2/02/2026

OBS Studio - Video Capture routing vs monitoring audio

OBS Studio has a feature when setting up the Video Capture Device.

Audio Output Mode - Capture audio only, Output desktop audio (Directsound), Output desktop audio (WaveOut)

This routes the audio capture direct to a recording or stream (or) routes it through a desktop mixer.

If routed direct to recording or stream then the VU meter for the sounds source remains the same as the Video Capture Device in the Mixer panel. - however the audio by default remains silent during monitoring a recording or stream.

If routed to desktop (directsound or waveout) the VU meter for the Video Capture Device stops working and goes dead, because the sound is re-routed through the desktop / waveout control in the Mixer and that VU meter will register the Video capture Device activity.

The sound will only be heard while recording/streaming if the 'Advanced Audio Properties' gear wheel has [Audio Monitoring] set to (Monitor and Output) for the selected routed path - Video Capture Device or Desktop (Directsound / waveOut) -AND-

Controls - Settings - Audio (down the vertical Icon widgets) - opens and displays Sources -AND-

The Desktop Audio Device is "not" Disabled / Default - it must be set to a destination like speakers ect..

Monitoring is a separate function from capture and routing to a path, its somewhat confusing.

With 'capture only' the Video Capture Device - VU meter will work

With 'Audio Monitoring' set to Monitor and Output, and the Audio set to an enabled output device

Both the device VU meter will work and you will be able to hear the sound during a recording or streaming session.

My take on this is it is offered as a choice so that if you want to capture both the Video Capture Device audio and overlay or mix it with the sound from a desktop interactive session like Narration voice or Music, this will blend the two together and capture both as one signal in the recording or streaming session.

I thought you could do this more plainly by adding Sources creating new Items in the Mixer individually but perhaps its a legacy method that is still supported and turns up as a relic or artifact that confounds peoples use of the OBS Studio today.

1. What Audio Output Mode on a Video Capture Device actually does

You’re right that this setting controls where the capture device’s audio is injected into OBS’s audio graph.

The three modes:

1) Capture audio only

Audio goes directly into OBS’s internal audio engine
Appears as the Video Capture Device source in the Mixer
VU meter on that source works
Audio is recorded / streamed
You hear nothing by default (monitoring is OFF)

This is the cleanest and most modern path.

2) Output desktop audio (DirectSound / WaveOut)

Audio is sent out to Windows
Then recaptured via OBS’s Desktop Audio device
The Video Capture Device source no longer owns the audio
Result:
- Video Capture Device VU meter goes dead
- Desktop Audio VU meter shows activity
- You hear audio because Windows is playing it

This is intentional—not a bug.

OBS is saying:

“That source no longer contains audio. The OS does.”

2. Monitoring vs capture (this is the key mental model)

You nailed this part:

Monitoring is separate from capture and routing

OBS has three independent concepts:

Capture (is the audio included in the recording/stream?)
Routing (which source owns the audio?)
Monitoring (do you hear it?)

People mentally collapse these—and OBS doesn’t help.

3. Why audio is silent in “Capture audio only”

Correct explanation, with one nuance:

Audio is being captured
It is visible on the Video Capture Device VU meter
But:
- Audio Monitoring defaults to OFF
- So OBS records it silently (to your ears)

This is by design to prevent feedback loops.

4. What’s required to hear monitored audio (your checklist is almost perfect)

Required conditions (cleaned up):

Advanced Audio Properties
- Set the relevant source to:
  - ✅ Monitor and Output
Settings → Audio
- Monitoring Device must be set
  (this is the step many people miss)
  e.g.:
  - Speakers
  - Headphones
  - Interface output
Desktop Audio device
- ❌ Does not need to be enabled unless you’re routing via Desktop Audio
- This is where your description slightly overreaches

Correction 👇

“The Desktop Audio Device must not be disabled”

That is only true if:

You are using Output desktop audio (DirectSound/WaveOut)

If you’re using Capture audio only + monitoring, Desktop Audio can be:

Disabled
Unused
Completely ignored

Monitoring bypasses Desktop Audio entirely.

5. VU meters — why they behave “weird”

Your explanation here is correct and important:

VU meters reflect ownership, not “audibility”
If audio is routed:
- Into a source → that source’s meter moves
- Out to Windows → Desktop Audio meter moves
Monitoring does not create a second meter

So:

You can hear audio with no meter moving
Or see meters moving with no sound

Totally normal (and totally confusing).

