Battlestar Wiki - User contributions [en]

Talk:Torn/Archive2

2006-11-08T19:29:16Z

Zeratul: /* Origin of the virus */ forgot to sign

==Summary Split?==
We've taken to splitting the episode summaries between the Fleet and Baltar. Am I alone in thinking this isn't the best method? I'd prefer the summary going through the events of the episode chronologically. Especially now that the two storylines are beginning to converge. It was fine in Collaborators, where the two threads didn't effect each other. But now, someone reading the summary encounters a mention of the dead basestar at the end of the Galactica summary before getting to any of the details in the Cylon summary. -- [[User:Alpha5099|Alpha5099]] 00:00, 8 November 2006 (CST)
:Personally I think it's fine. It depends on how much interaction there is between the two story lines in the next episode. If they signicantly interact, then this summary may require change, but for now I think it's ok.--[[User:Cohnee|Cohnee]] 06:14, 8 November 2006 (CST)
:Actually, we've been describing each story line separately since "[[33]]". It really makes the story lines easier to keep track of for both the viewer and the editors. However, if there's a better way, I would be interested in a discussion of it. What method or methods would you suggest? -- [[User:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|Joe Beaudoin]] <sup>[[User talk:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|So say we all]] - [[Battlestar Wiki:Site support|Donate]]</sup> 08:18, 8 November 2006 (CST)
:: I think it's a fine format in most cases. It certainly worked for Collaborators, and it worked well for the Helo arc of Season One. However, in those instances, the main plot and the sides-story didn't interact, so knowing how the Galactica side of the episode pans out before you read what happened to Helo, it isn't a problem. But here we have the Galactica storyline ending with something that was explained in the Cylon storyline. I guess I'm just concerned that some reading it without having seen the episode would be very confused. Something as simple as putting the Cylon half of the summary first I think would clear up any potential confusion, especially considering that nothing in the Galactica story effects the Cylon story. -- [[User:Alpha5099|Alpha5099]] 11:56, 8 November 2006 (CST)

== Promotional pictures ==

Look at these pictures:<br>
http://pics.livejournal.com/drewcypher/pic/000kthzq/g248<br>
http://pics.livejournal.com/drewcypher/pic/000kw117/g248<br>
Where do they come from? I don't remember such scene in "Torn"... -- [[User:Spike|Spike]] 01:51, 8 November 2006 (CST)
:P.s. All promo images are also on the wiki. As for those images, when I was uploading new promo images tonight, I noticed those, and I was like... "I never saw them.". if they show up in another episode, I will recategorize them in the media wiki. [[User:Shane|Shane]] <sup>([[User_Talk:Shane|T]] - [[Special:Contributions/Shane|C]] - [[Special:Editcount/Shane|E]])</sup> 01:53, 8 November 2006 (CST)
:They may have come from a deleted scene as well. -- [[User:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|Joe Beaudoin]] <sup>[[User talk:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|So say we all]] - [[Battlestar Wiki:Site support|Donate]]</sup> 08:07, 8 November 2006 (CST)
::They might have been moved to the next episode "A Measure of Salvation" --[[User:Serenity|Serenity]] 08:13, 8 November 2006 (CST)

:: Can anyone identify the patch on Baltar's flight suit? It looks like it has a picture of an old style Raider on it. http://pics.livejournal.com/drewcypher/pic/000ksya5/g248 -- [[User:Alpha5099|Alpha5099]] 11:59, 8 November 2006 (CST)
:::That's the [http://bsgmedia.org/gallery/albums/s1waterpromos/normal_BSG04EP_7727CS.JPG standard Raptor patch]. That's the Raptor squadron that Sharon belongs to. We maybe ought to crop some of the patches off uniforms and have a patches and insignias section of the uniforms page. --[[User:Steelviper|Steelviper]] 12:06, 8 November 2006 (CST)
:::: Hmm. Odd I never noticed that before. Seen like something I would've seen before. I thought maybe it was squandron, like Primus or The Vigilantes. An article on patches would be interesting. -- [[User:Alpha5099|Alpha5099]] 12:24, 8 November 2006 (CST)
:::::Oh, no. I think you're right. I think that's exactly what it is. I was just saying that was a "normal" squadron patch for a Raptor (as in we've seen it before). If you would be willing to wade through the promo photos and screencaps ([http://bsgmedia.org/gallery/index.php some here as well]) to identify pictures with good patch shots in them, I'd be willing to crop down to the patches and upload them and help start either a new section on [[Uniforms (RDM)]] or a subarticle of that page. --[[User:Steelviper|Steelviper]] 12:37, 8 November 2006 (CST)

== Questions? ==
I have no idea how to phrase it or if i remember correctly, but didn't Sharon (athena) start talking incoherently when they jump to the Lions Head? Is she infected? We don't see them jump back... [[User:Puneypunk|Puneypunk]] 06:26, 8 November 2006 (CST)
:No. She wasn't infected. She was shocked at what she saw and quoted scripture. She said "When god's anger awakens, even the mighty shall fall" --[[User:Serenity|Serenity]] 08:10, 8 November 2006 (CST)

== Helo as XO ==
Surely if he was the XO, Adama would of promoted him to at least Major, if not Colonel, by now? I'm not disputing that Helo is acting as Adama's "eyes and ears" but I'm surpirsed that he is being described as XO.--[[User:Cohnee|Cohnee]] 06:39, 8 November 2006 (CST)
:Rank isn't everything. An officer can also "outrank" someone with a nominally higher rank just by position. Adama probably still plans for Tigh to return some day and has Helo as interim solution. --[[User:Serenity|Serenity]] 08:09, 8 November 2006 (CST)
::It's quite possible that Helo hasn't been promoted because he hasn't met the minimum time-in-grade for a full Lieutenant yet. Kat's quick rise from Ensign to Lieutenant seems to contradict this, however. --[[User:Slander|Slander]] 11:06, 8 November 2006 (CST)
:::To me, his job seems to be something of a cross between Gaeta's former position and Tigh's. It may be that he fell into his current roll while Galactica was understaffed and it has yet to be formalised or revised back to a more standard one. We have seen that the crew is still readjusting to some extent and I wouldn't be surprised if there are still some adjustments yet to be made. --[[User:Ryan H|Ryan H]] 12:35, 8 November 2006 (CST)

== Origin of the virus ==
Far to speculative to put on the main page, but could the virus have been planted by the other 5 models? Perhaps a split occurred within the Cylons soon after they took human form, and the other 5 have decided to strike at the ones that we know.
If indeed the virus is a hybrid biological / technological nature as surmised in the Questions, it would support the theory of other Cylons having created it. --[[User:Zeratul|Zeratul]] 13:29, 8 November 2006 (CST)

Talk:Torn/Archive2

2006-11-08T19:19:37Z

Zeratul:

Torn

2006-11-08T19:11:43Z

Zeratul: /* Notes */

{{Episode Data
| title= Torn
| image=Season 3 - Promo - Epi 5 - StarbuckTighAdama.jpg
| season= 3
| episode= 6
| guests=
| writer= [[Anne Cofell Saunders]]
| story=
| director= [[Jean de Segonzac]]
| production=
| rating=
| US airdate= 2006-11-03
| UK airdate=
| dvd=
| population= 41,422
| prev= [[Collaborators]]
| next= [[A Measure of Salvation]]
}}
== Overview ==
:''Part one of two. [[Kara Thrace|Starbuck]] and [[Saul Tigh|Tigh]] create divisions between those who suffered under the Cylon occupation of [[New Caprica]] and those who stayed with the fleet. Meanwhile, [[Gaius Baltar|Baltar]] tries to prove his worth to the Cylons. <ref name="TVGuide">{{cite_web|url=http://www.tvguide.com/detail/tv-show.aspx?episodeid=6006095&tvobjectid=191395&more=ucepisodelist|title=Episode Detail for Torn at www.tvguide.com}}</ref>

== Summary ==

=== On [[Galactica (RDM)|Galactica]] ===
* ''Galactica'''s air group runs war game exercises among the viper pilots. Captain Thrace breaks formation during the exercise and collides with another pilot, forcing an end to the war games, and causing Apollo to remove her from flight duty.
* [[Gaeta|Felix Gaeta]] meets with [[Laura Roslin]], [[William Adama]], and [[Saul Tigh]] to discuss matters Baltar related. During the year before the Cylon Occupation of New Caprica, Baltar was obsessed with analyzing the data from Kobol to find the path to Earth. Based on passages in the [[Pythia|Scrolls of Pythia]], Baltar identified a nebula he believed to be a landmark on the road to Earth.
* Upon Thrace's return to her bunk, she is met by Kacey and her mother, whom she dismisses, telling the Kacey's mother not to come again.
* In the pilots' mess, Lt. [[Sharon Agathon]] is given the callsign "[[Athena]]." Thrace and Tigh begin to sow dissent between the survivors of New Caprica and the crew that stayed behind on ''Galactica''
* Adama confronts Thrace and Tigh on their behavior. He challenges them to shoot him, as their constant complaining is tantamount to pulling the trigger. When neither do, Adama demands they shape up and move on with their lives.
* Spurred by Adama's words, Thrace cuts her hair and appears to return to duty. Later, in uniform, she visits [[Kacey]] and her mother.
* Meanwhile, Tigh returns to his room and begins drinking to excess, finishing off one bottle and starting another.
* In a Raptor, Athena and Racetrack jump into range of the Lion Head's Nebula, and are excited to find what the Scrolls described. They quickly realize, however, that they have jumped right next to the dying Basestar.

