Mon Mar 15 10, 12:29PM‘Caprica’ blogging: “The Imperfections of Memory”
(previous: “Know Thy Enemy”)
(lots of spoilers! assumes you’ve seen the episode!)
(and eliminate forever ads like the one that used to be here)
Ah, so all this Zoe-avatar stuff is about “resurrection.” “Zoe is the mother of life everlasting,” says Clarice -- whoa. Is this where the notion came from, that we might all live forever after we die: from cyber tech and virtual worlds? Actually, if there’s gonna be a way of living forever, it probably will happen when we can download our consciousness (if it’s even doable) and can shuck our meatbodies. As long as we remember to back ourselves up once in a while.
Unless, of course, the V-afterlife is as unforgiving as the organic one. When you game-over in New Cap City, they’re not kidding: you’re done. (I don’t know whether to feel sorry for Joseph’s guide, the kid who is obsessed with the game, for getting “killed,” or if I should suspect that he might get himself a real life now. On the other hand, should we stop saying that the V-world isn’t real life after all? Oh, the paradigm play that’s going on in this show: I love it.)
See, cuz here’s Amanda, who once had “trouble coping with reality” and seems to be having that same trouble again. What’s real, anyway? Is this all laying the ground for Amanda to she freak the frak out for sure if/when she sees Zoe, in the V-world or somehow crossed back over into the real world (like via a skinjob body)? Or is the Darius she’s seeing some sort of avatar? Is he living forever in the V-world and has somehow found a way back? But that can’t be, though, right? The holoband technology isn’t that old...
Random thoughts on “The Imperfections of Memory”:
• I had to freeze-frame on the old letter than Amanda pulls out of the book after her bad dream, to see the address (it was from “Delphi Convalescent Institute”) and -- I’d hoped -- the stamp. I demand a future closeup on old Caprican postage stamps.
• The workman moving the memorial stuff recognizes Clarice as a “sister” -- how? Does her awesome coat somehow signify “clerical” at a glance the way that, say, a priest’s collar would?
• How do Joseph and the Cap City addict kid get into the game together? Do people somehow slave their holobands together or something? Like how you can take your wii controller to a friend’s house and temporarily synchronize it will another console?
• All the shooting in New Cap City! It’s like Mafia Wars, but your Caprica-book status updates are a lot more serious.
• “Can’t we just fly?” Joseph is an old-style geek: he grew up on paper comic books and flat TV. He’s only just learning that pulp is now real, and has its own rules to follow. Somehow, though, I suspect he will tap into his inner Tauron and be just fine on his own in New Cap City...
• Doh! Daniel stole a broken chip from Vergis! (Abby Normal?)
• What’s the big deal about Geminon? Is it a hotbed of monotheism?
• The graffiti Joseph walks past in New Cap City: “This is not me, it’s just my body vehicle.” Pehaps Caprica should just be called Shucking the Meatbag...
• It’s an “old saying” on Caprica (or throughout the colonies?) that “all of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again”? Whoa.
(next: “Ghosts in the Machine”)
(Watch full episodes and get recaps at SyFy’s official site for the show.)
viewed at home on a small screenrated TV14-LV
official site | IMDB
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posted by JoshDM (Mon Mar 15 10, 12:36PM)
I think this was the best episode so far. Unfortunately, it took so long to get here.
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posted by JoshDM (Mon Mar 15 10, 12:38PM)
Also, the kid who got killed in New Cap City can still go into the virtual world. He just can't access the game/server that hosts New Cap City as a game participant.
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posted by JoshDM (Mon Mar 15 10, 12:40PM)
Gah, I gotta read in full before responding piecemeal.
It's probably more like a bluetooth connection, or how Nintendo DS's can detect each other within a certain range and they synch.
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posted by Isobel (Mon Mar 15 10, 12:43PM)
Clarice also has that huge silver ring, which I wondered might be a notifier of her status. I thought it was a wedding ring but none of her spouses seem to wear one. . . (unless they do and I'm being shockingly unobservant, which won't be the first time).
I'm a little confused about Lacy saying that she'd become an STO, I thought she already was? Or does whatsisname not know that, given that he seemed to be in a seperate 'cell' than Zoe? But then he does know Clarice because she warned him about the raid. . . (?)
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posted by Rob (Mon Mar 15 10, 12:53PM)
I think it might be more likely that he could be a messenger or angel, the same way Head!Six and Head!Baltar were in Battlestar Galactica, assuming that STO's One True God is the same as the Cylons' One True God from that show.
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posted by JoshDM (Mon Mar 15 10, 1:15PM)
Oh man.
What if, to explain all the people, all of the entirety of the world of the BSG / Caprica series is just one big New Cap City server itself, but no one knows so they play it straight?
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posted by Cheka (Mon Mar 15 10, 3:20PM)
Nice continuity nod... the Delphi Convalescent Institute? Same building the Cylons set up their "farm" in and kept Starbuck hostage in. Simon did mention in passing that it used to be a mental institution.
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posted by Knightgee (Mon Mar 15 10, 5:18PM)
I had originally thought that the search for eternal life would be how Cylons were born. The STO would all download themselves onto the net as avatars similar to Zoe's and try to live forever as virtual beings, only then to be enslaved and placed in robot bodies similar to hers, but the conversation she had with Philomon seems to indicate that the Cylons will be created from scratch and not pre-existing personalities.
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