Honestly, I wish Caprica had not been cancelled. It would have been a great way to show what the society, culture, and religion of the Colonies were before being fragmented and preserved only in a handful of survivors.
Yes. Caprica had some serious flaws, but there was a lot of unfulfilled potential there. I think season 2 is when it would have started to really find its way.
@@feralhistorianExactly. Seriously flawed, but built around a core of greatness. Trying to be a non-combat prequel to a military SF series was a steep hill to climb. (Incidentally, Stargate: Atlantis had that "cut off too soon" feel as well, and I think it suffered from not feeling "Stargate enough" to many people.)
Even though I’m not a Mormon, I will say that their cosmology is interesting at the very least. The explanation of gods having once been essentially human before transcending into their current state would go a long way towards explaining why mythological pantheons and even the OT Yahweh to a certain extent seem to have very human emotions and dispositions about things.
That scene after Galactica makes her final jump always breaks my heart, harder than the sequence of the old girl's keel breaking. One of the first battlestars and the last. She kept humanity safe from her commissioning to her very last mission. There's something poetic with her final flight to Sol's embrace, but I wish the Colonials found a way to keep her memory. She deserved that, at least.
I thought their disposal of technology was unforeshadowed, out of character, contrived and unnecessary, and blunderingly short-sighted. It was an ending so poor that it dashed my enjoyment of the entire series.
@@enkephalin07I think you missed the end, then... because it's supposed to be our past... and I think we would have found a freaking Battlestar just floating around...
Yes!! Covering my favourite show and the first "grownup" series I started and finished!! Admittedly though the Mormon stuff really flew over my head since we don't have that many of them in my part of the world (Greece) and haven't been exposed to their ideas and beliefs. An interesting thing to look out for whenever I eventually do a rewatch.
Yes. This is one Frank Herbert got wrong - _fear_ isn't the mind-killer, _despair_ is. Fear is an imperfect tool at best, but it can be useful as a motivator when all else fails. Despair, on the other hand... I've never seen or heard of any practical value to despair.
Part of this is why i love bsg. It feels like an actual alien civilization because it exists in a completely different paradigm from our modern, dreary and rationalistic world. They are industrial, scientifically advanced pagan animists and for them, magical thinking is their greatest strength, while our society has condemned it. So its kind of fitting that both earths in canon are at least partially ethnically cylon, after all our society is so much closer to cavillist nihilism than any other worldview.
Those are esoteric concepts more than actual tenets. Any and all cultures and faiths believe in these. What the fuck does it actually mean that your culture values "agency" or "exaltation" ? It's essentially so ubiquitous it becomes meaningless.
'A mind recreated from purely external observation'. Reminds me of a concept from Doctor Who's Eighth Doctor Adventure line of novels. Prior to the modern reboot, the EDAs were delving into quite (relative to the time) fringe/broad Sci FI concepts. There was a 'species' of pseudo-people (probably human, I can't recall) made as an experiment called Remotes, where their main defining feature is that they have an antenna in their earlobes that feeds a stream of the signals around them right into their brain. This shapes their personality over time based on the culture of where they are, since who and what is making the media they are effectively adding to their personality isn't fixed. Once one dies they are recreated in 'Remembrance Tanks' from matter that was formed into the image of their original self. The catch? This only occurs based on how they were remembered by others and in a species that learns and recalls via digital media, every generation of the same person is a product of what the prior iteration contributed in shaping the minds of other people.
In the Infinity tabletop skirmish game by Corvus Belli, there is a faction called Aleph, which is essentially the A.I that runs all of human civilization and also coordinates the Human Sphere's defence against an alien faction, The Combined Army, which is led by another A.I, the Evolved Intelligence, who conquers one planet after the next in a search for the secret to transcendence. Aleph creates A.I agents called Recreations, that are essentially reconstructions of notable historical persons and even fictional or mythological characters, essentially in the same way you describe the souls in BSG. A number of these Recreations have even rebelled in-lore due to the personalities of the people they recreate, and there is a major storyline at the moment where a recreated Achilles defects to the Combined Army after Aleph sacrifices Patroclus. There are a lot of fascinating ideas in Infinity that are really worth diving into. Fantastic game as well. Also, I recently stumbled on your your channel and have been thoroughly enjoying it. Thank you for the great content.
Seeing Tamoh Pennicut reminds me... Your take on Dollhouse would be appreciated. I think that Joss Whedon and Eliza Dushku put a lot of thought into the creation of the concept of the Dolls.
What's interesting is that the decision to make the Cylons robots (they were originally aliens that needed suits with sensor helmets to see because they were blind) was made at the last minute when production of the 1978 pilot had already started. This decision was made so the show would be less violent (probably similar to why most of the bad guys in the Star Wars prequels were robots). It's just interesting how this tiny last minute change which is basically an afterthought and as you said has little plot impact in the original series became so integral to the remake's lore.
