Or perhaps this was just all a dream of the original Starbuck (Dirk Benedict)? :)

You really seem to have a problem with this "literal mysticism" as you've described it. But as I've said before, just because it doesn't have an explanation doesn't mean it's mystical, supernatural or divine.

As I've said previously, in a nutshell, one thing Galactica is about, is religion and spirituality and how we interpret what we don't, or can't understand. The Cylons and (some) humans see "God" as divine but that doesn't make it so. In fact, in various appearances, Head Baltar seems very scornful and disdainful of how the Cylons view "God." As if they have it all wrong. (I'm thinking this was back in the episode "Downloaded.")

Starbuck was not an "angel." RDM has said so in interviews. She was literally a resurrected human. And true, there is we didn't see other physical characters just vanish and there was no explanation for this.

But let's not act like Starbuck had a mundane life and there was nothing "miraculous" or odd about her life. Then, in the final few minutes of the finale, she just did something completely weird.

I do seem to recall an episode where she flew her Viper into a storm on a gas giant, that looked like a mandala like that she had been painting all of her life, and died when her Viper was crushed and exploded. And then she showed up months later, countless light years away in a pristine version of her Viper with tales of Earth. And then found the damaged Cylon base ship. And then her Viper pointed the way to Earth. And then she found another Earth using a song made popular by our Bob Dylan and Jim Hendrix.

So when just up and vanished... well, that was like one of the least impressive things she did, really. :)

And when she said her farewell to Anders and he responded with "See you on the other side." I knew that somehow she wasn't going to be a part of the continuing story of the surviving humans. Didn't expect her to just vanish but I smiled when she did.

Let's be honest, there was no way that in the finale, the writers were going to pull something out of thin air that explained it all away. There was always going to be an ending that, in some way, could be interpreted by the characters, and we the viewers, as "supernatural.' But once again, just because it could be interpreted that way doesn't make it so.

And that is the beauty of ambiguity in story telling. It can be what you, the viewer, want it to be.

You're saying that it is definitely supernatural and silly as a result.

I am saying that it could be seen as supernatural but that maybe it's not. Because, as Arthur C Clark's third law of prediction states: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

How do we know that "God" isn't some being (or beings) that is just really advanced in its development or technology? Something that the Colonials and Cylons just interpret as divine because that can't see it any other way.

Or maybe "God" in Galactica really is just supernatural and divine. Maybe
the Cylons and humans had it right all along.

Works for me in either case. Anyway, it's just a TV show. And a very good TV show at that. At least I thought so.

"And I guess I would just not base my feelings on a story based on what the writer said about their process. As I said in my other comment, all that matters is the finished product. I don't care how they got there, as long as I can look at the whole work and see that, from beginning to end, it made sense to me. All I'm saying is that BSG did, and that if you look at the series in its entirety you can see where lots of things pointed in the direction of this ending. Even if it wasn't originally planned that way, the foundation that had been set up was used effectively in the end."

Agreed. The process is irrelevant. Yes, RDM and the writers made the show up as they went. We're talking a mini-series and 4 seasons of weekly, episodic television. Of course there were different ideas kicked around. Drafts and rewrites. And ideas that were dropped or didn't pan out the way expected.

Fat Apollo anyone? That went nowhere fast and was abandoned.

Or the original ending of the finale which was supposed to be battle between the Galactica and a pissed off Ellen who had sided with Cavil because she was pissed Tigh got Caprica prgenant. That was dropped for not being epic enough.

And so on and so on.

Yeah, sometime the writers write themselves into corners or come up with some stinkers. But the only thing that is important is what we see on the episode itself.

The the In-Head "angels" and robots were there from the very beginning. They were in the pilot mini-series and throughout the show's run. Why would they suddenly not be in the final episode?

Also, the writer's job is to tell a story. And they did. And in this case "God" is defined as... undefined. It's not lazy. It's a creative choice. This is from an old interview from RDM:

Q: In "Galactica 1980," we actually meet the "Imperious Commander" of the Cylons who turns out to be the Devil in the guise of a humanoid. Will we ever meet the maker of the Cylons in this version?