=== On a [[Basestar (RDM)|Basestar]] ===
*[[Gaius Baltar]], onboard the Cylon basestar, is having another hallucination. On a sunny beach, Gaius praises Six for returning to him in his time of need, and states that he enjoys having conversations with her. Six implores him to learn anything and everything about the Cylons, as he will need the information in the days ahead. Six also tells him that the Cylons use forms of projection to see the world around them, and when asked what she is, Six tells Baltar that she is an angel of God.
*Having been allowed to stay on the [[Basestar]], [[Caprica-Six]] and [[Three]] talk with Baltar later on, inquiring about the location of [[Earth]]. Gaius initially denies having any knowledge of where Earth is, but then reveals that he does have clues as to where its probable location is. He then finds out that the [[Cylons]] intend to find Earth so they can use it as their new home.
*Baltar is apprehensive about helping the Cylons, and Caprica-Six tells him that the Cylons are also leery as to whether his intentions are true or not. Caprica-Six leads Baltar through the ship, telling him that she uses a projection of a forest to navigate the ship. In his mind, Baltar realizes that his form of projection is similar to what the Cylons are using, causing him to question whether he is human or a Cylon.
*Caprica-Six informs Gaius that his rescue of [[Hera]] and his assistance in finding Earth has made him a valuable asset, and has gone a long way in impressing the Cylons. Baltar asks why there are only 7 models on the ship, and inquires about the remaining 5 models. Caprica-Six informs him that they don't talk about it. He asks whether they would recognize one of the others, but their conversation is interrupted by Three before she can answer.
* Three informs Caprica-Six that there is a situation, and a [[Five]] states that the basestar that went to check the pulsar has not responded back. The group head to a control center, where Baltar finds out that the missing basestar has been infected by a disease, and that any Cylon that dies and uploads to a [[Resurrection Ship]] will spread the virus even further. On the urge of his internal Six, Baltar offers to board the infected basestar and collect scientific information.
* Before he leaves on his mission, Baltar encounters the Cylon hybrid that controls the functions of the basestar. The hybrid is hooked into the systems on the ship, and continually vocalizes her seemingly non-sensical thoughts. Caprica-Six informs Gaius that it is thought by most of the Cylon models that the hybrid has gone insane from being connected to the [[Basestar]] and that her words hold no meaning, however the [[Leoben]] model takes the hybrid's words as coming from God.
* The Cylons provide Baltar with a Raptor to board the baseship, and when he arrives, he finds numerous Cylons, either dead or dying. He collects blood samples and takes pictures of the area to bring back for analysis, and also finds a large manmade object in the hold of the ship. He then finds a dying [[Six]] model (curiously with black hair), who informs him that the device the Cylons captured, a probe left by the [[13th Colony]], infected all of them, and wants to die so she can be released from her pain. Even though Gaius offers to bring her help, she tries to attack him, and Gaius strangles her to death.
* Upon his return to the Basestar, Gaius denies finding anything that could have caused the outbreak of the virus, but Caprica-Six notices the probe object in Baltar's picture, but doesn't let on to anyone else what she has discovered.

== Questions ==
* Would it be possible for the Colonials to salvage the derelict basestar for their own purposes?
* What has happened to the remaining five Cylon models? Are they so secretive that none of the other 7 variants have any knowledge of them? Did the Cylons permanently box the other models because they were dissenters to the cause of the Cylon race?
* What is Caprica-Six going to do now that she realizes Baltar may be withholding critically sensitive information?
* Cally and Chief Tyrol as seen both working on the deck. Who is taking care of their baby? Has a system been put in place to take care of crewmembers' babies?
* Is Athena infected with the Cylon virus?
* As the probe is supposed to come from the 13th Tribe, and is affecting Cylons, does that mean that Cylons have been exisiting in times of the 13th Tribe? (or is just by accident that is viral for Cylons?)
** What is the "genetic pool" that the human form Cylons all come from, and has it existed for longer than the Cylons themselves?
** Could the people on Earth be aware <i>currently</i> that the Cylons are after them, and have sent the probe to hinder the Cylons' efforts?
** The probe may have worked this time, but now the Cylons are aware of the danger it presents, and they won't fall for it again. Does that mean that for each of the 12 constellations, there will be a new "trick" that Earthlings use to hinder the Cylons' efforts to find Earth?
* Is the virus biological or technological in nature? The "inevitable once we took human form" and "genetic pool" lines indicate that the Cylons think it is biological. On the other hand, their belief that it could survive through a download process implies that it is technological in nature (i.e. computer virus). This would seem to be a contradiction. Is the virus both biological and technological, like the Cylons themselves?
* Why did then-President Baltar investigate clues to Earth's location, given that he advocated abandoning that very search in his election campaign?

== Analysis ==
*The crew-position shuffle continues from last episode, but some definite decisions have been made:
**Lee has been demoted back to Major, and has resumed the CAG slot, with Kat and Hot Dog as senior pilots under him. Kara is as well, until Lee revokes her flight status for reckless behaviour.
**As mentioned, it seems Kat has been demoted from CAG to leader of Blue Group (Although "Blue Group" may only exist for training purposes and not be a permanent viper squadron).
**As implied in "Collaborators", Helo has resumed the XO slot aboard ''Galactica''.
**Gaeta appears to have inherited Baltar's mantle as the scientific advisor (it is unclear whether he holds any additional positions), and is focusing his efforts on refining a course for Earth.
**Cally is shown working the flight deck alongside her husband, showing that she is once again active in the Fleet.
*Following her actions during the Battle of New Caprica, Sharon seems to have garnered some degree of acceptance among the ''Galactica'' air group.
*Sharon Agathon is given the callsign "Athena" in this episode. As [[Hot Dog]] states, it is the name of a [[Athena, Lord of Kobol|Lord of Kobol]]. It is also the name of [[Athena (TOS)|Adama's daughter]] in the original series, and may be a metafictional allusion to the now-close relationship between Sharon and William Adama.
*The Baseship hybrid appears to be viewed by the Cylons in the same way as the Centurions and Raiders. The hybrid has no vote in the Cylon decision-making process, despite its ability to express its thoughts and feelings, after a fashion.
*The Cylons have a [[Raptor]] and [[flight suit]] at their disposal, possibly acquired during the occupation of [[New Caprica]]. This raises the possibility that the Cylons may have other Colonial ships in their possession.

== Notes ==

*According to an [http://www.nowplayingmag.com/content/view/4175/58/ interview] with executive producer [[David Eick]], episodes 5 and 6 are a two-part story in which ''Galactica'' discovers a dying Cylon Baseship, and deals with a plague that has befallen the Cylons. (Eick is counting "Occupation" and "Precipice" as one episode.)
*The phrase "end of line," uttered by the Cylon hybrid in this episode, is a possible reference to the film ''Tron'', in which the Master Control Program finishes its sentences with "end of line."
**This may also be a play on the episode title. ''Torn'' is an anagram of ''Tron''.

== Noteworthy Dialogue ==

''Adama's feelings towards, and regarding, Starbuck'':

'''Adama''': You were like a daughter to me once - no more. You're malcontent and a cancer, and I won't have you on my ship. So you have a choice - you can figure out how to become a human being again, and an officer; or you can find another place to live, off of this ship. You're dismissed.

''The Hybrid's objecttion to leaving the infected Basestar behind'':

'''Hybrid''': Mists of dreams drip along the nascent echo, and love no more. End of line.

== Guest Stars ==

== References ==
<div style="font-size:85%"><references/></div>

{{episode list (RDM season 3)}}

[[Category:Episodes written by Anne Cofell Saunders]]
[[Category:Episodes directed by Jean de Segonzac]]
[[Category:RDM]]

Torn

2006-11-08T16:52:44Z

Zeratul: /* Questions */ blah, fix my grammar

{{Episode Data
| title= Torn
| image=Season 3 - Promo - Epi 5 - StarbuckTighAdama.jpg
| season= 3
| episode= 6
| guests=
| writer= [[Anne Cofell Saunders]]
| story=
| director= [[Jean de Segonzac]]
| production=
| rating=
| US airdate= 2006-11-03
| UK airdate=
| dvd=
| population= 41,422
| prev= [[Collaborators]]
| next= [[A Measure of Salvation]]
}}
== Overview ==
:''Part one of two. [[Kara Thrace|Starbuck]] and [[Saul Tigh|Tigh]] create divisions between those who suffered under the Cylon occupation of [[New Caprica]] and those who stayed with the fleet. Meanwhile, [[Gaius Baltar|Baltar]] tries to prove his worth to the Cylons. <ref name="TVGuide">{{cite_web|url=http://www.tvguide.com/detail/tv-show.aspx?episodeid=6006095&tvobjectid=191395&more=ucepisodelist|title=Episode Detail for Torn at www.tvguide.com}}</ref>

== Summary ==

=== On [[Galactica (RDM)|Galactica]] ===
* ''Galactica'''s air group runs war game exercises among the viper pilots. Captain Thrace breaks formation during the exercise and collides with another pilot, forcing an end to the war games, and causing Apollo to remove her from flight duty.
* [[Gaeta|Felix Gaeta]] meets with [[Laura Roslin]], [[William Adama]], and [[Saul Tigh]] to discuss matters Baltar related. During the year before the Cylon Occupation of New Caprica, Baltar was obsessed with analyzing the data from Kobol to find the path to Earth. Based on passages in the [[Pythia|Scrolls of Pythia]], Baltar identified a nebula he believed to be a landmark on the road to Earth.
* Upon Thrace's return to her bunk, she is met by Kacey and her mother, whom she dismisses, telling the Kacey's mother not to come again.
* In the pilots' mess, Lt. [[Sharon Agathon]] is given the callsign "[[Athena]]." Thrace and Tigh begin to sow dissent between the survivors of New Caprica and the crew that stayed behind on ''Galactica''
* Adama confronts Thrace and Tigh on their behavior. He challenges them to shoot him, as their constant complaining is tantamount to pulling the trigger. When neither do, Adama demands they shape up and move on with their lives.
* Spurred by Adama's words, Thrace cuts her hair and appears to return to duty. Later, in uniform, she visits [[Kacey]] and her mother.
* Meanwhile, Tigh returns to his room and begins drinking to excess, finishing off one bottle and starting another.
* In a Raptor, Athena and Racetrack jump into range of the Lion Head's Nebula, and are excited to find what the Scrolls described. They quickly realize, however, that they have jumped right next to the dying Basestar.

=== On a [[Basestar (RDM)|Basestar]] ===
*[[Gaius Baltar]], onboard the Cylon basestar, is having another hallucination. On a sunny beach, Gaius praises Six for returning to him in his time of need, and states that he enjoys having conversations with her. Six implores him to learn anything and everything about the Cylons, as he will need the information in the days ahead. Six also tells him that the Cylons use forms of projection to see the world around them, and when asked what she is, Six tells Baltar that she is an angel of God.
*Having been allowed to stay on the [[Basestar]], [[Caprica-Six]] and [[Three]] talk with Baltar later on, inquiring about the location of [[Earth]]. Gaius initially denies having any knowledge of where Earth is, but then reveals that he does have clues as to where its probable location is. He then finds out that the [[Cylons]] intend to find Earth so they can use it as their new home.
*Baltar is apprehensive about helping the Cylons, and Caprica-Six tells him that the Cylons are also leery as to whether his intentions are true or not. Caprica-Six leads Baltar through the ship, telling him that she uses a projection of a forest to navigate the ship. In his mind, Baltar realizes that his form of projection is similar to what the Cylons are using, causing him to question whether he is human or a Cylon.
*Caprica-Six informs Gaius that his rescue of [[Hera]] and his assistance in finding Earth has made him a valuable asset, and has gone a long way in impressing the Cylons. Baltar asks why there are only 7 models on the ship, and inquires about the remaining 5 models. Caprica-Six informs him that they don't talk about it. He asks whether they would recognize one of the others, but their conversation is interrupted by Three before she can answer.
* Three informs Caprica-Six that there is a situation, and a [[Five]] states that the basestar that went to check the pulsar has not responded back. The group head to a control center, where Baltar finds out that the missing basestar has been infected by a disease, and that any Cylon that dies and uploads to a [[Resurrection Ship]] will spread the virus even further. On the urge of his internal Six, Baltar offers to board the infected basestar and collect scientific information.
* Before he leaves on his mission, Baltar encounters the Cylon hybrid that controls the functions of the basestar. The hybrid is hooked into the systems on the ship, and continually vocalizes her seemingly non-sensical thoughts. Caprica-Six informs Gaius that it is thought by most of the Cylon models that the hybrid has gone insane from being connected to the [[Basestar]] and that her words hold no meaning, however the [[Leoben]] model takes the hybrid's words as coming from God.
* The Cylons provide Baltar with a Raptor to board the baseship, and when he arrives, he finds numerous Cylons, either dead or dying. He collects blood samples and takes pictures of the area to bring back for analysis, and also finds a large manmade object in the hold of the ship. He then finds a dying [[Six]] model (curiously with black hair), who informs him that the device the Cylons captured, a probe left by the [[13th Colony]], infected all of them, and wants to die so she can be released from her pain. Even though Gaius offers to bring her help, she tries to attack him, and Gaius strangles her to death.
* Upon his return to the Basestar, Gaius denies finding anything that could have caused the outbreak of the virus, but Caprica-Six notices the probe object in Baltar's picture, but doesn't let on to anyone else what she has discovered.

