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

Time for a Technobabble Exam

This article came out of my head as watched the mini-series for the umpteenth time after wondering if the writers really took the time to know what numbers they're having the characters say and if they mean anything real. I'm neither a math expert or physics expert, so do check my math. I've started on mini-series datum, and as others rewatch season 1 and 2, we'll be able to add more on distances, speeds, weapons, and the like. Some of this information may already be on other pages, but aren't expanded or elaborated.

Perhaps someone knows of what earthly materials Galactica would have to be made of to withstand the compressive energies of a kiloton nuclear warhead without major structural deformity (Mini-Series). This is meant to be a page of speculation based on points from the series, so have fun with it. --Spencerian 11:35, 8 December 2005 (EST)

I'm a little confused. Based on your analysis we know Colonial One's distance from Caprica, not Galactica's, so how can we measure Colonial One's speed?

Galactica is at point A. Caprica is at point C. Colonial One is at point B between them, 30 light-minutes from point C and 5.5 ship-hours from point A. I don't see how we can solve for Colonial One's velocity with this data.

Roslin's conversation with Jack (which I believed survived its way to the final cut) was in real-time, however, so we can probably assume that they'd made it all the way back to Caprica by the time the nukes went off.

Oh, one last thing - if BSG follows real-world physics, the fastest way to get somewhere in space is to accelerate at full capacity until you're halfway to your destination, then flip around and decelerate the rest of the distance. Since there's no air resistance, there isn't any "top speed" to contend with - a ship's speed would only be limited by its fuel stores and maximum acceleration. --Peter Farago 14:36, 8 December 2005 (EST)

I did fudge Colonal One's location, assuming it and Caprica are almost at the same location to work out the travel times and distance. Even if Colonial One is as much as 30 light-minutes out, I may be able to reverse-calculate that amount of distance and recompute the time. (Damn. Now I sound like a character from Star Trek. Where's my heisenberg compensator!?) Yes, Jack's conversation was in the final cut, although there was a draft scene where we see him on Caprica in the hellish bombardment result, which wasn't in the aired show. The ship was 3 hours from Caprica when news of the attacks reached them, and I would hope that the ship stopped their approach at that point or close to it. Since wireless is speed-of-light communications. either the writers screwed up since 3 hours from Caprica at my calculated cruise speed would mean that a wireless message exchange would be over 120 million miles, and that would take it about 12 minutes between sends.

Or, Colonial One was close to Caprica, but that would also mean that it was fodder--we saw Valerii's Raptor near Caprica and descending, and the space around the planet was filled with basestars and a dead battlestar. In Star Trek, the writers explain off relativistic communications with "subspace", but I am not going there. It's more likely that the ship was close enough for wireless...maybe about twice the distance from our Earth to our moon, or about 500,000 miles. That would make for a 4 second delay, not so much of a comm delay (and can be written off when the viewer see the conversation), but far enough away to keep the Cylon armada there from noticing right off on DRADIS (though obviously a fighter or two did). After looking at my DVD, that idea is most probable beyond saying the writers screwed up.

Yep, all ships, including Vipers, have to brake once inertia kicks in. We see lots of instances in the mini-series of what happens when the rules of inertia are adhered--or ignored. Something else to add and incorporate. And, then, there's that artificial gravity thing that needs explainin'. --Spencerian 16:07, 8 December 2005 (EST)

Just reviewed that scene, and your calculations seem sound. Billy was stating the time delay between Galactica and Caprica, not Colonial One's current location, and the flight was obviously just getting underway. Furthermore, the delay between the nuclear attacks and Adama's report ("preliminary reports indicate a thermonuclear device in the fifty megaton range was detonated over caprica city thirty minutes ago") makes it clear that it's a 30-minute delay each way, not round trip.

One more thing, though. Galactica is clearly already en route to Caprica - Adama indicates that they're on their way home when he talks to Tigh, and it can be seen in space with its sublight engines active. This complicates their rendezvous substantially, since Colonial One would have to reverse course and match speed with Galactica in order to avoid simply crossing paths. On the other hand, it's apparently not accelerating there as fast as Colonial One is capable of, or else that ship's return trip would be impossible. It may be fair to consider it a stationary object. --Peter Farago 17:35, 8 December 2005 (EST)

This is a neat page. I just found it. Anyway, I think, if I were the interplanetary equivalent of the FAA, I'd determine that civillian ships should obey certain speedlimits (excluding emergency craft, I guess, with siren-equivalents going), and military craft to certain, slightly higher, speed limits (except in times of war). So, this would mean that people wouldn't generally be accellerating half way to a destination and decellerating the other half.