I thought Cavil's suicide was to conveniently wrap up the loose end while conclusively demonstrating that he won't be rehabilitated, he's never to be redeemed.
As always, I like the thoughtful, fresh ways you break down a topic derived from World-Building Fiction. More to the point, your video essays are never boring, always thought-provoking, and go well with any refreshing drink; I'm enjoying a homemade iced coffee as I watch this. That said, I don't think that Zima or coffee would be Kosher for a Mormon / LDS viewer . . . . 482nd Like.
That was a really good, well-thought-out assessment. I’m not sure I buy the cohesion between the two shows, though. My reasoning: The Original Galactica (Hereafter: TOG) was a cold war allegory of a worst-case situation in which the stupid wussie liberals like Jimmy Carter gleefully take the inhuman Soviets at their word. The soulless soviet automatons - robots in this allegory - immediately take advantage of this and destroy the US analogue. We’re told in the first episode that humans love “The freedom to live, to do, to change. To the Cylons, this is an alien way of existing that they will never understand” And of course humanity is willingly sold out by a duplicitous politician (Baltar) who wants to be placed in charge of whatever vassal state of humans the Imperious Leader allows him to keep. The Mormon Theology was because Larson is a Mormon, as you pointed out. He definitely worked that into it. No arguments, but I don’t think the “Angels are looking after the Americanish refugees, and the devil is helping the godless commiebots” can be overlooked. I think that’s important. And of course TOG Adama is continually shown sitting around reading their equivalent of the Bible. In Ronald D Moore’s Galactica (Hereafter: RDMG), Moore made a concerted effort to *not* rewatch the original series and rely on his own childhood memories of it (Though he did watch the 3-hour TV movie). He describes himself as an atheist and a “Recovering Catholic,” and it seems very clear that he swapped out the barely-remembered mormonism of TOG for his own issues. Where TOG was a cold war allegory, RDMG is a 9/11 allegory, and RDM has been very open about that. Why are the Cylons expressly monotheist? Because the guys who blew up the Twin Towers were monotheists, and there’s a general liberal athiest dislike of Monotheism. Religion in general, but Monotheism in particular. Conversely, the Colonials are portrayed as “Tolerant” polytheists who barely believe their own religions. There is no deep insight here, just “Many” instead of “One.” The Leftist perspective of the “Right,” versus the leftist unrealistic perspective of polytheism as tolerant. He’s openly stated that he just set up some stuff in the pilot miniseries with no real idea where it’d go, and figured he’d figure it out later. Deleted scenes and interviews suggest he did an abrupt about-face on some of his original ideas. Season 1 was supposed to end with the Colonials in that cave on Kobol, when Dirk Benedict walks up and says, “Hello. I’m God.” He ditched that idea. He seems to have been working towards the idea that humans on Kobol created ‘the gods’ in their own image, and these gods threw them out, resulting in the colonies, and a new cycle beginning. (However he’s stated that initially when they made the pilot movie, Kobol was the planet everyone lived on and “The colonies” were simply countries *ON* Kobol, though he changed his mind shortly after it was shot). There is talk in deleted scenes about “one evil god” but whatever he was going for in that one seems to have been abandoned by the end of Season 2. My point being simply that he never seems to have had a very clear plan, and changed it a lot, so not only is the show not terribly cohesive thematically with TOG, it’s not thematically cohesive with itself. (Its lack of Cohesion with TOG isn’t a problem. We always retell myths and legends with new perspectives. That’s fine. I take no issue with that) And in the end it *appears* there really is a God? Although He doesn’t like to be called that? And Head 6 and head Baltar are angels, evidently. I dunno. It doesn’t make a lot of sense. “So the answer to the big question is ‘God did it,’ and please be nice to your robots in the future. Thank you and goodnight.” Personally, I tend to ignore Caprica. That show was developed as an unrelated standalone that was eventually retconned into the RDMG-verse, and RDM himself seems to have had very little to do with it, and shed no tears when it ended. I get the feeling he didn’t really want it there, because it would have eventually answered questions that RDM didn’t want answered and didn’t himself know the answer to. What the hell is Starbuck? He’s said he doesn’t know. Was her daddy a cylon? RDM says no. But he likes the mystery because there are things in life that are inscrutable, and while I never liked that storyline any more than you do, I do appreciate that it was a question never intended to be answered. A deliberate nonsequitor to keep the show from being too deterministic. Anyway, that’s my take on it. I enjoyed your essay, but having puzzled over it for a few hours, I don’t think I quite agree with you. It is well reasoned, though.
Interesting background, I learned some things. This one, like most of my stuff here is more about cultural continuity than conscious intent of the showrunners, but yes, there is clearly a hard disconnect in how Larson and Moore approached the material.
