Talk:The Twelve Colonies of Kobol/Archive3

Merge proposal

This article, and the articles for each of the Twelve Colonies, are all very short, and I don't see any of them expanding substantially in the near future. I think it would make for a nice looking, meaty article if we merged in each of the individual colony articles with this one under first-level headings. How say you all? --Peter Farago 04:50, 31 August 2005 (EDT)

I know this looks weird and kind of dumb. I'm still fiddling. It's easy to revert if the whole thing ends up being too hideous to bear. --Peter Farago 22:17, 13 September 2005 (EDT)

I like the idea and whats up now. If we knew more about each colony, it would look nicer, but until then I think this is fine. Now... What to do with these other two banners? Now, the two colonies without banners are Leo and Aquarius, the lion and the water-bearer. Both of these symbols could be a water-bearer, I guess, but I think the black and white one looks like he has whisters, there and that shape at the top looks more ear-like. That would leave the blue and red one to be the water bearer, which I think makes sense enough. Think we could drop those in with a note as to their speculative nature, or best not to? --Day 01:27, 14 September 2005 (EDT)

I'm leaving this one up to QuintusCinna, our resident flag-hunter. --Peter Farago 01:32, 14 September 2005 (EDT)

The two colonies without banners is Aquarius and whatever the colonial name is for Libra. I saw in the mini-series they mentioned a colony called "ICON" alongside of "PICON" so I'm a little weirded out. As for Leonis, that flag has been found. I did a picture search in google for the zodiac's constellation and found the flag's symbol looked exactly like what I have designated. I can't remember, but I believe the constellation for Libra looked quite similar to the black one. Since we don't yet know as of yet what is the name for the Libra colony, I have left it blank. QuintusCinna 01:46, 14 September 2005 (EDT)

At least we know it isn't Ophiuchi or something. Roslin identifies Libra in the Tomb of Athena map room, although she doesn't give its modern name. --Peter Farago 02:59, 14 September 2005 (EDT)

Realizing that it's still being worked on, it looks awful right now. You can't tell which banner goes to which colony, for one thing. --Fang Aili 08:30, 14 September 2005 (EDT)

Personally, I don't really like the combination of all 12 colonies together either since there is no set border and down the road we will have pictures relating to each colony. This will make it slower to download. --QuintusCinna 12:11, 14 September 2005 (EDT)

The problem, in my opinion, is that there's little to do at the main article other than simply list the colonies, and the majority of the individual colonies are stub-like in length. As for images, Caprica is the only planet we've seen thus far and probably the only one we're likely to see (unless we get Scorpion in a flashback in Pegasus or something). One thing we can do, if it becomes necessary, is link to full-length articles from just underneath the first-level headings.

As for the banners, I agree that they could be confusing but I rather like them right now. Do either of you think it coudl be re-arranged in a better manner (maybe if they didn't alternate sides? But then there'd be a lot more wasted space)? Or is it a lost cause in your opinions? --Peter Farago 12:20, 14 September 2005 (EDT)

Yeah, you could try putting all the banners on the right. See how it looks. --Fang Aili 14:11, 14 September 2005 (EDT)

There, that's what they look like right-aligned. Frankly, I think they look better alternating. I don't find it confusing, and the wasted space bugs me. --Peter Farago 14:36, 14 September 2005 (EDT)

Hate to say it, but I don't like it at all. The banners overlap with the previous colony's "box", there are no clear markers indicating where one section begins and another ends, it just looks bad. (Part of the problem is that we don't have much information about many of the colonies at this point.) --Fang Aili 15:07, 14 September 2005 (EDT)

It'd be better if we could insert a line across the entire page, and have the colony name under that line, along with the banner on the right. Then each colony would have a neat, easily readable section. I don't know if Wiki markup is capable of that though. --Fang Aili 15:10, 14 September 2005 (EDT)

