Retardation of oBSg "Saga of a Star World"

[Eternal_Freedom]

I watched this again this evening, and it occurred to me that the Colonials really did ask to get their asses kicked. They really really did.

1. Gather all remaining warships into a single fleet for peace talks that materialise after a 1000 year war.
2. Put a politician in command of the fleet, rather than a senior Admiral or whatever
3. Have politicians commanding these warships (Baltar refers to being captured "between the President's Battlestar and my own"
4. Flying this grand fleet far away from your now defenceless home worlds, far from the non-existant reinforcements and aid
5. Having only 2 Vipers on patrol
6. Not having any other Vipers flying CAP, which carrier groups do in peacetime for goodness sake
7. Not even being on ALERT when flying into enemy territory
8. Basing their planetary defence strategies around having available Battlestars (Athena "they trusted us to defend them." and Tigh, on learning fo full-scale attacks and Galactica being only surviving Battlestar "no hope Commander")

Thats EIGHT ways they screwed themselves over. Hell, fixing even ONE of them would have helped tremendously

[Marcus Aurelius]

I watched this again this evening, and it occurred to me that the Colonials really did ask to get their asses kicked. They really really did.

Thats EIGHT ways they screwed themselves over. Hell, fixing even ONE of them would have helped tremendously

Well, I hate to point out the obvious, but it's a 1970s adventure scifi TV series for kids. Basically the predecessor of Knight Rider in spaaaace. And while Star Wars was originally also mostly for kids, in the 1970s the difference between TV and big screen productions was much larger than it is nowadays, especially in the US. In TV you could get away with all kinds of retardation, since it was just a TV show. The old adage about movie actors fearing TV work more than unemployment comes from those days.

[NecronLord]

3. Have politicians commanding these warships (Baltar refers to being captured "between the President's Battlestar and my own"

After a thousand years of war, I expect they'd be one and the same thing.

It has happened before. Indeed a distinction between the two roles is quite recent in some respects.

[Themightytom]

I watched this again this evening, and it occurred to me that the Colonials really did ask to get their asses kicked. They really really did.
1. Gather all remaining warships into a single fleet for peace talks that materialise after a 1000 year war.

I got the feeling the battlestars were becoming redundant in the colonial fleet. The Vipers have pretty spectacular range for a space fighter, and can cross a solar system in just a few minutes and have interstellar range. Gathering the fleet wasn't really the bonehead move here, restricting patrols is where they failed.

2. Put a politician in command of the fleet, rather than a senior Admiral or whatever


3. Have politicians commanding these warships (Baltar refers to being captured "between the President's Battlestar and my own"

Adama was on the Quorum he had military service, Cain was NOT on the Quorum and he had a battlestar. That Guy From Take The Celestra ran a battlestar at one point and was running an itty bitty prison ship so we really have no idea who is actually running the battlestars Adar and Baltar were on, they might have just been escorts for the summit

4. Flying this grand fleet far away from your now defenceless home worlds, far from the non-existant reinforcements and aid

The range didn't matter, they could have gotten back in time with more warning.

5. Having only 2 Vipers on patrol
6. Not having any other Vipers flying CAP, which carrier groups do in peacetime for goodness sake
8. Basing their planetary defence strategies around having available Battlestars (Athena "they trusted us to defend them." and Tigh, on learning fo full-scale attacks and Galactica being only surviving Battlestar "no hope Commander")

[img]http://www.epicfail.com/images/darth-va ... c-fail.jpg
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Yeah that was really really stupid on their part.
The movie went out of is way to depict Baltar as manipulating this situation for his own gains, whispering into the ear of a senile ineffectual president etc, but it really required multiple stage stupidity to get to this point.

They presented as much in the series, depicting the colonial civilians as indolent self serving piles of sissified uselessness, whereas the military was a gung ho poorly prepared bunch of amateurs complete with cape and snow tank.

They battled the Cylons for a thousand Yahrens for crying out loud, a thousand Yahrens! This is a race that is physically unable to duck, and completely unwilling to look for cover in a face to face battle. It takes three of them to fly a fighter badly.

[Uraniun235]

I watched this again this evening, and it occurred to me that the Colonials really did ask to get their asses kicked. They really really did.

...

Thats EIGHT ways they screwed themselves over. Hell, fixing even ONE of them would have helped tremendously

I hate to break your bubble but as much as I love TV/film space opera, most of it is full of poorly-written decisions.

[Coyote]

The Colonial military was also made up mostly of fighter pilots doubling as infantry and all armed with pistols. Yay!

And the Cylons had rifles... with bayonets! A race that couldn't even "charge!" had bayonets.

Yeah, it was bad.

