Battlestar Galactica Map Released

[Stofsk]

okay, and?

Nevermind I remembered the episode wrong. The actual line was that the galaxy is a pretty barren place, but Tigh was being asked to speculate by Roslin on something which really shouldn't be his area of expertise.

We don't know what the route they were taking looks like. That they were unaware of the existence of Kobol being so close tells me that there may be some kind of "empty space", a bunch of planetless stars, all why trying to go to the most likely systems to do quick inspections in case the Cylons are lying in wait because they know that they are out of water.

There is no need to speculate; the episode has Tigh mention that there are five systems in range which have planetary bodies in them and that is based on what their telescopes picked up.

The scene just bugs me because Roslin calls Tigh to speculate on something when he's not even an astrophysicist so wtf would he know about the odds any of those systems would have water in them.

EDIT:

It would have been a pretty boring episode if 30 minutes after the hold explodes they cruise up to a comet or something, probably spouting statistics about how many there are and just fill up.

Yes that would have been boring in comparison.

[jollyreaper]

It's true that we don't know the distribution of planets in the galaxy. The current assumption is that rocky planets like earth inside the liquid water zone are fairly common. That's good for life. But is that good for Earth-like biomes?

Everything I've read about speculative exobiology says it is incredibly unlikely to find worlds where we can walk around in shirtsleeves. It's less probable that we will encounter worlds like that where we can eat the plants and animals. It's even less likely anything would look familiar. Even on earth things could have gone quite differently depending on how the mass extinction event cookie crumbled.

If they have an entire galaxy to choose from then they might find one cluster build like this but the instantly habitable planets are the kicker.

Given the religious bent of their society, finding a system like this that should be flat out impossible must be a sign from the gods.

Also, that draedis is completely out of place for an 80s-era aegis ship. Those suckers had green monochrome screeens and simple line drawing graphics.

[Sarevok]

Why should I believe you again? Are you secretly a highly respected astronomer? Wait, no, you're just some idiot on a webforum pulling something out of his ass. Here, look, I can do it too: Such a thing occuring is unlikely, but in a galaxy with four hundred billion stars it can be considered a statistical inevitability. Wow, so easy.

EDIT: STOFSK YOU SAW NOTHING

Hey asshole why don't you address my points instead of making a content less +1 post.

I specifically addressed the two significant reasons why the colonial home star systems are most likely artificial and not natural in construct. I will repeat them here since you proved incapable of reading comprehension.

- Their orbital configurations are incredibly unlikely. Four different stars in close proximity with 3 Earth mass worlds each within habitable zones. The chances of all those possibilities happening is nearly zero.

- Granted by some cosmic joke it may happen but what about the planets biospheres ? They are completely identical to our Earth. The same goes for Kobol. Someone somewhere terraformed these planets to look like Earth.

[Sarevok]

They do, there's a line in Water IIRC (one of the S1 eps anyways) where Tigh mentions using the telescopes to locate systems that might have large amounts of water.

Actually they used Raptors on long range scouting missions to hunt for systems that may have water.

[Sarevok]

okay, and?

We don't know what the route they were taking looks like. That they were unaware of the existence of Kobol being so close tells me that there may be some kind of "empty space", a bunch of planetless stars, all why trying to go to the most likely systems to do quick inspections in case the Cylons are lying in wait because they know that they are out of water.

There is also the fact that the Galactica is a warship not a survey vessel with astronomers and their equipment aboard. In real life astronomers require luck and months of observation to find things like comets which contain water. Discovering planets is also a tricky and time consuming proposition. Given that time was not on their side it is easy to see why Tigh would make that comment.

[Sarevok]

It's true that we don't know the distribution of planets in the galaxy. The current assumption is that rocky planets like earth inside the liquid water zone are fairly common. That's good for life. But is that good for Earth-like biomes?

You are very much correct.

But the situation goes way beyond that.

It's not Earth-like planets we saw in nBSG. The Colonial homeworlds were fucking Earth clones right down to individual trees on those planets. If real life scientists found something like that orbiting another star they would go NUTS. And here we have not one but a dozen such planets in a highly unusual orbital configuration.

Everything I've read about speculative exobiology says it is incredibly unlikely to find worlds where we can walk around in shirtsleeves. It's less probable that we will encounter worlds like that where we can eat the plants and animals. It's even less likely anything would look familiar. Even on earth things could have gone quite differently depending on how the mass extinction event cookie crumbled.

The worlds like the Algae planet in season 3 fit the description of what they might realistically find. It had alien plant life and a breathable atmosphere. But it was nothing like Earth other than the fact they needed no spacesuits to walk around.

