NeoBSG - Cylons and explosive rounds

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2008-01-26 02:50pm

I've been watching neoBSG and I've gotten to Valley of Darkness; a Cylon boarding party runs amok through the ship and the only shots that will put down the Centurions are the single-shot explosive rounds.

However, during the first season, Helo was able to bring down more than one Cylon with multiple shots that each left significant visible damage on the Centurion.

Is this contradiction ever reconciled or was the near-invulnerability of the boarding party basically contrived to heighten the danger?

Anguirus · Post by **Anguirus** » 2008-01-26 03:04pm

Essentially, it's contrived...BSG is made up as they go.

I believe the creators explained it as just the Cylons starting to up-armor their Centurions. It may also have something to do (out of universe) with a new design of Colonial pistol that shows up in the beginning of Season 2. It's two-barreled: the bottom barrel fires those big-ass explosive rounds. I don't think the writers quite had the "Blade Runner" pistols worked out in Season 1, because sometimes they did extreme amounts of damage and sometimes they acted like normal pistols.

Themightytom · Post by **Themightytom** » 2008-01-26 03:32pm

Does helos gun fire bullets even? He shot a guy in the mini series and the dudes clothes caught fire

Anguirus · Post by **Anguirus** » 2008-01-26 04:15pm

^ Yeah, and it blew his guts out of his back as well. The shell itself appeared to be subsonic but rocket-propelled.

Ron Moore wanted that gun to be "the Blade Runner gun," but then the same prop was used in scenes with just normal pistol effects. The first gun prop had sort of a two-barrel thing going on, but it wasn't functional, so it couldn't be reloaded on-screen or anything. I'm pretty sure it got retconned into the Season 2 prop, which clearly accepts two entirely different types of ammo.

(Oddly enough, I just read up on small arms at the Battlestar Wiki a couple night ago.)

AK_Jedi · Post by **AK_Jedi** » 2008-01-26 07:00pm

My theory is that they used up-armored versions for their boarding parties. All the centurions we see on new caprica are occupation forces on patrol, and so not worth the extra-special armor.

DrMckay · Post by **DrMckay** » 2008-01-26 10:04pm

The S-1 pistols are revolvers with cool metal thingies on them, and were a pain in the ass for the prop crew to as reloading necessitated partially disassembling the prop. Every time. The prop gun only has capacity for six shots even though the "colonial firearm" may have more in universe. Instead, for ease of use and to expedite filming, they were replaced with FN Five-Sevens with a prop flare launcher on the bottom.

Also, it added tension in "Valley of Darkness" as the ammount of ammo available and able to take down the Cylons was limited.

No in-universe explanation is provided.

Perhaps the best way to rationalize it is to say Helo was firing esplosive charges on Caprica.

Adrian McNair · Post by **Adrian McNair** » 2008-01-27 02:03am

My theory is that the Cylons deliberately weakened their foot soldiers as part of the breeding experiment on Caprica. They wanted to give Helo the illusion of a fighting chance. Sending in full-strength Centurions in would jeopardise that.

The fact that every Centurion we've seen outside the confines of the experiment has been heavily armoured only validates this. They can only be taken out by either explosive munitions or those funky gyrojet rounds.

Darwin · Post by **Darwin** » 2008-01-27 03:50am

The boarding party was clearly a new style of centurion, compared to the older ones. That they were up-armored for ship-boarding and assault makes perfect sense. These were probably high-cost, upgraded units that the cylons can't just throw everywhere.

As for the pistols, around season2 they went from a blade runner-esque prop to a FN Five-SeveN with a 'launcher' apparatus on the underbarrel rail. This was probably for cost and FX purposes, as I loved the looks of the bladerunner-esque pistol, and it actually made some sense as a pilot sidearm.

Adrian McNair · Post by **Adrian McNair** » 2008-01-27 04:40am

Darwin wrote:The boarding party was clearly a new style of centurion, compared to the older ones. That they were up-armored for ship-boarding and assault makes perfect sense. These were probably high-cost, upgraded units that the cylons can't just throw everywhere.

It wasn't just the boarding party though. In The Farm, for instance, we see Centurions shrugging off a fair amount of fire from a Heavy Raider and in all the other engagements they're impervious to conventional small arms fire.

It's more likely that the Centurions that Helo faced were stripped of their armour. After all, why would they wish to endanger their test subject by using front-line combat units?