Also, since Galactica's crew knows she'll be rendesvousing with various civillian craft, she's probably doing some zig-zagging to meet up with them, so not travelling in a straight line. Keep in mind, she's a destination for an event. Getting to Caprica isn't probably very high on the priority list until after the ceremony.

I wish the writer's had done the math. It looks, to me, like they didn't, really. I mean--I can understand an aversion to getting into the nitty-gritty details, but important things like a kind of average acceleration speed seem handy to have.

Lastly, a few loose ends I have. Do you guys think wireless is basically just radio and, thus, works at the speed of light? Have you noticed that smaller craft with huge aft-oriented engines have little problem doing quick-decelleration maneuvers without flipping around (eg. the Marine boarding Raptors in Bastille Day)? Does anyone have any thoughts about the feasability of what we've seen the Vipers do as far as all the flipping and turning and such? --Day 03:51, 9 December 2005 (EST)

All things considered, I think they did pretty good in some parts of math. Based on the early Mini-Series script floating around (where it specifically indicates the term wireless and that it was their term for radio), and given that its use is identical to what is used in the Mini-Series, yes, wireless is radio. On Galactica's movement: for purposes of simplicity, Gods, yes, please keep her a stationary object for the equations. From a travel standpoint, it would be more sensible to keep Galactica in one place since a civilian transport wouldn't want to make changes in course at FTL speed 0.11. She is likely moving a little, but nowhere near Colonial Heavy 798's speeds, and in no rush to get to Caprica. On small ships: I think the Viper physics model is great. Sometimes the Raptor movement seems a bit too Star Wars, I agree, but I'll have to pay more attention to that to make a better assessment. I think I'm going to tackle that artificial gravity matter today--it's been stewing in my head. And has anyone noticed that Galactica's sublight engines are ALWAYS on, even if she appears stationary? I think its a beautiful effect, but I get distracted by it when I watch the fight at the Anchorage. Here's the battlestar, now dorsal up and flipped, but its' engines still look like they're burning, and hard. Don't know what's up with that. Oh, and I guess Vipers can manage high sublight speeds like a civilian transport, since Colonial Heavy was escorted back to Caprica and the last Mark VII squadron was en route back as well. There's the matter of keeping humans from turning to goo at these speeds, but I'll work on it until my head explodes (shouldn't be too long). --Spencerian 08:54, 9 December 2005 (EST)

People not gooifying is probably tied into artificial gravity. However, I imagine that smaller craft don't have the gravity equipment (if I were designing them, I'd probably leave it off to lower mass) since Adama talks about a tight turn meaning Kara would have to be pulling Gs like fighter pilots today do... So either the gravity equipment can generate a G, but not counter inertia (which would mean splat), or it's not included in the fighters. However, Raptors would seem to have it, since everyone always stands on the floor in those things, even in orbit over Kobol before being rammed by Raptors. --Day 16:08, 9 December 2005 (EST)

Remember the scene where Adama jokingly tells Billy that they're having good luck in getting to Kobol as both are pressed into their descending Raptor by 5 or 6 Gs? I agree, the artificial gravity compensates as if you were in a 1 G situation. I bet the Vipers are weightless to save the weight of an artificial gravity device, however, and I've yet to recall where a pilot takes something off and drops it inside a fighter. --Spencerian 16:18, 9 December 2005 (EST)

Anyone given any thought to the time dilation caused by movement at such speeds? Might make for some interesting dialogue in an episode, if anything. Drumstick 21:22, 30 December 2005 (EST)

If I understand my relativistic principles, sublight flight would have a slight relativistic effect. In the case of lightspeed, there is no relativistic effect as ships do not actually move at light speed, but move from one location to another--apparent FTL. I'm not sufficiently knowledgeable to calculate the actual relativistic effects on, say, Colonial One's occupants at their cruise speed. Maybe someone else is knowledgeable. --Spencerian 19:33, 31 December 2005 (EST)

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)

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)