tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8116478946778818081.post4434069048712653926..comments2023-08-06T00:55:44.689-04:00Comments on Kevin's Walk: BSG's deity: not loving, and possibly insaneKevin Kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01328790917314282058noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8116478946778818081.post-31564775044528808142009-03-24T16:00:00.000-04:002009-03-24T16:00:00.000-04:00Mark,The series finale leads us to believe that th...Mark,<BR/><BR/>The series finale leads us to believe that the colonials pretty much die out as a people and perhaps as a culture. Hera's status as Mitochondrial Eve attests to the fact that other females' DNA didn't make it that far down the historical line. Kara Thrace (Starbuck) was prophesied to "lead humanity to its end," and the show ended up taking the word "end" more literally than I thought it would (or should) have.<BR/><BR/>Lee Adama (Apollo) is the one who makes the decision not to have the colonials build cities and rely on their mechanical advantages. He argues for a "fresh start," and if the colonials interact with the natives, then the former should give only "the best" of themselves to the latter-- things like language and maybe some sort of appreciation for art and beauty. But weapons and all that other tech? No.<BR/><BR/>There has been, as a result, a huge online outcry about this "hippie" ending to the series. One commenter on another blog very astutely noted that the colonials' decision to cast aside their own civilization is a damning commentary on that civilization, which had probably produced some amazing cultural memes and artifacts. Most of the other online comments were along the lines of "gimme my high-tech society any day!" I'd have to agree. I, too, was a bit disappointed by the "hippie" ending. (Of course, it's all for naught: since it's our Earth that's shown as the result 150,000 years later, we know that Apollo's wish for a fresh start was in vain.)<BR/><BR/>Some commenters, including the show's creators, seem to view the colonials as our progenitors-- that they brought elements of language and culture that became <I>our</I> language and culture. Ron Moore himself is one of the people arguing that the persistence of cultural and linguistic similarity is the result of some sort of Jungian collective unconscious (plus whatever influence the earthbound colonials have on the natives). The music and lyrics for "All Along the Watchtower" are among the elements that will, apparently, be repeated in all human cultures; it's our "connection with the divine," as Moore claims, which is why the song is significant in the series.<BR/><BR/>Alas, this shows a real lack of understanding of the nature and power of the collective unconscious, whose existence is still debatable. Even if Jung's concept of racial memory is assumed to hold true, the various archetypes that reappear in various cultures can nevertheless acquire different valences. A snake, for example, might symbolize fertility in one culture, but symbolize the sky in another, and death or evil in yet another. There's nothing inevitable about what the snake, as archetype, can mean. There's nothing inevitable about the arising of North American culture. And that's why the only sensible explanation for such closely parallel biological evolution-- since we now know that the universe of BSG definitely includes a deity-- is extensive divine meddling for the sake of tight control of the evolutionary process.<BR/><BR/>So even though I've tried, in my argument, to use data from the show to piece together the show's actual theology and cosmology, I don't think that the show itself supports Moore's own thinking about it. <BR/><BR/>This is a strange position for me to be in, because I'm normally a huge respecter of authorial intent. If the author says, "This is what I was trying to portray," then that's probably how I, too, should view the work. But I strongly feel that Moore's universe doesn't bear out Moore's own claims about it.<BR/><BR/><BR/>KevinKevin Kimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01328790917314282058noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8116478946778818081.post-91389222159407592822009-03-24T10:41:00.000-04:002009-03-24T10:41:00.000-04:00One more thing regarding the small clusters of sur...One more thing regarding the small clusters of survivors seeded over the continents:<BR/><BR/>I think they thrive and do well.<BR/><BR/>The population bottleneck and inbreeding problem can be solved by interbreeding with local populations.