OT: BSG Discussion
 

Something occured to me reading AT's BSG empire description. In the series the population in the fleet is around 50K. As far as they know that's pretty much all that's left of the human race. If the object was to survive as a species, does it make sense for the fleet to remain together like they are? All they can do is run and hope they don't get caught. They can't hope to fight off a serious Cylon offensive if they are found.

Wouldn't it make more sense for them to be seeding every habitable planet they find with small groups of people? Establishing many small self-sufficent colonies all over the place. The colonists would have to severly limit their use of technology, no radios, no structures visable from orbit or easily spotted from the air. Careful argricultural practices like no geometric food plots.

Reverting to a low-tech agricultural lifestyle would be difficult, but it would seem to preferable to a slow death by starvation and disease couped up in ships. These colonies would be sitting ducks if they were found by the cylons, but if you establish enough of them and keep them quiet, the cylons shouldn't be able to find all of them.

I'm thinking around 100 people per planet, and then further spread out in villages of a dozen people or so should be viable. You would lose some genetic diversity over the course of many generations, but if you did some careful screening beforehand you should be able to lessen the worst of the negative effects of that.

Anyway, interesting to think about.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

You might be right, but the problem is the Cylon spies aboard. Would they not inform their leaders where every single defenseless colony was?

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

Hmmm, that's a point. I was thinking if they could do that then they should be able to catch the fleet easy anyway. But I guess it's easier going back later and picking off stationary colonies then finding a fleet jumping around and never staying too long in one place.

This whole infiltrator thing is really a drag! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

Actually, they have yet to find a habitable planet excluding kobol. Remember earth like planets are pretty rare in the BSG verse. From what I understand the season finale will deal with the issue of finding a habitable planet and whether to settle down or not.

Of course, like renegade said, the cylon spies aboard are the problem. Is all it takes is for them to get a message out with the location of every planet the humans are on, and its orbital bombardment for the poor souls who aren't in the fleet.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

A thought that occurs to me here - Both the Cylons and the Colonials seem to have the technology to detect and identify life on a planet, at least to a limited degree.

You start droppin' off folks to colonize new worlds, a few here and some there, and sooner or later along comes the Cylons and start pickin' 'em off in small groups. The Cylons are following, however distant or discreetly. They would more than likely take notice of efforts to " seed " humanity.

Now, given that's the last thing they want, even if they only discovered one or two groups they'd more than likely keep hunting down the main fleet but send reserve units out to mop up and clean out any humans they find, and maybe even search likely worlds for more.

Just a thought....... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

Set up a fake settlement scene, and bury the dead from the ship on the planet?

Nice little distraction... and they can watch for anyone trying to leak word that its a setup.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

The cylons following them isn't so much of a problem. You don't need to bring the whole fleet. Once you've scouted the planet with raptors or whatever, you simply have one ship jump a different distance and off a few degrees. The ship drops off a hundred or so people and rejoins the fleet at a predetermined coordinate later on. Anyone tailing the fleet isn't likely to notice anything.

Space is really big after all. It should be very difficult for the cylons to find these colonies. Unless they can simply jump into a system and listen for radio signals or something. If they have to look for habitable planets and then carefully survey each planet it would take forever to find them. Even if they found the planets they might not find the people.

The concern about infiltrators is valid though. If someone is feeding them info about where to look it would be quite easy to go after them.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

In a recent episode, (SPOILER) Baltar provided some info about the expected survival rates of man kind. It was not good. I think they would all need to find a planet, a safe one, and then all settle it in order to give rebirth to humanity.

Ideally, I suspect that at some point it will become a virus war or simular. It is really the only option to beat the organic based machines of the cylon empire now.

Also it could be written in that they find other human occupied worlds, like they did in the origal series, and spark off a little side war. No one wants to take on an enemy of someone they don't know especially if that enemy has big powerful nukes and wants to purge the galaxy of man kind.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

They could run into a galaxy far, far away and not so long ago!

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

Oh great give Lucas another excuse to shut down yet another sci-fi show.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

I don't think he needs an excuse, he just forgets to take his medication every now and then.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

I hope they don't run into other human occupied worlds. It just doesn't seem right.