I still think it's a better option than thirteen articles that are completely insubstantial on their own. --Peter Farago 15:11, 14 September 2005 (EDT)

I added captions to some of the banners, and in the process deleted some of the <div> markup. Wikipedia recommends against using HTML ([1]), and I've been trying to learn from the Extended image syntax page. I can't figure out why a new section like ==Caprica== doesn't appear on the same level as its banner. --Fang Aili 16:09, 14 September 2005 (EDT)

Ah ha! The wonders of <br style="clear:both;">! What do you guys think of the formatting now? --Fang Aili 16:28, 14 September 2005 (EDT)

My HTML/CSS was not used lightly. That's really the one way to get the banners at the section heading level as I did. Frankly this seems like a more cumbersome version of my right-aligned attempt. I really dislike the caption boxes, too.

I have a new idea: Rather than use the (rather long) banners, we can grab the icons from each, along with the background colors, and use them. I've created nine high-resolution versions from QuintusCinna's originals, which you can link to below:

Aerelon, Canceron, Caprica, Gemenon, Picon, Sagittaron, Scorpion, Tauron, Virgon

These could be scaled down to almost any size and still look nice. --Peter Farago 16:35, 14 September 2005 (EDT)

Without caption boxes, it's not clear what the banners are. I know it seems self-explanatory to us, but for someone who's never seen them before, it's not. I'll take a look at the icons in a bit. --Fang Aili 17:03, 14 September 2005 (EDT)

I find repeating "This is the Banner of X" to be tedious, and the red background to be jarring. Couldn't we simply note that the banner/icon/flag/colors of the colony is provided to the right? --Peter Farago 17:06, 14 September 2005 (EDT)

Peter. You've saved us all. As I said earlier, I liked it when the banner appeared to be hanging from the red line under its colony's name. I share Peter's dislike for tons of white space and alternating the sides seemed to create the least of that. However, if we just had the emblem and colors from each flag, we could do it below the red line as Fang seems to like, and not have this huge, long graphic. Maybe we can then link the full banner pics and, if we get enough information that a given colony's article wouldn't be a stub, we can display it there. Does all that make sense? --Day 17:11, 14 September 2005 (EDT)

I like it with banners to right, with titling, albeit a little redundant. Not sure how to deal with the "white space" of many areas, but we're really not going to get them filled until we get more data, so that is that. I feel it's informative enough as it stands, but I'll leave the formatting arguments alone. Spencerian 19:52, 14 September 2005 (EDT)

Which flag is which?

A close viewing of Colonial Day indicates that the flag currently labeled as Tauron belongs to Safiya Sanne's seat - either Picon or Leonis; and that the black flag belongs to Robin Wenutu's seat (Canceron), and that VIrgon's flag is a white field with a green inner stripe and yellow outer stripe. I'm curious as to how QuintusCinna came to his conclusion that the delegates aren't seated at their apprporiate flags, since I don't know any other evidence linking particular flags to colonies. I guess Scorpion is pretty obvious, though. --Peter Farago 17:34, 14 September 2005 (EDT)

Don't trust the banners lining up with those they represent in Colonial Day. The reason I say this is that Tom Zarek is in one area of the room and his very obvious banner for Sagitarron is completely in another area. This is the same for Virgon's banner and their representative. There are 3 different questions I carry thanks to the shows I have watched. In the mini-series we see the banners are in this order from left to right: Virgon, Picon, Caprica, Aerelon, Gemenon, Scorpion, Aquaria(?), Tauron, Libra (?), Sagittaron, Canceron (?), Leonis. Is this in the order that the colonies signed the unification treaty or is the order for the flags random or is it in the order they were nuked? Though I am sure the producers, directors, and such just put them up in random order, it is now a sense of fact for the show. If we were to believe they were placed up there, the banners must be up there in some order that is according to military protocol for flag bearing. In Colonial Day I add 2 more questions. We see that the banners are behind the delegates in a different order than in the mini-series. This means they were either a) put up randomly or b) have a separate purpose than those shown at the end of the mini-series (nuked, treaty order, or other). Then we see that the delegates are put in a different order than the banners behind them. The Gemenon delegate is clearly seen toward the middle and the Gemenon flag is clearly in a different area. The same questions come up for the delegates: are they randomly placed or is there reason. It's not alphabetical, and placements of delegates and banners in every society is always in some sort of traditional order. I hope that the Battlestar Galactica producers, writers, and such will be able to answer this though I suspect they won't because they have REAL lives. As for the Picon flag, the constellation looks quite similar to the picon banner and the same goes for Tauron's with Taurus. I have no doubt with those. The Libra's icon can be seen in this picture [2] 2 clockwise from Sagittarius. --QuintusCinna 1:12, 15 September 2005 (EDT)

