an irregular muse

Battlestar Galactica is about to complete its final season. Over the 3.5 seasons we have seen great plot and character development as the surviving human population makes its desperate voyage towards Earth while trying to escape the Cylons. If you don't watch the show but enjoy science fiction, I'd definitely recommend it! If you watch it but are not caught up then consider this your ** spoiler alert **.

At the end of the first half of Season 4, we are left with the humans and the half of the Cylons (2s, 3s, 6s and 8s) , who at this point are allied and on earth. However we are left with at least two very important questions:

1. Why is Earth in nuclear ruins?
2. Who is the final cylon model?

According to the scriptures in the show, life began with god and people on Kobol. At some point, humans split up into thirteen tribes, twelve founding the colonies that the show is based on, and the thirteenth with their destination as Earth. Since all of the prophecies of the scriptures come true in the show, we'll assume that the Earth was indeed populated by the thirteenth colony at some point.

So, why is the Earth in nuclear ruin? Civil war seems stupid but pretty much the only reasonable answer. This is because it is completely within human nature to be destructive. Other reasons do not seem very likely, for example:

• Cylons - They do not know the location of Earth
• 12 Colonies - They do not know the location of Earth
• The last Cylon - Somehow covertly killed the entire colony on its own? unlikely
• Natural Causes - Lame
• God - Lame again

It seems even more plausible when you think of how there is a recurring notion of 'It has happened before and it will happen again'. The thirteenth colony destroyed themselves by their creations (weapons) and so did the twelve other colonies by their creations (cylons). But there must be some more significance to this planet. Especially since somehow Kara Thrace was resurrected on it and obtained a new viper that had its bearings fixed on the signal coming from Earth. Although being suspicious for those unexplainable actions it seems unlikely that she is the final cylon.

So then who could the last cylon model be and with what significance? Let's do this by the process of elimination:

• Lee Adama, William Adama, and most of the Galactica crew
• This leaves: Roslin and Baltar
• I don't think it's Roslin because of the way D'Anna talked to her (and she knows the identities of all 5 final cylons).
• Baltar is a more likely candidate since he keeps seeing visions of 6 BUT he survives the cylon virus in space, so again not very likely
  
• That leaves no one from the known characters!

So this means that the last Cylon will be introduced as a new character or as a metaphor for something else. What can the symbolism be? Well, there's a BSG poster for season 4 that portrays the characters as Jesus and his disciples from The Last Supper. We notice that the missing spot is where Judas from the original painting. This implies that the character or symbolism belonging to the position represents something negative. Perhaps it's the destructive nature of people that's the final cylon? It's also worth noting that the final Cylon would fall into the series as model seven. Which again would go back to the negative nature of people, this time referring to the seven deadly sins. To finally tie it all together, we could say that the thirteenth tribe is the last cylon (13 being a unlucky number) deemed model seven (from the 7 sins) and was destroyed by themselves by their destructive nature or sins.

Well regardless of what happens, let's hope the writers do something cool and end the show on a brilliantly high note.