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Was Caprica always meant as a spin-off? And just how many colonies are there really?
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00:00Gods know when it comes to Battlestar Galactica there's enough myths going on inside the show
00:04mixed in with legends and half-truths that adding anything extra to that could just seem like
00:10overkill. And yet it's kind of what we do as a species. With that in mind I'm Sean Ferrick for
00:17WhatCulture and here are 10 most notorious Battlestar Galactica urban legends. Number 10
00:24Was Caprica always meant as a spin-off? Caprica, a prequel set 58 years before the events of
00:30Battlestar Galactica, ran for one season in 2010 before being cancelled due to low ratings. It
00:35charts the creation of the first Cylons by humans before the androids turned against them and very
00:40nearly wiped them out. Given the obvious connections you could be forgiven for thinking that Caprica
00:45has never been envisioned as anything other than a loyal spin-off. The truth however is a bit more
00:49complex. In 2006, 24 screenwriter Remy Aubuchon was already working on a film about artificial
00:56intelligence for Universal, completely unaware of any plans for a BSG prequel series. When the film
01:02proposal was ultimately rejected, Universal put Aubuchon in contact with BSG showrunners Ronald D.
01:08Moore and David Icke, who had begun thinking about a wider BSG universe. A meeting between the three men
01:14resulted in the basic outline of a show. Had that meeting not occurred, it is possible that what became
01:19Caprica would have been a show completely unrelated to BSG, as it was Caprica ended up in development
01:25hell following disagreements between the sci-fi channel and Moore, before a two-hour pilot was
01:30finally greenlit in March 2008. Number nine, just how many Battlestars are there? It's easy to assume
01:35that, given that there are 12 colonies of Cobol, that there are only 12 of the flagship Battlestars as
01:40well, one for each colony. This is something backed up by Encyclopedia Galactica, with the non-canonical
01:46companion to the original series that was published in 1979. It is also mentioned that 12 Battlestars
01:52were constructed in the beginning of the 2003 mini-series. However, to say that there have only
01:57been 12 is not true. In both the original and reimagined series, there was no definitive decision
02:03taken over how many Battlestars actually exist. Given the sheer length of the conflict with the Cylons,
02:09far more would have to be built. In the years before and during the war with the Cylons, up to 120 Battlestars
02:15are constructed. However, the majority are destroyed following an elaborate Cylon attack which involves
02:21remotely disabling each ship's command navigation program, a strategy that fails to affect Galactica,
02:27given how it restricts itself to an intra-ship systems only. At least 30 Battlestars, including
02:32the Atlantia, Triton, Solaria and the Columbia, are lost in the first Cylon attack. This loss is what
02:39prompts Commander Adama and the Galactica to take charge of the Colonial fleet. Number eight, is there a
02:44Battlestar named Solaria? With so many Battlestars constructed and subsequently destroyed, exactly who
02:49and what is lost can be difficult to keep track of. As such, fans have started filling gaps themselves,
02:55often borrowing from the offshoots of the original 1978 series. The Battlestar Solaria is but one
03:00example. A Battlestar by that name doesn't make an appearance in either the original or reimagined
03:05series. However, it is named in the 1978 novelization of the original Run's three-hour premiere,
03:12Saga of a Star World, written by Robert Thurston and the series creator Glen A. Larson. Although the
03:18novel is not canon, the ship's existence in the wider BSG universe has been somewhat taken for granted
03:24despite no visual evidence to back this up. Since then, the Solaria has become something of a myth.
03:30Like most of the other Battlestars, Solaria makes use of Dr. Gaius Baltar's command navigation program,
03:36all but ensuring its destruction when said program is revealed to be an underhand Cylon tactic.