This is the first video I've seen from this channel that I really disagree with the Feral Historians take. This was the story of a real god always giving humanity another chance even though their hubris brings them low every few thousand years or so. They try and become God's themselves and fail miserably. Even the Earth Cylons repeated the cycle and tried to create life. They even try and create God's that they can interact with, at least create the mythology of the lords of kobol. Its like the Jews that created the golden calf idol in the old testament even though God had set them free from Egypt. The Battle Star series of the early 2000s has a God, the Judeo Christian god, more or less. This was a story about rejecting false God's, about a God wanting us to accept the role he created humanity for. When people try to become God's we lose the best parts of ourselves that make us human. We're not wise enough or noble enough to create an intelligent "lifeform" and do the right thing by it. The mental versions of 6 and Baltar were really angels the whole time and had probably seen the same cycle repeat itself over and over for an untold number of years. The Universe of Battlestar Galactica isn't one that's partially created with a god who wants humanity as partners in creation...its a universe where god is the parent that is constantly struggling to teach his children to keep the home he provided for them nice and the kid keeps on drawing on the walls with sharpies and crayons trying to make it their own.
They were absolutely angels and the writers sought to be able to deliver the reimagined series without it being a reboot... without invalidating the original series... and this was the result. All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again. Which it will... because a new BSG is in the works
I think the cycle is a clock-cycle occurring in a lab computer running the simulation, and the machines are trying to determine how to become content with no meaning, even as the humans are happy-enough to imagine that the lie of the Matrix is good-enough to allow them to sleep at night (after a slave-labour level of maintenance). It is the synthesis of the MATRIX and the original series; even though 2nd Series Space: 1999: A Moment of Humanity did it all before even Glen showed us the first viper or raider. Don't get me started on Stargate: Universe...
Leaving my own hardcore Catholicism aside, in just dealing with developing themes of LDS/Mormonism, I have to give serious cred to Joseph Smith Jr. as a religious/literary creator. This was cinched for me when I read a computer analysis of the Book of Mormon which couldn't find evidence of Smith's own verbiage (from later writings and recorded speeches) but did find big dollops of Oliver Cowdrey, Martin Harris, and Samuel Spaulding, the last a minister and religious novelist whose lost (stolen, most likely by Harris who worked at Spaulding's publisher) manuscript _View From the Hebrews_ which like an earlier Spaulding work, told the tale of Israelite immigrants in the Americas. As such, the Book of Mormon, including it's near verbatim plagiarisms of the pre-1830 KJV (including "Apocrypha"/Deuterocanonical Old Testament books ) is simply an awful Frankenstein-monster composition, even by 19th century standards, a fact Mark Twain gleefully savaged in _Roughing It_ . Joe Smith, on the other hand, as an innately gifted tale-telling conman (look up his treasure hunting career prior to the BoM), chosen by Cowdrey and Harris as the charismatic front man for their "noble lie" of restored Christianity (see the Church of Christ at this same time regarding restoring "true Christianity"), quickly took over as an innovative religious leader, especially considering the limitations of his early education. In brief, Smith when given the opportunity, was a vastly better writer than whoever composed the BoM. In the "King Follet Funeral Speech", shortly before Smith's murder by a lynch mob at Palmyra, Smith's language is far more eloquent than anything found in the BoM.
I read the entirety of the Book of Mormon way, way back, and yeah, it's both a clunky text and fascinating piece of myth-making. Plus it has cavalry battles. And being set before Europeans brought horses, I have this delightful image in my head of Nephite cavalry on their War Llamas.
To me the white uniforms and visuals are less aesthetic and mood and more representative of an endowment ceremony and temple mysteries. They are ascending to their position in the afterlife. EDIT: what the actual hell, a link has been added to my post leading to ads by LDS. How in the hell are Mormons hijacking my post? 2nd EDIT: updating my post removed the link but now I will have to check back to see if it's done again.
Getting some TIKhistory vibes from this, as the past year he's done a number of videos on Gnosticism and the Dialectic and it's effect on Nazism, Marxism and Fascism. Which is why he advocates they're Religions as much as they are Political/Economic ideologies. His introduction in his video titled "The cult many are in but don’t realize" I heard much of that in your video just. It's also why when I get into argument with some, not all... but some Marxist, they will still bring up Material Reality basically as a fall back every time they don't have an answer, ie every time evidence doesn't support their views. The fall back basically being reality isn't reality.
I came across TIK's channel just in the last couple months and have been listening to some of his stuff. It's probably unsurprising that I agree with most of his interpretations. An upcoming video is going to make some familiar points along those lines.
I was going to say, it sounds like a lot of Gnosticism being mixed into that world view, a connection I get from watching TIK and James Lindsey. Lindsey is far more.. blunt... about his problems with Gnosticism (and those he sees as its modern proponents;) TIK more points out the Gnostic thought mixed into various flavors of socialism and lets the empirical results speak for themselves.
