A made-up back-story for Battlestar Galactica...

Ok, I admit it, when I become a fan of a TV show, I am tempted to imagine a cool back-story that matches the events on the show. So I did this for the new Battlestar Galactica. I actually suspect some of this story might be true, in that there are events in the show which, to be consistent with reality, require things like I describe.

These ideas have been percolating in fan newsgroups and message boards for some time, some started with others but many are mine.

If you wish to comment on these speculations, you can do so in the blog post about the galactica backstory or even better, check out my new Battlestar Galactica Analysis Blog.

Note that while this essay is not based on any out-of-show spoilers, it does presume you've viewed the show up to the end of the 3rd season.

Material in this style is based on actual material from the show. The rest fills in the gaps. I have included the conclusion of Baltar as final Cylon, based on clues in the show, though this is less certain. In fact, after I wrote this, Ronald Moore declared that the Final Cylon is not anybody depicted in the photo The Last Supper ruling out Baltar and most others. My current choices for Final Cylon are the virtual character most often seen in Baltar's head -- who may or not really be in the Last Supper photo -- and failing that, Ellen Tigh.

Note: This turned out to be right, so I will rewrite this shortly to fit that in. What turned out to be wrong is the suggestion that Earth had just one war, as it now appears that Earth must have had a first war, then been recolonized by a real 13th tribe of Cylons, who then had another war.

So you can also read variations with other contenders for final Cylon.

As we learn more, I've done some updates. You can also read the original, based on information primarily up to "Rapture."

Life here, began... here.

The Cylons were created by man

In the 21st century, humanity on Earth began to make major strides in the fields of artificial intelligence and biotech. We learned to rewrite DNA, to remake ourselves, and to create machine minds that were even smarter than we were. We even transferred our own minds into machines. Some people, however, retained an emotional attachment for our original biological body form, so they learned how to manipulate biology and create superior synthetic bodies capable of holding our new advanced digital minds.

There were "Flesher"(*) movements who wished to remain as we originally were, and transhumanist movements seeking something entirely new, including life entirely within virtual realities.

All this has happened before

There was a schism, perhaps even a war. Something turned the moon yellow, perhaps a terraforming effort or battle damage.

There was an exodus, due to the creation of FTL jump technology. Earthlike planets were out there, but rare. One group of fleshers struck out -- perhaps banished or fleeing a destroyed Earth -- into space in the direction of the Lagoon Nebula.

However, no group is pure, and even among the fleshers there was debate about how natural a state humans should retain. From time to time, some would attempt to develop advanced AI. One group of transhumanists known as "the Five" created a powerful posthuman AI to whom they started attributing divinity. Several AIs sought divinity. (The Final Five may have been uploads of former original humans from the 20th century. The Final Five, as they would become known, originated on Earth. Their favourite song from their youth is "All along the Watchtower" by Bob Dylan and they use it as their "clock radio" when waking up from sleeper mode. :-)

One of the Final Five was different from the other four. He or she played a role in the creation of AI and the technology that allowed the five to become cybernetic beings.

Along the way, they stopped on a moderately barren planet covered with algae and built a small installation. However, further study revealed the star on this planet would go nova within 4,000 years so the stay was not long. The Five built a temple there for their God.

Eventually they found the world Kobol. It was Earthlike and they built a garden civilization. The fleshers lived an idyllic life created for them by the transhumans, who largely tried to stay benevolent. They took on the role of the ancient Earth gods from Greek, Roman and other mythologies.

Some of them are programmed to think they are human...

However, after thousands of years, trouble emerged in paradise. One Lord, named Athena, created a race of 12 tribes of fleshers who were given a false history, and programmed to think that they were natural beings, evolved on Kobol. The tribes were given names and symbols from the Zodiac of Earth. This extreme of Flesher philosophy led to another war. As a result, this group was banished from Kobol. They were exiled to a remote system with 12 planets circling a giant planet, one per tribe. The 12 planets were the result of impressive terraforming operations, since this would not exist naturally. They were given an invented religious history, and the story of the homeworld was revised to make it appear as an older, but similar colony from an earlier tribe.

Athena's status fell. In a rare move, she deactivated herself. Her opponents built a tomb, leaving clues to the truth about the tribes inside it.

Later, the battle on Kobol grew stronger, and it was destroyed. Somebody left a few clues for the tribes, should they ever return, to point them to their history and to their true homeworld.

The 12 colonies received some technology from Kobol, but not as much. Over the next 2,000 years, in fact, their civilization would fall and rise at least once. However, they did not invent most of their technology. The history of their technology has been more one of attempting to understand their libraries and software archives than one of invention.

