Topic: Previously on Battlestar Galactica

[8ullfrog]

Feel free to move all the battlestar stuff here.

God, tracking down the miniseries was stupid hard. The horrible ads on streaming sites keep getting worse.


Anyway, without watching the miniseries, the first season of Battlestar Galactica will be very confusing. Swatchseries, a particular streaming site, lists the miniseries as episode 0.

[6pairsofshoes]

I'll watch the miniseries.  It's not clear why the ship that was a cylon had to have ganglia and organic goop.  If they can have human form metallic robots running around shooting people on Caprica, why do they have organic flying ships?  Why deal with the mess of organic controls.  Certainly there's less perishable AI structures that they could have installed.

I'm also mystified by all the goofy religious references by the blonde cylon.  And the relationship between Gaius and the cylons is also strange.  Is there one living in his head somehow or invisible to everyone but him?  I don't get it.  She sure is annoying.  I mean I know guys like sex, but this is a bit much.  I'd have told her to get lost a long time ago.

[8ullfrog]

Think of robots. Think of fighter aircraft. Now think of Cavalry. Now think of Horses.

Yes, they made robot horses. In the first Cylon/Colonial war, the cylons did things old school. Two robots flying around in a fighter. Those are your frisbee shaped colonial raiders from either old BSG, or the first war.

Now strip that down. You've got scarce resources out in the ass end of nowhere space. You're playing unit 731 on the captured human forces, and in fact, have freaked out over it so bad, you've abandoned the genocide of Humanity, that was going pretty well so far.


So you cut back. The fighters get turned into horses, so to speak. They get their own brains, to go up against the human fighter pilots. And like other cylon units, when destroyed, their consciousness is downloaded into a new model.

This essentially breeds a fighter pilot that cannot die. Now imagine how PISSED that Cylon raider is that Starbuck is flying around in his/her/it's lobotomized corpse. Enough to start a grudge, eh?

BSG doesn't go meaty too often, but when it does, yeah, nightmares.

Fun fact I don't think gets mentioned in series, human form cylons have haptic interfaces in their hands. So they dip their hands into interface pools on Cylon Basestars. They also have a neat VR world that won't be shown for a long time, but was super cool. Imagine if your daydreams could be overlaid on reality. Like instead of sitting in a DMV, you're in a beautiful forest. I envy the Cylons sometimes.


Colonial Religion is mostly Greek Polytheist. Being a Monotheist is not only illegal, but your neighbor might jam a bbq fork in your neck if they find out you don't follow the pantheon. It gets rough.

One of the few GOOD uses of religion in BSG is in the miniseries, when Starbuck the bottom drunk, pulls out her icons and prays for the friends she has lost that day. Like that's a hell of a scene. Rarely topped, and it's a tiny moment.


Head Six believes in God. The Cylons believe in God. Baltar is an Athiest. Head six can slam his head into the mirror in the mens bathroom. Imagine how well their relationship functions.

Now, neither Gaius nor Six ever mention this, but when she was pretending to be a defense lobbyist with coding skills, He did not bother remembering her name. Like at all.


The Miniseries sets up head six a bit better, but yes. He sees her. No one else does. Yes it will be explained, but not for a long ass time.




As to WHY the religious stuff? RDM was a star trek fan. He submitted a script to paramount back when that was allowed. They were so impressed, they brought him aboard as a lead writer.


And he wrote the finest cliffhanger TNG ever had, Best of Both Worlds, Pt. 1.


Then he basically ran DS9. Which is funny, because if you watch BSG, and then DS9, DS9 looks like a comedy with brightly painted clowns.


Then Voyager happened. Voyager was supposed to be RDM's baby, he was supposed to have carte blanche. Then Berman bent it all up.


I mean the voyager he pitched sounded fun as hell, and it's obviously BSG. But it didn't happen. He quit and walked away.


Why? He didn't want resets. Things don't get cleaned up between episodes. Col. Tigh explains after the miniseries how their ship has no business flying lead, and needs six months in drydock, minimum.


(pssst, they never get that drydock time)



Rick Berman, in case you didn't know, Was Gene Roddenberry's lawyer, and is a vampire, IRL.  He ruled over Star Trek with an Iron Fist until CBS took it away and gave it to JJ. Now that's dead.


