Did anyone actually like the ending to nBSG?

[Steel]

That time travel loop thing would be much better than the actual ending... But! I dont think its feasible. How could they bring the rest of the fleet in if they're separated in time? If they can relaibly jump to the colony black hole in raptors and use that to jump to the exact time where they left the fleet then why not use it to break the cycle by jumping to a crucial time in the past and intervening?

It would fit the mythos quite well though.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Nah time travel is far too much of a cop out. There is definitly better ways to end a great sci fi series than "oh look, accidental time travel. Let's change things in the past and cause an almighty fucking paradox so we never have to suffer a holocaust"

thats just weak

[Morilore]

Nah time travel is far too much of a cop out. There is definitly better ways to end a great sci fi series than "oh look, accidental time travel. Let's change things in the past and cause an almighty fucking paradox so we never have to suffer a holocaust"

thats just weak

Well, in my idea, the Colonials have no idea how it works, and may not even be aware or believe that they traveled back in time, so they wouldn't try to change their own histories. I think that kind of use of time travel is less objectionable a cop-out than "God made two identical species evolve on planets separated by thousands of light-years at exactly the same time" or even "Alien Space Bats stole prehistoric humans from Earth and deposited them on another planet for reasons unknown."

[Kane Starkiller]

I actually didn't have as much trouble with Luddite ending as with the complete copout when they showed Earth as inhabited only by primitive stone age humans. I have more respect for Battlestar 1980 for at least trying to work with a complex setting.
We don't even find out where humans are from. Are we from Kobol originally? Or the planet Colonials considered to be Earth? Or do humans come from our Earth and were transplanted to other planets? Absolutely no answers are provided nor is there even any attempt to do so. This coupled with the fact that the refugee fleet turned out to be inconsequential, seeing as how they discarded their technology and mixed with Earth natives, means that the entire show was pretty much pointless.

However I think that finale itself cannot be blamed for the failure. By the time it rolled out there were too many questions and mysteries and some like "the plan" were there since the first episode. What is "the plan" IMO should've been answered during the first season, after that there was so much speculation and expectation that it could only turn out anticlimactic. That Moore didn't even try is really pathetic of course but like I said at that point it was already too late.

P.S. Other really jarring thing was how the finale contrasted complete lack of answers about anything important while regaling us with utterly irrelevant flashbacks of Lee and Starback getting it on and Roslin not getting it on etc. etc.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I will agree that in your idea it would avoid horrible paradoxes and sci fi cliches.

However, the whole time travel idea just seems wrong to me.

In my view, we would not have had this silly colony thingy. instead we would have something like the Resurrection Hub, but bigger, that gets wasted by Galactica and the renegade base star. They get persued relentlessly by surviving Cylon ships, and make a sort of blind jump away (Here we could add the numbers from the music) and arrive over Earth of the not too distant future. The Cylons persue, only to find themselves staring down the barrels of a 13th colony big space battleship thingy. The 13th Colony then proceeds to demand a peace settlement between the Colonials and the Cylons, and they enforce it by their military might (they have no losses and so on so they still strong).

Earth is found, the war ends, Roslin can die in Adama's arms. Starbuck has finished her journey, because the 12 colonies "die" as they are absorbed into Earth. The renegade cylons join in the fun. No need for a God or Gods or whatever

[Thanas]

Yeah, the flashbacks were (except for the six/baltar stuff) unnecessary. The effort obviously went into the six flashback scenes and it felt more as if they then got the idea that other characters needed flashbacks as well.

[Uraniun235]

The Cylons persue, only to find themselves staring down the barrels of a 13th colony big space battleship thingy. The 13th Colony then proceeds to demand a peace settlement between the Colonials and the Cylons, and they enforce it by their military might (they have no losses and so on so they still strong).

That's unfortunately got its own problems. As much as I liked to rag on Battlestar Livejournal's ending, having all their problems instantly solved by the lost space superpower is pretty bad too. (Although, if they did a whole season of "what-if" crossovers - they run into an Omega-class destroyer, they run into the Enterprise, they run into the Concordiat, they run into Arcadia, etc. - that would be hilariously fun and indulgent. But that probably wouldn't sell well. Also I think every IP lawyer in Hollywood would declare a jihad or something.)

That said, there are certainly possibilities to be had from finding an intact 13th colony civilization - the biggest one, in my opinion, being one where humans and AI learned to live together. But "then the good guys make everyone shake hands and play nice" wouldn't have been a good outcome.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Ok, so maybe not the "lost superpower brings peace," that was just a brief example. Obviously to be any good it would have to be longer and more complex. Hell, it could even spawn a 5th/6th season (depending on how you number them) based on Earth as they try and work out the problems WITHOUt the threat of annihilation.

