There must be a second Earth...

[m01ety]

All right. So I think it's clear as mud that things played out somewhat along these lines:

1. Humans on Kobol. They make Cylons. Cylons rebel. War!

2. They fight for a while, and the humans go off to found the colonies. The Cylons go off to find a home far far far away. Kobol is abandoned.

3. The Cylons, either on their way to Earth, or when they arrive there, evolve into human-form. They don't limit themselves to twelve models; there's a wide variety of skin tones and ethnicities and they emulate the Kobolians as best they can. Essentially, they've become their own "human" colony, with the only difference being that their brains run machine code, not humanware. Some of the original toaster Cylons are still around, chilling -- these were the ones we saw along with the skeletons.

4. Someone nukes the Cylon colony. I think it was survivors from Kobol -- either direct Kobol descendants who never made it to the twelve colonies, or people from very early on in the history of the twelve colonies, and it's just not in recorded history. I don't buy that the human-form Cylons who lived on Earth built their own toasters that then attacked them.

5. Five human-form Cylons manage to download and resurrect after the calamity. Experimental tech? Maybe. Either way, they're emo about what happened so they wipe their memories, and they're lonely so they go off to find the descendants of the humans from Kobol in the colonies. They integrate into society, lay low, and maybe keep resurrecting over several lifetimes. Maybe they brought resurrection tech along with them on the ship that they used to get to the Colonies in the first place.

6. The Colonists make robots as well, which resemble the original Kobol models. It's probably reasonable to assume that someone who had a hand in designing the first batch also has a hand in designing this new batch, since "our" toasters look similar to the 2000-year-old toasters they found on Earth.

7. Just like Kobol went to war with their Cylons, the Colonies go to war with their own. They're not destroyed or abandoned, however -- instead, the Cylons go away somewhere.

--> Now here's the interesting part. If the 13th Tribe Cylons left their original home, Kobol, to found a new home, Earth, and everything is cyclical, then it stands to reason that the Colonial-Cylons also founded a new home. The Colonial-Cylon Homeworld is equivalent to Earth in this cycle.

For all we know, there's millions of Cavils and Dorals and Natalies running around food markets, playing Dylan, whatever.

I kind of feel that the Cylon Homeworld will therefore come up before the show is over. Plus, where else would they go?


Share your thoughts on my devious little ideas.

[Sharr Khan]

I have a feeling you're onto something.
I need an RDM podcast...

Sharr

[Phily B]

Why don't they go back to Kobol...?

[RoJoHen]

Phily B wrote:

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Why don't they go back to Kobol...?

At this point, they definitely could. Although after all that traveling after all those years, do they really want to go all the way back?

I do think the OP is getting things right with this interpretation of events, but I have absolutely no idea where they're going from here.

[Phily B]

Why not? The fleet know they're at a peace with the Cylons/they're not a threat and Kobol is close enough to the colonies to keep the tech and their civilzation alive.

[RoJoHen]

They're allies with one basestar for the time being. There's still a whole shit ton of Cylons that want to kill them all.

[TheOnes]

They don't return to Kobol because the scriptures said that any return to Kobol will be met with bloodshed (and that was proven in season 2).

Also this interview with RDM states that this is Earth. Not a pseudo earth or an alternate earth:

That planet is Earth? We’re not going to find out, “Oh, there’s this other Earth over here...” This is the only Earth we’ll see?

They have found Earth. This is the Earth that the 13th Colony discovered, they christened it Earth. They found Earth.

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune....alla-dee-.html

[Robert Maxwell]

TheOnes wrote:

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They don't return to Kobol because the scriptures said that any return to Kobol will be met with bloodshed (and that was proven in season 2).

Also this interview with RDM states that this is Earth. Not a pseudo earth or an alternate earth:

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune....alla-dee-.html

Notice he doesn't say, "This is our Earth." Only that this is the planet identified as Earth in the scriptures, settled by the 13th Tribe, and named as such by them. Sounds like a loophole to me.

[Nomad V]

I had two things that struck me. In this episode there were no shots of land masses that I could make out. Also, the ruins didn't seem to match the landforms of New York assuming that was supposed to be New York.

Second, would it have been possible that the Cylons had there own Cold War Nuclear era and did it to themselves as humanity had almost (and still might) vaporize themselves?

It's just too bad that they don't run into another race of beings or a Federation Star Ship.

[TheOnes]

Robert Maxwell wrote:

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Notice he doesn't say, "This is our Earth." Only that this is the planet identified as Earth in the scriptures, settled by the 13th Tribe, and named as such by them. Sounds like a loophole to me.

