# Battlestar Galactica - 1.1- \*Open Spoilers\* - "33" - the plot **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 4, 2011, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-1-1-open-spoilers-33-the-plot/577129 "2011-04-04T11:29:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-1-1-open-spoilers-33-the-plot/577129/141 "2011-04-09T17:31:39Z")
Something tells me that **L4L** has been hitting the hooch a little too freely this evening. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-1-1-open-spoilers-33-the-plot/577129/142 "2011-04-09T17:38:57Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#): > > Lighten up mate. > > No its not a big thing in the U.K., possibly because we have a higher standard of living over here. > > I have visited the U.S. many,many times and travelled around it many, many > times. > I’ll bet that you’ve never even been to Europe, not even once, let alone the U.K > > If you’re unhappy with the quality of your life then do something aout it. > > But don’t lash out at total strangers who enjoy a more affluent life style then your own. > > Sorry me old mucker but I’m not about to downgrade my standard of living because I’m racked with guilt, because you are by European standards living an underpriveliged, day to day life. > > Try growing a set, DO something about it instead of whining about it . > > Good luck. I think I speak for everybody here when I say, what in the world are you talking about? ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-1-1-open-spoilers-33-the-plot/577129/143 "2011-04-09T17:43:10Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > This is the single strangest response I think I’ve ever read on this board. Wow. Thank you (tries to look modest),I do my best. A bit of a touchy subject I’ve found, you live in the most powerful country on Earth, but the quality of lifes not so good is it ? You slap your self on the back because you’re lifestyle is so much better then those in the third world, and even better then Mexicos. And insularity means that you don’t even know what the standard of living of the average Australian, or German or Spaniard is. (To name just a few) No wonder you get so upset, I think I would to. But I’ll finish for now, just in case I get another Hissy Fit for telling it as it is. Don’t get sick now you’all. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-1-1-open-spoilers-33-the-plot/577129/144 "2011-04-09T17:48:24Z")
I suspect if you really did successfully contact your cousin, he’d end up calling the cops. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-1-1-open-spoilers-33-the-plot/577129/145 "2011-04-09T17:59:41Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#): > > No its not a big thing in the U.K., possibly because we have a higher standard of living over here. The reason doctors and lawyers aren’t a big deal in the UK isn’t because your standard of living is higher. Successful doctors and lawyers in the US living on some exclusive (Coronado? It’s not that exclusive) island off California are probably living in multi-million dollar homes with tennis courts, swimming pools, and quite possibly employ a full household staff. Is that how the average Brit lives? I don’t think so. In the US, when you make it big, you can make it really big. That’s why doctors and lawyers are stereotyped as being very lucritive fields to go into, but we still have plenty of very average-paid doctors and lawyers who live in the same apartment buildings & condos the rest of us do. Anyway, if you want to find your cousin you can do it just as easily as we can. Google up some cast lists from the original show and go through until you find him. What do you expect us to do that you can’t? ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-1-1-open-spoilers-33-the-plot/577129/146 "2011-04-09T18:22:02Z")
Annnnyway… back on topic, does anyone have an answer to my [question?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13667953&postcount=129) ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-1-1-open-spoilers-33-the-plot/577129/147 "2011-04-09T18:30:07Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > Annnnyway… back on topic, does anyone have an answer to my [question?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13667953&postcount=129) I don’t recall that they ever went into detail with that, so presumably they just did whatever happened to work. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Kaio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c68b51/32.png) [@Kaio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaio)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-1-1-open-spoilers-33-the-plot/577129/148 "2011-04-09T19:04:19Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > This is the single strangest response I think I’ve ever read on this board. Wow. No kidding. That came out of a clear blue sky… how’d we get to “nah nah I’m richer than you” from “my cousin that I’ve never met is a movie star”? Moreover, _why’d_ we get there? Back on topic: [spoiler]it’s been a while since I’ve seen the episodes in question. I have a vague sense that it was perhaps more urgent to get back to the fleet the first time, as they were defenseless, had no way of finding _Gallactica_ by themselves, and perhaps