That could prove interesting. What would Adama do now that everything he does isnt for survival? and so on.

Although, I think it would have been very funny if they turned up in the current Stargate universe. Cylon missiles vs/ Daedalus class beam weapons and shields. Ouch time

[Srelex]

Overall, I found the series okay, but I felt it could have done without the pretentious spiritualty 'ZOMG PROPHECY' bullshit. Just give us good drama and action and that's all we need.

[starfury]

Overall, I found the series okay, but I felt it could have done without the pretentious spiritualty 'ZOMG PROPHECY' bullshit. Just give us good drama and action and that's all we need.

I agree, I like it best when was a War drama in outer space, Time magzine even called it the Iraq study group with robots, that was what shot it into mainstream popularlarity anyways.

[Samuel]

To highlight how implausible this sort of thing is, imagine if a Nimitz-class supercarrier had the capability to build replacement F/A-18s as part of its design? Would anyone design a supercarrier like that?

A Battlestar has, about 4-5 times the length of a Nimitz (hence, about 100 times the volume, probably more since a battlestar is fatter than a carrier) and much more advanced technology. If 10% of the ship mass is used for manufacturing facilities, I think that it's operational performance wouldn't suffer much, and that gives 10 times the volume of a Nimitz carrier, just to make vipers.

I find that kind of self sufficiency perfectly reasonable.

There are a couple problems. First advanced technology makes manufacturing more, not less, complex. Making a missile is difficult... making a missile with a guidance system requires alot more machinary. There is also the fact that presumably the ships were built for the cheapest cost to get the largest return. In which case giving them the ability to make more fighters doesn't make sense- if they lose fighters they generally lose the pilot and they can replace them both when they return to port. Ammunition makes sense to replace on site if only to keep the amount of explosives stored on the ship low.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Starfury has managed to express what I have been trying to say in a far more simple way.

Past season 2 the series went waaaaay too spiritual prophecy/destiny bs

And as for the Pegasus building vipers, I would agree that it only makes sense if they expect the pilots to survive the destruction of the plane. Curously this would make sense with Cylon resurrection

[Starglider]

A Battlestar has, about 4-5 times the length of a Nimitz (hence, about 100 times the volume, probably more since a battlestar is fatter than a carrier) and much more advanced technology.

There are a couple problems. First advanced technology makes manufacturing more, not less, complex. Making a missile is difficult... making a missile with a guidance system requires alot more machinary.

Never mind the machinery, what about the personnel? Building an F-22 doesn't just require huge amounts of specialist tooling, machining and materials processing plant, it also requires tens of thousands of workers with highly specialised skills, from the people who run the composite baking ovens to the people who run the semiconductor fabs for the avionics. There is no way the entire fleet could contain the people to do that, never mind the ludicrous notion of having the necessary skillsets in a military battleship-carrier crew. In other sci-fi you could handwave this with automation, but the Colonials have explicitly renounced robotics and AI.

The best rationalisation for Pegasus's so-called 'Viper factory' is that they have casting / stamping / tooling to make basic metal spaceframes out of scrap or refined alloy. Simple mechanical parts (e.g. gun barrels) can probably be made in their machine shops. All electronics, engines, servos, cable harnesses, instrumentation, life support etc would have to be supplied from parts stores or salvaged from destroyed/written off ships.

[Thanas]

Another explanation might be that the Pegasus had a sort of "quick fix" repair facility on board, which might be used to manufacture parts for damaged Vipers to quickly get them back into the fight.

Then, Admiral Crazy expanded that facility with machines from looted ships. Remember how she was able to loot several dozens of civilian ships? Odds are that one of them carried production tools/machines, then used to expand a repair facility into a production facility.

[PeZook]

A Battlestar has, about 4-5 times the length of a Nimitz (hence, about 100 times the volume, probably more since a battlestar is fatter than a carrier) and much more advanced technology. If 10% of the ship mass is used for manufacturing facilities, I think that it's operational performance wouldn't suffer much, and that gives 10 times the volume of a Nimitz carrier, just to make vipers.

I find that kind of self sufficiency perfectly reasonable.

Sacrificing 10% of a ship's internal volume to manufacturing doesn't significantly impact its combat performance now? Do tell...

It's not like you could place ordnance stores, guns, missile launchers, additional hangars or giant power generators there...power generators you will need anyway, BTW, to fuel the production facilities (blast furnaces and composite production is really damn energy-guzzling). You think 10 times the volume of a Nimitz carrier is large?

Try housing 25 000 people (the estimated amount of personnel involved in manufacturing of an F-22) and their machinery in that space. Just the final assembly facility for the F-22 clocks in at 4000 square meters...and that literally a place where they put the things together from parts shipped in from all over the country, no real heavy machinery required.

