Talk:Science in the Re-imagined Series/Archive 1

For an archived earlier discussion thread prior to February 8, 2006, click here.

Artificial Gravity

Be careful not to confuse Naturalistic SF with Hard SF. They have little to do with one another. --Peter Farago 15:09, 9 December 2005 (EST)

Of course, in fact, they are quite opposite, but NSF takes a few elements from hard SF, though not in the extreme that hard SF defines itself. --Spencerian 16:18, 9 December 2005 (EST)

Another wrinkle in the whole artificial gravity can of worms: The ability to manipulate gravity fields opens the door to many other technologies, too. For example, a rudimentary tractor beam could be constructed by using your artificial gravity field to pull objects toward your ship. The reverse is probably possible -- using it to repel objects and projectiles for a sort of a deflector shield. Since the Colonials have none of these abilities and yet have apparently had artificial gravity for a long time (before the contruction of the Galactica), it stands to reason that whatever means they use to generate gravity is severely limited. --Zeratul 11:45, 8 February 2006 (EST)

Welcome to the Wiki, Zeratul. I agree; this limits whatever they use to gravity simulators rather than generators, given their power limitations and storyline limits. --Spencerian 13:06, 8 February 2006 (EST)

Thanks for the welcome, Spencerian. Long time reader first time contributor here. :) Another thing to consider is that whatever they use for gravity continues to work even when main power and control is lost, as in Valley of Darkness. Likely it would have a separate power source and controls as the life support systems do, meaning it's either passive or doesn't require much power to operate.

It's difficult to see, but in the miniseries the doomed botanical freighter seems to have domes on both the top and bottom of the ship, which would imply they have the ability to maintain several different gravitational vectors within a ship.

Another good reference would be Boomer's raptor in the miniseries, when she powers it down for the approach to Caprica. I think they were strapped in at the time though, so the gravity may or may not have been shut off.

I suspect, though, that this is something that will never really be explained but rather remain a plot-driven convenience. --Zeratul 14:29, 8 February 2006 (EST)

Sublight vs. FTL

The fact that Colonial One, an FTL-capable ship, made its way from Caprica to Galactica at Sublight tells us something else - 5.5 hours of engine burn consume less energy than a hyperspace jump to cover the same distance. --Peter Farago 01:58, 11 December 2005 (EST)

Not necessarily. Two reasons why--first, FTL might not have been an option: either it was illegal, seen as too dangerous for travel within a system, deemed too uncomfortable for passengers, or pilots simply weren't trained to calculate a jump, any of which are potentially valid given Tigh's comment that it had been 20 years since a jump. Of course, that may raise a question as to why the drive was installed in the first place. (Regulations? Holdover from the first war?) Secondly, it seems unrealistic that it would take more energy to jump that small distance than to burn the fuel because the entire fleet can jump like 230 times in a row (33) without any refueling problems or the like. Drumstick 21:19, 30 December 2005 (EST)

I think that FTL flight is generally quite disconcerting to passengers, judging from Cally's take on it when we see Galactica make its first Jump in the Miniseries. So, sublight is preferable in most instances. I cannot determine from any episodes whether the fuel consumption is more or less when going at sublight over FTL. The comfort level is the most likely reason. --Spencerian 10:52, 1 January 2006 (EST)

Nukes

If the energy density of Tylium is so much greater than fissile materials and has the added benefit of producing no fallout, and requiring no sophisticated trigger mechanism, why do the Colonials use nuclear warheads on their missiles rather than tylium bombs? Nuclear fallout has desirable side effects against organic targets, which explains Cylon use thereof, but what advantage does it offer human forces?

(Obviously, in real life it's a question of storytelling:

"For instance, in the Galactica mini-series, when the Cylons attack the colonists, they attack them with thermonuclear weapons. They don't attack them with lasers and photon torpedoes, and strange things that don't exist.