For a modern day perspective of the danger of selffulling prophecy: Israel (whether you support it or not, my point is issues like the third temple carry nuclear war level risk, that's no exaggeration)
Did the lie become real because people believed in it? When you consider that the BSG crew was on our earth 100,000 years before the real flowering of our culture and our beloved characters died out without a trace. Despite what Apollo says about teaching the natives none of that came through to today. If they started farming, it vanished. If they used better hunting weapons like composite longbows or crossbows, they vanished. All their stories, all the lessons completely gone. Simply put, the crew of the BSG left NO IMPACT. They didn't make earth better or worse. All their struggling amounted to absolutely nothing. Maybe the Earth scam stayed a scam?
I was annoyed when it very rapidly became obvious that the writers had no plan nor clue. I was also bored of yet another in a decades long string of products examining what it means to be human. I think they passed up a more interesting, timely and concerning question of what means to be civilized.
you careful method, choice, to teach history and philosophy vie popular culture gives you more freedom, than it you just elocuted your positions unlike any other poster with carefully thought out opinions. This inuslates your work from the angry and the woke, taking these important ideas to a "Safe Space", we can easily share. that said, I wish, but will not ask your views on ,... certain subjects, too relevant for these times. thanks again for clarity and education.
@ died, was resurrected. Saved humanity and then disappeared or as I interrupt ascended directly to heaven like after Jesus rose from the dead. I admit it’s nothing solid but I think the parallels are intentional.
@Fred-rv2tu Jesus is God. Starbuck isn't. Hell, Starbuck didn't even know what she was. She knew she had a purpose. Lazarus was raised from the dead, too. IIRC, a child was, as well. Jesus also died for mankind. Starbuck just died...
@ obviously she isn’t literally Jesus. I’m saying they intentionally drew parallels. She is a savior who died and was resurrected. She didn’t save their souls but she saved them by leading them to earth. If you can’t see that connection it’s probably because you find her being compared to Jesus offensive because she was so morally questionable.
Battlestar Galactica was garbage. No self-consistency within its own constructed universe. No continuity between episodes. And then the last season was just a complete sellout oh God did it! Imagine that and advertise science fiction series. I said science fiction science. And it just ends up being oh there's no Mysteries God did it all. It was crap.
I found the remake of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA to be an unwatchable incoherent mess. Edison said I'll try 10,000 that don't work to get to the one thing that dies work. Well, this show doesn't even rise to the level of an interesting failure. YUCK!
I have always loved BSG remake as the greatest show ever. Knowing that a Mormon racist wrote the original regretfully hurts my appreciation of the show. People who like chariots of the dogs are despicable.
GL being a dick never bothered me as RDM did a great job of reworking his ideas for post 9/11 viewers. As for COTG fans, I prefer to think of them as vaguely pathetic and ignorant, like the sort of person for whom watching a few RUclips videos counts as "research." Although there is a clear undercurrent of racism from a lot of "alien gods are a more believable explanation than humans figuring things out without a computer" proponents.
Honestly, I wish Caprica had not been cancelled. It would have been a great way to show what the society, culture, and religion of the Colonies were before being fragmented and preserved only in a handful of survivors.
Agreed.
Yes. Caprica had some serious flaws, but there was a lot of unfulfilled potential there. I think season 2 is when it would have started to really find its way.
I actually enjoyed Caprica more than the main series. It was very well done. Even the way they did the beginning credits was great.
@@feralhistorianExactly. Seriously flawed, but built around a core of greatness.
Trying to be a non-combat prequel to a military SF series was a steep hill to climb.
(Incidentally, Stargate: Atlantis had that "cut off too soon" feel as well, and I think it suffered from not feeling "Stargate enough" to many people.)
Even though I’m not a Mormon, I will say that their cosmology is interesting at the very least. The explanation of gods having once been essentially human before transcending into their current state would go a long way towards explaining why mythological pantheons and even the OT Yahweh to a certain extent seem to have very human emotions and dispositions about things.
That scene after Galactica makes her final jump always breaks my heart, harder than the sequence of the old girl's keel breaking.
One of the first battlestars and the last. She kept humanity safe from her commissioning to her very last mission.
There's something poetic with her final flight to Sol's embrace, but I wish the Colonials found a way to keep her memory. She deserved that, at least.
I love the theory that the Galactica was the dying leader not Roselyn
I thought their disposal of technology was unforeshadowed, out of character, contrived and unnecessary, and blunderingly short-sighted. It was an ending so poor that it dashed my enjoyment of the entire series.
Galactica the original name for Noah's Ark? Although it would be too on the nose if they named it that :P
@@enkephalin07I think you missed the end, then... because it's supposed to be our past... and I think we would have found a freaking Battlestar just floating around...
Yes... never give up...
...Never surrender.
By Grabthar’s Hammer,
You shall be avenged.
Yes!! Covering my favourite show and the first "grownup" series I started and finished!! Admittedly though the Mormon stuff really flew over my head since we don't have that many of them in my part of the world (Greece) and haven't been exposed to their ideas and beliefs. An interesting thing to look out for whenever I eventually do a rewatch.
