I was looking on the web for confirmation of my Cylon virus theory/hope, or someone who formed this theory first (I’m never the first person to think of anything), and the closest I found was this. It’s basically the same theory as mine, with much of the same motivation (explaining away an incoherent plot turn that looks like a cheap ratings ploy), although it gets more specific in postulating that the transmission vector for the ‘Cylon virus’ is sexual contact in particular.
I do really want this or something like it to be true. I have some problems with the STD theory though because it doesn’t seem to fully add up. Baltar has slept with Cylons a kajillion times so why isn’t he a Cylon? If Mrs. Tigh sleeping with a Cylon is what passed it on to Tigh, then was she (however briefly) a Cylon before he killed her? Did Starbuck ever actually sleep with Leoben because I didn’t think so (but I may just have missed an episode here or there)? Or if Starbuck got it through Baltar way back in season 1, why was the virus dormant for so long?
The numbers don’t quite add up, and it seems facile to just declare that anyone who slept with a Cylon and didn’t become one is just a ‘carrier’. Although, it is possible I suppose.
I would like the theory to be true. It’s certainly better than what we seem stuck with at the moment.
I suspect however that the real explanation for the Galactica Cylons is not them having slept with Cylons per se, but rather that something about their nature (as TV characters) made them likely choices for the writers to turn into Cylons. And whatever that was, also correlated with them having slept with Cylons in prior episodes. In other words there is a common cause that links ‘being a Galactica Cylon’ and ‘having slept with Cylons’, rather than the latter leading to the former.
And that common cause, I’m afraid, exists well outside of the Galactica universe and in the realm of TV writing, ratings, and economics.
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I kinda like this theory! Maybe the reason the 5th Cylon hasn’t been “infected” yet is because he/she hasn’t slept with anyone carrying the disease. So maybe if Roslin (or whoever) sleeps with someone and catches the disease, she’ll awaken as a Cylon!
But, like you, I kinda doubt that this theory will come to fruition.
Comment by jetsamjr April 14, 2008 @ 1:14 amUnder either my Cylon-virus theory or this particular STD theory, you are right, the 5th “final” Cylon might not even be in a human host yet. This is what I like about my virus theory: it makes the “final five” either more fully godlike (as has been hinted), ancient personalities coming ‘down’ to inhabit this or that human, which would explain a lot of the visions. Or, alternatively, it allows the final five to possibly be something like AIs running on some Cylon mainframe until they find a host. (Or maybe both; perhaps they’re the same thing.) Either way they would be independent, functioning new characters, which would be interesting, rather than just Tigh etc. learning they “are Cylons” and “have been from the start” which just makes no sense (not to mention being bad writing), and then plotting to hide it which is disgusting and sad and in some cases completely out of character.
Comment by Sonic Charmer April 14, 2008 @ 4:36 am