NBSG Series Bible

[Samuel]

No evil twins ? Totally unlike Athena/Boomer ? (I was immediately was reminded of Will Rikers clone in DS9, a series RDM helmed)

In RDM's defense, they aren't evil twins. I don't think Boomer counts as evil and Will Rikers clone was origionally from TNG- it is nice to see them using continuity (although speaks poorly to their security).

[Sarevok]

Morally grey twins then as both Tom Riker and Boomer sincerely believed what they were doing was right.

[Stravo]

Another thing I just noticed while finishing this up is that he foreshadowed the end of the series when he notes that one of the reasons why the Colonials are not so advanced is because they may have given up all of their advanced technology when they arrived in the colonies to start from scratch. So with that in mind maybe they never broke the cycle, they simply did what their forebears did when they gave up technology - all that has happened before will happen again.

Anyway, I know there's a lot of hate for the finale but there is a big fat clue in the series bible that perhaps he had that ending in mind for quite a while.

[Thanas]

Another thing I just noticed while finishing this up is that he foreshadowed the end of the series when he notes that one of the reasons why the Colonials are not so advanced is because they may have given up all of their advanced technology when they arrived in the colonies to start from scratch. So with that in mind maybe they never broke the cycle, they simply did what their forebears did when they gave up technology - all that has happened before will happen again.

Anyway, I know there's a lot of hate for the finale but there is a big fat clue in the series bible that perhaps he had that ending in mind for quite a while.

He said in the commentary for the finale that right from the start, he knew that the last shot would be HeadSix and HeadBaltar walking together through Time Square.

And what do you know, they even talk about whether this time it will all be different, with Six claiming it will not be and Baltar claiming it would be.

[Anguirus]

Anyway, I know there's a lot of hate for the finale but there is a big fat clue in the series bible that perhaps he had that ending in mind for quite a while.

Yeah, as Thanas points out there's other evidence backing that up.

IMO Moore could have really used a better road map to get there. For instance, from this, he clearly thought at the beginning that the Cylons were flushing the fleet towards Earth, but that is tossed out by "The Plan," and arguably by the New Caprica arc.

[Thanas]

Yeah, I think the series suffered as a whole from the problem that they had a very well-defined beginning and end, but a less than planned out middle part.

[MKSheppard]

Did anyone notice that the backstory that he gave for Sharon Valerii is exactly what was put forth in the PLAN [tm], with maybe one or two minor edits?

Likewise, Roslin's backstory was almost exactly like what was revealed in the series finale. [Drunken Driver and Relatives].

[jollyreaper]

It's pretty evident that his time working on Trek really soured him to the Trek story style if you will. This document is littered with references to how this will not be Trek - Cylons are not the Borg, no space anomalies, no evil twins, no time travel, etc.

And the next scifi series will contain a bible littered with references saying "this will not be newgalactica" What has happened before will happen again.

[jollyreaper]

No evil twins ? Totally unlike Athena/Boomer ? (I was immediately was reminded of Will Rikers clone in DS9, a series RDM helmed)

In RDM's defense, they aren't evil twins. I don't think Boomer counts as evil and Will Rikers clone was origionally from TNG- it is nice to see them using continuity (although speaks poorly to their security).

I still think that the season 1 version of the multiple Cylons was defensible, before we found out the whole freakin' race was 12 models except wait, five were hidden. I thought Helo was dead in the pilot and was very surprised to still see him kicking on caprica and totally didn't see him getting his own Sharon.

But from an infiltration perspective, having only 7 effective cylons was terribly weak. Even bloody Terminator had a T-800 depicted that didn't look exactly like Ahnuld. I mean if I was resistance I'd shoot any 6'5" hairless bodybuilder on sight just to be sure but shit, at least they had a few designs!

And from an actor's perspective it's a delicious challenge to get to portray multiple versions of the same character. It's rare that you get to see an actor play different characters within the same show or at least put on a proper act. A hat and a moustache are not much of a disguise -- behaving like an entirely different person, that's the kicker. Accent, mannerism, bearing, good stuff.

[Sarevok]

Even basic biometric security available today would have caught the thousands of identical infiltrators running around the Colonies. Colonial techbase is mind bogglingly stupidly crafted by the writers.

[Samuel]

Even basic biometric security available today would have caught the thousands of identical infiltrators running around the Colonies. Colonial techbase is mind bogglingly stupidly crafted by the writers.

They didn't have that level of technology and they didn't know the cylons would attempt to infiltrate that way. A better question is why they didn't notice the spacecraft jumping into the system bringing the infiltrators.

