I mean, frak. It sounded like something Tim Burton’s invaders from Mars Attacks! would say.
There I was, armed with almost no back story, and all I kept hearing was how pretty much anyone could be a Cylon, and how the show was addictive like crack.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I much prefer not being addicted to crack. Especially if it is as whack as they say.
Numerous were the occasions in which some enthusiastic individual tried to talk to me about some of the basic elements of the show. Namely, “OMG, dude! The Cylons look like people! And they have sex!”
They were all met with a pretty decisive “meh” on my end, despite the promise of gratuitous bootay.
It wasn’t until Netflix got in on the crack began streaming the complete series that I somewhat halfheartedly started watching.
Needless to say, my hesitation didn’t last long. Before I knew it, I was watching multiple episodes at a time, and screaming at my screen, like someone in a Tyler Perry movie.
How does this happen, you ask? How does someone initially so uninterested become so immersed?
Well, like I said. Crack.
But, first things first. If you’re not already familiar with the show, I bet you’re wondering what the frak I’m talking about. For this entry at least, I will focus on some basic stuff. Namely-
“What the Frak is a Cylon?”
A Cylon, to put it simply, is a robot. But things are never simple, are they?
You see, us humans, as we are prone to do in sci-fi, (evidenced by films such as The Matrix and Terminator) went ahead and created machines that were much smarter than us and eventually became self-aware. The machines, (as they tend to do) eventually decided that we were kind of douchey in general, and so they rebelled against us. We humans in turn, didn’t take kindly to that crap, and so we had ourselves a big nasty man vs machine war.
After some brief consideration, (a truce of about 40 years – I guess they were all running on Vista, or something) the Cylons further decided that it would be best if they just nuked our entire planet, and killed everyone. You know, just to be on the safe side.
Of course, they missed a few people. The show’s basic premise revolves around the remnants of humanity, and the challenges they encounter in order to survive aboard a fleet of old spaceships. Believe it or not, the actual survival of the humans in space is actually the least interesting part of this show. The real stars of the show are actually the Cylons themselves.
For reasons I will explain momentarily, they decided that the next step in the evolution of their species was to forsake their presumably stronger and faster metal bodies, in favor of humanoid ones. And no, I don’t mean in an Ahnold way, where if you shoot him in the face, you will likely reveal a metal “exoskeleton.”
I mean that everything about them appears human, including their insides. They have blood, guts and evidently, genuine emotions. In some cases, they even develop deep depressions, and identity crises.
As the story progresses, it becomes obvious that it is nearly impossible to tell a Cylon apart from a human. In some instances, even the Cylons themselves don’t know they are Cylons. In fact, the only reliable way to know that your mom is not a Cylon is to shoot her in the face. For you see, if she is a Cylon, her entire consciousness, memories, and experiences (in essence, her soul)will be downloaded into a fresh new body somewhere else, after which she will simply show up in a couple of hours, and chastise you for not cleaning up all that brain matter while she as gone.
Y’see, Cylons have a process called Resurrection, which allows for that process to be repeated as many times as necessary. And since from the very beginning, we are told that there are only twelve Cylon models, you should probably assume that there are several other “Mom” model copies out there somewhere. (I hope you weren’t planning on staying out late tonight).
Oh, and if it turns out that your mom is in fact, not a Cylon, well…sorry. But you should probably still clean up that mess of mom brains you just splattered all over the floor.
“Ok, Thanks for that. Now that I’ve committed matricide, when are we getting to this Nookie I was promised?”
Battlestar Galactica aired for four very long seasons, two of which were split into two. This is not counting the two made-for-televison movies, The Plan and Razor, or the spin off Caprica series. I have therefore decided to split this entry into two three, where I geek out about things you probably already know, if you watched the show. There might be some spoilers, if you haven’t.
I’m doing this because for a time, this show literally took over my life, and this is my way of exorcising the thing. The good news is, some people think I’m pretty funny, so you’ll probably have fun reading this anyway.
Next time on Robots, Sex, and How I Learned to Love the Cylon Nookie – Part 2
What is up with the nookie? Why do the Cylons think we’re such douchebags? Can’t they just chill? And why the frak do they want human bodies, again?
All this and more, next time. Stay tuned for the next exciting installment of Robots, Sex, and How I Learned to Love the Cylon Nookie.