Battlestar Wiki - User contributions [en]

Talk:Naturalistic science fiction/Archive 1

2006-03-08T16:01:46Z

OliverH.: /* NPOV Request */

==NPOV Request==
Ok, folks, I see some major problems with this article:
*A lot of it reads like it's the purpose of this site to bash Star Trek
*Some of it is quite simply false:
::In StarTrek, energy is ''not'' provided by "inexhaustible dylithium". Rather, the dilithium crystals serve as a matrix for a controlled matter/antimatter reaction, similar to moderators in a nuclear fission power plant (cf. http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/library/technology/article/2743.html ) As such, not being the fuel, they don't need to be exchanged beyond wear and tear. And matter/antimatter reaction is a very feasible energy source for huge amounts of energy. In fact, I doubt it is possible to get a higher efficiency. Compared to that, it is Tylium that is sheer fantasy.

::Photon torpedos, while glowing in animation, aren't "energy weapons" other than in having a matter/antimatter warhead. They are very solid vehicles.

::etc.

*Guns'n'bullets are very good weapons on a planet. In space, they have their uses, too, but they also have their limitations. Due to the immense speed theoretically possible in space and the relatively small speed of bullets compared to these, the useful range of regular projectile weapons is quite limited. At greater distance, psychic qualities would be necessary to predict where the target will be once the bullet is there. While energy weapons have issues of focussing, those aren't insurpassable. On the other hand, they have, in the case of a laser, speed of light, and in the case of a particle accelerator, close to that, meaning they can bridge even large distances in relatively short time. None of that is "fantasy", as the article suggests, but rather technology that exists today which requires miniaturization. So guns and bullets are quite ok as point defense weapons in space, but for anything further away, either guided weapons or weapons achieving a speed that is a significant fraction of the speed of light are necessary. One tends to think of huge vessels such as Galactica or a Cylon basestar as slow. But give them enough time to accelerate, and they can be whizzing by at several miles per second.

*While a lot of the stuff mentioned in the text might be RDM's intention, the question is how much it fulfills the claims raised. While obviously, there should be a place on this site to cite RDM, I believe that the individual articles of a Wiki should be a source of information were the creator's views are but one source of information. RDM's take is already provided with the link to Galactica2003.net and while it should be summarized here, I don't think it should be taken as holy writ.

The jetliner in space and other things might feel "naturalistic", but that doesn't mean it's a sound concept. The "plausible technical accuracy" in the "in theory" paragraph is a bold hypothesis. However, to me the setup honestly looks more like "doing soft SF with the bad stuff left out". And the "no deus ex machina" concept needs to be looked askance at vis-a-vis the cancer cure as well.

The ''stories'' Galactica has to tell are great, but I personally believe that as a consequence of RDM not wanting to "tie himself down" dramatically, what is lacking is a solid concept of the level of technology. A lot of things might look perfectly feasible when seen isolated, but on an overall level, I believe putting FTL (or quasi-FTL) and anti-gravity together with a lot of 20th and 21st century technology, and in some aspects apparently even less, RDM actually backpedaled to a lot of early SF, which had FTL travel because it was dramaturgically necessary, and some development in the physics department such as beam weapons, but lacked any development in biology. Likewise, BG shows technologies that suggest availability of humongous amounts of energy but shows little other use than one or two applications. This gives a discontinous impression of the technological level.

So, theoretically, my concerns would require a complete rewrite of the text, which is why I rather voiced them here before changing something. I believe, though, the false information re:StarTrek should be thrown out posthaste, since it weakens any other points. --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 15:49, 13 February 2006 (EST)

:Over the months, this article has been edited to the point where it does have a bias towards "Star Trek," which, given its location in the pop SF food chain, is a deserved prime target. Yet, I agree, the article need not be a "Star Trek"-bashing article, but to contrast and compare it (and other series, such as another high level target, "Stargate SG-1") to what BSG strives to be. And, as you've noted in other articles, BSG isn't perfect. Rather than duplicating what is on the [[Science in the Re-imagined Series]] page, dividing the page by section with comments and comparison relevant to where NSF principles succeeded or failed so far in BSG could be useful. To aid in this, I've tagged this article with the (rarely used here) tag of disputed neutrality to get some attention. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 16:00, 13 February 2006 (EST)

::I must disagree ''' ''utterly'' ''' with OliverH's comments:
::*Yes, I agree with Spencerian that certain small tweaks should be made. However, if Oliver wanted to change small-sclae complaints like "inexhaustible dilithium crystals to "inexhaustible energy supply based on dilithium controlled matter/anti-matter reaction", he should simply have done so immediatly instead of forcing debate on the subject. Although "photon torpedos" are not energy weapons, phasers are; he should have just edited this accordingly, as he saw fit.
::*Yes, Guns aren't as good weapons as lasers. That doesn't change the fact that 1) At dogfight and regular battle distances, they're still pretty useful and 2) The BSG universe is intentionally not that technologically advanced. The fact that lasers are superior to guns doesn't change the fact that they still use these more "realistic" weapons. The entire point of that, of course, is more story design: being shot with bullets (i.e. [[Tarn]]), has more emotional impact than being shot with "lasers").
::*'''Yes, it is almost certainly the direct purpose of this article to critique Star Trek, by contrasting it with BSG'''. Oliver, the entire concept of making the new BSG was that it was RDM's "answer" to the poor quality of the later Star Treks (Voyager and Enterprise, rife with technobabble an implausibility), in this area as well. Quite frankly, it's impossible to separate the two: when the first page of the series bible states that "we propose nothing less than the re-invention of the scifi tv series genre"...it's kind of required that you make comparisons to the "old" model of the genre which was "re-invented". This part of the article must stand.
::*So, basically, '''no, your comments do not "require" a "complete rewrite of the text"'''. This is overboard. However, I do *commend* you on stating your feeling on the talk page instead of just making them without consensus. I would like to say that I do not mean to offend, Oliver, but these Star Trek/BSG issues bring up strong emotions. Like the silly pages and other talk-commentary, the "Naturalistic Science Fiction" page, is, by its very nature, going to be NPOV. '''I do agree''' with Spencerian's assessment that it could use some tweaking here or there, mostly for fact correction (dilithium, phasers,etc.) but the derision of Star Trek must remain, because BSG defines itself in opposition to this. --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 16:51, 13 February 2006 (EST)

:::I believe it's possible for this article to reach a reasonably NPOV status. Sadly, it's going to have to be near the bottom of my considerably long to-do list. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 18:45, 13 February 2006 (EST)

::::I concur.--[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 19:04, 13 February 2006 (EST)

:::I obviously disagree with Merovingian. While it is ok to ''contrast'' BG with StarTrek, this should be done in a professional, matter-of-factly way, not by derisive comments and ''certainly'' not with plain falsehoods. It also should not be done with exaggerations by labelling everything "fantasy" that one doesn't like. It's totally ok if the ST/BSG issues "bring up strong emotions". But they should stay on talk pages, or the article be ''justly'' brought in question.

:::The comment that the BG universe is intentionally not "that advanced" is not tenable, and I already pointed that out above. Lasers are no "advanced" technology, they exist today. And if I have some kind of reactor which can give me enough energy to fold space, I have plenty of energy to cut open a sheet of metal. Remember that lasers capable of at least destroying a satellite or a warhead have already been worked on by 20th century engineers and scientists, but deemed not feasible for the forseeable future at that time. The prime limits, however, were energy and the material capable of handling it, and they are being overcome at this point in time with planned airborne anti-missile lasers at least. This is the main problem with the approach: Immensely advanced technology in two specific points (BG technology is already more advanced than that of Babylon 5 Earth in that they are capable of large-scale artificial gravity) but in most others a technological level on par with the third quarter of the 20th century. You speak of "realistic" weapons. Is it realistic that mankind researched practically only FTL travel and artificial gravity, and that this research did not bear fruit in other fields? And "realistic battle distances" are those at which you can hit your enemy. Of course when your weapon has a low effective range due to predict problems, then battle distance is short. If your weapon has near speed of light, it's entirely possible to engage your enemy at large distances.

:::Likewise, you still maintain some "inexhaustible" energy supply on the part of StarTrek, when that is not, in fact, the case. Hydrogen and antimatter tanks exist on Star Trek ships. Antimatter can be produced -again, that is no fantasy, but 20th century technology, albeit in larger quantities. And hydrogen can be gathered in space. Again, no fantasy, but the working principle behind the [[wikipedia:bussard ramjet|bussard ramscoop]] proposed as far back as 1960. This principle has been used by the likes of Heinlein, Niven, and Poul Anderson. As I already mentioned, Tylium has much bigger questions to answer.

:::By the way, dilithium crystals were already introduced in the original Star Trek series. This alone should illustrate that they can hardly be instrumental in the quality problems of late Star Trek. So I suggest rather than picking random aspects to actually get to specific points.

:::Point being: There's plenty of "technobabble" in StarTrek, but the cited examples are the least suitable to criticize that. They in fact fall back on the author, because they suggest being familiar neither with key concepts of the pioneers of astrophysics and ideas for interplanetary and interstellar space travel, nor with those of the pioneers of science fiction literature. And not the least, they fall back on BSG, because they suggest that there's a lot of hype about nothing.

:::While it's perfectly ok to cite that line from the series Bible, it's in my opinion not ok to uncritically reproduce it as holy writ. JMS started B5 with quite similar intentions, and that was ages ago. RDM is fallible. He's also capable of misdiagnosing. Doesn't matter, as long as he intuitively does the right thing. --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 20:08, 13 February 2006 (EST)

::::No. First, I always mean practically inexhaustible; using bussard ramscoops, starships can have a cheap and easily available source of fuel (gas clouds, etc.) while on BSG, Tylium is rare and hard to find. Second, this failed on the later Star Treks, even though it was present in all of the series, because the later ones ''overused'' these; every week the ship was spic and span and never had any problems finding fuel, fixing the ship, etc. --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 20:36, 13 February 2006 (EST)

::::While it's true that B5 adopted a "hard sci-fi" position with regard to some aspects, its atmosphere does not greatly resemble the new BSG's. "Naturalistic sci-fi" actually eschews accuracy when it interferes with story - the point is to tell a modern, relevant story in the clothing of science fiction. When realism on the show makes that connection clearer, it's an asset (the use of nukes, for example) - but when it doesn't serve the story, it's generally overlooked (artificial gravity, hyperspace).
::::The difference, I guess, is that BSG is "[[Wikipedia:The Day After|The Day After]]", B5 is a weird hybrid of "1984" and "The Lord of the Rings", and Star Wars is "The Hidden Fortress". Each one uses the trappings of literary sci-fi where it suits their purpose, and discards them where it doesn't. The concept of naturalistic sci-fi as defined by Moore is only relevant to the particular story he's trying to tell. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 20:27, 13 February 2006 (EST)

:::::Peter's comments detail the flaw of NSF better than anything I've read to date, and clarifies what he had been trying to tell me earlier here in talk. Any show is subject to the whim of the writer. While NSF tries to prevent ''technological'' limits to what they can write, NSF can also be selective of what is relevant or in need of explanation. With that, I'm aware of the needed revisions, and will do so when time allows to show a better opposing viewpoint to NSF in brief bullets. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 20:46, 13 February 2006 (EST)

::::::I also, based on the above, would feel far more comfortable with Farago making the updates than Oliver. --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 21:19, 13 February 2006 (EST)
::::::For the benefit of everyone who hasn't been on this wiki forever, I believe the prior comments Spencerian is referring to were on [[Talk:Science in the Re-imagined Series]]. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 22:10, 13 February 2006 (EST)

::::::: I think it might also behoove us to compare some of RDM's intentions/plans and his executions of those to others who've tried to do the NSF thing. It's not like RDM invented the idea. We could talk about Niven, for one (for instance, he tried to make his Known Space stuff as "realistic" as he could, bar FTL travel) and probably Asimov (though I'm less familiar with his stuff... long "To Read:" list I've got). And, anyway, we could at least compare RDM's defenition of NSF to ones used by other story tellers in the past (whatever the media).

::::::: One note on '''combat ranges''': Just because my laser has an effective range of roughly a light-second doesn't mean I can actually hit a Raider or Viper that's that far away. I doubt I could see something that small against a black-with-stars background so far off. In short, "combat distance" is also a function of ship size.

::::::: Also, a note on '''realistic things''': Just because something is ''possible'' doesn't make it "realistic" for purposes of NSF. You get shot with a Disruptor, you vaporize. That probably sucks. They say on screen that it's excrutiating, but I watch it happen and it evokes aolmost no response from me. However, when Lee got shot in "[[Sacrifice]]", I winced and said, "Oh... bad." It looked very painful. This is similar to the note on using nukes vs. using photon torpedos. Something is realistic, if the average audience member has a good feel of what's involved in what they're seeing. Because I don't know how a laser work (I mean how it reacts to things and operates, not how to build one), it would mean less to me to see one being used. Similarly, I know, pretty well, anyway, what it feels like to be under about a G of gravity, thus, zero-G would actually be less "realistic" to me (and most viewers) because it is more foreign to our life experience. --[[User:Day|Day]] 00:23, 14 February 2006 (EST)

I think we're closer than it sounds. Merovingian points out that technology was ''overused'' in later parts of Star Trek -or let's say the bad parts, because a lot of the problems already manifested in TNG. The point is not that these technologies are fantasy, they are for the most part (Heisenberg compensators aside) credible extrapolations of propositions that are being made today. The critical point that made a lot of stories bad was how they were used in the story, i.e. for example technical devices were introduced only to be able to resolve a plotline because writers couldn't come up with a more personal idea, or, God forbid, technical concepts being invented just for the sake of one single story and subsequently ignored because they make life a pain ("Force of Nature" However, that episode also showed that "tackling issues" is not always a good idea). That, however, is not a bad technological concept, it's plain bad storytelling. The answer against that is, of course, good storytelling. And I don't think that "going retro" is in and of itself a solution for that. Wing Commander-The movie showed that going retro in space can be quite problematic. Also, jargon in and of itself in my opinion is not really a problem, if used properly. Would the movie suffer if the commander did not order "Bow up 10, Stern down 7" in "Das Boot"? People can deduct with common sense and context that he's ordering something about the inclination of the boat, and the details aren't really that relevant. Point being: The technology issues are really missing the point, and where RDM pushes them, he's misdiagnosing in my eyes. Technology isn't the problem, but how it's used in the story is. ''@Day re:Combat range:'' You're of course right if targeting is visual only. But any spacecraft, no matter if radio silent or not, will be a source of electromagnetic radiation that will be travelling very fast with respect to anything in the background and against the backdrop of space likely also have a pretty recognizable infrared signature (It's not that hard to be warmer than background radiation). ''Re:Realistic:'' A lot of people have unrealistic expectations on a lot of issues, so personal connection and realism are distinct issues. Which is why science relies on methodology to peel apart the layers of how things work. Gut feelings can be quite useful, but aren't really a ledger of how real things are. As for being able to personally connect, I think the scene of Garibaldi being shot in the back in B5 had quite an impact on the audience, despite the fact that it was done with a PPG. Again, I think this is a situation in which actual story and presentation are much more important than the tool being used. --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 12:37, 14 February 2006 (EST)

:Regarding combat ranges: Photonic crystals and other materials science advances will likely manage radar immunity of correctly operational (i.e., undamaged) vehicles well before we manage FTL or artifical gravity; emissions are entirely optional (IFF beacon, active radar, and "noise" from electronics being the only sources I can think of, the last of which is easily shielded). Infrared is just a kind of light, so all of the visibility problems are shared at significant ranges; the heat itself doesn't propagate in a vacuum, of course. --[[User:CalculatinAvatar|CalculatinAvatar]] 01:37, 8 March 2006 (CST)

'''In defense of artificial gravity'''

I believe it is a strawman argument to reason along the lines of "If they have artificial gravity then they should also be advanced enough to ... <insert obviously missing technology>". The reality is, it just isn't practical to do sci-fi without artificial gravity. Very few TV shows or movies have the staff and budget to realistically portray zero-g life which, in my opinion, would likely interfere with the storytelling. Yes, ''Babylon 5'' and ''2001'' used rotating hulls to avoid the problem, but even ''B5'' went to artificial gravity when it came to Minbari and Vorlon ships. Heck, the Vorlon ships were even organic ... sound familiar?

The point is that artificial gravity is basically unavoidable if you want to show space yarns and have your audience identify with the characters. You simply have to cut the producers some slack here.

The same reasoning applies to FTL, at least if you're doing interstellar travel. Without FTL or some equivalent technology (hyperspace, wormholes, space-folding etc.) you got no way for the same characters to appear in different places show after show.

So the obvious (to me) thing to do is ignore the tech level of the ''sine qua non'' of the genre, and focus on what's left. Viewers must allow for these two highly advanced technologies without considering them indicative of other technologies in that Universe. --[[User:JohnH|JohnH]] 14:14, 5 March 2006 (CST)

:Battlestar doesn't just depict FTL, they depict the ability of jumping into the middle of a group of moving objects (e.g. a fleet) safely, which suggests capability to determine that the destination spot is safe over jump distances. While FTL might be a sine qua non, jumping into hazardous terrain most definitely is not.

:B5 went to artificial gravity with other species thousands of years more advanced than humans (Remember the Minbari could put B4 to good use when they were provided with it roughly 1000 years before the show).

:While it is true that most shows have both artificial gravity and FTL, they generally present it in a background that has advanced in other fields as well. Even Blade Runner, with its unspecified advances in space travel enabling at least offworld colonies, presents a society akin, but still profoundly changed from ours. Technology and society don't evolve separate from each other, but influence each other. Even in the early dime novels, what was depicted -while usually very selective to only a handful of areas in its technological advancement- seemed advanced to people ''at that time''. Of course we can't expect a novel from the 1930s to anticipate biotechnology. But I see little reason to staple FTL and artificial gravity on mid-80s to early-90s technology. The problem is that aside from FTL and gravity, most of the technology seems, quite to the contrary, outdated. While the Galactica itself is supposed to be rather old, that shouldn't hold for what we see on Caprica or on the other ships.

:If the two technologies are not indicative of other technologies, that means there is an artificial rift in the background described. Such as rift, rather than allowing people to relate more, in my opinion distracts from the actual story. It's one thing to have such completely noncontinuous concepts in shows such as "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century", which quite visibly and fully explicitly stood in the tradition of early daily comic strip tradition (and in fact the first sci-fi comic strip to begin with) fully expected by audiences to have a certain degree of silliness and to have such rifts in a storyline with very tough and intellectually stimulating stories. It's a basic popcorn vs. brains issue. You either tell people to sit back, relax and have a good time or you tell them "Hey, think about this". If you tell people "Hey, think about this" while on a stage that falls apart when you think about it, you have a problem. And if you want people to sit back, relax and have a good time, then abortion, rape and lynch justice maybe aren't particularly fitting subjects. Disjunctions such as this work in avantgardistic stagings in theater and opera, because the audience knows they are being shown something symbolic, however such a treatment doesn't aim at people relating with the characters (who are rather archetypes) and it's rather antithetical to naturalism. --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 10:42, 7 March 2006 (CST)

::I think, maybe, that jumps are more dangerous than you think. When plotting a mass-jump of The Fleet, maybe they can trigonomitry out any collisions, but in the most recent episode, a Raptor jumped right into a mountain. That doesn't seem so safe. Also, you're not allowing a story teller to say, "Hey. THink about abortion and rape and lynch justice." You're implying that the average Television viewer is either too dumb or lacks the descretion to realize that BSG is discussion social issues not (generally) scientific issues. RDM isn't saying, "Hey! Look at FTL drive." He's just using that to get you to look at other things. I don't think, by demanding the viewers to use their brains, RDM is demanding that we apply that to every little detail and condemn him for missing one. I mean--he's not crazy like Tolkien and writing primers on how to speak Gemenese or whatever. If he were, we'd have a more complete, pat world (as is Middle Earth), but we'd probably still be waiting for the Mini-Series to be made. --[[User:Day|Day]] 23:43, 7 March 2006 (CST)

::::Well, there's a difference between a Raptor and a Battlestar. If a Raptor jumps into the middle of a fleet and realizes he's on a collision course, he might still be able to fire thrusters and escape. A battlestar would likely be unable to avoid a crash. You also seemed to misunderstand what I said about story vs. stage. FTL is part of the stage. Abortion, rape etc. are part of the story. No, I am not implying dumbness on part of the viewer. Quite the contrary. I think it's dumb to assume the viewer would not note discrepancies and disjunction in the background. And sorry, either you want people to use their brains, or you don't. It's highly questionable to tell people "Well, yes, you are supposed to think, but not about this, this, this, this and this...." That's not really thinking. It's being told what to think. --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 10:01, 8 March 2006 (CST)

::If you want a society adapted to artificial gravity and FTL travel ''and technology on a par with that all around'', you are simply asking for too much. It's too much to even ask for a society fully adapted to the major advances.
::For example, let's think about FTL drives tactically. My first question is delay, which in BSG seems to be significant, followed by the allowablity of multiple drives per ship to have parallelized delays. This leads to a super-battlestar with, say, 30 FTL drives that can't be targeted effectively since it jumps every, say, 4 seconds. Think about a maximum-DRADIS-ranged FTL nuke that jumps to the side of its target (or a cloud of nerve gas or pyrophoric incendiary with an FTL drive to move it inside of an enemy ship). Think about minefields of these; n could easily protect a planet from n capital ships for far cheaper than n capital ships, leaving only fighters to mop up, assuming the mines cost more than CAPs, and they'd be even easier to target than lasers, since their own travel would be instant.
::Frankly, survivability of military hardware/personnel in space is horrible given serious thought. The USA, with far less resources than the colonies, had 23k nukes at peak and fields cruisers with 64-tube VLS's; just equipping every BSG capital ship with a bank of ~50 nuke launchers significantly reduces the odds of point-defense making any difference to survivability.
::FTL drives would be (in my opinion) vastly beyond current computation in design requirements; this would imply protein folding, e.g., is a reasonably routine kind of problem in BSG, and this implies an understanding of gene expression that's so vast in ramifications that cancer would have been a first course. The nonviolent causes of death list shortens dramatically.
::For that level of development in the hard sciences, one of the softer sciences must have solved ''something'' by the BSG present; there's no indication that any social, psychological, or economic problems we experience have been eradicated.
::None of these exist in BSG because they would not be fun to watch, or they have too vast a set of implications for us to identify with them. It is an absolute requirement to have such a rift for a show with BSG's themes. Accuracy and speculation on ramifications is delightful in print; excessive doses inhibit storytelling in video. --[[User:CalculatinAvatar|CalculatinAvatar]] 01:37, 8 March 2006 (CST)

:::What I am asking for is a more continuous spectrum of technical development as opposed to a deep rift between one part and the rest. Inhibition in storytelling is not a bad thing, quite the contrary. Properly done, it prevents you from gambling away all credibility. If you want to connect with the viewer, the viewer has to believe you. If you tell an outrageous yarn, the viewer will be amused, but he won't see any further implications of what you told him above and beyond that amusement. Giving people something to think about usually translates to "Hm, difficult situation, how would I have acted?". That requires as a sine-qua-non premise that you consider the situation credible. If it's not, if you consider the situation posing itself as completely artificial, then you have no reason to consider it further. If it doesn't seem "true" to you, why ponder its implications? As RDM put it himself in his criticism of Voyager: "At some point the audience stops taking it seriously, because they know that this is not really the way this would happen. These people wouldn’t act like this." There are many reasons why "this is not really the way this would happen". One of them is that the specific constellation that leads to the situation wouldn't exist.

:::The key, however, is that for the claim of ''naturalistic'' storytelling to be accurate, specific parameters have to be fulfilled. These are by definition of naturalism not fulfilled if there is a disjunction between staging and story. Note: There's not a problem with having a disjunction between story and staging, but if you do, it's most certainly not "naturalistic". Cf. also [[Wikipedia:Naturalism (literature)]] which states "Note that even a fantastical genre such as science fiction can be naturalistic, as in the gritty, proletarian environment of the commercial space-freighter in Alien." However, in Alien we have sleeper pods and even the regular projectile weapons in Aliens -while based on 20th century weapons- are assembled in a fashion suggesting a level of advancement in firearms technology and more advanced weapons are hinted at in a special edition scene -and society has also changed in a way extrapolatable from today. The Sulaco very much has particle beam weapons, if only to disable electronics systems as well as lasers as point defense weapons. See, the problem is that "naturalistic science fiction" isn't really a new concept. It's been around for a while, be it in aspects of the Alien series, be it in "Outland", or even, for that matter, "Blade Runner". For that matter, a lot of ''Cyberpunk'' material has naturalistic traits. Not surprisingly, since William Gibson stated he was inspired by the implied background of "Alien" and was writing "Neuromancer" while Blade Runner was in theatres. Consequentially, it has also already been around on TV, even if some of the pertinent series were short-lived, such as Total Recall 2070. "Outland" has been called "Western in Space". Still, it does not figure sixguns nor Winchester lever-action repeating rifles, but modern shotguns in a very near-future scenario. If you want to do "West Wing" in space ''in a naturalistic fashion'', it's not enough to put Josiah Bartlet on a space ship while leaving the rest as it is. "Accuracy and speculation" are irrelevant when the technology is not even up to the technology level at the time of the airing of the show. There's nothing speculative about video conferencing. There's precious little speculative about the Land Warrior program. (In fact, "Aliens" was a pretty good anticipation of it in my eyes, despite predating the original Land Warrior program). There's not much speculation involved if you check army-technology.com or read Jane's. There's nothing speculative about using at least what's out there. But with the marines on BG running around with MP5s which are already being replaced on Earth was we speak by USPs and MP7s because of the proliferation of body armor, the technology level depicted is not even current, but in this and in many other fields, quite outdated. And MP7s have already been featured in Stargate, in Ghost in the Shell:SAC, in Stealth and in a whole bunch of computer games.

:::It is the hallmark of naturalism as an art form that it concerns itself with accuracy in details. Painters used scientific principles, authors researched their environment meticulously. Have you ever read parts of Emile Zola's Rougon-Macquard cycle? For "Germinal", Zola repeatedly visited mining towns in northern France and witnessed the after-effects of a large miners' strike -and even went down into a coal pit. If you say having a rift here is essential for BG -which I personally doubt- then BG by definition isn't naturalistic. Note: It is perfectly ok to have such a rift. Modern theatre performances have it, most of the time, as I already noted. But as Wikipedia notes, that is at best semi-naturalistic, with naturalism restricted to the delivery of the lines, and neither fully naturalistic nor "cinema verité". The 1966 movie "The battle of Algiers" painstakingly reconstructs the tactics of both the National Liberation Front as well as the French counter-insurgency. The filmmakers rejected the original layout by Sadi Yacef from his own memoirs because -despite being sympathetic to the Algerian cause, they found it too biased. The filmmakers spent two years in Algiers scouting locations and learning the customs and culture of the locals. If you dismiss restrictions as "limiting on video", you dismiss naturalism. Because naturalism by definition limits itself and demands truckloads of research. That's what naturalism is, and it's what cinema verite is, and if it's not what BG is, then BG is neither naturalistic nor done in a "cinema verite" style.
:::Is it fun to watch people being raped or murdered? Cinema verite doesn't really care if it's "fun" to watch. What it cares for is how things are. It lets its storytelling be limited by the way things work. It doesn't dismiss restrictions as "too limiting in storytelling". It is ''defined'' by restrictions. None of this means in any way that BG is bad -nor, as Merovingian recently accused me of, that I want to drag BG through the mud. It merely means that I think terminology is not being used appropriately, and that I think RDM is exaggerating some things. I still consider it great storytelling -I just consider the presentation artificial. --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 10:01, 8 March 2006 (CST)

Talk:Naturalistic science fiction/Archive 1

2006-03-07T16:42:54Z

OliverH.: /* NPOV Request */

Science in the Re-imagined Series

2006-03-07T15:09:11Z

OliverH.: /* The Cancer Cure of Laura Roslin */

The [[Battlestar Galactica (RDM)|Re-imagined Series]] thrives on its concentration on its story and the characters that develop it, rather than attempting to awe its audience and drive the story by futuristic technology. Nevertheless, ''Battlestar Galactica'' is still a science-fiction program. Its writers may choose to adhere with Einsteinian, Euclidian and Newtonian principles as we know them here on the real-world Earth when ships, characters, and events require a particular physical result in, say, a space battle, in a medical complication, or when travelling from place to place.

This article summarizes or notes information about scientific objects and events in the [[Miniseries]] and regular series and attempts to draw more information, cite problems or contraditions, or conclusions of the scientiic principles revealed as part of the series' plot. In short, this article analyzes ''Battlestar Galactica's'' "[[technobabble]]" and determines how much of it is accurate, interesting, or just plain made-up.

===Why Gaeta Will Never be "Spock"===

The writers intentionally avoid characters discussing any super-technical particulars in depth in the Regular Series. This is logical in that, if the characters ''know'' that they can or cannot reach a particular location (they can see their own displays), there's no practical reason for the characters to discuss it amongst themselves (and therefore to us); it would be meaningless dialogue in a show that is heavily supported by the personalities of the characters (and is limited in time to tell viewers a story). The iracible Colonel [[Saul Tigh|Tigh]] would look at Lieutenant [[Felix Gaeta|Gaeta]] as if he grew a third eye in his forehead if Gaeta started to spout off the precise distances and time necessary for ''Galactica'' to travel from place to place. Talking about such minutae in ''BSG'' is just not in character.

Still, the show gives us clues about the solar system of the [[The Twelve Colonies (RDM)|Twelve Colonies]] to note some interesting facts.

==Distances and Speeds in the Mini-Series==

* '''''Battlestar ''Galactica'' was approximately 335,540,340 miles from one of the Colonies, ostensibly [[The Twelve Colonies (RDM)#Caprica|Caprica]], at the start of the [[Miniseries]].'''''

:To reach this number, we needed clues from [[Billy Keikeya]], onboard ''[[Colonial Heavy 798]]'', enroute to the battlestar for its decommissioning ceremony. In the Miniseries, Keikeya tells [[Laura Roslin]] that he had sent a copy of her ceremony speech to President [[Richard Adar|Adar]] for review, but warns that there is a time delay of 30 minutes between ''Galactica'' and Adar's actual location, which is [[Epiphanies|confirmed]] as Caprica City, the apparent seat of the Colonial [[Government]] {{ref|Jack}}.

:We know that ''Battlestar Galactica's'' universe sticks to the same speed of light constant as real-world Earth (and the universe, of course): 186,282 miles per second. If President Adar sent a [[wireless]] message from Caprica to ''Galactica'' in an attempt to correct Roslin's speech, how long would it take the message to get there? Billy gives this answer: 30 minutes. This gives the answer we need if we use the equation that ''distance=speed x time'':

:::(3 x 10^8 m/s) ''(the speed of light)'' x 1800 s ''(30 minutes * 60 seconds/minute)'' = 5.4 x 10^11 meters ''or'' '''335, 500, 000 miles'''

:Simplfied, the wireless message travels over 335.5 million miles in 30 minutes to ''Galactica.'' This is approximately 3.5 astronomical units, or three times the distance between our Earth and our sun.

* '''''Colonial Heavy 798'' is travelling at a sublight speed of over 61,000,000 miles per hour to get to ''Galactica'' for the decommissioning ceremony.'''''

:Right after Billy Keikeya's conversation to Laura Roslin on her speech, we overhear the captain of ''Colonial Heavy 798'' on the public address intercom of the [[Intersun|starliner]], telling the passengers how long their trip to ''Galactica'' will take: 5.5 hours. Assuming that the starliner has just left the neighboring space of Caprica and has reached its cruising speed, and given that we know ''Galactica's'' distance from Caprica, we can determine ''Colonial Heavy 798's'' cruising speed with the same formula as above, now adjusted to calculate speed:

:::5.4 x 10^11 meters ''(the distance in meters)'' / 19800 ''(5.5 hours x 3600 seconds/hour)'' =
:::2.7 x 10^7 meters/sec, ''or'' '''61, 000, 000 MPH'''

:While ''Colonial Heavy 798'' is making a very serious clip across space at 61, 000, 000 miles per hour on its [[sublight]] engines, this is only approximately 11 percent of the speed of light, so passenger liners do well in getting from place to place, or colony to colony. To give a real-world comparison, ''Colonial Heavy 798'' could fly from our sun to the Earth in about 90 minutes. The light from the sun takes only 8 minutes to arrive on the Earth's surface.

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

* '''''Colonial Heavy 798'' and it's passengers would ''lose'' about 1 minute and 19 seconds during their trip to Caprica (relative to the time observed on Caprica), if they had completed their trip as planned, due to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation Time dilation].'''''
:<math>T = \frac{T_0}{ \sqrt{1-v^2/c^2} }</math>
::*T0 = 5.5 hours. (as observed by Colonial Heavy 798)
::*d = 335,540,340 miles.
::*v = d/T (as observed by Caprica)
::*c = 670,616,624.4 mph
::*'''T = 5.52 hours. (1:19 longer observed on Caprica)'''
:Of course, this assumes that Colonial Heavy 798 took the same path to Caprica that it's transmission would take. This isn't likely, for various reasons, so the distance is off ''a little''.

==Artificial Gravity==

''(Much of this topic is derived from information in an article on the subject on [[Wikipedia:Artificial Gravity|Wikipedia]]. Not all of ''Battlestar Wiki's'' contributors are rocket scientists.)''

Of course, it's very practical for humans, who evolved in gravity, to have it aboard their ships. Cinematically, it also makes it much easier to keep production costs down by not having to simulate weightlessness.

That doesn't mean we can let the [[Colonial Fleet]] get away with just having artificial gravity without some explanation, especially given [[Ronald D. Moore|Ron D. Moore]]'s [[Naturalistic science fiction|realistic science fiction]] principles of his show. From a science fiction perspective, this has always been the hardest "technology" to explain away in a show. Most shows don't even bother unless the temporary loss of artificial gravity would make a good plot complication.

From what our scientists have theorized here on the real-world Earth, you can generate gravity from several ideas:

* ''Rotation of the spacecraft'' to generate centrifugal forces within a spacecraft.
:Remember the playground merry-go-rounds of your youth? Same principle. In fact, one of the [[The Fleet (RDM)|Fleet]]'s ships uses this form of artificial gravity when it feels like it: the [[Space Park]]. Viewers can get a good view of this ship in motion when the Fleet leaves [[Ragnar Anchorage]] in the Miniseries.
* ''Keeping the ship at constant acceleration'', with the crew standing in the opposite direction of acceleration.
:Same principle that every astronaut experiences as their rocket launches into space and accelerates. In this principle, you won't take your hands off the throttle, keeping the ship's engines on at all times.
* ''Place something with a lot of mass'' within your ship.
:This isn't artificial gravity, but the real thing. But there is the matter of the energies required to move your ship, the large gravity well that wants to attract other objects into your ship's general direction, and the shape of your ship. Gravity just '''works''', pulling from every direction, so you would need a round ship to keep from strange changes in gravity aboard a ship. Worst of all, the amount of fuel needed to move a ship with a local mass concentration would be really, really high.
* ''Use tidal forces''.
:Stretch a tether with a small mass between a large gravity source and the ship you want. Cheap, fuel-free, and reliable. There's the matter of actually being able to travel somewhere besides planetary orbit without losing gravity, however.
* ''Fake gravity by using another classic force, magnetism''.
:The big term for this is [[Wikipedia:Diamagnetism|diamagnetism]], or, more specificially for this application, ''diamagnetic levitation''. Based on the technologies we've seen in the Re-imagined Series (such as their use of magnetism for landing and launching Vipers){{ref|vipers}}, this principle has the most viability, but it also fraught with huge problems in application.
:''Everything'' has a magnetic attraction, but most objects (a human body included) has so little magnetism that we don't really think about it. This principle could be used to force ''everything'' in a particular direction. But, first off, using magnets together usually makes objects ''float'' between them, not drop, so you have to figure out how to angle things for the proper effect. Scientists here on Earth have actually [http://www.hfml.science.ru.nl/levitate.html levitated a frog at a force of 1''g'' ] (Earth's gravity), but it took a massive amount of cryogenically frozen hardware to do it, and that was using the magnet to push ''away'' from Earth's gravity, not push the object ''down''. Also, high magnetic field concentrations [http://star-www.st-and.ac.uk/~jrs/safety/magnetic.html are probably not very healthy]] in the long term.

If the writers have to dive back into the old fictionalized bag of tricks, you could consider these fanciful notions for keeping your deck crews on the deck:

* ''Use rotational gravity.''
:This variation of centrifugal gravity generation has been done in the movie ''2001: A Space Odyssey'' (the crew compartment inside the ''Discovery'' spun) and the venerable TV show "[[Wikipedia:Babylon 5|Babylon 5]]" (the cylindrical space station spun on its longitudinal axis).

* ''Simulate gravity with force fields.''
:The central spaceship in the TV show "[[Wikipedia:Andromeda|Andromeda]]" uses "gravity generators". The "Star Trek" saga has a similar idea. This concept seems also to be a slap in the face of realistic SF concepts since it's a completely fanciful concept with no basis in scientific plausibilty at present.

* ''Spacetime manipulation.''
:The ability to do [[FTL|Faster Than Light travel]] indicates the Colonials have the advanced technology to manipulate the fabric of spacetime. This same ability might be harnessed to provide artificial gravitation. However, the connection between the use of ''Galactica's'' FTL drives (which are inactive until "spun up") makes this idea inconsistent with story elements where the FTL drives must be prepped before using. Also, this idea is also fanciful in its basis in known scientific fact or theory.

So, there are no definitive answers to the issue of what comes up and must come down in ''Battlestar'', and the concept of artificial gravity in the show has yet to be explained anytime soon by the writers. Maybe a Raptor will lose their gravity on a mission one day in an episode, and the writers will have to have the characters [[Frak|curse]] about the issue.

===What about the flight pods on ''[[Pegasus (RDM)|Pegasus]]''?===

Unlike ''Galactica's'', each flight pod on the advanced battlestar ''Pegasus'' are divided along its length into two landing bays. In "[[The Captain's Hand]]," viewers see Vipers inverting (relative to the battlestar) and landing on the bays "upside down." Is artificial gravity to be credited with this?

