Talk:Colonial Fleet (TRS)/Archive 1

Battlestar/Ship Loss Count

Matt72986 made an interesting, though I think incorrect catch regarding what we think Starbuck has said in the Mini-Series about the Adama's information on the loss of 30 battlestars in the opening hours of the Cylon attack. She says, "That's a quarter of the fleet." From here we've collectively presumed that she spoke only of 30 out of 120 battlestars.

While Matt could be right as there may be other ships, there is one assumption that RDM has not appeared to change from the TOS to the RDM continuity. While there are certainly other kinds of Colonial military vessels, likely designed to carry or deploy troops, or supply other ships, the battlestar is THE battleship/carrier/capital warship of the Fleet. All other ships are deployed to service it, not the reverse (unless an older battlestar supports a more advanced one).

The only other Colonial fleet ships noted in RDM are:

• Variations of the Space Park (although the one in the ragtag fleet is not military)
• Unidentified ships in the Scorpion Fleet Shipyards that were destroyed along with 3 other battlestars

I'd be happy to return Matt's change if there is a significant reason to think that the battlestar is not the primary and most abundant fighting warship in the fleet. Kara was shocked when she heard the news--an armada of battlestars--let alone one, like Galactica--is a mighty deterrent, or so they thought. Comments? Are we misinterpreting Kara's statement? --Spencerian 23:27, 13 December 2005 (EST)

There are other ships, but they're really just support vessels. I really think this was the writers inserting into dialogue a way of saying that "there were 120 Battlestars in the fleet" without staring right into the camera and saying "audience; there were 120 Battlestars (including Galactica)"; they just wanted to make it feel more organic and say "wow 30 battlestars were lost before we even knew what hit us" "really? ONE FOURTH of our Fleet?". In context (and "context matters"), I really think they meant this as 120 Battlestars. Does anyone have access to the DVD commentary for the Miniseries?--Ricimer 23:39, 13 December 2005 (EST)

I agree. Adama states that there were specifically 30 battlestars lost which qualifies Thrace's response. --Peter Farago 04:09, 14 December 2005 (EST)

The main reason I chose to edit the information is because I was going on what is canon. All we know for sure is that she said that's a quarter of the fleet. I admit Kara might have meant 120 Battlestars. But as Ricimer pointed out, context does matter. Her specific words were "that's a quarter of the fleet". So the question is, did she mean fleet of Battlestars, or the Fleet itself? I think it is more likely she meant the Fleet. Remember, the Fleet is analagous to the Navy. So if someone says to me "we lost 30 aircraft carriers" and I say "that's a quarter of the Navy", that just means that there's 120 ships in the Navy and that those 30 carriers represent one quarter of the Navy. Now if I had responded "that's a quarter of the fleet" one could assume I was referring to the fleet of carriers. However, we can't make that assumption in this case because the organization itself happens to have the same name as the military term. So until we know for sure, I think it makes sense to say "ships" in the wiki, because ships could be either something else or Battlestars, so it accounts for both possible meanings of what she said.

Also to support my belief I point to the timeline. There were 12 Battlestars created at the start of the war 40 years ago. That would mean they built 108 of these massive ships in 40 years. If we do the math, a Battlestar is approximately 24 times the volume of an aircraft carrier, so it would require the resources to build about 2592 Nimitz-class carriers (and that's not even counting the more advanced tech a battlestar has over a carrier). Even with 12 worlds working together that seems unlikely, especially given the other expenditures a 12-world government must have.

--matt72986

I'm sorry, that reading just doesn't work for me. The U.S. Navy has twelve aircraft carriers - if someone tells me three aircraft carriers have been destroyed, "that's a quarter of the fleet" would be a perfectly correct response. --Peter Farago 15:21, 14 December 2005 (EST)

Don't twist my words; by "context matters" I meant that in the sentence immediately before that, they had been referring to 30 Battlestars, and in that context I feel that they were referring to 120 Battlestars total. The fleet is Battlestar-based, with other ships just forming support units.

FURTHER, you don't think that 12 space-faring worlds have the capability of making a military that big? REMEMBER: RDM's Blog stated that they kept a disproportionately large PEACETIME military (someone was asking why there were so many battlestars if they hadn't actively fought a major war in 40 years, besides the usual brushfires on Sagitarron, etc) and he said it was because the Colonials actually came to the brink of defeat several times in the first Cylon War, and they were really scared after it ended so they kept a large military anyway for fear the Cylons would return.--Ricimer 15:27, 14 December 2005 (EST)

Deep breaths, Ricimer. --Peter Farago 15:43, 14 December 2005 (EST)

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