Talk:Tomb of Athena/Archive 1

This page looks great. Congrats to the updaters. Spencerian 15:55, 28 August 2005 (EDT)

The Tomb of Athena's hologram no longer makes any sense

The events of the finale have invalidated the information within the Tomb shown in "Home, Part II. The Tomb clearly shows modern constellations as viewed from our Earth, but the Lords of Kobol wouldn't have known about it, the Thirteenth Tribe went to a different Earth, and God led the Fleet to our Earth 150,000 years ago (so the constellations wouldn't have looked like that due to stellar drift). Kevin Grazier, BSG science advisor, considered the Tomb problem one of his biggest regrets from working on the show (full interview here, emphasis added):

Is there anything you wish you could change?

Grazier: There’s two. There’s one that I recognized too late. That was when the explosion in "Water" blew out the side of the [Galactica] and we have a big venting of water. [Galactica] was connected to the Virgon Express. That would have imparted a pretty healthy delta v [change in velocity], meaning it would have yanked the Virgon Express with [the Galactica] and probably broken the water lines. I didn’t think of that until too late, and I called and said “hang on!” and they said “that ship’s sailed, sorry.” That was the second episode and I was a baby science advisor then. The other one is I wish I would have been more insistent with the constellations in "Home, Part II." Because when you start thinking about those constellations, who put them there? Wasn’t the Kobolians. Those aren’t seen from the original Earth, so where did those constellations come from?

Those constellations were a big part of why was I sure the show had to be set in the future!

Grazier: Right. I wish I had been more insistent on “we really need to rethink this.”

Obviously, this was a writing error (the finale hadn't been thought up yet when this episode was penned), but it still sticks out like a sore thumb.

Anyway...can I add this information to the "Notes" section? -- Liquidcross 01:02, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely! -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 01:31, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Alrighty, I'm on it! Time to cut 'n' paste, and do a little creative editing so I don't sound so rambly... -- Liquidcross 02:28, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

This reminds me, I remember RDM saying on the post-Daybreak RDM response thread on the Syfy (then Scifi) forum, if not an interview, that the bit about the Thirteenth Tribe seeing their twelve brothers in the sky was an example of mistranslated scripture actually referring to the fleet-descendants seeing the twelve colonies' signs in the sky on our Earth in the future. My memory of it is a bit vague and I wouldn't know which page it's on. -- Noneofyourbusiness 04:10, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like RDM was trying to cover his ass. ;) -- Liquidcross 13:24, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, duh. But as long as it makes sense. -- Noneofyourbusiness 16:16, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Just realized that this would still be wrong. In "Revelations," Gaeta states that the constellations seen from the Earth they'd just found match those found in the Tomb. This is incorrect, as it's later revealed to not be our Earth! The constellations would not look the same from two planets so far apart. -- Liquidcross 18:51, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

There's something from Grazier or in a podcast about that. Gaeta said visible star patterns were a match. Five or so out of twelve constellations were right, and he was excited. -- Noneofyourbusiness 19:18, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Even those would not have matched, as it was a completely different planet and time. -- Liquidcross 19:24, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

We can't say with certainty that there's not another part of the galaxy where a handful of the constellations, despite consisting of different stars from a different angle, look like ours. We've never been there. Anyway, that's the official word. Gaeta saw a few constellations that looked similar to those in the Tomb and figured it was good enough. He wasn't looking a gift horse in the mouth.

As for the time, I'm afraid the staff might not actually know that constellations shift. Although, do they really shift a lot in 150,000 years? That's not much in cosmic time, right? I'm unaware how fast it happens. Though, on the other hand, they might be aware. The characters never said the Ancient Earth II had the Tomb constellations, which you'd think they would comment on.

Actually it occurs to me that since constellations are mental patterns ascribed to the stars, it should be relatively easy to find one in another part of the galaxy that you think looks like one you know. And Gaeta would attribute discrepancies to the fact that the map was left thousands of years ago. -- Noneofyourbusiness 19:29, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I guess so. That just seems like stretching it, even for a scifi show where God did all of the work. ;) -- Liquidcross 19:48, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Here is a page showing how the Big Dipper changes over 200,000 years. Other constellations may change more or less. Caldumidoan 19:50, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Re-imagined Series definition: Battlestar Group ^{(TRS: "Water")}. It also doubles as an acronym for the television series itself.

Galactica 1980 definition: When John Steadman asks if the Warriors know anything about these creatures, Dillon looks this up ^{(1980: "Space Croppers")}