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Ronald Moore and Kate Vernon Look Back on Galactica's Final Cylon
by Troy Rogers
 Throughout all of the years of Battlestar Galactica, both new and old, it was hard to imagine what life would be like when the crew finally reached Earth. Now that Battlestar Galactica is on its way to the final nine episodes and the identity of the final Cylon has been revealed, fans are witnessing the most gripping and emotional moments of the entire series. Although both the Galactica characters and fans had romantic dreams of a revitalized Earth that was teeming with life, the long journey home has ended with a number of dark and surprising twists, including the final Cylon. Now that the crew of Galactica is struggling to come to terms with the final moments of their quest, and the final Cylon has been revealed, the remaining episodes of the series look to be even more dark and barren than the what we've seen already.
The day after the first of Battlestar Galactica's final ten episodes took to the airwaves, we hopped on the line for a conference call with Galactica creator Ronald Moore and actress Kate Vernon where we looked across a ravaged wasteland to get their thoughts on the most anticipated revelation on the show's history, why Moore chose Duala to be the one who was hit the hardest by the discovery of Earth, and how Kate Bernon reacted to the news of her character's ultimate fate.
THE DEADBOLT: It seemed like Duala took it the hardest when they found the Earth in ruins. Why choose her as the one who falls apart when she appeared to be one of the strongest women?
 RONALD D. MOORE: I think it was because of that. She did appear to be one of the strongest ones. And Dee was the one that, in many situations, had sort of always been the voice of reason - the one who was going to try to soldier on, the one who would buck up Adama when he was down and buck up Lee when he was down. There was a sense of her kind of being the rock. And it was so important to me that when Earth was a wasteland, that the psychic damage from that would be profound.
I mean, this was everything that they had hoped for since the beginning of the mini-series. And you take that dream away from them, there’s a consequence, a price to be paid. Like I was saying earlier, they shouldn’t just shrug their shoulders and move on and it felt right in that circumstance that somebody would just check out. And there was something shocking about it being Dee because they had relied on Earth, because she had always been there.
But just because a person is sort of being your rock and bucking you up doesn’t mean that they don’t have their own vulnerabilities and they don’t have their breaking point, and that breaking point might surprise you. And that’s exactly why we decided to do it because it felt like they would all be shocked, the audience would be shocked, but it would be true. There would be a sense of Duala, on some level, saying to herself - I don’t think she thought about this consciously, but on a subconscious level she soldiered on, and this far and no farther. I don’t want to soldier on anymore and I’m going to try to feel good one last time and then I’m out of here.
THE DEADBOLT: The episode was very dark with Dee, Tigh and Adama, Roslin; everyone just seemed crestfallen. Was that the plan all along or did this come up after the strike?
 MOORE: No, that was the plan all along. We had designed the episode and structure of the fourth season with this point in mind. That they would get to Earth here and this would be the impact on everybody.
THE DEADBOLT: [Kate] I know that you found out about your character a while ago, but what went through your head at first? Were you excited, upset...
KATE VERNON: [laughs] I was really mad at Ron. No, I was wondering if he was talking to the right person.
MOORE: Oh, is this Kate Vernon? Oh, I’m sorry.
VERNON: Right. Are you sure you’re talking to the right Kate here? I was stunned. I was completely stunned. My jaw had fallen open and I was just waiting for him to say, "Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah! Just kidding." Truly! I had been invited back for a few shows, and I was kind of hoping to be invited back again, but I was not expecting this. So I was stunned.
THE DEADBOLT: Well, I think it turned out for the better... you’ll last forever.
VERNON: [laughs] Uh, huh.
MOORE: Kate was planning on lasting forever anyway.
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