Okay, I wasn’t really expecting to include geekboy Galactica ramblings here, but what the hell. My friend Jen asked for it, so it’s here. What they want, they get - I’m a pleaser.

In case you haven’t seen Sunday’s “Maelstrom” episode - or don’t watch Galactica in general (shame on you) - they apparently killed off Starbuck. She went loopy first, spent lots of time seeing visions of little girls and having dream sex with Leoben and kept finding herself chasing imaginary Cylon raiders into big, ugly storm systems. Finally, she chased the Foo into a storm that looked an awful lot like her “destiny mandala” and then blew up in a quite impressive fireball sequence. Nice. So now the Galactica fanbase is stressed out because OMFG THEY KILLED STARBUCK!

No, they didn’t. You have to look at dramatic presentation here - BILLY had a more heroic death, for frak’s sake. Also, there are still too many unresolved issues with her, starting with her “destiny”. If Starbuck is now dead, it’s because she went loony and got herself killed. Bad drama, and Moore knows better. So either Katee Sackhoff had to be written out fast and very clumsily, or she’s not out of the story yet.

[Ed. note: In this post-Maelstrom interview with Katee, she says a number of ambiguous things about Starbuck’s “death” but is very clear on at least one thing - she has a six-year contract with Galactica, and they can call her back at any time. She simply doesn’t know when that will be. If Galactica writers had to do a quick-and-clumsy killoff, it would only be because something in their relationship with Katee soured FAST. That doesn’t seem at all to be the case.]

And no, she’s not a Cylon or going to come back as one. That honor goes to Tyrol. I’ve been saying it for months now; watch and mark my words. This whole Starbuck-destiny subplot is misdirection - they’ve been setting Tyrol up all season, in the background, under the cover fire of Starbuck. But the clues are all there, from the start, if you’ve been paying close attention. Tyrol is one of the final five. And Starbuck isn’t. The writers want fans to be so worked up over Starbuck that Tyrol’s revelation hits like a sledgehammer in the season finale.

The other evening I was doing some reading on another topic I’ve heard about lately, the “Ships Of Light” from the original series. Apparently (I never saw the episode), Starbuck - or was it Apollo? - “dies” in the original and is brought back to Galactica by an SoL, so there’s some talk that there might be a parallel here. Well, that took me to the Wikipedia page for the “Lords Of Kobol“, which includes an interesting sentence about the Cylon God (emphasis mine):

“Cylon God - The Cylons believe in one true God and denounce all others. A deleted scene implies that the Cylon God is a Lord of Kobol who wanted to be elevated above the rest, but it is disputed if this unaired scene can be considered canon.”

I never saw that scene, but if that’s canon (or at least accurate), it opens up some interesting possibilities. This is all HIGHLY assumptive and based on sheer supposition, but humor me - it might actually be what’s happening here.

Let’s assume a few things to be true. Ron Moore has said several times that he plans Galactica to follow a five-year story arc; let’s assume that’s true, which would place the S3 finale as the second act turn. Let’s also assume that the above line about the Cylon God is in fact accurate. Let’s assume that the writers aren’t dumb enough to kill off Starbuck this way, and so she’s not (permanently, anyway) dead.

The act two turn traditionally is the point where the central story conflict reaches its most intolerable condition, finally forcing the relentless march towards climax in act three. What’s the central conflict here? Humans vs. Cylons; the Cylon God versus the Lords of Kobol; the search for Earth (the one tribe striking out from the others). And we know that Starbuck is - always has been - the central spear carrier in that struggle (at one point, literally), the emotional pivot for the whole story. Where she goes, the story goes. Always has.

We know that Moore likes to draw on our mythologies for Galactica story elements. If there *is* a backstory with the Cylon God and the Lords, that puts the Cylon God in roughly a Luciferian position.. arrogant, intolerant, but also a trickster (aka “Prince of Lies”) somewhat akin to Loki or Anansi, the kind of guy who mixes truth with lies to get the results he wants.

