Talk:Sacred Scrolls

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Greetings, Jzanjani. I welcome you to the battlestar wiki and want you to know that I appreciate your desire to contribute here. However, your edits to this article baffle me. At present, it has been meticulously arranged to provide the most comprehensive information possible in an objective, well-cited manner with separate sections for interpretation and commentary. If you feel this layout is mistaken, or that there's information which needs to be incuded in this article which we've missed, I would like you to make your case here, on the talk page, before comitting another revision. Thank you for your consideration. --Peter Farago 05:03, 5 October 2005 (EDT)

Contents 1 On the Format of Character Quotes 2 Cycle of Time 3 Removed 4 IRPhydeaux's theory 5 Sacred Scrolls vs Book of Pythia 6 Hand-Written? 7 Cleanup Required 8 More Cleanup 9 Some theological notes

On the Format of Character Quotes

I think we should agree on a standard format for character quotes. If you look up similar pages to this one on other Wiki databases, for example this one on Babylon 5, you can see they have a much more attractive quote format. Personally, I find the following quote format to be most attractive:

"That thing put two rounds into my father's chest!" - Captain Lee "Apollo" Adama, "Home, Part I"

or, more directly:

Indent, Double Quote, QUOTATION, /Double Quote, dash, italic, NAME, comma, Double Quote, EPISODE, /Double Quote, /italic

I'm not sure if this comment should be somewhere else, but I think the Sacred Scrolls article in particular could definitely use some cleanup. Jzanjani 16:08, 5 October 2005 (EDT)

See Battlestar Wiki talk:Standards and Conventions. --Peter Farago 17:31, 5 October 2005 (EDT)

I would be extatic if you'd post this comment for discussion on the Standards and Conventions project page. That's really the best place to discuss such sweeping things.

As for using that format here, I don't think it would do for multiple-character exchanges, such as are seen in this article. That format would be fine, though, for, say, the Quote of the Day. That's under discussion at Standards and COnvention, too. --Day 17:34, 5 October 2005 (EDT)

Cycle of Time

I'm just a little surprised that folks haven't made a correlation between the whole idea of the "Cycle of Time" and another popular science fiction series--Lexx! From the very first movie of that series, the Time Prophet played an important role. The Time Prophet says that the Universe goes through cycles, repeating itself endlessly. She sees the future, not by looking forward, but by looking back into the distant past to previous cycles (but "not clearly"). At one point, Stanley (the incredible loser who is the "hero" of Lexx) comes across a recording from thousands of years ago that the Time Prophet left for him, telling precisely how to get out of the terrible situation he was in at that moment. Likewise, the Time Prophet told the great warrior Kai that the last of his people would one day overthrow a tyrant (His Divine Shadow), but that he himself would be the last of them to fall, murdered by that same tyrant. Weirdly, that is precisely what happened. She says "Time begins and then time ends, and then time begins once again. It is happening now, it has happened before, it will surely happen again." Sound kinda familiar? Zahir 19:37, 28 January 2006 (EST)

Actually a lot of shows do that, i.e. Bablyon 5, others, etc. and it's nothing new; Lexx wasn't very original with that.--Ricimer 20:13, 28 January 2006 (EST)

The idea of time in eternal cycles certainly is not an original one, as noted in the article. But where was that even hinted at on Babylon 5? Or, for that matter, any other science fiction show? Well, there was a hint of it on Red Dwarf once. Really, I'm curious. Zahir 02:16, 29 January 2006 (EST)

Good question, Zahir. Time loops notwithstanding (say, in "Star Trek" or "Doctor Who"), I can't remember a SF TV show with a cyclical pattern. I know that "The Matrix" movies have a cyclical pattern (until Neo breaks it by its 6th cycle in "Reloaded."). Ricimer could be talking about Valen/Sinclair and his causality loop ("Babylon Squared" and "War Without End" two-parter). Again, that's a time loop more than a cyclical thing. There is also the Christian belief of Christ and resurrection and return (Catholic eucharistic prayer: "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again"). But still, "Matrix" is the closest to what constitutes a non-temporal repeating pattern. --Spencerian 18:51, 29 January 2006 (EST)

