In Defense of nBSG's Pro-Religious Themes

[JLTucker]

Fellow nerds often complained that Battlestar Galactica (2003), notated as nBSG, overwhelmed itself with pro-religious themes over the course of the series. Episode after episode contained anti-religious sentiment before the final season, even going so far as to conclude that GOD DOES NOT EXIST. An example would be the atheist mouthpiece and my personal fictional hero, Gaius Baltar (Gaius Baltar, ure dryhtweorþ nergend). But what those outraged forget is that the show also looked at religious history and the inescapable conclusion that RELIGION WILL NEVER BE ERADICATED.

nBSG, from its inception, posited that polytheism was legitimate and that their gods, the Lords of Cobol, interfered in their lives. They weren’t deists. Even the president firmly believed in the doctrines based on her gods and used them as policy in the search of a new world. Her opponents in this area consisted of the eventual-Admiral, William Adama, and the aforementioned scientist and one-time president (debatable) Gaius Baltar. Both were staunch Atheists. But something happened with the latter: he gained a following and was made out to be a solitary religious figure.

Baltar, now an allegorical prophet, broadcast to the fleet that the old gods were not the ONE TRUE GOD. The then-President, Laura Roslin, and Admiral Adama, from my recollection, dismissed him as a lunatic. But other prominent members of the fleet, including Senior Chief Petty Officer Tyrol, bought into it. The civilians were beginning to question the existence of multiple gods. Baltar’s followers grew in population.

In the end, nBSG gave credence to monotheism. But why? Was it for a plot-driven deus ex machina to solve climactic dilemmas? No. Credence was given to illustrate humanity’s continual religious regression: polytheism to monotheism to polytheism and back to monotheism. The series’ mantra “All this has happened before. All this will happen again” rings true in context of a religious humanity. It is my opinion, and that of the series’ writers, that when we are all dead, more Gods will be invented and more policies will be made to enforce the ideologies of the fictitious deities.

This is one of the many reasons of why nBSG remains, and will likely remain, one of the best science fiction series to ever be broadcast.

In summary: more pews pews please.

[Grumman]

The reason why people like me hate nBSG's handling of religion is because it was not sold to us as a series about their religion, it was a series about people who happened to be religious. It was like if Band of Brothers morphed into a series about the second coming of Christ.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

I didn't mind BSG's religious content at all. I thought it was pretty good for the most part, at least insofar as the portrayal of their polytheistic religion and how it interacted with their lives. Where the series begins to flag a little is in season 3 and 4, where the writing is just plain weaker across the board, religious or not. It had turned into a soap opera filled with profoundly unlikable characters, half of whom were nominally supposed to be ace pilots but who never actually flew their fighters anymore. I still maintain that the only thing that keeps the series salvageable as a complete work is the happy ending for Helo & Athena, who were the only characters I found tolerable by the end.

As a whole, it is an interesting work of art, and I agree with the sentiment that it's one of the only true, "proper" science fiction TV shows around in terms of operating on a higher level than Pew Pew the Aliens. Even my beloved Stargate rarely wrangled with more serious subject matter (and quite blatantly chickened out when it came to Christianity, but understandably so).

[Adam Reynolds]

Why are people not equally annoyed with the religious themes of Star Wars or Babylon 5? Those works, while they clearly show religions as being true, don't force it. Even staunch atheists liked both of those works(including me). Themes of prophecy and destiny don't require a monotheistic god. They don't actually require any god(as is the case in Star Wars).

Personally one of my favorites in that respect is Liara's struggles in Mass Effect 3 when she discovers that her goddess was actually ancient Protheans. That is the logical conclusion to reach with such an idea. Richard Dawkins made a similar point about the idea of looking for an intelligent designer. If we actually found one, it would simply be an alien life form that evolved through some sort of Darwinian means.

RELIGION WILL NEVER BE ERADICATED.

It is in Denmark and Sweeden. Not through force, but through society evolving beyond it.

And even today in America, religion doesn't really matter to a lot of people. We have replaced religious rituals with those for football teams.

In the end, nBSG gave credence to monotheism. But why? Was it for a plot-driven deus ex machina to solve climactic dilemmas? No. Credence was given to illustrate humanity’s continual religious regression: polytheism to monotheism to polytheism and back to monotheism. The series’ mantra “All this has happened before. All this will happen again” rings true in context of a religious humanity. It is my opinion, and that of the series’ writers, that when we are all dead, more Gods will be invented and more policies will be made to enforce the ideologies of the fictitious deities.

In what sense is monotheism more "advanced" than polytheism? And how does this take into account prominent eastern religions like Buddhism that lack deities?

[Adam Reynolds]

A major point here is that nBSG wasn't criticized for its religious themes as much as it was for being too much of a soap opera. Look at the old discussions on this forum and that is what you found.Not to mention the bad writing of "I'm a Cylon" without foreshadowing.