[Srelex]

Say what you like about the old Cylons, judging by that groovy afro on the Imperious Leader I'm sure they could boogie to Disco Inferno like no other. Ah, the seventies...

[Gramzamber]

Yes well at least these Colonials never collectively decided to become cavemen because of some insipid luddite belief that all technology is inherently evil..
ANYWAY yeah it was campy and made no sense, but hey it was still fun even to a nitpicking nerd like me.

Say what you like about the old Cylons, judging by that groovy afro on the Imperious Leader I'm sure they could boogie to Disco Inferno like no other. Ah, the seventies...

He also had a sexy, sexy voice. So did Count Iblis.
Oh wait they were the same voice... did they ever explain that? I know they made a point of it.

[dworkin]

Cylons could too charge! That and the bayonets were very useful against the snail people of Verysloness V.

[Johonebesus]

He also had a sexy, sexy voice. So did Count Iblis.
Oh wait they were the same voice... did they ever explain that? I know they made a point of it.

Not really, they left a few mysteries for the second season, like what the relationship was between Terra and Earth. Then when the network finally ordered a second season, well, we all know what happened.

I still think Moore should have ended the finalé with the angels walking up to Macnee, even if he had to be in a wheel chair.

[Patrick Degan]

I watched this again this evening, and it occurred to me that the Colonials really did ask to get their asses kicked. They really really did.

1. Gather all remaining warships into a single fleet for peace talks that materialise after a 1000 year war.
2. Put a politician in command of the fleet, rather than a senior Admiral or whatever
3. Have politicians commanding these warships (Baltar refers to being captured "between the President's Battlestar and my own"
4. Flying this grand fleet far away from your now defenceless home worlds, far from the non-existant reinforcements and aid
5. Having only 2 Vipers on patrol
6. Not having any other Vipers flying CAP, which carrier groups do in peacetime for goodness sake
7. Not even being on ALERT when flying into enemy territory
8. Basing their planetary defence strategies around having available Battlestars (Athena "they trusted us to defend them." and Tigh, on learning fo full-scale attacks and Galactica being only surviving Battlestar "no hope Commander")

A national president is commander-in-chief of the armed forces and actually can take personal command of a fleet or army and lead them in the field. The rest of the objections, barring n.3 (no evidence that the other battlestars were commanded by politicians rather than line officers) do obtain because Adar was an idiot, and clearly made a string of very bad decisions based on nothing but wishful thinking and the investment of complete trust in the oiliest politician on the Council of the Twelve who he never even suspected of treason. The Colonial military were also evidently led by idiots (officers like Adama and Cain notwithstanding) right up to their joint chiefs who decided upon basing all their defence upon their battlestar fleet and had nothing else in the way of second-line systems to protect their worlds. Yes, the Twelve Colonies deserved to lose that war. And they did. That it took the Cylons a millenia to defeat these clowns and then only because a traitor opened the door for them doesn't say much about their genius either.

Of course, Saga Of The Space Mormons was very bald and crude Cold War propaganda to begin with and its conception of wartime democratic government a ludicrous cartoon.

[Darksider]

I still think Moore should have ended the finalé with the angels walking up to Macnee, even if he had to be in a wheel chair.

I'd pay good money to see them pull that off, 'cause i'm pretty sure Patrick Macnee is dead

[Patrick Degan]

I still think Moore should have ended the finalé with the angels walking up to Macnee, even if he had to be in a wheel chair.

I'd pay good money to see them pull that off, 'cause i'm pretty sure Patrick Macnee is dead

No, he's still around. He's 88.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yeah, I'm sure he's stil kicking.

And, yes, I know its a cheesy 70's TV space opera, which usually have sweet FA in terms of intelligent decision writing. But still. It's annoying.

Heck, They said there were over a thousand Raiders attacking the fleet. to just break even each Battlestar would have to carry 200 Vipers, which they clearly didnt. SO would it have been such a bad thing to have the other ships launch their Vipers? Maybe Atlantia wouldn't cos Adar was a tit, which explains why she was killed so soon, but the others were still fighting when Galactica pulled out.

Why did the Cylons go for overwhelming force AND surprise? If they had that many fighters, enough to "wipe out the entire fleet," why not just fly right on in? Why even bother with the tankers and the mist and blah blah blah?

[Samuel]

To keep casulties low and prove that humans truly were idiots and they deserve to win. Maybe the Cylon Emperor wanted to do a shock and awe campaign to impressive the little robots back home so when they grew up they would join the glorious conquest fleets and kick the stuffings out of whoever they run into next

[Srelex]

And let's not discuss how the Cylons destroyed the Colonies with just strafing runs.

