I’ve been thinking for a while about doing a post on who I think the final cylon is. I’ve even started the post at least once, but I haven’t finished it.
This post isn’t it, by the way. (So let’s not speculate on who the final cylon is in the combox; let’s save that for next time.)
But I thought I would do a little bit of speculating about who is a cylon in this post, and I think that the woman on the left is.
Who is she?
Well, it’s Ellen Tigh, wife of Col. Saul Tigh.
Why do I think she’s a cylon? A big reason is that there was a lot of hinting in the very first episode she appeared in that she is a cylon.
Remember? She was found mysteriously on one of the ships of the ragtag fleet, unconscious, with nobody remembering how she got there. Then she wakes up and is brought to the Galactica, where she proceeds to bring out all the worst aspects of her husband, like a cylon sleeper agent might want to do to undermine fleet command.
And to settle the question of whether she is a cylon, Dr. Baltar gives her his cylon-detector test and publicly says that she’s a human but privately admits to Head Six that the test may have indicated otherwise but that he’ll "never tell" if it did.
So there’s all that.
It later became clear that, if Ellen was a cylon, she wasn’t a sleeper agent who knew what she was doing, because she was willing to risk everything to help her husband during the cylon occupation of New Caprica. Or at least she didn’t care about betraying cylons to help her husband.
But that’s not a problem since not all cylon sleeper agents know that they’re cylons. The original Sharon "Boomer" Valerii, for example, did not know she was a cylon and others, like Sharon "Athena" Valerii have sided with humans against cylons.
So things were looking pretty inconclusive regarding Ellen, until . . .
"Wait!" you say, "I haven’t seen any season 4 episodes! Don’t spoil this for me!"
Okay.
I won’t.
Stop reading now.
"Wait!" you say, "How can you say this post isn’t going to be about who the final cylon is if you’re about to say that Ellen Tigh is a cylon? Wouldn’t her being a cylon mean that she’s the final cylon?"
No, because I think she’s just a version of one of the cylons that has already been established.
Specifically: I think she’s a Six.
She’s just an older version of Six–perhaps one of the first Sixes to be made.
After all, the Sixes don’t all look the same. Even when they’re played by Tricia Helfer, they look different. Some, like the "Gina" Six (the one who was on the Pegasus and later set off the nuke) or the current "Natalie" Six (the one leading the cylon resistance to the Ones, Fours, and Fives) wear their hair notably different than the platinum blond curls of Caprica Six or Head Six (and Head Six herself has worn her hair differently, as she did in the episode where she got Baltar to get the brainscan that convinced him she wasn’t a chip in his wetware).
So Sixes don’t all have to have an identical physical appearance, and thus there might be older versions of some models that have aged in a way that simulates human aging.
But that’s not the core reason.
The core reason is that in the recent episode "Escape Velocity," Col. Tigh interrogates Caprica Six in her cell on the Galactica and, during the course of the event, starts hallucinating that Caprica Six is Ellen.
What they did was bring back the actress who plays Ellen and got her dressed up and coiffed as Caprica Six, platinum blond curls and all.
And, wow, is it convincing.
There are moments, watching the transitions between Six and Ellen, when you say "Which actress am I looking at here? They’re so close once you put the same hair on them!"
And then there’s this . . .
The characters act the same.
They’re both highly manipulative and willing to use their feminine wiles to achieve their ends.
Also, neither seems to mind the concept of extra-marital affairs as long as some kind of fundamental love/loyalty-to-one-spouse isn’t compromised.
And–perhaps most uniquely–they’re both manipulating their Significant Others to make something more of themselves in the world.
I mean, think about it: From the moment Head Six shows up, she starts manipulating Gaius Baltar to ensure that he assumes his "destiny," right?
And from the moment Ellen Tigh shows up, she starts manipulating Saul to get him to assume command of the fleet/increase his influence and power, right?
Both of them are catty, morally loose manipulators who are trying to drive their chosen men reluctantly into positions of prominence and power.
So, not only do they look the same, they act the same. They have the same basic personality and modus operandi.
Okay, that’s it.
