Talk:Exodus, Part II/Archive 1

http://www.comicscontinuum.com/stories/0610/01/index.htm Click on this link and scroll down to see scenes from the Exodus episodes. My favorite is the last one at the bottom which shows Zarek and Roslin plsticuffed together. Hopefully they'll start to get along soon. --ltcrashdown October 3rd, 2006

My Prediction

And it shouldn't be a big surprise, but I have to state it for the record:

Battlestar Pegasus makes its last appearance today. I think it will be used to ram a basestar or two to save Galactica, which puts up a good fight but is getting outmatched. My prediction doesn't come from anything but from the gut, but it should be interesting if it comes true. --Spencerian 16:53, 20 October 2006 (CDT)

I'm hoping that it doesnt get destroyed, seeing as that would kill Lee Adama and far too many other people - if this happened, people would switch off. I'm predicting that it'll save the day at the last second. If you think about it, Lee Adama was ordered to stay behind with the fleet and continue the search for earth. I'm betting that he does the usual thing of going against orders, jumping back anyway at the last second and launches a nuke or two at a basestar.

--Fordsierra4x4 17:37, 20 October 2006 (CDT)

Since when does people's opinions become spoiler text? :P --Straycat0 18:05, 20 October 2006 (CDT)

Spoiler policy is suspended on talk, but sometimes people get bummed to read them here, so it's a courtesy. --Spencerian 19:58, 20 October 2006 (CDT)

YES! Nailed it! Nailed it! Hail to the king, baby! --Spencerian 21:47, 20 October 2006 (CDT)

Hallowed are the Ori... -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 00:06, 21 October 2006 (CDT)

Wow, Spence. Calling the second one was impressive. --PrePressChris 09:55, 21 October 2006 (CDT)

Damn, Spence. --BklynBruzer 18:13, 25 October 2006 (CDT)

Can you please email me this saturdays winning lottery numbers. Thanks. --Mercifull ^{(Talk/Contribs)} 18:22, 25 October 2006 (CDT)

I think I burned all my karma with that one. Might score you a deal on a used Honda, though. --Spencerian 20:18, 25 October 2006 (CDT)

Is this a clue?

When Starbuck gets back to Galactica with the kid, and the supposed mother sees it, and latches on, she says either "Gods bless you" or "GOD bless you", and after watching it about 5 times on my TiVo, I'm leaning towards GOD, singular, and perhaps a clue that this lady is not who she claims. I mean, if that really is a hybrid, then it would be valuable enough to pull such a move just to get it out of Colonial hands.

Also, if it weren't for horrible interior design, I'd rather Galactica had been boned, and they all just moved into Pegasus and renamed it Galactia-A or something. If it weren't for the lame bridge, it'd be a much better ship.

The assumption is reasonable -- however, I believe it is extremely likely that the woman is who she claims to be. Also, given the horrible success rate at Cylon farms, it is likely that Kacey was indeed a ruse to get Thrace to love Conoy. Once Conoy had Thrace's love, their love would lead to the next step. As for the "God" versus "Gods" thing.... also, it's been indicated that the Colonials have varying faiths, and some don't necessarily believe in the Sacred Scrolls, Pythia and all that jazz. Also, it wouldn't be Battlestar Galactica without Galactica... -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 00:01, 21 October 2006 (CDT)

Not to mention that you have to give Tyrol something to do on the flightline. Why, if he were on the Pegasus, unable to go spastic about not holding the Vipers together with bubblegum and baling wire, and just could wish another one up from the manufacturing plants aboard the newer ship, who knows how many kids he and Cally might end up with by the time they get to Earth? ^_^--み使い Mitsukai 01:05, 21 October 2006 (CDT)

Tyrol now has a lot more Vipers and Raptors to look after. Poor Cally.....--Barry 07:44, 21 October 2006 (CDT)

I thought your observation was interesting so I pulled up the episode again and watched that part. Kasey's new mother distinctly says "gods" with a hard, unmistakable "s". Silsor 00:24, 21 October 2006 (CDT)