[Joun_Lord]

I wouldn't really call NeoBSG pro-religion. Religion was a central part of the series especially later on when people stopping actually doing anything interesting or exciting but it didn't take a side and nobody was really shown to right in regards to their religion. It didn't portray religious folk as paragons of virtue and atheists as evil or vice versa. Sometimes religious people were treated as good people, other times as fucking crazies, and other times as monsters.

It made sense for religion to be important to the show, people turning towards religion after an apocalypse was realistic. It even helped create some interesting shit, like the religious conflict between the monotheists and the polytheists.

Pretty much the only time any vaguely religious shit bothered me was towards the end of the series with the "god did it" approach towards finding earth and Kara being an angel or hallucination or whatever. Also the whole church of the one bullshit from Caprica but that was less to do with religion and more to do with the main girl being annoying as fuck and all the other cultists being unlikable twats, plus the whole show being terrible.......just terrible.

There might have been some shit like Roslyn stealing babies and ordering people to be spaced because she was high on religion and space weed but I'm not sure, been awhile since I watched the series so I might be lumping shit together.

But the religious shit was the least of that series's problems. Being boring as all fuck, having few likable characters, seemingly having no plan going in with regards to the Cylons and the Final Five and junk, two Earths with parallel evolution, boring soap opera shit that you didn't care about because you didn't care about the characters and you weren't wanting to watch a soap opera but some sci-fi action, not giving the cool as fuck Red Stripe Cylon more screen time and character development, characters being fucking dense, replacing the P90s with Beretta CX4s, inspiring Stargate Universe, killing both the Bucket and the Beast in incredibly bad ways, killing off the Bucket at all, and having the so goddamn retarded took place 10s of thousands years in the past bullshit, now THOSE were definite problems.

[Lord Revan]

RELIGION WILL NEVER BE ERADICATED.

It is in Denmark and Sweeden. Not through force, but through society evolving beyond it.

I'm pretty sure Sweden and Denmark are is mostly lutherian sure there's no in you face preaching of religion, but that's common in Finland as well, I've not heard of Sweden becoming 100% athetistic or near so and it would have certainly made news here.

Are you sure you're not mistaking "not totally obssesed with religion" with "has eradicated religion".

[Metahive]

The problem isn't religion, it's the lazy writing. Ron Moore spun a lot of intricate mysticism and mystery into the series and yet all he could come up with in the end was "uh...goddidit?!". That was just lame beyond belief and a result of Moore having no clear vision of where the series was going but simply making stuff up as he went along. The exact opposite of JMS' preparations for B5, which he had completely outlined before shooting even began.

So saying that religion in nBSG is what miffed some people is just wrong, religion is used in plenty of other titles and series without putting people off, it's that Moore promised a lot and then failed to deliver.

[Adrian McNair]

The problem for me with Battlestar Galactica is a complex one. I remember it as much for its flaws as for what it got right. Battlestar Galactica was at its core billed as a story of survival filtered through a military science-fiction lens. It showed what people would do to achieve this goal and what motivated them in doing so (whether it was their faith, military duty or sheer desperation). When the series lived up to that potential it was appointment television. When it didn't, it stumbled. Badly.

Certain characters being religious was not the problem. In fact the Adama/Roslin divide in the season one two-parter over conflicting beliefs was compelling, edge of your seat stuff. As were the divisions that developed in the fleet during the first half of season two. No, the issue was when the mysticism and spiritual mumbo-jumbo began to infest the series and strip the characters of their agency, trivialised the actual, important conflicts in the series and left a bad taste in my mouth (the very worst offense of all). It eventually overshadowed everything else.

The writing could get very uneven and inconsistent at times. For instance Head Six went from acting like an abusive girlfriend, to a jilted lover and then to all-knowing angel (sometimes she went through all three in the course of an episode). The writers had this annoying tendency to paint themselves into corners or were unwilling to embrace the consequences of certain plot threads. How do you explain away the fact that there are only seven Cylons onscreen when there are meant to be 12? Introduce the final five! A situation has arisen where either Pegasus or Galactica have to be sacrificed? Destroy the contemporary battlestar and stick with the antique instead of being brave and re-branding the show Battlestar Pegasus. An anti-Cylon bio-weapon is going to be deployed? Have the annoying as fuck moralist/creator's pet sabotage it and don't even bother to punish him for it! Consequences? What are those?

The writers flinched one time too many and the narrative suffered for it. There was also way too much filler and the Lee/Kara/Dee/Anders love cube really dragged the proceedings down.

In hindsight it's clear that Moore didn't have a plan at all (despite what the show said about the Cylons having one). He couldn't even stick to his damn essay about naturalistic science-fiction. What was that Ron? No god-like powers? I can't hear you over the sound of the co-ordinates to the true Earth being conveyed through a fucking piano solo. Or of a resurrected Starbuck rolling up out of nowhere in her shiny, brand-spanking new Viper (way to undercut the drama of Maelstrom).