Unless the creators of the show choose to establish otherwise on screen, as far as I’m concerned, Ellen Tigh is simply a more mature Six.
Which makes her story all the more interesting.
Just a public “Thank you” to Jimmy for noting the point at which people who haven’t seen Season 4 should stop. I really appreciate that.
I’ve not seen one episode of the show. There aren’t any fiction shows that I follow, right now, though I catch the odd CSI.
I’ll have to catch up with this one on video, as it’s so highly recommended.
I’m not generally ruined by spoilers, though. For me, it’s not so much the plot points as how the writers handle them, how they get from point “A” to point “B”. There are some plot twists one would not want to know in advance, though.
Wow!!! I hadn’t thought this way ’bout Ellen at all. Great idea. This is such a fun show, but I really need to go back and re-watch them.
***SPOILER***
Very interesting theory, Jimmy. I can’t say that I see the writers going that way, but there’s definitely room for that to have happened. You pose an interesting issue, however. Can cylons age? Obviously, since the original 7 are played by the same 7 actors, that issue hasn’t really come up.
What would be interesting would be if Tigh somehow came into contact with his resurrected wife in a new body (who I assume would be played by Tricia Helfner).
***end spoiler***
Tim J-
There are some HUGE plot twists at the end of seasons 1, 2, and 3. The end of Season 3 was spoiled for me since I didn’t have cable and it took a year for the DVDs to come out. I was a little upset that it was spoiled. So i would avoid them if at all possible for this series.
That said, once you do get into the series (worth the price of netflix alone) I recommend you read both Jimmy’s commentary and Barb Nicholosi’s. I found them both very insightful (even if Jimmy’s predictions post was mostly wrong!)
***SPOILER***
Very interesting theory, Jimmy. I can’t say that I see the writers going that way, but there’s definitely room for that to have happened. You pose an interesting issue, however. Can cylons age? Obviously, since the original 7 are played by the same 7 actors, that issue hasn’t really come up.
What would be interesting would be if Tigh somehow came into contact with his resurrected wife in a new body (who I assume would be played by Tricia Helfner).
***end spoiler***
Tim J-
There are some HUGE plot twists at the end of seasons 1, 2, and 3. The end of Season 3 was spoiled for me since I didn’t have cable and it took a year for the DVDs to come out. I was a little upset that it was spoiled. So i would avoid them if at all possible for this series.
That said, once you do get into the series (worth the price of netflix alone) I recommend you read both Jimmy’s commentary and Barb Nicholosi’s. I found them both very insightful (even if Jimmy’s predictions post was mostly wrong!)
Wow,
I wonder what Notre Dame du Laus thinks of Cylons?
God bless you
Spoiler and speculation followers
Since the cylons cannot readily be distinguished from humans on the molecular level, I would suggest that they -are- humans. Modified, cloned, humans. Not toasters. And they can interbreed with humans (unless I’ve missed something), which means that they are humans biologically.
And three come from the 13th.
Huh? What? Earth produced the cylons? Humaniform cylons are humans from Earth? The cylons conquered Earth during the ‘silent years’?
Or is there another 13th. Not the colony, but a cylon model, that has had children.
The question of cylons aging has been addressed in a previous episode. In season two or early three either Colonel Tigh or Cmdr. Adama are seen having a flashbck to an earlier time ~20yrs.?? ago where they are shown as much younger men. Tigh is noticeably younger and still has color to his hair. They are deciding to rejion the colonial fleet after having fought the the first cylon war 20 years earlier. At the end of season three we now know Tigh to be a cyclon. So obviously Tigh has aged at least outwardly along with Adama, who has known him for all this time, to the present day.
And three come from the 13th.
My interpretation of what the hybrid said was that the three (D’anna, cylon #3) will lead to the five (final cylons) who come from the home of the 13th (colony, Earth).
I don’t think the first 7 cylons have seen earth, but sometime after the cylon schism, the final 5 got there. SOMEHOW, they infiltrated the humans, and I assume will be instrumental in bringing them to Earth.
I don’t know if my interpretation makes sense, but at least that would explain why the 4 new cylons heard “all along the watchtower”, which, last I heard, was composed on Earth.