Kobol on other hand was clearly terraformed.

Given the religious bent of their society, finding a system like this that should be flat out impossible must be a sign from the gods.

Indeed. On the colonies it is easy to see why religion is such a powerful force.

- There is no fossil record. Nothing evolved there. How can anyone disprove creationism ?

- They got other planets with humans on them in nearby space that are already attributed in their ancient mythology.

- Their home star system defies astronomy. Someone moved extra planets there and terraformed them. Who but a Clarketech level entity could do this ?

[jollyreaper]

And the protohumans on earth are sexually compatible. We can't even breed with cousin apes, let alone critters from another planet. It's more likely that they would speak and write in perfectly correct English.

Being a science advisor on bsg must be as unrewarding as being a voice coach for (insert autotuned pop star).

[Ford Prefect]

I specifically addressed the two significant reasons why the colonial home star systems are most likely artificial and not natural in construct. I will repeat them here since you proved incapable of reading comprehension.

- Their orbital configurations are incredibly unlikely. Four different stars in close proximity with 3 Earth mass worlds each within habitable zones. The chances of all those possibilities happening is nearly zero.

- Granted by some cosmic joke it may happen but what about the planets biospheres ? They are completely identical to our Earth. The same goes for Kobol. Someone somewhere terraformed these planets to look like Earth.

Here's a clue, genius. If you say something is a statistical impossibility without providing any actual evidence, you're just making shit up. You're just saying something is so without providing any basis for it, so you're just some moron nerd with delusions of your own intelligence. My post shouldn't have been taken as some sort of precise observation about the likelihood of any given star system, but I'm not the one who decided to talk big on an internet forum. Still, Google's right there, it shouldn't be too hard for you to find some NASA article that supports your position. I'll still know you're a dickhead, though.

[Sarevok]

And the protohumans on earth are sexually compatible. We can't even breed with cousin apes, let alone critters from another planet. It's more likely that they would speak and write in perfectly correct English.

Being a science advisor on bsg must be as unrewarding as being a voice coach for (insert autotuned pop star).

LOL so true.

The show was promoted as being "hard scifi military drama". By the time it got to the ending it could not be further from the truth.

[Sarevok]

Your abuse of the word "statistics" saddens me. You are like those nerds on space battles who use terms like "exponential" or "correlation" because they sound cool and not because they understand what they mean.

The possibility of the Colonial home star systems being natural is so impossibly unlikely that it should be a clue that it is not a natural construct. Yeah I am sure in your infinite nerd wisdom you would go universe is infinite so anything is possible bla bla bla but reality does not work like that. If it did there would be an exact copy of our Earth one gazillion light years from here. Where there would be a Ford Prefect that happens to be actually intelligent.

The probabilities are infinitesimally small but I do hope there is a Earth like that out there. A Earth where there is a Ford Prefect who has more intelligence than a monkey.

[Zac Naloen]

The commonality of the fauna on the colonies planets and Kobol says nothing about any particular advanced civilisation terraforming. Just that the Colonisers ddn't care about the local fauna enough to worry about not importing their own.

[Sarevok]

The commonality of the fauna on the colonies planets and Kobol says nothing about any particular advanced civilisation terraforming. Just that the Colonisers ddn't care about the local fauna enough to worry about not importing their own.

Well where did the fauna come from ?

That is the key here. Some one brought the trees and animals from Earth to the Colonies. But who ?

[Zac Naloen]

The commonality of the fauna on the colonies planets and Kobol says nothing about any particular advanced civilisation terraforming. Just that the Colonisers ddn't care about the local fauna enough to worry about not importing their own.

Well where did the fauna come from ?

That is the key here. Some one brought the trees and animals from Earth to the Colonies. But who ?

Kobol is the homeworld of the Colonies, Earth is a completely seperate Biosphere. Any similarity is merely that.


But really all we are doing here is rationalising the producers not having access to the money or props to create completely alien fauna.

[Aaron]

They do, there's a line in Water IIRC (one of the S1 eps anyways) where Tigh mentions using the telescopes to locate systems that might have large amounts of water.

Actually they used Raptors on long range scouting missions to hunt for systems that may have water.

Yeah but they also have telescopes:

http://www.twiztv.com/scripts/battlesta ... ca-102.htm

Dualla: (to Adama) Raptors have reported back after three star systems so far. All report negative for water, sir.
Tigh: (to Adama) I just checked with astrometrics. They're coming up with big goose eggs. There's no star systems within the range of our telescopes with planetary bodies likely to have water o­n them.
Dualla: Sir? Another Raptor just checked in. Negative o­n water as well.
Adama: Who's left?
Dualla: Boomer and Crashdown, sir.
Tigh: Well, if they come up negative as well... what's our back-up plan?
Adama: We jump to another sector, start the search all over again. Needle in a haystack.
Tigh: More like a grain of salt o­n the beach.

