Letters to the Editor
sunspot
Published Letters: 351 Editor's Choice: 43
-
Sounds Like Real Life To Me
[Read the article: Everything you were afraid to ask about "Battlestar Galactica" ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The Cylon detector apparently fails miserably, but this never seems to reflect back on Baltar, who goes on to more important and influential positions.
Sorta reminds me of the chimp we have in the White House, who bankrupted a couple of businesses his daddy gave him and still managed to be elected to the Presidency running under the banner of the "pro business" party. Or the Lothario who was elected before him for that matter, with his serial bimbo eruptions. You'd think people would have gotten a clue from their prior behavior, but alas that doesn't seem to be the case.
Anyhow, they have 40,000 people to choose from, not 300 million like we do here in the US. It's not like they can pop down to the local university and try out a couple dozen more geniuses to see if they work any better.
I'd say Galactica is easily one of the smartest series - sci-fi or otherwise - to come along in years.
-
Blast
[Read the article: Everything you were afraid to ask about "Battlestar Galactica" ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]How did Gaius Baltar survive his original planet's nuclear blast with just one very skinny cylon standing in the path of the blast("get down")??
Given the length of time between the explosion and the arrival of the blast wave, Baltar's home must have been quite a ways away from the explosion itself. A human (or Cylon) body would have been enough to shield him from serious harm (mostly from the windows of his home blowing in).
-
Staff
[Read the article: Everything you were afraid to ask about "Battlestar Galactica" ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]He was supposed to have a fully staffed lab while they were on the run from genocidal robots who had killed 99% of the human population and infiltrated them? Ok...
It wasn't just a staff shortage - they wanted as few people involved with the development of the Cylon detector as possible to limit the chances of a Cylon being pulled into the project itself.
-
Silly Complaints
[Read the article: Everything you were afraid to ask about "Battlestar Galactica" ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The fleet has enough water to last indefinitely, but after losing half or so, suddenly they only have enough for a week?
Well, yeah. How quickly can you recycle your water? If you lose half of your water supply, you may not have enough left over to supply people until the recycling process is complete. Also, does your recycling system run 24/7 at a constant rate? Or is it engineered to run in batches?
They find liquid water, but they can't use it because it is salty? This, when they have the processing capability to recycle urine?
Urine isn't nearly as salty as some brine. Might also have to do with the nature of the salts in the water they discovered - stuff their recycling equipment isn't designed to handle.
Water is made out of two of the most abundant elements in the universe, hydrogen and oxygen, but since they can't figure that out, they can only use pre-made water?
Hydrogen and oxygen may both be pretty common, but there's no indication they have the equipment onboard to collect and combine the two into water. And oxygen and hydrogen aren't found floating around in empty space in quantities which would be useful. You'd have to find a planet, comets or asteroids which are rich in the elements, in a form their equipment is designed to process.
Back in the Colonies, it sounds like they just shipped whatever they needed off the surface of their terrestrial worlds, which were rich in water, oxygen and the other elements needed to support life. They have the kind of hyperspace drive technology to make that practical.
They find pure ice, the most convenient form of storage for large amounts of water in space, but they want to melt it first?
Ice isn't terribly convenient, especially since humans, plants and most equipment require water in liquid form. It also takes up more space as a solid than as a liquid. There are plenty of reasons why they wouldn't want to store water as ice.
-
And They Have A Plan . . .
[Read the article: Everything you were afraid to ask about "Battlestar Galactica" ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If the chief engineer and executive officer of the only significant fighting ship left to mankind were both embedded Cylon agents, the entire series should have lasted for about the ten minutes it would have taken those two to totally decapitate the human power structure and destroy the Galactica.
Unless, of course, these Cylons have no interest in decapitating anything.
We've been told since the first episode that there are many copies of the Cylons, and that they have a plan. We've also known for quite some time there are 12 models, but we've only seen seven. It was obvious by sometime in Season 2 that there were missing models, and during the course of the 3rd season we've learned that even the Cylons we've met don't know anything about them.
It's becoming increasingly obvious that the Cylons "with the plan" aren't the 7 that we've seen, but the 5 that we haven't. The nature of that plan isn't clear yet, but based on what we've been shown - Roslin's and 6's dreams, Starbuck's reappearance - it obviously has something to do with the lost colony, Earth, and the human/Cylon children.
One male child. One female child.
Curious, that.
-
Huh?
[Read the article: Everything you were afraid to ask about "Battlestar Galactica" ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As "science fiction" the series is appalling. One illustration: they can travel between stars yet still use diesel powered trucks planet-side.
I'm sorry - what does the one have to do with the other?
They're able to travel between the stars because of a specific invention - hyperdrive. If we somehow discovered similar technology tomorrow, would all of our diesel engines suddenly evaporate or something?