Talk:Timeline (RDM)/Archive5

Only twelve days between Caprica Boomer's conception and morning sickness? That put's it at the fourth week, which is pretty much before she notices she is late. Sounds like a possible plot hole. Perhaps the caprica segments were not at the same time as the main fleet episodes or Cylon physilology makes them super sensitive to morning sickness. --Shemnon 18:35, 28 Jul 2005 (EDT)

In fact, the times used here are taken from the captions introducing the Caprica sections in each episode, so a discrepancy is not possible. I too find the interval implausibly short, but that's just how it is, I guess. --Peter Farago 03:18, 29 Jul 2005 (EDT)

Roslin might not live to see Earth; although I don't have a recording of the episode, I thought she just said that she would "lead" them to Earth before her death. And since Roslin was responsible for finding the path to Earth (the starmaps in the Tomb of Athena) it might be argued that she's already 'led' them on the right path to Earth...Kuralyov 17:56, 27 August 2005 (EDT)

Re: Home, Part II: I realize that it's been difficult to firmly establish dates during this season, and anticipate that it will only get worse now that the main Kobol's Last Gleaming – Home arc is complete and the story resumes a more episodic feel. As a result, it would be helpful to justify any timeline estimates on the relevant episode's Notes section, as I have done for Resistance and The Farm. --Peter Farago 18:13, 27 August 2005 (EDT)

Saul and Bill vs. The Evil Cylons

So wait... The Cylong War started when William Adama was, roughly, ten and Saul Tigh was being born? It then went on for about 10 years, thus ending shortly after Adama would have been able to be in the military (assuming both that he wouldn't lie about his age to get in and that the Colonial Fleet has similar age-restrictions to the US Army--both pure speculation) and when Tigh was 10ish. This is my understanding from reading the time-line. I've frankly not paid much attention to when they mention these things on-screen. However, if this is true, then how did the ten-year-old Tigh learn about Cylon boarding party tactics after the Armistice? I have the (perhaps mistaken) impression that both Tigh and Adama are veterans of the Cylon War, but this timeline doesn't seem to allow for that. What's going on here? Am I daft? This is entirely possible. --Day 04:03, 10 September 2005 (EDT)

Untangling Season 2

After their meticulous efforts at keeping track of the timeline during the first season, TPTB have apparently started slacking off this season. A clear timeline is an important resource, however, so let's start untangling things.

Scattered, Valley of Darkness and Fragged all clearly take place within the same 24-36 hours.

Resistance takes place over two days, and begins on day 53 at the earliest. (Ron Moore's podcast comments very tenuously suggest an earliest date of Day 54.) At the end of the episode, Roslin escapes and Bill Adama wakes up. In "The Farm", Gaeta states that Roslin's escape took place "last week". This means "The Farm" begins more than one day after "Resistance", or else Gaeta would have said "yesterday".

Begins: Day 53
Ends: Day 54 (earliest possible)

Begins: Day 54
Ends: Day 55 (earliest, w/r/t Podcast comments)

Begins: Day 56
Ends: Day 57 (latest, if Tigh was in command for 8 days and "The Farm" began on Day 59)

Begins: Day 59
Ends: Day 60 (latest probable, if Tigh was in command for 11 days and "The Farm" began on Day 62)

Begins: Day 61
Ends: Day 62 (latest possible, if Tigh was in command for 11 days and "The Farm" began on Day 64)

Here, I consider Days 54-55 to be most likely. Tyrol must have been imprisoned very shortly after he arrived on Galactica, and can't have taken more than a day in isolation with Valerii to speak to her. This assumption is important, as "Flight of the Phoenix" must be dated based on it.

The Farm begins with Adama resuming command. According to D'Anna Biers in "Final Cut", Tigh was in command for "over a week". I take this to mean 8-11 days, since if it had been 12 or more, she probably would have said "almost two weeks". That puts the beginning of this episode at day 59 (earliest) or day 62 (latest).

Begins: Day 59 (earliest) (Kobol's Last Gleaming Part I (Day 51) + 8 days)
Begins: Day 62 (latest probable) (+11 days)
Begins: Day 64 (latest possible) (+13 days)

It is not clear how much time it took Adama to resume duty after his conversation with Tigh in "Resistance", but 4-7 days of rest is quite plausible. For the purpose of this timeline I will assume Tigh was in command for 9 days, and that the episode began on Day 60. This is completely arbitrary.

Home, Part I begins immediately after the end of "The Farm".

Final Cut takes place 10 days after the last Cylon contact. Since there were none since Valley of Darkness (Day 51), unless we count the Roslin Faction's skirmish on Kobol, and the episode clearly takes place much later than day 61, we must assume there has been a Cylon contact at some point after "Home, Part II", and that it's been more than ten days since then.

