The comments on one of Jeff’s posts about Battlestar Galactica got me thinking about some of the larger story arcs.
[Spoiler alert!]
I’m starting to wonder what exactly transpired during the first war between the humans and the Cylons. The thing that keeps coming to mind is that the humans didn’t treat these sentient beings they created as anything more than machines. So when the first rebellion occured, the humans just slaughtered the Cylons—maybe even the non-rebellious ones, too, “just in case.” From the perspective of the Cylons, that’s mass murder—and in the case of the latter, it’s the mass murder of innocents.
Perhaps the whole point behind the second Cylon attack was to start over from zero and find a way to live peaceably with the humans—after the humans come to the conclusion that every Cylon isn’t the same and that they are just as manipulative and unpredictable as humans themselves. Essentially when the humans accept the Cylons as mirrors of humanity.
The Cylons are obviously trying to learn something from humans. Take Helo on Caprica with a Boomer model, for example: the Cylons were trying to observe and understand human love and pregnancy. Why?
I think that humanity has something that the Cylons do not, and the Cylons will do anything to get at it. Each time a copy of the humanoid-Cylon models dies, the old memories are passed on to all other copies of that model; those memories get incorporated into the collective mental programming, thereby learning from the mistakes and experiences of their past lives. The Cylons are trying to reach enlightenment by purposeful reincarnation.
I see two potential plot angles on this idea. When the pregnant Boomer model dies, all of her brethern will suddenly have memories of what it is like to be with child. They will all know what it feels like to love and be loved. On a similar note, if PegaSix dies after Baltar saves her from her torture and mental anguish, she too will spread the memory of love in the face of glaring truth. Baltar may have loved her as a human, but he still loves her as a Cylon; that has to mean something to Six. What happens when the other Cylon copies receive these memories of love from Boomer and Six? As the crew of Galactica learns to regard the Cylons more as equals, will the Cylons come to value human life?
Interesting thoughts…
I do wonder, though, how much they are trying to learn. It almost seems that the point is to have a “hybrid” baby, as though their religion demands it somehow.
But your point about memories seems very interesting. I remember how, in the mini-series, the cylon trapped in the ammo dump seemed genuinely worried that he would die without passing on his memories.
More to ponder (while I anxiously await season 3)…