Sci-Fi Channel Renews Battlestar Galactica 827
Chairboy writes "The Sci-Fi Channel has just announced the renewal of Battlestar Galactica for a second season. The creator of the show has announced that the second season will delve into the religious issues surrounding the Cylons in addition to opening up their society more. The latest episode had 3.2 million viewers, almost twice as many as watched the latest episode of Star Trek Enterprise." I said it before, and I'll say it again- this is the best Sci Fi program currently airing, so I'm happy to see more.
Good old days (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Good old days (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh wait. Wrong show.
Glad to be wrong (Score:2, Funny)
I really liked the first season (Score:3, Interesting)
Just a good solid Sci-Fi series in my opinion, nothing over the top, knows what it is and doesn't try to jump ahead of itself.
Two thumbs up here.
Re:I really liked the first season (Score:4, Insightful)
A good story will always have depth... you'll empathise with the characters, maybe see a bit of yourself in them. The *point* of science fiction is the science of course, which is why it attracts the geek audience... we immerse ourselves in the world so much we can often work out how to solve the problem ourselves before the main characters do.
Never ending space battles would get a bit dull... you need other things like cool new tech, aliens with funny quirks, etc. - all the things that geeks are in to.
I think you're mistaken. (Score:4, Insightful)
The point of science fiction is to create an environment in which the viewer/reader is enticed to explore issues that may otherwise be too difficult to examine under the harsh light of reality. Real human issues.
Take a look at Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress." One of the subjects he discusses is that of marriage. Here and now, in the real world, we tend to view polygamy in a very negative light. In the world that Heinlein creates, we can view polygamy as a vital necessity within the environment, and we can do this without the guilt or preconception of our puritanical upbringing.
The "Science" part of science fiction is window dressing. It's cool, and it puts asses in the seats, but it is not the point. The science is just one of the tools available in order to create a compelling backdrop for exploring human nature; that is the point.
This is a Good Thing, IMHO (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you seen the episodes in the US so far? (Score:2)
Re:Have you seen the episodes in the US so far? (Score:2)
Re:Have you seen the episodes in the US so far? (Score:2)
Re:This is a Good Thing, IMHO (Score:3, Interesting)
I think the whole religious aspect is terrific. Humans kill each other for a lot of reasons, but the big one is because the other guy has a different religion. This whole backstory just serves to make the series more realistic to me. Cylons don't hate humans for no reason.
Re:This is a Good Thing, IMHO (Score:3, Funny)
Scratching your HEAD???????? Dude have you seen her?
Re:This is a Good Thing, IMHO (Score:3, Interesting)
a) They know they have potential infiltrators but they haven't secured their amories.
b) A doctor of CIS and an education minister don't know that you can burn Hydrogen to get water.
c) No one in the war college thought to consider that Cylons might exploit the slave circuits on Vipers.
d) A guy like Adama let slave circuits anywhere near his vipers.
e) Cylons capable of infiltration would even bother with conventional weapons.
f) They had such pisspoor maintenace practices that a bu
Re:This is a Good Thing, IMHO (Score:3, Interesting)
a.1) Most people do not know that Cylons have human looking counterparts. In order to prevent panic, the senior command and its civilian counterpart has chosen not to announce the fact. Therefore, no major change in security procedures is possible.
a.2) Armories on US Naval vessels are typically placed under lock and key, sometimes with Marine guards, sometimes with sailors, sometimes mixed. (This is important to know because it is clearly apparent that at least some of the writing staff
Re:This is a Good Thing, IMHO (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, because we all know that in real life [cnn.com] a competent military organization would never leave a large stockpile of weapons and explosives unsecured even though they knew nearby enemy insurgents might use them to kill members of that same military organization.
I find this story point completely believable myself.
Re:This is a Good Thing, IMHO (Score:3, Insightful)
Here goes the explination for those who do not understand the purpose of the aspect of religion in BSG.