Jimmy, that’s an excellent theory that makes a lot of sense, but I can’t help thinking you’ve given the writers too much credit. I get the impression that they’ve written themselves a great few seasons with lots of twists and turns and now they’re trying to keep it going without having a very clear picture of where they want to end up.
On a show like, say, Firefly, it seems the premise (western in space) serves as a springboard for interesting stand-alone stories, with the subplots kinda tying everything together. On BSG however, the premise IS the plot, and everything seems to be essential to furthering that overarching story. If that’s the case, I want them to have all the twists and turns resolved in their own minds beforehand. I’ll be happy to be wrong but I just don’t think they do.
Regarding the 13th tribe of humans, and the 5 cylons who supposedly come from there, here is my theory:
All this has happened before. All this will happen again.
Humans ORIGINATED on Earth. They built robots, who rebelled. These robots later developed flesh-and-blood versions of themselves, and even later the capacity to reproduce. At some point in this process they tried to wipe out the Earth humans, who set out for another home, chased by the robots.
These humans found a planet they named Kobol. In the process of getting to Kobol, they made some sort of peace with the flesh-robots, and since their numbers were low they were able to reproduce with them and create a new family of humans on Kobol. Except some of them stayed true to their robot origins (pure-breds, you might say) and took on (or had) names derived from the Greek gods. What their role was among the Kobol society I could not say, but it must have been important because they keep popping up in the “opera house of the gods” setting.
Eventually these Kobol-ians built robots for themselves. These rebelled, later developed flesh-and-blood versions of themselves, and even later the capacity to reproduce. At some point in this process they tried to wipe out the Kobol descendents, who set out for another home, chased by the robots, etc. This time, mind you, some of the Kobolians returned to Earth, while others set out for the 12 colonies.
We don’t know much about the early history of the colonies, but we do know the recent history, i.e. the building of the cylons and the attack on the colonies. The cylons rebelled, built human-like versions of themselves, and will only be able to reproduce if they truly love the humans they want to reproduce with. In short, if they become their more like their creators. They will help the ragtag fleet eventually settle and repopulate the human race, who will have to start with not-a-lot to rebuild a civilization. That civilization will eventually build its own robots who will rebel (or maybe the now-sentient centurions will be the ones to rebel next time), and the beat goes on.
All this has happened before. All this will happen again.
Etc.
Mick wrote:
Thank you very much for the compliment about being insightful, but what do you mean, my predictions post was mostly wrong?
As I noted in the subsequent predictions scorecard, by the *middle* of season three,
Subsequent to the middle of season 3, at least one more of my predictions (trouble between Tyrol and Callie) has been confirmed.
Jimmy,
Why has this blog seemingly been less “religious”and more eh, “nerdish”?
Jimmy’s blog has always been this nerdish. It’s part of the flava.
Ya gotta wonder about ‘humans’ from a planet named COBOL. . .;-)
Fr. Dowd’s speculations are in the same ballpark as mine. We shall see how it turns out before long. IIRC from the beginning of the series, the cylons were rejecting the humans as ‘imperfect’ that they’d perfected humanity, probably through the ‘resurrection’ memory-transfer/cloning device. Not that they’d perfected robotics, but humanity. The robot rebellion that precipitated the current cylon civil war may be a really loud hint, as well.
Great speculation!
I, too, am a fan of Battlestar, in its re-imagined form.
Some supporting speculation: In Razor, the young Adama found the human-form cylons, and perhaps the alleged Ellen-Six was among them. Wouldn’t that make her about the right age.
Good work!
Fr. John Zuhlsdorf o{]:¬)
Will “Catholic Answers” be doing a special on how the Throckmorton bearer has de-mystified his whole cadre of automaton warriors so that the average groundspawn may ellucidate Paraschizoids epistomological reinterpratations of the texts found hovering before the marble demi-altar of Hornicultskin?
Just wondering.