Plus, why would they introduce a new Cylon so casually? The recent Cylons (Biers, Simon, Cavil) each had complex introductions. - Keithustus 01:17, 21 October 2006 (CDT)

Totally said "gods"...first time I heard it...absolutly positive.--Gallion 10:18, 22 October 2006 (CDT)

Was the actress her real mum, did you see how the kids face lit up smiling when she sees her? --Mercifull ^{(Talk/Contribs)} 18:24, 25 October 2006 (CDT)

Screencaps Posted

Here. Enjoy. I surely did. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 03:51, 21 October 2006 (CDT)

You misspelt "atmosphere" in a couple of them --Serenity 08:44, 21 October 2006 (CDT)

I like your screengrabs! Holy cow -- what a great episode; especially the part where Galactica jumps in low and provides that "firing solution" for the team. There was even a cool easter egg -- Did anyone else notice the "Pan Am" logo on the bottom of one of the ships leaving New Caprica? --Scooper 10:28, 21 October 2006 (CDT)

"Easter egg?" Sounds like another case of the Craftsman tool lockers. - Keithustus 11:54, 21 October 2006 (CDT)

That's probably the Pan Galactic ship, its been in the fleet all the way back to the Miniseries. --Talos 16:36, 21 October 2006 (CDT)

The logo is indeed nearly the same, but the name seems to be different. It has more than 5 letters. Maybe "Pan Gal" --Serenity 17:05, 21 October 2006 (CDT)

Where does this question go?

Earlier today, I posted a question in the Questions section about why the DRADIS displays on both battlestars were inexplicably clear of the nebula's interference, but it was deleted. Is there a more appropriate place for it? --BlueResistance 21:00, 21 October 2006 (EDT)

Hi, BR. That's a valid question. Before the Cylon fleet discovered New Caprica, Dualla was commenting how hard it was to see anything in the nebula, and they were in orbit. Now, in this episode, both sides appeared to be using DRADIS without issue from the interference. Me senses a continuity error. You can re-add the question here (note my winded explanation) or add to the continuities article. --Spencerian 20:40, 21 October 2006 (CDT)

A bit annoying to have a question posted and suddenly deleted. Might I suggest deleting other editor's questions and comments be expressly prohibited? Bstone 02:47, 22 October 2006 (CDT)

Reaching a concenus and corlaberation is the wiki's primary goal. Sometimes authros disagree, so usually once something is removed and someone things it should say, bring it up on the talk page is the proper course of action to dicuss the matter further. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 03:23, 22 October 2006 (CDT)

When you see the Raptors flying towards New Caprica waiting to launch their drones, you can see Galactica lurking just behind the nebula, making her invisible to Cylon DRADIS. Once the drones were close enough to the planet they would register as two battlestars coming out of nowhere, which makes the Cylons think they jumped in. This leaves the question why there wasn't any soup visible on the DRADIS screens, but maybe both Cylons and Colonials just modified their DRADIS consoles to ignore anything at the nebula's location, so as to make the DRADIS image less distracting. Catrope 13:12, 28 November 2006 (CST)

Galactica's atmospheric insertion

I haven't been able to double check but I'm pretty sure Helo read off their altitude as "900,000." Now IIRC, the Colonials use metric so that would be meters. In other words, they were 600 miles off the deck. So I'm pretty sure I misheard that.

But even factoring for editing and such, I'm pretty sure they took some dramatic lisence with the freefall time.

RDM said they were going to try to keep the physics real, and this is peanut stuff.

<math>s=v_{i}t+\frac{at^{2}}{2}</math> <math>v_i=0</math> because theyare starting from rest, so freefall time given by <math>\sqrt{\frac{2s}{a}}=t</math>

If that does give you enough time to for your scene, set the intial hight higher. Uh... why isn't my math working?

