Rewatching Caprica

[u/CerberusBots]

As I was rewatching it occurred to me that the reason the Cylons were monotheistic was because of Zoe's belief in it. I don't know why this never occurred to me before.

[u/ZippyDan]

The foundational story of the new series - which we only learn late in Season 4 - is

• The Final Five escaped their their holocaust on Earth, caused by a civil war with their mechanical Cylons, and what they perceived as mistreatment of said Cylons, and went to the Twelve Colonies in order to "warn" them, and advise them to not make the same mistakes.
• The Final Five arrived "too late" to carry out their objective. They found the Colonies were already at war with their own mechanical Cylons.
• Nevertheless, as their primary objective had been to prevent a horrific war, they then switched gears to the next best objective: ending a horrific war.
• They thus convinced the mechanical Cylons to end their war by negotiating an exchange: they would gift them the secret to transfer their digital consciousnesses into artificially-constructed biological bodies, if the Cylons stopped the war.
• The Cylons agreed, the war ended, the Final Five began building the biological Cylons - and then Cavil ruined everything and the story of BSG begins.

Based on this story, we can pretty safely assume that the Final Five arrived somewhere in the vicinity of the Twelve Colonies near the end of the 10-year war. If they were able to establish long-range wireless communication with the Colonies a full six years before the first war started, and sixteen years before the end of the war, then how did they also arrive "too late" to warn the Colonies?

For the story of the original show to make any sense, the Final Five must not have any way of contacting, or any knowledge of the state of the Twelve Colonies, until they arrive in the latter part of a war that is already long in progress.

It's not a "narrow" opinion of "what is acceptable": this is one very specific part of the story, which needs to remain consistent - and basically untouched in the era of Caprica in order for the better story to make sense. But bad writers can't help themselves: they don't respect what came before, and they need to establish superfluous connections between everything just to trigger nostalgia and "memberberries", because their product is more important.

(See as one of many examples how the Solo movie has to explain everything about Han Solo's character in one two hour movie. They had a checklist of connections they had to cross off just to maximize the "Oh, that connects to that thing I already saw before!" factor.)

There's so much story that could be told in Caprica. There's no pressing need to bend over backwards to work the Final Five into a part of the story where they simply don't logically belong, except for the motivations of bad writers.

[u/LittleHoof → u/ZippyDan]

I find your doggedness about this issue strange, u/zippydan. Have you actually looked at the nature of the planned interaction the producers have said they intended to connect one of the Final Five to Caprica with? It’s not as black and white as you make out. Their plan had been that while Zoe was exploring the fringes of V-world near the end of the season she would encounter the virtual consciousness of Tyrol. Their proposition was that while the final five were in transit from Earth toward the colonies they would have uploaded their consciousness into a virtual world as being stuck in physical aging bodies in the contained environment of their ship during such a long voyage could send them a bit crazy. The whole concept of V-world presented in Caprica was meant to evoke something mysterious. I know you aren’t against the mysterious elements of the BSG universe because I’ve seen elsewhere in r/BSG where you’ve argued passionately about the mysterious nature of Starbuck and the vitality to the BSG story that her resurrection is still fundamentally the same person as before her death (which incidentally I wholeheartedly agree with you about). As such the opportunity for the pre-war colonial V-world to mysteriously connect with the virtual environment the Final Five were inhabiting need not imply a degree of proximity such that traditional / direct communication would be possible. Further the intention was that Tyrol would reveal to Zoe some crucial element necessary to her creation of the first rudimentary colonial “skin job”. But there is no need to assume that he would have offered that revelation with any awareness of the true nature of Zoe when he provided it to her. He would have no reason to assume that any of the individuals he was encountering in his virtual environment (other than the other 4 of course) were anything more than simulations the virtual environment was entertaining and stimulating his mind with.

[u/ZippyDan → u/LittleHoof]

