Talk:Battlestar (TOS)/Archive 1

Need some "Old-School" BSG Content

Both this page and the Galactica (TOS) articles are really lacking in content in comparison to the shiny articles of the RDM pages. This may be a challenge in diving through old episode guides and watching TOS episodes, but is there anyone ready to take to the challenge of giving the old girl some new depth with content? This goes for the TOS episodes as well, including formatting character pages to convention, and even battle information like the Fall of the Twelve Colonies battle summaries. Spencerian 18:25, 30 September 2005 (EDT)

Call me crazy (OK, Mikey. You're crazy), but was there ever a canonical reference in the original series to Galactica or any of her fleet being able to travel FTL? Because I'm pretty sure there wasn't, and always counted it as one of several flaws that could be chalked up to typical 70s Space Opera logic...--Uncle Mikey 19:00, 23 February 2006 (EST)

I haven't seen EVERY episode yet... but I can't think of any reference to FTL. The only speed reference I can think of is when Starbuck is testing the Recon Viper in The Long Patrol. Even then I'm not sure if it was expressed in any concrete terms, or if it was a relative speed. --Steelviper 19:41, 23 February 2006 (EST)

I recall a scene in Experiment in Terra when the Galactica broke away from the Fleet and headed toward Terra "at lightspeed". Though it's been a while since I watched the episode. -- Joe Beaudoin 21:02, 23 February 2006 (EST)

Joe's recollection is most likely. My understanding was that only Galactica had lightspeed ability; normally she went as slow as the slowest ship in the Fleet. --Spencerian 21:24, 23 February 2006 (EST)

At least if gives us a good specific target. If I end up in that episode I'll try to make note of it. --Steelviper 21:28, 23 February 2006 (EST)

I quoted the relevant dialogue in the Noteworthy Dialogue section of Experiment in Terra. --Steelviper 22:02, 23 February 2006 (EST)

Ironically, that bit of dialogue seems to be the same as the exchange been Bill and Saul in the Mini, when they are plotting a jump to Ragnar. Heh. -- Joe Beaudoin 22:06, 23 February 2006 (EST)

OK...was it 'lightspeed' or 'flank speed'? The latter I remember hearing several times... (I think I may need to finally get hold of the Classic Series DVDs soon to sit next to my New Series S1 pack like two rival children in the back seat of a car...)--Uncle Mikey 23:16, 23 February 2006 (EST)

It was definitely lightspeed (he enunciates it pretty clearly the second time, not appreciating being questioned about the matter). It seems like they might have said something about flank speed in The Hand of God (TOS). Thanks for asking the question in the first place, though. We didn't have a solid citations to back up lightspeed at all in TOS until now. (It's fortunate that Joe remembered the correct episode to look in.) --Steelviper 23:27, 23 February 2006 (EST)

OK, good. This came into my head because the page currently mentions "2 x FTL engines" without citation, and my brain was telling me that the TOS ship just didn't have that capability. It doesn't change the basic problem of TOS, because most of the time they didn't travel at lightspeed and thus should have taken generations to get anywhere :-) But in terms of what triggered the question on the page, it's good to know it's not completely in left field. I'd still like to see a citation for the "FTL" specs.--Uncle Mikey 23:59, 23 February 2006 (EST)

Well, I can vouch for the lightspeed part, but I've got nothing to cite for the 2 x FTL engines. Right after he orders to lightspeed Galactica does kind of do a peel off, and I think its engines are glowing, but I really don't think I can recall anything that would help me distinguish whether there was 1, 2, or 20 FTL engines. I'm not even sure if the peel off is supposed to be at light speed or not (it seems awfully slow). --Steelviper 10:33, 24 February 2006 (EST)

Doubtful. After all, the old BSG recycled SFX due to the technology at the time. -- Joe Beaudoin 12:26, 24 February 2006 (EST)

Major Revision

As with the Galactica (TOS) article, I've cleaned up this article with the same rationale as the latter. --Spencerian 10:24, 25 July 2006 (CDT)

2000 whats?

"There are many differing claims to the actual size of the original battlestars, ranging from some 2,000 (accepted length in a number of gaming systems) through to 2-3 miles in overall length."

2000 feet, I imagine? Yards? Furlongs? Handspans?

Expansion on the Ship itself

This article is filled more with real world point of view information on the ship model and history than the various ship's abilities, features, departments, and places, unlike the Galactica type battlestar and Mercury class battlestar articles. It would be nice to group up mini-notes on places like Adama's quarters, Life Station, launch bay and the like to make this both an article more about the ships than just the model. --Spencerian 22:48, 4 June 2007 (CDT)

Yeah, expansion on this article is well overdue. It definitely needs a lot of cleanup and thorough referencing. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 03:42, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Errors?

Just received an e-mail from Randy, an astute fan (and Wiki visitor) regarding some of the statistics on this page:

Love your site, read it all the time, and I've spotted what I think is an error. Forgive me if you're not the one to talk to, but I didn't know who else to contact.

I was reading this page here http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Galactica_%28TOS%29 and found the following entry

>>>Viewers learn from "Saga of a Star World" that the standard battlestar type vessel has a crew of 496 personnel with 200 Warriors. From "The Living Legend" we know that battlestars carry 75 Vipers, 12 Landram land based troop transports and 12 shuttlecraft. <<<

I have to dispute some of that: Firstly, at no point in "Saga of a Star World" is the crew of a Battlestar ever mentioned. I recall magazine comments from producers around the time who said the crew was about the same as a modern aircraft carrier, which would put it around 5000 people (Roughly the same as the compliment of the current Galactica in the new show), though that's speculation and I can't cite the references. I can unequivocally say the crew was not a mere 696 people.

Also, the number of fighters is inaccurate: Omega mentions that they've managed to recover 78 fighters (IIRC) after the ambush, only 26 of which were originally theirs. This has nothing to do w/ the normal fighter compliment of the ship, just the amount they happened to have afterwards.

I'm less sure about the Shuttles and Landrams, but I don't recall any mention of a specific number for shuttles in the series, either.

I'm content to agree with what Randy said regarding the numbers, and it seems to me some of them are felgercarb. Unless there's some source I don't know about. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 03:41, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

My knowledge about such TOS details is non-existent, but we should go with the better sourced version. -- Serenity 11:49, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Stands to watch some TOS to gather up more real data. We are obviously victims of wanking fen. --Spencerian 21:10, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Re-imagined Series definition: Battlestar Group (TRS: "Water"). It also doubles as an acronym for the television series itself.

Re-imagined Series definition: technology enabling travel across distances faster than the speed of light would permit, see: FTL

Re-imagined Series definition: the process of using the FTL engines to make an near-instantaneous apparent faster-than-light transport of a ship from one point in space to another

Re-imagined Series definition: initial skills training; can refer to basic military indoctrination, and arms and ground training (TRS: "Fragged"); and basic flight training (TRS: "Miniseries")

Galactica 1980 definition:  vulgarism equivalent to "shit" (see: felgercarb); Dillon uses this when discovering that his laser pistol wasn't set to stun (1980: "Galactica Discovers Earth, Part II")

Original Series definition: expletive, similar to "crap" (see: felgercarb)