Was Baltar the commander of a Battlestar though? We had the line about him trying to get back to his ship and in another episode (Murder on the Rising Star?) he's addressed by the assassin as "Commander Baltar" which lead me to ask the question one time. Could be that he was in charge of a smaller ship such as Commander Kronus in "Take the Celestra".
I'm sure he was a military veteran, but we don't know if he ever commanded a battlestar. IIRC, after Baltar's expedition discovered Carillon, he retired from active duty and went into business for himself (falsifying reports that the tylium was too minimal for mining, so he himself could profit from it). That's why he wasn't in uniform during the "peace" negotiations.
My take: Baltar had an identical "Lords of Kobol" medallion as Adama, allowing him entrance to the Kobollian tomb in "Lost Planet of the Gods". Baltar also appeared to be an active member of the Quorum of the Twelve (also, along with Adama). While not stated specifically in-dialogue, I would take these things (along with the "caught between the President's battlestar and my own" comment) as evidence that he was, in fact, in charge of his own battlestar. Sadly, due to bad writing in places, we have some weird things happen later on - We know there were multiple fleets of battlestars, as evidenced by the Pegasus being the flagship of the "Fifth Fleet" ("Living Legend"), explicitly implying that there were at least four others, probably more. Commander Cain was NOT a member of the Quorum of the 12, yet commanded his own battlestar (Pegasus), of which there were assumed to (also) be 12 (one per Colony). Plus, we also have Commander Kronus ("Take the Celestra") who dressed similarly to Adama, had once commanded his own battlestar (Rycon), but also NOT a member of the Quorum of the 12, so membership on the Quorum does not imply leadership of a battlestar. Unless it did, in which case there would necessarily need to be more than 12 battlestars to allow Cain and Kronus to fit in that command structure. As for the Cimtar fleet of five battlestars detsroyed in SoaSW, I would call that the "First Fleet" in my own head-canon, only assembled when the President needs to be transported somewhere for an event of extreme diplomatic significance to the Colonies, as you likely wouldn't have that many capital ships moving together and all at once without ANY escorts, in what we would normally consider a "battlegroup" in modern military parlance. I would have considered the alliance between the Colonies and the Delphian Empire against the Cylons to be one of those important events to have the "First Fleet" mobilize to a signature ceremony at some neutral location between political borders. To this end, I would consider a Colonial "fleet" consisting of a maximum of two battlestars, with escorts, cruisers and destroyers to accompany them. In the apocrypha, there were said to be only 12 battlestars, which would compose 6 independent fleets (Fleets 2-7), and the one, hardly-ever-assembled "First Fleet" for high-profile presidential operations. There is so little known or developed about any of this, there was a lot of room to imagine how something like this would work without getting too weird about it. I liken this to Trek's Constitution-class uniform insignia debate. They threw some random things in there in an effort to supplementally world-build into interesting stories, got production staff (costuming, VFX) involved to build corresponding visuals, without realizing that they were introducing some hidden inconsistencies that nobody ever envisioned would be picked apart and scrutinized by fans like us decades later. BSG is full of such things. So is RDM's BSG, but to a lesser degree, particularly as it applies to rank device and prop usage. In any case, I find it fascinating, and BSG is one of my all-time favorite shows (both versions).
Having only five or six battlestars left makes a case that the Colonies were about done already. Though we don't know what the Cylons has, just that a sizable group was three Basestars. But even with two to four times the fighter compliment a Battlestar seems to be able to deal with a Basestars, and two Battlestars able to deal with three.
Some questions about The Second Coming: - In one scene, Apollo is arguing with somebody. The other person says "Your father's gone beyond" and Apollo angrily replies "You care about no one but yourself and your quest for power!". Who is this person? Is it somebody we've met before? (it's at 3:24 in the clip below) - In the montage of characters at the end, who is the person who appears AFTER Tigh and Apollo, but BEFORE Baltar? It's at 4:56 in the clip. - Damn, did nuBSG take their design of the Cylon raiders right from this film? They look pretty much the same! - Who is Richard Lynch supposed to be playing? ("We have them right where we want them...")