[Ford Prefect]

Your abuse of the word "statistics" saddens me. You are like those nerds on space battles who use terms like "exponential" or "correlation" because they sound cool and not because they understand what they mean.

The possibility of the Colonial home star systems being natural is so impossibly unlikely that it should be a clue that it is not a natural construct. Yeah I am sure in your infinite nerd wisdom you would go universe is infinite so anything is possible bla bla bla but reality does not work like that. If it did there would be an exact copy of our Earth one gazillion light years from here. Where there would be a Ford Prefect that happens to be actually intelligent.

The probabilities are infinitesimally small but I do hope there is a Earth like that out there. A Earth where there is a Ford Prefect who has more intelligence than a monkey.

Look at that, you totally failed to provide any sort of evidence again. Not making yourself look any smarter there, champion! You can't just keep deflecting me with your devastatingly witty ripostes, I'll just keep telling you to provide evidence. You see, I actually do know how unlikely this sort of thing is, I just think nitpicking it is pretty dumb. I'm not going to do your homework for you, though, so you're still just talking out of your ass.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Of course, divine intervention is also a fairly common thing in that universe too.

It was quite clearly placed there by an elder civilizations trying to figure out the Kefahuchi tract.

[jollyreaper]

The commonality of the fauna on the colonies planets and Kobol says nothing about any particular advanced civilisation terraforming. Just that the Colonisers ddn't care about the local fauna enough to worry about not importing their own.

That would account for kudzu vines in North America but not on Mars or Venus. Something made those planets habitable. Oxygen was the poisonous byproduct of the first life on earth. You'd have to propose that the natural development of terrestrial worlds is oxy-nitro atmospheres, ones that kobol plants can just be plopped down on. And it all looks exactly like earth. Everything evolved convergently. We see examples of convergent evolution in real life but it's never 1:1. We had marsupial carnivores, some vaguely like wolves and some vaguely like cats. They didn't look exactly the same because they were different animals occupying a similar niche like sharks and dolphins.

[Slacker]

So, back to talking about the map itself, I thought it was rather weird that Aquaria only has a population of 25,000. Anyone else catch that?

[Srelex]

Didn't they mention that it was largely oceanic? Maybe it just doesn't have much landmass.

[Gandalf]

The map mentions that Aquaria is a frigid frozen planet with only one small landmass and an origin as a scientific research station.

It's basically the Arctic.

[Jade Owl]

Even a long time ago and far, far away it looks like you can't keep the English and the French from spontaneously forming empires and then spending a millennium at war.

And the English still get saddled with the Irish/Scots/Welsh on their moon!

I was wondering if I was the only one that noticed that. Actually, looking at that map, the analogy for a lot of the Colonies is pretty blatant:

Virgon=England (with its moon Hibernia=Ireland)
Leonis=France
Picon=Canada
Caprica/Gemenon=United States
Canceron=India/Brazil.

Another thing I’ve been wondering since first seeing that map is if the ice planet we saw in the Razor flashbacks could be one of the moons of Zeus.

[Lonestar]

So, back to talking about the map itself, I thought it was rather weird that Aquaria only has a population of 25,000. Anyone else catch that?

What's really weird si that the Series Bible said that Troy had 200k people on it. Troy doesn't get representation on the Qourum but Aquaria does?

(Troy was the "homeworld" of Boomer)

[Gandalf]

What's really weird si that the Series Bible said that Troy had 200k people on it. Troy doesn't get representation on the Qourum but Aquaria does?

Maybe it's not officially a colony of its own, but a part of another colony? Being mineral rich also creates an incentive for Virgon and Leonis to prevent them achieving Quorum representation. Meanwhile, Aquaria has squat so nobody's too interested in keeping it.

It's like Puerto Rico, despite having more people than twenty or so American states, it remains a territory for various reasons.

[Jade Owl]

So, back to talking about the map itself, I thought it was rather weird that Aquaria only has a population of 25,000. Anyone else catch that?

What's really weird si that the Series Bible said that Troy had 200k people on it. Troy doesn't get representation on the Qourum but Aquaria does?

There were a lot of things in the Series Bible that would later be thrown out the window later on. The 200,000 population of Troy is probably one of them.

[sirocco]

Isn't it possible also that Troy is just some kind of giant mining outpost for both Leonis and Virgon? The people here were originally employed by companies from the 2 other planets or are their offspring. So they are just good being affiliated to one or the other .