nBSG Season opening roundup(Spoilers, Damnit)

[Kassiopeia]

Originally posted by Locutus
I loved Ron Moore's reaction to this scene: "We'd better win the f*cking Emmy this year, I swear to God!"

QFT! I need to watch it with the podcast.

That was my first thought, but then I realised Lee hasn't flown a fighter in over two years by now and in Galactica's world at least the CAG always seems to be one of the pilots. Not sure if you'd want to put someone that's both mentally and physically as bent out of shape as Lee is in a cockpit and in a command position at the same time.

Hmm, that's a pretty good point. You lose sense of time when 16 months pass within three episodes. It's really been long.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Kassiopeia
FTLs use a lot of tylium, I imagine, they don't want to use them all the time. Besides, whenever we see the fleet in space, it's usually between jumps.

So go out and mine the stuff , both the human and cylon fleets have been burning through the stuff so I doubt it is an economic consideration. Considering all the resource ships the home star system the colonials had must have been packed full of all kinds of resources. Under those conditions I could see people contemplating their navel rather then going out, but even then there should have been a few ships charting space.

I think they mentioned some risk involved with the drive itself way back in the mini-series.

What comes to velocity, well, luckily they didn't show us the Galactica jumping back in space so we can't blame them for getting it wrong - but it would make sense, because as far as I recall, so far ships have retained their velocity after a jump.

Next we saw the Galactica was travelling away from the planet at high velocity with several base ships after it. Did its own engines generate that, or were they relying on previously built up velocity from the fall(also what did the cylons have to do to catch the Galactica). We're not seeing the effects of acceleration on people, thats difficult to do though. certainly it is less dramatic to have Lee slammed into an acceleration couch then to be standing and giving orders.

[Jules]

Originally posted by Lord Avalon

How about an animated cylon smiley?

By your command!

[Tattila the Hun]

Originally posted by Kassiopeia
I could see Lee returning to the position of CAG, even though his rank is quite high for that. Especially if he loses weight. With the fighters of both Pegasus and Galactica, they'll have a lot of them to work with, so having a higher ranking officer running the combined fighter fleets would be feasible.

Well, I seem to recall they haven't yet gotten the other flight-pod operational. Maybe they'll fix it, and have one person running the show on the other, one on the other. Starbuck propably. Especially, since they now have Peggy's compliment of fighters.

[Lonestar]

That...is...awesome

[Kassiopeia]

I was thinking more on the lines of Starbuck (if she comes back to duty, they might keep her out because she was gone with the Cylons for a whole four months) running the other and Kat the other, with Lee above both.

In the podcast, RDM said Galactica would be reeling from the damage received in the battle for quite some time, so I doubt they'll have the flight pod up and running any time soon. I also liked how he explained how they'd decided the Galactica's structure could take the trip in atmo - if you can hit it with a nuke and not destroy it, it should be able to handle it. A tough machine

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Kassiopeia
In the podcast, RDM said Galactica would be reeling from the damage received in the battle for quite some time, so I doubt they'll have the flight pod up and running any time soon. I also liked how he explained how they'd decided the Galactica's structure could take the trip in atmo - if you can hit it with a nuke and not destroy it, it should be able to handle it. A tough machine

yea, just how much unobtainium did they need to build that ship?

[Kassiopeia]

Well, it's an old low tech warship designed to withstand a lot of punishment without any fancy schmancy gadgets to help, so it makes sense for it to have ridiculously thick and effective armour. Maybe energy absorbtion is involved.

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by Whoha


yea, just how much unobtainium did they need to build that ship?

Asteroids and meteorites seem to do just fine without that element. And their structures aren't even organized or reinforced...

[Lord Avalon]

Originally posted by Jules

By your command!

[Adrian Hon]

Galactica didn't seem to be going all that fast when in atmosphere (at least, not compared to an asteroid or typical re-entry speeds) so I don't think it would've had much of a problem... especially with armour that can apparently withstand direct nuclear missile hits. Definitely a great sequence - and they almost did it offhandedly, rather overusing it

[Whoha]

Originally posted by DRoseDARs
Asteroids and meteorites seem to do just fine without that element.

obviously reducing lethality again is good for the plot, but these ships should be vapor by now from all the stuff that they have taken with no trip to a drydock inbetween.

[Dr Strangelove]

If Gallactica can take a direct nuclear blast how can anything damage her? The stuff the cylons were throwing at her didn't seem to be as powerful as the nuclear blast she received in the first season. The blast sizes weren't that big. I'd expect a nuke blast in space to be somewhere around a kilometer in diameter. Also a nuclear blast in space should be a ball of white light, not a fireball.

[Adrian Hon]

I suppose a question is how big the nuke was in the miniseries, and how far away from the ship it detonated - even being just a kilometer away would help a lot. In any case, most stuff that gets thrown at them these days appears to be 'conventional'.

Not sure if anyone's mentioned it, but in the podcast Ron Moore mentioned that Galactica would be feeling the effects of the beating it received for a number of episodes, so they're not going to pretend everything's OK next week.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
If Gallactica can take a direct nuclear blast how can anything damage her? The stuff the cylons were throwing at her didn't seem to be as powerful as the nuclear blast she received in the first season. The blast sizes weren't that big. I'd expect a nuke blast in space to be somewhere around a kilometer in diameter. Also a nuclear blast in space should be a ball of white light, not a fireball.

The nuclear missile in the beginning did not directly strike the Galactica, it blew up alongside it, which makes more sense actually. Also, in space there would be the force of the energy, but as far as I know, the blast wave should be much weaker, because there is no atmosphere to act as a medium. Even then, the blast did significant damage to the ship, and a second one would have doomed the Galactica.

A great example is the Bikini Atoll test, were a nuke was set off on top of old warships. When the test was conducted above the surface, few of the warships actually sunk, even when feeling the effects of the blast.Any of those warships could haqve been sunk by a couple of torpedoes, which obviously would not have ever packed the same punch as a nuclear weapon. The issue is the ship is designed to withstand specific forms of attack. The second test, were the nuke was exploded under the water, was far more efefctive, given the damage to hulls from the blast wave in the water.

The Cylon ammo could very well have "armor piercing" properties of some type, making it more effective at causing damage directly. Also, nukes are a stand off weapon, you shoot a couple from far away to damage the ship and its systems. The Cylon base stars were close in, pounding the ship directly with missiles and other ammo.