As to Star Trek Discovery? Gross. Just gross. There was a joke in the 1970's about Ensign Mary Sue, who was 16, and saved the day. On STD? She's back! But this time she's named Tilly! And she's the first person to say golly on star trek!

Yes they made that a plot point in modern star trek. Enjoy Galactica, while you can. They just rebooted buffy, and have been threatening to reboot BSG AGAIN since it's been off air.

[6pairsofshoes]

The miniseries was helpful and I did not know about that site, so thank you for that.  It helps explain why some people are where they are, but not why blondie is still annoying the Gaius character.  He's a smarmy piece of work.  And is that a fake British accent?  It sure sounds like one.

What's up with that little "are you alive? prove it" business with the diplomatic meeting at the beginning.  That goes nowhere with zero further explanation.   Are we supposed to get something out of that?  The man is sitting at a table, presumably, with photos of his wife and kids yet he lets this nasty piece of work make out with him.  I notice that he is there without armed guards while she is.  That's hardly diplomatic.

[8ullfrog]

That dude is a burn out officer who has stood a post that no one gave a poo about for 40 years. He might as well be part of the furniture. I mean from a writers prospective. From a viewers perspective, yeah, it's REAL WEIRD. Poor sucker doesn't even get a name, he's "Armistace Officer". Not even his creator gave enough of a poo about him to name him.

Six's primary missions are seduction and subversion. She was just making a game of it. Essentially, she's blowing the whistle before kickoff of the game.


I don't think he really had time to figure out why the hell this blonde lady just showed up with cylons and is molesting his face before the station goes boom.


I do agree that's a really frakking stupid waste of assets. The cylons never gave a poo about the armistice station, but they're wasting at least three cylons and moving an entire Basestar into enemy territory BEFORE hostilities to fire one torpedo on the reactor... for shits and giggles?

Oh, and his son is in the miniseries too, but I don't think they bothered explaining it in the plot. The kid just mentions his dad is in the colonial fleet.

I think it's meant to come off as mysterious or spiritual, but instead, you're right. The scene is dumb. The shuttle docking was pretty cool though. RCS thrusters going pif-pif are always fun.

I think the torpedo to the fusion reactor of the station was a bit more undiplomatic than the bodyguards.


The basestars are freaking beautiful though. I got to sit on one at comicon, they had it set up like a giant bench.


As to James Callis, he likes to pretend he is an American doing a fake british accent, but he is from Ol' Blighty. He went to school on the mean streets of London.


As to Gaius particular affectation, good catch. He speaks that way to make himself seem more sophisticated. Like that's an INSANELY good catch you made. I never noticed it until it became a plot point extremely later on. If you get that far, I think it may actually be your favorite scene.


On a lighter note, Tony Scott once wrote the navy a $25,000 check to keep an aircraft carrier on a course that kept the sunset on the fighter jets so they would look cooler.


As to nastiest bottom cylon, I'd probably say... crap, spoilers. But it's pretty horrific when you get there.

[6pairsofshoes]

8ully, I hope you will take these remarks with a grain of salt/humor, as there is nothing personal about you implied in any criticism.  I watch these very late at night with half a brain awake, usually while playing Tetris, so if I'm missing something, please let me know.

So, I'm in Episode 11 of Season 1 and they are having this political intrigue with ex-terrorist prisoner Zarick out and at some luxury ship heavily lobbying for position of vice president of the whatever this governmental body is called, and I'm like, wtf?  Weren't they trying to get to earth or somewhere where they would have food, water and a cylon free environment?  Last couple episodes they were desperate for water and fuel, but now they get all dressed up like we're on an episode of B version of a hybridization of The Office and West Wing.

Evil robots blow up most of humanity and the few who do barely escape to these antiquated ships with the clothes on their backs, but somehow they magically are able to get this luxury star ship set up like a vacation spa/conference center and people are able to dress like they're on their lunch hour at an office park?  Huh? Where did they get all those clothes?  And who wears high heels on a battleship?  This is way stupid and barely believable.