"When you see a planet nuked, and you see those mushroom clouds, and hear about the destruction of entire cities by nuclear weapons, that is a much more terrifying and frightening idea than if you're saying fifteen thousand photon torpedoes were launched at Caprica. One is real and one is not." [1]

"There would not be 'photon torpedoes' but instead nuclear missiles, because nukes are real and thus are frightening." [2]

"We use nukes. And these days, that’s truly scary. You use photon torpedoes and the audience goes 'oh, okay. shrug.'" [3]) --Peter Farago 02:09, 11 December 2005 (EST)

Nukes have the desireable side effect of creating an electromagnetic pulse which disrupts all (currently) known forms of electronics. --Durandal 02:41, 8 January 2006 (EST)

And a side note, now that I think of it. Considering the supposed rarity of tylium, Nukes are also much easier to produce and much less of a waste of a valuable resource. Durandal 13:12, 8 January 2006 (EST)

You hit the nail on the head, Durandal. If you can, work up what you just said and add it to the article! --Spencerian 13:15, 8 January 2006 (EST)

Does not really fit in this article, whithout generating a new section for such a point. If anyone has a better idea for placement, I'm all ears. Durandal 13:25, 8 January 2006 (EST)

My own thoughts on the subject are A) Tylium is somewhat rare so it is difficult to mass produce nuclear warheads, but more importantly B) Baltar said that detonating a nuclear warhead near Tylium would "render it inert", not create a chain reaction. I think that Tylium must be "reactive/unstable" enough that it's a good fuel source (moreso than just Plutonium), however, it probably has the chemical property that it is very difficult to produce an explosive uncontrollable chain reaction with it. --Ricimer 18:13, 8 January 2006 (EST)

That would disagree with the extremely large tylium explosion seen at the end of "The Hand of God". I prefer Durandal's explanation. --Peter Farago 18:24, 8 January 2006 (EST)

In Ricimer's defense, the explosion was caused by the precursor, the refined but unprocessed component that forms the fuel later. Precursor is more unstable or explosive than the fuel. There are chemicals throughout the Periodic Table that release tremendous energies, more so than plutonium. The problem is the process of controlling it. Else, hydrogen would be our fuel of choice for everything: common, cheap, and leaves a benign by-product. For the Colonies, tylium was their answer. I disagree that tylium is rare, although I think it is hard to find; the Fleet's luck in finding one rock of it also implies that a little tylium goes an awfully long way, but mining and processing it is a real bitch. --Spencerian 18:40, 8 January 2006 (EST)

Landings & Gravity

Unless I am completely mistaken, aside from whatever may be the 'standard' artifical gravity source aboard Galactica, it is explicitly stated that the actual landing pads in the flight pods rely upon magnitism to hold craft in place en route to the hanger.

"Viper Four-five-zero, skids down, mag-lock secure." (Kelly to Apollo upon touchdown aproximately 22 minutes into the miniseries)

Durandal 02:56, 8 January 2006 (EST)

Correct. On the flight deck, magnetism is used to secure landing Vipers. But in the hangar deck and manned areas of the ship, something else is used, since the humans (and many other virtually non-magnetic items in CIC and elsewhere) are kept from floating. It's an unexplained conumdrum that right now is just a writing convenience. If the article appears to be vague in that topic, do modify it. I created and generated much of this article, and sometimes I can get too wordy and the point gets muddled. --Spencerian 13:19, 8 January 2006 (EST)

I actually wrote this bit in response to note 2, which states it as a possibility as opposed to cannon-fact. I'm not quite sure HOW to rewrite it, unfortunately... Durandal 13:23, 8 January 2006 (EST)

Expensive claim...

I find the recent expense claim uncitable at best. There's absolutely no indication either way that financial expense played into utilizing FTL Jump technology in BSG. Therefore, unless we can get someone to point out where this info came from, I vote for its removal. Also, just because Galactica didn't perform a jump in 20 years doesn't really mean that it is normal for Colonail ships (military or otherwise) to rely on sublight travel alone. -- Joe Beaudoin 23:15, 1 February 2006 (EST)

I read it differently - the statement seems to infer expense from the fact that FTL travel is not used frequently, not vice-versa. --Peter Farago 23:23, 1 February 2006 (EST)

I think they just didn't do it, because why risk the (albeit very very small) safety concerns of warping through space? (a wrong calculation and we could wind up in the sun", etc.) Remember, they really have FTL drive for two reasons: 1) It's a holdover from the Exodus (theory but not established fact and frankly I don't believe that), 2) they do have a "sphere of influence" beyond the 12 Colonies, not full-fledged other planets, just mining-camp colonies like Troy. So that's why they put in FTL; plus it's good to have instantaneous travel. --Ricimer 23:50, 1 February 2006 (EST)

