nBSG ep 4.15: "No Exit" Talkback (SPOILERS)

[Mayabird]

So now we know what the Cylon Plan (capitalized) was this entire time: be a total dick.

Also a comment that was probably missed because it happened so fast while other people were talking: in Tyrol's Earth life, his 'angel' was actually a ship.

Speaking of great acting, as someone else pointed out, I did get the subtle feeling that Cavil was really being a petulant rebellious teenager despite looking like an old man. A tiny bit of whining in his voice that only showed up when Mom returned home. His posture may have changed a little bit too so he didn't have that air of being completely in control either. A genocidal teen who screwed with his (five) parents [implanting them into the colonies, telling Tyrol to marry Cally, apparently running with Ander's rebel crew on Caprica, literally screwing Ellen which is just ewww], killed fifty billion people and apparently enslaved an entire race.

Also, we have unintentionally received some numbers. If the five were in a relativistic ship and Earth went nukey nukey about two thousand years ago, they could only have traveled at most about two thousand light years before being discovered by Cylons. We don't know how far the Cylons ranged (that one hybrid and his old fashioned centurions we saw in Razor had gone pretty far out there), though, so we still can't know where their colony/homeworld/whatever is (maybe they went entirely space-based and didn't bother with planets). But, the five did stop at the Algae Planet along the way, so that place can't be more than two thousand light years from Earth, straight line.

[Anguirus]

Ok, there was some interesting stuff in the podcast...there was a scene cut between Ellen and Boomer where she had a little speech about metafiction, the ability of characters in a story or play to "break the fourth wall," and how the humans "broke the fourth wall" when they stole "fire" from the Lords of Kobol in order to create artificial life, but in turn never expected the Cylons to do the same thing to them in turn.

Also, apparently Anders is indeed in dire straits, and that his storyline is continuing...I don't object, but I do think it was a little underplayed at the end there. Another tidbit was that *most* of the Ellen/Cavil scenes were actually written to appear in episode 12, before being kicked down the line to focus on the mutiny story and then having one big episode to explain the Cylon lore.

I also wanted to say just because I'd forgotten before...I really liked the reference to relativistic speeds there. I usually get the impression that we're expected to be grateful to sci-fi for understanding Newton. Now we get a little Einstein mixed in there!

[Themightytom]

*well while I DO feel like Ander's headwound created a plot exposition machine, I think with a story this complicated, revelations can come in no other way unless RDM committed to dragging out another season.

I do feel a little ill used, in that I have been so desperate for coherent blocks of plot exposition, that I will gladly swallow this mechanism for delivery. (Incidently, "Thats what she said")

*"They cut CORNERS???" Way to go fuckers, clearly you should build every last battlestar as though it might well BE the last battlestar upon which all of humanity's hopes rest. Adama is being pretty frigging self indulgent when he acts as though they don't NEED to repair galactica, the fleet is completely fucked without it, its their mobile support base as well as defense stronghold. On side note, did they say the Galactica was "Fity years old" before the war started"? I'm confused about the timeline here. Adama was portrayed at first as an ace/legend akin to his generation's Starbuck, then we see in Razor tha he was on his FIRST mission as a viper pilot when he got shot down and the war ended. It also seems like the war wasn't like a "Ack the revolted but we quickly repelled them" deal, it would have lasted around ten years.

My understanding is the Colonies were using the Cylons as their military. The Cylons didn't like being used as cannon fodder and rebelled. The battlestars were built to beat off the Cylons right? Unless for some reason the Colonies said "hey lets build some battlestars, and for fun, an entire second military, manned by Cylons.

The frantic "Oh shit the Cylons are revolting" issue would explain twelve hastily constructed battlestars being thrown together to hold the line.

*all I could think of during Adama's tantrum was the crazy trader from Waterworld going on about "Raaaaaaaaasin...."

*What the hell?? Ellen resurrects with Cavil after new Caprica and after the Algae planet, Boomer helps hr escape. Boomer ends up with rebels, sure... and her ultimate fate is seen in The Felix Gaeta Kronicles. Did she drop Ellen off somewhere or am i getting the order wrong here.

*John= Devon Miles style character from original series in Experiment in Terra??
* Tyrol sees a ship? Was it the galactica?
*I will not like the Daniel is Starbuck explanation, as much as i would like the "Daniel i starbuck's Father" explanation, I would even prefer "Baltar is Daniel" to Daniel is Starbuck.