== Questions ==
* Would it be possible for the Colonials to salvage the derelict basestar for their own purposes?
* What has happened to the remaining five Cylon models? Are they so secretive that none of the other 7 variants have any knowledge of them? Did the Cylons permanently box the other models because they were dissenters to the cause of the Cylon race?
* What is Caprica-Six going to do now that she realizes Baltar may be withholding critically sensitive information?
* Cally and Chief Tyrol as seen both working on the deck. Who is taking care of their baby? Has a system been put in place to take care of crewmembers' babies?
* Is Athena infected with the Cylon virus?
* As the probe is supposed to come from the 13th Tribe, and is affecting Cylons, does that mean that Cylons have been exisiting in times of the 13th Tribe? (or is just by accident that is viral for Cylons?)
** What is the "genetic pool" that the human form Cylons all come from, and has it existed for longer than the Cylons themselves?
* Is the virus biological or technological in nature? The "inevitable once we took human form" and "genetic pool" lines indicate that the Cylons think it is biological. On the other hand, their belief that it could survive through a download process implies that it is technological in nature (i.e. computer virus). This would seem to be a contradiction.

== Analysis ==
*The crew-position shuffle continues from last episode, but some definite decisions have been made:
**Lee has been demoted back to Major, and has resumed the CAG slot, with Kat and Hot Dog as senior pilots under him. Kara is as well, until Lee revokes her flight status for reckless behaviour.
**As mentioned, it seems Kat has been demoted from CAG to leader of Blue Group (Although "Blue Group" may only exist for training purposes and not be a permanent viper squadron).
**As implied in "Collaborators", Helo has resumed the XO slot aboard ''Galactica''.
**Gaeta appears to have inherited Baltar's mantle as the scientific advisor (it is unclear whether he holds any additional positions), and is focusing his efforts on refining a course for Earth.
**Cally is shown working the flight deck alongside her husband, showing that she is once again active in the Fleet.
*Following her actions during the Battle of New Caprica, Sharon seems to have garnered some degree of acceptance among the ''Galactica'' air group.
*Sharon is given the callsign 'Athena' in this episode. As [[Hot Dog]] states, it is the name of a [[Athena, Lord of Kobol|Lord of Kobol]] (as well as the name of a [[Athena (TOS)|character in the original series]]).
*The Baseship hybrid appears to be viewed by the Cylons in the same way as the Centurions and Raiders. The hybrid has no vote in the Cylon decision-making process, despite its ability to express its thoughts and feelings, after a fashion.
*The Cylons apparently have a [[Raptor]] at their disposal, no doubt they would have aquired it during the Occupation of [[New Caprica]], but It also makes you wonder what other Colonial Ships they have.

== Notes ==

*According to an [http://www.nowplayingmag.com/content/view/4175/58/ interview] with executive producer [[David Eick]], episodes 5 and 6 are a two-part story in which ''Galactica'' discovers a dying Cylon Baseship, and deals with a plague that has befallen the Cylons. (Eick is counting "Occupation" and "Precipice" as one episode.)
*The phrase "End of line.", uttered by the Cylon hybrid in this episode, is a possible reference to the film "Tron", in which the Master Control Program finishes it's sentences with the phrase, "End of line."

== Noteworthy Dialogue ==

''Adama's feelings towards, and regarding, Starbuck'':

'''Adama''': You were like a daughter to me once - no more. You're malcontent and a cancer, and I won't have you on my ship. So you have a choice - you can figure out how to become a human being again, and an officer; or you can find another place to live, off of this ship. You're dismissed.

''The Hybrid's objecttion to leaving the infected Basestar behind'':

'''Hybrid''': Mists of dreams drip along the nascent echo, and love no more. End of line.

== Guest Stars ==

== References ==
<div style="font-size:85%"><references/></div>

{{episode list (RDM season 3)}}

[[Category:Episodes written by Anne Cofell Saunders]]
[[Category:Episodes directed by Jean de Segonzac]]
[[Category:RDM]]

User talk:Zeratul

2006-11-08T16:49:25Z

Zeratul:

Yay, the Wiki is back after a several day absence.
Yay, I'm back doing stuff on the wiki after a several month absence. :)
--[[User:Zeratul|Zeratul]] 10:49, 8 November 2006 (CST)

Welcome to the BSWiki, Zeratul. But be advised that you can no more evade my wrath, shamed one, than you can your own shadow. --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 16:30, 8 February 2006 (EST)

Torn

2006-11-08T16:41:06Z

Zeratul: /* Questions */

{{Episode Data
| title= Torn
| image=Season 3 - Promo - Epi 5 - StarbuckTighAdama.jpg
| season= 3
| episode= 6
| guests=
| writer= [[Anne Cofell Saunders]]
| story=
| director= [[Jean de Segonzac]]
| production=
| rating=
| US airdate= 2006-11-03
| UK airdate=
| dvd=
| population= 41,422
| prev= [[Collaborators]]
| next= [[A Measure of Salvation]]
}}
== Overview ==
:''Part one of two. [[Kara Thrace|Starbuck]] and [[Saul Tigh|Tigh]] create divisions between those who suffered under the Cylon occupation of [[New Caprica]] and those who stayed with the fleet. Meanwhile, [[Gaius Baltar|Baltar]] tries to prove his worth to the Cylons. <ref name="TVGuide">{{cite_web|url=http://www.tvguide.com/detail/tv-show.aspx?episodeid=6006095&tvobjectid=191395&more=ucepisodelist|title=Episode Detail for Torn at www.tvguide.com}}</ref>

== Summary ==

=== On [[Galactica (RDM)|Galactica]] ===
* ''Galactica'''s air group runs war game exercises among the viper pilots. Captain Thrace breaks formation during the exercise and collides with another pilot, forcing an end to the war games, and causing Apollo to remove her from flight duty.
* [[Gaeta|Felix Gaeta]] meets with [[Laura Roslin]], [[William Adama]], and [[Saul Tigh]] to discuss matters Baltar related. During the year before the Cylon Occupation of New Caprica, Baltar was obsessed with analyzing the data from Kobol to find the path to Earth. Based on passages in the [[Pythia|Scrolls of Pythia]], Baltar identified a nebula he believed to be a landmark on the road to Earth.
* Upon Thrace's return to her bunk, she is met by Kacey and her mother, whom she dismisses, telling the Kacey's mother not to come again.
* In the pilots' mess, Lt. [[Sharon Agathon]] is given the callsign "[[Athena]]." Thrace and Tigh begin to sow dissent between the survivors of New Caprica and the crew that stayed behind on ''Galactica''
* Adama confronts Thrace and Tigh on their behavior. He challenges them to shoot him, as their constant complaining is tantamount to pulling the trigger. When neither do, Adama demands they shape up and move on with their lives.
* Spurred by Adama's words, Thrace cuts her hair and appears to return to duty. Later, in uniform, she visits [[Kacey]] and her mother.
* Meanwhile, Tigh returns to his room and begins drinking to excess, finishing off one bottle and starting another.
* In a Raptor, Athena and Racetrack jump into range of the Lion Head's Nebula, and are excited to find what the Scrolls described. They quickly realize, however, that they have jumped right next to the dying Basestar.

=== On a [[Basestar (RDM)|Basestar]] ===
*[[Gaius Baltar]], onboard the Cylon basestar, is having another hallucination. On a sunny beach, Gaius praises Six for returning to him in his time of need, and states that he enjoys having conversations with her. Six implores him to learn anything and everything about the Cylons, as he will need the information in the days ahead. Six also tells him that the Cylons use forms of projection to see the world around them, and when asked what she is, Six tells Baltar that she is an angel of God.
*Having been allowed to stay on the [[Basestar]], [[Caprica-Six]] and [[Three]] talk with Baltar later on, inquiring about the location of [[Earth]]. Gaius initially denies having any knowledge of where Earth is, but then reveals that he does have clues as to where its probable location is. He then finds out that the [[Cylons]] intend to find Earth so they can use it as their new home.
*Baltar is apprehensive about helping the Cylons, and Caprica-Six tells him that the Cylons are also leery as to whether his intentions are true or not. Caprica-Six leads Baltar through the ship, telling him that she uses a projection of a forest to navigate the ship. In his mind, Baltar realizes that his form of projection is similar to what the Cylons are using, causing him to question whether he is human or a Cylon.
*Caprica-Six informs Gaius that his rescue of [[Hera]] and his assistance in finding Earth has made him a valuable asset, and has gone a long way in impressing the Cylons. Baltar asks why there are only 7 models on the ship, and inquires about the remaining 5 models. Caprica-Six informs him that they don't talk about it. He asks whether they would recognize one of the others, but their conversation is interrupted by Three before she can answer.
* Three informs Caprica-Six that there is a situation, and a [[Five]] states that the basestar that went to check the pulsar has not responded back. The group head to a control center, where Baltar finds out that the missing basestar has been infected by a disease, and that any Cylon that dies and uploads to a [[Resurrection Ship]] will spread the virus even further. On the urge of his internal Six, Baltar offers to board the infected basestar and collect scientific information.
* Before he leaves on his mission, Baltar encounters the Cylon hybrid that controls the functions of the basestar. The hybrid is hooked into the systems on the ship, and continually vocalizes her seemingly non-sensical thoughts. Caprica-Six informs Gaius that it is thought by most of the Cylon models that the hybrid has gone insane from being connected to the [[Basestar]] and that her words hold no meaning, however the [[Leoben]] model takes the hybrid's words as coming from God.
* The Cylons provide Baltar with a Raptor to board the baseship, and when he arrives, he finds numerous Cylons, either dead or dying. He collects blood samples and takes pictures of the area to bring back for analysis, and also finds a large manmade object in the hold of the ship. He then finds a dying [[Six]] model (curiously with black hair), who informs him that the device the Cylons captured, a probe left by the [[13th Colony]], infected all of them, and wants to die so she can be released from her pain. Even though Gaius offers to bring her help, she tries to attack him, and Gaius strangles her to death.
* Upon his return to the Basestar, Gaius denies finding anything that could have caused the outbreak of the virus, but Caprica-Six notices the probe object in Baltar's picture, but doesn't let on to anyone else what she has discovered.

