Z

Mind you, this is all just fan wankery.

Interesting point, but I’m not sure I completely get it. Wouldn’t the problem with an FTL drive be that you can’t actually observe the point you are jumping to? The light (which means information) from the point you’re jumping to will only be traveling at light speed (of course). So to complete an FTL jump you will have to compute the conditions at the target point, which is in essence predicting the future from your original point. [This makes sense in my head if not on the post, but I'll let it fly anyway.]

Pike’s bellyaching moment: a further conceit is that the cylons can jump farther because they have better computation. Which makes sense until you realize that computation isn’t a factor. Space is WAY more empty than it isn’t. The defining factor would be observation, and it would be simple to jump to a point close, but still way empty, to make the much simpler observations for a final approach.

As to the line in the mini where Tigh asked Adama about doing a jump with it having been twenty years…I interpreted that as taking a car up to highway speeds after never getting above 25 MPH for quite some time. Even though it theoretically possible the concern was would the vehicle rattle apart.

And thank you, Melissa. I’ve pretty much got the entire original SW trilogy memorized (and parts of the prequels) so any time you and Timbuck want to have a showdown, bring it on. I prefer a good fight to all this sneaking around.

(Sometimes I am amazed, simply amazed that I ever found a woman to marry me! Because I am such a dork.)

I was kind of left with that impression too, but I then assumed that it was just the first time in very long time that Galactica itself had made an FTL jump. Other ships that were more active would have likely made jumps more recently (especially given how reliable the FTLs have proven to be throughout the series). It was true however, that the fleet made the first plotted jump to beyond the “Red Line”. It was never clear to me though if the Red Line was the farthest jump any one had made from any given point, of if the Red Line was the farthest anyone had ever been from the Colonies.

Actually, I thought that when the Galactica made the jump in the miniseries it was the first time anyone had executed an FTL jump in quite some time. At least that’s the implication I drew from it (and my season one set is with my mother-in-law so I can’t put the DVD in the player and check. So if anyone can help, I’d appreciate it).

You like that?

Speaking of Hollywood, Nick I love your idea of “hollywood rounds” hahaha!

Timbuck – just because you have a “real” job and I sit in front of my computer all day, don’t get mad at me that I kicked your ass in movie ratings. Seriously.

Oh, and Armando? Nice.

That doesn’t sound so hard…

Whoa! The Grand Puba is cool (but should probably get a day job). : )

Mike P re: mini-skirts. They were hot then and is this world things tend to happen again. Now lets get 6 and D’Anna in mini-skirts!

Someone should ask The Fair Melissa how many movies she’s rated on Netflix. She is Queen of All Movie Trivia. She hangs w me quoting original canon Star Wars and sometimes I amaze even myself…

Audra: here is my virtual vote for ending the ship discussion. I’ve got your back! (ship=not-AWESOME anymore)

I was listening to an NFL podcast by these 2 guys who also are always tangential. They get fan posts loving the tangents nore than the actual content. So keep the tangents coming. Punchy podcasts are also AWESOME.

Thank you Fair Melissa for the movie info! And – did Chuck call you the “coolest”?!

http://www.popoholic.com/2007/08/02/futurama-new-season-trailer/

If It’s any consolation, Max, I actually wrote a three part canon setting the title that shall not be uttered. Seeing as how I don’t really have the equipment to record myself singing all three parts, and that I don’t really sing very well anyway, and that you can’t add attachments to the general email on here so that I could send the “triumvirate” the sheet music, I haven’t sent it along.

I’m so lame.

I’d be interested in a theory of everything podcast…but not now. I’d be more interested closer to Razor or right before the Season 4 premiere.

Flying car?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,291889,00.html

(still waiting to hear my “words that shall not be spoken” that I emailed in, starting to feel neglected…)

Indeed. Perhaps a more apt parallel would be with the ancient Minoans, about whom we know very little aside from the fact that they were a major nautical power in the ancient Mediterranean and that they were, supposedly, more technologically advanced than many of their neighbors.

