Talk:Maelstrom/Archive 1

Official Source required

Working episode titles are always shaky, even from official sources. The Official Communiques articles lists those confirmed by an official source, but even these are subject to change. Gateworld is not an official source and can be more wrong than the official preliminary title. Best to wait on this or verify the source. --Spencerian 11:39, 24 October 2006 (CDT)

So far they've been correct for Season 3, and usually ahead of most other sources by several days. Waiting won't hurt Seattle Cylon 14:15, 24 October 2006 (CDT)

• I posed this title to Bradley Thompson and he chose not to confirm the title as a "working title" where he usually confirms "working titles". There may be a reason, may not be, but for our purposes, this should be considered rumor and innuendo and should be deleted.--Straycat0 11:02, 25 October 2006 (CDT)

Delete as well. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 11:06, 25 October 2006 (CDT)

Promo Pics

Are up here. --FrankieG 16:28, 1 February 2007 (CST)

I'd use the one with her mother as preview pic here. Aside from the ones with Leoben, the others are pretty generic. --Serenity 16:35, 1 February 2007 (CST)

I posted the one with leoben before I read this. I liked the starbuck's destiny angle, but will change if the consensus dictates it. This gives me another ideas. Promo pic gallery in the article until it airs. I am really looking at ways to use more images since we are discussing a TV show. --FrankieG 17:14, 1 February 2007 (CST)

That one's fine too. As for the gallery, sure. However, you should probably resize the pictures a bit before uploading them as they are very large --Serenity 17:23, 1 February 2007 (CST)

If you think so, I will move this discussion to the Quorum? where discussion can start before writing up a Think tank proposal. --FrankieG 17:34, 1 February 2007 (CST)

Bonus Scene

Maybe I missed something last week (I didn't go watch the ENTIRE bonus scene online), but when I went tonight to check out the Dirty Hands bonus scene, there was a bonus scene up from Maelstrom. Did anyone else see this? This shouldn't have been up yet, right? At any rate I got a sneak peak...even if it was a deleted scene :) --RUSnooky 00:42, 26 February 2007 (CST)

Kara and Cylon

I had a brilliant thought the other night. Kara gets killed in this episode and wakes up in a ress chamber on Caprica. First words out of her mouth, "Oh sh!t". That could explain the pic of her back on Caprica with Leoben. I bet she is a Cylon. Bstone 14:53, 26 February 2007 (CST)

You read my mind --Moo 20:09, 5 March 2007 (CST)

Maelstrom Predictions!

Strap into your Vipers, Galactica fans! It's time for another round of predictions! Sure, the All-Seeing, All-Knowing Slander struck out big time last week, but I got in some high-quality chamalla the other day and BOY is it potent! Anybody got any candy?

• Recon Delta, which consists of a two-man Viper crewed by Captain Kanon and Lieutenant Britton, is on patrol when it picks up readings of an advanced Cylon fighter.
• Suddenly, a previously unseen Cylon Raider appears and fires at them.
• The warbook brings back a readout of the occupants: the Raider crew appear to be human.
• Kanon decides on a desperate strategy and rams the ship, damaging both craft.
• The huge Cylon fighter tumbles towards Earth, and Britton is injured.

Wait. Frak. I'm sorry. That's The Night the Cylons Landed, Part I. Wolfman Jack was so awesome, though. Let's try this again.

• Starbuck goes nuts, even though she's seemed perfectly fine during the last few times we've seen her.
• Starbuck goes to see a psychiatrist.
• Like everyone with a deep interest in human nature on this show, said psychiatrist turns out to be a Cylon, but she doesn't know it until Starbuck's discussions about Leoben awaken her buried Cylon memories. She's just as surprised as the rest of us! (Moreso, actually, since we're not surprised at all.)
• Leoben is gonna be all over this episode, but mostly in hallucinations and flashbacks. Also, he gets it on with a SuicideGirl. ("Like, being a creepy, religious machine is, like, totally a turn-on!")
• I'm sensing an Anders appearance, but that could just be my unsexual man-love for Anders talking.
• Speaking of unsexual man-love, Zarek also puts in a brief appearance because, during filming, Richard Hatch was in town for a convention and the writers felt the need to inject even more awesomeness into this episode. Shame they can't resurrect Wolfman Jack for an episode or two, isn't it?
• Kara crashes her Viper, injuring herself so badly that we won't see her for the rest of the season.
• For the first time all season, Galvatron fails to make an appearance. This is because he's busy filming an episode of Ghost Whisperer. Jennifer Love Hewitt's so damn hot.

