Talk:The Fleet (TRS)/Archive 1

Discussion page of The Fleet (TRS)/Archive 1


Comment[edit]

I think we should add Galactica, and Pegaus in the fleet's listings.--QX100 7:59, 1 October 2005 (EST)

Hey, someone check out my mnew info on my user page.--Corey Danian 10.56, 26 March 2008 (aest)

Astral Queen[edit]

I thought the Astral Queen, from the New series, had 900 prisoners. Does anyone have a mini-series transcript? That's where the ship is first mentioned. -- Neochiiz3000 12:07, 11 July 2005 (EST)
Billy Keikeya - "Uh, the captain of the Astral Queen wants to you to know he's got nearly 500 convicted criminals under heavy guard in his cargo hold. They were being transported to a penal station when the attack happened." -- YeNguyen 13:09, 11 July 2005 (EST)
I thought so... I was only off by about 400. Better than a full thousand, though. -- Neochiiz3000 13:39, 11 July 2005 (EST)
It's 1,500 -- though in the mini-series Billy said 500. (Again, his trademark "crappy math" at work.) See: Bastille Day#Notes. -- Joe Beaudoin 13:40, 11 July 2005 (EDT)
I wouldn't want BIlly as my secretary. I know that much :P -- YeNguyen 14:18, 11 July 2005 (EST)

Celestra in New BSG[edit]

Isn't there a Celestra in the new series, too? I thought I had read that somewhere (or maybe it was that one of the new ships was based on the Celestra design). Kuralyov 13:57, 11 July 2005 (EDT)
It's listed on the Sci Fi Channel's BSG page. Though as to whether or not it is canon has yet to be determined. -- Joe Beaudoin 14:17, 11 July 2005 (EDT)
If you get a close up of the Celestra in "Water" and "Colonial Day", you see the name of the ship written on the side. Same with the Striker.--CoreyDanian

Size of the Fleet[edit]

"Saul Tigh's assertion in 'The Farm' that the twenty four ships which departed with the Laura Roslin faction during her insurrection represented 'almost a third of the fleet' imply that the number of ships in the Fleet is approximately in the mid-70's."

Could it be that Tigh was referring to the population of the fleet instead of the number of ships? Passenger and crew numbers vary considerably from ship to ship, but Tigh may have done more accurate math on the ones that had jumped earlier, then did a quick--but dependable--estimate when the last batch jumped.

No, because he wasn't looking at a readout of WHICH ships had left; all he heard was "24 ships have left" with no names, so he couldn't be basing it on population, it had to be ship number; of course the problem presented is what if he was rounding down? --Ricimer 21:47, 30 October 2005 (EST)
Yeah, and then there's context, too--if somebody's looking at/listening to information about ships, they would probably frame their immediate response to the information in terms of ships, too. Rounding down would be the only way for the writers to explain their way out of the inconsistency. That, or the Colonel's been taking math lessons from Billy. . . . --BlueResistance 22:07, 30 October 2005 (EST)
From The Farm, we know that 24 ships was "almost a third of the fleet" - Tigh has no rason to underexagerate this. From Home, Part I, we know that the number of people in those 24 ships was actually a little over a third of the fleet's population. --Peter Farago 09:39, 31 October 2005 (EST)

Here's something to think about in regards to the size of the fleet and how it increased from 40 to over 70 since the mini-series. In the mini-series, Roslin sent Boomer out with her Raptor to gather other ships which ended up with a ragtag fleet of 40 or so FTL-capabale ships and some other ships that were future space debris when they had to be left behind. Adama sent out a Fleet Wide Communication for all capable ships to jump to the Ragnar Station and roundevous with the Galactica. It's possible that the 30 or so extra ships that the fleet ended up with were other craft that recieved the communication and headed to Ragnar without hooking up with Rolsin's group. Does anyone else agree with this assessment? I think it's valid considering the chaning size of the fleet and would justify the presence of more than one refinery ship (one arrived with Roslin's group and others showed up in response to Adama's message). --Ltcrashdown 20:16, 1 January 2006 (EST)

