OT: BSG Discussion

[Fyron]

The whole point was to get a map to earth. The map is pretty useless if it has no bearing on the real galaxy. 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.

[geoschmo]

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.

[Fyron]

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?

[ZeroAdunn]

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?

[geoschmo]

Imperator Fyron said:
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?

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.

[geoschmo]

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. And you'd have to assume they recorded the observatory view and aren't just going by memory.

[Fyron]

geoschmo said:
As far as I know they never say clearly that they mean the constellations mark the positions of the colonies.

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.

[Fyron]

"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.

[geoschmo]

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.

[geoschmo]

Imperator Fyron said:
but the plot doesn't call for simplicity.

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."