This half of the season finally starts to build some momentum with this episode, leading up to what's sure to be a mind-smashing, cliff-hanging finale. After that's over, I guess I'll move over to GateWorld and start doing Stargate predictions. Do they have a good wiki? --Slander 11:23, 2 March 2007 (CST)

A reminder to all contributors

The events of this episode should be treated as canon. While speculation is allowed, please avoid fanwanking into the possibilities created by the event within this article. Episode summaries and its question and analysis are for relevant unanswered questions generated by this episode only. Some people may take a Beings of Light parallelism to it; because there is no connection officially established between the Original Series and Re-imagined Series on this, it is better to leave that trail alone. Also remember that talk pages aren't chat boards, so discuss the episode elsewhere (email, Sci Fi Forums, etc.) to keep wiki performance at its best. Thanks! --Spencerian 07:08, 5 March 2007 (CST)

Who will take Kara's place as Galactica's Viper ace?

I would SO like that to be Seelix. It wouldn't be the first time the show sets up replacements ahead of time. Racetrack was intended to replace Crashdown after he died, but introduced when Crashdown was still alive and well on Kobol. --Catrope 09:23, 6 March 2007 (CST)

They already did the "nugget becomes ace pilot" thing with Kat. While more screentime for Seelix would be nice, they could also increase Hot Dog's role, who has been a pilot for some time now. --Serenity 09:27, 6 March 2007 (CST)

True. Hot Dog has been around for some time, and he's the only good Viper pilot we know who's still not a Captain and has never been CAG (Starbuck, Apollo and Kat all have). Now I'm not suggesting Hot Dog be CAG, but he could replace Starbuck as a squadron leader. --Catrope 09:39, 6 March 2007 (CST)

I agree, I want to see Hotdog move into more prominence in the show. He's the last of the original 3 nuggets we came to know. I would hate it if they killed him before we actually have a Hotdog centered story.--LifeStar 10:15, 6 March 2007 (CST)

Yeah, he's the best of what's left. Who recognizes where that paraphrased quote is from? --Talos 10:36, 6 March 2007 (CST)

While I agree that Hot Dog is probably the best of the remaining Viper pilots, they could also transfer Athena, Racetrack, Helo, or possibly even Skulls. Don't know if Skulls has ever been pilot rather than ECO, though. --Psilon 17:01, 6 March 2007 (CST)

Ehm, these are Raptor pilots, not Viper pilots. Piloting a Viper is different than piloting a Raptor. With that said, the only two people I can think of that would step up to the plate are Hotdog and Seelix. Hell, even Narcho, since we see a lot of him now. I do hope that we see more of the ex-Pegasus Viper jockeys as well, and would welcome them back into the fold. (Were the Great Powers able to pull it off, I think re-introducing Cole Taylor would prove awesome, and a great foil for Lee given their past history. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 18:40, 6 March 2007 (CST)

Hmm, maybe the tatooed pilot? --Talos 21:31, 6 March 2007 (CST)

Stinger's still scraping hull paint off civilian ships right now, if Lee has anything to say about it. That guy was a frakwit from the first words out of his mouth. I'm cool on Hot Dog, since being squadron leader will cool his jets just a little while we see his cool competency. From his first rookie flight, he's quite a natural, and had a great line in "Exodus Part II" as he launches intra-atmosphere from the falling battlestar: "This should be interesting..." --Spencerian 08:25, 7 March 2007 (CST)

