Talk:Humanoid Cylon speculation

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In need of some major revamping

The speculation of the final humanoid Cylon is definitely a hot topic for Season 4, so I'd imagine this page will be getting a decent bit of traffic. In light of that, I think in it's current state it's pretty lacking, considering the fact that, if the EW bit is to be believed, only one of the characters listed on this page could be the final Cylon. I know that article was dismissed a bit earlier in this discussion, but I think that was done a bit too hastily, particularly after Ron Moore's additional comments in his interview with Mo Ryan in the Chicago Tribune [1] and the fact that, say what you want about RDM not being there to personally "direct" the picture or what not, Leonardo's The Last Supper features 13 people and BSG's last supper only features 12, despite BSG having, well, an abundance of cast to go around. Anyhow, I'm not saying we even have to remove the characters in the picture, but there's definetely room for a lot more speculation. -- ColonelKevin 22:45, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

To quote paraphrase Bill Pullman from ID4... "Let's nuke the bastard."

To offer a different perspective from ColonelKevin's point, I think this article really needs to be airlocked and approached in a completely different light. I've really felt this way from the get go, but my feelings are reinforced by the fact that this is the last and final season, and the article will then enter a state of total and complete obsolescence, particularly from an "out of universe perspective".

What I am proposing is that the article be written to detail "in universe" Cylon speculation and how they've dealt with the threat of Cylons looking human. I'm looking at documenting the overall human reaction to this, which would include things like Sesha Abinell's conspiracy theories, the Colonials attempts at a Cylon detector, the Fleet leadership's concerns about releasing the information before "Litmus", etc. Thoughts? -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 23:34, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I think it's "Nuke 'em. Let's nuke the bastards.". And.. I agree. Shane (talk) 23:41, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

You're right, Mr. Quotables... I meant "paraphrasing". -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 23:47, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Seems like a good idea. From what I can infer, most, if not all, of the in-universe early-S4 speculation will be on Starbuck, so we might need to decide where we draw the lines between this article, Kara Thrace and The Destiny. OTW 00:09, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree somewhat. We know that many people love this speculation and the survey also shows that some people expect it here. But IMHO, it's just inane and verges on the annoying. There are so many fan theories floating around out there, it's flat out impossible to reflect even a good part of it. The problem is also, that what started out as interesting and grounded speculation, has deteriorated into complete bullshit by now, also due to the introduction of the Final Five. Especially with the latter, we can't really know which criteria even imply for potential cylonicity. In that regard, I've always felt that this wiki is a place for fact, analysis and some well-founded speculation here and there; and that complete speculation - like this - is a matter for forums. There are dozens of forums with endless threads of Final Five speculation, so why does this have to be rehashed on a wiki?

That said, the article has finally approached a state where it's readable and worthy of the wiki, by excising most of the specious speculation and concentrating on a few likely characters. However, as Joe said, its validity in light of the upcoming revelations - and also the uncertain basis for the arguments - is somewhat questionable. -- Serenity 06:58, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

While I do think it's possible to do a speculation page properly, there's no doubt that it's a huge task to produce one that's relatively grounded and well sourced, particularly considering how just about anyone could be the final cylon. It's hard to say if such a task is really worth the effort. If I had to chose between leaving the page as it is now or nuking it, I'd definetely say nuke it. Maybe take the best bits (the comment from Bradley Thompson and the Hybird prophecy, maybe the last supper picture, none of the speculation) and just place it on the section for the Final Cylon on the Humanoid Cylon article? -- ColonelKevin 16:50, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I think collecting the pro/anti cylon clues for the characters is worthwhile. But perhaps it should be just done as two sets of bullet points per character -- reasons why, and why not they could be a Cylon. Tell people to stick to itemizing information from canon/official, leave it to the reader to judge what it means. Then add one broad section on non-character specific information (like the last supper etc.)--Bradtem 17:55, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

This article used to be a load of bullet points, but people didn't like that so we changed it to its current state. Despite writing about half of the article as it stands, I'm not a big fan of it. The problem is mainly with the in-universe clues, someone, somewhere will have some reason why pretty much any arbitrary scene means some character being a Cylon. There are some relatively good things to consider [Baltar's hallucinations, Starbuck's return from the dead], but eventually you have to draw the line somewhere [Some people take Leoben saying "Adama's a Cylon" as a clue, is that justified?]. It's all terribly subjective and messy and not really for an encyclopaedia. Having a comprehensive coverage of fan speculation is both impossible and undesirable.

I think the best thing about the article is that it stopped speculation spilling into other parts of the Wiki. An in-universe look at the issue would be better, and probably quite pertinent for season 4. Nevertheless, fan speculation on who is and isn't a Cylon has been an important part of the viewing experience (whenever I meet a Galactica fan the fisrt question I always ask is "Who do you think the last Cylon is?")

Consequently, it is worth considering if we can find a way to cover, out-of-universe, that element of the viewing experience in an encyclopaedic manner without necessarily joining in. At the very least we could include a line like: "Since the outset of the show fans have speculated on who could be a Cylon. Theories for practically every character exist, with fans drawing justification from events in both aired content and comments from cast and crew."

Also we need to consider what happens to Baltar as Cylon speculation, which is a very detailed essay, but probably not encyclopaedic. OTW 18:08, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

So, what's the plan? OTW 23:04, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, as you noted, the problem is that we'll never be able to cover fan theories in an encyclopedic format... Fan theories are really a dime a dozen, and to cover even 10% of them would be extremely biased. It seems quite apparent to me that the best bet would be to put the Baltar as Cylon speculation page to pasture, and redo the "humanoid Cylon speculation" page from an in-universe perspective, as I had suggested. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 23:33, 13 April 2008 (UTC)