Podcast:Pegasus

2006-04-23T13:56:27Z

Grafix: Typos

{{podcast|author=The Merovingian|emailAuthor2= and [[Special:Emailuser/Steelviper|Steelviper]]|suffix=s|additionalCopyright=}}

==[http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/mp3/210/bsg_ep210_1of5.mp3 Teaser]==

Hello, and welcome to the podcast for episode ten, "[[Pegasus (episode)|Pegasus]]", of season two. I'm [[Ronald D. Moore]], executive producer and developer of [[Battlestar Galactica (RDM)|the new "Battlestar Galactica"]] and I'd like to welcome you to the podcast. This one's a lot of fun for me, this is a episode that I've been thinking about for a long time, literally since I agreed to do the project. There's a couple of things you should know going into this: this is the one hour version of "Pegasus". We struggled ''mightily'' to get this show to time, and when the footage was complete, I believe the Director's Cut was a good 15 minutes over. Which is a bit of a problem, because that's more than an ''act's'' worth of material, and as we tried varying ways to get this down to the hour running length, I kept feeling like the best version of the show was the longer version. So we actually explored for a while the possibility of showing a 90 minute version of "Pegasus", and there was various discussions with the network back and forth. Ultimately, one of the problems was, we had an episode that was too long for an hour, and too short for 90 minutes. We could never quite plump it out to the point where it could be a 90 minute show, and it was always very difficult to pare it down to an hour show. So we finally got it down to an hour, rather than pad it out and just make it slow to get to 90 minutes, we compromised and decided to go with the fastest barn-burner of an episode that we could, in the one hour.

And, uh, fortunately, Universal Home Video has agreed to show the larger, the longer version of "Pegasus" in the season 2 DVD set so there's something for all of you to look forward to. So there will be periodic references to that throughout the show, but I'll try not to dwell on too much on that.

This episode obviously has its genesis in the roots of the show itself, which is the Original 1978 Series. They did an episode in the original Galactica called "Living Legend, Parts I and II", which featured the return of the Battlestar Pegasus. Er, not the return, but meeting the Battlestar ''[[Pegasus (TOS)|Pegasus]]'', and its commander— uh, Commander [[Cain (TOS)|Cain]] who was played by [[IMDB:nm0000978|Lloyd Bridges]]. It also introduced the character of [[Sheba]], who was Cain's daughter on ''Pegasus''. And at the end of that, of the original series' two-parter, ''Pegasus'' and Cain kind of vanish and it's not clear whether they're alive or dead, but Sheba, the commander's daughter, stays aboard and essentially becomes a somewhat romantic interest of [[Apollo (TOS)|Apollo]]. Sheba was a character that is not present in this version of the show. I felt that Sheba ultimately was too cute of a character concept; that you'd run into ''another'' Battlestar and that commander ''also'' would have a child as the commander of his airgroup, or in this case her airgroup. I just felt it was one step too far, it pushed the reality of the show across the line, where essentially then the show is winking at the audience and sort of going "Yeah, they did it so we're going to do it too; it's kind of cute isn't it? That, you know, ''two'' commanders and ''two'' kids and the kids are gettin' into it!" You know that, I— I just couldn't go there. It worked for the Original Series, I will give the Original Series that, that it— within the context of their show and within the sort of parameters of how they chose to tell stories and their characters it worked perfectly fine. It just didn't feel like it was going to work very well in our episode.

The choice of [[IMDB:nm0000405|Michelle Forbes]] to play Admiral [[Helena Cain|Cain]] was the subject of much discussion. We went through a lot of actresses' names. We went through a lot of sort of testing, internally about who we would use and what the possibilities for her. I had worked with Michelle Forbes on "[[IMDB:tt0092455|Star Trek: The Next Generation]]", where she played Ensign [[MemoryAlpha:Ro Laren|Ro]], and other people knew her from her film work. And there was something really interesting about going with a— not an older woman, but a slightly younger woman. That she would personify this character. It seemed like an interesting challenge, as opposed to going to someone older, you know, and more experienced, in some ways, there was something that I really liked about bringing in the younger admiral, the sort of fast-tracked admiral, who then comes in and takes command of ''[[Galactica (RDM)|Galactica]]'', and the entire [[The Fleet (RDM)|Rag Tag Fleet]].

I should say that in the original, in "[[The Living Legend, Part I]] and [[The Living Legend, Part I|II]]", Commander Cain did ''not'' outrank [[Adama (TOS)|Adama]]. That story was similar only insofar as there was, there is a "Battlestar Pegasus", they do meet up with it unexpectedly, and that there's an admiral Cain who's a bit of— more of a hardass character than Commander Adama. There story was very different; it had to do with Cain's obsession with attacking a particular Cylon outpost or base, as I recall, and his determination to attack that Cylon base despite Adama's misgivings and Cain even manipulates the tactical situation at one point; he's out flying Vipers, ''himself'', for some reason, and you know is destroying ships in order to force Adama to attack the Cylon base, which Cain has been advocating all along. We didn't use any of that for the show. We just sort of started with the premise of Cain showing up. I'll be back.

==[http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/mp3/210/bsg_ep210_2of5.mp3 Act 1]==

We started with the premise of [[Helena Cain|Cain]] showing up and being a hardass. I like that. I like the kernel of that. That another [[Mercury class battlestar|battlestar]] comes on the scene and their commander is a tougher one than ours is, and is a bit of a crazy person. On top of that, what I thought was even more interesting was then to say, "Well what if that commander shows up and they outrank [[William Adama|Adama]]? What if that commander shows up and takes command of [[The Fleet (RDM)|the Fleet]] away from Adama?" Which would happen. And suddenly I realized '''that''' was a more interesting tale. It's one thing to run into the crazy man, or woman in this case. It's one thing to deal with that other commander who's a little out of control and you have doubts about, but it's another thing entirely when that crazy person comes and takes over your fleet. As I said earlier, there's a lot of things that did not make it into the one-hour version of [[Pegasus (episode)|"Pegasus"]]. There's a whole leadup to this scene with Adama and [[Laura Roslin|Laura]] and [[Saul Tigh|Tigh]] walking through the hallway, and that's where they talk about who Admiral Cain is. They talk about the fact that Cain was a very young Admiral, had been promoted over several people on the Commander's list. Was sort of an up and comer, and a bit of a tough one in that she had taken command of [[Battlestar Group]] 75 only recently before the attack.

[[Michael Rymer]] shot this episode. Michael Rymer had directed, of course, [[miniseries|the pilot]], and [[33]], and [[Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I|Kobol's Last Gleaming]], and the opening two-parter of this season. And this is the next two-parter that Michael shot for us. And there is something about Michael's footage. There is something about the way he shoots the show, the performances he elicits from the characters, where he puts the camera, the lighting schemes that he comes up with in conjunction with our dp [http://imdb.com/name/nm0002323/ Steve McNutt], that in many ways makes it unique and distinctive. When I see the dailies on the show, I've said a few times I can always tell [[:Category:Episodes directed by Michael Rymer|Mike Rymer's]]. It's like Michael just has a particular voice for this show, and it shines through on an episode like this, which I just think is a great, great, episode.

We had varying storylines and drafts dealing with the interaction between Laura and Cain. In one of the drafts Cain in this moment did not even address Laura as president, just said, "It's a pleasure." I kept playing a card where Cain never quite acknowledged Laura as the president and there was a scene that we wrote at one point where Cain went over to talk to Laura because there was also a subplot of ships in the fleet holding back supplies, not delivering [[Tylium|fuel]], etc, because they weren't getting spare parts, they weren't getting help when [[Pegasus (RDM)|''Pegasus'']] is helping [[Galactica (RDM)|''Galactica'']] after they arrive and the civilian fleet is getting fed up. And they go on strike. There's like a strike. They're not going to deliver fuel supplies to ''Pegasus'' until they get some of their needs met. And Cain got very upset and goes to confront Laura, and in that scene Laura's like "Hey, well what do you want? You're not helping these guys out." And Cain makes it very clear to Laura in that moment that she doesn't accept her as the president and this is a military operation and she'll take what she needs from these people if need be. As this script went through the development process that just became one of the subplots that went away, thank god, because we have enough subplots as it were with the footage that we did shoot.

(sound of a zippo lighter)

This dinner sequence- that's my (exhales smoke) third cigarette of the night, and yes they are just cigarettes for those of you keeping score at home. This, not dinner sequence, sorry. This drinking scene with these three principles actually is much longer and tried to answer all the basic questions about ''Pegasus'' and we do here what- how they escaped the [[Fall of the Twelve Colonies|initial Cylon attack]] here by [[blind jump]] to just jump away to nowhere. The next question that was asked in the dinner party scene was "How'd you avoid the [[Cylons (RDM)|Cylons]] [[Command Navigation Program|infecting your computer systems]], taking them over, shutting you down like they did all the other ships in the miniseries?" And the answer was that as ''Pegasus'' was going in for the overhaul, most, if not all of her computers were offline and the network had been shut down. And essentially that combined with being lucky enough to avoid the first strike and Cain's initial order to just jump somewhere safe. And then they came to realize later on that the Cylons were able to infiltrate the computer networks. How they came to understand that is something we never got into, but I think you could fill in various backstories of how they eventually figure that out on their own.

I like this scene a lot because this is the "Who is Cain?" scene and "What has she gone through?" and I thought it was really important to understand that she is the way she is for reasons. That yeah, she was always a hard-charger on her own, and that she was probably hell-on-wheels to deal with, and to be under her command, under the best of circumstances, but that they had gone through something as difficult and challenging and horrific as what ''Galactica'' had gone through. And that she's not the way she is just because she's a bad person.

[[Michelle Forbes|Michelle]] does just a great job with this role. I'm just- I'm so pleased that we cast her as Cain.

You might- if you're a fan of the [[Battlestar Galactica (TOS)|old show]] you might have always thought that this would be one you would want to see again. I know that there's a lot of fans of the old show who wanted to see [[Pegasus (TOS)|''Pegasus'']] again, that thought that was the best episode of the original series. And I knew that. I always felt the same way. It was the most memorable episode to me. I saw the Original Series when I was a kid. 1978, I was in the eighth grade and I watched the show religiously. And I remember [[The Living Legend, Part I|"Living Legend"]]. I remember [[Lloyd Bridges]], man. Lloyd Bridges shows up in that episode with a [[Wikipedia:Swagger stick|swagger stick]], baby, I mean he is doing his [[Wikipedia:George S. Patton|Patton]] thing, just like balls to the wall, no holds barred, he's just going for it. He's going to grab that scenery and he's going to CHEW IT, he's going to chew it until it just can't be chewed anymore. And it's great. It's a really great larger than life performance. And it's very memorable within the [[canon]] of the original series. So as we approach this series, I always knew it was one I was going to want to take a crack at, was, ok, and then at some point they're going to have to run into ''Pegasus'' as part of the mythos. A key part of the mythos in my mind. And I was asked first season by various reporters and people, "Are you going to do ''Pegasus''?" And I just said, "Yeah, I think so. Maybe." But I wanted to wait until I could do it right. And I'm glad we waited until the second- the middle of the second season, because by this point the show has matured to the point where I think we can do this episode. Where we've had enough happen within the show to these people, these characters have gone through enough things that there's material to mine in this kind of an episode. 'Cause ultimately Cain comes over here and she gets those logs and she starts saying, "You guys are a bunch of fuckups. I mean, you've got your son as the [[CAG]]. You've got [[Kara Thrace|Kara]] smacking people around. You've got a [[Karl Agathon|guy]] who's fraternizing with the enemy. You've got [[Galen Tyrol|two of 'em]] fraternizing with the enemy for that sake. And the secretary of education, and what? And your XO?" What Mike Rymer said when he read the script was he loved the fact that Admiral Cain comes over here and everything she says is right. She's right. She's absolutely right. She should take command and these people have been screwing up. It's just great that she doesn't come over with some sort of false, crazy, over the top agenda that doesn't make any sense. Her agenda is quite simple. Hit the Cylons. Hit them hard. Keep hitting them. Do whatever it takes to accomplish that mission. And looking at the way ''Galactica'' has been run up until this point, she goes, "What the hell is this? This is ridiculous. This is no way to run a fleet." Which, is fair. That if ''Galactica'' did find themselves back in the [[Colonial Fleet]], which is what they say at the [[Hangar Deck|hangar deck]], "Welcome back," they would find themselves under a lot of investigation and start taking a lot of criticism for they way they ran their show- ran their ship. Because they made a lot of decisions that you could argue with, and I think that's one of the great things about the show is that people have made a lot of questionable choices in what they choose to do.

I really like the fact, in the show, that Adama just gives up command. He doesn't question it. He doesn't argue with it. There's '''no''' question of her right to do it. There's just a sense of loss. There's a sense that he's lost something.

This little story... we wrote this little story, this little backstory and [[Anne Cofell Saunders|Anne Cofell]], who is the writer on this episode, came up with this little tale about shooting the guy in the head and then that [[Jack Fisk|he]] suddenly bursts out laughing and kind of takes the curse off it, in that moment. He just suddenly laughs. And its such a disturbing laugh, and the actress does- and [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0065320/ the actor] does just a great job with it that you're not quite sure what she's thinking here. "What are you feeling in this moment?" You're not quite sure what you're supposed to take away from that, but it's disturbing. Just when you thought it was going to be just "Ooh, the spooky story," he laughs that maniacal laugh and you suddenly are much more concerned and worried and disturbed than you were a moment ago. And it's because he's laughing about it and trying to cover it and yet there's truth to it and it's all about layers of deceit and deception and twisted motives and really, '''really''' screwed up dynamics. And it's '''that''' thought that's more frightening than just the fact that she shot the guy. The frightening thing is that you don't know what the hell any of them are capable of or what any of them are thinking or feeling and '''that''''s a dangerous, dangerous situation.

==[http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/mp3/210/bsg_ep210_3of5.mp3 Act 2]==

I'm really impressed that we were able to keep this little sequence in the show. This notion of the "scorecard" keeping tally of the raiders that they've killed on the ship and the stuff that goes on here with [[List of Pilots|the pilots]] and then [[Lee Adama|Lee]] getting called away by the [[Commander Air Group|CAG]]. I thought for sure we were going to have to lose this whole sequence when we were making the cutdown from the 9- from the really long version down to this- down to the one hour. And I'm glad we didn't. Because it's great to see the two groups starting to mesh together a little bit and see the new camaraderie of the pilots and the chilling aspect of what [[Cole Taylor|their CAG]] is like. And I love the fact that their CAG is such a big, fat prick. (Laughs) It's just like- you just hate him. In fact there's a line that got cut right there where [[Kara Thrace|Kara]] says, "Is it too early to start hating him yet?" There were in earlier drafts the tension between the [[Galactica (RDM)|''Galactica'']] pilots and the [[Pegasus (RDM)|''Pegasus'']] pilots continued to escalate even beyond this point, where after the initial "Thank god we're all in this together," they found themselves in very different camps that the sort of looser, "We'll figure it out and we'll deal with the consequences of figuring out," ''Galactica'' crew versus the more by the book and much harsher, much tougher-minded ''Pegasus'' crew that isn't screwing around. There's a scene that was cut just before here where [[Helena Cain|Cain]] goes down and is in the- sees [[Number Eight|Sharon]], wants to see the ''Galactica'' [[Cylons (RDM)|Cylon]] and what's up with that. And it was a really interesting scene that then lead out to this. But, it got cut.

I like the expectation here that the Cylon prisoner on ''Pegasus'' could be anybody, and it might be fun and who knows where you go with the [[Gaius Baltar|Baltar]] line at this point. You don't- there's no indication and there's no foreshadowing that it's going to be something dark on the other side of the cage.

[[Peter Laird|Laird]], ''Pegasus'' deck chief. I don't know why we didn't cast a guy with a Scottish accent (laughs) or play it with a Scottish accent once we named him Laird, there would have been a nice homage to Jimmy- to [[Wikipedia:James Doohan|Jimmy Doohan]], who was, of course, [[MemoryAlpha:Montgomery Scott|Scotty]] in the [[MemoryAlpha:Star Trek: The Original Series|original Star Trek series]] and passed away... not at the exact moment when this episode was filming, but it was in the air, and it would have been nice to have made him Scottish, but we decided not to.

Things happened. You ain't heard the- you ain't heard nothin' buddy because you won't find out what things happened until part two. You can tell that the pace of the show is just relentless. We're just being really brutal with these scenes. We're moving from scene to scene, trying to give you the juice of each one, which in some ways you can argue that it makes for a tighter more compelling drama, but my feeling on the longer version was it was a richer meal, you just got more textures, more flavors, a greater sense of the complexity of some of the relationships. You saw more ramifi- more of the consequences and ramifications of ''Pegasus'' showing up, how it affected more characters' lives, and that's why I was really attached to the longer version.

I like this scene a lot. I like the fact that [[Laura Roslin|Laura]] shares something now with [[William Adama|Adama]], that these two have come to a place where they can empathize wi- sympathize with one another. And I love the fact that she's really concerned for him. That she's really- she really cares that this- that the command of the fleet was taken away from him. Here was the man that she has depended on for all these months. He was the guy- guy who's saved them time and again. She's trusted him, she's distrusted him, she's bonded with him and hated him and done a lot of complicated things by this point and somebody comes in from the outside and just snatches it away.

I love all the little callbacks in this episode. I love this scene. They reference the ''[[Olympic Carrier]]''. The fact that they think they probably did shoot down over a thousand people, but there's the excuse in their mind(?), or at least, not the excuse but the thing that they tell themselves at night was, "Well, we don't know for sure that anybody was on that ship." But in their hearts they kinda know that there was somebody on that- that there were people on that ship. Yeah, "We don't know." It's such an excuse. It's such a- well emotionally I need to seize on that to justify what we did.

We gave the art department quite a bit of notice that we were going to use ''Pegasus'' in this episode and we built the ''Pegasus'' sets on a completely different soundstage than the ''Galactica'' so its really is a different ship. It's all in one soundstage. This corr- there's only this one corridor that we use multiple times shooting it in different ways; lighting it slightly differently, trying to emphasize different ang- different viewpoints on the corridor, different camera angles to kind of sell the size of the ship, but we really didn't have a lot, we just- we built out as much of ''Pegasus'' as we could given the financial constraints... and the physical constraints of the soundstage were also a limiting factor. [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0399750/ Richard Hudolin] wanted to convey the notio- the idea of a more advanced [[Galactica type battlestar|battlestar]] while maintaining a connection to the battlestar we saw in the theory that on a certain level an [[Wikipedia:aircraft carrier|aircraft carrier]] is an aircraft carrier. You go aboard the [[Wikipedia:USS Hornet (CV-12)|USS Hornet]], which is tied up in [[Wikipedia:Alameda, California|Alameda in California]], and if you went aboard a [[Wikipedia:Nimitz class aircraft carrier|modern nuclear carrier]] there'd be many differences. There'd also be many similarities, and there'd be a linear connection between the two. There's a generational feeling between those aircraft carriers and there would be one between the battlestars as well.