The Five kept watch over the colonies. From time to time they incarnated copies of themselves to live as colonials. In many cases these copies began as children, and were also programmed to think they were human colonials. When those incarnations finally merged their memories with the uploaded mind, it helped the five retain more of their humanity, for they always had fresh memories of what it was to be human. Some of the Five promoted the monotheistic religion while human. While usually this re-merge happened after death, in some cases a trigger would cause one of the incarnations to "wake up" and restore some memories of their true nature.

The Cylons were created by man, again

However, at one point, the colonies started dabbling in a technology they had not been given instructions on -- artificial intelligence. They did, however, have a variety of mysterious software libraries for different AI tasks, which they cobbled together to create ahead of their time an intelligent robot servant.

One AI researcher, the young Zoe Graystone, developed a partial upload of her own mind, which existed as a virtual world avatar. So did her boyfriend Ben. Both were recruited into monotheism by sister Clarice. Sister Clarice was a member of, or influenced by members of the Final Five.

Fleeing Caprica for their beliefs, Ben went crazy and exploded a bomb on a train. This bomb also killed Tamara Adama, sister of William Adama, and their mother. Joseph Adama met Daniel Graystone, Zoe's father. Together they stole AI technology from Tomas Vergas, a fellow Tauron, and combining it with Graystone's technology, they built robotic versions of Zoe and Tamara. Joseph Adama is apalled by the robotic Tamara, and turns against the project and leaves to raise is young son, William, alone. He instead becomes an opponent of Graystone and the Cylons he builds based on Zoe and Tamara. He is opposed in particular to their use as slaves.

Around this time, one of the Five created an incarnation that would be known as Saul Tigh. He was programmed to think he was a human colonial.

The colonials had no idea just how powerful the software libraries were, and the machines attained awareness and will and realized they were enslaved by lesser beings. Many atrocities were commited upon the Cylons by people who thought of them as sub-human. Justifiably, they rebelled, fought a war, and fled into space. Tigh himself fought in that war -- for the colonials.

Joseph Adama and the abolitionists failed in his quest, but the Five felt he had been the most just colonial, so they influenced their agent, Tigh, to become his son's best friend and protector.

They evolved...

The robotic Cylons sought biological bodies. They performed experiments and created a prototype cylon/human hybrid, using the body of Graystone himself, who was contacted by the Cylon god. That project was abandoned, but research continued. Secretly guided by the Final Five, they found the ruins of Kobol, and studied it. They learned some of the real history, and that of the war. They learned the truth behind the sacred scrolls. They learned about the biotechnology that created fleshers, and the startling fact that their own creators were not humans at all, but also created digital beings just programmed to think they were natural humans. Flesher bodies were actually highly advanced computing platforms, so they took that technology and made bodies for themselves, and transferred their own minds into 7 forms of them.

The Five secretly oversaw this transfer, and modified the programming of the 7 forms in several key ways. First, they made them aware that there were 5 others, and assigned them 7 random numbers from 1 to 12 as designations. Then they programmed them to discourage curiosity or discussion about the Five that they had never met. Finally, they gave them a connection to their god, who become the Cylons' one true god. The Five also created more Flesher incarnations for themselves, and sent them to be born among the colonials for the war they expected. Among them were Tory Foster, who would become a policy wonk, and Sam Anders, who would become a sports star. Also important was Galen Tyrol, who would be come a military engineer, but also would be schooled about the Five as a youngster.

Finally, a copy of the leader of the Final Five was sent to become an AI scientist among the colonies. He would prepare for the war that was sure to come, to guide it subtly in the direction the Five wanted.

For reasons not yet clear, but probably expected by the Five, the young 7 Cylon's new religion intensified their hatred for their former slave-owners, and they set aside a plan to wipe them out, both as retribution and out of a feeling they could only come into their own if their parents were dead. Years later, using their new flesher bodies, they sent various copies to infiltrate the colonies, unaware the Five had also done this. They also built a war machine.

They have a plan...

The Five saw what was happening but did not act to stop it. Indeed, it was necessary that the war happen around this time to meet their schedule for the cycle of time that they follow. They did, however react to it, and planned for a group of humans to escape. They assured at least one ship, Tigh's ship, the Galactica, would not get upgraded computers. They made sure that Tigh, as a military colonel, would have a prominant place on board, and Tyrol was placed there as well. Foster would accompany a government minister to be Several of the 7 Cylons to be on board at the start of the war. Anders remained on Caprica, but in a location where he would be one of the very few long-term survivors of the attack. They worked to assure this and took a number of other unrevealed steps so that other ships would survive to form a fleet.