== Questions ==
* Would it be possible for the Colonials to salvage the derelict basestar for their own purposes?
* What has happened to the remaining five Cylon models? Are they so secretive that none of the other 7 variants have any knowledge of them? Did the Cylons permanently box the other models because they were dissenters to the cause of the Cylon race?
* What is Caprica-Six going to do now that she realizes Baltar may be withholding critically sensitive information?
* Cally and Chief Tyrol as seen both working on the deck. Who is taking care of their baby? Has a system been put in place to take care of crewmembers' babies?
* Is Athena infected with the Cylon virus?
* As the probe is supposed to come from the 13th Tribe, and is affecting Cylons, does that mean that Cylons have been exisiting in times of the 13th Tribe? (or is just by accident that is viral for Cylons?)
** What is the "genetic pool" that the human form Cylons all come from, and has it existed for longer than the Cylons themselves?
* Is the virus biological or technological in nature? The "inevitable once we took human form" and "genetic pool" lines would seem to indicate that the Cylons believe it is biological. On the other hand, their belief that it could survive through a download process would imply that it is technological in nature (i.e. computer virus). This would seem to be a contradiction.

== Analysis ==
*The crew-position shuffle continues from last episode, but some definite decisions have been made:
**Lee has been demoted back to Major, and has resumed the CAG slot, with Kat and Hot Dog as senior pilots under him. Kara is as well, until Lee revokes her flight status for reckless behaviour.
**As mentioned, it seems Kat has been demoted from CAG to leader of Blue Group (Although "Blue Group" may only exist for training purposes and not be a permanent viper squadron).
**As implied in "Collaborators", Helo has resumed the XO slot aboard ''Galactica''.
**Gaeta appears to have inherited Baltar's mantle as the scientific advisor (it is unclear whether he holds any additional positions), and is focusing his efforts on refining a course for Earth.
**Cally is shown working the flight deck alongside her husband, showing that she is once again active in the Fleet.
*Following her actions during the Battle of New Caprica, Sharon seems to have garnered some degree of acceptance among the ''Galactica'' air group.
*Sharon is given the callsign 'Athena' in this episode. As [[Hot Dog]] states, it is the name of a [[Athena, Lord of Kobol|Lord of Kobol]] (as well as the name of a [[Athena (TOS)|character in the original series]]).
*The Baseship hybrid appears to be viewed by the Cylons in the same way as the Centurions and Raiders. The hybrid has no vote in the Cylon decision-making process, despite its ability to express its thoughts and feelings, after a fashion.
*The Cylons apparently have a [[Raptor]] at their disposal, no doubt they would have aquired it during the Occupation of [[New Caprica]], but It also makes you wonder what other Colonial Ships they have.

== Notes ==

*According to an [http://www.nowplayingmag.com/content/view/4175/58/ interview] with executive producer [[David Eick]], episodes 5 and 6 are a two-part story in which ''Galactica'' discovers a dying Cylon Baseship, and deals with a plague that has befallen the Cylons. (Eick is counting "Occupation" and "Precipice" as one episode.)
*The phrase "End of line.", uttered by the Cylon hybrid in this episode, is a possible reference to the film "Tron", in which the Master Control Program finishes it's sentences with the phrase, "End of line."

== Noteworthy Dialogue ==

''Adama's feelings towards, and regarding, Starbuck'':

'''Adama''': You were like a daughter to me once - no more. You're malcontent and a cancer, and I won't have you on my ship. So you have a choice - you can figure out how to become a human being again, and an officer; or you can find another place to live, off of this ship. You're dismissed.

''The Hybrid's objecttion to leaving the infected Basestar behind'':

'''Hybrid''': Mists of dreams drip along the nascent echo, and love no more. End of line.

== Guest Stars ==

== References ==
<div style="font-size:85%"><references/></div>

{{episode list (RDM season 3)}}

[[Category:Episodes written by Anne Cofell Saunders]]
[[Category:Episodes directed by Jean de Segonzac]]
[[Category:RDM]]

Torn

2006-11-08T16:37:14Z

Zeratul: /* Questions */

{{Episode Data
| title= Torn
| image=Season 3 - Promo - Epi 5 - StarbuckTighAdama.jpg
| season= 3
| episode= 6
| guests=
| writer= [[Anne Cofell Saunders]]
| story=
| director= [[Jean de Segonzac]]
| production=
| rating=
| US airdate= 2006-11-03
| UK airdate=
| dvd=
| population= 41,422
| prev= [[Collaborators]]
| next= [[A Measure of Salvation]]
}}
== Overview ==
:''Part one of two. [[Kara Thrace|Starbuck]] and [[Saul Tigh|Tigh]] create divisions between those who suffered under the Cylon occupation of [[New Caprica]] and those who stayed with the fleet. Meanwhile, [[Gaius Baltar|Baltar]] tries to prove his worth to the Cylons. <ref name="TVGuide">{{cite_web|url=http://www.tvguide.com/detail/tv-show.aspx?episodeid=6006095&tvobjectid=191395&more=ucepisodelist|title=Episode Detail for Torn at www.tvguide.com}}</ref>

== Summary ==

=== On [[Galactica (RDM)|Galactica]] ===
* ''Galactica'''s air group runs war game exercises among the viper pilots. Captain Thrace breaks formation during the exercise and collides with another pilot, forcing an end to the war games, and causing Apollo to remove her from flight duty.
* [[Gaeta|Felix Gaeta]] meets with [[Laura Roslin]], [[William Adama]], and [[Saul Tigh]] to discuss matters Baltar related. During the year before the Cylon Occupation of New Caprica, Baltar was obsessed with analyzing the data from Kobol to find the path to Earth. Based on passages in the [[Pythia|Scrolls of Pythia]], Baltar identified a nebula he believed to be a landmark on the road to Earth.
* Upon Thrace's return to her bunk, she is met by Kacey and her mother, whom she dismisses, telling the Kacey's mother not to come again.
* In the pilots' mess, Lt. [[Sharon Agathon]] is given the callsign "[[Athena]]." Thrace and Tigh begin to sow dissent between the survivors of New Caprica and the crew that stayed behind on ''Galactica''
* Adama confronts Thrace and Tigh on their behavior. He challenges them to shoot him, as their constant complaining is tantamount to pulling the trigger. When neither do, Adama demands they shape up and move on with their lives.
* Spurred by Adama's words, Thrace cuts her hair and appears to return to duty. Later, in uniform, she visits [[Kacey]] and her mother.
* Meanwhile, Tigh returns to his room and begins drinking to excess, finishing off one bottle and starting another.
* In a Raptor, Athena and Racetrack jump into range of the Lion Head's Nebula, and are excited to find what the Scrolls described. They quickly realize, however, that they have jumped right next to the dying Basestar.

=== On a [[Basestar (RDM)|Basestar]] ===
*[[Gaius Baltar]], onboard the Cylon basestar, is having another hallucination. On a sunny beach, Gaius praises Six for returning to him in his time of need, and states that he enjoys having conversations with her. Six implores him to learn anything and everything about the Cylons, as he will need the information in the days ahead. Six also tells him that the Cylons use forms of projection to see the world around them, and when asked what she is, Six tells Baltar that she is an angel of God.
*Having been allowed to stay on the [[Basestar]], [[Caprica-Six]] and [[Three]] talk with Baltar later on, inquiring about the location of [[Earth]]. Gaius initially denies having any knowledge of where Earth is, but then reveals that he does have clues as to where its probable location is. He then finds out that the [[Cylons]] intend to find Earth so they can use it as their new home.
*Baltar is apprehensive about helping the Cylons, and Caprica-Six tells him that the Cylons are also leery as to whether his intentions are true or not. Caprica-Six leads Baltar through the ship, telling him that she uses a projection of a forest to navigate the ship. In his mind, Baltar realizes that his form of projection is similar to what the Cylons are using, causing him to question whether he is human or a Cylon.
*Caprica-Six informs Gaius that his rescue of [[Hera]] and his assistance in finding Earth has made him a valuable asset, and has gone a long way in impressing the Cylons. Baltar asks why there are only 7 models on the ship, and inquires about the remaining 5 models. Caprica-Six informs him that they don't talk about it. He asks whether they would recognize one of the others, but their conversation is interrupted by Three before she can answer.
* Three informs Caprica-Six that there is a situation, and a [[Five]] states that the basestar that went to check the pulsar has not responded back. The group head to a control center, where Baltar finds out that the missing basestar has been infected by a disease, and that any Cylon that dies and uploads to a [[Resurrection Ship]] will spread the virus even further. On the urge of his internal Six, Baltar offers to board the infected basestar and collect scientific information.
* Before he leaves on his mission, Baltar encounters the Cylon hybrid that controls the functions of the basestar. The hybrid is hooked into the systems on the ship, and continually vocalizes her seemingly non-sensical thoughts. Caprica-Six informs Gaius that it is thought by most of the Cylon models that the hybrid has gone insane from being connected to the [[Basestar]] and that her words hold no meaning, however the [[Leoben]] model takes the hybrid's words as coming from God.
* The Cylons provide Baltar with a Raptor to board the baseship, and when he arrives, he finds numerous Cylons, either dead or dying. He collects blood samples and takes pictures of the area to bring back for analysis, and also finds a large manmade object in the hold of the ship. He then finds a dying [[Six]] model (curiously with black hair), who informs him that the device the Cylons captured, a probe left by the [[13th Colony]], infected all of them, and wants to die so she can be released from her pain. Even though Gaius offers to bring her help, she tries to attack him, and Gaius strangles her to death.
* Upon his return to the Basestar, Gaius denies finding anything that could have caused the outbreak of the virus, but Caprica-Six notices the probe object in Baltar's picture, but doesn't let on to anyone else what she has discovered.

