Battlestar Galactica - RAZOR Airs Tonight...

[Gil Hamilton]

I think the fundamental difference is that Adama chose not to slug it out with the Cylons and die pointlessly, while Cain did. That it occurred to him is less significant than his actual actions. Even if he intended on protecting the civilian fleet, he'd have needed to go to Ragnar anyway, simply because his ship had almost no ammo aboard.

[Master of Ossus]

I think the fundamental difference is that Adama chose not to slug it out with the Cylons and die pointlessly, while Cain did. That it occurred to him is less significant than his actual actions. Even if he intended on protecting the civilian fleet, he'd have needed to go to Ragnar anyway, simply because his ship had almost no ammo aboard.

Right. That's my whole point--Adama and Cain made a different choice in virtually the same situation.

But fighting it out with the Cylons didn't just "occur" to Adama. Even after he had the civilians and Galactica at Ragnar, and understood the situation, he was going to do it. He was even making preparations to fight the Cylons. Cain didn't have the President to talk her out of it. She didn't have Billy and Dualla. And she didn't make the call that Adama did. That makes it hard to brush Cain off as a rogue maniac, since we know how close Adama came to doing the same thing she was going to do.

[Skylon]

Re: Nagala, I haven't seen the miniseries in a while, but my understanding was that the Fleet HQ on Picon was destroyed along with a significant chunk of the fleet, and subsequently Nagala took command.

That is correct. Based on the fact that nobody on Galactica flinched at this fact I'd assume he was well within the upper echelons of command.

Even if Nagala WASN'T trying to fight, though, that still leaves the fact that Adama was at Ragnar, which frankly is the much more significant event for me. Even at Ragnar, when NO other colonial military units showed up, he was ready to ditch the civilians and slug it out with just his own ship against the Cylons. Further, even after ADAMA changed his mind (which surprised Tigh, too), he gave explicit instructions to Lee to make sure that ALL of his pilots return, indicating that he expected some pilots to want to slug it out, too, regardless of the consequences.

Nobody on Galactica seemed exactly sure what to do about the civilians. Initially the stance was "leave them, let them go off, while we die fighting for our homes." Then when they realized the Cylons tracked them to Ragnar in CiC the question of what to do about the civies was discussed by Adama, Tigh, Lee and Gaeta...wondering if the Cylons knew the civilians were there as well, if they could try and cram as many civilians aboard as possible...they weren't looked upon as a source of supplies and fresh bodies.

I always took that line about wanting "all his pilots to return" meaning, he didn't want Lee getting his ass killed. The line seemed to be rather personal.

In short, the ideal of standing and fighting wasn't unique to Cain. Even if you don't agree that Nagala shared it, Adama came within a hair's breadth of living it, as did Starbuck. Shaw bought into it completely. I don't think that Cain was that different from those characters, and we know that Adama is NOT crazy--he's not even close. Shaw probably isn't crazy, either. Starbuck could go either way, but obviously the writers want people to identify with her.

I agree leaving the civies behind ain't much different than stripping them directly (basically the same as trying to justify not feeding a starving man versus shooting him in the head). But the way Cain carried about her acts was nothing short of cold blooded murder. XO questions her? She blows his head off rather then...what? I think "Marines. Escort this man off my deck. Col. Fisk is the new XO." Would have worked.

Civilization was freaking wiped out and the first thing she viewed the civilians as was spare parts and a replacement pool. She would have been better off probably destroying those ships when Pegasus was done with them rather than leaving them abandoned, with no FTL.

I call Cain out of her mind for thinking that with two Battlestars she could retake the fucking colonies. She tells Kara this in "Resurrection Ship" pt 1, that kicking the Cylons out of the Colonies was her ultimate goal.

THAT is insanity.

[Master of Ossus]

Re: Nagala, I haven't seen the miniseries in a while, but my understanding was that the Fleet HQ on Picon was destroyed along with a significant chunk of the fleet, and subsequently Nagala took command.

That is correct. Based on the fact that nobody on Galactica flinched at this fact I'd assume he was well within the upper echelons of command.

Okay. That makes sense.

