December 9, 2006
GWC Podcast #19
Wow. “The Passage” really moved us — and gave us a lot to think about. Highlights: Kat (’nuff said), trying to understand D’Anna and Baltar’s interpretation of hybrid-speak, speculating about the “remaining five,” and wondering why it’s so difficult for Sci-fi standards to allow Starbuck to say “gave him head.” (There — that wasn’t so tough.)
Galactic Watercooler 
Modern Geek 
Save Eureka 
Eff This Week 
FitSmart
I think the line was “I like the tremors.”
I think Tigh is the XO again and Helo will assume that ambiguous role of LSO; this would allow them to off Captain Kelly (in a suitably dignified way one would hope) and stop paying that guest star to come back to pipe in with necessary tech talk.
Don’t get me wrong, Captain Kelly is great!
It says something, doesn’t it, when the welcome bit of humor is still quite dark humor?
Oh, on the subject of a good end, there are most assuredly many worse than that of the late CAG.
There is of course that of the first Galactica CAG introduced, as well as the rest of his squadron, in which they were immobilized by mysterious Cylon virus and forced to stare at the (for gloriously dramatic effect) slowly moving missiles that killed them.
Then of course there were the casualties in Act of Contrition. What says life of a pilot better than dying in a blaze of glory? How about dying in a flight deck mishap with about a dozen of your friends?
Then, there’s the newbie fate of getting to fly against Scar, your first time in an actual CAP. The worst part, everyone knows you are going to die, and well… What can you say?
Oh an of course, don’t be a Raptor pilot as that would entail a number of very messy ends that included by ventilated during the Season One finale, being slaughtered and used as bait in Captain’s Hand and jumping into a mountain in the Season Two finale.
Don’t even get me started on a marine’s prospects… …or the various possible, ignominious ends of a crewman on a Battlestar.
The lesson is clear, life sucks; war sucks more, and war for the men and women of the Colonial Fleet and Colonial Marine Corps sucks most.
I just started my lazy morning with the podcast. I feel like a broken record but GREAT job as always. I think the 7 models are specifically wired not to think about the other 5 for whatever reason. For Three to try to discover who they are is heretical in their world. From Six’s reluctance to talk about what Three was doing every afternoon told me that the others were disturbed by what she was doing. Within the Cylon(z) plan there is a specific hierarchy in which it is critical that they not allowed to know the other 5. I still think she believes she has a messiah complex in which she is more important than other Cylon(z), that her willingness to include Baltar goes back to his declaration of love (albeit misinterpreted by Three) during the torture scene. He’s her disciple. Her suicides along with her heretical beliefs and pursuit of the other 5 are going to get her in trouble with the rest. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if there is a boxing waiting for her down the road.
I don’t really see creating new models as part of the Cylon(z) plan. That would be counter to their goal of breeding. For their survival and need to fulfill God’s commandments they should be putting their resources towards procreation.
I really don’t get the standards and practices crew at SciFi. Other cable shows in the same timeslot get away with a lot more. Brutal pain, death, torture, rape, drug use, suicide bombings and we can’t hear “headâ€. Puh-leaze.
I’m going to be curious to see what the survivor count is going to be next week. Felt like they lost more ships than the ones they showed us. Even with skeleton crews that still had to be a decent amount of people.
I was sorry to Kat go. She’s not one of my favorite characters but I never hated on her like some. She was a helluva pilot and had a knack for keeping the air group focused especially when Starbuck was losing her perspective. We’ll miss you Katrina.
>
I’ve been thinking something similar, only that I see Baltar as the would-be messiah and Three as the disciple.
Either way, I don’t think Lucy Lawless will be guest starring much in season four. She’s getting boxed, isn’t she?
About Baltar being most comfortable around the Cylons: I pretty much agree with the rationale given but also want to add that like anyone, he’s more comfortable in his own element. Baltar is a scientist, and the Cylons are basically the embodiment of technology.
Pylon movement: The Pylons also have to be retracted for jumping.
Come join the Pylon Movement!
Brought to by the People-Cylon Interbreeding Association.
Sorry Arktis I couldn’t resist. 🙂
Musing about the mysterious 5 that are never seen or supposed to
be talked about. Perhaps the 5 are the only ones who know how to
make new models but they decided that it couldn’t be allowed (for
some unknown reason). When 6 used the term ‘them’ in referring
to the 5, doesn’t that give it an ‘us’ vs’ them’ vibe? What if there
were two philosophical camps, in serious disagreement, and the
7 managed to suppress the 5, by, say, boxing them all? The 7 don’t
seem to have a problem with the notion of adding onto the 12 models,
wasn’t there a suggestion to call Hera ’13’, briefly?
Though, if 3 is really seeing the 5 in the brief moment between death
and download, I suppose all the above is hogwash. Hmm. Almost
sounds like the 5 are in some sort of purgatory where they’re stuck and
can’t download, but are willing to help the 7 download?