that they’d be easier to find by the Cylons because they were a single jump from their origin point – the origin point being where the Cylons were. The Cylons kept managing to follow/find them, so it was 50/50 that they’d find the defenseless fleet rather than a warship that could at least defend itself. Given all that, it was perhaps faster to backtrack rather than calculating an entirely new jump route from where they were to where the fleet was. I don’t recall if the civilian fleet was in immediate danger at the series finale. Didn’t they tuck them away in a safe corner and then bring the fight to the Cylons? If the Cylons didn’t know their origin point – Point A where fleet and _Gallactica_ are together, before the fleet goes to Point B and _Gallactica_ goes to Point C where the Cylons are – it might take longer for them to backtrack and find the civilian fleet (in addition to having sustained some damage, so a hunting trip probably wasn’t their topmost priority right then). Therefore, more time to calculate a direct route rather than backtracking the familiar one. Anyway, I always assumed that jump calculations had to take your origin point into account, so the math was describing a line between origin and destination, rather than just describing the destination point. Seems it would be faster/easier to describe that line backwards (Point C back to Point A) than to describe an entirely new line (Point C to Point B).[/spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-1-1-open-spoilers-33-the-plot/577129/149 "2011-04-09T19:34:00Z")
> [@](#): > > I do have one question about FTL travel that I either don’t understand or is a big plot hole. > > WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR BOTH THE SEASON TWO PREMIERE AND THE SERIES FINALE Simple heuristic for questions like this: If it involves the series finale, it’s a plot hole. There, done. Personally, I thought when I saw the finale that they should have just had finale-Earth settled only by the brave souls on the Galactica, and given up on the civilians who stayed behind (or rather, left them in the care of the basestar). That’d make a lot more sense than assuming that a raptor (with limited jump capability to begin with) could backtrack an uncalculated jump made from the close vicinity of a black hole, especially one that seems to have also jumped them back a hundred millenia in time. Yes, I know that they’ve officially denied that it was time travel, but how else do you consistently explain the two Earths which are both unambiguously our Earth? ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-1-1-open-spoilers-33-the-plot/577129/150 "2011-04-09T20:45:11Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Simple heuristic for questions like this: If it involves the series finale, it’s a plot hole. There, done. > > Personally, I thought when I saw the finale that they should have just had finale-Earth settled only by the brave souls on the Galactica, and given up on the civilians who stayed behind (or rather, left them in the care of the basestar). That’d make a lot more sense than assuming that a raptor (with limited jump capability to begin with) could backtrack an uncalculated jump made from the close vicinity of a black hole, especially one that seems to have also jumped them back a hundred millenia in time. Yes, I know that they’ve officially denied that it was time travel, but how else do you consistently explain the two Earths which are both unambiguously our Earth? [spoiler]I wouldn’t call Cylon Earth unambiguously our Earth. We never once saw a decent view of the actual planet. We saw a city that might vaguely resemble NYC, but that just fits in with the whole “All of this will happen again.” Anyway, I wasn’t around to say this when it first aired, so I’ll say it now. I liked the finale. It wrapped everything up nicely while still leaving the story a little open-ended. The only things I didn’t like was the anti-climatic ending the whole “opera house” thing, that was all quite pointless. And I didn’t like the montage of robot clips at the end. It put an “anti-technology” message to the story that I never once saw in the series. Then again, I loved the Lost finale, so my opinion in null and void on this board.[/spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-1-1-open-spoilers-33-the-plot/577129/151 "2011-04-09T21:08:25Z")
Quoth **enalzi** : > [@](#): > > I wouldn’t call Cylon Earth unambiguously our Earth. We never once saw a decent view of the actual planet. We saw a city that might vaguely resemble NYC, but that just fits in with the whole “All of this will happen again.” A decent view of the actual planet wouldn’t have proven anything, anyway, since mostly all you’d see would be clouds. But what they _did_ give us was a decent view of the constellations as seen from that planet. If it wasn’t actually our Earth, it would have been so close to it that someone would have said “Hey, there’s another yellow main-sequence star right next to it; let’s check that one out, too”. Time travel also puts a somewhat more satisfying explanation on there being genetically-compatible humans already on the planet-- If we’re just going to blow that off as “God did it”, then why not just say that God caused the time travel, instead? ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-1-1-open-spoilers-33-the-plot/577129/152 "2011-04-09T21:15:25Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Quoth **enalzi** :A decent view of the actual planet wouldn’t have proven anything, anyway, since mostly all you’d see would be clouds. But what they _did_ give us was a decent view of the constellations as seen from that planet. If it wasn’t actually our Earth, it would have been so close to it that someone would have said “Hey, there’s another yellow main-sequence star right next to it; let’s check that one out, too”. Time travel also puts a somewhat more satisfying explanation on there being genetically-compatible humans already on the planet-- If we’re just going to blow that off as “God did it”, then why not just say that God caused the time travel, instead? Okay, I’ll admit the constellations are a plot hole. I don’t have an answer for that. But I don’t understand how time travel explains the primitive humans on the planet already. Cylon Earth was founded by humanoid Cylons leaving Kobol. They wouldn’t be primitive. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-1-1-open-spoilers-33-the-plot/577129/153 "2011-04-09T22:12:38Z")
_According to myth_, Cylon Earth was founded by Cylons leaving Kobol. But it’s not hard to see how the myths might have gotten mixed up, with Kobol actually being founded from Earth. But if we’re going to continue this conversation, it’d probably be polite to start a new thread for it, so we’re not cluttering up the new watcher’s thread with spoiler boxes. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2011, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-1-1-open-spoilers-33-the-plot/577129/154 "2011-04-10T09:15:03Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > Every member of the fleet had someone on board who could calculated FTL jumps, as they were all FTL capable ships. Cite? My understanding was that they \*had \*relied on (infestable) computers, which they couldn’t anymore because of the Cylons’ l33t haxxor skeelz. I thought Gaeta was calculating for the whole fleet. Battlestawiki seems to support this: [ > [@](#): > > The FTL computer manages the complex calculations necessary for an FTL jump. Information for these jumps on a more advanced battlestar such as Pegasus are probably transmitted from the Navigation Computer by the battlestar’s network. > > On Galactica, however,\*\* the FTL computer receives the spatial coordinates manually from the Tactical Officer or its Communications Officer\*\*. The FTL computer also manages the star fixes of the jump coordinates to compensate for inertial drift that naturally occurs over time. The Tactical Officer generates a series of emergency jump coordinates for the Fleet with the FTL computer. **This information is relayed to other ships regularly**. It is likely that the flight pods are also controlled through the FTL computer as they must be retracted prior to a jump. ]([Computers in the Re-imagined Series - Battlestar Wiki](http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Computers_in_the_Re-imagined_Series#FTL_Computer)) > [@](#): > > It can’t be that rare of a skill. Please. I can go out now in my city of 3 million and I doubt I could find more than a 1000 people who could use an astrolabe properly, or use a slide rule, even. Some skills are just superceded by technology. Few people retain them, or have the capacity to relearn them from books. Like slide rules - everyone in engineering courses at my uni used programmable calculators. They wouldn’t know how to use a log table if their life depended on it. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2011, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-1-1-open-spoilers-33-the-plot/577129/155 "2011-04-10T16:15:08Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > I suspect if you really did successfully contact your cousin, he’d end up calling the cops. Look we all have our hobbies ok? my just happens to be stalking. My apologies to all, was drunk as a skunk last night, and have received a warning for it. Not complaining it was well deserved. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-1-1-open-spoilers-33-the-plot/577129/156 "2011-04-12T02:22:24Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > The reason doctors and lawyers aren’t a big deal in the UK isn’t because your standard of living is higher. > > Successful doctors and lawyers in the US living on some exclusive (Coronado? It’s not that exclusive) island off California are probably living in multi-million dollar homes with tennis courts, swimming pools, and quite possibly employ a full household staff. > > Is that how the average Brit lives? I don’t think so. I’m picturing Lust4Life living in some big English manor wearing a powered wig, pondering to his giant mastiff why we “colonials” are so obsessed with acquiring a little bit of wealth. Anyhow, I have been to various parts of Europe and from what I can tell, other than their socialized health care and higher taxes, they seem to live about the same as we do. Maybe a bit more compact. I didn’t see a lot of sprawling American style subdivisions full of McMansions. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-1-1-open-spoilers-33-the-plot/577129.md?page=7)