*If Cavil was "playing" reistance fighter with Anders, does that mean once Ander's left he finished exterminating all survivors?

*Did Cavil intentionally sabotage what may ahve been a legitimate effort to coexist on new caprica, just to prove he was right?

*What the hell is Cavil's problem anyway, why doesn't he just put all of this effort into learning how to dump his brain into a raider if he's so excited about feeling X rays caress his balls or whatever (I can't do it as well as Dean Stockwell.

*Speaking of which if Scott bakula appears in a future episode as Starbucks father I will probably write a very angry letter to someone somewhere... Dirk benedict would be kin of awesome though i doubt he'd do it.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

On side note, did they say the Galactica was "Fity years old" before the war started"? I'm confused about the timeline here.

By "before the war started" I think Tyrol meant the "current" war consisting of the attack on the Colonies and everything after that, so Galactica was launched at the beginning or early in the original Cylon War.

[RedImperator]

I also wanted to say just because I'd forgotten before...I really liked the reference to relativistic speeds there. I usually get the impression that we're expected to be grateful to sci-fi for understanding Newton. Now we get a little Einstein mixed in there!

It also puts Earth within 2000 light years of the Twelve Colonies, which contradicts the impression I had that they were a significant fraction of the galactic disk away from one another.

*What the hell?? Ellen resurrects with Cavil after new Caprica and after the Algae planet, Boomer helps hr escape. Boomer ends up with rebels, sure... and her ultimate fate is seen in The Felix Gaeta Kronicles. Did she drop Ellen off somewhere or am i getting the order wrong here.

That wasn't Boomer. That was a different 8.

[Skylon]

On side note, did they say the Galactica was "Fity years old" before the war started"? I'm confused about the timeline here.

By "before the war started" I think Tyrol meant the "current" war consisting of the attack on the Colonies and everything after that, so Galactica was launched at the beginning or early in the original Cylon War.

That was in place since the mini. While giving his tour Doral says Galactica was built "50 years ago during the early days of the Cylon war."

It survives a ten year war, probably taking more than a few hits along the way. Then had 40 years of peacetime duty. It's possible it had some stresses there as certain colonies faced unrest, and possible accidents aboard ship combined with everyday wear-and-tear. When it was facing retirement it had likely been a few years since it received any major maintenance.

I also question how much millage the FTL drives are really designed for. In the mini-series Col. Tigh said something about it being "20 years" since Galactica had made a jump. That's quite a change from having a five day span where jumps were made every 33 minutes, to the regular usage they've had through the show.

[Ford Prefect]

Incidentally, while I appreciated the information delivered, I honestly found this a very boring episode. It was just 'exposition, exposition, exposition, unconvincing betrayal by Boomer'. Compared to what had in the past couple of episodes, it was a significant disappointment. It was exactly bad, but it was quite dull. There were moments that I really enjoyed, such as Cavil's monologue and Adama and the Chief talking about Galactica, but Blanders delivering half an hour of dialogue isn't great television, no matter how you cut it.

[Anguirus]

^ That's entirely fair. It really only flew with me because 1) I was so hungry for answers, and rather pleased with the ones received, and 2) the skill of the actors.

But hey, one plotdump episode and we are back to stuff happening!

Adama was portrayed at first as an ace/legend akin to his generation's Starbuck, then we see in Razor tha he was on his FIRST mission as a viper pilot when he got shot down and the war ended.

Eh...it was only sort of implied. In the Miniseries Adama says Starbuck is "better than I am...twice as good as you [Tigh]." In "The Hand of God," he refers to a transitional period in which he had to learn how to be an operation-planning officer rather than a Viper pilot. I think these events can be reconciled by considering that, after the Armistice, he no doubt remained a Viper pilot for a few years, then mustered out, then married and used his wife's pull to rejoin the fleet on the command track ("I'm gonna have my own battlestar someday"). He got Tigh as his XO and moved up through the ranks, probably fighting terrorists like Tom Zarek, breakaway moons (like the one Boomer's parents were supposedly killed on?), etc. Eventually his reputation is good enough for him to be promoted to Commander and given the Valkyrie, a modern, but smallish battlestar. Then he takes part in the mission portrayed in "Hero," which he fails in, and the fleet command decides it's appropriate to put him on the retirement track by giving him the aging Galactica. In a show of loyalty, Tigh, Gaeta, and Tyrol (maybe even some of the other deck crew) move over to Galactica with him. Starbuck, who he met after his son's funeral, joins him there, and they keep the old ship in fighting shape right up until its decommissioning. And the rest is history.

