Battlestar Wiki:Official Communiques

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Members of Battlestar Wiki: This page is to coordinate all questions to any official members of the cast or crew of "Battlestar Galactica." Please sign your question after you are done. The "summary" of the question should be be first, if any, and then the questions, in short form, should be placed at the bottom. This is to not confuse people and to keep the questions distinctive.

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Intro, survivor count for Crossroads, Part I

The latest episode, "Crossroads, Part I", did not have an intro movie (time constraints?), nor did it show a survivor count. I personally don't care much about the intro movie (since we get back actual episode content), but there are a lot of die-hard fans here eager to know the survivor count. What was the count for Crossroads, Part I? Is Part II going to have an intro and a survivor count? Have you abolished the intro movie altogether? --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 09:15, 21 March 2007 (CDT)

The survivor count was on the board during the trial. Ausir 18:54, 23 March 2007 (CDT)

No, the number of people who escaped New Caprica was on the board. "Crossroads" takes place 2 to 3 months later. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 09:37, 24 March 2007 (CDT)

Number of Season Four episodes

I realize this was only just announced, and you may not know or be able to comment, but there seems to be confusion over what exactly the 22 episode season order entails. Alongside this announcement, there is confirmation of the made for TV movie, which Sci-Fi is describing as "a special two-hour extended episode." The thing that people are unsure of is whether the movie counts toward the 22 episode count. Will the movie count as two episodes, and then Season Four proper will be the standard 20 episode? Alpha5099 17:39, 22 March 2007 (CDT)

Faster-Than-Light Stuff

Hi there. We know that Ron Moore's goal for the show, as stated in his Naturalistic science fiction essay, was not to use incredulous science for the show, for instance, faster-than-light travel. We have a little debate if that applied to faster-than-light communications. Several instances appeared where Cylon downloading and communications may move faster than light. We understand that "FTL" travel is apparent-FTL through the wormhole theory, but has there been a change to how writers handle, say, communications between Cylons at long range (like between one basestar to the infected one in "Torn"). Did Boomer's consciousness go to a Resurrection Ship and then to Caprica, or traveled farther, relayed, or some other process? If you like, you can see the extended debate in the Talk:Faster-than-light communication article to note our confusion. If true-FTL does not exist anywhere in the Re-imagined universe, we'll just tack it up to a continuity error that, I feel at least, is for cinematic purposes so a story doesn't get all overly technical or complicated. Thanks. --Spencerian 18:07, 23 March 2007 (CDT)

Let me ask me more precise question: how do the Cylons manage to appear at the Fleet's previous position less than 12 hours after it jumped away? The Fleet must be making multi-lightyear jumps, since their destination (the Ionian nebula) is thousands of lightyears away. Does the radiation signature from the Daru Mozu travel faster than light? The radiation signature from the Cloud 9 blast did travel at lightspeed. Do the Cylons have some other way of tracking the Fleet? Or is it simply a continuity error? --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 03:48, 25 March 2007 (CDT)

Note that we can't be sure the Cylons really traced them with the radiation signature. That is only what Six suggested they "might have done." Six might even be lying -- not about the signature's presence, but about how usable it is for tracking -- to cover up the real tracking method. But most of all, the Cylon fleet at Ionia didn't track them there using the radiation signature because the Mining ship was off elsewhere as a decoy.

Now that said, since an FTL radiation signature seems unlikely, this would imply that if used, the radiation signature somehow allows the Cylons to track where a ship has jumped from its origination point. ie. that somehow the mining ship radiated its target jump coordinates. It's never said, but the colonials clearly believe it is not possible to tell where a ship jumped to, but the only ways to track a jumping ship would be either that, or an FTL transmission from the destination.--Bradtem 18:05, 23 April 2007 (CDT)

Identity of the Final Five

Out of curosity, how long have you guys known who the final five are? I know Ron Moore's made comments that indicate that these were more recent decisions, but I was just curious at what point did you guys decide on who were going to be Cylons, and what really went into that decision. Thanks! ColonelKevin 16:55, 27 March 2007 (CDT)

Production numbers

There is a question about the actual production numbers behind the series. For instance, there is some information on the internet where the production numbers differ. For instance, some are formatted like ("T2701") -- an alleged production number for "Occupation" -- while others are formatted as 03001 (or even 301). Just wanted to know what exactly the actual "production number" should look like. Thanks Bradley! -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 08:58, 28 March 2007 (CDT)

I believe that the T27nn numbers are internal Warner Bros. numbers for the Comcast tapes that they made and fed to Comcast. I believe the 030nn numbers correspond to the production office assignments to the episodes, i.e., where 03019 is the production number for 'Crossroads, Part 2'. Thanks for helping in clearing this up.Vidiot 01:11, 29 March 2007 (CDT)

Xeno vs Zeno Fenner (Dirty Hands)

Currently we have him as "Xeno", but the SciFi website lists him as "Zeno". Do you know which version is correct? --Serenity 11:07, 28 March 2007 (CDT)