3 speaks of that moment in glowing terms (don’t recall the words,
offhand). What if the 5 are in Cylon heaven? What if the 7 are pissed
off because the 5 chose to ‘leave this mortal coil’, or whatever, instead
of hanging around to do the grunt work and the 7 resent being
abandoned?
Just musing…
” What if there
were two philosophical camps, in serious disagreement, and the
7 managed to suppress the 5, by, say, boxing them all?”Ive decided that Boxy is the 5, all of them, put into 1 enourmously stupid pacakage, like Wal-Mart, or Starbuck, or Dee, or Anders, or Billy
1) Only 12 Cylons. I am not changing my name to “The 17th Cylon”, which also sounds WAY less cool.
2) The word Audra, was “felgercarb”!
3) OMG! I got a shout out and the CIC song was briefly sung. That totally made my day!
LOL 13th Cylon. You are too right, that doesn’t have the same ring to it. And thank the gods that RDM didn’t bring fellgercarb along from TOS. I wonder if you can use the Irish slang shite on US TV? Probably not but with all the Celtic music it seems appropriate.
Side note:
In the boxing match, you’ll notice the kickboxing started when Tigh left the ring.
The crowd that was around them, at start, was smaller. Then it built as it got more fierce.
So yeah. She was definitely breaking the rules, but no one was officiating.
OK, so I’m a schmuck, as I haven’t gotten the chance to listen to the ‘cast and I’m commenting anyway (it’s been a wicked hangover day chez Martha…martinis are too frakkin’ tasty). I really loved this episode, and that had nothing (nothing at all!) to do with the martinis earlier in the evening.
I liked that one could see the whiteboard with all of the pilots (some have already mentioned this) and I was impressed with the CGI in the star cluster. Does anyone else think they might have flown through the Pleiades?
I am a bit confused, though — I thought that radiation was bad for Cylons (miniseries; NC)? So why was Athena flying reconaissance?
Still haven’t processed Three/Baltar/Hybrid scenes sufficiently. I wonder where they are going with this Hera business.
Martha, I think radiation only affects bad Cylons. It’s like the old trial by orderal thing. She’s a good one, so not only does it not affect her as bad as other Cylons, but she can stand it even longer than humans.
13th you are doing a good job of cracking me up today. To Martha’s question wasn’t it a specific type of radiation back at Rangar Anchorage that was harmful to Cylon neural pathways but not human? I know that is a pretty far fetched idea but I suspended the disbelief as is often necessary. Maybe I could buy it as RF interference that jammed them. Yeah I’m stretching it.
Well this is the first day in about a week I’ve felt like a biomechanical humaniod machine, thank the Cylon God! I had that nasty RDM podcast crud thing which is a notch below the ol’ Lymphocytic Encephalitis.
And, LT, I think Leoben’s problems are more of the knife and mega flashlight variety than radiation.
Yeah, Slingshot’s on the right idea.
The station was in the middle of an electromagnetic storm of some sort. Really heavy, almost nebula-like.
The radiation they flew through today was, for all intents and purposes, the coronasphere of multiple stars.
So yeah.. different kind of radiation. My guess is Sharon would’ve been affected the same was as on the station… but the overwhelming, destructive, and overpowering stuff the stars were pumping out was messing with her first.
You’ll note she didn’t look too good by the end, and I don’t think she was allowed to fly on either the 4th or the 5th outbound.
… erk. No editing, so forgive me.
should also be mentioned that “outbound” was heading in to the Eye of Jupiter, and “inbound” was returning to the fleet for more. So in total, 9 trips were taken- 5 outbounds, using the raptors, and 4 inbounds, with everything tucked nicely in the Galactica.
13th sorry you’ve been under the weather. In the future stay away from strange probes, nothing good ever comes of that. It’s been so long since I’ve watched the mini I’m going to have to go back and check out that explanation that Adama gave to Leoben. I remember the gist but not the specifics. Regardless a big flashlight to the head will definitely speed the end up. Get well.
Thanks LT, I am 100% today, but that’s the first cold I’ve had in two years, so it happens. I was thinking about that scene in the miniseries today and the whole events in Hero totally changes/ brings a new light to that scene. That explains why Adama suspected Leoben was a Cylon other than him just being too creepy to be a human.
You know Athenor all this has got me thinking a little bit about how they have treated radiation and the Cylon in general. Back in the Mini there was no thought beyond that because the Series wasn’t even a consideration so anything done there I’ll give a pass. That being said after the attack on the Colonies they Cylon(z) were running around a post-nuke Caprica with no apparent need for treatment while the humans were dying without the magic radiation meds. So just how much hard radiation can a Cylon take?
thanks for the thoughful answers, Athenor, Lt. Slingshot and 13th Cylon (trial by ordeal. hehheh). For the sake of a good story, I’ll buy it. Mostly. 😉
Actually let me ask a question that has a better chance of being answered since I can’t really hope for a answer of how many rads a Cylon can absorb. All things considered from what we’ve observed, just how much stronger are the Cylons than humans? We’ve seen displays of endurance, strength, resistance to most disease and ionizing radaition that is defintely beyond us. My impression from watching Six and Sharon in particular is somewhere in the 3-5 times stronger than us. Any thoughts?
