Battlestar Galactica betrayed me.  They gave me three years of foreshadowing, foreboding, clues, and hints, to simply end with ‘God did it’ which is a total cop-out.  Too many things simply didn’t ‘t make sense, too many questions unanswered.  And it really bothered me.  My thought: the writers were putting all this cool stuff in — but didn’t really know where they were going (one of my fears with Lost, though they now seem to know what’s going on). Opera House — three years of foreboding for being a stupid throw-away scene?  Baltar and Six said it best to their virtual selves with ‘that’s it’?

I could forgive most of it…except for what they did to Starbuck — one of the coolest chick characters ever.  They made her tough, without ruining her femininity.  They  made her strong, without forgetting that she’s a woman.

So, to show you how easy it is, I’ve come up with my own ending for Starbuck.  No silly angel or ghost thing (seriously, she’s an angel?  But what about her Viper on Earth?  Was it an angel too?  We saw her Viper explode!).   Anyways, there are plotholes here (again, that stupid viper that she returns in) but give me enough time, and I could fix it.  This took me ten minutes…

Starbuck’s father was Daniel, the murdered Cylon 8.  As Ellen said, he was both an artist as well as being spiritual so he had knowledge of creation that opposed Cavil’s views (which is why Cavil murdered the series).  However, a Daniel escaped to Caprica, where he fathered Kara (handing down both his artistry, and his spirituality).  They played music, Daniel teaching her this music (something he remembers…like a dream from another life – but even he doesn’t understand it).  However, while Kara was still young, he was hunted down by Cavil and destroyed (she thought he had left).  Kara’s mom resented her because she knew what she was: a cylon/human hybrid.

Cavil left Starbuck alone (for now) to let her ‘mature’ in the pressure cooker of Caprica.  After the war, upon discovering her alive, they take her to the farm on Caprica, and begin to run tests on her (the same as they did to Hera).  She later escaped before those tests were complete.

However, Kara feels like she’s being pulled to a destiny (a god is okay…as long as we don’t say ‘god did it…which is a total copout’…god needs to be a directing hand, but not the one who actually pulls the trigger, like in the current finale) that centres around the Ionic Nebula.

Starbuck – part cylon, part human (the first hybrid) dies in a fiery crash in the ionic nebula.  Her consciousness is downloaded into a resurrection ship on Earth 1* (the same one that the original five used).  While this distance was normally too great for downloading, the ionic nebula helps fold this distance – again, a foreboding that she had to die, in that nebula, at this time for everything to happen the way it should (god’s hand).  Because she is only part cylon, the download is imperfect – quite simply, her human mind cannot comprehend what has happened to her.  Therefore, she loses memories of the resurrection (no greater a stretch than having Cavil murder the five, then inexplicably implant them into human society with no prior memories).

However, multiple copies of Starbuck are made and are sent out across the universe to find her old fleet – like homing pigeons.  Several are destroyed (such as the one that crashed on Earth 1).  The Ionic storm causes displacements (once again, the hand of God) that sends Starbuck(s) across the universes – and 1 copy finds the fleet (the same displacement that shuts down the entire fleet — and also begins to re-awaken the Cylon memories — both centurion and the final five).  The other copies of Starbuck….who knows?  More adventures, death, whatever.

Then, upon the time of need, the last vestiges of her father appears in memories…and the Music is reborn.

In the final battle, when Starbuck jumps the Galactica, the jump warp field is enough to destabilize the colony (much the same as the nukes) and it is utterly consumed by the Black Hole….thereby fulfilling her destiny as the harbinger of doom (it was the music that literally destroyed the colony)

*hell, you could even say that Starbuck was a copy made on Earth 1 — by the original five back in their experimentation days…