Hello, Ric here with a Battlestar Galactica
vid, as it says. In the title. Which you probably
just read… With your eyes… So I love looking
into the legends of fictional universes and
overanalysing and getting deep into the lore
of a story. I’ve already done a video on
the Lords of Kobol, which can be found in
links, and while researching into the mythos
of the real life Greek gods… I mean the
IRL mythology… not like…real, real…
anyway. I started to draw parallels between
the characters of the battlestar universe
and the deities or yore. Now this video is
way more speculation and opinion based than
the Lords of Kobol video so I didn’t really
want to just talk about these points there,
but without further ado, let’s indulge in
some pointless overanalyses of a fiction universe
because the real one kind of sucks.
With the cycle of time being a key theme of
Battlestar Galactica it stands to reason that
events and even characters may mirror themselves.
This video also ties into a belief that I’ve
held since watching the Reimagined series
that in never supported directly but I believe
that Kobol, the supposed origin of humanity
may not even be the original homeworld of
the humans and like the colonies and the original
Earth was merely a stop along this repeating
cycle of creation, rebellion, destruction
and exodus. We find naturally evolved humans
placed on the second Earth in the series finale
with no explanation, perhaps they too belong
to a very distant common ancestor.
Part of this could go some way as to explaining
the origin of the Kobol religion as it was
said that on Kobol, humans alongside the Gods.
These Gods apparently did not make the exodus
from the great Blaze that the thirteen tribes
did and presumably died on Kobol, or went
their own way. Their mythology is all that
is left of them as upon founding the colonies,
the humans lost a lot of technology and resorted
to a more primitive existence, building upon
prior knowledge but without the blueprints
as it were.
The stories of the gods therefore have already
been interpreted and potentially eroded once,
with even the twelve colonies placing different
emphasis on different deities, such as the
Taurons having Ares higher in their pantheon
than on other planets. Perhaps these deities,
Zeus, Hera, Aphrodite and so on were once
real people, key figures in a much earlier
exodus to Kobol?
This erosion of the truth can be seen in our
own world, in real life too, but I’m talking
about the Earth that we see in the Galactica
universe. The planet shown 150,000 years later
at the end of Galactica is meant to be this
planet and as such, it’s mythology our own.
So it goes with the assumption that the exploits
of the Greek Gods are further derived from
the Lords of Kobol.
No doubt tales of the exodus from the twelve
colonies was told by the survivors and retold
by the descendants, with the characters and
exploits becoming muddied and blurred in an
age before long-lasting recording methods
as all the computers ended up in the sun.
So it’s not unreasonable to assume that
the tales in our mythology are partly based
on the exploits of the primary characters
of the Battlestar story. Let’s look at some
comparisons for fun shall we? And like I say,
this is all about the show’s universe; the
real explanation is boring and either a conscious
design choice or coincidence on the writers
part.
The obvious examples are the use of callsigsns
based on the Lords of Kobol, Apollo being
the first. As a Lord of Kobol, Apollo was
known as a hunter, yet a God of Light. In
real mythology, Apollo was depicted as a youthful,
clean-shaven, heroic, moral hero type and
said to cast a watchful eye over colonists
and endeavours such as mass exodus. Here,
I like to think that stories of Lee Adama
were merged with earlier Kobol legend to produce
the current understanding of Apollo.
I would peg Artemis, Apollo’s sister and
fellow God of the Hunt as Starbuck. I’m
not endorsing incest here, there’s enough
of that in Scifi already, but like I say,
these are degradations of tales and characters.
So if you look at the profession of both Lee
and Kara, they are viper pilots, not much
of a leap to associate that with hunting really.
Artemis in mythology broke the stereotypical
mould for women, deliberately defying convention
and wearing practical clothing to hunt in,
well, more practical anyway. Starbuck openly
refutes authority several times and definitely
fits the role of a rebel. Another parallel
is the hunting accident that led to the death
of her lover, Orion, who in this telling could
be based on Zak Adama, whom she cleared for
flight despite him failing his training. I
don’t think this mythical story makes itself
known in the series, but it could also be
a nice explanation as to why Kara prays to
Artemis in particular. On a darker note, Artemis
was said to aid in relieving the pain of childbirth.
This becomes a much more twisted version when
she discovers the breeding farms of Caprica
and acquiesced to Sue-Shaun’s request to
kill her.
Zeus, father of the Gods whose domain was
the sky and thunder. Father of Apollo, Artemis
and many others. Well, William Adama is the
literal father of Lee and treated Kara as
a daughter. His position aboard Galactica
as Commander and later Admiral places him
in the role of the caretaker of humanity,
in effect a protective role of fatherhood.
Plus Tom Zarek is fond of calling him out
as Zeus, calling the Galactica itself Olympus,
playing off the similarities. Plus Sky and
Thunder? Makes me think of the battlestar’s
high level of artillery, definitely his domain.
Athena, Sharon Agathon, was another who inherited
a callsign based on Kobol mythology. And although
she was the Goddess of Victory and Wisdom,
I’m interested in how she came about. This
one does take a bit of a leap, even for such
a speculation based video such as this but
what the heck. Athena was born from the head
of Zeus, but not before causing him great
pain. Pain so intense that he actively sought
to cut it out. This level of causing harm
to Zeus before being accepted can kind of
be seen as a reflection of Boomer shooting
Adama before Athena usurps her place in the
crew, eventually earning her freedom and the
trust of her fellows. Now given that Valerii
and Agathon are two different people, they
are still both eights so in some way are based
off the same person. Like I said, bit of a
stretch but an interesting parallel nonetheless.
Hera. Although it was the name given to Sharon
Agathon’s child, we have no real idea how
she turned out. In the series however, I think
that Laura Rosilin has many of classical Hera’s
traits. Hera is the patron of women, a trait
that Laura Rosilin prides herself on and although
not married, I would definitely describe her
as the wife of Zeus. The strongest resemblances
I see however could be in the kind, maternal
nature Hera and Rosilin emanate, but the vengeful
spite which they both can bring to bear on
people, or toasters, that have wronged them.
She switches very easily from an understanding,
calming presence into an icy cold demeanour.
I can’t count the number of scenes where
she demonstrates this dramatic change but
some that spring to mind are the spacing of
Leoban after promising him sanctuary 
and the numerous times her opinion is challenged.
As for Aphrodite, her role in the pantheon
was one of seduction, sexuality and revenge.
She would often brutally punish those who
had wronged her while utilising her beauty
to manipulate any who found her attractive.
Sounds like the perfect analogy for the entire
line of sixes.
The comparisons can go on and on, but I’m
fully aware that with enough twisting and
selective fact picking that any theory can
be justified, so I’m going to leave it there.
These are just some similarities, consciously
made or not, that I found between the pantheon
of lore and the characters on screen and I
like the idea that current day Greek /Roman
mythology has elopements of the stories of
the Lords Kobol, blended with the actions
and personalities of the characters of Battlestar
Galactica.
At the end of the day it doesn’t matter
but this is the kind of stuff that runs through
my head while I’m watching a series. Because…
I don’t know. Thanks for listening to my
ramblings, I’ve been Ric and until the next
video, goodbye.