All of that just to give the battlestar the ability to slowly make new fighters on its own, when it could just jump back to its base and replenish the air wing right there in a couple of hours. What, did the Mercury-class designers foresee a magic Cylon hacking attack wiping out the Colonies? Furhermore, could every Mercury count on having a fully equipped mining ship with it during its typical mission?

It's far likelier they could accomplish some limited construction using jury-rigged and stolen equipment, cannibalized parts and existing fleet stores. The Chief had to barter with the fleet in order to get engines for the Blackbird and scavenged avionics from totalled Vipers: that was a pretty realistic take on what it would take to make a new fighter.

More food for thought:

Vipers use nuclear reactors. Do Colonial warships also hold uranium enrichment plants aboard to make fuel for them?

Where do they get ball bearings? Turbine fans?

Do they write the avionics code themselves?

Does every battlestar carry a team of highly paid engineering specialists normally found in factories to oversee design and production? Pegasus was said to be lucky to have found an aerospace engineer - to the point they executed (or threatened to execute, don't remember now) the man's family in order to make him come with them.

[Vympel]

The SFX changed for one thing, but the mood changed as well.

What the hell was the reason for the SFX change, anyway? I never liked the change, it bothered the hell out of me in fact. Especially the machine gun fire from Vipers, they dialled the tracers up to 11 and downed their speed to 1, and it just looked really stupid sometimes.

[DrStrangelove]

I stopped caring for nBSG after season 2 or so

[Stofsk]

Another explanation might be that the Pegasus had a sort of "quick fix" repair facility on board, which might be used to manufacture parts for damaged Vipers to quickly get them back into the fight.

Then, Admiral Crazy expanded that facility with machines from looted ships. Remember how she was able to loot several dozens of civilian ships? Odds are that one of them carried production tools/machines, then used to expand a repair facility into a production facility.

I'm sure that Pegasus and Galactica have facilities for the maintenance of their fighter wings, but I think what Vympel and I are gnashing our teeth over is how in 'Scar' the only thing that was said to matter in regards to fighter production was the collection of ore.

Your explanation does make sense. It could be that Pegasus's plundering of the civilian fleet it came across yielded machinery with which to enable manufacturing... that's a damn sight more plausible than designing a battlestar with onboard manufacturing facilities (as opposed to onboard maintenance facilities). If they had said this, or if they had said how different ships in the fleet were providing the manufacturing, it would have been a lot better. But like Vympel also said, there's a ton of different things that go into the production of something so complex as a space craft like the Viper.

[Stofsk]

To highlight how implausible this sort of thing is, imagine if a Nimitz-class supercarrier had the capability to build replacement F/A-18s as part of its design? Would anyone design a supercarrier like that?

A Battlestar has, about 4-5 times the length of a Nimitz (hence, about 100 times the volume, probably more since a battlestar is fatter than a carrier) and much more advanced technology. If 10% of the ship mass is used for manufacturing facilities, I think that it's operational performance wouldn't suffer much, and that gives 10 times the volume of a Nimitz carrier, just to make vipers.

I understand the size and volume disparity between a battlestar and a modern day supercarrier. The point of my analogy is, considering how 'naturalistic' RDM wanted BSG to be in terms of the realism and the science in sci-fi, would it make sense to put that kind of capability onboard a warship that's principal mission is to enter a battle and emerge victorious? Even 10% of its internal volume being allocated towards non-combat functions would be 10% that could have been allocated towards more guns, more armour, more crew for damage control, more volume for vipers, etc. Even if that 10% were allocated towards non-combat functions anyway, it could have been used towards having extra cargo space for stores, munitions, spare parts for repair and maintenance work, more fuel for the ship's power plant, more batteries for emergency power, more redundant backup systems to make the ship harder to mission-kill, etc.

I find that kind of self sufficiency perfectly reasonable.

It's only reasonable if it was designed to be self-sufficient for a particular purpose, say if the Pegasus class was supposed to be an explorer ship that might go off to find cylons or something, with the expectation of being away for years at a time before returning to base. Otherwise, if all it is supposed to be is a new and better class of battlestar, and isn't meant to travel too far from the colonies, self-sufficiency isn't a necessity at all because it's always a quick jump or series of jumps away from a fleet base.

[Nephtys]

I can almost guarentee that any volume used to house construction equipment and supplies for something as complex as a fighter probably isn't as space efficient as just dedicating every last bit of cubage to hold more fighters. Galactica had no ability to construct new vipers, Pegasus did. And that doesn't mean it has a factory aboard. For all we know, that just means they have a decent general purpose machine shop (to do stuff like build replacement parts if something wasn't around) and a lot of spare supplies, engines, etc in storage.

Less a factory, more an assembly space.

[Crossroads Inc.]

