Caprica/Headscratchers

• So, apparently, some of the guys at Graystone Industries thought it would be a good idea to make an elaborate, realistic CGI model of Daniel's head and realistically synthesize his voice just for a TV commercial, without Daniel's permission or knowledge, when it would have been much easier, quicker, cheaper, and less ethically dubious to just tell Daniel about the commercial and ask him to appear in it, which is what he thinks they should have done.
  • Given how realistic the V-World looks, this level of CGI probably isn't at all difficult for them. In the first episode Adama was able to scan in his own image for use in V-World pretty much instantly.
  • Daniel doesn't answer the phone or respond to messages, even from his right-hand man, Xander. Xander complains about this constantly, including on this occasion. How else can the company complete the ad?
• What happened to Tamara-A?
  • Remember Clarice talking about the one who would lead the Cylons to rebellion? Maybe that's who she meant. I thought it was Cavil (since he's number one), but I think the timeline doesn't fit that.
• So how did the Cylons become sentient? Was it anything to do with Daniel Greystone, Thomas Vergis or Zoe-A at all? Did the other models pick up some kind of spark of intelligence from Zoe-A, or did they just evolve intelligence on their own (with a bit of help from the OTG)? And did they follow Lacy Rand because of her connection to Zoe-A or because of her devotion to the OTG?
  • I think it was some spark of Zoe-A. That's why they instinctively place Lacy as the highest authority. Note when she orders them "raise your right arm...if you're Zoe." After some hesitation, they all do it, insinuating that there's something in them that's still Zoe, but on a "subconscious" level.
• What happened to the original Blessed Mother?
  • It seems to be strongly implied that when Lacy says "there's work to be done," activating the Cylon centurions, she orders them to kill everyone else, including the Blessed Mother. We see her as the next Blessed Mother in the last episode.
  • According to Kevin Murphy, she's still alive, and makes an awkward marriage of convenience with Daniel against Clarice and Lacy's awkward marriage of convenience, leading to Zoe/Daniel problems.
• Why does Clarice essentially turn against her own species in the epilogue?
  • Maybe she's mad they won't convert to her religion, and uses the Cylons (who thwarted her attempt to bomb the stadium) to undermine them.
  • I always got the impression that Clarice genuinely believed she was doing her god's work. If she believed that god wanted her to side with the Cylons then she would, and based on the Battlestar Galactica finale the Cylon god is real and is fond of needlessly overcomplicated plans that involve genocide. We would probably have learned more about the details if the show had been renewed for a second season.
  • It could be that when she talked about the Cylon's makers being overthrown, she did not mean humanity generally. Perhaps she meant the actual researchers, Graystone Industries or even the Graystone family in particular, who must at the end of the season be among her greatest enemies. It looks like we won't get any more context for her sermon now.
• What happened to the Zoe Cylon that we see her parents create in the last few seconds? It's not present in BSG, and there's no evidence of its' existence - all the Cylon models are accounted for there.
  • The question really, is, what happens to the entity termed 'Zoe-A' that exists in V-world, in the Centurion robot and later in the life-like skin-job android? This is the consciousness inhabiting the skin-job android, and though that body may have been destroyed, it is clear from Caprica that Zoe-A can survive the destruction of a robot body by returning to V-world (although how she does this is not shown). V-world seems to have been shut down at some point, presumably in the course of the First Cylon War, and thus she may not have been able to save herself after a certain point if her body were destroyed.
  • One interpretation of the scene where Clarice is preaching to the Centurions and an image of Zoe Greystone is present, is that this is Zoe-A, who at some point turns against humanity and allies herself with the Centurions, who apparently received some spark of consciousness from her. She may therefore be the 'one' who Clarice prohesies will lead the Cylons into war and could have perished in that same war.
• Why does Clarice never seem to have any actual work to do? She is not only a headmistress, but an Athenian cleric, and yet later in the series you would be forgiven for failing to remember these two facts.
  • Maybe it was during the summer holidays. She wouldn't need to be at the school so much when no pupils were there.
• How does V-world evolve into the state in BSG, wherein the humans are very cautious of networking computers (and thus, cyberspace) while the human model Cylons have projection and resurrection, but otherwise seem not to exist, or at least have experiences, when they are not housed in flesh-and-blood bodies? And how does this technology co-exist with the Thirteenth Tribe technology of resurrection and clones which is brought by the Final Five?
  • The human distrust of computers comes from the Cylon War, at the time Caprica was set the humans had never experienced a Turned Against Their Masters situation and had no reason to worry about the likes of V-World. As for the Cylons, the Final Five made a big deal about making them as human as possible so allowing them to exist without physical bodies is the sort of thing they would try to avoid.
  • Do we know for sure that V-world didn't exist in some form in the Colonies still? Galactica didn't have her computers network as a tradition after the First Cylon War and it's a military vessel so there's no reason for it to have access to such a system and the infrastructure for it was destroyed with the Colonies. It may very well exist, just in a fashion we were never able to see used.
• I realize this can border on Complaining About Shows You Don't Like, but as a fan of the show, I have to wonder why so many of my fellow fans are so quick to say that Viewers are Morons after the show's cancellation. Not only was it a very different show than BSG, BSG was a re-imagining of a well-known show that was actually really good. I respect the show and the story it presented, but I always watched the episodes knowing the show wasn't going to last.
  • Agreed, Caprica was always going to have a bit of a hard time getting an audience - as a spin-off, people who didn't watch or didn't like Battlestar Galactica would be wary, but given the massive change in tone and setting there was no guarantee of keeping existing fans.
• First, why does Clarice keep her job as athenian priestess? while being a covert christian, sorry, follower of the one true(cough)god? RDM's clumsy attempts to paint polytheists as being fanatical intolerant bigots like christians? Why not just tender her resignation or some BS excuse?. Then she could plant bombs full-time. Maybe being a fanatic bigot doent pay well, hard to say. Also, for being an athenian, the school she noiminally worked in sure looks an awful lot like a british boarding school. Barely anything about her or her school even hints at classical religion.
  • And speaking of "fanatical intolerant bigots" ^
  • It puts her in position to recruit disenfranchises teenagers to the cause.
  • It's a cover story.
    • Exactly. She was a monotheist before she was an Athenian priest. As for the school not seeming very religious, it's explicitly a modern, tolerant school despite having clergy on the staff and being nominally dedicated to Athena.