I'll check on that... -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 13:27, 22 October 2006 (CDT)

You're assuming they came in with no initial velocity, but as we've seen with various Raptor scenes, velocity is carried through a jump. --Peter Farago 13:30, 22 October 2006 (CDT)

It was Captain Kelly, and he reads their altitude as "99,000 and falling like a rock". That's roughly 61 and a half miles up, which is frakking high. Seems a little too high, don't you think? --Madbrood 14:56, 22 October 2006 (CDT)

Even in the metric world, aviation uses feet for altitude. 99k feet would be 30km, or 18-ish miles, which would fit the bill rather nicely, given the size of the Galactica. --Ijdod 15:34, 22 October 2006 (CDT)

We've also seen pressure gauges in PSI (pounds per square inch). So it isn't all metric. --Serenity 15:31, 22 October 2006 (CDT)

I was going to mention that, but I was hungry and I forgot :( 99k feet was what I took it to mean when I heard it initially. --Madbrood 15:51, 22 October 2006 (CDT)

I'm Thinking that a ship of that size and mass could even survive all of the forces at work from a fall like that, what is it almost a Km and a haft long and a haft a Km wide. It's mass must in the 5 to 10,000,000 metric tons. I can'y even think of the rate in witch it was falling. --Bowersj8 5:29, 22 October 2006 (EDT)

It managed to survive the forces at work when a nuclear weapon detonated pretty damn close to it (Miniseries). Completely different sorts of forces, of course, but makes the point that it's a tough ship. --Barry 09:54, 23 October 2006 (CDT)

Not just "pretty damn close." The nuclear detonation in the miniseries was a direct hit. Galactica is one hell of a tough boat. --Slander 15:32, 23 October 2006 (CDT)

Dont forget, explosions in the vacuum of space are not as devastating as they are in the atmosphere, since they lack a medium (ie: air) to properly carry the shockwave. Of course, Galactica remains a tough egg to crack nonetheless ^_^ --Ghilz 17:13, 24 October 2006 (CDT)

Well hey, if you're fighting someone like the Cylons, you'd wanna be in something damned near unbreakable. --BklynBruzer 20:05, 24 October 2006 (CDT)

In the words of RDM (Exodus, Pt. II Podcast) "My logic was, look, if Galactica can take a hit from a nuke and keep on movin', which we established in the Miniseries. If it can take a nuke, and still be okay on some level, this is a tough motherfucking machine." --BklynBruzer 21:02, 24 October 2006 (CDT)

I don't give a crap about the math of it, it was FRAKKING AWESOME! Seriously, that was insane. --BklynBruzer 20:52, 22 October 2006 (CDT)

I think people are getting a little too worked up mathematically about a scene which is prety moving in that the crew of Galactica risked everything in order to help save everyone down on New Caprica. It was a very daring manouver which may well have resulted in slamming right into the ground with the FTL's failing. --Mercifull ^{(Talk/Contribs)} 10:00, 23 October 2006 (CDT)

They weren't just risking their own lives, either. The force of an impact like that would have probably wiped out the entire city. They quite literally risked everything. --Slander 15:32, 23 October 2006 (CDT)

Yeah, you've gotta think about how big the Galactica is. It'd be like an asteroid! --BklynBruzer 21:23, 23 October 2006 (CDT)

Nonetheless, the sheer awesomeness of that scene outranks the slightly screwed physics of maths of it all. It was awesome to watch, some suspension of disbelief isn't too much to ask I reckon ^_^ --Ghilz 23:05, 23 October 2006 (CDT)

As a proud Southerner, I felt the need to correct your spelling of "reckon." Don't take it personally. :D --Slander 10:07, 24 October 2006 (CDT)

My first language is french, and I stand proudly by my typoes ;) --Ghilz 17:11, 24 October 2006 (CDT)

Fair enough. When I typo in la belle Francais, you're more than welcome to correct me. :D --Slander 09:55, 27 October 2006 (CDT)

Quick poll... did anybody actually see that jump coming? --Madbrood 01:35, 25 October 2006 (CDT)