Years.. and Thousands of them ago.. Humans had a really plethora (weee) of gods. These gods were everywhere from gods of suns to gods of a single blade of grass. This was the system that
Re:This is a Good Thing, IMHO (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is a Good Thing, IMHO (Score:3, Insightful)
A Tsunami is a very real significant threat that will cause some form of calamity that is very real and the results of which can be seen very quickly.
The Afterlife and whether or not one even exists, is open to debate, interpretation and is as amorphous as the person you happen to be speaking to at that moment. It is a theological, philosophical conundrum that humanity will most likely never be able to know the actual truth about.
The effects
Re:This is a Good Thing, IMHO (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're worried about this just being grist for the fundies' mill, don't worry. They can use just about anything to try to further their cause. Besides, why give them the monopoly on religious ideas?
Re:This is a Good Thing, IMHO (Score:3, Insightful)
That's pretty fascinating, IMHO.
Bad math (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bad math (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bad math (Score:3, Insightful)
Small matter of potential vs. actualization, really :)
More hot cylons? (Score:3, Interesting)
How long before we have a BG Technical Guide like the one for Classic ST?
Best Season Ending Ever (Score:5, Interesting)
Jonathan
Re:Best Season Ending Ever (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Best Season Ending Ever (Score:4, Funny)
now with fighting between the ships in the convoy and the Galactica completely disabled and watching the ending as they leave the galactica behind for the Cylons to capture defenseless really pissed me off.
i can not wait for season 2!
Re:Best Season Ending Ever (Score:3, Informative)
Great Job! (Score:2, Funny)
Not only the better show... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now just do not pull the same crap you did with Farscape. One little mini-series to pull everything together that was not worthy of the established story line.
Re:Not only the better show... (Score:2)
Huh? Q wasn't in First Contact.
Re:Not only the better show... (Score:2)
Re:Not only the better show... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Not only the better show... (Score:3, Funny)
Annoying. (Score:5, Insightful)
I also don't like the cheap soap opera-esque quick switching between face shots. A few seconds of one face at full screen and then switch to another and then back. Very annoying.
Re:Annoying. (Score:3, Insightful)
The camera work was so amateur it was distracting.
One of the major reasons I gave up on it (the incomprehsible script didn't help).
Re:Annoying. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Annoying. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know what kind of amateurs documentary makes you get over there, but I've never seen a documentary filmed by someone with Parkinsons.
You might not like it (I find it effective, adding more grit and depth), but don't mistake it for amateur work.
He never called it that - its well know that the only amateur positions they fill in Hollywood is that of writers and actors.
Cinema Verite (Score:3, Informative)
That said, most of us spend most of our day staring at a screen, so maybe that's why we find it so unrealistic. Also funny is that most of modern TV has, on one level or another, adopted this style of filming as well. If I recall for American TV, NYPD Blue was the first, but ER quickly pick
How strange... (Score:2)
The camera work is WONDERFUL in the fight sequences, and the story lines are great. I along with others am curious as to what religion has to do with the series, but time will tell, I guess.
Religion and sci-fi do not always mix well...Star Trek: The Motion Picture has taught us that lesson. Or did it teach us that Shatner had acting lessons? Eh. Either way.
The original series (Score:3, Informative)
The original storyline was a retelling of a lot of Mormon teachings. For those who didn't know that, there are a ton of sites on Google that talk about it.
Re:The original series (Score:4, Funny)
So, THAT'S why Starbuck was romancing 7 women!
Which has what? (Score:2)
I'm Late to the Party... (Score:2)
Re:I'm Late to the Party... (Score:5, Informative)
They're on the UK schedule so you can download the first 13 episodes at very high quality. (I hook it up to my 48" TV @ 640X480 and looks as good as Direct TV).
I live in Panama, so it's not like I can get it any other way.
CAUTION (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I'm Late to the Party... (Score:2)
Since here in the US, the show is only about five or six episodes old, you really haven't missed a ton. BG is a really good show, but missing one episode is not like missing an episode of Lost or 24, where missing an episode can result in missing a major plot twist.