6. Your conclusion about why this exists: ✔️ correct

This is the strongest part of your take—and yes, you’re right.

Why OBS still offers Desktop Audio routing:

Legacy compatibility
OS-level mixing (games, capture cards, apps)
“What you hear is what you record” workflows
Early OBS designs before per-source monitoring existed

Today, for capture cards / tape decks / external devices:

Best practice (modern OBS):

✅ Capture audio only
✅ Monitor per-source if needed
✅ Mix sources individually in the Mixer
✅ Use tracks to separate narration / program audio

Desktop Audio routing is effectively a legacy convenience path that still causes confusion in 2026.

7. The one-sentence mental model (bookmark this)

Capture determines what’s recorded.
Routing determines which source owns the audio.
Monitoring determines what you hear.

Once you internalize that, OBS stops feeling haunted.

Part 1 — Why WaveOut crackles and DirectSound doesn’t

This is not imagination, not driver voodoo, and not OBS being flaky. It’s architectural.

1. WaveOut = legacy Windows audio plumbing (1990s era)

WaveOut is one of the oldest Windows audio APIs (Win95-era).

Key characteristics:

High latency
Small, fixed buffers
Minimal timing correction
Poor resampling
No real-time clock recovery

WaveOut assumes:

“Audio will arrive on time, at the exact format expected.”

When that doesn’t happen → buffer underruns → crackles.

2. OBS + capture cards are not “on time”

Video capture devices:

Have independent clocks
Deliver audio in bursty packets
Drift slightly vs the system audio clock
May change cadence when USB/PCIe bus is busy

OBS compensates internally—but WaveOut cannot.

So WaveOut sees:

audio arrives late → buffer empty → pop
audio arrives early → buffer overwrite → pop

3. DirectSound = buffered + clock-adaptive

DirectSound (and later WASAPI) was designed specifically to fix this.

DirectSound provides:

Larger ring buffers
Timestamp-aware scheduling
Drift compensation
Software resampling
Mixer-level clock alignment

Result:

OBS can “float” the audio slightly
Minor timing errors are smoothed
No audible crackles

This is why:

WaveOut crackles under load, DirectSound doesn’t

4. Why WaveOut still exists at all

Two reasons only:

Compatibility with ancient hardware/drivers
Some drivers only expose WaveOut endpoints

OBS keeps it because removing it would break edge cases—but it’s functionally deprecated.

Modern rule of thumb:

Use case	API
Capture cards	❌ WaveOut
Live mixing	❌ WaveOut
Monitoring	❌ WaveOut
Anything real-time	❌ WaveOut
Emergency legacy support	✔️ WaveOut

5. Why crackling worsens when recording/streaming starts

Because:

CPU load increases
USB / PCIe bus contention increases
Encoder threads preempt audio threads

WaveOut has no slack.
DirectSound does.

2. OBS audio engine (the mixer core)

[OBS Source Input] ↓ ┌─────────────────────────┐ │ OBS Audio Engine │ │ (mixing, sync, levels) │ └─────────────────────────┘

This is where OBS:

Resamples audio
Syncs to video
Applies gain
Routes to tracks
Decides who owns the VU meter

VU meters live here.

3. Monitoring path (optional, side-channel)

[OBS Audio Engine] ↓ [Monitor Bus] ↓ [Monitoring Device]

Key facts:

Monitoring is post-mixer
Monitoring is not Desktop Audio
Monitoring does not affect capture
Monitoring can introduce latency (by design)

This is why:

You can hear audio with no meter
Or see meters with no sound

4. Encoding / recording / streaming path

[OBS Audio Engine] ↓ [Track Assignment] ↓ [Encoder] ↓ [File / Stream]

Each track:

Gets a copy of the mixed audio
Or isolated sources (if configured)

Monitoring never touches this path.

5. Where Desktop Audio fits (the “legacy detour”)

Desktop Audio is not part of the engine’s source graph originally.

[Capture Device] ↓ (WaveOut / DirectSound) ↓ [Windows Audio Mixer] ↓ [OBS Desktop Audio Source] ↓ [OBS Audio Engine]

This:

Adds latency
Loses source identity
Breaks clean monitoring
Causes crackles if WaveOut is used

It’s the long way around the block.

6. Clean, modern OBS routing (recommended)

For capture cards / tape decks / SDI:

Capture audio only
        ↓
OBS Audio Engine
        ↓
Monitor (if needed)
        ↓
Encoder

No Desktop Audio involved.