This storyline is one of the darker storylines we came up with and, boy, we just really all loved it that you would come in here and there would be this woman who looks like [[Number Six|Six]], and what would happen. To put a story where Baltar comes across the tortured and gang-raped Six of his dreams and be forced to, like, deal with her. There was something SO powerful about that idea and it would speak to really the heart of who the man is now and what goes on in his life to then be confronted with another Six, and that this Six had gone through this horrific experience and wasn't the powerful, sexy woman that we've come to know but in this case had been reduced to this state where she's lying virtually catatonic on the floor. A lot of controversy about that. About how dark we were going here. But ultimately we were able to keep it going. I felt this was a very strong and important part of the show. An interesting thing about the scene is that in large part it's hard to recognize that that's even [[Tricia Helfer|Tricia]] down there. Tricia is one of those chameleon-type actresses that if you change her hair and change her clothes she can really disappear into a different kind of character, and all- we kept having this concern. We'd look at this footage and go, "Well, my god. Can you tell that it's Six?" (laughs) We had to keep doing these tie-in shots where you're doing visual effects shots just to prove that it's the same woman. There was a lot of that. It was just hard to fight the fact that Tricia is really just able to disappear physically and personally inside this other person.

This character does have a name, by the way. While we always call Six, Number Six is how she's referred to in the scripts. This character is called [[Gina]]. And Gina comes out of the fact that there are certain- (laughs) I love this- there are certain people out there in the fan- in the fan community, and I know who you are, that refer to the show as "GINO." "Galactica in Name Only." And there was something so funny about that, and I always got a kick out of people who refer to the show as GINO. (Laughs) They couldn't even bring themselves to just call it Galactica, they had to really make up this other name, that it was GINO. And I just decided that, "Let's call the tortured Six Gina." (chuckles) But it's never actually spoken in the show.

This is a really interesting tale, though. I mean I'm really fascinated with the idea of Baltar coming to look at the Cylons in a very different way, to look at this particular Cylon in a very different way. That here's a real woman. Here's a flesh and blood woman. A re-creation, as it were, of the woman that he knew on [[The Twelve Colonies (RDM)#Caprica|Caprica]]. Well, not really a re-creation, but another version. And that he would have an enormous amount of sympathy for the other, for this version of Six. That this one had gone through an experience that made him want to reach out to her, which is something that he had never wanted to do. He had always been the character who had held his emotions back, who never connected with a woman, who never gave himself to love and to care and that right from the beginning their relationship had been he was a player and she was just another conquest that then turned the tables on him he, as much as she had wanted him to love her, he never could or would. And there was something amazing about flipping that upside down and having him actually reach out emotionally, but only to the one that had been tortured and raped. And there was something- there was something twisted about that, and there's something true about that, and those are always the best thing when they're twisted- twisted and true. (Zippo lighter.)

This scene was also much longer. There was a bit of discussion here about the G- ''Pegasus'' being a [[Mercury class battlestar]]. There was a brief discussion of the differences between the two and an interesting little side discussion about the fact that there's no chairs in the room. Cain mentions that she can't offer them a place to sit because she'd always found it easier to work standing up, it was easier on her back, and she discovered that if she had no chairs in the room meetings with her senior officers went much faster. And I got that from, of all people, [[Wikipedia:John R. Bolton|John Bolton]], who is the current American ambassador to the United Nations... a topic that we will not get into. But there was some piece that talked about Bolton's style, or lack of style, with his staff and he mentions at some point that he made his staff come into his office and hold all the meetings standing up because he wanted to get through the meetings rather quickly and he found that if he made his staff stand during the entire meeting that they got through it much faster. And I thought, "That's such a- That is just says SO much about that man." And I thought it was a really interesting telling bit of character, so I used it here that Cain was that kind of person. Cain was the kind of person that would make her staff stand just to get them in there- out of there as fast as she could.

This whole sequence I talked about a few minutes ago about Cain really nailing them about what they've done, and why the system is screwed up the way it is, and why she has to make these sorts of changes. And I like the fact, especially, that Adama has to just take it. She doesn't say anything here that's out of line. She doesn't say anything that's wrong. Everything she says is logical. It's all based on his logs, and what can you say? How can you argue with it? How can you defend the fact that this man's son is the commander of his air group and is mutinous and has done- just been outwardly insubordinate in certain situations. That he's got an officer that hits another one habitu- hits other officers habitually. I mean it's just the list goes- the list goes on. And it's all true. But you kind of hate her. You hate her for bringing it up because it's all family business, and that's ultimately another reason why it was good to wait to do this show because at this point in the series, it is a family. The people on ''Galactica'' are the audience's family. We have shared their triumphs and their tragedies. We have watched them go- make mistakes. We have watched them learn from their mistakes, and we've suffered along with them. And then somebody comes in from the outside and says, "You people are screwed up." And you kind of flinch. You kind of, like, flinch back from that kind of a naked appraisal and wish that it weren't so. But it is. And you have to deal with it. And I think that that's one of the strengths of the series is that it- it is willing to take a hard look at itself, it is willing to take a hard look at these people. It's willing to be unflinching in how it views these characters and their actions, and it never really excuses them, it never tries to give them the easy way out. And certainly they don't get the easy way out here.

==[http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/mp3/210/bsg_ep210_4of5.mp3 Act 3]==

I really like [[Edward James Olmos|Eddie]] in this scene. This is a classic Eddie moment where he just barks at his officers and they just shut the fuck up. (laughs) And you would. If Edward James Olmos looked at you with that look on his face and told you that was enough you would snap to as well. Trust me. (laughs)

I kinda like the fact that he's supporting [[Helena Cain|Cain]] in this. That he's not making excuses for her, and he's not apologizing for what's happening. He's saying, "You know what? She's right." And she is- like I said a moment ago she is right. And it was important to me that his character acknowledged the truth of that statement and say, "Ok. You know what? I am back in [[Colonial Fleet|the fleet]]. She's an [[Military Ranks (RDM)|admiral]]. She's right. We are transferring these people. Period. End of story." To me that buys him a lot of leeway within the tale.

This whole thing with the photo recon mission against the [[Cylons (RDM)|Cylons]], we had versions where Star- you followed all of them out there to go do the photo recon mission and saw [[Kara Thrace|Kara]] do her thing and played all that on camera and then we cu- we actually cut it before it was even filmed. It was sort of an unnecessary side trip that was going to cost us a lot of money in visual effects in a show that was already way over-pattern in many departments, and so we couldn't really afford to do that, it chewed up a lot of screen time, and it was really beside the point. It wasn't really about watching them carry out a photo mission. I mean, it's not a battle. I mean, you would play the suspense of it, and that, and the tension of it. But the joy of this episode, and the joy of the great episodes is with the people, with being inside the ship and really dealing with the problems they've all been handed.

The gag that we go for here, the [[Lee Adama|Apollo]] steals the optical- the photo recon package... from somewhere that we don't see and gives it to Starbuck and then she literally goes out and disobeys orders and takes the stealth craft out to get the photos herself. It's pushing it. I'll admit that right now. It's pushing it. This is moving a little bit in a step into tv drama convention, and I always sort of felt a little dirty about it, but it works in the story and I like the way it works out in sequence. I like the way that she goes out... on this mission and then you kind of forget about her and we don't really get back to her part of this- of the story until you get into [[Podcast:Resurrection Ship, Part I|part two]]. And I won't spoil that for you, but suffice it to say it does play a key role.

There was an additional scene where [[Galen Tyrol|Tyrol]] is relieved of his deck. That [[Peter Laird|Chief Laird]] is assigned to take over the hangar deck as the deck chief, and that Tyrol is relieved and sent down the line- not sent down the line, sorry, who is relieved and has to play second fiddle to Laird and it was a very nice moment. Laird played it really well. [[Aaron Douglas|Aaron]] came up with a little bit of business where he just kind of looks at him and rubs his head and just says, "Well, the office is over here." And again, he's just like- he's been relieved and he deals with it and moves on.

This whole sequence of [[Sharon Valerii (Caprica copy)|Sharon]] being raped by [[Alistair Thorne|Lt. Thorne]] was one of much controversy as you can imagine. On the page we wrote this the way it's essentially cut here in this version of the show where the rape is averted at the last minute. It was shot a different way. We shot the whole rape. We shot a very disturbing rape sequence of Thorne raping Sharon, and there was a version cut where the guys come in and it's happening, as opposed to about to happen, and there was a lot of controversy back and forth and ultimately we opted to go with this version where they come in just as the rape is happening. I should also mention that that little beat that you just saw with [[Cally]] and the female deck crew walking out on the conversation as it gets more about the joy these guys from [[Pegasus (RDM)|''Pegasus'']] had from going and raping their Cylon prisoner was something that actually [[Michael Rymer|Mike Rymer]] came up with. It wasn't in the script, but it was a really nice touch, and it was a very smart move, that Cally, etc., kind of walk out on these guys. Because these are co-ed ships and the notion that women all stand around listening to them make jokes about the fact that they went in on this twisted gang rape of [[Gina]]... it didn't seem right that they would just stand around. That's great! The "yee-hah" kills me. The "yee-hah" that that actor gives just makes you want to reach through the camera lens and kill him, and it works so well within the show.

Ok. This is a really dark, dark scene. This is a dark storyline. Things happened on ''Pegasus'' that you don't want to know about, and suddenly they're happening on our ship, and I like the fact that [[Karl Agathon|Helo]] and Tyrol who in the very- in [[Flight of the Phoenix|the episode]] that precedes this one were literally at each other's throats for a moment, that they both come charging in when this thing is happen- this horrific thing is happening to Sharon. And they get in there and they go at these guys, and then Thorne is killed. And it didn't- it wasn't intended to happen, none of them set out to do this, but it just happened in the moment that he was killed accidentally, and that that would set off a chain of events. And it was just at this moment that the show takes an unexpected left turn, 'cause you're not really thinking that we're going to go down this path, certainly. And you start feeling like you don't quite know where we're going. Like, "Wait a minute. What's- the hell's going to happen now?" Because you've kind of been concentrating on the thing between Cain and Adama, and maybe the thing with Baltar and Gina if you're really paying attention thinking that that's going to pay off, but I don't think you see this element of it coming, and that's one of the reasons I like it a lot.

That little piece there of Sharon- of [[Grace Park|Grace]] pulling the blanket over her, I just- it's like... it's a powerful moment. Grace is a very smart actress.

==[http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/mp3/210/bsg_ep210_5of5.mp3 Act 4]==

This act four was just a barrel- just a barrel of laughs to write, (chuckles) and I mean that in all seriousness. I loved working on this end sequence with [[Anne Cofell Saunders|Anne]], of making this really just start to pick up momentum and events start spiraling out of control. And this leads to the moment of [[William Adama|Adama]]- Adama launches the [[Viper (RDM)|Vipers]] and says, "I'm gettin' my men back." And there's something really interesting about the fact that the man who's been obeying the rules and doing the right thing, admitting his mistakes... there comes a point where, right or wrong, he's not going to let [[Helena Cain|her]] execute his men without a trial. He's just not going to do that. There are places that Adama will not go. And I love that in this moment she nails him on the tribunal thing, that last year during "[[Litmus]]" he dissolved a tribunal when he didn't like the answer. And he- it hits him. It registers on the character in that moment. He knows that that too is true. And the fact that it's true doesn't mean that he doesn't feel the way that he feels in this- in this scene. And when he finds out a moment later that they had been sentenced to death, it felt right that Adama, the man who [[You Can't Go Home Again|risked so many lives]] when [[Kara Thrace]] was lost down on that planet, that we would, again, do anything it took to save the men that were under his command. His bond with them had- was that strong. And you could argue- you could very logically argue that that's a profound mistake on his part, that that's a command flaw. But, people have flaws. And that's one of his blind spots. It's one of the places where Adama is not the ideal commander, if you want to look at it that way. In many other ways he is [[Cylon agent speculation#William Adama?|the most human commander of them all]], he's the most... he's very human.

This beat with [[Gaius Baltar|Baltar]] and [[Gina]]... was something that I wrote in one sitting. There were a couple of earlier versions of the scene and none of them were quite working and I liked the idea that Baltar sitting and really... exposing himself emotionally and talking really in very frank terms about the experience he has had with [[Number Six|Six]] and with [[Caprica-Six|Six on Caprica]] and what she means to him in a very real and profound way. And he would do it in this context, in that it was just a monologue. And I felt really comfortable just writing a monologue for [[James Callis|James]] because I knew that James would embrace it and would really sink his teeth into it and really make it sing. And he really does. He completely draws me into this- this scene. I'm really there with him throughout this whole little piece here. And it's interesting, 'cause this is the man that participated in the [[Fall of the Twelve Colonies|genocide]], inadvertently, but essentially is one of the people who is responsible for the entire situation. And yet in this moment, he's human, and you connect to him as a human being and he's having a connection to the personification of evil in the show, the personification of all the [[The Twelve Colonies (RDM)|Colonials]] think is evil. A [[Cylons (RDM)|Cylon]]. A Cylon who let people die on this very ship. It is said that Gina let people get on board [[Galactica (RDM)|''Galactica'']]. She was- she was a participant. She wasn't just an innocent bystander. She was somebody who helped kill men and women aboard [[Pegasus (RDM)|''Pegasus'']], and that's part of the reason why she's in that brig. But here, in this situation, in this context, your feelings are drawn into the place where the two characters are, and you're really hooked into them as people, feeling what they're feeling, even understanding the things that each of them has done. And the- the really bad choices, again, and horrific choices that each of them has made.

It's such a disturbing image seeing [[Tricia Helfer|Trish]] lying there like that. The look on her face, and this- this- again, just a nice little piece of- that, the arm coming over... the way she reaches out for just the- a little bit of food. It just- it's such a small thing that speaks volumes about where the character is in that moment. And it doesn't require any dialogue. It's a completely visual- visual moment. (Sound of Zippo lighter.) And he knows he's gotten through to her on some level.

It's very moving. I fin- it's just a very moving show. It's a very emotional show. Especially for something that's such a classic "sea tale". This isn't like a "sea yarn" we're telling where the two ships and the two commanders and the great attack that's being planned and all the machinations of the military. It's a "sea tale", really, more than anything else, but within the context of that, that you're able to still go to a place where you're really sucked in by this other thing happening. This real drama between Baltar and Gina, it's just fascinating.

(Chuckles.) I love to hate [[Cole Taylor|Stinger]]. (Laughs.) I love just how much I hate him. (Chuckles.)

This scene used to take place on the [[Hangar deck]], as I recall, and then we moved it to the corridor for production reasons. I don't think there was any other reason. I love the look here on Eddie's face when he hears the news and when he takes this news. It's like it physically hits him. Right there. You just feel like you just got- you just got hit in the gut. And the man- I mean, look at that, he's like really- and he knows what he's about to do, and he knows how far he is willing to go, and he's willing to go pretty frickin' far. And it's like... the determination of the man, I mean I- look at him. Look at Eddie go. Jesus Christ! (Laughs.) '''That''' is Commander Adama. (Chuckles.) At least that's the Commander Adama I wanna be serving with.

The design of the ''Pegasus'' itself was the subject of much discussion, obviously, with [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0399750/ Richard Hudolin] and [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0404690/ Gary Hutzel]. We saw various designs. Some of them were too far a departure from ''Galactica'' and others were just too close and it was- the trick was to do the aircraft carrier metaphor I mentioned earlier. All aircraft carriers share a certain profile, share certain design elements. They all have a big flat deck, they all have an island, they all are recognizable from a distance. If you see the [[Wikipedia:USS Enterprise (CV-6)|''Enterprise'' from World War II]] and then you see the [[Wikipedia:USS Enterprise (CVN-65)|''Enterprise'' of today]], yes there's many obvious differences, but the fundamentals are still there. It's still a flight deck, a hangar deck, a bridge- or an island with a bridge on it.

This is a very big throw of the dice from Adama, and how far is he willing to go? Well, you'll have to come back and see us in January to see how far either one of them is willing to go. But I like the fact that the show builds to this point. Where it becomes like, "No, I will not do this. I will not let you execute my men." (Chuckles.) And back. Now what's she gonna do? Well, I mean, this is the cliffhanger ending for season 2b. I won't have the pleasure of speaking to you again for several months. I hope you've enjoyed season 2b- 2a, sorry, 2a of [[Battlestar Galactica (RDM)|Battlestar Galactica]]. I know I have. I continue to appreciate all your support, and I appreciate your patience in waiting for these podcasts and [http://blog.scifi.com/battlestar/ the blog] that- the blog that sometimes never was. This is just one of those great endings that we just append to our visual effects guys and just say, "Give us a gre- a hell of an ending with the Vipers flying at each other and coming right at the camera and we'll just cut." And that's how you do a cliffhanger boys and girls. Well, thank you very much, and I'll talk to you again in January. Goodnight.

Podcast:Resurrection Ship, Part I

2006-04-23T13:51:45Z

Grafix: Typos

{{podcast|author=Peter Farago|emailAuthor2= and [[Special:Emailuser/Steelviper|Steelviper]]|suffix=s|additionalCopyright=}}

==[http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/mp3/211/bsg_ep211_1of5.mp3 Teaser]==

Hello, and welcome to the podcast for episode eleven, "[[Resurrection Ship, Part I]]". I'm [[Ronald D. Moore]], executive producer and developer of the new [[Battlestar Galactica (RDM)|Battlestar Galactica]], and this would be the first podcast of [[season 2|season 2.5]], or 2.1, or whatever we're calling it currently.

"Resurrection Ship" is an interesting episode in that it did not begin life as a two-parter. I've often talked on these podcasts of our great difficulty in maintaining our time limitations on the show. We often found ourselves with episodes that are running ridiculously long, longer than anticipated. No matter what our best efforts at holding the line at the script stage and even on the stage, we often get into the cutting room and find episodes that are wildly over length. And this one in particularly was a good twenty minutes long. Twenty minutes is really long. It's a lot to cut out of a show. That's essentially like two full acts, if you think of an act as being roughly like ten minutes in length. And what happened this time around— we ran into a similar problem, some of you might recall, in "[[Pegasus (episode)|Pegasus]]", the season fin— the finale of [[season 2|season 2.0]] or whatever, that we did four months ago. And in that situation we were sort of able to carve out the bare essentials of the show, make something that was exciting and dynamic, and still preserve sort of the longer version of "Pegasus" for video release. This time out, we opted to go a different direction. We really felt that completely cutting— completely eviscerating the show by cutting twenty minutes out was wrong, and this time another option sort of opened up before us.