Libris = Libran?

Guys, gals, and bots, got this e-mail from one of our keen-eyed visitors:

In episode 403 ?The Ties That Bind?, the Libran colony?s name is revealed in the scene with Lee Adama and Tom Zarek in the Quorum of the Twelve chambers at 18 minutes 40-43 seconds.

Lee places the classified file that Zarek has given him on top of the Libran delegate?s nameplate immediately to his right. However, one can clearly see the symbol for Libran at the far right of the nameplate and the letters ?BRAN? with the ?B? partially obscured. There is no other colony that ends in this combination of letters. I?d argue that the symbol is definitive.

Additionally, in David Bassom?s The Official Companion Season One, the colony is also called ?Libran? on page 86.

It would be great if you could confirm this for yourselves and add, at the very least, a note drawing fans attention to this nameplate.

If anyone can just confirm this information, let's implement the change. Thanks! -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 18:59, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The article says that Libran is the colony name because of a ship being registered to that colony. The article cites SciFi.com as the source. "The Space Park, a passenger liner in the Fleet, is of Libran registry (SciFi.com). " --Jonathan 19:35, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The meaning there is that "Libran" is the adjectival form of "Libris". Like Caprica -> Caprican. But given the visual evidence now, we can change the colony name. Appears to be pretty definite. -- Serenity 19:39, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

It looks to me more like the props department made a mistake, putting the adjective rather than the nounal form on the nameplate. It would seem odd that the adjective and nounal forms could be the same word. Also, the Battlestar Galactica Official Magazine called the planet "Libris." I don't think that the "official" magazine would make such a blatant error.

Current activity in the Colonies

I recall the Cylons mentioning that they abandoned the 12 colonies in guilt, but there is little chance I'll ever get the exact source episode where I heard this. Two things: first, does this ring a bell for anyone? and second, if my memory was correct, isn't this worth mentioning somewhere in this article? Blue Rook 07:06, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Population

The article currently accepts 20 billion as the population of the Twelve Colonies at the time of the attacks based on Tigh's statement in the "Resistance" webisodes. However, in the recent episode "A Disquiet Folllows My Soul" Gaeta and Kara talk about there being 50 billion people. How do we reconcile these two numbers in the article and, most importantly, which one do we canonise for use in the article? --Mars 02:38, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Aquaria = Aquarion!

Aquarion.

Who changed Aquarion back to Aquaria? The name Aquaria is a Mary McDonnell mispronunciation (much in the same vein as Leoben Conroy). I have clear visual evidence from the props used on the series (sold on the Propworx Ebay auction), that the colony's name is written as Aquarion and not Aquaria.

To the right are at least three props (that I know of) from the series that were sold on Ebay, that demostrate the colony's name: The Quorum delegate name plate and an identity pass from Colonial Day, and the Quorum name plate from the Season Four Quorum Runic code 15:51, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

According to Serge's Twitter, both are correct. -- Noneofyourbusiness 01:35, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

That'll do for me :). Runic code 14:33, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Pictures of natives and some notes

I removed all the pictures of natives because a) they were a bit arbitrary to begin with and b) by now we have enough pictures of the planets or at least some of their cities.

