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20 Possible Battlestar Galactica Endings, All of Them Hideously Depressing


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By Shaun Clayton

The end of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica is near after almost five years of quality television. For the cynics, the expectations are pretty high for an utterly depressing conclusion to the utterly depressing series. For the optimists…what show have you been watching? BSG has been nothing but sadness and death and failure and devastation throughout its four seasons — and with only four episodes to go, we sincerely doubt they’re going to stop now. Based on the incredibly tragic events that have happened so far, here are 20 potential conclusions to this series. Bring a hanky.



20) Kara Thrace accepts her role as the destroyer of humanity, loads up a raptor full of nukes, destroys Galactica and most of the fleet. Those who escape, including Lee Adama, succumb to a horrible disease within days that causes everyone to die horribly, with massive boils all over their bodies and blood shooting out of their eyeballs.

19) Galactica continues to wander aimlessly through space. Most of the people on the ship have killed themselves. Admiral Adama takes a gun and shoots everyone in the CIC on Galactica, then has the ship smash into a nearby planet. Panning away we see that the planet was Mars.

18) The non-humanoid Cylons rebel against Cavil. He and his fellow humanoid Cylons seek refuge with Galactica and Admiral Adama willingly accepts. Without the interference of the humanoid Cylons, the non-humanoid Cylons quickly and efficiently destroy the fleet and the few surviving humans.

17) Roslin has a vision that there is a place that everyone will find sanctuary. She knows the location, and we watch her spend the entire last episode trying to convince the fleet to follow her. After an emotional, heartfelt speech to the fleet, everyone follows her lead. She inputs a series of coordinates for the jump and the fleet ends up outside the event horizon of a black hole, unable to escape. Roslin then adlibs that they will soon “Find sanctuary in heaven!” The last few minutes involve every ship being ripped apart and people screaming.

16) The Fleet finally finds a habitable planet to land on. Everyone, human and Cylon, put down their weapons and join together to build a future together in peace. They are soon attacked on the planet by the indigenous life forms, bone-devouring giant worms. Since they no longer have weapons, nobody can defend themselves. The last hour of the series is filled with groups of people running from the worms  and failing, then getting their bones sucked out and eaten with horrible crunching sounds.

15) The Arrow of Apollo, when placed in a giant barrel of water, ends up pointing in the direction of Earth, the real Earth, like a compass. Following its guidance, the Fleet ends up on Caprica, which turns out to have been Earth all along. There is a suggestion to go to a third place called “Terra,” according to an ancient stone tablet found on New Caprica. Admiral Adama says “Frak this,” and shoots himself in the head.

14) A switch goes off in everyone’s head and everyone can hear the tune of Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Boxer.” It is then realized that everyone in the fleet is really a Cylon. Another pre-programmed switch goes off and everyone gathers what ever ropes, wire or clothing strong enough to support their weight and hangs themselves. The show ends with an hour-long montage of everyone’s hanging dead bodies with moaning choral music playing in the background.

13) Baltar’s followers take over the fleet and he promises to lead them all to “a new promised land.” A lone marine shoot Baltar in the chest. As Baltar lays dying, Six appears and tells him that he is “The Chosen One because without him the universe doesn’t exist.” As he dies, the universe disappears. His last thoughts are “I knew it, the universe revolves around me!” The song over the closing credits is entitled “Baltar is Awesome” sung by Amy Winehouse.

12) Galen has a vision of a future in which babies are made into robots on a giant assembly line. Kara has a vision of the past in which she is made of a lot of smaller robots. Adama has a vision in which he is fighting the Cylons in the first Cylon War. Roslin has a vision of a far away and powerful land where nobody ever dies, nobody ever gets sick. Lee has a vision of Dee dancing on the head of a pin. Soon everyone realizes that they are all dying due to a lack of oxygen and are suffering severe brain damage. Before they can do anything, Baltar has a vision that he sets off a nuclear bomb in Galactica’s hangar bay, which turns out not to be a vision. The whole thing turns out to be a vision of Tricia Helfer who finds herself disconnected from a life support machine after falling and hitting her head on a table during the filming of the 2004 T.V. mini-Series for Galactica. She is replaced by Anna Torv.

11) The ship runs out of algae. Order breaks down as the remaining humans turn to cannibalism to survive. Adama is forced to eat Roslin, and cries while eating her. It is revealed that the only difference between humans and humanoid Cylons is that the Cylons have a delicious “ranch” flavor.

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10) The ruined Earth is turned to a paradise through the use of a device called a “rejuvinator.” Everyone stands there on the new planet, happy, hopeful for the future. Lee Adama says “We’re safe” and Kara Thrace adds “But…for how long?” In the shadows a cloaked figure with a glowing, sweeping eye is watching. Fade to black.

9) Admiral Adama makes a speech to the fleet that perhaps that their search for a planet to live on was a “foolish notion” and that the only home they need is right there on the fleet. He then proposes that the fleet stop searching for a home and that they merely join together in brotherhood with everyone sharing to meet their basic needs. All enlisted personnel are asked to put down their weapons and start learning folk songs and start making granola. The Admiral is thrown out an airlock.

8) Cavil’s Cylons slowly pick off the other ships in the human fleet until there is only Galactica left. The Galactica is forced to surrender, and the Cylons methodically execute the remaining humans, leaving Starbuck for last. She’s brought before Cavil, who rips off his face to reveal that he is in fact Dirk Benedict. He whispers, “It should have been me,” then shoots her in the face.

7) Cylons lead by Cavil are about to destroy Galactica when a group of teenagers and their talking dog reveal that Cavil orchestrated his elaborate plan to drive everyone off of New Caprica and destroy them so that his Ice Cream Shop would be the only one on the planet. Old Man Cavil says “I would have gotten away with it too if it wasn’t for you meddling kids!” Everyone laughs. The talking dog falls over for no reason.

6) The fleet finally finds a new, hospitable planet to settle on. Just before they land, Baltar runs to meet Admiral Adama, slips, and his hand accidentally falls on the prominent red “Self-Destruct” button. The resulting chain reaction takes out the entire fleet.

5) Cavil and his Cylons surround Galactica and are about to finish everyone off when Lee Adama suggests that they have a “dance-off” to decide who the ultimate winner in the war is. Kara has a crisis of confidence, but once she finds the confidence to believe in herself through a montage, the people of Galactica win the dance-off and the Cylons “get served.”

4) The ship runs out of booze. Adama and Tigh, seeing rainbow-colored bugs
everywhere thanks to the D.T.s, go on a shooting spree and murder
everyone onboard the Galactica.

3) The last episode features Ronald D. Moore appearing on camera. He says, “Well, we’ve all had a good run, haven’t we? Let us just not end the series at all, and just hold this good feeling in our hearts forever.” Ronald D. Moore then just stares at the camera for three hours.

2) There is an amazing, well written ending to the show that ties many discreet plot elements together that nobody expects, but the Sci-Fi Channel refuses to broadcast it until 2015. In the meantime, there are seventeen different Galactica-related spinoffs to watch, all of them terrible.

1) It is decided that the fans will write the last episode. A Wiki is set up where anyone can contribute to the script. The server crashes for a week before enough capacity is added to allow for the millions of hits. After a week-long window of contributions, the script is finalized and the last episode consists of three hours of space battles against a planet-sized centurion robot and a lesbian four-way between Six, Kara, Athena and another Six. And then they die.