tiny pieces), but reappears and promises to lead the fleet to Earth, which she fails.
15) Gaius Balthar organises a cult of One God.
16) The fleet would just give up listening to Starbuck, when a cylon pulls gun and forces them to keep doing what she says.
17) The Fleet find the scorched Earth, and a THIRD Starbuck (the first blew up to tiny pieces in The Maelstorm, the second is groupped with the Fleet, so the body on Earth is a THIRD Starbuck).
18) The Rebel Hybrid tells this: "Thus shall it come to pass. A dying leader will know the truth of the Opera House The missing Three will give you the Five who come from the home of the Thirteenth. You are the harbinger of death, Kara Thrace. You will lead them all to their end." There are notable differences between this prophecy and the prophecy of the First Hybrid, most notably what they say about leading, and in what context they stand the whole "harbinger of death" thing (the First is worried, and the Rebel is glad). More on this later.
19) In s04e17 we see what Kara is: she is tool of The Third Party. Can be a Solid Hologram form Star Trek for all the series cares for technical datas. It is not important what she is made of. What is important is her use.

One pattern you should notice, that humans have no issue at all in what is happening in the series. They are totally passive, and just pushed through all history.
Second: the Seven cylons has little to do with anything either. They are programmed to behave a certain way, and when not, the are lead by The Five, their makers.
Third: the events of history clearly repeats themselves, and not just by similarities, but by such things as in every cycle there is a physically identical Starbuck!

So, as The Cycle is most definitely attached to The Third Party, what do we actually know about that? What do we know about The Cycle?
We know they act hidden, mostly by meddling with people's mind.
We know they can effect physically if the have to.
We know the Cycle has to do something with the human-cylon conflict. Is the cycle about the cylons (artificial life created by humans) rebelling against their makers and killing one of the parties (we don't know if every time the same party wins or not)? Definitely this is NOT The Cycle, as if one party would win by exterminating the other party, there would be no Cycle! Instead, The Cycle must end the humans and cylons MERGING with each other, guided by The Third Party (God and his crowd).

So as we see God (The Third Party) recreates mercilessly The Cycle over and over and over. Is it good for anything? Repeating the same thing without a change is nothing but torture. Maybe this "God" is nothing else but a highly advanced Cavil noone along it to stop his twisted moral's induced love-torture.
But does the series see The Cycle as a bad thing? All party seems neutral to it: God just do it with no appearant reason, the cylons accept it without thinking on it (just like the existence of The Five thx to the mental block created by Cavil), and humanity just worships it without knowing anything about it. So we must look on the series in general to figure out what the creators thought, or if they hidden a certain clue what we should think about all this.

It'd be easy to think they went with "goddidit". That clearly seems to be the issue from the main directors. but if we actually look at the series in every detail, we'll find some hidden details, wether they are intentional or accidental. And the clue is Kara Thrace being The Harbinger of Death. If that would not be there, we could safely say, The Cycle is just God's way to ensure the best possible scenario where both parties will be the most happy - although Cavil at a point suggests there are other (intelligent) life form across the BSG-universe.

So let's put in context the Hybrid Prophecies!
First: neither party is happy the slightest. Let's say it is inevitable that humans create cylons (new, artificial life), the cylons will inevitably rebel, and there is no other way for a peaceful resolution. So what? Evolution is progress, and at times makes species go extinct.
Let's assume humans win the cylon-human war. Humans than remember the problem, and cease to create AIs, they live happily ever after.
Let's assume the cylons win the war. They no longer driven by the inbuilt frustration caused by evolved from machines, and considering themselves as slave-race. So they live happily ever after.
but this is all metaphyics, let's say what the series say!

The Rebel Hybrid says:
" A dying leader will know the truth of the Opera House. The missing Three will give you the Five who come from the home of the Thirteenth. You are the harbinger of death, Kara Thrace. You will lead them all to their end."
This is repeated again by Sam (one of the Five, turned into a Hybrid):
"there's a hole in the bucket. The long view returns patterns and repetitions... all has happened before and all will happen again..."
What they are talking about? Well, they are telling the same thing basically, and they are talking about Kara's place in The Cycle. Both are very convincing that Kara must fulfill her destiny/purpose: bring death and destruction (to the warmonger cylons), and lead everyone to the end of The Neverending Cycle, which is created by God, because "he" forsee events, and changes them to apply instead to The Cycle, because... God has a Plan. What is the Plan? Well, God works on mysterious ways. But this is no answer, and seems to be a very flawed plan, as "there's a hole in the bucket", so this "God" might want "good", but this so-called plan is a flawed, reaching with it absolutely nowehere.

But the Rebel Hybrid and Sam Hyrid so insist this is what must happen! Surly the creators of the show support this God, as God is Love! God is One! Helleluia!

Well, maybe they don't. Maybe the show is a big tragedy about The Cycle remaining unbroken, and this God-party is actually a BAD thing, and EVIL thing, and noone should listen to Kara!
Can this view be supported?
I say it can.
Because what the First Hybrid says:
"What am I, a man? Or am I a machine?" "Kara Thrace will lead the human race to its end. She is the herald of the apocalypse, the harbinger of death. They must not follow her."
So, first issue: in whose name the First Hybrid is speaking? Cylons or humans? Well, actually BOTH, as the question wether it is human or cylon remains undecided.
Second, he also says Kara leads the human race. But he very much insist Kara must NOT be followed! And Kara being the Harbinger of Death definitely seems to be the reason for he insisting! Now why would anyone say that?
Well, given that the Cycle never gets solved, and Starbuck being the one closing the circle, not following her would result in breaking The Cycle!
And I could not agree more.
And it is the deepest tragedy it could not be achieved.

This is not much. Won't make the series worth watching. But if you watched it, maybe this can make you less frustrated.