I figured Galactica might do some atmospheric ops, but other than that, no. --BklynBruzer 18:10, 25 October 2006 (CDT)

Saw the shot in the teaser at the start, and thought that they possibly went into an extremely low orbit to support the evacuation, but jumping INTO the atmosphere, launching Vipers and then jumping out......didn't see it coming at all --Barry 19:40, 25 October 2006 (CDT)

Some things like Pegasus were leaked early in June but this was kept well under raps. I watched it with my cousin and we were both like "Wow! I can't believe they just did that!" So that's 2 votes for 'No, didn't see it coming."--Straycat0 11:00, 27 October 2006 (CDT)

Guest stars

Bodie Olmos appeared in the episode in the scene where Galactica dropped into the atmosphere. He mentioned a pilot called Red Wing. Anyone know the actor's name? Neither actor was listed in the credits for some reason.

I was also wondering about Hera and Kacey's real mother. Any clue about either of them?

--123home123 22:16, 23 October 2006 (CDT)

Never mind about Kacey's mother. We know her name is Julia Prynne and the actress is Emilie Ullerup. --123home123 22:57, 7 November 2006 (CST)

---

Nicki Clyne (as Cally Tyrol) was listed in the credits, but she did not seem to appear (unless I miss it). Deleted scene? Belay-down-your-burdens 22:38, 23 October 2006 (CDT)

She's on the hangar deck at the ed :) --Madbrood 01:29, 25 October 2006 (CDT)

Yeah. I didn't notice her first time but the second time, there she was, smiling away :D --Mercifull ^{(Talk/Contribs)} 18:26, 25 October 2006 (CDT)

She's too damn cute to miss! :P --Madbrood 12:57, 27 October 2006 (CDT)

Isn't Tom Zarek vice-president?

If I recall correctly, Tom Zarek was elected as Baltar's vice-president. Now that Baltar has departed for parts unknown, wouldn't Zarek ascend to the presidency? How can Roslin legally lay claim to the presidency? Shouldn't Zarek be heading up to Colonial One? Spidey3 11:12, 24 October 2006 (CDT)

Zarek said he resigned when the Cylons set up Baltar's puppet government. It would take a lawyer and a precise knowledge of Colonial law to determine if he still has a claim to the office --Serenity 11:19, 24 October 2006 (CDT)

I think Zarek knew who was in charge at that exact moment. It's hard to challenge for leadership in the middle of a fight. It's hard to change the course of a ship in mid-stream. There's nothing to say that Zarek won't challenge for the presidency in later episodes, but at that exact moment, I think that the only thing he was thinking about was getting off the planet along with everybody else. And I do speculate that maybe he was thinking that he was on the wrong side of the coin over the whole Baltar election and maybe has a new-found fondness for Laura Roslin from the evidence of the firing squad and the evacuation. The man is pretty pragmatic at times. It will be interesting to see which way their relationship turns over the coming episodes.--Straycat0 17:32, 24 October 2006 (CDT)

There's also the matter of association. While Zarek can clearly show that he did not collaborate with the Cylons by way of his incarceration, it is very likely that Zarek (a man that plays the political game almost as well as Roslin) wants little to do with inheriting the administration of a despised president. Only Roslin, the past president, will stand an immediate chance to assume the interim role once more with support from the populace. Based on his behavior, it seems that Zarek, once Roslin's adversary, appears to accept Roslin far more than in the past, even with concern for her life. He may choose to be her vice president, and she might accept it. --Spencerian 20:55, 24 October 2006 (CDT)

I think Zarek plays the political game quite a bit better than Roslin. He simply does not have as good a position as she does coming out of all of this. I agree wholeheartedly with this analysis. Roslin will, from a purely popular standpoint, have a much better position than Zarek going into whatever reorganization the fleet and civilian population will undergo in the aftermath of the great escape. Indeed, Adama is very clearly (for the present moment) viewed as something of a messiah, and I suspect any support Adama cares to throw into the presidency will go directly to Roslin. Zarek knows what time it is, and I suspect that he will quietly accept the vice-presidency. A cynical man might even be pardoned for supposing that Zarek foresaw this and planned accordingly. --Felix Culpa 22:52, 25 October 2006 (CDT)