I also removed the notes that Caprica, Tauron and Scorpion are the only colonies depicted in the series. This information is a bit outdated since The Plan aired and will probably be unnecessary once Caprica fully kicks in.

I also reorganized some of the colony's entries: Information about the planet comes first, then about its culture, population and places and after that information about quorum delegates and fleet population is given. Many of the entries could probably still need a bigger clean-up, though. -- Penumbra 16:10, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Awesome start, and I completely agree that the other articles will need cleanup. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 18:28, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I did an even bigger revision. The article is reorganized and the entries of the single colonies are cleaned up and rewritten. I hope the text is better structured and more accessible than the previous version. Would be great if someone could have a closer look at it, though. Not a native speaker. -- Penumbra 00:43, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Serge's Twitter accout

Has anybody else been following him/it? According to him, Gemenon and Caprica share an orbit and the star system of the Colonies has four stars. While certainly official, what is the canonical status of his comments? Should we make changes to reflect this? --Mars 02:51, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, this is certainly a new source... It's interesting because I'm really not very comfortable with a fictional Twitter account being quoted as canon, particularly since we don't know if the people behind said account are using actual information from the production or not. I'm thinking that the Twitter account in question should be quoted anyway, since people are going to do that anyway, but we need to note that the source may or may not be accurate—as the source is only a method of using social network to promoting the series... nothing more.

If, on the other hand, we were talking about something tweeted by Jane Espenson or a cast member, then that'd would certainly have more weight. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 02:57, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

The Caprican is used as a source I see. Why not Serge? Serge is obviously maintained by one of the writers of Caprica.--[User:Tpin12345|tpin]]

Sooo... has there been any decision as to whether Serge and/or The Caprican are reliable sources? --Pedda 01:15, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

The Caprican is reliable. Natalie Stark, Vesta, Baxter Sarno, V-Match, New Cap City, holoband sleepers, Themis, the memorial in the park, Little Tauron, and other things were all mentioned there days or weeks before the episodes featuring them aired. And there's now an article with more detail about the Tauron Civil War and the origin of the term "dirteater", which will no doubt be borne out by the series. -- Noneofyourbusiness 16:19, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Regarding Serge, I'd say we should look at it on a case by case basis. There are some chunks of information that can be reasonably expected to be verified within the show (e.g. Gemenon as Caprica's twin planet). Other tidbits that are more vague or obscure should remain in notes or trivia sections, especially if on-screen information sort of contradicts them (e.g. the whole Tauron City vs. Minos thing). Of course, a case by case basis is always prone to personal opinions and the like but I'd run with it for the time being. It would help if we knew for sure who's actually running Serge, though. -- Penumbra 20:38, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree with this course of action. I haven't found out who runs the Serge twitter yet. I know who it isn't though. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 23:47, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Serge just tweeted the capital cities of all Twelve Colonies. (Interestingly enough, "Libran and Aquarion (sic) don't have official capitals.") This is great info...but argh, should we post it?! -- Liquidcross 01:45, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Star System Map

I'd love to have a map of the star system of the Colonies. Maybe someone up in Vancouver loves us and we'll see one in Caprica. However, I'm not sure if we should keep the one from the RPG. It doesn't really fit with any descriptions we've seen on screen or heard from sources like Jane Espenson and Serge.