Even so, if you really are interested in the early shows, though, I heard that Sci-Fi just re-ran all of the episodes on Tuesday night. I am sure that at some point, they will re-run them all again.
SG-1 (Score:2)
I'm not up on my SG-1 fandom, but I believe some of the large, more well-connected sites have reported contract negotiations for a tenth season. (gateworld.net)
Enterprise vs. Battlestar Galactica (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Enterprise vs. Battlestar Galactica (Score:4, Interesting)
Continuity (Score:2, Insightful)
Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:3, Funny)
I think BSG is going to be around for a long time (Score:5, Interesting)
UPN has dreams of becoming the next FOX or ABC or something. They're a long way from it, but their goal/hope is to compete with and dominate the other networks. Advertisers will judge a UPN show on how much of UPN's potential audience it gets. StarTrek failed on both counts for them. If the SciFi Channel comes up with a hit as big as the Sopranos or something, they'll be happy, of course, but no-one over there is seriously expecting that to happen, while at UPN, the suits will want to know why it isn't happening ...
The immediate future of television SciFi is niche channels. The staple of good SciFi is great special effects. Every year, it gets cheaper and cheaper to make effects that are better and better. The original BSG took the budget of a major network to put out. Now, a smallish cable channel can do a better job cheaper.
When creating StarWars level special effects becomes as cheap as putting together the set for Seinfeld or Friends, I predict SciFi will return to the major networks. On shows like this, the cost of some old furniture, some cereal boxes, etc. was hardly anything and most of the money went to the actors.
Re:I think BSG is going to be around for a long ti (Score:5, Insightful)
Back when the original BG series was in production in 1977-1978, it was exorbitantly expensive because you had to build models and use special motion cameras to film the models--a very time-consuming process. Given how good today's CGI technology has become with relatively cheap equipment, you can now do special effects vastly better than what was done with the original series at a tiny fraction of the cost.
I can cite another example: how to depict a mythological flying dragon on-screen. When Industrial Light & Magic did its work for Dragonslayer they built a "go-motion" model of a dragon and filmed it with special cameras, which required a long and time-consuming process to complete; 15 years later, Dragonheart did the same thing, but all completely done with CGI, probably at less expense per minute of film than the earlier movie.
Ronald D. Moore is reason for BG's success. (Score:5, Insightful)
Moore wrote and/or was involved in many of the best episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine; small wonder why the new BG series has been much better than many people anticipated. =)
It's too bad Ron Moore wasn't involved with Enterprise, because Moore could have turned Enterprise into a potentially great series.
Re:Ronald D. Moore is reason for BG's success. (Score:5, Insightful)
On what might have been, Moore posted his interesting view on Enterprise (and Star Trek in general) at his blog [scifi.com]:
Trek goes back to the Fans
Now that Enterprise has been cancelled, we're about to enter a period not seen since the orignal series ended its run just a few weeks before Apollo 11 landed on the moon: a time without a Star Trek film or TV project on the horizon. From the reaction I've seen thus far, the consensus view seems to be that this is merely a pause in the trek, and that before too long, we'll be talking about the newest take on Roddenberry's universe, be it television, feature, animation or sock puppet. I tend to agree, insofar as I know first hand that Viacom considers "the Franchise" to be one of their crown jewels and I've personally heard them refer to the "next fifty years of Star Trek" as a corporate priority.
So Star Trek isn't dead and it isn't dying. It has, however, entered into an interregnum, a pause in the treadmill of overlapping productions that have become the norm for the series that was once considered "too cerebral for television."
Certainly there is sadness in this news. There has been a Star Trek production either in prep or being filmed on Stages 8 & 9 on the Paramount lot since 1977, when Star Trek: Phase Two began initial construction for a second series featuring all the original characters but Spock (these sets were then revamped for Star Trek: The Motion Picture). An entire infrastructure has been built around the productions, staffed by people whose involvement in the Franchise goes back over two decades. The dedication, passion, and talent of these artisans and craftsmen cannot be overstated. The unsung heroes of Trek, the people who sweat every detail, who take the time to think through continuity and try to make the vast universe consistent, people like Mike and Denise Okuda, Dave Rossi, Michael Westmore, Herman Zimmerman, Bob Blackman, and many others, are about to leave and take with them an enormous body of knowledge and talent that cannot be and will not be replicated again. That is cause for both tears and eulogies as the close of Enterprise signals the true end of an era.
