Battlestar Galactica Map Released

[Marcus Aurelius]

nBSG FTL can be as fast and as slow as the writers want it to be.

It's pretty much the same in most space opera scifi shows I have seen. Babylon 5 even had technobabble explanation for that phenomenon (distances in hyperspace may not always correlate with distances in realspace).

[sirocco]

nBSG FTL can be as fast and as slow as the writers want it to be.

It's pretty much the same in most space opera scifi shows I have seen. Babylon 5 even had technobabble explanation for that phenomenon (distances in hyperspace may not always correlate with distances in realspace).

Wasn't it mentioned in the series bible that the distance they can cross depends heavily on how far they can "see"?

So they are still limited by the speed of light which varies depending on the medium between the Galactica and its destination. In interstellar space, the chance that you hit a body are astronomically small while inside an uncharted solar system it's way more difficult.

And there is also the fact that it takes probably more time to charge the FTL drive than actually making the jump.

[Uraniun235]

The jump itself is supposed to be instantaneous, so yeah.

[OmegaChief]

This is the kicker. I granted above that we could give them FTL. If they can do jumps from within a planetary atmosphere, it makes me wonder why they have to go into space in the first place -- couldn't the "ship" just be a box with a drive that jumps planet to planet?

Because in-atmopshere jumps are incredebly incredebly risky? Into atmopsheres that is, jumping from the ground into space seems just fine but of the two that we see in the show, one ends up with at least one of the ships performing the jump to rematerilise inside a mountain, so yea we don't know why they don't use Jump drives to orbit to save on fuel (Maybe orbit over the colonies was too crowded, or jump drives produce radation or somthing?) but jumping into an atmopshere always seems to be risky buisness

[jollyreaper]

Granted, the "Series Bible" mentioned that the most powerful computer on the Galactica was akin to a Apple II, but still...

I'm surprised they didn't do away with radios in the ship and work with notes scribbled on slips of paper routed to different parts of the ship via pneumatic tubes. But they'll sy this even while the Dradis screens are pushing all kinds of pretty graphics. lol

I'm still very impressed by how the simple act of plugging two computers together immediately allows Cylon hacking. Computer A, Computer B, working standalone, no problem. The moment one cable touches the other, suddenly the Cylons have wireless access.

[jollyreaper]

Because in-atmopshere jumps are incredebly incredebly risky? Into atmopsheres that is, jumping from the ground into space seems just fine but of the two that we see in the show, one ends up with at least one of the ships performing the jump to rematerilise inside a mountain, so yea we don't know why they don't use Jump drives to orbit to save on fuel (Maybe orbit over the colonies was too crowded, or jump drives produce radation or somthing?) but jumping into an atmopshere always seems to be risky buisness

The only thing I can think of is that there's the danger of teleporting into existing atoms which might cause an atom-smashing explosion complete with radiation. Scifi that's rigid about this stuff demands teleportation take place in perfect vacuums. Space isn't a perfect vacuum, of course, so there's the risk of running into a stray atom of hydrogen. Maybe that's an acceptable amount of radiation damage but jumping into an atmosphere is about as bad as jumping into solid rock, big kaboom? But that isn't the case in BSG because a raptor jumping into a mountain didn't blow it up so who knows.

The usual rationale for needing to get into space for FTL is that you have to be sufficiently far outside of a gravity well. You're still in the sun's gravity well, obviously, and people are kind of vague as to what constitutes a sufficient distance out from Earth to jump. Some settings demand that the ship be out past the edge of the solar system to go FTL.

I do have a fondness for doing things in-atmosphere as being dangerous but possibly survivable. The white star hitting those Martian bases in Babylon 5 was pretty damn amazing. Galactica's atmospheric jump looked very cool even while it also made no sense. lol

[Lonestar]

And there is also the fact that it takes probably more time to charge the FTL drive than actually making the jump.

I think that's a Navcomp problem more than a main plant problem. Those 12 raptors jumped back to Caprica using navigaton data provided by Athena.

I'm surprised they didn't do away with radios in the ship and work with notes scribbled on slips of paper routed to different parts of the ship via pneumatic tubes

Sound powered telephones.

EDIT: And I'd note that the DRADIS read out on the "big screen" wouldn't be *too* out of place on a 1980s AEGIS ship.

[Ford Prefect]

Am I crazy, or does this system look far too regular to be anything but an artificial construct?

It's a big galaxy.

[Sarevok]

@Jollyreaper

NBA FTL is not like a classic teleporter. It seems to be some kind of space-folding drive. You can see this in the pilot when the Galactica enters FTL everything inside the ship brief warps out of proportion and people experience disorientation. The most dramatic external effect of FTL drive operation was seen in 4x17 ""Someone to Watch Over Me" when a Raptor goes FTL while still too close to the Galactica. The FTL drive seems to create immense gravitation forces while bending space around it. The Raptors jump rips apart heavy armor plating and equipment from the Galacticas hanger bay rendering heavy damage to the warship.

The jump process usually appears to be instantaneous but actually is not so. Time behaves differently inside a ship that is in middle of a jump. Generally to the passengers the process seems to be instantaneous but sometimes strange things can happen. We can see this in 4x8 "Sine Qua Non" when a malfunctioning hybrid tries to jump a damaged basestar repeatedly. Though the jump was instantaneous to external observers Roslin experienced several minutes while the ship was between jumps.

[Sarevok]

Am I crazy, or does this system look far too regular to be anything but an artificial construct?

It's a big galaxy.

No. Such a thing occuring is statistically impossible. The Colonial homeworlds are clearly an artificial construct. There is absolutely no doubt about it.

- 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.

[Ford Prefect]

No. Such a thing occuring is statistically impossible. The Colonial homeworlds are clearly an artificial construct. There is absolutely no doubt about it.

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

[Stofsk]

Such a thing occuring is unlikely, but in a universe with four hundred billion stars it can be considered a statistical inevitability. Wow, so easy.

Universe? You mean galaxy, right?

Anyway there's an old saying that goes something like this, in fiction the impossible is ok but the extremely improbable is not. That said I think this is just nitpicking on nBSG for having 'shakey' science when UMMMMMmmmm... we already knew that from Day One.

[Aaron]

Me and Shep have discussed this on AIM. Considering modern optics I have no doubt that something like Galactica doesn't have some kind of long range optical array(or maybe not...they needed to send vipers out to visually ID the Pegasus), or that the Colonial Military should have had a "short list" of probable inhabitable planets within a few years travel of the Colonies.

Granted, the "Series Bible" mentioned that the most powerful computer on the Galactica was akin to a Apple II, but still...

Also in the Series Bible, it is flat out stated that most of the technology was lost when the colonists arrived from Kobol, and that this could have been a "recurring theme in Human history"(which implies to me that that part of the series finale was already written).

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.

[Stofsk]

Haha that episode was great. 'Once you get right down to it, water is a pretty scarce resource.'

HAHAHahahahaha

[Lonestar]

Haha that episode was great. 'Once you get right down to it, water is a pretty scarce resource.'

HAHAHahahahaha

If you are mostly jumping the fleet to empty space...then yeah I can see how that might be a problem.

[Stofsk]

I am p. sure Tigh was talking about how the system surveys were coming up negative for water.

[Lonestar]

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.

[Aaron]

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.

[Lonestar]

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.

"And look we got plenty of time before a Basetar shows up to kill us dead because they have spies that know we have no water."

[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 ?