And Gaius.  Whoa.  If that's what passes for "brilliant scientist" in the future, no wonder they're all in trouble.  I have a toaster that's smarter than that guy, and it doesn't even work all that well.

[8ullfrog]

Not offended in the slightest, a lot of the stuff IS stupid.

But I'll jump right in here.

As things are, they essentially took whatever planes were in the air. That's how the secretary of Education became the President. For instance, in the miniseries the pilot squawks "Colonial 798 Heavy" - his call sign, then says "Scratch that, this is Colonial One".


The one unifying factor in the fleet ships is that they have the FTL jump drive. They actually left half of the survivors behind to die in the miniseries, there wasn't even time to move the survivors to other ships. The botanical ship in particular, is used to illustrate how dark the show is. Even worse? There's another ship that is the same model... but it has an FTL drive. Dark.


Hell, as they're spooling up the FTL drives, you can hear the frantic radio calls from ships begging them to come back for them after the danger passes. It won't, and they know it, but they are begging. The very last radio call is an angry lady saying she hopes the fleet that is jumping away will rot in hell.


Galactica was being decommissioned, so they turned off Windows Military Update. So they were immune from the remote shutdown command the cylons used. It's not a Virus, they used a backdoor admin account.


Civilian ships don't get Windows Military update, so anything in the skies was still in the skies.

Politics are a huge part of the Colonial Identity, second only to Religion. It's so important, Roslin won that argument in the miniseries with Adama about how he'll make the military decisions, and she'll make the civilian ones. This is actually a departure from the President being the commander in chief of the military, and it goes to show that Adama can bend. I believe in a later episode, he mentions that using the military as police officers is an extremely dangerous act. Here's the quote:

Zarek is a cockroach, and will exploit anything that gains him more power. He's already got his goon squad of Prisoners, who must have all sorts of criminal education, and have the additional benefit of being completely disposable. When his extremely loyal people get shot, he shrugs and moves on. Hell, the sniper in this episode was thrown away to add Sizzle to the election! Zarek didn't even want Roslin dead, he just wanted everyone to freak out right at vote time.

He's riding a MASSIVE wave of popularity. He's just expended a crapload of workers to deliver Water back to the fleet. Ice mining, we are told, is extremely dangerous in space. We may have lost the Colonial version of Harry Stamper!  Plus he's washing their criminal history with that points system. Suggested by the way, by Apollo.
 Plus they don't want to pay taxes, ever. Meh, I made that last one up, but it's funny.

His next play is noticing that people are still living like the old days, Rich people move to the more luxurious ships, poor people get sent to the Demetrius, the poop processing ship. Or the cigarette factory ship. Galactica is an Antique, but Cloud 9 is the height of luxury. Apollo even gets to go swimming! I think. Maybe he just wanted to? He talked to starbuck about it anyway.


But Zarek sees opportunity for political strife. You paid that bartender $3 for that smoking martini? What's that money worth without a central bank backing it? Why is the bartender still wearing his uniform and showing up to work when he isn't getting paid? Zarek doesn't have ANSWERS to these questions, but he'll sure as poo use them for political capitol. We learn time and again, Zarek has absolutely no plans for the future, but he really, really wants more power.


Earth is at this point, a pipe dream that both Adama and Roslin are using to keep people moving so they don't just give up. Adama doesn't even believe it exists! Roslin KNOWS earth doesn't exist, and uses it to bargain with Adama. She does hope it exists though, since that whole dying leader bringing the people to earth prophecy from their bible sure does fit nicely with her terminal cancer diagnosis. And the drugs she's smoking to get visions. Yeah... maybe elections ARE a good idea. 


So they're stocked up on water, food supplies exist... that's a long term problem they face. In one episode, when walking through a meat locker, the chief points out that they may be walking through the last steaks, ever.


As to all getting dressed up, I'm pretty sure Billy explained they bought luggage in lots, so Roslin goes from having One suit to Three. She's actually pretty jazzed about it.


As to weird ships, a fan favorite is the Zephyr, that spinny wheel ship. I don't think anyone ever goes over there, but it's pretty and memorable.

https://galactica.fandom.com/wiki/Zephyr

Huh, the Zephyr was a cruise liner. I did not know that. Plus Apollo could go swimming on it.