(Historians out there–am I thinking of the right civilization?)

The “frak you” line is used in both, but slightly different. In CtoA, it’s “frak you, frak you, frak you, who’s next?” which is sooo not the same as the “frak you, frak you, frak you, you’re cool, and frak you I’m out” from HB.

Damn! That means it’s turning into Leoben. Wipe its hard drive, ASAP!

P.S. Thanks everyone for confirming my “bold” problems. Armando, every time I restart my computer, it gives me a warning saying it almost saw God this time. Should I be worried?

With all of the references to Douglas Adams Hitchhiker series, noone has borought up that there were TALKING TOASTERS in the series and novels!

My Gods…that’s the true Cylon God! It’s a talking toaster!

Wait a minute, there was one on Red Dwarf as well! the 13th Cylon is a TOASTER!

http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=14496

Minnesotia Actual

That doesn’t sound so bad, come to think of it.

Harry as the Final Cylon? No wonder Voldemort can’t seem to kill him. Never use a horcrux when a tub of goo will do.

Seriously, though, Sean, Chuck and Audra should have a “live” podcast sometime, in front of an audience. It would be very cool. How many people are coming to your Dallas meet-up? Maybe do it then — not quite a huge audience, maybe, but record from the bar, include the meet-up participants in that week’s discussion….? Just a thought.

Also, big thanks to really exploring the boat issue – yes, possible holes – AND I would like to add, the amount of detail that went into that ship required a lot of knowledge about how boats of yore would have operated – not like just making a mythological ship or recreating something like Noah’s Ark.

Audra – please, never stop singing – I want a Cylon bo-dy……

Grand Puba- As to your “foundation theory” This is very close to things I have said in the past so I definately think you are on to something. I take it a step further to say that Adama is the last cylon. I also think that Galactica escaping and their entire journey to Kobol was something that the Cylons meant to happen. They wanted Galactica find Kobol and they want them to find Earth. The events in the “Eye of Jupiter” show us that the history of the humans and the Cylons stretch back thousands of years… likely as far back as the times of Pythia.
.

1. You guys should have your own morning drive time talk show on the radio.

2. The Venture Bros. rules!

Anyway, Chuck: my thoughts on the missing technology is akin to Peter’s et al. Technology is one of those things that we take for granted until one day we lose the people who can help us make it. Suppose the original humans left Kobol on spaceships yet they didn’t have enough engineers, astrophycisists and other specialists on those ships to immediately recreate the technology on the colonies (not to mention the time, knowledge and resources required to even begin conceiving of space travel).

Another possibility might be symbolic: take our myth of Noah’s ark. It (the original, or at least oldest, Assyrian version, I think. Someone who knows more help me out, please) comes from a time when most boats were simple canoes, yet the proportions described in the Biblical story are HUUUUUGE. This either means that God truly came down and gave the specific proportions to this one guy to build the boat, along with all of the resources to do it (as well as collecting two…or seven, depending on which version you follow…of every animal) in one single, magical act or, more likely, represents a mythic ideal much as hyperdrive and FTL drives are for us. So perhaps the colonists left Kobol on very primitive space ships. After all, it seems Kobol isn’t really that far from the 12 colonies.

The other thing is, just because we don’t SEE the colonials using ships in the all too brief glimpses of Caprica we got in the miniseries doesn’t mean they don’t use them. But I’m sure someone’s mentioned that already and given you craaaaaaap for it, so I won’t.

Sorry if I’m being redundant.

Punchy? I love punchy!

Jim

My theory on the original journey from Kobol to the colonies.

All previous posters have assumed that the ships that left Kobol had FTL drives. My theory is that if all mankind began from Kobol, then FTL drives would not have been created as all mankind were on one planet, necessity is the mother of invention. When the great catastrophe occurred, the surviving humans would have left Kobol in 13 generational ships using conventional propulsion. After tens maybe hundreds of years, a) the technology would be ancient and in a state of disrepair, the original builders and maintenance crew would be long dead and knowledge to repair or replace the technology would have been lost.