The answer is more likely magnetism. Vipers are launched with a magnetic catapult, and (as seen in "[[The Hand of God]]") can magnetically mate using their landing skids to a metal surface (in this case, the interior of a freighter). Like gravity, magnetism works in any direction, and takes little to maintain. Confirming this idea is a scene from the [[miniseries]]. As ''[[Colonial Heavy 798]]'' lands in ''Galactica's'' port flight pod to offload passengers for the decommissioning ceremony, we see two spacesuited figures working on the deck. The two crewmembers are floating, suggesting that artificial gravity is ''not'' in use. Reinforcing this are the [[Combat Landing|combat landings]] done by Vipers; the fighters bounce very noticeably at high speeds but, unlike a rock skipping across a pond, the Viper bounces less ballistically, suggesting that magnetism, a weaker force than gravity, is at work. How the Vipers get from the up-side-down flight deck to the right-side-up hanger, however has yet to be seen and is another issue in and of itself.

==Light-speed Travel==

The good news is that, from a theoretical point of view, the Re-imagined Series has this covered well by the use of ''wormhole'' theory, instead of grandiose methods such as in "Star Trek", through the use of fantastic energies. For more detail on how '''Jumps''' work and how the Colonial's manner of apparent faster-than-light travel differs from the more fanciful non-Einsteinian "warp drive" technology in "Star Trek", see the article on [[FTL|Faster Than Light travel.]]

===Why Didn't ''Colonial Heavy 798'' simply Jump to ''Galactica''?===

In the Miniseries, the starliner known as ''Colonial Heavy 798'' casually traveled 5.5 hours at sublight speeds to get to battlestar ''Galactica.'' Why did the starliner take its sweet time? Why didn't they simply Jump to ''Galactica'' to save time?

There are several possibilities.

* '''Discomfort.''' [[FTL]] travel is a very disconcerting sensation to most humans. Even trained military staff such as [[Cally]] hated the sensation caused by wormhole travel. And, if the Colonies are full of lawyers as the real-world Earth is, think of the litigation created by people who aren't prepared for Jumping, and sue the starliners. Starliners would rather not Jump if they can help it, and probably explicitly warn travelers when they book a Jumping flight.
* '''Scheduling.''' ''Galactica's'' decommissioning ceremonies were for a specific time and date. While [[Intersun]] could have created an FTL flight, passengers still need time (mentally or physically) to prepare for their trip. As humans without instantaneous travel ability, we may not realize that such travel may create issues of logistics for passengers (many who are late or procrastinate) who actually ''anticipate'' that they will get 5 hours to plan for their event, or to just sleep.
* '''Flight rules or protocol.''' It may be against Colonial flight protocols for any non-military vessel to Jump to the adjoining space of a Colonial Fleet vessel. This makes the most sense because ships such as battlestars are ''always'' on the lookout for a sudden appearance of any ship that approaches them; they ''are'' a warship, after all. An incident where Vipers are scrambled from a battlestar after a civilian ship Jumps too closely would be like a Lear Jet flying too closely to a United States aircraft carrier. If ''Colonial Heavy 798'' were to Jump straight to the battlestar, all kinds of alarms would go off in [[CIC]] until the battlestar could verify the incoming vessel was friendly. And, given that [[Tom Zarek|terrorism existed]] in the Colonies, even a "friendly" vessel may not be necessarily be a "friendly" (remember the events of September 11, 2001, where passenger airliners were used in the attack).
* '''Expense.''' The ships of the escaping survivors that make up ''Galactica's'' civilian Fleet use FTL travel frequently because they have to. There's little discussion of the economy or frequency of using FTL regularly before the Colonies were attacked.
* '''Distance.''' There may be a minimum distance where using [[FTL]] can be considered practical. As seen in "[[Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down]]," a (supposedly) damaged Raider is capable of making random Jumps in such close proximity to each other that the [[CAP]] is able to intercept it again in a matter of seconds. The key point is that ships cannot perform many Jumps in rapid succession; they need to take time to calculate a new Jump and power up their FTL drive engines (while vessels on ''Star Trek'' are capable of going to "warp" speed instantly). During this time lag, a ship might be able to close the distance to its required destination simply by using its normal [[Sublight Propulsion|sublight]] engines. For example, during the [[Battle of the Resurrection Ship]], most of the Cylon fleet's Raiders are lured away from their fleet, but they didn't Jump back to defend against the Colonials when the ruse is discovered. A likely explanation is that it would have actually taken ''less'' time to cover this distance at sublight than it would to perform Jump calculations for several minutes, then Jump.

===Why hasn't ''Galactica'' Jumped in over 20 years?===

Before the attack, ''Galactica'' herself hadn't jumped for over 20 years, according to [[Saul Tigh]] in the Miniseries. Aside from the general reasons for not Jumping about (see above), ''Galactica'' may have been a special case:

* ''Galactica'' was among the oldest ships in the Colonial Fleet. In comparison to its modern sister battlestars, ''Galactica's'' unrefitted status may have made it woefully poor for modern battlestar training. Some Colonial Fleet staff may have also felt that ''Galactica's'' age and lack of advanced Colonial technology had deemed it unspaceworthy for regular Jumping (as Saul Tigh appeared to believe, training notwithstanding).

* It's also likely that ''Galactica'' was also an historic vessel that few Colonial government politicians would care to lose to an FTL accident if they were defense spending proponents. Therefore, ''Galactica'' may have been practically "dry-docked" around the vicinity of Caprica, still commissioned and regularly manned, but not considered an effective warship on normal patrol. Presumably, when the costs of running ''Galactica'' as a regular warship became too high, the idea of formally dry-docking the ship in orbit around Caprica is considered. The United States has a counterpart to what ''Galactica'' might have been or was to become: the [http://www.ussconstitution.navy.mil/ USS ''Constitution''--"Old Ironsides."]

==The Tylium Question==

[[Tylium]] is a curious substance in the universe where the Twelve Colonies resides. Used by both Colonials and their foes, tylium has the properties of a mineral or fossil fuel in as that the substance is mined and refined. Like some fossil fuels, tylium isn't useable until refined. While the ore can't be detonated, its precursor (similar to refined crude oil before its refinement into gasoline and other products) is very explosive. The fuel itself isn't as explosive as precursor, however.

So, is tylium a made-up substance or would it have a counterpart or comparative substance to the elements we know of here on the real-world Earth?

One speculation is that tylium can possibly be similar to Helium-3{{ref|helium3}}. Helium-3 is a primordial component in the Earth's crust, is deposited via solar wind on moons and asteroids. But, while helium-3 has potention as an energy source, the amount of energy needed to ignite it (fusion) would be more than the energy it would expel for use as an energy by-product.

There is a problem with this speculation in that helium-3 is a gas, not a mineral or solid element. A tylium counterpart should be a solid, non-radioactive, and likely non-organic substance. Coal would fit the tylium concept were it not a fossil fuel, which would suggest that life forms existed and died on the celestial bodies where the substance is mined. Perhaps another element from the Periodic Table could be a counterpart of tylium.

==The Cancer Cure of Laura Roslin==

''This section was originally written from a layman's perspective. As such, the information in this section is speculative and with little professional background. Battlestar Wikipedians with more experience and training in biology, medical science, and genetics are strongly encouraged to correct and expand on this section.''

The episode "[[Epiphanies]]" showed dying President [[Laura Roslin]] receiving the fetal blood from [[Sharon Valerii (Caprica copy)|Sharon Valerii's]] and [[Karl Agathon|Helo's]] child, which dramatically annihilated the [[Wikipedia:Cancer|breast cancer]] and its subsequent metastasis (spreading) that almost kills Roslin.

The believability of this event is low given that viewers have seen, from the first moment we meet the character of Laura Roslin, that cancer in the Twelve Colonies is just as dire as it is on the real-world Earth.

Killing cancer cells is not inherently a problem in treatment. But killing cancer growths without damaging healthy tissue is the larger issue. As cancer spreads and grows, it infests itself in healthy tissue where surgery is made impossible (brain cancer is commonly inoperable because of the likelihood of damage to critical areas of the brain). Likewise, chemotherapy is less invasive, but can also leave nasty changes to body chemistry and highly undesireable side effects. Roslin mentions that her mother also had breast cancer that she had treated with [[diloxin]] therapy, which appears to be a form of chemotherapy. Roslin declined this treatment in favor of [[Chamalla]] extract, a treatment that led to [[Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I|interesting side effects]], but ultimately failed in slowing or stopping her cancer (as Dr. [[Cottle]] predicted).

The cancer cure seen in "Epiphanies" appeared to accomplish the following abilities:

*Destroyed all cancerous and pre-cancerous cells in the bloodstream (to prevent relapsing)
*Destroyed all cancer cells in organ tissue while repairing damage to organs with tumors or other infection
*Differentiated between the host's healthy cells and the cancerous cells
*Be effective with a relatively small dose, since fetal blood volume is low and cannot be taken in large amounts
*Left few or no immediate side-effects

There could be some logic to the use of the Cylon hybrid fetal blood, but this requires some stretching of the imagination and perhaps some genetic work.

*Earth science has confirmed that [[Wikipedia:Stem cells|stem cells]], undifferentiated cells found in fetal tissue that change into any needed organ or body part, can be used to aid in cellular repair. (''According to the podcast for this episode, this was, in fact, ''the'' agent of the cure. However, Moore believed the explanation would be too much [[technobabble]] for audiences and had the explanation truncated.'')
* Moore's use of fetal stem cells appears to support early research, but with a new twist. According to [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5195551 new research], fetal stem cells from the placentas of babies (born or not) leak into the body of a mother and appear to act as specialized "protectors" that can repair or lessen the effects of damaged tissues or disease. The presence of these cells can be for years, and is compounded by the number of pregnancies of the mother.
*Earth science has also confirmed that the human immune system mounts a response to cancer, which can lead to the regression of tumors. People with compromised immunity, such as those infected with HIV, suffer from malignancies that are uncommon in the general population. Some cancer researchers have speculated that improving the immune response could provide a cure for cancer possessing all of the above features.
*Earth science has found that several viruses are capable of rapidly infecting and killing cancerous cells while lacking the same infectivity of healthy cells. Experiments have been conducted in which mice which were deliberately given massive tumors were rapidly cured by direct infections of the tumors by viral agents that did not harm any healthy tissues. In terms of the show, perhaps the cylon-hybrid cells are capable of mimicing these abilities.
*Despite their appearance, [[Humano-Cylon|humanoid Cylon agents]] are not human, but created. Perhaps in their creation, Cylons designed the humanoid bodies to fight off or identify genetic malfunctions immediately, or may be created without any of the historic genetic abnormalities found in humans that could trigger cancer or other diseases.

==Cylon Genetics==

The exact technical nature of the humanoid Cylon models is unknown. Apparently, they are the result of incredibly advanced bio-mechanical engineering. A great deal of technical insight into the humanoid Cylons, and more specifically, the Cylon-Human Hybrid fetus, was going to be revealed in “[[Epiphanies]]”. However, according to Ron D. Moore’s podcast for this episode, almost all of these were cut, to the point that in the final edit Baltar is left saying that the “blood” of the hybrid is “special”. Many fans thought this explanation was a little too abrupt. RDM explained that he was afraid that viewers would react to a longer, more detailed explanation as [[technobabble]], and edited the material out as a result. This doesn’t mean that this material is ‘’incorrect’’; nothing Baltar says in the aired episode would be contradicted be further elaboration, as Baltar’s comments that the blood is an “amalgam”, etc. are so vague that further information wouldn’t contradict it. These scenes will probably become available in the Season 2.5 DVD box set.

However, several shots of Baltar going through notes on the genetic structure of the Hybrid’s DNA, etc. can be seen in promo commercials for this episode. Although no screencaps exist for this, careful analysis has yielded several new insights. [[image:Uracil.png|thumb|right|Uracil]]

Baltar is seen looking at this base of a nucleotide which belongs to the Cylon-Human Hybrid: The [[Wikipedia:nucleobase|nucleobase]] he examines is recognizable as [[Wikipedia:Uracil|Uracil]] (which is actually used in mRNA, not DNA):

This would seem to support the notion that the humanoid Cylons are indeed carbon-based, as opposed to silicon-based. However, just as the human body contains the metal Calcium but is not calcium-based, the Cylons incorporate silicon (as noted in the vague reference to "[[Silica Pathways|silica pathways]]") into their physiology, but appear to be carbon-based. In fact, since silicon does not share the organic nature that enables carbon to form the building blocks of life (silicon can't make as many molecular bonds as carbon), it would be practically impossible for most of a Cylon's body to be anything ''but'' a carbon-based life form. Else, the pregnancy between [[Helo]] and [[Sharon Valerii (Caprica copy)|Sharon Valerii]] would be physically impossible, even if "love" was needed to make it happen. Certain kinds of radiation have adverse effects on Cylon technology (as shown on Ragnar Anchorage), but this appears to be based on the tissue-level structure of silica pathways, not their underlying cellular basis.

==Sources==
#{{note|Jack}} President Adar's office on Caprica was confirmed the second-season episode "[[Epiphanies]]". Reinforcing this information, Roslin speaks by [[wireless]] to "Jack", a fellow secretary or government official. Jack tells Laura of the devastation of his location and Adar's speculated whereabouts and actions. Given that wireless transmission ranges in real-time conversation would limit Roslin to be able to speak only with Caprica (the nearest colony), Jack must be on Caprica, likely in Caprica City.
#{{note|vipers}} In the [[Miniseries]], viewers see a preflight checkout and launch of the fighters. For launch, the [[Launch tubes|launch tube]] uses a magnetic catapult ("magcat") to hurl the Viper out. On landing, either magnetism or some blend of artificial gravity pulls Vipers to rest on the deck of the [[Flight pod|flight pod]]. This force appears to be just strong enough; note the bouncing that the fighters do as their landing skids hit the landing deck while they retreat to ''Galactica'' as it prepares to Jump from Ragnar Anchorage at the conclusion of the Miniseries.
#{{note|helium3}} See [[Wikipedia:Helium-3|Wikipedia's article on Helium-3]] and [http://www.asi.org/adb/02/09/he3-intro.html this article]] by a private firm on the concept.

==See Also==
*[[Naturalistic science fiction]]
*[[FTL]]
*[[Sublight Propulsion]]

[[Category:A to Z]]
[[Category:Technology]]
[[Category:Terminology]]
[[Category:RDM]]

Science in the Re-imagined Series

2006-03-07T15:08:37Z

OliverH.: /* The Cancer Cure of Laura Roslin */ Removed non-factual statement about lack of experiments with oncolytic viruses in humans.

The [[Battlestar Galactica (RDM)|Re-imagined Series]] thrives on its concentration on its story and the characters that develop it, rather than attempting to awe its audience and drive the story by futuristic technology. Nevertheless, ''Battlestar Galactica'' is still a science-fiction program. Its writers may choose to adhere with Einsteinian, Euclidian and Newtonian principles as we know them here on the real-world Earth when ships, characters, and events require a particular physical result in, say, a space battle, in a medical complication, or when travelling from place to place.

This article summarizes or notes information about scientific objects and events in the [[Miniseries]] and regular series and attempts to draw more information, cite problems or contraditions, or conclusions of the scientiic principles revealed as part of the series' plot. In short, this article analyzes ''Battlestar Galactica's'' "[[technobabble]]" and determines how much of it is accurate, interesting, or just plain made-up.

===Why Gaeta Will Never be "Spock"===

The writers intentionally avoid characters discussing any super-technical particulars in depth in the Regular Series. This is logical in that, if the characters ''know'' that they can or cannot reach a particular location (they can see their own displays), there's no practical reason for the characters to discuss it amongst themselves (and therefore to us); it would be meaningless dialogue in a show that is heavily supported by the personalities of the characters (and is limited in time to tell viewers a story). The iracible Colonel [[Saul Tigh|Tigh]] would look at Lieutenant [[Felix Gaeta|Gaeta]] as if he grew a third eye in his forehead if Gaeta started to spout off the precise distances and time necessary for ''Galactica'' to travel from place to place. Talking about such minutae in ''BSG'' is just not in character.

Still, the show gives us clues about the solar system of the [[The Twelve Colonies (RDM)|Twelve Colonies]] to note some interesting facts.

==Distances and Speeds in the Mini-Series==

* '''''Battlestar ''Galactica'' was approximately 335,540,340 miles from one of the Colonies, ostensibly [[The Twelve Colonies (RDM)#Caprica|Caprica]], at the start of the [[Miniseries]].'''''

:To reach this number, we needed clues from [[Billy Keikeya]], onboard ''[[Colonial Heavy 798]]'', enroute to the battlestar for its decommissioning ceremony. In the Miniseries, Keikeya tells [[Laura Roslin]] that he had sent a copy of her ceremony speech to President [[Richard Adar|Adar]] for review, but warns that there is a time delay of 30 minutes between ''Galactica'' and Adar's actual location, which is [[Epiphanies|confirmed]] as Caprica City, the apparent seat of the Colonial [[Government]] {{ref|Jack}}.

:We know that ''Battlestar Galactica's'' universe sticks to the same speed of light constant as real-world Earth (and the universe, of course): 186,282 miles per second. If President Adar sent a [[wireless]] message from Caprica to ''Galactica'' in an attempt to correct Roslin's speech, how long would it take the message to get there? Billy gives this answer: 30 minutes. This gives the answer we need if we use the equation that ''distance=speed x time'':

:::(3 x 10^8 m/s) ''(the speed of light)'' x 1800 s ''(30 minutes * 60 seconds/minute)'' = 5.4 x 10^11 meters ''or'' '''335, 500, 000 miles'''

:Simplfied, the wireless message travels over 335.5 million miles in 30 minutes to ''Galactica.'' This is approximately 3.5 astronomical units, or three times the distance between our Earth and our sun.

* '''''Colonial Heavy 798'' is travelling at a sublight speed of over 61,000,000 miles per hour to get to ''Galactica'' for the decommissioning ceremony.'''''

:Right after Billy Keikeya's conversation to Laura Roslin on her speech, we overhear the captain of ''Colonial Heavy 798'' on the public address intercom of the [[Intersun|starliner]], telling the passengers how long their trip to ''Galactica'' will take: 5.5 hours. Assuming that the starliner has just left the neighboring space of Caprica and has reached its cruising speed, and given that we know ''Galactica's'' distance from Caprica, we can determine ''Colonial Heavy 798's'' cruising speed with the same formula as above, now adjusted to calculate speed:

:::5.4 x 10^11 meters ''(the distance in meters)'' / 19800 ''(5.5 hours x 3600 seconds/hour)'' =
:::2.7 x 10^7 meters/sec, ''or'' '''61, 000, 000 MPH'''

:While ''Colonial Heavy 798'' is making a very serious clip across space at 61, 000, 000 miles per hour on its [[sublight]] engines, this is only approximately 11 percent of the speed of light, so passenger liners do well in getting from place to place, or colony to colony. To give a real-world comparison, ''Colonial Heavy 798'' could fly from our sun to the Earth in about 90 minutes. The light from the sun takes only 8 minutes to arrive on the Earth's surface.

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

* '''''Colonial Heavy 798'' and it's passengers would ''lose'' about 1 minute and 19 seconds during their trip to Caprica (relative to the time observed on Caprica), if they had completed their trip as planned, due to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation Time dilation].'''''
:<math>T = \frac{T_0}{ \sqrt{1-v^2/c^2} }</math>
::*T0 = 5.5 hours. (as observed by Colonial Heavy 798)
::*d = 335,540,340 miles.
::*v = d/T (as observed by Caprica)
::*c = 670,616,624.4 mph
::*'''T = 5.52 hours. (1:19 longer observed on Caprica)'''
:Of course, this assumes that Colonial Heavy 798 took the same path to Caprica that it's transmission would take. This isn't likely, for various reasons, so the distance is off ''a little''.

==Artificial Gravity==

''(Much of this topic is derived from information in an article on the subject on [[Wikipedia:Artificial Gravity|Wikipedia]]. Not all of ''Battlestar Wiki's'' contributors are rocket scientists.)''

Of course, it's very practical for humans, who evolved in gravity, to have it aboard their ships. Cinematically, it also makes it much easier to keep production costs down by not having to simulate weightlessness.

That doesn't mean we can let the [[Colonial Fleet]] get away with just having artificial gravity without some explanation, especially given [[Ronald D. Moore|Ron D. Moore]]'s [[Naturalistic science fiction|realistic science fiction]] principles of his show. From a science fiction perspective, this has always been the hardest "technology" to explain away in a show. Most shows don't even bother unless the temporary loss of artificial gravity would make a good plot complication.

From what our scientists have theorized here on the real-world Earth, you can generate gravity from several ideas:

* ''Rotation of the spacecraft'' to generate centrifugal forces within a spacecraft.
:Remember the playground merry-go-rounds of your youth? Same principle. In fact, one of the [[The Fleet (RDM)|Fleet]]'s ships uses this form of artificial gravity when it feels like it: the [[Space Park]]. Viewers can get a good view of this ship in motion when the Fleet leaves [[Ragnar Anchorage]] in the Miniseries.
* ''Keeping the ship at constant acceleration'', with the crew standing in the opposite direction of acceleration.
:Same principle that every astronaut experiences as their rocket launches into space and accelerates. In this principle, you won't take your hands off the throttle, keeping the ship's engines on at all times.
* ''Place something with a lot of mass'' within your ship.
:This isn't artificial gravity, but the real thing. But there is the matter of the energies required to move your ship, the large gravity well that wants to attract other objects into your ship's general direction, and the shape of your ship. Gravity just '''works''', pulling from every direction, so you would need a round ship to keep from strange changes in gravity aboard a ship. Worst of all, the amount of fuel needed to move a ship with a local mass concentration would be really, really high.
* ''Use tidal forces''.
:Stretch a tether with a small mass between a large gravity source and the ship you want. Cheap, fuel-free, and reliable. There's the matter of actually being able to travel somewhere besides planetary orbit without losing gravity, however.
* ''Fake gravity by using another classic force, magnetism''.
:The big term for this is [[Wikipedia:Diamagnetism|diamagnetism]], or, more specificially for this application, ''diamagnetic levitation''. Based on the technologies we've seen in the Re-imagined Series (such as their use of magnetism for landing and launching Vipers){{ref|vipers}}, this principle has the most viability, but it also fraught with huge problems in application.
:''Everything'' has a magnetic attraction, but most objects (a human body included) has so little magnetism that we don't really think about it. This principle could be used to force ''everything'' in a particular direction. But, first off, using magnets together usually makes objects ''float'' between them, not drop, so you have to figure out how to angle things for the proper effect. Scientists here on Earth have actually [http://www.hfml.science.ru.nl/levitate.html levitated a frog at a force of 1''g'' ] (Earth's gravity), but it took a massive amount of cryogenically frozen hardware to do it, and that was using the magnet to push ''away'' from Earth's gravity, not push the object ''down''. Also, high magnetic field concentrations [http://star-www.st-and.ac.uk/~jrs/safety/magnetic.html are probably not very healthy]] in the long term.

If the writers have to dive back into the old fictionalized bag of tricks, you could consider these fanciful notions for keeping your deck crews on the deck:

* ''Use rotational gravity.''
:This variation of centrifugal gravity generation has been done in the movie ''2001: A Space Odyssey'' (the crew compartment inside the ''Discovery'' spun) and the venerable TV show "[[Wikipedia:Babylon 5|Babylon 5]]" (the cylindrical space station spun on its longitudinal axis).

* ''Simulate gravity with force fields.''
:The central spaceship in the TV show "[[Wikipedia:Andromeda|Andromeda]]" uses "gravity generators". The "Star Trek" saga has a similar idea. This concept seems also to be a slap in the face of realistic SF concepts since it's a completely fanciful concept with no basis in scientific plausibilty at present.

* ''Spacetime manipulation.''
:The ability to do [[FTL|Faster Than Light travel]] indicates the Colonials have the advanced technology to manipulate the fabric of spacetime. This same ability might be harnessed to provide artificial gravitation. However, the connection between the use of ''Galactica's'' FTL drives (which are inactive until "spun up") makes this idea inconsistent with story elements where the FTL drives must be prepped before using. Also, this idea is also fanciful in its basis in known scientific fact or theory.

So, there are no definitive answers to the issue of what comes up and must come down in ''Battlestar'', and the concept of artificial gravity in the show has yet to be explained anytime soon by the writers. Maybe a Raptor will lose their gravity on a mission one day in an episode, and the writers will have to have the characters [[Frak|curse]] about the issue.

===What about the flight pods on ''[[Pegasus (RDM)|Pegasus]]''?===

Unlike ''Galactica's'', each flight pod on the advanced battlestar ''Pegasus'' are divided along its length into two landing bays. In "[[The Captain's Hand]]," viewers see Vipers inverting (relative to the battlestar) and landing on the bays "upside down." Is artificial gravity to be credited with this?

The answer is more likely magnetism. Vipers are launched with a magnetic catapult, and (as seen in "[[The Hand of God]]") can magnetically mate using their landing skids to a metal surface (in this case, the interior of a freighter). Like gravity, magnetism works in any direction, and takes little to maintain. Confirming this idea is a scene from the [[miniseries]]. As ''[[Colonial Heavy 798]]'' lands in ''Galactica's'' port flight pod to offload passengers for the decommissioning ceremony, we see two spacesuited figures working on the deck. The two crewmembers are floating, suggesting that artificial gravity is ''not'' in use. Reinforcing this are the [[Combat Landing|combat landings]] done by Vipers; the fighters bounce very noticeably at high speeds but, unlike a rock skipping across a pond, the Viper bounces less ballistically, suggesting that magnetism, a weaker force than gravity, is at work. How the Vipers get from the up-side-down flight deck to the right-side-up hanger, however has yet to be seen and is another issue in and of itself.

==Light-speed Travel==

The good news is that, from a theoretical point of view, the Re-imagined Series has this covered well by the use of ''wormhole'' theory, instead of grandiose methods such as in "Star Trek", through the use of fantastic energies. For more detail on how '''Jumps''' work and how the Colonial's manner of apparent faster-than-light travel differs from the more fanciful non-Einsteinian "warp drive" technology in "Star Trek", see the article on [[FTL|Faster Than Light travel.]]

===Why Didn't ''Colonial Heavy 798'' simply Jump to ''Galactica''?===

In the Miniseries, the starliner known as ''Colonial Heavy 798'' casually traveled 5.5 hours at sublight speeds to get to battlestar ''Galactica.'' Why did the starliner take its sweet time? Why didn't they simply Jump to ''Galactica'' to save time?

There are several possibilities.

* '''Discomfort.''' [[FTL]] travel is a very disconcerting sensation to most humans. Even trained military staff such as [[Cally]] hated the sensation caused by wormhole travel. And, if the Colonies are full of lawyers as the real-world Earth is, think of the litigation created by people who aren't prepared for Jumping, and sue the starliners. Starliners would rather not Jump if they can help it, and probably explicitly warn travelers when they book a Jumping flight.
* '''Scheduling.''' ''Galactica's'' decommissioning ceremonies were for a specific time and date. While [[Intersun]] could have created an FTL flight, passengers still need time (mentally or physically) to prepare for their trip. As humans without instantaneous travel ability, we may not realize that such travel may create issues of logistics for passengers (many who are late or procrastinate) who actually ''anticipate'' that they will get 5 hours to plan for their event, or to just sleep.
* '''Flight rules or protocol.''' It may be against Colonial flight protocols for any non-military vessel to Jump to the adjoining space of a Colonial Fleet vessel. This makes the most sense because ships such as battlestars are ''always'' on the lookout for a sudden appearance of any ship that approaches them; they ''are'' a warship, after all. An incident where Vipers are scrambled from a battlestar after a civilian ship Jumps too closely would be like a Lear Jet flying too closely to a United States aircraft carrier. If ''Colonial Heavy 798'' were to Jump straight to the battlestar, all kinds of alarms would go off in [[CIC]] until the battlestar could verify the incoming vessel was friendly. And, given that [[Tom Zarek|terrorism existed]] in the Colonies, even a "friendly" vessel may not be necessarily be a "friendly" (remember the events of September 11, 2001, where passenger airliners were used in the attack).
* '''Expense.''' The ships of the escaping survivors that make up ''Galactica's'' civilian Fleet use FTL travel frequently because they have to. There's little discussion of the economy or frequency of using FTL regularly before the Colonies were attacked.
* '''Distance.''' There may be a minimum distance where using [[FTL]] can be considered practical. As seen in "[[Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down]]," a (supposedly) damaged Raider is capable of making random Jumps in such close proximity to each other that the [[CAP]] is able to intercept it again in a matter of seconds. The key point is that ships cannot perform many Jumps in rapid succession; they need to take time to calculate a new Jump and power up their FTL drive engines (while vessels on ''Star Trek'' are capable of going to "warp" speed instantly). During this time lag, a ship might be able to close the distance to its required destination simply by using its normal [[Sublight Propulsion|sublight]] engines. For example, during the [[Battle of the Resurrection Ship]], most of the Cylon fleet's Raiders are lured away from their fleet, but they didn't Jump back to defend against the Colonials when the ruse is discovered. A likely explanation is that it would have actually taken ''less'' time to cover this distance at sublight than it would to perform Jump calculations for several minutes, then Jump.

===Why hasn't ''Galactica'' Jumped in over 20 years?===

Before the attack, ''Galactica'' herself hadn't jumped for over 20 years, according to [[Saul Tigh]] in the Miniseries. Aside from the general reasons for not Jumping about (see above), ''Galactica'' may have been a special case:

* ''Galactica'' was among the oldest ships in the Colonial Fleet. In comparison to its modern sister battlestars, ''Galactica's'' unrefitted status may have made it woefully poor for modern battlestar training. Some Colonial Fleet staff may have also felt that ''Galactica's'' age and lack of advanced Colonial technology had deemed it unspaceworthy for regular Jumping (as Saul Tigh appeared to believe, training notwithstanding).

* It's also likely that ''Galactica'' was also an historic vessel that few Colonial government politicians would care to lose to an FTL accident if they were defense spending proponents. Therefore, ''Galactica'' may have been practically "dry-docked" around the vicinity of Caprica, still commissioned and regularly manned, but not considered an effective warship on normal patrol. Presumably, when the costs of running ''Galactica'' as a regular warship became too high, the idea of formally dry-docking the ship in orbit around Caprica is considered. The United States has a counterpart to what ''Galactica'' might have been or was to become: the [http://www.ussconstitution.navy.mil/ USS ''Constitution''--"Old Ironsides."]

==The Tylium Question==

[[Tylium]] is a curious substance in the universe where the Twelve Colonies resides. Used by both Colonials and their foes, tylium has the properties of a mineral or fossil fuel in as that the substance is mined and refined. Like some fossil fuels, tylium isn't useable until refined. While the ore can't be detonated, its precursor (similar to refined crude oil before its refinement into gasoline and other products) is very explosive. The fuel itself isn't as explosive as precursor, however.

So, is tylium a made-up substance or would it have a counterpart or comparative substance to the elements we know of here on the real-world Earth?

One speculation is that tylium can possibly be similar to Helium-3{{ref|helium3}}. Helium-3 is a primordial component in the Earth's crust, is deposited via solar wind on moons and asteroids. But, while helium-3 has potention as an energy source, the amount of energy needed to ignite it (fusion) would be more than the energy it would expel for use as an energy by-product.

There is a problem with this speculation in that helium-3 is a gas, not a mineral or solid element. A tylium counterpart should be a solid, non-radioactive, and likely non-organic substance. Coal would fit the tylium concept were it not a fossil fuel, which would suggest that life forms existed and died on the celestial bodies where the substance is mined. Perhaps another element from the Periodic Table could be a counterpart of tylium.

==The Cancer Cure of Laura Roslin==

''This section was originally written from a layman's perspective. As such, the information in this section is speculative and with little professional background. Battlestar Wikipedians with more experience and training in biology, medical science, and genetics are strongly encouraged to correct and expand on this section.''

The episode "[[Epiphanies]]" showed dying President [[Laura Roslin]] receiving the fetal blood from [[Sharon Valerii (Caprica copy)|Sharon Valerii's]] and [[Karl Agathon|Helo's]] child, which dramatically annihilated the [[Wikipedia:Cancer|breast cancer]] and its subsequent metastasis (spreading) that almost kills Roslin.

The believability of this event is low given that viewers have seen, from the first moment we meet the character of Laura Roslin, that cancer in the Twelve Colonies is just as dire as it is on the real-world Earth.

Killing cancer cells is not inherently a problem in treatment. But killing cancer growths without damaging healthy tissue is the larger issue. As cancer spreads and grows, it infests itself in healthy tissue where surgery is made impossible (brain cancer is commonly inoperable because of the likelihood of damage to critical areas of the brain). Likewise, chemotherapy is less invasive, but can also leave nasty changes to body chemistry and highly undesireable side effects. Roslin mentions that her mother also had breast cancer that she had treated with [[diloxin]] therapy, which appears to be a form of chemotherapy. Roslin declined this treatment in favor of [[Chamalla]] extract, a treatment that led to [[Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I|interesting side effects]], but ultimately failed in slowing or stopping her cancer (as Dr. [[Cottle]] predicted).

The cancer cure seen in "Epiphanies" appeared to accomplish the following abilities:

*Destroyed all cancerous and pre-cancerous cells in the bloodstream (to prevent relapsing)
*Destroyed all cancer cells in organ tissue while repairing damage to organs with tumors or other infection
*Differentiated between the host's healthy cells and the cancerous cells
*Be effective with a relatively small dose, since fetal blood volume is low and cannot be taken in large amounts
*Left few or no immediate side-effects

There could be some logic to the use of the Cylon hybrid fetal blood, but this requires some stretching of the imagination and perhaps some genetic work.

*Earth science has confirmed that [[Wikipedia:Stem cells|stem cells]], undifferentiated cells found in fetal tissue that change into any needed organ or body part, can be used to aid in cellular repair. (''According to the podcast for this episode, this was, in fact, ''the'' agent of the cure. However, Moore believed the explanation would be too much [[technobabble]] for audiences and had the explanation truncated.'')
* Moore's use of fetal stem cells appears to support early research, but with a new twist. According to [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5195551 new research], fetal stem cells from the placentas of babies (born or not) leak into the body of a mother and appear to act as specialized "protectors" that can repair or lessen the effects of damaged tissues or disease. The presence of these cells can be for years, and is compounded by the number of pregnancies of the mother.
*Earth science has also confirmed that the human immune system mounts a response to cancer, which can lead to the regression of tumors. People with compromised immunity, such as those infected with HIV, suffer from malignancies that are uncommon in the general population. Some cancer researchers have speculated that improving the immune response could provide a cure for cancer possessing all of the above features.
*Earth science has found that several viruses are capable of rapidly infecting and killing cancerous cells while lacking the same infectivity of healthy cells. Experiments have been conducted in which mice which were deliberately given massive tumors were rapidly cured by direct infections of the tumors by viral agents that did not harm any healthy tissues. In terms of the show, however, perhaps the cylon-hybrid cells are capable of mimicing these abilities.
*Despite their appearance, [[Humano-Cylon|humanoid Cylon agents]] are not human, but created. Perhaps in their creation, Cylons designed the humanoid bodies to fight off or identify genetic malfunctions immediately, or may be created without any of the historic genetic abnormalities found in humans that could trigger cancer or other diseases.

==Cylon Genetics==

The exact technical nature of the humanoid Cylon models is unknown. Apparently, they are the result of incredibly advanced bio-mechanical engineering. A great deal of technical insight into the humanoid Cylons, and more specifically, the Cylon-Human Hybrid fetus, was going to be revealed in “[[Epiphanies]]”. However, according to Ron D. Moore’s podcast for this episode, almost all of these were cut, to the point that in the final edit Baltar is left saying that the “blood” of the hybrid is “special”. Many fans thought this explanation was a little too abrupt. RDM explained that he was afraid that viewers would react to a longer, more detailed explanation as [[technobabble]], and edited the material out as a result. This doesn’t mean that this material is ‘’incorrect’’; nothing Baltar says in the aired episode would be contradicted be further elaboration, as Baltar’s comments that the blood is an “amalgam”, etc. are so vague that further information wouldn’t contradict it. These scenes will probably become available in the Season 2.5 DVD box set.

However, several shots of Baltar going through notes on the genetic structure of the Hybrid’s DNA, etc. can be seen in promo commercials for this episode. Although no screencaps exist for this, careful analysis has yielded several new insights. [[image:Uracil.png|thumb|right|Uracil]]

Baltar is seen looking at this base of a nucleotide which belongs to the Cylon-Human Hybrid: The [[Wikipedia:nucleobase|nucleobase]] he examines is recognizable as [[Wikipedia:Uracil|Uracil]] (which is actually used in mRNA, not DNA):

This would seem to support the notion that the humanoid Cylons are indeed carbon-based, as opposed to silicon-based. However, just as the human body contains the metal Calcium but is not calcium-based, the Cylons incorporate silicon (as noted in the vague reference to "[[Silica Pathways|silica pathways]]") into their physiology, but appear to be carbon-based. In fact, since silicon does not share the organic nature that enables carbon to form the building blocks of life (silicon can't make as many molecular bonds as carbon), it would be practically impossible for most of a Cylon's body to be anything ''but'' a carbon-based life form. Else, the pregnancy between [[Helo]] and [[Sharon Valerii (Caprica copy)|Sharon Valerii]] would be physically impossible, even if "love" was needed to make it happen. Certain kinds of radiation have adverse effects on Cylon technology (as shown on Ragnar Anchorage), but this appears to be based on the tissue-level structure of silica pathways, not their underlying cellular basis.

==Sources==
#{{note|Jack}} President Adar's office on Caprica was confirmed the second-season episode "[[Epiphanies]]". Reinforcing this information, Roslin speaks by [[wireless]] to "Jack", a fellow secretary or government official. Jack tells Laura of the devastation of his location and Adar's speculated whereabouts and actions. Given that wireless transmission ranges in real-time conversation would limit Roslin to be able to speak only with Caprica (the nearest colony), Jack must be on Caprica, likely in Caprica City.
#{{note|vipers}} In the [[Miniseries]], viewers see a preflight checkout and launch of the fighters. For launch, the [[Launch tubes|launch tube]] uses a magnetic catapult ("magcat") to hurl the Viper out. On landing, either magnetism or some blend of artificial gravity pulls Vipers to rest on the deck of the [[Flight pod|flight pod]]. This force appears to be just strong enough; note the bouncing that the fighters do as their landing skids hit the landing deck while they retreat to ''Galactica'' as it prepares to Jump from Ragnar Anchorage at the conclusion of the Miniseries.
#{{note|helium3}} See [[Wikipedia:Helium-3|Wikipedia's article on Helium-3]] and [http://www.asi.org/adb/02/09/he3-intro.html this article]] by a private firm on the concept.