A: I think if we ever found an answer to why the Cylons have a god or who the god is--you know, the guy steps out from behind the curtain--I think you'd be disappointed. They're in an interesting place in that their faith is as legitimate as the human faith. Human beings have souls given by the gods, and Cylons have a soul given by their one true god and that has to be just as valid. That means there is a plan for their soul and something for them after they die too. It's a fundamental element of their faith.

The whole interview is here: http://www.beliefnet.com/Entertainment/Movies/200...

I think too many people wanted the finale to really pull the curtain back and show us the Wizard (in this case Galactica's "God") was not what the Cylons (or Colonials) thought he was. As if in the last couple hours, some viewers wanted it all explained away with no possibility of a supernatural explanation.

No you silly Cylons, your "God" is really... what? John de Lancie as "Q" from The Q Continuum on loan from "Star Trek? Or maybe The Architect from The Matrix movies? Maybe it's aliens in the Ship of Lights from the original Galactica?

I shudder at the thought of such an ending.

On one side we have a human civilization, significantly much more technologically advanced than our own, following a polytheistic religion. On the other side in a race of sentient, artificially intelligent lifeforms with a monotheistic belief system.

And throughout the entire series there was something going on that could not be explained. Visions and prophecies. Events happening that don't seem to be lucky accidents or coincidences. Things that seem to be miraculous.

Some of the characters think it's divine. some skeptics turn into believers. Some losing their faith along the way. Some are undecided. And some think it's a bunch of frakkin' crap.

But the thing is, in the end, we, like the characters, really are able to decide for ourselves what we think "God" was. Since we aren't pigeon holed with an explanation, it's up to us the viewers to decide.

And I'm OK with that.

Anyway, the great mystery of Galactica was not the miraculous or "God" but where did all of corners trimmed off of every piece of paper or photograph go. :)

"The SECOND a character physically vanished off the screen, with no explanation other than supernatural, we were TOLD what was right and what was wrong."

I disagree. The second Starbuck vanished off the screen, she vanished off the screen. It's as simple as that. By saying it's supernatural, well that's an interpretation and not an explanation. Just because we don't know what happened or how doesn't mean the explanation is supernatural. Nor does it make the "God" of Galactica supernatural or divine.

Again, this up to the characters, and the viewers, to decide. But our decision is essentially opinion because we truly don't know.

"Until BSG turned into an episode of 'Touched By an Angel' in the final scenes."

I've never watched "Touched By An Angel" but I'm fairly certain Della Reese's angel was nothing like Head Six. :)

"Oh yes, and the fact that the writers or RDM don't even know what 'God' is supposed to be in the fictional universe they created is just piss-poor writing."

Why is defining what "God" is important to the show?

The "truth" of the story is that something unseen is guiding the events and characters in the story of Battlestar Galactica. The characters at no time have direct contact with this unseen thing/being/whatever. They call it "God" but what "God" is never explained. All we, as the audience, really know for certain is that it's there and it doesn't like to be called "God."

Does it matter this "God" is some kind of eternal, supernatural, divine being? An advanced alien? George Burns or Morgan Freeman? :)

It's just not important to the story because the story is not about God (or the gods.) It doesn't need to be explained or defined.

Another thing to consider was, what were the Lords of Kobol? They did appear to have existed at some point and the Colonials worshiped them as gods but the same questions about "God" can be asked of them. What were they? What were they doing with humanity? And so on.

But again, it's not really important to the show. The show isn't about the Lord of Kobol.

Galactica was about people. And one of things we as people have, are issues based on faith, religion, and spirituality. Belief vs. non-belief, one belief system vs. a different belief system, monotheism, polytheism, and so on. And those are parts of the show.

One thing that I took from the finale, and the series as a whole, was the issue of what, we as people do, with the things we don't understand. Those things that are beyond our comprehension. We sometimes deify them. We attribute supernatural or divine explanations to things. That line of dialog in the finale about how "God" didn't like to be called that sort of drove that home.

