Talk:Survivor count

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No whiteboard information given in the following episodes:

• Bastille Day
• Act of Contrition - 13 pilot deaths
• Litmus - 3 crew deaths and one copy of Doral
• Six Degrees of Separation - Shelly Godfrey "disappears"
• Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down - Baltar gives a verbal count, but the whiteboard is displaying something entirely weird.
• The Hand of God

I will be unable to update this page for the information in Home until a few days after it airs. Please be patient; I will attend to it as soon as possible. --Peter Farago 02:00, 19 Aug 2005 (EDT)

Contents 1 Timeline Fuzziness 2 Graph Update 3 Rationale for Death Count between "Epiphanies" and "Black Market" 4 Analysis on Baltar's Initial Projections is Off 5 An idea for improved lucidity 6 Crossroads, Part I 7 Graph picture 8 Act of Contrition issue 9 A Disquiet Follows My Soul

Timeline Fuzziness

As you may have noticed, the timeline is getting fuzzy. I believe it is possible to establish a reasonable sequence of events through the episode "Flight of the Phoenix", but later events will be difficult to pin down until the airing of "Epiphanies". --Peter Farago 00:45, 27 September 2005 (EDT)

Graph Update

Peter, which software did you use to create this graph? Perhaps I can update it to reflect Pegasus. --Watcher 19:10, 19 October 2005 (EDT)

The problem is with the dates, which have gotten very fuzzy since the start of the second season. See Talk:Timeline (RDM) if you'd like to help me sort things out. --Peter Farago 23:33, 19 October 2005 (EDT)

Uh oh. Sounds like deciphering M Theory. OK. What the heck. I'm with ya. --Watcher 02:03, 20 October 2005 (EDT)

I believe that we can now make a credible guess for the start dates of "Resistance", "The Farm", and "Flight of the Phoenix". "Home, Part I", "Home, Part II", "Final Cut" are not yet dated, and I am leaving them marked as such. Since I understand that including data from "Pegasus" is very desirable here, I'm making a completely unfounded guess that its events take place on Day 105, and updating the graph accordingly. --Peter Farago 20:19, 13 November 2005 (EST)

The entry for Home (2) should list the deaths of two Laura Roslin redshirts (not one), since the overall population is reduced by three, but only Elosha and one redshirt is listed, unless there's another factor I'm forgetting. Ltcrashdown December 23, 2005

We didn't see it happen, so that's not a reasonable assumption. Maybe somebody on the Rising Star hit their head on a bulkhead during the episode. --Peter Farago 19:06, 24 December 2005 (EST)

I agree. I don't remember anyone else dying either, but the body count got reduced. I just figure with one dead Roslin redshirt listed, that it might make sense to make it two, just so it would match up with the three death population decrease. Ltcrashdown

The sketchy numbers in the early few episodes can be accounted for in a few ways. First off, people could have been injured or heavily irradiated in the holocaust and eventually died a few days later. Secondly, people could have been injured/killer during the events of "33". Ron Moore mentions a deleted take where Edward James Olmos improvises a line about "10 suicides", for instance. Thirdly, people could have been counted twice, or not counted at all. If you remember the first couple days after 9/11, it was originally thought that around 6,000 people had died, until the estimates were revised down to 3,000. Given that the only source for the survivor count in the first season is Laura's whiteboard, some inaccuracies are to be expected. Philwelch 19:33, 31 January 2006 (EST)

Rationale for Death Count between "Epiphanies" and "Black Market"

We conclude that the bomber killed herself in the attack based on the following dialogue:

Bomber: None of us want to die, but the fighting must end. If my sacrifice sends a signal to the Cylon that brings peace, then it was worth it. I do this for my children, and for the children that will follow them. Gods willing, demand peace, demand peace!

And that at least two civilians were killed based on this:

Adama: People are dead.

So at least two people died in total as a result of the attack. It seems unlikely that Adama included the suicide bomber in this count, which puts the total death toll at the bomber and at least two civilians. --Peter Farago 01:29, 11 February 2006 (EST)

Agreed. Though I must advise against actually basing theories on all of this. I mean it's just a way of keeping track of the current number of humans: in Season 1 the numbers changed around a lot; remember that point when like 30 people died with no apparent explanation? I mean, jumps of 20-50 people might be pushing it, but when it comes to changes of around just 4-5 people, this can be offset by newborn babies, and conversly, the number that have died could be augmented by those civilians dying of more everyday means in the Fleet (murder, poor medical supplies, industrial accidents, etc.) I'm just saying: It was never a perfectly tuned system to begin with.--The Merovingian 01:50, 11 February 2006 (EST)

Analysis on Baltar's Initial Projections is Off

In The Captain's Hand, where Baltar gives Roslin the fleet projections, the analysis erroneously goes on to state 7.5 deaths per day as a part of the fleet projections. That is a perspective, and it's off. Give Baltar credit enough to factor the known deathrate of 2.1 a day; ultimately leading to 62 years to total annihilation.

It is to my understanding that 18 years is how long it would be where the survivors would no longer be able to repopulate humanity. That is my initial thought, and what makes the most sense. From there the remaining survivors would simply live out the rest of their days or be killed, ending all of known humanity. Which, by the given analysis of 2.1 a day is 62 years.

