Battlestar Galactica: Season 4 (Spoilers)

[Freak]

Who says they can't talk, just because we have not heard them does not mean they can't.

[Coolhand]

Originally Posted by turbinea

old toasters may be self aware, but this place in hierachy was taken by skinjobs, and new centurions (now serving as slaves) are probably intelligent, but they also usualy have "neural inhibitor" or something like this, which prevents them to use their own will. Natalie removed this to use centurions to start the rebellion. anyway, i agree, this scene was very entertaining. i hope it will continue somehow.

yep, but now the inhibitors are removed they seem to have their own 'personalities', as demonstrated in that scene and one or two others... i think the skinjobs had to be polite to a centurion in one scene before it would (perhaps begrudgingly) carry out its orders. the show is perhaps hinting that there will be problems with the centurions at some point.

[turbinea]

i hope there will be problem with centurions.
want to see barrels glowing in angry red!

[Unimatrix]

I hoping for them to say something!

[Tovette]

the cylon baltar was talking to was destroyed, so unless all the centurions are networked together and can share 'thoughts' anything that baltar said to that specific unit are gone forever.

[juanxer]

The best thing in that Baltar scene was him talking about that dog tale or whatever and then the Cylon centurion turning its head towards its right shoulder just the way dogs do sometimes.

[Sanderlee]

Originally Posted by Tovette

the cylon baltar was talking to was destroyed, so unless all the centurions are networked together and can share 'thoughts' anything that baltar said to that specific unit are gone forever.

You know ... it would make sense that they are linked that way. Clearly the raiders are (since just ONE saw Anders and made the connection, but they all took off for home in response).

However, their reactions to ambushes and general combat on Caprica, Kobol and elsewhere indicate that they are NOT linked this way. If they were, simply bumping one off would not make it harder for the others to find you--and bumping one off in an ambush would expose it for all, even those minutes away.

Still ... it's a fun idea. Still have no idea what the whirring gizmo was in the Centurion's chest ... but that's what makes things interesting.

And yes, the whole dog treat on the nose thing was priceless!

[Monkey Boy]

Well clearly centurions can communicate, probably through some form of datalink because they can coordinate to some extent, and we have seen them respond to spoken orders from skinjobs - although it is possible that the skinjobs had the datalink as well, and simply voiced the the datalinked command also (as with asking please, perhaps the 'please' that the centurion understood and responded to was silent, and the spoken please was just a vocalisation from the desire to be more human?)
We know that skin jobs can access a datalink - athena used it to find the launch keys on new caprica, and Gina felt the resurection ship being destroyed.

I don't think the centirions will speak, because they most likely were not designed with this capacity in mind, as they could quite efficiently talk without speaking.
And we never saw the older centurions talk did we? I know we did in the original series, but the centurions in the Razor flashback didn't did they? - I guess they must have been able to communicate with their designers, but could this have been through display units, rather than speech? Was the original treaty done verbally or though a computer?

Yes there are inconsistencies, the raiders all knew almost instantly that one of the final five had been scanned in the fleet, and all of them withdrew, but the centurions do not seem to coordinate effectively from a distance. Although reinforcement have been seen to be called, just that details seem to be missing, like a cry for help *was* sent, but not a 'collective conciencness' like all incomming centurions being able to see the downed centurions last vision as a tactical aide, that seems to not be present.

It is almost like the degree of isolation the cylon has is directly related to the apprent advanceness of the cylon, skin jobs seem totally unaware of what happens to others until they see it or are directly told it, they have to make a concious decission to use the data link - like the aforemention athena and the launch keys. And even she verbolised her command to open the draw the keys were in.

There is clearly a cylon 'ruling class' and here it humorous that Baltar is drawing parallels again with his rant about adama and others being the colonial ruling class.

[Jedilaw]

I say Kallie (Tyrol's wife) was the last of the Five. If not, she and Tyrol had a hybrid child, which would make Hera a non-issue. As it is, they are still treating Hera as part of the final plot with the Opera House visions, the killing of the Rebel Six, etc.