We don't know what God is in Galactica but we see how the characters, the Cylons in particular, think of this... well, whatever "God" is. They deify it. We don't know what the Lords of Kobol were (or are) but we see how the humans worship them. While the Cylons don't seem to doubt their existence but don't see them as divine or gods.

Which is right? Which is wrong? What if they're both right? Or both wrong? Does it matter?

"If so, why wasn’t Starbuck with them? She was an angel. You guys said so."

The "angels" appeared as visions to certain characters. Resurrected Starbuck was actually not an "angel." At least not like Head Six, Head Baltar or Starbuck's visions of her dad and Leoben. Some characters may have called her an "angel" but she wasn't like the others. RDM has said as much in a recent interview with TV Guide:

TVGuide.com: What exactly is Kara at the end of the series? An angel?
Moore: I think Kara remains an ambiguous figure. Kara lived a mortal life, died and was resurrected to get them to their final destiny. Clearly she was a key player in the events that led to [the fleet's] finding a home. And, I don't know if there's any more to it beyond that. I think you could call her an angel, you could call her a demon, the second coming or the first coming, I guess, chronologically speaking. You can say that she had a certain messiah-like quality, in the classic resurrection story. There's a lot of different ways you can look at it, but the more we talked about it, the more we realized there was more in the ambiguity and mystery of it than there was in trying to give it more definition in the end.

TVGuide.com: So she is completely different than the hallucination/visions of Baltar and Six?
Moore: Yes, Kara was physically among us. Everybody saw her. She was tactile, she flew a viper, she was around. She was with us. And yet, there was a body that died on the original Earth, and Baltar did the DNA analysis and it was her body, so she was literally brought back from the dead by something — by some higher power or other power, and she came back to serve a function.

Here is the full interview: http://www.tvguide.com/News/Battlestar-Galacticas...

She was truly a human brought back, in some way, from the dead.

"I cringed at the implications of the technologically advanced white race landing in Africa and intermingling with a pre-verbal society."

Actually, as Hera's destiny is revealed to be that of her being the Mitochondrial Eve, all current humans trace their Mitochondrial DNA back to her. She is essentially the "mother" of humanity here on Earth. Who she "intermingled" with isn't revealed. So we don't know who the Y-chromosomal Adam was. (And does it really matter?)

Technically, Y-chromosomal Adam may have had nothing to do with the humans that were already on Earth. But I would guess that it was because what would've been the point of showing the aboriginal humans and pointing out that they were capable of "intermingling" with the Colonial humans, and presumably Cylons?

But the point was that it was Hera that was the common "mother" of humanity here on our Earth. And she was a half-human/half-Cylon (non-white) child. If you want to get technical. :)

One final thought...

Imagine the finale without the epilogue attached. By epilogue, I mean beginning with Hera, walking alone and then the camera passing over the various landscapes until we flash forward 150,000 years into the future to contemporary New York City.

If the epilogue is not there, what is the purpose of Hera? What is her destiny? She was supposed to be destined for something special but without the epilogue she is nothing but a Human/Cylon curiosity that many people and Cylons gave their lives to save. Her destiny is not clear.

But the flash forward tells us what that destiny is. Hera is Mitochondrial Eve. So every living human on the planet has Mitochondrial DNA in them from Hera. Hera, the human/Cylon hybrid is essentially the "mother" of all humans on our Earth. (Not the Colonials, Cylons or aboriginal humans we saw.)

So, in a certain way, Hera was the entire point of Battlestar Galactica. The Cylon attack on the Colonies set into a sequence of events that created Hera and got her to our Earth creating the new human race. Actually, I guess you could go back even earlier to the time on Kobol and say that the whole point of the exodus from Kobol was building towards Hera.

Now, I know some have complained about the finale having too many endings. You can argue about the execution but I think that flash forward was essential to answering one of the biggest questions posed by the show. What was the point of Hera? Question answered.

Thanks. :)

Yes, I got the impression that exchange between Baltar and Cavil was supposed to sort of explain the ambiguous nature of "God" and these "angels." The uncertainty of what they were and what they were doing but the certainty that they were there and they were doing something to guide humanity and the Cylons.