I'd like to see Marcia "Showboat" Case again, but that will probably never happen :( --Serenity 08:35, 7 March 2007 (CST)

Agreed. She's a hottie. I'd like to see Narcho stepping up to a more prominent role, too. Sebastian Spence is a fantastically-talented actor and I was delighted to see him step off the Raptor in Pegasus. Just watch First Wave to see him shine. --Slander 15:05, 7 March 2007 (CST)

"He's the best of what's left." --> Do you mean "You're the best non-commissioned officer I have left.?" -- Adama, Litmus? If it's from another sci-fi series, I must confess that I don't know shit about them :P --Catrope 09:12, 7 March 2007 (CST)

Actually, it was a reference to the movie Hot Shots Part Deux (it was on tv when I was replying to that) where the government goes to get Topper Harley to go rescue all the captured people in Iraq since he's all that is left. --Talos 09:19, 7 March 2007 (CST)

Don't Forget Bulldog... --Ublej 15:58, 7 March 2007 (CST)

Hell yeah, almost forgot about that guy. I'd like to see him actually flying a Viper. --Catrope 16:10, 7 March 2007 (CST)

How about taking a spin in the Viper seat? That'd be nice a little "Independence Day" for madam president!--Zareck Rocks 20:49, 9 March 2007 (CST)

Some notes on gas giants and pressure

Since there was some back and forth editing going on on analysis of the destruction of the Viper, I thought I would put some scientific information here to clear up some issues.

• Human beings can actually survive a great deal of pressure, as long as we breathe the right pressurized air mixture. Scuba divers have gone down to over 30 atmospheres, I think people in pressure tank tests have gone further. The risk is that you must depressurize slowly and properly on the way back up or you will get bends/embolisms. We're way more able to handle it than a sealed ship.
• Probes we have sent into Jupiter (such as from Galileo) were able to fall for over an hour down to about 100 miles of depth where they were shut down not by pressure (about 30 atmospheres there) but by the temperature from Jupiter's surprising internal heat.
• The atmosphere is typically hydrogen/methane. That can burn if Oxygen is provided, though it typically does not explode unless the mixture is made just right. The leaking of hydrogen/methane into a ship could cause trouble if not designed for (though I would personally not want to use such ships in a Jovian atmosphere at all.)
• Spacecraft, meant mostly for spaceflight, are usually not designed to withstand much external pressure at all. It adds a lot of weight to do that. They are built to handle the reverse -- their own internal pressure, ranging from 5psi to 15psi (1 Atmosphere.)
• However, a spacecraft with a hull breach or broken window would equalize pressure, and not be crushed in that section. A ship rated for travel in a dense atmosphere would normally just equalize pressure rather than let itself be crushed. Vipers, we have to presume, are not designed for this.
• A helmet, with a curved dome, would be much more resistant to pressure than a ship, and in an ejection suit, this is how it would be designed. However, fairly trivially, it could be designed to equalize pressure if needed. However, Viper helmets, if never intended for use in dense atmosphere, might not do that. (Starbuck's helmet, presuming the window is really broken, obviously works at the pressure she encounters up to the Viper's destruction.)
• Winds would be very dangerous -- they are very strong, and stay strong as you go deep -- up to 700 km/h!
• As noted, on Jupiter one could probably freefall for over an hour, no parachute, with just a scuba tank, before pressure would get you. The temperature and winds would be the killers.
• Fuel tanks and air tanks of course are highly pressurized inside, and would not be damaged by high pressure.
• At the point that pressure is reaching about 2 atmospheres on Jupiter, no light from the sun is getting in. The area they fly appears to have some sunlight still present.

I don't know whether Starbuck will be back or not, on that we can only speculate. I normally prefer dead characters to stay dead. I just want to keep the notes on the physics of their situation consistent with science as we understand it.--Bradtem 16:33, 7 March 2007 (CST)

Be that as it may be, the section read like "IF Starbuck ejected, and IF she could survive in her suit for some hours, and IF someone magically picked her up, then she would survive". And that's kinda fanwanky. Better to write nothing at all then.