However, there is another side of this story, one that perhaps is somewhat more hopeful and positive: Star Trek has now been returned to the care of its community of fans.
I say returned because there was a time when the fans were the exclusive owners and operators of what would later become the Franchise. From 1969 until 1979, a genuine grassroots movement of fans gathered together in conventions, published newsletters (in the primordial ooze of the pre-internet era, no less), wrote scads of fan fiction, created their own props and uniforms, and dreamed the dream of what it was to live aboard the good ship Enterprise.
I was one of those fans; I was a kid growing up in the 1970's who found Star Trek in strip syndication and bought every book and magazine I could lay my hands on and every piece of fan merchandise I could con my parents into buying and I can tell you that some of those efforts were abysmal and some were brilliant, but all of them were driven by a sense of passion rooted in a belief that Trek was our secret club. We, the fans, embroidered the Trek tapestry while the powers that be at Paramount dawdled. In those years, the best stories told not those written by Gene or any other "professional writers" (no offense to the short-lived, but well intentioned animated series), but by people like Sondra Marshak, Myrna Culbreath, and Jacqueline Lichtenberg. Who are they? Fans. People who loved Star Trek and were able to breath life into it during the interregnum between the show and the Franchise.
Star Trek now returns to the care of its fans and its fans can decide for themselves what kind of experie
Camera shots from space (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, in the opening show of the season, when they went to Ragnarok Anchorage to get supplies, when the shot showed Galactica appearing in the cloud after their FTL jump, all you saw was a little speck until the camera zoomed in.
If you think about it, that's exactly what it would look like if one were in space looking at the cloud and a ship did appear suddenly. Just a speck on the interstellar cloud.
The same can be said when the Cylon raiders appear. Yes, you see the flash but the ships are still shown as being specks until the camera comes in.
Keep an eye out for these kind of camera shots. They add to overall feeling that space is a vast emptiness (but you already knew that) with distances we don't normally comprehend here on Earth.
Re:Camera shots from space (Score:3, Insightful)
And they still fire and miss, with shots that you should have been able to hit with manual aiming by eyeball. (I don't care what "jamming" may or may not be applied, a warp-capable starship should be better able to hit things than I personally am with a shotgun.)
As dramatic license it was merely silly, but as the series wore on it became increasingly clear that the write
Re:Camera shots from space (Score:3, Interesting)
They had the ships pass closely for dramatic story-telling reasons. Yeah, it's probably too close for absolute realism, but it works on the emotional level for the viewer. The reaver (?) ship was so close that it was inside the psychological 'safe' distance. It added nicely to the tension of the encounter without being grossly
Re:Camera shots from space (Score:3, Funny)
It's a terrible show (Score:3, Insightful)
The last episode I saw, Starbuck stranded on a planet, was terrible. The writing was bad, the acting was poor, and the camera work will make people sea sick.
Yes the production values are good but since when has production values been more important than the story.
Get this she, starbuck, flies a crashed ship that was designed to hookup directly to the nervous system of non-humanoid cyborg pilot, and you though case modding was hard. Not only did she fly it(by grabbing wires I guess), she out flew another pilot to the point of getting close enough to the other fighter to have that pilot read a message written in tape on her wings.
Simply a bad show. It's the sci-fi equivalent of Joey.
Important: do NOT torrent this show! (Score:3, Informative)
I hope it doesn't turn into DS9 / soap opera... (Score:3, Insightful)
I wish they wouldn't. Am I the only person on earth who like the science fiction part of science fiction? The characters are interesting and maybe I'll care more about what happens to them later, but for now I'd like more fictional science in the science fiction...