Perhaps Baltar, but I suspect it might have been Richard Lynch’s character. See my comments below on that. I agree that the editing of the trailer there could have been better. I think it was Phil Brown, playing an elder from the Council of the Twelve. He also played Uncle Owen in the original Star Wars movie. Heh…. Good eye. IIRC, those raiders, and the raiders that were shown in NuBSG were both modeled by Gabriel Koerner, who is well known in both BSG and Trek fandom and a highly talented VFX artist. I think he used to be here on TBBS back in the day. That would be Count Iblis, the character from the Original Series played by Patrick Macnee, who is basically Satan, whom Apollo challenged in “War of the Gods” for attempting to take control of the Colonials from Adama and the Council. Iblis killed Apollo for his insolence (and subsequently brought back to life by the Seraphim), which would explain Apollo’s justifiable accusation in the trailer. Macnee was still alive when the trailer was made, but likely retired and far too old to convincingly play a timeless being of pure evil.
I recall them possibly having been either their attempt at what "original" Cylons looked like, or possibly an offshoot splinter race that was also corrupted by Count Iblis. Iblis was responsible for introducing high-level tech, turning the original reptilian Cylons into cybernetic beings, placing them under his control. This is evidenced by having Patrick Macnee voice the Imperious Leader, and Baltar recognizing the voice upon confronting Iblis on the Prison Barge. This was no coincidence, and was Larson's plan all along. The Colonials were being watched over by the Seraphim/Beings of Light, and the two sides were playing a cosmic chess game with the "lesser" mortal beings of the galaxy as pawns. TOS had a depth to it that people rarely noticed and/or embraced, sadly due largely to really schlocky writing and bad science.
Yep! I watched and studied that show religiously. I was hoping for a similar intent with RDM's version and it started to look like there was some kind of mythical plan at work there... until it wasn't.
I realize it's unlikely we will ever see the completed 30--mimute version of The Second Coming (although one of the producers has said they were considering finishing and broadcasting it), so is there any kind of plot synopsis floating around anywhere?
Thanks for the insight.... and the Lizard people we saw -- were those long lost survivors from the original Cylon Rebellion?
OH yes! It was one of my favorite comic series, which did a really good job with them. The artwork for the OG Cylons was dead on. Here's the original screencap for the "Experiment In Terra" tele-movie with extra footage and a Lorne Green narration (apologies for the low-res NTSC VHS source image): And the comic version: I loved this design so much, I went and made some "schematics" of what this creature might have looked like in greater detail. They look like big-ass snapping turtles:
Not that I've heard or seen. Only that it was to tie up a bunch of loose ends that the Original Series never had an opportunity to finish. Possibly, but they look quite different from what the original design of the Cylons were supposed to look like. Only the Imperious Leader really showed their true form (note his pet lizard perched on his left arm): Ralph McQuarrie's original concept:
This is true. When most VFX at the time had ships moving from left to right on the screen (Star Trek is a good example of this), symbolizing going outwards, away from home, BSG ships traveled from right to left - in SEARCH of a home - in this case, Earth. While Roddenberry built a figurative “wagon train to the stars”, Larson built a symbolic one, based on the very real Mormon migration westward (right to left on the map) towards their new home in Salt Lake City, Utah. Again, there were no coincidences. Since Mormonism is based strongly on Freemasonry-turned-into-a-religion, it was steeped deeply in symbolism to tell its stories, Larson opted to take this path when telling his story. Mormonism has a Council/Quorum of the Twelve. So do the Colonies of Kobol. Speaking of Kobol, the “Planet of God” in Mormonism is called “Kolob”. The “Sealing” ceremony between Apollo and Serena in the episode … ahem… “Lost Planet of the Gods”, is right out of Mormon doctrine. So yes, it is “Mormons in Space”, but while not a Mormon myself, I have always been fascinated by the show, with its symbolism and spiritualism. Full disclosure, though: I am a Freemason of over 25 years.
Those were the Stonecutters. This is them: This is us (well, not my Lodge specifically, but this is what a generic group of Masons looks like): Grandpa Simpson was both.