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[redchild]

Redchild: Oh yes, there was closure. But what absolutely baffled me was

Spoiler

the fact that the colonials just gave up their technology and went to live in the wilds. As we can see in the end, modern day Earth is peopled by their descendants, but they have no idea of their past. Meaning nothing has been learned by the end of the story - humanity is back to scratch. Plus: Hera is mitochondrial Eve? Either someone didn't know what that meant, or all other bloodlines have died out.

Spoiler

I suppose it would be hard for us to even consider losing our technology. But considering everything the Colonials went through for years, I suppose leaving their spaceflight tech behind was a plausible choice. I don't doubt that there were probably arguments against it, however. But we don't get to see any of that.

Yes-- humanity is starting over from scratch, but it's not the same as it was before. The way I perceived it is that Hera is mitochondrial Eve in that she or her descendants eventually mated with either existing Colonials or Earth v.2 Homo sapiens and begot current day humans who all carry some genes of the Cylons. Considering that all the Colonials and Cylon models have died out, the story fulfills the prophecy that Kara Thrace brought the destruction of humanity, and Caprica and Baltar's rescue of Hera ensured that only Hera's descendents, who are not genetically pure human, will survive.

If you wanna get really nitpicky, I'd also point out that the chances of Colonials sharing the same DNA (if extraterrestrial life forms even have DNA as their genetic material) as Earth humans is very, very unlikely. Combine that with Hera's part Colonial, part Cylon genes that are actually viable with Earth human DNA is highly improbable. But hey, it's sci-fi. Otherwise the ending leaves a lot of room for speculation.