It would be logical to assume that, with so many ships "up in the air", as it were, Jumping into another ship or even trade route may be a concern. I don't fully agree with the "holdover from the Exodus" theory either and it seems likely that FTL technology was put into place as a means of instantaneous transportation during wartime. (Imagine jumping out of harms way instead of fleeing from the enemy at sublight speeds; in fact, this is quite similar to Farscape and the Leviathan's ability to starburst.) -- Joe Beaudoin 09:52, 2 February 2006 (EST)

I think the current reasons are sufficient enough; there doesn't necessarily need to be a separate bullet point about "expense," especially because it is so vague and unexplained. Is it the cost of buying fuel that's expensive? Probably not, based on what we've seen so far in terms of tylium consumption. They seem to jump quite a bit and don't need to refuel very often. (Basically, just in Hand of God, and that's after jumping constantly for weeks. I mean, they could have been distributing Galactica's tylium to the other ships, but if Galactica has that much, it can't be that exorbitant of a fuel source, particularly so in peacetime when the ships were first loaded.) Is it wear and tear on the ship that costs money to fix? Maybe, but for the fleet to have lasted this long without any ships breaking down undercuts that theory. I mean, how else do you define expense? I'm not missing something here, am I? --Drumstick 02:19, 2 February 2006 (EST)

The Cancer Cure of Laura Roslin

One possibility we may want to consider is that of the Humano-Cylons being party based on nanotechnology. If the Cylons have nanobots in their blood, it would explain the selective destruction of cancer cells, and the quick repair of normal cells, and how such a small amount could completely cure the disease. Additionally, a Cylon-Human hybrid would have nanobots less likely to reject a normal human's system.

It would also explain the seeming contradiction in the Humano-Cylon's nature -- that they are close enough to human that even an autoposy cannot tell them apart, and yet somehow machine enough to upload their memories and consciousness.

Though this is my personal favorite theory, there's absolutely no canonical basis for it. --zeratul

It seems that the stem cell theory was the "answer" to this, as stated in the article, now with RDM voicing in on the original explanation that was edited away or revised before filming because it was too technical. Further, your theory conflicts with the established point that Cylon and human physiology is practically identical in appearance and function down to the cellular level, implying that nanotechnology would be identifiable medically. This is supported as well since, unless such nanotech is masked to work with human physiology, Roslin's body would have an autoimmune reaction, fighting off the fetal blood like in an Rh factor reaction. Aside from the established effects of the fetal blood used, only Baltar's Cylon detector can accurately discern Cylon from human. Funny, I just listened today to an article on National Public Radio that says that fetal stem cells "leak" from the placenta of each baby (born or unborn) into the mother's body, which become an "elite" (but small) force of cells that aid in protecting or repairing damage or disease in the mother for years, according to early research. I have to get that link to this article--it is very apropos here. --Spencerian 13:17, 8 February 2006 (EST)

Yes, I agree with you that the stem cells are the official explanation. I'm not sure if I buy it, however, as real-life stem cells can't spontaneously cure something as complex as cancer just by injecting them. Baltar's been wrong before. Yes, yes, genetically engineered Cylons are a possibility (but wouldn't that be easily detectable at the Colonials' current level of technology?). I guess for now we'll have to write it off as a "magical" effect of hybrids... Sigh :)

If the nanomachines were small enough they wouldn't be visible even under a microscope (haven't seen an SEM on the show yet), and could probably be designed to not show up to chemical tests as well -- especially if they were programmed to actively mask themselves. Again, probably not what they'll go with, just a theory I've been kicking around. --Zeratul 14:43, 8 February 2006 (EST)

With the caveat that I haven't seen the episode yet:why would Roslin's body have an autoimmune reaction when nanotechnology is used? In any case, the stem cell theory doesn't work. If Roslin indeed was at death's door, the damage to the healthy tissue is too great for stem cells to repair that in the necessary time frame. Protein needs to by synthesized, cells need to divide, etc. Plus, while stem cells can theoretically be used to create any organ, they still need the programming, which is not given in an adult body. They can be programmed in vitro, but they won't just form a liver if you inject them into the liver -the hormone gradients that existed during embryogenesis don't exist anymore, likewise the angiogenetic factors aren't around that would cause the cells to be supplied with the necessary nutrients. Although, ironically, the tumor might have spilled enough of those. And even if you get the cells to grow in the right places, you'd have to get them to stop growing as well, otherwise you've just replaced one cancer with another etc. etc... I think the cancer cure is just as much dramatic license as the "cylon and human physiology being identical". Given the silica pathways and the computer connectivity, there are quite obvious differences. I think that RDM did well to cut out the science since it is meaningless to the layperson and would likely have resulted in rolling eyes with people with expertise in the field. It is a contrived plot device, and trying to explain it away is likely to be futile. --OliverH. 15:18, 8 February 2006 (EST)