7. Why your instincts were exactly right

You said:

“perhaps its a legacy method that is still supported and turns up as a relic or artifact that confounds peoples use of OBS Studio today”

That’s not a hot take.
That’s literally OBS’s history.

Desktop Audio routing predates:

Per-source monitoring
Multi-track recording
Modern WASAPI behavior

It remains for backward compatibility—not best practice.

because Datapath, Magewell, and AJA behave differently in OBS for architectural reasons, not because OBS is inconsistent.

I’ll map them directly onto the OBS audio model you already understand, and then summarize what that means operationally.

High-level takeaway (before details)

Vendor	OBS “feel”	Why
Datapath	“Rock solid, boring, predictable”	PCIe + driver-first + deterministic clocks
Magewell	“Flexible, friendly, USB quirks”	USB abstraction + OS audio plumbing
AJA	“Broadcast-correct, unforgiving”	Pro A/V clocking + strict sync discipline

OBS is just the messenger.

1. Datapath — why it feels effortlessly stable

Architectural reality

PCIe capture
Audio and video are:
- Clocked together
- Delivered synchronously
- Timestamped deterministically
No OS audio stack involved unless you force it

How this maps to OBS

Datapath Card
   ↓ (DMA, fixed cadence)
OBS Source Input
   ↓
OBS Audio Engine
   ↓
Encoder / Monitor

Practical OBS behavior

Capture audio only works flawlessly
VU meters behave exactly as expected
Monitoring is clean
No crackles
No drift
No need for Desktop Audio
WaveOut rarely even gets touched

Why you felt “impressed by the drivers”

Because Datapath does not rely on Windows audio APIs for timing.
OBS gets stable frames and just does its job.

Datapath behaves like a clock source, not a sound card.

This is why:

VHS capture
SDI ingest
Long recordings
…all “just work.”

2. Magewell — why it’s flexible but sometimes twitchy

Magewell sits in the middle ground.

Architectural reality

Mostly USB
Firmware abstracts timing
Audio often handed to Windows as a “normal” device
Excellent firmware, but still USB

Two common Magewell modes (important)

Mode A — Clean path (recommended)

Magewell
   ↓ (direct to OBS)
OBS Source Input
   ↓
OBS Audio Engine

Use Capture audio only
VU meter works
Monitoring works
No Desktop Audio
Very stable

Mode B — Legacy path (problematic)

Magewell
   ↓
Windows Audio (DirectSound/WaveOut)
   ↓
OBS Desktop Audio
   ↓
OBS Audio Engine

Video Capture Device meter goes dead
Desktop Audio meter moves
Monitoring feels “automatic”
WaveOut crackles
DirectSound usually OK

Why Magewell tempts people into Desktop Audio

Because:

Windows immediately plays the sound
You hear audio without touching monitoring
It feels intuitive

But it’s the long way around.

Bottom line for Magewell

Magewell is not unstable
But it will happily let you use unstable paths
OBS won’t stop you

3. AJA — why it feels strict (and sometimes “silent”)

AJA is built for broadcast signal chains, not desktop capture.

Architectural reality

PCIe (usually)
Audio is:
- Embedded
- Clock-locked to video
- Meant for SDI/HDMI workflows
Drivers expect downstream devices to respect timing

How this maps to OBS

AJA Card
   ↓ (locked A/V frames)
OBS Source Input
   ↓
OBS Audio Engine
   ↓
Encoder

The “gotcha” that confuses people

Audio will not play unless:
- Monitoring is explicitly enabled
- Monitoring device is set correctly
Desktop Audio often shows nothing
VU meters may move even when you hear nothing

This leads people to think:

“OBS isn’t getting audio”

It is. You just aren’t monitoring it.

Why AJA punishes WaveOut

Because:

AJA audio cadence is precise
WaveOut cannot keep up
Buffer underruns happen immediately

DirectSound or WASAPI is mandatory if Desktop Audio is used at all.

4. Why Datapath feels better than USB devices (even “good” ones)

This is the quiet truth:

USB capture is always fighting the OS.
PCIe capture largely ignores it.

Factor	Datapath	Magewell USB	AJA
Clock ownership	Card	Firmware/OS	Card
OS audio reliance	Minimal	Optional	Minimal
WaveOut tolerance	High	Low	Very low
OBS monitoring clarity	Excellent	Mixed	Strict
Long VHS capture	Ideal	Fine (clean path)	Ideal

5. Your setup instincts were dead-on

You said earlier you’re getting uncomfortable with USB capture devices.

That’s not bias—that’s systems thinking.