Flight of the Phoenix features Cally's release from the brig. Since Bill Adama was being lenient when he sentenced her (in The Farm, some time after she would've been initially imprisoned), we may assume he granted her time served. If she killed Boomer on the evening of day 55, her first day in the brig would have been completed on the evening of day 56, her 30th on the evening of day 85, and she would've been released on the morning of day 86.

Begins: Day 85 (earliest possible, if "Resistance" ended on day 54)
Begins: Day 86 (earliest, if "Resistance" ended on day 55)
Begins: Day 88 (latest, if "Resistance" ended as late as possible, and Tigh was in command for 8 days)
Begins: Day 91 (latest probable, if "Resistance" ended as late as possible, and Tigh was in command for 11 days)
Begins: Day 93 (latest possible, if "Resistance" ended as late as possible, and Tigh was in command for 13 days)

As per "Resistance", we assume Day 86 here.

The duration of the episode is difficult to determine. We can probably put an upper limit on it based on the progress of Roslin's disease in the following episodes, but in his podcast, RDM notes that the timeline was kept deliberately vague for dramatic purposes:

The true timeline of how long it would really take Tyrol to actually build one of these things from scratch would probably be much - it would be weeks, realistically. But you'd rather tell the story in one package. You'd rather tell the story, hold the viewer in the moment of the scene, make them invest themselves in the effort and pay it off. And so you can fudge the timeline, you can kind of skate by it. There's no definitive statement in the episode of how long this is all taking. It's kept purposely vague. It's not - there's no, like, y'know, clock going on. No one's mentioning a passage of time really since he started working on the viper. You could probably find cryptic references here and there that might nail it down to a specific timeline - maybe.

Although interpreting Moore's comments may not be wise, his notion that the Blackbird would take at least "weeks" to complete is probably plausible. Thus we can guess that the episode ends at the earliest 14 days later.
Ends: Day 99 (if "Resistance" ended on day 54)
Ends: Day 100 (if "Resistance" ended on day 55)
Ends: Day 102 (if "Resistance" ended as late as possible, and Tigh was in command for 8 days)
Ends: Day 105 (if "Resistance" ended as late as possible, and Tigh was in command for 11 days)
Ends: Day 107 (if "Resistance" ended as late as possible, and Tigh was in command for 13 days)

An upper limit on the end date of this episode is provided by the start of "Pegasus". When more information is available we will probably want to expand the date range as generously as possible, given the lengthy construction task in depicts.

Pegasus is very difficult to date because of the trouble with the duration of "Flight of the Phoenix". All that can be said for certain is that, since Roslin is still on her feet, it can't possibly be more than 30 days after that episode begins, and probably no more than 20. Conceivably, "Pegasus" could have begun the very day "Flight of the Phoenix" ended, with the christening ceremony and Roslin's appearance on Galactica bookmarking the same visit. Otherwise, there were probably several days or more between her visits.
- This is a slightly difficult reading, if only because of Adama's line "Well, Madam President, you picked a hell of a day for a visit" - she didn't pick the day for her visit in "Flight of the Phoenix", the deck crew did.

Fan speculation has indicated that Epiphanies takes place very near the end of the life span projected for Roslin in "Flight of the Phoenix". Hopefully more information will be available to date later episodes from that point, but if not, it's probably the last episode that will be dateable with any degree of certainty. For now, we can state that at the latest, the episode begins:

Begins: Day 115 (if "Resistance" ended on day 54)
Begins: Day 116 (if "Resistance" ended on day 55)
Begins: Day 118 (if "Resistance" ended as late as possible, and Tigh was in command for 8 days)
Begins: Day 121 (if "Resistance" ended as late as possible, and Tigh was in command for 11 days)
Begins: Day 123 (if "Resistance" ended as late as possible, and Tigh was in command for 13 days)

More to come. --Peter Farago 19:24, 18 September 2005 (EDT)

How You Can Help

I need thoughts on the following:

How many days was Kara Thrace at the Farm on Caprica?
How many days do both parts of "Home" span?

Further cleanup

Firstly, I'm thinking that "Epiphanies" will take place exactly 30 days after "Flight of the Phoenix" (getting it down to the wire, last possible moment to save Roslin, etc). However, I used to think "Flight of the Phoenix" happened on day 86, now it's been moved to day 89 (I don't understand the reasoning), and FotP's date is based on Cally's arrest at the end of "Resistance", however recently the deleted scenes revealed the "The Farm" takes place one week after "Fragged". I'm not adept enough at this to sort it all out, maybe someone else can. --Ricimer 10:58, 10 December 2005 (EST)

Which scene? --Peter Farago 16:33, 10 December 2005 (EST)

During the Roslin halucination scene in "Resistance", I believe; she says that the Quorum has been unsure of whether to support her or not for "a week now". Granted, it was a dream sequence, but I think it accurately reflects what the tone of the episode was.--Ricimer 22:07, 10 December 2005 (EST)