Re: Galactica 2003

Multiple replies, and now With Spoilers, so...

From: "Matt Tope" <mptope@omnihybrid.com>

> Even more importantly than thrust vector Vipers, and missile carrying 
> Cylon
> raiders, and whether or not its a good idea for Starbuck to go to war 
> in
> drag, is the THEME TUNE as good as in the original series?

A theme tune does not stand out in my memory - they did play the old 
Galactica theme music as part of a ceremony, which I thought was clever 
and fitting. The space combat music - and sound - was minimal and 
refreshing. Mostly drums beats that I recall in fighter engagements 
(reminded me of the Hunt for Red October submarine combat music more 
than anything else . There was some of the standard "whooshing" of 
passing ships, but far less than anything on the screen to date short 
of "2001". I liked it allot.

From: "Imre A. Szabo" <ias@sprintmail.com>

>> In short, I liked it plotwise, characterwise (I hated Baltar, but was
>> intrigued with his twist), and space combat-wise. Only the last is
>> really relevant to this list, though.
>
> You are supposed to hate Baltar...  Granted, the original Baltar was 
> much
> more fun to loathe, but still...

His character weak one way, strong another way, both of which grated on 
me. He gave the picture of a somewhat insane genius, which is fine, but 
too much of the base plot hinged on his fatal flaws, and his fatal 
flaws were only fatal to others. I _did_ chuckle when he happened to be 
right about something he had no clue about.

 From Brian:

>  I did, however, take issue with the way they drilled the
> "By the way, he had sex with a Cylon"  Point every two
> minutes...

Ah, yes. This bugged me as well. Clearly this Baltar's extra flaky, but 
the show plays as if "The Woman In the Red Dress" is every man's 
downfall.

>> I think the space combat was a cross between cinematic and vector. We
>> saw fighters yaw/pitch while keeping direction, but I didn't get a 
>> good
>> feel for how the fighters themselves made 180 degree changes of
>> movement - it seemed a bit too fast for a vector reversal. There are
>> clearly grav type forces available. I suspect PSB of linear/vector
>> turbo boosters +cinematic grav  turning ability. The battlestar and
>> basea stars give little indication of combat speed - but IMO showed
at
>> most thrust 1 or 2 in combat.
>
> An interesting point, is that it implies that you will want to point 
> the
> catapults the direction you want the fighters to go.

_If_ fighters have cinematic components to their maneuver, that's not 
necessary. We really didn't see enough for me to be sure, but I think 
some of the large scale fighter maneuvers couldn't have been managed 
completely in vector. Or else the grav PSB component of fighter 
movement is simply preventing pilots and equipment from liquifying 
during 30 G vector maneuvers.

 From Roger:
> Are you familiar with the GURPS "hyperdynamic field" concept?
> Essentially it's a sort of extradimensional "atmosphere" in space
which
> ships can catch with airfoil-type surfaces (suitably plated in Strange
> Substances), allowing them to do aircraft-style manoeuvres (though
> still without gravity).
>
> If it's thin enough, it's a fairly good match for this style of
> movement...

This sounds like the "ethereal rudders" I remember reading about in 
some of the early Star Wars books to explain the aircraft-like behavior 
of those fighters. It's one of the reasons I've never had trouble 
accepting cinematic movement systems.

From: "Stuart Ford" <stuart@forddata.com>

>> Primary armaments were slugs and missiles. I loved the Galactica's
>> Point defense barrage. Its what missile combat should look like in
FT,
>> IMO.
>
> With all the energy available to the ship, why do they not have any 
> heavy
> direct energy weapons?

At several points, it was implied that fuel availability was an issue. 
I conclude that power is not an unlimited commodity in this universe. 
It is possible that what I called 'slugs' may have been "bolts" of 
energy, but I saw no beam weapons. I don't have a problem with that 
convention, though.

> If Apollo could simulate a 50kt Nuke blast off of one coil hooked to 
> the FTL
> of "Colonial 1", how much power could the Galatica pump into a
Particle
> Cannon, or Electron Beam?

That's a broadcast signal of some kind - an EW/ECM burst if anything. 
My PSB guess is that something like that requires a fraction of the 
power of an energy _weapon_.

> <continuity police>
>
> After retracting the bays for the first FTL jump... the FX shot 
> showing the
> jump clearly has the bays extended!
>
> </continuity police>

There's a gotcha!

>> Ships seem incapable of engaging fighters effectively, though
>> they do OK with missiles  - when the defense grid is active/armed.
>
> I'd wait to see what happens when fighters try straffing a BattleStar 
> or a
> BaseShip...

Agreed. After seeing the show, I hope it gets picked up into a series. 
I've been waiting for something good since Farscape (which helped cure 
my B5 blues) got canned. Enterprise tries, but just doesn't do it for 
me.

>> I'm not a big fan of the retractable landing bays. It seems like a
>> purposeless plot device, but it looked cool.
>
> I suspect it is done for FTL, but it does seem a little corny...

Yes, it was - though spindlier civilian ships didn't need to do any 
battening down to jump. My biggest problem with the retracting is the 
required void-space in the main hull for the connectors to withdraw 
into. Seems like poor design for a 'battlestation with drives'.

> Don't worry, they'll make more models Cylons if they need to...

Exactly why we _should_ have seen more of the human designs. OTOH I did 
like the rationale of the Cylons deciding to hunt down and destroy the 
last humans. It was only a few sentences of dialog, but their logic 
gave them a 'human, but not quite' quality I found refreshing.

Bizarre Hempen Analog	 (Noam Raphael Izenberg - pass that clip along, 
please)