==See Also==
*[[Naturalistic science fiction]]
*[[FTL]]
*[[Sublight Propulsion]]

[[Category:A to Z]]
[[Category:Technology]]
[[Category:Terminology]]
[[Category:RDM]]

User talk:Drtompki

2006-03-07T15:06:59Z

OliverH.:

Hi Drtompki and welcome the Battlestar Wiki. Please make sure to check out [[Battlestar Wiki:Standards and Conventions]] for specific editing policies and conventions.

As for oncolytic viruses which you added to the Cancer Cure of Laura Roslin, a lot of these viruses were artificially engineered, though there have been some experiments with natural occuring viruses. Viruses also aren't cells and vice versa, so Cylon cells couldn't mimic their function -to infect, multiply in and eventually lyse cancerous cells. Also, while oncolytic viruses could still do that in patients at the stage of cancer Roslin is in, the effect would most likely simply be that the patient dies. The amount of cells lost and the spill-out of lysed cells' contents would probably cause a shock that would push the patient over the edge. Remember that Roslin doesn't "just" have metastatic disease, she's already on death's door. Also, oncolytic viruses can't repair the damage the body has already suffered, they can only relieve the strain induced by the cancer. So if the patient is about to die, an oncolytic virus is unlikely to change that. The body has to be still able to sustain itself. Also, I am not sure where you got the bit that ethical and social reasons would prevent such viruses to be tested on humans. Clinical trials of oncolytic viruses are ongoing in multiple places across the planet. In fact, at least China has already approved one oncolytic virus therapy. [http://jncicancerspectrum.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/jnci;98/5/298.pdf (Cf. here)] --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 09:06, 7 March 2006 (CST)

Naturalistic science fiction

2006-03-04T23:43:58Z

OliverH.: /* Space Remains Big...and Lonely */

{{NPOV}}
== In Theory... ==

'''Naturalistic science fiction''' (NSF) is a realistic take on the SF genre, avoiding typical SF [[Wikipedia:cliche|cliches]], utilizing visual and artistic elements from such dramas as "[[Wikipedia:The Sopranos|The Sopranos]]", "[[Wikipedia:24 (television)|24]]" and "[[Wikipedia:The West Wing|The West Wing]]". Naturalistic SF blends the best elements of [[Wikipedia:Soft science fiction|"soft" science fiction]] (where characterization is of prime importance) and [[Wikipedia:Hard science fiction|"hard" science fiction]] (where plausible technical accuracy is preferred).

== In Practice... ==

===Characters===
For [[Battlestar Galactica (RDM)|the new "Battlestar Galactica" series]] naturalistic SF means that '''characters''' are viewed as normal, every-day people, complete with flaws, neuroses, and even addictions. There will be no stereotypical SF characters such as the "smoking chauvinist", "loyal soldier", "heroic lead", "spiritual commander", "whiz-kid genius", or "sexy doctor".

===Technology===
'''Technology''' is far enough advanced for star travel to be possible (see: [[FTL]] travel) and plausible, yet every other aspect of Colonial technology is humbly realistic. Instead of using technology such as [[Wikipedia:Star Trek|"Star Trek's"]] transporters, people need to be physically shuttled between ships on smaller craft like [[Raptor|Raptors]].

Colonial ships are not powered by inexhaustible "dylithium crystals" housed inside "warp cores" , but from [[tylium]], a powerful solid substance with interesting properties that's mined from planets and asteroids and refined.

Fantasy energy weapons such as "Star Trek's" phasers and photon torpedoes are replaced with ordinary projectile weapons and Earthly mass-destruction ordinance: guns, bullets and nuclear bombs. Other unrealistic SF "[[Wikipedia:deus ex machina|deus ex machina]]" are avoided entirely, or replaced with technology more in-line with what's seen in modern life. If [[the Fleet (RDM)|the Fleet]] runs out of water, ''Galactica'' can't "invent" some futuristic device to reclaim the water molecules from space-borne hydrogen molecules--they search for a planetary body that has water ([[Water]]). Technology looks familar to the viewer, from the phones, computer screens, and even the bathrooms. 

Much like [[Aaron Doral]] noted in the opening of the [[Miniseries]], form follows function when it comes to the ship designs. ''Galactica'' is designed as a battle cruiser / aircraft carrier in space; the hull is lined with armor plating, strengthened by [[Frame|structural ribbing]] and insulated from external explosions by internal structures such as water tanks ([[Water]]). The command center of the ship, the [[CIC]], is buried deep within the ship and protected from any attacks, unlike ''Star Trek's'' starships, whose bridges are openly exposed at the top-center of the ship.

Many Colonial civilian ships are spaceborne variations of ships you may see in the air or at sea in the real-world Earth. ''[[Colonial One]]'' is designed to be a [[Intersun|jetliner in space]] and is set up similar to a real world passenger airliner with rows of seats separated into various classes down the fuselage, cramped airplane bathrooms, cargo bays in the ship's underbelly and private cabins for VIPs (they may even have those dry complementary peanut snacks).

===No "Deus Ex Machina" Concepts===

Characters like [[Saul Tigh|Colonel Tigh]] are annoyed by endless '''[[technobabble]]'''. Complex procedures needed to further the plot are often explained in context to the episode in simple and down-to-earth terms, if they're ever explained at all.

When technology is mentioned, it's typically analogous to something found on the real-world Earth. Dialogue such as "[[Stims|stims]]", "[[Morpha|morpha]]", "[[DRADIS]]" and "[[wireless]]" will seem familiar enough when used in context to most casual viewers.

''Galactica'' and its Fleet has to be creative with the very limited resources in the Fleet. They cannot barter with other civilizations (there aren't any), or "replicate" parts from some fanciful reproducing device. They have a limited supply of ''everything'' : [[Viper (RDM)|fighters]], ammunition, food, water, and people. Specialized crewmembers, such as [[List of Pilots|pilots]] and [[Cottle|doctors]], are in even shorter supply. In "Battlestar Galactica's" world, they don't have a "starbase" or "Federation" : What they are and what they have is literally visible in every episode--and everything is wearing or running out, adding to the drama of the characters. This is exemplified by the deteriorating conditions of ''Galactica'''s Vipers, which began the [[Mini-Series]] in pristine condition, but through extended use all now have significant battle damage, burns, scars, scrapes and dents and several have been damaged beyond repair ("[[Flight of the Phoenix]]").

===Space Remains Big...and Lonely===

There are no "planet-of-the-week" episodes. The universe remains so big as to appear almost empty, with the odds of meeting other intelligent beings (excluding, perhaps, remnants of the [[Earth|Thirteenth Tribe]]) practically nil. A majority of [[Battlestar Galactica (RDM)|Battlestar Galactica's]] episodes primarily focus on internal Fleet survival issues ("[[Water]]", "[[Bastille Day]]", and "[[The Hand of God (RDM)|The Hand of God]]").

Humanoid or quasi-humanoid intelligent life (save that of the Fleet's nemesis, the human-created [[Cylons (RDM)|Cylons]]) does not exist, as almost all of the encountered planets will be mostly uninhabitable and lifeless. The latter point, though, is in contrast to estimates by leading SETI researchers, who believe that some form or other of a biosphere -not necessarily including intelligent life- should in fact be quite common. (cf. [http://www.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0205014 this article from the academic journal "Astrobiology"] and [[wikipedia: Drake Equation|Drake Equation]] for context)

The characters do speak of animals from the now Cylon-occupied Colonies, and they share most of the names we use in the real-world Earth: [[Life Forms of the Twelve Colonies|chickens, dogs, cattle, and cats]] existed on their worlds. This naming is done mostly to make it easier for the viewers to identify with the characters and to prevent writers from having to invent a new animal.

Curiously similar animals have been observed, after a fashion, on other worlds besides the Twelve Colonies. [[Socinus]] notes while on [[Kobol]] that he is able to listen to the birds in the trees for the first time since the Cylon attack. ("[[Scattered]]")

===Storytelling and Music===

[[Battlestar Galactica (RDM)|"Battlestar Galactica"]] avoids the thematic elements found in "[[Wikipedia:Star Trek|Star Trek]]". The series story is told chronolgically in episodic storytelling, using a [[Wikipedia:Documentary film|documentary-style, ''cinema verite'']] visual feel, and tribal music that gives the series a more multi-cultural sound texture than the overly-used flags-and-banners overtures used in "Star Trek" and "Star Wars".
== Related Articles ==

*[http://www.galactica2003.net/articles/concept.shtml Galactica2003.net's Reprint of RDM's Take on Naturalistic SF]

*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_Science_Fiction Wikipedia article on Hard Science Fiction]

*The [[Physics (RDM)|physics]] seen in the Re-imagined Series

[[Category:A to Z]]
[[Category: Hollywood Buzzwords]]
[[Category:RDM]]

User talk:The Merovingian

2006-03-04T01:52:44Z

OliverH.: /* Realistic? */

''Why is a raven like a writing desk?''

== Regarding your RfA ==

Hi Ricimer, while your RfA did not pass, I firmly and wholeheartedly believe that you are fully capable of passing the RfA, should it come up again within, say, six months. If you have any concerns, feel free to address them with Peter, myself, or any of the other major contributors. Have a happy New Year! -- [[User:Joe.Beaudoin|Joe Beaudoin]] 12:31, 30 December 2005 (EST)

:I have yet to play my trump card. --[[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]] 12:32, 30 December 2005 (EST)

:: Should I be afraid? *wink* --[[User:Day|Day]] 20:21, 31 December 2005 (EST)

== Battle Template ==

You're the guy who came up with this, right? Do you think that a) the thing could be made into an actual template (like the Character Data one with dissappearing/reappearing fields, etc) and b) it could be re-designed to look like the Character Data one (in terms of looking like the rest of the theme (the red/black is the default theme, isn't it?)? I don't know how these two things would be accomplished, but I thought I'd put this out there and see what you thought as far as feasability and also as far as ''should'' we do it. --[[User:Day|Day]] 17:00, 18 January 2006 (EST)

== User name change ==

Just letting you know that I changed your name from Ricimer to The Merovingian. Let me know if you encounter any issues, not that I'm expecting any but just in case Murphy's Law decides to come and play. -- [[User:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|Joe Beaudoin]] 23:19, 7 February 2006 (EST)

: Also on this topic: You should probably update the first sentence of your User page to reflect the name change. If you want, I could probably get a decent screen-grab of the identically named character from the Matrix. Unfortunately, I don't have a DVD from which to grab pictures that stars any of the folks who founded Paris. --[[User:Day|Day]] 01:24, 8 February 2006 (EST)
::Yes, actually, that would help immensly. I need one of The Merovingian when he's in Club Hel, standing at the balcony looking imperiously down at Neo. A shot that shows his whole body instead of a closeup would be preferred. --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 02:13, 8 February 2006 (EST)
:::You should watch "Revolutions" again. Merv isn't peering down at Neo but at Morpheus, Trinity, and Seraph (Neo never visits Club Hel in the movie series, although the Path of Neo video game takes him there while the Club is closed). I'll also try to get a screencap for you if time allows. My Matrix knowledge may be better than my BSG knowledge (note witty, illustrated user page; I've been almost tempted to change my user name to something more appropriate... ;) By the way, I like your revised user page. Merv is one of those characters whose deserved more exploration on the same level as the Oracle and the Architect. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 10:45, 8 February 2006 (EST)

:"Neo" just came out; I was thinking Seraph & Co., just typed the wrong thing. (''That little Judas! I'm going to have him killed and buried in a shallow grave, then dig him up and kill him again...'''That's the beauty of a shallow grave!''') ''--[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 16:52, 8 February 2006 (EST)

::I actually took a philosphy class and my choice for a paper was on ''The Matrix''. Basically, I've made several of the more...insightful speculations about The Merovingian on his Wikipdia article. You see, Morpheus and Neo represent Socrates: wanting to get out of "The Cave" to the real world beyond, etc. However, I believe (and I'm the only person I know of who's thought of this; I didn't read it anywhere, but thought it up after reading ''Leviathan'') that The Merovingian is the embodiment of Thomas Hobbes in The Matrix. He spouts off Hobbesian thought all of the time. Hobbes said that "choice is an illusion" that the only constant is "cause and effect", and that the best thing we can do with our lives is kind of movie along with the flow of causality in such a way that we enjoy all of the *physical, transient* pleasures that we can, while we can. Live a life of comfornt and luxury, etc. The Merovingian *lives out* this ideal: He's living in complete luxury, like at Le Vrai, the Chateau, Club Hel (and he has affairds with women all the time, etc), he wields a great deal of physical power...yet recognizes that it's all just "a game" devoid of purpose; it's transient, etc. He's stopped seeing any higher meaning in anything. --->Hobbes was a big critic of Socrates, and his philosophy was the polar opposte of Socrates' thought. In the same way, The Merovingian opposes Neo and Morpheus' philoshpy of getting out of the Matrix.
:I hold with the theory that he's a former One, that got his brain pattern scanned into a computer to outlive the death of his body. But he got so disillusioned with all of the lies and how the quest for freedom was just a reset button, that he turned against all of this and became the master of the Exiles, living the complete opposite of all of this (note; he ''really hates'' the Oracle, and views everything Neo says about her with extreme sarcasm). Plus, the initials "LV" on the walls of "Le Vrai" are Roman numerals for "LV" = 55. Now, we've already seen 303= Trinity, 101= Neo. So there's something about The Merovingian and the number "5". On top of this, when we first meet him there are 5 glasses set out in front of him (and Persephone, his Trinity-analog, has 3 chocolates on her plate). --->There have been 5 "Ones" before Neo. I think the Merovingian is the ''first'' "One". --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 17:01, 8 February 2006 (EST)

:::Yeah, that theory and his Hobbes relationship (I think--it may be in a book I read) is on the Wikipedia article. I edited the article in dispute of Merv being a past One. It all comes down to some logic points. ''Why'' does he hate the Oracle so much? Because she succeeded where he failed. She stabilized the Matrix by adding true choice, where Merv was likely tapped by the Architect earlier to program basic cause-effect subroutines in the Matrix code as well as manage the root-programs in Matrix-beta-2 that could be used to help with these changes (these programs he now holds for his own purposes). The Architect realized the utopian flaw in beta-1 and thought that simple cause-effect (combined with the root-programs--the monsters of myth) would be sufficient to convince the human minds. He was wrong, of course. Remember that the Merovingian is big on cause-effect, and the Oracle states that he is one the oldest of them all, which makes his human origin very unlikely as the machines by then were fully distrustful of humanity and saw itself as a steward, not bothering to hear out humanity anymore than we would listen to the needs of an ant. The One is purely human; if the Merovingian were a "One", he would have been generated within beta-2, and, as a result, would not be like the Ones that base their power from true choice (particularly the power to ''dis''believe what they see and act otherwise). To add to that: Merv could also be very mad at the Oracle because, in the Oracle's version of the Matrix, any powers he may have had in beta-2 are practically non-existent. (You gave me a new take the character now from that...hmm.) Oh, and "La Vrai" means, "The Truth", which is just Merv's way of protesting of what's around him..vulgarities of "choice". Only in his establishments, by the name implication, will the populace understand the "truth" about what is illusion to him (choice) and real (cause and effect).

:::I wrote a paper about the origin of the One (with a bit on Merv) for a SF convention that will BLOW. YOUR. MIND. If you like, I'd be happy to send you a PDF of it. I've not published this as yet, so it's a unique read that incorporates the above. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 17:29, 8 February 2006 (EST)

::::I would like to BLOW. MY. MIND. as well... ''the preceeding, signed comment and small recommendation that Spence forward me a copy of his insightful paper on Merv was made by [[User:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|Joe Beaudoin]] on 17:47, 8 February 2006 (EST) :-)''

::::: Actually, Spence... Could you just, maybe, copy it to User:Spencerian/Matrix or something? It might save you from forwarding it to a billion people. If you don't like that idea, then put me on your forwarding list. --[[User:Day|Day]] 00:19, 9 February 2006 (EST)

:There, I must disagree with you. The Merovingian is not "the oldest of us" but "one of the oldest of us", which would still fit my interpretation. Further, in ''Leviathan'' Hobbes goes on a tangent where he says that because everything in life is "cause and effect", logically, we should '''in theory''' be able to predict the future, because life has no external factors (god, random choice, etc. Fate/causality rules all). But he adds that '''in practice''', this is impossible, simply because there are so many variants that the human mind cannot grasp at once--->it reminds me of discussions of ''psychohistory'' in "Prelude to Foundation"; hen Hari Seldon originally presented his first paper theorizing that psychohistory was ''possible'', he explained that he did not yet have a working model because his paper essentially just proved that you could actually analyze all of the "antecedants" of life in a computer model. I.e. if the universe is so compex that the only functional "model" of it is something as big and complicated as the universe itself, such a model is useless. However, he said that you ''could'' actually make a model smaller than the universe itself..
::Well, the point is that according to The Merovingian's own Hobbesian principles, he is in a possition SIMULTANEOUSLY A) He believes the world to be governed by nothing but causality, and therefore, he should be able to predict the future, but B) THE VERY SAME principles that idea is based on also state that predicting the future is ''Practically'' impossible. This might get a little annoying to him. --->So then there's The Oracle, who CAN predict the future, while he cannot (though in theory, he should). Therefore, this adds another level of hate for her, and he wants the "eyes of the Oracle" (which he's "Wanted ever since I came ''here'') because he's jealous. And who's to say the Machines would not want to tap the talen of the "grotesque" human mind in designing/running a more human world (beta-2)? I digress. P.S. Don't get me started on MXO's Agent Pace...--[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 18:13, 8 February 2006 (EST)

:::Yes, Merv is one of the oldest, not the oldest. Merv was only half-right, which is why his Matrix worked only halfway. Predicting the future is not impossible if the events in the world ''work like a computer program does.'' He wanted to predict things logically--but, with choice involved, prediction becomes far less logical or predictable. When people in his Matrix version realized they, too, could guess the logical cause and effect, they lost believablity in their Matrix. The Oracle's Matrix has no such problem for the most part. Hey, you haven't an email address to send you my paper (Joe just got a copy). You can send me your address privately to my email if you care not to post it publicly. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 19:57, 8 February 2006 (EST)

:::: '''Tangent''': I once tried to start up a Matrix-themed MUSH which was to be placed in an unspecified previous iteration of the Matrix, only a few years after the death of the One that started the thing. We had some lengthy debates about how to implement the Oracle or make any sort of assertions that would A) be specific enough so as to be cool when they came true but, b) be vague enough so as to be possible in a roleplaying environment that included, well, ''choice''. Eventually, though, all the staffers got busy doing [http://www.guildwars.com other] [[Main Page|things]]. *wink* --[[User:Day|Day]] 00:19, 9 February 2006 (EST)

: Merovingian, eh? I must say I like it, much preferable to Ricimer - and I'm not a troll. [[User:Jzanjani|Jzanjani]] 02:33, 21 February 2006 (EST)

::Prove it. --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 03:02, 21 February 2006 (EST)

==A ''Revelation'' I've Had==

[AgentSmith]Let me share a ''revelation'' I've had [/Agentsmith]. In case you are new, most here are of the consensus that my attitude towards edits is overall blunt/brusk, not "polite", etc. (it's just letters on a screen, so I just never gauged "politeness" much; not that I make personal attacks, just that I "cut through it" and say what I'm thinkin'). Anyway, '''Day''' summarized some of this pretty well on Talk:Perry when he said just now: "''your jumping off the cuff with aggressive language at people who simply disagree with you. It may be a matter that would be handled by inflection, were you interacting in real life, but you should realize that when you're dealing with text only, you have only very gross control over inflection: normal, bold and italics. And they can be construed as meaning many things. As a side note, I've noticed you like to use bold and such a lot and so, sometimes, you do combinations or all-caps or asterisks for further emphasis. I mean this in only an entirely constructive way, but... I have no idea how to interpret those passages except as very loud, so they're more confuysing to me, personally, than helpful.''". Well, I think I've '''finally realized what the crux of the problem was:'''

Loss of essence. A profound sense of fatiuge, a feeling of emptiness...caused by terrorists trying to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids, through water fluoridation. It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core terrorist works. He hold no value for human life, not even his own. Well, I can no longer sit back and allow terrorist infiltration, terrorist indoctrination, terrorist subversion and the international terrorist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.--->Hahaha, sorry. I can never resist a good plug for the old ''Dr. Strangelove'' routine.

But I digress.

No, seriously. I finally realized what the crux of all of this friction has been: As you know, I am a prolific poster on the official messageboard. '''I think the problem is, I've been posting on BattlestarWiki as if it were a messageboard'''. You see, messageboards aren't as formal and a lot of, well, yelling, arguing as part of debate, etc., is actually ''the norm'' there. Further, when it comes to '''my''' ''overuse'' of ''' ''**inflection**'' '''....I'm just *used* to typing that way because that's how you highlight and emphasize stuff on messageboard posts (it's sort of how you make up for not being able to see visible social cues, etc.) Also--->Posts on messageboards can sometimes fill an entire Microsoft word single-spaced document page. They can get really long. So you've really got to highlight the beginning of every new idea or paragraph like that to make your point, etc.

But on the whole, it's just a different atmosphere, more "pack-mentality" to establish dominance through a show of force (GREAT Farscape joke about that one in the first episode of the fourth season...but I digress.), and a fanatical amount of information, etc.

I realize it took me a while, but I've finally come to the full realization that '''My Talk page posts, etc. seem kind of rough because I'm just typing like these are messageboard posts'''. (Messageboard posts disappared practially after 5 minutes, so you try to have as big an impact as possible, while here they just stay there for long periods, etc.)

So, I've realized that that's what's been going on, and I realize now (from experience) just how different a wiki is from that, so I will alter my tone accordingly. (Of course, I'll still '''highlight''' stuff that might seem important, but not go overboard). --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 03:36, 10 February 2006 (EST)

:Excellent! That's an angle I hadn't considered. The signal to noise ratio is definitely much higher here than at some other places. Heck, the fact that people were still discussing a question I asked around the first of December is an excellent demonstration between the way things happen around here and the official board. I hope you have begun to see that the people here value what you have to say/contribute (without the need to clamor to be heard above the din). --[[User:Steelviper|Steelviper]] 09:30, 10 February 2006 (EST)

:: That may be a very apt metaphor, SV. Reading Merv's posts is sometimes like listening to someone who thinks your in the other room, but really you're right behind them. Roughly, "Hey. I'm already ''listening'', '''Dude'''." *wink* Anyway, I hope this is exactly the issue at, uh... issue, here. --[[User:Day|Day]] 16:24, 10 February 2006 (EST)

== Recent Rollback ==

Hey. I rolled back your last edit on [[Louanne Katraine]] because we don't use quotes with single episode citations enclosed in parentheses. So, if I wrote an episode name when discussing an episode in this sentence that talks about, say, "[[Scar]]", it doesn't look like a citation like this ([[Scar]]). For consistancy we do quotes within parentheses in a string of episodes cited, with the exception of the Miniseries name, which is not an episode name per se ([[Miniseries]], "[[Scattered]]", "[[Fragged]]"). --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 17:19, 10 February 2006 (EST)

:Yes, thank you. I was confused on this. --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 17:22, 10 February 2006 (EST)

== Template Categories ==
What are you looking for for the writers and directors? A navigation template? Or a category (I ran into [[:Category:Directors]] after I created one)? I'd be glad to help, I just don't have a concept of what you're needing. --[[User:Steelviper|Steelviper]] 20:19, 10 February 2006 (EST)

When I write pages about Sharon, Number Six, etc. I write at the bootom "Category:Cylons" (with double brackets around it). I think we need a Category set for "Writers" and "Directors" (in place of "Cylons"). However, one or two episodes split the "Writers" credit between "Teleplay" and "Story by" (see official site episode guide). I just put "Story by" into "Story by" slots in the guide, and Writer for who wrote the Teleplay: Regardless, I think both Teleplay and Story writers should fall under the "Writers" category, and I will make note of which was which on their individual pages.
----->Essentially, I realized we had no "At a Glance" method of seeing the past work of a writer or director. Essentially, I see that episode 3.12 is coming up, and I see "hmm, who is this? why, I'll click on his name and get a list of other episodes he's done.....oh no! He wrote the abysmal "Black Market"!...or..."Hmm, she wrote the wonderful "Resistance"...this should be interesting. I'm trying to make A) pages for all of the writers and directors, and B) lists on those individual pages of all the episodes they've worked on, so, logically--->C)We should have a more fully developed category system for "Writers" and "Diretors" (the rudiments of which are present on the main page, but which were never fully developed. I felt that now is a good a time as any.)--[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 20:33, 10 February 2006 (EST)
:There's a directors category already, and a Category:Director: Michael Rymer, which is a subcategory of Michael Rymer. Thus if you tag an episode with Category:Director: Michael Rymer it should fall under the Michael Rymer category. The directors category would then just be a container for all those subcategories. So we just need a Category:Director: X where X is each director (and make sure that each of those has the category of Director, so that they show up as subcategories). We could then make a template, I guess, but since we're talking about just having to add one category tag at the bottom, I'm not sure it merits a template. I'll start up the Category:Writers, if you want, if you could list out which Directors and Writers we need to capture. We may want to consult with Farago on this, as he has a knack for categorization. --[[User:Steelviper|Steelviper]] 20:44, 10 February 2006 (EST)
::Ah. There's already a Category:Writers as well. Looks like somebody planned ahead. It looks like we'd just need to make the subcategories then. --[[User:Steelviper|Steelviper]] 20:47, 10 February 2006 (EST)

== Rollback ==

I rolled back your last edit on the Binary Star System article. "Battlestar" is not capitalized unless at the start of a sentence or when used in the show's name. The article referenced is [[Mercury class battlestar]] as shown and needed no capitalization. "Axis" to "column" (or spire) adds little to the edit, but it's a matter of taste there. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 00:15, 19 February 2006 (EST)

==Just to say==
Merv, I just wanted to say that I think you've been putting an excellent face forward recently. Keep it up. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 20:23, 19 February 2006 (EST)

''All is proceeding according to plan..''--[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 21:07, 19 February 2006 (EST)

== Colonial arm patches and insignia ==

No offence, but call yourself a Battlestar Galactica fan?
Some Merovingian you are! you are an insult to both the name and the entire series of both past and present series of "Battlestar".
If you want to recognise these images in my document, which took me the better part of my morning (and life):
1)Watch the entirerity of Battlestar Galactica(1978) and Battlestar Galactica(2003) for all of said patches on the uniforms.
2)LOOK on EBAY! If they are so wrong, why are they selling them? They are free pictures from a public site of official merchandise! The rank structure is off this site!
I've been watching Battlestar Galactica since I could crawl when it was first aired!! You're just envious that I have done this amount of research in such a small space of time and used little devices called brain cells.
My advice, before you engage your keyboard, open your eyes and watch the damn program(s)! Only one person has left neutral feedback and spotted things even I missed!! Fair play to him.
Question) Why go to such lengths to put true fans of the program down?
Answer) Envy. --[[User:Jetstorm316|Jetstorm316]]

:I suggest you reconsider your statements with a calmer head, and learn that, as "Merv" has, politeness goes a long way. Also, never assume malevolence when incompetence remains a possibility. ;) --[[User:Redwall|Redwall]] 16:47, 20 February 2006 (EST)

Thank you, Redwall, for defending me. There are several things you need pointed out which I believe your are unaware of Jetstorm316:

:'''1) I am not the person that deleted all of the images which you added to "Colonial arm patches and insignia"; that was Administrator SteelViper, who did so on February 20th, at 14:23.''' Please check the History page to confirm this, if you must.

:'''2) All I ever edited that you posted was on the [[Uniform]] page, and all I did was remove links to "Colonial arm patches"''', when it became apparent that
::A) SteelViper had already deleted most of the images from this page.
::B) As you can see now, Administrator Spencerian has already marked that page for deletion. '''All I have actually done is remove links to a page about to be deleted. I am not the one that deleted your images, or that is attempting to delete that page'''.
::C) There were also some minor factual corrections to "Uniform"; First: No, black arm bands are not worn only by "military police"; all Marines seen wearing the khaki uniform have black armbands. Does this mean they're Marines or Non-Coms? I don't know. Seemed a minor point. Second, despite your..."amount of research", it is false to say that "there is a grey arm patch on the left shoulder"; in fact, it is grey ''shoulder patches'' which I was referring to, not a single armpatch; I have since edited the article to be more specific

::'''''(Only because I pointed it out in the first Place "Dick Tracy" - Jetstorn316).'''''
:::Not really. I call those different colored patches "arm patches" because they're at the top of their arms; apparently you thought I was referring to a shoulder insignia, so I changed it to "shoulder patch" so you would not make this mistake in the future. You did not "point out" anything; "grey arm patch on left shoulder" (not both) is simply wrong. You didn't really....point out, much of anything.--[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 08:57, 21 February 2006 (EST)

:'''3)''' Your only real complaint against me is that I corrected the "Uniform" page: '''Your claims to having paid close attention to Original Series BSG are actually irrelevant in this matter, because the "[[Uniform]]" page deals entirely with Re-Imagined Series material.'''

So please, if you have a complaint about your images being deleted, please bring it to Administrator SteelViper, who deleted them.

I would hasten to point out that '''E-Bay should not be considered a reliable source of information, to put it mildly'''. One of your patches for Re-Imagined Pegasus was blatantly wrong, as it stated "BSG 63" instead of "BSG 62": "''My advice, before you engage your keyboard, open your eyes and watch the...program''". I think more of these problems might exist in the other images. Please provide reliable sources for them, following the rules of our [[Battlestar Wiki:Citation Jihad|Battlestar Wiki Citation Crusade]]. --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 20:12, 20 February 2006 (EST)

: I concur, Merv. eBay is not a source sanctioned by the [[Battlestar Wiki:Citation Jihad|Citation Jihad]]. Just because something is sold there does not mean it is factual. Look at all the obviously wrong STar Trek stuff that sells on there. Or all the random, literally, ''trash'' that sells. Jetstorm, if you're reading this, we ''greatly'' prefer to use stills from the actual episodes for images when we can. If not, then we're much more likely to want drawn (whether by hand or electronically) images, rather than photos of fan-created props. What we would risk losing in accuracy from such fan-created works (artwork or, for instance, sewing) we'd gain in the ability to change some .psd on a regualr user's HD. It is quite bad form to flip out at someone for changing your edit to a page. It is ''quite'' bad form to do so at the wrong person. --[[User:Day|Day]] 00:05, 21 February 2006 (EST)

And which....program were you watching? Matrix or BSG? Did you pick the wrong one up from Blockbusters?

Yes, I Conceed the "BSG 62 point", as at the time of manufacture (look, research!), the manufacturer was under the assumption that it was "BSG 63". Small error, but what can we do? I do not claim to be perfect, nor assume I'm right. I've always got something new to learn.

:"What you can do" is pay attention. You just made a long tirade, berating me because you felt YOU paid "much more attention" to the series, when in fact actually watching the episodes, but more to the point, BOTHERING TO USE BATTLESTARWIKI's PEGASUS ARTICLE, would have alerted you do this error. Define "irony".--[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 09:00, 21 February 2006 (EST)

Steelviper did contact me in regards to the images, and at the time I had trouble previewing them even though I uploaded them first, that is why there were duplicates. Clerical error. But at least he was man enough to tell me, via email!

:You do not understand how this works: according to our Standards and Conventions, the official way we alert each other of these problems is by posting on BattlestarWiki talk pages, not outside e-mail. Perhaps you are referring to the fact that SteelViper left a message on your own Talk page; this isn't called "e-mail". Moreover, '''I also left a message there''', which included a link to the discussion on THIS page; it is considered rude/redundant to just repeat the same discussion on two sets of Talk pages; instead, it is best to leave links to the primary discussion from the other Talk pages, etc. etc. which is exactly what I did.--[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 09:03, 21 February 2006 (EST)

But you are wrong on the rest of the discussion, "MERV".

Military Police or security personnel ARE the only people who wear black armbands. Starbuck, Cally, Dualla nor Tyrol wear one!
It is my guess that this is to seperate crew from Millitary law personnel in times of incursion or juditial period. The Khaki may be a universal uniform(off duty, planet ops, ect). Non-Coms and recriuts are the main users for this "Dress" code.
Marines wear Black Combat Gear and Black body webbing/armour.

:Again, no; we know very little about Marines, and we don't actually know any of this; as far as we can tell, ALL marines that don't wear Battle Dress Uniforms (Black Combat Gear, capitalized, is not a real term) also have the armband. Either way, it is the subject of much debate, and we haven't actually been able to conclusively figure this out because they feature the Marines so rarely. --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 09:07, 21 February 2006 (EST)

Obviously, I'm dealing with an American intelect with very little Military knowledge. No wonder you lost Veitnam!

Ebay IS a good source, it's just a shame you never thought of it. Its just a matter of where to look. Film footage, in this case, is unreliable, as most of the images are blurred. In reference to your member [[User:Day|Day]], It's official merchandise otherwise EBAY would retract ALL sales of said merchance due to legalities. "DUH!"

:Um....No. Ebay is not a good source; they can sell anything, usually fan made stuff. It is not our policy to use it, plus it wouldn't make sense to use it. If film is blurred...we get a ''sharper image''. No, it is not simply "official merchandise"; besides, the cheap plastic Star Trek pins and insignia you see sold all the time on these are often quite wrong. They're just churning out stuff for us to buy, without regard to accuracy.--[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 09:11, 21 February 2006 (EST)

[[User:Redwall|Redwall]], "Merv" is cocky and rushes headlong into matters that don't concern him. A tactical ploy which doesn't work with me. I've beaten guys like this before, and won! Politeness is something you EARN! In case you haven't noticed, Merovingian is another name for "Librarian". I added the links as a follow up segment, to show what he is describing.

'''Rush in? ''You'' Rushed to my Talk page to accuse me of making image deletions which I in fact did not, and made quite a long tirade about it without checking the facts first, which would reveal that I am not the person that did it. Since ''when'' is responding to a personal attack posted ON MY OWN TALK PAGE considered "matters that don't concern me"?'''--[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 09:13, 21 February 2006 (EST)

"Merv" or should I say '''"Dick Tracy"''', the whole point of the article, is to show the difference between TOS and the Reimagined series. Go ahead, deleate the article, but did you not stop think that I wouldn't back it up on my HD? "Something that is lost can be replaced" is what my old C.O. used to say. This article is no exception. If you are "All-knowing" why didn't y'all see this coming? Unless you plan on breaking into my house (Unlikely), and destroying said articles and images, there's not a fat lot of good you can do!

:...you're really not paying attention. '''For the third time, *I* am not the person that was trying to delete these images, though I supported their deletion after the fact.''' You think we're like, trying to destroy these images at all points in time and space? Of course images still exist on E-bay and stuff. We can just delete it every time you try to add it into BattlestarWiki; and if you do so repeatedly in the face of deletion, such actions will be met with stern measures by the Administrators.--[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 09:16, 21 February 2006 (EST)

Tell you what, Ban me from this site for all I care! You sound like you spend too much time in your basement worriing about fact than what is wrong.

::"[[Wikipedia:Truthiness|Truthiness]]" --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 09:18, 21 February 2006 (EST)

True fans don't worry about this, just hope it makes good TV. If we did, the current "Pegasus" would(or should) have died at "Battle of the Resurrection Ship".

Take this "Site", bend over and shove it! I'll start my own, you dumb yank!

PS Never use the word "Jihad", you never know who is watching!--[[User:Jetstorm316|Jetstorm316]], 21 Febuary 2006.