Some of the discrepancies: There's only one star as opposed to three (or four); all of the colonies are actual planets or moons, no other stellar bodies; some colonies orbit gas giants we've never heard about but none orbits Ragnar; Caprica and Gemenon don't share an orbit; last but not least Libran is spelled as "Libris". -- Penumbra 18:38, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree. This map is an interesting piece of art, but since the RPG isn't canon, the map is fan art, so we should remove it. --Pedda 01:14, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Pull it, per the arguments above. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 15:14, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Libran vs Tauron City

As BlueResistance noted, the city that was thought to show Libran in "The Plan" bears a striking resemblance to Tauron City (as seen in "Know Thy Enemy"). I don't think there was a caption in the "The Plan" - the city was simply seen when the Hybrid talked about Libran. I'd say they're supposed to be the same city. -- Penumbra 13:37, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

It's possible, but I'm inclined to disagree. During the Hybrid's "burning" roll call, at least two of the Colonies unambiguously line up with what's on screen: "the harbors of Picon" and "the cities of Caprica" are spoken along with shots of a harbor and of Caprica City. Also, she (it?) says, "The pastures of Tauron are burning" pretty early, so it would be kind of odd to wait so long between saying something about Tauron and showing it. I'm guessing that the production recycled the shot as a cost-saving measure, and as something they could get away with relatively easily, since it's unlikely that they'll show Tauron City again, if at all. It wouldn't be the first CG error in Galactica/Caprica. Anyway, let's see what other comments come in before changing images again. - BlueResistance 16:46, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Just to clarify my point of view: I agree that it is likely that it was originally intended to show Libran. However, unlike Gemenon or Picon later on, it was never directly labeled as such. We simply don't know for sure. To say that it was Tauron City all along is, in my book, much less of a stretch than to say that Tauron City looks nearly identical to a city on Libran. And the fact that the city was originally thought to be Libran is still mentioned in the article on Tauron City. -- Penumbra 19:48, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Just to add another level of complexity to it... There is a five decade difference between the two photos. We could assume that the Cylon War probably decimated these cities and they had to rebuild. Thus, there may not be an error here, per se... just a visual oddity. ;-) -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 19:59, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Another difference is that while the city seen in The Plan is located on a very flat terrain with nothing breaking the horizon, several mountains and/or hills can be seen surrounding Tauron City. The differences in the terrain should be taken into consideration. -- Azure Owl 20:27, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

How about if we just keep the original Plan screen cap as Libran and the Caprica screen cap as Tauron City, and leave it at that? There are enough differences to count each as representing separate places, even if it's clear that the CG people were working from their Plan image when making Tauron City. -- BlueResistance 22:01, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I concur. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 22:33, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Latest edit (and, I guess, Serge again)

I'm wondering whether we should revert the latest edit. While it adds some interesting information, I have two qualms with it.

First of all there are quite a bit of spelling, grammar and formatting mistakes that would needed to be looked at. Second: None of that information is verified since these links only lead to Serge's account, not specific tweets. Given the load of information that Serge unleashes, I'd say we should be precise. (And I also don't think we need to add every single bit of trivia that comes up there). -- Penumbra 03:28, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Concur. Pull it, find the exact tweets in question, cite it, rewrite it... the whole nine AUs. Also, I don't think we need to add every single bit of trivia, either... -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 03:30, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm beginning to think that what Serge is saying is mostly true. But I guess we might as well wait until its confirmed right? Corey "Shadow" Danian 09:15, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Everything Serge says so far has lined up with the show and The Caprican. -- Noneofyourbusiness 14:27, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

But obviously we should cite specific tweets for verifiability. -- Noneofyourbusiness 16:36, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

JFYI: I made a big clean-up of the latest edits. Again: The new information wasn't cited properly (only stating "the Caprican" [sic]), wasn't reasonably put into the existing text and/or lacked sentence structure. I also threw some stuff out that I couldn't find in the latest articles.

