Ken M Sweeney5d ago
Rewatching Battlestar #Galactica and thinking about something rarely discussed: the possibility that huge numbers of people actually survived on the #12Colonies after the #Cylon withdrawal. The show focuses on the Fleet, but the destruction of humanity may not have been as absolute as the narrative suggests. 🧵
#BattlestarGalactica #BSG
Show threadKen M Sweeney5d ago
The Colonies were vast—twelve worlds with dozens of cities, thousands of settlements, and enormous rural and mountainous regions. Even with nuclear strikes and orbital bombardment, complete extermination is extremely unlikely. #Human populations in remote or sheltered regions could easily survive the initial attacks. 2)
Show threadKen M Sweeney
And we shouldn’t ignore space. Realistically, the #Colonials would have had long-duration research missions, mining expeditions, scout vessels, and deep-space survey ships nowhere near the Colonies on the Day of the Fall. Those crews would eventually return home to ruined worlds—but with intact ships, working #FTL drives, and priceless technical knowledge. 5)
Nov 19 at 12:39amMastodon for Android
Show threadKen M Sweeney5d ago
Add to this the huge factor the show glosses over: #Cylon technology left behind. Raiders, basestars, repair facilities, datastream nodes—wrecked or damaged, yes, but salvageable. If #KaraThrace could get a Raider flying again on pure instinct, what could hundreds of engineers achieve over decades? 6)
Show threadKen M Sweeney5d ago
Put all of that together, and it becomes totally plausible that one or more of the Colonies eventually rebuilt advanced society. Not in five years, but in fifty or a hundred? Easily. Enough time, stability, and reverse-engineering could reboot spaceflight and eventually restore interplanetary civilisation. 7)
Show threadKen M Sweeney5d ago
Now imagine this civilisation after 150,000 years of uninterrupted development. Not hunted, not fleeing, not fighting a war—but evolving, innovating, stabilising. They wouldn’t just recover. They’d surpass everything the old Colonies ever achieved. 8)
Show threadKen M Sweeney5d ago

With that level of advancement, retracing the path of the #Galactica fleet becomes trivial. The trail would still exist:
– derelict ships lost along the way
– battle debris in empty space
– radioactive signatures
– the ruins on #Kobol
– the wreck of #Pegasus
– the abandoned #Cylon colony
– and yes, the remains of the central Cylon hub

#Space is a museum with no weathering. 9)

Show threadKen M Sweeney5d ago
Even DNA survives far longer in deep space than on planetary surfaces. The debris field from the refinery raid alone would contain perfectly preserved biological material from killed #Viper and #Raptor pilots (Chuckles and Racetrack). A future Colonial civilisation with advanced forensics could reconstruct much of the Fleet’s journey. 10)
Show threadKen M Sweeney5d ago
Eventually they would find Earth 1, the once nuclear-ruined world of the Thirteenth Tribe but by now, quite habitable. Then, following the refugee Fleet’s path further, they would finally reach Earth 2—our Earth. 11)
Show threadKen M Sweeney5d ago

Would they recognise us as their distant descendants?
Would they see us as children to be protected?
Or as curiosities—primitive, interesting, but no longer “their people”?

After 150,000 years of evolution, cultural divergence, and likely hybridisation with Cylon remnants, they might be as different from us as we are from Neanderthals. 12)

Show threadKen M Sweeney5d ago
This angle—the return of the Colonies—opens a brand-new, unexplored story arc. Not the refugees searching for Earth, but the descendants of the survivors searching for the refugees. A civilization that has mastered its demons, re-engineered its destiny, and finally arrives at a world that has forgotten them. 13)
Show threadKen M Sweeney5d ago

It reframes the entire saga: not just a cycle of destruction, but the possibility of renewal. Humanity surviving in two places, evolving on separate paths, and someday meeting again.

I think there's a whole series in that alone.

🧵 End.

#BattlestarGalactica #BSG #SciFi #Cylon

Show threadGerard Cunningham ✒️5d ago

@TheComfortableSpotPodcast

So, a darker, grittier Galactica 1980?

Show threadmeejah5d ago
@TheComfortableSpotPodcast I would watch this series :)