== Questions ==
* Would it be possible for the Colonials to salvage the derelict basestar for their own purposes?
* What has happened to the remaining five Cylon models? Are they so secretive that none of the other 7 variants have any knowledge of them? Did the Cylons permanently box the other models because they were dissenters to the cause of the Cylon race?
* What is Caprica-Six going to do now that she realizes Baltar may be withholding critically sensitive information?
* Cally and Chief Tyrol as seen both working on the deck. Who is taking care of their baby? Has a system been put in place to take care of crewmembers' babies?
* Is Athena infected with the Cylon virus?
* As the probe is supposed to come from the 13th Tribe, and is affecting Cylons, does that mean that Cylons have been exisiting in times of the 13th Tribe? (or is just by accident that is viral for Cylons?)
** What is the "genetic pool" that the human form Cylons all come from, and has it existed for longer than the Cylons themselves?

== Analysis ==
*The crew-position shuffle continues from last episode, but some definite decisions have been made:
**Lee has been demoted back to Major, and has resumed the CAG slot, with Kat and Hot Dog as senior pilots under him. Kara is as well, until Lee revokes her flight status for reckless behaviour.
**As mentioned, it seems Kat has been demoted from CAG to leader of Blue Group (Although "Blue Group" may only exist for training purposes and not be a permanent viper squadron).
**As implied in "Collaborators", Helo has resumed the XO slot aboard ''Galactica''.
**Gaeta appears to have inherited Baltar's mantle as the scientific advisor (it is unclear whether he holds any additional positions), and is focusing his efforts on refining a course for Earth.
**Cally is shown working the flight deck alongside her husband, showing that she is once again active in the Fleet.
*Following her actions during the Battle of New Caprica, Sharon seems to have garnered some degree of acceptance among the ''Galactica'' air group.
*Sharon is given the callsign 'Athena' in this episode. As [[Hot Dog]] states, it is the name of a [[Athena, Lord of Kobol|Lord of Kobol]] (as well as the name of a [[Athena (TOS)|character in the original series]]).
*The Baseship hybrid appears to be viewed by the Cylons in the same way as the Centurions and Raiders. The hybrid has no vote in the Cylon decision-making process, despite its ability to express its thoughts and feelings, after a fashion.
*The Cylons apparently have a [[Raptor]] at their disposal, no doubt they would have aquired it during the Occupation of [[New Caprica]], but It also makes you wonder what other Colonial Ships they have.

== Notes ==

*According to an [http://www.nowplayingmag.com/content/view/4175/58/ interview] with executive producer [[David Eick]], episodes 5 and 6 are a two-part story in which ''Galactica'' discovers a dying Cylon Baseship, and deals with a plague that has befallen the Cylons. (Eick is counting "Occupation" and "Precipice" as one episode.)
*The phrase "End of line.", uttered by the Cylon hybrid in this episode, is a possible reference to the film "Tron", in which the Master Control Program finishes it's sentences with the phrase, "End of line."

== Noteworthy Dialogue ==

''Adama's feelings towards, and regarding, Starbuck'':

'''Adama''': You were like a daughter to me once - no more. You're malcontent and a cancer, and I won't have you on my ship. So you have a choice - you can figure out how to become a human being again, and an officer; or you can find another place to live, off of this ship. You're dismissed.

''The Hybrid's objecttion to leaving the infected Basestar behind'':

'''Hybrid''': Mists of dreams drip along the nascent echo, and love no more. End of line.

== Guest Stars ==

== References ==
<div style="font-size:85%"><references/></div>

{{episode list (RDM season 3)}}

[[Category:Episodes written by Anne Cofell Saunders]]
[[Category:Episodes directed by Jean de Segonzac]]
[[Category:RDM]]

Talk:The Captain's Hand/Archive 1

2006-02-20T07:02:18Z

Zeratul: /* Landing Strips & Weaponry */

==Episode Impressions==

Well I think that was a damn good episode, a good improvement over some of the previous episodes. Tricky for some article editing but overall I know you guys will do a great job on the page. --[[User:Bane Grievver|Bane Grievver]] 23:02, 17 February 2006 (EST)

:Not bad at all. [[User:Joemc72|Joe McCullough]] 23:05, 17 February 2006 (EST)

::I agree. Some tense moments, and the Baltar announcement kinda threw me for a second, but overall a refresing change of pace. -[[User:Sgtpayne|Sgtpayne]] 23:13, 17 February 2006 (EST)

::Great Episode I thought. The abortion debate was an fascinating piece of art imitating life in my opinion. It will be interesting to see how this pans out as the show continues. --[[User:Simmons|Simmons]] 10:55, 19 February 2006 (EST)

:: With the last few episodes, I was becoming increasingly disillusioned with the apparently magical powers of RDM and his writing team. This episode is more like what I (and, I think, we all) have come to expect from Galactica. [[User:Shred|Shred]] 13:47, 19 February 2006 (EST)

== Not ANOTHER Commander! ==

This episode was topnotch, yes. But this leaves us wikipedians with a bit of a problem. Enter "Commander Adama" and you get William Adama. We'll need a disambig for this new change. Betting that Lee's promotion is temporary, of course. And, for me at least, there's the matter of the new commander living long enough--Pegasus goes through commanders now like I go through a bag of cookies. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 23:08, 17 February 2006 (EST)
:Perhaps maybe the Pegasus will be around longer than we thought? [[User:Joemc72|Joe McCullough]] 23:10, 17 February 2006 (EST)
::Or maybe we'll have another Adama cliffhanger, this time with Lee... -[[User:Sgtpayne|Sgtpayne]] 23:13, 17 February 2006 (EST)
:::Methinks those nuke hits will come back to haunt them (especially with the nuke Baltar took coming into play) and Adama will go for either, a) another space walk when the Pegasus goes boom or b) He will be aboard Galactica laughing at Tigh for still being a Colonel. --[[User:Bane Grievver|Bane Grievver]] 23:21, 17 February 2006 (EST)

Personally, as a US Navy vet, I think this was a huge breach in protocol. Granted, I'm loving the show and plotwise it's a good move, the reality of it is that if anything, Tigh would have been promoted to Commander (and probably should have been after the ''Pegasus'' lost its two seniormost officers) and '''perhaps''' Lee promoted to Colonel as the XO. Obviously, there was the huge flareup from when Tigh had command of the fleet, but even still, as XO of ''Galactica'', it should have went to him.--<font color="#4b0082">'''[[User:Mitsukai|み使い]]'''</font> <font color="#2f4f4f">'''''[[User_talk:Mitsukai|Mitsukai]]'''''</font> 23:19, 17 February 2006 (EST)

:I agree with you, and it might make for some good Tigh material later on, with him and Ellen being pissed off for being passed over. But I think because of the reactions he got within the fleet, there would be more trouble then its worth. --[[User:Bane Grievver|Bane Grievver]] 23:21, 17 February 2006 (EST)
::Pretty much what I was thinking as well, especially since ADM Adama and Tigh go way back, so he'll probably see this as a major snub. So again, as a plot issue, I think it works. But I think the whole thing probably could have been handled a bit more realistically. But that's just me. ^_^;;;--<font color="#4b0082">'''[[User:Mitsukai|み使い]]'''</font> <font color="#2f4f4f">'''''[[User_talk:Mitsukai|Mitsukai]]'''''</font> 23:25, 17 February 2006 (EST)
:::Hey, all! New here. And same thoughts here, but not just from Tigh, but maybe from the fleet. Kara didn't seem to care one way or another (or, at least, didn't voice it), but I think some might be extremely angry that Lee went from Major to Commander in a month. [[User:Michael|Michael]] 23:29, 17 February 2006 (EST)
::::As much as it was a breach in protocol, [[Saul_Tigh|Col. Tigh]] might not be miffed as bad as everyone thinks. Recall from [[Scattered]], that he really wasn't interested in "the big chair". I'm thinking that Ellen may have the larger issue of the two. -[[User:Sgtpayne|Sgtpayne]] 23:41, 17 February 2006 (EST)
:::::True, but there is still the matter of OPLANs, NAVREGs (or whatever serves for the fleet). It was as much rules and regulations - some of the stuff that ADM Adama is supposed to adhere to, especially during wartime - as Tigh's preferences. Granted, I'm probably reading a bit much of real-world influences into this, and I understand that they did it for the plot, but again, I really expect some backlash to happen, both on-screen and somewhat amongst the really, really nitpicky fans. Like me. ^_- --<font color="#4b0082">'''[[User:Mitsukai|み使い]]'''</font> <font color="#2f4f4f">'''''[[User_talk:Mitsukai|Mitsukai]]'''''</font> 23:54, 17 February 2006 (EST)

:::::The passing over of Colonel Tigh for the post of ''Pegasus'' Commander needs to be addressed at a later time I believe. Either he was offered the position and passed, his attitude to receiving a command as stated in "Scattered" was well known to Admiral Adama and he knew the offer of promotion would be rejected or Admiral Adama decided he needed him where he was...Hopefully this will be addressed in a later episode. A throwaway line from Admiral Adama to Colonel Tigh such as "Im glad you stayed" or "You know it was yours if you wanted it" would wrap it up and end this speculation! :)--[[User:Simmons|Simmons]] 10:03, 19 February 2006 (EST)

Was Apollo promoted to Commander or simply given command of the Pegasus and stayed at the rank of Major ?. After all it is possible to be the Captain (and referred to as the Captain) of a ship without holding the rank of Captain. Maybe the same thing holds for the Commander designation. Although being given the pips does confuse things but it does seem strange that he jumped almost two command ranks in one go. --[[User:Rexpop|Rexpop]] 02:12, 18 February 2006 (EST)

: Just some thoughts. By its very nature the command structure of the Fleet must be looser than it would be in "normal" circumstances. Seniority has become less important than fitting individuals to function. Tigh has shown himself to be in some ways a superior XO, one upon whom Adama depends. Also, I would maintain that Tigh depends no less upon Bill Adama in order to function. But I wonder if any other "cross-pollenization" of battlestar crews might be wise. [[User:Zahir|Zahir]] 11:57, 18 February 2006 (EST)

Apollo was indeed promoted to the rank of Commander Rexpop. Personally, since I haven't read the Articles of Colonial Field Promotions...or whatever...I can't say that Lee's promotion was in breach of any protocol...maybe IRL it would be...but in the RDM universe, who knows.
Personally I think that the promotion to Commander reflects Apollos actions. He assumed command of the Pegasus when she was allready faceing 3 Basestars, with potentially up to 2,400 Raiders, and the Pegasus allready heavily damaged...and he was able to not only pull it out of the fire and escape, but heavily damaged/crippled one Basestar in the process. I'd say that he deserves the promotion to Commander. --[[User:Strato|Strato]]

On further thought it makes sense that Lee was probably the only viable candidate in fleet. The reasoning is as follows:

First up lets identify the potential candidates that we know about on Galactica. After the attack the command staff on Galactica was Adama, Colonel Tigh, Captain Kelly, Major Cottle and Lee. There are no other senior officers that we know about and given that Captain Kelly was second officer its unlikely there were others.

