The Working File

Second Update: January 24, 2008: After writing the first update about a week ago, I listened to the Ron Moore podcast for “Sometimes A Great Notion.” In that podcast, Moore says (I’m paraphrasing and quoting from memory) that they spent a lot of time at a writers’ retreat making sure they had the back story straight. Then he says that some time ago in the distant past humans and the gods lived together on Kobol. Then man angered the gods by taking on the role of creators by building Cylons. This eventually led to the cataclysm that destroyed Kobol and led to the 12 tribes founding the 12 colonies and the 13th tribe going to Earth.
Which is what I thought the timeline was until better information led me to make the first update. I still think the updated timeline is more in sync with what we know than what Moore just said in the pdcast. In fact, I bet that what Moore said is wrong, and I probably got confused in the first place from hims saying something similar in an earlier podcast. That said, assuming that the Kobol cataclysm and exodus did take place 2,000 years ago, and that the nuclear annihilation of Earth took place 2,000 years ago, I think one of the new big questions to be answered is what is the connection — if any — between these two events. Coincidence? Synchronicity? A single cause?

Update and Correction. I’m leaving the original plain text of this post below, but adding this italicized section to include a correction, because I’m getting a fair amount of traffic inspired by the new season and the episode “Sometimes A Great Notion.” The correction is that the 13th tribe left Kobol 4,000 years ago. The other 12 left Kobol 2,000 years ago, as I mention below. A source for this is on the Kobol page at the Battlestar Wiki; look under the heading “Great Exodus.” I think this correction actually strengthens most of my speculation below. If you find this interesting, check the rest of my BSG posts under the Battlestar Galactica category.

I’m doing a lot of BSG blogging this week, but this won’t be a long term Battlestar blog. I’m just trying to work out and memorialize explanations and thoughts as we continue in the early part of the final season.

My theory of the day (which i actually developed at the end of the last season) is that in BSG, humanity began on Earth, then some Earth humans go colonize Kobol. This is not necessarily caused by an apocalyptic or cataclysmic event. It could just be a group of explorers. If the BSG universe is the same as our universe (which I doubt and which I believe Ron Moore stated was not the case in one of his podcasts), then I think the most coherent scenario is that Galactica takes place far in the future, and so any Earth they reach will have to be a future Earth.

Eventually life on Kobol runs its course, and the 12 Tribes create the 12 Colonies, which I believe we have been told is the result of some sort of cataclysm, 2,000 years before the events in the series. At the time of the departure from Kobol, the 13th Tribe tries to return to Earth. Meanwhile, over time, the 12 Colonies lose their memory of Earth as humanity’s origin, and only remember that the 13th tribe went there. Earth achieves a religious, mythic status. Again, if this is our universe (and not an alternate reality) then the events of BSG must, therefore, take place in the future, as we here on real Earth have not yet achieved interstellar travel, or colonized any distant planets.

The reason for this theory is that it explains a few anomalies, such as:

1. What motivated the 13th tribe to go to a planet so far from the other 12 colonies, and effectively leave all other humans behind? Positing that Earth is the source of humanity, and that they knew this, would give a
reasonable motivation.

2. Who built the Temple of the Five Priests, and sent word of it back to the colonies? If the 13th Tribe built it, as everyone assumes, then how did it end up in the holy scrolls? Colonists who believe in their gods can assume that the gods carried the knowledge, but what is our explanation? It makes little sense to assume that the 13th Tribe sent back a messenger, just to say, “Hi, we stopped at some algae planet on the way to Earth, and built a big temple. We thought you should know, and put it in the holy books. Consider it a cryptic clue to where we are going. We will now resume a complete absence of communication.” But, if you assume that the temple was built by the folks who originally left Earth to eventually found Kobol, then it is easy to infer that they brought the knowledge of that Temple with them to Kobol and it became a part of their religion and mythology.

Again, if this is our universe, then the theory fits in better with real world facts, such as that evidence suggests strongly that humanity developed here on Earth. Indeed, there is absolutely nothing in our world to support the idea that humanity developed on another planet, arrived on Earth capable of interstellar flight, and then somehow lost not only that technology, but every technology that would form the basis of star travel, including such basics as writing with an alphabet. The theory that the BSG humans came to Earth in the past is hard to swallow.