All of this culminated in what I consider to be the absolute worst possible ending for a piece of fiction I have ever seen. Yes, let's throw away all of our technology and embrace the truly abominable philosophy of neo-luddism. Fuck even trying to survive! Let's go for the worst possible course of action without even considering the sensible approach! Fuck yeah! So you expect me to believe that everyone would comfortably go along with this? The same group of people who rioted over food and water shortages would be okay with such a drastic reduction in creature comforts? And how does Lee even have the authority to do this? Romo Lampkin was the President at the time (in theory anyway). I guess you only care about the democratic process when it's convenient, huh Lee?

Lee's gambit failed miserably. As shown by the montage of robots at the end, humanity seems to be heading towards AI-induced destruction once more. I thought that the expression was "those who forget the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them" and not "those who throw the baby out with the bathwater will be just fine." Humanity has regressed socially in some ways as well. In the Twelve Colonies homosexual relationships were considered to be normal as evidenced by the main series and the Caprica spin-off. That's clearly not the case on Earth. Humanity is more fractured and divided than ever. Going from a space-faring race of 24 billion to this? That's just sad, really. Lee should have just asked Cavil to nuke the fleet into oblivion because it amounts to the same thing. The only difference lies in the length of the demise.

Let's ignore that glaring piece of stupidity. Let's go with the notion that people endlessly gravitating to myths (something that was never the point in the first place) is apparently a hallmark of great science-fiction rather than something absolutely depressing.

The notion of gods/angels/demons/whatthefuckever intervening directly in fiction needs to go and die in fire. It didn't work in Deep Space Nine and it sure as shit didn't work here (thinking of the way that the Prophets and Pah'wraiths fucked over the plot just irritates me). Bringing the messengers into the equation was one of the biggest mistakes Galactica made. Keep that manure out of my science-fiction please. Compelling drama stems from the way the characters handle the situation with the means at their disposal. Not from divine fucking intervention.

With Daybreak Part II, Moore completed the gradual deterioration of the series. He betrayed the premise, the characters and the audience. In a way the Hybrid of the Guardian Baseship was correct. Kara Thrace did lead them to the apocalypse. It's just that it ended with a lingering whimper instead of a resounding bang. It would have been far better and more resonant if the series had concluded during Revelations with the discovery of that nuclear-ravaged world. Sure it would have been depressing as fuck but was the show a light and upbeat affair to begin with?

All of this might be palatable for some, "great" even. But it's just a bridge too far for me. Moore fucked up the endgame. I've never seen a series that treats the sci-fi genre with as much contempt as Galactica. Sci-fi/fantasy would be more appropriate in this context (with a heavy emphasis on fantasy).

And yeah, I am aware that RELIGION WILL NEVER BE ERADICATED, thank you (by all means be condescending and talk down to the people you're supposedly trying to persuade). Though I sincerely feel that such primitive beliefs are garbage and we'd be better off without them I'm not under the delusion that religion is going anywhere. It seems to be a fundamental flaw of humanity that so many of us are drawn to the immaterial. But I'm not seeing how that would be a good thing. A secular society should be the ideal one to strive for not one where herd-like devotion to an abstract is dominant or important.

Then again you seem to be someone who considers Gaius "Frakking" Baltar to be a personal fictional hero rather than an obnoxious, cowardly and self-serving jackarse (who thinks he can just wash away all of the shit that he's done by declaring that everyone, including himself, is "perfect"). You must be watching the mirror universe version of the show. So I can see that a rational conversation would be pointless.

[Adam Reynolds]

I'm pretty sure Sweden and Denmark are is mostly lutherian sure there's no in you face preaching of religion, but that's common in Finland as well, I've not heard of Sweden becoming 100% athetistic or near so and it would have certainly made news here.

Are you sure you're not mistaking "not totally obssesed with religion" with "has eradicated religion".

I was basing this on the book Society Without God by Phil Zuckerman, which was based on surveys of those nations. I exaggerated in saying that they have eradicated religion, but the majority of citizens of those nations are atheistic on some level. I meant that as a major societal institution, it largely has been eradicated. Religions in those nations do not hold sway over things like national elections.

As I previously mentioned, my favorite portrayal of religion comes from Mass Effect. All of the various races seem to have differing religions. Other than the asari, who eventually realized that their goddess was actually the Protheans, there is no real indication that any of their religions are true any more than there is in reality. Despite this it is never really shown that they have any particular reason to not believe it. Most of the religions shown are at least somewhat rational, apart from a fundamentalist hanar(big stupid jellyfish) who sides with the Reapers. Among the more interesting is that of the AI geth, who have a sort of religious warship for their quarian creators, who are dedicated to wiping them out. It is an interesting dichotomy. Though of course, Mass Effect also had an extremely controversial ending that in the original unedited ending was somewhat similar to BSG's ending involving destroying technology.