Adama's backstory is ad hoc and weird, but I think it all fits in the end. The biggest single problem is that his fighter (N7242C) is badly trashed in Razor, but then reappears in the Miniseries restored. You'd think it would have been totally destroyed by crashing on the ice moon...but then again, that Cylon Raider somehow survived landing on the Red Moon despite being brain-dead.

[Gil Hamilton]

It also puts Earth within 2000 light years of the Twelve Colonies, which contradicts the impression I had that they were a significant fraction of the galactic disk away from one another.

It makes you wonder. While that gives a solid maximum (and they must have been traveling at very close the speed of light if relativity alone preserved them), it makes you wonder what the hell that stellar cluster they had to jump through on their way to the Algae Planet was, because there is nothing like that reasonably locally to Earth. I kind of assumed they must have taken a path reasonably close to the galactic core.

It also makes you wonder how the "Final Five" themselves made the trip back, for that matter, since they would have had to flown through all the same treacherous stellar crap that the Colonial Fleet had to WITHOUT the benefit of a jump drive.

[Captain Seafort]

It also makes you wonder how the "Final Five" themselves made the trip back, for that matter, since they would have had to flown through all the same treacherous stellar crap that the Colonial Fleet had to WITHOUT the benefit of a jump drive.

You mean the high radiation zone from "The Passage"? IIRC Cylons are far more resilient to radiation than humans - Athena recced the passage specifically because she was all but immune to its effects.

[Skylon]

Adama's backstory is ad hoc and weird, but I think it all fits in the end. The biggest single problem is that his fighter (N7242C) is badly trashed in Razor, but then reappears in the Miniseries restored. You'd think it would have been totally destroyed by crashing on the ice moon...but then again, that Cylon Raider somehow survived landing on the Red Moon despite being brain-dead.

Different bird. Here's Adama's Viper from "Razor":

http://www.galacticabbs.com/index.php?a ... &img=86902
http://www.galacticabbs.com/index.php?a ... &img=86824

1104NC

N7242C was probably his post-war Viper, before getting mustered out. Or he got switched to the Viper in "Razor" for just that day.

[xerex]

Also a comment that was probably missed because it happened so fast while other people were talking: in Tyrol's Earth life, his 'angel' was actually a ship.

ummm Tyrol 's angel wasnt a ship. he thought it was a CHIP. implanted in him.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Wasn't it Baltar back in Season 1 who thought the Cylons put a chip in his head?

Or am I forgetting about something from Tyrol's breakdown at the end of Season 2?

[Lonestar]

You mean the high radiation zone from "The Passage"? IIRC Cylons are far more resilient to radiation than humans - Athena recced the passage specifically because she was all but immune to its effects.

Cylons are less resilient, not more. That was the whole basis of Baltar's Cylon detector.

[xerex]

Wasn't it Baltar back in Season 1 who thought the Cylons put a chip in his head?

Or am I forgetting about something from Tyrol's breakdown at the end of Season 2?

mayabird and I are referring to Anders revelation that the Five were visited by angels back on Earth who warned them of the nuclear holocaust. Tyrol didnt beleive initially and thought a chip had been implanted in him.

which of course paralells head-six and baltar.

[CaptJodan]

*"They cut CORNERS???" Way to go fuckers, clearly you should build every last battlestar as though it might well BE the last battlestar upon which all of humanity's hopes rest.

I always had the impression, like many others, that the Colonial military was a fledgling group where the Cylons held most of the power of the military. I have a hard time picturing Galactica being in service the moment the Cylons rebelled in the first war, as she was built specifically to counter their innate hacking abilities. Either Galactica was available on day one of the war, but there was a ton of lead-up to the rebellion that they knew there would be one (enough time to switch an entire battlestar design to fighting Cylons), or, in my view more likely, she was maybe on the docks being built when the war started and fitted out for anti-Cylon duty. If it was the latter, then I can definitely see an undermanned, under-trained, outgunned and desperate Colonial fleet cutting corners on the design to get it out into the fray as fast as possible, and get started working on the next battlestar.

