The alternate timeline series For All Mankind is currently unfolding in an alternate 2012, one in which a Mars base is a fact of life and humanity is trying to reach further into the solar system. But, in the first two episodes of For All Mankind Season 5, the primary action has been focused on whether or not Lee Jung-Gil (C. S. Lee) committed murder, and if his Mars-based companions are going to bust him out of space jail. At the same time, Kelly Baldwin (Cynthy Wu) is pushing for a crewed mission to Titan to investigate possible signs of life. Amid all of this, Ed Baldwin (Joel Kinnaman) tells Kelly and Alex (Sean Kauffman) that “sometimes you’ve got to roll the hard six.”
The name of the episode is also “The Hard Six,” a phrase that has been used in For All Mankind before. But, science fiction fans know that his phrase actually originates in the rebooted version of Battlestar Galactica, co-created by Ronald D. Moore, who is also the co-creator of For All Mankind. It’s a very cool Easter egg, and applies just as well to FamK as it does to BSG, but could there be something deeper? Could For All Mankind’s alternate history exist as an outgrowth of Battlestar’s timeline?