03:42Subsequently, while not appearing in the original run at all, the 2003 miniseries names the Solaria
03:47as one of the many Battlestars that is destroyed during the fall of the Twelve Colonies. Number seven,
03:52was the reimagined series the first TV reboot attempt? As the reimagined series is the iteration
03:58that has gone down in history, it's easy to think of it as the only reboot of Glen A. Larson's original
04:04show. However, Ronald D. Moore's acclaimed creation is, in fact, not the first attempt at reviving
04:10Battlestar Galactica for television, nor will it be the last as revealed in 2020. Larson himself was
04:15talking about a continuation of the show as early as the 1980s, but it took another 10 years for the
04:20prospect to get any closer to becoming reality. In 1998, Richard Hatch, who played Captain Apollo in the
04:26original series, tried to revive the show himself with a sequel titled The Second Coming. Hatch racked up at
04:32least $50,000 of debt trying to get the project off the ground, and even released a trailer. The project never
04:38got any further. Larson, meanwhile, was working on his own reboot, focused on the Battlestar Pegasus. It was set to be
04:45produced by Todd Moyer, but when Moyer's 1999 adaptation of Wing Commander bombed at the box office, the idea was
04:52abandoned. Pegasus would later play a key role in the reimagined series from the second season onwards.
04:58Number six, are the Cylons an allegory to Al-Qaeda?
05:02The reimagined Battlestar Galactica is heavily influenced by 9-11, and the political climate of the real world is felt in
05:09every corner of the show. The tactics that the Cylons use, including the apparent hijacking of the commercial
05:15passenger vessel, the Olympic carrier, directly reference the attacks. It is too simple, however, to bow to the idea that the
05:22Cylons and Al-Qaeda are directly allegorical. In a 2006 Rolling Stone interview, Ike warned against such a
05:29straightforward interpretation, saying they, the Cylons, have aspects of Al-Qaeda, and they have
05:35aspects of the Catholic Church, and they have aspects of America. While the Colonials have a belief system
05:40more akin to the polytheistic religion of the Roman Empire, the Cylons' insistence on the existence of one
05:47true God is closer to Catholicism than anything else. Moore, meanwhile, stated back in 2005 that there was
05:54as much a parallel to the demise of Paganism in Europe as there was to the modern War on Terror.
06:00Battlestar Galactica is a show of such complexity and depth that straightforward comparisons, while
06:05inviting, prove almost always to be only one part of the narrative. The undertones of its story are
06:11pulled from a wide variety of sources. Number five, did Marvel publish a BSG comic without permission?
06:18Marvel Super Special number eight, created by Roger McKenzie and artist Ernie Colon, is a comic tie-in of
06:24the original Battlestar Galactica, later adapted into a three-part special adapting the TV show in its
06:30entirety. Officially, this is the first of Marvel's adaptations of BSG. Emphasis on officially. The same
06:36comic was originally published with artwork by Marvel's Bob Larkin, except Marvel had not acquired
06:42the rights for the lightness and script from Universal. When they found out, Universal were on
06:47the phone to Marvel, ordering them to pull the comic until they had given their approval. The studio
06:51subsequently gave the thumbs up, but not until after hundreds of thousands of copies of the original
06:57had been pulped. So far from being the first comic tie-in with BSG, Marvel Super Special number eight
07:03is instead the first comic tie-in that Marvel actually had permission to publish. The editor
07:08responsible, Richard Marshall, later left Marvel. As an aside, the pilot script from which the illicit
07:14comic was adapted from originally saw Dr. Gaius Baltar killed off. In both the original and remastered
07:20series, Baltar survives and is given a much more prominent role to play in the story of the colonists'
07:25survival. Number four, has Triad always been a card game? Far from being a total revision,
07:31Moore and Ike's Battlestar Galactica contains some throwbacks to the original series. One example is
07:35a card game called Triad, which uses a 55 count deck of hexagonal cards and Pyramid, a close quarter
07:42sport that is a sort of fusion between football, basketball and rugby. Starbuck and Anders bond
07:47over a game of Pyramid in Resistance, the fourth episode of season two. You would be forgiven for
07:52thinking that these are just direct lifts from the 1978 series, except Moore accidentally swapped the
07:57two around. So, in the beginning, Pyramid was in fact the card game and Triad was the sport. The
08:03cards used to have pyramids on them, but in the Reimagine series these seem to have been replaced
08:09with stars. Such is the popularity of both games since Moore and Ike series was released that it's
08:14easy to forget this. Further entrenching the error as fact is the release of Triad playing cards that
08:19fans of the show can buy. Pyramid has been recreated by some faithful fans and rules are available online,
08:25but it's safe to say it hasn't taken off quite in the same way as Quidditch, for example.