Some 2 years later, the colonial computer networks fully compromised, the Cylon war machine nuked the colonies. Thanks to the efforts of the Five, a rag-tag fleet of human ships, led by Galactica, escaped and headed for deep space.

The Five's plan involved guiding the remnants of humanity back to Earth, the human homeworld. This would repeat the cycle they believed in and nurtured. First, however, they guided them to Kobol. The Colonials, being fleshers, have transceivers they are programmed not to notice in their brains. These allow communication with outside forces, including the Five and their god. Their channel to Baltar took the form of a vision of his Cylon lover, #6. A similar vision was used with that #6. After Baltar's body was destroyed in the nuclear attack, They arranged the highly-unlikely transit a new copy of Baltar to the fleet. The Five used their connections to the Cylons and the hybrids that control their base ships to orchestrate the illusion of a pursuit.

Visions were also sent to Laura Roslin and various Oracles who had long had communication with the Five (or possibly the other Lords.) They pushed the fleet to travel to Kobol, and when necessary, arranged for Starbuck to travel to Caprica and return the Arrow of Apollo. (They had also been manipulating Starbuck since she was very young. Through Oracles, they convinced her mother to treat her harshly to prepare her for a special destiny. They indicated that destiny to some of the seven Cylons. They implanted a symbol in her head that had also been placed in their temple on the algae planet, a symbol which looks like both an exploding star, and a storm system on the gas giant planet Jupiter back home.

The Cylons were also manipulated to allow the colonials to reach Kobol, at the cost of an entire base star. (See alternative.)

On Kobol, the arrow keyed a holographic projection showing Earth, and revealing that the tribes took their names and symbols from the sky of Earth. In addition, it showed them an image of the Lagoon Nebula, which Adama recognized and called by its modern Earth designation, M8.

The fleet was next directed to the world New Caprica, which was discovered by the Cylon defector, Sharon Agathon. It was necessary to delay the fleet so it could arrive at the Temple at the right time. The discovery of the planet allowed Baltar to win the election, and the settlement. Agents of the Five, where influenced to make this happen. All of the Five went to live on the new planet.

To meet the schedule for the expected nova at the Algae planet, it would be necessary in about 18 month to arrange an exodus from the new planet. Such timing required several complex manipulations. Shortly after colonization, a nuclear bomb was detonated by a Cylon. One year later the Five arranged for the Cylon forces to find the fleet "by accident" by detecting the radiation of this bomb via a probe one light year away. At this point it became clear that the Cylons no longer would even pretend to wish to destroy the fleet, and an occupation was arranged. An evacuation and exodus was also timed to place the fleet on course to the Temple at the planned time of the Nova.

Some distance out from Kobol, the Cylons discovered a probe with a special weaponized virus aimed at their type of life. No ordinary virus could transmit via download. This may have been a remnant of the Flesher/AI wars of the past. The colonial flesher bodies were made immune to it, while the Cylons took body models from the Kobol archives that were not.

With their agents, and their ability to implant visions, the next goal was to bring both the Cylons and colonials to an ancient temple built by the Five on an algae planet.

For reasons unknown, the fleet passed this planet at the wrong time, and had to be diverted back to it. Since the path back in time for the planned nova event was highly dangerous, the fleet's food processors were contaminated unconsciously by a final five sleeper member onboard the fleet. This forced them to travel to the planet quickly, at great risk. The Cylons were diverted by messages transmitted to both the Hybrids who fly the ships and through the "angel" #6 guiding Baltar.

On the planet, one of the five (Tyrol,) underwent an implanted compulsion to find the temple his archetype had built so long ago. He found it and worked to interpret it. His compulsion to protect the temple was strong, and he disobeyed direct orders to destroy it when other Cylons were about to capture it.

The highly improbable meeting took place. Possibly in contradiction to the plan, however, only #3 stood in the chamber when the nova was activated, and saw a vision of the Five, with one empty drape for their god. Her pursuit of the Five, however, got her model line boxed by the other Cylons.

The colonials fled with a real #6 and Baltar but no sign of the 7 Cylons. At a gas giant, the Five sent a vision to Starbuck to push her along the path they had planned for her. She disappeared when her Viper exploded inside a storm on a gas giant. However, she was recovered, in downloadable form, by beings from Earth. They took her to Earth, and uploaded her into a new body, and installed it in a new Viper in orbit.