Leoben snapped that pair of handcuffs apart in “Flesh and Bone”. Good enough for me.
Great example 13th. Leoben is a normal looking guy but blew though those like spaghetti, even he Governator couldn’t do that except in a movie.
The trick with the Cylons is that they have to be built in such a way that allows super-strength and resilliance in organics without giving away what they are to normal methods of detection.
Metal is right out. An MRI, or even less sophisticated methods, would reveal that in a heartbeat.
It has to be susceptible to radiation, but not in the same way as a human — slower biological breakdown of the enzymes and proteins, able to withstand the fallout from a nuke, but not a nuke itself (as Baltar’s Cylon detector used an off the shelf nuke).
It has to be capable of downloading… Which, more importantly, implies it has to be capable of transmitting.
It has to be capable of acting without the conscious mind knowing. Now, this can be done via hypnosis and learned methods with humans.. But not to the levels Sharon was experiencing.
With these in mind, the only explanation I can reasonably come to is a virus. Or, more specifically, a “Ghost in the Shell” to use a popular term. I’m thinking an organically-based creature, existing in every cell of the body, able to cause the cell to act and operate in ways far exceeding its usual norms. A symbiote, if you will. Good examples can be found in the video game Parasite Eve, the Shadowrun character Deus, and RJM’s own, Jadzea Dax. (Yes, I’m butchering that). Especially Dax, as a less obvious version of the symbiont would exactly replicate the nature of the skinjobs.
So. Want to get wilder?
I think the Human colony built the symbionts, and then they found the cylons. Somehow, somewhere, the Cylons (Created by Man) found the Symbionts (Created by Man, Evolved, Many copies), and the war ended as they came to grips with the humans.
As for transmission? Simple. The human body contains tons of iron, and has a strong electromagnetic field. Many things use the human body itself as an antenna — just hold on to an old pair of rabbit ears. It wouldn’t be that far of a stretch to send out a strong radio pulse upon death, using the body’s own energy. And if the Symbiots were non-centralized (IE their structure and nature was carried in every cell of the body), then something like a shot to the head wouldn’t impact them terribly.
So yeah. That’s my wild, out there theory. And to be frank, nothing I’ve seen in the series so far can disprove it. 😉 It also would help show why the toasters and hybrids are seen as lesser cylon(z).
im waiting till monday to listen to the cast in the car as i do each week so sorry if you have covered this but ok i know part of the plot of getting food was a device to tell kats story but please dont “frame me” frack&flame(trying to be clever) but why or how going through the radiation 5 times would get them food again? i was so focused on the cylon ship plot i might have missed it and of course they don’t tie that question at the end if they got it or not…its like trying to listen to the roundtable podcast(no one gets a word in or lets each other finish their thoughts!) i can see how the stories go off in many directions..anyways great ep but someone please enlighten me with their bsg fu here if possible? maybe it’s in rons cast?
Ron illuminates it a bit, but here’s the basic plot:
They somehow put bad, contaminated food into the recycling/food processing systems, tainting the whole system. All of a sudden, fresh/healthy food is gone, only lasting a few days (and the BSG is giving up their food for the civvies).
They come to this star cluster, that is far too big to go around, but they know (somehow) that a planet is on the far side with food. They send Athena to find a route, which she does… But it’s like a dogleg, such that they can’t jump through it straight and in one go.
The civvie ships have no radiation protection whatsoever (poor Captains). So, they devise this plan where the ships are piloted by skeleton crews, and the civilians are housed in the Galactica as a taxi. They can only hold so many civvies on the Galactica at one time, so multiple trips are needed.
One of the important points made is that getting to the other side isn’t a garuntee of food either — they need to harvest and process it first.
Anyways. The galactica couldn’t relay accurate enough coordinates into the starfield, so they needed the Raptors to act as the Civvie’s eyes. As soon as the raptors had a lock on the civilian ships (IE distance and direction information), the jump data could be modified and transmitted, probably using a relay from the Galactica.
So yeah. 5 jumps were needed , probably to ferry about 9,000 people in a single go.
thanks!
I openly admit my above theory on the origins of the skinjobs was written on the spot, BTW. But as I’ve thought about it over the last night, the more sense it makes to me, and the more holes it fills. I would submit the theory under the reader theory psot, but I have to get to work in 10 minutes! So I’m posting the new stuff I came up with here, as kind of a footprint/traceable record.
1) Death. I talked earlier about how the symbiont could use the body as an antenna, to transmit itself to the resurrection ships. I also theorized that the skinjob bodies were human, enhanced by the symbiont in their very cells. But that doesn’t answer the question as to why. Why is it, if they have this technology, that they are forbidden from suicide? Why is it that they are referred to as entire models, instead of individuals (save for the named ones)?
I think there are finite bodies. The cylons do not have any given way to create new host bodies without growing them, a process that could take quite a long while. Thus, they have a scripture against suicide. I mean, after all.. Why the heck would you care about death if you were immune to it?