When the colonists arrived at their final destinations, the ships and any technology still operational would have been gutted, to create an initial safe haven and mass transport of people to other parts of the planet would have been created with any plentiful materials located on the planet, which is usually wood. The easiest vehicle for moving mass amounts of cargo be it animal, vegetable or mineral is a wooden ship. Taking a modern day example the United States consumes on average 20.6 million barrels of crude oil a day. To transport that amount we could use an oil tanker (e.g. SS Universe Leader) or a plane (cargo converted Boeing 747)

Assume average density of crude oil = 0.8505 kg/litre

Transport Type
Barrels Needed Per Day
Litres Needed per day
Total Weight Needed Per Day (kg)
Transport Max Load (kg)
Number Transports Per Day

Oil Tanker
20.6 million
2,417,364,680
2,055,968,660
57,088,062
36

Cargo Plane
20.6 million
2,417,364,680
2,055,968,660
140,000
14,685

From these numbers it would be logistically idiotic not to use sailing ships. After a few generations, one of the colonies would be able to raise their tech levels back to conventional space travel and then invent FTL drives, which would be a NEW technology to that particular colony.

This theory could also explain the divergent cultures of all the colonies. Since we can assume the colonies are in different star systems some distance away from each other ( Home Part 2). There would have been no contact for a few generations and the colonists would have developed there own cultures and beliefs depending on there environment.

Aerelon: might not have much in the way of minerals would develop agricultural industries.

Caprica: probably having a temperate climate and a plentiful supply of necessities would have time and energy to devote to science and art.

Sagittaron: probably a hostile environment, the populous suffering terribly, look to religion to provide them with spiritual comfort.

After a few generations one of the colonies, (probably Caprica), invents the FTL drive, contacts the other colonies and begins the long process of re-integration, which by the beginning of the mini series is still not universally accepted. For example Tom Zarek and the S.F.M (Bastille Day) and Leoben Convoy Attempting to steal large scale munitions to sell on the open market.(Mini Series).

While I am posting I would like to include my theory of the Cylon Skin Jobs.

Previously in Battlestar Galactica…

I believe we have been mis-lead and that The Final Five are in fact The First Five. These models then made the same mistake as the colonists and created The Secondary Seven, the first of this group being Brother Cavil. They govern by consensus and eventually a decision has to be made about what to do about the colonists after their incursion into Cylon space (Hero).

The Final Five vote against genocide, The Significant Seven vote for genocide. This then leads to a civil war with toaster against toaster. The Significant Seven emerge victorious and expel The Final Five survivors and supporters from the Cylon home world, but it is a pyrrhic victory as the homeworld has been virtually destroyed. Now The Significant Seven need a new home and carry out the original majority mandate. But not before completing the project I will call operation Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

This consists of the mass downloading of all toasters, raiders and skin jobs into new bodies. We know that the Cylon consciousness is temporarily stored before downloading into a new body and unique memories can be distributed between members of the same model. During this storage period portions of memory relating to The Final Five are erased, altered and generally frakked with so that most conscious knowledge of The Final Five is lost. I believe this is carried out by Brother Cavil as I have always suspected he knows more about the The Final Five than he lets on. Un-tampered memories are still in the storage unit and become easier to access the more times you download. Something Brother Cavil claims to have done the most. After the operation is complete The Significant Seven begin the dark machinations to bring about the destruction of the colonists by infiltrating Colonial society.

Meanwhile in deep space…

The Final Five may have lost the civil war but will not stand idly by. They begin there own infiltrations. They cannot stop the genocide but they can limit the damage and make sure there are some survivors, civilian and military. (I call it the Foundation Theory).

Step 1: Push through a Colonial bill allowing the conversion of an old battlestar to a space museum. The Significant Seven will consider an outdated ship as strategically insignificant.