Best part about that line was Adama's incredulity at the idea that someone dared to cut corners on his girl. Like Tyrol said, the shit they've put Galactica through probably would have snapped a lesser ship in two, and even referenced the near insane plan of jumping into an atmosphere. I don't really think Adama has any reason to complain, at this point. The 50 year old ship has done far more than anyone ever designed her to do.

Edit: I got the impression in the podcast that Daniel is really no one in the cast. That he really is dead and gone.

[Captain Seafort]

You mean the high radiation zone from "The Passage"? IIRC Cylons are far more resilient to radiation than humans - Athena recced the passage specifically because she was all but immune to its effects.

Cylons are less resilient, not more. That was the whole basis of Baltar's Cylon detector.

I'm simply going by The Passage here - they had to pass through an area of high radiation (took a couple of jumps to get through IIRC) that Athena had already done a recce through specifically because she was more resilient than the humans. If I'm misremembering the episode, fair enough.

[Anguirus]

^ No, you're absolutely right. I bet if the Five were in a big enough ship with lots of radiation protection they could have managed.

Adama's backstory is ad hoc and weird, but I think it all fits in the end. The biggest single problem is that his fighter (N7242C) is badly trashed in Razor, but then reappears in the Miniseries restored. You'd think it would have been totally destroyed by crashing on the ice moon...but then again, that Cylon Raider somehow survived landing on the Red Moon despite being brain-dead.

Different bird. Here's Adama's Viper from "Razor":

http://www.galacticabbs.com/index.php?a ... &img=86902
http://www.galacticabbs.com/index.php?a ... &img=86824

1104NC

N7242C was probably his post-war Viper, before getting mustered out. Or he got switched to the Viper in "Razor" for just that day.

Nice catch there! I could have sworn I read on the Wiki or somewhere that the same number was on the trashed plane. My mistake.

Edit: I got the impression in the podcast that Daniel is really no one in the cast. That he really is dead and gone.

Well of course you did.

No, seriously, I suspect this may well be the case (he was just a way to explain the Eight discrepancy), but it would also be intriguing if it's not.
Spoiler

Theories that Seven = Starbuck are of course retarded, but I'm interested in the idea floating around that Seven is Starbuck's father. After all, they were very careful to mention that Seven was an artist...and that's just about the only piece of info we have on Starbuck's dad (played piano).

Either way, I look forward to the revelation of Starbuck's true nature if it's half as interesting as what we just got on the Cylons.

[Skylon]

Best part about that line was Adama's incredulity at the idea that someone dared to cut corners on his girl. Like Tyrol said, the shit they've put Galactica through probably would have snapped a lesser ship in two, and even referenced the near insane plan of jumping into an atmosphere. I don't really think Adama has any reason to complain, at this point. The 50 year old ship has done far more than anyone ever designed her to do.

Edit: I got the impression in the podcast that Daniel is really no one in the cast. That he really is dead and gone.

I'd imagine on any such project some corners would be cut. The Chief was merely listing the deficiencies Galactica had, such as some half-assed bolting, and armor that wasn't quite up to specifications (probably in the least critical areas). As you noted, it was something Adama didn't want top hear. It was the first ship he served on, and as such has the "old reliable...could do anything" image in his head.

He's always been staunchly proud of Galactica to the point that when in "Pegasus" as Roslin mentions "Pegasus would likely beat Galactica in a fight" Adama strikes back an almost childish "I wouldn't count on that!"...when based on what we saw of Pegasus, she was probably right.

As I noted before, it was a government contract. I actually really liked this, as, again, unlike the USS Enterprise, Galactica's presented as not being the perfect-uber ship. It's builders are flawed, lazy humans.

[Gil Hamilton]

You mean the high radiation zone from "The Passage"? IIRC Cylons are far more resilient to radiation than humans - Athena recced the passage specifically because she was all but immune to its effects.

Lonestar makes a point, but there is more. For one thing, whatever else Cylons are, they basically have the same composition as human beings, I.E. they are mostly water and have about the same mass. As a radiation target, they SHOULD absorb radiation the same way as human beings. We know there are some differences, which is how Baltar's Cylon detector operates, but at a certain point, a gray of ionizing radiation is a gray of ionizing radiation. It's silly to say that something that is basically human is can be completely immune to what would normally be lethal radiation. After all, ionizing radiation is physical damage. It's like saying that Cylons are about the same as human beings, but all but immune to being beaten with a baseball bat.