As for beating the cylons: I don't think that'll happen. What I think would be ideal would be if they found earth, and in the final episodes they manage to make a truce with the cylons. They have been dealing a lot lately with the fact that it isn't enough to survive, the humans have to be worthy of surviving, I would hope this would tie into the final stages of the series, maybe even being the reason the cylons are finally willing to stop hunting the humans.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

ZeroAdunn: "I hope they don't run into other human occupied worlds. It just doesn't seem right."

Not necessarily. Colonial tradition is that they originated somewhere else (and of course we know their ancestors migrated from the Sol system). Presumably the migration would have left colonies on habitable worlds along the migration route. If the Colonial fleet is traveling in the general direction of Sol (allowing for stellar movement), it's not unreasonable for them to find some of these old colonies, which may in fact have thrived and surpassed the Colonials in technology and population.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

I also don't have a problem with there being small colonies scattered around that were offshoots of the Twelve Colonies. People complain about that from the orginal series, but it never was a problem for me. Even planets that the twelve colonies weren't aware of. Certain types of people have always tended towards living far away from population centers, and they might not want everyone knowing where they are.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

Exactly.

The only sensible numbers are:
Zero, One, Infinity.

If they've already got *twelve* colonies, more is not at all far-fetched.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

I meant right form the perspective of the series. It has already been stated that earth type planets are rare. Hence the plot of "Water". I am not apposed to other human colonies, I am apposed to large space faring civilizations in the show. It removes the feel of the last humans out there searching for a way to survive. Even with the promise of earth, we have no way of knowing what they will find when they get there, wheras the discovery of other human colonies (especially advanced or well populated ones) kinda cheapens the deal. I don't mind finding a small colony of humans or something, but the consequences for galactica discovering them would have to be explorered, as I don't think the cylons are going to take kindly to more humans.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

Yeah, "Earth type" planets in the BSG universe are exceedingly rare. Except for the twelve in close proximity to each other that became The Colonies. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

My sarcasm isn't directed at you Z, just at the inconsistency of that particular plot device. Maybe the reason they are so rare in the rest of the galaxy is that they are all concentrated in one little area. Law of averages and all. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

Earth-Planets aren't rare in BSG, they occur every season finale!

As doe the 12 colonies, I surmise they were spread across a few planets and several habitable moons. A star system with 12 planets is just hard to believe.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

What I want to know is why we only ever see Caprica. What's happening on the other 11 planets?.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

A quick thought, from a " Devil's Advocate " point of view -

Who said anything about there being twelve readilly habitable planets in the Colonial system ? What are the chances that " X " number of them were terraformed to suit the needs of the colonists? That all of them were even conventionally sized planets, instead of large, convertable planetoids or moons ?


Just thinking out loud.......

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

You all seem to be assuming that the twelve colonies are in one star system. I had always assumed they were in different, but nearby systems. Is there something in the show that says one way or the other?

One star system is pretty unbelievble. Even if you are talking about terraformed worlds. For there to be twelve suitable workds they'd have to either be so close together they'd be interfering with each others orbits, or so far apart that most of them would be outside the range of tolerable conditions for human life. I guess a few could be moons, but it's pretty hard to imagine a system with enough moons that are large enough to hold human-life supporting atmospheres in the proper range of distance form the sun.

I'm not saying the show isn't intending us to believe the twelve colonies are in one system, although I don't remember actually hearing that, but it's not very feasible.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

There is not a need for assumption, as they are clearly shown to be in different _constellations_ entirely in the episode where they open the ancient observatory in the tomb of Athena.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

I don't think that was saying the constellations were the actual star charts of the locations of the twelve colonies, although it's been a while. I'll have to pay more attention when they rerun that episode. My recollection was just that the constellations were representative of the twelve colonies, and if they could find the planet who's starfield matched the constellations in the observatory they would have found earth.

I believe the Zodiac constellations are scattered accross our sky. If they were star charts of the Twelve Colonies then we would be located in the midst of them, not at the end of a long journey as they seem to present in the series, would we not?

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

The whole point was to get a map to earth. The map is pretty useless if it has no bearing on the real galaxy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I do recall them saying that they would find earth when they found the position in space where the sky looked like what it did in the observatory.

"The scriptures say that when the 13th tribe landed on Earth, they looked up into the heavens and saw their 12 brothers." - Starbuck

"There is a place where you can look up into the sky and see the consellations of the 12 colonies." - President

Then there is talk of Lagoon nebula and having a map and a direction.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

I still think you are being too literal. Those quotes don't state unequivically that the constellations mark the positions of the colonies.

