In “False Labor,” Caprica’s most recent episode, Daniel Graystone has created an avatar for his estranged wife Amanda. His creation is perfect. She is smiling, accepting, and sexually willing – the antithesis of the real Amanda. Despite avatar-Amanda’s perfection, Daniel finds fault in her flawlessness. Daniel wants his wife; the one with the flaws. He wants avatar-Amanda to think and feel on her own – to be real.
Daniel’s continued attempts to recreate Zoe’s code has turned into his lived religion. Daniel’s family has abandoned him. If Daniel cannot have his family back in reality, he can re-create the images of his family in Cylons. The problem, however, is that Daniel continued efforts to make his computer programs have independent thought and feeling will eventually lead to a decimated humanity (or another show called Battlestar Galcatica). Therefore, it could be argued that Daniel Graystone’s lived religion is the downfall of all humanity in Caprica.
Jennifer Chow
CapriComm 426 
In some ways this speaks to the same train of thought espoused by the Architect in The Matrix franchise where he mentions that the first iteration of the Matrix was perfect (and that humans rejected it). Part of us craves what we consider to be “the real” and have this inherent distrust of things that are fake. The challenge is that the avatar of Amanda is real in her own way–she’s just not what Daniel to be considers real. We can contrast Daniel’s attempts with those of Zoe to see how Daniel’s adherence to logic/code/rules has led him to create an imperfect replica. Will Daniel ever be able to get there? Does he represent a figure of modern science, that is able to make a copy that is 99% perfect, but is missing the spark of the divine? Zoe, on the other hand, thinks intuitively and fluidly and is able to create a living copy. Also, what do we make of gender and female intuition?
I don’t think that Daniel’s family abandoned him (only Amanda is really left, although we never hear about Daniel’s mother) because of his quest to create the avatar but because of his drive to create the U-87 and the issues with Vergis. Do you think Daniel is trying to recreate his family? Do you think Daniel would recreate a loving family or one that punishes him for is sin?
I also think that you start to see some of the Cylon psychology poke through, but Tamara, Zoe, and humanity as a whole are going to push Cylons much further than Daniel will (or so I think at this point). The tipping point for the Cylons was our treatment of them as slaves–Sam is pushing that thought much more than Daniel at this point.
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