As an added point, I consider the issue with fetal cells as repairmen in the mother to be heavily overstated in the article here. The NPR contribution merely lists it as a hypothesis. There is no "appear", and there is several problems with at least the written part of the NPR contribution: It suggests that the fetal cells "could behave" as stem cells. However, there's more cells in a fetus than just stem cells, and in any case, at this stage, the cells aren't totipotent, i.e. capable of making ANYthing anymore, they have already diversified. It takes early embryonic stem cells for totipotency. I am also sceptical as far as these cells remaining "for life" goes: They'd be good candidates as a cancer cause rather than cure if they do. The other point is, as I tried to explain above, that these cells turn into specific tissue not just as an execution of an internal program, but as a response to external stimuli, such as hormones secreted by other cells in the vicinity. --OliverH. 15:36, 8 February 2006 (EST)

True, Oliver, the NPR article is actually educated speculation (hypothesis at best). As someone whose medical/biology experience is that of a layman, I welcome you, both to the wiki, as well as to improve in the scientific explanations on this page. Interesting stuff you noted there. We know, of course, that this is all dramatic license, but for writers to go the extra mile and make an attempt to base the cure on some credible level of scientific theorem on the topic (unlike *cough*Star Trek*cough*some shows I know) is a notable thing. --Spencerian 16:31, 8 February 2006 (EST)

Well, at least StarTrek made SOME good choices about their technobabble: Knowing fully well that any prediction on computer power and storage capacity would likely be outdated even before the end of the series, they invented totally fictious parameters. Likewise with many other things. While this still leaves the opportunity to violate basic laws of physics, at least it prevents the "no way it could work that way" effect. There's a reason people study for science, and a reason scientists specialize: It's such a vast field that it's practically impossible to know one's way around everything. So a writer has the choice between winging it or hiring a huge staff of scientists and engineers who give him some well-founded speculation on how things could possibly be explained. That ain't gonna fly, obviously, so one way or the other of winging it will have to do for most productions. Now of course a writer can pick up the latest newspaper articles he read and implement them, but the problem is that most newspaper articles on scientific issues aren't precisely written by people with a grasp of the field either. What's worse, even most scientists don't really concern themselves with the theoretic bases of a solid standard of evidence. Alas, this is especially true in the medical field, where people who went to med school do a lot of research while, unlike people who studied sciences, they could grab little scientific theory at least implicitly. Or, to point at something that bugs folks like me quite regularly: If an M.D. has one patient who shows strange symptoms or responds to an unusualy therapy, he happily submits a publication that goes by the type "case report". If, say, a molecular biologist in the biomedical field hears of such an incident, he will at first glance attribute it to a combination of factors valid for that patient only and dismiss it as anecdotal until he hears of a significant number of cases showing some specific pattern and statistical relevance. Which is why especially in this field, going by mainstream press publications is like tangoing through a minefield. If you comb the literature with fine enough a comb, you will come across plenty of "miracle" cases. However, hold a magnifying glass of stringent scientific standards of evidence at them and they go up in hot air. (Background: I'm currently on the last lap of a Ph.D. in the cancer research field, working on new diagnostic methods.) --OliverH. 19:29, 8 February 2006 (EST)

Humanoid Cylon physiology does not contain "nanomachines"; human cells are also machines, if bio-chemical ones. What the Cylons appear to have done is to have artificially developed the genetic code for an artificial organism which is mostly like humans, but has had certain "upgrades" to it's DNA. I've seen nothing to even come close to speculation that they use "nanomachiens"; this verges into Star Trek Borg, Seven of Nine-esque technobabble, (shudder). And...no, wait...(shudder). Sorry, lots of bad memories. Well, It's just needlessly complicated for this show and I don't think they'd stoop to that level. --The Merovingian 16:42, 8 February 2006 (EST)