Quite the episode

Y'know, I realized, this episode's tossed up a lot about the show. We started off with one half-crewed battlestar, then grew to two half-crewed battlestars, and now we're down to one fully-crewed battlestar. Plus, Ellen was killed, Starbuck's been through hell, and a good 3/4 of the fleet has gone through horrible events at the hands of the Cylons. I'm REALLY looking forward to seeing what our beloved RDM does with the series. --BklynBruzer 20:11, 24 October 2006 (CDT)

Also, this epsiode has dethroned Downloaded as my favorite episode of BSG. --BklynBruzer 20:48, 24 October 2006 (CDT)

This wasn't just my favourite episode of BSG, it was my favourite episode of anything. Ever. --Madbrood 01:33, 25 October 2006 (CDT)

Atmospheric Heating Effects

Of course it looked cool, but I am not really sure why the underside of Galactica would have been superheated as it descended toward New Caprica City the way it was protrayed in the episode. Such superheating is not the result of free-falling through the atmosphere, but actually the result of friction with the atmosphere due to extreme velocity. Which is precisely why skydivers do not burn up after jumping out of an airplane but space craft deorbiting (traveling initially at about 5 miles per second coming from low Earth orbit as an example) do. Galactica jumped into the atmosphere over New Caprica City, it did not (strictly speaking) reenter the atmosphere. It is possible, of course, that any velocity Galactica had prior to jumping was imparted to or else retained by Galactica after the jump. However, one might be pardoned for supposing that any such velocity would have been along the ship's main bow-to-stern axis (though this is not necessarily true), and not stright along the free fall axis the ship was clearly heating up on (i.e., from dorsal-to-ventral axis). I would also point out that Galactica did not appear to be traveling at a sufficient speed in its fall to cause superheating, though of course this may be the subject of debate. Anyway, just a thought. The dramatic effect more than made up for any possible technical inaccuracy, and I agree woth those who think this is the best episode on the new series yet. --Felix Culpa 19:13, 25 October 2006 (CDT)

Although I agree with your assessment -- and not to fanwank at all -- perhaps the burning effect is a result of jumping into a planetary atmosphere? -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 06:44, 26 October 2006 (CDT)

Well you have to keep in mind the mammoth size of the Galactica. I think she was moving more than speedily enough to cause severe heating on the lower parts of the ship. --BklynBruzer 10:28, 26 October 2006 (CDT)

Just a relevent excerpt from the podcast (maybe it deserves a podcast ref on "Galactica type battlestar"):

"We had some internal questions about the technical feasibility of Galactica jumping into the atmosphere and falling through the- falling like a rock through this. You could argue it either way. It's all s- it's science fiction so who knows what Galactica's made of and the structure integrity, etc., etc. My logic was, "Look. If Galactica can take hit from a nuke, and keep on moving, which we established in the miniseries. If it can take a nuke and still be ok on some level, this is a tough motherfuckin' machine." So that means if it- I can buy that it has enough structural integrity to fall through that atmosphere. It couldn't maneuver. It can't fly. That's not what it's designed to do. But I bought the idea that it could hang together long enough to just fall straight down and then launch its Vipers and then get the hell out of there." --Steelviper 10:38, 26 October 2006 (CDT)

Uh... Yeah, I think Galatica was moving fast enough. Neglecting air drag, some quick calculations, I put her speed near the ground at somewhere near Mach 2.25. Remember that the SR-71 flew at Mach 3+, but only in the neighborhood of 80,000 feet. The air is much thinner, and consquently frictional heating is much less. But Galactica was accelerating and moving into denser air layers.

