On the finish of “Battlestar Galactica” season 1, Starbuck travels again to Caprica (one of many 12 Colonies). In season 2, episode 2, “Valley of Darkness,” she hides from Cylon patrols in her outdated house. On the wall is a round mandala made of 4 layers: a yellow outermost layer, a crimson outer ring, a blue interior ring, and a yellow-red heart.
In “Valley of Darkness,” it is simply there to shed some gentle on Starbuck’s hidden creative facet. It solely turns into important midway by season 3 (in episodes “The Eye of Jupiter” and “Rapture”), when the people and Cylons uncover a temple that might cause them to Earth. Inside the temple is identical mandala that Starbuck as soon as painted.
Sackhoff observed the similarity and took her inquiries to writer-producer David Weddle (in line with “So Say We All: The Full, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral Historical past of Battlestar Galactica” by Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman). Weddle did not have a transparent reply (as a result of he and the writers did not know but), so Sackhoff put forth an concept (recounted by Weddle):
“Katee stated, ‘You understand, I feel that in gentle of seeing this mandala, and in gentle of realizing I’ve another future’ — as a result of [co-creator Ron Moore] had talked to her about that — she stated, ‘Perhaps there’s one thing in my previous. Perhaps there’s an occasion in my previous that appears innocuous, by no means appeared essential, however now in gentle of my mandala on the temple, I interpret it in a complete different approach.'”
Weddle introduced the concept to the writers’ room and it wound up being mixed with a deliberate episode the place Kara and Lee fly over a fuel big planet discussing their “fraught relationship.” That episode grew to become “Maelstrom.”