Well, the thing is, it's a huge difference whether it's a biochemical machine or not. The human immune system is very efficient in fighting foreign "biochemical machines" in that it can recognize proteins that aren't part of the body. We know that some nonbiological materials such as graphite or teflon can also trigger an immune response, but this can easily be avoided by using different material. In an ideal scenario (not given here), nanorobots could even simply be coated with "self" proteins and be waved through by the immune system. There's a whole lot of literature on nanomedicine prospects at http://www.nanomedicine.com/index.htm including entire books for free, or, for the less ambitious, the FAQ at http://www.foresight.org/Nanomedicine/NanoMedFAQ.html. And frankly, as a molecular biologist, I shudder at "upgrades" to DNA. A system that can give us everything from archaeobacteria to humans has already demonstrated that it is extremely flexible and yet efficient. I have a bit of an impression that "technobabble" is whatever solution one doesn't like ;) --OliverH. 19:29, 8 February 2006 (EST)

Genetics

1.) My impression was that baltar was sketching schematic representations of human and cylon antigens, not individual nitrogenous bases (which wouldn't really be relevant for the treatment he was proposing)

2.) Are you certain the hexagonal image is of uracil, and not another pyrimidine such as cytosine or thymine? --Peter Farago 04:20, 2 February 2006 (EST)

2) Indeed. I've been going over my Human Molecular Genetics notes, and this is the only possibility. The difficulty you may have encountered is that Baltar is holding it upside down. Actually, I made a drawing of what we see "on screen" in the commercial (unfortunately, BSGwiki doesn't seem to want to upload bmp images; sorry).

There is a very long line coming of of a Nitrogen; this represent an R-linkage (that is, where the base connects to deoxyribose). Traditionally, (by Earth international convention) the R-linkage making Nitrogen is placed at the bottom of the diagram; plus, Baltar drew it backwords, but that's just viewing it from a different angle and changes none of the linkages. This is where we see "NH" on the bottom of that pic of Uracil I have; the H gets dropped and the N forms the R-linkage. I spent a long time trying to figure out which one it was before I determined that it is definately Uracil; none of the others. You can see this more clearly in the page on Nucleotide: the one we see has no NH2 subgroup linked to a carbon in the ring, so it's definately not Cytosine (Cytosine has 3 N's, Uracil and Thymine, only 2). It can't be thymine, because it has no H3C subgroup branching off of the ring. It actually looks exactly like the image of Uracil on the Nucleotide article.

1)****My entire point, Farago, is that Ron D. Moore stated in his podcast that ORIGINALLY, Baltar *was* making all of thse comparisons of DNA, stem cells, etc. and stating how Cylon **DNA** is different. However, he got in a panic, because as we all know he is nervous to use Technobabble (often, this is a very good thing) but this time he overreacted; now all of the messageboards are filled with complaints of "This wasn't explained well enough; he just said it's "blood was special" and drew two overlapping squares; this doesn't explain anything". In scenes that they deleted, Baltar goes into detail explaining what's different about it, comparing DNA structure, etc. Hopefully, we will see it in the DVD when these scenes are released. However, (as sometimes happens) footage from deleted scenes was used to make the commercial for the episode, and because I taped it off of tv (as opposed to downloading it) I was able to pause it and look at this. Really, they just cut a *LOT* of stuff out; it's not *JUST* "antigents"; the script for this scene was butchered in the editing room, and the explanation is actually a lot more complex than just "it's blood has no antigens"; Antigens for what? Antigens are things that trigger an immune response; in that sense, this isn't that much different from the O-blood type. --Ricimer 14:16, 2 February 2006 (EST)

I'm well aware of that. --Peter Farago 23:24, 2 February 2006 (EST)

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

Re-imagined Series definition: the process of using the FTL engines to make an near-instantaneous apparent faster-than-light transport of a ship from one point in space to another

Re-imagined Series definition: mineral that can be refined to a powerful fuel, see: tylium

Original Series definition: a highly combustible fuel (see: tylium) ^{(TOS: "Fire in Space")}

Re-imagined Series definition: A powerful electrically-disruptive surge that typically accompanies a nuclear detonation.

Original Series definition: a Cylon outpost ^{(TOS: "Lost Planet of the Gods, Part I")}

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

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

Re-imagined Series definition: initial skills training; can refer to basic military indoctrination, and arms and ground training ^{(TRS: "Fragged")}; and basic flight training ^{(TRS: "Miniseries")}

Re-imagined Series definition: in military parlance, directive to continue the attack; otherwise used to refer to journalists ^{(TRS: "Maelstrom")}