The problem isn't religion, it's the lazy writing. Ron Moore spun a lot of intricate mysticism and mystery into the series and yet all he could come up with in the end was "uh...goddidit?!". That was just lame beyond belief and a result of Moore having no clear vision of where the series was going but simply making stuff up as he went along. The exact opposite of JMS' preparations for B5, which he had completely outlined before shooting even began.

There was an excellent point made about this sort of storytelling on the website of fictional writer Richard Castle(from the titular TV series). He referred to it as ponzi storytelling, where the writers of a series set up all of these elaborate mysteries without any sense of payoff to them. It was partially a criticism of shows like Lost, but also a defense of the main mystery arc on Castle as well(which in the end largely made sense). The underlying problem is that setup is far easier than payoff.

He referred to an example of finding a key sitting on the street. Paraphrasing slightly, when you find a random key, there is always a nice sense of mystery as to what it goes to. Odds are, it goes to nothing in particular, like an apartment five blocks away. When you find that out, it is extremely disappointing. This is generally why many people don't like the resolution to mysteries.

Or as H.G. Wells put it, “If anything is possible, then nothing is interesting.” Having a god who will impact the story is fundamentally the same problem as technobabble in Star Trek. It drains the tension from storytelling. When we have no idea whether the characters will come up with a five minute solution or a 40 minute solution, stories become less dramatic and thus less interesting. Having an actual god who will assist your characters is even worse. There is no way to determine whether they will have an impact or whether their god will simply save them without them having to do anything of consequence.

[Metahive]

Or as H.G. Wells put it, “If anything is possible, then nothing is interesting.” Having a god who will impact the story is fundamentally the same problem as technobabble in Star Trek. It drains the tension from storytelling. When we have no idea whether the characters will come up with a five minute solution or a 40 minute solution, stories become less dramatic and thus less interesting. Having an actual god who will assist your characters is even worse. There is no way to determine whether they will have an impact or whether their god will simply save them without them having to do anything of consequence.

I would even go a step further. On a meta-level the audience knows that what they're watching is a play, a script followed by actors. If "God" or some other inscrutable, omnipotent force is introduced as a key player however, this observation is moved from the meta-level to the actual level of the show, IE "Gaius Baltar" is in-universe acknowledged as a mere phantom acting out a script written by a "higher" force without possessing any sort of personal agency. This makes it close to impossible to actually feel any sort of affection for the character because, after all, he isn't responsible for any of the decisions he makes.
Then there's also the fact that, just like in real life, "goddidit" is a supremely unsatisfying answer. It doesn't actually explain anything at all, just moves the mystery one step further. That is, if one doesn't look at the events and concludes that "God" is a sadistic asshole who draws enjoyment out of mistreating the characters on the show which then adds to the disappointment because "God" never suffers any comeuppance for it.

[Lord Revan]

I'm pretty sure Sweden and Denmark are is mostly lutherian sure there's no in you face preaching of religion, but that's common in Finland as well, I've not heard of Sweden becoming 100% athetistic or near so and it would have certainly made news here.

Are you sure you're not mistaking "not totally obssesed with religion" with "has eradicated religion".

I was basing this on the book Society Without God by Phil Zuckerman, which was based on surveys of those nations. I exaggerated in saying that they have eradicated religion, but the majority of citizens of those nations are atheistic on some level. I meant that as a major societal institution, it largely has been eradicated. Religions in those nations do not hold sway over things like national elections.

I can speak only for Finland (though in these aspects all the Nordic countries are similar), I would say assimilated would a better word then eradicated as "eradicate" assumes there's no traces of it left, where as in Finland the lutherian or orthodox (the largest religious groups in Finland) "faith" is just a part of our national identity, we don't preach it to the world as we feel that there's no need. I doesn't mean that Lutherian (or Orthodox) Church of Finland doesn't exist but rather it's influence on the political arena is minor to non-existant.

It's very easy for an american to missunderstand the role religion plays here as it's not in your face always noticebly present like across the pond but rather it's more on the background.

[Adam Reynolds]

I would even go a step further. On a meta-level the audience knows that what they're watching is a play, a script followed by actors. If "God" or some other inscrutable, omnipotent force is introduced as a key player however, this observation is moved from the meta-level to the actual level of the show, IE "Gaius Baltar" is in-universe acknowledged as a mere phantom acting out a script written by a "higher" force without possessing any sort of personal agency. This makes it close to impossible to actually feel any sort of affection for the character because, after all, he isn't responsible for any of the decisions he makes.

That is true, and it's why I have a problem when people argue that the Force in Star Wars is sentient in any way. The Force makes more sense as a naturalistic phenomenon that manifests through those who are sensitive towards it. It quite simply makes for better stories as it allows the characters to actually alter events.