There's a lot to cover with Galactica. More is on the way I'm sure.
@@feralhistorian Looking forward to it
@@feralhistorian Yes definitely do more Galactica.
Perfection.
Now waiting for your take on Space: Above and Beyond.
Above and Beyond is ripe for another viewing now that you mention it.
As the prune-faced dictator says, "DEWIT"
@@feralhistorian
Yes. This is one Frank Herbert got wrong - _fear_ isn't the mind-killer, _despair_ is. Fear is an imperfect tool at best, but it can be useful as a motivator when all else fails. Despair, on the other hand... I've never seen or heard of any practical value to despair.
The counter of Despair is Hope, that's what Adama gave them with Earth... and it worked.
@@gbrian75 hope is a lie until we make it true.
@@RobDaCajunfalse.
Hope is the motivation to strive.
Defeat is the lie... until you accept and embrace it
I love Dune, but Herbert got a lot wrong about human nature.
Part of this is why i love bsg. It feels like an actual alien civilization because it exists in a completely different paradigm from our modern, dreary and rationalistic world. They are industrial, scientifically advanced pagan animists and for them, magical thinking is their greatest strength, while our society has condemned it. So its kind of fitting that both earths in canon are at least partially ethnically cylon, after all our society is so much closer to cavillist nihilism than any other worldview.
I mean, Japan and the Republic of Korea are basically that right now.
25% Cylon technically.
Exaltation, Eternal Progression, pre-existence of humanity, agency, all of these things are very integral to my culture and beliefs
Those are esoteric concepts more than actual tenets. Any and all cultures and faiths believe in these.
What the fuck does it actually mean that your culture values "agency" or "exaltation" ?
It's essentially so ubiquitous it becomes meaningless.
'A mind recreated from purely external observation'.
Reminds me of a concept from Doctor Who's Eighth Doctor Adventure line of novels. Prior to the modern reboot, the EDAs were delving into quite (relative to the time) fringe/broad Sci FI concepts. There was a 'species' of pseudo-people (probably human, I can't recall) made as an experiment called Remotes, where their main defining feature is that they have an antenna in their earlobes that feeds a stream of the signals around them right into their brain. This shapes their personality over time based on the culture of where they are, since who and what is making the media they are effectively adding to their personality isn't fixed.
Once one dies they are recreated in 'Remembrance Tanks' from matter that was formed into the image of their original self. The catch? This only occurs based on how they were remembered by others and in a species that learns and recalls via digital media, every generation of the same person is a product of what the prior iteration contributed in shaping the minds of other people.
I really love your vids. BSG is one of my favorites OAT.
In the Infinity tabletop skirmish game by Corvus Belli, there is a faction called Aleph, which is essentially the A.I that runs all of human civilization and also coordinates the Human Sphere's defence against an alien faction, The Combined Army, which is led by another A.I, the Evolved Intelligence, who conquers one planet after the next in a search for the secret to transcendence. Aleph creates A.I agents called Recreations, that are essentially reconstructions of notable historical persons and even fictional or mythological characters, essentially in the same way you describe the souls in BSG. A number of these Recreations have even rebelled in-lore due to the personalities of the people they recreate, and there is a major storyline at the moment where a recreated Achilles defects to the Combined Army after Aleph sacrifices Patroclus. There are a lot of fascinating ideas in Infinity that are really worth diving into. Fantastic game as well. Also, I recently stumbled on your your channel and have been thoroughly enjoying it. Thank you for the great content.
Initial thought: Woot!
Thought upon finishing, agreed, frak
I second the guy below asking for Space: Above and Beyond
The idea of "soul as external interactions" is what I call Freshman Dorm Bong-rip Philosophy.
Seeing Tamoh Pennicut reminds me... Your take on Dollhouse would be appreciated. I think that Joss Whedon and Eliza Dushku put a lot of thought into the creation of the concept of the Dolls.
What's interesting is that the decision to make the Cylons robots (they were originally aliens that needed suits with sensor helmets to see because they were blind) was made at the last minute when production of the 1978 pilot had already started. This decision was made so the show would be less violent (probably similar to why most of the bad guys in the Star Wars prequels were robots). It's just interesting how this tiny last minute change which is basically an afterthought and as you said has little plot impact in the original series became so integral to the remake's lore.
That happened because Edward James Olmos said he would walk if there were ANY aliens
I thought Cavil's suicide was to conveniently wrap up the loose end while conclusively demonstrating that he won't be rehabilitated, he's never to be redeemed.
One of mine favorite shows of all time so far if not favorite still relavent today
We are the caterpillars, 🐛 God is the Butterfly. 🦋
As always, I like the thoughtful, fresh ways you break down a topic derived from World-Building Fiction. More to the point, your video essays are never boring, always thought-provoking, and go well with any refreshing drink; I'm enjoying a homemade iced coffee as I watch this.