I think you may be losing sight of what's, well, possible. Several things established in the Mini were changed for the series. When they were making the Mini, they weren't sure that there was going to be a series, so they didn't exactly plan on it. So those thirty ships came out of the script room. However, since then, we can probably better assume that the fleet size will be more consistant and, thus, worth talking about in terms of in-the-show reasons. --Day 20:39, 1 January 2006 (EST)
It's an admirable attempt at a no-prize, but has some problems of its own - Adama's order only went out to military units: "Send a message to all the colonial military units. Use priority channel one. Message begins: "Am taking command of fleet." Apollo then reads the message in full from Colonial One: "To all colonial units, am taking command of fleet. All units ordered to rendezvous at Ragnar anchorage for regroup and counterattack. Acknowledge by same encryption protocol, Adama."
So I think I have to agree with Day - unless each of the 30 ships happened to have a colonial military officer with military ciphers on board, I don't see how they could have found Galactica at Ragnar. --Peter Farago 20:49, 1 January 2006 (EST)
Well, it was worth a try. I thought I remembered the message only being for military ships, but if you consider that Dee or Gaeta are Cylons, then they may have 'accidentally' sent the message to non-military ships to increase the number of potential Cylon sleeper agents. Just a thought. I figured the message from Adama was just about the only way for more ships to arrive. --Ltcrashdown 21:27, 1 January 2006 (EST)
I think what Tigh said in "The Farm" should be ignored because Dualla said in "33" that fifty three ships had jumped with Colonial One and nine other ships still had trouble, two ships that could be heard saying they were jumping in the background radio calls and Galactica, giving us 66 ships. In "You Can't Go Home Again", Tigh says that there are 60-odd ships, meaning that there was about 65 ships. With the addtion of the Pegasus, the number goes back to 66. On the vote tally boards, the one on Colonial One had 50 ships and Galactica had 54 names, plus the ones not included but mentioned in episodes bring it to 66 all up. Cloud 9 and three other ships destroyed brought the number to 63 and two ships could've been taken apart to make the Cylon buildings on New Caprica (Galactica and Pegasus had eighteen civilians ships, including a mining ship, the Space Park luxury liner, Celestra, five-engined vessel, the six tubed vessel, the cargo transport seen orbitting near Cloud 9 in Colonial Day and the wedge-shaped vessel). With the destruction of Pegasus and the disappearance of Adriatic and Carina the number could be anywhere between 58 and 61 ships.--CoreyDanian
I think the number would actually be about 40 to 50 ships as of "The Passage" as each jump had at least 8 to about 10 ships in all five jumps.--CoreyDanian 16.19 Saturday 10 November 2007

Botanical Cruiser[edit]

Kahran writes: (While the original was destroyed in the Mini-Series, various background shots have placed an FTL-equiped Botanical Cruiser in the fleet.)

Are you sure that's not Cloud 9? They have similar external features. --Peter Farago 16:02, 27 November 2005 (EST)

I'm positive it's the Botanical Cruiser. They've re-used the FTL jump shot from the Mini Series at least once during season two. Durring "Scattered" when the fleet is making its emergencey jump there's a shot of various ships jumping away and right in the dead centre of the shot is the Botanical Cruiser from the Mini-Series. Kahran 20:32, 1 January 2006 (EST)

I noticed it too. Curious, either a mistake (like the B5 shot of the Agamenon destroying civilian transports) or it could be that it is a simalar fhip that IS equiped with FTL. It's possible that drives are used on ship as needed. If a ship is NOT intended to travel over interstallar distances, then it wouldn't need a FTL drive. FTL drives are probably costly to make, maitain, or operate -- not to mention the fuel/energy requirments. If a ship was only ment to operate in-system, an FTL drive might not have been cost effective. The inclusion of an ARGO ship is a tip of the hat to ship's inclusion in the opriginal series. In the original, stock footage of the ship from the movie SILENT RUNNING was used. In this new show, an original designed vessel was created -- probably because people knew about the stck footage use -- Centuri 06:29, 8 January 2006 (EST)

The article for the Botanical Cruiser notes the origin. Yes, it was a recreation of the Agro Ship as an homage to the ships used in TOS, which were the redressed models used in Silent Running.. That the Botanical Cruiser may seem to appear in the fleet suggests (from a story POV) that there is a FTL-capable ship of similar appearance that joined the Fleet. I think it's a gaffe--the visual effects people used stock footage or models and didn't think. Also, understand that FTL in the RDM series is apparent travel, not true "warp drive"-like flight. See the FTL article for a good synopsis. --Spencerian 13:32, 8 January 2006 (EST)