We realized that actually, this show— this particular episode, "Resurrection Ship", in the original incarnation, lent itself pretty well to simply dividing it in half and creating two full episodes. The act two break of the original "Resurrection Ship" is the end of this particular episode. And this episode ends with the assassination plan. Pic— I almost said "[[MemoryAlpha:Jean-Luc-Picard Picard|Picard]]", that was very close— [[William Adama|Adama]] plotting to kill [[Helena Cain|Cain]] simultaneous with Cain plotting to kill Adama was the act two break in the script, and in the original cut. Because the show lent itself so neatly to simply chopping it in half, we were really able to make two dynamic, interesting episodes about it. Instead of having to cut out all the guts of the things that we love, we were able to preserve everything that we liked, and also because neither episode was quite up to time, we had a chance to actually go back and shoot additional scenes.

This made everybody happy. We were happy, the director was happy, cast, crew, the network; it really worked out to everybody's benefit and we got a lot more bang for the buck, and we were able to go in and really sort of goose up additional scenes that we sort of thought were lacking even back at the script stage, and then really flesh out the whole show.

This particular sequence being one of them. In the original draft and in the original cut of "Resurrection Ship", you never saw this mission of [[Kara Thrace|Kara]]'s. Kara simply went off camera in "Pegasus", did this stealth thing, did this recon mission against the Cylon fleet, and then she showed up sort of in the middle of the battle. The way it was structured, the original sort of tease for "Resurrection Ship" was you were sort of in the middle of the would-be dogfight, the fighters are cruising at each other, "what are they gonna do? what are they gonna do?", and suddenly in the middle of it all, "oh my god, [[Dradis]] contact, there's a Cylon coming at us, what are we gonna do?", it breaks up the whole fight, the [[Viper (RDM)|Viper]]s turn to go after the new intruder, and "oh!", it turns out to be Starbuck. And then you sort of fill in, "oh, she went on the recon mission, you might have forgotten, blah blah blah." It was okay. It would've worked, but it wasn't as good as being able to ''see'' the recon mission. In this case, you kind of did want to go see the [[Blackbird|stealth ship]] do its thing, for once. So by shooting additional scenes we were then able to go in, shoot this stuff in the cockpit with Kara, and then we had some additional funds available because were creating another whole episode to do some neat visual effects work to really go see the [[Resurrection Ship]].

This whole sequence was with the two groups of Vipers going at each other was something we went— we labored on for a very long time both in script and in visual effects world. There were a lot of different variations of this, of y'know, what would the fighters do when they encountered, how do you track the fighters, one against the other, what would the dynamics of the fight be... there was even a version we considered at the script stage where they actually did shoot at one another, where the Vipers started opening up at each other and actually exchange gunfire at each other for a few moments before Kara's stealth ship came in. But ultimately I kind of felt that once these guys actually pull a trigger, and once these guys actually shoot at each other, there was really no going back from that. That there was no way that they would ever really be able to get along with each other every again in any kind of realistic way, so I was glad we pulled that out.

This whole little bit here, with [[Lee Adama|Lee]] and [[Cole Taylor|Stinger]] in the cockpit— you'll note that this is one of the last times that you see stinger, unfortunately, in "Resurrection Ship", which is kind of too bad, but the actor wasn't available to us beyond this, so he shot this little piece, and he wasn't available when we wanted to then later go back and do some additional scene work with him. Which is kind of a shame, because the antagonism between he and Lee in particular, and he and Kara, was really nice in "Pegasus".

This little beat was something that we were able to restore, the sort of game of Chicken we were able to restore between [[Narcho]] and [[Louanne Katraine|Kat]]. We were able to put that back in when we did the big re-cut. It's also sort of an interesting dynamic forming here where we're starting to start to establish that Kat is the next hotshot pilot behind Starbuck, which will play very strongly in subsequent episodes, especially episode— what used to be episode fourteen, and what is now episode fifteen, called "[[Scar]]", which will be coming up later this season.

That's a great shot. The vipers chasing each other's tail, Kara coming in, getting the message from Starbuck. All this was sort of in the original draft, this whole little sequence was shot as part of the original movie. You'll notice that there's quite a bit of cockpit stuff. The stealth fighter was really sort of boosted for this episode, they did some additional work on the consoles to really get it moving so that we could really have a full blown fighter to go play all these scenes in.

Back into CIC with Admiral Cain here, and then you have Fisk. This was all part of the original section. Again, I had this idea that originally Kara, when she showed up in the stealth Blackbird, that she would do something that would— specific that would send out a signal. She was gonna flare her engines, she was gonna send out some kind of TECH{{ref|tech}} pulse, there was going to be some bit of whole little techno-nonsense that was gonna make her simulate like a Cylon. It all became a lot of mumbo-jumbo, and it was always kind of hard to figure out what exactly she was doing, and it's just better that she simply shows up on DRADIS, and you just kind of get it, y'know? This is— a lot of times where you just over-think what you're trying to accomplish, and the audience kind of follows it regardless, they just kind of get it. It's like, "okay, Apollo sent her a message, she did something, and now they all think that she's a Cylon." You really don't have to get into to all the techno stuff about exactly how and why that sort of thing happened.

There was— now when this was one episode, when "Resurrection Ship" was one episode, it actually opened differently. It didn't open with us coming right back into the cliffhanger moment from "Pegasus". It opened with a completely different sequence that is actually now the beginning of [[Resurrection Ship, Part II|Part II of "Resurrection Ship"]], which was namely a shot of Lee Adama, which I guess I can't give away, because hey, you haven't seen Part II yet. For those of you who are picking up the podcast on the internet, I guess I won't spoil it for you. But suffice it to say, when you to to "Resurrection Ship, Part II", the opening sequence of "Resurrection Ship, Part II", was once the opening of the sequence of "Resurrection Ship" ''[[Wikipedia:List_of_Latin_phrases_%28F–O%29#I|in toto]]''.

All this sort of live video interactive stuff had to be done very quickly on the fly, as you might imagine. Usually visual effects has time to go out and work up designs on these ships, and work up all the various sort of schematics, and you can play around with what exactly the ships are like and how they behave, and all that. This time we needed live, on-screen video. By and large we tend to avoid what are called burn-ins, where you are matting in a visual effects shot into somebody's screen on ''[[Galactica (RDM)|Galactica]]''. It's just something that we tend to avoid to give all these sort of— it frees up the camera movement, it makes the— everything feel— have a little more sense of verisimilitude, it's just more ''real'', ultimately. So we do tend to avoid burn-ins. We've done them on occasion, and we tend to do them more often in the Viper cockpits where you don't notice, but when you're walking around CIC in situations like this, to do a burn-in is kind of distracting because the camera has to be locked down, and it kind of limits everything, it becomes another visual effects shot that you have to then count, and account for with your money, and blah blah blah, and it's all kind of a big pain in the ass. But anyway, that just means that the visual effects guys have to have these designs up and running quickly, so there's enough time for the graphic artists to come up with the exact monitor shots that we're using throughout. So we had to lock into the design of the Resurrection Ship very early.

Now this is a later insert, this little piece of business here, where bah-boom— you go in and there's all these naked [[Number Six|Sixes]] hanging out in the resurrection ship, which is such a great act-out. [[Gary Hutzel]], who is our visual effects supervisor, was really tickled on the idea that we were gonna have all these naked Sixes hanging out in the Resurrection Ship, and he needed more time to work that shot up, to make that shot work, so that was something that he actually slipped in after all the footage was shot, that was like a later insert that was shot as a separate piece. You saw sort of some hair there at the left of frame, and that was not [[IMDB:nm0000405|Michelle Forbes]], that was sort of a photo double.

And we're into the boom-boom-boom, to the percussive, and now we'll go to act one.

==[http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/mp3/211/bsg_ep211_2of5.mp3 Act 1]==

It occurs to me that I haven't done one of these podcasts in several months, and I'm a little out of practice on doing these. Usually I'm a little bit more in the game, 'cause you've just been sort of in the game longer as you're doing all these podcasts one after the other, and you get into a rhythm. And I haven't done this in a while, so it's kind of interesting to come back into the show; it is sort of like getting back into the season after a long break.

"Resurrection Ship" was shot after our hiatus. We took a hiatus in the middle of summer for about four weeks, to give everybody on the cast and crew a little break, and it was also an opportunity for the writing staff to sort of catch up on the scripts. This particular episode was going through a lot of changes. We went through a lot of sort of permutations of exactly how the storyline was going to resolve itself. We always knew that [[Helena Cain|Cain]]'s fate, which I won't give away, was already something that was in the story outline very early on, so we kind of knew what was going to happen, if not the— exactly how or who was going to responsible for what happens to Cain at the very end, but we kind of knew where that was going.

The biggest changes that happened in the story outline and in the script that we kept wrestling with was sort of an outgrowth of this scene.

Here we've got [[Laura Roslin|Laura]] and [[William Adama|Adama]] and Cain in a political struggle at the very top. And we had notions early on about— that the stru— of making Laura a bigger player just in terms of the politics of what's going on here, that Cain in the original story and original script had a plant to attack the [[Resurrection Ship|Resurrection]] fleet, and part of her tactic was to use the civilian fleet as a decoy. That idea is still in this episode, but a key difference was that in the early days, Cain was going to, um— Cain required civilian ships to purposely sort of set themselves up as bait, and she needed Laura to approve it, and it all came down to sort of an idea of whether Laura could trust Cain to ultimately come to the rescue of those civilian ships. And there was a lot more conflict that had sort of been set up in "[[Pegasus (episode)|Pegasus]]" in the original story, and that then played through in this episode, about Cain versus the [[The Fleet (RDM)|civilian fleet]]. Cain wanted fuel, the civilian fleet went on strike and said, "Screw you, we're not giving it to you. What the— Who the hell are you?" Cain didn't take that very well, she was leaning on Laura, Laura was telling her— was leaning back on her, but ultimately Laura recognized the value of destroying the Resurrection Ship, and was willing to go for it. In a very pragmatic way, she knew that she could not relieve Cain, that even if she told Cain to stand down, or ordered Adama to relieve Cain, or try to arrest her, or anything like that, Laura was pretty sure that the ''[[Pegasus (RDM)|Pegasus]]'' crew, given everything they had been through to date, was essentially going to mutiny and that they wouldn't put up with it. She told Adama in one of the drafts, "Well, I mean, if somebody came in an relieved you of ''[[Galactica (RDM)|Galactica]]'', what would the ''Galactica'' crew do?" And y'know, they would mutiny, and they would not put up with Adama being thrown in jail, and it was pretty much the same thing on ''Pegasus''. So in that storyline, it came down to Laura essentially realizing that she was dying very soon, she didn't have very long to live, she ''had'' to make sure that they wiped out the Resurrection Ship, because that gave the fleet the best chance of survival, and there was some line I think to the effect of Laura having a faith in that eventually if there's one constant in the universe, it's that what goes around comes around, and that Cain would get hers in the end. It wasn't really a great resolution. It was really great y'know, sort of story direction, and we struggled with it.

We went through several drafts, and I was on what was supposed to be my vacation with my family, and the— we were on a camping trip in the [[Wikipedia:Redwood National and State Parks|redwoods]] of [[Wikipedia:Big Sur|Big Sur]], [[Wikipedia:California|California]], and I had "Resurrection Ship", I still needed to bring back— when Hiatus was over, I needed to bring back a new version of "Resurrection Ship", and I sat there in the campground with the computer at the picnic table with a long cord running to the engine of the car, charging the battery periodically, and then writing "Resurrection Ship", and the on the way back, on the long trip down I-5, I wrote with the laptop in the front seat of the car while my wife drove. And essentially pounded out a different version of the script with whereby the assassination plot was going to be the big turn.

In the original— I'm sorry, I should have backed up, in the original, after Laura has agreed to let the civilian fleet be used as a decoy, Cain of course broke her word and would not protect the civilian fleet, which had [[Colonial One]] in it for some reason that we could never quite figure out. Earlier versions had the [[Astral Queen]], [[Tom Zarek|Zarek]] was involved, blah blah blah. But essentially the fundamentals of the old story was that Cain was not going to protect the civilian fleet, which she said she would, and that was when Adama really sort of had to stand up to her and take her down himself, and then by happenstance some other things occurred aboard with— aboard the ''Pegasus'' that allowed us to then have a resolution. But the version of the assassination plot was something that was a much later sort of developing storyline, and when I came back from camping, it simply worked better. It was simply a better choice to play it this way, that Laura— ''Laura'' comes up with the idea of killing Cain. And that ''Adama'' would be taken aback by it. And I— it's one of the dynamics that I love in the show, is the sort of reversal of the traditional roles, that playing against type of who's the [[Wikipedia:War Hawk|hawk]], and who's the [[Wikipedia:Dovish|dove]], and what does "hawk" and "dove" even really mean in this circumstance. These people are out by themselves. They have no government to fall back on except the one in— the [[government]] in that room. There's no judiciary, there's no higher authority, there's nobody else, there's just ''them''. They have to decide what to do, how they're gonna survive, ''if'' they're gonna survive. And there comes a point when Laura looks at the situation very coldly, and says, "Well, given who this woman is, and the way she's behaving, this can only end one way. And you've got to kill her." And I love the fact that Adama's reaction is just, y'know, "Has the world gone mad? I'm not an assassin."

==[http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/mp3/211/bsg_ep211_3of5.mp3 Act 2]==

Act two. This scene with [[Sharon Valerii (Caprica copy)|Sharon]] was another scene we were able to go back and add when we were doing pickups and reshoots. This— Sharon, in the original cut, in the original draft really wasn't in the show. I mean, she wasn't in the show until the very end, until the very end of what is now "[[Resurrection Ship, Part II|Resurrection, Part II]]" when you see her— she has one sc— er, she has one sc— oh, I take that back, she has a scene at the very end of the show. And it was really— that was really all she had. No, I take that back. I'm sorry, I am tired. I'm tired, I'm just starting. But she had two scenes— (laughs) no, one, no, two, no four! five! ten scenes! No, she had two scenes in "Resurrection Ship", but they were both well into the show, and we felt that there was— when we had a chance to go back and add scenes to "Resurrection Ship, Part II", we realized that we never dealt with sort of the emotional or physical aftermath of the rape attempt from "[[Pegasus (episode)|Pegasus]]", which was certainly a strong, startling moment, and it felt wrong to not have any acknowledgment of that with this character in the show. So it was a great moment to really just go in and just— y'know, they took her to sickbay, they tried to deal with this situation. And I like the fact that what [[William Adama|Adama]] comes to do here is, he just comes to apologize. That's really his thing. He just comes to say it was his fault, he was in charge, and he takes responsibility for it. He apologizes, because that's what a good leader does.

This scene— no, I take— yeah, this scene was always in the draft. I'm thinking ahead, 'cause there are— there is another— a subsequent [[Karl Agathon|Helo]]/[[Galen Tyrol|Tyrol]] scene that was an add-on, but this was always in the draft. This is a nice little bit of business with [[Lee Adama|Lee]] and the guys and "How many [[The Battlestar Galactica Drinking Game|different kinds of stupid]] are you?" (laughs) And I— for some reason I really love [[Aaron Douglas|Aaron]]'s response here, just the way he kind of looks up and says, "What's up, captain?" And there's such an ease and familiarity between the three players here that you sort of get the dynamics of the inner workings of ''[[Galactica (RDM)|Galactica]]'' and the camaraderie of the men and women who work there. And just— it just plays, it's like here's the family; the family's in a tough situation, but they ''are'' a family. It's like they are clearly their own team, and they are a separate team from what's going on over on ''[[Pegasus (RDM)|Pegasus]]''.

This is interesting, we're now going back to [[Gaius Baltar|Baltar]]'s house, which we hadn't been to in quite a while. We had sort of dropped away from doing Baltar's house for a variety of reasons, actually. One of them in particular was a production reason, which was that Baltar's house, which has this amazing vantage point looking out over the water, happens to be on a very busy road that's under construction because the [[Wikipedia:2010 Winter Olympics|Olympics]] are coming to [[Wikipedia:Vancouver|Vancouver]] in the not-so-distant-future, and they're doing major road expansion on the road right outside this house, so that presents a lot of sound problems, a lot of access problems, it's a one narrow, windy road that you have to get all the equipment in and out of, so that was kind of a pain in the ass. And then the neighbors were getting tired of it, and we were shooting there; there were other film crews in the area doing a lot of shooting, so the whole thing was becoming difficult, to go up and shoot at Baltar's house. And separate from that, I think there was becoming a certain fatigue on everyone's part with what was going on at Baltar's house. We were not finding enough new and different and interesting things to keep doing there—

That's one of the sexiest shots of [[Tricia Helfer|Trish]] in the entire series.

—but we weren't finding enough new and interesting things to do in Baltar's house to keep justifying all the difficulties that we had in going there, and this expensive location. So for lot's of reasons, we just hadn't been doing it very often. But in this circumstance it felt right, because it's making a different point. And here, he's actually ''saying'' that he's growing weary of doing this. That it's— the character is finding less and less satisfaction with the fantasy life that he has sort of invented for himself, and that she has sort of invented for him, and he's becoming more rooted in sort of the reality of the Galactica world, for good or for bad. And part of that is an outrgrowth of his relation— his developing relationship with [[Gina]].

This was something we did— having [[Helena Cain|Cain]] come down to see Gina was actually not in the first draft, which is in retrospect an amazing oversight. It took a couple of drafts before we realized that we never put Cain and Gina in the same room, even though Cain was responsible for everything that happened to Gina, and that presumably this is the ''woman'', she's the big baddie in the episode, and it just felt strange to never have her and her prisoner come face to face, to really see what was her attitude toward the prisoner, the prisoner's sort of fear and hatred of her, Baltar's discomfort of having to be in the same room with the two of them. It's such a disturbing scene. I mean, I like it a lot, this particular moment, because it's really raw; you're not quite sure what Cain is capable of; you don't know where it could go at any moment; there's a certain out of control quality of this scene from the moment where [[IMDB:nm0000405|Michelle]] walks in which I think is wonderful.

