User talk:Spencerian

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The CNP

In the mini-series, Doral comes to Baltar on Ragnar with a list of civilian ships that have the CNP, which indicates that there are non-military ships with the program.

Furthermore, there are a lot of Vipers leaving the Galactica at Ragnar to engage the Cylons. I was under the impression there were only twenty Mark II Vipers aboard the Galactica, and that its original Mark VII squadron was destroyed on the way back to Caprica. Therefore, at least some of those Vipers might have been the survivors of other ships that made their way to Ragnar after Adama gave the order to rendezvous there for a counterattack.

Furthermore, later in the series, the Galactica seems to have an awful lot of Raptors, and Crashdown is described as being a refugee from the Triton, which IIRC was one of the battlestars destroyed around the time of the Atlantia. Therefore, it seems that some Raptors might have made their way there was well. The Raptors also have FTL (unlike, apparently, the Vipers) and judging by how the Raiders never tried to virus Boomer and Helo, Raptors might be less suspectible to Cylon interference, so any Raptors that escaped the destruction of their battlestars would have an easier time getting away from the Cylons then Vipers would.

Also, Dualla describes reports of system failures throughout the Fleet, and then describes how a battlestar lost power. How effective was the CNP with the capital ships? We've seen it used quite effectively on Vipers, but Dualla's description of its effects on battlestars is vague (power loss in at least one case and undescribed "system failures").

Congrats on being made Admin.

--mq59 12:16, 3 January 2006 (EST)

Hi, Mq59. I remember the scene with Doral (in CIC, Baltar was being "serviced" by virtual Six when he was interrupted) and will review it on my copy of the miniseries; you may be right on the CNP's use on civilian ships. As far as Crashdown's origination, it's not clear if he flew in on a Raptor (the largest of any refugee ship; no other indications show any other Colonial Fleet craft escaped to Ragnar) or even flew in at all; Valerii may have been kidding about a transfer he made from the Triton before the attack. We don't have enough information to pull a good speculation here, although I would defer it to escaped since we know Raptors have FTL ability and are small enough not to be noticed as well by Cylon forces. We just don't have any information from the Miniseries that additional ships made it. Raptors had CNP as well, but yes, since they are designed for electronic countermeasures, they may be less subceptible to infiltration, CNP or not. If you can find Doral's exact line to Baltar, that will be enough as a source. However, we shouldn't globally say that all civilian ships used the CNP; it's practical that commercial commerce ships, such as modern freighters, may use similar hardware from the same ship contractor that builds military ships and so have a similar specification for CNP. Most civilian ships, such as passenger liners, were just defenseless and easy to destroy, CNP or not.

The CNP was very effective, obviously: all but two battlestars were destroyed. We saw in "Valley of Darkness" what happens when a battlestar is infected. We know that, while the battlestar may not have been fully shutdown like a fighter would, the number of systemic failures would be enough to leave a battlestar effectively defenseless and fodder for a basestar and her fighters. If a second Cylon fight occurred during "Valley", Galactica would have been screwed. --Spencerian 12:49, 3 January 2006 (EST)

Peter Farago found the "civilians with the CNP" quote and put it in the "Talk: CNP article."

I know no capital ships made it to Ragnar. However, it seemed they had too many Vipers and Raptors (the Vipers in the mini and the Raptors during the actual series) for an about-to-be-decommissioned ship.

The CNP worked--it seems like virtually all the Colonial Fleet was destroyed in a single day (not sure what length of time the miniseries actually covers, but it's not that long). I was curious about how effective it was and how many casualties the Cylons could have theoretically suffered.

I may write a fanfic called "The Death of the Poseidon" describing the destruction of a battlestar during the opening attack--the Raiders shut down virtually all of the Vipers and destroy the defenseless Raptors, but lose many Raiders trying to close with the "Poseidon" to trigger the CNP (a Raider "eye-dance" in the mini and "Flight of the Phoenix" seems to be the preferred way of jacking with the Colonials). The Poseidon's fire controls go haywire and main power shuts down, enabling the Cylons to launch a bunch of nukes. By the time they get the backups running, the nukes are too close to shoot down and BANG!

Hmm...if I make the battlestar the "Triton" instead of the "Poseidon," perhaps I can involve Crashdown.

--mq59 1:24, 3 January 2006 (EST)

Nice catch, MQ. I've readded your contribution with the source that Peter provided. Enlightening. For the Viper count, there is an article that tracks the number of Vipers, but it escapes me. Flight of the Phoenix has a notation on this. There are enough Vipers but fewer pilots nowandays. Galactica had two Mk.II squadrons at the start of the war.

We don't host fan fiction here, of course, but I'm sure you'd have an audience for your story somewhere! --Spencerian 13:41, 3 January 2006 (EST)

Re-imagined Series definition: operating system on military and civilian ships exploited by the Cylons ^{(TRS: "Miniseries, Night 1")}

Re-imagined Series definition: technology enabling travel across distances faster than the speed of light would permit, see: FTL

Re-imagined Series definition: nerve center or "bridge" of a battlestar, see: Combat Information Center