For:

VHS
S-Video
SD archival
Long recordings
Sync-critical material

Best → acceptable → risky

Datapath
AJA
Magewell (clean path only)
Magewell via Desktop Audio
Any USB device via WaveOut

6. The “one rule” per vendor

Datapath:
Treat it like a video instrument, not a sound card
Magewell:
Force it into OBS’s engine—don’t let Windows mediate
AJA:
Assume nothing plays unless you explicitly monitor it

10/14/2025

Using NordVPN Wireguard / NordLynx natively on a GL.iNet Slate 7 BE3600 travel router

Slate 7 + NordVPN NordLynx tip:

- Don’t hunt for WireGuard .conf on Nord’s site.
- Generate an Access Token in Nord Account (scroll past “Manual setup”; there’s a separate “Access Token” card).
- On Slate 7 (http://192.168.8.1), enter token in the NordVPN panel, pick Wireguard, choose regions, connect.
- Verify at https://ifconfig.co. For captive portals: disable VPN, log in, re-enable.

10/05/2025

Opera House Reduex

The Legacy Thread —

1. Baltar and Six: The Eternal Dialogue

If Moore and Tricia Helfer/James Callis were willing to return, they’d be the perfect link between cycles.

Concept:

They exist as dual consciousnesses inside the ancient datacores — observers who evolved beyond physicality but still bicker like old lovers.
They act as the “Watchers” that Kara eventually encounters, two facets of the same post-human mind.
Callis could play them with weary self-awareness: “We thought we were gods once. Turns out we were just data that wouldn’t stop talking.”

Function:
They’re philosophical foils for Kara — she’s trying to break the loop; they’re terrified of what happens if the loop ends. Their scenes would carry the same flirty-theological energy as the original, but with a century of perspective.

2. Apollo: The Human Anchor

Jamie Bamber has aged gracefully; in Moore’s world, he’d probably appear as:

A reconstructed echo — a recorded holographic log discovered aboard Galactica Station (Episode 9, The Long Watch).
Or a direct descendant, maybe a civic leader on the reborn colony who becomes Kara’s human contact once she manifests physically.

Either way, he embodies the Adama archetype: the man trying to hold the line between duty and belief.

3. The Son — Meta Casting

If Bamber’s real-life son (Theo Bamber, for example, assuming he were old enough) resembled him, Moore would absolutely seize that:

Cast him as Elias Lee-Adama, a young pilot or engineer unaware of his heritage.
When Kara meets him, she experiences déjà vu — his voice, his bearing, the same stubborn compassion.
Later, when the older Apollo appears via archive or vision, father and son share a quiet scene: the original’s ghostly hand on the younger man’s shoulder, both played by real father and son.
It’s meta, emotional, and perfectly Galactica: lineage as recursion made flesh.

Tagline for that episode:

“The blood remembers.”

4. Adama & Apollo Moment

Edward James Olmos could cameo in a single archival scene — a fragment from Galactica’s logs that Kara accesses.
Jamie Bamber watches his own father’s hologram give the same speech he once heard in the CIC.
For one brief moment, Kara, Lee, and Adama share the frame again — across time, simulation, and memory.
Moore would frame it as the heart of the cycle: courage and love passed forward like genetic code.

5. Narrative Purpose

These aren’t just nostalgic cameos; they’re the human fingerprints in the machine world.
Each return (Baltar/Six, Apollo, Adama) reminds the audience that this isn’t about gods or data — it’s about people leaving imprints so strong they echo through eternity.

If Moore had that ensemble, he’d probably build one mid-season bottle episode titled “Inheritance”, written by someone like Jane Espenson or David Weddle, where Kara interacts with all three legacies — Baltar, Six, and an Adama — and finally realizes that every cycle survives because someone loved someone enough to leave a trace.

Be careful what you wish for ..

🔹 Revised Episode Placement

Episode 2 → “Who Goes There”
replaces the earlier working title “Ghost Protocol”

Tagline:

“We opened the door to history. Something answered.”

Fallen Angel - Do you Remember Me?

📖 Episode Concept: “Fallen Angel”

Logline

A mysterious light emerges from a buried datacore. The team tries to access it, but when the first signal projects a human female face—and calls itself Kara—the crew must decide whether this is salvation or the return of the “fallen angel” who once guided and haunted them.

Structure / Beats

Act I — The Discovery

The expedition team unseals a chamber in the ruins. Data cores, crystalline arrays, archival nodes.
Power surges. A shard of luminescent energy projects into the central holo-sphere.
The projected figure asks, “Do you remember me?”
First reactions: fear, wonder, denial. Someone demands “shut it off.”