And then she just jumps up and goes at him. Right here. Which is great. Sometimes the oldest tricks are the best. I mean just— I don't think you're expecting that, that she just goes at him. And Trish does such a wonderful job with all this. The scrabble away, Baltar's reaction, and now this upcoming shot, this look on Tricia's face, on Gina's face, on Tricia's face. This— ''this'', I just, I— that's an amazing moment.

What are you supposed to feel for this woman? It's interesting. What is the audience supposed to feel here? What do ''you'' feel here? What do you think of this woman? Do you hate her? Do you feel sorry for her? What do you do with that? Y'know, it's that— those are the moments I love on the show, where you throw something at the audience, and it's not entirely clear, it's not entirely obvious what you should feel. It's what— y'know, a lot of times when we leave it to you, the viewer, to sort of bring your own emotion to the scene. Y'know, in that moment, when Gina attacks Baltar, and then comes back and says "kill me", and she's sitting there on the floor, she's the embodiment of a [[Cylons (RDM)|race]] that has committed [[Fall of the Twelve Colonies|genocide]], a mass genocide larger than anything in our own human history, an unimaginable evil, she is the embodiment of that. She is the face that we have seen on that. And yet, in that moment, we as human beings, what do we feel for her? Do we still feel hatred and loathing, or do we feel a human connection? Is there still some part of us that wonders if there's something salvageable in her? Do we still feel sympathy for our enemy? Do we or don't we? Maybe some of you don't. Maybe some of you feel a tremendous amount of empathy for her, maybe some of you feel sympathy, and maybe some of you don't. It's really hard to say. And I don't really care. It's really up to you, how you feel about that, about that scene, about that character. I just like playing the scene, and I like positing the questions.

This is another [[Saul Tigh|Tigh]]/[[Jack Fisk|Fisk]] drinking scene, which of course we did in "Pegasus", where Fisk revealed the first sort of— the curtain was first pulled back on Cain and who she was, and how she did things, and now he's pulling back the curtain a bit wider, and it's even uglier. There's a part of me, in all honesty, that I— every time I watch this scene I always kind of go, "oh— well, oh shit. I did it twice," y'know, doing the same seen a second time, in the second episode. And it's a bit of a cheat, in all honesty. It is kind of cheating a bit, because you're going back to the well a second time. It's in the same set, it's another drinking scene, and it's another "don't ask Fisk a question because you don't want to hear the answer" kind of a sequence. But it's— the only way that it's different is that we've shifted the dynamic slightly, in that Tigh is now deliberately seeking answers, and the first time it was more, just, they were hanging out, and Fisk said something, volunteered a story. This time, presumably Adama off-camera has talked to Tigh; Tigh is now going back and using that very friendship and using the fact that he knows that if you get Fisk a little bit lit, that he'll like, open up, and he goes back in there. I mean, and all that's fine, and it hangs together, and it works solidly, but there's still a part of me as a original writer and producer that sort of goes, "eh, I kind of wish that I'd found a different way for this particular story to come out," but y'know, we couldn't, and it was the easiest and the most elegant way. I don't know if it was the most elegant, I just contradicted that. It was the ''easiest'' way, and sometimes the easiest is just the best, so we went with this.

This is a pretty dark story. In part, this was sort of a result of the network giving a note at some point in the process, y'know, "why is Cain so bad?" And y'know, we went out of our way— in "Pegasus", you could justify just about everything she did. In fact, you ''can'' justify everything she did in "Pegasus". The woman really didn't do anything wrong by her own lights, and the way she read the law, and the way she read the situation, she acted in the way she thought best to protect her ship and her crew. Even the shooting of her XO was something in a combat situation she thought had to be done.

==[http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/mp3/211/bsg_ep211_4of5.mp3 Act 3]==
And as so— just to complete the thought, even though in the first episode [[Helena Cain|Cain]] had justified everything to herself that she thought had to be done, the network kind of felt like "Well, yeah, but given where we're going with Cain, and by the end of the Resurrection Saga— y'know, we need something really dark. Something ''really'' dark, to justify the fact that [[William Adama|Adama]]'s thinking about killing this woman, and that he's actually partic— gonna get to a place where he considered— where he's going to say, 'yeah, go assassinate that woman', we need something ''nasty'' in there." And I tended to agree with that, it was like, "yeah, I see that." Adama's reaction as a character at the top of the show is correct. Adama would not just shoot his superior officer, it's not who the man is. He says "the world's gone mad, what the hell's all this?" and he turns away from it. So to turn him back, to make him really realize that this woman had to be stopped, that [[Laura Roslin|Laura]] was right, you kinda needed one more bit of darkness, one more thing that we would just go "my god, y'know— this— I have to stop this woman." And the story of the ''[[Scylla]]'', the story of going in and shooting the family of people that didn't wanna be sort of shanghaied onto ''[[Pegasus (RDM)|Pegasus]]'' was a pretty good way to go.

Now this scene is kinda interesting in that in the script in— as shot, [[Number Six]] actually appears— appeared in this scene. And when [[Michael Rymer]] was in the cutting room, he cut Six out of this scene because he felt that she was actually distracting. When [[Gaius Baltar|Baltar]] turns around here, turns away— which I think is a brilliant idea, this was Michael Rymer's— it was in Michael Rymer's original draft, that he brings her clothes and he— oof. That is as ugly as it gets, man. That is like— oof. Anyway. That he turns his back on [[Gina]] and gave her a moment of privacy. Well, in that scene there, Number Six appeared, and took his head, and made him look back at her, forcing him to look, to see what had happened to her, what had happened to her on ''Pegasus''. And throughout this little sequence, Six was sort of kibitzing, sort of making comment on this scene about what had happened to Gina, and what was going on with Baltar. And it was distracting. It kinda took you out of this emotional moment of connection with this woman that heretofore you'd only seen sorta lying on the ground and then had had one sort of burst of violence against Baltar. And you sort of want this particular moment to ''be'' him and her, you want to hear what she has to say, you want him to be really there, you don't want to play that— the sort of imp on his shoulder this time. So it was interesting. I mean, we cut her out completely, of the scene, and you don't miss her at all.

Y'see right there, where says "I promise," Six used to lean in and says "don't make promises you can't keep," sort of foreshadowing that maybe he can't protect her. You can see the little bits of James sort of glancing over to where she once was. Not much.

And here we get to the resurrection ship concept. Which I like, because it really is part and parcel of the show. I believe— I don't remember, but— forgive me, but I believe that the whole notion of "Resurrection Ship" was something that came up in the writer's room, and I don't even think I was there. I think the writers were working on their own, on various storylines, and the idea of there being a ship, a physical mech— an actual ship, and the entire physical mechanism required for Cylon resurrection is following the fleet, sort of, y'know, [to] provide them with a fallback where they could be reborn, and giving them that sort of freedom of immortality, of not caring whether the people on ''[[Galactica (RDM)|Galactica]]'' should kill them or not. That that being, as part of the fleet that was dogging them the whole way, that that would present an amazingly tempting target was something that I think grew out of writer discussions on other storylines that were ultimately abandoned. There was a whole show that was abandoned that was about going to— going on a raid, the show was called "[[The Raid]]", where they were going to infiltrate a Cylon base, and get inside, and once they were inside, they got plans— they got some kind of clues of about this Resurrection Ship, and where was it, and if they could knock it out, that would really be a major boon to them. And that storyline ultimately fell apart and didn't go anywhere, but we held onto the idea— that that idea became the idea of what was so important that Cain was going to destroy come hell or higher water.

That particular shot of ''[[Colonial One]]'' with the [[Viper (RDM)|Viper]] outside in escort is actually a reuse of the shot from the [[miniseries]] where [[Lee Adama|Lee]] was escorting ''Colonial One''.

This scene, I love. This is one of my favorite scenes of the season, this scene between Laura and Adama. And again, if we had had to really chop apart "Resurrection Ship" to get it down to a one hour episode, we would've had to—we— in fact I think we did lose this scene at one point, when we were messing around to see what an hour version would look like, and it just broke my heart, because this is a lovely, lovely scene. I love the performances here are just tremendous, and you really get a sense that these two people in this scene have walked such a road from where they began in the miniseries, where they really were at odds and could bare— and barely gave each other the time of day, to the point where Adama had relieved her of her presidency and instituted a military coup, and Laura had broken out and led a rebellion, and they had gone to [[Kobol]], and I mean they had just traveled such a journey, and then now, in the middle of this other crisis, Laura is dying. And Adama is there to give her a glass of water, and just be there with her. And you can just ''see''— y'know, the look on his face— y'know, the connection with her and it's just amazing. And y'know, there are times I just— I am so grateful for the cast. I know I've said that before in these podcasts, but this just gold. This is gold.

And look at his face. His heart's breaking. The trust between the two of them. They do trust each other. They ''know'' each other, they know each other's weaknesses, they know each other's limitations, they know each other's integrity, and sense of honor.

And now watch this, when [[Edward James Olmos|Eddy]] goes away— look at that. He wipes away the tear. It's such a small— it's just intuitive actor— actor's instinct at work. And it's so honest, and you just so believe it. And it touches me every time I see it. And she sends him out.

==[http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/mp3/211/bsg_ep211_5of5.mp3 Act 4]==

Act four. This is an additional scene. This scene between [[Helo]] and [[Tyrol]] is actually not only an additional scene, but something we chopped into after we shot it. (laughs) This is a- this little scene with the two guys that are still in jail, mulling over the future and their relationship to the various [[Sharon Valerii|Sharons]], is actually interrupted at the end and becomes a different scene, and as we were juggling timing issues between the two episodes there was two- this was originally going to be a scene that was going to be all in [[Resurrection Ship, Part II|Part Two]] and then we had too much in Part Two and not enough in [[Resurrection Ship, Part I|Part One]], and there came a point where we realized we could cut this scene in half and put part of it in Part One and part of it in Part Two. So you'll note when you get to- there's another Helo/Tyrol scene in Part Two with them, in this cell, and [[Aaron Douglas|Aaron]]'s still in the bed,(laughs) and [[Tahmoh Penikett|Tahmoh]] is still leaning against the bunk and it's essentially picking up this scene. But it works just as well, 'cause it really is a scene that had two big things going on in it. There was this conversation and a whole other sequence, and it cleaved itself in half very nicely. And I like this moment just in terms of the characters saying things that must have been on their minds. You're dealing with issues that the audience has thought about. "What does Helo think? Is Helo know that he's in love with a machine? What does he think about- isn't he freaked out about the fact that he's having a baby that's half machine? And isn't Tyrol getting to a point where he's gotta let go of this thing he's got for Sharon? I mean, doesn't he need to WAKE UP ALREADY TYROL?" And it's just nice to hear the two of them acknowledging that and dealing with it, and dealing with it in a very honest way. Tyrol's struggle to move on, Helo's inability to move on.

This little montage was actually crafted out of a couple different pieces. We were struggling with the moment of decision. Part One, when we chopped the show in half into two episodes and were assembling them, we realized that we never really had the moment where the decision was crystallized, where [[William Adama|Adama]] '''decided''' that he was going to have kill [[Helena Cain|Cain]] and the moment where Cain '''decided''' that she was going to have to kill Adama. Ironically, these pieces were shot for a moment in Part Two, on the eve of battle, when each of them was about to- this was all supposed to be in Part Two was what it was shot for, there was a big battle coming, this was the night before the battle, and the two of them had already made the decision. Cain had already made the decision to kill Adama. Adama had already made the decision to kill Cain. And this- those little silent bits of them sitting in their room having their "long night of the soul" were meant to show them both struggling with what they had already decided to do. But, since they're silent scenes, and they're both just actors struggling with issues, it was easy to put them both- both those sequences, into Part One and suddenly the context changes, and now you, the audience, bring a different set of sens- expectations into what's going on, and now it reads as the two of them struggling with what they're about to do as opposed to struggling with what they had already decided to do.

This is going back to "the big board" as we like to call it. Which was- we haven't really seen in the show since "[[The Hand of God (RDM)|The Hand of God]]" in [[Season 1 (2004-05)|Season One]]. It's a very effective way of making complicated stuff work. So I insisted that we use it again. It's just such a simple thing. It's like, ok, put the models on the board, move them around and show the audience how this all is going to work. Get it out of the way, give them the plan, and then move on. The graphics, I've talked about this before, putting dots on screens, and light and lines, and getting complicated graphics to explain "We're coming from there, they're going to go this way." All that stuff the audience loses surprisingly quickly, and it's really hard to make work as strictly-tech talk. You put those models on tables, just like it's [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054310/ "Sink the Bismark"] man, and it just reads. You just get it. And thank god it works with our retro-feeling and sense of the technology that we've established on ''[[Battlestar Galactica (RDM)|Galactica]]'' and you can just use it.

We always like the role reversal between [[Kara Thrace|Starbuck]] and [[Lee Adama|Lee]]- Starbuck and Apollo, that she would be the [[CAG]] and suddenly he would be just a pilot. It was nice to play them in those roles for a bit. And we get to play them even more in Part Two.

And now this. This was something that I just wr- I had a vision of how this would work, the intercutting between the two- between the [[Raptor]] and the "big board" room, between the two of them. And I wrote it as an intercut, where you would write each sequence and how the dialogue would blend and overlap. But, I will say that it works much better in the show than it did on the page, which is really a salute to our- the editor of this episode, Dany Cooper, who did a marvelous job putting this footage together. Because it really is about rhythm and moment and being able to build a certain pace in. You'll notice if you watch the style in which this is edited, it starts very traditionally, you're just cutting from one piece to the next, and you're letting them say a couple of lines, then you start- then the pace starts to pick up, and then she starts to have the dialogue prelap one another and overlap, and it's almost becoming one scene by the very end, then it kind of slows down again towards the end. It's a great, great thing. It's something I couldn't have foreseen or know how to do, but a really good editor will be able to take footage like this and really nail you. Even just the choice of going from Cain to Kara. 'Cause you sort of going from [[Jack Fisk|Fisk]] to Cain, Fisk to Cain, and then suddenly it's Cain to Kara and you're in the other scene, the other foot. And then sometimes she's going Cain to Adama. See off of Starbuck, back to Cain, as if looking back to the reaction shot, at that time you just go Cain to Adama. And now it's overlapping, now it's starting to move faster, and the tension, "Oh my god, what are they- what are they about to say to each other?" Then there's the hesitation.

"[[Case Orange]]" is actually a reference to a battle plan of the [[Wikipedia:United States Navy|American Navy]] prior to [[Wikipedia:World War II|World War II]]. "Case Orange" was a certain idea of what the [[Wikipedia:Empire of Japan|Japanese]] would do, what they would do in response. [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363163/ "Downfall"] is another reference, it's a reference to a German- to a film about [[Wikipedia:Nazi Germany|Nazi Germany]] and the last days in [[Wikipedia:Adolph Hitler|Hitler]]'s bunker.

That last line kills me. "Take out your gun, and shoot Admiral Cain, in the head." That's so perf- that's just so perfect.

Once last note that I'll make is that that little beat where Cain is saying "Terminate Adama's command, starting with Adama," is an homage, a bit, to "[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078788/ Apocalypse Now]". Where the famous line of [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000148/ Harrison Ford's], "I want you to terminate Colonel Kurtz's command," and then the other guy, whose name I can never recall in the scene leans forward and says, "Terminate with extreme prejudice." And I briefly toyed with the idea of actually using that terminology, but there's a fine line between homage and ripoff, and that seemed to pole vault over the edge.

So that's it for the podcast for Resurrection Ship, Part One. Thank you for joining me, I hope you enjoyed it. We will next be dealing with Resurrection Ship, Part Two, obviously. And hopefully I'll have my act together a little bit more and can be a little more entertaining next time around. Thank you, and goodnight.

==Notes==
# {{note|tech}} "TECH" is a term used in Star Trek scripts as a placeholder for to-be-determined [[Wikipedia:technobabble|technobabble]].

Portal:Battlestar Galactica (RDM)/Introduction

2006-04-21T22:45:07Z

Grafix: Too many apostrophies

<div style="float:left;margin-right:0.9em">
[[Image:Image_lg_bgcast.jpg|90px|The Battlestar Galactica (RDM) Cast]]
</div>
Were you born in the 1960s? Were you born in the 1980s? If you answered ''Yes'' to any of these two questions you might have seen the Origial ''Battlestar Galactica'' and ''Battlestar Galactica'' (1980) back in the day. But did you know there is a new series out there? Most likly. The new and improved ''[[Battlestar Galactica (RDM)|Battlestar Galactica]]'' created and produced by [[Ronald D. Moore]] has been the talk of the town on SciFi websites and entertainment magainzes alike. It is a "[[Wikipedia:Reboot_%28continuity%29|reboot]]" of the two previous series, but still mantaining it's own story line. As the series has just finshed it's second season and has being renewed for a third, ''[[Battlestar Galactica (RDM)|Battlestar Galactica]]'' has captivated us and insipred us to think out-side of the box. The next time new shows of ''[[Battlestar Galactica (RDM)|Battlestar Galactica]]'' will air will be October 2006 on your local '''SciFi Channel'''.

Viper (TRS)

2006-04-21T16:24:09Z

Grafix: Changed layout, typos and mis-use of apostophy

:''This article discusses the two Viper-class fighters seen in the [[Battlestar Galactica (RDM)|Re-imagined Series]]. For information on the Viper used in the [[Battlestar Galactica (TOS)|Original Series]] and in [[Galactica 1980]], see [[Viper (TOS)]].''

{{Ship Data
| image= Bsg-viper-1.jpg
| title= Viper Mk. II
| race= Colonial
| type= Military
| ftl= No
| crew= 1 pilot
| co=
| xo=
| role= Space superiority fighter
| weapons= 2 [[KEW|Kinetic Energy Weapons]], missiles
| status= Obsolete
| img=
}}
The '''Viper''' is the [[Colonial Fleet]]'s primary space superiority fighter / attack craft. Capable of atmospheric flight, the Viper is a single-seat craft mounting two kinetic energy weapons ([[KEW]]s), as well as having hardpoints beneath the wings for mounting missiles, munitions pods and other ordnance ([[The Hand of God (RDM)|The Hand of God]]).

The Viper was originally introduced into Colonial service shortly before the outbreak of the [[Cylon War]]. However, it was the Mark II variant, designed specifically for use with the new Colonial [[Galactica type battlestar|battlestars]] that is best remembered.

The Mark II served with distinction throughout the Cylon War, proving a capable fighting vehicle that won renown across the [[Twelve Colonies (RDM)|Twelve Colonies]] and is regarded as one of the reasons the Colonials did not suffer defeat at the hands of the Cylons.