I can almost guarentee that any volume used to house construction equipment and supplies for something as complex as a fighter probably isn't as space efficient as just dedicating every last bit of cubage to hold more fighters. Galactica had no ability to construct new vipers, Pegasus did. And that doesn't mean it has a factory aboard. For all we know, that just means they have a decent general purpose machine shop (to do stuff like build replacement parts if something wasn't around) and a lot of spare supplies, engines, etc in storage.

Less a factory, more an assembly space.

The past page of discussion has pretty much been around this. On the one hand we have the TV show which stats "Pegasus can build Vipers" And on the other hand we have 'Logic' which stats its bloody idiotic to say you could buy a complex machine like a Viper From Scratch

My personal thoughts on this is that "In Real Life" as it were, Pegasus had a 'Manufacturing' facility where it could 'assemble' Vipers and build new ones. To me, what this means is that given the correct parts and pieces, they could build new Vipers. I imagine that at the height of the Colonial Navy, the thinking would go rather the try and supply ready made vipers to the front lines it may be easier to produce them in parts, rather like a Liberty Ship, and send said parts to a BattleStar which then assembles them. Which echos what you are talking about Neph.

It could also be assumed that part of this 'manufacturing' facility is an advanced machine shop, not just for making munitions but, in time of emergency, making specific and more complicated parts.

Does this mean they could build a new Viper from Scratch? Well "In Real Life" obviously not, but because of writers fiat this does happen in the show.

As for going back to the OP thread discussion. I would say that aside from the crappy ending, what really gets to me is how the final two seasons basically slowly upset and contradict the first two seasons.

Originally, the basic thinking of the show was as follows:
Thousands of years ago "Humans" travel from some far off planet and settle in Kobol.
The people of Kobol build machines, which become smart and rebel and there is war.
The people split into 12 different tribes and found the colonies, while a 13th tribe leaves on its own.

In the first two seasons we have a great deal of evidence for "Earth" being our Earth as wel las this taking place in the far future, indeed it is mentioned that the first words in "The Sacred Scrolls" are Life here, began out there. But by the last two seasons, rather then answering questions, the originals are fcked over and we never have the new ones cleared up.

If the "Earth" of the 13th tribe was populated entirely by Skinjobs, aka decedents of the Cylons that started the war on Kobo, why would they be called "The 13th tribe" which seems to imply they are fellow Humans?

Since the "Cylon Earth" is obviously NOT ours then why is there a map of the 12 constellations On Kobol called "Map to Earth"?

There is bit after bit in the first two seasons that tells us "Humans came from 'Earth'" that tells us "The 13th tribe where Humans" and tells us "The 13th tribe left Kobol and founded 'Earth'"

As far as I'm concerned, the whole discussion about how bad the final was is simply the culmination of the show getting further and further from where it started.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Very true

I can almost guarentee that any volume used to house construction equipment and supplies for something as complex as a fighter probably isn't as space efficient as just dedicating every last bit of cubage to hold more fighters. Galactica had no ability to construct new vipers, Pegasus did. And that doesn't mean it has a factory aboard. For all we know, that just means they have a decent general purpose machine shop (to do stuff like build replacement parts if something wasn't around) and a lot of spare supplies, engines, etc in storage.

Less a factory, more an assembly space.

Another thought on this:

Perhaps all Battlestars can assemble Vipers from parts, but the reason Galactica couldnt was because she was going into retirement as a museum and HAD NO PARTS TO USE. She had a single squadron and they only needed maintenance for them, not parts to assemble replacements. Even if a war had started the Fleet probably would have left Galactica on the sidelines anyway (she had no ammo for her guns either. No gun ammo, no replacement fighter parts, etc.)

Cally and Tyrol where surprised to see spare parts from Pegasus in the "Pegasus" episode, the Chief sounded like Galactica didnt have any

This would fit the facts

[Rye]

I didn't like the finale because it didn't feel like it came together. I didn't even care that much about the luddism or God aspect, and I did like how All Along the Watchtower turned up in the modern day (it even made me notice it when I was walking past a pub with some live band inside covering it). What I didn't like was the herd-like behaviour of the survivors (surely some would disagree) and the cylons fucking off. After all they'd been through, I thought they'd felt they were part of the new human race, but apparently not, they were never going to integrate and it's best for them to keep to their own kind out in space somewhere. Because the cylons haven't done that before.

I also find it difficult to believe that the Adamas wouldn't keep all their stuff for a contingency plan and just to make life generally easier. It's not really their style to just be so reckless with their resources.

[PeZook]

They didn't abandon their resources (well, except for the ships), they distributed them evenly amongst the survivors. They just threw away any possibility of making more of them by spreading people around in camps instead of building a permanent settlement.

[Waterloo_Hoo]

I thought it was an okay, if preposterously mystical ending.