In the same vein, I wouldn’t be surprised if each time a symbiont downloads, it leaves its experiences and thoughts on the ship, to transmit tot he other models. This would explain why all of the D’anna’s are acting weird. ‘
Also, this would imply the cylon skinjobs age. It would explain Brother Cavil, and also why he’s so adverse to downloading (fewer shells) when compared to the other cylons.
So what about the symbionts? What about Hera? That’s an interesting question, that can swing one of two ways. For one, either Hera is completely and utterly human, no symbiont present. Although to be frank, that would be boring. But the other, much more juicy answer… Is that Hera is a new symbiont body for the Sharon model, or parts of the Sharon model. In other words — a way for a model to jump into newborn bodies, thus getting around the requirement to clone bodies.
Yeah, it still has some holes, but the more I think on this, the more I think it’s the right answer. And if the Symbionts were created by the 13th tribe, it would explain why the beacon would hurt them.
… I also think this theory explains the final five. It could swing two ways, again: either the 5 really are models that are boxed, and have used up all their human shells, or they are the original 5 that encountered the cylons or were involved in the 13th tribe. Either one could be a very possible outcome, although I’m leaning towards the first. After all….. It’s those 5 that are guiding the Cylons to Earth, is it not? Possibly they are the ones who the scriptures are about? … Or maybe I should back up. I think the final 5 have their residual memory in existance on the resurrection ships, or present in the collective consiousness of the other 7. I also think they are trying to assert themselves to be “reborn,” using D’anna and Baltar as the two leaders.
… Oh, did I mention Baltar? Yeah.. that’s my other theory. Given everything I’ve described about the symbionts, how they can function in the body seperate of its actual nature… Wouldn’t it be wild if Head-six were one of the final 5? Thus, Baltar wouldn’t be a Cylon himself.. but he would have a Cylon inside him.. One who would know of the 13th tribe, know of the operations and nature of the other 12, and one who could project for him without him needing to be cylon?
… Hm. Looks like my time is up, and I can’t explain further than this. In any case, the more I go down this line of thinking (and I doubt I’m the first), the more I’m thinking it’s correct. To the Watercooler guys: I’ll try to write this out in more interesting (and concice) prose, and post it as a reader theory if you’d like.
So, I think I may be the first one to say this but STOP RAGGING ON MY MAN HELO. He’s the only morally courageous character in the entire Galactica crew. Even if he disobeyed orders and then went and hid, he stood up for what he believed. Contrast that to the rest of the crew, who have now accepted a cylon as one of their own and yet are still willing to wipe out her entire race. Sorry, but I’m with Helo on this one.
So back off, Sean! 😉
Sorry, I’m a bit off thread here but I just had to comment on that, since it came up on this podcast as well. Anyway, in all seriousness, I do know what your complaint about Helo’s actions a few episodes ago are about, but I still think he made the right choice and the most moral choice at that.
Now back to the discussion of stellar radiation, already in progress…
Adama used the word “depleted” didn’t he? As in, they were out or nearly so when the bad stuff started they started getting bad product?
Frak! I D/Led the ‘cast on iTunes last night, opened it up this afternoon, and all Ii had was the first 8:50. WTF? Anyone else have this problem? (I’m D/Ling it again right now. Cross your fingers.)
Hmmm, I did it with iTunes, so it sounds like a personal problem. lol
OK, looks like it D/Led properly. A bit over an hour this time. So, I’ll be listening to it at work on Monday, just like the good ol’ days…
I’m still glued to the set every friday, and saturday morning to watch it with closed captions, but, huh? I feel like the kid in the emperor’s new clothes. Am i the only person who thinks that episode sucked? I mean I hate the cylon ship, I hate the hybrid, I hate Kat … i hate the whole concept of this five who just aren’t interesting. I hate using the word hate in a Battlestar blog cause I love battlestar. I’m hoping this is the calm before the storm, and next week’s episode is better … it looks better. I’ve been reading the comments, and everyone makes good points, but the thing that is missing is that no one seems to take into account that these things are machines … if they are what they appear to be, let me say this, it would have taken divine intervention to make these machines, with the hybrids, and the ablity to copy humanity so well they can breed with them. I think I need Martha to comment on THAT! What is this hybrid of combination of? I mean the word Hybrid means something, it’s the joining of two things, what are the two things? It ain’t humans and cylons cause that’s what hera is. And here’s a concept that no one ever talks about … if the cylons are alive, meaning they have brains and flesh, wouldn’t they have to be grown? where are the little cylon ships, and little raiders, and little sixes?
OK, Apparently my call was as unintelligable as I feared (is there a preview option on that thing? There should be.) Chuck was talking about something I mentioned this before in these comments. (I was hoping to catch some people who listen to GWC, but don’t read this blog regularly. )
Battlestarwiki.org has an ongoing project that transcribes all of RDM’s podcasts. The way it works is that one person does the transcription, and another goes through and verifies it by listening to a ‘cast and reading along. Suprisingly, there’s a backlog of podcasts that are already transcribed, but need someone to verify them (mostly Season 2). So, if you have fifteen minutes (you can verify as little as a single act) and want to help head over to their podcast project page:
http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/BW:POD
Sean, the landing pods on Galactica are supposed to retract before jumping (you prob. remember some shots of the vipers coming in while they were retracting. The idea is that the FTL field only extends far enough to cover the entire ship when the pods are in. It gets a bit confusing because (A) the more advanced Pegasus did not have to do this; presumably its FTL drive projected a bigger field. And (B) this is the most common VFX error in the show, mostly because it takes additional time to animate the pods coming in and out.
