She's a mess, and can be mean, and unfaithful, and drunk, and self-destructive, and is the baddest ass pilot the Galactica will ever see, and is so brave she moves me to tears. If she's a skinjob, it's going to be really hard for me to care about her in the same way.

On the one hand, I agree with this (though I'm also liking the idea of her being a human/Cylon hybrid) -- but one of the most interesting things to me about this whole series is how much the Cylons want to be human, and how close they actually are to humanity. So in a way, I think it would be pretty cool for Starbuck, with all her painfully human characteristics and contradictions, to be a Cylon as well; it would prove that there really is no difference between the two. And that would change the dynamic of the show considerably, I think -- at least for me.

I'm with those saying there's no way she's dead. The shot of her hand on the eject lever wasn't an accident.

Anyway, great episode, and I'm glad of it after the last few weeks of suck. Actually, I didn't hate the previous episode, just the final 10-15 minutes of it. I loved everything before that, though.

I was too preoccupied by how nasty it must taste.

I was thinking that if they ingest the paint, they could die. Unless they're Cylons.

You don't think that the shot of her hand on the eject lever was to show that she knew she had a choice? But that she chose NOT to use the lever?

I know what you mean, Kate, which is largely why I'm not trying to take a stance such as, "If she's a Cylon, I'll nevah watch again!!!!11" It's just my feeling going in, but I'm not married to it.

So in a way, I think it would be pretty cool for Starbuck, with all her painfully human characteristics and contradictions, to be a Cylon as well; it would prove that there really is no difference between the two. And that would change the dynamic of the show considerably, I think -- at least for me.

In another sense, I kind of feel like we've already gotten this story with Sharon/Boomer/Athena -- and how love made her an actual velveteen rabbit, or at least indistinguishable from them. Thinking it over, I don't think the possiblity that we will get a hybrid story pre-disappoints me as much as the possibility that she's a Cylon.

That she is a Cylon though (or hybrid) is what makes the most sense to me, going in, because it makes sense of so much of what Leoben was always telling her.

You don't think that the shot of her hand on the eject lever was to show that she knew she had a choice? But that she chose NOT to use the lever?

This is what I thought, sumi.

Would the ejection have saved her? I guess if she were rescued by a raider, but my impression was that the planet was inhospitable to life for one reason or another.

Heroes: If Claude had known someone with Peter's powers, then that'd be the first duplication we've seen, right?

Yes.

Well, he said he knew an empath - didn't he? Perhaps not all empaths manifest quite the way Peter does, though.

This is what I thought, sumi.

Not I, though. In the spirit of the slight revisionism of the end of the episode where Roslin & Zarek get shot vs. the beginning of the next episode where Chief & his merry band rescues them, I think they're going to begin the sequence explaining what happens to Starbuck by showing her ejecting. And then being rescued by the Millenium Falcon or something.

I dislike the term empath used to describe Peter, because he's not empathic.

I wish Starbuck is dead, but I know she's not. I don't like her. She became one note for me long ago--the tortured nutso maverick soldier. Yeah, many words, one note.

I figure she'll be back, and the least I can hope for is that it makes me dislike her less.

I don't think she's a Cylon - it's too ordinary for all the destiny stuff, like someone said above. The hybrid idea sounds more like it, and I think it could be cool. She's not dead dead. Maybe just dead. But am I right in thinking that she's the "one of them dies" from the promos? Am still wondering who the "realizes they're [ouch] a Cylon" is. (ETA: Though, if she were a hybrid, I guess you could tweak that to cover her, too. Hmm. Don't think so, though.)

But am I right in thinking that she's the "one of them dies" from the promos?

Yeah, I think that's a safe bet.