I also removed the odd bit that "Gemenese" is the adjective for Gemenon. That should become clear while reading that paragraph, IMO. -- Penumbra 07:38, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

No, it has to be stated clearly and directly. -- Noneofyourbusiness 14:37, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Why, exactly? We don't state it for any of the other Colonies and the word already appears in the text. -- Penumbra 14:46, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Because it's rather notable in form, we don't know the adjective for many of the other Colonies (if, for example, "Leonan" finally gets stated on the show and not just Serge's twitter, we should note it too), without such a statement not enough attention is drawn to it in the section as is, and without such a statement someone might think we're using a random adjective. The possibility of it not getting across has to be as close to 0% as we can make it. -- Noneofyourbusiness 15:02, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Okay, personally I really don't get why it is that important ("not enough attention", "has to be as close to 0%") to state the adjective of this world in its introductory paragraph - show, don't tell? Besides, at the moment people still might think that we make it up, because there's no citation for it. -- Penumbra 15:13, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I doubt people would think that, as that would be us making a false claim rather than just using a placeholder (as the article currently does with "Aquarian" and used to do with "Leonisian"), but I will add a citation of The Captain's Hand, which is the first episode it was mentioned in as far as I can remember. -- Noneofyourbusiness 15:17, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

To make my point clear: I don't see why the part about the adjective belongs into the first paragraph. In all other colony entries (Aerilon, Aquarion, Libran), linguistic information like that is put in the note section. If it has to be stated (which I still doubt) it should follow suit. Of course, by then the word is already used four times within the article itself. IMO that makes it a bit redundant. But I'd like others to weigh in, because obviously we both are on the very opposite sides of an argument here. -- Penumbra 15:27, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

IMO, the unique form of this adjective is interesting enough to be noted, but it's not interesting enough to be noted in the section before, well, the Notes section. --Pedda 15:48, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

That would put it after uses of the word in the section, making it a redundant note as compared to having it before them. It's not odd this way. -- Noneofyourbusiness 16:09, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Per that argument we should give up notes sections entirely, because most notes clarify something that is mentioned earlier in an article. Thought about it I agree with Pedda: It's okay to be noted. However, it doesn't belong in the first paragraph (or the article itself) were it looks as if it were one of the most important things to learn about the planet (which it is simply not, as far as I'm concerned). -- Penumbra 17:11, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

That's not a reasonable extension of my argument. (head stratch) This is language usage. Saying the adjective is Gemenese logically goes before actually using that word. It's not like anything in a Notes section. And of course the correct language usage is one of the most primary things to learn about the planet. -- Noneofyourbusiness 23:22, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

New info from The Caprican

There is a new article in The Caprican with information about 5 cities in the Colonies. Before incorporating any of it into the article I was wondering how I should approach the citation.

Should we use a single numbered footnote repeated all over the page, or several different numbered footnotes referring to the same source?

I ask because I have the suspicion that some of the info is going to be relevant in the show. In particular, that description about Gemenon’s second most important city and its temple complex. I can’t shake the feeling that the show is going to end up visiting it.

Oh… and it’s the second time they’ve talked about the damn empty stadium in Themis. What’s up with that? -- Azure Owl 21:06, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

I'd use normal <ref> tags. After all, the information will be scattered around the page.

Also (as per the discussion above), please keep in mind not to add every single detail - some general information should suffice. As far as I see it, these articles here are about planets, not their cities. If those cities will show up in Caprica we can always create articles for them and add detailed information. -- Penumbra 21:21, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Picture descriptions + main picture

Current main picture of the article.

I removed the episode information from the picture descriptions. I think they look much cleaner and more concise that way - especially given that the article is already filled with a lot of links and the new episode citation method would make the descriptions even more cramped. I really don't know whether there's an official style guide regarding picture desriptions but articles throughout the wiki use (and even mix) both methods (with and without episodes).

I also wanted to bring attention to the main picture of the article. I put it there and I think it's quite nice, aesthetically and stuff. But it doesn't really represent the Twelve Colonies that well. Might there be a better alternative? Maybe a picture of the Colonial Seal without the "Battlestar Galactica - BSG 62" text or something like that? -- Penumbra 09:53, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Main picture: How 'bout this? And I agree that picture descriptions should not include episode titles, unless it's really necessary to put that picture in the right context. --Pedda 15:41, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Oh, like that picture. Fits well with the flags. -- Penumbra 16:01, 22 March 2010 (UTC)