Pike’s First Rule of Galactica: If you start finding out a lot about a minor character, and start feeling genuine sympathy for them, they’re already dead. First Billy, then Ellen, and now Kat.
Speaking of Kat, whatever happened to the anti-radiation meds? We know, because of Helo on Caprica, that they’re part of the standard med kit. They can’t be out, because they’ve never had to use them anywhere else.
And now that I think of it, if you can protect someone from radiation with meds, and eliminate it from equipment with a hose, how hard would it be to decontaminate food?
All though this episode may not have been poorly put together, and even if there were some very good scenes and a good story I was disappointed in it. While I was watching it they kept bringing us to things that were reminding me what I did not like about the current season.
While watching Lee brief the pilots on the deck, I was reminded me of when Starbuck said to him that they would not live to see Earth back in the episode Scar. Now when he got promoted to Commander and was given the Pegasus it seemed that he was graduated from that. Now that he is back in that boat, The Passage just serves to remind me he lost the Pegasus and was demoted.
The same can be said now for Helo. They made it clear now that the Pegasus has been destroyed and they are all on one battlestar there are not enough ships for the pilots to fly. So there is no reason that Helo cannot remain on the CIC even with Tigh being back. The fact that he is now off flying again, after he was promoted out of the pilot pool is a concept I dislike also.
And if it was that hard to keep track of there ships in this cluster, why did they not just bolt the raptors to the civilian ships so they couldn’t lose them? All they needed was the navigation system on the raptors, I don’t think they said that the raptors needed to be away from the ships. Also, why wouldn’t they just use the Cylon heavy raider like they did before to Jump back to Caperica?
Athenor, that’s a very interesting take on the skinjobs. I’m going to have to kick that one around a while.
Cavatar, excellent point about the Raptors. We’ve seen them clamp onto a ship tight enough to allow Marines to cut through the other ship’s skin, so why not just do that? Heck, the Raptor can fit inside a lot of those ships (and maybe provide some shelter for the skeleton crew.) I was wondering myself why they had to have eyeballs on their “sheep”, but I’ll chalk it up to dramatic license.
I also have to wonder about Laura’s piece of paper–the one that she wrote “Olympic Carrier” on in 33. How long a list is that now?
This was easily one of my favorite episodes of the season. Aside from Exodus part 2, The passage was one of the most moving and powerful episodes of the season. No other show on television takes a character that everyone has grown attached to and then kills them off for the sake of story progression. I wasn’t upset or pissed but happy. She wasn’t killed just for the sake of being killed, but for a cause. It was amazing. RIP Kat, you will be missed.
Hi guys, great podcast as always.
Just a quick note (and i really hope i didn’t dream this) but i kinda remember someone saying earlier in the current season that 2000 years had passed since…either since the tribes left Kobol or since the 12 colonies were founded. i remember this because i thought to myself, oh, thats the same amount of time as christianity.
Unfortunately, i won’t be able to rewatch all the episodes until next week as this is finals week for me (grad student), but if anyone else has time to do this…
Tanu, the final days on Kobol were 2000 years previous to the series.
Now get back to studying!
i believe the word is feldergarb.
lol, yes sir, Mister Pike!
Glad you were able to confirm it or i might have stayed up tonight rewatching the episodes. lol.
GAWD, now its back to revising this paper on outsourcing….stOoOpid outsourcing! FELDERGARB!!!!! HEAD! HEAD! HEAD!!!
Once again iTunes comes through in one way: I get to hear Starbuck say “…right after I gave him head.”
Thanks for not censoring, guys.
Pike,
Thanks for your coments…
I am also wondering why the lost ships did not try a “blind jump” once hope was lost?
Also, they knew there starting point and they knew there first jump point. So why could they not just reverse jump back to about where they started if they lost there raptor?
On the radiation meds, I’ve said this before: It’s the difference between fallout from a nuke… and from getting hit by thousands of nukes. For one thing, it’s quite likely they did take anti-radiation meds, especially after each run. Secondly, I highly doubt they’ll be taking those meds while getting smacked around in the starfield. I guess what I’m saying is that I’m sure they were used, just off-camera.
On the Raptors bolting to the ships, there’s one major thing to consider:
1) Despite Adama’s balls of steel, it’s been well established that jumping is not accurate in any way, shape, or form for mere mortals. Even the Cylon(z) seem to have issues jumping close (although I heard someone say that they don’t because the Galactica’s weapons are better close-in). Now, it wouldn’t be much of a leap to assume you can’t jump tethered to another ship — I’ve never seen it happen, at least. There could be all sorts of possibilities why not — jump drive physics (like where the Galactica changed its pylons.. sort of like the Voyager, now that I hthink about it), the magnetic links not working so well, the possibility of jumping one ship inside another… Let’s just assume they need space between them to properly jump.