On Pegasus things are a little more vague. We know that Fisk was a Colonel and that Garner was not a command officer but the chief engineer so its likely that he held at least the rank of Major. With both officers gone it is likely the highest command officer left on Pegasus was probably no higher than the rank of Major. And given that Pegasus was in for a refit at the time of the attack it was likely that like Galactica the ship was light on senior officers.

So at the end we are left with four candidates that we the audience knows about. Tigh, Lee, Cottle and Kelly. Tigh has made it clear that he doesn't want command and Adama would likely pass him over due to his personal issues with the bottle. Cottle would probably not be considered due to not being a command officer and the lack of doctors in the fleet.

Kelly is a good candidate and is probably on a par with Lee, but where Lee wins out over Kelly is that Kelly doesn't have experience in commanding a Battlestar, only as an XO. Admittedly Lee only has one engagement under his belt, but he was thrown into the fire and came out singed but intact. Kelly doesn't have that so that puts Lee ahead. So under the circumstances (and the limited pool to draw on) Lee is pretty much is the best candidate that we know about for the job.

Now the only question that I have is why hasn't Kelly been made first officer of the Pegasus ?. It would seem that he would be a natural choice given that it was strongly hinted in the mini-series that he was in line for a promotion to a first officer position after his tour of duty was over. --[[User:Rexpop|Rexpop]] 14:56, 18 February 2006 (EST)

:Don't forget that Cain had already had her first XO executed, so Col. Fisk had probably been promoted from a lower rank already. As for Kelly vs. Lee Adama, it's not entirely clear which of them have seniority. Lee was under arrest when Kelly was acting as Tigh's XO. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 15:12, 18 February 2006 (EST)

==Survivor Count==
The survivor count went down by six even though we saw seven deaths in the last episode. This could be explained by the well established fact that cylon deaths do not result in a dropping of the count. It has long been speculated that [[Billy|Billy]] is/was a cylon. If this is true it would explain the loss of only six from the count. That said, it is also possible, even probable that there was a birth. In the podcast for [[Sacrifice|Sacrifice]] it is said that Billy was killed off just because the actor portraying him wished to pursue other projects. Thoughts?--[[User:Antagonist|Antagonist]] 02:30, 18 February 2006 (EST)

:No, for two reasons: One, we actually saw the White Board of Death to confirm numbers, Two: occasionally there are births in the fleet which make the number go up slightly. Although this could never account for the sudden, unexplained gain of 50 people at a time or something, it does go to explain why sometimes there are episodes where a lot of people die, but the survivor count doesn't drop that much.
--[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 03:27, 18 February 2006 (EST)

::I don't understand what you're saying. Im not disputing the numbers, im giving a possible explination for why the number went down by only six when we see seven people (pehaps one of them a cylon) dying in the previous episode. --[[User:Antagonist|Antagonist]] 03:37, 18 February 2006 (EST)

Seven people die on screen. 2 more die off screen. 3 babies are born off screen. We don't hear about these second two events, but they still ''happen'', and when we see the renewed survivor count, it's a ''Net'' loss of six, and so forth. --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 03:56, 18 February 2006 (EST)

Whether Billy is a Cylon is not an issue for the Survivor Count (fleet population). President Roslin wouldn't yet be aware, so it would not be a factor in the population count, and therefore to mention the speculation about Billy wasn't really relevant. [[User:Rocky8311|Rocky8311]] 04:15, 18 February 2006 (EST)

Yeah thats a good point that the president wouldnt know, youre right. --[[User:Antagonist|Antagonist]] 21:38, 18 February 2006 (EST)

== Tigh and Seniority ==

In the questions, I wonder if the reference to Tigh's "seniority" is even relevent. This isn't a situation analogous to the time (now-Admiral) Adama was shot because in that case, Tigh was the most senior officer PERIOD, and here now Tigh is, of course, not. Adama, as the ranking flag officer (Admiral, if not Commander, and up), presumably has the authority to make promotions as he sees fit. While I'm sure anyone would agree that the promotion of Lee to Commander was unusual, does anybody really think promoting Tigh would have seemed like a good idea to anyone in the fleet? Just curious. [[User:Rocky8311|Rocky8311]] 05:31, 18 February 2006 (EST)

I don't see the fuss: Col. Tigh himself has stated repeatedly that he does not want a command of his own, and only wants to work as a team with William Adama. --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 05:39, 18 February 2006 (EST)

BTW; a note on units: someone mentions that "40 SU" is a long distance away in space for Pegasus. I think that must mean "Stellar Unit", as opposed to our standardized "Astronomical Unit (AU)" (distance from Earth to the sun).--[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 06:01, 18 February 2006 (EST)

== Pegasus Technology / Technicalities ==
=== Landing Strips & Weaponry ===

Amazing Battle Sequence in this episode. It was nice to finally get to see Pegasus retake her Vipers via both the upper and lower Landing strips.
when I first saw her from this angle http://www.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Image:Pegasus01.jpg I suspected she had 4 landing strips, and now that I have seen them in use, I feel vindicated. What do we know if anything about the 2 Bough Battery's Pegasus was firing at the middle Basestar? The shells seem to be the same size or larger than a viper?--[[User:Strato|Strato]]

:Also, the fact that one of them is inverted confirms that the colonials can maniuplate artificial gravity fields selectively. This was suspected from some shots of the botanical cruiser with a few domes upside down, but this is more explicit and a more extreme difference (the two strips are back to back). --[[User:Zeratul|Zeratul]] 17:38, 18 February 2006 (EST)

I don't think we could really tell what was upside down or not; I got the impressing that they were just flipping the ''camera angle'' to show that Pegasus was flipping around; more detail when we get the DVDs.--[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 18:27, 18 February 2006 (EST)

:From what I saw, half of the Vipers rotated to land on the bottom two Pegasus decks. Starbuck was clearly upside down. It can also be seen that Vipers landing on lower deck of the flight pod were rotating to land from the Vipers landing on the upper deck. This is the first time we see that all Viper's land on opposite sides of the same surface. I'm wondering how they are going to explain or show that the gravity is opposite from the rest of the ship.--[[User:Jedivulcan|Jedivulcan]]

::I hope they don't bother. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 19:10, 18 February 2006 (EST)

They haven't yet explained how they crerate Artificial Gravity onboard the ships yet...I assume its some sort of gravplating...or something...as usual its one of those suspension of disbelief things you just have to kind of accept (for that matter how do they prevent people from flaoting in Zero G in the Raptors?), but the Pegasus clearly has 4 Landing Strips,a nd uses them, there is no need to wait "for the DVD's". For Viper Raptor landings however, they don't relie on Artificial Gravity, they land their skids on magnetic "traps".--[[User:Strato|Strato]]

::See the [[Science in the Re-imagined Series]] article for discussion on artificial gravity. I'm betting more on magnetism on this: Why? Watch the [[Miniseries]], when ''Colonial Heavy 798'' first docks on ''Galactica'' for the decomissioning ceremonies. You'll see two spacesuited workers who are ''floating'' while they're working. If this was gravity, these guys would NOT float. Doesn't give us a direct answer, but it eliminates "selective" gravity adjustments. Confirm this with how the Vipers make combat landings; they bounce a lot. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 23:20, 18 February 2006 (EST)

:::Ahh, but we also see the flight pod that has been converted to a museum was in possession of artificial gravity in the decommissioning ceremonies. I'm not adding this to rule out your theory Spencerian, but merely to add that we don't have any clear evidence to say whether they can switch the artificial gravity on or off in the flight pods (the museum could also been an anomaly all its own). --[[User:MASON|Mason]] 00:25, 20 February 2006 (EST)

::::Another thing, the starboard flight deck (the one converted to a museum) still had its artificial gravity active when the Heavy Raider crashed into it in "[[Scattered]]" -- the Raider stays anchored to the deck and Cylons can be seen walking out of it. Since the whole starboard pod was pretty much abandoned, why would they leave the gravity on and thus using unnecessary power? --[[User:Zeratul|Zeratul]] 02:02, 20 February 2006 (EST)

=== Class Capability ===

I removed the following entry from the article's "Notes" section:<br>
: <font style="color: #00ff00;">[[Mercury class battlestar]]s do not need to retract their flight pods prior to a jump, unlike the [[Galactica type battlestar|Galactica type]].</font><br>
I felt this statement was superfluous and unneeded, since ''Mercury''-class Battlestars '''''cannot''''' retract their flight pods before jumping to FTL; it's not a question of needing to or not. The design of the ''Mercury''-class is closest to the original (original series) model, with fixed flight pods and external hull plating and lines. Why TPTB included retractable/deployable flight pods on ''Galactica's'' class is anyone's guess — it's a neat feature, both visually and stylistically — but I don't think it's necessary to the performance of the FTL drive. -- [[User:Hawke|Hawke]] 20:29, 18 February 2006 (EST)
: I could see the retractable flight pods on the ''Galactica'' type used to make a sealed enviroment when closed to create an atmosphere on the deck. I would say it could logically allow a way for people to disembark larger craft like ''Colonial One'' when they dock, however its been proven that craft like that use an airlock gantry way for that purpose. -- [[User:Kahran|Kahran]] 20:43, 18 February 2006 (EST)

:I'm restoring this. We may have suspected that Pegasus can't and/or doesn't retract its flight pods, but before this episode, but we didn't ''know''.--[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 01:48, 19 February 2006 (EST)

== "Property"? ==

I'm a little sketchy on current United States legal terminology, but they said that "Under Gemenese law, minors are the "property" of their parents"--->Is the term "property" used by the United States, or any Western nation for that matter? I don't know. --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 19:03, 18 February 2006 (EST)
:Under United States law, no, minors are not property. In practical terms, the situation is a little more complicated. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 19:09, 18 February 2006 (EST)

::I do not understand. Further, how could she be "property"?--[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 19:13, 18 February 2006 (EST)
:::In theory, children are absolutely not "property" under united states law, which grants equal protection not only to all citizens ''of'' the United States, but to all ''persons'' ''within'' the United States. In practice, legal guardians have a wide range of authority over their charges. Of particular relevance to this episode, some jurisdictions require minors to notify their parents prior to an abortion. A friend of mine who sued for emancipation from her parents has told me that in her opinion, there's little practical distinction between the status of an legal minor and "property". I suspect it's a matter of perspective, really. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 19:40, 18 February 2006 (EST)

