Talk:Navigation in the Re-imagined Series/Archive 1

Summary

This article comprises the topics on navigation from a past larger article version of Science in the Re-imagined Series, broken out for later expansion and page size considerations. The Reaction Control System article and parts of the FTL article are also included. --Spencerian 08:13, 11 October 2006 (CDT)

Distances and speeds in the Miniseries

There may be a significant error in the section on distances. The 30 minute communications delay between Adar and Roslin is most likely a total round trip delay -- 15 minutes each way, not 30. This would mean that all distances, times, and speeds derived from this number should be halved. --Girckin 21:22, 7 November 2006 (CST)

When Roslin later speaks to 'Jack' over the wireless, there is no such delay whatsoever. Billy may have meant the time it takes to get Roslin's speech from the plane to the President's eyes, or some delay in that process. --Catrope 10:07, 2 January 2007 (CST)

The use of a real time communication between the two makes the distance much shorter. There is no evidence of ftl communication or sensors in the show. This would make the distance 1/2 a light second to 1 light second at best.--Ali-Sama 9:36 am, 14 November 2007 (PST)

I take it you mean the scene when Roslin speaks with Jack over the wireless? There seems to be a multi-second lag there (Roslin asks whether the President is still alive twice before Jack answers. Also, we don't know how far from Caprica Colonial One is at that moment: she could almost be back home for all we know. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 11:51, 14 November 2007 (CST)

Cleanup

I've tagged this for clean-up, it is a mess, for example it has self references, assumptions and original research, which are not encyclopaedic. MatthewFenton 15:44, 30 December 2006 (CST)

Keep in mind, before you make changes, that Battlestar Galactica is a work of fiction. The information in this encyclopedia is self-referencing sometimes because it is it's own universe. Much of the research involves derived content, which is allowable if it is based on information provided by official information in the show. Be careful not to apply the original research processes os Wikipedia here; they do not fully apply. Please note what items you consider original research so all can review them and determine if the items are derived content or unsourced original research, also known as fanwanking, which is not allowable here. --Spencerian 23:53, 30 December 2006 (CST)

"We know that Battlestar Galactica's universe sticks to the same speed of light constant as real-world Earth (and the universe, of course): 186,282 miles per second." - Who is we? Is we me and the wiki, if so how do I know, how does we know? - Basically you should never use the word "we" here -- Self-referencing isn't just writing down text, an example of self-referencing would be an episode page.

"Given the velocities involved, extremely high accelerations must be used to attain them in reasonable (useable [sic]) time frames involved for in-system transportation. Such G forces would kill any humans involved unless some means of dampening them were employed. Given that the technology to perform "space-folding" FTL Jumps is also available, the technology to manipulate gravity would lie in the same area." - space-folding, when has space-folding been mentioned in the series?

Just two things that immediately jump out at me. This page reads like an essay to me at least. MatthewFenton 17:34, 1 January 2007 (CST)

I agree, Matthew. We can neutralize the writing to make it leas like an essay. If you don't get to it, I'll make the changes. --Spencerian 20:37, 1 January 2007 (CST)

About space-folding: While it hasn't been stated on screen, I recall an interview with Moore and/or Eick, where they said that they wanted to actually show the spacefolding effect in more detail, but couldn't get it to look good. So at the end they settled for the current effect. Or it might even be in "33" or "Miniseries" podcast. --Serenity 05:39, 2 January 2007 (CST)

It was from the miniseries DVD commentary, I believe. --Spencerian 07:00, 2 January 2007 (CST)

The Triangulating the Colonies' Actual Location certainly needs to be thoroughly updated. I will do it after I have checked Roger Sinnott's "SkyAtlas 2000.0" ... at least some of the star charts seen in the series apparently originate from this book (the logo is even visible in one scene!). In the meantime, a few quick observations:

• The Twelve Colonies are located at most 2000 light years from Earth, since the Original Five sub lightspeed trip took 2000 years. We also know the Colonies must be either between us and the Lagoon Nebula/M8, or alternatively 180 degrees away on the other side.
• Likewise, if the thirteenth tribe's sub lightspeed journey to Earth began on Kobol 4000 years before the series (including a visit at the Algae Planet and Lion's Head Nebula 3000 years ago), it means Kobol also must be within 2000ly of Earth. Most likely somewhere between us and the Colonies.
• ....and if we assume the thirteenth tribe also returned to Kobol before the Tomb of Athena "planetarium" was built, then the maximum distance has to be less than 1000ly to permit a Kobol<->Earth roundtrip before the Exodus.
• The Ionian Nebula is supposedly very close to Earth, which means Gaeta is wildly off the mark when saying it is 13000ly from the Algae Planet. It can't be, unless the thirteenth tribe had access to faster-than-light technology after all.

-- AdmiralMarcus 14:44, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Finally update the Colonies' Actual Location section. See previous section for rationale. Corrections/suggestions/critcisms most welcome, as usual...

-- AdmiralMarcus 18:56, 4 August 2011 (EDT)

'What happened in "Scattered"' section

I've just deleted the entire "What happened in Scattered" section, as it was fanwanking. Whalepelt 20:14, 28 February 2007 (CST)

I disagree. I think this still falls under derived content. It's more speculative than most articles, but in line with some others, especially in the science section. But it's not made-up outright, nor does it try to explain away inexplicable plotholes (which is what fanwanking is for me). Most it was deduction from a few lines in the episode (like needing to make new starfixes, and the relaying of the jump coordinates), together with some other FTL facts we know, like the need for computations and the concept of a blind jump. --Serenity 08:30, 1 March 2007 (CST)

I Support the deletion. I'm a big proponent of the science pages (having authored most of them), but as I re-read this section, I realized that there isn't any episode sourcing for the piece, however well-thought out. This section is truly fanwank; to be derived content, it has to know the procedures (not just supposed technical mechanics) of FTL navigation as explained in the show, and that hasn't been detailed in any episode at this time. --Spencerian 10:10, 1 March 2007 (CST)

There are snippets of dialogue to back it up. There is the conversation between Saul and Ellen Tigh (referenced in the text), where he explains the basics. And there it's also said that jump plots are continually updated and that Gaeta forgot to send the new ones. So what happened? Something like a blind jump. They had a jump plot, but a wrong one and ended up in a random place unknown to Galactica. We know that such jumps are possible, but they are unpredictable; exactly what happened here. Yeah, it could be sourced better, but the explanation doesn't come out of thin air. The last paragraph is pure speculation and not explained in the episode either, but it's the only possible explanation for what happened. --Serenity 10:30, 1 March 2007 (CST)

I see your point, although I don't think I can quantify it. Could you readd the relevant parts with supporting sources? --Spencerian 12:45, 1 March 2007 (CST)

Done, and it's better than before. I put the Tigh quote in a footnote, and made a clearer reference to blind jumps. --Serenity 13:37, 1 March 2007 (CST)

I'm cool with it. Nice work! --Spencerian 14:02, 1 March 2007 (CST)

FTL jump calculations

• Elevation
• Rotation
• Distance

"Here, the dimension of distance would represent more than just a straight line, plotted through three-dimensional space but the amount of space curvature that the jump drive would have to fold."

Not true, they can just be Spherical coordinates, which draws a line of length r (note the similar notation to radius), but with a specific orientation in space depending the angles θ and φ. No special space-folding math here.--DuMan 16:28, 30 June 2007 (CDT)

Mhh, true. Guess we can just change this to general coordinates, and say that they could be either cartesian or spherical. --Serenity 16:41, 30 June 2007 (CDT)

No credit!