:Oh I will gladly have you banned; you contributed nothing of value, and have proven to be quite an irresponsible user. I will make sure your request is granted. '''I may be a cruel man, but I am a fair one.''' --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 09:19, 21 February 2006 (EST)

: We've debated the use of the term Jihad already, Jetstorm. We expect people to be watching. If you would follow the above-linked project page to it's Talk, you can see that discussion for your self. I don't feel the need to repeat it here. I don't feel that anything else that's been said since I last posted in this deserves a direct response, so that's all I'll say. --[[User:Day|Day]] 04:51, 22 February 2006 (EST)

Jetstorm, for the love of the Gods, if you want to survive here much longer, I suggest you ''shut the fuck up right now.'' --[[User:Redwall|Redwall]] 08:03, 22 February 2006 (EST)

:Please, Redwall. This will solve nothing. Jetstorm does seem more willing to mellow out, now.--[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 08:33, 22 February 2006 (EST)
::Thank you, Merv. But a Note to Redwall, "Bully boy Tactics" have no effect on me, just makes me stronger! Myself and Merv have settled our "debate" in an honourable way, with much information shared, so we can both learn and grow, to co-exist as it were. I went for a brisk walk to sort myself out. I do regret things were said in the heat of battle and it proved noone really won anything. It made us look like school kids squabbling in a playground over nothing. Regretable, wouldn't you say?--[[user:jetstorm316|jetstorm316]]
::I wasn't trying to be a bully, I was trying to save you from destroying yourself. Your rapid descent appeared to neccessitate drastic action. Just remember that arguing on the Internet is a lot like participating in the Special Olympics: even if you win, you're still an idiot. --[[User:Redwall|Redwall]] 16:43, 22 February 2006 (EST)

== Talk page uniform ==

please refer to the talk page for uniform, sections Dress Uniform RDM and Counterpoints. I do belive you'll find something of valuable notice.--[[user:jetstorm316|jetstorm316]]

== may i use your user page template to do mine, please? ==

thats all.
--dancing_salad 22:12, 22 February 2006 (EST)

Oh you don't need to ask; go right ahead. BTW, you can automatically make a signature by typing four "~" signs in a row. --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 22:38, 22 February 2006 (EST)
:i do, but i dont know why my name isn't linking to my user page --dancing_salad 23:21, 22 February 2006 (EST)

==By the Way==
You can call me Peter. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 01:13, 25 February 2006 (EST)

And please, for god's sake, start editing within section headers. The edit collisions are driving me nuts. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 01:51, 25 February 2006 (EST)

== Re: Downloaded ==

NPOV? Are you serious? BSG molds itself around current events; do you ''honestly'' think Moore was referring to the IRA or Partisans? Did you even listen to what Anders and his other Resistance men were talking about? I also did not make any moral statement with the references, so I don't see what could have offended anybody. Maybe we should remove the "Lest We Forget" reference because it might offend some New Yorkers? I'm liberal, but even I know an obvious reference when it is made. If you get so offended by something that obvious, then that's your problem, not mine. [[User:Kuralyov|Kuralyov]] 01:13, 25 February 2006 (EST)

:I'm sorry, I'm on Merv's side here. Although the Palestinian conflict may be the most salient example of these sort of terrorist tactics, they are in fact the same ones employed by the IRA, and by the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan - basically, all urban terrorism that doesn't distinguish between hard and soft targets is going to look pretty similar. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 01:18, 25 February 2006 (EST)
::Except that the IRA, et al, have no importance to current events, and the US hasn't annexed Iraq or Afghanistan, pushed the residents out, and claimed it as new territory to settle, which was what the Cylons ahve done. [[User:Kuralyov|Kuralyov]] 01:22, 25 February 2006 (EST)

:::Your second point is sound, but I maintain that if we mention the Palestinian conflict, we also have to mention the IRA attacks on civilian Protestants. The situations are too similar to ignore one at the expense of the other. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 01:26, 25 February 2006 (EST)

:::A) We call it "Lest We Forget" because that's it's official name, not a fan one: Ron D. Moore stated that it's name was "[[Lest We Forget]]" in a blog entry. We don't call it that on BSWiki due to our own politics or opinions.
:::B) What about partisan resistance members in Eastern Europe during World War II, fighting against the Germans that has pushed their people out of their homes, etc?
:::C) No, it's a fairly generic "resistance" like any of the past hundred years.
:::--[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 01:30, 25 February 2006 (EST)

== Image Display Problem ==
The image problem appears to be more widespread. I sent Joe an email (as mentioned [[Image talk:PegasusForeBatteries.jpg|here]]). --[[User:Steelviper|Steelviper]] 13:33, 2 March 2006 (CST)

== Welcoming Committee ==
Thanks for taking on some of the welcoming committee responsibilities. I think the new users appreciate it (and Joe probably appreciates not being the only one who does the greeting). I tend to only pick up that job when the new user crosses paths with something I am working on. --[[User:Steelviper|Steelviper]] 14:21, 3 March 2006 (CST)

:I am just a humble servant of this wiki and the information therein, I ask nothing in return. --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 14:47, 3 March 2006 (CST)

== Realistic? ==

It would be good, Merovingian, if, rather than setting your personal preferences and the ideas of people you revere as the standard, you would actually go by what has been established by actual experts in pertinent fields. A mere "No" and "It has been established as realistic" will neither make the world a flat planet nor change the gravitational constant, nor otherwise fiddle with the layout of the universe. If you want to show something to be realistic, or unrealistic, then you can be expected just as much as everyone else to reference such claims. ''Ignoring'' references already provided is particularly bad style. Your personal likes and dislikes are not standards fit for an encyclopedia, neither is your willingness to live with a paradox a sign that it is not, in fact, a paradox. --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 17:12, 3 March 2006 (CST)
:A) The entire concept behind ''Battlesta Galactica'' was that ''Star Trek'' used a lot of [[technobabble]], and BSG would be a move towards realism. Of course, seeing as it is a work of fiction, it's not ''entirely'' accurate, but the POINT is that it is "far more accurate than Star Trek and earlier series".
:B) As you are familiar with many of the more detailed nuances of what is actually, totally "realistic" in the strictest sense, you have jumped on this. "Battlestar Galactica CLAIMS to be accurate? Rubbish!"--but that's really all you've come here to do and you haven't contributed to other things (not that that is a problem, but it shows how focused you are on this). Still, the ENTIRE POINT of the show is "it's much closer to scientific realism than most shows that came before it"....yet you're trying to drag it through the mud and shout that "NO! It is nowhere near accuate!"--->yes, it is a work of fiction, but '''compared to Star Trek and Star Wars''' it is. Further, how many people remember one episode, "The Chase" from TNG over 10 years ago? Further, the Original Star Trek had no such explanation. But I'm going on a tangent here: the point is, if we were to say, call a painting movement "Surrealism", and then a new artistic movement rises up called "Anti-Surrealism" in reaction to it, if a critic were to then say "well, upon close observation which the casual observer would miss, there are still a few non-realistic elements to this painting, for starter's, it's two-dimensional yet representing a three-dimensional object, so of course it's still surreal".....wouldn't such a statement be ''incredbily'' confusing, and not really getting the meaning of what was being done? --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 17:54, 3 March 2006 (CST)

::To start with a tangent first, as you should know by now, I am in the final phase of a doctorate thesis. Theoretically, I could contribute to the translation efforts etc. etc. But with every once in a while at best five minutes to spare, I don't have the ''time'' to write up entire articles. Plus I have limited access to episodes so far. I have, however, corrected or added several minor points both to translations and to other pages.
::What 'was being done' and what was ''intended to be done'' are quite often two very different things. There is a difference between being more realistic on the one hand and shifting the emphasis of where to watch for realism and where to neglect it. There is also a difference between going retro and being more realistic. In the discussion on the "naturalistic" article, a couple of times it was mentioned that "people could connect more". You should recognize that that's not necessarily the same as being realistic. Your last example misses completely that naturalism in the arts actually does apply scientific principles and solid research to represent reality. It is still a representation, but it fits reality as closely as the artist saw possible.
::What I believe is that you think that your interpretation of RDM's stated intentions are what has actually been done. However, while you're perfectly entitled to that opinion, that doesn't hold up for an encyclopedia. RDM is a human being, he can both commit errors of judgment and fail to live up to his intentions. So instead of simply treating ''your interpretation'' of his declarations as holy writ, one should look at what is actually being done. Intent is not action, and interpretation of declared intent is far from actual occurence.
::If you claim something is realistic, then it better be. Otherwise, the claim is not tenable. If you claim something is "more realistic than XYZ", then XYZ better be specified in such a fashion that the claim holds true. And realistic ''is'' defined as closer to scientific fact, not closer to what the average person holds to be true.
::Deleting scientifically correct points all the while claiming closeness to scientific realism does not help the quality NOR the credibility of the encyclopedia at all. You'd do better to admit you have been mistaken than covering up the traces of misjudgment, pretending it never happened. Scientific fact is what it is, and it doesn't care about whether it is on a collision course with your ideas of realism. And if you claim something to be realistic, you can be expected just as everyone else to provide evidence for such claim.
::Your claim I was dragging the show through the mud is dragging it through the mud on your own part. You are neglecting its actual qualities in attempts to hoist it up on a pedestal it cannot mount. "much closer to scientific realism than most shows that came before it" or of "previous shortcomings ''of the scifi genre''" (as opposed to specific individual shows) is not tenable, because there is much more than Star Trek, including plenty of near-future shows which can do without FTL travel etc. It is far, far easier for these to be close to scientific fact because they have less extrapolation to do. There is a host of things that are quite unrealistic, and precisely because I do ''not'' want to trash the series, I don't hang and shred it by a list of such points. However, your being able to live with certain shortcomings is not a standard of fact or evidence. What I ask for is nothing but a)truthfulness and honesty and b)adherence to the same standards demanded from everyone else, namely supporting one's claims with citations. All the more if you are deleting other people's changes. --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 19:52, 3 March 2006 (CST)

User talk:The Merovingian

2006-03-03T23:12:05Z

OliverH.: Realistic?

User talk:Boogaloo

2006-03-03T23:05:55Z

OliverH.:

Hello and welcome to the Battlestar Wiki! Please take a momemnt to view our [[Battlestar Wiki:Standards and Conventions|Standards and Conventions]], which highlights everything you need to know about proper formatting and editing of an article on the Wiki!

Also, I have a question regarding your edits to [[Naturalistic science fiction]] -- you cite that there are billins of potentially life supporting worlds out there, yet you do not cite any proof. I have since removed the comments from that page. In accordance with the [[Battlestar Wiki:Citation Jihad|our citation policy]], any information of this nature really needs to be cited.

Should you have any questions, you are welcome to communicate them at the [[Battlestar Wiki:Wikipedian Quorum|Wikipedian Quorum]] or direct your comments directly at an adminstrator at our [[Battlestar Wiki:Administrators' noticeboard|Administrators' noticeboard]]. Thanks! -- [[User:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|Joe Beaudoin]] 07:46, 3 March 2006 (CST)

:Joe, I believe most pertinent would be the [[Wikipedia:Drake Equation|Drake Equation]]. Also see Drake's newest estimates at http://wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/life.html and the estimate of biogenesis probability at http://www.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0205014 It should be noted that the latter is an actual academic publication published in "Astrobiology" Fall 2002, Vol. 2, Number 2, pp 293-304 --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 08:26, 3 March 2006 (CST)

Battlestar Galactica is far more realistic than Star Trek, which claimed that there are aliens on practically every planet (I mean, Vulcan is Epsilon Eridani and that's a stone's throw from here). Showing that "If there are aliens, they are actually a lot rarer than most tv scifi would have you believe" is quite realistic. --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 13:37, 3 March 2006 (CST)

:Star Trek suggested an artificial deliberate distribution of such life. As such, they clearly acknowledge a non-natural abundance, and even a non-natural design. Under such circumstances, which, taking FTL travel for granted, are perfectly reasonable, standards of natural distribution don't apply. "Most TV scifi" is also an unsuitable standard. Things are quite different whether a series is set around Earth or in a different region of the galaxy altogether, where stars are much more common than in our relatively remote corner. Plus, there's plenty of series with a very limited "supply" of aliens, such as "V" or "Alien Nation", "Space:A&B" etc. let alone stuff such as "Dark Angel" which very much qualifies as SciFi as well. However, the issue is not aliens, but life supporting worlds, and as the data cited above shows, these are believed to be quite abundant. In order to judge what's unrealistic, one has to be familiar with what's realistic first. --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 17:03, 3 March 2006 (CST)

User talk:Boogaloo

2006-03-03T23:03:48Z

OliverH.:

Hello and welcome to the Battlestar Wiki! Please take a momemnt to view our [[Battlestar Wiki:Standards and Conventions|Standards and Conventions]], which highlights everything you need to know about proper formatting and editing of an article on the Wiki!

Also, I have a question regarding your edits to [[Naturalistic science fiction]] -- you cite that there are billins of potentially life supporting worlds out there, yet you do not cite any proof. I have since removed the comments from that page. In accordance with the [[Battlestar Wiki:Citation Jihad|our citation policy]], any information of this nature really needs to be cited.

Should you have any questions, you are welcome to communicate them at the [[Battlestar Wiki:Wikipedian Quorum|Wikipedian Quorum]] or direct your comments directly at an adminstrator at our [[Battlestar Wiki:Administrators' noticeboard|Administrators' noticeboard]]. Thanks! -- [[User:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|Joe Beaudoin]] 07:46, 3 March 2006 (CST)

:Joe, I believe most pertinent would be the [[Wikipedia:Drake Equation|Drake Equation]]. Also see Drake's newest estimates at http://wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/life.html and the estimate of biogenesis probability at http://www.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0205014 It should be noted that the latter is an actual academic publication published in "Astrobiology" Fall 2002, Vol. 2, Number 2, pp 293-304 --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 08:26, 3 March 2006 (CST)

Battlestar Galactica is far more realistic than Star Trek, which claimed that there are aliens on practically every planet (I mean, Vulcan is Epsilon Eridani and that's a stone's throw from here). Showing that "If there are aliens, they are actually a lot rarer than most tv scifi would have you believe" is quite realistic. --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 13:37, 3 March 2006 (CST)

:Star Trek suggested an artificial deliberate distribution of such life. As such, they clearly acknowledge a non-natural abundance, and even a non-natural design. Under such circumstances, which, taking FTL travel for granted, are perfectly reasonable, standards of natural distribution don't apply. "Most TV scifi" is also an unsuitable standard. Things are quite different whether a series is set around Earth or in a different region of the galaxy altogether, where stars are much more common than in our relatively remote corner. Plus, there's plenty of series with a very limited "supply" of aliens, such as "V" or "Alien Nation", "Space:A&B" etc. let alone stuff such as "Dark Angel" which very much qualifies as SciFi as well. However, the issue is not aliens, but life supporting worlds, and as the data cited above shows, these are believed to be quite abundant. --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 17:03, 3 March 2006 (CST)

User talk:Boogaloo

2006-03-03T14:26:09Z

OliverH.:

Talk:Sacred Scrolls/Archive 1

2006-02-26T10:21:03Z

OliverH.: /* Cycle of Time */

Greetings, Jzanjani. I welcome you to the battlestar wiki and want you to know that I appreciate your desire to contribute here. However, your edits to this article baffle me. At present, it has been meticulously arranged to provide the most comprehensive information possible in an objective, well-cited manner with separate sections for interpretation and commentary. If you feel this layout is mistaken, or that there's information which needs to be incuded in this article which we've missed, I would like you to make your case here, on the talk page, before comitting another revision. Thank you for your consideration. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 05:03, 5 October 2005 (EDT)

==On the Format of Character Quotes==

I think we should agree on a standard format for character quotes. If you look up similar pages to this one on other Wiki databases, for example [http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Babylon_5 this one] on Babylon 5, you can see they have a much more attractive quote format. Personally, I find the following quote format to be most attractive:

:"That thing put two rounds into my father's chest!" - ''[[Lee Adama|Captain Lee "Apollo" Adama]], "[[Home, Part I]]"''

or, more directly:

:<tt>Indent, Double Quote, QUOTATION, /Double Quote, dash, italic, NAME, comma, Double Quote, EPISODE, /Double Quote, /italic</tt>

I'm not sure if this comment should be somewhere else, but I think the Sacred Scrolls article in particular could definitely use some cleanup. [[User:Jzanjani|Jzanjani]] 16:08, 5 October 2005 (EDT)

:See [[Battlestar Wiki talk:Standards and Conventions]]. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 17:31, 5 October 2005 (EDT)

:: I would be extatic if you'd post this comment for discussion on the [[Battlestar Wiki:Standards and Conventions|Standards and Conventions]] project page. That's really the best place to discuss such sweeping things.

:: As for using that format here, I don't think it would do for multiple-character exchanges, such as are seen in this article. That format would be fine, though, for, say, the Quote of the Day. That's under discussion at Standards and COnvention, too. --[[User:Day|Day]] 17:34, 5 October 2005 (EDT)

==Cycle of Time==
I'm just a little surprised that folks haven't made a correlation between the whole idea of the "Cycle of Time" and another popular science fiction series--Lexx! From the very first movie of that series, the Time Prophet played an important role. The Time Prophet says that the Universe goes through cycles, repeating itself endlessly. She sees the future, not by looking forward, but by looking back into the distant past to previous cycles (but "not clearly"). At one point, Stanley (the incredible loser who is the "hero" of Lexx) comes across a recording from thousands of years ago that the Time Prophet left for him, telling precisely how to get out of the terrible situation he was in at that moment. Likewise, the Time Prophet told the great warrior Kai that the last of his people would one day overthrow a tyrant (His Divine Shadow), but that he himself would be the last of them to fall, murdered by that same tyrant. Weirdly, that is precisely what happened. She says "Time begins and then time ends, and then time begins once again.
It is happening now, it has happened before, it will surely happen again." Sound kinda familiar? [[User:Zahir|Zahir]] 19:37, 28 January 2006 (EST)

:Actually a lot of shows do that, i.e. Bablyon 5, others, etc. and it's nothing new; Lexx wasn't very original with that.--[[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]] 20:13, 28 January 2006 (EST)

:: The idea of time in eternal cycles certainly is not an original one, as noted in the article. But where was that even hinted at on Babylon 5? Or, for that matter, any other science fiction show? Well, there was a hint of it on Red Dwarf once. Really, I'm curious. [[User:Zahir|Zahir]] 02:16, 29 January 2006 (EST)

:::Good question, Zahir. Time loops notwithstanding (say, in "Star Trek" or "Doctor Who"), I can't remember a SF TV show with a cyclical pattern. I know that "The Matrix" movies have a cyclical pattern (until Neo breaks it by its 6th cycle in "Reloaded."). Ricimer could be talking about Valen/Sinclair and his causality loop ("Babylon Squared" and "War Without End" two-parter). Again, that's a time loop more than a cyclical thing. There is also the Christian belief of Christ and resurrection and return (Catholic eucharistic prayer: "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again"). But still, "Matrix" is the closest to what constitutes a non-temporal repeating pattern. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 18:51, 29 January 2006 (EST)

::::Actually I was referring to Delenn's new age felgercarb and that for millions of years, every 1,000 years (give or take) the Shadows attack the galaxy yet again. --[[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]] 19:17, 29 January 2006 (EST)

:::::That's no "Cycle of Time" in the sense of history repeating itself, though, but rather a singular cyclical event that happens time and again to different people until someone finds a way to end it. The circumstances are quite different every time. It's not any different from solar activity cycles or cyclical weather patterns. --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 05:21, 26 February 2006 (EST)

Barry Garner

2006-02-23T12:14:31Z

OliverH.:

{{Character Data|
|photo= [[Image:Garner.jpg|200px]]
|age=
|colony=
|birthname= Barry Garner
|callsign=
|death= Suffocation while repairing FTL coolant line
|parents=
|siblings=
|children=
|marital status=
|role= Commander, battlestar ''[[Pegasus (RDM)|Pegasus]]''
|rank= Commander
|actor= [http://imdb.com/name/nm0001334 John Heard]
|cylon=
}}

'''Barry Garner''' is the third commanding Colonial officer on [[battlestar]] ''[[Pegasus (RDM)|Pegasus]]'' after the deaths of Admiral [[Helena Cain]] and Colonel [[Jack Fisk]]. Before his promotion, he was the ship's chief engineer ([[The Captain's Hand]]).

As a Commander, Garner does not inspire great confidence and treats his staff rather sternly, as if they are to be 100% consistent in their behavior. [[Kara Thrace|Kara "Starbuck" Thrace]] considers Garner paranoid and barely competent. Garner holds a similar contempt for Thrace, leading him to order her eventual transfer back to ''[[Galactica (RDM)|Galactica]]'', despite her work with the missing Raptors [[Raptor 718|718]] and [[Raptor 314|314]].

Garner's lack of command insight jeopardizes ''Pegasus'' when he takes his battlestar (against [[Admiral Adama]]'s orders) into the binary stellar cloud to recover the missing crews instead of deploying an armed squadron of Raptors.

Realizing his own deadly mistakes when (as Admiral Adama suspected) three Cylon basestars ambush ''Pegasus'', Garner decides to hastily return to aid his old Engineering team to restore the damaged [[FTL]] drive (the ship's only means of escape or success), leaving Major [[Lee Adama]], the acting [[Executive officer|XO]], in command. Garner enters a compartment which is venting to space, sealing the hatch behind him and sealing the coolant leak damaged by the attack. Major Adama's actions severely damage one of the basestars, buying Garner time to fix the leak. Garner's repair allows ''Pegasus's'' "[[snipe]]s" to return the FTL drives to operation and the battlestar to escape a [[Battle of the Binary Star System|hopeless battle]]. However, Garner asphyxiates in the compartment.

The events surrounding Garner's death are reviewed by Lee and William Adama. Major Adama understands that Garner's failure was in treating people as he would a machine.

{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 0.5em auto; border: 1px solid red; font-size:95%;"
|- style="text-align: center;"
|width="30%" align="center" rowspan="{{{rows}}}" | Preceded by: '''[[Jack Fisk]]'''
|width="40%" style="text-align: center;" rowspan="{{{rows}}}" | Commander of the Battlestar ''[[Pegasus (RDM)|Pegasus]]''
|width="30%" align="center" rowspan="{{{rows}}}" | Succeeded by: '''[[Lee Adama]]'''
|-
|}

[[Category: A to Z|Gardner, Barry]] [[Category: Characters|Gardner, Barry]] [[Category: RDM|Gardner, Barry]]

Talk:Jarrell Kief/Archive 1

2006-02-18T12:57:48Z

OliverH.:

Are we certain on this? For all we know, he could be just piloting some ''dead'' Raptor pilot's ship (died in Act of Contrition, perhaps?) etc. I don't know if this is enough to go on. --[[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]] 00:28, 29 December 2005 (EST)
:You'd think by now they would've done the quick five minute stenciling job it takes to write the name (I know it takes longer than that). --[[User:Talos|Talos]] 00:29, 29 December 2005 (EST)

It definitely looks like an "ie", not an "ei" to me. Also, are you sure that last letter's an "r"? It looks like it could be an "f" to me. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 01:00, 29 December 2005 (EST)

:You're right: the "i" does come before the "e" and I can't tell at all if it's an F or a faded R. --[[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]] 01:06, 29 December 2005 (EST)
::The IE thing is a typo on my part. I'll fix it now. On the last letter, it looks like a faded R to me. Compare it to the other R's in his name, the shape looks identical. --[[User:Talos|Talos]] 01:10, 29 December 2005 (EST)

:::I swear, that looks like "Jarrell Kief" to me. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 05:24, 18 February 2006 (EST)

::::Looking at the "F" in "Fuzzy", which has an equally low lower bar, I'd have to agree. Don't like the typeface that much, but at least it helps in discerning the letters ;) --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 07:57, 18 February 2006 (EST)

Talk:Jarrell Kief/Archive 1

2006-02-18T12:46:11Z

OliverH.:

Talk:Water/Archive 1

2006-02-17T13:27:00Z

OliverH.: /* The Lost Water */

==The Lost Water==

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

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

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

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

Podcast:Epiphanies

2006-02-17T12:45:10Z

OliverH.: Plural: Nazis Possessive clause singular: Nazi's

{{podcast|author=Misco}}.

==[http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/mp3/213/bsg_ep213_1of5.mp3 Teaser]==

Hello, my name is [[Ronald D. Moore]] and welcome to the podcast for episode thirteen "[[Epiphanies]]". I'm the executive producer and creator of the- or developer of the new [[Battlestar Galactica (RDM)|Battlestar Galactica]].

"Epiphanies" essentially is our biggest [[Laura Roslin]] show to date. We'd been talking about doing an episode like this since way back in the first season. A lot of the roots of this episode come out of things that were in the backstory of the character ever since the [[miniseries|mini-series]], namely we wanted to deal with things like who she was before the attack, what her life was like and getting a glimpse into what she was like as Secretary of Education before she became [[Government|President]].

Some of the elements in this episode were actually, I think, suggested by [[Mary McDonnell]]. In early conversations with Mary on the script of the mini-series she started talking about [[Richard Adar|President Adar]], there was a line in the mini-series where she said- she was talking about how she got into politics and how she didn't really wanna be a politician but she had worked for Adar and that he was the kind of man that you just couldn't say no to. And Mary took that to mean that he was a [[Wikipedia:Bill_Clinton|Clinton]]-esque figure that you couldn't say no to, and of course being a Clinton-esque figure it also raised the possibilty that perhaps there was something more between the two of them than just the professional relationship. And that stuck in everybody's heads and whenever we would talk about Adar throughout the course of the first season, we always jokingly talked about the fact that she had an affair with him and then it became something more than a joke and we started to seriously consider the possibilty that maybe she had had an affair with the President. And that that would be an interesting insight into the character of Laura Roslin, and I'll talk more about that as we go along.

This opening sequence is meant to convey the notion that she's dying obviously, she's coming into [[Galactica (RDM)|Galactica]] and she's flashing back to what is essentially her last day on [[The Twelve Colonies (RDM)#Caprica|Caprica]]. This is the day that she found out that she had cancer, this is the day of the attack, all this is sort of- all these flashbacks are gonna be things that we never showed you in the mini-series and in fact, in truth, we didn't really think about them during the mini-series. When the mini-series was shot and edited together the implication was that she left directly from the doctor's office that you saw a few moments ago and went out and got on the transport that becomes [[Colonial One]] and then took off. But there's no reason to assume that she didn't have time to do anything else, so as we were constructing this episode it all seemed to be about the last day on Caprica and we went at the episode from that angle and then there was a continuity error that I realised much, much later, that I'll get to later that changed those plans. But the inital impulse was, okay, lets play this sequence as Laura is dying and she's thinking back to the day when it all began, when she learned that she first had cancer and when the Presidency fell on her head and everything began and ended on that particular day.

It seemed right at this point in the life of the series to finally do the episode that really dealt with her illness, that really dealt with the fact that Laura had been diagnosed with terminal breast cancer and that the President was slipping away from us. It had been alluded to all throughout the first season, this season we have been very direct about it, we had said that she wasn't gonna make it, the doctor had given her a very short term- a very short time in which to live and then indeed in the last weeks episode- at the end of the episode you saw her having trouble just getting up and physically walking out of Colonial One after her meeting with [[William Adama|Adama]]. And it just felt like this had been simmering along for a long time and that we had to deal with it at some point, we had to really face the fact, as do all the characters, that Laura had what was a terminal illness and that it had to come to some kind of a head.

==[http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/mp3/213/bsg_ep213_2of5.mp3 Act 1]==

The other story that's very strong in this episode, of course, is the story of the [[Cylons (RDM)|Cylon]] sympathisers and the resistance movement within the fleet. This was an interesting notion that was posited in the writer's room that [[Galactica (RDM)|Galactica]]'s been out on the run for a long time, they've had a lot of people in all these ships and we hadn't played anything that really dealt with various factionalisation among the people or different points of view or people who might have believed for one reason or another that the military was wrong, that they had all been betrayed and that maybe they had made bad decisions, that maybe there was a way for them to get along with their enemy. So we went at this from the approach of- okay, well let's go with a radicalised element of that, of the peace movement as it were and say that, essentially, they're starting to sabotage [[The Fleet (RDM)|the fleet]] itself. Thay're starting to get into places and do things to actively promote an agenda that is designed to force the [[Government|Colonial government]] and the military to stop what they're doing, to stop making this all about war and to try and deal with their enemy, to try to negotiate with them, to try to achieve some kind of peace.

What was interesting to me was, there's- it's so antithetical to this kind of show, to do this story- to make the peaceniks as it were- to make the the [[Demand Peace|peace movement]] the antagonists, to make them the villains. I mean a lot of the show feels very liberal in its output, there's a lot of political statements within the show that deal with the [[Wikipedia:War_on_terror|War on Terror]] that you could take to mean as criticisms of the [[Wikipedia:Right-wing_politics|Right]]. And- but the show is not mean't to be a polemic, the show is not a direct allegory to all the events that take place in the [[Wikipedia:United_states|United States]]. And within the world of Galactica it felt like the people that were advocating a peaceful resolution to the Cylon conflict and were actively trying to stop the military from achieving that goal would be the antagonists and it was interesting to spin the expectations of the show and the political structure of the show in such a way that I think I you come out of this episode wondering, what is the point of view of the show, what is the show really trying to say, what does it think in terms of its politics? And the answer is, the show is fairly agnostic, the show occasionally tilts you in one direction or another but overall the show is meant to make you think, it is meant to make you question things, it's meant to keep you off-balance and unsettled more than anything else and this is a good example of playing different political parts of the spectrum throughout this episode.

And finally we get to meet [[Richard Adar|President Adar]]. It's surprising how little things like that giant seal behind the President's desk quickly and easily convey the notion of this being the equivalent of the [[Wikipedia:Oval_office|Oval Office]]. That you didn't need a big matte shot, for instance, of the President's grand palace or whatever, he's just come in the room, there's the big seal, here's the man, it reads much, much quicker than a lot of belaboured set-up to who the guy is and what he's doing.

Again, you can see that [[Laura Roslin|Laura's]] in the same outfit that she wore on the day of the [[miniseries|mini-series]] and that we're all kinda playing in that same key, that we're- all the flashbacks were originaly meant to be on the same day.

Now, this whole notion, was always in the original story; that Laura, as she approches the end of her life, was realising that she had to make certain decisions now because she was going to be gone and that whatever they were left with- whatever she left them in the fleet with after she was dead was gonna be what they'd have to live with. And Laura's decision here to abort the Cylon baby is a pretty tough decision but I think she felt, rightly so, that she could not leave this decision in the hands of President [[Gaius Baltar]] and so she just moved to the end. She's realised, 'Time is short, I've gotta make this call, I won't take the risk, I'm gonna do this while I still can'. It's a tough-minded decision, it's certainly in line with all the other decisions that Laura has made and I think it speaks to the larger character movement of Laura Roslin since we saw her in the mini-series; that she was the Secretary of Education, a somewhat apolitical job if anything at that level can ever be apolitical, and yet she was then thrust into this position where she had literally the fate of the human race on her shoulders. And I always thought that that experience of taking a person who had never had ambitions to become President, who had no greater ambitions on power, who had a series of fairly safe beliefs, a fairly locked in political ideology of her own that we assume is something along the liberal end of the spectrum, put her into the Presidency, put all these decisions on her desk and force her to deal with the consequences of her actions and say, 'Oh by the way if you make a mistake the entire human race might be wiped out'. That that would change that person and that that person would start to make tougher and tougher decisions and some of those decisions might be questionable and she might start making choices that she would have been appalled at only a short times before. And certainly just aborting this child is one of them but it's a logical extension of where she's been, once she starts chucking people out of airlocks because she's decided that that's how you deal with Cylons, this is simply the next step along that road.

That's one of the nicer transitions that [[IMDB:nm0362738|Rod Hardy]] came up with to suddenly posit; here's [[Number Six|Six]]. You'll notice that there's a little line here about a few weeks have passed, he hasn't seen her since- one of the things we were dealing with in the aftermath of the [[Pegasus (episode)|Pegasus]] / Resurrection trilogy, was he connects with [[Gina]] over on [[Pegasus (RDM)|''Pegasus'']] and then there was a draft of the script of Resurrection Ship where as he embraced Gina- something we ultimately didn't do- but he was going to embrace Gina at the end of that scene and Six was going to literally vanish in front of our eyes- something we've never done, she always disappears and appears in the cuts. And we were going to have her literally disappear and she was going to stay away from Baltar, she was not going to appear to him for many- several episodes and what happened is, as we got into breaking those stories and working on those subsequent scripts frankly I found Baltar less interesting without Six. She was such a part of his psychological make-up, the two characters were so firmly entrenched in my mind, and in the audience's mind I believe, that it was awkward and strange to write a Baltar without a Six. Even though you had Gina right in front of him, even though she was a living breathing... well, Cylon, but she was a person in all but name. Even with her right in front of him you missed, I missed, this interaction, the imp on his shoulder, the demon that tortures him and loves him alternately and so much of his psychology was wrapped up in her that we just decided it wasn't really working very well and so we went back in and put Six back into these episodes. But there was some awkwardness, I mean we'd set certain things in motion with Gina that then had to be moved over to the side, and then this little sequence of her appearing to him and hadn't seen him- establishing he hadn't seen her in a while was something that had to be slipped into dialogue at the last moment. This too is a nice little transition that Rod came up with, to leave him holding his own tie in front of people in the corridor and James does such great work with that sort of stuff.

This is a nice, powerful, very small scene of [[William Adama|Adama]] telling [[Karl Agathon|Helo]] that his child is going to be aborted but it has one of my favorite moments, in the season actually- is a very small beat coming up here, there's a beat where at the end of the sequence you'll see that Adama says, 'Dismissed' and Helo, for just a moment, brings himself up to attention and you can see the look on his face transitions from anger and rebellion into respect and then he moves out. And it's not grudging respect and it's not arrogant and it's not all, 'I'll see you in hell Adama', it's just- it's honest and it's a very subtle thing that the actor pulls off here and I just wanted to draw it to your attention. Because it's little textures and pieces like that that really flesh out all these characters in ways that you can't really anticipate on the page and you would fail if you tried and you really are relying on the actor's instincts and it's right here- well not quite here. You see the anger and emotion on his face, spits that in Adama's face, 'Dismissed', comes to attention, honest respect, walks out the door. That's great, that is a great, great moment.

Now we're into the whole- the plot about the sabotage, it's happening. Some of the inspiration for this comes out of things in [[Wikipedia:World_War_Two|World War Two]] and other conflicts where there were- there was forced labour that the [[Wikipedia:Nazi|Nazis]] used during the Second World War and there were people who working within the ammunition factories of [[Wikipedia:Nazi_germany|Nazi Germany]] that managed to sabotage shells and managed to do things that would not get caught in the manufacturing process that then, ultimately, would blow up on the battlefield much, much later.

This is an interesting thing, this is a behind-the-scenes sort of shot as it were; where did they get their ammunition from? Well they must be making it somewhere and this is where they make it. There was a lot of discussion on a technical level about what are the bullets that we shoot out? Do they have powder? Are they rail guns? A lot of that got tedius and difficult to deal with because we kept wanting to make this work and we opted to not talk about it directly. The visual, where he breaks open that shell casing in the earlier part, it leads you to believe that they're traditional powder and lead projectiles, we never talk about it, you are free to believe what you wanna believe about the weapons of Galactica and how they work. Which I think is always the better way to go; to preserve the dramatic aspects of the scenes and move the tech stuff off-camera as best you can.

Talk:Naturalistic science fiction/Archive 1

2006-02-14T17:37:58Z

OliverH.: /* NPOV Request */

Talk:Naturalistic science fiction/Archive 1

2006-02-14T01:10:00Z

OliverH.: /* NPOV Request */

Talk:Naturalistic science fiction/Archive 1

2006-02-14T01:08:51Z

OliverH.: /* NPOV Request */

Talk:Naturalistic science fiction/Archive 1

2006-02-13T20:49:02Z

OliverH.: Major concerns about this article

Ok, folks, I see some major problems with this article:
*A lot of it reads like it's the purpose of this site to bash Star Trek
*Some of it is quite simply false:
::In StarTrek, energy is ''not'' provided by "inexhaustible dylithium". Rather, the dilithium crystals serve as a matrix for a controlled matter/antimatter reaction, similar to moderators in a nuclear fission power plant (cf. http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/library/technology/article/2743.html ) As such, not being the fuel, they don't need to be exchanged beyond wear and tear. And matter/antimatter reaction is a very feasible energy source for huge amounts of energy. In fact, I doubt it is possible to get a higher efficiency. Compared to that, it is Tylium that is sheer fantasy.

::Photon torpedos, while glowing in animation, aren't "energy weapons" other than in having a matter/antimatter warhead. They are very solid vehicles.

::etc.

*Guns'n'bullets are very good weapons on a planet. In space, they have their uses, too, but they also have their limitations. Due to the immense speed theoretically possible in space and the relatively small speed of bullets compared to these, the useful range of regular projectile weapons is quite limited. At greater distance, psychic qualities would be necessary to predict where the target will be once the bullet is there. While energy weapons have issues of focussing, those aren't insurpassable. On the other hand, they have, in the case of a laser, speed of light, and in the case of a particle accelerator, close to that, meaning they can bridge even large distances in relatively short time. None of that is "fantasy", as the article suggests, but rather technology that exists today which requires miniaturization. So guns and bullets are quite ok as point defense weapons in space, but for anything further away, either guided weapons or weapons achieving a speed that is a significant fraction of the speed of light are necessary. One tends to think of huge vessels such as Galactica or a Cylon basestar as slow. But give them enough time to accelerate, and they can be whizzing by at several miles per second.

*While a lot of the stuff mentioned in the text might be RDM's intention, the question is how much it fulfills the claims raised. While obviously, there should be a place on this site to cite RDM, I believe that the individual articles of a Wiki should be a source of information were the creator's views are but one source of information. RDM's take is already provided with the link to Galactica2003.net and while it should be summarized here, I don't think it should be taken as holy writ.

The jetliner in space and other things might feel "naturalistic", but that doesn't mean it's a sound concept. The "plausible technical accuracy" in the "in theory" paragraph is a bold hypothesis. However, to me the setup honestly looks more like "doing soft SF with the bad stuff left out". And the "no deus ex machina" concept needs to be looked askance at vis-a-vis the cancer cure as well.

The ''stories'' Galactica has to tell are great, but I personally believe that as a consequence of RDM not wanting to "tie himself down" dramatically, what is lacking is a solid concept of the level of technology. A lot of things might look perfectly feasible when seen isolated, but on an overall level, I believe putting FTL (or quasi-FTL) and anti-gravity together with a lot of 20th and 21st century technology, and in some aspects apparently even less, RDM actually backpedaled to a lot of early SF, which had FTL travel because it was dramaturgically necessary, and some development in the physics department such as beam weapons, but lacked any development in biology. Likewise, BG shows technologies that suggest availability of humongous amounts of energy but shows little other use than one or two applications. This gives a discontinous impression of the technological level.

So, theoretically, my concerns would require a complete rewrite of the text, which is why I rather voiced them here before changing something. I believe, though, the false information re:StarTrek should be thrown out posthaste, since it weakens any other points. --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 15:49, 13 February 2006 (EST)

User:OliverH.

2006-02-11T17:06:49Z

OliverH.:

Name: Oliver H. (no, really!)

Age: 33

Work: [http://www.mpi-dortmund.mpg.de here]

Employer: [[wikipedia:Max Planck Society|Max Planck Society]]

User:OliverH.

2006-02-11T17:05:47Z

OliverH.:

Name: Oliver H. (no, really!)

Age: 33

Work: [http://www.mpi-dortmund.mpg.de here]

Employer: [[wikipedia:Max-Planck-Society|Max-Planck-Society]]

User:OliverH.

2006-02-11T17:05:29Z

OliverH.:

Name: Oliver H. (no, really!)

Age: 33

Work: [http://www.mpi-dortmund.mpg.de here]

Employer: [[wikipedia:Max-Planck-Society:Max-Planck-Society]]

User:OliverH.

2006-02-11T16:41:39Z

OliverH.:

Name: Oliver H. (no, really!)

Age: 33

Work: [http://www.mpi-dortmund.mpg.de here]

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

2006-02-11T11:22:32Z

OliverH.: /* The Cancer Cure of Laura Roslin */

For an archived earlier discussion thread prior to February 8, 2006, [http://www.battlestarwiki.org/en/index.php?title=Talk:Science_in_the_Re-imagined_Series&oldid=30324 click here.]