Other notable ships that show up include Serenity from Firefly in a blink or you'll miss it cameo in the Pilot (When Roslin learns she has terminal cancer) The friggin Kirk Enterprise (Can be seen in the credits) And the Planet express from Futurama (Miniseries at Ragnar Anchorage, Zarek steals it later on. There are actually three ships of this class)

Holy poo, I just NOW, all these years later realized the Astral Queen is literally Con Air. Does that make Tom Zarek John Malkovich?


Gaius is a legitimate genius, but they try to toss him at every science problem. What the hell does a Cyberneticist and Computer Networking expert know about Genetic Screening?

And his stupid frakkin backpack nuclear powered Cylon detector WORKS. But it is the idiot ball to end all idiot balls. On Midway, the nukes were guarded by a freakin' pillbox in front of the hatch. Cylon detector just chills in a science lab.

The reason Baltar stumbles and bumbles is because James Callis noticed how everyone walked around in a stiff military professional gait, and decided not to do that.

Plus he's a domestic abuse victim... by a ghost. Like he'll be trying to hold a discussion on fleet resource management, and she'll shove her hand down his pants, or he'll scoff at her religion and get his face bashed into a mirror. (I believe that happened in the episode you just watched).

Hell, during the hands down pants incident, he screams "NO!" and Billy makes a joke about him looking a little flushed.  And she will do way worse as time goes on. I agree with you, Six is a nasty person.


There is an episode later on about how a black market springs up so that people can continue to dress like they're on their lunch hour at an office park. Hint: Not everyone gives up those clothes willingly. Sizing, obviously would be an issue.

A somewhat more amusing one is that people on vacation are stuck in vacation clothes. Imagine you get assigned to the poop ship, and you're wearing a hawaiian shirt, bathing suit, and flip flops. That would SUCK!


As to the military, if you ever get a chance to visit the Midway in San Diego, do it. They make clothes aboard ship, have a whole department for it. Right next to the Dentist's office.

As for the heels, well, it was a decommissioning ceremony. Everyone was spiffed up. Totally agree it would suck to walk on grating in heels. Holy crap would that suck.

[6pairsofshoes]

Thanks for the explanation.  I was confused as to how the various ships got set up.  Initially I figured that Galactica was the only substantial ship that didn't have the networking capacity that enabled the large problem caused by the cylon hacking.

That there were civilian ships not affected makes more sense.  It explains the oddity of a luxury liner floating in the sky.  One little oddity that sort of raised my attention was the annoying drunken wife of the second in command (the old bald guy who is a long standing friend of Adama) who may/may not be a cylon, is quite keen on a getaway vacation with her dull bald husband.  I suspect she's probably a cylon who has a swap/substitution plot dreamed up in which she gets a cylon lookalike to replace #2 guy.  Why Gaius won't spill the beans about who is/isn't a cylon is another odd aspect of his character.  If blondie is a figment of his imagination then he's a sick deluded and dangerous guy.  I've yet to see any evidence of his genius.  He's sort of tired and predictable.  The kind of good looking guy just on the cusp of going to seed.  He's supposed to be very handsome.  I just see "twit."  Maybe they should come up with some special glasses for viewing to eliminate the heavy twit factor in the series.  That would help a good deal.

I find many of the characters annoying.  Make that most of them.  The one conflicted cylon who just shot Adama and whose counterpart is pregnant (?) on Caprica is sort of interesting.  (My memory has gone to hell due to sleep deprivation).  The President is such a twit that she begs to be hit in the face with a cream pie every 30 seconds.  And the oddball pagan religion, hail Artemis or whatever, that sends Starbuck to nice radioactive Caprica (great place to be pregnant, too, now that I think of it--how are the humanoid cylons immune to ionizing radiation?  eh?) to pluck Apollo's arrow from his hand so they can find earth (how?  is it magnetic and automatically points to it like a celestial compass?) while getting into a fist fight with blondie #6 (a good deal tougher than she looks, really).  That whole train of thought suggests that the President in addition to being utterly annoyingly self righteous, is a complete moron.  Wasn't she in Dances with Wolves (I didn't see that, but I think she's somehow in there with Kevin Costner)?  There's nothing quite like sending the best fighter pilot in the fleet on a futile mission that will help leave the lot of them nearly defenseless.  And after blondie gets shot what's with the cylons stealing their ship back?  If there's cylons around why aren't they busy just trying to kill the humans rather than riding off in the ship?  Around here they have electric scooters that you rent in 15 minute intervals and you leave them at your destination.  They have internal GPS tracking so the company can cue potential customers into the location of nearby scooters.  Maybe the ship was like that?  Cylon comes along, needs a ride, sees the ship, gets in and takes off.  Sorry, Starbuck.