<BR/><BR/>In the short term, the salvaged technology would give a huge competitive advantage of early tool using hominids. That keeps them alive long enough to establish their society and defenses.<BR/><BR/>When the technology wears out (in a generation or two?), they still have a huge advantage. They are scientific thinkers and will be able to solve problems much more efficiently than their non-rational neighbors. That in itself will be a huge, lasting advantage. I don't see them being subsumed by a sea of superstition because they will see the efficacy of rational thought on a daily basis. The transition to a rational culture is difficult in the real world and even in cultures were the elites are scientifically oriented, atavistic primitives still dispute the emerging rationality (See: The Discovery Institute). But spacefaring crewmen aren't going to return to the dark ages overnight.<BR/><BR/>You might argue that the Romans degenerated culturally, but I'd reply that rationalism was never as deeply embedded in the average Roman's mind as it would be in a spacefaring culture - if I'm a Roman nobleman, I'm not going to explain scientific principles to my Latifundia slaves.<BR/><BR/>So, if we posit that the seeded survivors are committed to rationalism, then their advantage will long outlive their spaceship detritus.<BR/><BR/>Furthermore, knowing what technology is capable of, they can bootstrap themselves rather quickly. They don't have to test competing theories about how things work - they can simply figure out how to build things based on the understood principles. A particularly good examination of those bootstrapping principles is found in Eric Flint's 1632 series. Flint drops a West Virginia coal town into Germany in 1632. The modern firearms are handy to keep the French at bay in the short term, but the real transformative effect is the idea of multicultural inclusion, feminism, capitalism, and representative democracy. Flint's antagonists aren't stupid and begin mimicking large parts of American culture, but they are more successful at copying tools than adopting the mindset. The gap between BSG crewmen and early hominids is much wider - 1632 minds can see that 2001 technology is technology*. To pre-Neolithic people, even rudimentary technology would seem, in Clarke's phrase, "indistinguishable from magic." They wouldn't even know how to think about the survivor's techniques. But if they intermarried, their children would be raised by the otherworldly magicians and would have a much higher standard of living.<BR/><BR/>I think that higher standard of living solves the population bottleneck problem - indigenous people would beg to be taken into a society that doesn't bury 3/4 of their children (think about how the knowledge that germs exist would be an advantage even without having the ability to buy microscopes are "Scientific Instrument 'R Us."). <BR/><BR/>Additionally, the idea of feminism would naturally double the ability of the survivors' society to solve problems - our primate patriarchy may be natural, but societies that don't jettison the subjugation of women are ignoring half of their potential pool of leaders and innovators. If BSG is on a North American template, I'm guessing that, whatever male chauvinism lingers in the locker room, they culturally have avenues for bright women to contribute - as I recall, they have an Israeli-style pilot corps chock full o' hot chicks.<BR/><BR/>In short, I think the cultural "technology," not space lasers, is what will make the seeded survivors' societies last. I disagree with your easy dismissal of their chances.<BR/><BR/>* Joel Rosenberg's "Guardians of the Flame" series also sends moderns to a pre-technological society and they start bootstrapping a munitions industry, rail lines, and telegraphs pretty quickly.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8116478946778818081.post-47583203626621303122009-03-24T10:12:00.000-04:002009-03-24T10:12:00.000-04:00Kevin,Thanks for taking my genetic query seriously...Kevin,<BR/><BR/>Thanks for taking my genetic query seriously. I'm not sure that seriousness is earned because my only real involvement with genetics is cattle related. The real person to ask is Dave's wife Andy - she's the real McCoy.<BR/><BR/>Not being a BSG fan, I hadn't considered the possibility of Cylon conquest - pure Cylons simply wiping out all the parallel evolution worlds until their is no longer a "reset" button because all life-nourishing planets have become cinders. Then we become majority Cylon right quick (if we accept the fact that the artificial Cylon DNA is distinguishable from human DNA - I'd like to see some more clarification on that point for the non-BSG watcher).