==Artificial Gravity==
Be careful not to confuse Naturalistic SF with Hard SF. They have little to do with one another. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 15:09, 9 December 2005 (EST)
:Of course, in fact, they are quite opposite, but NSF takes a few elements from hard SF, though not in the extreme that hard SF defines itself. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 16:18, 9 December 2005 (EST)
Another wrinkle in the whole artificial gravity can of worms: The ability to manipulate gravity fields opens the door to many other technologies, too. For example, a rudimentary tractor beam could be constructed by using your artificial gravity field to pull objects toward your ship. The reverse is probably possible -- using it to repel objects and projectiles for a sort of a deflector shield. Since the Colonials have none of these abilities and yet have apparently had artificial gravity for a long time (before the contruction of the Galactica), it stands to reason that whatever means they use to generate gravity is severely limited. --[[User:Zeratul|Zeratul]] 11:45, 8 February 2006 (EST)
::Welcome to the Wiki, Zeratul. I agree; this limits whatever they use to gravity simulators rather than generators, given their power limitations and storyline limits. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 13:06, 8 February 2006 (EST)
:::Thanks for the welcome, Spencerian. Long time reader first time contributor here. :) Another thing to consider is that whatever they use for gravity continues to work even when main power and control is lost, as in [[Valley of Darkness]]. Likely it would have a separate power source and controls as the life support systems do, meaning it's either passive or doesn't require much power to operate.
:::It's difficult to see, but in the miniseries the doomed botanical freighter seems to have domes on both the top and bottom of the ship, which would imply they have the ability to maintain several different gravitational vectors within a ship.
:::Another good reference would be Boomer's raptor in the miniseries, when she powers it down for the approach to Caprica. I think they were strapped in at the time though, so the gravity may or may not have been shut off.
:::I suspect, though, that this is something that will never really be explained but rather remain a plot-driven convenience. --[[User:Zeratul|Zeratul]] 14:29, 8 February 2006 (EST)

==Sublight vs. FTL==
The fact that Colonial One, an FTL-capable ship, made its way from Caprica to Galactica at Sublight tells us something else - 5.5 hours of engine burn consume less energy than a hyperspace jump to cover the same distance. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 01:58, 11 December 2005 (EST)

:Not necessarily. Two reasons why--first, FTL might not have been an option: either it was illegal, seen as too dangerous for travel within a system, deemed too uncomfortable for passengers, or pilots simply weren't trained to calculate a jump, any of which are potentially valid given Tigh's comment that it had been 20 years since a jump. Of course, that may raise a question as to why the drive was installed in the first place. (Regulations? Holdover from the first war?) Secondly, it seems unrealistic that it would take more energy to jump that small distance than to burn the fuel because the entire fleet can jump like 230 times in a row ([[33]]) without any refueling problems or the like. [[User:Drumstick|Drumstick]] 21:19, 30 December 2005 (EST)

:I think that FTL flight is generally quite disconcerting to passengers, judging from Cally's take on it when we see ''Galactica'' make its first Jump in the Miniseries. So, sublight is preferable in most instances. I cannot determine from any episodes whether the fuel consumption is more or less when going at sublight over FTL. The comfort level is the most likely reason. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 10:52, 1 January 2006 (EST)

==Nukes==
If the energy density of [[Tylium]] is so much greater than fissile materials and has the added benefit of producing no fallout, and requiring no sophisticated trigger mechanism, why do the Colonials use nuclear warheads on their missiles rather than tylium bombs? Nuclear fallout has desirable side effects against organic targets, which explains Cylon use thereof, but what advantage does it offer human forces?

:(Obviously, in real life it's a question of storytelling:
:"For instance, in the Galactica mini-series, when the Cylons attack the colonists, they attack them with thermonuclear weapons. They don't attack them with lasers and photon torpedoes, and strange things that don't exist.
:"When you see a planet nuked, and you see those mushroom clouds, and hear about the destruction of entire cities by nuclear weapons, that is a much more terrifying and frightening idea than if you're saying fifteen thousand photon torpedoes were launched at Caprica. One is real and one is not." [http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/news/cult/2004/02/20/9599.shtml]
:"There would not be 'photon torpedoes' but instead nuclear missiles, because nukes are real and thus are frightening." [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/magazine/17GALACTICA.html]
:"We use nukes. And these days, that’s truly scary. You use photon torpedoes and the audience goes 'oh, okay. shrug.'" [http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA513174.html?display=Top+Stories]) --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 02:09, 11 December 2005 (EST)

:Nukes have the desireable side effect of creating an electromagnetic pulse which disrupts all (currently) known forms of electronics. --[[User:Durandal|Durandal]] 02:41, 8 January 2006 (EST)
: And a side note, now that I think of it. Considering the supposed rarity of tylium, Nukes are also much easier to produce and much less of a waste of a valuable resource. [[User:Durandal|Durandal]] 13:12, 8 January 2006 (EST)

::You hit the nail on the head, Durandal. If you can, work up what you just said and add it to the article! --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 13:15, 8 January 2006 (EST)

::: Does not really fit in this article, whithout generating a new section for such a point. If anyone has a better idea for placement, I'm all ears. [[User:Durandal|Durandal]] 13:25, 8 January 2006 (EST)

:My own thoughts on the subject are A) Tylium is somewhat rare so it is difficult to mass produce nuclear warheads, but more importantly B) Baltar said that detonating a nuclear warhead near Tylium would "render it inert", not create a chain reaction. I think that Tylium must be "reactive/unstable" enough that it's a good fuel source (moreso than just Plutonium), however, it probably has the chemical property that it is very difficult to produce an explosive uncontrollable chain reaction with it. --[[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]] 18:13, 8 January 2006 (EST)

::That would disagree with the extremely large tylium explosion seen at the end of "The Hand of God". I prefer Durandal's explanation. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 18:24, 8 January 2006 (EST)

:::In Ricimer's defense, the explosion was caused by the precursor, the refined but unprocessed component that forms the fuel later. Precursor is more unstable or explosive than the fuel. There are chemicals throughout the Periodic Table that release tremendous energies, more so than plutonium. The problem is the process of controlling it. Else, hydrogen would be our fuel of choice for everything: common, cheap, and leaves a benign by-product. For the Colonies, tylium was their answer. I disagree that tylium is rare, although I think it is hard to find; the Fleet's luck in finding one rock of it also implies that a little tylium goes an awfully long way, but mining and processing it is a real bitch. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 18:40, 8 January 2006 (EST)

== Landings & Gravity ==

Unless I am completely mistaken, aside from whatever may be the 'standard' artifical gravity source aboard Galactica, it is explicitly stated that the actual landing pads in the flight pods rely upon magnitism to hold craft in place en route to the hanger.
:"Viper Four-five-zero, skids down, mag-lock secure." (Kelly to Apollo upon touchdown aproximately 22 minutes into the miniseries)
[[User:Durandal|Durandal]] 02:56, 8 January 2006 (EST)

:Correct. On the flight deck, magnetism is used to secure landing Vipers. But in the hangar deck and manned areas of the ship, something else is used, since the humans (and many other virtually non-magnetic items in CIC and elsewhere) are kept from floating. It's an unexplained conumdrum that right now is just a writing convenience. If the article appears to be vague in that topic, do modify it. I created and generated much of this article, and sometimes I can get too wordy and the point gets muddled. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 13:19, 8 January 2006 (EST)

:: I actually wrote this bit in response to note 2, which states it as a possibility as opposed to cannon-fact. I'm not quite sure HOW to rewrite it, unfortunately... [[User:Durandal|Durandal]] 13:23, 8 January 2006 (EST)

== Expensive claim... ==

I find the recent expense claim [[Battlestar Wiki:Citation Jihad|uncitable]] at best. There's absolutely no indication either way that financial expense played into utilizing FTL Jump technology in BSG. Therefore, unless we can get someone to point out where this info came from, I vote for its removal. Also, just because ''Galactica'' didn't perform a jump in 20 years doesn't really mean that it is normal for Colonail ships (military or otherwise) to rely on sublight travel alone. -- [[User:Joe.Beaudoin|Joe Beaudoin]] 23:15, 1 February 2006 (EST)

:I read it differently - the statement seems to infer expense from the fact that FTL travel is not used frequently, not vice-versa. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 23:23, 1 February 2006 (EST)

::I think they just didn't do it, because why risk the (albeit very very small) safety concerns of warping through space? (a wrong calculation and we could wind up in the sun", etc.) Remember, they really have FTL drive for two reasons: 1) It's a holdover from the Exodus (''theory'' but not established fact and frankly I don't believe that), 2) they do have a "sphere of influence" beyond the 12 Colonies, not full-fledged other planets, just mining-camp colonies like Troy. So that's why they put in FTL; plus it's good to have instantaneous travel. --[[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]] 23:50, 1 February 2006 (EST)

::: It would be logical to assume that, with so many ships "up in the air", as it were, Jumping into another ship or even trade route may be a concern. I don't fully agree with the "holdover from the Exodus" theory either and it seems likely that FTL technology was put into place as a means of instantaneous transportation during wartime. (Imagine jumping out of harms way instead of fleeing from the enemy at sublight speeds; in fact, this is quite similar to ''Farscape'' and the Leviathan's ability to starburst.) -- [[User:Joe.Beaudoin|Joe Beaudoin]] 09:52, 2 February 2006 (EST)

:I think the current reasons are sufficient enough; there doesn't necessarily need to be a separate bullet point about "expense," especially because it is so vague and unexplained. Is it the cost of buying fuel that's expensive? Probably not, based on what we've seen so far in terms of tylium consumption. They seem to jump quite a bit and don't need to refuel very often. (Basically, just in Hand of God, and that's after jumping constantly for weeks. I mean, they could have been distributing Galactica's tylium to the other ships, but if Galactica has ''that'' much, it can't be that exorbitant of a fuel source, particularly so in peacetime when the ships were first loaded.) Is it wear and tear on the ship that costs money to fix? Maybe, but for the fleet to have lasted this long without any ships breaking down undercuts that theory. I mean, how else do you define expense? I'm not missing something here, am I? --[[User:Drumstick|Drumstick]] 02:19, 2 February 2006 (EST)

==The Cancer Cure of Laura Roslin==

One possibility we may want to consider is that of the Humano-Cylons being party based on nanotechnology. If the Cylons have nanobots in their blood, it would explain the selective destruction of cancer cells, and the quick repair of normal cells, and how such a small amount could completely cure the disease. Additionally, a Cylon-Human hybrid would have nanobots less likely to reject a normal human's system.

It would also explain the seeming contradiction in the Humano-Cylon's nature -- that they are close enough to human that even an autoposy cannot tell them apart, and yet somehow machine enough to upload their memories and consciousness.

Though this is my personal favorite theory, there's absolutely no canonical basis for it. --[[User:zeratul|zeratul]]

:It seems that the stem cell theory was the "answer" to this, as stated in the article, now with RDM voicing in on the original explanation that was edited away or revised before filming because it was too technical. Further, your theory conflicts with the established point that Cylon and human physiology is practically identical in appearance and function down to the cellular level, implying that nanotechnology would be identifiable medically. This is supported as well since, unless such nanotech is masked to work with human physiology, Roslin's body would have an autoimmune reaction, fighting off the fetal blood like in an Rh factor reaction. Aside from the established effects of the fetal blood used, only Baltar's [[Cylon detector]] can accurately discern Cylon from human. Funny, I just listened today to an article on National Public Radio that says that fetal stem cells "leak" from the placenta of each baby (born or unborn) into the mother's body, which become an "elite" (but small) force of cells that aid in protecting or repairing damage or disease in the mother for years, according to early research. I ''have'' to get that link to this article--it is very ''apropos'' here. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 13:17, 8 February 2006 (EST)
::Yes, I agree with you that the stem cells are the official explanation. I'm not sure if I buy it, however, as real-life stem cells can't spontaneously cure something as complex as cancer just by injecting them. Baltar's been wrong before. Yes, yes, genetically engineered Cylons are a possibility (but wouldn't that be easily detectable at the Colonials' current level of technology?). I guess for now we'll have to write it off as a "magical" effect of hybrids... Sigh :)
::If the nanomachines were small enough they wouldn't be visible even under a microscope (haven't seen an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanning_electron_microscope SEM] on the show yet), and could probably be designed to not show up to chemical tests as well -- especially if they were programmed to actively mask themselves. Again, probably not what they'll go with, just a theory I've been kicking around. --[[User:Zeratul|Zeratul]] 14:43, 8 February 2006 (EST)

With the caveat that I haven't seen the episode yet:why would Roslin's body have an autoimmune reaction when nanotechnology is used? In any case, the stem cell theory doesn't work. If Roslin indeed was at death's door, the damage to the healthy tissue is too great for stem cells to repair that in the necessary time frame. Protein needs to by synthesized, cells need to divide, etc. Plus, while stem cells can theoretically be used to create any organ, they still need the programming, which is not given in an adult body. They can be programmed in vitro, but they won't just form a liver if you inject them into the liver -the hormone gradients that existed during embryogenesis don't exist anymore, likewise the angiogenetic factors aren't around that would cause the cells to be supplied with the necessary nutrients. Although, ironically, the tumor might have spilled enough of those. And even if you get the cells to grow in the right places, you'd have to get them to stop growing as well, otherwise you've just replaced one cancer with another etc. etc... I think the cancer cure is just as much dramatic license as the "cylon and human physiology being identical". Given the silica pathways and the computer connectivity, there are quite obvious differences. I think that RDM did well to cut out the science since it is meaningless to the layperson and would likely have resulted in rolling eyes with people with expertise in the field. It is a contrived plot device, and trying to explain it away is likely to be futile. --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 15:18, 8 February 2006 (EST)

As an added point, I consider the issue with fetal cells as repairmen in the mother to be heavily overstated in the article here. The NPR contribution merely lists it as a hypothesis. There is no "appear", and there is several problems with at least the written part of the NPR contribution: It suggests that the fetal cells "could behave" as stem cells. However, there's more cells in a fetus than just stem cells, and in any case, at this stage, the cells aren't totipotent, i.e. capable of making ANYthing anymore, they have already diversified. It takes early embryonic stem cells for totipotency. I am also sceptical as far as these cells remaining "for life" goes: They'd be good candidates as a cancer ''cause'' rather than cure if they do. The other point is, as I tried to explain above, that these cells turn into specific tissue not just as an execution of an internal program, but as a response to external stimuli, such as hormones secreted by other cells in the vicinity. --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 15:36, 8 February 2006 (EST)

:True, Oliver, the NPR article is actually educated speculation (hypothesis at best). As someone whose medical/biology experience is that of a layman, I welcome you, both to the wiki, as well as to improve in the scientific explanations on this page. Interesting stuff you noted there. We know, of course, that this is all dramatic license, but for writers to go the extra mile and make an attempt to base the cure on some credible level of scientific theorem on the topic (unlike *cough*Star Trek*cough*some shows I know) is a notable thing. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 16:31, 8 February 2006 (EST)

::Well, at least StarTrek made SOME good choices about their technobabble: Knowing fully well that any prediction on computer power and storage capacity would likely be outdated even before the end of the series, they invented totally fictious parameters. Likewise with many other things. While this still leaves the opportunity to violate basic laws of physics, at least it prevents the "no way it could work that way" effect. There's a reason people study for science, and a reason scientists specialize: It's such a vast field that it's practically impossible to know one's way around everything. So a writer has the choice between winging it or hiring a huge staff of scientists and engineers who give him some well-founded speculation on how things could possibly be explained. That ain't gonna fly, obviously, so one way or the other of winging it will have to do for most productions. Now of course a writer can pick up the latest newspaper articles he read and implement them, but the problem is that most newspaper articles on scientific issues aren't precisely written by people with a grasp of the field either. What's worse, even most scientists don't really concern themselves with the theoretic bases of a solid standard of evidence. Alas, this is especially true in the medical field, where people who went to med school do a lot of research while, unlike people who studied sciences, they could grab little scientific theory at least implicitly. Or, to point at something that bugs folks like me quite regularly: If an M.D. has one patient who shows strange symptoms or responds to an unusualy therapy, he happily submits a publication that goes by the type "case report". If, say, a molecular biologist in the biomedical field hears of such an incident, he will at first glance attribute it to a combination of factors valid for that patient only and dismiss it as anecdotal until he hears of a significant number of cases showing some specific pattern and statistical relevance. Which is why especially in this field, going by mainstream press publications is like tangoing through a minefield. If you comb the literature with fine enough a comb, you will come across plenty of "miracle" cases. However, hold a magnifying glass of stringent scientific standards of evidence at them and they go up in hot air. (Background: I'm currently on the last lap of a Ph.D. in the cancer research field, working on new diagnostic methods.) --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 19:29, 8 February 2006 (EST)

::No, it is ridiculous to say that Star Trek handled technobabble well. That's why we call it technobabble. OTHER than that one point: they realized that computer power would increase so exponentionally by the 24th century that they just made up non-real units ("kiloquads", etc). '''Otherwise, it was laughable. Listen to RDM''' when he's talking about how Levar Burton seemed kind of good at spouting it off in season 1, so they just gave ''all of it to him''. Now, to understand my reaction, I actually watch TNG repeats pretty much every other day. Just finished watching the end of "A Matter of Perspective"; yikes. Crazy technobabble (well, the signal bounced off of some mirrors, but it was so powerful, that when reversed it must have acted like a laser beam" etc. etc.)--[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 23:36, 8 February 2006 (EST)

:::Please cite where I said that Star Trek handled technobabble well. You will have difficulties doing so. I suggest you stop just slamming everything you don't like and stick to the facts. The simple fact that you don't like a solution doesn't make it "technobabble" per se, nor does taking any odd scientific hypothesis as truth make something good drama. If you get stomach cramps watching TNG, why do you watch it 'every other day'? --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 03:06, 9 February 2006 (EST)

::::"Well, at least StarTrek made SOME good choices about their technobabble" seems to heavily imply this position. And it's the only thing on.--[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 03:18, 9 February 2006 (EST)

:Humanoid Cylon physiology does not contain "nanomachines"; human cells are also machines, if bio-chemical ones. What the Cylons appear to have done is to have artificially developed the genetic code for an artificial organism which is mostly like humans, but has had certain "upgrades" to it's DNA. I've seen nothing to even come close to speculation that they use "nanomachiens"; this verges into Star Trek ''Borg, Seven of Nine-esque'' [[technobabble]], (shudder). And...no, wait...(''shudder''). Sorry, lots of bad memories. Well, It's just needlessly complicated for this show and I don't think they'd stoop to that level. --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 16:42, 8 February 2006 (EST)
::Well, the thing is, it's a huge difference whether it's a biochemical machine or not. The human immune system is very efficient in fighting foreign "biochemical machines" in that it can recognize proteins that aren't part of the body. We know that some nonbiological materials such as graphite or teflon can also trigger an immune response, but this can easily be avoided by using different material. In an ideal scenario (not given here), nanorobots could even simply be coated with "self" proteins and be waved through by the immune system. There's a whole lot of literature on nanomedicine prospects at http://www.nanomedicine.com/index.htm including entire books for free, or, for the less ambitious, the FAQ at http://www.foresight.org/Nanomedicine/NanoMedFAQ.html. And frankly, as a molecular biologist, I shudder at "upgrades" to DNA. A system that can give us everything from archaeobacteria to humans has already demonstrated that it is extremely flexible and yet efficient. I have a bit of an impression that "technobabble" is whatever solution one doesn't like ;) --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 19:29, 8 February 2006 (EST)
:::And, as a genetics major, I can tell you that quite a lot can be done with DNA; right now it's like flying a plane in the first decade of the 20th century; not impossible, but very hard. However, that doesn't mean that ''in theory'', such advances are impossible. Given enought time it could be done. '''Further''', you didn't really address the question. You just meandered around spouting off a lot of information on "nanomachines" without really explaining their practicality or applicability to this situation. And "a system already demonstreated this it is extremely flexible and efficient"....er, this isn't a rebutal. You just made a long sentence stating that "yup, that's DNA for ya", but that specific sentence doesn't actually address the issue of nanomchines, genetic engineering, etc. at all. Please get back on topic. We are not fooled by lots of information being thrown at us and can tell when it lacks actual substance. --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 23:41, 8 February 2006 (EST)

:::: *sigh* I should have posted when I first read this, but figured everyone else could see what was going on. Apparently not. RiciMerovingian, please calm a moment. I think you jumped to the worst possible conclusion, rather than giving the benefit of the doubt. What I read as having occured is that Oliver misunderstood the statement about "updates to DNA" as meaning that the fundamental nature of DNA had been upgraded. I don't think he was intentionally obfuscating the topic with terminology that might be over a layman's head in order to "win". I think he was just confused.

:::: Anyway, what was actually meant, as ''I'' read it, was that the DNA that makes one human has been altered in Cylons to have certain upgrades, not that they have better DNA (such that it is not, really, DNA), but that their DNA is almost human, except enccoded to be, say, more resiliant to diseases, quicker healing in the case of physical damage and (as an example of an "upgrade" I'd personally skip, if I were them) unable to procreate. '''Anyway''', hopefully now everyone sees where we got off track, we can put unpleasantness behind and backup to where we were still on topic. --[[User:Day|Day]] 00:28, 9 February 2006 (EST)

:::::Day, the problem is that if their genes were in some way "better" as in more efficient etc. this could be easily discerned with 20th century level technology and could only go so far before the organism is not compatible with human organisms anymore as in clearly being recognized as foreign by the immune system and possibly even incompatible for procreation. In any case, it would also mean that physiology is far from identical. --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 03:06, 9 February 2006 (EST)

::::Merovingian, I realize you didn't like what I said, but claiming that my statements lacked substance when in fact, I made specific arguments and referenced them is quite off. I very much addressed the issue: You stated "human cells are also machines", implying that nanomachines would have no significantly different properties, which is plain false. I also explained further up why stem cells are not viable as an explanation. I never actually said that nanomachines are, in fact pointing out that the event was pure dramatic license. I simply rebutted the objections about nanomachines. As for lacking substance, ''as a genetics major, I can tell you that quite a lot can be done with DNA; right now it's like flying a plane in the first decade of the 20th century; not impossible, but very hard'' is devoid of any. It's simply a claim "I know better", without stating what it actually is you think you know nor whether it is actually supported by anyone else. Genetic engineering is no "upgrade of DNA". I suggest you decide what your concrete arguments are and support them and live with the fact that while you may not like the concept of nanomachines, it is far from technobabble. --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 03:06, 9 February 2006 (EST)

:::::So called OliverH: A) No, you just threw around a lot of jargon, but after reading your penultimate entry, I realized you hadn't said anything of actual substance.
:::::B) I will ''elaborate'': When I say "The human cell is also a machine", this in NO WAY implies agreement with "nanomachines", as you state above. Some people (viewers who don't watch scifi or know even basic biology; not us) are stuck on the fact that "Cylons are machines!" and think of them as metal/plastic/silicon, and organic life as "tissue" etc. However, from my bio stuff, when I look at a human cell, I see a vastly complex clock of ATP, glucose, amino acids...an interacting mechanism of molecules of carbon chains, etc. Could not an artificial mechanism functioning along similar principles be created which was self sustaining?
:::::C) At no time did I say genetic engineering was an "upgrade of DNA", layman. I didn't want to spout off on a lot of terminology that would simply be lost in a quick conversation. Putting words in my mouth, you are. Genetic engineering isn't an "upgrade" of "DNA"; ''genomes'', on the other hand, can have new sequences added, etc. (The word "upgrade" implies some semi-magical, Chemical X-style super-charge). What I had in mind with the Cylons was that ''' The DNA sequence itself is just a starting point:''' what about [[Wikipedia:Imprinting_(genetics)|Genomic Imprinting]] in conjunction with [[Wikipedia:DNA_methylation|DNA methylation]], possibly even veering into [[Wikipedia:Epigenetic_inheritance|Epigenetic Inheritance]]? Long story short: DNA in eukaryotes (for example, humans) is coated in a sheath of histone proteins. Changes in these can change gene expression. More importantly, adding a ''methyl'' group to a section of DNA can determine how it is ''expressed''. Different amino acids then interact in different combinations than before. The human genome codes for many times more proteins than there is DNA coding for specific aa's. But using alternative splicing of mRNA, and altering the expression of DNA coding for different combinations of amino acids....things get a lot more interesting. We don't even fully understand how the 'histone code' works very well. That is my point: When I think of the Cylons I think of them using normal DNA, not nanomachines, but using like the English alphabet: there are 26 letters, and using these I can express all sorts of ideas on BattlestarWiki. These same 26 characters can also be used in a book like ''A Brief History of Time'', to create a new Quantum Theory or something; far more complex than the simple messages I might use on AIM or something....'''But using the same basic building blocks''' of Carbon, Nitrogen, Hydrogen, Oxygen. --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 03:35, 9 February 2006 (EST)

:::::: Merv... *sigh* What's the point of comments like "So called OliverH" and directing "layman" at him? In regards to the former, one could equally assert that you're "so called" Merovingian or that I'm "so called" Day. These are handles, nicknames and pseudonyms we use on the ''internet''. Implying that someone's name here is somehow false seems either (because I know you're not dumb) disingenuous, juvenile or irrelevant, depending on interpretation. The latter of my examples seems only to be of the juvenile sort of comment. It's name calling, basically. And, before you start, don't attempt to say you were being honest as some kind of defense. With words like "layman" it's all a matter of perspective and I think it's clear from the general tone of your post that it was intended as a jab. Now... would the '''both of you''' (OliverH, included) calm down and not ''aim'' your posts at each other as if they were some kind of ballistae or something? It ''is'' possible to disagree with someone and not call them names. I have done it before. ''Even'' on the internet. --[[User:Day|Day]] 04:31, 9 February 2006 (EST)

:::::::Sorry about that; I was in full-on Monty Python mode (French Castle: "So-called Arthur-King!", etc. etc. Yes they're all made up screenames; bit of (poor) internet humor I never get over). As for "layman", yes, even I thought that was a little too over the top, I must admit; just that he derided my ability to understand any of this, so I then responded by posting links to all of the things I was talking about in detail, etc. Unlike "Frackface" or something, "layman" implies levels of relatives knowledgibility, etc. Probably shouldn't have used that, sorry. --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 04:49, 9 February 2006 (EST)

Ok, I'll try to simply restate the points since they seem to have been misunderstood and misrepresented consistently.
*I have no opinion as to how anything DOES work in this part of the story, mainly because I think that there is no explanation for it other than dramatic license -no matter what RDM says. He studied political sciences, his knowledge of natural science is -as many comments show- quite limited.
*Nanomachines aren't technobabble. They are a means to an end that is being heavily pursued by researchers as we write these pages. As the books I linked above show, in parallel to manufacturing obstacles including logistics being solved, people are anticipating possible medical uses and strategies to overcome obstacles in the achieving of the actual effect. They are pure, honest-to-god hard science-fiction, and only in that as of now, our clean room nanotechnology is just in development.
*Stem cells have a big advantage: They can do anything a regular cell can do. Stem cells also have a big disadvantage: They can do anything a regular cell can do. From that spectrum of possibilities arrives the problem of regulation. And regulation is a pain. The more your tool can do, the more you have your work cut out for you that it does specifically what you want it to do and not something else. Especially in the body, where a whole lot of other signals that the cell is equipped to listen to because it ''is'' a cell, it would be next to impossible to have the cells follow a specific course of action. Nanomachines on the other hand are a)specialists and b)oblivious to the signalling by hormones or other subtance gradients unless specifically designed to respond to them.
*Merovingians comments regarding using DNA like the english alphabet have a couple of problems: As Merovingian states, the english alphabet has 26 letters. The DNA alphabet has four. It's not an issue of the alphabet alone, however, but also of word size. The word size in the English language is variable, meaning a whole lot of different words can be constructed. The DNA word size is fixed at three. This limits the "meaning" to a very limited and defined set of possibilities. Now, of course we could draw up an alternative way of using the same concept, with more letters, or different word sizes. However, the consequence would be that whatever is the outcome of this is less related to us than every single lifeform we know of, from other primates to the "lowliest" bacteria. We could categorically rule out any conception of children, since the sets of genomes would require totally distinct "reading systems". The only viable alternative would be to reduce redundancy, the way amino acids have been added, or added frequency, over the course of evolution. However, redundancy also is a safeguard against effects of mutations -if the mutation doesn't make a difference, then there can be no harmful effect. So if we reduce redundancy, we increase susceptibility to mutations.
*All the mechanisms listed by Merovingian above exist, of course. But they exist as part of a complex network of regulatory mechanisms that makes it practically impossible to say "Well, if we throw this switch, then this, and only this will happen". The effect is illustrated by the fact that most of these mechanisms can also be involved in [[Wikipedia:Carcinogenesis|Carcinogenesis]]. So repercussions of fiddling here are not limited, but can in fact be quite major. This leads to the key problem I am trying to address:
While we can hypothesize all we want about possible mechanisms for the cancer cure to work, or about how cylons work, the fact is that our choices are chiefly between which parts of what we see is plausible. If we take a lot of what we see about the Cylons as actually working, we'd have to reject the notions that they cannot be told apart from humans and that they are capable of procreation with humans. If we take the latter for granted, than the ways in which their physiology and their genes can differ from ours is severely limited. We are what we are and who we are because of a finely tuned system. Even minor changes to that system are likely to have major effects. --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 06:21, 11 February 2006 (EST)

==Genetics==
1.) My impression was that baltar was sketching schematic representations of human and cylon antigens, not individual nitrogenous bases (which wouldn't really be relevant for the treatment he was proposing)

2.) Are you certain the hexagonal image is of uracil, and not another [[Wikipedia:pyrimidine|pyrimidine]] such as [[Wikipedia:cytosine|cytosine]] or [[Wikipedia:thymine|thymine]]? --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 04:20, 2 February 2006 (EST)

:2) Indeed. I've been going over my Human Molecular Genetics notes, and this is the only possibility. The difficulty you may have encountered is that Baltar is holding it upside down. Actually, I made a drawing of what we see "on screen" in the commercial (unfortunately, BSGwiki doesn't seem to want to upload bmp images; sorry).

:There is a very long line coming of of a Nitrogen; this represent an R-linkage (that is, where the base connects to deoxyribose). ''Traditionally'', (by Earth international convention) the R-linkage making Nitrogen is placed at the bottom of the diagram; plus, Baltar drew it backwords, but that's just viewing it from a different angle and changes none of the linkages. This is where we see "NH" on the bottom of that pic of Uracil I have; the H gets dropped and the N forms the R-linkage. I spent a long time trying to figure out which one it was before I determined that it is definately Uracil; none of the others. You can see this more clearly in the page on [[Wikipedia:Nucleotide|Nucleotide]]: the one we see has no NH2 subgroup linked to a carbon in the ring, so it's definately not Cytosine (Cytosine has 3 N's, Uracil and Thymine, only 2). It can't be thymine, because it has no H3C subgroup branching off of the ring. It actually looks exactly like the image of Uracil on the Nucleotide article.

:1)****My entire point, Farago, is that Ron D. Moore stated in his podcast that ORIGINALLY, Baltar *was* making all of thse comparisons of DNA, stem cells, etc. and stating how Cylon **DNA** is different. However, he got in a panic, because as we all know he is nervous to use Technobabble (often, this is a very good thing) but this time he overreacted; now all of the messageboards are filled with complaints of "This wasn't explained well enough; he just said it's "blood was special" and drew two overlapping squares; this doesn't explain anything". '''In scenes that they deleted, Baltar goes into detail explaining what's different about it, comparing DNA structure, etc. ''' Hopefully, we will see it in the DVD when these scenes are released. ''' However, (as sometimes happens) footage from deleted scenes was used to make the commercial for the episode, and because I taped it off of tv (as opposed to downloading it) I was able to pause it and look at this.''' Really, they just cut a *LOT* of stuff out; it's not *JUST* "antigents"; the script for this scene was butchered in the editing room, and the explanation is actually a lot more complex than just "it's blood has no antigens"; Antigens for ''what''? Antigens are things that trigger an immune response; in that sense, '''this isn't that much different from the O-[[Wikipedia:blood type|blood type]]. --[[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]] 14:16, 2 February 2006 (EST)

::I'm [[Talk:Epiphanies#Cancer Therapy|well aware]] of that. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 23:24, 2 February 2006 (EST)

== Speed check ==

In the section "Distances and Speeds..." two figures fro the speed of light are quoted in as many paragraphs. The first is correct: 3x10^8 meters/second. The second figure is 54x10^10 meters/second. Is this the speed of light in miles/second instead? (as the answer is given in miles/hour)

As a postscript regarding why the ''Galactica'' hasn't jumped in 20 years, the battlestar could have been part of a home or system fleet, much like Great Britain had an English Channel Fleet during the Napoleonic Wars. [[User:Sentinel75|Sentinel75]] 23:18, 10 February 2006 (EST)

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

2006-02-11T11:21:28Z

OliverH.: /* The Cancer Cure of Laura Roslin */

For an archived earlier discussion thread prior to February 8, 2006, [http://www.battlestarwiki.org/en/index.php?title=Talk:Science_in_the_Re-imagined_Series&oldid=30324 click here.]

==Artificial Gravity==
Be careful not to confuse Naturalistic SF with Hard SF. They have little to do with one another. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 15:09, 9 December 2005 (EST)
:Of course, in fact, they are quite opposite, but NSF takes a few elements from hard SF, though not in the extreme that hard SF defines itself. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 16:18, 9 December 2005 (EST)
Another wrinkle in the whole artificial gravity can of worms: The ability to manipulate gravity fields opens the door to many other technologies, too. For example, a rudimentary tractor beam could be constructed by using your artificial gravity field to pull objects toward your ship. The reverse is probably possible -- using it to repel objects and projectiles for a sort of a deflector shield. Since the Colonials have none of these abilities and yet have apparently had artificial gravity for a long time (before the contruction of the Galactica), it stands to reason that whatever means they use to generate gravity is severely limited. --[[User:Zeratul|Zeratul]] 11:45, 8 February 2006 (EST)
::Welcome to the Wiki, Zeratul. I agree; this limits whatever they use to gravity simulators rather than generators, given their power limitations and storyline limits. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 13:06, 8 February 2006 (EST)
:::Thanks for the welcome, Spencerian. Long time reader first time contributor here. :) Another thing to consider is that whatever they use for gravity continues to work even when main power and control is lost, as in [[Valley of Darkness]]. Likely it would have a separate power source and controls as the life support systems do, meaning it's either passive or doesn't require much power to operate.
:::It's difficult to see, but in the miniseries the doomed botanical freighter seems to have domes on both the top and bottom of the ship, which would imply they have the ability to maintain several different gravitational vectors within a ship.
:::Another good reference would be Boomer's raptor in the miniseries, when she powers it down for the approach to Caprica. I think they were strapped in at the time though, so the gravity may or may not have been shut off.
:::I suspect, though, that this is something that will never really be explained but rather remain a plot-driven convenience. --[[User:Zeratul|Zeratul]] 14:29, 8 February 2006 (EST)

==Sublight vs. FTL==
The fact that Colonial One, an FTL-capable ship, made its way from Caprica to Galactica at Sublight tells us something else - 5.5 hours of engine burn consume less energy than a hyperspace jump to cover the same distance. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 01:58, 11 December 2005 (EST)

:Not necessarily. Two reasons why--first, FTL might not have been an option: either it was illegal, seen as too dangerous for travel within a system, deemed too uncomfortable for passengers, or pilots simply weren't trained to calculate a jump, any of which are potentially valid given Tigh's comment that it had been 20 years since a jump. Of course, that may raise a question as to why the drive was installed in the first place. (Regulations? Holdover from the first war?) Secondly, it seems unrealistic that it would take more energy to jump that small distance than to burn the fuel because the entire fleet can jump like 230 times in a row ([[33]]) without any refueling problems or the like. [[User:Drumstick|Drumstick]] 21:19, 30 December 2005 (EST)

:I think that FTL flight is generally quite disconcerting to passengers, judging from Cally's take on it when we see ''Galactica'' make its first Jump in the Miniseries. So, sublight is preferable in most instances. I cannot determine from any episodes whether the fuel consumption is more or less when going at sublight over FTL. The comfort level is the most likely reason. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 10:52, 1 January 2006 (EST)

==Nukes==
If the energy density of [[Tylium]] is so much greater than fissile materials and has the added benefit of producing no fallout, and requiring no sophisticated trigger mechanism, why do the Colonials use nuclear warheads on their missiles rather than tylium bombs? Nuclear fallout has desirable side effects against organic targets, which explains Cylon use thereof, but what advantage does it offer human forces?