The 18 years factor should not be used with the given analysis of 2.1 a day versus the erroneous 7.5 a day. That 7.5 does not match the deathrate from Season 1 to end of Season 2. --AJFederation 01:42, 23 July 2006 (CDT)

In biology, there is a concept of gene fixation, where a species loses genetic diversity and becomes highly susceptible to disease. Contributing to this is the reproductive population of a species. Since we have not a seen an age distribution chart, Baltar could be alluding to this concept. To illustrate, if the Fleet was reduced to 1000 males only or 500 males & 500 post menopausal females, the human race would functionally be extinct. Based on the current information, it is difficult to determine the truth.--Killerman 07:00, 15 October 2006 (CDT)

An idea for improved lucidity

This page has some interesting information. Over the seasons, however, it has become a bit cluddered and difficult to read the data, especially with all the one-item bullet lists. What about arranging all the relevant(!) data (that is, everything except for Adama's shaving :P) in one or more tables (e.g. one for each season) with four columns (Day, Count, Episode, Events)? --Pedda 07:49, 29 October 2006 (CST)

Crossroads, Part I

As I noted on the page, there is a conflict in numbers. From "LDYB, Part II" we have 39,192 living in New Caprica City. "Crossroads" gives the number as 44,035. This is close to the total human population we calculated in the "Precipice" section and might be accurate if we don't take the "half-strength" comment too literally - which the page does. It's more of a turn of phrase than a true number.
But then the lawyer notes the number of escapees as 38,838. This is obviously lower than numbers given in all previous episodes and thus has to exclude the military personnel. It's possible to reconcile the data, but including the military in one and excluding it in another is a very weird way of counting. --Serenity 11:01, 19 March 2007 (CDT)

You mixed up the numbers: 39,192 is the population of New Caprica City after a year of living there. The missing 4,843 people could very well have died in the intervening year because of medicine shortages, climate (it seemed like a pretty cold place in the winter, and those tents are probably not very well heated), bad working conditions or other causes. This leaves 'only' 354 deaths during the Cylon occupation, which makes sense as well since Baltar was quite shocked at having to sign a death list with 200 names on it. Such large-scale executions probably hadn't occurred before. Of course this doesn't mean Baltar isn't responsible for the full 5,197 since it was his idea to settle on New Caprica in the first place, despite its being barely habitable. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 09:05, 21 March 2007 (CDT)

Ok, I think I figured it out. I'll shortly add it to "Crossroads, Part I" and here. It actually fits pretty well with what has been established and what we calculated before. Curiously she is counting only the civilian population, and the "44305" also included the civilians in orbit despite her talking about "those who settled on New Caprica". --Serenity 10:08, 21 March 2007 (CDT)

After, some confusing calculations, I managed to make the numbers fit very well with what we had estimated before. But there is still one annoying glitch: the number of military personnel with 2,597. This roughly fits with our estimate of the combined crews who escaped New Caprica, each battlestar having roughly half its normal crew. However 2600 is just about the crew Galactica had at the beginning, which conflicts with the overcrowding depicted after the destruction of Pegasus. The problematic thing is the "Crossroads" figure. If it really means only the civilians it should be lower to shift more to the military.

Other options:
1.) Taking the 4,835 as the death toll of the settlement is possible, but all that would do is decrease the death toll of the Cloud Nine explosion. The estimates of the population in orbit are still ca. 4,200. But it fixes the casualty figure of 5,197 Cassidy gives.
2.) One could take the 44,035 as the survivors of Cloud Nine. However that puts those deaths at 318, which is somewhat low for three or so ships. --Serenity 12:00, 21 March 2007 (CDT)

Many of Galactica's personnel became civilians (Duck, Norah, Jammer, Seelix, et al.), so they were probably counted in as civvies. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 17:03, 21 March 2007 (CDT)

I'm not entirely sure how accurate we can really be. During that year, many of the military personnel had decided to leave military service and become back of the colonists on New Caprica. Thrace and the Tyrols are two good examples of the many military personnel that left. So that 2,597 might not be at all accurate either. Even in the beginning of the season, Lee Adama had argued with his father that BOTH the battlestars were less than half-staff and half strength, which would indicate to me that the # of military personnel is not accurate already.

I now kinda wish RDM left the footage of Cassidy doing the full calculation of the fleet out. In the podcast he mentioned how the lawyer went from 50 trillion lives to the current survivor count with all these calculations and minuses, etc. They had to shorten it for time sake which is a shame as this debate about how she got her numbers would probably not exist right now. --LifeStar 23:51, 21 March 2007 (CDT)

Graph picture

We should probably get rid of that picture. It's kinda nice, but outdated, since we're below 40,000 now. Someone could probably whip up a new one, but the show doesn't allow any absolute dating of events anymore.

Or how about a new one without a timescale? Instead of a timescale, it could be nice to directly name the events that lead to drastic increases and decreases in the population. -- Serenity 18:49, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

That could be easily whipped up in Excel. Shane (talk) 18:51, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't see this before. I just manually updated it based on the "Faith" three-year comment (and the easy back-dating to the Ionian Nebula). I'm sure something a bit more "sleeker" would be better in the long run, but a graph should stay just for the cool visual summary.--Tim Thomason 00:24, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Looks fine :) -- Serenity 09:10, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Act of Contrition issue

Should we just note the possibility of 13 births off-setting the deaths of the pilots in "Act of Contrition"? Thoughts? -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 19:14, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

A Disquiet Follows My Soul

• A Disquiet Follows My Soul
  • 39,644 - A loss of six. Ensign "Easy" Esrin, Lieutenant J. "Shark" Finnegan, and Specialist Brooks are murdered by "Sweet Eight" aboard Raptor 718, and three possible suicides.

I really don't think those deaths are considered in the count, as the episode was produced LONG before the webisodes would (see the commentary on the webisodes, mainly, where she mentions that this was shot concurrently with the movie and the destruction of the sets). I think it is really meant to count suicides. --Tritium 04:00, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

It would have been trivial to change the title graphics after "The Face of the Enemy" was produced. I don't think there's any need to assume that the deaths in the webisodes were non-canon. --Peter Farago 18:50, 28 January 2009 (UTC)