Actually I was referring to Delenn's new age felgercarb and that for millions of years, every 1,000 years (give or take) the Shadows attack the galaxy yet again. --Ricimer 19:17, 29 January 2006 (EST)

That's no "Cycle of Time" in the sense of history repeating itself, though, but rather a singular cyclical event that happens time and again to different people until someone finds a way to end it. The circumstances are quite different every time. It's not any different from solar activity cycles or cyclical weather patterns. --OliverH. 05:21, 26 February 2006 (EST)

Removed

(START)"This really ought to be a seperate theory, but I don't know how to do that. I'll just put it here. The two exodus theory - This is similar to other theories in that there is a cycle of time which is played out again and again. However in this theory there are two seperate occasions which call for an exodus. The details of each itteration are different, but the overall events are very similar. The humans leave the Kobol They settle the colonies They create AI The AI rebels and departs The AI encounters GOD (see below) The AI returns to destroy humanity The remnants of humanity flee The Cylons place humans in situations where they can interact and eventually procreate as GOD commands. The offspring of Humans and Cylon are elevated above others and worshiped as "Lords of Kobol" A conflict occurs on Kobol and humanity leaves. Humanity settles the colonies. The series has covered most of this so I will pick up at the place where this theory steps off. The AI's leave and they encounter a VAST consciesness created by countless generations of AI that have come before it. The Cylon GOD. An entity that knows everything every cylon-AI has known since the beggining of the cylce. It waits in the Cylon Home world untill the time when the AI's leave the humans, then approaches them and guides them towards their role in the cycle. One of those roles is to have Cylon-Human babies. These babies are more than human and more than cylon. They are elevated above normal humans and eventually worshiped. They become the "gods" of the humans and the Lords of Kobol. As has been mentioned in the show for a time humans and gods lived together in peace but eventually something goes wrong. Human nature re-asserts itself and some kind of split takes place. The gods are perhaps too compasionate and man to violent. Or the gods too controlling and man too independent. The gods have conflict among themselves and humans leave to avoid it. maybe the humans have conflict with their gods and kill them. See the jealous god commentary for another possible cause of the split. Either way something necessitates a split. The humans leave to colonize new planets. The gods die out, are dead, kill each other . . . The cycle begins again. the cylon GOD continues to watch the cycle replay itself over and over in the hopes that whatever flaw causes the catastrophe on Kobol can be avoided. (notice the skulls on Kobol, the theme of violence when Six talks to Baltar, her claim that what happens there is not God's Will) The violence that continues to cause this conflict is bad, but the Cylon God doesn't want to interfere because what makes humans "human" is their non-determined nature. Their free will. If he meddled in that then they would be no different than cylons. Eventually the problem is the same one modern religions face - God could create a perfect world with no killing, but there would be no free will and we would not be human any more. This seems to be an over-ridding message of the show. Free will and the flawed nature of humanity. what it finally means to be human. We can also see that the Cylon's only grow to have free will when around humans, but at the same time, they also only grow violent towards one another around humans, then on top of that, they only feel remorse and understand good and bad through that same contact. They become more alive by being around humans. In fact that was the first line of the mini - Are you alive? Prove it. The question: "What does it mean to be alive?" is one of the key focuses of the show."(END)

I'm sorry but like you said you didn't know if this was the place for this: it's really not. If you wanted to debate it or something I guess you could have started it off on the Talk page here, I think that's the place for this, or maybe the Wikipedian Quorum or something. But we really shouldn't post just speculation on these pages, we do have analysis articles but they're really not a Forum, and we try to restrain ourselves in this kind of thing. Good luck around the wiki, and try to check out our Standards and Conventions stuff or lurk for a bit to get the feel of how things work.--The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 01:20, 3 May 2006 (CDT)

BTW, I don't have enough time to rewrite this article, but eventually I will and my own interpretation of the events which really happened (agree or disagree):

A) The humans of the Twelve Colonies believe that Kobol is the mother-planet, then the 13 Tribes left, 12 to the closely located Twelve Colonies, and one going to the distant Earth. For all we know, they could have had contact with Earth for a time (else how would they have known the name and location) or even had an idea of where the Twelve Colonies were (space exploration surveys in the past and such). Regardless, the Twelve Colonies grow for 2,000 years, then make the Cylons who rebel, and the Rag Tag Fleet led by Galactica runs and eventually finds Kobol again, but they're headed for Earth.