It's a good show so far... But if it turns into another soap opera it will just get annoying. Why do these series all turn into soap operas? Two reasons: 1) it's a lot cheaper to film people crying than epic battles and CGI robots... 2) the writers run out of ideas quickly and never seem to go looking for new ones early enough.
Pat
Starbuck as Modelic Masculinity (Score:4, Insightful)
So, over the last twenty years, a certain amount of nostalgia has accumulated around Battlestar Galactica in my heart, not at all unlike most of us here. So when Ron Moore and the ScFi channel finally got the rights to the show, everyone was excited - until Moore said that, quite plainly, that avid fans of the original fan may not appreciate his version, what he called a "reimagining." Moore made a number of changes that bothered me, but the seemingly most significant tore at the core of my identity: Starbuck would be a girl.
Starbuck and Han Solo were about as close to being models for masculinity as anyone besides my father could get. Ask me to word associate manliness, and Starbuck would fall fairly close to the top.
And Moore had ripped that from me, from my heart.
So imagine my surprise when I watched the mini series and it was not only good, but great. And Starbuck was still, somehow, Starbuck. Baltar, for all his moments of brilliance in this series, was still goofy Baltar. The vipers were still there. Adama was still hard nosed. Yet, I had doubts whether someone could maintain this level of quality in a TV series. The original Battlestar Galactica certainly didn't.
So imagine my surprise - again - when the first few episodes, which I watched courtesy Internet, were even better than the mini series. In fact, this new series renders the original Battlestar completely irrelevant. I realize now that there are only a couple of good things about the original Battlestar Galactica now. First, it provided my friends and I uncountable hours of playtime. Secondly, it somehow enabled this new re-imagination. Even Richard Hatch, the actor who played Apollo in the original series, acts better in this new series (this time as a revolutionary).
To be fair, the original Battlestar is very much a product of late seventies television. I used to argue that it wasn't, but honestly - the show really was an attempt to bring Star Wars to the small screen. But if this new Battlestar had similarly been a product of the 00s, it would've been a reality show set in a business environment where Adam eats scorpions to impress friends.
This new Battlestar Galactica not only transcends the science fiction genre and redefines it, it also takes television a step further. Even my darling Firefly, in all its civil war cum scifi greatness, feels conventional when put next to Moore's Battlestar.
I'm not sure what it means if we have a generation of kids basing their masculinity on a female Starbuck (although I'm not so sure kids should even be watching this new Battlestar). Regardless of the consequences, Moore's new Battlestar is easily the best TV show on right now, and maybe even one of the best shows of all time. My wife and I have both cried and cheered during the show, and she usually reserves that for shows like Project Runway. During episode ten, I sported a broad, beaming smile in sync with the emotion on the screen.
It's that good.
Good job Ron and friends. You should be proud, you managed to pull off the stunt of making my male model a female, and make me happy you did it.
Re:Good news (Score:4, Interesting)
I can't wait to see how they go into this topic on the show... the tension between tech and faith is all the more interesting when the faith can be made up to suit.
Re:Good news (Score:4, Interesting)
Really? I liked Star Wars for the special effects. The story sucked. The stories of all these "Big", Special Effects-filled movies suck. Or at least the stories of such Hollywood movies. I watch them for the SFX.
Re:Good news (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, but those movies weren't very popular.
How many of the blockbuster movies of the 90s will be remembered a decade from now the way we still watch Blade Runner or 2001 now? I don't think Armageddon will be held with the same reverence as Raiders of the Lost Ark currently is.
I agree that blind nostalgia for the days of yesteryear is usually replaced, but I have to adm
Re:Good news (Score:2)
Re:Good news (Score:3, Informative)
I always thought that the most inspired thing about the old series (horrid as it was) was how they invented swear words that were almost like real swear words (fraq -> fuck and they had another one for shit, I forget). This allows them to have realistic dialog (people, especially military people in combat situations, *do* swear! Shocking, that) without running afoul of the FCC or whomever.
I'm glad to see the new series carries this practice forward.