:(Obviously, in real life it's a question of storytelling:
:"For instance, in the Galactica mini-series, when the Cylons attack the colonists, they attack them with thermonuclear weapons. They don't attack them with lasers and photon torpedoes, and strange things that don't exist.
:"When you see a planet nuked, and you see those mushroom clouds, and hear about the destruction of entire cities by nuclear weapons, that is a much more terrifying and frightening idea than if you're saying fifteen thousand photon torpedoes were launched at Caprica. One is real and one is not." [http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/news/cult/2004/02/20/9599.shtml]
:"There would not be 'photon torpedoes' but instead nuclear missiles, because nukes are real and thus are frightening." [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/magazine/17GALACTICA.html]
:"We use nukes. And these days, that’s truly scary. You use photon torpedoes and the audience goes 'oh, okay. shrug.'" [http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA513174.html?display=Top+Stories]) --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 02:09, 11 December 2005 (EST)

:Nukes have the desireable side effect of creating an electromagnetic pulse which disrupts all (currently) known forms of electronics. --[[User:Durandal|Durandal]] 02:41, 8 January 2006 (EST)
: And a side note, now that I think of it. Considering the supposed rarity of tylium, Nukes are also much easier to produce and much less of a waste of a valuable resource. [[User:Durandal|Durandal]] 13:12, 8 January 2006 (EST)

::You hit the nail on the head, Durandal. If you can, work up what you just said and add it to the article! --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 13:15, 8 January 2006 (EST)

::: Does not really fit in this article, whithout generating a new section for such a point. If anyone has a better idea for placement, I'm all ears. [[User:Durandal|Durandal]] 13:25, 8 January 2006 (EST)

:My own thoughts on the subject are A) Tylium is somewhat rare so it is difficult to mass produce nuclear warheads, but more importantly B) Baltar said that detonating a nuclear warhead near Tylium would "render it inert", not create a chain reaction. I think that Tylium must be "reactive/unstable" enough that it's a good fuel source (moreso than just Plutonium), however, it probably has the chemical property that it is very difficult to produce an explosive uncontrollable chain reaction with it. --[[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]] 18:13, 8 January 2006 (EST)

::That would disagree with the extremely large tylium explosion seen at the end of "The Hand of God". I prefer Durandal's explanation. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 18:24, 8 January 2006 (EST)

:::In Ricimer's defense, the explosion was caused by the precursor, the refined but unprocessed component that forms the fuel later. Precursor is more unstable or explosive than the fuel. There are chemicals throughout the Periodic Table that release tremendous energies, more so than plutonium. The problem is the process of controlling it. Else, hydrogen would be our fuel of choice for everything: common, cheap, and leaves a benign by-product. For the Colonies, tylium was their answer. I disagree that tylium is rare, although I think it is hard to find; the Fleet's luck in finding one rock of it also implies that a little tylium goes an awfully long way, but mining and processing it is a real bitch. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 18:40, 8 January 2006 (EST)

== Landings & Gravity ==

Unless I am completely mistaken, aside from whatever may be the 'standard' artifical gravity source aboard Galactica, it is explicitly stated that the actual landing pads in the flight pods rely upon magnitism to hold craft in place en route to the hanger.
:"Viper Four-five-zero, skids down, mag-lock secure." (Kelly to Apollo upon touchdown aproximately 22 minutes into the miniseries)
[[User:Durandal|Durandal]] 02:56, 8 January 2006 (EST)

:Correct. On the flight deck, magnetism is used to secure landing Vipers. But in the hangar deck and manned areas of the ship, something else is used, since the humans (and many other virtually non-magnetic items in CIC and elsewhere) are kept from floating. It's an unexplained conumdrum that right now is just a writing convenience. If the article appears to be vague in that topic, do modify it. I created and generated much of this article, and sometimes I can get too wordy and the point gets muddled. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 13:19, 8 January 2006 (EST)

:: I actually wrote this bit in response to note 2, which states it as a possibility as opposed to cannon-fact. I'm not quite sure HOW to rewrite it, unfortunately... [[User:Durandal|Durandal]] 13:23, 8 January 2006 (EST)

== Expensive claim... ==

I find the recent expense claim [[Battlestar Wiki:Citation Jihad|uncitable]] at best. There's absolutely no indication either way that financial expense played into utilizing FTL Jump technology in BSG. Therefore, unless we can get someone to point out where this info came from, I vote for its removal. Also, just because ''Galactica'' didn't perform a jump in 20 years doesn't really mean that it is normal for Colonail ships (military or otherwise) to rely on sublight travel alone. -- [[User:Joe.Beaudoin|Joe Beaudoin]] 23:15, 1 February 2006 (EST)

:I read it differently - the statement seems to infer expense from the fact that FTL travel is not used frequently, not vice-versa. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 23:23, 1 February 2006 (EST)

::I think they just didn't do it, because why risk the (albeit very very small) safety concerns of warping through space? (a wrong calculation and we could wind up in the sun", etc.) Remember, they really have FTL drive for two reasons: 1) It's a holdover from the Exodus (''theory'' but not established fact and frankly I don't believe that), 2) they do have a "sphere of influence" beyond the 12 Colonies, not full-fledged other planets, just mining-camp colonies like Troy. So that's why they put in FTL; plus it's good to have instantaneous travel. --[[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]] 23:50, 1 February 2006 (EST)

::: It would be logical to assume that, with so many ships "up in the air", as it were, Jumping into another ship or even trade route may be a concern. I don't fully agree with the "holdover from the Exodus" theory either and it seems likely that FTL technology was put into place as a means of instantaneous transportation during wartime. (Imagine jumping out of harms way instead of fleeing from the enemy at sublight speeds; in fact, this is quite similar to ''Farscape'' and the Leviathan's ability to starburst.) -- [[User:Joe.Beaudoin|Joe Beaudoin]] 09:52, 2 February 2006 (EST)

:I think the current reasons are sufficient enough; there doesn't necessarily need to be a separate bullet point about "expense," especially because it is so vague and unexplained. Is it the cost of buying fuel that's expensive? Probably not, based on what we've seen so far in terms of tylium consumption. They seem to jump quite a bit and don't need to refuel very often. (Basically, just in Hand of God, and that's after jumping constantly for weeks. I mean, they could have been distributing Galactica's tylium to the other ships, but if Galactica has ''that'' much, it can't be that exorbitant of a fuel source, particularly so in peacetime when the ships were first loaded.) Is it wear and tear on the ship that costs money to fix? Maybe, but for the fleet to have lasted this long without any ships breaking down undercuts that theory. I mean, how else do you define expense? I'm not missing something here, am I? --[[User:Drumstick|Drumstick]] 02:19, 2 February 2006 (EST)

==The Cancer Cure of Laura Roslin==

One possibility we may want to consider is that of the Humano-Cylons being party based on nanotechnology. If the Cylons have nanobots in their blood, it would explain the selective destruction of cancer cells, and the quick repair of normal cells, and how such a small amount could completely cure the disease. Additionally, a Cylon-Human hybrid would have nanobots less likely to reject a normal human's system.

It would also explain the seeming contradiction in the Humano-Cylon's nature -- that they are close enough to human that even an autoposy cannot tell them apart, and yet somehow machine enough to upload their memories and consciousness.

Though this is my personal favorite theory, there's absolutely no canonical basis for it. --[[User:zeratul|zeratul]]

:It seems that the stem cell theory was the "answer" to this, as stated in the article, now with RDM voicing in on the original explanation that was edited away or revised before filming because it was too technical. Further, your theory conflicts with the established point that Cylon and human physiology is practically identical in appearance and function down to the cellular level, implying that nanotechnology would be identifiable medically. This is supported as well since, unless such nanotech is masked to work with human physiology, Roslin's body would have an autoimmune reaction, fighting off the fetal blood like in an Rh factor reaction. Aside from the established effects of the fetal blood used, only Baltar's [[Cylon detector]] can accurately discern Cylon from human. Funny, I just listened today to an article on National Public Radio that says that fetal stem cells "leak" from the placenta of each baby (born or unborn) into the mother's body, which become an "elite" (but small) force of cells that aid in protecting or repairing damage or disease in the mother for years, according to early research. I ''have'' to get that link to this article--it is very ''apropos'' here. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 13:17, 8 February 2006 (EST)
::Yes, I agree with you that the stem cells are the official explanation. I'm not sure if I buy it, however, as real-life stem cells can't spontaneously cure something as complex as cancer just by injecting them. Baltar's been wrong before. Yes, yes, genetically engineered Cylons are a possibility (but wouldn't that be easily detectable at the Colonials' current level of technology?). I guess for now we'll have to write it off as a "magical" effect of hybrids... Sigh :)
::If the nanomachines were small enough they wouldn't be visible even under a microscope (haven't seen an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanning_electron_microscope SEM] on the show yet), and could probably be designed to not show up to chemical tests as well -- especially if they were programmed to actively mask themselves. Again, probably not what they'll go with, just a theory I've been kicking around. --[[User:Zeratul|Zeratul]] 14:43, 8 February 2006 (EST)

With the caveat that I haven't seen the episode yet:why would Roslin's body have an autoimmune reaction when nanotechnology is used? In any case, the stem cell theory doesn't work. If Roslin indeed was at death's door, the damage to the healthy tissue is too great for stem cells to repair that in the necessary time frame. Protein needs to by synthesized, cells need to divide, etc. Plus, while stem cells can theoretically be used to create any organ, they still need the programming, which is not given in an adult body. They can be programmed in vitro, but they won't just form a liver if you inject them into the liver -the hormone gradients that existed during embryogenesis don't exist anymore, likewise the angiogenetic factors aren't around that would cause the cells to be supplied with the necessary nutrients. Although, ironically, the tumor might have spilled enough of those. And even if you get the cells to grow in the right places, you'd have to get them to stop growing as well, otherwise you've just replaced one cancer with another etc. etc... I think the cancer cure is just as much dramatic license as the "cylon and human physiology being identical". Given the silica pathways and the computer connectivity, there are quite obvious differences. I think that RDM did well to cut out the science since it is meaningless to the layperson and would likely have resulted in rolling eyes with people with expertise in the field. It is a contrived plot device, and trying to explain it away is likely to be futile. --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 15:18, 8 February 2006 (EST)

As an added point, I consider the issue with fetal cells as repairmen in the mother to be heavily overstated in the article here. The NPR contribution merely lists it as a hypothesis. There is no "appear", and there is several problems with at least the written part of the NPR contribution: It suggests that the fetal cells "could behave" as stem cells. However, there's more cells in a fetus than just stem cells, and in any case, at this stage, the cells aren't totipotent, i.e. capable of making ANYthing anymore, they have already diversified. It takes early embryonic stem cells for totipotency. I am also sceptical as far as these cells remaining "for life" goes: They'd be good candidates as a cancer ''cause'' rather than cure if they do. The other point is, as I tried to explain above, that these cells turn into specific tissue not just as an execution of an internal program, but as a response to external stimuli, such as hormones secreted by other cells in the vicinity. --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 15:36, 8 February 2006 (EST)

:True, Oliver, the NPR article is actually educated speculation (hypothesis at best). As someone whose medical/biology experience is that of a layman, I welcome you, both to the wiki, as well as to improve in the scientific explanations on this page. Interesting stuff you noted there. We know, of course, that this is all dramatic license, but for writers to go the extra mile and make an attempt to base the cure on some credible level of scientific theorem on the topic (unlike *cough*Star Trek*cough*some shows I know) is a notable thing. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 16:31, 8 February 2006 (EST)

::Well, at least StarTrek made SOME good choices about their technobabble: Knowing fully well that any prediction on computer power and storage capacity would likely be outdated even before the end of the series, they invented totally fictious parameters. Likewise with many other things. While this still leaves the opportunity to violate basic laws of physics, at least it prevents the "no way it could work that way" effect. There's a reason people study for science, and a reason scientists specialize: It's such a vast field that it's practically impossible to know one's way around everything. So a writer has the choice between winging it or hiring a huge staff of scientists and engineers who give him some well-founded speculation on how things could possibly be explained. That ain't gonna fly, obviously, so one way or the other of winging it will have to do for most productions. Now of course a writer can pick up the latest newspaper articles he read and implement them, but the problem is that most newspaper articles on scientific issues aren't precisely written by people with a grasp of the field either. What's worse, even most scientists don't really concern themselves with the theoretic bases of a solid standard of evidence. Alas, this is especially true in the medical field, where people who went to med school do a lot of research while, unlike people who studied sciences, they could grab little scientific theory at least implicitly. Or, to point at something that bugs folks like me quite regularly: If an M.D. has one patient who shows strange symptoms or responds to an unusualy therapy, he happily submits a publication that goes by the type "case report". If, say, a molecular biologist in the biomedical field hears of such an incident, he will at first glance attribute it to a combination of factors valid for that patient only and dismiss it as anecdotal until he hears of a significant number of cases showing some specific pattern and statistical relevance. Which is why especially in this field, going by mainstream press publications is like tangoing through a minefield. If you comb the literature with fine enough a comb, you will come across plenty of "miracle" cases. However, hold a magnifying glass of stringent scientific standards of evidence at them and they go up in hot air. (Background: I'm currently on the last lap of a Ph.D. in the cancer research field, working on new diagnostic methods.) --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 19:29, 8 February 2006 (EST)

::No, it is ridiculous to say that Star Trek handled technobabble well. That's why we call it technobabble. OTHER than that one point: they realized that computer power would increase so exponentionally by the 24th century that they just made up non-real units ("kiloquads", etc). '''Otherwise, it was laughable. Listen to RDM''' when he's talking about how Levar Burton seemed kind of good at spouting it off in season 1, so they just gave ''all of it to him''. Now, to understand my reaction, I actually watch TNG repeats pretty much every other day. Just finished watching the end of "A Matter of Perspective"; yikes. Crazy technobabble (well, the signal bounced off of some mirrors, but it was so powerful, that when reversed it must have acted like a laser beam" etc. etc.)--[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 23:36, 8 February 2006 (EST)

:::Please cite where I said that Star Trek handled technobabble well. You will have difficulties doing so. I suggest you stop just slamming everything you don't like and stick to the facts. The simple fact that you don't like a solution doesn't make it "technobabble" per se, nor does taking any odd scientific hypothesis as truth make something good drama. If you get stomach cramps watching TNG, why do you watch it 'every other day'? --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 03:06, 9 February 2006 (EST)

::::"Well, at least StarTrek made SOME good choices about their technobabble" seems to heavily imply this position. And it's the only thing on.--[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 03:18, 9 February 2006 (EST)

:Humanoid Cylon physiology does not contain "nanomachines"; human cells are also machines, if bio-chemical ones. What the Cylons appear to have done is to have artificially developed the genetic code for an artificial organism which is mostly like humans, but has had certain "upgrades" to it's DNA. I've seen nothing to even come close to speculation that they use "nanomachiens"; this verges into Star Trek ''Borg, Seven of Nine-esque'' [[technobabble]], (shudder). And...no, wait...(''shudder''). Sorry, lots of bad memories. Well, It's just needlessly complicated for this show and I don't think they'd stoop to that level. --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 16:42, 8 February 2006 (EST)
::Well, the thing is, it's a huge difference whether it's a biochemical machine or not. The human immune system is very efficient in fighting foreign "biochemical machines" in that it can recognize proteins that aren't part of the body. We know that some nonbiological materials such as graphite or teflon can also trigger an immune response, but this can easily be avoided by using different material. In an ideal scenario (not given here), nanorobots could even simply be coated with "self" proteins and be waved through by the immune system. There's a whole lot of literature on nanomedicine prospects at http://www.nanomedicine.com/index.htm including entire books for free, or, for the less ambitious, the FAQ at http://www.foresight.org/Nanomedicine/NanoMedFAQ.html. And frankly, as a molecular biologist, I shudder at "upgrades" to DNA. A system that can give us everything from archaeobacteria to humans has already demonstrated that it is extremely flexible and yet efficient. I have a bit of an impression that "technobabble" is whatever solution one doesn't like ;) --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 19:29, 8 February 2006 (EST)
:::And, as a genetics major, I can tell you that quite a lot can be done with DNA; right now it's like flying a plane in the first decade of the 20th century; not impossible, but very hard. However, that doesn't mean that ''in theory'', such advances are impossible. Given enought time it could be done. '''Further''', you didn't really address the question. You just meandered around spouting off a lot of information on "nanomachines" without really explaining their practicality or applicability to this situation. And "a system already demonstreated this it is extremely flexible and efficient"....er, this isn't a rebutal. You just made a long sentence stating that "yup, that's DNA for ya", but that specific sentence doesn't actually address the issue of nanomchines, genetic engineering, etc. at all. Please get back on topic. We are not fooled by lots of information being thrown at us and can tell when it lacks actual substance. --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 23:41, 8 February 2006 (EST)

:::: *sigh* I should have posted when I first read this, but figured everyone else could see what was going on. Apparently not. RiciMerovingian, please calm a moment. I think you jumped to the worst possible conclusion, rather than giving the benefit of the doubt. What I read as having occured is that Oliver misunderstood the statement about "updates to DNA" as meaning that the fundamental nature of DNA had been upgraded. I don't think he was intentionally obfuscating the topic with terminology that might be over a layman's head in order to "win". I think he was just confused.

:::: Anyway, what was actually meant, as ''I'' read it, was that the DNA that makes one human has been altered in Cylons to have certain upgrades, not that they have better DNA (such that it is not, really, DNA), but that their DNA is almost human, except enccoded to be, say, more resiliant to diseases, quicker healing in the case of physical damage and (as an example of an "upgrade" I'd personally skip, if I were them) unable to procreate. '''Anyway''', hopefully now everyone sees where we got off track, we can put unpleasantness behind and backup to where we were still on topic. --[[User:Day|Day]] 00:28, 9 February 2006 (EST)

:::::Day, the problem is that if their genes were in some way "better" as in more efficient etc. this could be easily discerned with 20th century level technology and could only go so far before the organism is not compatible with human organisms anymore as in clearly being recognized as foreign by the immune system and possibly even incompatible for procreation. In any case, it would also mean that physiology is far from identical. --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 03:06, 9 February 2006 (EST)

::::Merovingian, I realize you didn't like what I said, but claiming that my statements lacked substance when in fact, I made specific arguments and referenced them is quite off. I very much addressed the issue: You stated "human cells are also machines", implying that nanomachines would have no significantly different properties, which is plain false. I also explained further up why stem cells are not viable as an explanation. I never actually said that nanomachines are, in fact pointing out that the event was pure dramatic license. I simply rebutted the objections about nanomachines. As for lacking substance, ''as a genetics major, I can tell you that quite a lot can be done with DNA; right now it's like flying a plane in the first decade of the 20th century; not impossible, but very hard'' is devoid of any. It's simply a claim "I know better", without stating what it actually is you think you know nor whether it is actually supported by anyone else. Genetic engineering is no "upgrade of DNA". I suggest you decide what your concrete arguments are and support them and live with the fact that while you may not like the concept of nanomachines, it is far from technobabble. --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 03:06, 9 February 2006 (EST)

:::::So called OliverH: A) No, you just threw around a lot of jargon, but after reading your penultimate entry, I realized you hadn't said anything of actual substance.
:::::B) I will ''elaborate'': When I say "The human cell is also a machine", this in NO WAY implies agreement with "nanomachines", as you state above. Some people (viewers who don't watch scifi or know even basic biology; not us) are stuck on the fact that "Cylons are machines!" and think of them as metal/plastic/silicon, and organic life as "tissue" etc. However, from my bio stuff, when I look at a human cell, I see a vastly complex clock of ATP, glucose, amino acids...an interacting mechanism of molecules of carbon chains, etc. Could not an artificial mechanism functioning along similar principles be created which was self sustaining?
:::::C) At no time did I say genetic engineering was an "upgrade of DNA", layman. I didn't want to spout off on a lot of terminology that would simply be lost in a quick conversation. Putting words in my mouth, you are. Genetic engineering isn't an "upgrade" of "DNA"; ''genomes'', on the other hand, can have new sequences added, etc. (The word "upgrade" implies some semi-magical, Chemical X-style super-charge). What I had in mind with the Cylons was that ''' The DNA sequence itself is just a starting point:''' what about [[Wikipedia:Imprinting_(genetics)|Genomic Imprinting]] in conjunction with [[Wikipedia:DNA_methylation|DNA methylation]], possibly even veering into [[Wikipedia:Epigenetic_inheritance|Epigenetic Inheritance]]? Long story short: DNA in eukaryotes (for example, humans) is coated in a sheath of histone proteins. Changes in these can change gene expression. More importantly, adding a ''methyl'' group to a section of DNA can determine how it is ''expressed''. Different amino acids then interact in different combinations than before. The human genome codes for many times more proteins than there is DNA coding for specific aa's. But using alternative splicing of mRNA, and altering the expression of DNA coding for different combinations of amino acids....things get a lot more interesting. We don't even fully understand how the 'histone code' works very well. That is my point: When I think of the Cylons I think of them using normal DNA, not nanomachines, but using like the English alphabet: there are 26 letters, and using these I can express all sorts of ideas on BattlestarWiki. These same 26 characters can also be used in a book like ''A Brief History of Time'', to create a new Quantum Theory or something; far more complex than the simple messages I might use on AIM or something....'''But using the same basic building blocks''' of Carbon, Nitrogen, Hydrogen, Oxygen. --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 03:35, 9 February 2006 (EST)

:::::: Merv... *sigh* What's the point of comments like "So called OliverH" and directing "layman" at him? In regards to the former, one could equally assert that you're "so called" Merovingian or that I'm "so called" Day. These are handles, nicknames and pseudonyms we use on the ''internet''. Implying that someone's name here is somehow false seems either (because I know you're not dumb) disingenuous, juvenile or irrelevant, depending on interpretation. The latter of my examples seems only to be of the juvenile sort of comment. It's name calling, basically. And, before you start, don't attempt to say you were being honest as some kind of defense. With words like "layman" it's all a matter of perspective and I think it's clear from the general tone of your post that it was intended as a jab. Now... would the '''both of you''' (OliverH, included) calm down and not ''aim'' your posts at each other as if they were some kind of ballistae or something? It ''is'' possible to disagree with someone and not call them names. I have done it before. ''Even'' on the internet. --[[User:Day|Day]] 04:31, 9 February 2006 (EST)

:::::::Sorry about that; I was in full-on Monty Python mode (French Castle: "So-called Arthur-King!", etc. etc. Yes they're all made up screenames; bit of (poor) internet humor I never get over). As for "layman", yes, even I thought that was a little too over the top, I must admit; just that he derided my ability to understand any of this, so I then responded by posting links to all of the things I was talking about in detail, etc. Unlike "Frackface" or something, "layman" implies levels of relatives knowledgibility, etc. Probably shouldn't have used that, sorry. --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 04:49, 9 February 2006 (EST)

Ok, I'll try to simply restate the points since they seem to have been misunderstood and misrepresented consistently.
*I have no opinion as to how anything DOES work in this part of the story, mainly because I think that there is no explanation for it other than dramatic license -no matter what RDM says. He studied political sciences, his knowledge of natural science is -as many comments show- quite limited.
*Nanomachines aren't technobabble. They are a means to an end that is being heavily pursued by researchers as we write these pages. As the books I linked above show, in parallel to manufacturing obstacles including logistics being solved, people are anticipating possible medical uses and strategies to overcome obstacles in the achieving of the actual effect. They are pure, honest-to-god hard science-fiction, and only in that as of now, our clean room nanotechnology is just in development.
*Stem cells have a big advantage: They can do anything a regular cell can do. Stem cells also have a big disadvantage: They can do anything a regular cell can do. From that spectrum of possibilities arrives the problem of regulation. And regulation is a pain. The more your tool can do, the more you work you have cut out for you that it does specifically what you want it to do and not something else. Especially in the body, where a whole lot of other signals that the cell is equipped to listen to because it ''is'' a cell, it would be next to impossible to have the cells follow a specific course of action. Nanomachines on the other hand are a)specialists and b)oblivious to the signalling by hormones or other subtance gradients unless specifically designed to respond to them.
*Merovingians comments regarding using DNA like the english alphabet have a couple of problems: As Merovingian states, the english alphabet has 26 letters. The DNA alphabet has four. It's not an issue of the alphabet alone, however, but also of word size. The word size in the English language is variable, meaning a whole lot of different words can be constructed. The DNA word size is fixed at three. This limits the "meaning" to a very limited and defined set of possibilities. Now, of course we could draw up an alternative way of using the same concept, with more letters, or different word sizes. However, the consequence would be that whatever is the outcome of this is less related to us than every single lifeform we know of, from other primates to the "lowliest" bacteria. We could categorically rule out any conception of children, since the sets of genomes would require totally distinct "reading systems". The only viable alternative would be to reduce redundancy, the way amino acids have been added, or added frequency, over the course of evolution. However, redundancy also is a safeguard against effects of mutations -if the mutation doesn't make a difference, then there can be no harmful effect. So if we reduce redundancy, we increase susceptibility to mutations.
*All the mechanisms listed by Merovingian above exist, of course. But they exist as part of a complex network of regulatory mechanisms that makes it practically impossible to say "Well, if we throw this switch, then this, and only this will happen". The effect is illustrated by the fact that most of these mechanisms can also be involved in [[Wikipedia:Carcinogenesis|Carcinogenesis]]. So repercussions of fiddling here are not limited, but can in fact be quite major. This leads to the key problem I am trying to address:
While we can hypothesize all we want about possible mechanisms for the cancer cure to work, or about how cylons work, the fact is that our choices are chiefly between which parts of what we see is plausible. If we take a lot of what we see about the Cylons as actually working, we'd have to reject the notions that they cannot be told apart from humans and that they are capable of procreation with humans. If we take the latter for granted, than the ways in which their physiology and their genes can differ from ours is severely limited. We are what we are and who we are because of a finely tuned system. Even minor changes to that system are likely to have major effects. --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 06:21, 11 February 2006 (EST)

==Genetics==
1.) My impression was that baltar was sketching schematic representations of human and cylon antigens, not individual nitrogenous bases (which wouldn't really be relevant for the treatment he was proposing)

2.) Are you certain the hexagonal image is of uracil, and not another [[Wikipedia:pyrimidine|pyrimidine]] such as [[Wikipedia:cytosine|cytosine]] or [[Wikipedia:thymine|thymine]]? --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 04:20, 2 February 2006 (EST)

:2) Indeed. I've been going over my Human Molecular Genetics notes, and this is the only possibility. The difficulty you may have encountered is that Baltar is holding it upside down. Actually, I made a drawing of what we see "on screen" in the commercial (unfortunately, BSGwiki doesn't seem to want to upload bmp images; sorry).

:There is a very long line coming of of a Nitrogen; this represent an R-linkage (that is, where the base connects to deoxyribose). ''Traditionally'', (by Earth international convention) the R-linkage making Nitrogen is placed at the bottom of the diagram; plus, Baltar drew it backwords, but that's just viewing it from a different angle and changes none of the linkages. This is where we see "NH" on the bottom of that pic of Uracil I have; the H gets dropped and the N forms the R-linkage. I spent a long time trying to figure out which one it was before I determined that it is definately Uracil; none of the others. You can see this more clearly in the page on [[Wikipedia:Nucleotide|Nucleotide]]: the one we see has no NH2 subgroup linked to a carbon in the ring, so it's definately not Cytosine (Cytosine has 3 N's, Uracil and Thymine, only 2). It can't be thymine, because it has no H3C subgroup branching off of the ring. It actually looks exactly like the image of Uracil on the Nucleotide article.

:1)****My entire point, Farago, is that Ron D. Moore stated in his podcast that ORIGINALLY, Baltar *was* making all of thse comparisons of DNA, stem cells, etc. and stating how Cylon **DNA** is different. However, he got in a panic, because as we all know he is nervous to use Technobabble (often, this is a very good thing) but this time he overreacted; now all of the messageboards are filled with complaints of "This wasn't explained well enough; he just said it's "blood was special" and drew two overlapping squares; this doesn't explain anything". '''In scenes that they deleted, Baltar goes into detail explaining what's different about it, comparing DNA structure, etc. ''' Hopefully, we will see it in the DVD when these scenes are released. ''' However, (as sometimes happens) footage from deleted scenes was used to make the commercial for the episode, and because I taped it off of tv (as opposed to downloading it) I was able to pause it and look at this.''' Really, they just cut a *LOT* of stuff out; it's not *JUST* "antigents"; the script for this scene was butchered in the editing room, and the explanation is actually a lot more complex than just "it's blood has no antigens"; Antigens for ''what''? Antigens are things that trigger an immune response; in that sense, '''this isn't that much different from the O-[[Wikipedia:blood type|blood type]]. --[[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]] 14:16, 2 February 2006 (EST)

::I'm [[Talk:Epiphanies#Cancer Therapy|well aware]] of that. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 23:24, 2 February 2006 (EST)

== Speed check ==

In the section "Distances and Speeds..." two figures fro the speed of light are quoted in as many paragraphs. The first is correct: 3x10^8 meters/second. The second figure is 54x10^10 meters/second. Is this the speed of light in miles/second instead? (as the answer is given in miles/hour)

As a postscript regarding why the ''Galactica'' hasn't jumped in 20 years, the battlestar could have been part of a home or system fleet, much like Great Britain had an English Channel Fleet during the Napoleonic Wars. [[User:Sentinel75|Sentinel75]] 23:18, 10 February 2006 (EST)

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

2006-02-09T08:06:00Z

OliverH.: /* The Cancer Cure of Laura Roslin */

For an archived earlier discussion thread prior to February 8, 2006, [http://www.battlestarwiki.org/en/index.php?title=Talk:Science_in_the_Re-imagined_Series&oldid=30324 click here.]

==Artificial Gravity==
Be careful not to confuse Naturalistic SF with Hard SF. They have little to do with one another. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 15:09, 9 December 2005 (EST)
:Of course, in fact, they are quite opposite, but NSF takes a few elements from hard SF, though not in the extreme that hard SF defines itself. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 16:18, 9 December 2005 (EST)
Another wrinkle in the whole artificial gravity can of worms: The ability to manipulate gravity fields opens the door to many other technologies, too. For example, a rudimentary tractor beam could be constructed by using your artificial gravity field to pull objects toward your ship. The reverse is probably possible -- using it to repel objects and projectiles for a sort of a deflector shield. Since the Colonials have none of these abilities and yet have apparently had artificial gravity for a long time (before the contruction of the Galactica), it stands to reason that whatever means they use to generate gravity is severely limited. --[[User:Zeratul|Zeratul]] 11:45, 8 February 2006 (EST)
::Welcome to the Wiki, Zeratul. I agree; this limits whatever they use to gravity simulators rather than generators, given their power limitations and storyline limits. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 13:06, 8 February 2006 (EST)
:::Thanks for the welcome, Spencerian. Long time reader first time contributor here. :) Another thing to consider is that whatever they use for gravity continues to work even when main power and control is lost, as in [[Valley of Darkness]]. Likely it would have a separate power source and controls as the life support systems do, meaning it's either passive or doesn't require much power to operate.
:::It's difficult to see, but in the miniseries the doomed botanical freighter seems to have domes on both the top and bottom of the ship, which would imply they have the ability to maintain several different gravitational vectors within a ship.
:::Another good reference would be Boomer's raptor in the miniseries, when she powers it down for the approach to Caprica. I think they were strapped in at the time though, so the gravity may or may not have been shut off.
:::I suspect, though, that this is something that will never really be explained but rather remain a plot-driven convenience. --[[User:Zeratul|Zeratul]] 14:29, 8 February 2006 (EST)

==Sublight vs. FTL==
The fact that Colonial One, an FTL-capable ship, made its way from Caprica to Galactica at Sublight tells us something else - 5.5 hours of engine burn consume less energy than a hyperspace jump to cover the same distance. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 01:58, 11 December 2005 (EST)

:Not necessarily. Two reasons why--first, FTL might not have been an option: either it was illegal, seen as too dangerous for travel within a system, deemed too uncomfortable for passengers, or pilots simply weren't trained to calculate a jump, any of which are potentially valid given Tigh's comment that it had been 20 years since a jump. Of course, that may raise a question as to why the drive was installed in the first place. (Regulations? Holdover from the first war?) Secondly, it seems unrealistic that it would take more energy to jump that small distance than to burn the fuel because the entire fleet can jump like 230 times in a row ([[33]]) without any refueling problems or the like. [[User:Drumstick|Drumstick]] 21:19, 30 December 2005 (EST)

:I think that FTL flight is generally quite disconcerting to passengers, judging from Cally's take on it when we see ''Galactica'' make its first Jump in the Miniseries. So, sublight is preferable in most instances. I cannot determine from any episodes whether the fuel consumption is more or less when going at sublight over FTL. The comfort level is the most likely reason. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 10:52, 1 January 2006 (EST)

==Nukes==
If the energy density of [[Tylium]] is so much greater than fissile materials and has the added benefit of producing no fallout, and requiring no sophisticated trigger mechanism, why do the Colonials use nuclear warheads on their missiles rather than tylium bombs? Nuclear fallout has desirable side effects against organic targets, which explains Cylon use thereof, but what advantage does it offer human forces?

:(Obviously, in real life it's a question of storytelling:
:"For instance, in the Galactica mini-series, when the Cylons attack the colonists, they attack them with thermonuclear weapons. They don't attack them with lasers and photon torpedoes, and strange things that don't exist.
:"When you see a planet nuked, and you see those mushroom clouds, and hear about the destruction of entire cities by nuclear weapons, that is a much more terrifying and frightening idea than if you're saying fifteen thousand photon torpedoes were launched at Caprica. One is real and one is not." [http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/news/cult/2004/02/20/9599.shtml]
:"There would not be 'photon torpedoes' but instead nuclear missiles, because nukes are real and thus are frightening." [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/magazine/17GALACTICA.html]
:"We use nukes. And these days, that’s truly scary. You use photon torpedoes and the audience goes 'oh, okay. shrug.'" [http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA513174.html?display=Top+Stories]) --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 02:09, 11 December 2005 (EST)

:Nukes have the desireable side effect of creating an electromagnetic pulse which disrupts all (currently) known forms of electronics. --[[User:Durandal|Durandal]] 02:41, 8 January 2006 (EST)
: And a side note, now that I think of it. Considering the supposed rarity of tylium, Nukes are also much easier to produce and much less of a waste of a valuable resource. [[User:Durandal|Durandal]] 13:12, 8 January 2006 (EST)

::You hit the nail on the head, Durandal. If you can, work up what you just said and add it to the article! --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 13:15, 8 January 2006 (EST)

::: Does not really fit in this article, whithout generating a new section for such a point. If anyone has a better idea for placement, I'm all ears. [[User:Durandal|Durandal]] 13:25, 8 January 2006 (EST)

:My own thoughts on the subject are A) Tylium is somewhat rare so it is difficult to mass produce nuclear warheads, but more importantly B) Baltar said that detonating a nuclear warhead near Tylium would "render it inert", not create a chain reaction. I think that Tylium must be "reactive/unstable" enough that it's a good fuel source (moreso than just Plutonium), however, it probably has the chemical property that it is very difficult to produce an explosive uncontrollable chain reaction with it. --[[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]] 18:13, 8 January 2006 (EST)

::That would disagree with the extremely large tylium explosion seen at the end of "The Hand of God". I prefer Durandal's explanation. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 18:24, 8 January 2006 (EST)

:::In Ricimer's defense, the explosion was caused by the precursor, the refined but unprocessed component that forms the fuel later. Precursor is more unstable or explosive than the fuel. There are chemicals throughout the Periodic Table that release tremendous energies, more so than plutonium. The problem is the process of controlling it. Else, hydrogen would be our fuel of choice for everything: common, cheap, and leaves a benign by-product. For the Colonies, tylium was their answer. I disagree that tylium is rare, although I think it is hard to find; the Fleet's luck in finding one rock of it also implies that a little tylium goes an awfully long way, but mining and processing it is a real bitch. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 18:40, 8 January 2006 (EST)

== Landings & Gravity ==

Unless I am completely mistaken, aside from whatever may be the 'standard' artifical gravity source aboard Galactica, it is explicitly stated that the actual landing pads in the flight pods rely upon magnitism to hold craft in place en route to the hanger.
:"Viper Four-five-zero, skids down, mag-lock secure." (Kelly to Apollo upon touchdown aproximately 22 minutes into the miniseries)
[[User:Durandal|Durandal]] 02:56, 8 January 2006 (EST)

:Correct. On the flight deck, magnetism is used to secure landing Vipers. But in the hangar deck and manned areas of the ship, something else is used, since the humans (and many other virtually non-magnetic items in CIC and elsewhere) are kept from floating. It's an unexplained conumdrum that right now is just a writing convenience. If the article appears to be vague in that topic, do modify it. I created and generated much of this article, and sometimes I can get too wordy and the point gets muddled. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 13:19, 8 January 2006 (EST)

:: I actually wrote this bit in response to note 2, which states it as a possibility as opposed to cannon-fact. I'm not quite sure HOW to rewrite it, unfortunately... [[User:Durandal|Durandal]] 13:23, 8 January 2006 (EST)

== Expensive claim... ==

I find the recent expense claim [[Battlestar Wiki:Citation Jihad|uncitable]] at best. There's absolutely no indication either way that financial expense played into utilizing FTL Jump technology in BSG. Therefore, unless we can get someone to point out where this info came from, I vote for its removal. Also, just because ''Galactica'' didn't perform a jump in 20 years doesn't really mean that it is normal for Colonail ships (military or otherwise) to rely on sublight travel alone. -- [[User:Joe.Beaudoin|Joe Beaudoin]] 23:15, 1 February 2006 (EST)

:I read it differently - the statement seems to infer expense from the fact that FTL travel is not used frequently, not vice-versa. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 23:23, 1 February 2006 (EST)

::I think they just didn't do it, because why risk the (albeit very very small) safety concerns of warping through space? (a wrong calculation and we could wind up in the sun", etc.) Remember, they really have FTL drive for two reasons: 1) It's a holdover from the Exodus (''theory'' but not established fact and frankly I don't believe that), 2) they do have a "sphere of influence" beyond the 12 Colonies, not full-fledged other planets, just mining-camp colonies like Troy. So that's why they put in FTL; plus it's good to have instantaneous travel. --[[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]] 23:50, 1 February 2006 (EST)

::: It would be logical to assume that, with so many ships "up in the air", as it were, Jumping into another ship or even trade route may be a concern. I don't fully agree with the "holdover from the Exodus" theory either and it seems likely that FTL technology was put into place as a means of instantaneous transportation during wartime. (Imagine jumping out of harms way instead of fleeing from the enemy at sublight speeds; in fact, this is quite similar to ''Farscape'' and the Leviathan's ability to starburst.) -- [[User:Joe.Beaudoin|Joe Beaudoin]] 09:52, 2 February 2006 (EST)

:I think the current reasons are sufficient enough; there doesn't necessarily need to be a separate bullet point about "expense," especially because it is so vague and unexplained. Is it the cost of buying fuel that's expensive? Probably not, based on what we've seen so far in terms of tylium consumption. They seem to jump quite a bit and don't need to refuel very often. (Basically, just in Hand of God, and that's after jumping constantly for weeks. I mean, they could have been distributing Galactica's tylium to the other ships, but if Galactica has ''that'' much, it can't be that exorbitant of a fuel source, particularly so in peacetime when the ships were first loaded.) Is it wear and tear on the ship that costs money to fix? Maybe, but for the fleet to have lasted this long without any ships breaking down undercuts that theory. I mean, how else do you define expense? I'm not missing something here, am I? --[[User:Drumstick|Drumstick]] 02:19, 2 February 2006 (EST)

==The Cancer Cure of Laura Roslin==

One possibility we may want to consider is that of the Humano-Cylons being party based on nanotechnology. If the Cylons have nanobots in their blood, it would explain the selective destruction of cancer cells, and the quick repair of normal cells, and how such a small amount could completely cure the disease. Additionally, a Cylon-Human hybrid would have nanobots less likely to reject a normal human's system.

It would also explain the seeming contradiction in the Humano-Cylon's nature -- that they are close enough to human that even an autoposy cannot tell them apart, and yet somehow machine enough to upload their memories and consciousness.