<BR/><BR/>Another side thought: it's too bad the God's template seems to be North American culture. What if a group of Cylons embraced a Mongol-style culture and launched a war of genetic conquest? 8% of Asian males can trace their Y Chromosome back to Genghis Khan. Heck, with industrial technology, they could kill or castrate all human males and then keep only female children they would breed back to Cylon fathers.<BR/><BR/>Of course, if Cylons can replicate themselves from scratch, even that is unnecessary - just kill all humans and settle their world with purebloods.<BR/><BR/>This is odd - I've never watched more than a snippit of the show, but you've got me thinking about the implications based just on your essay. Kudos for your evocative writing.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8116478946778818081.post-6275176102791865222009-03-23T17:10:00.000-04:002009-03-23T17:10:00.000-04:00Andrew,Isaac Asimov's Foundation series gets into ...Andrew,<BR/><BR/>Isaac Asimov's Foundation series gets into the idea that humanity is being prepped for an extragalactic threat. Humanity invents robots; one among them, R. Daneel Olivaw, becomes the orchestrator of human evolution such that the world Gaia is created. Gaians are in many ways superior to normal "isolate" humans because they are more intimately tied to their home planet, and can draw on its energy at need, allowing individual Gaians to perform feats of telepathy and telekinesis not possible for normal humans. The problem, though, is that collectivism is part of the Gaian paradigm, an idea many humans, including one protagonist named Golan Trevize, find repugnant. Trevize is given the power to determine the galaxy's fate, and he ultimately decides that humanity should evolve along the Gaian path, which is the outcome that R. Daneel Olivaw was hoping for.<BR/><BR/>The BSG universe is very Asimovian in tone; when the fleet found the first Earth, I was strongly reminded of Asimov's series: in the Foundation books, Earth is initially considered a legendary planet, but when it's finally found, it turns out to be uninhabitable, as it's awash in radioactivity from whatever disaster the Earthlings had brought upon themselves (nuclear war being most likely). Olivaw's outpost was hidden inside Earth's moon. Strong echoes of Asimov's story can be heard in the BSG narrative.<BR/><BR/>Ron Moore probably didn't want to go totally Asimovian, but I'm thinking he was heavily influenced by the Foundation mythos.<BR/><BR/><BR/>Mark,<BR/><BR/>Having reread my essay in light of your remarks on genetics, I'm thinking I may need to tweak it a bit. Most of it still stands, because for the most part, the only thing I'm implying is that the galactic human population will, in the aggregate, become less human overall as more human-Cylon combinations appear. The Cylons get a jump on the humans in every case in which a Mitochondrial Eve is inserted into a planet's history, ensuring that all modern humans on that planet will be at least part-Cylon by the time those humans reach a stage where they begin building their own Cylons.<BR/><BR/>In rewriting the essay, what I'll need to say is that, in the <I>best</I>-case scenario for humans, the eventual outcome will be a galaxy full of part-Cylons. The humans will develop extrasolar travel capabilities, and will cross-pollinate. In many cases, these humans won't be pure humans, but will be mitochondrially Cylon. As this continues, and as real estate runs out, everyone will eventually be mitochondrially Cylon. As the Cylons themselves-- with their superior assembly-line capabilities-- produce more Cylons at a geometric or logarithmic rate, total or near-total Cylonization will be the next step up because the number of pure Cylons will overwhelm the number of part-Cylons. (And "Cylonization" need not mean the production of 100% Cylons.)<BR/><BR/>I should have laid the argument out that way in the first place.<BR/><BR/><BR/>KevinKevin Kimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01328790917314282058noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8116478946778818081.post-25319942211763780152009-03-23T16:13:00.000-04:002009-03-23T16:13:00.000-04:00Whoa... in my previous comment, I referred to a "c...Whoa... in my previous comment, I referred to a "clement environment" for Hera's DNA, but as you point out, Mark, there was always a chance that she and her descendants wouldn't survive, what with all the beasties and barbarians roaming our Earth 150,000 years ago. This point has been made by fanboys who are even more serious about the show than I've been (for me, the religious ambiguity, combined with the general grittiness and darkness of the tone, were what kept me coming back): 150,000 years ago, you'd have very large mammals walking the earth, and those primitive humans (hunter-gatherers, by the look of them) will have already become familiar with the idea that nature is red in tooth and claw, i.e., they're as likely to react violently as they are to react peaceably to the arrival of the colonials.