This is how I figured it was going, but when the OC was delayed and the Cylons presumadely boarded they should have gotten the coordinates then so that the OC and the Cylons would have appeared at the same time.
So I see two options:
Perhaps the jump coordinates are somehow tamper-proof? The Galactica transmits signals directly to each ship’s FTL drive to lock in the coordinates. Once locked in, they cannot be accessed.
For those of you counting at home, that is only one option.
I dunno. I don’t think you can assume that the Galactica has jumped the same distance each and every time for ~140 jumps. Any distance variation would result in different relay times for that 33 minutes.
And while it’s fun to boil this down, we have to keep in mind it’s just a plot wrinkle that was overlooked.
I presume the jumps are several light years in distance, so they’re not using a technology that relys on an actual signal passing through the interveneing distance, as that would take years, but some sort of future tech that isn’t distance dependent and so might very well take some sort of standard amount of time.
Or it may take 33 minutes to do the calculation, warm up the space warper jumper thingie and lite the fuse. 
I just assumed that the Olympic Whatever transmitted the coordinates to the Cylons (variation on Star Treks ‘subspace’ comms or maybe left a small bouy?), and it takes a Cylon Basestar 33 minutes to prep and do a FTL jump. And because they are ro-bots!, it takes them 33 minutes every time.
Do the Raptors (whatever the name of the ships are that Boomer flies) take 33 minutes to fire up their FTL?
I suggest that it takes 33 minutes to do all those things.
“Warm up the thingie and light the fuse” is obviously metaphor for whatever they do in addition to calculating the jump.
This is all getting me more confused the more I think about it.
Ok, Adama suggests they split the fleet into six groups, make two more jumps then on the forth jump they rendezvous at a common set of coordinates. Tigh comments “24 jumps to plot, we’re breaking our humps calculating one jump every 33 minutes.”
So the Cylons aren’t receiving coordinates from a spy, because the time it takes Galactica to calculate a new jump varies with each jump. Yet it takes the Cylons exactly 33 minutes to catch up to the fleet. To me that means there’s a beacon of some kind on the OC. If this beacon transmits via an instantaneous “hyperspace” method, then it really does take the Cylons 33 minutes to calculate and execute a jump. That makes them slower than we are. Dumb Cylons.
Or, the spy beacon transmits at the speed of light, in which case the fleet is jumping exactly 33 light minutes per jump. It takes 33 minutes for the signal to reach the Cylons, who can then almost instantaneously calculate and execute the jump. Smart Cylons!
Now at the beginning of “33” a crewmen wonders aloud, “why every 33 minutes, why not 34 or 35?” She wouldn’t have asked that question because she’d have known they were jumping 33 light minutes per jump, wouldn’t she?
So I don’t think they’re only jumping 33 light minutes per jump.
But, the Cylons capture the OC, plant nukes on it, and yet are unable to get the coordinates. Instead, they somehow have to get those nukes onboard, and still have the pilot thinking he somehow got away, so he would jump to where the fleet was, and then have the beacon transmit their location. Exactly 33 minutes after the OC jumps to the fleet, the Cylons show up. How’d they pull that off?
A Cylon sleeper as the pilot (or posing as the pilot) is the simplest explanation. It would be able to at least facilitate all that, as well as appear believably confused by the happenings once he “falls asleep”.
I agree. Alpha Centauri and A Proxima, the closest stars to Earth are about 4 light years away. Calculating the distance in light minutes:
4 Light Years * 365 Days/year * 24 Hrs/Day * 60 Min/Hr = 2,102,400 Light minutes between the closest stars. That would require 63,709 jumps to travel between the closest stars.
Another possible explanation: the Cylons knew that if they appeared right with the OC, the fleet would jump away and they’d loose thier last chance of catching it. If they appeared a few minutes afterwards, the colonists might ask themselves why the time interval had changed, decide that the OC had been compromised and run away. Since the OC was really their last chance to catch the fleet, the Cylons decided to give the colonists the time enough to decide whether to accept or reject it.
The jumps are probably not all the same distance. The first one was extremely long - remember Lt. Castillo, er, Cdr. Adama asking the jump officer if he’d ever set up one “that long”, meaning “way beyond the Red Line” IIRC? No way the fleet would be so predictable.
Communications would have to be through the same instantaneous magic. If it were limited to light speed, the Cylons would never get the message from their spy(s).
They could have jumped the fleet at any time, if that were the case.
She doesn’t know, but she’s heard the rumors about the new Cylon models and she’s afraid she might be one - she certainly knows there’s nobody else who could plausibly have taken the detonators, and has no idea how she got soaked with water. But, she also has the usual set of human memories, and that’s enough to keep her in denial. She also has that chief petty officer she’s been humping helping her keep the others from the same suspicion. * Lots* of plot fodder there. The Boomer on Caprica hasn’t shown any signs yet, but I like the idea that she was placed there to help lead the Cylons to La Resistance.
Didn’t the fleet move some distance away from their entry point after losing the Olympic Carrier? I don’t recall if they consciously did that or not; they seemed to actually be some distance away, as they had time to scan and then intercept the Carrier.
If they hadn’t (moved or been some distance away), the Carrier would’ve dropped in right on top of them, and her Nuke could’ve damaged the fleet (or the Galactica) enough to cripple it, and leave it helpless before the Cylon follow-up Base Star.
Damn! Where are the repeats? Why, Oh why, do I not have Tivo?
Everyone is assuming that there were originally people on the OC and the Cylons either killed them, or shut them up. How about the ship never having had people and was simply a homing beacon for the Cylons? The pilot could have been a Cylon and been transmitting false information to the Galactica from when it first joined the group. The 1300 people on the ship might have never existed or simply been eliminated right away.
The ship breaks down for 3 hours and then rejoins the fleet. During that time, the Cylons board the OC, fix the FTL drive and get the coords off the computer but send the OC along and follow 33 minutes later. They don’t simply attack the Galactica right away because they don’t want the fleet jumping again without the OC. If it jumps with the OC, they lose the Galactica for good(which eventually happens). The Cylons send the OC along with some BS about the Cylons leaving them alone, then attack 33 minutes later.
Once the game is up and the ship is ordered to stop, it ignored all communications and runs towards the fleet. What captain would not simple ask, “wtf do you want me to stop??”. The entire bit about the Dr needing to talk to the president could have been a ploy to get an assassin on her ship and kill her or get the OC close enough to detonate a nuke and take out her ship.
OK, it’s a stretch.
There was a three hour delay between the OC getting left behind and it rejoining the fleet. The captain of the OC makes a comment about the FTL drive being down for three hours. During that time the fleet would have been moving away from its original point.
Do the fighters “jump” or do they have some other kind of FTL?
Do the larger ships have another kind of FTL other than jumping?
IIRC, no and no.
In the miniseries, one of the two person ships was traveling between solar systems; that implies FTL of some sort.
For that matter, why don’t the Base Stars jump in closer to the fleet? They always jump in far enough away the Galactica has time to launch Vipers, shoot down their nukes, etc.
I believe that’s the Raptor, and it does have FTL. But it’s more multi-purpose long range reconnaissance, than fighter.