SPOILER ALERT. If you have not watched Battlestar Galactica episode 4x14 - "Sometimes a Great Notion", do not continue any further as this post is chock full of shocking development.




So Kara Thrace aka Starbuck crashed and died on Earth several months ago. This brings up the question of the identity of Starbuck 2.0. Exactly what is Starbuck 2.0? Here's my theory.

2,000 years ago, Earth Cylons created immortality in the form of a primitive resurrection machine. This technology can clone many copies of the Cylon body, and allow the mind to be "downloaded" from a dying body to a new body. Perhaps it is an experimental machine. It makes sense because only 5 Earth Cylons were resurrected. Also, it explains the resurrection machine's flaw. While the download of the mind (or soul) works, old memories are not accessible. Thus the five newly resurrected Earth Cylons can't remember their past lives.

Since Earth is nuked, the five resurrected Cylons obviously need to find a new home. They take one of their resurrection machines, and travelled all the way to the twelve colonies where they lived anonymous lives for most of the next 2,000 years. However some time during the past century, the Colonial Humans stumbled upon the resurrection machine and managed to decipher some of the technology. They used the machine to create artificial intelligent beings who choose to call themselves Cylons. Thus was born the Colonial Cylons.

Fast forward a few decades. There's a war between Colonial Humans and Colonial Cylons. The Colonial Cylons somehow gained possession of the primitive resurrection machine and recognized it for what it is. They not only mastered the resurrection technology, but also perfected it and eliminated the memory loss issue.

So what has all of the above has to do with who Starbuck 2.0 is? Well, here is my theory. Starbuck 2.0 was resurrected using the primitive Earth resurrection machine. This is why she cannot remember the past. Yup, I believe Starbuck 2.0 is a brand new 13th Cylon!

My guess of Ellen Tigh as the Final Cylon came from way back in October 2007. I officially stuck with my prediction by publicly announcing it in November 2007. Today, vindication! Ellen is indeed the Final Cylon.

There were clues all the way from season one's episode, "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down". Many people somehow misunderstood that episode, thinking that Baltar and his Cylon Detector has confirmed Ellen as a Human. In reality, Baltar never ever revealed Ellen as Human nor Cylon. Since her appearance in the fleet, she has been playing the fool but at the same time she has also been manipulating events in the background. She was meddling with Tom Zarek and the presidential election in "Colonial Day". She also encouraged Saul Tigh to enforce martial law in Season Two.

Still, none of these events really screamed out to me that she's the Final Cylon. What convinced me was Ronald D. Moore's statement that the Final Cylon has a choice to make, Cylons or Humans. Sorry, I can't remember when or where RDM made that statement. I think its in one of the podcasts but I could be wrong. Wherever I got that statement from, it stuck with me as a significant clue. You see, in order for the Final Cylon to make an informed choice for or against Humanity, he/she has to have significant interaction with both factions, but yet isn't biased towards either party.

Most of the cast of Battlestar Galactica are already heavily biased to either Humans (most of the Galactica crew and pilots) or Cylons (most of the Cylons). So, it is relatively easy to figure out the ones who are still on the fence. Namely civilians like Gaius Baltar, Doc Cottle, Billy, and of course Ellen Tigh. I also briefly considered Athena too, but she seem to have an alternate destiny so I ruled her out.

"And the fifth, still in shadow, will claw toward the light, hungering for redemption that will only come in the howl of terrible suffering. " -- Hybrid's Prediction from Razor

That was my final clue. Not only is the Final Cylon to judge for or against humanity, the Final Cylon comes with a huge bundle of suffering. Gaius Baltar is the obvious fit here, having been the person who killed off most of Humanity. However, he doesn't seem to be suffering that much especially on New Caprica. Ellen on the other hand, was caught in a grinder between humans and cylons. She forced herself to sleep with Cavil-the-cylon just to save her husband. And Ellen paid the final indignity of having her husband being forced to kill her.

Since I made that prediction all the way in 2007, several events that unfolded in 2008 only served to solidify my prediction. There's the Last Supper picture which confirmed who wasn't the Final Cylon. The biggest event was Saul Tigh being revealed as a Cylon! That really ups the personal stakes. Boy oh boy, what a grinder Ellen is in now. If she chooses against the Cylons, does it mean Saul has to die?

At any rate, it is quite obvious now that Ellen possesses her own regeneration technology from 2000 years ago. She regenerated herself, Saul, Tyrol, Anders and Tory. She regenerated herself on New Caprica, and she regenerated Starbuck on Earth. Does that mean Kara Thrace the new 13th Cylon model? O.o

Its time for another piece of speculation on my part. You see,, one day I read about some non-BSG news, but something clicked in my head. News came along that Alessandro Toreson was cast in the role of Zoe Greystone in the BSG spin-off series, Caprica. I looked for her pictures on the web and what I found is shown on the right. Doesn't she bear a strong resemblance to Ellen Tigh (Kate Vernon)? What if Ellen Tigh isn't just the Final Cylon but actually the First Cylon - Zoe Greystone? This idea resonates so strongly with Battlestar Galactica's theme, "Its all happened before and will all happen again", that I can't help but feel that Ellen Tigh IS Zoe Greystone.

And with that little bit of speculation, I shall end this post.

Today, my daily news network brought me to a blog post titled Automatic Game Design. The idea is novel and interesting from a researcher's perspective. It examines the theories of Ralph Koster and Juergen Schmidhuber, that one of the main contribution to the fun factor of games is the learnability factor. That is, fun games that those that are easy to learn but hard to master.

The theory is put to test by conducting an experiment with a game that is set up as a sequential series of possible moves an agent (player) can make. At the end of the game, the agent is given a score. Pacman is an example of a game that fits this scenario. The experiment pits a random agent that make random choices against a learning agent (eg, neural net, SVM, reinforcement learner) that tries to improve its score over time. If the learning agent consistently gets a better score compared to the random agent, the game is said to be learnable and therefore fun.

The idea is interesting, however neither the blog nor the paper has given any concrete evidence that learnable games areindeed fun games. For example, chess is a game that is eminentably learnable, but it is not necessarily a universally fun game for everyone. Thus, it ends up being a test of whether a game is learnable but there is much doubt as to whether said game is fun.