Secondly, exposure time matters! Believe me, there are actual OSHA regulations on how long workers are allowed to be exposed to X amount of ionizing radiation before it becomes illegal to permit them to work around radiation sources, due to the fact that radiation sickness is the result of cumulative exposure. As nasty as "The Passage" through the stellar cluster was (enough to kill Kat, in fact), it wasn't a very long exposure time. They probably no more than a few days total. However, the Final Fives ship would have spent YEARS flying through that thing.

[Jade Owl]

You mean the high radiation zone from "The Passage"? IIRC Cylons are far more resilient to radiation than humans - Athena recced the passage specifically because she was all but immune to its effects.

Cylons are less resilient, not more. That was the whole basis of Baltar's Cylon detector.

I think your confusing the radiation from the stellar phenomenon in "The Passage" with the radiation in the gas station where Ragnar Station was located in the miniseries. It was the radiation at Ragnar that messed up the Cylon's nervous systems. And even then, only prolonged exposure. IIRC, the Cylons who came to pick up Doral, as well as Doral himself looked pretty fine. It was only Leoben ,who had spent considerable time at Ragnar, that showed any signs of damage.

[Junghalli]

For one thing, whatever else Cylons are, they basically have the same composition as human beings, I.E. they are mostly water and have about the same mass. As a radiation target, they SHOULD absorb radiation the same way as human beings. We know there are some differences, which is how Baltar's Cylon detector operates, but at a certain point, a gray of ionizing radiation is a gray of ionizing radiation. It's silly to say that something that is basically human is can be completely immune to what would normally be lethal radiation.

Well, they do seem to have anti-cancer mechanisms in their blood, maybe they have enhanced DNA/protein repair mechanisms in their cells that make them more resistant to radiation as well?

[Anguirus]

However, the Final Fives ship would have spent YEARS flying through that thing.

Very true, but one can readily imagine their ship also having much heavier shielding than Kat's Raptor. (I.e. the front of the Raptor is actually made out of *glass.*)

[Jade Owl]

It also makes you wonder how the "Final Five" themselves made the trip back, for that matter, since they would have had to flown through all the same treacherous stellar crap that the Colonial Fleet had to WITHOUT the benefit of a jump drive.

You're assuming they made the whole two thousand year sub-light trip on humanoid form. I find it far more likely that they made the bulk of the trip with their consciousness boxed in cold storage, with their ship’s systems on automatic, and only being resurrected to make repairs, course corrections or upon reaching their destination. If they were on cold storage, and the organic raw material for their new bodies properly shielded, they could have made the trip thru that stellar crap and downloaded into new bodies as soon as they reached the Algae Planet. Then put their consciousness back in cold storage and resume the trip to Kobol.

Also, we have unintentionally received some numbers. If the five were in a relativistic ship and Earth went nukey nukey about two thousand years ago, they could only have traveled at most about two thousand light years before being discovered by Cylons. We don't know how far the Cylons ranged (that one hybrid and his old fashioned centurions we saw in Razor had gone pretty far out there), though, so we still can't know where their colony/homeworld/whatever is (maybe they went entirely space-based and didn't bother with planets). But, the five did stop at the Algae Planet along the way, so that place can't be more than two thousand light years from Earth, straight line.

Do we know that they made the whole of the trip at sub-light speed, though? They could have travelled sub-light all the way to the Algae Planet or Kobol, and found enough information there to put together a jump drive. After all we know that some of the ancient Kobolian technology was quite resilient. That holographic whatever in the Tomb of Athena worked perfectly after more than 2000 years of not being used, and the technology at the Temple of Five was twice as old and still worked. The Colonials didn’t have nearly enough time to properly survey Kobol. Who knows what other still usable stuff the may have found otherwise?

[Bilbo]

Since Cavil "reprogrammed" himself to no longer need sleep I wonder what else he changed. What changes did he make to the other human Cylons to make so many of them pliant to his wishes.

I am also a bit sad that the show is boiling down to james bond supervillian riff Cavil as being the answer to just about everything.