The next path along the plan was the Ionian nebula. The fleet was guided there by the visions and hints from the Temple. The Cylon fleet was also guided there. The closer they got to the nebula, the stronger pre-planted memories surfaced among the sleeper members of the Five. After arrival at the nebula, their own minds revealed their true nature to them, though not as yet their mission. At the nebula, powerful forces disabled all power systems in the fleet to assure the fleet would not jump away and avoid the planned confrontation.

Starbuck appeared at the nebula, and explained to Apollo that she had been to Earth and would guide the fleet there.

Questions or alternatives:

The Cylons may never had wished the destruction of the rag-tag fleet. In spite of seemingly always being aware of where it is, and in spite of vast military superiority, they most just dog it to Kobol. When they finally catch it, they choose not to kill the rest of humanity, but to attempt to live with it, with poor results. It may be that the agenda of pushing the fleet to Kobol was with the Cylons from the start, in spite of their own fear of Kobol, and the whole war may have been waged for that purpose.

Are the other Lords of Kobol active here, or just the Cylon god? Are the other Lords wiped out?

What's it like back on Earth, and why have no further expeditions from Earth been seen? Is Earth also a fallen planet? What about other colonies?

Who is the last remaining member of the Five among the fleet? Likely agents include Gaeta and Dualla, but even Adama is not out of the question.

Do the Cylon God, or any of the Lords of Kobol, have flesher agents within the fleet? Could the Cylon god be incarnated in Baltar, as a bizarre analog of Jesus, aimed at a redemption?

(*)Greg Egan made up terms for these factions in his novel Diaspora. It's much nicer than skin-job, a term imported from Blade Runner.

I will also note that while this theory does actually explain why the Final 5 would use "All along the Watchtower" as their trigger song, BSG's musical maestro Bear McCreary has officially said we should not read this into the use of the song.

Why?

What does this story explain that doesn't make sense without it?

The Cylons are so identical to humans that human doctors can't spot the difference with microscopes. Yet at the same time they are stronger, and have an FTL transmitter in their heads that can download their mind to another star system. They can plug fiber optic cables into their arms and control a computer. How can they be this identical?
All this has happened before. The beings of the past were more advanced than the colonials. Colonial society has a strange mix of primitive and new technologies that seems the result of a fall and rise. How could there not have been AIs (Cylons) before, in the more advanced civilizations of the past. They must be somewhere.
While the scrolls tell the tribes that Earth is just a colony, we know that in reality, humanity unquestionably arose on Earth. In 1980 they got away (sort of) with ignoring that, but this is 2007 and a quality show would not ignore the DNA and fossil record on Earth.
The show, we are told has no aliens or time travel -- and I approve. But in that case you can't have highly accurate prophecies, unless instead forces are working to make the prophecies come true. There are clearly powerful forces behind the scenes.
Many characters on the show have gone through compulsions indicating control by outside powers. Not just Baltar and Six with their inner opposites, who could be (with difficulty) explained as hallucinations. Most telling, while on the Algae planet, Chief Tyrol feels a compulsion out of nowhere to find the temple, and only he can decode it.
Above the temple, Baltar says something very true about the standoff. "the chances that we've all converged on this small planet at the same time are infinitesimally small. So we all understand it's not chance." They got there from babble by the Hybrid and a conveniently sabotaged food supply. It's clear that powerful external forces are driving their course.
The humans just don't seem like they could have built the Cylons. While they underwent a purge of some computer technology after their war, they have such a mishmash of technologies and in many ways are behind 21st century Earth, including a 19th century level ore refinery.
The Cylons don't seem like they could have built their own biological bodies. They can make them so identical to colonials, but can't make them breed -- to the point they are obsessed with it.
The Cylon ignorance of any details about the Final 5 combined with a compulsion to not be curious is highly odd. The appearance of the Final 5 in a 4,000 year old Earthling temple strongly points to them being from an earlier AI generation.
The human visions are so strong, they seem similar to the Cylon VR technology, known as projection. It seems there is some channel available to broadcast things into both human and Cylon minds.
It should have been an easy romp for the Cylons to destroy the fleet many times. They had agents aboard and vast military superiority. They could have easily sent a nuclear bomb in with the short-range jump we see Galactica use to rescue the humans. When they finally catch them, they don't kill them, claiming a sudden change of heart.
The Cylons seem to be able to find the fleet whenever they want to, both when there were Cylons on board (like D'Anna asking for a raider to appear and pick up the documentary) and after, when Hotdog is allowed to escape to the fleet, as well as numerous other times.
The Cylons really want the fleet to go to Kobol. To the point that they blow up a base-star for no real reason (Boomer already had full access to Adama) other than to convince the fleet it might be safe to go to Kobol.
As we're shown, one of the Final 5 is a human well known to #3. She immediately profusely apologizes to him or her.