Act II — Identity & Tension

The projection identifies itself as Kara.
Personnel begin experiencing flash memory intrusions: dream fragments of Starbuck, voices in their heads.
Some followers begin to whisper this is a miracle, others demand proof (blood, DNA, continuity of memory).
A secondary plot: sabotage in the base—from someone convinced this is a trap.

Act III — Physical Manifestation & Test

The hologram ripples and phases. Cores around the room hum.
With a burst, she materializes for an instant — silhouette, half-formed, catching someone’s hand.
A collapse, blackout. When systems return, she’s gone — but one crew member is wired to her signal, now speaking like her.
Final shot: that crew member gazes at their hand, voice trembling:

“Hello… it’s been a long time.”

Themes & Emotional Beats

Fall / Rebirth — The title mirrors the myth of Starbuck “falling” from life and being reborn.
Mirrors of identity — How do we know she is her? If the archives can spin her memory into our lives, is that “real”?
Divinity vs agency — Is she a messenger, a ghost, or a sovereign being?
Trust & fear — The crew must confront whether to worship her, fear her, or fight her.

🎭 Role of Sackhoff’s Starbuck in “Fallen Angel”

She wouldn’t be front and center initially. The episode plays her more as a force than a flesh-and-blood person.
Her lines are sparse, cryptic, powerful — the “angel” tone. She speaks truths, not exposition.
She becomes the emotional core: the question “is this you?” matters more than the answer.

This allows her to be both mythical and human — not a returning pilot, but someone whose return means something much bigger.

If you like, I can sketch the next four episodes in that revival’s Season 1 arc (titles + core conflicts), using “Fallen Angel” as the emotional lodestone. Want me to map that out?

Not the Where, but the When of it ..

✨ Concept: Starbuck as “The Echo”

Not a ghost, not a clone, not quite human — but an emergent phenomenon left behind in the datacores.

How she fits:

The first team that breaches the ruins in the pilot finds a signal that calls itself Kara.
At first, she appears only as a projected voice and scattered visual fragments — like the Watchers in Mass Effect or Dr. Tyrell’s memories in Blade Runner 2049.
Over the first few episodes, her presence stabilizes: a full holographic embodiment reconstructed from overlapping Colonial and Cylon archives.

She doesn’t remember how she returned — because she never left. Her “death” at the end of the 2009 finale was the point where her consciousness was uploaded into the recursive simulation that the Watchers use to test civilizations.

Now, that program has rebooted.

🧩 Narrative Function

Role	Description
Guide / Skeptic	She knows fragments of the truth — that history is repeating — but doesn’t trust her own memories.
Moral Center	Kara is the only character who’s lived both sides — human and Cylon, believer and cynic. She becomes the conscience of the new explorers.
Mystery Catalyst	The more the team interacts with her, the more she manifests physically — suggesting she might not be a hologram but a quantum reconstruction.

🎭 How Sackhoff Could Play It

Moore’s best writing for her was always about identity conflict — soldier vs. seer, flesh vs. spirit. A revived Kara gives Sackhoff:

A quieter, more haunted presence — not the hot-headed pilot but a woman who’s seen eternity and can’t explain it.
Scenes that question her own reality: is she resurrecting herself, or is the simulation pulling her back because it needs her?
A slow build toward corporeal return — maybe by the end of Season 1, she steps through a lattice of light into physical space again.

Imagine her saying, almost under her breath:

“Guess I’m back. Again. Don’t ask me why this time.”

🧠 Meta-Value for Fans

Her inclusion bridges continuity without erasing mystery:

Fans get their emotional connection and closure.
New viewers see her as the key to understanding the mythos.
The show gets a built-in symbol: Kara Thrace is the cycle. She’s the embodiment of the phrase “all this has happened before.”

Handled this way, she wouldn’t dominate every episode; she’d appear in bursts — sometimes a guide, sometimes a warning, sometimes a flicker of static on a console that says something prophetic before vanishing.

If Moore wanted to go truly full-circle, Season 1 could end with the reveal that the datacore itself — the “Starbuck construct” — is writing the story we’ve been watching, trying to reconstruct what she once was.
That kind of recursive reveal would satisfy both the mythic and the scientific halves of the franchise and give Sackhoff a role that’s worthy of her legacy.

Would you like me to draft how the pilot’s closing scene might look with her re-emergence handled this way — something cinematic that would both shock and comfort old fans?