[8ullfrog]

so so much to unpack here.

Ellen Tigh is not a very likable person, she's an officer's wife, which is totally a real thing, where they think their husband's job entitles THEM to respect and honors.

She also drives Saul Tigh into his worst behaviors. He wasn't always a bitter old drunk, he was one of the finest officers the colonial fleet ever had... and then he met Ellen.


In a deleted scene, he's kicked out of the fleet, douses himself in kerosene, and holds his lighter in his hand. Then the Shore Patrol show up, and reinstate him into the colonial fleet. Courtesy of Commander Adama. That's how healthy Saul's relationship with Ellen is. He burns out her eye in a photograph in the miniseries.

Gaius doesn't know much about the cylons. When he accused the Public affairs guy, Aaron Doral of planting the cylon router in galactica's CIC, he was lying. He was right, but was lying. I was super amused that the cylon router looked a lot like the contemporary Airport Extreme router from Apple. Nowadays they look like power bricks.

So he possibly marooned an innocent guy to save his own ass. I never said Gaius was a good person, but he is an interesting character. He does NOT know who is/isn't a cylon, which is funny as poo, because he built the cylon detector, and it works. He tells Sharon Valeri she's human because he realizes she can reach across the desk and snap his neck like a freakin twig.

So he can't out them. Well he could out the sixes, but then the fleet would REALLY like to know how he knows what a cylon looks like.

The fleet now knows 4 models. Sharon Valeri, Model #8. Shelly Godfrey (or caprica six, or natasi ((novelization)) ) #6, and Aaron Doral, Model #5


Oh, and the one Adama identified and killed with a friggin flashlight, #2, Leoben Connoy. Another Leoben was found in episode 8, and accused Bill Adama of being a cylon. Which would also make Lee Adama, his son a Cylon.


as to Sharon  she got cylon updated to shoot him in the gut after shaking his hand. Really tragic? She loved the old man and would never have chosen to do that. He made her a division officer even though she wasn't a very good pilot. She was as shocked as everyone else after she pulled that trigger.

So, 4/12.

Was Leoben telling the truth? Adama did make a pretty damning speech against humanity in the miniseries, when he said that you can't wash your hands of the things you have done, and asked if Humanity deserved to survive, after what they've done. Lee hasn't engaged in any particularly calculator like activity, and in fact has been a pretty good officer. He even opposed the Coup against the President!

Head six, I really don't want to ruin it for you, but Gaius schedules weekly cat scans, and Galactica's CMO keeps canceling them, telling him he's a frakkin' bottom hypochondriac. He also chain smokes like a lunatic. Doc Cottle was always awesome, and apparently is a hell of a doctor.


Gaius is also a twit. One of Starbuck's greatest regrets is that she slept with him. Further puncturing his ego, she called out Lee's name.


So you like Sharon. That's cool, she's an awesome and tragic Character! Boomer was the one on the old rust bucket, so I'll just refer to her as Boomer in future.

Sharon was assigned to seduce and sleep with Karl Agathon (Helo) She did very well at both, but peskily fell in love with him. Boomer on the other hand, is used like a cheap watch. One of the other cylons makes her dance around like a ballerina later. To amuse himself.


I went from liking Laura Roslin (Madam President) very much at the beginning, to slowly outright hating the crazy madam.


As to the path to earth, Arrow of apollo, It's legit. Not saying "The gods did it" but they are walking down a set path. The greek pantheon thing is the dominating religion of the 12 colonies, the Cylons are Monotheist.