Step 2: Place Commander Adama in charge. His experience of Cylon tactics and hatred of networked computers will be crucial in the first 24 hours of the attack.

Step 3: Place a Saul Tigh Sleeper agent as his XO. Since a previous Colonel Tigh model was Adama’s closest friend, no one will suspect he is a Cylon. Just to be on the safe side, program him with a drink problem, leadership issues and makes sure his wife travels in space as much as possible. Preferably on her back. The more he is seen as a joke, The less suspicious he will be.

Step 4: Alter the bill so that instead of the museum being orbit around Caprica, it is in fact three hours into deep space. Our government sleepers will deflect any embarrassing questions.

Step 5: Place a Galen Tyrol Sleeper agent as his senior NCO. His mission will be to carry out the slowest decommissioning of a battlestar in colonial history. His secondary mission will be to keep BSG fighting fit. This will be expedited by creating “Delivery Note Errors” such as “Deliver 27
Mark II Vipers for display purposes” rather than “Deliver 2 Mark II Vipers for display purposes”

I think you get the idea. I believe that all major happenings in the mini series were pre-arranged by either The Final Five or
The Significant Seven. Take Ragnar Anchorage. I believe the The Final Five made sure it was fully stocked and fully operational. A final five model made sure the battlestar went to that location for re-supply. A Significant Seven model was despatched to stop them, not knowing about the peculiar effect of the radiation on Cylon physiology.

What do the other posters think of my theory?

Stroogie: Try PotterCast. They can still be on the punchy side, but they cater to a generally older listenership than Mugglecast.

Armando — It happens in catching up. I just was so avalanched last week I gave up.

Phil — From what has been seen about Razor there may be a small attempt to fill in some of the back story about how the Colonies came about. In the presumed non-canonical novels one of them notes that the Colonies came about due to the Cylon War as a means of joint defense that evolved into a confederation. If memory serves the novel that brings this potential backstory up is The Cylons’ Secret. I have the book here somewhere but it may take me a while to find it.

Melissa and Radio Picon — A good paper to be written some day would be to talk about the sins of Felix Gaeta. The character of Felix Gaeta does seem to parallel the first officer of Moby Dick in several respects especially in terms of how Felix relates to Gaius. ‘Tis merely a thought…

And two unrelated points to my notes above:

1. The preview for tomorrow night’s Eureka appears to be a take-off on an old episode of ST:TNG titled “Remember Me”. This does not look too good.

2. Is it appropriate or proper for a poll to be made relative to a “Theory of Everything” episode?

I thought Indira Gandhi was the first woman Indian president. Or was she Prime Minister?

The other interesting point is regardless of whether the Colonials were brought prior to inventing their own means of space flight or if they when through a stage of regression, this might imply that there was an extended period where the 12 colonies were out of contact with each other for a while…

“Chuck, thanks for the much better explanation of what I was hinting at with my comment about the sailing ship. To clarify and feeding off the discussions that followed there are a couple of possibilities:

1) The Colonials were brought from Kobol to the Colonies by a greater power (the actual Lords of Kobol?) at a point when or prior to a point when sailing technology was still state of the art. If this is the case then they would have had to further evolve their own ability for space flight over a few thousand years. The one part I like about this theory is that not only would the Lords of Kobol be real but also the transportation via a greater power could be compatible with humanity actually originating on Earth. As some point in our distant past a subgroup of humans were originally brought from Earth to Kobol before their subsequent transport to the Colonies and back to Earth.

2) The Colonials originally came from Kobol under their own power using their own technology, and they subsequently regressed. A number of great comments last week presented reasonable scenarios positing that if the Colonials arrived with only a small number of vessels (like the current RTF) they would not have enough advanced resources to continue their current level of technology and would have to rely on and reinvent older, more basic forms of transportation. Again this scenario would have assume that the regression was so complete to have lost any historical description their exodus from Kobol, and that their only current account in a myth (the Sacred Scrolls) relies on the existence of supernatural Lords of Kobol.”