[Sarevok]

They didn't have that level of technology and they didn't know the cylons would attempt to infiltrate that way.

The point of biometrics is that they don't have to be looking for infiltrators. Sooner or later someone is going to recognize the thousands of virtually identical personnel logged into the system.

A better question is why they didn't notice the spacecraft jumping into the system bringing the infiltrators.

That is a most excellent point. The Cylons could ship their people into the Colonies at will. They placed wherever they wanted - including as second in command of a battlestar. The Colonial defense forces were apparently even more incompetent in peace time than their sorry record seen during war.

[Thanas]

Even basic biometric security available today would have caught the thousands of identical infiltrators running around the Colonies. Colonial techbase is mind bogglingly stupidly crafted by the writers.

They didn't have that level of technology and they didn't know the cylons would attempt to infiltrate that way. A better question is why they didn't notice the spacecraft jumping into the system bringing the infiltrators.

That was addressed in season 2. The Cylons used human smugglers.

Which does not mean the Colonials are incompetent. It is easy to smuggle people into the USA, for gods sakes.

[Samuel]

Even basic biometric security available today would have caught the thousands of identical infiltrators running around the Colonies. Colonial techbase is mind bogglingly stupidly crafted by the writers.

They didn't have that level of technology and they didn't know the cylons would attempt to infiltrate that way. A better question is why they didn't notice the spacecraft jumping into the system bringing the infiltrators.

That was addressed in season 2. The Cylons used human smugglers.

Which does not mean the Colonials are incompetent. It is easy to smuggle people into the USA, for gods sakes.

Because the people are coming from different parts of the same planet. And spaceships are the sort of thing the government tries to keep track of. Speaking of which, how the heck did they get in contact with the smugglers?

[Thanas]

Because the people are coming from different parts of the same planet.

Yes, and the colonials have been unable to really regulate this sort of stuff even in the past, see Caprica for that. Smuggling has always taken place just as in any society.

And spaceships are the sort of thing the government tries to keep track of.

Really? What gives you the impression they are more tightly regulated than say, private planes in the USA?

Speaking of which, how the heck did they get in contact with the smugglers?

Dropping them an email? Heck, the Tauron mafia alone is strong enough to smuggle entire weapon systems from one planet to the next, so why shouldn't a few people be any different? Especially not if you just tell them to "pick up stuff from freighter X in system Y" and then have a disguised freighter meet with them.

It is not as if they did one massive drop of Number sixes or so.

[jollyreaper]

The problem with smugglers is there's no interstellar travel. The only comparison in real life would be imagining if, say, Martians genetically engineered human infiltrators. How to get them to Earth? We don't have offworld smuggling. Maybe the idea would be you send a one-man capsule with the agent in hibernation. Have it enter the Earth's atmosphere somewhere far from the US and likely to escape detection. The agent can then use fabricated documents to enter the US "legally" on civilian transport. The only question is whether we're likely to detect the capsule on atmospheric entry. If we've never been to war with Mars, maybe not. If we have, we're damn well going to be looking for that.

There's a visible flash for the BSG jump drives. Can it be detected across the whole star system? How difficult is it to sneak someone in across interstellar distances? If you had a port of call outside the system frequented by all sorts it would be easier to slip an agent in on a cylon freighter disguised to look human-built but there's no such place.

The bible mentions Sharon's fake past has her coming from a mining colony. It was destroyed in an accident right after she entered the transport. Her real personality drops out and the cover story takes over from that point, she's unaware she's fake now. That's a hell of a stunt to pull to place one agent. And given that the survival of Galactica was a complete fluke, we're to assume that it was not specially seeded with agents but represents the usual level of infiltration across the entire fleet. All of the hundred or so battlestars should have had as many sleepers. Which puts this at odds with the cover story. Not only that but Sharon should have stuck out as not having been from that mining colony. There would be records of everyone there. It's not like she came from some teaming barrio on some third world analogue colony. 200k people on her mining colony, here she is and not in the records and she's one of the sole survivors. And how did she get there in the first place?

The difficulty the Cylons would have in placing sleeper agents would be at least as difficult as for human powers in the 20th century and likely even more difficult with computerized record-keeping and the lack of any level of interaction between colonial and cylon societies. Was there ever a case of a Russian sleeper getting into the US military? Not outside of spy fiction, I don't believe. Most spies were American turncoats. Given Cylon tech, if they didn't do the only twelve models thing, they could have done body-snatching. Real life Colonial goes to a seedy brothel, gets snatched, brain is destructively scanned, all memories dumped into the prepped Cylon clone that now takes his place. But that wouldn't fit with the setting.