The rationalle for the Military Mutiny against the President is that she broke the deal in the miniseries, exactly how you described. She suborned an EXTREMELY important officer (Kara trains the new pilots, Lee is more the boss for the already trained) Extremely important military equipment (The captured Cylon Raider) and sent her off on a mission that could kill everyone - (Go back to Cylon Occupied Caprica, break into museum, bring back cultural artifact with no apparent signifigance)


I believe the actual scripture is that the arrow of apollo will lead the way to earth. Season 2 will explain that fairly quickly, We got to wait a year between seasons. Six must be a shitty fighter, because cylons are significantly stronger than humans. That being said, Yeah, that fight scene was AMAZING, and someone finally kicked Starbuck's ass!


As to Sharon stealing the raider? Well like you said, an irradiated planet is nowhere you want to gestate, let alone deliver a baby, and she's switched sides. I guess you didn't pick up on the fact it was her? As for the tracking, the raider has been lobotomized by Kara.


My favorite lines in that episode are when Sharon tries to bring up memories of flight school and being hold hair back buddies with starbuck about puking up seafood, and Kara shuts her down flat. Sharon isn't Boomer, even with the memories. They're not friends, at all.


So to get back at her, Sharon steals the Raider and flies off to who knows where?


Then Kara says "madam stole my ride".

[6pairsofshoes]

This helps to clarify many things.  I forget names so easily when I'm watching at night.  Yes.  I was referring to Saul Tigh's awful drunken wife.  He pours out the last of his booze, sobers up, gets straight and then Adam-a shows up with the wife who was believed dead but mysteriously shows up on another ship.  How?  The whole thing's suspicious.  She flirts with everybody, cuckolding her husband, cozies up to the Zarick character who is attempting to become Vice President, etc. and then makes suspicious suggestions that her hubby and she take a break, with expectations that with Adama out of the way, Saul will become big and important, further increasing her own status.  She's an awful piece of work.  Parasitic, manipulative.  Compared to Six, she's really just an amateur, though.

Sharon/Boomer is written as sympathetic.  I was sort of perplexed by the attempted assassination of Adama who was nothing but kind and supportive of her.  Cylons would explain that.  Where is Sharon going with the ship?  There's already a model of her running about on Galactica, so that's going to be a logistical problem, particularly if she shows up preggers, given there's supposed to be no such dalliances among the crew, right?  The odd Gaius visions of his and six's progeny in a white crib were just bizarre.  So one final point to be discussed later is why would humanoid robots want to attempt to breed with the humans they feel they're superior to and have recently tried to exterminate?

I'll just wait and see on Gaius.  Six's religiosity is annoying.  She should be banging on doors and handing out pamphlets like the Jehovah's witnesses.  And the President did start out being reasonable and a model of good governance but now she's just irritating and overreaching in her destructive decisions.  I guess the anti cancer drugs she's taking have addled her brain.  She's got 6 months so, what, another season of her new age nonsense?  Hard to say.

I've never been to San Diego and there is so much good architecture there.  It would be a great place to spend a week.  I'm just getting ready for another grueling semester so I won't be going any where fun for a while.

[8ullfrog]

I don't think the series ever hides the fact that the cylons flat out delivered Ellen to the fleet. Seriously, even the episode supported that assumption. So even the cylons hate Ellen Tigh.

As to Sharon, well, she doesn't know boomer is the most infamous pilot in the fleet. As far as she knows, boomer is just a shitty pilot she needs to kill and drop down an elevator shaft. As to Helo, well she loves him, but he shot her.

Fun or not so fun fact, this is what fans think happened to boxey, that kid from the pilot. Boomer dropped him down an elevator shaft when he saw something that he shouldn't have.
In reality, a subplot with Chief, Boomer, and Boxey were supposed to form a family. Oh, and boxey was gonna be a sneak thief. Instead, he never shows up again, despite being on the last shuttle off Caprica. They had to tighten things up, and he ended up on the cutting room floor.

Now, more importantly, Colonial Harry Stamper and his Rock Hounds! (This never happened on the show)

Tylium mining is even more dangerous than the events of Armageddon, and I could totally see one of the crew (it would be AJ) frakking up a drill, causing a shipping emergency in the space lanes. Boom, everyone is in prison, Harry can't even visit his daughter. The hard part here is writing her survival in.

