User talk:Spencerian

For discussions prior to January 1, 2006, click here.

Thanks[edit]

For your comment and the welcome! Admittedly the entry walks a thin line in terms of RDM relativity and redundancy, however I believe it's one BSG fans are interested in, it provides a more general background for all things BSG and through it perhaps a better understanding of the series. Of course I may be part of a small minority saying this, but I'd at least like to see how the discussion goes on the trivia page before you obliterate my long, hard work from existence :) --Dreamer 00:30, 8 February 2006 (EST)

The CNP[edit]

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)

Does the Viper count include the mini-series? Four Vipers (I believe) were destroyed on-screen at the Battle of Ragnar Anchorage. However, when the Vipers are launched, it looks like there are a lot more than the 30-odd Vipers they've got by "Flight of the Phoenix."

I saw the mini last night and Adama referred to "twenty Vipers" being in their museum section (the Mark IIs). Assuming Apollo left his Mark VII there when he took out his father's Mark II for a spin during the decommissioning, the other seven or so Mark VIIs they've got by "Flight" had to come from somewhere. This doesn't take casualties at Ragnar into account.

I have to actually start writing the story first. I've got one Internet project to finish within the next week or so, and classes for me (I am in college) resume Monday.--mq59 14:21, 3 January 2006 (EST)

It's complicated. I'm currently keeping track of everything in the notes section of Galactica (RDM), but the matter may deserve its own article in the near future. My own impression, anyway, was that Galactica had two squadrons of Mk. VIIs (in active service out of the port flight pod) and one squadron ofn Mk. IIs (in the museum on the starboard pod). After the twenty Mk. VIIs in Ripper's squadron were destroyed, the Mk. IIs were reactivated, bringing the total to the (roughly) 40 fighters seen at the Ragnar battle. I'm not 100% sure of this, however, as there are still other sources to consult. --Peter Farago 14:33, 3 January 2006 (EST)

Rank= Administrator[edit]

OK. Now I'm jealous. --Watcher 14:51, 4 January 2006 (EST)

(yodaspeak) Be careful you should be, or suffer my fate, you will! (/yodaspeak) --Spencerian 15:02, 4 January 2006 (EST)

LOL! --Watcher 19:52, 4 January 2006 (EST)

Welcome[edit]

Thanks for the welcome - I probably won't be contributing all that much (admin duties on Wikipedia keep me busy, as well as the Doctor Who Wikiproject). Just had to correct some really nagging spelling mistakes. :) --Khaosworks 17:31, 8 January 2006 (EST)

I know the feeling. Joe (our admin) just empowered me and two others as sysops here, so I'm learning to budget my time--I used to be all over Wikipedia and their Matrix series pages until I found this place. :) --Spencerian 18:27, 8 January 2006 (EST)

Editing User Pages[edit]

From what I've learned of Wikiquette it is considered bad form to edit a user's page. However, I've been working the Disambiguations Page to try to get links pointed where they are intended to go, and one of the results on that page is a user page. I guess the first step would be to ask them to change it on their talk page, but considering their last contribution was a few months ago there's a good chance that they might never respond. I guess I should just let it go, but the OCD side of me wants the Disambuations Page to someday read like the Double Redirects page (0 results returned). --Steelviper 11:58, 17 January 2006 (EST)

Sounds fine. Was this in reference to Day's adjustment on a link on my user page? It was understandable, so I ignored it. --Spencerian 14:32, 17 January 2006 (EST)

Oh, no. If I were to call out Day, I'd call him out. This was about my Viper disambig crusade today. User:Neochiiz3000 has a link to Viper that I was thinking about switching to Viper (RDM). I've restrained myself, and the issue may resolve itself if we end up doing a redirect to Viper (RDM) off of Viper. If not, I'll ask first... and edit if there isn't a response for a while. --Steelviper 17:39, 17 January 2006 (EST)

Yeah, that sounds like the proper thing to do. As an admin, it should not be inappropriate for you to edit a user page after you ask for permission first and time elapses, or if the content of the page violates our policy. Yeah, I hope you had a script for that--how many pages did you DO!? You're going to wake up in a nightmare at 4 in the morning and scream "Viper!" --Spencerian 17:47, 17 January 2006 (EST)

Two things. One: Yeah, Steelviper. I broke my The ~~FLeet~~ Fleet purge into several phases (still not done as of this writing), so I would remain sane. Two: I felt that a) Spence would see the reasonability of my editing his user page that particular time and that b) he'd see my name by the edit and maybe be forgiving. However, this may be similar to the way that, after I know you a while, I get the idea that your personal space and my personal space can be the same space and that puts some people off, so lemme know if I got a bit close to you, there, Spence. And I mean that in general, not just in this one case. I don't plan on making a habit of editing others' user pages, but this is my first Wiki and I'm still learning the finer points of Wikiquette and which rules are hard a fast for all and which might be bent for "friends" etc. --Day 23:21, 17 January 2006 (EST)