Cylon numbers

Although we've been flooded with Cylon identities lately (we now know 11 of the 12 models), we still know only four numbers (Three, Five, Six and Eight). Could you enlighten us as to the numbers of the other seven known Cylons? If you can't tell us that, can you at least tell us whether these numbers will be revealed in Season Four? It would also be interesting to know if the one remaining Cylon is indeed Number One, as we suspected. Thanks in advance. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 11:24, 29 March 2007 (CDT)

Centurions and the final five

We already know Centurions are hard-coded not to hurt the Significant Seven. Does the same go for the final five? --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 11:51, 29 March 2007 (CDT)

We've seen em shoot at Anders, so I'd say no. --BklynBruzer 19:44, 8 April 2007 (CDT)

They've also shot at Athena, though in neither case have they hit the target Cylon. Also, it hasn't been stated that they are hard-coded to not hurt the Seven (unless ordered, as by Three), only that they aren't sentient enough to rebel against them. -- Noneofyourbusiness 21:34, 8 April 2007 (CDT)

Alright, rephrase: do the Centurions 'know' the final five? Would they take orders from them? Or are they just as ignorant as the Seven? --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 04:17, 9 April 2007 (CDT)

Well it seems logical that the Seven programmed the Centurions, so I don't think the Centurions would know what the Seven don't. --BklynBruzer 09:11, 9 April 2007 (CDT)

To be fair that's actually quite the assumption; the Significant Seven don't know who programmed them, so I don't think it's a stretch to consider that they don't know who did the base program of the Centurions either. There's enough to go either way with it, so I think the question given here is a valid one. ColonelKevin 15:54, 10 April 2007 (CDT)

Actually that's a good point. for some reason I assumed the Seven programmed the rest. --BklynBruzer 18:44, 10 April 2007 (CDT)

Adama/Tigh Meeting

Hello, Mr. Thompson. Given the recent revelations about Tigh a lot of people have become interested on when he met Adama, but when we look back we have 2 conflicting sources. So I was wondering if you could maybe tell us which is considered to be the real one? Without revealing anything of course.

Now, we saw them meet in the flashbacks in “Scattered”, which are mentioned in the podcast [1] to be 20 years before the miniseries, and this also seems to fit with how they look and such.

However, in “Torn” Adama says he has known Tigh for 30 years, and though admittedly it’s now technically 22-23 years after their official meeting, “30” is still a long way. It’s quite possible that Adama was dramatizing for the purpose of connecting to Tigh, but either way it creates doubt.

So my question was, is the timeline we were originally presented the official one or is it different? --Sauron18 16:18, 8 April 2007 (CDT)

Spelling of carom and meaning of DRADIS

There has been some debate recently as to how carom is spelled. Some say carom, some karam, and some charagm. The subtitles spell it as carom, are they right? How do the scripts spell it? --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 02:32, 16 April 2007 (CDT)

And for that matter, do you have consistent meaning of "DRADIS"? We currently have "Direction, RAnge and DIStance" which fits with recon photography, but is somewhat redundant. Someone suggested "Direction, Right Ascension and DISstance" which would fit as well. --Serenity 06:46, 16 April 2007 (CDT)

Roslin and the Admiral

Following on from the discussion at Talk:Humanoid Cylon speculation... in the frak party podcast, RDM said that he decided against Mary and Edward being in the four revealed Cylons because it would take something away from the series. Does this mean that unequivocally the Admiral and Roslin are not the final Cylon? --SSH 04:32, 26 April 2007 (CDT)

Gun Nomenclature-revisited

In a previous article there seemed to be a writing staff debate on what the various types of capital and Viper guns were...some people on the staff appeared to prefer railguns and some chemical weapons. You can plausibly have both in the setting, here's how and why.

The only needed science is that real world railguns can theoretically acheive higher muzzle velocities than chemical weapons, but the electrical power sources for a rail gun are very large and heavy. So:

-Vipers and Raiders would carry chemically propelled rounds b/c they cannot mount the necessary power supplies. Also, they do not need the higher muzzle velocities of railguns - Vipers have higher closing velocities on their targets...ie. the Viper's drives provide aprt of the shell's velocity.

-Battlestar batteries - These vessels fight at low velocities relative to other cap ships. Also, they carry thicker armor. Hence, they need higher velocity shells to damage similarly armored targets. Also, BSG's are large enough to carry large power supplies.

Your art staff needn't worry either, actual railguns produce visible muzzle flash due to the vaporization of portions of the round Auburn railgun firing

Hope this helps...assuming the debate is still going on. Feld 19:04, 28 April 2007 (CDT)

What is "Razor"?

Dear Mr. Thompson, the first S4 casting information has surfaced. The sheets say #401/402 "Razor" will feature Young Helena (Cain?) and Helena's father, among others. Could you please clarify whether this information refers to the TV movie about the Pegasus or to the genuine S4 premiere? -- Pedda 17:20, 3 May 2007 (CDT)

According to this is safe to say that Razor is TV Movie about Pegasus. --Deus 15:12, 6 May 2007 (CDT)

Aah, I just love your scoops. :-) --Pedda 15:30, 6 May 2007 (CDT)