Darwin · Post by **Darwin** » 2008-01-27 04:45am

Adrian McNair wrote: It wasn't just the boarding party though. In The Farm, for instance, we see Centurions shrugging off a fair amount of fire from a Heavy Raider and in all the other engagements they're impervious to conventional small arms fire.

It's more likely that the Centurions that Helo faced were stripped of their armour. After all, why would they wish to endanger their test subject by using front-line combat units?

you're right there, though there's certainly evidence for varied grades of Centurions, and they never sent the heavy ones against Helo, as they didn't actually want to kill him. Later, the Centurions ambushing the landing party on Kobol went down to pistol and carbine fire. It could be that the heavy cents are unable to be sneaky in any way.

Adrian McNair · Post by **Adrian McNair** » 2008-01-27 04:56am

Darwin wrote: Later, the Centurions ambushing the landing party on Kobol went down to pistol and carbine fire.

Actually, they didn't. They were either destroyed by grenade launchers or more of those gyrojet rounds. Except these ones seemed to leave a white vapour trail, unlike the ones in the mini-series.

Though you may also be correct about there being different Centurion variants. It's definitely not outside the realm of possibility. We have seen them using multiple weapons like mortars and heavy rifles (like in Razor), so who's to say there aren't different types assigned to different roles.

Skylon · Post by **Skylon** » 2008-01-27 10:30am

DrMckay wrote:The S-1 pistols are revolvers with cool metal thingies on them, and were a pain in the ass for the prop crew to as reloading necessitated partially disassembling the prop. Every time. The prop gun only has capacity for six shots even though the "colonial firearm" may have more in universe. Instead, for ease of use and to expedite filming, they were replaced with FN Five-Sevens with a prop flare launcher on the bottom.

The season 1 pistol made an appearence in "Razor" during young Adama's free-fall. I guess from that we can infer it was an older firearm, even by season 1 that was getting phased out by the Colonial Military (maybe Galactica just got stuck with a bunch).

eyl · Post by **eyl** » 2008-01-27 11:09am

Skylon wrote:The season 1 pistol made an appearence in "Razor" during young Adama's free-fall. I guess from that we can infer it was an older firearm, even by season 1 that was getting phased out by the Colonial Military (maybe Galactica just got stuck with a bunch).

Given that Galactica was being converted to a museum, maybe they just tore open some displays for additional weapons (like they basically did with the Mk II Vipers)

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2008-01-27 01:55pm

Adrian McNair wrote:My theory is that the Cylons deliberately weakened their foot soldiers as part of the breeding experiment on Caprica. They wanted to give Helo the illusion of a fighting chance. Sending in full-strength Centurions in would jeopardise that.

The pistol had to have been de-fanged to some extent. Helo's pistol left a hole in the Centurion's head the size of a grapefruit.

Darth Tanner · Post by **Darth Tanner** » 2008-01-27 04:53pm

Given that Galactica was being converted to a museum, maybe they just tore open some displays for additional weapons

Helo had left the ship before the attack so they wouldn't have been looting the museum to give him a gun from there yet. I think it quite likely that Galactica would have old equipment however seeing as she was being disbanded and her crew reassigned.

They were either destroyed by grenade launchers or more of those gyrojet rounds

The centurions that were taking part in the firing squad were apparently all destroyed by a burst of long range rifle fire. However we never see them get hit and they just disappear once the rescue party turn up faster than you can say plot hole so its hardly conclusive.

As I remember the scene where Helo takes out the centurion with his pistol he shoots it in the back of the head at point blank range. Unless there are other centurions killed that I've forgotten about I don't find it too surprising that their armour would be weaker there.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2008-01-27 05:28pm

Tigh said they did exactly what they tried in that episode before -- press the big red button -- proven right by the Centurions going to exactly where Tigh thought they would. They had done it before, send a small group to clean out an entire ship.

If the Cylons were some uparmored expensive version invented just for that episode to capture Galactica Tigh probably would've said what the fuck. Nevermind if I remember right, security teams went right for the explosive rounds to clean them from the armory without first meeting the Cylons (how can you meet them then survive to make it to the armory without the rounds??!!)

So naval Centurions at least are that tough, enough for the explosive rounds to be SOP with marines.

Turin · Post by **Turin** » 2008-01-27 10:12pm

Adrian McNair wrote:
Darwin wrote: Later, the Centurions ambushing the landing party on Kobol went down to pistol and carbine fire.
Actually, they didn't. They were either destroyed by grenade launchers or more of those gyrojet rounds. Except these ones seemed to leave a white vapour trail, unlike the ones in the mini-series.