Yeah, she could survive relatively easily in the upper atmosphere, but we don't know how far the Viper went down. It has been established that the ship would burn up (as it did at the end; it wasn't really crushed). So all those explanations aside, the temperature would likely also destroy a spacesuit after a while too, especially if she descended even farther down (maybe that should be mentioned and the whole pressure thing be dropped).

Saying that the odds for her survival can't be determined is ok, but then the whole thing is kinda pointless in a way. --Serenity 16:45, 7 March 2007 (CST)

Yup. I was just correcting some notes that were saying she was surely crushed by the pressure, and they were getting re-corrected so I wanted to lay down the physics to avoid that sort of back and forth. It may be that the best thing to say is that the circumstances were left ambiguous, and that based on what we know, we can't say she'll be back, and we can't say she won't. What's worth documenting is what we see in the show, and what we know from science (since it claims to try to be a naturalistic SF show). The only speculative conclusion is that we don't know what happened to her. The way I see it a good role of the wiki is to document all the clues you might wish to know in order to do your own speculations, while not doing those speculations for you. Of course, speculations will always drive those clues -- the main reason you are interested in whether the raider was real or not, or whether she could have survived or not is to form your own hypothesis on how like it is she'll be back. The way to draw the line is to include in the Wiki entries of the form, "If you want to speculate for yourself on Starbuck, here are the facts" rather than "I think Starbuck is dead/alive because of xxx"--Bradtem 18:30, 7 March 2007 (CST)

Rather that have a debate on the issue in successive edits, I have simplified the text to a statement that we don't have sufficient information to judge how good the Galactica ejection suits are. We thus are not going to resolve this. Also corrected wind speed quote from 100 miles/second (which is impossible) to 700 km/hour recorded by NASA probes. Wiki page cited only notes 100 m/s, which is 360 km/hour or 225 mph, quite a bit less than 100 miles/second, which is .05% of lightspeed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bradterm (talk • contribs).

I'd like to note for the record that while I don't remember whether dialog established this planet as a gas giant, throughout both of the later flight scenes, both Gaeta and Tigh (and the display Gaeta keeps watch) refer to the "hard deck." In essense they're saying pull up or you will crash into the surface. Jovian planets don't have a "surface" like terrestrial planets do. [1] I'm not making any points for Starbuck's alive or dead or somewhere inbetween debate. Just pointing out that we may be focusing on the planet make up a bit too much.

Whoops...I was so busy figuring out how to properly source my above comment I forgot to sign it!--RUSnooky 09:06, 9 March 2007 (CST)

Don't take it too literally. It's a phrase for the altitude where the pressure and temperature will destroy a craft. Not literally the surface. Tigh says as much. The strong magnetic fields that gas giants can have could also explain the presence of synchrotron radiation. --Serenity 09:14, 9 March 2007 (CST)

Viper construction and atmospheric pressure

My problem with the scientific discussion in the preceding section is that it treats the Viper as a single component rather than a collection of components, such as weapons, engines, fuel tanks, life-support and cockpit. Some components may not be pressurized, while others certainly are.

We learned in Dirty Hands that refined Tylium is a liquid, and is pumped into Viper fuel tanks much like gasoline. In flight, this fuel must be supplied to the engines in a variety of conditions, such as zero-gravity, high g-force maneuvers, atmospheric operations including climbing and diving, and flipping, reversing, turning and braking. This most likely involves sealed tanks which are pressurized sufficiently to keep the Tylium flowing steadily.

The breach of Kara's pressurized cockpit would equalize pressure between that component and the atmosphere, but would not affect fuel tank pressure. As Kara plummets, we see her fuel tanks appear intact as her Viper fuselage heats up, catches fire and explodes. Obviously, much heat is generated before the fire ignites, and that would weaken the structural ability of the fuel tanks to withstand increasing pressure. So I posit the following sequence of events:

• As Kara's Viper dives through the atmosphere, pressure increases and her fuselage heats up, getting weaker and weaker to the point of failure.
• The fuel tanks rupture under pressure and begin leaking fuel.
• The fuel contacts the searing hot fuselage, ignites and explodes.

