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Once upon a time, I had math in school. I also moonlighted as a graduate student in history.
I have brought both to bear on this. So BE AFRAID. :)
No spoilers I can think of. A whole lot of speculation, however.
This all started because I was working with the timeline for the exodus of the 13th tribe from Kobol. There are several canon dates given for this event. So, last night, I had an idea on how to make them work without having to write them off as error. The theory went that perhaps the 13 and the Colonials left more or less at the same time 4000 years ago (within a hundred years of each other or so - we know the 13th left first). And then, because they went sublight, it took the 12 2000 years to REACH the Colonies, and that's why Elosha tells us the Exodus of "all the tribes" was 2000 years ago, really meaning when the Twelve arrived in the Colonies. (NOTE: the Thirteenth had to use FTL to get the algae planet in time for that date to be true, however)
So I did math trying to figure out if that made any sense. Which mathematically, yes, I think so. In two thousand years they could get about 1300 light years going about 80% the speed of light (which I pulled for comparison sake). Which is not that far, galactic-scale wise, and therefore could make sense that the 12 tribes simply puttered on their way to the new Colonies.
Except, alas, it doesn't work.
There is a third date from AMoS, when the beacon is said to be from "from the time of the 13th Tribe's exodus from Kobol 3000 years ago". Ordinarily I would think the date has been superceded by the two dates given in EoJ/Rapture of 4000 years ago and write it off an as error, that it should've said 4000 years ago, to match with the Temple. However, we can also guess the 13th came BACK to Kobol - that's how Kobol got that nifty star map, plus (probably) how Pythia knew about funky things like the Lion's Head Nebula.
So here's a possible reconciliation of all the dates, which isn't much different from what I've seen elsewhere (and sadly requires no exponents) but puts them into a narrative:
Four thousand years ago, the 13th Tribe left Kobol, in FTL ships. Now the 13th Tribe may or may not have been some kind of Cylon yet, but they most certainly were religious 'heretics', and that, I'm guessing is why they left. This was around the same time as the Ionian Supernova was seen on Kobol. Along the way, they pass the Lion's Head nebula and go to the algae planet where they stay for a little while. Now they are smart cookies (they have FTL, after all), and they can tell the sun is going to go nova "soonish". Which to them is a frakking SIGN, especially if the Ionian Nebula was seen as some kind of portent or blessing for their journey. So they build a temple to help those who are going to follow them and point the right way. (cuz these 13 Tribe folk WANT the poor unenlightened masses of Kobol to follow THEM, after all.)
But the algae planet is just a rest-stop and they pack up again and head for the Ionian nebula. However, we know one thing - Earth, the nebula, and the Eye of Jupiter do NOT make up a straight line, because otherwise Roslin's course to Earth would have been correct. So the Thirteenth wanders around for a little while looking for Earth and when they find it, they set up another directional beacon, toward the nebula. And the 13th go to Earth and live happily. Then some of them decide to check up on their lost cousins and go back to Kobol.
This is about 3600 years ago, and one of these 13th Tribe members was Pythia (or Pythia knew one of them). But the 13th tribe is still full of their heresy, worshipping one god and stuff, and they start making converts (and I will guess right now that those converts include people who want HEAVEN when they die, and not to simply go around the circle again).
There is a great deal of unpleasantness. The 13th leaves - 3000 years ago - and says good riddance. On their way out, not far away, they leave another beacon near the Lion's Head Nebula to go with Pythia's writings, just in case anyone is going to follow them someday. They leave behind a few sects of pseudo-heretics, perhaps secret worshippers of "the One who must not be named".
And then, a thousand years pass on Kobol. That secret sect then maybe stops wanting to be secret - or maybe the ruling elite on Kobol decide the sect has a lot of money or too much influence or whatever, and starts persecuting them. Whatever. In the end, there is a war and Kobol is mostly uninhabitable. Athena is sad and throws herself off a cliff (let's just take moment to appreciate that we're now talking about at least 2000 years of history on Kobol - she may have been a person and that's how she can die, as Sharon tells us, but she was also distinctly immortal in some sense).
As the 12 tribes get ready to leave, someone builds her a tomb. And they make an elaborate hologram keyed to the Arrow of Apollo with the star map left behind by the 13th Tribe, pointing the way to Earth, and their cousins who left 1000 years ago, somewhere out there. Which, raises the interesting question on why two distinctly Kobolian religious artifacts (namely the Arrow and Athena's tomb) would point the way to their apostate cousins. Someone was planning ahead.
Note that this does NOT get into any of my Cylon/spiritual spec because that's a bit more spoilery.
But I do think that EoJ/Rapture should be taken as the canon point of departure for the 13th tribe. That's when RDM was setting up the Five, and is presumably the date which everything written afterward is going to use.
I have brought both to bear on this. So BE AFRAID. :)
No spoilers I can think of. A whole lot of speculation, however.