[Themightytom]

He also had a sexy, sexy voice. So did Count Iblis.
Oh wait they were the same voice... did they ever explain that? I know they made a point of it.

Not really, they left a few mysteries for the second season, like what the relationship was between Terra and Earth. Then when the network finally ordered a second season, well, we all know what happened.

I still think Moore should have ended the finalé with the angels walking up to Macnee, even if he had to be in a wheel chair.

I thought the implication was that the original Cylons followed Iblis to their doom. They were originally lizards that used robotic slaves and ultimately the Cylons rebelled and began exterminating all life. As a final joke imperious leader the voice of iblis

[Gramzamber]

And let's not discuss how the Cylons destroyed the Colonies with just strafing runs.

Budget reasons, I'm fairly sure there was reference to nuclear bombardment and Basestars were later seen to have mega pulsars, giant siege lasers on their bottom.

[Darth Lucifer]

....He also had a sexy, sexy voice. So did Count Iblis.
Oh wait they were the same voice... did they ever explain that? I know they made a point of it.

Count Iblis visits Baltar in his cell in "War of The Gods" and the dialogue during this scene makes the connection between Iblis and the Cylon Imperious Leader.

[Uraniun235]

And, of course, there were various non-human things around. If they gambled and lost in defeating the colonies, they would have left themselves potentially vulnerable to others.

If I remember right, it was mentioned in one or two episodes that the Colonies were part of an alliance formed to fight off the Cylons.

[Krisnack]

They battled the Cylons for a thousand Yahrens for crying out loud, a thousand Yahrens! This is a race that is physically unable to duck, and completely unwilling to look for cover in a face to face battle. It takes three of them to fly a fighter badly.

I'm guessing that after fighting those same Cylons for a hundred Yahrens , they got careless. After two hundred Yahrens they reached the bare minimum abound military readiness and competency. I wonder if by the tine of the fall of the Twelve Colonies, the Colonial military command couldn't conceive of the Cylons being cunning enough to pull off a surprise attack of any kind, much less the peace agreement bait and switch that we saw.

[Gramzamber]

They battled the Cylons for a thousand Yahrens for crying out loud, a thousand Yahrens! This is a race that is physically unable to duck, and completely unwilling to look for cover in a face to face battle. It takes three of them to fly a fighter badly.

I'm guessing that after fighting those same Cylons for a hundred Yahrens , they got careless. After two hundred Yahrens they reached the bare minimum abound military readiness and competency. I wonder if by the tine of the fall of the Twelve Colonies, the Colonial military command couldn't conceive of the Cylons being cunning enough to pull off a surprise attack of any kind, much less the peace agreement bait and switch that we saw.

That would seem somewhat at odds with the fact that Commander Cain's entire squadron save for the Pegasus was recently lost, and the Pegasus itself missing in action.
You'd think that alone would be a hint that the Cylons remain dangerous.

[Stravo]

They battled the Cylons for a thousand Yahrens for crying out loud, a thousand Yahrens! This is a race that is physically unable to duck, and completely unwilling to look for cover in a face to face battle. It takes three of them to fly a fighter badly.

I'm guessing that after fighting those same Cylons for a hundred Yahrens , they got careless. After two hundred Yahrens they reached the bare minimum abound military readiness and competency. I wonder if by the tine of the fall of the Twelve Colonies, the Colonial military command couldn't conceive of the Cylons being cunning enough to pull off a surprise attack of any kind, much less the peace agreement bait and switch that we saw.

That would seem somewhat at odds with the fact that Commander Cain's entire squadron save for the Pegasus was recently lost, and the Pegasus itself missing in action.
You'd think that alone would be a hint that the Cylons remain dangerous.

Building upon that observation the Colonials may have been eager to enter these peace negotiation because maybe their military was being pushed to the limit after the losses of the Cain's squadron. Add to that the apparent lack of Colonial presence outside of the 12 colonies which means the Cylon Empire spanning 3 galaxies (stated in the movie and I know it's silly but hey we have to take them at their word) was grinding down a 12 planet empire.

The Cylons could very well have been as awful militarily as they seemed in the show but it did not matter, they could literaly throw away thousands of Centurions and not feel it so the Colonials were fighting a war against an enemy who could care less how many of its soldiers and planes you killed but the colonies could not keep that level of attrition up.

Hence their over eagerness to get this peace process going and take the stupid risks that they did.

[Coyote]

Was it stated that all thousand years of the war was intense combat action? It may have been periods of open fighting interspersed with periods of tense standoff and guerrilla actions. I don't recal if it was one way or another, although it sertainly seems to imply that the last few years of the war were certainly bare-knuckles combat.