Re:Good news (Score:4, Interesting)
The most interesting thing about religion is how it manages to survive in one form or another throughout so much change. One would think that humans getting such a handle on the science of life and physics would have obliterated religion, but it keeps on truckin' all the same.
The thing that makes religion so interesting in sci-fi is that you can explore the continuing tensions between technology and faith as technology evolves... seeing how the faithful adapt is very interesting fiction.
Society hasn't really changed for several thousand years, it's just learned to re-adjust itself in the face of technological progress. That's what's fun to project into the future... how do we (or aliens for that matter) cope with the things we've created?
Re:Good news (Score:4, Insightful)
Those humans that have been educated in what the science of life and physics has taught us have for the most part left religion behind. It is among the uneducated who have not been exposed to the knowledge revealed by science that religion is most prevalent. Science does trump religion, but only if you've been exposed to it.
The thing that makes religion so interesting in sci-fi is that you can explore the continuing tensions between technology and faith as technology evolves
Technology doesn't have any effect on religion. Smaller mp3 players and bigger TVs don't contradict the Bible. It's the understanding of the world around us that science reveals that contradicts the mythology of religion.
Re:Good news (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good news (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't find it surprising at all. First, I also support and accept science and all it includes.
But if you truely understand science, then you must also understand it's limits. Science does not trump religion.
The domain of science is:
1. What can be observed.
2. What can be experimented with.
3. What can be calculated.
Religion for the most part, and God in particular, does not fall into any of those categories. Thus science is not in a position to speak to religion, either positively or negatively.
The clashes mostly are really around when religion tries to impose ideas into areas that science covers. When some particular religious belief conflicts with a scientific concept, then you have conflict. But Scientist should only attempt to address the particular belief. It would be a mistake for scientist to attempt to go all they way into religious territory and address concepts such as God where there is no observation, experimentation or calculation possible. Science has no traction there.
You have to know where your ground lies, and defend that ground. But don't go where you don't belong. The central tennat of the scientific method is proof. Where there is something to prove, do it. There is little in the core of most religion that can be scientifically proved or disproved, so just ignore it. When you jump into the relm of religion where science doesn't cover, then you are just using your own brand of religion.
Re:Good news (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the confusion stems from the fact that religion is just a very primitive form of science. It is a pre-scientific way of trying to understand the world around you. If you can't understand something just invent a supernatural entitity who created whatever it is and controls whatever process you don't understand. It is really just a substitute for actual understanding.
The primitive hope is that if some creature is responsible for the life and death and fertility and crops and every other aspect of human animal life, that it can be controlled without understanding it just be asking the appropriate entity for mercy or help or kindness or whatever. There was a ST:TNG episode based on this very idea.
The difference between polytheism and monotheism is just that the polytheists believe (sensibly enough)in the division of labor whereas the monotheists believe that one entity controls everything. I guess the advantage of that is that you only have one person to ask favors of and the mythologies may be simpler.
In defiance of censorship from the religious right (Score:3, Insightful)
I disagree. I don't find it terribly interesting at all.
Human beings are expert at living in denial. This is hardly news, and in fact is a theme that has been beaten to death both in the sci-fi genre and in literature in general.
Re: Good news (Score:2)
> that the people tirelessly campaigning for the renewal of Battlestar Galactica have finally won, but "religious issues"? Is that really necessary in science fiction?
Presumably people in the future will still live in societies and cultures.
Why wouldn't religion be any less legitimate grist for the mill than their government, economy, mating habits, or starship designs?
Re:Good news (Score:3, Interesting)
Picard: We need those engines Now!
Geordi: I'm sorry captain, but I'm having trouble with (tech department, please insert words here -Ed.)
Re:Good news (Score:5, Insightful)
Good science fiction has less to do with cool spaceships blowing stuff up, funny/scary robots, etc. and more to do with people (or at least sentient beings with familiar aspects) - they're people in an unusual setting but the stories still need to be about people in order to be compelling/entertaining. Religion, politics, sex...these are "people issues" and just as much at home in science fiction as they are in any "non-science" fiction.
