Just watched it again, Alluveal. It's actually this:
"I collected seeds from the few fruits the island offered, and planted them in long, straight furrows, like the ranks of soldiers. When I finished, I looked at what I had done. I did not see a garden. I saw a scar. This island had saved my life, and I had done it no service."
Okay, folks, that crystallized a few things for me. Bear with me: I'm about to pull out the KoshFan Grand Unified Theory of Small Hints and Big Themes for BSG Season 4:
Adama's been reading his very favorite book to Roslin, "Searider Falcon." It seems to be a book about survival at sea, since in the one chapter we hear, the protagonist says "The raft was not as seaworthy as I hoped." While it is his favorite, Adama has never finished the book. Roslin remembers reading it long ago, but can't remember how it comes out. Adama either knows parts of the book by heart, or identifies so strongly with the protagonist that he inserts his own feelings and emotions as the protagonist's words.
If we assume that the excerpt I just quoted to help Alluveal is from the same book -- and it seems to be in the same style and theme, so much as I can determine from the small samples available -- then the survivor spends some time on an island, perhaps before or after his raft episode. The island keeps him alive, but when he begins planting crops (a sign not of passing through but permanent settlement) the survivor feels dismayed by what he's done, and feels he is harming the island.
My interpretations:
1) The survivor represents Adama. That's plain enough already.
2) The raft stands for Galactica, or more generally the whole fleet, which has indeed proved less space-worthy than they hoped (although not entirely disastrous).
3) The sea is for space, obviously; that's an old metaphor. We talk of spaceships and astronauts, nautikos being Greek for ship or sailor.
4) The island signifies Earth. They arrive and discover that human settlement has marred the planet (since there wouldn't have been a nuclear war without people there).
5) Adama has been reading this book his entire life, signalling that guiding the fleet was his destiny, but he doesn't know the ending -- indicating the questionable future ahead of them.
6) Roslin has read the whole book -- indicating that for her, it's already happened before and will happen again -- but doesn't remember the ending, signifying her own confusion over what comes next.
My conclusion:
The arrival on Earth will trigger not only questions of what happened and what now, but also the question of whether or not Humans and Cylons deserve to exist, since all they do is fight, harming each other and the world around them.
We've already had this question raised by Romo Lampkin a few episodes back, where (in a speech that calls Lee "a shining beacon of hope" -- it must have been all RDM could do to not add "all alone in the night" too) Lampkin argues that humanity is doomed and it's time to simply accept it and go quietly. Lampkin decides to kill Lee and end humanity's best hope because other humans killed his cat (again notice the harm done to the natural world around them). His words: "They killed my cat! They, those debased dregs of humanity out there. Now we're a lost tribe in search of a new home so they can roost and rot again!" He doesn't want humanity to survive; we're unworthy of it, in his eyes.
We've also had this question of humanity's worth raised by Bill Adama himself, way back in the miniseries. And the question has also been raised at many points between.
My further prediction, on a more tenuous basis: there will be a conflict between father and son (again) as Bill Adama gives up hope and Lee clings to it. Adama Sr. will take Galactica out on a suicide mission to annihilate the last Cylons and himself along with them, trying to end the cycle of violence in one final explosion; Lee (perhaps with the rebel Cylons) will attempt to end the cycle of violence by settling down in peace. But while Adama's suicide run is questionable, Lee's is equally so since he perpetuates the cycle...
There's been a whole lot of talk about suicide in this show. Tyrol tried it a few eps. back, and also had dreams of suicide back when he suspected he was a Cylon (well before he discovered that he was). Lee told his father that waiting for Roslin was suicide. There have been a whole lot of suicide missions, such as the last fight of the Pegasus, not to mention Kara's apparent suicide plunge into the maelstrom. I think they've been laying groundwork for Galactica's last ride.
And we have Baltar, oscillating from man of reason to man of faith, covering the political gamut from President of the Colonies to prisoner, even covering the whole social spectrum if you take his rags-to-riches story as truth; he represents all of humanity. Think about it. He thinks so highly of himself, and acknowledges his tremendous crimes; he's brilliant and simultaneously dense; he stands for all that we've done, good and bad. What are his drives? His own advancement, and sex. He can be painfully honest and vulnerable; he can be a completely lying thief. He is a masterful summary of all mankind in one person. And there is always the question before us: does Baltar deserve to live? As with everything else in his tangle of contradictions, the answer is a resounding "maybe."
So does humanity deserve to live? They set up the question and close without answering it, leaving it up to all of us to decide.
If I'm right, folks, I will not say BSG is the best show ever -- but I will say it is the bravest, for calling into question the whole existence of humanity. Asking whether or not we deserve to continue as a species. I don't think anyone else has ever done that on TV before...