It's like the 13th colony gets to earth and looks at the stars. They see a grouping that looks like a bull and one that looks like two fish and they say, "Hey, that's our brothers Leo and Pices." That doesn't nessecarily mean that those constellations are where the colonies are located. Just that they found shapes in the sky that were representative of the other colonies.

Someone stading on earth looking at the twelve zodiac constellations would be closer to some of those stars then some of those stars are to each other. If the colonies are actually in those constellations they shold have found Earth already. For that matter they should have never lost it.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

They were very literal in the episode... I'm just going by what all of them said, not applying any interpretation. Did you see the quotes I edited in before you posted?

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

The problem is, assuming that they were speaking literally, that means the colonies are spread out all over the galaxy, and thus the "way past the readline" quote from the miniseries doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

And of course, why would you take scripture literally?

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

Yes I saw the quotes. They don't literally say the colonies are in the constellations. They "saw their 12 bothers" could be taken to mean shapes that reminded them of the other colonies. Rosalinds quote about "the constellations of the twelve colonies" could also mean constellations that are representative of the twelve colonies. Nothing in those quotes can only be interpreted in the way that you are are interpreting it. As far as I know they never say clearly that they mean the constellations mark the positions of the colonies.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

Something else that just occured to me. If the constellations actually mark the positions of the colonies then the observatory map gives them all the information they need to locate earth. Looking at the map would give them a bearing to each colony from earth. Since obviously they know the positions of the twelve colonies, even without distances you could triangulate the exact position of earth.

Even if you assume they weren't able to record the images they saw, Adama, Starbuck and Appolo are all trained as pilots. You would have to assume that even with a brief glance at the starmap they could recall enough to sketch it again fairly reliably.

That pretty conclusivly proves the constellations in the starfield on earth are merely metaphors for the colonies. It is an accurate representation of the view of the stars from earth, so it is useful to verify earth once they find it. But it's not helpful in finding earth unless you can relate the stars in that perspective to the perspective seen from Kobol or the colonies.

If you have accurate charts of all the stars in the galaxy, and a precise copy of the observatory map you could probably run a computer simulation that could compare the starfields from every spot in the galaxy. But that might take longer then any of them would be alive, even for a computer. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif And you'd have to assume they recorded the observatory view and aren't just going by memory.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

My interpretation of that episode (just saw it for the first time last night!) was that the constellations they saw were representative of the 12 colonies, but not indicative of their actual physical locations.

Think of it this way: If the constellations were actually indicative of the locations of the colonies, it would be extremely simple using some basic math to determine an approximate volume of space to search for Earth. After all, you have the point of view of Earth (presumably) and the locations of 12 points that are visible from Earth. Easy enough to find.

I think they were just saying "Hey, if we can find where these constellations appear to us as they appear here, Earth will be near!" Noting also certain landmarks such as the Lagoon Nebula. Though that particular sighting bothered me a lot, since the Lagoon nebula is not anywhere near that bright nor large in the sky...on the contrary, I don't think it's even visible to the naked eye...bad science!

My biggest question from that episode is; how the hell did they get out of where they were when they saw the constellations? There was no visible exit point! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

The rest of the conversation explicitly refers to it as a literal map to follow, however. It would be simple to use them as such, but the plot doesn't call for simplicity.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

"The scriptures say that when the 13th tribe landed on Earth, they looked up into the heavens and saw their 12 brothers." - Starbuck

"There is a place where you can look up into the sky and see the consellations of the 12 colonies." - President

"I don't know what good its gonna do us though; what are we supposed to do, search the entire galaxy for one particular star pattern?" - Starbuck

"There, Scorpio. I've seen that before. Thats the Lagoon Nebula." - Apollo

"Thats astral body M-8. Thats a long way from here." - Adama

"Yeah. But at least now we have a map and a direction." - Apollo

- cut to speech at podium -

(emphasis added)

=0=

Doesn't seem very metaphorical to me to refer to abstract pictures as a map and a direction to search for in the entire galaxy. The characters (at least Starbuck and Apollo) are interpreting the scriptures literally here, not seeing the map as metaphorical or representative.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

All of which proves my point I believe. Starbuck talks about looking for star patterns. That tells me they don't know exactly what stars they are looking at, which they would if the colonies were in the constellations. The constellations are metaphors. The only way the map is useful is by comparing the view form different planets to find one that matches the view shown on the map.