Mysteries

Here are some mysteries still to be explained:

Why does #3 say "You were right" to Baltar, after she sees the Final Five? Why would seeing the 4 we have seen lead her to say that? What did Baltar insist to her, other than that he might himself be a Cylon?
What did Baltar whisper to Gaeta to make him stab him? Is it also why he purjured himself at the trial? (This may be due to a mostly deleted subplot.)
Does Tyrol truly remember his childhood and his religious father talking about the Temple of Five? Or are these memories of his building it leaking through? Did the Final Five copies grow from babies or were they planted as teens or adults?
Why does Leoben (the physical one) know of Starbuck's special destiny? He is not supposed to know anything about the Final Five.
Was Starbuck chasing a real ship? Apollo did not see it, but the audience sees it from his PoV. What took Starbuck away -- did she download or was she taken away in physical form?
Why is Baltar "The Chosen One?" Was he supposed to be the one to activate the Temple, making Three's activation a mistake?
Who does #3 apologize to among the final 5? She has hurt most of them deeply, but she says "I had no idea." Since she had to know the F5 would be posing as fleet members, why would any of the revealed 4 make her say that?

Variations with other Final Cylons

Ok, so for now Baltar and everybody else in the Last Supper is ruled out, as are everybody who was on the fleet when D'Anna returned. So what plot makes sense for other candidates?

Ellen Tigh

Ellen and Saul have been lovers for over 4,000 years, since they first met and married back on Earth. Each time they incarnate themselves as humans, ignorant of their nature, they leave the chance that they will meet again and fall in love again, anew. And they have, many times. Sometimes it has ended well, sometimes badly. Like in this case, where Ellen betrayed the resistence trying to protect Saul, and Saul had to kill her for it.

This on-again, off-again love affair could have many other stories of passion, love, betrayal and revenge going over the centuries. Perhaps our whole story is that. But perhaps we see final resolution here.

Head Six

One of the Final Five does not incarnate, at least not this time around. She's special, she may have been the programmer who was mostly responsible for the creation of the Cylon God or even all the Cylons back on Earth.

And she's sitting behind the scenes, pulling strings, by using a channel into the minds of humans that was left in their design (and the design of the 7 Cylon biologicals) called projection. She likes to appear to Baltar in the form of his lover, and to Caprica Six in the form of her lover. She's also appeared to Starback and Roslin. And she appeared to D'Anna in the form of her lover, Baltar, when D'Anna entered the chamber in her Temple of Five.

She can do more than enter people's minds. She has the technology to use force fields (like the Galactica's artificial gravity) and light fields (like in the Tomb of Athena and Temple of Five) to get a physical appearance, like Shelley Godfrey, who gave Baltar an ordeal that brought him closer to worship of her god. She was even able to lift Baltar off the floor when he was beaten by the guards, using control of the artificial gravity. She's fully in control of Galactica and other ships.

Using this ability, she's been manipulating everything. She guided Baltar's life and decisions.

She arranged that the Galactica would be the one ship without networked computers, and thus escape the attack.

She orchestrated the cat and mouse chase of the Cylons and fleet, and guided the fleet to Kobol.

She had Sharon pick up Baltar and had Baltar expose Doral. She helped Baltar identify where to attack in a Cylon base.

She led the fleet to New Caprica, then made the Cylons come to occupy them but not kill them.

She timed the exodus from New Caprica to be close to the Nova on the Algae planet, planned long ago.

She arranged for the food processors on the fleet to be poisoned after the passed the Algae planet, so they would have to go back. Probably influenced Tigh to do it, unaware.

She visited Starbuck and guided her on her destiny, then put the signal in the Raptor to point it to Earth.

Another fork of her advised Roslin about her upcoming death, and led her back to Adama who was waiting for her.

Well, she or the Cylon God did these things and many others.

Joseph Adama

We're told it is not an unseen character. But what if Lee Adama, who we are told is the spitting image of his Grandfather, is his grandfather, but unaware of it. His grandfather helped create the new generation of metal Cylons, and put his aunt Tamara's memories into one of the first 3 Cylon minds.

Joesph helped guide the creation of the new generation of Cylons to his ends, and then incarnated himself, unaware, into his grandson. And now his grandson is President.

This one's a longshot, and Lee is in the Last Supper photo -- but the real brain, Joseph, is perhaps not.