by spudthedestroyer on Mon Sep 05, 2005 6:11 pm
Actually, if your talking about humans, the only thing thats constant is that we are hypocritical and don't make any sense. We know about the past but we repeat it over and over.
In the miniseries it covers the human intentions; they lost, they are a dispersed population with no chance of fighting or winning, so why not leave? That's whats traditionally happened here, i don't really understand what your getting at with pearl harbour, its seems pretty irrelevant to the series (especially since it was partly setup by the american governement to enter the war in europe, and to prevent japanese expansion... and american forces easily outgunned japan).
Whenever a population has been conquered, which is what happened, this isn't a level playing field, they
a) are imprisoned or exterminated ie. survirors on caprica
b) run away ie. Battlestar convoy. The cylon response is simple, they believe human nature means they can't do this, let it go, so lets track them down and kill them before they regroup and seek revenge.
I don't think your pearl harbour analogy is relevant beyond american nostalgia and association with the 'sneak attack', september 11th being the one i think they were actually going for. The actual scale meant not only was it an attack, it ended the war and the humans lost. Now the cylons are just doing ethnic clensing. The reason they haven't wiped everyone out is because its TV, and there's an angle they seem to be attempting i'll mention in a bit, and secondly, they seem to be dissecting and trying to study humans.
As for the religion, can go one of two ways; 1) its real, which would be the worst and unfortunately seems to be the route the series is taking 2) the cylons have set it all up for an elaborate reason ie. find out what it is to be human, find out if its true, etc.
Now if the cylons are religious fanatics, they can't exterminate all humans since the religious book says this and that about an exodus and finding earth. Maybe the cylons are following to earth to wipe that out too... maybe they already have done. Its only series 2 and its going at a snails pace atm.
Now that covers the plot and story, i don't have a problem with that. I do have a problem with the cylons though, they make little sense and one week are written one way and the other week are written the other way. This leads onto possible routes for the cylons.
They are completely open in which route they want to take, however knowing TV story arc cliché, I think the ultimate angle its taking is that they are sentient now, they aren't controlled. This means just like humans don't agree, cylons don't agree, and you'll see some of the cylons are merely there, not on either side as well as some of the cylons will betray or side with the humans. its completely open, they could all be "evil", its just this is TV we are talking about. It also explains why they make little to no sense sometimes. Who knows, maybe the cylons will just turn out to be a ripoff of the darleks and god is just some douche with lots of face putty and tinfoil stuck to him. I think its clear that the traditional cylons are just drones.
For an example of cylon behaviour, cast your mind back some episodes to when the different models of cylon are watching the air force navigator on caprica (i can't remember his name). They argue and bicker, and predict which way he's going to go, ie. is he in love with a cylon or not. They are clearly observing the humans so this all ties in to my assumptions about the future of the series above. The different models also disagree with each other, which shows that some of the cylons are likely to switch sides later perhaps.