Though this is my personal favorite theory, there's absolutely no canonical basis for it. --[[User:zeratul|zeratul]]

:It seems that the stem cell theory was the "answer" to this, as stated in the article, now with RDM voicing in on the original explanation that was edited away or revised before filming because it was too technical. Further, your theory conflicts with the established point that Cylon and human physiology is practically identical in appearance and function down to the cellular level, implying that nanotechnology would be identifiable medically. This is supported as well since, unless such nanotech is masked to work with human physiology, Roslin's body would have an autoimmune reaction, fighting off the fetal blood like in an Rh factor reaction. Aside from the established effects of the fetal blood used, only Baltar's [[Cylon detector]] can accurately discern Cylon from human. Funny, I just listened today to an article on National Public Radio that says that fetal stem cells "leak" from the placenta of each baby (born or unborn) into the mother's body, which become an "elite" (but small) force of cells that aid in protecting or repairing damage or disease in the mother for years, according to early research. I ''have'' to get that link to this article--it is very ''apropos'' here. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 13:17, 8 February 2006 (EST)
::Yes, I agree with you that the stem cells are the official explanation. I'm not sure if I buy it, however, as real-life stem cells can't spontaneously cure something as complex as cancer just by injecting them. Baltar's been wrong before. Yes, yes, genetically engineered Cylons are a possibility (but wouldn't that be easily detectable at the Colonials' current level of technology?). I guess for now we'll have to write it off as a "magical" effect of hybrids... Sigh :)
::If the nanomachines were small enough they wouldn't be visible even under a microscope (haven't seen an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanning_electron_microscope SEM] on the show yet), and could probably be designed to not show up to chemical tests as well -- especially if they were programmed to actively mask themselves. Again, probably not what they'll go with, just a theory I've been kicking around. --[[User:Zeratul|Zeratul]] 14:43, 8 February 2006 (EST)

With the caveat that I haven't seen the episode yet:why would Roslin's body have an autoimmune reaction when nanotechnology is used? In any case, the stem cell theory doesn't work. If Roslin indeed was at death's door, the damage to the healthy tissue is too great for stem cells to repair that in the necessary time frame. Protein needs to by synthesized, cells need to divide, etc. Plus, while stem cells can theoretically be used to create any organ, they still need the programming, which is not given in an adult body. They can be programmed in vitro, but they won't just form a liver if you inject them into the liver -the hormone gradients that existed during embryogenesis don't exist anymore, likewise the angiogenetic factors aren't around that would cause the cells to be supplied with the necessary nutrients. Although, ironically, the tumor might have spilled enough of those. And even if you get the cells to grow in the right places, you'd have to get them to stop growing as well, otherwise you've just replaced one cancer with another etc. etc... I think the cancer cure is just as much dramatic license as the "cylon and human physiology being identical". Given the silica pathways and the computer connectivity, there are quite obvious differences. I think that RDM did well to cut out the science since it is meaningless to the layperson and would likely have resulted in rolling eyes with people with expertise in the field. It is a contrived plot device, and trying to explain it away is likely to be futile. --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 15:18, 8 February 2006 (EST)

As an added point, I consider the issue with fetal cells as repairmen in the mother to be heavily overstated in the article here. The NPR contribution merely lists it as a hypothesis. There is no "appear", and there is several problems with at least the written part of the NPR contribution: It suggests that the fetal cells "could behave" as stem cells. However, there's more cells in a fetus than just stem cells, and in any case, at this stage, the cells aren't totipotent, i.e. capable of making ANYthing anymore, they have already diversified. It takes early embryonic stem cells for totipotency. I am also sceptical as far as these cells remaining "for life" goes: They'd be good candidates as a cancer ''cause'' rather than cure if they do. The other point is, as I tried to explain above, that these cells turn into specific tissue not just as an execution of an internal program, but as a response to external stimuli, such as hormones secreted by other cells in the vicinity. --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 15:36, 8 February 2006 (EST)

:True, Oliver, the NPR article is actually educated speculation (hypothesis at best). As someone whose medical/biology experience is that of a layman, I welcome you, both to the wiki, as well as to improve in the scientific explanations on this page. Interesting stuff you noted there. We know, of course, that this is all dramatic license, but for writers to go the extra mile and make an attempt to base the cure on some credible level of scientific theorem on the topic (unlike *cough*Star Trek*cough*some shows I know) is a notable thing. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 16:31, 8 February 2006 (EST)

::Well, at least StarTrek made SOME good choices about their technobabble: Knowing fully well that any prediction on computer power and storage capacity would likely be outdated even before the end of the series, they invented totally fictious parameters. Likewise with many other things. While this still leaves the opportunity to violate basic laws of physics, at least it prevents the "no way it could work that way" effect. There's a reason people study for science, and a reason scientists specialize: It's such a vast field that it's practically impossible to know one's way around everything. So a writer has the choice between winging it or hiring a huge staff of scientists and engineers who give him some well-founded speculation on how things could possibly be explained. That ain't gonna fly, obviously, so one way or the other of winging it will have to do for most productions. Now of course a writer can pick up the latest newspaper articles he read and implement them, but the problem is that most newspaper articles on scientific issues aren't precisely written by people with a grasp of the field either. What's worse, even most scientists don't really concern themselves with the theoretic bases of a solid standard of evidence. Alas, this is especially true in the medical field, where people who went to med school do a lot of research while, unlike people who studied sciences, they could grab little scientific theory at least implicitly. Or, to point at something that bugs folks like me quite regularly: If an M.D. has one patient who shows strange symptoms or responds to an unusualy therapy, he happily submits a publication that goes by the type "case report". If, say, a molecular biologist in the biomedical field hears of such an incident, he will at first glance attribute it to a combination of factors valid for that patient only and dismiss it as anecdotal until he hears of a significant number of cases showing some specific pattern and statistical relevance. Which is why especially in this field, going by mainstream press publications is like tangoing through a minefield. If you comb the literature with fine enough a comb, you will come across plenty of "miracle" cases. However, hold a magnifying glass of stringent scientific standards of evidence at them and they go up in hot air. (Background: I'm currently on the last lap of a Ph.D. in the cancer research field, working on new diagnostic methods.) --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 19:29, 8 February 2006 (EST)

::No, it is ridiculous to say that Star Trek handled technobabble well. That's why we call it technobabble. OTHER than that one point: they realized that computer power would increase so exponentionally by the 24th century that they just made up non-real units ("kiloquads", etc). '''Otherwise, it was laughable. Listen to RDM''' when he's talking about how Levar Burton seemed kind of good at spouting it off in season 1, so they just gave ''all of it to him''. Now, to understand my reaction, I actually watch TNG repeats pretty much every other day. Just finished watching the end of "A Matter of Perspective"; yikes. Crazy technobabble (well, the signal bounced off of some mirrors, but it was so powerful, that when reversed it must have acted like a laser beam" etc. etc.)--[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 23:36, 8 February 2006 (EST)

:::Please cite where I said that Star Trek handled technobabble well. You will have difficulties doing so. I suggest you stop just slamming everything you don't like and stick to the facts. The simple fact that you don't like a solution doesn't make it "technobabble" per se, nor does taking any odd scientific hypothesis as truth make something good drama. If you get stomach cramps watching TNG, why do you watch it 'every other day'? --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 03:06, 9 February 2006 (EST)

:Humanoid Cylon physiology does not contain "nanomachines"; human cells are also machines, if bio-chemical ones. What the Cylons appear to have done is to have artificially developed the genetic code for an artificial organism which is mostly like humans, but has had certain "upgrades" to it's DNA. I've seen nothing to even come close to speculation that they use "nanomachiens"; this verges into Star Trek ''Borg, Seven of Nine-esque'' [[technobabble]], (shudder). And...no, wait...(''shudder''). Sorry, lots of bad memories. Well, It's just needlessly complicated for this show and I don't think they'd stoop to that level. --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 16:42, 8 February 2006 (EST)
::Well, the thing is, it's a huge difference whether it's a biochemical machine or not. The human immune system is very efficient in fighting foreign "biochemical machines" in that it can recognize proteins that aren't part of the body. We know that some nonbiological materials such as graphite or teflon can also trigger an immune response, but this can easily be avoided by using different material. In an ideal scenario (not given here), nanorobots could even simply be coated with "self" proteins and be waved through by the immune system. There's a whole lot of literature on nanomedicine prospects at http://www.nanomedicine.com/index.htm including entire books for free, or, for the less ambitious, the FAQ at http://www.foresight.org/Nanomedicine/NanoMedFAQ.html. And frankly, as a molecular biologist, I shudder at "upgrades" to DNA. A system that can give us everything from archaeobacteria to humans has already demonstrated that it is extremely flexible and yet efficient. I have a bit of an impression that "technobabble" is whatever solution one doesn't like ;) --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 19:29, 8 February 2006 (EST)
:::And, as a genetics major, I can tell you that quite a lot can be done with DNA; right now it's like flying a plane in the first decade of the 20th century; not impossible, but very hard. However, that doesn't mean that ''in theory'', such advances are impossible. Given enought time it could be done. '''Further''', you didn't really address the question. You just meandered around spouting off a lot of information on "nanomachines" without really explaining their practicality or applicability to this situation. And "a system already demonstreated this it is extremely flexible and efficient"....er, this isn't a rebutal. You just made a long sentence stating that "yup, that's DNA for ya", but that specific sentence doesn't actually address the issue of nanomchines, genetic engineering, etc. at all. Please get back on topic. We are not fooled by lots of information being thrown at us and can tell when it lacks actual substance. --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 23:41, 8 February 2006 (EST)

:::: *sigh* I should have posted when I first read this, but figured everyone else could see what was going on. Apparently not. RiciMerovingian, please calm a moment. I think you jumped to the worst possible conclusion, rather than giving the benefit of the doubt. What I read as having occured is that Oliver misunderstood the statement about "updates to DNA" as meaning that the fundamental nature of DNA had been upgraded. I don't think he was intentionally obfuscating the topic with terminology that might be over a layman's head in order to "win". I think he was just confused.

:::: Anyway, what was actually meant, as ''I'' read it, was that the DNA that makes one human has been altered in Cylons to have certain upgrades, not that they have better DNA (such that it is not, really, DNA), but that their DNA is almost human, except enccoded to be, say, more resiliant to diseases, quicker healing in the case of physical damage and (as an example of an "upgrade" I'd personally skip, if I were them) unable to procreate. '''Anyway''', hopefully now everyone sees where we got off track, we can put unpleasantness behind and backup to where we were still on topic. --[[User:Day|Day]] 00:28, 9 February 2006 (EST)

:::::Day, the problem is that if their genes were in some way "better" as in more efficient etc. this could be easily discerned with 20th century level technology and could only go so far before the organism is not compatible with human organisms anymore as in clearly being recognized as foreign by the immune system and possibly even incompatible for procreation. In any case, it would also mean that physiology is far from identical. --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 03:06, 9 February 2006 (EST)

::::Merovingian, I realize you didn't like what I said, but claiming that my statements lacked substance when in fact, I made specific arguments and referenced them is quite off. I very much addressed the issue: You stated "human cells are also machines", implying that nanomachines would have no significantly different properties, which is plain false. I also explained further up why stem cells are not viable as an explanation. I never actually said that nanomachines are, in fact pointing out that the event was pure dramatic license. I simply rebutted the objections about nanomachines. As for lacking substance, ''as a genetics major, I can tell you that quite a lot can be done with DNA; right now it's like flying a plane in the first decade of the 20th century; not impossible, but very hard'' is devoid of any. It's simply a claim "I know better", without stating what it actually is you think you know nor whether it is actually supported by anyone else. Genetic engineering is no "upgrade of DNA". I suggest you decide what your concrete arguments are and support them and live with the fact that while you may not like the concept of nanomachines, it is far from technobabble. --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 03:06, 9 February 2006 (EST)

==Genetics==
1.) My impression was that baltar was sketching schematic representations of human and cylon antigens, not individual nitrogenous bases (which wouldn't really be relevant for the treatment he was proposing)

2.) Are you certain the hexagonal image is of uracil, and not another [[Wikipedia:pyrimidine|pyrimidine]] such as [[Wikipedia:cytosine|cytosine]] or [[Wikipedia:thymine|thymine]]? --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 04:20, 2 February 2006 (EST)

:2) Indeed. I've been going over my Human Molecular Genetics notes, and this is the only possibility. The difficulty you may have encountered is that Baltar is holding it upside down. Actually, I made a drawing of what we see "on screen" in the commercial (unfortunately, BSGwiki doesn't seem to want to upload bmp images; sorry).

:There is a very long line coming of of a Nitrogen; this represent an R-linkage (that is, where the base connects to deoxyribose). ''Traditionally'', (by Earth international convention) the R-linkage making Nitrogen is placed at the bottom of the diagram; plus, Baltar drew it backwords, but that's just viewing it from a different angle and changes none of the linkages. This is where we see "NH" on the bottom of that pic of Uracil I have; the H gets dropped and the N forms the R-linkage. I spent a long time trying to figure out which one it was before I determined that it is definately Uracil; none of the others. You can see this more clearly in the page on [[Wikipedia:Nucleotide|Nucleotide]]: the one we see has no NH2 subgroup linked to a carbon in the ring, so it's definately not Cytosine (Cytosine has 3 N's, Uracil and Thymine, only 2). It can't be thymine, because it has no H3C subgroup branching off of the ring. It actually looks exactly like the image of Uracil on the Nucleotide article.

:1)****My entire point, Farago, is that Ron D. Moore stated in his podcast that ORIGINALLY, Baltar *was* making all of thse comparisons of DNA, stem cells, etc. and stating how Cylon **DNA** is different. However, he got in a panic, because as we all know he is nervous to use Technobabble (often, this is a very good thing) but this time he overreacted; now all of the messageboards are filled with complaints of "This wasn't explained well enough; he just said it's "blood was special" and drew two overlapping squares; this doesn't explain anything". '''In scenes that they deleted, Baltar goes into detail explaining what's different about it, comparing DNA structure, etc. ''' Hopefully, we will see it in the DVD when these scenes are released. ''' However, (as sometimes happens) footage from deleted scenes was used to make the commercial for the episode, and because I taped it off of tv (as opposed to downloading it) I was able to pause it and look at this.''' Really, they just cut a *LOT* of stuff out; it's not *JUST* "antigents"; the script for this scene was butchered in the editing room, and the explanation is actually a lot more complex than just "it's blood has no antigens"; Antigens for ''what''? Antigens are things that trigger an immune response; in that sense, '''this isn't that much different from the O-[[Wikipedia:blood type|blood type]]. --[[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]] 14:16, 2 February 2006 (EST)

::I'm [[Talk:Epiphanies#Cancer Therapy|well aware]] of that. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 23:24, 2 February 2006 (EST)

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

2006-02-09T00:29:49Z

OliverH.: /* The Cancer Cure of Laura Roslin */

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

2006-02-08T20:36:30Z

OliverH.: /* The Cancer Cure of Laura Roslin */

== Time for a Technobabble Exam ==

This article came out of my head as watched the mini-series for the umpteenth time after wondering if the writers really took the time to know what numbers they're having the characters say and if they mean anything real. I'm neither a math expert or physics expert, so do check my math. I've started on mini-series datum, and as others rewatch season 1 and 2, we'll be able to add more on distances, speeds, weapons, and the like. Some of this information may already be on other pages, but aren't expanded or elaborated.

Perhaps someone knows of what earthly materials ''Galactica'' would have to be made of to withstand the compressive energies of a kiloton nuclear warhead without major structural deformity (Mini-Series). This is meant to be a page of speculation based on points from the series, so have fun with it. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 11:35, 8 December 2005 (EST)

:I'm a little confused. Based on your analysis we know Colonial One's distance from Caprica, not Galactica's, so how can we measure Colonial One's speed?

:Galactica is at point A. Caprica is at point C. Colonial One is at point B between them, 30 light-minutes from point C and 5.5 ship-hours from point A. I don't see how we can solve for Colonial One's velocity with this data.

:Roslin's conversation with Jack (which I believed survived its way to the final cut) was in real-time, however, so we can probably assume that they'd made it all the way back to Caprica by the time the nukes went off.

:Oh, one last thing - if BSG follows real-world physics, the fastest way to get somewhere in space is to accelerate at full capacity until you're halfway to your destination, then flip around and decelerate the rest of the distance. Since there's no air resistance, there isn't any "top speed" to contend with - a ship's speed would only be limited by its fuel stores and maximum acceleration. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 14:36, 8 December 2005 (EST)

::I did fudge Colonal One's location, assuming it and Caprica are almost at the same location to work out the travel times and distance. Even if Colonial One is as much as 30 light-minutes out, I may be able to reverse-calculate that amount of distance and recompute the time. (Damn. Now I sound like a character from Star Trek. Where's my heisenberg compensator!?) Yes, Jack's conversation was in the final cut, although there was a draft scene where we see him on Caprica in the hellish bombardment result, which wasn't in the aired show. The ship was 3 hours from Caprica when news of the attacks reached them, and I would hope that the ship stopped their approach at that point or close to it. Since wireless is speed-of-light communications. either the writers screwed up since 3 hours from Caprica at my calculated cruise speed would mean that a wireless message exchange would be over 120 million miles, and that would take it about 12 minutes between sends.

::Or, Colonial One was close to Caprica, but that would also mean that it was fodder--we saw Valerii's Raptor near Caprica and descending, and the space around the planet was filled with basestars and a dead battlestar. In Star Trek, the writers explain off relativistic communications with "subspace", but I am ''not'' going there. It's more likely that the ship was close enough for wireless...maybe about twice the distance from our Earth to our moon, or about 500,000 miles. That would make for a 4 second delay, not so much of a comm delay (and can be written off when the viewer see the conversation), but far enough away to keep the Cylon armada there from noticing right off on DRADIS (though obviously a fighter or two did). After looking at my DVD, that idea is most probable beyond saying the writers screwed up.

::Yep, all ships, including Vipers, have to brake once inertia kicks in. We see lots of instances in the mini-series of what happens when the rules of inertia are adhered--or ignored. Something else to add and incorporate. And, then, there's that ''artificial gravity'' thing that needs explainin'. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 16:07, 8 December 2005 (EST)

:::Just reviewed that scene, and your calculations seem sound. Billy was stating the time delay between Galactica and Caprica, not Colonial One's current location, and the flight was obviously just getting underway. Furthermore, the delay between the nuclear attacks and Adama's report ("preliminary reports indicate a thermonuclear device in the fifty megaton range was detonated over caprica city thirty minutes ago") makes it clear that it's a 30-minute delay each way, not round trip.
:::One more thing, though. Galactica is clearly already en route to Caprica - Adama indicates that they're on their way home when he talks to Tigh, and it can be seen in space with its sublight engines active. This complicates their rendezvous substantially, since Colonial One would have to reverse course and match speed with Galactica in order to avoid simply crossing paths. On the other hand, it's apparently not accelerating there as fast as Colonial One is capable of, or else that ship's return trip would be impossible. It may be fair to consider it a stationary object. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 17:35, 8 December 2005 (EST)

:::: This is a neat page. I just found it. Anyway, I think, if I were the interplanetary equivalent of the FAA, I'd determine that civillian ships should obey certain speedlimits (excluding emergency craft, I guess, with siren-equivalents going), and military craft to certain, slightly higher, speed limits (except in times of war). So, this would mean that people wouldn't generally be accellerating half way to a destination and decellerating the other half.

:::: Also, since ''Galactica'''s crew knows she'll be rendesvousing with various civillian craft, she's probably doing some zig-zagging to meet up with them, so not travelling in a straight line. Keep in mind, she's a destination for an event. Getting to Caprica isn't probably very high on the priority list until after the ceremony.

:::: I wish the writer's had done the math. It looks, to me, like they didn't, really. I mean--I can understand an aversion to getting into the nitty-gritty details, but important things like a kind of average acceleration speed seem handy to have.

:::: Lastly, a few loose ends I have. Do you guys think wireless is basically just radio and, thus, works at the speed of light? Have you noticed that smaller craft with huge aft-oriented engines have little problem doing quick-decelleration maneuvers without flipping around (eg. the Marine boarding Raptors in ''[[Bastille Day]]'')? Does anyone have any thoughts about the feasability of what we've seen the Vipers do as far as all the flipping and turning and such? --[[User:Day|Day]] 03:51, 9 December 2005 (EST)

:::::All things considered, I think they did pretty good in some parts of math. Based on the early Mini-Series script floating around (where it specifically indicates the term wireless and that it was their term for radio), and given that its use is identical to what is used in the Mini-Series, yes, wireless is radio. On Galactica's movement: for purposes of simplicity, Gods, yes, please keep her a stationary object for the equations. From a travel standpoint, it would be more sensible to keep Galactica in one place since a civilian transport wouldn't want to make changes in course at FTL speed 0.11. She is likely moving a little, but nowhere near Colonial Heavy 798's speeds, and in no rush to get to Caprica. On small ships: I think the Viper physics model is great. Sometimes the Raptor movement seems a bit too Star Wars, I agree, but I'll have to pay more attention to that to make a better assessment. I think I'm going to tackle that ''artificial gravity'' matter today--it's been stewing in my head. And has anyone noticed that Galactica's sublight engines are ALWAYS on, even if she appears stationary? I think its a beautiful effect, but I get distracted by it when I watch the fight at the Anchorage. Here's the battlestar, now dorsal up and flipped, but its' engines still look like they're burning, and hard. Don't know what's up with that. Oh, and I guess Vipers can manage high sublight speeds like a civilian transport, since Colonial Heavy was escorted back to Caprica and the last Mark VII squadron was en route back as well. There's the matter of keeping humans from turning to goo at these speeds, but I'll work on it until my head explodes (shouldn't be too long). --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 08:54, 9 December 2005 (EST)

:::::: People not gooifying is probably tied into artificial gravity. However, I imagine that smaller craft don't have the gravity equipment (if I were designing them, I'd probably leave it off to lower mass) since Adama talks about a tight turn meaning Kara would have to be pulling Gs like fighter pilots today do... So either the gravity equipment can generate a G, but not counter inertia (which would mean splat), or it's not included in the fighters. However, Raptors would seem to have it, since everyone always stands on the floor in those things, even in orbit over Kobol before being rammed by Raptors. --[[User:Day|Day]] 16:08, 9 December 2005 (EST)

:::::::Remember the scene where Adama jokingly tells Billy that they're having good luck in getting to Kobol as both are pressed into their descending Raptor by 5 or 6 Gs? I agree, the artificial gravity compensates as if you were in a 1 G situation. I bet the Vipers are weightless to save the weight of an artificial gravity device, however, and I've yet to recall where a pilot takes something off and drops it inside a fighter. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 16:18, 9 December 2005 (EST)

Anyone given any thought to the time dilation caused by movement at such speeds? Might make for some interesting dialogue in an episode, if anything. [[User:Drumstick|Drumstick]] 21:22, 30 December 2005 (EST)

:If I understand my relativistic principles, sublight flight would have a slight relativistic effect. In the case of lightspeed, there is no relativistic effect as ships do not actually move at light speed, but move from one location to another--apparent FTL. I'm not sufficiently knowledgeable to calculate the actual relativistic effects on, say, ''Colonial One's'' occupants at their cruise speed. Maybe someone else is knowledgeable. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 19:33, 31 December 2005 (EST)

==Artificial Gravity==
Be careful not to confuse Naturalistic SF with Hard SF. They have little to do with one another. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 15:09, 9 December 2005 (EST)
:Of course, in fact, they are quite opposite, but NSF takes a few elements from hard SF, though not in the extreme that hard SF defines itself. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 16:18, 9 December 2005 (EST)
Another wrinkle in the whole artificial gravity can of worms: The ability to manipulate gravity fields opens the door to many other technologies, too. For example, a rudimentary tractor beam could be constructed by using your artificial gravity field to pull objects toward your ship. The reverse is probably possible -- using it to repel objects and projectiles for a sort of a deflector shield. Since the Colonials have none of these abilities and yet have apparently had artificial gravity for a long time (before the contruction of the Galactica), it stands to reason that whatever means they use to generate gravity is severely limited. --[[User:Zeratul|Zeratul]] 11:45, 8 February 2006 (EST)
::Welcome to the Wiki, Zeratul. I agree; this limits whatever they use to gravity simulators rather than generators, given their power limitations and storyline limits. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 13:06, 8 February 2006 (EST)
:::Thanks for the welcome, Spencerian. Long time reader first time contributor here. :) Another thing to consider is that whatever they use for gravity continues to work even when main power and control is lost, as in [[Valley of Darkness]]. Likely it would have a separate power source and controls as the life support systems do, meaning it's either passive or doesn't require much power to operate.
:::It's difficult to see, but in the miniseries the doomed botanical freighter seems to have domes on both the top and bottom of the ship, which would imply they have the ability to maintain several different gravitational vectors within a ship.
:::Another good reference would be Boomer's raptor in the miniseries, when she powers it down for the approach to Caprica. I think they were strapped in at the time though, so the gravity may or may not have been shut off.
:::I suspect, though, that this is something that will never really be explained but rather remain a plot-driven convenience. --[[User:Zeratul|Zeratul]] 14:29, 8 February 2006 (EST)

==Sublight vs. FTL==
The fact that Colonial One, an FTL-capable ship, made its way from Caprica to Galactica at Sublight tells us something else - 5.5 hours of engine burn consume less energy than a hyperspace jump to cover the same distance. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 01:58, 11 December 2005 (EST)

:Not necessarily. Two reasons why--first, FTL might not have been an option: either it was illegal, seen as too dangerous for travel within a system, deemed too uncomfortable for passengers, or pilots simply weren't trained to calculate a jump, any of which are potentially valid given Tigh's comment that it had been 20 years since a jump. Of course, that may raise a question as to why the drive was installed in the first place. (Regulations? Holdover from the first war?) Secondly, it seems unrealistic that it would take more energy to jump that small distance than to burn the fuel because the entire fleet can jump like 230 times in a row ([[33]]) without any refueling problems or the like. [[User:Drumstick|Drumstick]] 21:19, 30 December 2005 (EST)

:I think that FTL flight is generally quite disconcerting to passengers, judging from Cally's take on it when we see ''Galactica'' make its first Jump in the Miniseries. So, sublight is preferable in most instances. I cannot determine from any episodes whether the fuel consumption is more or less when going at sublight over FTL. The comfort level is the most likely reason. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 10:52, 1 January 2006 (EST)

==Nukes==
If the energy density of [[Tylium]] is so much greater than fissile materials and has the added benefit of producing no fallout, and requiring no sophisticated trigger mechanism, why do the Colonials use nuclear warheads on their missiles rather than tylium bombs? Nuclear fallout has desirable side effects against organic targets, which explains Cylon use thereof, but what advantage does it offer human forces?

:(Obviously, in real life it's a question of storytelling:
:"For instance, in the Galactica mini-series, when the Cylons attack the colonists, they attack them with thermonuclear weapons. They don't attack them with lasers and photon torpedoes, and strange things that don't exist.
:"When you see a planet nuked, and you see those mushroom clouds, and hear about the destruction of entire cities by nuclear weapons, that is a much more terrifying and frightening idea than if you're saying fifteen thousand photon torpedoes were launched at Caprica. One is real and one is not." [http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/news/cult/2004/02/20/9599.shtml]
:"There would not be 'photon torpedoes' but instead nuclear missiles, because nukes are real and thus are frightening." [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/magazine/17GALACTICA.html]
:"We use nukes. And these days, that’s truly scary. You use photon torpedoes and the audience goes 'oh, okay. shrug.'" [http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA513174.html?display=Top+Stories]) --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 02:09, 11 December 2005 (EST)

:Nukes have the desireable side effect of creating an electromagnetic pulse which disrupts all (currently) known forms of electronics. --[[User:Durandal|Durandal]] 02:41, 8 January 2006 (EST)
: And a side note, now that I think of it. Considering the supposed rarity of tylium, Nukes are also much easier to produce and much less of a waste of a valuable resource. [[User:Durandal|Durandal]] 13:12, 8 January 2006 (EST)

::You hit the nail on the head, Durandal. If you can, work up what you just said and add it to the article! --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 13:15, 8 January 2006 (EST)

::: Does not really fit in this article, whithout generating a new section for such a point. If anyone has a better idea for placement, I'm all ears. [[User:Durandal|Durandal]] 13:25, 8 January 2006 (EST)

:My own thoughts on the subject are A) Tylium is somewhat rare so it is difficult to mass produce nuclear warheads, but more importantly B) Baltar said that detonating a nuclear warhead near Tylium would "render it inert", not create a chain reaction. I think that Tylium must be "reactive/unstable" enough that it's a good fuel source (moreso than just Plutonium), however, it probably has the chemical property that it is very difficult to produce an explosive uncontrollable chain reaction with it. --[[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]] 18:13, 8 January 2006 (EST)

::That would disagree with the extremely large tylium explosion seen at the end of "The Hand of God". I prefer Durandal's explanation. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 18:24, 8 January 2006 (EST)

:::In Ricimer's defense, the explosion was caused by the precursor, the refined but unprocessed component that forms the fuel later. Precursor is more unstable or explosive than the fuel. There are chemicals throughout the Periodic Table that release tremendous energies, more so than plutonium. The problem is the process of controlling it. Else, hydrogen would be our fuel of choice for everything: common, cheap, and leaves a benign by-product. For the Colonies, tylium was their answer. I disagree that tylium is rare, although I think it is hard to find; the Fleet's luck in finding one rock of it also implies that a little tylium goes an awfully long way, but mining and processing it is a real bitch. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 18:40, 8 January 2006 (EST)

== Landings & Gravity ==

Unless I am completely mistaken, aside from whatever may be the 'standard' artifical gravity source aboard Galactica, it is explicitly stated that the actual landing pads in the flight pods rely upon magnitism to hold craft in place en route to the hanger.
:"Viper Four-five-zero, skids down, mag-lock secure." (Kelly to Apollo upon touchdown aproximately 22 minutes into the miniseries)
[[User:Durandal|Durandal]] 02:56, 8 January 2006 (EST)

:Correct. On the flight deck, magnetism is used to secure landing Vipers. But in the hangar deck and manned areas of the ship, something else is used, since the humans (and many other virtually non-magnetic items in CIC and elsewhere) are kept from floating. It's an unexplained conumdrum that right now is just a writing convenience. If the article appears to be vague in that topic, do modify it. I created and generated much of this article, and sometimes I can get too wordy and the point gets muddled. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 13:19, 8 January 2006 (EST)

:: I actually wrote this bit in response to note 2, which states it as a possibility as opposed to cannon-fact. I'm not quite sure HOW to rewrite it, unfortunately... [[User:Durandal|Durandal]] 13:23, 8 January 2006 (EST)

== Expensive claim... ==

I find the recent expense claim [[Battlestar Wiki:Citation Jihad|uncitable]] at best. There's absolutely no indication either way that financial expense played into utilizing FTL Jump technology in BSG. Therefore, unless we can get someone to point out where this info came from, I vote for its removal. Also, just because ''Galactica'' didn't perform a jump in 20 years doesn't really mean that it is normal for Colonail ships (military or otherwise) to rely on sublight travel alone. -- [[User:Joe.Beaudoin|Joe Beaudoin]] 23:15, 1 February 2006 (EST)

:I read it differently - the statement seems to infer expense from the fact that FTL travel is not used frequently, not vice-versa. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 23:23, 1 February 2006 (EST)

::I think they just didn't do it, because why risk the (albeit very very small) safety concerns of warping through space? (a wrong calculation and we could wind up in the sun", etc.) Remember, they really have FTL drive for two reasons: 1) It's a holdover from the Exodus (''theory'' but not established fact and frankly I don't believe that), 2) they do have a "sphere of influence" beyond the 12 Colonies, not full-fledged other planets, just mining-camp colonies like Troy. So that's why they put in FTL; plus it's good to have instantaneous travel. --[[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]] 23:50, 1 February 2006 (EST)

::: It would be logical to assume that, with so many ships "up in the air", as it were, Jumping into another ship or even trade route may be a concern. I don't fully agree with the "holdover from the Exodus" theory either and it seems likely that FTL technology was put into place as a means of instantaneous transportation during wartime. (Imagine jumping out of harms way instead of fleeing from the enemy at sublight speeds; in fact, this is quite similar to ''Farscape'' and the Leviathan's ability to starburst.) -- [[User:Joe.Beaudoin|Joe Beaudoin]] 09:52, 2 February 2006 (EST)

:I think the current reasons are sufficient enough; there doesn't necessarily need to be a separate bullet point about "expense," especially because it is so vague and unexplained. Is it the cost of buying fuel that's expensive? Probably not, based on what we've seen so far in terms of tylium consumption. They seem to jump quite a bit and don't need to refuel very often. (Basically, just in Hand of God, and that's after jumping constantly for weeks. I mean, they could have been distributing Galactica's tylium to the other ships, but if Galactica has ''that'' much, it can't be that exorbitant of a fuel source, particularly so in peacetime when the ships were first loaded.) Is it wear and tear on the ship that costs money to fix? Maybe, but for the fleet to have lasted this long without any ships breaking down undercuts that theory. I mean, how else do you define expense? I'm not missing something here, am I? --[[User:Drumstick|Drumstick]] 02:19, 2 February 2006 (EST)

==The Cancer Cure of Laura Roslin==

One possibility we may want to consider is that of the Humano-Cylons being party based on nanotechnology. If the Cylons have nanobots in their blood, it would explain the selective destruction of cancer cells, and the quick repair of normal cells, and how such a small amount could completely cure the disease. Additionally, a Cylon-Human hybrid would have nanobots less likely to reject a normal human's system.

It would also explain the seeming contradiction in the Humano-Cylon's nature -- that they are close enough to human that even an autoposy cannot tell them apart, and yet somehow machine enough to upload their memories and consciousness.

Though this is my personal favorite theory, there's absolutely no canonical basis for it. --[[User:zeratul|zeratul]]

:It seems that the stem cell theory was the "answer" to this, as stated in the article, now with RDM voicing in on the original explanation that was edited away or revised before filming because it was too technical. Further, your theory conflicts with the established point that Cylon and human physiology is practically identical in appearance and function down to the cellular level, implying that nanotechnology would be identifiable medically. This is supported as well since, unless such nanotech is masked to work with human physiology, Roslin's body would have an autoimmune reaction, fighting off the fetal blood like in an Rh factor reaction. Aside from the established effects of the fetal blood used, only Baltar's [[Cylon detector]] can accurately discern Cylon from human. Funny, I just listened today to an article on National Public Radio that says that fetal stem cells "leak" from the placenta of each baby (born or unborn) into the mother's body, which become an "elite" (but small) force of cells that aid in protecting or repairing damage or disease in the mother for years, according to early research. I ''have'' to get that link to this article--it is very ''apropos'' here. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 13:17, 8 February 2006 (EST)
::Yes, I agree with you that the stem cells are the official explanation. I'm not sure if I buy it, however, as real-life stem cells can't spontaneously cure something as complex as cancer just by injecting them. Baltar's been wrong before. Yes, yes, genetically engineered Cylons are a possibility (but wouldn't that be easily detectable at the Colonials' current level of technology?). I guess for now we'll have to write it off as a "magical" effect of hybrids... Sigh :)
::If the nanomachines were small enough they wouldn't be visible even under a microscope (haven't seen an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanning_electron_microscope SEM] on the show yet), and could probably be designed to not show up to chemical tests as well -- especially if they were programmed to actively mask themselves. Again, probably not what they'll go with, just a theory I've been kicking around. --[[User:Zeratul|Zeratul]] 14:43, 8 February 2006 (EST)

With the caveat that I haven't seen the episode yet:why would Roslin's body have an autoimmune reaction when nanotechnology is used? In any case, the stem cell theory doesn't work. If Roslin indeed was at death's door, the damage to the healthy tissue is too great for stem cells to repair that in the necessary time frame. Protein needs to by synthesized, cells need to divide, etc. Plus, while stem cells can theoretically be used to create any organ, they still need the programming, which is not given in an adult body. They can be programmed in vitro, but they won't just form a liver if you inject them into the liver -the hormone gradients that existed during embryogenesis don't exist anymore, likewise the angiogenetic factors aren't around that would cause the cells to be supplied with the necessary nutrients. Although, ironically, the tumor might have spilled enough of those. And even if you get the cells to grow in the right places, you'd have to get them to stop growing as well, otherwise you've just replaced one cancer with another etc. etc... I think the cancer cure is just as much dramatic license as the "cylon and human physiology being identical". Given the silica pathways and the computer connectivity, there are quite obvious differences. I think that RDM did well to cut out the science since it is meaningless to the layperson and would likely have resulted in rolling eyes with people with expertise in the field. It is a contrived plot device, and trying to explain it away is likely to be futile. --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 15:18, 8 February 2006 (EST)
As an added point, I consider the issue with fetal cells as repairmen in the mother to be heavily overstated in the article here. The NPR contribution merely lists it as a hypothesis. There is no "appear", and there is several problems with at least the written part of the NPR contribution: It suggests that the fetal cells "could behave" as stem cells. However, there's more cells in a fetus than just stem cells, and in any case, at this stage, the cells aren't totipotent, i.e. capable of making ANYthing anymore, they have already diversified. It takes early embryonic stem cells for totipotency. I am also sceptical as far as these cells remaining "for life" goes: They'd be good candidates as a cancer ''cause'' rather than cure if they do. The other point is, as I tried to explain above, that these cells turn into specific tissue not just as an execution of an internal program, but as a response to external stimuli, such as hormones secreted by other cells in the vicinity. --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 15:36, 8 February 2006 (EST)

==Genetics==
1.) My impression was that baltar was sketching schematic representations of human and cylon antigens, not individual nitrogenous bases (which wouldn't really be relevant for the treatment he was proposing)

2.) Are you certain the hexagonal image is of uracil, and not another [[Wikipedia:pyrimidine|pyrimidine]] such as [[Wikipedia:cytosine|cytosine]] or [[Wikipedia:thymine|thymine]]? --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 04:20, 2 February 2006 (EST)

:2) Indeed. I've been going over my Human Molecular Genetics notes, and this is the only possibility. The difficulty you may have encountered is that Baltar is holding it upside down. Actually, I made a drawing of what we see "on screen" in the commercial (unfortunately, BSGwiki doesn't seem to want to upload bmp images; sorry).

:There is a very long line coming of of a Nitrogen; this represent an R-linkage (that is, where the base connects to deoxyribose). ''Traditionally'', (by Earth international convention) the R-linkage making Nitrogen is placed at the bottom of the diagram; plus, Baltar drew it backwords, but that's just viewing it from a different angle and changes none of the linkages. This is where we see "NH" on the bottom of that pic of Uracil I have; the H gets dropped and the N forms the R-linkage. I spent a long time trying to figure out which one it was before I determined that it is definately Uracil; none of the others. You can see this more clearly in the page on [[Wikipedia:Nucleotide|Nucleotide]]: the one we see has no NH2 subgroup linked to a carbon in the ring, so it's definately not Cytosine (Cytosine has 3 N's, Uracil and Thymine, only 2). It can't be thymine, because it has no H3C subgroup branching off of the ring. It actually looks exactly like the image of Uracil on the Nucleotide article.