Nobody on Galactica seemed exactly sure what to do about the civilians. Initially the stance was "leave them, let them go off, while we die fighting for our homes." Then when they realized the Cylons tracked them to Ragnar in CiC the question of what to do about the civies was discussed by Adama, Tigh, Lee and Gaeta...wondering if the Cylons knew the civilians were there as well, if they could try and cram as many civilians aboard as possible...they weren't looked upon as a source of supplies and fresh bodies.

I don't remember that conversation, but I do remember the President trying to convince him not to just leave them there. Wasn't that right before he went back to CiC to plan the break-out, and after they knew the Cylons were waiting for them outside? Wasn't it only after he got to CiC that he decided to help the civilians escape and try to convoy out of the system?

I always took that line about wanting "all his pilots to return" meaning, he didn't want Lee getting his ass killed. The line seemed to be rather personal.

I suppose it could be read in a lot of ways. It is ambiguous, but I assumed he was trying to keep as many fighters as he could just to protect the civilians and let them have a better chance at running for it.

I agree leaving the civies behind ain't much different than stripping them directly (basically the same as trying to justify not feeding a starving man versus shooting him in the head). But the way Cain carried about her acts was nothing short of cold blooded murder. XO questions her? She blows his head off rather then...what? I think "Marines. Escort this man off my deck. Col. Fisk is the new XO." Would have worked.

True enough. Adama removed Tigh in a less... demonstrative way when Tigh became a liability.

Civilization was freaking wiped out and the first thing she viewed the civilians as was spare parts and a replacement pool. She would have been better off probably destroying those ships when Pegasus was done with them rather than leaving them abandoned, with no FTL.

I call Cain out of her mind for thinking that with two Battlestars she could retake the fucking colonies. She tells Kara this in "Resurrection Ship" pt 1, that kicking the Cylons out of the Colonies was her ultimate goal.

THAT is insanity.

I don't think she thought they had a realistic chance of doing that, it was just the ideal towards which she was striving. Starbuck called it something like "the best idea I've ever heard" or some equally retarded shit. Clearly the conversation is really about the "fight or flight" decision, and they both came out rather strongly on the "fight" side of it.

To me, though, the focus of her character seems to be her absolute desire to fight instead of preserve humanity. Everything else she did--including killing her XO--were just extreme manifestations of that drive. IMO, that's why Kara thought they were safer with her--she just wanted to fight.

I suppose the real issue is what you think Cain's craziest stunt was. If you think her craziest stunt was leaving the civilians to die and just trying to fight the Cylons, then I think you can see that this is a fairly pervasive ideal among many characters on the show and including ones who are not crazy. I agree that if you think killing the XO was crazier then none of the non-nutso characters has done something like that.

Killing the XO as a singular act is pretty incomprehensible, but given her already FAR crazier (IMO) decision to leave the civies to die and throw yourself and everyone else left alive at the Cylons it doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me. I also don't think it's worse than what Shaw did--Shaw killed an innocent civilian to convince Laird et al. to go quietly. Viewed in that context, then, I don't think Cain is meant to be totally sociopathic, since other characters were tempted to make similar choices, even if most of the rest of them thought the better of it and went the other way.

[Skylon]

Nobody on Galactica seemed exactly sure what to do about the civilians. Initially the stance was "leave them, let them go off, while we die fighting for our homes." Then when they realized the Cylons tracked them to Ragnar in CiC the question of what to do about the civies was discussed by Adama, Tigh, Lee and Gaeta...wondering if the Cylons knew the civilians were there as well, if they could try and cram as many civilians aboard as possible...they weren't looked upon as a source of supplies and fresh bodies.

I don't remember that conversation, but I do remember the President trying to convince him not to just leave them there. Wasn't that right before he went back to CiC to plan the break-out, and after they knew the Cylons were waiting for them outside? Wasn't it only after he got to CiC that he decided to help the civilians escape and try to convoy out of the system?

To establish Galactica's chain of events with the civilians at Ragnar (from memory):

1) The civies arrive while Adama is stuck with Leoben so Tigh has to deal with them. Tigh refuses to spare any supplies to the civilians as he is focused on rearming Galactica. Lee talks him into giving up some supplies, but Tigh insists the civilians will see to getting them and distributing them.