Script? Man... that's a really good idea. I've not played with that yet, though, so all those edits you saw were manual. For some of the other big offenders (Battlestar, The Twelve Colonies) I was thinking of going more with the redirect + disambig on the top, since 95%+ of the new content is going to be about RDM... and I'm not sure if I could survive all 600+ of the disambig fixes. I didn't keep an exact count, but I cranked out around 100 viper edits. (I'd do blocks of about 10 to try to stay sharp). As for editing user pages, I'm with you Day (in that I wouldn't mind somebody who knew me to fix something that's broken, or maybe even somebody that didn't know me if it were particarly bad). However, I get the impression that some people are pretty sensitive about the issue, so I wanted to get a second opinion. I still need to drop a note to that user though... --Steelviper 08:38, 18 January 2006 (EST)

D'oh![edit]

Sorry about the goof up on the Crashdown page. I guess my enthusiasm got the better of me. Thanks for pointing me right. Joemc72 13:44, 19 January 2006 (EST)

Not a problem. Sometimes I'm wrong (and do feel free to correct me if you see a goof), but what you noted was a common interpretation for others here, so you're not alone. It may be probable that a place known as Triton exists, but using Occam's Razor (simpliest answer is likely the correct one) is best here. --Spencerian 14:02, 19 January 2006 (EST)

I feel like you don't talk to me any more...[edit]

That's a bit of a joke. However, I'm speaking of this discussion that I tried to start after you changed Tigh's picture the first time. There was some discussion about it on the Island of Misfit Images and the, I think, two other people who chimed in agreed that the old one was much more nice looking. Anyway, I thought I'd prod you here for a response on Saul's talk page. --Day 20:57, 23 January 2006 (EST)

Clear=both;[edit]

Ahha! This page looks much better now. Great use of the Empty-and-CLeared-Div trick. There are probably a few other articles that could use this. Anyway, wanted to give props. --Day 01:25, 25 January 2006 (EST)

It's YOU I need to give props to. It's a simple bit of code that works well. Thanks for the help. I've been reluctant to update some pages in need of images because of formatting, so you've given me a good tool. --Spencerian 09:14, 25 January 2006 (EST)

Character Template Clarification[edit]

You didn't want it to get conversational over at the template talk, so I thought I'd ask here. What do you mean by "unneccessarily fill the template and it is growing ridiculously large"? Are you talking about the number of articles that link to the template (Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Character_Data)? Does the number of articles that utilize a template have a negative impact on that template somehow? I guess I don't understand the technical maintenance implications of it. --Steelviper 11:18, 3 February 2006 (EST)

I meant the sheer dimensions of it (just Template:Characters, not the character data template)...it's growing THICKER and THICKER and looks awful, worthless data notwithstanding. I can start to appreciate Peter's distaste for it now. I suggested the standard to aid in slowing down the amount of characters added to it, but nothing will stop the growth except to remove it altogether. A much smaller redesign could also help. --Spencerian 11:27, 3 February 2006 (EST)

Ah! Much clearer now! (I had just made a change inside Phelan's Character Data template, which had me in the wrong frame of mind.) I had (vaguely) noticed that the "Character" template was growing, but honestly I had come to ignore it. If it becomes a duplication of Category: Characters it ceases to be a navigational aid. I'd still like to come up with an elegant solution using Categories, but I don't think categories will be able to provide the immediate visual appeal that a (properly sized) character template is going to have.

Do character templates always span the entire series? There might be a character that satisfies your criteria, but is not terribly relevant in a season or two. Is that just a function of character template maintenance (keep it up to date and trim), or a situation where you have character templates for different time periods/seasons? --Steelviper 11:35, 3 February 2006 (EST)

As Peter might attest, maintaining these things can be a bitch and be visually unappealing. I find that a similar template for the Matrix movies on Wikipedia works, but now I understand why Peter thinks it sucks here--it will grow like a cancer and pull much needed "white space" off the article, making things that much more cluttered. The Matrix stuff is generally over. But BG has to grow, and we have 50000 characters plus 12 Cylons to account for. I think we have enough links in articles to not deal with the character template, more I think of it. That thing is for browsing, nothing more. Or, we add in the central characters and regular guest stars and leave it at that. --Spencerian 11:44, 3 February 2006 (EST)

I think we should kill it. Inject some Cylon baby blood and let our character pages walk tall and healthy again. If we want to aid browsing of characters by type or something, we could do some categorization that would work wonderfully, I think. We've talked about a lot, but, say, Main/Supporting (needs a new name, but both Bill and Saul would go here), Recurring (Zarek and that level of folk), Pilots/ECOs (also needs a new name), Command Staff, Civilians, Deck Crew, Marines... That way, someone could scroll down to the end and see a list of categories this character is in and choose what similarity they want to browse by. The current system assumes the user wants to browse by the criteria of Main/Supporting, whereas multiple categories let the user choose. This is maybe not the best place to voice this, huh? --Day 02:35, 4 February 2006 (EST)