Sound like anyone we know?

Like maybe, perhaps, someone whom we were told earlier this season is the closest to “God” of all the humanoid Cylons?

If we’re coming to the end of act two, that means certain things - that Baltar’s trial represents the worst crisis moment in his “my arrogance got everyone killed” subplot; that act one was the destruction of the human race, while act two was a botched attempt at peace, leaving act three to be the final reckoning between human and Cylon; that this also represents the bleakest point in the Lee-Kara subplot.

From the Wiki pages I’ve read, the “Ships of Light” in the original series belonged to a race called the Seraphs, ancient and highly evolved, who liked to screw around with the human race (akin to the “First Ones” of Babylon 5). In the original series (according to Wiki), the Lords of Kobol were actually these guys. They manipulated human development and generally went around acting like divine beings.

We never got a convincing explanation of how - or exactly why - Cylon centurions figured out how to go human. That five models are secret even from the other seven implies that the human Cylons were *not* created by the centurions; logically, they were all almost certainly created by a much more powerful third party who “saved” the Cylons and then opted to keep five models in reserve. Had they been created by the toasters, a) they would not now be the masters over the centurions, and b) this issue would not be a mystery to the Cylons.

So let’s posit the following possibilities:

1. The “Leoben” we saw in this last ep, bringing Starbuck to her understanding (and possibly death) is actually the Cylon God, one of the original Lords of Kobol - most likely one of an advanced alien race, responsible for the human model of Cylons. It’s also quite possible that the Lords were responsible for creating the human race to start with, a point alluded to many times.. that at one time, humanity broke with its creators in much the same way as the Cylons later broke with the humans. Everything’s happened before, remember.

2. There is a long-standing conflict between the Cylon God and the other Lords of Kobol, one that we’re not yet privy to, but that has a DIRECT bearing on why one human tribe broke away from the others to go to Earth (another backstory that we’re not aware of yet, but which would be important to the final push to Earth story).

3. The human Cylon models were created as a poker chip in this conflict by the “Cylon God” (Hades, maybe?).

4. As Moore and others have said, season 4 (the start of act three) is going to be about “what exactly it means to be a Cylon”. We’re going to learn in S4 that both sides - human and Cylon - are being manipulated to play out an old feud by powerful third parties.

5. Starbuck comes back at peace with herself, not a Cylon exactly, but definitely under the sway of the Cylon God’s way of thinking - and in direct conflict with Galactica and everyone on it. We may see some sort of alliance with Baltar. She goes from charming fuckup to Zen Girl to Messiah to briefly almost a villian, marching her way to some sort of redemptive act towards the end of S4. She’s coming back, and she’s coming back dark, more a determined and self-righteous pain in the ass than ever.

6. Reflection is a major theme in Galactica, and here we end up with another one: Starbuck, the human who now thinks like a Cylon, and Tyrol, the Cylon who will always think like a human. Definitely a conflict between the two, but within the contrast we start to get a picture of what’s really going on here.

7. At the end of S3, Earth will never seem farther away, assuming it even exists in the first place - a point which will be highly in doubt. Galactica is tearing itself apart over the Baltar trial, and for some reason the hope of Earth is completely dashed, making the crisis a borderline civil war (as Tom Zarek predicted).. and that’s where we take six months off and let the audience stew.

8. The human-Cylon hybrid issue becomes a lot more interesting.

Yes, I know there’s a lot of B5 elements here. So sue me.

Like I said, all highly suppositive, and there are a few things I want to go back and revisit. The whole Number Three subplot. What *exactly* those crazy basestar hybrids said. Everything involving the Temple Of Five. Anything involving a personal conflict between Tyrol and Starbuck. Absolutely anything related to the Cylon God.

There’s still a lot of holes to this theory - a lot that we don’t know - but to my mind it’s definitely possible.

But at the very least, Starbuck’s coming back.

Posted by Rob on Wednesday, March 7th, 2007 at 8:10 am.