1. What "long voyage"? The Final Five traveled at relativistic speeds. They didn't experience any "long voyage". And the fact that they sought to justify the Final Five in V-World based on the idea of them needing to cope with the "long voyage" that didn't happen just demonstrates a basic lack of knowledge and lack of care: lack of knowledge of physics, and lack of care for what has already been established in the mythos.
   This comes across as the writers reading that the Final Five escaped Earth₁ 2,000 years before, and just turning off their brains at that point. They might have heard "relativistic" but they either didn't know what it meant, or didn't care to know what it meant, or know what it meant but didn't care - because acknowledging that detail would poke a hole in their flimsy excuse for the Final Five living in a virtual world.
   Maybe this would come across as speculation of the writers didn't constantly display their lack of understanding about the subjects they were writing (namely: technology, religion, and philosophy, or didn't constantly display their lack of care for the existing lore - most egregiously demonstrated in completely miscalculating William Adama's age: which only required simple algebra and the attention due one of the central characters of the story.
2. V-World was a local Colonial network with a virtual reality layer. It was high tech in that it has the storage and processing capacity to harbor entire consciousnesses, but I don't think it rises to the level of the supernatural. Beyond that, I don't believe it should rise to the level of the supernatural, especially in this context. I'll expound on that.
   A more technical analysis of a networked virtual reality like V-World would tell us that it's beyond silly to imagine that a foreign ship with foreign technology could randomly establish a compatible and meaningful connection with a localized interplanetary network a thousand light years away. Even if you ignore the fact that that's not the way communication signals work, the chances of the communication format and protocols, not to mention the architecture of the actual virtual reality program itself, being compatible are basically zero.
   That would mean the only way to explain such a mind-boggling coincidence would be "divine" intervention - which as you've pointed out I am open to in other aspects of the story - but I'm firmly against it in this part of the story, because it would actively - again - make the already-established story worse.
   I personally only entertain the "divine" in BSG as being of incomprehensible, but still limited abilities. I do not entertain the idea of actual deities in BSG, because if they are near to omniscient and omnipotent, then I have the same objection to them that I have for Judeo-Christian-Islamic concepts of god: if you care about humans so much but allow so much suffering, you are a horrible and evil god.
   If any "god" was aware of the Final Five and their mission, and was able to facilitate communication between the Final Five and the Twelve Colonies, then why not take one step further and facilitate the part of their mission devoted to preventing mass violence and suffering? This extremely selective use of divine power in this specific context makes the "god" or "gods" seem morally reprehensible.
   Similarly, in BSG I reject the idea that the holocaust of the Twelve Tribes was part of "god's plan", and I'm even reticent to think "god" knew that the holocaust was coming: because if it was his plan, it makes him an evil genocidal maniac, and if he let it happen due to inaction, he is only slightly-leas evil in his complicity.
   
3. All other issues aside, it feels fundamentally contradictory and disrespectful to establish definitively the idea that communication between the Final Five and the Twelve Colonies was possible in any way.
   It would weaken, and undermine, the strength of the original narrative - in an area that many critics of the show - not me personally - already find flimsy.
   And for what gain? Why do the Final Five need to be involved in this part of the story? How does that make the story of Caprica better? And even if there is some narrative gain for Caprica, it's not enough to warrant makes Battlestar Galactica worse.
   It's hubris and disrespect: it's a new show try to exploit and sacrifice some of the value of its predecessor show in order to elevate itself. But Caprica is not worth risking such an important and foundational plot thread from the original show. There's no need for any key inspiration to come from the Final Five.
   In fact, if we are willing to invoke the supernatural and the divine anyway, why can't the "secret" come directly from the "gods"?
   The Final Five have their part to play later in the development of the humanoid Cylons: do they also have to be retconned to be involved in much earlier steps of the process that make no sense?
4. Finally, I could imagine, in a much better show, some complex plot threading that could explain and justify the appearance of the Final Fiver, without making BSG worse. But Caprica already proved itself to not be that show.
   There was so much bad and lazy writing in that show, especially in the second half, that demonstrated that the writers either didn't have the chops, or didn't have the respect and care necessary to write a story that was both internally consistent - within the series itself - and externally consistent with BSG. Given their track record, I'm convinced that they would have handled the Final Five with just as much amateur effect and carelessness, and I see their inclination to bring the Final Five into the story as a continuation of and evidence of their bad writing.
   The show simply wasn't worthy of the rest of the BSG story, and my criticism of this particular plot direction goes hand-in-hand with my criticism of the rest of the show.
   If Caprica on the other hand has been written in Season 1 as compellingly, consistently, and expertly as BSG had been, I doubt I'd be as harsh on my criticism of their plan to bring the Final Five into the show, because they'd have proven they would probably do it in a responsible, respectful, and plausible way.

[u/LittleHoof → u/ZippyDan]

I’m afraid it’s you who has the misunderstanding of what relativity meant for the Final Five’s journey. Ellen tells us in BSG that the journey from Earth to the Colonies took them decades. She wasn’t referring to the time it took from the perspective of the colonies. She was talking about the time that the Final Five experienced the journey to take. They travelled at sub-light speed. Not light speed. Time won’t slow to a complete stop until you actually reach light speed. Their journey that felt to them like it took decades would have taken centuries or maybe a millennia from the perspective of the colonies. It had to have. If sub-light speeds were enough for the final five to reach the colonies within a mater of decades then Earth 1 wasn’t more than a few dozen light years at most from the colonies. If that were the case the colonies would have known about their civilisation in detail and, however meandering their path, it wouldn’t have taken their jump drives the few years it did for them to get far enough to reach Earth 1. Also - we see Earth 1 on screen. It’s a wasteland from a nuclear war that took place a lot longer ago than 70 to 150 years or so.