I'm not a scientist or an engineer (dammit, Jim), but this seems plausible and consistent with events. Perhaps someone with a more appropriate background can enlighten me. Dogger55 13:26, 10 July 2011 (EDT)

Did Apollo see the Heavy Raider?

RDM has had a couple of 20-questions session on the Battlestar Galactica Forum at SciFi.com. The answer to this question is that Apollo didn't not see the Raider. Didn't whether to move the question here or answer on the episode page. I am planning on adding a entry pointing to the exact threads when I make it home. --FrankieG 16:50, 9 March 2007 (CST)

Do you mean "see" or "notice"? He doesn't appear to notice it in the show, though the audience sees it from his PoV (I put up a screencap of that.) Could not find the thread so await your link.--Bradtem 19:42, 9 March 2007 (CST)

Someone was kind enough to condensed the posts into one for the second set of questions. --FrankieG 21:59, 9 March 2007 (CST)

A link to the original post from RDM's username is necessary. Once that is found, the note should be placed under "official statements". --April Arcus 22:09, 9 March 2007 (CST)

Visual symbolism, maybe, perhaps

I was watching this in the not too long ago (i.e. last week) when I noticed something beautiful. When Kara walks by Roslin in Adama, she strolls through a corridor where some crewmen are working on the lights. When she gets there, the lights go out, but upon turning around and walking away, the light comes back on. It struck as something that was put in there to me something, but I can't really get my head around as to what that something might be. Anyone have a guess or am I just looking for metaphors behind metaphorical bushes? --Mars 22:57, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Foreshadowing of her apparent death in Maelstrom and her return at the end of Crossroads? -- Gordon Ecker 09:13, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Or foreshadowing her prophesied role as herald of the apocalypse, and maybe a hint maybe that the future is not set in stone, that there is a choice. If "all this has happened before, and it will happen again", there were past heralds of the apocalypse, and humanity survived each time to begin the cycle again.-- Fredmdbud 14:41, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Is Starbuck from Earth?

On her death bed Kara's mother has many items without the corners cut off. However, not all the items were square. Most notably, a painting of the concentric circles is on a square piece of paper. Is this significant or just a mistake? --Hulkenergy 00:12, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Doll

Is there a significance to the doll seen in the episode? The same blonde doll in a glass case is seen in Yolanda Brenn's place early in the episode and on Socrata Thrace's bedstand towards the end of the episode. --Jörg 00:39, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

http://s95.photobucket.com/albums/l142/gaghyogi49/BSG/YolandaBrennsdollMaelstrom.jpg http://s95.photobucket.com/albums/l142/gaghyogi49/BSG/SocrataThracesdollMaelstrom.jpg

Probably. There's a lot of symbolism in that episode, particularly regarding the mandala. (The tube of ointment next to the doll in the second picture has a small radiant circle that resembles the mandala.) Or it could be a very popular collectors item in the Colonies. There's nothing in the commentary about it, but definitely raises an interesting question. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 16:04, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Re-imagined Series definition: a hallucinogenic plant used in religious ceremonies and medical treatments, see: chamalla

Re-imagined Series definition: student pilot ^{(TRS: "Act of Contrition", "Scar")}

Re-imagined Series definition: the senior pilot on a battlestar

crew member handling electronic countermeasures of a craft; ECOs are standard crew aboard Raptors (see: ECO)

Re-imagined Series definition: the threshold in a massive gas planet's dense atmosphere below which the atmospheric density and pressure becomes too great for a Viper to be able to reach orbit again and maintain structural integrity ^{(TRS: "Maelstrom")}; adapted from the original definition of minimum safe altitude

Re-imagined Series definition: used to signify a civilian transport vessel over a certain gross weight/mass, i.e. Colonial Heavy 798