That said, I don't think that Zima or coffee would be Kosher for a Mormon / LDS viewer . . . .
482nd Like.
Very well said
Wow this video is actually extremely deep
This was excellent.
Great video
I loved the caprica show. Too bad the series ended before it got better.
Caprica had a lot of potential. A lot of flaws too, but there was more right than wrong with it.
Any chance of delving into the can of worms known as "The Matrix" trilogy?
What sort of take could you have "Agent Smith"?
I've been thinking about that since the Cyberpunk video a few weeks back. It's near the top of the rewatch pile.
@@feralhistorian Thank you for your consideration.
Never give up...
...never surrender.
(Zima's for all) 🤓
That was a really good, well-thought-out assessment. I’m not sure I buy the cohesion between the two shows, though. My reasoning:
The Original Galactica (Hereafter: TOG) was a cold war allegory of a worst-case situation in which the stupid wussie liberals like Jimmy Carter gleefully take the inhuman Soviets at their word. The soulless soviet automatons - robots in this allegory - immediately take advantage of this and destroy the US analogue. We’re told in the first episode that humans love “The freedom to live, to do, to change. To the Cylons, this is an alien way of existing that they will never understand” And of course humanity is willingly sold out by a duplicitous politician (Baltar) who wants to be placed in charge of whatever vassal state of humans the Imperious Leader allows him to keep.
The Mormon Theology was because Larson is a Mormon, as you pointed out. He definitely worked that into it. No arguments, but I don’t think the “Angels are looking after the Americanish refugees, and the devil is helping the godless commiebots” can be overlooked. I think that’s important. And of course TOG Adama is continually shown sitting around reading their equivalent of the Bible.
In Ronald D Moore’s Galactica (Hereafter: RDMG), Moore made a concerted effort to *not* rewatch the original series and rely on his own childhood memories of it (Though he did watch the 3-hour TV movie). He describes himself as an atheist and a “Recovering Catholic,” and it seems very clear that he swapped out the barely-remembered mormonism of TOG for his own issues.
Where TOG was a cold war allegory, RDMG is a 9/11 allegory, and RDM has been very open about that. Why are the Cylons expressly monotheist? Because the guys who blew up the Twin Towers were monotheists, and there’s a general liberal athiest dislike of Monotheism. Religion in general, but Monotheism in particular. Conversely, the Colonials are portrayed as “Tolerant” polytheists who barely believe their own religions. There is no deep insight here, just “Many” instead of “One.” The Leftist perspective of the “Right,” versus the leftist unrealistic perspective of polytheism as tolerant.
He’s openly stated that he just set up some stuff in the pilot miniseries with no real idea where it’d go, and figured he’d figure it out later. Deleted scenes and interviews suggest he did an abrupt about-face on some of his original ideas. Season 1 was supposed to end with the Colonials in that cave on Kobol, when Dirk Benedict walks up and says, “Hello. I’m God.”
He ditched that idea. He seems to have been working towards the idea that humans on Kobol created ‘the gods’ in their own image, and these gods threw them out, resulting in the colonies, and a new cycle beginning. (However he’s stated that initially when they made the pilot movie, Kobol was the planet everyone lived on and “The colonies” were simply countries *ON* Kobol, though he changed his mind shortly after it was shot). There is talk in deleted scenes about “one evil god” but whatever he was going for in that one seems to have been abandoned by the end of Season 2.
My point being simply that he never seems to have had a very clear plan, and changed it a lot, so not only is the show not terribly cohesive thematically with TOG, it’s not thematically cohesive with itself. (Its lack of Cohesion with TOG isn’t a problem. We always retell myths and legends with new perspectives. That’s fine. I take no issue with that)
And in the end it *appears* there really is a God? Although He doesn’t like to be called that? And Head 6 and head Baltar are angels, evidently. I dunno. It doesn’t make a lot of sense. “So the answer to the big question is ‘God did it,’ and please be nice to your robots in the future. Thank you and goodnight.”
Personally, I tend to ignore Caprica. That show was developed as an unrelated standalone that was eventually retconned into the RDMG-verse, and RDM himself seems to have had very little to do with it, and shed no tears when it ended. I get the feeling he didn’t really want it there, because it would have eventually answered questions that RDM didn’t want answered and didn’t himself know the answer to.
What the hell is Starbuck? He’s said he doesn’t know. Was her daddy a cylon? RDM says no. But he likes the mystery because there are things in life that are inscrutable, and while I never liked that storyline any more than you do, I do appreciate that it was a question never intended to be answered. A deliberate nonsequitor to keep the show from being too deterministic.
Anyway, that’s my take on it. I enjoyed your essay, but having puzzled over it for a few hours, I don’t think I quite agree with you. It is well reasoned, though.
Interesting background, I learned some things.
This one, like most of my stuff here is more about cultural continuity than conscious intent of the showrunners, but yes, there is clearly a hard disconnect in how Larson and Moore approached the material.