I can speak only for Finland (though in these aspects all the Nordic countries are similar), I would say assimilated would a better word then eradicated as "eradicate" assumes there's no traces of it left, where as in Finland the lutherian or orthodox (the largest religious groups in Finland) "faith" is just a part of our national identity, we don't preach it to the world as we feel that there's no need. I doesn't mean that Lutherian (or Orthodox) Church of Finland doesn't exist but rather it's influence on the political arena is minor to non-existant.

It's very easy for an american to missunderstand the role religion plays here as it's not in your face always noticebly present like across the pond but rather it's more on the background.

Here is a source that goes into what I was originally talking about. Even though the majority of people might officially be a member of a church, they generally don't believe in the tenants of Christianity.

[Zor]

Regardless, nBSG's depiction of a society which developed and evolved on utterly different lines as being nearly identical to 20th century (baring mostly having the greco-roman Religion and other token ) US was really, really stupid. Consider the differences between English and Japanese cultures in 1600 in everything from clothing, religion, food, social customs, legal customs, systems of writing, ideas about government, philosophy, architecture, ship design, units of measure, social organization and all that stuff. The gulf between our culture and that of the 12 Colonies, the product of a process which had to work everything from fire to fusion reactors on their own, would be even more different.

In all honestly the Twelve Colonies should have had a level of worldbuilding comparable to Royal Space Force: the Wings of Honneamise.

Zor

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

The pointed similarity to modern Western society was an intentional stylistic choice, and probably one of the most interesting things about the show. It did away with Space Pajamas, Space Coffee, Space Magic That's Actually Technology and every other tired old TV sci-fi trope along those lines. By putting the main cast in everyday suits and ties, drinking regular coffee and speaking regular old English over regular old telephones, they could focus more on the dramatic elements without bothering with the questionable world-building exercise of designing those Space Pajamas and Space Coffee labeled in Space Language from the ground up.

If you're someone like JRR Tolkien or GRR Martin you can afford to focus on that sort of thing in your fiction (although even they heavily draw from reality for their fictional worlds), but that's because they have the professional expertise to do so - Tolkien was a professional linguist and Anglo-Saxon academician, so the fact that there are very robust and well-grounded fictional languages in Tolkien's works makes sense. If you don't have that level of professional expertise and you try to do something like that, you're just going to fall flat on your face. So I have the utmost respect for BSG's decision not to bother with that level of simulating a fictional world, wisely avoiding the pitfalls of poor world-building. Of course, that means you must view the resultant work abstractly rather than literally, and that's where audiences start falling flat on their face.

[Adam Reynolds]

The pointed similarity to modern Western society was an intentional stylistic choice, and probably one of the most interesting things about the show. It did away with Space Pajamas, Space Coffee, Space Magic That's Actually Technology and every other tired old TV sci-fi trope along those lines. By putting the main cast in everyday suits and ties, drinking regular coffee and speaking regular old English over regular old telephones, they could focus more on the dramatic elements without bothering with the questionable world-building exercise of designing those Space Pajamas and Space Coffee labeled in Space Language from the ground up.

I would have to agree here. This actually reminds me of a slightly odd idea I've had for a book series. That of a setting that is effectively modern Earth in everything but names. Essentially what Ace Combat did, without its odd worldbuidling. This would be a solution to the problems in things like Tom Clancy novels in which the politics are extremely hackneyed. It would also allow true freedom of storytelling and allow things like a historical nuclear war without having to blame any real life nuclear powers.

My thinking was based on a limitation of Tom Clancy novels. When his series started, they featured stories that took place during the Cold War. And it worked reasonably well. Then in the 1990s he had a problem. The Cold War had ended and so he needed a new enemy. He used a mix of Iraq/Iran forming an alliance(somehow without the sectarian strife that has occured after the US invasion in reality), Japan getting uppity in a virtual repeat of 1941( written just as the Lost Decade took effect), and the United States formingin an alliance with Russia to stop the Chinese from stealing their oil. This even involves Russia joining NATO(extremely ironic considering what has occurred under Putin). What is especially odd is that even after a nuclear weapon is detonated by terrorists in Denver, the US still deals with 9/11 in a similar manner as historically. The problem with such ideas, as has been mentioned on this thread is that they become dated very fast. Similar works by similar(and largely better) authors such as Larry Bond or Ralph Peters have the same fundamental problem. But I still like the idea of similar stories, just without the limitation of existing political dynamics. At least not overtly, which generally leads to at least partially justified allegations of racism and jingoism.

One of the biggest problems I've had when coming up with this idea was that of language, what I am thinking of as the best solution is to just use English for everything and consider it a translation. Another is that of identification, that unless the setting is eventually build up a la Star Wars, it will be impossible for readers to identify with characters based on where they are from.