FTL[edit]

Acording to the article, in the original show "With the exception of Galactica, the ships were not capable of lightspeed. " I would like to know where this particular tidbit came from. As I remember some ships originallly were sub-light, but they were reto-fitted to be FTL capable. The problem was that none of them were capable of HIGH FTL speeds. Remember the specs of the Galactica show that she was capable of a flank speed of 10C. Remember, they were croosing not just interstellar space, but intergalactic space. If they were only in the Greater Magelanic Cloud, it would mean having to cover a distance of 140,000 light-years to get here. At anything other than FTL, the goal would be unatainable. Crossing interstellar distances requires FTL, no ifs, no ands, no buts. -- Centuri 06:29, 8 January 2006 (EST)

In the RDM series, FTL is FTL, it's not a matter of speed, but of distance in terms of the "length" of a wormhole that can be made from place to place. RDM's universe sticks to Einsteinian theories. TOS stories generally were a mismash of "science" that sometimes got in the way of the story. The Fleet probably moves at a good distance on each Jump, but space is really big. Like their TOS counterparts, it will be some time before they find Earth. --Spencerian 13:38, 8 January 2006 (EST)

Oh, Split[edit]

This article needs splitting and name-spacing, doesn't it? Into "The Fleet (RDM)" and "The Fleet (TOS)"? Is there a good reason not to split it that I don't know about, or... can I do it this evening? I was planning on moving it to "The Fleet (RDM)" and then copy/pasting to the TOS page and then making this one a disambiguation page. --Day 10:30, 10 January 2006 (EST)

No, go ahead. You might leave a redirect to the RDM article for now - I'll help you go link hunting tonight. --Peter Farago 12:10, 10 January 2006 (EST)
This is a happy kind of work that has to be done, now that our TOS pages are coming into their own. I'll look for double redirects and the like after you two pick through. --Spencerian 12:56, 10 January 2006 (EST)
Blech. That's my half. It's all you, spence. --Peter Farago 20:20, 10 January 2006 (EST)

Ship Populations[edit]

By adding up the votes on the tally boards in Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II, we could get lower estimates on the populations of the ships. Is this a good idea, or would we be inferring too much from too little? (Interestingly, the Demetrius has a population of at least 530) screencap OTW 16:27, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to bump this 'cos I think it could be kinda big. Another interesting thing is that the Gemenon Traveller votes overwhelmingly in favour of Roslin (presumably for religious reasons) OTW 09:35, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Funny that Galactica also has a pretty good majority for Roslin. --Catrope(Talk to me or e-mail me) 09:44, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
I think it would be taking the numbers a little too seriously. The prop/art department probably just made stuff up and paid attention that it adds up at the end. But if a later script referenced a ship population, I'm not sure that it would jibe. Although the writers clearly use that list of ships to take names from, we don't know if it includes the population numbers as well. Might be something to ask Bradley, but we can't expect a quick answer there. -- Serenity 10:35, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
The point is we don't really know how realistic the Demetrius figure is. The ship might be roomier than what we've seen thus far, and it might also have been overcrowded (the election was before the population fall due to the occupation of New Caprica). --Catrope(Talk to me or e-mail me) 10:40, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Maybe something to put in the "things that may as well be considered canonical if they haven't been contradicted by the end of the series" bucket? OTW 17:09, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
An idea! See if the votes from Pyxis add up to about 600. Unfortunately I haven't got a screencap with Pyxis' figures on it. OTW 17:12, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Actually, that's not such a great idea... seeing as there's been a loss of 5,000 + people between LDYB and "Exodus, Part II" (as we've seen in "Crossroads, Part I"). So the numbers for all these ships will likely be higher on the voting tally boards. -- Joe Beaudoin So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus 17:42, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

"Destroyed" template use[edit]

Whlle marking the destroyed ships is important, the use of the current template there, {{ShipDestroyed}}, creates an awkward sentence fragment, making it appear that "Destroyed" is part of the ship's name. The "Destroyed" item should have something to set it off. I recommend parentheses at least. Better: Place the "destroyed" marker at the end of the description, or use another symbol (perhaps a cross as used for deceased characters in its master template) instead. --Spencerian 04:07, 22 May 2008 (UTC)