There's a shot during the firefight Adrian is discussing where Lee and Kara are pinned down under a rocky overhang with two cylon centurions directly above them. They're using carbines and pistols, and bring down their attackers. (Lee ducks out, nails one and drops it, and Kara wags her eyebrows and says "nice shot.")

Adrian McNair · Post by **Adrian McNair** » 2008-01-28 06:29am

Darth Tanner wrote: The centurions that were taking part in the firing squad were apparently all destroyed by a burst of long range rifle fire. However we never see them get hit and they just disappear once the rescue party turn up faster than you can say plot hole so its hardly conclusive.

Turin wrote: There's a shot during the firefight Adrian is discussing where Lee and Kara are pinned down under a rocky overhang with two cylon centurions directly above them. They're using carbines and pistols, and bring down their attackers. (Lee ducks out, nails one and drops it, and Kara wags her eyebrows and says "nice shot.")

I just ran through that scene in Home, Part 1 on the Season 2 DVD set. It's clear that another type of round is being used, something with more power than a standard slug. Here's the proof.

Helo is the first to take down one of the chromejobs.

The round is fired off (note the distinctive vapour trail).

The round in flight.

About to reach the target.

Impact. This toaster is history.

Lee takes the second one out of commission in the same fashion.

The round is fired.

In flight.

Impact (the vapour trail is definitely in evidence here).

"Nice one."

Scratch one more bullethead.

Post by **Vympel** » 2008-01-28 09:03am

The gun's existence itself hasn't been retconned - they used it in the flashback of Razor when Adama is falling through the air and firing at the Cylon.

Turin · Post by **Turin** » 2008-01-28 10:58am

Adrian McNair wrote:
Turin wrote:There's a shot during the firefight Adrian is discussing where Lee and Kara are pinned down under a rocky overhang with two cylon centurions directly above them. They're using carbines and pistols, and bring down their attackers. (Lee ducks out, nails one and drops it, and Kara wags her eyebrows and says "nice shot.")
I just ran through that scene in Home, Part 1 on the Season 2 DVD set. It's clear that another type of round is being used, something with more power than a standard slug. Here's the proof. <snip>

Hm, fuck me then... I usually have better memory for that sort of thing. I could have sworn those cylons just went down after being shot up, rather than exploding like that from the gyro rounds.

Anguirus · Post by **Anguirus** » 2008-01-28 01:48pm

Well, what do you know? The writers/directors/VFX guys/prop guys DO pay attention.

Aaron · Post by **Aaron** » 2008-01-28 02:21pm

Anguirus wrote:Well, what do you know? The writers/directors/VFX guys/prop guys DO pay attention.

The show seems pretty consistant with it's technical matters (though a noticable gaff is that the newer Vipers don't use the weapon on their tail fin) but everything kind of falls apart with the religious and emo bullshit. By the time I got to the algae planet episode I wanted to cycle Apollo and Starbuck out an airlock.

Darwin · Post by **Darwin** » 2008-01-28 04:03pm

Cpl Kendall wrote:
Anguirus wrote:Well, what do you know? The writers/directors/VFX guys/prop guys DO pay attention.
The show seems pretty consistant with it's technical matters (though a noticable gaff is that the newer Vipers don't use the weapon on their tail fin) but everything kind of falls apart with the religious and emo bullshit. By the time I got to the algae planet episode I wanted to cycle Apollo and Starbuck out an airlock.

I'm sure I've seen the MkVII's fire the top gun on multiple occasions.

Aaron · Post by **Aaron** » 2008-01-28 04:16pm

Darwin wrote:
I'm sure I've seen the MkVII's fire the top gun on multiple occasions.

I took a look at battlestarwiki and all I can find is that they typically don't use it but they did in Scattered, I'm perfectly willing to concede that I missed it.

JointStrikeFighter · Post by **JointStrikeFighter** » 2008-01-28 07:28pm

Cpl Kendall wrote:
Darwin wrote:
I'm sure I've seen the MkVII's fire the top gun on multiple occasions.
I took a look at battlestarwiki and all I can find is that they typically don't use it but they did in Scattered, I'm perfectly willing to concede that I missed it.

Perhaps the top gun is loaded with different rounds [AP or HE]