The Fleet and Consumables (Neo Battlestar Galactica)

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2006-09-25 11:19am

Stofsk wrote: Low Berths should be available, but using them might confer a risk to the person getting inside them. Getting frozen doesn't seem terribly healthy.

Unless you're talking about zero-tau pods. Which are admittedly cool, but they never seemed 'hard' to me. Then again, nBSG has manned fighters when they could have had combat wasps instead.

A few hundred million mammals around the globe would disagree with you there. And zero-tau would be possible if you could affect the Higgs field and make inertia a hell of a lot stronger within a given field. Problem with that is then moving such an object in space. And we all know the folly of manned fighters. But if we were really realistic, Cylon Raiders would be little problem as would Vipers to any capital ship. What, they didn't invent lasers in nBSG's universe?

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2006-09-25 11:26am

Admiral Valdemar wrote:A few hundred million mammals around the globe would disagree with you there.

I don't understand. Please explain?

What, they didn't invent lasers in nBSG's universe?

That bugs me too. I appreciate the grittiness Moore et al have introduced to make nBSG, but lasers wouldn't present a logistics problem for the fleet - IE the omnipresent problem of supplying bullets.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2006-09-25 11:32am

Stofsk wrote: I don't understand. Please explain?

Hibernation. I know Australia never gets that cold for such a thing, but elsewhere, many a rodent and some larger animals will happily pig out and then become furry snowballs for the winter. The ability to freeze someone for preservation is readily doable. The problem stems from the unique ability of water to expand when frozen, which is got around in such organisms by special ice crystal seeking enzymes in cells.

That bugs me too. I appreciate the grittiness Moore et al have introduced to make nBSG, but lasers wouldn't present a logistics problem for the fleet - IE the omnipresent problem of supplying bullets.

They'd also make far better CIWS defences, given reaction time and accuracy is everything. Railguns in nBSG seem to be very good at missing any incoming missiles, though to the Colonial's credit, the Cylons do love their missile massacre nuke attacks.

TheMuffinKing · Post by **TheMuffinKing** » 2006-09-25 11:46am

Maybe they never invented weaponised lasers.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2006-09-25 11:50am

Then they're thick as pigshit.

Darth Lucifer · Post by **Darth Lucifer** » 2006-09-25 01:01pm

Cao Cao wrote:Maybe there are government-sponsored stills all over the fleet.

Could explain where Billy got alcohol to trade for antibiotics.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2006-09-25 01:24pm

Stofsk wrote:That bugs me too. I appreciate the grittiness Moore et al have introduced to make nBSG, but lasers wouldn't present a logistics problem for the fleet - IE the omnipresent problem of supplying bullets.

Yeah, they'd have to supply lasing gas instead. Not an improvement. Unless you used a free electron laser, which for the forseeable future needs a large, cumbersome, fragile particle accelerator to work. Also not an improvement over guns. And any weaponized laser will produce fuckloads of waste heat and consume far more energy than a gun.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2006-09-25 01:51pm

RedImperator wrote:
Yeah, they'd have to supply lasing gas instead. Not an improvement. Unless you used a free electron laser, which for the forseeable future needs a large, cumbersome, fragile particle accelerator to work. Also not an improvement over guns. And any weaponized laser will produce fuckloads of waste heat and consume far more energy than a gun.

There's diode (solid state) lasers, doable today and with very high efficiencies. So long as you have the juice and the right crystal for the wavelength required, you're good to go. To be honest, stealth almost seems like an afterthought to the Colonials. They're forever using active DRADIS scans, communicating by radio rather than tight-band laser and it's not like their ships blend into the background either. A few extra heatsinks and vanes wouldn't go amiss in the grand scheme of things.

These would only be used to take out missiles anyway. Assuming the laser has a warhead armed, it can be detonated or the propellant can be. One dead missile. Harder for solid kill vehicles already on a close, ballistic course, but that should make it easy for railguns anyway, so long as they're not en masse.