This all started because I was working with the timeline for the exodus of the 13th tribe from Kobol. There are several canon dates given for this event. So, last night, I had an idea on how to make them work without having to write them off as error. The theory went that perhaps the 13 and the Colonials left more or less at the same time 4000 years ago (within a hundred years of each other or so - we know the 13th left first). And then, because they went sublight, it took the 12 2000 years to REACH the Colonies, and that's why Elosha tells us the Exodus of "all the tribes" was 2000 years ago, really meaning when the Twelve arrived in the Colonies. (NOTE: the Thirteenth had to use FTL to get the algae planet in time for that date to be true, however)
So I did math trying to figure out if that made any sense. Which mathematically, yes, I think so. In two thousand years they could get about 1300 light years going about 80% the speed of light (which I pulled for comparison sake). Which is not that far, galactic-scale wise, and therefore could make sense that the 12 tribes simply puttered on their way to the new Colonies.
Except, alas, it doesn't work.
There is a third date from AMoS, when the beacon is said to be from "from the time of the 13th Tribe's exodus from Kobol 3000 years ago". Ordinarily I would think the date has been superceded by the two dates given in EoJ/Rapture of 4000 years ago and write it off an as error, that it should've said 4000 years ago, to match with the Temple. However, we can also guess the 13th came BACK to Kobol - that's how Kobol got that nifty star map, plus (probably) how Pythia knew about funky things like the Lion's Head Nebula.
So here's a possible reconciliation of all the dates, which isn't much different from what I've seen elsewhere (and sadly requires no exponents) but puts them into a narrative:
Four thousand years ago, the 13th Tribe left Kobol, in FTL ships. Now the 13th Tribe may or may not have been some kind of Cylon yet, but they most certainly were religious 'heretics', and that, I'm guessing is why they left. This was around the same time as the Ionian Supernova was seen on Kobol. Along the way, they pass the Lion's Head nebula and go to the algae planet where they stay for a little while. Now they are smart cookies (they have FTL, after all), and they can tell the sun is going to go nova "soonish". Which to them is a frakking SIGN, especially if the Ionian Nebula was seen as some kind of portent or blessing for their journey. So they build a temple to help those who are going to follow them and point the right way. (cuz these 13 Tribe folk WANT the poor unenlightened masses of Kobol to follow THEM, after all.)
But the algae planet is just a rest-stop and they pack up again and head for the Ionian nebula. However, we know one thing - Earth, the nebula, and the Eye of Jupiter do NOT make up a straight line, because otherwise Roslin's course to Earth would have been correct. So the Thirteenth wanders around for a little while looking for Earth and when they find it, they set up another directional beacon, toward the nebula. And the 13th go to Earth and live happily. Then some of them decide to check up on their lost cousins and go back to Kobol.
This is about 3600 years ago, and one of these 13th Tribe members was Pythia (or Pythia knew one of them). But the 13th tribe is still full of their heresy, worshipping one god and stuff, and they start making converts (and I will guess right now that those converts include people who want HEAVEN when they die, and not to simply go around the circle again).
There is a great deal of unpleasantness. The 13th leaves - 3000 years ago - and says good riddance. On their way out, not far away, they leave another beacon near the Lion's Head Nebula to go with Pythia's writings, just in case anyone is going to follow them someday. They leave behind a few sects of pseudo-heretics, perhaps secret worshippers of "the One who must not be named".
And then, a thousand years pass on Kobol. That secret sect then maybe stops wanting to be secret - or maybe the ruling elite on Kobol decide the sect has a lot of money or too much influence or whatever, and starts persecuting them. Whatever. In the end, there is a war and Kobol is mostly uninhabitable. Athena is sad and throws herself off a cliff (let's just take moment to appreciate that we're now talking about at least 2000 years of history on Kobol - she may have been a person and that's how she can die, as Sharon tells us, but she was also distinctly immortal in some sense).
As the 12 tribes get ready to leave, someone builds her a tomb. And they make an elaborate hologram keyed to the Arrow of Apollo with the star map left behind by the 13th Tribe, pointing the way to Earth, and their cousins who left 1000 years ago, somewhere out there. Which, raises the interesting question on why two distinctly Kobolian religious artifacts (namely the Arrow and Athena's tomb) would point the way to their apostate cousins. Someone was planning ahead.
Note that this does NOT get into any of my Cylon/spiritual spec because that's a bit more spoilery.
But I do think that EoJ/Rapture should be taken as the canon point of departure for the 13th tribe. That's when RDM was setting up the Five, and is presumably the date which everything written afterward is going to use.
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You see, unlike people who get frustrated with retcons and refinements (and characters who LIE), I like the challenge of it. Because, quite often, fans just don't try hard enough to put it together and/or they get attached to their fanon and FORGET the real canon (e.g. all the fans who STILL believe Tigh and Adama met during the first cylon war). But canon's canon, and I find outliers become more interesting if I try to explain them, rather than write them off as mistakes.
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