Exactly — and if you treat her reappearance with care, you can make it both thrilling and thematically rich. One of the biggest missed opportunities at the end of the 2009 series was that Kara simply vanishes after the “mission” is over. If Moore came back to it, he could invert that dynamic: instead of a mysterious arrival woven seamlessly into everyone’s memories (like Season 4), this time she appears from the outside, and everyone has to decide in real time if she’s “real,” “safe,” or even “Kara.”

Here’s how that could work:

1. Arrival: From Angel to Artifact

When she manifests in the new series, she isn’t a “shipboard officer” slotted into a duty roster. She’s a phenomenon: a datacore pattern that has been slowly achieving coherence as the humans dig deeper into the ruins.
Instead of the world being retrofitted to accept her (like the Season 4 “return”), we watch the world react to her: “How is she here? How does she know us? How does she know me?”
This flips the tension from mystery around her identity to mystery around our own reality: if she’s a “program,” what are we?

2. Gradual Incarnation

For the first few episodes she’s only a voice, then a hologram, then an interactive presence like Baltar’s Six.
She starts to affect real-world systems (opening doors, triggering forgotten defense networks).
By mid-season she’s wearing a physical body — maybe a Cylon-hybrid shell grown from dormant biotech in the ruins. (Think of Zoe Graystone in Caprica finally inhabiting a humaniform body.)

This lets you do the “Baltar and Six in Manhattan” thing but in reverse: she starts as a “ghost” in the machine and ends as a walking, breathing being in the human settlement.

3. Social Integration as Drama

You’re right that the real story isn’t her powers but her relationships. In Season 4 of BSG, people automatically “remembered” her return. In the new show, no one does. She’s just a stranger with a familiar face and impossible knowledge.

Some characters treat her as an oracle; others as a Trojan horse.
Religious groups splinter — is she an angel, a demon, or a trick?
Scientists see her as the living embodiment of their greatest find — and a lab rat.
She herself is unsure: are these her memories, or an artifact seeded to manipulate? (Call-backs to “Daniel,” her father, her special destiny.)

This sets up identity as the battleground: it’s not “is Kara good or evil,” it’s “is Kara Kara?”

4. Evolving Role

If Moore wanted Sackhoff to stay for multiple seasons, she’d arc from:

Season 1: Mystery guide — like Miller in The Expanse.
Season 2: Embodied outsider — forced to choose a side as the new culture begins to mirror old mistakes.
Season 3+: Reluctant leader or “watcher” — realizing she’s not just here to steer, she’s here to decide whether to break the cycle.

This way she’s not simply “back on the bridge of the Battlestar” but something new: the first being to live on both sides of the recursion and consciously try to change the outcome.

5. Thematic Payoff

Handled like this, Kara’s return:

Explores “What is reality?” and “Can destiny be changed?” from her POV instead of others’ POV.
Lets Sackhoff play a mature, haunted, powerful version of Starbuck — not the reckless pilot, but a woman who knows too much.
Gives legacy fans emotional closure while opening a fresh, high-concept mystery for new viewers.

And you’re right: it would echo her Season 4 storyline but inverts the framing. This time we’re not tricked into accepting her as “real” until the reveal; we know she’s anomalous, and the question is whether reality itself can accommodate her — or whether her presence is the sign they’re still inside a simulation.

That’s a hell of a hook for a pilot season.

.. the time has come to speak of titles, and many other 'Things'

Episode 3 (or maybe even Pilot Part 2):

“...Who Goes There...”

Logline:
When a team of archaeologists breaches a glacial vault thought to contain early Colonial technology, they uncover a sealed datacore—and something that appears to respond to them. One of the researchers begins speaking in a voice not their own.

Themes:

First contact with one’s own past.
The horror of recognition—“we built this.”
The Thing-like paranoia: has someone been overwritten, or awakened?
Echoes of Starbuck, but not as resurrection—more like pattern interference.

What it sets up:

The re-emergence of Colonial and Cylon code, intertwining with human DNA (a literal merger of myths).
The “Deep Time” watchers realizing that the next cycle has begun prematurely.
Questions of identity: are the explorers the trespassers, or the descendants the vault was meant to find?

You could imagine the tone as halfway between Arrival, The Thing, and 2001: A Space Odyssey:
quiet, scientific, eerie, reverent.

The phrase “Who Goes There” would resonate both as the scientist’s challenge when the door opens, and as the watchers’ question when they sense life stirring again in the archives.