<BR/><BR/>Because the colonials have chosen to scatter themselves over the empty continents (probably interacting only minimally with the natives), they've effectively chosen to die out as a people. The only tech they've got with them is whatever they scrounged from their ships, and that won't last as supplies run out and machines run down. The presumption is, I think, that all evidence of colonial technology will have disappeared after 150,000 years. Sturdy stuff, like Adama's Raptor, will have been dismantled and/or burned (or buried) by the natives after Adama was gone. Many of the 38,000 colonials will die from starvation, disease, and from other problems as they prove unable to cope with a cold Hobbesian reality.<BR/><BR/>Following the BSG finale, though, it appears that Hera, at least, survived and inserted her genes into the timestream. Who knows whether Cylon genes are similar to their human analogues, or whether they can "take over" a person's genome? None of this ever gets explored in the series (in fact, what Cylons are and what capabilities they have are never consistently portrayed on the show), so anything's possible.<BR/><BR/>I'd still stand by the idea that the end result of all this experimentation will be Cylonization of the galactic human population, though. Even if Cylon DNA is diluted in the manner you've written about (and that's a legitimate point), you've still got the problem of disappearing real estate combined with the Cylons' massive production capability and overall warlike tendencies.<BR/><BR/><BR/>KevinKevin Kimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01328790917314282058noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8116478946778818081.post-69449530668526200322009-03-23T15:20:00.000-04:002009-03-23T15:20:00.000-04:00Smallholder,Excellent thoughts. Something is inde...Smallholder,<BR/><BR/>Excellent thoughts. Something is indeed missing, and my essay probably should have been clearer on what this was.<BR/><BR/>The thirteenth colony, the one on the first Earth was, according to Baltar, Cylon. In my opinion, Baltar arrived at this conclusion too hastily, from the examination of only a few hundred scattered samples and no real archaeology. But if we take Baltar at his word (I've been trying to construct my argument using elements from the show as evidence), then the thirteenth colony, which presumably started off human (I'm not sure this issue is ever made clear), was taken over by Cylon DNA. How this is possible, I don't know.<BR/><BR/>In any case, the BSG deity seems to have believed that Hera represented the perpetuation of the Cylon race as much as of the human race. It's an odd stance, when you think about it: pure humans apparently already exist on the second Earth (our Earth), so from a godly standpoint there's no survival issue for the humans. That means Hera's sole function is the propagation of Cylon DNA.<BR/><BR/>This again leans me toward the notion that the BSG deity is specifically the Cylon God: practically all of humanity on the Twelve Colonies was destroyed, and what God cared most about was getting Hera into a clement environment where her Cylon genes would have free rein.<BR/><BR/>Another problem (which I thought I had covered, but might not have made as clear as I could have) is that part-Cylon humans can probably interbreed, so the concentration of Cylon-ness might not die down as fast as all that. Whether that concentration ever gets above 50% might be a question of whether humanity, further down the line, ends up mating with its own homemade Cylons or with Cylon visitors.<BR/><BR/>I may have to restructure my argument to make all this clearer, but as I told commenter Andy (above), my brain is empty after writing that essay, so I need to recharge first.<BR/><BR/>Andy,<BR/><BR/>Excellent comments. I, too, wondered whether we might be looking at a "Pascal's demon" scenario (the demon is one rebuttal to Pascal's Wager). The BSG deity does seem, overall, capricious and possibly malicious.<BR/><BR/><BR/>KevinKevin Kimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01328790917314282058noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8116478946778818081.post-83734248932987892492009-03-23T15:03:00.000-04:002009-03-23T15:03:00.000-04:00Reader Andrew R. writes the following in an email:...Reader Andrew R. writes the following in an email:<BR/><BR/>_________________________<BR/><BR/>Hi Kevin,<BR/><BR/>I made it through your tome (didn't think I would make it tonight), here are some thoughts....