The final and possibly largest problem is that I would obviously have to build up an entire political history for the setting as readers would eventually question whatever they read. That would be a question of a large quantity of work. Another related potential minefield is that of ethnicity of various factions and their political ideologies.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I figured that the "they're just like us but with polytheism and Battlestars" was to make it easier to sympathize with them, since they are effectively normal Earth humans with the same language, a culture that is close enough to not be an immediate "that's weird," and the same kind of dynamics and relationships we see in real life.

I mean, sure in the original series we could feel bad when watching Caprica burn or the Atlantia blow up. But in nBSG instead of "hey, maybe that's our distant cousins" its "shit, maybe that's us in 200 years."

[Zor]

The pointed similarity to modern Western society was an intentional stylistic choice, and probably one of the most interesting things about the show. It did away with Space Pajamas, Space Coffee, Space Magic That's Actually Technology and every other tired old TV sci-fi trope along those lines. By putting the main cast in everyday suits and ties, drinking regular coffee and speaking regular old English over regular old telephones, they could focus more on the dramatic elements without bothering with the questionable world-building exercise of designing those Space Pajamas and Space Coffee labeled in Space Language from the ground up.

But this sort of laziness is nothing new. In Star Trek TOS you had The Omega Glory with a US on another planet. It was stupid even among TOS's usual lot of silliness.

If you're someone like JRR Tolkien or GRR Martin you can afford to focus on that sort of thing in your fiction (although even they heavily draw from reality for their fictional worlds), but that's because they have the professional expertise to do so - Tolkien was a professional linguist and Anglo-Saxon academician, so the fact that there are very robust and well-grounded fictional languages in Tolkien's works makes sense. If you don't have that level of professional expertise and you try to do something like that, you're just going to fall flat on your face.

But, in short, Hollywood DOES. It has thousands of concept artists, costume designers, set departments, prop departments and similar who live for this stuff at their disposal. They also have a large amount of books on historic costume, architecture and similar to draw inspiration from. Any fictional undertaking like nBSG had hundreds of people working on it. It's not even as if they would have to reinvent the wheel every time. A pistol has it's shape because it is an ergonomic one for a compact firearm used by humans. A Chinese Jian has a shape that people more commonly associate with European swords because said shape works well for that category of weapon which people in East Asia and the Fertile Cresent worked out on their own. They have no shortage of historic sources from which to draw from for design inspiration.

Hell it would not even need to be as extensive as Wings of Honneamise (though if they DID pull that off it would have been awesome), but some effort at design would have been good.

So I have the utmost respect for BSG's decision not to bother with that level of simulating a fictional world, wisely avoiding the pitfalls of poor world-building.

Instead they elected to jump down the "I don't give a shit" chasm on day one. Sorry but you still get an F for handing in a test with nine out of ten questions left blank.

Zor

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

But this sort of laziness is nothing new. In Star Trek TOS you had The Omega Glory with a US on another planet. It was stupid even among TOS's usual lot of silliness.

What does some random TOS episode's plot have to do with anything? Are you really so literal-minded that you can't wrap your head around an abstract portrayal of a space-faring civilization? The position you're implying you have isn't even logically sound, because if you reason through to the inevitable conclusion, virtually all portrayals of popular sci-fi civilizations do not meet the standards of wholly authentic world-building. The members of both 23rd and 24th century Starfleet all speak mid-late 20th century English. So do the inhabitants of a galaxy far far away, and their alphabet is just a simple character-for-character replacement of the Latin alphabet (which is linguistically ridiculous).

But even if you don't subscribe to some hypothetical perfect level of world-building, you are left with the problem of defining where the line must then be drawn. Do you excuse language? Why? Logically, almost no sci-fi civilization would speak 20th-21st century English with the obvious exception of things like Stargate. In order to enjoy popular sci-fi, then, you must at least concede language as not being authentic in a literal sense. Why not clothes then? Why is a modern day suit and tie different from a modern day English expression? Why not political systems and elected offices? Why not military organization and technologies? Why not coffee and alcohol and smokes?

Setting some arbitrary standard for how "alien" a sci-fi setting must be in order to "pass" is ridiculous. If you're talking about hard sci-fi or something, sure, but that's because it's a very specific subgenre specifically dedicated to being a strict, simulationist interpretation of a plausible future. Obviously, something like The Martian needs to be strictly literal in its portrayal of its setting and events.. but it does not follow that every story must be so literal. nBSG never even bothers with such literal story structure, just as Star Wars doesn't bother with pesky physics - I mean, do you hate Star Wars for not accurately depicting how starfighters would move in a vacuum, away from any obvious points of reference or gravitational influence? I would hope not, since that isn't even remotely the point of the damn story.

nBSG is not about imagining up a brand new civilization out of left field. It is completely, utterly irrelevant to the story how "authentically alien" the world is or is not. Such concerns are chaff, deftly separated from the dramatic wheat of space-faring humans on the brink of extinction, and for all its flaws, nBSG deserves a helluva lot of credit for that.

