Talk:Red Line/Archive 1

I was thinking, maybe the Red Line in the context Adama used wasn't literal. Maybe it is a saying like "you've crossed the line" where there is no physical line but a figurative one. --Talos 01:23, 28 December 2005 (EST)

Okay, I should've read the first sentence of the article. It's frakking 1:30 AM here, I'm tired. --Talos 01:25, 28 December 2005 (EST)

My view, which I have maintained for some time now, is that the "Red Line" is the imaginary line marking off "Unexplored Space". I don't think it refers to the jump range capabilities of a specific ship at all. --Ricimer 01:50, 28 December 2005 (EST)

I concur completely; the other meaning never occured to me on watching the show. "The red line" would sound weird instead of "our red line" given the other meaning. --CalculatinAvatar 02:54, 28 December 2005 (EST)

For the record, Adama didn't use it; Tigh did. --CalculatinAvatar 02:54, 28 December 2005 (EST)

Without any further clarification, I am inclined to defer to the definition given in the early draft. --Peter Farago 02:55, 28 December 2005 (EST)

We have never heard this term again. However, they never refer to "our red line" just "the red line". I think it marks the boundary of explored space, and that individual ships FTL do not have their own personal "red lines". As evidenced by the Cylon Raider, and the talk about what could happen to Pegasus in a blind-Jump, there is actually no distance limit to a Jump, the only thing that limits them from wanting to make one is the safe distance their nav computer can compute, knowing they won't run into something. Better computer gives farther range. In light of this, and the context, I really think this should be changed to limit of explored space. Early drafts have been shown to be unreliable basis.--The Merovingian 17:07, 4 March 2006 (CST)

My whole point is that it is not "valid or correct". Please cite something else other than a simple "NO!" if you want to elaborate on your view, as I have above. --The Merovingian 21:38, 5 March 2006 (CST)

I will concur with Merv's view on this. The drafts of the mini series script are just those... drafts. Many, many things change between drafts and the shooting script -- for instance, in the mini series, the Colonials came from Kobol explicitly and the Twelve Colonies did not exist. If anything, we should note the origins of the "Red Line" in a Notes section, but defer to on screen evidence as canonical. -- Joe Beaudoin 21:44, 5 March 2006 (CST)

I disagree. In the absence of any contradictory information presented on-screen, the description from the old miniseries is the best evidence we have to go on. Note that it is very consistant with the maneuver employed in "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I". --Peter Farago 00:52, 6 March 2006 (CST)

I didn't have a "lack of a response" Farago, I already said I think this should not use the old format; it was an early script thing. "Red line" refers to known space, not engine capability. I mean they don't even make mention of it in terms of FTL engine limits in LDYB part II. --The Merovingian 21:10, 15 March 2006 (CST)

Source. --Peter Farago 23:07, 15 March 2006 (CST)

Well, just the transcript for LDYB II I guess. Look, I'm not really saying anything new, I'm just sayiing that I didn't drop my response, that that's still my own position on the subject and lets try to work this out. --The Merovingian 23:48, 15 March 2006 (CST)

Okay. As above, without positive evidence to the contrary, I continue to believe that we should defer to the miniseries draft. LDYB II does not contradict this at all, in my opinion - the Cylon Brain in a Vat simply allowed them to compute more precise jumps. --Peter Farago 00:39, 16 March 2006 (CST)

I still disagree. It was probably removed from the script in the first place because it doesn't make sense. At the least, I feel a presentation of both possiblities as equally likely would be better. --CalculatinAvatar 21:58, 22 March 2006 (CST)

I still disagree with basing this just on the early Miniseries draft; I mean a lot of stuff was changed since then. If you've got something else to point out that would be great. I really don't know. I wish they'd clarify this in the future.--The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 23:30, 22 March 2006 (CST)

The early draft is still better than pure speculation. --Peter Farago 02:42, 23 March 2006 (CST)

"the power available to form a wormhole"? exactly where does that comment come from? because it looks totally unsubstantiated to me, from what weve seen of FTL drives a wormhole is one of the least likely theories on there science, especially after the atmospheric jumps weve seen and the instantanious nature of a jump, if a wormhole is the mechanism used it has to be created moving, and moving fast because ships dont move or accelerate toward a stationary singularity and it has to be big enougth for the ship to enter otherwise you leave bits behind we see no spatial disturbances or no returning images of a ships destination thru a wormhole.

as i never critisise witout sugesting things a much more valid reason for a red line may be the lack of FTL sensors, if a ship is atempting lets arbritarily pick 10 LYs as a jump distance then any real time observational evidence of the target destination is 10 years out of date, along side the difficulty of calculating gravitational interactions when any larger number than 2 objects are involved and some of the other items on the pages list may make the red line a hybrid of both thesis' where where maximum jump range into the unknown is shorter than max range when jumping to familiar areas where recent astronomical data is available --Furrygopher 14:59, 4 March 2007 (CST)

Right. The red line is mostly a computational problem, which is why the Cylons can make far longer jumps. --Serenity 15:14, 4 March 2007 (CST)

Specifics

If I assume that the Red Line refers to the FTL Drive's capability, is it referring to the distance from a particular point in space that jumps become too dangerous or the particular ship's range itself? --Rapturous 18:15, 27 July 2007 (CDT)

Welcome, Rapturous. It's inferred as the ship's maximum range to calculate a safe jump based on known coordinates as well as the relative power or efficiency of the jump engines to a lesser degree. Without any coordinates, a blind jump occurs. With bad coordinates, disaster is possible as well by collision. Reference the episodes "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I" where Starbuck is able to return to Caprica with only one jump using her captured Raider (the number of jumps needed by the Fleet would be many more based on both the civilian ship's abilities as well as Galactica and her ability to calculate a jump safe for everyone). Cylons are living computers and can make immensely long and precise jumps with their technology. The Colonials use Caprica-Valerii's ability to calculate a series of jumps to Caprica again for a rescue mission for the Caprica Resistance using more Cylon hardware, in this case, using Heavy Raider avionics as the nav computer in "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I". On the last jump, one of the Raptors has a miscalculation and jumps (materializes) inside a mountain. --Spencerian 20:05, 27 July 2007 (CDT)

presumably the Redline distance is variable depending on the type of jump being made. A jump meant to end up near a particular planet would require fairly accurate information about that body's orbital motion and its interaction with the gravitational effects of the other major bodies in the system. jumping into the void between planets ought to require much less specific data and thus allow a longer jump. Which might well be why Adama chose the Prolmar Sector as a target on that first jump of the exodus. while there is no real world definition for sector in terms of stellar geography yet, in science fiction it commonly used to refer to a region of space several lightyears across, in much the same way that one might refer to grid squares on a map. Most of a sector would thus be empty space between stars. With cubic lightyears of empty space and the odds of coming out on or near anything larger than a speck of dust infinitesimal, it wouldn't matter if the calculations drop you a little off target. Mithril2098 (talk) 00:39, 9 November 2019 (PST)

Re-imagined Series definition: a point in space behind which an accumulative error creeps into FTL jump calculations ^{(TRS: "Miniseries", "Pegasus")}

Re-imagined Series definition: all-purpose vulgarism; Colonial version of "fuck" (see: frak)

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: technology enabling travel across distances faster than the speed of light would permit, see: FTL

Original Series definition: region of space or planet, see also Quadrant. Usually named after a Greek letter (space sectors), or a geographic formation on the surface of a planet (geographic sector, e.g. Sector Hekla on the planet Arcta")