B) What I think actually happened: Earth is the mother planet. Humans fleeing some sort of cataclysm on Earth find Kobol and settle there. Who knows what the heck the Lords of Kobol were. Anyway, the war between the Lords of Kobol begins on Kobol, and it turns so ugly that according to Roslin "we weren't exiled, we CHOSE to flee". The 12 Tribes go to the Twelve Colonies....and the 12th Tribe goes BACK to Earth.

Meanwhile, "The Blaze" is just a term describing some stuff in the war between the Gods, it wasn't one particular event (sort of a descriptor for a nuclear war or something in general). The Cylon God is not some alien or person unknown: The Cylons weren't duped into having their own religion as stupid naive souless machines: anything that achieves sentience has claim to soul and to develop its own philosophical/metaphysical concept of a "God". While the humans claim that they have directly interacted with their deities (just as modern Earth religions do), the Cylons have actually never said "and God carved these 15 commandments into rock for us, to be our laws"; they speak of their "God" in the more metaphysical, inspirational sense.

So what I personally think is that it's Earth > Kobol, Kobol > Twelve Colonies AND Kobol > Earth, Twelve Colonies > Earth. And although time might repeat itself, it's not Kobol and Earth every time: humanity dies and is reborn and such, but it hasn't gone back to specifically Kobol a dozen times. Unless we want some bearded old Kentucky Colonel showing up and saying to us "Earth has actually been colonized SIX times in the past and this will be the SIXTH time have have destroyed it. We've become quite efficient at it". --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 01:46, 3 May 2006 (CDT)

IRPhydeaux's theory

Moved to talk for discussion and cleanup

This really ought to be a seperate theory, but I don't know how to do that. I'll just put it here.

The two exodus theory -

This is similar to other theories in that there is a cycle of time which is played out again and again. However in this theory there are two seperate occasions which call for an exodus. The details of each itteration are different, but the overall events are very similar.

The humans leave the Kobol

They settle the colonies

They create AI

The AI rebels and departs

The AI encounters GOD (see below)

The AI returns to destroy humanity

The remnants of humanity flee

The Cylons place humans in situations where they can interact and eventually procreate as GOD commands.

The offspring of Humans and Cylon are elevated above others and worshiped as "Lords of Kobol"

A conflict occurs on Kobol and humanity leaves.

Humanity settles the colonies.

The series has covered most of this so I will pick up at the place where this theory steps off. The AI's leave and they encounter a VAST consciesness created by countless generations of AI that have come before it. The Cylon GOD. An entity that knows everything every cylon-AI has known since the beggining of the cylce. It waits in the Cylon Home world untill the time when the AI's leave the humans, then approaches them and guides them towards their role in the cycle.

One of those roles is to have Cylon-Human babies. These babies are more than human and more than cylon. They are elevated above normal humans and eventually worshiped. They become the "gods" of the humans and the Lords of Kobol.

As has been mentioned in the show for a time humans and gods lived together in peace but eventually something goes wrong. Human nature re-asserts itself and some kind of split takes place. The gods are perhaps too compasionate and man to violent. Or the gods too controlling and man too independent. The gods have conflict among themselves and humans leave to avoid it. maybe the humans have conflict with their gods and kill them. See the jealous god commentary for another possible cause of the split. Either way something necessitates a split. The humans leave to colonize new planets. The gods die out, are dead, kill each other . . .

The cycle begins again.

the cylon GOD continues to watch the cycle replay itself over and over in the hopes that whatever flaw causes the catastrophe on Kobol can be avoided. (notice the skulls on Kobol, the theme of violence when Six talks to Baltar, her claim that what happens there is not God's Will) The violence that continues to cause this conflict is bad, but the Cylon God doesn't want to interfere because what makes humans "human" is their non-determined nature. Their free will. If he meddled in that then they would be no different than cylons.