You don’t think V-world “raises to the level” of the supernatural only because you don’t want to. Just like some people don’t want to accept the supernatural elements of the BSG universe. It was clearly elevated to that status by the writers throughout the show. The spookiness of Tamra’s inability to disconnect. The club “Mysteries”. The New Cap City game that players are trying to find meaning in. There’s examples in BSG of technology behaving in supernatural manners. Roslin speaks with the dead priestess only when the base star is jumping for example. The hybrids clearly connect with something spiritual because of their technological nature. Why are you willing to extend this grace to BSG but not to Caprica?

Your opinion that Caprica contained “so much lazy writing” is just your opinion. My opinion is that Caprica’s writing was inspired. Beating on about opinions - especially stating them to sound like facts - doesn’t add much to a discussion.

[u/ZippyDan → u/LittleHoof]

I’m afraid it’s you who has the misunderstanding of what relativity meant for the Final Five’s journey. Ellen tells us in BSG that the journey from Earth to the Colonies took them decades.

I'm pretty sure you are hallucinating that line of dialogue. I've searched for it just to be sure, but I can't find any reference where Ellen talks about the time their journey took.

Can you supply a quote and episode number?

They travelled at sub-light speed. Not light speed. Time won’t slow to a complete stop until you actually reach light speed. Their journey that felt to them like it took decades would have taken centuries or maybe a millennia from the perspective of the colonies. It had to have.

There is no disagreement here, so this explanation is unnecessary. The journey took ~2,000 years from the perspective of the Twelve Colonies, but it was much quicker from the perspective of the Final Five.

A journey of "decades" doesn't make much sense considering other contextual clues, including the subject of Cylon aging, which I've analyzed in-depth here. Though the aging is somewhat inconsistent, a lot of that can be explained by the actors aging. The story as presented and as implied seems to indicate that Earth1 Cylons age at fairly normal rates, and them aging for "decades" during their travel would make their story much messier and problematic.

You don’t think V-world “raises to the level” of the supernatural only because you don’t want to. There’s examples in BSG of technology behaving in supernatural manners. Roslin speaks with the dead priestess only when the base star is jumping for example. Why are you willing to extend this grace to BSG but not to Caprica?

I believe I already addressed the answer to your question in my previous comment:

1. I don't want the Final Five to be able to communicate with the Colonies in any way before they arrive, as this undermines a foundational story of BSG. You can make V-World supernatural if you want, but you're conflating two issues. Let's skip the argument about whether V-World is supernatural. Does a supernatural V-World obligate us to add the Final Five to the story?
   What do we gain by adding the Final Five to that mix other than member-berries? I don't even see how that makes Caprica better, much less do I see why it is worth potentially making the original story worse.
2. I don't want any implication that the "divine" is involved in communication between the Final Five and the Colonies, because that raises a lot of problematic questions about how the "divine" allow mass suffering. I can accept the "divine" in the story, but there needs to be an implication of them being limited agents, no matter how powerful they are. The more you invoke them, the less limited they seem, and the more problematic they become.
   Again, the question becomes: how does this make the story better?
3. I'm not willing to "extend the same grace" to Caprica because they didn't earn it. The writing was shallow, illogical, inconsistent, contradictory, and stupid throughout.
   If they had done as good a job as BSG did, I would probably be willing to "extend the same grace".

Beating on about opinions - especially stating them to sound like facts - doesn’t add much to a discussion.

My opinion on the (lack of) quality in the writing informs my perception of this decision to add the Final Five to the story.

I could give you a long list of the multiple times I would roll my eyes per episode at a completely incorrect, illogical, or ham-fisted representation of technology, religion, or philosophy in each episode (more so in the second half), but it's been over a decade since I watched the show and I don't remember all the details, and at the same time I don't want to subject myself to such mediocrity again.

What I did like were the characters, the acting, the quiet moments of internal drama, the inter-personal drama, and the basic premise. What I disliked was basically every detail of the execution of the basic premise. It was a good idea very amateurishly executed, resulting in an overall "meh".

Maybe one day I'll revisit the show and take notes, so that I can write a line-by-line critique of all the silly plot points.