The Lagoon nebulae is the only specific object they recognized. But you can't triangulate a position from one point and a bearing. You need at least two known points with bearings to them. That would give you two possible locations for earth. A third known point and bearing would give you the exact location.

What the Lagoon nebulae does give them is an general idea of the part of the galaxy to look in. Since they know they need to look for a planet where the Lagoon nebulae would be visible, that gives them a point and a distance. From that you can't triangulate an exacpt position, but you can plot of sphererical area of space in which to search.

Everything you've posted here agrees with my idea that the constellations are simply patterns that represent the colonies, and not actually locations of the colonies themselves.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

This part wasn't quite right. I was thinking about plotting locations in two dimensions, like on the surface of a planet. Traveling through space in 3 dimensions two known points and bearings would allow you to plot a circle perpendicular to a line connecting the two points and bisecting the line. It would be way more then two locations, but it would cut down tremendously on the number of systems you had to check as it would be way less then all points in the galaxy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Three points should give you all you need though to reduce that to two possible points. And if you had twelve points, it should be easy to narrow it down to one location. A trained navigator or pilot should be able to do it almost without a computer.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

While I disagree with your literal interpretation on the other stuff, this is one thing we can definetly agree on. If this were real and not a tv drama, the observatory on Kobol wouldn't be a starfield as seen from earth with vague referances to the other twelve colonies and little or no frame of referance to plot a course. It would be a simple map like you find in every shopping mall. "You are here. Go this way to Earth." http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

We can only go on what they say and do. We could extrapolate all sorts of hidden meanings and metaphors, but then we would be little more than English majors (in the literary sense, not language per se) needlessly ruining a work by dissecting it into tiny little pieces, thus missing the whole point, and get nowhere. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/stupid.gif

They were talking about using the map as a (not so) simple mall guide map, though. They did not speak of metaphorical representations of the colonies, but of looking for that pattern in the "sky." Whether or not that makes any sense or will get them anywhere in the long run, that is what they were doing. What we think about this doesn't really change the fact that it happened. Maybe they will use them metaphorically in future episodes, but they have not said anything about finding the meaning of the symbols yet.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

But you are missing the point Fyron, that is the entire point. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

They do not say the constellations mark the positions of the colonies in any quote the you have provided. They do not say the colonies are in the constellations. They do not say any of the stars in the contellations are the stars which the colonies orbit. You may be right that they do state these things in some scene that I can't remember and that you have not quoted, and if that's the case I will reevaluate my position. But with the quotes that you have provided, and in the scenes that I can recall myself, I am the one going by what they actually say, not you. You are the one adding your interpretation to their actual statements.

Sorry if I'm coming off as pedantic here, but hey it's been a while since we've wasted a bunch of time on a pointless disagreement. I appreciate any opportunity to tell you when you are wrong. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

I think we have been talking about totally different things here... I do see that I made an erroneous assertion about the planets being in the constellations several hours ago, but I wasn't even thinking of that in the last few posts. I was only talking about using the constellations as a means to determine a fixed viewing point based on observing the "sky," responding to posts in a similar vein.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

well, that's what I've been saying all along. I guess we agree then. Glad that settled. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

The funny part is that the constellations are not viewable all at the same time, thus they couldn't be on earth. But this implies something significant.

At some point, people on earth would have journeyed back to Kobol or prior to the Exodus, Earth was already visited. This is perhaps one of the few ways that a map to earth would exist on kobol as depicted. It may also imply that the settlers to earth didn't know where the 12 colonies settled, but hoped the 12 colonies would know where kobol was as well.

Downloaded was supposed to have a scene dealing with next stop in the journey, looks like it got cut.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

I made a minor mistake, What I ment to say is that at no time are all the constellations all viewable at the same time at any point on earth. Thus the map is not accurate on distances or locations.

Don't think of the map in terms of a map, but a puzzle game. In order to proceed to eachs tage of the puzzle, you must solve the prior. The Map on Kobol depicts the 12 constellations humans drew to represent the 12 colonies. This, however, contains as many landmarks and locations that the Colonials might recognize and thus be able to plot a course to earth based upon comparing relative distances between known objects depicted in the Map on Kobol to their down starcharts.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

Q) What does visibility (to the naked eye) have to do with anything?

