Battlestar Galactica and Traveller

[stofsk]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
Just on an unrelated note, does anyone else find it odd that the humans have a routemap to Earth in the form of one of their scriptures? Wouldn't that mean that someone must have gone to Earth and then come back with the directions to leave behind for them to follow?

Now that I've calmed down for the moment, what you point out here is what I'm talking about - why don't we have an episode where someone starts off by going "Hey guys don't you think it's a LITTLE FUNNY that the map to earth is in our bible?"

 

[Malenfant]

Well the other funny thing is that nobody's mentioned anything about Sharon's autopsy (the one that got shot by Callie). She clearly had one because there's a scene earlier on in season 2 where Adama sees her body and you can see the autopsy scars.

I mean, this is a skinjob body - so you'd think there'd be differences. The fact that nothing's been mentioned implied to me that in fact there aren't any major differences in the biology of the body (beyond maybe the odd implant) - they may be 'machines' but they're biologically identical to humans.

 

[stofsk]

Well, shit, what about Baltar's cylon detector?

Or how he managed to sneak a nuke onto Cloud 9, when 'radiological alarms' go off whenever a nuke that isn't accounted for gets armed?

Or the 'Cylons as Clones' theory, which you've pointed out (which doesn't seem to gel with the scene that had Sharon plug a fibre optic cable into her arm to interface with a computer... yes, that actually happened). The mystery of the Cylons is one of those things that they could spend more time on.

All of these things are questions I want answers to, but all the writers give us is

and as though we didn't notice the Battlestar sized holes in their plot.

 

[Malenfant]

The "Cylon detector" IIRC was just him stalling for time. I figured he had underground ways of sneaking in a nuke, and only Galactica itself has the radiological alarms doesn't it?

Sharon's cable I can explain away as an implant. After all, if they're otherwise biologically human (or close enough. So they have an extra link in their blood molecules or whatever - they bleed, they can have babies, etc), then maybe they download to new bodies using other implants in their bodies.

 

[stofsk]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
The "Cylon detector" IIRC was just him stalling for time.

No, it actually worked. It picked up Boomer. Baltar lied about passing her. Since he was tasked with testing the survivors there's no way he could get out of it.

There's no excuse for them to just forget about it. When Baltar returned from Kobol they should have absolutely grilled him over the matter, but the writers just quietly buried it.

I figured he had underground ways of sneaking in a nuke, and only Galactica itself has the radiological alarms doesn't it?

Yes, it can detect nukes from ships well outside the fleet's regulard dispersement pattern (ref. "33" when the Olympic Carrier's onboard nuke went active, it wasn't yet in range of the fleet).

Yet it doesn't matter. A Nuke goes missing and Adama doesn't know about it? Sloppy security at the very least. It was probably the same nuke Baltar used for his Cylon detector... in which case, how is it still a weapon?

Sharon's cable I can explain away as an implant. After all, if they're otherwise biologically human (or close enough. So they have an extra link in their blood molecules or whatever - they bleed, they can have babies, etc), then maybe they download to new bodies using other implants in their bodies.

But wouldn't an implant be picked up in a medical examination?

 

[Pickles]

Yes, I remember the bit about Baltar's test flagging up Boomer. But, as the test was never actually seen to work, I assume it was just dropped as a failure and a waste of resources. I know, I write a lot of these things in my mind, but I don't expect to see every detail in the actual show. There's too much of that in American SF as it is, and it's one of the aspects of Japanese SF (i.e. anime) which appeals to me - the assumption that the audience can actually use their imagination to fill in non-essential background.

 

[Malenfant]

Oh I'm not saying there aren't holes. It's just that they don't bother me, because to some extent you need to do things for plot reasons. I can quite easily believe for example that the container that held Baltar's nuke (and yes, it must have been his) including shielding (lead lining, I dunno) around it that prevented them from detecting it.

I dunno. It advanced the story and didn't blow my suspenders of disbelief, hence I don't really care that much

.

 

[Space Cadet]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
Well the other funny thing is that nobody's mentioned anything about Sharon's autopsy (the one that got shot by Callie). She clearly had one because there's a scene earlier on in season 2 where Adama sees her body and you can see the autopsy scars.

I mean, this is a skinjob body - so you'd think there'd be differences. The fact that nothing's been mentioned implied to me that in fact there aren't any major differences in the biology of the body (beyond maybe the odd implant) - they may be 'machines' but they're biologically identical to humans.

Two possibilities
Either nanotechnology or cloning.

Seems to me that the Cylons could have captured a number of human subjects during the first Cylon War and did some experiments on them, literally reverse-engineering the human body, and then rebuilding it to do what they wanted it to do.

 

[savage]

If cylons were created my the colonies they probably had the wealth of human knowledge at their metal finger tips.

And Baltar is a scientist...he's probably heard of lead shielding. Or he is a computer geek...could've messed with tracking system.