THE SPACE ROOM
Everything Sci-Fi & a Little Astronomy
by Anna Sanclement
How Does Caprica Stack Up?
As you know, the Caprica pilot was released on DVD this April, a few months before its scheduled primetime premiere on the Sci-fi channel. I’m sure that most hardcore Battlestar Galactica fans have seen it so you can go ahead and read on, but for those who haven’t watched it, proceed at your own risk, as there are a few spoilers to follow on this article.
Well? Was it good? Yes. In my opinion it was good. It looks very promising and it seems like the story line will be interesting. There’s a lot of potential in how they can move the story and there’s room to make many mentions of characters that we know from the original BSG. It seems plausible that we will be seeing families of characters that we know from our beloved ship. Maybe even characters themselves in their much younger years.
They already did this with Adama, of course, one of the main characters. Joseph Adama is William Adama’s father so William himself is in the picture as an 11 year old boy. It will be interesting to see his childhood to understand how he became who is as the Galactica’s Admiral.
The Caprica pilot goes into the roots of Joseph Adama and his family. Originally from the planet Tauron, they migrated to Caprica to get away from their planet’s bad politics and mafia like dealings. Joseph, however, is still connected to shady Taurons of influence although not entirely by choice. We will certainly see more into this when the series starts next year.
Another of the main points in the pilot is Joseph’s daughter and William’s sister’s death in an explosion that also killed the daughter of a prominent computer genius. This genius is Daniel Greystone, the builder of the first Cybernetic Lifeform Node or Cylon. He first built them as defense soldiers, but he uses one of them to transfer the conscious information that his daughter, Zoe, (also a computer genius) downloaded from her own brain before she died.
Greystone can’t deal with losing his child, so after visiting the girl’s conscious mind through a virtual computer program a couple of times he decides to capture it. He figures that he should be able to put his daughter’s ‘mind’ into the Cylon robot and have her physically back in his life.
This is some great insight into learning how the Cylons had gained free will and why they ultimately turned against man. An even bigger revelation is why they believed in the one true God. Zoe had belonged to a movement where they worshiped the ‘One True God’, while the common belief in the 12 Colonies was in multiple Gods, This group lurks within the school they attend, a private academy, where apparently the headmaster is also involved in the one God worshipping group. This group promises to be quite influential as the series evolves, probably being very involved in the whole Cylon vs. Man conflict.
These events with Zoe and the Cylon robot give way as to why Cylons wanted to look like humans. It’s very likely that she will be the first of many Cylons with minds to take life. This also sheds light into why they got what they wanted from the Final Five as they gave them resurrection and human bodies many years later during the first Cylon war.
The pilot ends with Greystone’s daughter, Zoe, coming alive inside a Cylon robot and calling her friend, another member of the One True God believers ‘cult’ (called Soldiers of the One) to ask for help. A great cliffhanger that will make us, again, wait impatiently for the series to start again next year. Happy waiting! In the meantime, just watch Caprica a few more times and maybe start watching BSG from the beginning also so you can be ready for BSG’s last movie ‘The Plan’ this fall.
Sky events to watch for this month, June 2009:
Full Moon will be on the 7th and the New Moon will occur on the 22nd. This month there are quite a few planets visible. Saturn is out all evening and night, a great sight to see with its rings just about edge on. Then Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter are all out in the early morning sky. Also out in the morning sky are Neptune and Uranus, but you will need a pair of binoculars or a telescope to find them. They all will appear towards the eastern part of the sky. On the 6th Venus is at greatest elongation West. On the 13th Mercury is at its elongation West as well and easily visible pre-dawn towards the east. The Winter Solstice is on the 21st (first day of summer). Moon is at perigee on the 23rd. The Milky Way rises over the southeastern horizon starting in June through the summer. The star Arcturus can be seen towards the Southeast overhead as well as the Corona Borealis constellation, a group of stars that form a crown-like shape. Celebrate the start of summer by attending a star party, they are great fun. Look on up and smile!
For more sky events log on to: www.astronomy.com and http://space.about.com/od/computerresources/tp/2009MaySkyGuide.htm
You can read other articles and tips by Anna on these websites:
http://www.helium.com/users/484623
http://www.examiner.com/x-6503-Ft-Lauderdale-Science-News-Examiner
http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/354312/anna_sanclement.html
http://www.suite101.com/profile.cfm/annasanclement
Anna Sanclement writes from home and has recently started to write articles for various Internet sites. She has also finished a novel and has written many stories and a movie script, just for fun.