Talk:Water/Archive 1

The Lost Water

I realize from the blog entries that this episode was rather hacked up, but I was wondering; why is there never an attempt to recover the water Galactica blew overboard? The external shot of the tank rupturing beautifully shows the water blasting out of the tanking and freezing almost instantly as it hits the void, but there's never any discussion of going out there with a cargo net and recovering the ice, which certainly couldn't have made it very far in the timeframe the episode takes place in. Was there ever a stated reason this tactic wasn't employeed, or is there some fundamental scientific issue I'm not seeing with trying to recover the escaped water?

The fundamental scientific issue is the lack of pressure in space. I actually doubt that the water would freeze, given the warmth it carries along with it. It will take some time to cool off, since the heat can only be lost through radiation. The pressure loss, however, is immediate, and much closer to absolute zero pressure than to absolute zero temperature. This means that rather than freeze, the water would vaporize -and even if it freezes, the crystals would either vaporize later, or would crystallize as microscopically tiny ice dust. It would be virtually impossible to capture this water with standard procedures, and what's worse, it would continue to expand during the time preparations are made. What you would essentially need is a bag of humongous proportions to capture all the water. Incidentally, it would maybe have been useful to store the water as some form of slush ice. This would make it practically impossible for someone to go a-swimming in the tanks and would make holes in the tanks less problematic. On the other hand, ice having a lower density than water, that would mean less actual water per tank volume. --OliverH. 08:27, 17 February 2006 (EST)

Different Screen Capture Needed?

The current pic is portrait, which stretches out the Episode Data template pretty far down (which is why the template suggests the use of landscape oriented shots). Does anybody have (or have the means to take) a good landscape oriented shot for this episode? --Steelviper 16:49, 9 January 2006 (EST)

I agree. If anyone has a Season 1 DVD available, step up to the plate with a good 4:3 or 16:9 proportion screencap for this and any other S1 episode page with odd screen caps like the one that appears here. --Spencerian 16:52, 9 January 2006 (EST)

Questions

I was just reading over the S&C page and saw that Water was referenced as a good exampe of how Questions sections should display answers... but it wasn't. I fixed one link and am about to move another question to Analysis. I just wanted to make a note here in case someone has a better idea. The food question is never actually answered, but the answer listed is pretty straight forward, I think. Feel free to disagree below and we can sort out a different arrangement. --Day ^{(Talk - Admin)} 00:11, 25 June 2006 (CDT)

I know I've been inconsistent in this and might even be to blame for the item you changed. This might be something (like my episode quoting thing) to review on SAC Talk on how to answer things. I revised that not long ago but this is a good point. --Spencerian 10:43, 25 June 2006 (CDT)

Questions question

So, my first two edits were a) moved and b) reverted. As a longtime Wikipedian I'm copacetic, but I'm not clear particularly on the second what the problem was. (I asked why the Cylons would want to blow up a sleeper agent without good reason.) Is this because the Questions section is for questions that appear to be intentionally raised by the writers, and is my question viewed as nitpicking the episode logic? Seems to me (I'm as far as Pegasus) that it's still an open question, and one that's potentially interesting in-universe, but is this seen as just a TV-convention-we're-gonna-ignore ("main character in temporary jeopardy") or what? --Stilicho 00:24, 24 February 2007 (CST)

Check BW:SAC. At the end there is a part about the purpose of the episode sections. Questions are really only meant for questions. Answers should only be references to future episode. As such I moved your answer to analysis. It was valid, and I came to the same conclusion myself, but in the wrong place. The second one was probably removed because there shouldn't be nested questions. Personally I have nothing against them now and then, as it can make sense to ask a related question. I think it's rule, but it's not mentioned on SAC. Mhh... --Serenity 06:00, 24 February 2007 (CST)

Well, that helps a bit, but the policy is clear as mud, if you ask me. Looking around there seems to have been some discussion on "solid" questions and there seems to have been a massive purge of "fanwankery" at some point as well, but the policy doesn't really go into either of these points (and don't get me started on "plausible speculation"). Maybe the line is questions that can be answered by later stories belong, but questions that can only be answered by fanwankery do not? Too bad you have such a discouraging, confusing policy. --Stilicho 17:25, 24 February 2007 (CST)

The problem is that it's really hard to draw a clear line sometimes, so a few cases can be arbitrary. Generally, even questions that will clearly never be answered won't be removed. In that case, we could consider them food for thought. I've removed some stuff that is clearly trivial or fanwank, but that's in the eye of the beholder, I guess.

But your case was really more a matter of format and not content. Content-wise it was fine. --Serenity 17:35, 24 February 2007 (CST)