Previously on rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated, Chris Patterson said:

> > I think that entire argument is flimsy.  There's no way anyone could
> > have known way back when Tighe and Bill Adama first met and became
> > friends (or even that they'd meet) that Adama would be the important
> > man he is now, nor that Anders would even MEET Starbuck.
> 
> I can think of a few arguments to counter those:
> 
> (a) the hidden four were somehow "switched out" at some point just 
> before, or after, the destruction of the colonies.

That presupposes that the Cylons knew in advance who to replicate and
had built bodies to match.  It also presupposes that they had the
ability to not only download the complete consciousness of the target,
but could then install it into a Cylon subconscious while editing out
the memory of the switch.  And do it all without anyone noticing the
disappearance of the target person.

> (b) it would have been pretty easy to predict that Adama would be the 
> only surviving Battlestar commander well in advance of the attack on the 
> colonies, especially given the depth of Six's infiltration into their 
> defense systems.

How?  It was sheer LUCK that allowed him and his ship to escape.  If
the attack had come a day earlier, the Galactica would likely have been
closer in, where it would have been within easier range.  A day later,
and it would have been unarmed, having been turned into a museum. Also,
if it weren't for the confluence of both Roslin and Apollo convincing
Adama to flee, he would have taken Galactica into a counter-attack
against forces he would have had zero chance of surviving against.
 
> (c) any point in time after the Cylons discovered Kara on Caprica to 
> retrieve the Arrow could have triggered subconscious programming within 
> Anders to make contact with her. It's already suspicious that Anders 
> "just happened" to be up in the mountains which were left
unaffected by 
> the nuclear fallout of the Cylon attack.

You don't trust his explanation of that?  Why waste ammo nuking the
entire surface of the planet when all you want to do is kill the people
in the population centers?  What I find implausible is that Caprica
City was still intact after the Cylons nuked the place.

I can maybe believe that the Galactica could withstand a direct nuclear
hit, being a Battlestar and all, but not a city.

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