08:30Number three. The final five are Cylons, right? The final five are a collection of Cylon humanoids
08:36whose existence has been forgotten even by most of the Cylon race. The final season of Battlestar
08:41Galactica features the question of what a Cylon really is as one of its key themes. Stemming from this
08:47disconcerting and, as it turns out, unpredictable investigation is one peculiar theory that the final
08:54five are not Cylons at all. The final five are later identified as descendants of an ancient
08:59tribe of robot humanoids created by humans thousands of years ago. They seem to be either
09:04creations of the Lords of Cobol in their image or immortal skin job resurrections of the Lords
09:10themselves. Either way, the final five needing to be created and recognized by other Cylons in order to
09:16be Cylons is not actually true. If this sounds complicated, it's because it is. Moore tried to
09:22clarify things by saying the conceptual framework in which these guys are Cylons, it all sort of
09:28works once we laid down their individual backstories, but they are different fundamentally. Whether this
09:33actually helps to clear up any confusion is debatable, but it certainly puts the rumor of the final five
09:38not being Cylons to bed. Number two. Is Starbuck a native Caprican? One of Battlestar Galactica's flagship
09:45characters and one who has been described as one of the most complex female protagonists in TV history,
09:51Kara Starbuck Thrace, is a fan favorite. In the reimagined series we only ever see Starbuck on Caprica,
09:57on Galactica, or in the skies shooting down Cylons, but her origins are never actually revealed.
10:03Was she born and raised on Caprica, as the show would lead us to believe? The series bible, published
10:07by Moore in 2003, reveals that Starbuck was actually born on Pycon, one of the other 12 colonies. However,
10:13growing up as a military brat meant she spent most of her childhood moving between the different
10:17military bases and installations, as such she spent very little time on Pycon and isn't particularly
10:22attached to it. It could be that Starbuck is like Baltar in considering themselves a naturalised
10:27Caprican, having lived there for the largest part of her life. However, while such an explanation is
10:31plausible, it's never answered beyond a shadow of a doubt. Of greater importance though, is the sense of
10:36belonging and loyalty that Starbuck exercises in the presence of her crewmates, traits that have helped to
10:42make her character legendary. Number one, was Blood and Chrome always meant as a web series?
10:48To date, the most recent TV entry in the BSG universe, Battlestar Galactica Blood and Chrome,
10:54focuses on Commander Adama in his youth, and just after he graduated from Flight Academy.
10:59It was first released as a 10 episode series on the now defunct Macanima Inc. This was not however,
11:05the path that Blood and Chrome was always going to take. Sci-Fi first made the announcement in 2010,
11:10that a two-hour pilot had been greenlit for production. A year later, their president of
11:14Original Programming, Mark Stern, suggested that the show could in fact be a web series instead of
11:19giving it a more conventional TV slot. Deadline confirmed in March 2012 that the series will be
11:25online only, despite Richard Hatch and Jaina Spenson, a writer on the Reimagined series,
11:31both saying that they believed a TV deal was still on the table. It was not to be, and while Blood and
11:36Chrome was certainly not always envisioned as an online release, that is ultimately how it ended
11:41up. Still, all the episodes were later combined into a movie which was broadcast on Sci-Fi in
11:46February 2013. DVD and Blu-ray releases of the series followed shortly after.
11:51That's everything for our list, do you reckon we missed anything? Let us know in the comments below.
11:54Thank you very much again to the original author of this article, make sure you give it a check out,
11:58and thank you very much to our wonderful editor for making this look pretty. Everyone remember that
12:02you can catch us over on Twitter at WhatCulture, and you can catch myself at SeanFerrick on Twitter as
12:07well. Make sure that you look after yourselves and you look after everyone around you, so say we all.
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