2) Adama returns from bashing Leoben's skull in. Meets with Roslin, reassures her he doesn't plan to declare martial law, but he will nut run, will keep fighting. Roslin advocates getting the hell out and to start having babies (in hindsight maybe she meant the two of them right then and there).

3) Galactica realizes the Cylons followed them to Ragnar. Adama, Tigh, Lee and Gaeta start trying to figure out what the hell to do. Gaeta suggests maybe the Cylons don't know about the civilians and they can hide at Ragnar, Lee calls that a wild assumption, suggesting "escorting them outside the combat zone". Tigh points out there is no "outside the combat zone" and says something about taking civilians aboard Galactica...Adama's steel heart meanwhile has melted at the site of Billy (the poor bastard) and Dee (future #1 BITCH) and he decides Roslin is right.

Compare this with Pegasus: Fisk happily reports finding Colonial ships, he seems glad that someone else survived the holocaust, Cain right away goes into full "military needs" mode.

[Master of Ossus]

To establish Galactica's chain of events with the civilians at Ragnar (from memory):

1) The civies arrive while Adama is stuck with Leoben so Tigh has to deal with them. Tigh refuses to spare any supplies to the civilians as he is focused on rearming Galactica. Lee talks him into giving up some supplies, but Tigh insists the civilians will see to getting them and distributing them.

2) Adama returns from bashing Leoben's skull in. Meets with Roslin, reassures her he doesn't plan to declare martial law, but he will nut run, will keep fighting. Roslin advocates getting the hell out and to start having babies (in hindsight maybe she meant the two of them right then and there).

3) Galactica realizes the Cylons followed them to Ragnar. Adama, Tigh, Lee and Gaeta start trying to figure out what the hell to do. Gaeta suggests maybe the Cylons don't know about the civilians and they can hide at Ragnar, Lee calls that a wild assumption, suggesting "escorting them outside the combat zone". Tigh points out there is no "outside the combat zone" and says something about taking civilians aboard Galactica...Adama's steel heart meanwhile has melted at the site of Billy (the poor bastard) and Dee (future #1 BITCH) and he decides Roslin is right.

Compare this with Pegasus: Fisk happily reports finding Colonial ships, he seems glad that someone else survived the holocaust, Cain right away goes into full "military needs" mode.

Thanks. Yeah, clearly Cain's reaction is more extreme and disturbing. Still, I think you can see that Adama was seriously considering just fighting the Cylons. IIRC, they were all more concerned with Galactica's survival than the civies until Adama told them off.

PS. How is Dee more of a bitch than Starbuck?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Given all of this, I do not see how people write of Cain as being anything other than a product of the circumstances. How can she be totally crazy when numerous others, including ones we know not to be crazy, were extraordinarily close to doing the exact same thing?

Cain may have been a product of circumstances, but she took it to a unique depth, and used her charisma to drag down other people with her.

Though in general I don't disagree with you. I just had to take exception to staining Admiral Nagala; you don't seem to understand in writing like that just how impossibly hard it is to extricate a battle fleet from an engagement. It's not just like "Oh, okay, let's leave!" -- It may well be that the large number of Battlestars lost all at once were during Nagala's equivalent of Hipper's Death Ride at Jutland, sending a portion of the fleet to certain doom simply to allow the rest to try and escape. The difference being that here the Cylon commanders didn't misjudge the escape route that the main body of the fleet was going to take like Jellicoe did with Scheer's escape route (the day after Jutland, had Jellicoe chosen the correct course, the High Seas Fleet would have been destroyed. Fullstop). The analogy is only even more applicable because it's clear that Cylon jump technology is more sophisticated, and they had access to the Colonial computers; the British had the speed advantage at Jutland and they were reading the German radio transmissions. It really was a few points of heading on the compass which meant the difference between 16 dreadnoughts getting home and getting them wiped out.

It's best to say that as far as we can tell, Nagala did his absolute best to save the fleet, and he simply got unlucky.

[DrMckay]

Pegasus had whatever supplies were on board when the ship was being "upgraded" and after it jumped out of the Scorpion Shipyard. (and after Cain's idiotic attack on the Cylon relay station.) Galactica, as previously mentioned, was docked with a fucking munitions depot. Remember how Pegasus was distributing "military supplies from her own reserves" to Galactica in "Pegasus?" I thingk those reserves were whatever raw materials were "gleaned" from the civilians, and reproccessed into ammo, or whatever (in epiphanies, Galactica has an ammunition plant onboard, Pegasus, which can manufacture Vipers had to have something similar.)