The Mark II remained in service after the end of the war, but was subsequently superseded by newer models. At the time of the renewed Cylon attack on the Twelve Colonies, the Mark VII was the front-line variant of the Viper design, retaining the Mark II general layout but using fully networked systems providing superior battle management and fight information for the pilot.
{{Ship Data
| image= BSG-Mark-VII.jpg
| title= Viper Mk. VII
| race= Colonial
| type= Military
| ftl= No
| crew= 1 pilot
| co=
| xo=
| role= Space superiority fighter
| weapons= 3 [[KEW|Kinetic Energy Weapons]], missiles
| status= In current Colonial service
| img=
}}
Ironically, it was the incorporation of the new integrated systems that prevented the majority of Mark VIIs from being effective during the Cylon attack: as with the majority of Colonial Fleet, the Mark VII suffer fatal computer system failures on contact with Cylon forces. Thanks to a [[Number Six|Cylon agent's]] relationship with Dr. [[Gaius Baltar]], scientist and programmer of the navigation software project, the [[CNP|navigational software]] in use onboard the majority of Colonial Fleet vessels contained backdoors that allow the Cylons to infiltrate a vessel's network by [[wireless]] signals and disable its power systems. While the problem could be overcome by removing the navigational upgrade compromised by the Cylons, this information is not discovered in time to be of major benefit to the surprised and hard-pressed Colonial forces.

== Atmospheric Operations ==
The Viper is designed for atmospheric as well as space-based operations. However, Vipers consume more fuel during atmospheric operations than in the vacuum of space: once in an atmosphere, the engines must run continuously to retain airflow over the wing lifting surfaces. Depending on the composition of the atmosphere itself, this can place severe strain on the Viper's engines ([[You Can't Go Home Again]]).

Due to their wing configuration, Vipers may also suffer from poor handling at low speeds within an atmosphere.

== Life Support ==
Viper cockpits are pressurised and heated, but they are flown with the pilot wearing a [[flight suit]] that is capable of providing full life support should ejection be required ([[You Can't Go Home Again]]). The life support systems are built-in to the back of the pilot's seat itself, together with the flight harness. Following an ejection, the back of the seat separates automatically, effectively becoming a backpack for the pilot ([[Act of Contrition]]).

Should ejection take place within an atmosphere, the life support backpack / seat back also incorporates a parachute.

== Technical Specifications ==

=== Dimensions ===
Mark II
*Length: 8.4082 m
*Wingspan: 4.7168 m
*Height: 2.7247 m (in flight, without landing gear. Landing gear adds approximately 0.5m.)

Mark VII
*Length: 9.8643 m
*Wingspan: 5.61 m
*Height: 2.9508 m (in flight, without landing gear.){{ref|companion}}

=== Propulsion ===
*Mark II: 1x Voram VM2-D15 upper turbothrust engine, 2x Voram VM3-D22 turbothrust engines; 2x reverse thrust motors; [[RCS]] points
*Mark VII: 3x turbothrust engines mounted aft; [[RCS]] points; angular exhaust nozzle design suggest possible thrust-vectoring.

=== Armaments ===
*Mark II: 2x MEC-A6 30mm Thraxon forward-firing kinetic energy weapons ([[KEW]]) mounted in the wing roots with 800 round magazine; dorsal storage bay for 8x HD-70 Lightning Javelin missiles (optional 50 megaton nuclear warhead){{ref|armaments}}
*Mark VII: 3x forward-firing kinetic energy weapons (KEW); 2 mounted towards the outboard sections of the wings; 1 mounted in the vertical stabiliser
*Both: Weapon hardpoints for mounting missiles / munitions pods, etc. under the wings; compatible gun ammunition, although Mk VII seems to have a higher rate of fire

=== Instruments ===
*Mark II: [[Radio Magnetic Indicator]]
*Mark II: [[Torque Percent Gauge]]
*Mark II: [[Attitude Indicator]]
*Mark II: [[Altimeter]]
*Mark II and VII: [[Computers#Colonial Avionics|Cockpit Avionics]]

=== Crew ===
*Pilot in Terrell ES 24C ejection seat. {{ref_label|companion|2|a}}

=== Performance ===

*Mark II: Can rotate 180 degrees vertically in .35 seconds

== Notes ==
Since ''Galactica'' only had 40 Viper Mark IIs aboard, they needed as many fighters as possible, thus the remaining Mark VIIs were refitted and stripped of their advanced computer systems. However, since this is not how the Mark VII was designed, it makes the craft increasingly difficult to handle and can only be flown by the most experienced pilots such as [[Lee Adama|Apollo]] and [[Kara Thrace|Starbuck]]. ''Galactica'' has roughly 6-8 Mark VIIs on board after the Cylon attack ("[[Scattered]]", "Flight of the Phoenix"). (source: [http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/ships/ships/|official Scifi.com series website])

== Layout ==
[[Image:Viper Mk II orthos.jpg|thumb|Viper Mk II]]
The Viper is a long, sleek vehicle that can be split into two parts, fore and aft.

*Fore section: comprises the nose back to the cockpit. This contains the forward RCS systems for maneuvering the craft; the forward landing gear; the main [[avionics]] and sensor packages, plus the single-seat cockpit itself
*Stern section: comprises the main engines, fuel tanks, wings and vertical stabiliser. The wings themselves contain the kinetic energy weapons ("guns") and their munitions storage and feeds. Hardpoints beneath the wings allow missiles, munitions pods and other items to be rack-mounted ([[The Hand of God (RDM)|The Hand of God]]). The wings roots contain the main landing gear. This section of a Viper also contains a number of RCS maneuvering packs.

The stern section of a Viper is distinctive because of the offset "intakes" mounted just behind the cockpit. The port / starboard "intake" nacelles incorporate small but powerful reverse thrust engines that can quickly counter a Viper's forward momentum in an emergency ([[The Hand of God (RDM)|The Hand of God]]).

== Sources ==
#{{note|dimensions}}Dimensions provided by [http://www.leestringer.com/ Lee Stringer], one of the VFX Animators of the Mini-Series. These are for the CGI models, which are based on but not identical to the fullsize props. Source: [http://www.starshipbuilder.com/ubb/Forum4/HTML/000012.html Starshipbuilder.com forums]
#{{note|companion}}{{note_label|companion|2|a}}Armaments listings and Ejector seat details from David Bassom's Battlestar Galactica Official Companion.

[[Category:A to Z]]
[[Category:Colonial Military]]
[[Category:Colonial Craft]]
[[Category:RDM]]

Battlestar Wiki talk:Citation Jihad

2006-04-21T08:16:12Z

Grafix:

== Citation Consistency ==

"Zoic" is a name that sounds like what Shaggy from "Scooby Doo" would make when surprised, I think.

Despite being the special effects company for the series, I wonder how much of their information still holds weight. I noticed that Peter gave neither negative or positive weight to this source. As we go through pages, two issues are going to crop up, of which one may need to move to the Standards page.

* Consistent and useful '''visual''' separation and identification of TOS and RDM information and characters. I find the mingling of TOS and RDM data in the same article confusing and lengthens an article unnecessarily. More germane to this project, it will also keep RDM and TOS stats from cohabitating and confusing the citation process.
* We need to cite official sources for TOS information on the project page, keeping in mind this wiki is for both series. There are surely more TOS fan sites than RDM, and things like games, fan fiction and the like over the years have surely diluted what is official and not.
* The level of detail or a standard of detail on technical pages needs some kind of governor. At which point is something being reasonable in description (such as ''Galactica's'' rail guns) or is embellishment or technobabble that just gives fan service (like "''Galactica'' uses a BFG-3244 Rail Gun with Strapless Attachment")? I'd be more strict on this info than any other since tech is tech and such "facts" should not be different from what is seen on screen.

I think color coding article titles to identify TOS and RDM pages (rather than using "TOS" and "RDM") may be better on the eye. [[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 11:05, 29 September 2005 (EDT)

:I intended Zoic to fall under point 3, for "crew" - ie, of roughly the same reliability as that interview where Lorena Gale talked about how Elosha used to do "a lot of drugs". --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 11:21, 29 September 2005 (EDT)

::I believe the actual word is spelled thus: ZOIKS! Caps are not optional. ;) --[[User:Day|Day]] 01:21, 10 October 2005 (EDT)

==Request for name change==

I am uncomfortable with the use of the term "Jihad". I would rather we use the term "Crusade", or perhaps "Inquisition"; I think "Inquisition" is best (i.e. Spanish Inquisition [no one suspects the Inquisition!] b/c it's rooting out unsourced information). --[[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]] 13 October, 2005

:Striving for accuracy certainly has better overtones than any use of "crusade", and "inquisition" has draconian connotations. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 01:11, 13 October 2005 (EDT)

:: I, uh, don't get Peter's post. Does that means he agrees or doesn't? Anyway, I'm fine with Jihad because it implies a religeous devotion and a fanaticism that I think could be, sarcastically, applied to the purpose of this project. However, I'm also fine with Inquisition because it implies a religeous devotion and a fanaticism that I think... You can see where I'm going with this, no? Also, the Spanish Inquisition sketch is my favorite Monty Python sketch in the history of Monty Python's being viewed by me. And I'd love for my comments on changing citation errors (if I ever see any, because I'm bad at seeing them) to be "Our chief weapon is Fear. Fear and surprise. Our TWO chief weapons are fear, surprise and a fanatical devotion to citation. Ah. Our THREE chief weapons are: Fear, surprise, a--" You get the idea.

:: I find it interesting that the name and the two proposed substitutes are all tied to religeon? We could have a Citation Rampage. Or a Citation Mosh Pit. Heh. Maybe we should be the Ministry of Citation. I always liked ministries. We would then address each other as "Minister Day" and "Minister Farago", etc. Or maybe one of you can come up with a more [[Wikipedia:Nineteen Eighty-Four|Orwellian]] name. That would be cool. --[[User:Day|Day]] 01:52, 13 October 2005 (EDT)

:::To clarify: I like Citation Jihad. I came up with it, after all... --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 02:08, 13 October 2005 (EDT)

:::: "Jihad", in this context, does indeed present - shall we say - disconcerting ramifications for those of us who are not Christian. While humurous to most of us (I hate to splash cold water) the casual use of such a revered term amongst a potential audience of Islamic adherrants is a wee bit less than delicate... especially in light of the suspicion many perfectly native or naturalized citizens of Mid-Eastern descent faced immediately subsequent to 9/11... and the suspicion they currently face every time they reenter the U.S.
:::: While rather fascinating that we should find ourselves encountering a problem delt with in more artfull ways in our favorite television program, it is nevertheless significant (dare I say important) that we handle this question of naming with a sense of diplomacy. --[[User:Watcher|Watcher]] 04:12, 13 October 2005 (EDT)
:::::I was unsettled--albeit briefly--with the name initially, but I'm not into political correctness. "Jihad" is correct in definition. Currently, however, some take the word with the same emotional charge as Muslims would hear "Crusade," since, essentially in the context of past conflicts between Christians and Muslins at war, both signify a religious purge. In any case, the term sites a religious note that might sour some.

:::::But before you knock Peter for his choice, consider our subject matter: "Battlestar Galactica" is a morality play in the tradition of the original Star Trek series, which addresses in allegory the Muslim/Judeo-Christian issue present through current terrorism against the West as well as the Israel/Palestine conflict by using the Humano-Cylon/Human and God/Lords of Kobol issue. If nothing else, the use of the term "Jihad" in its purest form is actually appropriate and striking so for this Wiki. Don't let the Al Qaeda terrorists or other extremists make you afraid of a word when in fact, it is THEY that slur it from its true meaning. Peter has always shown a concise use of words that has little to no ambiguity--I should know since he frequently slices my edits to their essence when I use too many words. I'll back up Peter on this one. [[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 12:43, 13 October 2005 (EDT)

::::::Taking these points into account, I would greatly prefer "Inquisition" over "Jihad" or "Crusade". -- Ricimer, October 14, 2005

:::::::Good point. And very nicely said I might add. --[[User:Watcher|Watcher]] 13:10, 13 October 2005 (EDT)

:::::::: I hope you don't mind, Watcher, I indented your previous post one more. Anyway, I like Johad fine. I actually find it kind of refreshing to use it for something that's ''not'' violent. I'm not Muslim, so I can't speak to that. However, as an American I don't feel, I dunno, threatened by the name, or anything. When I first saw it, it gave me pause, but that pause was me thinking, "Whew. Someone's probably gonna throw a fit about that one." --[[User:Day|Day]] 14:13, 13 October 2005 (EDT)

:::::::::Well I'm sorry but I do and I have. What's the consensus on this? --Ricimer, October 13, 2005

::::::::::Not a problem Day. I think there might have been an unintentional slip during one of the edits (notice the time/date stamps) but I seem to constantly screw this detail up anyway. Feel free. I may read as insufferably serious but I assure you that's not the case. --[[User:Watcher|Watcher]] 16:50, 13 October 2005 (EDT)

::::::::::: Good deal, Watcher. Anyway... I was about to make a post about not wanting anyone to feel threatened by this project, but I find I have to revise that. I don't want ''members'' of the project to feel threatened by the name. I hope people who don't cite sources are scared witless of us. ;) Anyway, as much as I like using Jihad, I tend to like to not offend reasonable people, so I'd be okay with a change, I guess. --[[User:Day|Day]] 17:21, 13 October 2005 (EDT)

:::::::::::: A note on nesting - if Watcher was replying to Spencerian, not Ricimer, it should be indented to the level of Spencerian's comment + 1, not Ricimer's + 1. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 18:42, 13 October 2005 (EDT)

::::::::::::: Ah. Good to know. I shall endeavour to remember this. --[[User:Day|Day]] 22:47, 13 October 2005 (EDT)

===Votes===
We need to come to some kind of consensus, I think. So, first, is to change or not change. If we decide to change, then we can quibble over what to change to. Place your name under the appropriate heading.

====No Change====
# --[[User:Day|Day]] 06:14, 23 October 2005 (EDT)
# --Not afraid of words when used properly. [[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 13:56, 23 October 2005 (EDT)
# --Name doesn't bother me. [[User:Talos|Talos]] 19:46, 23 October 2005 (EDT)
# --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 00:51, 24 October 2005 (EDT)
# --Ditto Spencerian. Let's not fear words when used properly. -- [[User:Joe.Beaudoin|Joe Beaudoin]] 21:28, 27 October 2005 (EDT)

====Change====
# Reluctantly --[[User:Watcher|Watcher]] 06:30, 23 October 2005 (EDT)
# Wholeheartedly --[[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]] 09:46, 23 October 2005 (EDT)
# Normally I don't care about words, but I have to admit, that in today's world, some words have become too negatively charged. --[[User:Cp.hayes|cp.hayes]] 14:30, 23 October 2005 (EDT)
# Wholeheartedly --[[User:Lone Odessan|Lone Odessan]] 19:36, 23 October 2005 (EDT)
== BSG: The Magazine ==

I saw [http://www.titanmagazines.com/titanmag/app;jsessionid=57DACB1E3C47F38A718593747C30F921?service=direct/1/HomeUS/$NavigationBar.$DirectLink$2&sp=S8 this] on the news stand at Fry's and thought it was worth picking up an issue to see what was in it. I've so far read a whole of two pages, so I don't know much about it, except that it has an article on Pyramid that was interesting. Does anyone else know anything about this magazine? How reliable is it? I'm going to edit the Pyramid article with some things that are revealed about the rules. How should I cite this, exactly? I'm gonna go with page numbers and title for now. --[[User:Day|Day]] 17:24, 13 October 2005 (EDT)
:Given that we haven't had much about the RDM show in print, I'd carefully use it to compare to the canonical stuff we have. If things are consistent, I'd say it's a reliable source since I strongly suspect that USA/Universal may have to sign off on its content. [[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 17:58, 13 October 2005 (EDT)
::I say we put it on level 4, (sci-fi and skyone websites), provisionally. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 18:41, 13 October 2005 (EDT)

::: Correction. The title is ''Battlestar Galactica, the Official Magazine'' even thought the words are not in that order on the cover. And, I must say, the thing was really clumsily edited. There are missing periods, 'and' for 'a', 'their' for 'they're', tense mixing, Obvious typos. Yech. --[[User:Day|Day]] 01:04, 14 October 2005 (EDT)

==Citation Format==
Also, we should choose a citation format and stick with it. Opinions? MLA, APA, Chicago? --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 18:41, 13 October 2005 (EDT)
:Damn it, Peter. I knew you were a student. You're going to force me to dig up a book or stand with the kids at the college bookstore, aren't you? :) [[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 22:50, 13 October 2005 (EDT)
:: Are you kidding? I just graduated and never once bought a book on citation. All that can be [http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/legacylib/mlahcc.html found] [http://www.liu.edu/cwis/cwp/library/workshop/citmla.htm on] [[Wikipedia:APA style|the]] [http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_mla.html net]. I've only ever used MLA style before, however, I'd be willing, given the nature of web pages, to use something that just had footnotes with numbering. There was some tool Wikipedia has for this that I read about, but I don't remember much about it except that it seemed cool. --[[User:Day|Day]] 00:06, 14 October 2005 (EDT)
:::I would find MLA with numbered footnotes ideal. For "personal communication", we would do well to follow [[User:MASON|MASON]]'s example of including them in subpages, such as [[Mercury class battlestar/Sources]] (That should be linked to from the main article text, however.) --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 00:16, 14 October 2005 (EDT)

:::: Joe also mentioned possibly that we should scan things. What kinds of things? And, I assume those should go on a Sources page, too, neh? I think for whatever's on the sources page, we could do the foot note like this: (3) Personal communication (''or whatever relevant info''). See ''link to Sources page''. I also think Sources pages should have a link back. WHat do y'all think? --[[User:Day|Day]] 00:25, 14 October 2005 (EDT)

:::::I Agree. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 01:14, 14 October 2005 (EDT)

:::::By scans, I mean scans of publication articles and so forth. Scans should not be of the whole article but a snippet of the applicable text that was cited (enough to qualify as fair use). Also, as for linking the sources subpage, I created a template, {{tl|source}} that can be placed next to the applicable information. The template automatically links to the Source subpage. (Format: Article title/Sources.) Thoughts? -- [[User:Joe.Beaudoin|Joe Beaudoin]] 14:16, 14 October 2005 (EDT)

:::::: How does that work, then, Joe? The syntax, I mean? --[[User:Day|Day]] 03:29, 18 October 2005 (EDT)

==Character Ages==
Character ages across the site appear to be based on the age of the actors who play them. This would normally be reasonable, but the Timeline of BSG does not match the progress of time in the real world - the characters have aged at most three and a half months in the same time that their actors have aged two years. Since we can't infer ages more accurately than a casual visitor could be glancing at a character photograph, I would rather this information simply not be included. Opinions? --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 20:45, 15 October 2005 (EDT)

: I concur. --[[User:Day|Day]] 12:57, 17 October 2005 (EDT)

: Another thought: Ages are hard to pin down... I mean, we might learn that it is someones XXth birthday in some future episode. Wonderful. However, it's somewhat meaningless. An "Age" attribute in the template needs to be "as of" some date. Right now we use the Holocost as that date, but we're no longer exactly certain how far ago that was. So, if it's Cally's, say, 25th or whatever birthday in the episode after next... how old was she at the Holocost? 24, or so, I guess, but you see my point? I think the best solution, and perhaps this should be brought up on the characters project page, too, is to make the "Age" attribute on the template hide-able and then blank everyone's age out unless we know explicitly a number. I also think we should say it thusly: Age: 23 (as of [[Scattered]]) --[[User:Day|Day]] 02:50, 27 October 2005 (EDT)

==Railguns==
From the ''Official Magazine'' issue #1, p. 60: "Every Battlestar class warship has 24 primary railgun turrets as well as over 500 point defense turrets at its disposal." I don't have access to a scanner to prove that it says that, so you'll have to take my word on it. I'm not saying this is indisputable proof, but that it's maybe more than fanon, anyway. --[[User:Day|Day]] 02:46, 18 October 2005 (EDT)
:The magazine is wrong. Based on on-screen evidence, the large turrets on ''Galactica'' cannot be [[railgun]]s unless we drastically redefine the very idea. This certainly trumps throwaway technobabble in a fan magazine. IMO, the only thing that should give us pause is if a character on the show specifically refers to them as railguns, which hasn't happened yet. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 02:51, 18 October 2005 (EDT)

:: Okay. I'll buy that. I bet that what's actually going on here is that someone somewhere who makes these desicions doesn't, actually, know what the heck they're talking about. I mean... What're we to do if someone busts out a ray gun and says, "This shoots a red lazer!" and then, *zap*, it's green? --[[User:Day|Day]] 03:27, 18 October 2005 (EDT)

::: Oops. Ya did it now. Let's just hope TNS' writers don't become overwhelmed by the details and go the way of Space 1999. --[[User:Watcher|Watcher]] 04:24, 18 October 2005 (EDT)

==Twelve Lords of Kobol==
Ricimer stated in his edit summary: "It has been stated numerous times that there are 12 Lords of Kobol".