Eventually the problem is the same one modern religions face - God could create a perfect world with no killing, but there would be no free will and we would not be human any more. This seems to be an over-ridding message of the show. Free will and the flawed nature of humanity. what it finally means to be human. We can also see that the Cylon's only grow to have free will when around humans, but at the same time, they also only grow violent towards one another around humans, then on top of that, they only feel remorse and understand good and bad through that same contact. They become more alive by being around humans.

In fact that was the first line of the mini - Are you alive? Prove it.

The question: "What does it mean to be alive?" is one of the key focuses of the show.

Sacred Scrolls vs Book of Pythia

Are they the same thing? Or are the Pythian prophecies a distinct work from the account of the exodus. If they are all/both referred to onscreen as "the Sacred Scrolls", then the way this article is written is fine. If they're treated separately, then we should have a separate "Book of Pythia" article. (And the pythia.jpg can live there.)--Steelviper 12:15, 7 July 2006 (CDT)

I strongly suspect that the Scrolls are analogous to a sacred collection such as the Torah or the Bible, where the Book of Pythia is akin to the Book of Genesis, Mark, and so on. The context used throughout the series appears to support this. Does Baltar place his hand on anything as he is sworn in? (I know that Roslin didn't.) I'm sure scanning Elosha's comments to Roslin may bring up the right context. Ngarnn might also have some insight if he has time. --Spencerian 12:45, 7 July 2006 (CDT)

Yes, I said this on the Pythia page: for all we know different "books" were written over different times. BTW, Roslin does put her hand on the scrolls, to complete the shot for shot remake of the famous LBJ on Air Force One. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 12:53, 7 July 2006 (CDT)

So... the Book of Pythia pic can move back here? This article deserves at least one pic. --Steelviper 12:58, 7 July 2006 (CDT)

Maybe one of the other pics of Elosha reading a scroll?--The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 13:02, 7 July 2006 (CDT)

Hand-Written?

I just watched "Home: Part II" and I noticed something peculiar. It seems as though all of the copies of the Sacred Scrolls (at least in this episode) are hand-written, rather than printed on a press of some kind. Is that worth mentioning in the article? CrimsonLine 20:42, 19 July 2006 (CDT)

I thought about that; good catch there. We rarely get to see what Elosha read; this was one of the few times. It may be that the scroll copies are copied by hand from the originals as other real-world religions require of their sacred texts, thus the writing. Good enough speculation since we know this culture has modern electronic printing methods they would normally use. The drawings of Kobol could also be useful to this line of reasoning from the first season episode where Roslin has the visions of the Kobol city (I think it's Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I). --Spencerian 21:28, 19 July 2006 (CDT)

I just assumed it was printed, in an archaic font. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 21:53, 19 July 2006 (CDT)

Thanks to whoever put the "Form of the Scrolls" section in. I think it accurately captures some interesting information about the show. Just what Doc Cottle ordered! :) CrimsonLine 14:50, 24 July 2006 (CDT)

That was me, with due credit given to you for inspiring the notion. --Spencerian 09:08, 25 July 2006 (CDT)

Cleanup Required

I've found this article to be confusing to read, perhaps not just due to length, but from the mix of information, both derived, plausible and factual. I'm going to go "Peter" on this article soon to clean up the threads and verify their basis on aired content, using the Derived Content standards as a guideline. Knowing how so many have worked hard on this, however, I won't make outright deletions but will go nuts with the {{citation needed}} marker when I find items that don't fit the aired content or appears too much a stretch. Given that we know now that the virtual Six is NOT the actual Caprica Six, much of what has been said by her alone may be in doubt. --Spencerian 16:29, 19 September 2006 (CDT)

In particular the "Three Exodii" theory could stand some revision. But to be honest, I can't be bothered to do it, since it's very complicared and I don't agree with it in the first place. --Serenity 07:35, 13 January 2007 (CST)

I think all of the "Three Exoduses" theory that follows the bare outline should be deleted. It has a higher word count than all of the quotes combined and is little beside a fan theory peppered with the occasional prophecy. My apologies to those that have worked on it, but I feel that it is entirely out of place and should be placed on a talk page. Miraba 14:57, 23 January 2007 (CST)

I agree with this. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 21:14, 23 January 2007 (CST)

Some parts are a bit long. What I'd really like to know, however, is why there is no "Earth is the real homeworld" theory in this article?