Really, they use a fuel source that seems rare to say the least. Why they don't use normal nuke fusion is a mystery. It's not like it's hard to find a jovian and ramscoop some helium or hydrogen from it when passing through.

It'd be easier if they were travelling at relativistic velocities though. Hard to be intercepted by Cylons when travelling at .99 c; would get to Earth sooner too.

Jalinth · Post by **Jalinth** » 2006-09-25 02:08pm

Stills aren't that hard to make. So if people are willing to swipe the base incredients, moonshine should be possible. Potato vodka for all.

Given humans propensity to drink, I'd expect a large number of illegal stills if some official source wasn't available.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2006-09-25 02:29pm

A still, is, in fact, damn easy to make if you don't care how refined your product is. I'd be shocked that if the Galactica didn't have an official still, enterprising sailors didn't make them within a month of the Galactica getting launched. Then, as soon as Tigh stepped aboard the ship, his ability to detect ethanol through hundreds of meters of bulkhead sealed compartments would begin tingling, and he'd find and take over the operation.

Darth Lucifer · Post by **Darth Lucifer** » 2006-09-25 03:43pm

Trytostaydead wrote:
B5B7 wrote:I've been wondering recently where Colonel Tigh gets all his whisky.
There's a still aboard the Galactica, he traded a lot on the black market, and being the XO of the Galactica probably does get him easier access to the goodies.

In the episode where Adama reunites Col. Tigh and his wife, she claims to have her sources. Ellen Tigh also brags about her bargaining chip (wife of the XO) to Tom Zarek in "Colonial Day."

Nyrath · Post by **Nyrath** » 2006-09-25 08:40pm

Gil Hamilton wrote:A still, is, in fact, damn easy to make if you don't care how refined your product is. I'd be shocked that if the Galactica didn't have an official still, enterprising sailors didn't make them within a month of the Galactica getting launched. Then, as soon as Tigh stepped aboard the ship, his ability to detect ethanol through hundreds of meters of bulkhead sealed compartments would begin tingling, and he'd find and take over the operation.

Indeed a still is quite easy to set up.

From The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (1975)

After about a week of one gee, Private Rudkoski (the cook's assistant) had a still, producing some eight liters a day of 95 percent ethyl alcohol. I didn't want to stop him - life was cheerless enough; I didn't mind as long as people showed up for duty sober - but I was damned curious both how he managed to divert the raw materials out of our sealed-tight ecology, and how the people paid for their booze. So I used the chain of command in reverse, asking Alsever to find out. She asked Jarvil, who asked Carreras, who sat down with Orban, the cook. Turned out that Sergeant Orban had set the whole thing up, letting Rudkoski do the dirty work, and was aching to brag about it to a trustworthy person.

If I had ever taken meals with the enlisted men and women, I might have figured out that something odd was going on. But the scheme didn't extend up to officers' country.

Through Rudkoski, Orban had juryrigged a ship-wide economy based on alcohol. It went like this:

Each meal was prepared with one very sugary dessert - jelly, custard or flan - which you were free to eat if you could stand the cloying taste. But if it was still on your tray when you presented it at the recycling window, Rudkoski would give you a ten-cent chit and scrape the sugary stuff into a fermentation vat. He had two twenty-liter vats, one "working" while the other was being filled.

The ten-cent chit was at the bottom of a system that allowed you to buy a half-liter of straight ethyl (with your choice of flavoring) for five dollars. A squad of five people who skipped all of their desserts could buy about a liter a week, enough for a party but not enough to constitute a public health problem.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-09-25 09:38pm

Here's Ron Moore talking about smoking in neoBSG:

"Why does the doctor smoke?"

Because smoking is cool. Don't let anyone tell you different, kid.

Seriously, we're showing people doing what people really do and not all of their choices are smart ones. We smoke, we drink, we have sex with the wrong partners -- we make lots of bad choices and some of them we do knowingly and in full cognizance of the risks and consequences. Dr. Cottle obviously knows the risks associated with smoking and he elects to do it anyway -- that's his choice.