Again with the Zima, and the sit downs. Lol.
This is the first video I've seen from this channel that I really disagree with the Feral Historians take. This was the story of a real god always giving humanity another chance even though their hubris brings them low every few thousand years or so. They try and become God's themselves and fail miserably. Even the Earth Cylons repeated the cycle and tried to create life. They even try and create God's that they can interact with, at least create the mythology of the lords of kobol. Its like the Jews that created the golden calf idol in the old testament even though God had set them free from Egypt. The Battle Star series of the early 2000s has a God, the Judeo Christian god, more or less. This was a story about rejecting false God's, about a God wanting us to accept the role he created humanity for. When people try to become God's we lose the best parts of ourselves that make us human. We're not wise enough or noble enough to create an intelligent "lifeform" and do the right thing by it. The mental versions of 6 and Baltar were really angels the whole time and had probably seen the same cycle repeat itself over and over for an untold number of years. The Universe of Battlestar Galactica isn't one that's partially created with a god who wants humanity as partners in creation...its a universe where god is the parent that is constantly struggling to teach his children to keep the home he provided for them nice and the kid keeps on drawing on the walls with sharpies and crayons trying to make it their own.
They were absolutely angels and the writers sought to be able to deliver the reimagined series without it being a reboot... without invalidating the original series... and this was the result.
All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again.
Which it will... because a new BSG is in the works
i liked the BSG reboot but really wanted to see how they would do the Ship of Lights / Count Iblis. I guess Cavill was the closest to Iblis we get
I think the cycle is a clock-cycle occurring in a lab computer running the simulation, and the machines are trying to determine how to become content with no meaning, even as the humans are happy-enough to imagine that the lie of the Matrix is good-enough to allow them to sleep at night (after a slave-labour level of maintenance). It is the synthesis of the MATRIX and the original series; even though 2nd Series Space: 1999: A Moment of Humanity did it all before even Glen showed us the first viper or raider. Don't get me started on Stargate: Universe...
I fucking love Zima
Memory is then an instance of the ever expanding past?
Damn! I miss Zimas.
Leaving my own hardcore Catholicism aside, in just dealing with developing themes of LDS/Mormonism, I have to give serious cred to Joseph Smith Jr. as a religious/literary creator. This was cinched for me when I read a computer analysis of the Book of Mormon which couldn't find evidence of Smith's own verbiage (from later writings and recorded speeches) but did find big dollops of Oliver Cowdrey, Martin Harris, and Samuel Spaulding, the last a minister and religious novelist whose lost (stolen, most likely by Harris who worked at Spaulding's publisher) manuscript _View From the Hebrews_ which like an earlier Spaulding work, told the tale of Israelite immigrants in the Americas. As such, the Book of Mormon, including it's near verbatim plagiarisms of the pre-1830 KJV (including "Apocrypha"/Deuterocanonical Old Testament books ) is simply an awful Frankenstein-monster composition, even by 19th century standards, a fact Mark Twain gleefully savaged in _Roughing It_ .
Joe Smith, on the other hand, as an innately gifted tale-telling conman (look up his treasure hunting career prior to the BoM), chosen by Cowdrey and Harris as the charismatic front man for their "noble lie" of restored Christianity (see the Church of Christ at this same time regarding restoring "true Christianity"), quickly took over as an innovative religious leader, especially considering the limitations of his early education. In brief, Smith when given the opportunity, was a vastly better writer than whoever composed the BoM. In the "King Follet Funeral Speech", shortly before Smith's murder by a lynch mob at Palmyra, Smith's language is far more eloquent than anything found in the BoM.
I read the entirety of the Book of Mormon way, way back, and yeah, it's both a clunky text and fascinating piece of myth-making.
Plus it has cavalry battles. And being set before Europeans brought horses, I have this delightful image in my head of Nephite cavalry on their War Llamas.
Would you nerd on Legend of the Galactic Heroes? A pretty old anime but it is still gold
I haven't seen that one, but I'll make a note of it.
Great stuff. If only Kircheis were here.
@@Quackerilla that’s all what the man thinks about. His boy Kircheis
To me the white uniforms and visuals are less aesthetic and mood and more representative of an endowment ceremony and temple mysteries.
They are ascending to their position in the afterlife.
EDIT: what the actual hell, a link has been added to my post leading to ads by LDS. How in the hell are Mormons hijacking my post?
2nd EDIT: updating my post removed the link but now I will have to check back to see if it's done again.
Have you ever read bug wars??
Getting some TIKhistory vibes from this, as the past year he's done a number of videos on Gnosticism and the Dialectic and it's effect on Nazism, Marxism and Fascism. Which is why he advocates they're Religions as much as they are Political/Economic ideologies. His introduction in his video titled "The cult many are in but don’t realize" I heard much of that in your video just. It's also why when I get into argument with some, not all... but some Marxist, they will still bring up Material Reality basically as a fall back every time they don't have an answer, ie every time evidence doesn't support their views. The fall back basically being reality isn't reality.