But, in short, Hollywood DOES. It has thousands of concept artists, costume designers, set departments, prop departments and similar who live for this stuff at their disposal. They also have a large amount of books on historic costume, architecture and similar to draw inspiration from. Any fictional undertaking like nBSG had hundreds of people working on it. It's not even as if they would have to reinvent the wheel every time. A pistol has it's shape because it is an ergonomic one for a compact firearm used by humans. A Chinese Jian has a shape that people more commonly associate with European swords because said shape works well for that category of weapon which people in East Asia and the Fertile Cresent worked out on their own. They have no shortage of historic sources from which to draw from for design inspiration.

Hell it would not even need to be as extensive as Wings of Honneamise (though if they DID pull that off it would have been awesome), but some effort at design would have been good.

Instead they elected to jump down the "I don't give a shit" chasm on day one. Sorry but you still get an F for handing in a test with nine out of ten questions left blank.

Zor

Good lord. If the above argument does not sway you, then I'll point out that there is such a thing as a budget. I'm glad they spent it on things like re-defining what you could do with television and blowing conventional wisdom about TV in the mid-2000s out of the water, rather than on someone's silly concept piece about Space Humans - that ground had already been tread by Gene Roddenberry 40 years earlier anyway.

[Zor]

But this sort of laziness is nothing new. In Star Trek TOS you had The Omega Glory with a US on another planet. It was stupid even among TOS's usual lot of silliness.

But even if you don't subscribe to some hypothetical perfect level of world-building, you are left with the problem of defining where the line must then be drawn. Do you excuse language? Why? Logically, almost no sci-fi civilization would speak 20th-21st century English with the obvious exception of things like Stargate. In order to enjoy popular sci-fi, then, you must at least concede language as not being authentic in a literal sense. Why not clothes then? Why is a modern day suit and tie different from a modern day English expression? Why not political systems and elected offices? Why not military organization and technologies? Why not coffee and alcohol and smokes?

Setting some arbitrary standard for how "alien" a sci-fi setting must be in order to "pass" is ridiculous. If you're talking about hard sci-fi or something, sure, but that's because it's a very specific subgenre specifically dedicated to being a strict, simulationist interpretation of a plausible future. Obviously, something like The Martian needs to be strictly literal in its portrayal of its setting and events.. but it does not follow that every story must be so literal. nBSG never even bothers with such literal story structure, just as Star Wars doesn't bother with pesky physics - I mean, do you hate Star Wars for not accurately depicting how starfighters would move in a vacuum, away from any obvious points of reference or gravitational influence? I would hope not, since that isn't even remotely the point of the damn story.

nBSG is not about imagining up a brand new civilization out of left field. It is completely, utterly irrelevant to the story how "authentically alien" the world is or is not. Such concerns are chaff, deftly separated from the dramatic wheat of space-faring humans on the brink of extinction, and for all its flaws, nBSG deserves a helluva lot of credit for that.

First of all was the matter of realism: the anime film that I brought up was more realistic in terms of it's science than nBSG. There was no FTL drives and similar things like it in Royal Space Force. Scientific realism was a false comparison. It is set in a alternate world inhabited by humans which had developed on different lines trying to launch their first manned space mission. Secondly, since you brought up Star Wars there was a lot of effort to establish it as being distinct from our world and frankly it was stronger for it. You could have the stormtroopers be just regular guys in black 1970s style military uniforms and not change the plot one bit, but Star War would be worse for it.

Would you shoot a movie about the politics of ancient Rome with a bunch of guys in suits with roman names spending time in office buildings with computers and everything along with a few red flags with SPQR written on them? Howbout the battles of Agincourt or Sekigahara fought by modern soldiers with assault rifles, RPGs and helicopters led by Generals Henry Lancaster and Tokugawa Ieaysu? By your logic why bother futzing around with Togas, Plate Armor and Kabutos? Nobody speaks Latin, old English or early modern Japanese anymore so a movie would be translated from those languages into a modern tongue, so you might as well go all the way and do away with all that unnecessary ancient stuff chaffing up everything.

See fine details matter. There is a reason why Peter Jackson had hundreds of distinct suits of orc armor made for the Lord of the Rings movies, why they decided to print out full programs for the Quidditch World Cup in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, why Game of Thrones DVDs come with bonuses explaining the history of Westeros and Essos and similar. Little things like this come together and make the world more believable and more engaging. Battlestar Galactica is not Twelve Angry Men, it's a show about people from a society removed from earth searching from earth in desperation. Just as Sengoku Japan was different from Shakespear's England or the Ottoman Empire was different from the Aztec Empire there obviously should be some distinction between our civilization and theirs that should be plain to see. What you brush off as "chaff" is part of the reason why people watch science fiction to begin with, as well as fantasy and historical fiction for that matter.