I went to all that trouble of witing about and calculating the time dilation, an addition that I originally made at Science in the Re-imagined Series over a year ago, but now I find it on this page, and I am not in either page's edit history! What's up with that? I thought this was cc-by-sa. Where is my frakkin' credit?!! --Bp 05:26, 26 August 2007 (CDT)

Oh, I guess I am still in the edit history at Science in the Re-imagined Series. I missed it. Anyway, wasn't really mad about it; just was looking for the time dilation info and couldn't find it on that page. --Bp 05:30, 26 August 2007 (CDT)

Your contributions were probably moved over to this article when the original science article was split over several pages because it became too long and about too many topics (at least I think that's what happened). But technically we don't have page ownership here ;( --Serenity 05:38, 26 August 2007 (CDT)

Right, no page ownership, but attribution is required by the license. An editor's work is released to BSG wiki under the cc license, and BSG wiki releases it to others in the same way. But it doesn't matter, I was just making a big deal about it because I couldn't find the text when I wanted to. --Bp 07:03, 26 August 2007 (CDT)

Triangulation

You say, "To calculate the approximate distance between the Colonies and Earth, using the map to the left, one must first get the distance between the Lagoon Nebula and Earth, 4,100 light-years. One must then determine the distance between the point labeled 'Earth' and the point labeled 'Lagoon Nebula.'" Well, that would be 4,100 light-years. You meant 'Colonies' and 'Lagoon Nebula' or 'Colonies' and 'Earth'. However, these distances are unknown, and so I don't see where the 10,250 light year estimate came from. --MHall 01:43, 13 October 2007 (CDT)

RCS

In Roslin's press conference in The Hand of God, Playa Palacios states that the fleet would be unable to perform basic combat manouveres without fuel. Since reaction control thrusters are used for ships to manouvere, and she is obviously referring to tylium by "fuel" (because tylium is the only thing the fleet salvages from the asteroid), does this mean that we can add that Colonial RCS systems are also fueled by refined tylium?--Rapturous 18:14, 21 October 2007 (CDT)

Lion's Head Nebula / Constellation Leo

Inasmuch as the Fleet passes through the Lion's Head Nebula on the path toward Earth, I note that a straight line drawn from the Lagoon Nebula through the Sol System and continuing out toward the Galactic Edge passes through the constellation Leo, the Lion, which includes the intensely bright blue-white star Regulus {Alpha Leonis, "the Lion's Heart"). Does anyone know if this was intentional or is it an ironic coincidence? -- Davidkevin 07:58, 5 November 2007 (CST)

Mhhh, interesting. I think it's a coincidence, since - unlike the lagoon nebula - the lion's head nebula is fiction. Might be worth adding as a note to the nebula article though. --Serenity 14:51, 5 November 2007 (CST)

You can tell right off the bat that this assertion is wrong, because the Lagoon Nebula is between Sagittarius and Scopius, but Leo is not opposite Sagittarius/Scorpio in the zodiac. More scientifically, Regulus is at Right Ascension 10h 08 min, Declination +11° 58'. The Lagoon Nebula is at Right Ascension 18h 03m, Declination −24° 23′. Opposite the Lagoon Nebula is Right Ascension 6h, Declination +24° 23', which would be the border area between Gemini and Taurus, around the open cluster M35. The closest exciting objects would be the horns of Taurus and M1, the Crab Nebula, which is at 05h 34m, 22°. Note that the pulsars that make the eye of the Lion's Head Nebula are shown in a real location (see the use of the word "TAURUS"), which happens to be in the border area of Taurus, Cetus, and Eridanus:

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/9127/battlestargalactica3x06fd0.th.jpg http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/59/neartaurusnq2.jpg

Although you could dismiss this as laziness on the part of the production team, I doubt it. I think they were along a line from (the Colonies and) Earth to the Lagoon Nebula, and therefore their star chart for the "Taurus sector" would look much like ours. Oh yeah, the Lagoon Nebula is shown in the wrong place in Home part 2. So, let's see... 180 degrees opposite this wrong location would be Aldebaran, the eye of the bull Taurus, i.e., the eye of the husband of the cow. I'm not saying it means anything. --MHall 12:18, 19 November 2007 (CST)