Now given her downright crappy aerodynamics, it is not implausable that pockets of air stalled beneath the ship during the fall. This would allow the gasses to become super heated. Contrast this with say and SR-71. A given air molecule is only in contact with the skin of the plane for about .09 seconds.

Once we bring friction in, I don't think these numbers will vary too wildly, but if that's just a guesstimate

So anyway, Was she falling hot enough to glow red hot? I'm thinking no. Just too much metal, too much mass. Was she falling hot enough to superheat the surrounding atmosphere, I'll say "until I can perform more precise calculations, yeah, its possible."

Grimlock 11:18, 26 October 2006 (CDT)

Superheating is caused by frictional energy converted to heat and the formula for energy is Energy = Force x Distance or Energy = Mass x Acceleration Squared x Distance or Energy = Mass x Velocity Squared. Mass is an equal factor in creating energy as Velocity squared. Point is: The Galactica's got a lot of mass. I argue that it's probably a million times the size of the space shuttle which is 2000 times the size the Mercury 3 that carried Alan Sheppard to be the 1st American in space, both objects that superheated. Also, a problem that aircraft like the SR-71 have at approaching Mach 3 is that the engines superheat, limiting speeds to about Mach 3. The Soviet Mig-25 interceptor, whenever it makes a run at the supposed Mach 3.5 that it can do, has to have it's engines replaced because the parts fuse due to superheating as a result of frictional energy. --Straycat0 12:21, 26 October 2006 (CDT)

Cleanup

I am removing all the "discussion" about continuity error(s). The question is should error discussions occur on this talk page or the Continuity errors (RDM) talk page? --FrankieG 20:11, 28 October 2006 (CDT)

Frankie, regarding your deletion of answered questions - I think we should keep old questions, even once later episodes answer them. It represents important issues that remained unresolved at the time of the episode's airing. I wouldn't object to some level of summary and redaction, but outright deleting them obscures the record of the audience response. --Peter Farago 20:48, 28 October 2006 (CDT)

No problem, however, several of this question can not possibly be answered without speculation or opinion. --FrankieG 20:53, 28 October 2006 (CDT)

My opinion on speculation (and it's just mine) is that when grounded in good evidence and clearly within the realm of reason and plot mechanics, it's okay. It only really starts to bother me when we venture into outright absurdities. In any case, I think we should really work out a policy on BW:TANK before we start removing stuff. --Peter Farago 21:01, 28 October 2006 (CDT)

I was removing speculation and opinion because Joe had early this evening. The continuity errors was discussed during BW:ES. --FrankieG 21:12, 28 October 2006 (CDT)

I missed that discussion, so I suppose I'll have to defer to the consensus there. It seems like we should at least mention the error, perhaps with a link to a fuller discussion at a different article. --Peter Farago 21:23, 28 October 2006 (CDT)

In keeping the old questions, we should follow already established S&C guidelines on this, particularly point three of the Questions Section at S&C. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 21:36, 28 October 2006 (CDT)

I was wondering where I misplaced that... --Peter Farago 21:42, 28 October 2006 (CDT)

No worries. I am beginning to wonder, though, whether or not we should rework the S&C page so that it is better organized. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 21:44, 28 October 2006 (CDT)

Poison

There is a sentence in the Question section: "Did Ellen Tigh know or suspect that the drink was poisoned?" Well, actually we seem to know the answer: Kate Vernon on the SciFi Forums stated that Ellen knew. I think this information should be added somewhere. -- Spike 21:45, 29 October 2006 (CST)

It should be noted in the Notes section, with the appropriate reference citation. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 21:55, 29 October 2006 (CST)

Adding a sentence or two in the Notes section is no problem at all, but I have no idea how to add a reference on the bottom of the page. When I click "Edit" im the References section, I can't see the Chicago Tribune reference, so I don't know how to add another one... -- Spike 22:17, 29 October 2006 (CST)

When you add the content to the Notes section, simply encase the link in <ref></ref> tags, or use the toolbox below the edit box and click on the appropriate item under "BSG Cite markup". -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 22:26, 29 October 2006 (CST)

Trivia

File:BattlestarGalacticaFrack.JPG

Adama shaving his moustache.