<BR/><BR/>*************************************************<BR/><BR/>What if the BSG deity wasn't "God" ("It doesn't like to be called that"), because it was "The Devil"? Or if not "The Devil" of Pure Evil™ fame, then a lesser-evil, lesser-capable force, with less omnipotence and a therefore lesser-consistent ability to bring about happy endings?<BR/><BR/>Such a scenario would seem to cover the bases of some issues. I'm doing this off the cuff, so if it gets weird, stop reading here and consider the core idea, above.<BR/><BR/>*************************************************<BR/>Issues presented by the BSG Deity (the one speaking to everyone) is actually a devilish being:<BR/><BR/>1) "God..... It doesn't like to be called that".<BR/><BR/>Since the God of Formation is silent or a predecessor of the deity, the active deity may not like the comparison.<BR/><BR/>Note: this could apply if the deity is a Holy Spirit type entity from Christianity.<BR/><BR/>*************************************************<BR/><BR/>2) The pattern repeats, but it never gets it right.<BR/><BR/>It could be that the deity is mucking about in the universe of many humans-and-Cylons which the original God created.<BR/><BR/>Perhaps the deity is trying to swing things *it's* way. That is, the creator God set things up in a pretty vanilla fashion (planet, plants, fish and humans - let 'er rip!) and the deity tried to get life moving in a more.... dynamic fashion.<BR/><BR/>This would mean that the deity might not be *EVIL* in the renaissance sense of a goat-themed entity... but simply a less-powerful entity whose priorities for God's creation were different ("Give them free thought!" it might argue, for example).<BR/><BR/>Or the deity might be a fancy version of the Trelane being from that episode of Star Trek where the guy wanted to duel on his magic planet... but he himself was simply a child of a super-powerful alien race.<BR/><BR/>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trelane<BR/><BR/>*************************************************<BR/><BR/>3) Small "coincidences" would be likely to occur with a less-powerful entity watching (Racetrack just happening to fire the rockets at the right moment, and all because of a collision). The end of BSG seemed to come down to more and more risky scenarios needing to unfold in just the right manner to have a happy ending.... hardly a "well-thought-out" plan of a great deity.<BR/><BR/>This assumes that a more omnipotent being would be less in need of frantic last-minute adjustments to a grand-plan than what happened at the fight near the black hole.... that's a bias of mine, assuming that scale of events would matter, or should matter... but there it is.<BR/><BR/>*************************************************<BR/><BR/>Further thoughts.....<BR/><BR/>Re: "only Hera, a newcomer to that group, is the true hope for the survival of both humans and Cylons"<BR/><BR/>Maybe the whole point of the Human experiment is to get humans evolved to the point where they can survive/co-exist with their "off-spring" (the Cylons). That is, humans deal themselves a bad hand (robots that wanna kill 'em) and turn it around into a positive situation (well, sorta positive).<BR/><BR/>*************************************************<BR/><BR/>Re: ".... most Cylons have a hard time dealing with the notion of free will."<BR/><BR/>Ever seen "They Live" with Roddy Piper? The theme of the story is that aliens take over Earth by hypnotizing folks into mindless activities: consumerism, reproduction, etc. All because they've been hypnotized and "have no choice". Maybe the "Cylons" represent humans who go along with things mindlessly because they "have no choice".....<BR/><BR/>*************************************************<BR/><BR/>Re: "The logic of this process is inevitable, and stands in contrast with claims that the BSG god is loving or has all our best interests at heart"<BR/><BR/>Maybe the BSG god is preparing humanity (et al) for a future wherein they must face a calamity/threat beyond comprehension (e.g. the Borg in ST:TNG), and this trial is needed to "toughen them up". Tough love sucks, but if successful, is useful, in hindsight.<BR/><BR/>*************************************************<BR/><BR/>Note, re: "BSG's embarrassing lack of other languages is, I think, a linguistic chauvinism equivalent to the Star Trek alien problem"<BR/><BR/>Yeah, that was a bit odd (in light of your awesome post). But I can chalk most of that off to the fact that: it's for American TV. The effort/reward for having folks in the background chattering in many misc. languages would be difficult and without payback.