One other thing... humanity abandoning their technology. I think people are missing the obvious. Humanity was simply tired. Imagine surviving a holocaust that was essentially of your own making. And then being locked up inside a bunch spacecraft for years, being pursued by robots, always looking over your shoulder, and watching what was left of humanity getting picked off in an unending conflict.

Their population had dwindled. The number of ships had dwindled and what was left was falling apart.

And then, the Cylon threat, finally seemed over. And the Galactica, their only real and true means of protection was nothing but a blasted hulk. And there were only a handful of ships left. They really didn't have much left.

Remember a few episodes back when they were giving away the last tube of Felgercarb tooth paste? Their creature comforts were dwindling.

That was it. This was their last chance. They were looking for a home and they finally found it.

And just how long was their technology going to last? Do you think they were really going to be able to scrounge enough from what was left from that rag tag fleet to start New New Caprica? And make it last? (Because New Caprica really worked well for them.)

No, I think humanity was simply exhausted. They wanted to live again under an open sky and not be attached to a few remaining technological creature comforts that wouldn't have lasted and would not have guaranteed their survival.

It's not like they were saying that technology was evil. It was more an issue of them not needing it to be human. Not needing it to live. They were really trying to break with the past and start over. Truly start over.

I really enjoyed the finale.

One of the things I liked most about the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica was that it virtually never relied on the technobabble common in most modern science fiction TV. It was about the characters and not the tech.

And from the very beginning, the show was filled with religion, spirituality, prophecy, visions, oracles, gods, God, angels, etc. Let's not forget this was the show with a bunch of robots who, for the most part, followed a monotheistic religion and believed in "God."

And it was filled with events and things that could never really explained away as lucky accidents or coincidence. Example: the Galactica just happened to arrived at the Algae Planet right before it's sun went nova which pointed the way to the part of their journey?

Obviously, they were being nudged along. Pointed in the right direction. Call it destiny, God, divine intervention or whatever you want. But it was obviously there. From the beginning. Regardless of whether the characters believed in it or not. And some of them clearly didn't.

And yet, so many viewers seem surprised and shocked that, in the end, "God" did it. As if it that came out of nowhere and was just pulled out of a hat and thrown in at the last minute to tie up some loose ends.

I get the feeling that many thought that in the end, "God" would turn out to be something else. Something more substantial or science-based. Something that could be easily explained away.

Which would be the weaker ending? The "God did it" ending that had been building up since the mini-series or trying to explain it all away in the final 2-3 hours with a bunch of sci-fi tech talk? Something the show never really did in it's entire run.

And of course, the beauty of it all is that the God who doesn't like to be called that, is never really explained or proven to be divine or supernatural. We don't know what "God" was any more than we know what the Lords of Kobol were. Or what the angels were.

Maybe they were divine? Maybe not? Does it really matter?

It's up to the viewer to decide.

(If you've read any of the recent interviews from RDM regarding the finale, it's pretty clear that they are not saying that "God" is supposed to be supernatural. It's something ambiguous. I don't think the writers or RDM really even know what "God" is supposed to be. Read it here: http://www.tvguide.com/News/Battlestar-Galacticas... )

And as to this overall story being an issue of "intelligent design" or Creationism... well, that's kind of funny to me. Because the original Battlestar was inspired by the book "Chariots of the Gods" from back in the late '60s. Pop pseudoscience at it's best.

The finale is not meant to be an endorsement of intelligent design. It's an obvious resolution to the story arc of the series. This is humanity (and Cylons) making the same mistakes, over and over again. And each time they make those mistakes, they are given a chance start again. To get another chance to get it right. They are given a chance to reset/reboot.

Look, there were enough subtle hints that the destroyed Earth they found was not our Earth. And since our Earth was shown at the end of Season 3, there was no question they would get there/here. The questions was when they would arrive and how the Colonials and Cylons would interact with us. (Thankfully we didn't have a repeat of Galactica 1980.)

So the finale basically keeps the spirit of the "life here began out there" concept of the original Galactica series. And it keeps with the new Galactica's concept of the cyclical nature of humanity.

There is absolutely nothing surprising about how the show ended.