Okay, I gotta say it again. I just LOVE this show! It’s long past the summer season finale, but not too late to speculate on what will happen next. I find it fascinating and wonderful that the Cylons and humans made up just long enough to reach Earth together—only to find it abandoned and in complete ruin. What poetic justice to their ongoing conflict. Irony? Yes. A glimpse of things to come? Maybe. Here are my guesses about what’s coming up in the final season. Post your speculations in the comments section below!
Option 1: The real “Earth” they’ve been seeking is actually found in the afterlife. This would explain Kara’s “harbinger of death, you will lead them all to their end” prophecies (which, in this case, could be a good thing). It might be the world alluded to in Roslin’s dreamy dreams, where she meets her family on the “other shore.” In this scenario, Kara’s discovery of Earth might result in the two races destroying each other over the course of the next season, only to discover some kind of unity and ultimate perfection in heaven/new earth.
The only problem with that option is that my ending doesn’t fit Leoben’s warnings that “this has all happened before and it will happen again.” Is that metaphorical or literal? If Kara has flashbacks (flash-forwards?) and her mother knew something about her future destiny from the time Kara was young, then we’ve got lots of other possibilities—time travel, reincarnation, and rebirth/redownload (like the Asgaard race on Stargate or the Cylons themselves). Chief Tyrol also had a recognition (flash forward?) of a symbol in the temple. Are they all Cylons? This idea leads me to Option 2.
Option 2: Maybe Kara’s mother is the fifth Cylon. After all, the technology for skin-jobs existed before Colonel Tigh was born (unless of course he was captured, replicated and replaced without realizing it). Or maybe good ol’ Mom is actually Hera—all grown up and traveled back in time to give birth to Kara. Whoever she is, she’s on a mission from the Cylon camp—to give birth to Kara, the harbinger of death for the human race. Kara is the unsuspecting Cylon mercenary sent to lead them all to their end.
If the writers were really crafty, they could work it out so that Kara is a secret weapon that can be used over and over again to destroy rogue groups of surviving humans. They (whoever “they” are that created and programmed the advanced Cylons) could just download her consciousness, including or excluding whatever memories appropriate, into a new body every time they need her. And so, Kara’s death march repeats itself—it has all happened before (to other groups of humans, maybe the 13 original colonies even) and it will happen again.
Not sure about that one, either. A little grim, not that the show hasn’t been grim up until now anyway. But they would have to do some magic with the time tables to make it sync smoothly. And hey, who’s to say they can’t? Those guys are geniuses up there!
Option 3: My other speculation is that they are all moving toward some kind of Nirvana, repeating their lives over and over again until they get it right. In the final reincarnation, they will have made peace earlier in the process and arrive at an Earth that is not destroyed. I don’t know. That’s a bit of a speculation, too, since traditional reincarnation ideas don’t suggest that we live the exact same life over and over again. It would have to be some kind of hybrid philosophy.
Option 4: I guess I should toss out a messiah scenario too… even though I think it’s highly unlikely. The fifth Cylon could be Laura Roslin. She’s already a bit of a messiah figure with her fulfillment of prophecies and her impending death. But possibly, her death could be the uniting force between the two races, creating reconciliation between the two worlds (mirrors the reconciliation between God and man through Christ?). Hers or Baltar’s death would work fine; he’s got a messiah complex too.
So, those are my thoughts. Feel free to pitch your own or critique mine. I’m sure there were a couple of nights over the last four seasons where I missed some important line of dialogue that would squash my ideas. Heh heh. What do you think?