I came across TIK's channel just in the last couple months and have been listening to some of his stuff. It's probably unsurprising that I agree with most of his interpretations.
An upcoming video is going to make some familiar points along those lines.
Have you heard of whatifalthist?
I was going to say, it sounds like a lot of Gnosticism being mixed into that world view, a connection I get from watching TIK and James Lindsey. Lindsey is far more.. blunt... about his problems with Gnosticism (and those he sees as its modern proponents;) TIK more points out the Gnostic thought mixed into various flavors of socialism and lets the empirical results speak for themselves.
@@j.c.vanhandel7907he's a hack
Sheba talking to "the Devil" in a garden. Damn! You are right. Not at all subtle.
Nice
Frell?
10:50 Nice use of the “W” word. Interesting how it slipped by the YT censor.
For a modern day perspective of the danger of selffulling prophecy: Israel (whether you support it or not, my point is issues like the third temple carry nuclear war level risk, that's no exaggeration)
I wish the remake would have borrowed more from other successful series like V
Why did humans make their servants robots super scary?
Did the lie become real because people believed in it? When you consider that the BSG crew was on our earth 100,000 years before the real flowering of our culture and our beloved characters died out without a trace. Despite what Apollo says about teaching the natives none of that came through to today. If they started farming, it vanished. If they used better hunting weapons like composite longbows or crossbows, they vanished. All their stories, all the lessons completely gone. Simply put, the crew of the BSG left NO IMPACT. They didn't make earth better or worse. All their struggling amounted to absolutely nothing. Maybe the Earth scam stayed a scam?
That's not necessarily true.
Civilization on Earth has existed longer than you apparently believe. Who's to say that wasn't their doing?
God in the Reboot always send Angels and dont like to Be call by that Name lol
Felgercarb
👍
I was annoyed when it very rapidly became obvious that the writers had no plan nor clue. I was also bored of yet another in a decades long string of products examining what it means to be human. I think they passed up a more interesting, timely and concerning question of what means to be civilized.
you careful method, choice, to teach history and philosophy vie popular culture gives you more freedom, than it you just elocuted your positions unlike any other poster with carefully thought out opinions. This inuslates your work from the angry and the woke, taking these important ideas to a "Safe Space", we can easily share.
that said, I wish, but will not ask your views on ,... certain subjects, too relevant for these times.
thanks again for clarity and education.
thankfully im athiest but you do great work, your speech is a song.
I still think the six and baltar copies are literal angels and that Starbucks was “Jesus” and resurrected.
They WERE angels.
I don't see any Jesus element to Starbuck, though
@ died, was resurrected. Saved humanity and then disappeared or as I interrupt ascended directly to heaven like after Jesus rose from the dead. I admit it’s nothing solid but I think the parallels are intentional.
@Fred-rv2tu Jesus is God. Starbuck isn't. Hell, Starbuck didn't even know what she was. She knew she had a purpose.
Lazarus was raised from the dead, too.
IIRC, a child was, as well.
Jesus also died for mankind.
Starbuck just died...
@ obviously she isn’t literally Jesus. I’m saying they intentionally drew parallels. She is a savior who died and was resurrected. She didn’t save their souls but she saved them by leading them to earth. If you can’t see that connection it’s probably because you find her being compared to Jesus offensive because she was so morally questionable.
@Fred-rv2tu I just don't see a resurrection as a parallel. Too much else doesn't like up
Count Iblis, taken from "Iblis" in Islam which is the name of Satan.
I always wanted to watch RDA BSG in REVERSE order... just to see where these weirdo plot lines manifested, vanished, or came from nowhere
So Scientology meets Mormonism…?! Wow, yeah I wasn’t a fan.
The space stuff is already in Mormonism.
I think this video cleared the bad taste out of my mouth the final season of the reboot gave me.
Never got into the series. Too depressing
Battlestar Galactica was garbage. No self-consistency within its own constructed universe. No continuity between episodes. And then the last season was just a complete sellout oh God did it! Imagine that and advertise science fiction series. I said science fiction science. And it just ends up being oh there's no Mysteries God did it all. It was crap.
I found the remake of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA to be an unwatchable incoherent mess. Edison said I'll try 10,000 that don't work to get to the one thing that dies work. Well, this show doesn't even rise to the level of an interesting failure. YUCK!
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I have always loved BSG remake as the greatest show ever.
Knowing that a Mormon racist wrote the original regretfully hurts my appreciation of the show.
People who like chariots of the dogs are despicable.
GL being a dick never bothered me as RDM did a great job of reworking his ideas for post 9/11 viewers. As for COTG fans, I prefer to think of them as vaguely pathetic and ignorant, like the sort of person for whom watching a few RUclips videos counts as "research."
Although there is a clear undercurrent of racism from a lot of "alien gods are a more believable explanation than humans figuring things out without a computer" proponents.