Now, let’s pile onto this. Cavatar above asked why the ships didn’t just jump backwards upon getting lost. Well, that assumes their jump computers are good enough to jump in that starfield in the first place — they aren’t, which is why they had the raptors help them in the first place!
But more than that.. In about half a second accompanied by a pretty shot of the cool model ships ( =P ), Kate and Athena talk about how there is a drift in that part of space. Either caused by the sheer force of the radiation, or the gravity of the nearby star, the basic jist is that every second you are out there, the ships are drifting off-course…. and not slowly by the way they described it.
Remember Stargate (the movie)? You need 7 points to jump: 3 axial reference points, and a starting point. The whole issue with this episode was that the ending point was known.. but the starting point was shifting and screwing around.. The Galactica and Raptors could compensate, but the civvy ships couldn’t. Thus.. the drama.
Cavatar, I’m assuming that some of the lost sheep did do a desperate blind jump. Problem is, there’s very little chance of ending up where they want to be, so they ended up either alone without support, or as some trace elements in one of the nearby stars.
Athenor, yeah, the conceit does seem to be that you can’t hitchhike in another ship’s FTL field (although that just feels wrong to me.)
We have seen the fleet ships jumping very close to each other, and on at least one occasion there was concern that raiders would jump into the middle of the fleet and start nuking everyone (but then, they have better FTL computers.) Raiders don’t jump in close to Galactica because she has a formidable set of point defense guns. They’re the smaller guns all along her sides. In fact they’re also a potential problem for the vipers, in the heat of combat. On at least one occasion Apollo was telling the pilots to ‘stay out of Galactica’s firing solution.’
That Stargate coordinate system always confused me. The geometry feels wrong, but I haven’t looked into it closely enough.
Did anyone else happen to listen to the Ron Moore “roundtable” discussion in total? The one with Jamie Bamber (Apollo) on it…??? I could swear that they accidentally gave away that Apollo is a Cylon (which seems ridiculous to me), but they were talking about why the Cylon(z) don’t all wear differnt clothes and dress differently, etc. and at one point Bamber jokingly talks about being pissed and wished he could go back and redo the entire series as an actor, cause he never knew he had a twin out there. Am I making any sense…? I could swear that’s the basic gist of what he said. Anyone else hear this and have any thoughts???
Pike, the Stargate coordinate system is wrong because constellations aren’t arranged in space like that.. They just look like that from our perspective. Our view of the stars is like a flat plane (well, not flat, round, but you know what I mean), whereas in reality, the stars are no where near each other. For the “stargate” system to really work via constellations, the Stargates would really just have a coordinate in space based off the constellation’s position — most likely a single star.
Or, far simpler, just have each Stargate have a pre-programmed set of jumps in it. *shrugs* Really, there should be absolutely no reason for the 7th Chevron to exist, unless they expect the gates to be taken off-planet. But hey. =)
I think one of the best things I’ve ever read on interstellar cartography in relation to FTL is found in the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual. In it, you get a glimpse into how much the TNG guys stressed over this problem. In the end, they used the galactic center as their primary reference point (I can’t find the exact page at the moment, but it’s there). The problem with BSG is that none of that has been spelled out on how they navigate. We’ve established that the Cylon(z) have a much better grasp on FTL.. but that’s about it.
It is one of the lingering questions: As of yet, the two races have been flying blind…. Sorta. I don’t know how much Baltar plays into all of this, as he’s the wild card and the hinge. But regardless, as of yet neither race (as far as I can tell) has a map to Earth. To be frank, I think that’s what they are gonna find on The Eye of Jupiter. Every great “finding your home” saga needs a map, or a guide of some sort. Every one (I’d quote religious and mythological examples, but eh). And every map.. Every one… needs a reference point to work.
I think that reference point is about to be revealed.. and probably in the process their methods of stellar cartography are going to be unveiled.
(I really need to get off my rear and type up my Symbiont theory in full. =( )
Oh, and another reason the stargate system is off is because it bases its coordinates off the origin, instead of an arbitrary point. If you used an arbitrary point (like the galactic center), then you would need to know your position in relation to that arbitrary point, as well as the destination coordinates. If the coordinates were based on your position, then you’d be golden with only the 3 overlapping lines.
It appears that the diffuculty in The Passage was related to this — they had the final jump point setup, and the Raptors knew their own position, but the civvie ships didn’t — so the civvie ships had to jump based off the reference of the raptor. Or something like that. It’s drama, I am sure they thought this out, but.. yeah. =P
Greetings, all…
I am back from mourning the loss of my dearest sweetie, Kat. Once again, thanks Chuck, Audra and Sean for a great podcast. Alas, Kat is gone, but she died a hero. And again, I’m reminded of why I want to be like Adama when I grow up. To sit with the dying hero… man, that brings a mist to my eyes.