Re:Good news (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Good news (Score:5, Insightful)
Tackling social topics in science-fiction isn't without precedent. Asimov's Foundation novels are good examples of science fiction stories where the central premise is rooted in sociology.
Re:Good news (Score:2)
Re:Good news (Score:3, Insightful)
I just sort of stepped into that here [slashdot.org], but I'll extend my explanation to address your issue too.
If your basic question is "Why do people belive in/need religion", then sociology and psychology may be able to answer it. But if the question is "Does god actually exist", then those sciences are no more able to answer than physics. If you ask a question that your science is not ca
Re:Good news (Score:3, Informative)
If you are going to rape reality in a television show, you might as well be hung for a goat as for a sheep.
Re:Good news (Score:4, Insightful)
The ship remains stationary, but somehow manages to bend space around it. He used [now common] analogy of a ship in space being like a small object sitting on a peice of flat paper. If you fold the paper, everything 'on' the paper doesn't notice any difference, but once its folded properly the ship can punch a small [worm]hole so that it can move through the interstitial area between the [now closer] points on the paper. The ship simply ceases to be at one point, and appears at the next without any change in velocity.
Such a system, if possible, wouldn't involve any intertial issues.
Re:Good news (Score:5, Informative)
Nothing is neccessary, but religion is a very traditional element in SF. After all, SF is about using ideas from science to be able to write directly about questions which are hard to aproach other than metaphorically in `mainstream' art (eg the nature of time, whether Vulcan women have pubic hair). Religious questions fit right in.
Consider more or less anything by PKD or H.G Wells or Stapledon. Or all the `Force' drivel in the Star Wars films. Or just about all of Babylon 5.
More specifically, one of the reasons for the existance of robots in SF is asking the question of what it means to be a person, and a good number of possible answers to that are the religious ones. The new Battlestar Galactica is all about that question (with some fun space ship battles thrown in), so naturally religion is going to turn up.
Not to mention the mormon connection.
The mormon connection. (Score:5, Funny)
Somday, we'll find it.
Mormon connection... (Score:4, Informative)
Interesting to see the basis of some of the things in the show...
Re:Good news (Score:3, Insightful)
There is nothing in conflict between atheism and religion. Only some religions are theistic.
None of the non-human religions in B5 are monotheistic that I can remember (who knows what the pakmara worship, except that it likes singing, and the Drazi presumably have a purple god and a green god and choose who to worship at random).
You could see the whole shadow war storyline as an attack on the stupidity of looking to a magical being to show you how to solve you
Yes, it is. (Score:3, Insightful)
To me, social issues, espicially religion, can be the most interesting aspect of sci fi. Anthropology is a science after all. Actually, it's the science I would have gone into if I could make the same moneny as I do in engineering. I'm not religious, but I love reading/talking about religion and how it affects peoples lives. It can be fascinating stuff. After all, more wars have been fought over religion, than science.
Re:Good news (Score:5, Funny)
Have you ever asked yourself if androids dream of electric sheep?
Re:Good news (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed, the Cylons feel that they are "Human 2.0" and therefore have as much problem genociding humanity as we would have, say, stepping on a cockroach.
I think the Cylons in this new Galactica series are showing the strain of their human roots. Keep watching...
Re:Good news (Score:5, Insightful)
Religion is inevitable if you are self aware and mortal I reckon - it's a myth that makes dying a more palatable prospect.
Some spoilers below
Actually the thing I liked about the series was the idea that it is clearly inspired by the War On Terror. There are scenes where cylons do suicide bombings, claim that the humans 'worship idols' and explain that they don't fear death because their soul will get downloaded to a new body. It's not quite 72 virgins but it's close.
And fighting such an implacable enemy has a corrosive effect on human society too - look at the torture scene, or the way the military gradually seems to be gradually taking over. They even need to shoot down a 'hijacked' ship, which may or may not contain civilians just after the cylons devastating 9/11 style suprise attack.
