And they have a plan.

Sorry, don't buy it. Every episode since "Water" has opened with that little teaser "pre-cap" about the Cylons. How they rebelled, evolved, and have a plan. Looking back over the season I don't see a plan. And it is very telling to me that this opening was not present in "33", which tells me that at the time of the episode Moore did not know they had a plan. He decided they did AFTER that. The problem with this is that the entire season arc feels disconnected from the miniseries because the miniseries no longer fits in the plan.

Just what is this plan? We have no real idea. But apparently it must have something to do with God, Helo, and love. On Caprica, Helo was allowed to live so that he and Sharon could fall in love and have babies. That's it? Let's break this all down a bit. First, the love. What is so important about love to the Cylons? Six talks about love with Baltar too. I suppose it ties in with the God stuff since "God is love" (1 John 4:8). I think Six even quotes that at some point. So on one hand, if the Cylons truly want to get close to God, I can see where, on the basis of this verse, they would want to love. John writes "Everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love." Let's put aside the fact that this is Earth scripture and they don't have it. We'll assume it applies thematically. So the Cylons want to please God, and perhaps feel that they can only do that by loving. The question then becomes where did their knowledge of God come from? What began this desire? Let's not forget they are machines. Essentially this is the old "robot learns to love" story that goes back to Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Pinocchio. Why then does it matter that Helo loves Sharon? Must they be able to give and receive love for it to count?

Then there's the pregnancy angle. Is this simply the highest expression of love? Is Sharon havin' Helo's baby 'cause it's a "lovely way to say how much she loves" him? No, not really. Are the Cylons trying to become more human? I'm really sketchy on even the possibility of the Cylons and humans conceiving; bear in mind that they are still machines, aren't they? They may look and feel human, but why would they be built with functioning ovaries? I'm really hoping this turns out to be a lie. Assuming it isn't, we have Cylons who have made themselves humanoid; they now want to bear their own part-human life. Again, if they have functioning reproductive systems, why aren't they just coupling with each other? Does this not work? Do they need fresh living DNA? And after Six snapped the neck of that baby in the miniseries, do we really trust Cylons with children?

And here's the big question: if their plan is to conceive a Cylon-human hybrid baby, then WHY DID THEY NUKE HUMANITY?? Think about it. Six was living on Caprica, had this relationship with Baltar, and no one knew she was a Cylon. Why not just put Cylons like that surreptitiously on the Twelve Colonies and try to conceive that way? We know they are very good at hiding people in plain sight. There have been at least four Cylons on the rag-tag fleet. This strikes me as totally viable. Especially if the models seeking pregnancy are sleeper agents who don't know they are Cylons. They could get married and have children thinking everything's wonderful; THEN you activate them, they kill they husbands, leave the planet and blow it up. See what I mean? This does not strike me as a race with a plan. It seems like an experiment of a few rogue Cylons on Caprica who didn't know what else to do with the world once they took it.

In the original series, it was clear that the Cylons hated humans and wanted to subjugate or kill them all so they would have dominion over the universe. I don't know why the current Cylons are after the humans. Why do they want to destroy Galactica? Or do they? Six has been maneuvering Baltar to politcal power, but for what purpose? I railed against the "machine rises against the master" theme of the miniseries. It is lame and tired, but at least I understand it. I don't know where that fits in with things now. Because despite the Helo/Sharon stuff on Caprica, and the weird Six/Baltar relationship, there have been other Cylon forces at work in the fleet, and they are always destructive. Boomer threatened their water supply. There was the suicide bomber (who's purpose I still don't know). The point being that the Cylons seem to want to wipe out the fleet, or at least severly cripple it. This seems at odds with the rest of the goings on. My problem with it all is that I no longer understand the Cylon motivation, if ever I did. Why wipe out humanity if you are trying to emulate them? Are they simply trying to replace humanity? If so, it would have made more sense to have all their ducks in a row before they exterminated humans.

The story is supposed to be about a fugitive fleet on a quest for Earth. I suppose to a lesser extent it's about war with the Cylons. But the precap throws that away. Everything there is from the Cylon point of view. Humans made Cylons, and then they evolved, rebelled, made many copies that look human, and have a plan. It paints the CYLONS as the main characters. The show is about them. The old show was about "brothers of man far beyond the heavens". This is about Cylons with a plan. But as I've iterated above, they don't really seem to have a plan. I very much doubt this will all make sense. The text may tell me every episode that they have a plan, but I will believe it when I see it. They seem to be going through an awful lot of trouble with Helo. Are there similar efforts with other humans on Caprica? Surely he's not the only one. I cannot see one unified plan among the Cylons. Will the story make more sense as we head into season two? I don't know. I hope so, but I really don't think so. So far, it definitely feels like we were told they Cylons had a plan long before the writers did.