**warning, this post contains my personal views on similarities between the recent plotlines and activities in Galactica and with real world events in the middle east/US). **

Did anyone else watch the first two episodes of the new series on Sky this week?

If you haven't watched it yet and don't want it ruined then maybe don't read on. I'm not giving any direct plotlines away as such though.

And if you did watch it, did you sense the close similarities with the US and the Iraq/Afghanistan situations at present?

Although many probably wouldn't put two and two together and reach this conclusion I did, it was quite surprising that, being the way the US government is, they allowed the series to run such a close storyline to the real happenings of current problems in the middle east.

What are your thoughts on this?

For me it quite clearly showed a similar situation as the middle east but from the point of view from the other site with the humans being the nations of the middle east and the Cylons being the Americans invading and controlling the people of the region.

The cylons being suspicious of every human, rounding them up based on lists of names and taking them to secure holding areas for interrogation. Moving them to secure cells for further interrogation and torture. (Guantanamo bay?) Suppressing the humans right to practice their beliefs or social behaviour. (US forcing country to rule using democracy under christian beliefs?)

And the Human's carrying out bombing raids on key locations of the cylon bases, and in the end resorting to suicide bombers to kill the humans who had joined the ranks of the cylon police force (Iraq anyone?)

Sorry if you think I'm way of here, but for me it was very clear.
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I'm not into Sci-Fi series. I'm gonna tell Oz that you started this topic, he's a real Sci-Fi series fan (Stargate, Farscape, Firefly...).
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I am too. Never got into Firefly much though. Stargate, Startrek, Farscape... etc I'm a fan of though. All great series.

I would have though liking RPGs you would have had a passing interest in Sci-Fi DC?
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The only real sci-fi RPG I played was actually Xenosaga, other RPGs tend to be more fantasy like. I'm also a fan of the Star Wars movies, but did never watch one of the sci-fi series from the beginning. So when you start to watch an episode, you just don't get what's it all about, and do not watch any further.
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Did you play the PSX games Front Mission 3 or Vanguard Bandits? Both great Mech style RPG/Strategy games. Or the Star Ocean series? They are more of a fantasy/SciFi mix though.

It is try about most Sci-Fi series though. They do tend to have a continuous story running through all episodes as well as the main story in each episode itself. Although most Stargate episodes can be easily be watched on their own, as was the case with Star Trek.
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I played Front Mission 3/4/5 and also tried Vanguard Bandits. I didn't play Star Ocean yet, but I wanted to play Star Ocean III next, but as FF12 is out, it will be delayed. Btw, you should perhaps make an Off Topic RPG section?

Ah, I saw that there is already an RPG section. I just moved my Xenosaga post to it.
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You should really play the Star Ocean games in sequence. And you could go back as far as the SNES Star Ocean original, which was an indirect sequel to Takes of Phantasia.

PSX Star Ocean: Second Story is my favourite so far. It is an amazing game with 80 possible endings! And a lot of characters to collect in the game. The ending is affected by who you have towards the end. And the PS2 Star Ocean: Till the end of time game is worth playing too. Quite a cool series.

It even ended up being an anime series too, Star Ocean EX.

There is also a Gameboy game in the series called Star Ocean: Blue Sphere that was never officially released outside of Japan, but an unoffical English translation has been created for emulation.
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Btw, I also love anime, and most of them I watch are sci-fi: Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, Heat Guy J, Neon Evangelion, Vandread, Gungrave, Karas, Ergo Proxy, Texhnolyze... Well, some of them like Trigun or Gungrave are set in a post apocalyptic environment, but it's exactly how I like it, post apocalyptic is always great.
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I really need to explore more Anime soon. I've watched Gungrave and Neon Evangelion but non of the others you mentioned.
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A MUST see. Trust me (or ask Oz).
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