BSG, Caprica and Avatars

So I haven't written a blog post in a couple of days. Mostly as I've been spending all my spare time watching Battlestar Galactica online. I finished the series on Friday. Started on Caprica yesterday and am liking and enjoying it just as much as I liked and enjoyed BSG.

The Taurons are portrayed like Italian mobsters from the 30s with their hats, suits, crime syndicate and especially "Little Tauron". Interesting to see that, coupled with futuristic-ish equipment and environments, yet the combination somehow still feels right. 

Hilarious to see dogs, cats, cars and refrigerators on Caprica that look *exactly* the same as they do in our world. Sure, humans having pets and keeping their food in a place where it won't spoil - logical for sure, however I'd expect things to look just a bit different, really. Star Trek's pet sehlats and targs seem more realistic, somehow. But then, the BSG-verse story is that the remnants of the human race settled on our earth and we are all their descendants, which would make a convincing argument for the existence of dogs and cats both on the Twelve Colonies and much later, here in our day and age. Refrigerators and cars that look exactly the same as the ones we currently use and know - I'm not too sure of that one, though!

Yes I know, I know - all of this has happened before, but still...

Either way - I am totally hooked on this new world with its own characters, religions, planets, culture and technology. Absolutely awesome creation, and one I definitely enjoy delving into! It reminds me a bit of a mix between The Sarah Connor Chronicles and The Vampire Diaries, strangely enough ;-)

One thing that got me thinking is a list of all the things used to help create an Avatar that the Zoe Avatar mentions to her / real Zoe's father. Hospital records, employment records, emails, that sort of thing. Makes me wonder how much of an accurate picture / representation of a person all those records make when put together.

Blog posts we write, Facebook groups we belong to, favourite videos on Youtube, online games we play, things we write in emails, hospital records, school records, employment records - all of those things put together, are they an actual representation of who we are and what we are interested in, what we care about and what matters to us? 

How often do we put on masks to hide our real selves from the outside world? How often do we make out to be braver or more confident to fool not only those around us, but ourselves as well? Do we exhibit that behaviour online as well as in face-to-face real-world situations? I think we do. OK, hospital records would be accurate as far as the physical world goes. Yet school records are only really a representation of how well one person dealt with a subject that is force-fed to every other child studying the same thing. I might get an A for English and a D for maths yet still be really good at maths and only average at English. Something like an exam grade doesn't have to accurately represent my confidence with the subject matter, it can be a reflection of the mood I was in the day I took the exam, the people around me, stress factors in my life or even my like or dislike of a particular teacher. 

Basically, there are so many things that influence who and what we are, that I'm thinking one would have to be a really, really, really good programmer to put those things together and create a virtual presence that resembles the human it was modelled on as accurately as Avatar Zoe mirrors real Zoe.

If someone created an Avatar based on you or me - what would that Avatar be like? How accurate a representation of the original would it be? Interesting thought to ponder - How much of what makes us who and what we are do we share with those around us and those close to us? And how much do we never share?