<BR/><BR/>I mean, George Lucas pulled off a minor coup with Lando Calrissian's (sp) co-pilot in "Jedi" speaking in the obscure dialect of a SE Asia island group... but that was 2 lines to the effect of, "WTF?!" Incorporating more languages into BSG, from a logistical point of view, would be problematic - especially considering that they might not get a 2nd season. Or a 3rd.<BR/><BR/>Keep in mind, "Deadwood" on HBO only got 2 seasons - out of the 4 seasons clearly mapped out ahead of time - and they had a huge following at the time. The face that BSG got to an on-air finale.... everyone watching should kiss the ground - being able to view the 4th season finale is, statistically, about the same as the Galactica survivors making it that far.<BR/><BR/>I think the best use of a multi-culti background on tv would be "Firefly". The world was constructed as a post-Earth hodge-podge of American and Chinese... with the non-Asian folks knowing a tiny amount of Chinese (mostly in swears). In a logistic sense, it didn't matter what the Chinese phrase was, the viewer knew from the context what was being said.<BR/><BR/>*************************************************<BR/><BR/>OK, that's about it. Your thoughts?<BR/><BR/>_Andy<BR/><BR/>P.S. - Great post. You really covered the bases. As an observer rated (at best) as 'casual', I hope I had some useful input.Kevin Kimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01328790917314282058noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8116478946778818081.post-75851626829678027372009-03-23T13:19:00.000-04:002009-03-23T13:19:00.000-04:00KevinI'm not a BSG watcher, but have enjoyed your ...Kevin<BR/><BR/>I'm not a BSG watcher, but have enjoyed your reflections on the series. A bit meta, no?<BR/><BR/>At any rate, on the proportion of humanity that is Cylon, either you or I are missing something.<BR/><BR/>If the human populations evolve wholly human until the injection of the half-Cylon mitochondrial Eve, then humanity will never be more than half-Cylon.<BR/><BR/>First Hera = 1/2 human and 1/2 Cylon<BR/><BR/>She mates with "unsullied" humans - and produces a 3/4 human and 1/4 Cylon offspring.<BR/><BR/>Now, she can't biologically be mother to every member of the next generation - her body couldn't do it and one wonders what would happen to the all human children of that generation. So while she may end up being the mitorchondrial Eve, it won't be directly - the mitochondria may be passed down intact, but the rest of her DNA would be overwhlemed by the human genome over the generations.<BR/><BR/>Even assuming that being part Cylon creates some evolutionary advantage, 38,000 hominids is a big gene pool.<BR/><BR/>But set that aside - even if the ratio of Cylonness stays constant - Hera's children interbreed, Egyptian Pharoah style in order to maintaining the 25% Cylon blood and when they have a critical number mass, exterminate all those with less than 25% Cylonness, the new population will never be more than 25% Cylon.<BR/><BR/>So when their ur-future descendants spawn their own Hera who is the product of their rebellious constructed servants and themselves, the new Hera would be 5/8 Cylon. Her descendants would be 5/16 Cylon.<BR/><BR/>Over many experimental repetitions, the Hera seed may approach 100% and her offspring will approach 50% - but given the nature of reproduction, they will never be able to cross the 50 and 1 threshold - we will always remain at least 50% original human - because there is always a 50% human component at the restart stage.<BR/><BR/>Alternatively, what if the panspermia Hera's offspring don't survive the genetic sweepstakes? Genetic drift (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_drift) is always a concern when dealing with small gene pools. Random chance may eliminate elements of Cylonness - especially when the Cylon DNA is being dumped into a large pool of competing genes.<BR/><BR/>I'm also confused - if Cylons can reproduce with humans, doesn't that mean that they have constructed a genome compatible with human DNA? And not just for a single generation of mules - compatability at a level that does not compromise multi-generational fertility. Doesn't that imply that the Cylons have made human DNA and their descendants are 100% human gneetically, even if they have some Cylon cultural heritage? Of course, I don't watch the show and maybe the show imputes some genetic Cylonness that is post-human but still compatible.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com