Faith, Souls, and Battlestar Galactica

Battlestar Galactica’s stew of Mormon influence, occult mysticism, and straight-up sci-fi super-tech gels into a surprisingly coherent theology of conscious self-creation when we really pry into it. This particular stew pairs well with a Zima.

Thank you to all the channel’s supporters, it’s a real motivator to know that people are willing to drop a buck or two for this content and there’s a lot of new stuff in the pipeline. Including a couple much-requested longer pieces.

00:00 Intro
00:45 Faith and Noble Lies
01:26 Cylons and Cycles
05:05 Caprica and the Soul
08:10 Starbuck’s Ghost and Head-Six
10:33 Free Will and Creation
12:23 Egregore of Salvation
13:23 Cavil can’t Create

[H.J.Fleischmann]

Honestly, I wish Caprica had not been cancelled. It would have been a great way to show what the society, culture, and religion of the Colonies were before being fragmented and preserved only in a handful of survivors.

[kylereece]

Even though I’m not a Mormon, I will say that their cosmology is interesting at the very least. The explanation of gods having once been essentially human before transcending into their current state would go a long way towards explaining why mythological pantheons and even the OT Yahweh to a certain extent seem to have very human emotions and dispositions about things.

[PtolemyJones]

My Dad wasn't much of a the 70's Galactia fan, but he would look over my shoulder when I was watching it, and he laughed and called it Moses in Space. Always made me chuckle.

[Kokubetsu]

What's interesting is that the decision to make the Cylons robots (they were originally aliens that needed suits with sensor helmets to see because they were blind) was made at the last minute when production of the 1978 pilot had already started. This decision was made so the show would be less violent (probably similar to why most of the bad guys in the Star Wars prequels were robots). It's just interesting how this tiny last minute change which is basically an afterthought and as you said has little plot impact in the original series became so integral to the remake's lore.

[zachclawson]

Watching my faith being examined, without judgment, from a non faithful perspective is beautiful thank you!

[johnecoapollo]

Yes!! Covering my favourite show and the first "grownup" series I started and finished!! Admittedly though the Mormon stuff really flew over my head since we don't have that many of them in my part of the world (Greece) and haven't been exposed to their ideas and beliefs. An interesting thing to look out for whenever I eventually do a rewatch.

[Svevsky]

Part of this is why i love bsg. It feels like an actual alien civilization because it exists in a completely different paradigm from our modern, dreary and rationalistic world. They are industrial, scientifically advanced pagan animists and for them, magical thinking is their greatest strength, while our society has condemned it. So its kind of fitting that both earths in canon are at least partially ethnically cylon, after all our society is so much closer to cavillist nihilism than any other worldview.

[macmcleod]

Yes... never give up...

...Never surrender.

[adamlove]

Perfection.

Now waiting for your take on Space: Above and Beyond.

[Nortonius_]

Love seeing the end of series Laura and Bill scenes. They had the best musical theme of that whole amazing soundtrack, and a really sweet story too, that began with a big lie as you point out 😂

[cubirk]

i love this channel, like its such a fucking good channel to use as a source and have the "Twitterfolk" be bewhildered at how some one can talk about politics so nicely and not be in one side or the other, i LOVE

[simonerender]

In the Infinity tabletop skirmish game by Corvus Belli, there is a faction called Aleph, which is essentially the A.I that runs all of human civilization and also coordinates the Human Sphere's defence against an alien faction, The Combined Army, which is led by another A.I, the Evolved Intelligence, who conquers one planet after the next in a search for the secret to transcendence. Aleph creates A.I agents called Recreations, that are essentially reconstructions of notable historical persons and even fictional or mythological characters, essentially in the same way you describe the souls in BSG. A number of these Recreations have even rebelled in-lore due to the personalities of the people they recreate, and there is a major storyline at the moment where a recreated Achilles defects to the Combined Army after Aleph sacrifices Patroclus. There are a lot of fascinating ideas in Infinity that are really worth diving into. Fantastic game as well. Also, I recently stumbled on your your channel and have been thoroughly enjoying it. Thank you for the great content.

[mojrimibnharb]

The idea of "soul as external interactions" is what I call Freshman Dorm Bong-rip Philosophy.

[Wayjourner]

'A mind recreated from purely external observation'.
Reminds me of a concept from Doctor Who's Eighth Doctor Adventure line of novels. Prior to the modern reboot, the EDAs were delving into quite (relative to the time) fringe/broad Sci FI concepts. There was a 'species' of pseudo-people (probably human, I can't recall) made as an experiment called Remotes, where their main defining feature is that they have an antenna in their earlobes that feeds a stream of the signals around them right into their brain. This shapes their personality over time based on the culture of where they are, since who and what is making the media they are effectively adding to their personality isn't fixed.

Once one dies they are recreated in 'Remembrance Tanks' from matter that was formed into the image of their original self. The catch? This only occurs based on how they were remembered by others and in a species that learns and recalls via digital media, every generation of the same person is a product of what the prior iteration contributed in shaping the minds of other people.

[savsmaster]

Exaltation, Eternal Progression, pre-existence of humanity, agency, all of these things are very integral to my culture and beliefs

[davydatwood]

On a certain level, this video is reminding me of a time in Junior High when our English Class got a visit form the author of whatever it was we were reading in that unit. The teacher asked a question about the symbolism and philosophy and moral statements she'd been teaching us were in the book... and the author was all "I dunno, I didn't intend for any of that." And then the next day the teacher rallied and used that to point out how what the reader/viewer gets out of a work isn't always connected to what the author put *in.*

I feel like that's what you've done here. And it's great; the idea that nuBSG is a world were people *can* create things if they just believe hard enough, and that the Earth they find in the end wasn't there until they found it... I love that. I think I need to schedule a rewatch, right after I finish Yamato and rewatch Orphan Black. (That last being a show that is definitely worth watching, if only for Tatiana Maslany's amazing skills.)

[ashaide]

That scene after Galactica makes her final jump always breaks my heart, harder than the sequence of the old girl's keel breaking.

One of the first battlestars and the last. She kept humanity safe from her commissioning to her very last mission.

There's something poetic with her final flight to Sol's embrace, but I wish the Colonials found a way to keep her memory. She deserved that, at least.

[Philistine]

Yes. This is one Frank Herbert got wrong - _fear_ isn't the mind-killer, _despair_ is. Fear is an imperfect tool at best, but it can be useful as a motivator when all else fails. Despair, on the other hand... I've never seen or heard of any practical value to despair.

[Zyzyx]

Schaisse, man that ending. Never give up, imagine a better future and create it. Yes, this is faith. Thank you Feral Historian.

[kjvail]

I really love your vids. BSG is one of my favorites OAT.