This statement is true if by "numerous times" you mean "never". I've been over all the episode transcripts and found nothing. On this page, of all places, you should provide a source before deleting a comment. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 19:54, 11 November 2005 (EST)

==Magazine Content==
Ltcrashdown, thank you for your informative additions to [[Saul Tigh]] and other articles. However, for them to stand, we need to do two things:
#Make certain that we are ''not'' quoting the magazine word-for-word, or that where we feel compelled to do so, we set the text off and cite it directly.
#In general, any information from the magazine needs to be cited as well. To do this, we need to know some of the publication information, including:
#*The publication's name
#*The article's author
#*The article's title
#*Date and issue number
#*Pages referenced
Thanks for helping to keep Battlestar Wiki accurate. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 22:50, 1 February 2006 (EST)

:Where do I place this information in the area where I quote it in Tigh's article? --Ltcrashdown 23:05, 1 February 2006 (EST)

::I will be happy to show you the proper format if you can provide the above information. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 23:15, 1 February 2006 (EST)

:::Here is everything I referenced from the Magazine in the articles I altered. --Ltcrashdown 23:25, 1 February 2006 (EST)
:::Publication: Battlestar Gallactica the Official Magazine #3
:::Feb/Mar 2006
:::The Tigh info, Rising Star refence to Picon, and Battlestar Athena came from the article named 'Cylon Intelligence Report: Personnel File: Saul Tigh, Page 62'
:::The Alert Fighters and Colonial Day information came from the article named 'Cylon Intelligence Report: Galactica Glossary page 60'
:::The Colors for the Colonies comes from 'Encyclopedia Galactica pages 50-55'. I also compared it to information in Battlestar Galactica The Official Companion.
:::There were no authors listed for any of the articles.

::::Can you post quotes here containing the relevant details? --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 23:29, 1 February 2006 (EST)

:::::I am familiar with the magazine, and feel that we should *provisionally* allow information from the "encyclopedia" stuff at the end, but I also *suspect* that they make that stuff up without input from RDM. I don't know. It is the "Official" magazine. Should be on the same level as info from Scifi.com (which has been known to be wrong, etc.) HOWEVER, things that are straightfoward "interviews" which are a simple transcript of an interview; hard to argue that (like when actors reveal insights about their character based on stuff from the series bible we didn't know before). --[[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]] 23:35, 1 February 2006 (EST)

::::::Actually, I just saw that the magazine claims that Colonial Day is a biannual holiday; First, where would they get that idea? Second, Ron D. Moore ''stated'' in his blog that it is "not a biannual holiday; it's an annual holiday held every year". I wonder why someone got the idea to ask that. Etc. So it's now known to be not entirely accurate. --[[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]] 23:40, 1 February 2006 (EST)

Okay, I'll try to post everything I found word-for-word. --Ltcrashdown 23:43, 1 February 2006 (EST)

'Colony: Aerelon' is a listing under the personnel file indicating his planet of origin.

Tigh's history specificaly says, 'Saul Tigh entered the fleet as a deckhand but rose through the ranks and was a CPO (Chief Petty Officer) by the time the First Cylon War broke out.' Ltaer it reads, 'Tigh joined the Colonial Officer Candidate School and was reassigned as a Viper pilot, something he excelled in, earning a string of medals in his post aboard the Battlestar Athena.' This is the only refence to the Battlestar Athena.

Tigh's post-War history is given with 'Adama reenlisted with the service and Tigh spent two years drinking before Adama pulled strings to get him back into service. Saul Tigh was straightening his life out when he met his wife Ellen, who he courted and married within two months. Ellen did not take well to military life, and her repeated infidelities drove him back to drink. Ellen and Saul separated shortly before the Cylon attack.'

The Rising Star info was taken from later in teh article with the sentence, 'Three weeks after the Cylon attack Tigh's wife was discovered on the Rising Star, a carrier from Picon.'

The definitions are:
'Colonial Day - An biannual holiday which celebrates the signing of the Articles of Colonization.'
'Alert Fighters - A rotating group of Colonial Vipers which are constantly ready for immediate launch. Their function is to act as support for the Combat Air Patrol.

The colonial colors are just images, so there's nothing to type, but it corresponds with the same colors in the Official Battlestar Companion.

:Excellent, thank you.

:The MLA citation format for a magazine article with no author is as follows:

::"Title of Article." Title of Magazine. Date: Pages.

:So, to use the Saul Tigh article as an example:

::"Cylon Intelligence Report: Personnel File: Saul Tigh." Battlestar Galactica: The Official Magazine. Feb./Mar. 2006: 62.

:Introduce a footnote in the main body text using the <nowiki>{{note}}</nowiki> and <nowiki>{{note_label}}</nowiki> tags, and place the corresponding citation in a <nowiki>==Sources==</nowiki> header after <nowiki>#{{ref}}</nowiki> and/or <nowiki>{{ref_label}}</nowiki> as appropriate. I will restore your edits to the Saul Tigh article and cite them, to give you an idea. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 00:00, 2 February 2006 (EST)

::You should also restore the 'Twelve Colonies' changes since all i did there was add Saul to the Aerelon natives and correctly match the Colors with their colonies. --Ltcrashdown 00:02, 2 February 2006 (EST)

::::Maybe he was busted down from CPO during the second year of the war. Or maybe as a Chief Petty Officer, he once served as a Gunner's Mate (though this is a bit of a stretch, I admit). --Ltcrashdown 00:22, 2 February 2006 (EST)

:::This information, however, is contradicted by the deleted scenes from "Valley of Darkness" where Tigh says that in the second year of the War, he was a "Petty Officer...gunner's mate" and not ''already'' a Chief Petty Officer when the war broke out.--[[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]] 00:14, 2 February 2006 (EST)

:::::"Let's cut through it, shall we?" The magazine is obviously compiled by people who are worse fanboys than ''we'' are, and lack our zeal for accuracy. I mean, if they can't even spell "Gemenon" properly, I'm not really inclined to give them much credence. Their information should be taken with a very large grain of salt, when we take it at all. Frankly, I'm a little worried they're going to start using ''us'' as a source.

:::::(Dear lord, I'm using sci-fi quotes out of context and Ricimer's talking in a civil tone of voice. It's like we've ''merged''.) --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 00:30, 2 February 2006 (EST)

Realize that it my ''business'' to know (of course you know, etc etc). Enough Batman-villian-esque theatrics. ***I only have the first issue, and need to read the other issues. Frankly, it's a combination of *REEALLY* good and really *BAD* material. Basically, they've got 5 or so articles that are worthwhile; but they're exclusive, plus they also give out concept art unavailble elsewhere. Long story short, *I would pay money for the few good articles in it*, but the problem is they want to "pad out" the magazine to get a certain length (and I'm going, "I would pay the same amount of money if you didn't pad it, because the other stuff doesn't add much") I mean, the first one has this *really annoying* '''LITERALLY''' Fanfic letter "from Starbuck" describing an air-combat manuever she pulled off in a Viper (in an article about Vipers). Now, let me remind everyone: ***It's a good magazine and has many good articles. It's just that some of the articles are obviously "filler". Thus, as I said, apart from the flat-out Interviews with cast members or articles written by like David Eick, Garry Hurtzel, production team members, etc. should be held under great critical skepticism. --[[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]] 00:45, 2 February 2006 (EST)

: This whole thread has been a great read. Very interesting. I have the first issue of this magazine. I sourced it for the [[Pyramid (RDM)]] article some. I remember thinking mostly as you do, Ricimer: Some great stuff, the rest ''horrid''. They're good for interviews, artwork and not much else. The first issue had an interesting thing at the end that seems to be a synopsis of an interview (if I remmeber right) with the head costume person, which I keep meaning to reread and use to add some real-life info to [[Uniform]]. I've also been looking for the other issues in the place where I got the first one, but I can't find it. I a little wary of subscribing to the thing... It just seems like there's a line being crossed there. *wink* --[[User:Day|Day]] 06:06, 2 February 2006 (EST)

==To Do==
*Deprecate citation templates in favor of [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cite/Cite.php#_ref-NYT_1 <ref> tags]. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 00:44, 2 February 2006 (EST)

==BSG Books==

There was recently a novelization for the battlestar galactica mini-series. I was going to get a copy and add information from it to the wikipedia. Does anyone else think this should be done, assuming the novelization yields any new details (i.e. ships, pilots, etc.) --Ltcrashdown 00:14, 4 February 2006 (EST)

: Its come up before. That's where, I think, we got the name Natasi for one of [[Number Six]]'s copies. We're kind of wary of it, but I think there's further discussion on Six's Talk page. --[[User:Day|Day]] 02:51, 4 February 2006 (EST)

::I'm going to post my point by point analysis of it in a matter of hours. It is, on the whole, quite poorly written, and I don't think he had any official stuff to go on, just making it up. Regardless, per "Memory Alpha" template, it deserves it's own page which I will comment more on, but we should not base beliefs on it. --[[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]] 02:57, 4 February 2006 (EST)

== Sources namespace ==

Just to let everyone know, Sources have their own namespace (i.e. [[Sources:Pegasus (RDM)]]). This avoids having to use the subpage suggestion I had earlier proposed. -- [[User:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|Joe Beaudoin]] [[User talk:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|So say we all]] - [[Battlestar Wiki:Site support|Donate]] 13:11, 9 April 2006 (CDT)

==Koenigrules / Hollywood North Report==
"Koenigrules" (KR) is the alias of a popular reporter of BSG spoilers, whose reports are often cited and reposted by other sources. [http://lvpodcasts.autopodcaster.com/download.php?filename=Subject_2_Discussion_04_11_2006.mp3/Subject_2_Discussion_04_11_2006.mp3 Recent comments] made on the "[http://www.subject2discussion.com/ Subject 2 Discussion]" segment of the "[http://www.lvrocks.com/ LV Rocks]" radio program (transcribed at [[Sources:Precipice]]) raised the possibility that KR is merely re-reporting publically available information, and does not appear to be a credible primary source.

[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] investigated this possibility, and posted his findings to [[Talk:Precipice#Question about Koenigrules]]. [[User:Peter Farago|I]] raised the possibility of instating a policy against citing KR's reports as credible sources on Battlestar Wiki, which was seconded by [[User:CalculatinAvatar|CalculatinAvatar]].

Consequently, I am opening a formal vote here on the matter. Please review [[Sources:Precipice]], its putative [http://www.nowcasting.com/sides/Episodic/BATTLESTAR%20GALACTICA/301%20Occupation/Selloi_Dedona_4pgs.pdf source material], and The Merovingian's comments on [[Talk:Precipice#Question about Koenigrules]] prior to casting your vote, and feel free to raise any questions below. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 01:18, 20 April 2006 (CDT)

'''Vote ends 20:34, 26 April 2006, server time.'''

===In favor of a policy against citing KR as a primary source===
#[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 23:34, 19 April 2006 (CDT)
#[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] ([[Special:Contributions/The Merovingian|C]] - [[Special:Editcount/The Merovingian|E]]) 23:36, 19 April 2006 (CDT) - I feel like this guy betrayed us. And it's getting worse; 4-5 news sites report things he says as fact; he is not helping at all.
#[[User:Shane|Shane]] ([[User_Talk:Shane|T]] - [[Special:Contributions/Shane|C]] - [[Special:Editcount/Shane|E]]) 01:09, 20 April 2006 (CDT) I think he just read the infromation we had posted. That interview was almost excatly what we have on the site. lol. Vote to against citing KR.
#[[User:CalculatinAvatar|CalculatinAvatar]] 01:11, 20 April 2006 (CDT) If he originates nothing, we lose nothing by not citing him.
#[[User:Steelviper|Steelviper]] 07:34, 20 April 2006 (CDT) - We do NOT claim to be a primary source here, and everything that is stated as fact should be citable elsewhere. Our sources are therefore our foundation, so they should be held to a high standard.
#[[User:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|Joe Beaudoin]] [[User talk:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|So say we all]] - [[Battlestar Wiki:Site support|Donate]] 08:53, 20 April 2006 (CDT) Per above.
#[[User:Talos|Talos]] 10:30, 20 April 2006 (CDT)
#[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 11:21, 20 April 2006 (CDT)
#[[User:Grafix|Grafix]] 03:16, 21 April 2006 (CDT) I'm against the publication of anything except the facts.

===Opposed===

Podcast:Flight of the Phoenix

2006-04-20T15:40:19Z

Grafix: English typos only

{{podcast|author=Misco|emailAuthor2=|suffix=|additionalCopyright=}}
==[http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/mp3/209/bsg_ep209_1of5.mp3 Teaser]==

Hello, and welcome to the podcast for episode nine of season two, "[[Flight of the Phoenix]]", I'm [[Ronald D. Moore]], executive producer and developer of [[Battlestar Galactica (RDM)|the new Battlestar Galactica]] and y'all are getting this podcast late because technology betrayed me at last. I did the podcast last week, turned it in and lo and behold; half the show was missing. So rather than try to salvage what I had, in interspersed comments, we're just going to start over.

"Flight of the Phoenix" began life very early in the season when we were talking about initial story ideas for this season, I had this sort of image of [[Galen Tyrol|Tyrol]] going down into the hang- waking up in the middle of the night going down to the [[Hangar Deck]], taking a big piece of tape laying out a pattern on the floor and deciding, 'I'm gonna build a [[Viper (RDM)|Viper]]'. And it was just- it was something about it psychologically that I liked for the character. There was something about the series and the mythos of the show and how the fleet operates that I liked about dealing with y'know a bit of the reality of the situation that they are losing Vipers and losing pilots and none of these things are being replaced from home and they all have to make do with what they got. And so I really liked the notion of doing a show that was sort of centered around that concept, if not addressing all the needs of the fleet in all the many ways, let's just do a show that talks about the difficulty of doing one thing, of building one fighter.

And the idea kicked around for quite a while, I think the initial notion that I had was to do the entire show in the Hangar Deck- that you would never cut away. It was really a concept show where essentially you would do time laps- time dissolves or time cuts within the scene, you would stay in the Hangar Deck, never leave, and the idea was every single person on the show would come through the Hangar Deck at some point and we would intersect with their stories only through the prism of the building of the Viper. One thing that happens when you take that approach, rather quickly is that the concept swamps everything else and you find yourself constantly trying to cram another story, another characterisation into what is, by its very nature, a fairly artificial construct. So eventually we just sort of shied away from that and realised that there were many stories that had to be told. There were a lot of other tales going on in this episode, a lot of other things that we wanted to touch on and it became way too cumbersome to try to do them all consistently within the 'building the Viper' scene. Much like we talked about last week in "[[Final Cut]]", the show about the documentary, initially the concept was to do an entire episode solely from the documentarian's point of view of a reporter stuck in the Ward Room in the first few episodes, and that became too cumbersome. You find that a lot, there's a lot of back-and-forth [between] TV writers that seem really provocative and interesting but on execution for one reason or another become awkward and difficult and you end up making choices and compromises to try and get the essence of the idea that you were going for and to present it in a format that works for the show. Which is essentially what happened to this episode in the end was I really liked doing the show, I just couldn't do it all in the Hangar Deck. I didn't want the concept to swamp what the show is.

This episode went through a lot of changes editorially, we had a lot of extra footage on this episode, some of which I'm sure you'll see in the deleted scenes. There were various ways of going about this episode, just this teaser alone with the intercuts that you've seen already between [[Karl Agathon|Helo]] at the card game and interspersed with Tyrol out on the Viper and [[Cally]]. There were various versions where we cut- we didn't show this party, the welcome back of Cally- in the episode it was something that was more implicit that she came back to work and there was a passing mention of the fact that she had finally served out her time in the brig. Then there was a version of this that played a lot more of that scene that you just saw where Tyrol comes in, there was a whole interplay between Cally and the other mech- the other knuckle draggers in there talking about the unfairness of what happened to her and they're toaster-bashing as it were.

This scene really was something that we had talked about in the writer's room for quite a while, even last season, it was just the notion of 'what's going to happen when these two guys meet?', what's going to finally take place when Helo and Tyrol get together?

