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An angel?

Towards the end of the Battlestar Gallactica remake she "died" then came back, only to vanish when talking to Lee in the final episode.

UPDATE: All great answers below but I gotta give the check to the one that I think is right, though any could be strong contenders.

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should probably have a spoiler alert (although it's been over for a year or more) – John Jan 19 '11 at 16:19
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If this was english.stackexchange, I'd answer: The first mate of Ahab on the Pequod in Moby Dick. ;-) – ewindisch Jan 19 '11 at 17:58
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This spoiler box does not work at all. Because when you see this in Questions page, the spoiler text is in the summary for this question. You are spoiled even if you don't come to this page :( – R. Martinho Fernandes Jan 20 '11 at 2:38
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That was added in there by another user, but I'm open to suggestions on how to fix it? – Slick23 Jan 20 '11 at 2:38
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she was one of the white mice ;) – Muad'Dib Feb 28 '11 at 6:04
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10 Answers

up vote 28 down vote accepted

I had assumed she was an angel, or maybe something like a Seraph. The latter would make a nice tie-in to the original series.

Of course, it could easily be she was a loose plot thread. We certainly have no shortage of those in modern TV serials.

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I too, assumed this. That she was homage to the ... what were they called ... Beings of Light or something like that, in the original series. – Slick23 Jan 19 '11 at 16:57
up vote 58 down vote

I believe that Starbuck was a loose plot thread that the writers had a difficult time tying up in a meaningful way.

The problem probably all started when the staff killed Starbuck off, which worked great dramatically until they realized they lost one of the show's most popular characters. Then the writers brought Starbuck back with a great mysterious resurrection, making viewers believe she might be a Cylon. So I'm sure the writers sat around and tried to think up what would top being a Cylon. And unfortunately they couldn't think of anything so they just BSed their way through the last episode.

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Almost certainly. Having been in a few writer's rooms, this is exactly how it goes. If they had some awesome solution, they would have made DAMN sure we all knew what the deal was. – DampeS8N Jan 19 '11 at 16:56
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That unexplained downvote was "cold as iicccceeeeee!" – Mark Rogers Jan 19 '11 at 18:35
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Nonsense. She had "a destiny" all the way through, and when she died the angel Leoben was trying to get her over her fear of death so that she could be reborn and become an angel/guide/whatever. She was to meet the other angels ("they're waiting for me") in order to get on with her destiny. At no stage in Maelstrom did this seem ambiguous, so it's odd that you think the writers just "made it up" an entire two calendar years later. – Lightness Races in Orbit Mar 11 '11 at 10:58
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@TomalakGeret'kal: My impression was that other than the rockin' final battle, I felt the explanation was anti-climatic and mostly unsatisfying. – Mark Rogers Jun 17 '11 at 5:03
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@Tomalak - I'm not trying to make you angry, but the top voted answer with +33 upvotes is rarely inflammatory nonsense. – Mark Rogers Jun 17 '11 at 14:24
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up vote 29 down vote

I've always figured she was the same thing that Head Six and Head Baltar were. Only visible to everyone and unaware of her own status. And Baltar's line at the end when Six calls their boss "god" seemed to suggest that whatever it was, it wasn't god.

You know it doesn't like to be called that.

So it seems she was the creation of some sort of very powerful godlike entity. I imagined it as something like the ascended from Stargate. Energy being perhaps. And Head Six, Head Baltar, and Starbuck were all probably also similar beings -- only with out awareness of their abilities.

This is of course, total speculation. Which is about all any of us can provide in answer unless some book or interview has provided a solid answer.

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While I think Mark Rogers explanation is closer to the truth in reality (what others sometimes call 'Our reality'). Your answer is what I figured for the BSG reality. – user296 Jan 19 '11 at 16:30
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Oh, Mark Roger's answer is absolutely the answer for our reality. But I figured the question was about BSG reality. ;) – Daniel Bingham Jan 19 '11 at 16:31
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i like your answer, however in an VH1 interview Ronald D. Moore said she isn't a common hallucination, so it won't be the ultimate answer although it would explain her role. I guess shes more of an jesus-like prophet - jesus was a prophet too and revived from the dead, making him the salvator. – Samuel Herzog Jan 19 '11 at 16:37
@Samuel Yes, but you could be misinterpreting RDM: I always assumed that Head Baltar and Head Six were more than just hallucinations. – Glen Wheeler Apr 13 '11 at 10:21
Yes! They're called Seraphs in the original BSG and played a much larger role there. Their functional equivalent would be descended Ancients with temporary amnesia in the SG-1 universe. – Theodore R. Smith Feb 5 '12 at 5:04
up vote 8 down vote

I thought, too, that she was an Angel in keeping in line with the original series.

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up vote 7 down vote

Starbuck was originally a human soldier who died in a crash landing of her viper on Earth, after flying there through the eye of the storm. The Starbuck that returns after her disappearance is not Starbuck at all, but an angel of death in Starbuck's form, sent by God to lead the colonists to Earth and ultimately to help bring about the destruction of cylons and humans alike, save for the few settlers of New Earth.

A.K.A. Deus ex machina

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This has many loose ends, like her connection with Leobin, the drawing of the Vortex, especially as a child, etc. I think she just had far less amnesia as to her true purpose after she was reinserted into their space/time dimension. – Theodore R. Smith Feb 5 '12 at 5:06
up vote 5 down vote

I somehow had a theory that she was the child of the lost Cylon, who somehow mysteriously re-appeared. Again, this is just speculation, but that was always my thought.

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The episode where she has a vision of her dad playing the piano led me to the same idea. But RDM denied that her dad was the lost Cylon skinjob Daniel. – Keen♦ Mar 9 '11 at 22:24
I was thinking the same thing. Not only would it tie up nearly everything from before the Writer's Strike very neatly, it would've given them an amazing chance to show history repeating itself by placing the remake into the same continuity as the original... – Izkata Dec 16 '11 at 3:08
up vote 5 down vote

IMHO I think Starbuck resurrected as an angel, Cylon-resurrection wouldn't explain the new Viper :s

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Why would the Cylons fail to build a new viper? – Tshepang Dec 29 '11 at 9:07
up vote 4 down vote

I had always thought she was the daughter of a Daniel the 7th cylon. So she might have been the first cylon human hybrid. Explaining her resurection / dead body on the cylon homeworld requires about as many blue berry muffins as the Angel theory.

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The episode where she has a vision of her dad playing the piano led me to the same idea. But RDM denied that her dad was the lost Cylon skinjob Daniel. (yes, I posted this to two answers.) – Keen♦ Mar 9 '11 at 22:25
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This would have been a great way to resolve the plot thread! – Wikis Sep 30 '11 at 6:49
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In the BSG universe

  • "angels" like Head(s) Six and Balthar are possible, though invisible and perhaps immaterial, yet
  • humans can "walk with the gods" on Kobol, and the gods can subsequently escort the survivors of said humans to new solar systems (presumably being material in the process, and perhaps visible)

If those two sorts of beings are both possible, then why presume that Starbuck was an angel. Why couldn't her nature be the same as the nature of the Lords of Kobol (though no doubt of lesser degree)?

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They called them Seraphs, and, yes, the Heads, Lords, and Starbuck are probably the same class of entities. – Theodore R. Smith Feb 5 '12 at 5:08
up vote -3 down vote

What if Starbuck simply became a Cylon (with the same lack of self-awareness as the sleepers)? The show's tech existed for genetic cloning, so it would be fairly simple for the Cylons to get a DNA sample & make another model...

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