Just so that you know – I tend to blurt out major spoilers at random intervals. So if you haven’t seen Galactica yet, stop reading now. You have been warned. Now on to my ramblings.
Can someone tell me what is up with Grace Park’s character? I was about to believe that she is actually one of the good guys now, but then I saw the preview of the next week’s episode and she shoos Adama? Again? WTF? And I thought women were confusing – Cylon women are freakin nuts! heh
Anyways, I could have let it go as just an evil editing. But then again you can hear her saying something among the lines “I’ll take the father and you take the son” or whatever. Hmm… Either Skiffy marketing people are fucking brilliant to put a very misleading clip together, or there is another Cylon in the group. Or maybe not… I don’t know.
Oh well… She is cute – so as long as they don’t kill her too often I guess I’ll be fine.
Btw, I’m curious as to what actually separates a baseline human from a cute asian Cylon chick? Was this ever explained on the show? As far as I know, there is no definite test that would detect a Cylon. Can they figure out what is human and what is not posthumously when they open them up though? If not, it would mean that the fleshy Cylons are actually 100% human all the way down to the DNA.
In other words, what makes them Cylon is not as much biology but psychological. Being Cylon is a mindset – loyalty to your own kind, indoctrination and perhaps some imprinted compulsions and etc… Yes, they are all clones, and they do seem to have some kind of mind uploading technology (I would assume – I might be totally wrong, since I missed much of the series). But a human clone is still human. And as far as we have seen, the fleshy Cylons are completely autonomous. Hence, even if they all start with the same template personality and knowledge, they will quickly diverge from the standard and become individuals in their own right.
So, I would think that it would be possible for a Cylon to feel “love” and whatnot. And, this renders all that talk about “it’s not love – it’s software” as bullshit. Even if they start with a standard, artificially generated personality, they do have human brains – and hence can rework their neural pathways just like we humans do. So, a Cylon who spends allot of time with humans will more or less become a human. Unless of course they have some kind of mental override which prevents this from happening.
But then, such a mechanism could be easily detected making spotting Cylon spies much easier. So far the long haired doc has not detected anything like that. But maybe that’s because he has no clue what he is doing…
Ok, first off you have soooooo much right even with seeing the show just part way.
For the technical side: How can you tell them apart.. Baltar created a detector (part way bsing, part way getting ideas through six) which detected Boomer as a cylon so it likely works. Now, he switched it to detect everyone as human for fear of finding a real cylon and getting himself killed.
They have also been shown to be vulnerable to certain kinds of radiation from the mini. I don’t rightly remember what Ragnar Station had that made them sick, but it ‘clogged up with pathways’ so they must have some kind of mechanical stuff inside.
For the esoteric side: I have really liked the comparison to twins the most when it comes to cylons. In particular after this last episode with Apollo’s ‘you are all the same’ to which Sharon replies ‘you don’t know what you are talking about’. I think there is only one Sharon that wouldn’t kill them all on a whim and that’s this one. She’s unique because of her experiences with Helo.
I adore that Adama pointed out ‘love is just thoughts’ because given that… she loves Helo, even if its with software.
The mini and the episode ‘Flesh and Bone’ may be ones you would want to see to get a better feel on what makes cylons different.
As for the preview and is Sharon a good guy… previews are very smartly cut and Sharon is on whatever side keeps her and Helo safe.
Oh, right! I remember that radiation stuff from the mini now. Interesting. So it appears that there are some kind of physiological differences there.
But yeah. I would highly doubt that the Cylons would be all the same. They do not seem to have a shared consciousness. Therefore I think they are all very individual.
What is interesting is the fact that Sharon mentioned that she is not “wired” – which suggest that they might be “wired” sometimes. It is possible that they are able to “sync up” their minds when needed.