That fleet of 15 ships was to Pegaus what Ragnar Anchorage was for Galactica. (Except without the nebula security blanket that allowed the crew of "the Bucket" to catch their collective breaths.)

[Master of Ossus]

Given all of this, I do not see how people write of Cain as being anything other than a product of the circumstances. How can she be totally crazy when numerous others, including ones we know not to be crazy, were extraordinarily close to doing the exact same thing?

Cain may have been a product of circumstances, but she took it to a unique depth, and used her charisma to drag down other people with her.

Right.

Though in general I don't disagree with you. I just had to take exception to staining Admiral Nagala; you don't seem to understand in writing like that just how impossibly hard it is to extricate a battle fleet from an engagement. It's not just like "Oh, okay, let's leave!" -- It may well be that the large number of Battlestars lost all at once were during Nagala's equivalent of Hipper's Death Ride at Jutland, sending a portion of the fleet to certain doom simply to allow the rest to try and escape. The difference being that here the Cylon commanders didn't misjudge the escape route that the main body of the fleet was going to take like Jellicoe did with Scheer's escape route (the day after Jutland, had Jellicoe chosen the correct course, the High Seas Fleet would have been destroyed. Fullstop). The analogy is only even more applicable because it's clear that Cylon jump technology is more sophisticated, and they had access to the Colonial computers; the British had the speed advantage at Jutland and they were reading the German radio transmissions. It really was a few points of heading on the compass which meant the difference between 16 dreadnoughts getting home and getting them wiped out.

It's best to say that as far as we can tell, Nagala did his absolute best to save the fleet, and he simply got unlucky.

What evidence do you have that Nagala did ANYTHING to try to get the fleet out of combat with the Cylons? There is none. There is no evidence that he did anything other than fight back. I can understand that the situation was largely hopeless by the time that he took command, since fleet HQ was already destroyed, a quarter of the fleet was gone, and (critically) no one seemed to recognize the threat of the CNP virus. Frankly, though, there's no evidence whatsoever that he tried to extricate the fleet from the engagement. Furthermore, if only a portion of the Battlestars were lost along with Atlantia, how did Adama know that he had to assume command of the fleet? He got that from the same transmission. I think from context that this transmission represented the last stand of the Colonial fleet, and that it ceased to exist as a military body with the destruction of Atlantia and the rest.

I'm sure that Nagala did the best he could, but there's NO evidence indicating that he tried to get the fleet out of Dodge, and the circumstantial evidence suggests that he tried to organize them to fight the Cylons (ie., the fact that they all seemed to die at once). You are simply assuming that he attempted to disengage, even though the transmission Galactica received seems to indicate that the entire fleet under Nagala was wiped out simultaneously.

I think the far better conclusion is to assume that Nagala did the best he could to meet the Cylons in battle. That wouldn't, actually, have been an unreasonable course of action for him to take at the time, especially since the Colonial fleet seems to have originally been more powerful than the Cylon one, excepting the CNP virus, but it also shows that Nagala, too, was trying to fight back as opposed to dispersing the fleet and trying to get it (or elements of it) to escape the combat zone.

Regardless of whether you buy this argument, or not, in the complete absence of evidence for any effort to retreat how can you describe "the idea that Nagala was [not] trying to extricate the main body of the fleet from an extremely difficult combat with the main Cylon attack force, and simply failed in doing so" as "ludicrous?" At best there's no evidence either way, but the admittedly inconclusive evidence we have suggests that he organized the fleet (more or less successfully) for a doomed counter-attack.

Edited for grammar.

[ray245]

Just a side note, this is the escort ship we see in Razor.

[Anguirus]

^ That pic doesn't work for me.

[ray245]

LINK FUCKING HUGE IMAGES, FUCKTARD

Try this...

[Master of Ossus]

Try this...
[/url]

Cool! Are those Viper launch tubes, too, or does it just have its point-defense guns and the hangar for Raptors and such?