Is there room for a trivia section on the episode pages? Not sure if anyone reads this anymore but I felt this was too weird to be a coincidence and had to tell someone. The mirror located in Adama's bathroom is sold in Ikea stores (in Australia at least) under the name FRÄCK. -- KLEBESTIFT 22:26, 10 May 2007 (whateverST)

Lol. Could go in the notes section, I guess. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 06:23, 10 May 2007 (CDT)

Yeah, Notes is specifically for trivia, among other things. The mirror thing though is known since the Miniseries I think. This doesn't belong here excactly. Maybe check if it's on the Miniseries pages already and if not add it there. --Serenity 07:02, 10 May 2007 (CDT)

Spoiler

I don't know how strict this wiki is on spoilers, but there's reference to something that happens in "the Eye of Jupiter story arc." If it's out of place, could someone remove it? Awesome episode! --Chriswaterguy 11:21, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, such spoilers aren't always necessary, and should be avoided if possible. It depends on the case. Here, with the events of Season 4, this isn't true anymore anyways. -- Serenity 11:46, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Nuclear Weapons

I was just watching this episode, and I realised that both the Galactica and the Pegasus had nuclear weapons on board. My question is: Why didn't they use them? I'm sure one nuclear warhead would have been more than enough to destroy a basestar, and on the algae planet it's revealed that galactica has 4. It makes no sense to me... --> Evilforce 17:10, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Well a nuclear warhead is more than capable of blowing a basestar to shreds when it's detonated inside the basestar, but when detonated on the outside, one nuke is probably not enough. Galactica survived a nuclear hit with not too much material damage in the Miniseries (although they did loose about a hundred crew members, the only way they could lose the ship at that point was by letting the fire get to the fuel lines), and Pegasus survived being hit by two nukes while the ship was in condition five (they probably had some more damage than Galactica did, but evidenced by the Battle of the Communications Relay, they were back to full offensive capability relatively quickly after they got some parts). A basestar can probably take about the same as a battlestar, so I think it doesn't worry too much when hit by just one nuke (it does significant damage, but it's far from a one-hit kill).

Also, bear in mind that a nuke doesn't necessarily reach its target, especially when there's hundreds (or, in the case of the Battle of New Caprica, probably even two to three thousand) Raiders ready to shoot it down. Even out of seven nukes (not four, as you said), probably only one would get somewhere. Another disadvantage is that any Vipers in the vicinity of the blast would have their pilots fried (this probably applies to Raiders too, as the Cylons have never been seen going nuclear while they had Raiders in the air). In this case, I agree it would've made sense to use nukes, but I'd've targeted a large Raider wave instead (all Vipers were down on the planet, after all). --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 18:09, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Good point... but I was mostly thinking of the Pegasus... It jumped in, and had no visible obstacles between itself and one maybe two of the basestars. One basestar was destroyed by maybe 10-20 shots from the main battery... Wouldn't it have made more sense to make the first strike using a nuclear missile? Or maybe all of them! I'm sure at least one basestar would have been destroyed, leaving the conventional weapons for another one of the four basestars... Maybe the use of those warheads would have saved both battlestars... --- Evilforce 20:41, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

There's no reason to use nukes when 20 shells will do the same job. Gun shells are cheap, plentiful and producible (there's a facility aboard Galactica producing Viper ammunition, they probably produce larger shells as well (Sacrifice)) and easy to fire, nukes are expensive, not reproducible and require a hell of a lot of protocol stuff before they can be launched. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 20:48, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Not to mention the fact that DRADIS barely works in the New Caprica nebula... Also, the Cylons could more than likely intercept a ship-to-ship nuke before it could hit its target, which is why they went to the trouble of smuggling the nuke aboard the Guardian basestar in "Razor". -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 21:29, 20 May 2008 (UTC)