:1)****My entire point, Farago, is that Ron D. Moore stated in his podcast that ORIGINALLY, Baltar *was* making all of thse comparisons of DNA, stem cells, etc. and stating how Cylon **DNA** is different. However, he got in a panic, because as we all know he is nervous to use Technobabble (often, this is a very good thing) but this time he overreacted; now all of the messageboards are filled with complaints of "This wasn't explained well enough; he just said it's "blood was special" and drew two overlapping squares; this doesn't explain anything". '''In scenes that they deleted, Baltar goes into detail explaining what's different about it, comparing DNA structure, etc. ''' Hopefully, we will see it in the DVD when these scenes are released. ''' However, (as sometimes happens) footage from deleted scenes was used to make the commercial for the episode, and because I taped it off of tv (as opposed to downloading it) I was able to pause it and look at this.''' Really, they just cut a *LOT* of stuff out; it's not *JUST* "antigents"; the script for this scene was butchered in the editing room, and the explanation is actually a lot more complex than just "it's blood has no antigens"; Antigens for ''what''? Antigens are things that trigger an immune response; in that sense, '''this isn't that much different from the O-[[Wikipedia:blood type|blood type]]. --[[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]] 14:16, 2 February 2006 (EST)

::I'm [[Talk:Epiphanies#Cancer Therapy|well aware]] of that. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 23:24, 2 February 2006 (EST)

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

2006-02-08T20:18:26Z

OliverH.: /* The Cancer Cure of Laura Roslin */

== Time for a Technobabble Exam ==

This article came out of my head as watched the mini-series for the umpteenth time after wondering if the writers really took the time to know what numbers they're having the characters say and if they mean anything real. I'm neither a math expert or physics expert, so do check my math. I've started on mini-series datum, and as others rewatch season 1 and 2, we'll be able to add more on distances, speeds, weapons, and the like. Some of this information may already be on other pages, but aren't expanded or elaborated.

Perhaps someone knows of what earthly materials ''Galactica'' would have to be made of to withstand the compressive energies of a kiloton nuclear warhead without major structural deformity (Mini-Series). This is meant to be a page of speculation based on points from the series, so have fun with it. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 11:35, 8 December 2005 (EST)

:I'm a little confused. Based on your analysis we know Colonial One's distance from Caprica, not Galactica's, so how can we measure Colonial One's speed?

:Galactica is at point A. Caprica is at point C. Colonial One is at point B between them, 30 light-minutes from point C and 5.5 ship-hours from point A. I don't see how we can solve for Colonial One's velocity with this data.

:Roslin's conversation with Jack (which I believed survived its way to the final cut) was in real-time, however, so we can probably assume that they'd made it all the way back to Caprica by the time the nukes went off.

:Oh, one last thing - if BSG follows real-world physics, the fastest way to get somewhere in space is to accelerate at full capacity until you're halfway to your destination, then flip around and decelerate the rest of the distance. Since there's no air resistance, there isn't any "top speed" to contend with - a ship's speed would only be limited by its fuel stores and maximum acceleration. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 14:36, 8 December 2005 (EST)

::I did fudge Colonal One's location, assuming it and Caprica are almost at the same location to work out the travel times and distance. Even if Colonial One is as much as 30 light-minutes out, I may be able to reverse-calculate that amount of distance and recompute the time. (Damn. Now I sound like a character from Star Trek. Where's my heisenberg compensator!?) Yes, Jack's conversation was in the final cut, although there was a draft scene where we see him on Caprica in the hellish bombardment result, which wasn't in the aired show. The ship was 3 hours from Caprica when news of the attacks reached them, and I would hope that the ship stopped their approach at that point or close to it. Since wireless is speed-of-light communications. either the writers screwed up since 3 hours from Caprica at my calculated cruise speed would mean that a wireless message exchange would be over 120 million miles, and that would take it about 12 minutes between sends.

::Or, Colonial One was close to Caprica, but that would also mean that it was fodder--we saw Valerii's Raptor near Caprica and descending, and the space around the planet was filled with basestars and a dead battlestar. In Star Trek, the writers explain off relativistic communications with "subspace", but I am ''not'' going there. It's more likely that the ship was close enough for wireless...maybe about twice the distance from our Earth to our moon, or about 500,000 miles. That would make for a 4 second delay, not so much of a comm delay (and can be written off when the viewer see the conversation), but far enough away to keep the Cylon armada there from noticing right off on DRADIS (though obviously a fighter or two did). After looking at my DVD, that idea is most probable beyond saying the writers screwed up.

::Yep, all ships, including Vipers, have to brake once inertia kicks in. We see lots of instances in the mini-series of what happens when the rules of inertia are adhered--or ignored. Something else to add and incorporate. And, then, there's that ''artificial gravity'' thing that needs explainin'. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 16:07, 8 December 2005 (EST)

:::Just reviewed that scene, and your calculations seem sound. Billy was stating the time delay between Galactica and Caprica, not Colonial One's current location, and the flight was obviously just getting underway. Furthermore, the delay between the nuclear attacks and Adama's report ("preliminary reports indicate a thermonuclear device in the fifty megaton range was detonated over caprica city thirty minutes ago") makes it clear that it's a 30-minute delay each way, not round trip.
:::One more thing, though. Galactica is clearly already en route to Caprica - Adama indicates that they're on their way home when he talks to Tigh, and it can be seen in space with its sublight engines active. This complicates their rendezvous substantially, since Colonial One would have to reverse course and match speed with Galactica in order to avoid simply crossing paths. On the other hand, it's apparently not accelerating there as fast as Colonial One is capable of, or else that ship's return trip would be impossible. It may be fair to consider it a stationary object. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 17:35, 8 December 2005 (EST)

:::: This is a neat page. I just found it. Anyway, I think, if I were the interplanetary equivalent of the FAA, I'd determine that civillian ships should obey certain speedlimits (excluding emergency craft, I guess, with siren-equivalents going), and military craft to certain, slightly higher, speed limits (except in times of war). So, this would mean that people wouldn't generally be accellerating half way to a destination and decellerating the other half.

:::: Also, since ''Galactica'''s crew knows she'll be rendesvousing with various civillian craft, she's probably doing some zig-zagging to meet up with them, so not travelling in a straight line. Keep in mind, she's a destination for an event. Getting to Caprica isn't probably very high on the priority list until after the ceremony.

:::: I wish the writer's had done the math. It looks, to me, like they didn't, really. I mean--I can understand an aversion to getting into the nitty-gritty details, but important things like a kind of average acceleration speed seem handy to have.

:::: Lastly, a few loose ends I have. Do you guys think wireless is basically just radio and, thus, works at the speed of light? Have you noticed that smaller craft with huge aft-oriented engines have little problem doing quick-decelleration maneuvers without flipping around (eg. the Marine boarding Raptors in ''[[Bastille Day]]'')? Does anyone have any thoughts about the feasability of what we've seen the Vipers do as far as all the flipping and turning and such? --[[User:Day|Day]] 03:51, 9 December 2005 (EST)

:::::All things considered, I think they did pretty good in some parts of math. Based on the early Mini-Series script floating around (where it specifically indicates the term wireless and that it was their term for radio), and given that its use is identical to what is used in the Mini-Series, yes, wireless is radio. On Galactica's movement: for purposes of simplicity, Gods, yes, please keep her a stationary object for the equations. From a travel standpoint, it would be more sensible to keep Galactica in one place since a civilian transport wouldn't want to make changes in course at FTL speed 0.11. She is likely moving a little, but nowhere near Colonial Heavy 798's speeds, and in no rush to get to Caprica. On small ships: I think the Viper physics model is great. Sometimes the Raptor movement seems a bit too Star Wars, I agree, but I'll have to pay more attention to that to make a better assessment. I think I'm going to tackle that ''artificial gravity'' matter today--it's been stewing in my head. And has anyone noticed that Galactica's sublight engines are ALWAYS on, even if she appears stationary? I think its a beautiful effect, but I get distracted by it when I watch the fight at the Anchorage. Here's the battlestar, now dorsal up and flipped, but its' engines still look like they're burning, and hard. Don't know what's up with that. Oh, and I guess Vipers can manage high sublight speeds like a civilian transport, since Colonial Heavy was escorted back to Caprica and the last Mark VII squadron was en route back as well. There's the matter of keeping humans from turning to goo at these speeds, but I'll work on it until my head explodes (shouldn't be too long). --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 08:54, 9 December 2005 (EST)

:::::: People not gooifying is probably tied into artificial gravity. However, I imagine that smaller craft don't have the gravity equipment (if I were designing them, I'd probably leave it off to lower mass) since Adama talks about a tight turn meaning Kara would have to be pulling Gs like fighter pilots today do... So either the gravity equipment can generate a G, but not counter inertia (which would mean splat), or it's not included in the fighters. However, Raptors would seem to have it, since everyone always stands on the floor in those things, even in orbit over Kobol before being rammed by Raptors. --[[User:Day|Day]] 16:08, 9 December 2005 (EST)

:::::::Remember the scene where Adama jokingly tells Billy that they're having good luck in getting to Kobol as both are pressed into their descending Raptor by 5 or 6 Gs? I agree, the artificial gravity compensates as if you were in a 1 G situation. I bet the Vipers are weightless to save the weight of an artificial gravity device, however, and I've yet to recall where a pilot takes something off and drops it inside a fighter. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 16:18, 9 December 2005 (EST)

Anyone given any thought to the time dilation caused by movement at such speeds? Might make for some interesting dialogue in an episode, if anything. [[User:Drumstick|Drumstick]] 21:22, 30 December 2005 (EST)

:If I understand my relativistic principles, sublight flight would have a slight relativistic effect. In the case of lightspeed, there is no relativistic effect as ships do not actually move at light speed, but move from one location to another--apparent FTL. I'm not sufficiently knowledgeable to calculate the actual relativistic effects on, say, ''Colonial One's'' occupants at their cruise speed. Maybe someone else is knowledgeable. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 19:33, 31 December 2005 (EST)

==Artificial Gravity==
Be careful not to confuse Naturalistic SF with Hard SF. They have little to do with one another. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 15:09, 9 December 2005 (EST)
:Of course, in fact, they are quite opposite, but NSF takes a few elements from hard SF, though not in the extreme that hard SF defines itself. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 16:18, 9 December 2005 (EST)
Another wrinkle in the whole artificial gravity can of worms: The ability to manipulate gravity fields opens the door to many other technologies, too. For example, a rudimentary tractor beam could be constructed by using your artificial gravity field to pull objects toward your ship. The reverse is probably possible -- using it to repel objects and projectiles for a sort of a deflector shield. Since the Colonials have none of these abilities and yet have apparently had artificial gravity for a long time (before the contruction of the Galactica), it stands to reason that whatever means they use to generate gravity is severely limited. --[[User:Zeratul|Zeratul]] 11:45, 8 February 2006 (EST)
::Welcome to the Wiki, Zeratul. I agree; this limits whatever they use to gravity simulators rather than generators, given their power limitations and storyline limits. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 13:06, 8 February 2006 (EST)
:::Thanks for the welcome, Spencerian. Long time reader first time contributor here. :) Another thing to consider is that whatever they use for gravity continues to work even when main power and control is lost, as in [[Valley of Darkness]]. Likely it would have a separate power source and controls as the life support systems do, meaning it's either passive or doesn't require much power to operate.
:::It's difficult to see, but in the miniseries the doomed botanical freighter seems to have domes on both the top and bottom of the ship, which would imply they have the ability to maintain several different gravitational vectors within a ship.
:::Another good reference would be Boomer's raptor in the miniseries, when she powers it down for the approach to Caprica. I think they were strapped in at the time though, so the gravity may or may not have been shut off.
:::I suspect, though, that this is something that will never really be explained but rather remain a plot-driven convenience. --[[User:Zeratul|Zeratul]] 14:29, 8 February 2006 (EST)

==Sublight vs. FTL==
The fact that Colonial One, an FTL-capable ship, made its way from Caprica to Galactica at Sublight tells us something else - 5.5 hours of engine burn consume less energy than a hyperspace jump to cover the same distance. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 01:58, 11 December 2005 (EST)

:Not necessarily. Two reasons why--first, FTL might not have been an option: either it was illegal, seen as too dangerous for travel within a system, deemed too uncomfortable for passengers, or pilots simply weren't trained to calculate a jump, any of which are potentially valid given Tigh's comment that it had been 20 years since a jump. Of course, that may raise a question as to why the drive was installed in the first place. (Regulations? Holdover from the first war?) Secondly, it seems unrealistic that it would take more energy to jump that small distance than to burn the fuel because the entire fleet can jump like 230 times in a row ([[33]]) without any refueling problems or the like. [[User:Drumstick|Drumstick]] 21:19, 30 December 2005 (EST)

:I think that FTL flight is generally quite disconcerting to passengers, judging from Cally's take on it when we see ''Galactica'' make its first Jump in the Miniseries. So, sublight is preferable in most instances. I cannot determine from any episodes whether the fuel consumption is more or less when going at sublight over FTL. The comfort level is the most likely reason. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 10:52, 1 January 2006 (EST)

==Nukes==
If the energy density of [[Tylium]] is so much greater than fissile materials and has the added benefit of producing no fallout, and requiring no sophisticated trigger mechanism, why do the Colonials use nuclear warheads on their missiles rather than tylium bombs? Nuclear fallout has desirable side effects against organic targets, which explains Cylon use thereof, but what advantage does it offer human forces?

:(Obviously, in real life it's a question of storytelling:
:"For instance, in the Galactica mini-series, when the Cylons attack the colonists, they attack them with thermonuclear weapons. They don't attack them with lasers and photon torpedoes, and strange things that don't exist.
:"When you see a planet nuked, and you see those mushroom clouds, and hear about the destruction of entire cities by nuclear weapons, that is a much more terrifying and frightening idea than if you're saying fifteen thousand photon torpedoes were launched at Caprica. One is real and one is not." [http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/news/cult/2004/02/20/9599.shtml]
:"There would not be 'photon torpedoes' but instead nuclear missiles, because nukes are real and thus are frightening." [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/magazine/17GALACTICA.html]
:"We use nukes. And these days, that’s truly scary. You use photon torpedoes and the audience goes 'oh, okay. shrug.'" [http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA513174.html?display=Top+Stories]) --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 02:09, 11 December 2005 (EST)

:Nukes have the desireable side effect of creating an electromagnetic pulse which disrupts all (currently) known forms of electronics. --[[User:Durandal|Durandal]] 02:41, 8 January 2006 (EST)
: And a side note, now that I think of it. Considering the supposed rarity of tylium, Nukes are also much easier to produce and much less of a waste of a valuable resource. [[User:Durandal|Durandal]] 13:12, 8 January 2006 (EST)

::You hit the nail on the head, Durandal. If you can, work up what you just said and add it to the article! --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 13:15, 8 January 2006 (EST)

::: Does not really fit in this article, whithout generating a new section for such a point. If anyone has a better idea for placement, I'm all ears. [[User:Durandal|Durandal]] 13:25, 8 January 2006 (EST)

:My own thoughts on the subject are A) Tylium is somewhat rare so it is difficult to mass produce nuclear warheads, but more importantly B) Baltar said that detonating a nuclear warhead near Tylium would "render it inert", not create a chain reaction. I think that Tylium must be "reactive/unstable" enough that it's a good fuel source (moreso than just Plutonium), however, it probably has the chemical property that it is very difficult to produce an explosive uncontrollable chain reaction with it. --[[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]] 18:13, 8 January 2006 (EST)

::That would disagree with the extremely large tylium explosion seen at the end of "The Hand of God". I prefer Durandal's explanation. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 18:24, 8 January 2006 (EST)

:::In Ricimer's defense, the explosion was caused by the precursor, the refined but unprocessed component that forms the fuel later. Precursor is more unstable or explosive than the fuel. There are chemicals throughout the Periodic Table that release tremendous energies, more so than plutonium. The problem is the process of controlling it. Else, hydrogen would be our fuel of choice for everything: common, cheap, and leaves a benign by-product. For the Colonies, tylium was their answer. I disagree that tylium is rare, although I think it is hard to find; the Fleet's luck in finding one rock of it also implies that a little tylium goes an awfully long way, but mining and processing it is a real bitch. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 18:40, 8 January 2006 (EST)

== Landings & Gravity ==

Unless I am completely mistaken, aside from whatever may be the 'standard' artifical gravity source aboard Galactica, it is explicitly stated that the actual landing pads in the flight pods rely upon magnitism to hold craft in place en route to the hanger.
:"Viper Four-five-zero, skids down, mag-lock secure." (Kelly to Apollo upon touchdown aproximately 22 minutes into the miniseries)
[[User:Durandal|Durandal]] 02:56, 8 January 2006 (EST)

:Correct. On the flight deck, magnetism is used to secure landing Vipers. But in the hangar deck and manned areas of the ship, something else is used, since the humans (and many other virtually non-magnetic items in CIC and elsewhere) are kept from floating. It's an unexplained conumdrum that right now is just a writing convenience. If the article appears to be vague in that topic, do modify it. I created and generated much of this article, and sometimes I can get too wordy and the point gets muddled. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 13:19, 8 January 2006 (EST)

:: I actually wrote this bit in response to note 2, which states it as a possibility as opposed to cannon-fact. I'm not quite sure HOW to rewrite it, unfortunately... [[User:Durandal|Durandal]] 13:23, 8 January 2006 (EST)

== Expensive claim... ==

I find the recent expense claim [[Battlestar Wiki:Citation Jihad|uncitable]] at best. There's absolutely no indication either way that financial expense played into utilizing FTL Jump technology in BSG. Therefore, unless we can get someone to point out where this info came from, I vote for its removal. Also, just because ''Galactica'' didn't perform a jump in 20 years doesn't really mean that it is normal for Colonail ships (military or otherwise) to rely on sublight travel alone. -- [[User:Joe.Beaudoin|Joe Beaudoin]] 23:15, 1 February 2006 (EST)

:I read it differently - the statement seems to infer expense from the fact that FTL travel is not used frequently, not vice-versa. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 23:23, 1 February 2006 (EST)

::I think they just didn't do it, because why risk the (albeit very very small) safety concerns of warping through space? (a wrong calculation and we could wind up in the sun", etc.) Remember, they really have FTL drive for two reasons: 1) It's a holdover from the Exodus (''theory'' but not established fact and frankly I don't believe that), 2) they do have a "sphere of influence" beyond the 12 Colonies, not full-fledged other planets, just mining-camp colonies like Troy. So that's why they put in FTL; plus it's good to have instantaneous travel. --[[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]] 23:50, 1 February 2006 (EST)

::: It would be logical to assume that, with so many ships "up in the air", as it were, Jumping into another ship or even trade route may be a concern. I don't fully agree with the "holdover from the Exodus" theory either and it seems likely that FTL technology was put into place as a means of instantaneous transportation during wartime. (Imagine jumping out of harms way instead of fleeing from the enemy at sublight speeds; in fact, this is quite similar to ''Farscape'' and the Leviathan's ability to starburst.) -- [[User:Joe.Beaudoin|Joe Beaudoin]] 09:52, 2 February 2006 (EST)

:I think the current reasons are sufficient enough; there doesn't necessarily need to be a separate bullet point about "expense," especially because it is so vague and unexplained. Is it the cost of buying fuel that's expensive? Probably not, based on what we've seen so far in terms of tylium consumption. They seem to jump quite a bit and don't need to refuel very often. (Basically, just in Hand of God, and that's after jumping constantly for weeks. I mean, they could have been distributing Galactica's tylium to the other ships, but if Galactica has ''that'' much, it can't be that exorbitant of a fuel source, particularly so in peacetime when the ships were first loaded.) Is it wear and tear on the ship that costs money to fix? Maybe, but for the fleet to have lasted this long without any ships breaking down undercuts that theory. I mean, how else do you define expense? I'm not missing something here, am I? --[[User:Drumstick|Drumstick]] 02:19, 2 February 2006 (EST)

==The Cancer Cure of Laura Roslin==

One possibility we may want to consider is that of the Humano-Cylons being party based on nanotechnology. If the Cylons have nanobots in their blood, it would explain the selective destruction of cancer cells, and the quick repair of normal cells, and how such a small amount could completely cure the disease. Additionally, a Cylon-Human hybrid would have nanobots less likely to reject a normal human's system.

It would also explain the seeming contradiction in the Humano-Cylon's nature -- that they are close enough to human that even an autoposy cannot tell them apart, and yet somehow machine enough to upload their memories and consciousness.

Though this is my personal favorite theory, there's absolutely no canonical basis for it. --[[User:zeratul|zeratul]]

:It seems that the stem cell theory was the "answer" to this, as stated in the article, now with RDM voicing in on the original explanation that was edited away or revised before filming because it was too technical. Further, your theory conflicts with the established point that Cylon and human physiology is practically identical in appearance and function down to the cellular level, implying that nanotechnology would be identifiable medically. This is supported as well since, unless such nanotech is masked to work with human physiology, Roslin's body would have an autoimmune reaction, fighting off the fetal blood like in an Rh factor reaction. Aside from the established effects of the fetal blood used, only Baltar's [[Cylon detector]] can accurately discern Cylon from human. Funny, I just listened today to an article on National Public Radio that says that fetal stem cells "leak" from the placenta of each baby (born or unborn) into the mother's body, which become an "elite" (but small) force of cells that aid in protecting or repairing damage or disease in the mother for years, according to early research. I ''have'' to get that link to this article--it is very ''apropos'' here. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 13:17, 8 February 2006 (EST)
::Yes, I agree with you that the stem cells are the official explanation. I'm not sure if I buy it, however, as real-life stem cells can't spontaneously cure something as complex as cancer just by injecting them. Baltar's been wrong before. Yes, yes, genetically engineered Cylons are a possibility (but wouldn't that be easily detectable at the Colonials' current level of technology?). I guess for now we'll have to write it off as a "magical" effect of hybrids... Sigh :)
::If the nanomachines were small enough they wouldn't be visible even under a microscope (haven't seen an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanning_electron_microscope SEM] on the show yet), and could probably be designed to not show up to chemical tests as well -- especially if they were programmed to actively mask themselves. Again, probably not what they'll go with, just a theory I've been kicking around. --[[User:Zeratul|Zeratul]] 14:43, 8 February 2006 (EST)

With the caveat that I haven't seen the episode yet:why would Roslin's body have an autoimmune reaction when nanotechnology is used? In any case, the stem cell theory doesn't work. If Roslin indeed was at death's door, the damage to the healthy tissue is too great for stem cells to repair that in the necessary time frame. Protein needs to by synthesized, cells need to divide, etc. Plus, while stem cells can theoretically be used to create any organ, they still need the programming, which is not given in an adult body. They can be programmed in vitro, but they won't just form a liver if you inject them into the liver -the hormone gradients that existed during embryogenesis don't exist anymore, likewise the angiogenetic factors aren't around that would cause the cells to be supplied with the necessary nutrients. Although, ironically, the tumor might have spilled enough of those. And even if you get the cells to grow in the right places, you'd have to get them to stop growing as well, otherwise you've just replaced one cancer with another etc. etc... I think the cancer cure is just as much dramatic license as the "cylon and human physiology being identical". Given the silica pathways and the computer connectivity, there are quite obvious differences. I think that RDM did well to cut out the science since it is meaningless to the layperson and would likely have resulted in rolling eyes with people with expertise in the field. It is a contrived plot device, and trying to explain it away is likely to be futile. --[[User:OliverH.|OliverH.]] 15:18, 8 February 2006 (EST)

==Genetics==
1.) My impression was that baltar was sketching schematic representations of human and cylon antigens, not individual nitrogenous bases (which wouldn't really be relevant for the treatment he was proposing)

2.) Are you certain the hexagonal image is of uracil, and not another [[Wikipedia:pyrimidine|pyrimidine]] such as [[Wikipedia:cytosine|cytosine]] or [[Wikipedia:thymine|thymine]]? --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 04:20, 2 February 2006 (EST)

:2) Indeed. I've been going over my Human Molecular Genetics notes, and this is the only possibility. The difficulty you may have encountered is that Baltar is holding it upside down. Actually, I made a drawing of what we see "on screen" in the commercial (unfortunately, BSGwiki doesn't seem to want to upload bmp images; sorry).

:There is a very long line coming of of a Nitrogen; this represent an R-linkage (that is, where the base connects to deoxyribose). ''Traditionally'', (by Earth international convention) the R-linkage making Nitrogen is placed at the bottom of the diagram; plus, Baltar drew it backwords, but that's just viewing it from a different angle and changes none of the linkages. This is where we see "NH" on the bottom of that pic of Uracil I have; the H gets dropped and the N forms the R-linkage. I spent a long time trying to figure out which one it was before I determined that it is definately Uracil; none of the others. You can see this more clearly in the page on [[Wikipedia:Nucleotide|Nucleotide]]: the one we see has no NH2 subgroup linked to a carbon in the ring, so it's definately not Cytosine (Cytosine has 3 N's, Uracil and Thymine, only 2). It can't be thymine, because it has no H3C subgroup branching off of the ring. It actually looks exactly like the image of Uracil on the Nucleotide article.

:1)****My entire point, Farago, is that Ron D. Moore stated in his podcast that ORIGINALLY, Baltar *was* making all of thse comparisons of DNA, stem cells, etc. and stating how Cylon **DNA** is different. However, he got in a panic, because as we all know he is nervous to use Technobabble (often, this is a very good thing) but this time he overreacted; now all of the messageboards are filled with complaints of "This wasn't explained well enough; he just said it's "blood was special" and drew two overlapping squares; this doesn't explain anything". '''In scenes that they deleted, Baltar goes into detail explaining what's different about it, comparing DNA structure, etc. ''' Hopefully, we will see it in the DVD when these scenes are released. ''' However, (as sometimes happens) footage from deleted scenes was used to make the commercial for the episode, and because I taped it off of tv (as opposed to downloading it) I was able to pause it and look at this.''' Really, they just cut a *LOT* of stuff out; it's not *JUST* "antigents"; the script for this scene was butchered in the editing room, and the explanation is actually a lot more complex than just "it's blood has no antigens"; Antigens for ''what''? Antigens are things that trigger an immune response; in that sense, '''this isn't that much different from the O-[[Wikipedia:blood type|blood type]]. --[[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]] 14:16, 2 February 2006 (EST)

::I'm [[Talk:Epiphanies#Cancer Therapy|well aware]] of that. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 23:24, 2 February 2006 (EST)

Galen Tyrol

2006-02-07T16:05:32Z

OliverH.: SOUTH Tyrol is in northern Italy, but "Tyrol" is in Austria

{{Character Data|
|photo= [[Image:Galen Tyrol promo.jpg|200px]]
|age=
|colony= [[The Twelve Colonies (RDM)#Gemenon|Gemenon]]
|birthname= Galen Tyrol
|callsign= "Chief" (nickname)
|death=
|parents= An unnamed Oracle (mother) and a Priest (father).
|siblings=
|children=
|marital status= Single
|role= Senior NCO, Deck Crew 5, [[Battlestar]] ''[[Galactica]]''
|rank= Chief Petty Officer
|actor= [[Aaron Douglas]]
|cylon=
}}

== Biography ==

=== Background ===

'''Chief Petty Officer Galen Tyrol''' is a much-admired NCO aboard the ''[[Galactica]]''. He served aboard battlestars from the age of eighteen, including the battlestars ''[[Columbia]]'', ''[[Atlantia]]'', and ''[[Pegasus (RDM)|Pegasus]]'' ([[Resistance]]). He has served under [[William Adama]] for a number of years, and has considerable respect for the Commander - a feeling that is reciprocated. Indeed, he admires Adama to such a degree that he has modelled his own style of leadership on that of Adama: firm, fair, and willing to go to the fullest degree in support of his crew.

However, when people under his responsibility are injured, threatened or killed, Tyrol becomes rather irrational, angry, and reckless in his actions, to the point of further endangering his people or his reputation with senior officers. Prime examples of his lack of emotional control includes the scenes before the ship venting after the nuke hit and cursing [[Saul Tigh|Tigh]] in front of [[William Adama|Commander Adama]] for the vent and loss of 85 of his people ([[Mini-Series]]), and saving a mortally-wounded crewmate while leaving himself and [[Cally]] highly vulnerable in "[[Scattered]]". Tyrol's tryst with [[Sharon Valerii (Galactica copy)|Sharon Valerii]] and a subsequent cover-up attempt in "[[Litmus]]" resulted in the jailing of Specialist [[Socinus]], who was trying to protect Tyrol.

Originally leading [[Deck Crew 5]], a team of 15 deckhands and specialists, since the Cylon Attack he has become the most senior and experienced NCO on the ''Galactica''.

=== Cylon Attack ===

At the time of the Cylon Attack, as well as leading his deck crew, Tyrol is overseeing the refurbishment and restoration of [[Viper (RDM)|Viper]] Mark II N7242C - the Viper originally flown by William Adama at the time of the [[Cylon War]] ([[Mini-Series]]).

Following the attack, with the ''Galactica'' undermanned, Tyrol also performs the function of senior Damage Control officer ([[Mini-Series]] / [[Water]]), a role that brings him into conflict with [[Saul Tigh|Colonel Tigh]] after the ''Galactica'' is struck by a Cylon nuclear warhead.

=== Relationship with Sharon Valerii ===

For several months prior to the Cylon attack, and in its aftermath, Tyrol has been engaged in an affair with Lieutenant (JG) [[Sharon Valerii (Galactica copy)|Sharon Valerii]], a [[Raptor]] pilot aboard the ''Galactica''. Despite the fact the relationship breaks military protocol, senior officers on the ship turn a blind eye to it, while Tyrol's own crew treat it with fond amusement.

When the water supplies on the ''Galactica'' are sabotaged, Tyrol is placed in an awkward position: by her own admmission, Valerii knows explosives were missing from a small-arms locker - potentially making her a suspect - and he is the principal DC investigator into the cause of the explosions which wreck the water tanks. Torn between love and duty, the situation prompts him to hide evidence and allow a theory that the walls of the tanks simply collapsed from fatigue resulting from damage the ''Galactica'' received from a nuclear warhead in the Cylon attack ([[Water]] / [[Mini-Series]]).

Following the sabotage attempt, Valerii is ordered to end her relationship with Tyrol ([[Bastille Day]]) as a part of a general tightening-up of security and discipline on ship, only to have Tyrol's deck crew help the two of them to continue to meet in greater secret ([[Litmus]]).

Tyrol's world is thrown further into turmoil when both he and Valerii become the prime suspects in an investigation into how a Cylon agent (a copy of [[Aaron Doral]]) managed to get aboard the ''Galactica'', kill a guard, steal explosives and them blow himself up in a ship's corridor, almost killing Adama and Tigh ([[Litmus]]). When [[Socinus|one of his own Specialists]] is thrown in the brig for dereliction of duty which may have enabled the Cylon to access a weapons locker and steal the explosives, Tyrol is shocked into re-thinking his relationship with Valerii, and ends it himself.

While they continue to encounter one another professionallly - their work means they can hardly avoid one another - Tyrol and Valerii now have an uneasy distance between each other, and Valerii's actions around a captured Cylon [[Raider]] have begun to disturb Tyrol.

=== Kobol ===

When [[The Fleet (RDM)|the Fleet]] discovers the planet believed to be [[Kobol]], Tyrol arranges for Socinus' release and later berates the specialist for lying to cover for him. Thereafter, Tyrol is part of the team assembled on the ill-fated recon Kobol on the [[Raptor 1]], which then crashlands near the ruins of the [[Tomb of Athena]]. ([[Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I]], [[Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II]])

While Tyrol was the more experienced leader, his non-commissioned status left Lt. [[Crashdown]] in charge of the survivors. When Crashdown blamed [[Tarn]] for leaving a needed med kit behind -- Socinus was injured during the crash and a drug called [[serisone]] was needed to help him breathe -- Tyrol stepped in, recommending that he and Cally accompany Tarn. After successfully retrieving the kit from the Raptor crash site and heading back to the party, the trio was ambushed and Tarn was the only one killed. ([[Scattered]]) Eventually, he and Cally make it back to the party, only to find out that it is too late. With not other alternative, Tyrol euthanized Socinus with an overdose of [[morpha]] from both medkits. ([[Valley of Darkness]])

Upon discovering that the Cylons are setting up an anti-aircraft missle battery, Crashdown plans a strike to take the unit (and its accompanying [[DRADIS]] dish) out of operation. While the others of his party, notably Baltar and Cally, attempt to voice their indignation of such a plan, Tyrol firmly reminds them that Crashdown is in charge. Despite Tyrol's own misgivings of how the plan is to be executed, they follow through to the point right before the attack.

When it became clear that there were five Cylons at the battery, Cally refused to act as a distraction. Tyrol attempted to diffuse the situation by trying to state that the DRADIS dish was undefended; all that needed to be done was to destroy that, and the turret could not automatically target any incoming [[SAR]] operation. Crashdown has a breakdown and irrationally threatens to kill Cally, prompting Baltar to kill Crashdown.

As the command officer, per se, Tyrol later destroyed the DRADIS dish as the Cylons pursued them towards it. Tyrol then made a stand against the Cylons, screaming and firing his pistol at them. The Cylons were all killed; a surprised Tyrol turned around and saw that a [[Raptor]], preserved by Tyrol's destruction of the dish, had destroyed the Centurions. ([[Fragged]]).

=== After Kobol ===

Tyrol was arrested and interrogated by Colonel Tigh, due to his relationship with Commander Adama's would-be assassin. Tigh accused him of being part of the plot to kill Adama, throwing him in the same cell as Valerii. In order to extract information from Valerii, Baltar injected a drug that induced a systemic shutdown of Tyrol's organs. (This was during an alleged attempt to draw blood from Tyrol for Baltar's Cylon detector.) After extracting the number of Cylons in the Fleet from Valerii's subconscious, Tyrol was spared a painful death -- and was eventually proven to be a bona-fide human.

Tyrol was present when his own deckhand, Cally, killed Valerii, as Tyrol accompanied the security escort to Valerii's testing cell ([[Resistance]]). This act caused Tyrol to withdraw more from interaction with his own staff, many of which were already treating him coldly from his interaction with the now-confirmed Cylon copy of Valerii.

As with many on ''Galactica'', the stress of working without relief in sight or with little hope began to take its toll on Tyrol. For him, the challenge of keeping the old Vipers running with very few spare parts and sometimes extensive damage became too much to manage. Under pressure from [[CAG]] [[Lee Adama]] to keep his Vipers flying, and mostly because he had little else to do, he scribbled out a design for a new fighter and began to assemble it from basic metals and parts ([[Flight of the Phoenix]]). Initially, his flight crews were skeptical that the Chief's project was anything but a pipe dream. But word soon spread as the fuselage formed and Tyrol's dream became reality. While Colonel Tigh was visibly against the project at first, Commander Adama noticed that the project, for whatever outcome it might yield, gave the crew something to strive for, something to hope for, and tacitly allowed off-duty crew to work on the project. Many, including [[Anastasia Dualla]] from the [[CIC]], and [[Kara Thrace]], lent a hand.

Tyrol's group was stuck when trying to place a skin on the new fighter, since spare parts were reserved for the Vipers. But Helo suggested carbon composite materials as an alternative to cover the ship. This solved the covering but added a significant new ability: Stealth. The carbon composites would make the new fighter practically invisible to [[DRADIS]] detection.

After the ship's [[Logic bomb]] crisis, the new fighter, named the [[Blackbird]], was given a trial flight by Kara Thrace, with very good results. In a ceremony, President Roslin christened the fighter, and Tyrol revealed the nickname of the fighter in honor of the President: ''Laura''.

=== Helo's Return ===

After the return of [[Karl Agathon]] and another version of Sharon Valerii, who happens to be pregnant with Agathon's child, the two attempt to reconcile their feelings for the biological creation. Helo and Tyrol eventually have a fistfight with lots of namecalling over what the Sharons were, but in reality, both were upset over the fact that the two Cylon copies were real people that they loved despite the reality of what they were ([[Flight of the Phoenix]]).

Later on, after the appearance of Admiral [[Helena Cain]] and the advanced [[Mercury-class]] ''[[Pegasus (RDM)|Pegasus]]'', he and Agathon stop Lt. [[Alistair Thorne]] from raping Sharon and Tyrol accidentally kills Thorne in the process. Tyrol and Agathon are summarily arrested and transfered to ''Pegasus'' for court martial, against Commander Adama's objections. However, Admiral Cain's "court martial" is over before Adama even knew it began, and she sentenced both to be executed for murder and treason. This prompted Adama to launch Vipers and a Raptor loaded with a marine strike team to recover them both ([[Pegasus (episode)|Pegasus]]).

Helo and Tyrol receive a stay of execution through the efforts of [[Laura Roslin]] while the two battlestar commanders prepare to destroy the [[Resurrection Ship]] and its Cylon attack fleet that has followed ''Galactica''. Tyrol admits to his difficulty with dealing with the existence of the second Sharon, and tells Helo that he's got to "let it go", an idea that Helo supports, both understanding each other's take on the situation.

The two prisoners are seen receiving two sets of visitors, one welcome, one not. First, Lieutenant Adama visits them to tell them how close ''Galactica'' came to a shooting war with ''Pegasus'' ([[Resurrection Ship, Part I]]), asking the two, "Just how many kinds of stupid ''are'' you?" A day or so later, Specialists [[Vireem]] and [[Gage]] bind and beat the two prisoners in retaliation for the death of Lieutenant Thorne. [[Executive officer]] [[Jack Fisk]] comes to break up the beating, but refuses the prisoners' thanks as he was fond of Thorne himself.

After the escaped Cylon agent [[Gina]] escapes and shoots Admiral Cain, killing her, Tyrol and Helo are released and return to ''Galactica.'' Both Tyrol and Helo visit Sharon Valerii at her specialized cell. She happily greets Helo, but completely ignores Tyrol. He gets the hint and soon leaves the room, still unable to recover from the memory of the Sharon he knew as "Boomer."

== Note ==

*[[Wikipedia:Galen|Galen]] is the name of a famed Greek doctor, who was first to argue that the mind was in the brain not the heart. This may be construed as irony, given Tyrol's part in the ongoing story.
*Tyrol's first name, Galen, was first revealed in Ron D. Moore's Podcast during Season 1, but it was not mentioned on screen until the Season 2 episode "[[Resistance]]".
*[[Wikipedia:Tyrol|Tyrol]] (or Tirol) is the name of a region divided between western Austria and northern Italy.
*Ron D. Moore stated in an [http://www.nowplayingmag.com/content/view/2212/2/| interview with Now Playing Magazine] on 16 Sept, 2005 that Chief Tyrol is a Gemenon. This is in keeping with previously established facts about him: Gemenons are very religious, and Tyrol's father was a priest and his mother was an oracle.

{{Characters}}

[[Category:A to Z|Tyrol, Galen]]
[[Category:Characters|Tyrol, Galen]]
[[Category:RDM|Tyrol, Galen]]
[[Category:People from Gemenon|Tyrol, Galen]]