OT: BSG Discussion

[Hunpecked]

Thermodyne: "If you were looking closely when the nuke went off, it took out a big portion of the fleet. Which based on the head count could make their survival a moot point."

Well, they gave the population of "New Caprica City" as about 39K. Allowing for skeleton crews on the orbiting ships, the nuke could have taken out nearly 20% of the fleet.

Thermodyne: "And I can’t see them letting their guard down that way. They would have posted pickets all along the frontier to warn of approaching Cylons."

Uh, we ARE talking about the Colonial military here. You know, the people who gave Baltar a functional NUCLEAR WARHEAD when all he needed was the plutonium, and then didn't even put a 24-hour guard on the NUCLEAR WARHEAD, even with at least one known Cylon on the loose, and didn't check on him from time to time to make sure he still had the NUCLEAR WARHEAD.

Strangely, though, the ships in orbit did seem to have their FTL drives spun up and at least one jump pre-plotted; they got out pretty fast when the Cylons showed up. With the dumbest humans marooned on New Caprica, the fleet is probably more likely to reach Earth now. My guess, though, is that the series will focus on the New Caprica concentration camp, run by the now-benevolent Cylons, as a kind of "Hogan's Heroes" type show. Starbuck will play Hogan, and the Quisling Baltar will be the unfortunate and ineffectual Klink, running the camp for the Cylons. I suspect some poor Centurion will play Schultz, occasionally declaring in a robotic monotone, "I see nothing!"

[Thermodyne]

So if we take the 39K number, what would the effects of surviving a nuclear war and several close proximity fission detonations have on them? That’s a lot of stray neutrons ripping through their DNA. Between the birth defects and the die off from long term radiation illnesses, would the society survive?


As for Baltar, how long would he be in office if he crippled the fleet? The story line would indicate that it would not be long. Not with the Cylons a jump away at any given moment.

I hope this is just a tease for next season and not a cost cutting measure. I for one do not care to watch this current bunch of bozo’s fight a terrorist campaign against the Cylons. And if it is a cost issue, then I guess most of the Cylons we see will just be humans posing as Cylons. Budget cutting has been the death of many a scifi series.

[Azselendor]

Typically scifi shows requiring location shots cost nearly twice as much as bottle episodes. Humanity is in a sorry state with a year of Baltar in the helm. plus it should be noted we have been jumping around on the timeline. At "Flight of the Pheonix" we stood at 3 months since the miniseries, Cain in Pegasus said it had been six months since the miniseries. Baltar's election took place roughly nine months since miniseries.

A full year skip, while killing a lot of storylines, does sadly make sense. The idea is to show that humanity has fallen back off it's guard again thinking the cylon threat had passed.

However, I still think this BSG was a waste of 90 minutes. Seeing the Orii ships in action in SG1 was a far more exiciting episode. (did you know if you stand one on end, it looks like a giant tooth?)

But lingering questions from Galactica

- The Brother Carville Duo's fate. I suspect rock-paper-scissors gets old after 380 days.
- Helo's Sharon's fate. I suspect she's in the brig given that Helo is replacing gaeta and that Adama will reveal her baby's fate to enlist her help.
- Tom Zarek and his motely crew of felons, rapist, and terrorist's fate. Richard Hatch is too money-grubbbing to loose galactica... AGAIN.
- Cylon/Human Baby now that the cylons are everywhere.

Did anyone else find it amusing the two cylon priest models were both really athiests?

[Azselendor]

Almost forgot, Now that Adama has is moustache back, does anyone think he'll get the Wonderful Icecream Suit back so he can go drink red wine, eat a greesy burrito, and hit on the bar owner's wife again?

[Hunpecked]

Thermodyne: "So if we take the 39K number, what would the effects of surviving a nuclear war and several close proximity fission detonations have on them?"

From the mini-series I got the impression that most of the survivors were already off-planet during the initial Cylon attack. The ones Boomer picked up from Caprica were at some distance from the nearest blast and apparently made it off before the fallout started dropping. As I recall, Galactica herself took a nuke (near miss?) at some point in the series, but since the electronics came through OK, the ship must be well-shielded from radiation.

As for Baltar's nuke, the FX guys produced a pretty good simulation of an atmospheric blast engulfing nearby ships, but that's probably not what would happen in RL. Extrapolating from what I've read, I think the warhead would probably vaporize part of the Cloud 9 ship. Within this "atmosphere" the nuke would probably produce the usual radiative and blast effects, but the fireball would be no bigger than the ship and would dissipate rapidly at greater distances. I suspect the nearby ships would experience more damage from fragments and radiation than from blast. No doubt the fleet's civilian ships carry shielding adequate to protect against solar flares; I have no idea if this would be enough to protect against a nuke at a distance of several miles. Anyone on the ground, of course, would probably see some nice auroras in the following days.

Actually, it occurred to me while writing this that the fleet might not maintain a cluster formation while orbiting New Caprica. Ships closer to the planet than the Cloud 9 ship would effectively be in a lower orbit and gradually pull ahead; ships farther out would fall behind. Ships separated laterally would actually be in crossing orbits. My guess is that the fleet would form line, orbiting the planet like a string of pearls. In that case, Baltar's gift to #6 might not take out more than one ship.

Thermodyne: "I hope this is just a tease for next season and not a cost cutting measure."

I suspect the writers were trying to deliver a real shock to the viewers: fast-forward a year and then leave our heroes in an apparently hopeless position (again). If so, it worked; I was screaming "Jump, you idiots! Jump!" at the TV as soon as the Cylons showed up again. I predict the fleet will stage a heroic (and hopefully plausible) rescue operation using Sharon's talents (again) and plucky Starbuck's military skills on the ground, before resuming the trek to Earth.