[jollyreaper]

Dropping them an email? Heck, the Tauron mafia alone is strong enough to smuggle entire weapon systems from one planet to the next, so why shouldn't a few people be any different? Especially not if you just tell them to "pick up stuff from freighter X in system Y" and then have a disguised freighter meet with them.

It is not as if they did one massive drop of Number sixes or so.

All Colonial civilization is in one star system. None of their ships make interstellar travels, or at least beyond the home system of multiple stars. There's nowhere for the smugglers to rendezvous with them at. Smugglers can get your stuff from Tauron to Caprica but there's no place where Cylons are likely to show up.

[Thanas]

What is the evidence for all civilization being concentrated in one system? There are other references to mining colonies et all, so it is not as if there is no interstellar travel. If there were not, why is so much focus put on FTL drives that can travel enormously far when smaller versions would do?

Also, iirc correctly the season 2 episode which talked about the smugglers made sure to mention that they were leaving the systems or what.

[jollyreaper]

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=147234

Galactica map. While I agree that this is incredibly dumb for many reasons, nevertheless this is Word of God from the producers and matches what they said in the season 1 podcasts. The simplest problem is if all of their ships are only making journeys that last for hours, they're going to be fitted out more like airliners rather than passenger ships. Just look at the design of semi trucks meant for local use. Smaller fuel tanks and day cabs rather than large tanks and sleeper cabs on trucks meant to make runs that go for days. It's just too unlikely for them to have the kind of endurance to make the big run like they're doing. They could have been very crafty about this by making the jump drive a relatively new rediscovery so many of the current ships were slowboats used to making months-long runs between the planets and the jump drives were a new retrofit. This would mean that the ships had a capability for being in space for months even though they never really used it in the modern day. They could also have had the idea that fresh food was brought on for passenger use but emergency systems had nutritious flavored algae systems that recycled passenger waste into food. Not great but keeps you alive. That would be meant for emergency rations in case of deep space emergency. The machines would never have been uninstalled and could be pressed into service during the exodus.

While they didn't do that, there was talk in the pilot of abandoning STL ships though I can't remember what the rationale for having them was in the first place -- if they couldn't be equipped with jump drives pure economics would have seen them scrapped.

[Thanas]

It does speak of four systems, doesn't it? What am I missing here?


Also, another inconsistency with the series bible:
In the bible, Baltar is mentioned as a Pyramid season ticket holder, with courtside seats. Yet in "Pegasus" (Season 2, Episode 10) Head-Six mentions that he would never go to sports because that is too lowbrow for him and how she bought tickets herself.

[jollyreaper]

All those stars are within one system.

[Thanas]

How does that work? They have different names for the system. And anything that has more than one sun is more than one system.

[Bakustra]

How does that work? They have different names for the system. And anything that has more than one sun is more than one system.

Not really. If two objects orbit a common center of mass, they are said to be a system. Here we have a quaternary star system of two close binaries orbiting a distant center of mass. Unlikely, but not really impossible. However, there still probably are mining colonies and the like outside of the Cyrannus system.

[OmegaChief]

Not to mention the diplomatic station they had out in the middle of nowhere for the Cylons to get to!

And the sheer proliferation of interstellar distance capable FTL drives on civvie ships!

[sirocco]

from what I understood, the Colonies' system is mindbogglingly huge: there are just not 12 inhabited planets; you have to count too the moons and the mining bases and probably the space stations, like those you saw in the pilots. Monitoring the traffic between them is easy since people followed the same routes since they got spaceships. You kinda expect to be there. On the opposite, someone coming from deep space, far from any habitable world is very unlikely to be seen.

It's like the people traveling through the Sahara. They have been following the same routes for millennia and nearly know the position of every oasis in the desert. People living in some of them know too when they will come and where they will come from. It's set in stone. But from time to time you have explorers/adventurers/tourists just wandering around, out of the usual ways. Some are lucky. Some were never seen again.

So back to the subject, the cylons are more likely to avoid the traditional routes between the 12 colonies, and take their chance with the smugglers. Though instead of bribing smugglers into taking them in (probably hooded so that they won't notice that they all look alike), I tend to think that they just started by infiltrating them, taking advantage of their limited access to information. Even if they were found, they wouldn't have any qualm about killing everyone and just bombing themselves beyond recognition. And I don't think that the colonists would bother with investigating all these "accidents" on the edges of the system.

From there the cylons probably started forging identities for the operatives like Sharon Valerii.