First of all, we are talking interstellar spaceage tech here.
Making a map of the sky has already been done now. 3D maps, no less.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

Actually it means a lot as the map on kobol does not represent the true star locations thus cannot be used accurately for stellar navigation and the measurement of distances.

However, what makes the map useful is 2 things

1.) Known landmarks such as the lagoon nebulae.
2.) Stellar Constellations can be used to verify if the planet is earth or not.

The problem is galactica doesn't know about #2.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

Another quick observation I found in the wikipedia that I'll summerize a bit,

M-8 (Lagoon Nebulae) isn't located in Scorpio but Sagittarius. While RDM has acknowledged this mistake, it may indicate kobol's relationship to earth in space.

Also, the position of the nebulae is important, it may indicate that earth is somewhere along the path to the Lagoon Nebulae. If so, Kobol & Galactica could very well be located in the Cygnus Arm of this galaxy if you draw a line from the Lagoon Nebulae to earth and extend it in that direction.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

correct me if I'm wrong, but don't constellations change as time goes by. I may be going off in the wrong direction but it would be harder for them to find the exact position of earth if the stars have moved.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

Map making is a simple matter of using a telescope, taking pictures and writing things down.

Add in long term observation to take note of velocities, and you can plot the map long into the future.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

Randallw: "... don't constellations change as time goes by."

Depends on the constellation and the time period. As seen from Earth, in 50,000 years Cassiopeia will change significantly, Orion hardly at all.

http://www.astro.ubc.ca/~scharein/applets/#ProperMotion

As I recall from the series, the Twelve Tribes supposedly left Kobol about 2,000 (Earth?) years ago. Assuming the Thirteenth Tribe left at the same time, it would have to reach Earth and send back a sky map before Kobol fell into ruins, i.e. no more than 2,000 years ago. So the constellations should still be recognizable from the vicinity of Sol. If the Thirteenth Tribe left before the others, then all bets are off.

On the other hand, real-world paleontological evidence and the Colonial racial mix make it pretty clear that humanity originated on Earth. That means that humans voyaged from Earth to Kobol (bringing their sky map) some unknown time before the migration of the Twelve Tribes, and we have no way of knowing if Earth's constellations are still recognizable. BTW, Earth-to-Kobol migration is consistent with the Colonials' discoveries on Kobol: apparently there are no sky maps from any of the Twelve Colonies, meaning that Kobol's inhabitants considered Earth more important for some reason.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

True stars do move, but we are talking about stellar drift of only 3000-4000 years (date of the scrolls of pythia). Something that the Galactica would be equipped to do. We know the galactica has to generate new star fixes every time she jumps, so I would assume they are trying to use those star fixes to figure out where earth is.

Humpecked brings up the valid point that humans originated on earth. Perhaps we need to stop looking at the new BSG as something running in our past/present like the original series and something that might be running in out future.

At some point, Earth was abandoned for Kobol, we repeated our crap on earth, and moved on to the 12 colonies while a group went back to earth. You never know.

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

I just caught up with my TiVo, and after watching the one of the most recent episodes a stunning thing hit me concerning the show.

Now I'd always just assumed that the "Number 6" in Baltar's mind was either a Cylon mindfrak or some type of implant they had in him intended to moniter him and the escaping humans. Then his original "Number 6", after getting <font color="red"> BLASTED </font> on Caprica, gets reborn and a couple of NEW mysteries pop up -

1) she and the one in his head aren't the same, or even inter-connected.

2) she has a little Baltar of her own frakking around with her sanity.

3) neither "persona spiritus" acts like their REAL conterpart, and each seems to have their own agendas.

Anybody else think that maybe this isn't a Cylon thing, but that someone, something, else is doing this ??? Some as yet unknown third party, perhaps ???

Just an interesting thought, IMHO....

Re: OT: BSG Discussion
 

I am sure it will be explained as at some point as a mutual download curruption link that some how mixed both of them together. That or Baltar is a cyclon.... who really knows at this point. Good show, it keeps you guessing and wanting more.

I just hope that they don't blow up or sacrifice the BEAST. That is one cool ship.