Manicore 7, I TRIED to listen to that roundtable discussion, but those folks talked over each other way too much. I didn’t get the impression that Apollo is a Cylon. I think everyone was complaining in general because RDM didn’t make that choice to make each Cylon model different from its twin (triplet, quadruplet… whatever). Besides, it wouldn’t make sense that Lee Adama was a Cylon. How would that be possible? He has way too many links to the past (Adama’s child, remembering Adama’s words “you aren’t a real man unless you’re a Viper pilot”, there at Zack’s funeral, test pilot). He has too much history. If anything, why couldn’t Starbuck be one? Now that would be a serious frak-job. What do we really know about her past that the CYLONS/Z haven’t revealed? It was Leoben that knew/”prophesied” she had an abusive mother. It was Simon who knew about the broken fingers. I hate that possibility, but I’ve seen way too many X-Files episodes and other paranoid series to let this possibility slide.
I did get a trip out of what RDM said about moving Bulldog out into the fleet. He said that Bulldog and Boxey are having a Brokeback Mountain relationship on one of the civvie ships.
One thing I do love about RDM is his humility. He will take the hits from his cast and truly listen to them. He believes his scripts are organic, which makes his shows so good.
Manicorn, I’m listening to the rDm roundtable now. I heard Bamber referencing a decision that Bill and Laura make at the end of Season 3….
But we’re not supposed to discuss spoilers up in here, right?
But I do want to remind you all, the 2nd time we saw Leoben, right before he got spaced, he told Roslyn, “Adama is a Cylon.” Hmm, did he say which Adama?
I can tell you this much; I’m a Cylon, and I haven’t seen either Adama at any of the parties…. OR HAVE I?
Yeah, I remember that, john patrick. But, then again, Leoben didn’t learn how to tell the truth until after the fifth or sixth stabbing/horrible death. Besides, I think that was a set-up for the next episode, “Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down”.
Browncoat, about Starbuck possibly being a cylon:
in Unfinished Business, when they showed Starbuck and Lee just finishing up there romp in the “sand”, i thought for just one second that they were about to show Starbuck’s back glowing…but they didn’t. LOL.
As for Lee being a cylon, yes, Leoben (who is Uber-Awesome) did not specify but i think anyone with a traceable history can’t be a cylon. It worked for Sharon because her story was that she was from that place that was destroyed….like completely so there was no traceable history. The same is true for all the other revealed cylons. Since there are pictures of Lee as a child (the pic that is presented to Bill Adama in the miniseries), i don’t think he is a cylon unless the 5 remaining cylons were child models who grew up (so cylons do age).
As for Starbuck, the only thing we know is that she lived with her father but i didnt’ see any pics or anything while she was hanging out at her apt on Caprica. Though, it wouldnt’ make sense if she were a cylon because why would the cylons be mind-frakkin’ with her while she was in that hospital on Caprica or imprisoned by Leoben on New Caprica. Then again, if Baltar is a cylon…he is being uber-mind-frakked by the cylons so there goes that theory.
Tanu, I think with the last couple episodes the “Cylons wouldn’t frak with Cylons” theory goes out the window. If they’re very distinct, as they apparently are, there’s no reason to supose that the Seven wouldn’t frak with the Five. Hell, they might not even know that they’re fraking with the Five. Interesting thing to me is that they’re non-sequential. The fact that there’s an Eight model implies that she, at least, was a post-one-of-the-Five model. Could that be why she’s more independent? (Of course, I’m not assuming that RDM et al. planned this from the begining.)
Athenor, the thing that really bugs me is the seventh “point of origin” coordinate (which isn’t one, really.) Why is that necessary? Unless the Stargates have a drama chip….
OK, double posting, but it’s worth it, trust me:
http://community.livejournal.com/pantsketch/99256.html
(Not mine this time. Wish it was.)
Speaking of “Adama is a Cylon”, I wonder, and kind of hope, that one of the main characters (not the lead bill people like the Adama’s, Roslin, etc, because it wouldn’t make sense for them to be a Cylon) we’ve known for many yarens (lol) to be a Cylon. The whole thing with Boomer as a Cylon happened so fast and I was just trying to take it all in that it wasn’t “Oh my gods!” like it may have been for other people. All the other reveals were of peop… er… folks we’ve known for one or two episodes at the most (Xena, Simon, Bro ‘vil, etc).
lee a cylon? well it would explain why lee is so hot, and bill is … well edward james olmost … there is this scene, I can’t remember it, but it has something to do with humans having to work out … seems cylons don’t need to, it would explain how lee got fat and lost the weight in like a week.
is Helo the only person we know is NOT a cylon … well Helo and Bulldog?
HAHAHAAH! Pike, thats an awesome link, how do you find these things??? My fav is the Dee one, too funny.
as for the cylons (intentionally or unintentionally) frakkin’ with the 5, yea, this new story arc kinda throws all the reasonings i have had up until now as to who is or isnt’ a cylon. must re-assess all previous reasonings i’ve had about things in the show.
eric-michael, yea, i think Helo is the only person confirmed to not be a cylon as there would be no other explanation as to why the baby is half human.