So Harry has to make a deal with the devil - Tom Zarek, to ever see his daughter again. Does he want to wipe Tom Zarek's smug face down a boring drill? Sure. Will he have the opportunity? I'm not that good a writer!

[6pairsofshoes]

Why wouldn't the cylons simply kill Ellen rather than deliver her to a ship?

The whole problem of AI and how it would develop desires, opinions, and aims that are different than those of the creators of the robots is a broad open question that is never adequately explained. The second season intro says, "They were created, evolved (what's up with that?), and then decided to rebel."  I know this is a frequent trope in sci-fi, but really, it's about time somebody devoted some serious thought to the problem in fiction.

And the background music?  It varies from syrupy Zamfir pan flute stuff to bongos on a caffeine high.  Heavy handed does not even begin to describe it.

[8ullfrog]

Japanese taiko drums. That's an actual orchestra you hear, they even toured during and after the show. There are some repetitive themes, I can't honestly tell the difference between "The shape of things to come" and "passacaglia". The composer WAS told to stop aping star trek at the end of the first season.

As to evolution The Cylons went from looking like chrome plate armor to the tall, as you called em "gun hand" ones. And of course, the human form ones. The cylons were never meant to be AI, and weren't supposed to think for themselves. The guy who built the first cylon unit couldn't get the brain to work, so he used a scan of his dead teenage daughters brain. So it's all his fault.

I'm not 100% clear on how much they've discussed resurrection at this point, and don't want to spoil it.

Colonel Tigh is absolutely poo at diplomacy, but he's an extremely competent tactician in war. Ellen makes him a drunk moron, softening the fleet right before the KO when they shot Adama.

Tigh is now in command of the military side of the fleet and is about to launch a coup against the civilian government. He was drying up, like you said, but Ellen has him crawling back into the bottle, prompting future exploitable mistakes.

Plus, they've killed like 50 billion humans so far, they can afford to play sadistic games at this point. That's one of the weaknesses of the cylons, their absolutely nasty temperament.

Which they of course inherited from their parents.


--
 - - As to BATTLESTARMAGEDDON, I can't find anything that explains the heinous poo that one guy did. The ex wife tells him he can't be around the kid and he hands her a space shuttle, but they never tell us! Baltar is becoming very sinister in the outline, he mocks buscemi's rubiks cube solving as a parlour trick, and they have no business (INSERT WHY THEY'RE OUT OF PRISON HERE)

There is no outright armageddon wiki, like there is for BSG, so I don't really know where to go from here, and I don't own a copy of the movie. I did have the soundtrack, but it was stolen by my cousin, who steals small things because she's a madam.


I did figure out how to save Grace. She's on that last shuttle from Caprica. She was out camping when the bombs dropped, blah blah.


Oh, there IS a wiki about everyone who dies in the movie. WEIRD poo YO.
--

[6pairsofshoes]

In the last episode, Adama wakes up and sits with Tigh who has screwed things  up royally.  The President was jailed for good reason, but she has not gotten over her annoying self righteous indignation.  She needs somebody to hit her in the face with a pie every minute she's still alive.  Why Adama's son is such a supporter is god's own mystery.

They kill the female cyclon who shot Adama.  Sharon?  I need a scorecard to keep these guys straight.  Gaius' behavior continues to puzzle me.  He weasels out of her that there are 8 other cylons, on the ship?  where? by threatening to kill the guy she has feelings for.  Why does he not admit that he can detect cylons?

Another thing that I find odd is the disorganized mess of Caprica.  Starbuck and what's his name are hanging in her artist pad, get in her car and then encounter a troop of human marines who after a brief period of distrust take them back to camp and treat them to a basketball game.  I don't know a great deal about ionizing radiation, but if you explode bombs that are enough to exterminate most humans on a planet, the residual radiation that would remain, based on the half life of that toxic radioactive residue isn't, to my understanding, something you can will away with the occasional injected drug.  It's a question of cellular damage due to the decaying unstable radiation that causes cancers, nausea, and other nasty effects.  I'm thinking of Chernobyl and the surrounding areas that may have wildlife and plants, but the humans who lived there were forced to abandon their homes, permanently.  And that was just from the fallout from an accidental release of radioactivity in a controlled situation (a powerplant).