Hmm, nice grab

[billcosby]

If there is a second Earth, then all the BSG writers are assholes.

[Brolan]

No, it's easy. We are all Cylons, but we just haven't destroyed ourselves yet. The mechanical Cylons they dig up are props from the original BSG.

[SheerQuality]

i think there are two offshoots of humanity..... ie.if the neandrathals also evolved parallel to us. but in this case its the earth humans (more similar in DNA, etc. to the skin job cylons) and the 12 colony humans.

at somepoint the "toaster" cylons grab some sort of technology from the earth humans (maybe alluded to by ellen tigh's words at the end of 4.11) and then use this technology to make the skinjob model cylons.

[MIB]

That's certianly a possability. Though I'm still not convinced that there must be a second Earth with the 13th tribe anxiously waiting to receive newcomers. If anyone is interested, this is my personal take on things...

-13 tribes arise on Kobol. Things go well untill cylons are created.

-Rather than the cylons themselves rebelling, I think there might have been war amongst the tribes themselves. On one side, you have the people who feared that cylons would 'replace' humanity and should be destroyed. On the other you have the side that wishes to coexist with them, believing that they would be a compliment to their existence, rather than a replacement.

-Coming to the realization that such different attitudes wouldn't be able to co-exist on one planet, they decide to go their seperate ways, leaving Kobol. The 12, who were the puritans so to speak, head for the colonies. The 13th head for Earth.

-Over time the 13th fully integrate with the cylons and become a society that's just as much cylon as they are human (hence why all the skeletal remains seem to be 'cylon') I'm almost thinking that Earth had a society akin to "Ghost in the Shell."

-On Earth, some serious sh*t hits the fan. All of humanity there is completely wiped out. I'm unconvinced that it was another cylon rebellion because, well, where are the cylons? From the looks of things, they decided to nuke themselves along with the skinjobs which doesn't make much sense. Possibly some faction from the twelve decided they weren't satisfied with everyone just going their seperate ways and decided that the existence of the 13th will pose a threat to the twelve in the future. Rather than heading off to the colonies with everyone else, they chose to go looking for Earth and eventually destroy it.

-Because of their merger with the cylons, even "Humans" have the ability to download. But with nowhere to download to, perhaps many tried to transmit themselves towards where they thought the 12 lived, hoping that by the time their souls get there, something could receive them.

-Meanwhile, the 12, forgetting their violent apprehension towards AI from thousands of years ago, re-create cylons. The 12 keep their cylons in a state of oppression until they finally rebel.

-After many years of being transmitted through space, five and only five members of the 13th tribe make it, winding up as incarnations of models 7 and 9 through 12. They wind up shaking up the establishment when they decide not to fall in line with the other models. Remembering their old lives as well as their natures, and not wishing to be 'just machines,' they leave. This causes the cylons more than a little bewilderment and rather than contemplate how their fellow cylons could find their lot so unsavory, they choose to forget.

-Sometime along the line, the five establish themselves on the colonies as members of humanity as it is more reminiscent of their home than a baseship. Still hurting from the destruction of their real home and also in the interest of not raising too much suspicion that they were different, the five choose to surpress their memories until such a time when, subconciously, they needed to be 'themselves' again.

-Finally, we get to the point where the colonies have been obliterated and things in general are just a mess. Once again a "purist" vs. "integration" conflict breaks out only it's with the colonial Cylons instead of the humans. The Five wake up possibly because they felt their time has come. Afterall, a united cylon/human system is pretty much their cup of tea.

-In the end we have the "purist" cylons, and the cylon/colonial union. This time however, I don't think Cavil will be satisfied with just going their seperate ways. A showdown will ensue, but I think Cavil's forces will wind up being the loser. In keeping with the "All of this has happened before..." stuff, it will be the ones who choose the path of integration that will live on while the path of intolerance leads to repeating history and ultimately destruction.

-An alternative to this ending is that the rogue group of the 12 that I had conjectured about come into play and potentially they and Cavil's group annihilate eachother while the united cylons/colonials slink away- finally free of predators and the threat that one day, some ghost from the past will return to haunt them.

[Tom]

This may not be 'our Earth'. What have they done to let us believe this is the Earth we know. The have not shown the moon or any other solar objects that we could reconize, also no reconizable land masses or anthing Earth specific. We know from Tyrol's flashback that they had cars of some sort, but they never showed them, we only heard them.

I believe that this is RDM's way of pulling the OldBsg's Terra element on us.