I’m with the crowd that thinks Leoben’s statement was a lead-in to Tigh me up, Tigh me down, and not meant to be a lingering tease. I CAN see them using it as a red herring again. And if my theories about the final five are true, then it’s possible (but then again, that theory opens up the door for anyone to be a Cylon).
But in the end, I think it does nothing but sow distrust and worry in people over things. Lee’s a strong mutha, but he’s no where near as strong as Athena, from what I’ve seen. Even Boomer, when she was undercover, was still exceedingly resilient compared to the rest of the pilots.
Oh, and Pike, that’s what I was saying: The Seventh Chevron was a drama engine. 😉 Although it would be funny, I guess, to use the stargates to do crack calls between other gates… You know, open up the stargate of one mortal enemy to the stargate of the other… 😉
On Baltar wanting to be a Cylon, I don’t quite buy it. First let me say that although I love to hate Baltar, I love the character of Baltar because of all the depictions of humanity in BSG, Baltar is the most accurate reflection of the ‘every-man’. Everyone is narcissistic (even the most humble), all of us make decisions for our own survival/benefit, all of us are searching for our destiny (or meaning to our lives). Baltar is the most accurate depiction of what most of us would do in the same situation.
Given this, I don’t think Baltar really *wants* to be a Cylon so much as he wants to know his role in the Universe – his destiny. He’s being his typical survivalist self by wanting to “cease to be a traitor to one group of people and be a hero to another”. Also, he’s fairly comfortable with the Cylons because he dealt with them nearly every day during the roughly four months of occupation. He also has a sort of affinity for the Cylons because of his own belief/understanding of the Cylon god. (Remember his “heartfelt” prayer of salvation in “Six Degrees of Separation”?) All of these factors strengthen his affinity for, and therefore his comfort with, the Cylons.
I agree with Chuck that Baltar never saw himself as a traitor but that he was duped. However, he has been afraid of the Colonials finding out his role in the initial attacks on the colonies and them perceiving/judging him a traitor. With the Cylons, he is afraid of their perception of him not being trustworthy. In both cases he is trying to elevate himself so he can have a cozy life – a negative perception on the part of whichever group means he’s in for uncomfortable living… like no more terry cloth robes or Cylon-threesomes.
Pike, loved the Simpson’s thing. Especially the first one with Roslin and Adama with the “Uh, we didn’t frak or nothin'” look on their faces.
I agree with what you’re saying John Davis, about Baltar. Man, I really feel for that dude. Well, not as much as I did before the Baltar sandwich. Captivity is just so hard.
As much as I doubt that Lee is a Cylon, it would be a cool twist on what Leoben said to Roslin before she spaced him.
I’d easier believe that the Adama bloodline is a direct descendant of the 13th colony… Not that such is a bad thing. Hmm. *rubs chin* I could really abuse this thought. 😉
Bryan, yeah. that’s the best image b/c it works in equally well in both universes.
Enough about Father Cavel already!! He wasn’t even in this episode, and you spent the first half of your pocast high fiving him. Enough with the spoilers! Telling us next week’s previews and Father Cavel’s dialogue for next week wreaks it for those of us who don’t watch previews!
Does anyone out there know about any good Gallactica podcasts where there might be more interest in characters of both genders? Also, spoiler free, please. Please post some links so I can find them. Thanks. – Karen
Karen, this is the only podcast i know of that is spoiler free – previews that have been released are not considered spoilers because … they’ve been released. Actually, this is the cleanest BSG podcast i know of.
New poster here- I’m just up to “The Passage” in my Galactica watching after getting started last month via Netflix and a couple off-air DVD’s.
After I watch each show I have been listening to your podcast. Great work although I have to say the hour long podcasts after each 2 minute Webisode was a bit much.
Anyway- regarding “The Passage”- I got a better sense of why Bill Adama was so disappointed by Tyrol and Callie wanting to go down to the planet to have their child in the “Unfinished Business†flashback. In telling Kat about his sons both being born aboard ship it seemed like he would have liked to see Tyrol and Callie’s born there too.
Jim, you’ve got to remember the context. We all were starving for new BSG at that point. I started listening during those ‘casts and it didn’t strike me as at all odd at the time. I bet in nine months you’ll be having hour long conversations about whatever promo trailer SciFi puts out. 😉
Wow! This thing is on?
Pike, Thanks for the reply. I’m stuck here in the December blog archive and podcasts so I don’t stumble across any spoilers. That’s a great thing about blogs and podcasts.
I watched Season 1, 2, 2.5 and the first part of 3 all in a few weeks time. I haven’t seen the miniseries yet but it just arrived from Netflix. So I guess I’m a budding obsessed fan.
Jim
Heh. Yeah, I sort of haunt this site.
I hadn’t really considered the impact that a site like this would have on people catching up. Interesting, that. And I have to say, if you’ve downed Seasons 1-3.5 in a few weeks, you’re no longer a ‘budding’ obsessed fan.