[prisoner881]

Originally Posted by Coolhand

The cylons and humans had a treaty.
The humans broke that treaty by going over the armistice line with a military vessel, so really who pulled the "first trigger" as you put it?

This is all covered in the show, in case you missed it.

You seem to be inferring something from the show that was not definitively stated. Here, let me refresh your memory:

1. The Colonials receive intel that the Cylons are building a new war machine
2. Since the Cylons have eschewed any and all contact or diplomacy, the Colonials have no way to prove or disprove this intel.
3. If the intel is wrong, there is nothing to fear.
4. If the intel is right, the Colonials should get prepared for Armageddon...again.

As another poster has already pointed out, this whole Cylon/human war motif is an obvious corollary to 9/11. And, as the other poster also commented, this is not the place to debate that particular event. However, the show is fair game, and it makes a point that seems to be lost on you. The risks of the intel being right are too great to ignore, especially given the history of genocidal sneak attacks instigated by the Cylons. You argue that the Colonials started it with a border incursion, but if the Cylons were massing a war fleet, they had already violated the armistice long before Bulldog ever strapped into the cockpit. You seem quite studiously to be avoiding even thinking along these lines. I cannot help but wonder why, although I am willing to bet I already know the answer.

Further, you are arguing that a war of extermination is a valid response to a single fighter violating a remote border. Do you really feel comfortable taking such a position?

Worse, you're taking another very tenuous moral stance: that the victim's behavior provoked the attack. Rapists have claimed women wearing revealing attire "provoked" them into the crime. Does that in some way excuse the crime? Or incriminate the victim?

Again i think you're missing the whole point of the show, which is exactly that. the good guys are not entirely good, the bad guys are not entirely bad...

Really? I hadn't noticed. RDM & Co. have gone out of their way to make sure everybody in this story is somehow equally flawed. Sorry to paraphrase your post, but real life isn't that cut and dried. There are real heroes and villains out there. I've done a tour in Iraq (U.S. Marines) and I can speak to that from firsthand experience. I felt RDM's attempt to smear the Colonials was (yet another) ham-handed attempt at moral relativism. Why today's culture feels the need to water down its heroes (and provide excuses for the villains) is beyond me.

It's far more complex than that, they all have their own motivations, they aren't simply being evil for the sake of it like some cackling baddy from a saturday morning cartoon.

Yes, and in this case, the Cylons have a religious motivation to kill every human being in existence because (a) they're of a different race and (b) they're of a different religion. Explain to me how that in any way has any grounding in being moral or "right." Go on. I can't wait to hear how you excuse this behavior. And don't blame it on Bulldog, because the Cylons have repeatedly attributed the current war not to Colonial provocation but instead as a religious or racial calling.

Real life isn't black and white, sorry burst your bubble, but it just isn't.

Neither is it all gray, despite attempts by many to try and discredit those who are good guys and excuse those who are villains. They are rare, but they are the best -- and worst -- of us.

And while we're on the subject, let me give you a bit of a history lesson. Earth. Early 1930's. After a crushing defeat in World War I, Germany began a secret re-armament campaign, aided by the Russians. By the end of the 1930's, Hitler had rebuilt the German Luftwaffe (air force), the Wehrmacht (army) and Kriegsmarine (navy) to a point where the allies didn't want to confront them. All along, the allies had intel that the Germans were re-arming. They ignored the intel. They purposefully, studiously ignored it because they didn't want it to be true. Because if it were true, it meant another war was sure to come. Hitler used this wishful thinking to take over the Rhineland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and -- finally -- Poland. By 1945 when it was all over, roughly 72 million people had died.

Now, if somebody in the Royal Armed Forces had initiated a mission to sneak into Germany and verify what the Germans were up to, would you have supported that mission knowing that, although armed conflict was likely to result, it would've been of a much smaller scope than World War II? Or would you instead have said "nothing is worth provoking the Germans"...and later finding out the Germans didn't need provoking, as they were already planning a war of conquest. And they came very, very near to succeeding.