== "To Be, or Not... To Be" ==

I removed the following entry from the article's "Notes" section:
: <font style="color: #00ff00;">[[Roslin]] references Shakespeare's ''Merchant of Venice'' when she asks [[Quorum of Twelve|Delegate]] [[Sarah Porter]] if she wants her "pound of flesh". It's unclear if analogues of his work exist in the [[The Twelve Colonies (RDM)|Colonies]].</font>

I think that the phrase "pound of flesh" has become quite familiar in modern culture and literary circles, such that it really doesn't warrant significance in citing. It has been used in countless movies and TV episodes without citation (not that I think a phrase can be copyrighted to such an extent), and I haven't seen the writers of ''Law & Order'' state, "Yeah, we intentionally alluded to Shakespeare, and wanted the lawyer to give that impression that he was alluding to Shakespeare when he said it in court". Yes, I'm probably going to an extreme, but really, this is just a case of a scriptwriter putting this phrase into the script, and almost certainly has '''''nothing''''' to do with whether or not Shakespeare is familiar to The Colonies. This isn't the Klingons quoting ''Hamlet''. -- [[User:Hawke|Hawke]] 21:45, 18 February 2006 (EST)

:I'm also restoring this. The phrase may have a more general meaning, but it is impossible not to make the association with Shakespeare when hearing it. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 01:52, 19 February 2006 (EST)

: I stand by my original action, more so than the other removal I undertook. It is excessive "over-think" to assume (or, create the assumption) that everything spoken in the dialogue must have explanation in or correlation to "canon" terms. "Pound of flesh" is a term, a phrase, plain and simple... and while its origin ''here'' is attributed to Shakespeare, it ''does not mean'', nor imply, that Shakespeare exists in this storyline, or that Shakespeare was somehow influenced by Colonial writing, or that Shakespeare is, or could be, or should be, any part of this storyline. This storyline and Shakespearean writing are completely exclusive of each other, with the exception being, perhaps, that writers here may take dramatic or stylistic cues from Shakespeare (or any other classes of writers). Hey, they're only Human too. -- [[User:Hawke|Hawke]] 02:06, 19 February 2006 (EST)

::Look, in general, I agree with you that it's not desirable to read too much into things - no, the freighter "greenleaf" is not a Legolas reference, for example. This, however, is very clear. I am going to restore it again for now, and I would like you to leave it be until at least a few others weigh in. At that point, I will be happy to abide by consensus. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 02:56, 19 February 2006 (EST)

I stand with Farago. Utterly. Two to one, motion stands.--[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 03:01, 19 February 2006 (EST)

Please remember that, when content is disputed due to interpretation ([[Battlestar Wiki:Citation Jihad|as opposed to sources]]), our policy is to generally leave the item ''within the article'' and to work here on Talk (as done) to gain consensus before leaving the item in permanently. If consensus cannot be reached, one of the [http://www.battlestarwiki.org/en/index.php?title=Special%3AListusers&group=sysop&username= Administrators] here (or other contributor) can call for a vote. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 10:17, 19 February 2006 (EST)

: Perhaps a compromise can be reached. I adjusted the statement slightly to be more ambiguous. I'm not against the mention of a snippet or insight like this — but, I'm completely opposed to extending an insight into speculation, especially when it involves linking to or placement in the ''canon'' storyline. The contributor who first placed that statement (<font style="color: #000000;">Alphaboi867</font>) hasn't "shown up" to defend it, and I strongly feel that the original phrasing of it is ungrounded speculation that is linking Shakespeare to the storyline, where no such link has been indicated by TPTB to exist. -- [[User:Hawke|Hawke]] 15:03, 19 February 2006 (EST)

:''Hawke suggests:''
The script for [[Laura Roslin]] references Shakespeare's ''Merchant of Venice'', when she asks [[Quorum of Twelve|Delegate]] [[Sarah Porter]] if she wants her "pound of flesh". It's unclear as to if the writers are somehow placing Shakespeare's work into the story of [[The Twelve Colonies (RDM)|Colonies]], or if this is just a random "use of phrase" by an inspired scriptwriter.

:This seems verbose. Just stating that she's quoting shakespeare shouldn't imply any position on whether or not he exists in the BSG universe. How about simply stating this in notes:
::[[Laura Roslin]] quotes Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice" when she tells [[Quorum of Twelve|Delegate]] [[Sarah Porter]] that she's gotten her "pound of flesh".
:And, if we feel the need to discuss the implication of this quotation, doing so under Analysis. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 15:10, 19 February 2006 (EST)

:: I would be agreeable to this, so long as it is prefaced with "The script (or dialogue) for [[Laura Roslin]]... (rest of your statement)". I know I'm dicing onions, but I think it's ''crucial'' that there is no implication that Shakespeare exists in The Colonies ''unless'' or ''until'' it is substantiated further. -- [[User:Hawke|Hawke]] 15:19, 19 February 2006 (EST)

:::"Writer Jeff Vlaming references Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice" when he has [[Laura Roslin]] tell [[Quorum of Twelve|Delegate]] [[Sarah Porter]], "you have your pound of flesh."? --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 15:25, 19 February 2006 (EST)

:::: That works fine, in my opinion. -- [[User:Hawke|Hawke]] 15:28, 19 February 2006 (EST)

== Councillor -> Delegate ==
I changed the instances of Councillor to Delegate per [[Battlestar_Wiki:Standards_and_Conventions#Character_Titles|Article 3 Section 1 of the Standards and Conventions]]. If events occur such that we need to reevaluate the standard title for members of the Quorum, we should probably take it over to the talk at S&C (so that it will be applied everywhere). --[[User:Steelviper|Steelviper]] 22:46, 18 February 2006 (EST)

==How much is too much?==

I know this was brought up in another episode of the season, in that we should be mindful of how much information is provided for each episode. For the information that's being provided in summary, how much should we include? Some veteran input would be greatly appreciated. -[[User:Sgtpayne|Sgtpayne]] 15:32, 19 February 2006 (EST)
:I agree that this needs concision badly, and separation between the "A" and "B" plots. Try to stick to the rough outlines of the plot, and save salient details for Notes. Be bold. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 15:49, 19 February 2006 (EST)

::Well I edited a fair bit, taking out some extra explanations. I think we have to look at these summaries as more of a sports recap the day after the game rather then a play-by-play of the whole episode. I think more time should be spent on individual pages (Eg. Lee Adama) rather then explanation what happens to him in detail in the episode. --[[User:Bane Grievver|Bane Grievver]] 19:33, 19 February 2006 (EST)
::: Oh and my apologies to Peter Farago for removing his notable dialogue stuff, had an older copied and pasted version which overwrote your stuff, D'oh!! --[[User:Bane Grievver|Bane Grievver]] 19:36, 19 February 2006 (EST)
:::No. Wrong. It is more convenient/efficient to describe/question/analyze events in an episode, within that episode's own page. --[[User:The Merovingian|The Merovingian]] 20:11, 19 February 2006 (EST)
::::Yeah, I think his point is that it's only worth doing if the points are interesting. This is not a transcript, we don't need a blow-by-blow of each quivering facial expression that plays out on Bamber and Sakhoff's faces in any given scene. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 20:19, 19 February 2006 (EST)
::::: Aye, exactly. Thanks for clarifying! Also, it might be easier to just throw it on the episode page, but in the end it has to be done on the character/object/whatever page so why not spend more time putting there instead. (Eg. Apollo getting shot can be mentioned on the episode, but it will have to go on Apollo's page anyway, so no point in being overly descriptive. --22:08, 19 February 2006 (EST)
::::::Thank you everyone for the comments. It was really nice to see comments from season vets (Farago) as well as some new faces to the Wiki. The recent summary changes look good, and it it's good to touch on what's consider vague versus verbose through discussions such as this. -[[User:Sgtpayne|Sgtpayne]] 00:55, 20 February 2006 (EST)

==Casualties==

Rexpop writes:
:There may be two further explanations for this (1) that the board hadn't been updated to reflect the damage on the ''Pegasus'' , only the pilots lost. (2) A large number of the ''Galactica'' casualties occurred during the venting of the fire and was largely due to the conflicting damage control orders given by Kelly, Tyrol and Tigh rather than the actual impact of the missile.

I don't think either of these points bears up to scrutiny. As to the first, I'm willing to wait until next friday, but I can almost promise you that the count won't be pushed any lower - we thought something similar after the surprisingly low casualty count between "Valley of Darkness" and "Fragged", but no other deaths were added on later.

As for the second point, that's simply not the case - Tigh knew that if he waited for the repair crews to evacuate, the fuel lines would blow, and Adama not only backed up his decision but said that he'd have made the same one in his place. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 17:25, 19 February 2006 (EST)

:It would have been amusing if they did blow and the series ended right there. I dunno what we'd be watching in its place, but there's probably plenty of ideas floating around. --[[User:Bane Grievver|Bane Grievver]] 22:11, 19 February 2006 (EST)

:I'm not disputing whether or not Tigh's decision was or wasn't the correct one. I was making the point that the bulk of the Galactica's casualties (around 80 or so) came from the decision to vent the atmosphere in those sections while the DC teams (that had moved into the section to deal with the fire) were evacuating rather than from the impact of the missile. I've edited the comment to remove the sentence about the DC effort to try and to clear up the point. --[[User:Rexpop|Rexpop]] 23:12, 19 February 2006 (EST)

::Interesting point. We do hear that all the breathing gear was used up in firefighting ops, which the dead deck crew are criticized for neglecting in the mini. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 23:54, 19 February 2006 (EST)

Talk:Leland Adama/Archive 1

2006-02-18T22:41:49Z

Zeratul: /* Promotion!? */

== Role ==

Should Lee's role be changed? I get the feeling he'll very shortly be CAG of Galactica again, but "currently" he's a Raptor pilot on Pegasus. [[User:Rocky8311|Rocky8311]] 20:14, October 19, 2005 (EDT)

:It should be changed when it changes. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 23:35, 19 October 2005 (EDT)

==Cylons==

Can anybody think of any circumstances where Lee has interacted with a Cylon prisoner? I don't think he has interacted with any Cylon agent after they were known to be one. If it's true, it strikes me as strange. [[User:Rocky8311|Rocky8311]] 17:54, October 20, 2005 (EDT)

:With Caprica-Sharon in [[Home, Part I]]. --[[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]] 19:32, 20 October 2005 (EDT)

:Why? There have only been three Cylons identified within the fleet so far. One [[Litmus|blew himself up]], Starbuck was tasked with interrogating [[Flesh and Bone|another]], and Lee was in the brig during Gal-Boomer's last days. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 18:00, 20 October 2005 (EDT)