But, hell no, not here.  The humans are able to play basketball, smoke cigars and listen to music with hostile evil robots wandering about, looking for more humans to exterminate.  Logic is clearly not a strong point among the screen writers on this show.

[8ullfrog]

eh, it's kind of like how in star trek, the doctor always has the exact right medicine and dosage in his hypo-spray.

As to Tigh's screwup, it was essentially the Boston Massacre. No one knows who fired the first shot, but the outcome is bad either way. Lee Backed Roslin because he's big on rule of law. Roslin is the President, He's been her Military Liason since the miniseries. He's essentially the friggin Joint Chiefs of staff AND Galactica CAG. When does he sleep?

 You may notice that Bill Adama was nastiest to Lee whenever talking about the president. And Lee didn't like his father too much to begin with. He (Lee) was actually going to resign his commission after Galactica was decommissioned. This cut scene actually got restored in the RAZOR film. (It was cut for time in the miniseries)


Roslin never gets over herself. She gets worse.


Sharon "Boomer" Valeri is the programmed identity of the Eight originally stationed on Galactica. She was Frakkin' the Chief but made occasional googoo eyes at her ECO officer, Helo.

The Eight on Caprica assumed the same identity, but at this point, she's just Sharon. She's Frakkin' Helo, but he shot her recently, so she's off reassessing her priorities. Stole Starbuck's ride.


Baltar previously convinced Boomer to kill herself, but her programming turned the gun, and she just blew her cheek out. That's why she's got that patch on her face. Under interrogation, she revealed that there are eight more human model cylons IN THE FLEET. Not Galactica, that would be stretching things. I think at this point there are 130 ships. Guess how willing ANY of those captains are to have armed marines rousting everyone aboard? A Cylon blood detector isn't much use when you can't find the frakkers for the blood test!

Cally is a deck hand on galactica, she's mad the Chief is Frakkin' Boomer, and not her. So it's Jack Ruby time! Cally is horrible.

Back on Caprica, Starbuck and Helo go to her apartment for supplies, and her ride. They encounter a SPORTS TEAM that has been scavenging for supplies among the wreckage. The SPORTS TEAM is alive because they were doing high altitude sports ball training for a game on another colony (planet)

This is a real thing, teams from low altitudes undergo adjustment training before playing places like Denver. They got guns from dead people, or maybe they were gun nuts before the apocalypse. It's startlingly easy to get your hands on even a sub-machinegun in the colonies, gun control must not be important to them. Or maybe they raided that farm from Hot Fuzz!


One of the reasons they're still on planet is that the Delphi airstrip is fully occupied by cylons, so they won't be getting their hands on an FTL capable ship. Once again, great job Starbuck.


The stupid sports team and stupid starbuck bond over their shared love of the stupid sport. She was going to go into sports, but her mom made her join the military instead. (Her mom is pretty dang horrible, it's gone into in a much later episode)


One thing I found alarming is that the latest cache of anti-radiation magic meds were scavved from a HIGH SCHOOL. So Nuclear war was EXPECTED in the colonies.

As to Starbuck picking up her Walkman with the tape of music her dad left her... Well poo, if you lost everything, then had a chance to snatch a bit of it back, wouldn't you?



SPORTS TEAM expect to die, and just want to blow up as many robots as possible before they go. Starbuck is totally down with this. Even though she's supposed to bring that arrow back... about a week ago now.


Helo wants to find Sharon, and get the hell out of the irradiated wasteland these lunatics want to play in. He is so over this poo.

One thing I read, no clue if it's true or not, but Bottled beer would still be safe to drink after the bomb. Not even skunked.

But yes, the SPORTS TEAM are morons. They and Starbuck deserve each other.

I'm not sure how many rads colonial nukes put out. The cylons move back into the cities, and the buildings look pretty freakin' intact. Maybe they were Neutron bombs? ( I know actual neutron bombs don't work like they are popularly percieved, but Delphi was surprisingly intact for a city that got nuked)