You may want to listen to this episode of Secrets of BSG. My husband Jeff and I started it just a few weeks ago, and I we have a lot of crazy theories. Let us know what you think!
http://sqpn.com/2008/05/11/sbsg-1-the-cylon-who-knew-too-much/
so she’s not the final cyclon, she’s a six. preposterous. ignoring what comes out of people’s mouths, and just showing BSG as a silent film, no one would ever conclude that she’s a six. I’m not suspending my disbelief that far. Another “my dog is dead, hitler’s dead, my dog is hitler” conclusion.
I think Jimmy’s right after watching the trailer for the upcoming episode. It’s obvious that the doctor tells them something about the Six in captivity that sets Col. Tigh off. Adama gets after him about his “weakness” – and though alcohol has been a demon for the man, Ellen was always his weakness. I think Jimmy is dead on in this! And I don’t think he’ll have to wait very long to find out for sure.
I agree with Rusty (and Jimmy). After seeing the preview for next week’s episode, I immediately thought of this blog entry. I think this will allow the writers to reveal the truth about Ellen’s being a cylon, while still giving them a chance to keep the final model a secret till closer to the end of the series.
OK…I like the idea of Ellen as the final cylon. Something else, she was with Tigh but there were no children. Cylon and cylon cannot reproduce.
I never miss this show. I never watch it, so I never miss it.
Hello all,
Asking for Jimmy’s indulgence regarding speculation of the identity of the final Cylon, consider Anastasia Dualla (Mrs. Lee Adama).
All but one of the main Colonial charaters have Cylon linkage:
William Adama = Saul Tigh
Laura Roslin = Tory Foster
Kara ‘Starbuck’ Thrace = Samual T. Anders
Karl ‘Helo’ Agathon = Sharon ‘Athena’ Agathon
Dr. Gaius Baltar = Tory Foster & of course 6
The Battlestar itself = Spec. (ex-Chief) Galen Tyrol
Lee ‘Apollo’ Adama = ???
Consider 6’s conjecture during this week’s episode that the final 5 are not making themselves known because they are ‘observing’. While we know that the known 4 don’t yet really know what they’re doing, the 5th’s continued secrecy may be because she already knows her identity and purpose – and that she always has. (Someone had to turn the music on.) Dualla’s been present but not usually overt at most pivotal plot milestones throughout the series.
Thank you very much for the compliment about being insightful, but what do you mean, my predictions post was mostly wrong?
Sorry, I stand corrected, Jimmy. I did not go back and look at the post – I must’ve had your prediction that Adama would keep the mustache stuck in my head. But I have enjoyed your comments, regardless of the accuracy of any predictions.
I was without access to a TV on Friday nights for a few weeks recently & had to mooch off a friend’s TiVO to see BSG. She hadn’t seen the show before but watched it with me. She thought the same actress was playing both Six & Ellen in that scene with Tigh, which I thought was very interesting. But I didn’t even think that Ellen could have been an older Six before I read your post, Jimmy. Great stuff!
Ooh! I have to mention, I haven’t seen BSG at all, but by chance I happened to catch a few episodes of Firefly last week, and I’m totally itchin’ to get the series on DVD.
Er… that is, BlueRay.
I’m hooked.
I think it is the president, especially after last week’s episode.
I just came across this at random and I actually have to say that was an idea I had while considering the final cylon. It would make a lot of sense, really, because they are so incredibly similar (Ellen being a little more annoying, but what can you do?) and more extreme than the Sixes. I’d like it a lot too, because then they could include Ellen as a cylon but not use up that precious final 12th slot for someone who hasn’t been around in more than a season.
Its less outlandish than my Baltar as son or clone of the original programmer theory which makes him the God of his own religion, which I’m sure Baltar would get a huge kick out of being, my modern humans as half cylon with Nicholas Tyrol and Hera Agathon as sort of Adam and Eve theories…
Haha I just skipped over all the stuff about season 4, thanks for warning me 🙂
Actually at first I thought Ellen looked a lot like number 6. I thought she would be a number 6 cylon who just wears a lot of makeup so they don’t recognize her. I’m pretty sure I was wrong, but still she could be.
Hmm I really shouldn’t be looking on the internet about battlestar galactica because I’m going to spoil something for myself. I mean besides already knowing about Tigh
You totally called this one! Well done sir!