==Lee vs Adama==
The article was just modified to change several instances of Adama to Lee. Changing "Lee" to "Adama" done as an effort to be consistent with the principle of using the last name on "home pages" of characters. [[Talk:Ellen Tigh|See Discussion Here]] I don't want to immediately revert that change (as I know exactly how long it takes to make those changes, having done the inverse), but I was wondering if we're going to stick with the last name policy or not. --[[User:Steelviper|Steelviper]] 15:47, 13 December 2005 (EST)

:I've reverted it. Our policy is clear and well-discussed. Mq59 can take it up on [[Battlestar Wiki talk:Standards and Conventions]] if he has a new point to make. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 16:13, 13 December 2005 (EST)

== Source for "Floating in Water" Cylon Comparison? ==

Robojerk, I could not find a reference to the one you noted in a recent edit on Lee's comparison to being a Cylon. I'd like to keep that one in if you can tell the episode where you find that information. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 18:06, 17 January 2006 (EST)
:I think he's referring to the "swim in the stream" business. --[[User:Redwall|Redwall]] 19:12, 17 January 2006 (EST)

==Demotion==

When exactly did it happen? Last time I checked, removing someone from flight status isn't an automatic demotion. Can someone point out exactly when he got busted? [[User:Joemc72|Joemc72]] 17:35, 19 January 2006 (EST)

:My take on this: There is typically one Captain in any pilot group--that person's also the CAG. When Stinger was assigned CAG for all pilots, Adama might have been demoted by default, but I can't find any record of that happening directly (insignia checker take note). When Thrace was promoted to Captain, she became CAG as well. While pilots can be Captains when not assigned to a group (as Adama was before he arrived on ''Galactica''), being actively assigned to a battlestar may also change things. Another likely point was that Cain demoted him as punishment in addition to revoking his flight status until Thrace asked for him back. Educational guesses--maybe someone can read through the transcripts? --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 18:35, 19 January 2006 (EST)

::Bill Adama refers to him as Lieutenant in Resurrection Ship, Part II. No idea when the actual demotion took place, or if [[Cole Taylor]] and [[George Birch]] remained captains after losing their CAG position. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 20:17, 19 January 2006 (EST)

:::I made the edit about his Lieutenant status. I assumed that it was a result of Cain's punishment rather than being assigned to Pegasus, as Stinger still refers to him as Captain in the teaser of Res Ship II. Also, getting a demotion due to reassignment sounds really wierd (though possible, I guess). --[[User:Redwall|Redwall]] 20:35, 19 January 2006 (EST)

::::I think that Birch got a temporary promotion to captain, to be CAG, but that others like Taylor and Lee were captains through normal promotion through ranks (i.e. not dependent on being CAG or not) thus I think/hope that Apollo will be promoted right back to Captain by next week's episode, as I see NO reason why his father wouldn't just promote him back to Captain. --[[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]][[User:Ricimer|Ricimer]] 22:06, 19 January 2006 (EST)

:::::At the risk of digressing, the kid did not exactly look... spaceworthy, at the end of last episode. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 22:39, 19 January 2006 (EST)

::::::I'll digress right with you. Lee's expression matched the stunned, open-mouthed expression of the character, Cameron, from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", after Cameron "kills" his dad's Porsche. Lee's worse off than Kat was when she was drugged out on stims. He's clinically depressed. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 00:22, 20 January 2006 (EST)

== Promotion!? ==

Aw, hell. While we were all chewin' through what Major pips looked like, [[The Captain's Hand|recent events]] turn Lee Adama into a Commander!? I hope we all realize how really really confusing THIS is going to be from the disambigs for "Commander Adama" and first-season to mid-second season links. Curse you, Ron Moore! Curse you!!! --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 23:05, 17 February 2006 (EST)

I don't get it either! What's with the Admiral?! Why did he put Lee in command of the Pegasus? Because he knows some tactics? He knows very little about commanding. Even Garner knew more! Would Lee sacrifice his life to save Pegasus? I doubt it. From episode to episode I hate Apollo more and more. The old man has lost his mind or what?! A flyboy in command? Worser than an engineer if you ask me. And how the hell got flyboy Adama promoted two time in a couple of weeks?! And WHY?! Why wouldn't the Admiral put Tigh in command instead? He has the ability to command a BS with discipline and Pegasus could adapt very fast to it because Cain was like that too. A flyboy in command? Right. Now that's what I call out of the box thinking. Well, it's light years from the box in this case. What will come next? Apollo will candidate for the presidency? Oh, I know: In the next episode (Downloaded) he will be revealed as God and he will lead the fleet to salvation. I hope the Pegasus will be destroyed pretty soon when Lee "God" Adama will be on board.

--[[User:Nyiz|Nyiz]] 16:32, 18 February 2006 (EST)

Wow, from Captain to Major to Commander in a matter of days. That's got to be a record somewhere. --[[User:Zeratul|Zeratul]] 17:41, 18 February 2006 (EST)

Talk:The Captain's Hand/Archive 1

2006-02-18T22:38:17Z

Zeratul: /* Pegasus Landing Strips & Weaponry */

Nymph

2006-02-09T21:58:11Z

Zeratul: If article name is changing, picture title should be updated too

[[Image:Hot_Dog_reading_Nympho.jpg|thumb|"Hot Dog reading a copy of Nymph" ([[Scar]]) (c) Universal]]
'''Nymph''' is an adult entertainment magazine containing scantily-clad, yet tasteful, photos of women. Reilly possesses one, and when he is killed this copy passes down to [[Brendan Constanza|Hot Dog]] ([[Scar]]).

[[Category:A to Z]]
[[Category:RDM]]
[[Category:Colonial Society]]

Battlestar Wiki talk:Requested Images

2006-02-08T20:41:47Z

Zeratul: /* Methods to the Madness */ Add note about print screen

==Bit of a Restructure?==

I was thinking... Should we move the requested Character images here, rather than over at [[Battlestar Wiki:Character]]? I initially thought not, but I'm second-guessing myself, now. It seems like this is a better place for it. We can cross-link, of course, but I'm beginning to think it should be the opposite of what's now true (which I implemented). Anyway... Thoughts? --[[User:Day|Day]] 01:10, 8 February 2006 (EST)

==Methods to the Madness==

A [[User talk:Day#VLC Question|couple]] of [[User talk:DrBat#Question for you...|times]] image-capture method discussions have cropped up. I thought this would be a wonderful, centrally located place to bring this up again. I use VLC (Video Lan Client) mostly because it has a built-in screen-cap function that isn't foiled by a DVD's copy-protection or whatever it is that keep the Windows "Print Screen" button from working right (I can explain that better if anyone wants details). However, VLC has the draw-back of having pretty bad timing functions (the minimum skip is, I think, 10 seconds and the pause is a bit delayed, so it's hard to get it to stop right when you want it to). I'd be interested in what other users who post screen shots use.

::Additionally, I'd be interested in what media people capture from. However, this might be a stickey topic. Before an episode is available on DVD, the easiest (as far as I know) way to acquire a digital copy of it is via illegal download. If this is something that should ''not'' be discussed on the Wiki (so that there is no way at all to construe the facts as Joe or the Wiki condoning such things), then someone chime in and say so soon, please. --[[User:Day|Day]] 01:10, 8 February 2006 (EST)

:::As far as digital copies, aren't the episode available for $1.99 from the iEmpire (iTunes)? I've not played with that, so I can't testify about its quality. Also, VLC does have a 3 second skip (the default shortcut is the shift button, with arrow key to indicate forward or backward). There are a few TOS episodes that I've only seen in 3 second intervals as I was hunting screenshots. As for the Windows Print Screen failing... it isn't always sophisticated DRM that's the problem. [http://labnol.blogspot.com/2005/11/capture-still-images-from-windows.html This article] talks about some possible fixes that will allow print screen to work. Basically it has to do with hardware acceleration and where in memory Windows grabs to get screenshots.

:::I still haven't found a good alternative to VLC. Those solutions that had frame by frame capability capture to the clipboard, and I much prefer dumping the screenshot to a file like VLC does it. --[[User:Steelviper|Steelviper]] 09:06, 8 February 2006 (EST)

:::While we don't have it written down anywhere, we don't condone unpaid downloading of episodes. (Primarily because it is legally dubious. Technically, you could download an episode from the internet as so long as you already recorded it on VHS, for instance.) Realistically speaking, many fans have gotten episodes via this route, particularly when the series first aired in the U.K. on Sky One.
:::Anyway, for screen captures, I used Xine on Linux and DVDCapture on my Powerbook G4. (DVD Capture integrates into the default DVD player, so its only a capture tool and not a combo player w/capture tool.-- [[User:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|Joe Beaudoin]] 11:00, 8 February 2006 (EST)

:::Quick technical note; the Windows print-screen button doesn't work not because of copy-protection, but rather because movie players use a video overlay if your video card supports it. They do this for performance reasons as most video cards support YUV conversation and smooth hardware scaling, making playback less taxing on the CPU. Since the video is being overlaid by the card right before it gets sent to the monitor, it's not in the framebuffer (just a blue or black square) and so that's what the print screen button grabs. If you want to use a different media player and print screen, what may work is going to the properties of your video card and turning the hardware acceleration all the way down. --[[User:Zeratul|Zeratul]] 15:41, 8 February 2006 (EST)

==Six's Spine==
Six's glowey-spine bit from miniseries now uploaded as [[:Image:6spine-ms.jpg|6spine-ms.jpg]].

Do with it what you will

[[User:Durandal|Durandal]] 13:59, 8 January 2006 (EST)

==Thrace's Surgical Debut==

Good luck on this one. I of course could be wrong, but from what I can tell, that impression the viewer gets of Starbuck hacking the Raider's brains out is a product of the magic of modern cinematography and editing. The one shot I did find shows nothing but two gloved hands (one holding a blurred blade) hovering above an indistinct pink and red blob.
As far as the tighter headshots of the known Humano-Cylons, I could... well.. if ya want I can take what we've got into Photoshop, do my voodoo, and re-upload. Is that what you really want? --[[User:Watcher|Watcher]] 14:31, 8 January 2006 (EST)

:Nah, I'll take care of it. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 14:39, 8 January 2006 (EST)

==Nympho==
I just uploaded a photo of Hot Dog reading Nympho. It's under Hot_Dog_reading_Nympho.jpg .--Ltcrashdown 23:38, 5 February 2006 (EST)

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

2006-02-08T19:43:37Z

Zeratul: /* 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)

==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

2006-02-08T19:32:20Z

Zeratul: Edited, forgot to mention the botanical freighter

== 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)

==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

2006-02-08T19:29:36Z

Zeratul: /* Artificial Gravity */

== 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.
:::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 an 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)

==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

2006-02-08T16:45:08Z

Zeratul: /* Artificial Gravity */

== 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)

==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]]

==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

2006-02-08T16:38:35Z

Zeratul:

== 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)

==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]]

==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)