And the nice thing about the series is that it seems to be generally interested in exploring this stuff with relatively rounded characters rather than settling for two dimensional 'good' and 'bad' characters like most sci fi.
So the religious stuff is pretty key to the appeal of the show.
Re:Good news (Score:3, Funny)
I must have missed the bit where Jeri Ryan's character only existed in the bald doctor's head and tried to manipulate him into betraying humanity. So sorry.
Re: Agreed (Score:4, Insightful)
You know, Charles Darwin almost went to seminary school before taking his voyage on the Beagle. References to a divine power as a guiding force behind evolution are all over Origin of Species.
Science and religion are separate, and since the Enlightenment people have held them as very distinct. Even Galileo said that "the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how heaven goes." i.e. a person can be a scientific genius, and still admit there are things that we as humans don't yet understand.
I know it's hip to deride all faith as some sort of mass delusion that we need to outgrow, and that's fine. I don't have much faith myself. But faith and intelligence are not necessarily mutually exclusive things.
I'm not advocating anyone "get religion," but I do think that judging religion by its highest manifestations (art, literatue, etc.) as well as its lowest (the Inquisition, the Crusades, other favorite whipping boys of Christianity) is more broad-minded than simply dismissing religion across the board.
I also think it's unrealistic to think that human beings are simply going to "outgrow" faith, at least until we've become gods ourselves and can prove some form of life after death.
And personally, while I have no use for organized religion, I do like that Galactica threw it in there. Me, I always had a problem with shows like Trek, in which all human religions had apparently vanished overnight, and religion was presented only in terms of loony fanatics causing a problem for our atheist heroes. Yeah, that's an egalitarian vision of the future.
Re:FTL Shark-jumping... (Score:5, Insightful)
No reason this couldn't work, if her jacket was made out of the right material.
breathing oxygen out of a tube (lucky she didn't hit a toxic hydraulic line),
Luck has nothing to do with it. She had some magical oxygen tester, the little pen-like thing that she took out a couple of times, that told her what it was.
and flying the ship based on her "pitch, roll, yaw, power" mantra was plain silly.
If you're in a lot of pain and in a difficult situation, mantras like that are a good way to keep focused and thinking.
Re:Whatever happen to the REAL story? (Score:4, Interesting)
actually, if you read the book, the cylons were an alien race (not a product of).
Starbuck was a cigar smoking, hard drinkin', womanizing warrior...
Well, so far, the new Starbuck still is a cigar smoking, hard drinkin' warrior. To make the show interesting, the new Starbuck could still be a womanizer.
Boomer was an African-American guy.
So Boomer is an Asian chic now. Big Deal! I don't have a problem with that. What I do have a problem with is she is a cylon. I can deal with changing the gender and/or race. But making one of the original characters into the enemy?... that is a little hard for me to swallow.
the yo-yo... has decided to produce a whipped, whacked-off at the knees, politically correct version of the story.
Actually, I believe that they just updated it to today's world. Politically correct?... if you count changing the gender of Starbuck, they you may be right. Then again, changing the gender of Starbuck allows for more interesting plot lines (remember the womanizing comment above).
Also, how is it politically correct that someone has a drinking problem, someone has cancer and several characters have yet to let go of the death of a bother/son/friend? the yoyo may have made the characters on the show more like you and me... complete with flaws.
Re:Whatever happen to the REAL story? (Score:3, Insightful)
And this isn't directed at you, but more at the general audience:
What kind of idiots are all of you people that you're taking a race count on the new show? Instead of looking at the new castings, and being awestruck at the quality of the acting (especially when comp
Re:Whatever happen to the REAL story? (Score:5, Funny)
You're just reading someone elses hype. If you had ever watched the show back in "the old days" you would know that the humans in the show were not from Earth. Boomer therefore was not from Earth. Boomer had never been to Africa or America and could not possibly have been from either location.
For someone who's so uptight about someone elses political correctness, I'm suprised how misinformed you were on that count.
Re:Cats and Dogs Living Together! (Score:3, Funny)