And since you brought it up you do not need to be an expert to understand that having several thousand people in what is basically an airtight box floating in the vacuum of space for months if not years at a time where your life is dependent on machines which could break down or be destroyed in battle to understand that having a crew that smokes like fucking chimneys is a bad idea. The medical exams for the colonial navy should ask the question "are you a smoker" and had it count against recruits who said yes. This is before you're on a rag-tag fleet with minimal supplies fleeing destruction who's growing the stuff (cigarettes have a shelf life of twelve months tops) rather than growing fucking food.

Good lord. If the above argument does not sway you, then I'll point out that there is such a thing as a budget. I'm glad they spent it on things like re-defining what you could do with television and blowing conventional wisdom about TV in the mid-2000s out of the water, rather than on someone's silly concept piece about Space Humans - that ground had already been tread by Gene Roddenberry 40 years earlier anyway.

1: There is no reason you can't have both the human drama you are talking about AND half decent world building. Even a D effort is better than the F- from leaving 9 of of 10 questions unanswered.
2: "Space humans" is less silly than "humans who lived 100,000 years ago who are culturally more like modern Americans than guided age Americans who lived 115 years ago".
3: At best you are saying that "it's an inferior product, but at least they saved money in producing it"

Zor

[Kingmaker]

Would you shoot a movie about the politics of ancient Rome with a bunch of guys in suits with roman names spending time in office buildings with computers and everything along with a few red flags with SPQR written on them?

Coriolanus was pretty well received, actually, if I recall correctly.

That aside, I think this boils down to whether you think it is more important for world-building to be evocative or coherent/sensible, and I think that depends on the work. E.g. the setting of WH40k makes basically no sense when you get down to it, but that's because it is more concerned with being as metal as possible than with being a plausible future. And that makes sense for WH40k, since noone cares that the world makes no sense, but they do care that it be as metal as possible.

Similarly, nBSG is, I think, trying to evoke a certain feel with the faux-near future world of the Colonies, and making the Colonials plausible Space Greeks instead of 21st century Americans transplanted into space would actually undermine that.

[Joun_Lord]

That aside, I think this boils down to whether you think it is more important for world-building to be evocative or coherent/sensible, and I think that depends on the work. E.g. the setting of WH40k makes basically no sense when you get down to it, but that's because it is more concerned with being as metal as possible than with being a plausible future. And that makes sense for WH40k, since noone cares that the world makes no sense, but they do care that it be as metal as possible.

Similarly, nBSG is, I think, trying to evoke a certain feel with the faux-near future world of the Colonies, and making the Colonials plausible Space Greeks instead of 21st century Americans transplanted into space would actually undermine that.

40k is supposed to be ridiculous and at times make no sense. This is the setting where an entire faction makes work by believing in it and makes it go faster by painting it red.

Neo-BSG is supposed to be more plausible, supposed to have a consistent and logical world. They went out of their way to make books and papers feel unique, to give each world and culture its own distinctiveness (even if it got into one hat planets). Worked at making the evolution of the Cylons and their ships feel real.

They could have done that with the setting too. I understand the quasi-futuristic world they were going for but when its literally 21st century America with books with their corners cut off and space ships, it kinda fails. It doesn't just look like modern times, it is save for the spaceships and genocidal robots (the worst we got is iPhones and thankfully they don't have machine guns......yet). Its got modern firearms, modern Humvees, modern dress styles, modern drinks, modern style of talking save swears, modern tactical gear, modern high schools, pretty much everything to the point you could drop Caprica City in the middle of modern America and it wouldn't stand out too much.

I mean say what you will about old school BSG but the setting, the styles, the world it created did not feel like modern Earth with starships. It felt futuristic without Humvees and P90s. It had some thought put into its setting. Neo-BSG did not, it was just lazy.

[Adam Reynolds]

Would you shoot a movie about the politics of ancient Rome with a bunch of guys in suits with roman names spending time in office buildings with computers and everything along with a few red flags with SPQR written on them?

Coriolanus was pretty well received, actually, if I recall correctly.

That aside, I think this boils down to whether you think it is more important for world-building to be evocative or coherent/sensible, and I think that depends on the work. E.g. the setting of WH40k makes basically no sense when you get down to it, but that's because it is more concerned with being as metal as possible than with being a plausible future. And that makes sense for WH40k, since noone cares that the world makes no sense, but they do care that it be as metal as possible.

Similarly, nBSG is, I think, trying to evoke a certain feel with the faux-near future world of the Colonies, and making the Colonials plausible Space Greeks instead of 21st century Americans transplanted into space would actually undermine that.

There was also the Ian McKellan version of Richard III that transplanted the story to the 1930s and made the titular character a fascist. It also amusingly left in the line "my kingdom for a horse" when his jeep got stuck.