[Gil Hamilton]

It looks like those are point defense guns and the hangar is for Raptors. They have the same look at the close ups of the point defense guns we've seen on Galactica. What's interesting is that actually has the look of a support ship, since it's armament seems to be those point defense batteries, so that it expands the defenses of a bigger ship like a Battlestar while the Battlestar pounds the crap out of what they are fighting.

On Nagala I would expect that at that point the Colonial fleet didn't quite understand the nature of the threat they were fighting and Nagala never got the chance to decide whether to fight or not. Given how quickly the Cylons smashed the Colonial fleet, chances are his fleet didn't have much other than that get destroyed by Cylon missiles. I'd expect if much of the fleet had survived, Nagala probably would have fought, but I really don't think the situation was obviously hopeless to the Colonials yet. So I don't think comparing Cain or Adama with Negala really applies, since both Adama and Cain both had a chance to grasp the magnitude of their decision.

Also, Starbuck wanting to stay and fight at the expense of the civilians in the fleet and deciding Cain was a good idea isn't really indicative of much. After all we already KNOW she's batshit crazy with a death wish and suicidal tendancies.

[FSTargetDrone]

It looks like those are point defense guns and the hangar is for Raptors. They have the same look at the close ups of the point defense guns we've seen on Galactica. What's interesting is that actually has the look of a support ship, since it's armament seems to be those point defense batteries, so that it expands the defenses of a bigger ship like a Battlestar while the Battlestar pounds the crap out of what they are fighting.

Yep, and it looks like there are at least a pair of weapons arranged in tandem on the upper and lower surfaces of those engine "tubes." The bulk of the weapons' concentration seems to be in the center section of the ship, on the sides and possibly even along the darker region below and forward of the hangar opening? I wonder if there are any weapons on the upper spine area, but I can't see if there are. If not, possibly the weapons in the sides of the center section can cover the upper part of the ship. I'd bet there are weapons on the forward structure, but if so they are invisible in this picture.

There's some kind of structure with twin openings immediately next to those small white rectangular spots on the engine section. Maybe those are maneuvering/RCS thrusters?

[Anguirus]

Thank you! Where was that in Razor?

[Vympel]

Scorpion Fleet Yards, of course. I saw it.

[Clone Sergeant]

From what I've read it is supposed to be a pure carrier and its name is Bezerk

[Gullible Jones]

Cordwainer Smith reference?

[Master of Ossus]

From what I've read it is supposed to be a pure carrier and its name is Bezerk

How is that thing a pure carrier? It has ten dorsal batteries and point-defense weapons that seem, if anything, more significant than those on a battlestar in terms of guns/ship length. If the landing bay is comparable in dimensions to that of a battlestar's, it doesn't seem like they should be able to cram that many fighters into it, either, especially since Galactica seems to do a lot of work with its fighters outside of the deck, and this thing has more guns than the launch pods.

[phongn]

Actually, when I first saw it I thought it was a dedicated fleet tender with detachable modules!

[ray245]

It's a model make by a talented BSG fan, who decided to sent the model to Zoic, and said they are free to use the ship in nBSG.

You guys can check the creator of the ship for more details. It might not be canon, but understanding the creators concept and thinking may help.



http://www.scifi-meshes.com/forums/3d-w ... scort.html

[Clone Sergeant]

After poking around a bit more apparently it isn't a carrier. Here the creator (the poster named Irrational, scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the post) says he intended it to be a modular escort ship with sections that can be reconfigured depending on the mission. His backstory on the ship isn't official though.

[Master of Ossus]

After poking around a bit more apparently it isn't a carrier. Here the creator (the poster named Irrational, scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the post) says he intended it to be a modular escort ship with sections that can be reconfigured depending on the mission. His backstory on the ship isn't official though.

That makes much more sense to me, given the look of the ship.

[Kane Starkiller]

Just watched it and, mother of god, but Cain is one stupid shit. There is not one redeeming quality about the character. And I'm not talking about "quality" as in moral quality but as in finding anything interesting about the character. She's just a stupid pompous piece of shit.
If, at least, she was a good tactician or something her crew might have an excuse to follow her around like doggies but as it stands this film might as well be called: "Pegasus:the ship of spineless idiots"

P.S. Razor? She calls herself razor?? More like a brick wall.