I love the card game scene a lot, I really liked [[Margaret Edmonson|Racetrack]], I'm really intrigued with the way Racetrack has become one of our members of our family. I've commented on this before, the way that many of the supporting players that came on just for a role here and a role there then expanded and have become part of the life-blood of the show. Racetrack was just going to be the temporary [[ECO]] in "[[Kobol's Last Gleaming]]" last year, [[Sharon Valerii|Sharon]] needed to ride with somebody, let her ride with- well call her Racetrack, and now Racetrack is like a full blown character for us which I think is just great and it's a real salute to the quality of casting that we're able to do, the dynamics down on the show.

In any case back to Helo and Tyrol, we talked at length what they would do when these two finally got together, and you start with the most obvious idea is- the one that we ended up with which is that they fight. You started with that- you start saying 'okay let's not do that, let's try something else, what else would they do?' We talked about versions where they saw each other in the Rec Room or at some social situation, eyed each other, there was a hard look and not much more, there was a point where Tyrol came and sat down with Helo and said some things that were completely off-point, just man-talk about something else but there was a mutually understood feeling of what was really going on. We tried versions of that but none of them were really that satisfying because on some level you knew that the thing that was most in character for these two men based on the people that we had seen them be, him down on [[The Twelve Colonies (RDM)|Caprica]] and Tyrol dealing with people on [[Galactica (RDM)|Galactica]] and [[Kobol]], that there's a lot of rage and a lot of frustration and a lot of self-hatred and ambiguity in both these men over the choices that they've made, over the people that they've chosen to send- give their hearts to and the fact that they've now come face-to-face with the representational other of themselves. How could you not wanna beat the crap out of him?

The moment of him reaching for the wrench is really interesting and telling about just how far the rage has built in these men. Actually I got a note from one of the writers of this episode, [[Bradley Thompson]] and his partner [[David Weddle]] who wrote this episode, and they objected to that moment and I must say in their defence I completely understand why they object to that moment because it really says something pretty bad about Tyrol, which is why I like it of course. I like the fact that Tyrol for a moment lost himself in that- he's been drinking, he lost himself- he picked up that wrench and for a moment really thought about caving in Helo's skull with it. And there's a seduction to that and there's a pull to that and it's an emotion that I think that the character would genuinely feel in those circumstances. There's a truth to it, ultimately that's why we went with the fight, there's a truth to it, I just believe it, I believe that that's what those two men would do.

The virus story that runs throughout this show- well we're about to hit the teaser out- so the virus story that runs throughout this show is something that we laid in and started talking about back when we did "[[Scattered]]". When we did Scattered we were talking about the virus at the end of the show and as soon as we worked out that technically, we wanted there to be a threat to Galactica if these computers were networked. What would the threat be? Why are they so worried about it again? Oh yeah, it's that [[Cylons (RDM)|Cylons]] can get inside their computers and if they're in their networked they can get into all the computers simultaneously. So we wanted to get out of that situation in "Scattered" and then come back to this at about the point where the audience had stopped thinking about it, that there had been a Cylon access point into the Galactica's computers, so it seemed like a nice time to do the call-back all the way back to show one.

==[http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/mp3/209/bsg_ep209_2of5.mp3 Act 1]==

So by doing the [[logic bomb|virus]] program at this point in the show it was interesting because it felt like it was an opportunity to essentially really knit together some of the continuity, that we'd gotten comfortable to the point where we could make a call back all the way to nine episodes ago, back to "[[Scattered]]", to deal with this little tech gag which I think is kinda nice. The notion being that once they had accessed the computers the [[Cylons (RDM)|Cylons]] lay in dormant viruses in all the computers that then calculate and think and learn the systems and eventually make the move to take over the ship and to allow a Cylon attack.

This was a great little beat that was in all the drafts, [[Felix Gaeta|Gaeta]] losing his cool in the [[CIC]], which is so shocking that every head- I love the fact that every single head turns in CIC when Gaeta raises his voice, we've had people shot in here for Christ's sakes! But if Mr. Gaeta raises his voice everybody looks around like, 'Jesus! What the hell could have caused that? Not Gaeta! Not Felix?!' Felix... I wonder if [[Alessandro Juliani|Alessandro]] has any feelings about me naming him Felix in the last episode?

I like that little piece of computer gear there 'cos I think that's it's neat that it looks very military issue in a big padded container like that.

This is a truncated version of a much longer sequence, there was another beat of the computer virus going haywire here and at the beginning of this scene Chief [[Galen Tyrol|Tyrol]]- one of Chief Tyrol's people [[Seelix]], there she is, is working on- she was actually working on an engine and what happened was the engine started up by itself, in another manifestation of the virus and that occurred in that whole little sequence that we just jumped over. By the time [[Lee Adama|Lee]] starts talking to Tyrol there at the end, this incident I'm talking about now had already occurred which was that Seelix was working on the engine, she stepped away and suddenly the engine had a cold start- just a self-initiated start-up protocol by itself triggered by the stand-alone computer or the stand-in computer and it almost killed some people, it was very dangerous and very scary and the whole nine yards.

Let me digress for a moment and get back to that shot, this shot of [[Cally]] and [[Jammer]] and the whole deck gang coming in in the morning was one of my favorites of the entire show, there was something great about that shot that conveys this idea of morning, of the team getting together just before they go into work and it's a really nice texture that the director really brought to the show. I think the director of this show really found the voice of what the series is about and really connected with it almost immediately in his footage and I think that this is one of our- really one of our better episodes in terms of how it looks and feels and it's- this show really gives you the texture and the feeling of being on [[Galactica (RDM)|Galactica]] for this episode and what it's really like to live in this world.

Now I know I lost track of what I was saying a moment ago but this is the cursed broadcast - cursed podcast - so just get used to it.

There was another version of this scene that I cut, where Tyrol just says we're going to build a [[Viper (RDM)|Viper]] and you go out on the looks of all the guys faces and then the next cut in the story is they're building the Viper and I skipped over this whole intermediary section where Tyrol is doing his thing and then the guys one by one come over to work with him.

This scene with [[Laura Roslin|Laura]] and [[Cottle]]- there actually is quite a bit of dialogue in this scene but the director and the editor both decided to cut this scene silently and play all these emotional beats. [[Mary McDonnell|Mary]] is phenomenal in this, I think this is one of her better performances, I love that move which is not scripted, the glasses, the look on his face. You know this entire story- you can tell this entire story visually here it's just- there's not much dialogue is necessary for you to understand completely what is going on here and it was just a very- it was a really good instinct on the part of [[IMDB:nm0002749|Michael Nankin]] the director and [[IMDB:nm0336378|Jacques Gravett]] who cut this show. You gotta love it when Cottle- Doc Cottle is feeling bad for ya. When Cottle isn't messing with you and smoking at you and being a prick it must be bad. That look on Mary's face just chills me, absolutely chills me.

You gotta like the fact that they put the faces of the Cylons on their targets, there's something so- just great about that. It was some touch that the guys put in the script that I loved as soon as I saw it, I kind of always thought that somebody was gonna make us take it out, I figured the network would make us take that part out.

This whole thing, her talking about why were you so hard on the Chief is kind of a widow, which means it's a holdover from an earlier draft. Not really a draft in this case but the full scene that I was referring to earlier where the engine started up by itself, the end of that scene- or not the end- after the engine started up Tyrol just went at Seelix, just totally just went at her and was really scary and was just like 'What the hell? How sloppy are you?' and was really pissed at her because she had allowed this engine start-up and then Lee started yelling at him and it got ugly before it finally settled down at the end. So that's what [[Kara Thrace|Kara's]] referring to, which is a bit of a widow and it doesn't quite sink into the sequence anymore but I kept it in, we all kept it in, because the rhythm of this particular scene depends on it. There's a slow, growing, strangeness happening in the room, I mean you've seen the dials so you know something's wrong but you keep getting lost into this conversation, watching the interaction and wondering what's up with them. There she could just be screwing with him and then you've got that shot, which I think is wonderful, just the look on [[Brendan Constanza|Hotdog's]] face while this is all going on. And this is the effects of hypoxia, this really happens. There's a lot of footage in various documentaries of pilots or pilot candidates being put into pressurised chambers where they have oxygen masks and they slowly bleed the oxygen out of the room and they're given various tasks to do, to deal a deck of cards, to play patty-cake, to talk, to do various things. And you just watch the footage of these people slowly losing it, some of them started giggling, some of them completely checked out of it, others get all panicky, there's a lot of varying reactions to the onset of hypoxia. Which really gave us the chance to play the scene in a really disturbing key, this look on Kara's face just, man, that laugh and look at that- that profile shot of Kara at the end is just great

==[http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/mp3/209/bsg_ep209_3of5.mp3 Act 2]==

Now we're back in the firing range. A lot of this was scripted; getting the gun, getting the ammo, the bullet ricochets, all of it was choreographed in conjunction with the director and the actors on the set. But I think a lot of the credit to this sequence goes to [[Katee Sackhoff|Katee]] and [[Jamie Bamber|Jamie]] who I think play this just beautifully, it's like I completely- I'm just there with them in the room. The way he moves toward this table I'm particularly fond of, his reaching up, this from the back, groping up there, getting the box, the box basically almost falls on his head there on the set, he just keeps going, it missed his nose by like a millimeter. And I believe, if I'm not mistaken, I think the notion that [[Kara Thrace|Starbuck]] and [[Lee Adama|Apollo]] did this together is something the actors came up with, I think it was gonna be Katee and I think they talked or they were working on the scene and liked the idea of him steadying her hand to shoot out the window. I think that was something that they came up with which I think is a stroke of genius which I think is really nice.

And now we're in this. The [[technobabble]] on the show is a constant source of- I wanna say frustration- but it's more a sense of obligation really- which makes it frustrating. It is a science fiction series, there's a lot of space hardware involved, there are certain sci-fi concepts, if you're gonna deal with a computer [[virus]] you're obligated at some point to have to do this scene where they talk about what the problem is, it's identified and varying solutions are posited. Then usually the way you write the scene is there's no way to deal with this problem except the one possible outside crazy chance that they all inevitably take. That is the rhythm of writing one of these scenes. In this particular scene, it follows the usual pattern of things, the [[William Adama|Commander]] asking his people for the varying options, what's the toughest option that you can usually ask for. The nice thing here is of course that the deal with- this moment- essentially the nice thing here is when he says 'I got a [[Cylons (RDM)|Cylon]] expert on board' and the scene is basically led to the point where we slap [[Gaius Baltar|Baltar]] and that's the joke... and out. And actually that scene kept going where Baltar tried to revisit the issue with Adama saying 'Hey, wait a minute I really think I should go down there' and Adama says 'no, no, no, we got this all under control you just don't worry about it, you just don't worry about it' and Baltar goes and sits at the foot of the stairs and has a conversation with [[Number Six|Six]]. It was all nice stuff, I particularly liked Baltar's conversation with Six 'cos the way [[IMDB:nm0002749|Nankin]] shot it you looked up she was sitting up on the stairs in [[CIC]] and he shot her through some sort of translucent material and it was really interesting cinematically. But ultimately again this was one of those really long shows and a lot of choices had to be made.

Through the varying cuts the thing that we kept coming back to was this story, the story of the gathering of the family to accomplish one task that they he set out to- and the father figure coming down and seeing it. It all kept circling back to tell the story about the family... tell the story about the family. And you had to give a certain amount of screentime to the virus because you have to do that for plot reasons and so what ends up happening is you end up cutting things like the Baltar/Six conversation.

There were varying versions where this scene was cut, it's really interesting the editing process, I've spoken about it before on these podcasts but quite often the editing process is just more fascinating in some ways than the script process because it really is. You're dealing with a given amount of material, there's lots of different ways you can emphasise different elements of it. This scene for example, we actually discussed at one point taking this scene out and opening the next episode with it because we, as I'll talk about in episode ten, "[[Pegasus (episode)|Pegasus]]"- there was a point where we were going to make "Pegasus" a ninety minute episode and we were looking for ways to lengthen it to that length because it wasn't intended to be that long but we had a very long cut and we thought that we could expand it slightly to get up to a ninety minute running time and one of the ways we thought about doing that was to open "Pegasus" with this scene. That you would open cold with Lee and [[Anastasia Dualla|Dualla]] in this combat thing and establish that relationship a little bit more for the audience, to show that there was something going on, and then get into the "Pegasus" show. We did try a version of that, we watched a version and it was okay but it kinda stuck out as a- it had nothing to do with the show, it really does belong here, so the fact that we had to go for the hour version meant that this got to stay in "[[Flight of the Phoenix]]" which is really where it belongs.

And we had been talking about doing this triangle with Lee/[[Billy Keikeya|Billy]]/Dualla, the triangle was something we talked about doing for most of the season. I mean we talked about- probably when we were working on one or two is when the notion of putting them together came up and it was "[[Resistance]]"- we were shooting "Resistance" I remember when we decided to definitively to do it. Because in "Resistance" there's that whole little subplot of Lee and Dualla, her coming and being the one who would walk with him down the corridor in the morning and give him a report- idle conversation back-and-forth between two somewhat intimates. And what I liked about extending that as a relationship was there's a certain logic to them, there's a certain emotional truth to the idea that Dualla is the voice that the pilots always hear, that was something that we said back in "Tigh me up, Tigh me down". She said there's a special relationship between her and the pilots, they look on her very fondly, I think they're a bit protective of her. She probably talks to Lee more than the other pilots, he's the [[Commander Air Group|CAG]], there's probably a lot of wireless communication back-and-forth between Lee and Dualla just on a day-to-day basis and it sort of stood to reason that there could be a relationship between those two, because again within the reality of the show there's nobody else, their world is not getting any bigger. There are fifty thousand people, period, and the people on [[Galactica (RDM)|Galactica]] live in their own sort of hermetically sealed world to a large extent.

==[http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/mp3/209/bsg_ep209_4of5.mp3 Act 3]==

To continue the thought, because they live in their own somewhat hermetically sealed world and their primary contact are with people already on the ship it only stands to reason they're gonna start having relationships with one another, in varying ways and varying combinations. If [[Galactica (RDM)|Galactica]] was just a warship in a normal military these things would be completely off-base and oh my God there'd be huge scandals and indeed [[Galen Tyrol|Tyrol]] and [[Sharon Valerii|Sharon]] got a lot of flak for their assignations, as it were. Last season [[Saul Tigh|Tigh]] started to crack down on them at some point, everybody knew it wasn't cool. But at some point there's a reality to their lives and their particular situations, it's gonna drive them into these relationships and so it felt natural that she would have- that we could do a relationship between her and [[Lee Adama|Lee]]. And we were frankly intrigued by the qualities of the triangle.

You can see that we've moved the construction of the fighter ahead in fairly big leaps, we could have chosen to parse out the building of the [[Viper]] over many episodes. This could have been like a running B story that took three or four episodes to ultimately pay off but there was something about doing it in one episode that seemed to really speak to the larger emotional arc of what's going on in the show. These people that are starting to get, at the top of the show, have gotten to a place where [[William Adama|Adama]] says 'everyone is depressed because they've realised this is what it's gonna be for them', they've got the map to [[Earth]], and they're heading off to Earth but hey that was a few days ago, it's like 'Hey, we got Home Part II, we got- we looked at the giant thing and stood on the giant field and stared at the blue screen and we got our map from on high, yahoo, and had the big applause and y'know time passes and you're still on this fucking ship. You're still looking for that fucking planet and it's like it's not getting any easier guys, knowing where you're going helps a little bit but it's not getting any easier for these people'. So it felt right to then do an episode that was centered around one man's effort to do something about that. They're trapped in what is by-and-large a helpless situation, where a victory for them is running away and Tyrol finds a way to do something positive and something that maybe is not help them in a vastly material sense; it's only one fighter and it's ultimately a stealth fighter more than anything else. But the symbolism of that, the effort of that, the fact that they all put their hearts into it, was a larger- spoke to a larger thematic issue by doing it in one episode rather than spreading it out over many episodes.

So when you decide to go there and you're seeking that kind of deeper truth within the episode and using the episode to convey that idea, the other things become less important. It's like the true timeline of how long it would really take to actually build one of these things from scratch would probably be much- it would be weeks realistically. But you'd rather tell the story in one package, you'd rather tell the story, hold the viewer in the moment of the scenes, make them invest themselves in the effort and pay it off and so you can fudge the timeline, you can kind of skate by, there's no definitive statement in the episode about how long this is all taking. It's kept purposely vague, there's no clock going on. Noone's mentioning the passage of time really since he started working on the Viper. You probably could find cryptic references here and there that might nail it down to a specific timeline maybe but pretty much we kept this as vague as we could. We didn't wanna put it in your face that we're compressing the timeline drastically but at the same time it's more important to tell the story than it is to get bogged down in the details of exactly how long it takes them to build the thing.

Again, this is one of those [[technobabble]] scenes that I've written many times and they do have a certain rhythm and purpose to them, the genesis of a scene like that- or not the genesis, the ancestry of that kind of scene goes all the way back to many other shows. If you look at the original [[IMDB:tt0060028|Star Trek]] series, if you look at [[IMDB:tt0072564|Space 1999]], if you look at [[IMDB:tt0055673|Fireball XL5]], which is one of those [[IMDB:nm0026755|Gerry Anderson]] puppet shows, or [[IMDB:tt0057786|Stingray]], or any of those, they all have variations on that technobabble scene. The superior officer says, 'What are we facing?' and the underlings say, 'This is the situation and it's really bad and the bad guys are gonna screw us here and the only way out is to do this really risky thing', and the superior officer always says, 'No, that's crazy, there's gotta be another way'. 'No there's no other way Captain, there is a theory', there's always a theory, 'there is a theory of a way to backslide the Hoozifrenzit and that'll make the bad guy thing go away'. And inevitably that's the one you choose and so that's the rhythm and flow of those scenes and what makes them interesting to write is when you're finding the character dynamic within it. Like in that scene the great thing was just seeing [[Gaius Baltar|Baltar's]] umbrage, 'Do you wanna get out of this or not? Do you wanna live or not?' and the intra-dynamic of how Tigh was treating him, the still sort of interesting relationship between Baltar and [[Felix Gaeta|Gaeta]]. Gaeta who still looks up to Baltar, who we know is a traitor, it's more about the- your investment in that scene as a writer and a viewer is more about watching the character dynamic than it really is about listening to the technobabble because the technobabble is stuff we make up. It has its roots in science, we try to be very faithful to what could really happen and to what most reasonably would happen but it's all- it's stuff we're making up as we go along. In these sort of text senses, how the virus works is something you work on fifty different times and you use various terminology and it's trying to serve a dramatic purpose within the show and if you're successful you deliver on that promise of having it make sense while at the same time not getting so bogged down in the explanations and trying to cover every base and trying to deal with every possible ramification of a given problem- the scene becomes mind-numbing at a point. And it's more important that you play scenes like that with [[Anastasia Dualla|Dualla]] and her father's pocket knife when [[Sharon Valerii|Sharon]] returns to [[CIC]] and she knows all these people.