You know, the one where it goes: Earth, in the future, has an exodus of some kind, or perhaps a certain group just decides to leave, for any random reason. (An alternative is aliens taking human samples from Earth and taking them to Kobol, which would allow an earlier point of divergence, but the outcome is the same.) Then, the people on Kobol leave because of another catastrophe later down the line. The legend of Earth becomes the legend of a 13th tribe departing long ago. Then we get the 12 Colonies, and the Cylons, etc.

This makes it Earth > Kobol > Colonies. Much simpler, eh?

I'm sure this theory is pretty obvious. So why isn't it presented here? It's just as valid an interpretation as anything else. Is there a reason I don't know? I'm new here, so I'd just like to find out why this omission seems to exist. -Mysterius 01:20, 27 January 2007 (CST)

Yeah, ideally, we'd have a small section that outlines two theories: 1.) Mankind originated on Kobol and 2.) Mankind really originated on Earth

But not such a huge essay, that's one of the biggest pieces of speculation on this wiki. However I recognize that a lot of work probably went into it, so I'd like to hear some other admin opinions on this before I go delete it. Or we move it to some other page, that's clearly marked as speculation and keep this one closer to the facts. The other page could then be linked for people who really want to read it ("Origin of mankind" or something) --Serenity 05:41, 27 January 2007 (CST)

As I've noted long ago, I'm OK on the theories as they have merit, but we should keep it brief to minimize fanwanking, and verify that the theories are based on aired content in any case. I recommend a short paragraph for each theory, and that's it. Any further extended discussion can come here. --Spencerian 09:51, 27 January 2007 (CST)

There we go :) --Serenity 06:56, 1 February 2007 (CST)

Looks much better. Simple, informative and brief. Needs a few typo and conventionizing tweaks... --Spencerian 08:13, 1 February 2007 (CST)

More Cleanup

I was going through this again, and found it a hard mix of in-universe assessments and out-of-universe notes. Both are needed (an earlier cleanup improved that) but the reading is odd. Maybe the article could withstand some adjustments to put the out-of-universe analysis in footnotes, or redo the article to out-of-universe analysis. I'm looking for the article to look or read like Computers does. --Spencerian 07:25, 17 May 2007 (CDT)

Nearly all of the out-of-universe stuff is contained in that one note and in "Form of the Scrolls". The note is interesting, but the latter information could be deleted, as it doesn't enhance the points being made there. --Serenity 07:32, 17 May 2007 (CDT)

This article was peculiar recently in that there were questions added in what should be an encyclopedic article. While questions are allowed in episode summaries, the wiki has frowned on asking questions in other articles. It appears awkward by twisting the voice and point-of-view of the article, and weakens the authoritative nature of an article. It's up to readers to form the big questions in their minds (not in the article) and for our editors to add the relevant links in the article for the reader to click for more "clues" in their own interpretation and exploration. The talk page can ask specific questions if desired (but not to get into a deep discussion...take it to our new bulletin board for that). --Spencerian 02:29, 25 July 2007 (CDT)

Some theological notes

Whether its just because writers write what they know, or a deeper meaning (perhaps having to do with history repeating itself) there is a lot fo real world theology mixed into the theology of BSG that I'm surprised you do not pull out in your theology footnotes. Off the top of my head...

A) The exodus. The 12 tribes of Isreal were led across the hostile desert to the promised land by a leader who was destined to lead them to it but never enter it himself. Laura is *clearly* a Moses figure and the journey of the 12 colonies clearly the same.

B) The concept of God sending angles to lead select humans in the right direction occurs many times in Christianity. (Messengers of the Lord do appear a few times in the old testament but they are not codified as the beings we know as angles til the new one, making the apparitions use of the word "angel" in BSG that much more striking.)

C) The idea that man is fallen and his soul must be "saved" is entirely Christian. (And said a couple of times to Baltar by his apparition of Caprica 6.) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cyberqat (talk • contribs).