I'm also frankly tired of all the anti-smoking p.c. crap that we're bombarded with these days and I decided that this was a world without all that. Call it my one sop to the idea of an idealized society, the notion that adults can make informed choices and not be nagged to death or run out of public spaces for making choices that others may not like or agree with.

source

Winston Blake · Post by **Winston Blake** » 2006-09-25 10:21pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:Really, they use a fuel source that seems rare to say the least. Why they don't use normal nuke fusion is a mystery. It's not like it's hard to find a jovian and ramscoop some helium or hydrogen from it when passing through.

Maybe they discovered tylium before they managed to make a working fusion reactor. After that, no more funding for fusion means no expertise in fusion engineering and certainly no relevant equipment/facilities in the Fleet.

It could be like running out of petrol in the middle of a uranium mine and then thinking 'I wish I could just use fission power to restart my car.'

It'd be easier if they were travelling at relativistic velocities though. Hard to be intercepted by Cylons when travelling at .99 c; would get to Earth sooner too.

Huh? If they could burn up to .99c, then the Cylons could too, making the relative velocity nil and giving us the same visuals.

Presumably they'd get to Earth sooner by using their FTL drives.

Moore wrote:I'm also frankly tired of all the anti-smoking p.c. crap that we're bombarded with these days and I decided that this was a world without all that. Call it my one sop to the idea of an idealized society, the notion that adults can make informed choices and not be nagged to death or run out of public spaces for making choices that others may not like or agree with.

WTF? An ideal society is one where it's ok to damage other people's health just to look cool or fit in to tradition? Let me guess, Moore thinks second-hand smoke is bullshit, and just loves the smell of cigarettes.

And yes, you can be run out of public spaces for making choices others don't agree with. So Moore has no problem with some asshole calling for the subjugation of black people? Setting off fireworks in a crowed square? Carrying a concealed firearm without a permit? Running around naked and pissing on people? Just adults making informed choices.

Dr. Cottle obviously knows the risks associated with smoking and he elects to do it anyway -- that's his choice.

Gee, maybe he does it because he's fucking addicted to nicotine? And obviously it has no effect on the health of his patients if he blows smoke in their faces - it's merely 'his informed choice as an adult'.

StarshipTitanic · Post by **StarshipTitanic** » 2006-09-26 12:00am

Gil Hamilton wrote:A still, is, in fact, damn easy to make if you don't care how refined your product is. I'd be shocked that if the Galactica didn't have an official still, enterprising sailors didn't make them within a month of the Galactica getting launched. Then, as soon as Tigh stepped aboard the ship, his ability to detect ethanol through hundreds of meters of bulkhead sealed compartments would begin tingling, and he'd find and take over the operation.

Tirol helped build the still when his underlings made a crappy one. In "Pegasus," Col. Tigh got Col. Fisk drunk with the stuff.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2006-09-26 12:32am

WRT the use of lasers as weapons, I remember seeing an article from thier tech guy covering why they made the decision to go with bullets instead of lasers. IIRC, it came down to a couple of factors

1) energy+momentum vs energy alone (the momentum from a lasers would be negligible for the powers we are talking)

2) Fraility of lasers

3) depiction of the laers in space

4) storytelling (bullets are less limited then lasers in how they will act and the conditions for them allowing more freedom)

What are these zerotau things being mentioned. And why should the existance of a FTL drive mean that the colonials must have cryonic tech? The romans had the steam engine yet lacked a proper horse/oxen yoke, hence the need for slaves.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2006-09-26 04:26am

I'd like to read what their tech guy thinks about manned space fighters.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-09-26 04:30am

Maybe 'depiction of drama in space' or 'storytelling: half the cast is fighter pilots'.

Cao Cao · Post by **Cao Cao** » 2006-09-26 08:52am

Having repeatedly been the victim of attacks by an enemy who's primary advantage over them is the ability to hack Colonial technology, they're going to trust their defence to computer or remote controlled fighters?