This sequence was born out of my frustration frankly, the original draft of the show and the story was that here at the end when they were getting ready to wipe the harddrives essentially they had to shut every computer system down on the ship, wipe all the harddrives and then do a restart on every system simultaneously. And in that moment the [[Galactica (RDM)|''Galactica'']] would be helpless that the [[Cylons (RDM)|Cylons]] could come and attack at will so the plan was gonna be to have the [[Viper (RDM)|Vipers]] out there, the Vipers hold off the [[Cylon Raider|Raiders]] until Galactica had finished its hard-drive wipe and restart and at that point the Vipers come aboard and ''Galactica'' would jump away to the location where the fleet is blah, blah, blah. Essentially, though, the problem I felt was that it was the same story that we did in "[[Scattered]]", I mean "Scattered" ends that very way, it's all about doing a computer number crunch, the Galactica's vulnerable while they're doing it, the Viper's hold off the Raiders, the Raiders jump away to where [[The Fleet (RDM)|the Fleet]] is. And I was also feeling a sort of generic quality to the space battle and feeling like we weren't doing anything new and different with it, it was just another space battle. The space battle aspect of the show is not one of the things that interests me as much as the- I shouldn't say that, it does interest me, I like the way that we continue to break the rules in the space battles, that's what I mean, but space battles per se don't interest me a whole hell of a lot. If they're just action for the sake of action, what's the point? You do action all the time and it doesn't make for a great show, it just shows that you have a visual effects budget. So from that frustration I wrote back this note saying, 'Let's try something- we gotta go out on a limb, we gotta do something different, I wanna have a different sequence here I don't wanna just deal with some stupid space battle again'. So they put their heads together and we started- I think I was in a room with [[David Weddle|David]] and [[Bradley Thompson|Bradley]] and I think I said just off-handedly, 'I don't know if I want her standing in CIC shoving conduits in her arm as cool as that might be', and we just started joking about it and laughing and it just sort of happened. Let's do that- let's do something freakishly weird with her and remind the audience and ourselves that she is a machine, that she's not human, that she is something quite different in that she operates in ways we don't always understand.

Harddrive formatting in progress.

I like this shot a lot, the big pull back with us now facing down the bow, it's such a great feeling of scope and the specific formation that the Cylons are taking and the real strong sense that, hey, they might be screwed here.

==[http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/mp3/209/bsg_ep209_5of5.mp3 Act 4]==

[[Sharon Valerii|Sharon's]] whole gag here of putting the conduit in her arm, as I said earlier, is something that I just came up with out of a frustration to not do another space battle. But what I also liked about it that I felt it was consistent with what we'd wanted to say about the [[Cylons (RDM)|Cylons]] right along, that there was this interesting contradiction in them, in that they were machines that had tried very, very hard to emulate the human form down to the microscopic level, that they were virtually indistinguishable from us. But logically as incredibly advanced sentient beings that have evolved on their own and have evolved themselves in certain directed ways, one would think and expect that they had other methods of data sharing, that they chose to speak and that they would choose to speak to us and one another out of something more philosophical and more theological than technical necessity. Of course they can exchange data at far greater rates, of course they can share information in more advanced ways than verbally or by writing it down, we've never seen them write anything down, but they have other options. They choose to be human, they choose that this is what they think their [[God]] wants their form to take, God created man in their view and man created them and this is the form that they have chosen to honor that original creation. But because there is the implication that these guys have other ways of sharing data and certainly they share information and share memories in different ways and are able to download consciousness and all kinds of different things implies that they have other abilities. So it didn't seem like too big of a stretch to say that if she interacted directly with an optical cable on [[Galactica (RDM)|''Galactica'']] that she would now have a method to do it. I mean, if she really wanted to, yeah, there was a way she could communicate directly with the hardware.

Hard not to comment on this scene, the destruction and the sort of [[Wikipedia:Great_Marianas_Turkey_Shoot|Turkey Shoot]] of the [[Cylon Raider|Cylon Raiders]] is something that I thought was just really interesting. You don't really see that kind of situation very often where the good guys suddenly have the enemy at their mercy and just completely wipe them out because that's what they would do. They would just lay waste to those guys. There would be a sense of payback. And they would just go chew them up and we kept calling it the Turkey Shoot which is a reference to- there was an air battle in the [[Wikipedia:Second_World_War|Second World War]] in the [[Wikipedia:Pacific|Pacific]], I believe it was the [[Wikipedia:Marianas|Marianas]] where essentially the [[Wikipedia:Japanese_people|Japanese]] sent up one of their last great throes of aircraft at the [[Wikipedia:United_States|American]] fleet but the pilots were very green and the Americans were much more powerful and experienced than they were at the beginning of the war and the simply just slaughtered the Japanese. Just shot down hundreds of aircraft and it was called the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot and this was a similar idea.

This idea of it being a stealth ship instead of a fighter sort of grew out internal discussions about what they could realistically build. Having them build a [[Viper (RDM)|Viper]] from scratch was a bit of a stretch but I didn't think that he could really build a combat fighter like a Viper, if he'd built an actual Viper it just seemed like we'd pushed it too far. So it seemed like they could build something that would have a different purpose and what would be a craft that would give them an advantage, that would be useful for them to have, that maybe they didn't have sitting around already? And the idea was, well if it was a stealth ship, that would be interesting and useful and it's another way of connecting to the audience because the audience is familiar with [[Wikipedia:Stealth_technology|stealth technology]] at this point. It's one of the more familiar concepts out there, the stealth fighter and all that, and so there was an investment in what the ship was.

I like all these shots a lot that [[IMDB:nm0404690|Gary Hutzel]] and our visual effects team did to convey the idea- that nose camera shot looking back along the barrel of the Viper back into the cockpit is one of my favorite shots of the year. They did a really nice job with the design of this- you see shots like that inside the cockpit where she's steadying up. This is one of those moments where you get completely lost in the sequence, you're no longer watching the CGI, you're no longer watching the visual effects, you really believe that she's in an actual fighter and that it's doing things. Y'know, that's great, that's true magic, when you've really crossed over that line with the show.

[[IMDB:nm0894156|Mark Verheiden]], who's our executive producer pointed out quite rightly that Starbuck's being a bit of a dick here. [[Kara Thrace|Starbuck]] is out there intentionally letting them think that maybe she's dead for maybe a little bit too long, and he's right but you kinda wanted to play this, you kinda wanted the drama of this last little beat, that maybe it was all for naught, and I couldn't resist playing all these beats- it was really that look on [[Aaron Douglas|Aaron's]] face right there. When I saw that footage of Aaron listening and maybe the ship has been destroyed and maybe not, but he's holding it together, he's not looking nervous and there's such a dignity and yet worry underneath it all that I just decided that we gotta play the drama, we gotta play it out so you can kinda see that sitting on his face. Because ultimately that was more important to me, that was more important to see that he had not only a personal ego driven investment in the craft itself but he had a real care about the pilots that he was going to put into that Viper- into that stealth ship.

This scene used to take place before the test flight in the Viper and we swapped it in editing because this felt like the emotional climax of the show, whereas at story we thought the emotional climax of the show was the first test flight. And that's the way we wrote it but you watch the film and this is the emotional highpoint of the show.

I was there when they shot this scene and I haven't been on the set a lot this season, not as much as I was last season, so it was a rarity to be there to watch them shoot something, and shoot something with virtually the entire cast. And I was very touched by this, I sat there at video village which when we do reverse here I'll- back there to camera left underneath that fluorescent panel is video village. Buried back in that dark space we're all sitting there looking at the monitor, I've got my little headphones on and I'm watching them play this scene. And I just became very moved by it and I was very touched by it and I just was very much in love with these people and the show and I don't know, it was one of those moments that you really- as writer/producer, you spend a lot of time by yourself, you spend a lot of time on the phone and staring at computers and you have these moments where you suddenly connect with the people doing the show, with the actors, with the crew. Where you're just so proud of being associated with these people and what they're doing and it's such a privilege to be able to work on a show like this and I sat there and I just was really moved and I got up and was walking off the soundstage and [[Edward James Olmos|Eddie]] and [[Mary McDonnell|Mary]] and [[Michael Hogan]] saw me and said, 'Oh are you leaving?' and I said 'Yeah, I gotta go' and they started coming over and they were laughing about something and I looked at Mary and I was gonna lose it. I was just gonna break down in tears and I waved her off and just said, 'I gotta go' and Eddie was like, 'What?' and I just zoomed- almost ran out of the soundstage because I didn't know what I would say to them. All I could say to them was how much I loved them at that moment, how much I loved being in the presence of artists who really cared about the show, who really cared about the characters that they played, who cared about the craft, who cared about the things that I wrote, the things that I was working on. There was such a profound connection to them at that time and that place.

I liked the end of the show a lot, I liked the ending on this note between [[Laura Roslin|Laura]] and [[William Adama|Adama]] and seeing how far they've travelled and what an interesting journey it's been for these two characters since the mini-series. And that he's there for her in a very silent, very solid way, he knows what she's going though but is not making her talk about it.

And then transitioning from that back to the [[Galen Tyrol|Tyrol]] story where it all began, there's a very strong emotional component to this particular episode that I'm very proud of. I like this a lot, there was a bit of dialogue where Tyrol talks to Sharon for a moment and says essentially something like, 'I'm ashamed' and she goes, 'Why? Of what?' and he says, 'I'm ashamed of still loving you', was the idea. And then there was even another scene shot after that where it was like, okay next day, what happens the next day? Tyrol and [[Cally]] go back to work and there was something interesting to that too. But when I saw this in the cut I just loved it. This was [[IMDB:nm0002749|Nankin]] and [[IMDB:nm0336378|Jacques]] again who came up with cutting out before we hear anything and it doesn't really matter what they say to each other, you really don't wanna know what they say to each other in a real way. All you wanna know is that he went down there and faced his demon and decided to talk to her somehow, someway and that that was the journey for the character. The character started off the show by scrapping things, by being obsessed with this woman, by fighting with an officer about this woman, all the pent-up emotional frustration that he chooses then to build a Viper with, that he accomplishes that goal and does it successfully but what he really needs to do is walk down to that brig, and pick up that phone and say something to this woman.

So that, my friends, is the long-delayed "[[Flight of the Phoenix]]" podcast. I apologise again for the lateness of it, to all those of you who have been patient followers of my very empty blog I think you for your patience. I do skim the [http://mboard.scifi.com/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=BattlestarGalactica Sci-Fi.com messageboards] periodically to see what you all are saying and I see you're complaints ''and I'm sorry''. And I always promise I will try and write the blog and I always seem to not do it, so I won't promise you that which probably means I'll do it. In any case I will now go and record the podcast for episode ten "[[Pegasus (episode)|Pegasus]]". Good night.

Talk:We are fighting Galactica in the year 1980/Archive 1

2006-04-19T15:51:37Z

Grafix: /* DVD */ for a fiver

Request for information:
Can anyone post the text of the UFO disclaimer that aired at the end of each Galactica 1980 episode? Does anyone know why it was included?

==Request for Screencapture==
If anybody could find/post a capture of "Col. Boomer", I'd like to use it to create a Boomer (1980). --[[User:Steelviper|Steelviper]] 12:06, 6 January 2006 (EST)

== Fleet Link ==

Should we use <nowiki>[[The Fleet]]</nowiki> or <nowiki>[[The Fleet (TOS)]]</nowiki>? The latter is somewhat misleading (though only somewhat), but the former leads only to a disambiguation page. I think we should use the former until we can get <nowiki>[[The Fleet (1980)]]</nowiki> going. That way, we can still easily find the pages that should link to 1980 when we need to do another find and replace run. --[[User:Day|Day]] 00:08, 15 January 2006 (EST)

:It's not exactly the pinnacle of consistancy and elegance, but since there's probably little content specific to just the 1980 fleet, I'd link to [[The Fleet (TOS)]], and footnote the relevant details there. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 04:14, 15 January 2006 (EST)

== THE DAY THEY KIDNAPPED CLEOPATRA ==

There should be some information about the future episodes of this series. The script for this episode can be found in http://www.blast.net/hart/DayThey.htm. Other scripts are in http://www.blast.net/hart/Scripts.htm --[[User:Jcnventura|Jcnventura]] 10:19, 16 March 2006 (CST)

:My admiration for anyone willing to document this is considerable, but I must ask if you can provide a second source to corroborate that site. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 20:10, 16 March 2006 (CST)

::There are several sites that mention the name of the episode, but only this one has the script summary. After having read it, it is stupid enough to validate as an episode of G1980... :) I have seen many good information sources on Galactica go down over the years, so I would like to write about it here. The only way to make sure is to try to buy the script on ebay one of these days. I will create the articles and then we can discuss if they should be deleted because we can't verify it at multiple sources. -- [[User:Jcnventura|Jcnventura]] 04:12, 17 March 2006 (CST)

:::My only concern is verifying that this isn't fanficton before we report on it here. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 04:24, 17 March 2006 (CST)

::::I've heard of it as well. It is a valid script, like "Wheel of Fire" (I believe that to be the name). It was one of the few scripts that were in the works before ABC (thankfully) pulled the plug on G80. -- [[User:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|Joe Beaudoin]] 08:22, 17 March 2006 (CST)

==DVD==
A DVD of the 1980 series is on sale from ebay.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/BATTLESTAR-GALACTICA-1980-ON-DVD_W0QQitemZ9127700854QQcategoryZ2307QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

--[[User:Grafix|Grafix]] 10:35, 19 April 2006 (CDT)

:Note the TV rating on the upper left. Plus... all 10 episodes on 1 DVD? This has to be some sort of a broadcast quality squeezed onto 1 dvd rather than a DVD quality release. It'd no doubt be handy to have it just for viewing purposes, but it looks like it's pretty bootleg/unofficial. --[[User:Steelviper|Steelviper]] 10:41, 19 April 2006 (CDT)

::Yes, probably avi standard but it could be worth it for a fiver. --[[User:Grafix|Grafix]] 10:51, 19 April 2006 (CDT)

Talk:We are fighting Galactica in the year 1980/Archive 1

2006-04-19T15:35:04Z

Grafix: 1980 DVD

Bastille Day

2006-04-13T14:17:01Z

Grafix:

{{Episode Data|
Image = [[Image:Scouts.jpg|300px]]
| Title= The Super Scouts, Part 1
| Series= [[Galactica 1980]]
| Season= 1
| Episode= 4
| Guests= [http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0587863/ Allan Miller] ([[Colonel Sydell|Sydell]]) [http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+George+Deloy George Deloy] (Dr. Spencer) [http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+John+Quade John Quade] (Sheriff Ellsworth) [http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Mike+Kellin Mike Kellin] (Stockton) [http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Michael+Swan Michael Swan] (Collins) [http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Carlene+Watkins Carlene Watkins] (Nurse Valerie) [http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0807617/ Caroline Smith] (Bank Teller) [http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Jack+Ging Jack Ging] [http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Helen+Page+Camp Helen Page Camp] (Salesperson) [http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Tracy+Justrich Tracy Justrich] [http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Simon+Scott Simon Scott] (Captain) [http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Ken+Scott Ken Scott] (Co-pilot)
| Writer= [[Glen A. Larson]]
| Story=
| Director= [[IMDB:nm0250436|Vince Edwards]]
| Production= 1.4
| Rating=
| US Airdate= 16 March 1980
| UK Airdate=
| DVD=
| Population=
| Prev=[[Galactica Discovers Earth, Part III]]
| Next=[[The Super Scouts, Part II]]
}}
== Overview ==

:''After the cargo freighter'' Delphi ''is attacked by the [[Cylons (TOS)|Cylons]], a shuttle carrying [[Troy (1980)|Captain Troy]] and a group of children crash lands on Earth, and [[Adama (1980)|Commander Adama]] and [[Doctor Zee|Dr. Zee]] must work to rescue the stranded crewmembers, who are becoming sick due to drinking contaminated water from a chemical plant.''

==Summary==

* Aboard the freighter ''Delphi'', Troy and [[Dillon]] are teaching some of [[The Fleet (TOS)|the Fleet]] children about Earth. Suddenly, the ''Delphi'' stops moving through space, having developed engine trouble.

* Aboard [[Galactica (TOS)|''Galactica'']], Adama and [[Boomer (1980)|Boomer]] realize that the ''Delphi'' is now isolated, having fallen behind the rest of the fleet.

* Sure enough, the Cylons have spotted the ''Delphi'' and begin tearing into it.

* It's established that this is the first time the Cylons have attacked 'in a generation'. The machine pursuers evidently having been content to sit back and let the Galactican fleet lead them to Earth.

* Thankfully the colonial warriors haven't forgotten how to stick it to the Cylons, and spend ten minutes doing so. However, the Cylons have wrought heavy damage upon the Delphi, which begins to break up.

* Troy and Dillon hustle as many kids as they can into [[Colonial Shuttle (TOS)|shuttles]] and off the ''Delphi'', and pilot the last one off themselves as the ship explodes.

* The shuttle is caught in the blast and is also damaged.

* Boomer, leading the [[Viper (TOS)|Viper]] squadron which has managed to drive off the Cylons, confers with Troy, but the skies are still too dangerous to attempt making the journey back to the fleet.

* Troy decides they will have to land on Earth.

* After narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with a 747, the shuttle puts down in a field in the middle of the night.

* The resulting scene where the children encounter land, plants and flowers for the first time is rather touching, but they have to avoid the attention of passers-by, who have to be put out of commission with stun fire.

* Troy and Dillon go into town on their bikes to score clothes for the kids, and come up with the idea of disguising them as a scout troop.

* Troy manages to get some uniforms and camping gear from a department store, but Dillon's attempt to change Colonial [[cubit|cubits]] for U.S. greenbacks goes awry when a bank clerk assumes his money is stolen.

* While Troy and Dillon are away, the kids have been fighting amongst themselves. Then, they all stop by a riverside and drink some water.

* As a result of drinking the water, three of the kids take ill.

* As if that's not trouble enough, they're being pursued by the county sheriff.

{{Episode1980}}

[[Category:A to Z|Super Scouts, Part I, The]]
[[Category:Episode Guide (1980)|Super Scouts, Part I, The]]
[[Category:1980|Super Scouts, Part I, The]]
[[Category:Episodes written by Glen A. Larson|Super Scouts, Part I, The]]
[[Category:Episodes directed by Vince Edwards|Super Scouts, Part I, The]]