Johnathon_Chance · Post by **Johnathon_Chance** » 2006-09-26 02:55pm

Cao Cao wrote:Having repeatedly been the victim of attacks by an enemy who's primary advantage over them is the ability to hack Colonial technology, they're going to trust their defence to computer or remote controlled fighters?

IIRC, they did have fighters and battlestars that had advanced weaponry and computer controlled defenses, and what happened. Hmm can you say BOOM! I still think it odd though that with space travelling vehicles, that they would have more advanced weapons and vehicles than what you see now. Its kinda like star trek meets WWII.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-09-26 03:22pm

Stofsk wrote:I'd like to read what their tech guy thinks about manned space fighters.

Come on, they took enough flak as is for the changes they made. BSG sans starfighters would be too much.

Cao Cao · Post by **Cao Cao** » 2006-09-26 04:12pm

Johnathon_Chance wrote:IIRC, they did have fighters and battlestars that had advanced weaponry and computer controlled defenses, and what happened. Hmm can you say BOOM!

Exactly. And didn't the Cylons come about in the first place due to the Colonial's over-reliance on automation?
It was specifically said before the series even began that they were semi-technophobic because of the Cylons and were only just beginning to automate their defenses again. And then it blew up in their faces once more.

So yeah they'll lose pilots. But it's better than having all their Vipers turn against them in mid-combat.

I still think it odd though that with space travelling vehicles, that they would have more advanced weapons and vehicles than what you see now. Its kinda like star trek meets WWII.

I rather like their style. I don't think it that odd that they advance in some areas and not in others. There's a variety of reasons already gone over why they'd use projectiles over lasers.
The vehicles look fine too. What's supposed to look archaic does, what's more modern (like Pegasus and the newer generation Vipers) looks modern.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2006-09-26 05:07pm

Winston Blake wrote: Maybe they discovered tylium before they managed to make a working fusion reactor. After that, no more funding for fusion means no expertise in fusion engineering and certainly no relevant equipment/facilities in the Fleet.

It could be like running out of petrol in the middle of a uranium mine and then thinking 'I wish I could just use fission power to restart my car.'

Still, given the abundance of fusing matter, it's a pretty odd decision.

Huh? If they could burn up to .99c, then the Cylons could too, making the relative velocity nil and giving us the same visuals.

Presumably they'd get to Earth sooner by using their FTL drives.

If they kept at constant acceleration, the Cylons couldn't do squat about it, unless of course, they used pure machine ships to go beyond 1 gee or so. But then, I'm unsure how much tylium is present or how efficient it is, so such an idea may never work. Simply keeping ahead of the enemy would be a great advantage, and we see the FTL drives are very limited, even with regards to the Cylons.

I accept a lot is done because of writer's fiat in the interests of a good story, but it's nice to show up how one could evade such problems if done differently.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2006-09-26 07:54pm

Cao Cao wrote:Having repeatedly been the victim of attacks by an enemy who's primary advantage over them is the ability to hack Colonial technology, they're going to trust their defence to computer or remote controlled fighters?

You do know that Galactica has computers, right? You do know that the Cylons couldn't hack into BSG's computer, right? Because they're not networked... right?

You also could tell I was joking around, hence why I added the smiley... right?

Cao Cao · Post by **Cao Cao** » 2006-09-27 08:04am

Stofsk wrote:
Cao Cao wrote:Having repeatedly been the victim of attacks by an enemy who's primary advantage over them is the ability to hack Colonial technology, they're going to trust their defence to computer or remote controlled fighters?
You do know that Galactica has computers, right? You do know that the Cylons couldn't hack into BSG's computer, right? Because they're not networked... right?

IIRC even the Galactica's computers were infected with a Cylon virus in one episode.

You also could tell I was joking around, hence why I added the smiley... right?

Well it's not just you talking about unmanned fighters.