Battlestar Galactica

[grumbler]

Who needs planets? Once you've gone to all the trouble of pulling yourself out of a gravity well, why jump into another one?

Many people find it convenient to live in a place that doesn't seek your death at every opportunity.

I thought you sought the death of "everyman" at every opportunity.

Is my image of Neil: obsolete? 

[Grinning_Colossus]

Many people find it convenient to live in a place that doesn't seek your death at every opportunity.

It is, however, more convenient if others are seeking your death at every opportunity, which is the topic at hand. If you're on a space habitat and someone launches a relativistic projectile at you, the solution is: move. If you're on a planet and that happens, the solution is: die.

[garbon]

There are fun things to do on planets.

[ulmont]

There are fun things to do on planets.

Everything's better in zero-g.

[Neil]

Who needs planets? Once you've gone to all the trouble of pulling yourself out of a gravity well, why jump into another one?

Many people find it convenient to live in a place that doesn't seek your death at every opportunity.

I thought you sought the death of "everyman" at every opportunity.

Is my image of Neil: obsolete? 

I am not everyone.

That said, I don't seek the death of every man, just 'everyman'.

[Darth Wagtaros]

There are fun things to do on planets.

Everything's better in zero-g.

I imagine your menstrual flow is more problematic.  Or just taking a crap.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Who needs planets? Once you've gone to all the trouble of pulling yourself out of a gravity well, why jump into another one?

Many people find it convenient to live in a place that doesn't seek your death at every opportunity.

And yet plenty of people live in Detroit.

[Neil]

It is, however, more convenient if others are seeking your death at every opportunity, which is the topic at hand. If you're on a space habitat and someone launches a relativistic projectile at you, the solution is: move. If you're on a planet and that happens, the solution is: die.

Except you'll never know that the projectile is incoming, and the planet is much more robust in terms of ability to support life than a space habitat.  Explosive decompression is a bitch.

[Neil]

There are fun things to do on planets.

Everything's better in zero-g.

Like bone loss.  To say nothing about how untested something like, say, gestation is in zero-g.

[Darth Wagtaros]

There are fun things to do on planets.

Everything's better in zero-g.

Like bone loss.

That too.

[Grinning_Colossus]

It is, however, more convenient if others are seeking your death at every opportunity, which is the topic at hand. If you're on a space habitat and someone launches a relativistic projectile at you, the solution is: move. If you're on a planet and that happens, the solution is: die.

Except you'll never know that the projectile is incoming, and the planet is much more robust in terms of ability to support life than a space habitat.  Explosive decompression is a bitch.

Well if evasion is impossible, it makes more sense to keep your population spread out in hundreds or thousands of habitats than to huddle together on a few planets. It's much harder to wipe out your nation/species/etc. that way.

[Neil]

It is, however, more convenient if others are seeking your death at every opportunity, which is the topic at hand. If you're on a space habitat and someone launches a relativistic projectile at you, the solution is: move. If you're on a planet and that happens, the solution is: die.

Except you'll never know that the projectile is incoming, and the planet is much more robust in terms of ability to support life than a space habitat.  Explosive decompression is a bitch.

Well if evasion is impossible, it makes more sense to keep your population spread out in hundreds or thousands of habitats than to huddle together on a few planets. It's much harder to wipe out your nation/species/etc. that way.

That very much depends on the perceived value of habitable worlds.

[Agelastus]

Except you'll never know that the projectile is incoming, and the planet is much more robust in terms of ability to support life than a space habitat.  Explosive decompression is a bitch.

???

Light is still faster than a projectile travelling at relativistic speeds and if we are positing a future without such esoteric items as shields, then the projectile would have to be pretty large and solid lest it be destroyed by contact with a small particle. Science Fiction portrays such projectiles as a threat because planets are stationary targets, and such projectiles would be almost impossible to intercept. A habitat could see it and move.

I quite like the idea of creating biospheres inside hollowed out asteroids, but the effort involved is truly frightening.

[viper37]

Close.  It would be like having nuclear reactors installed in cars that are powered by gasoline engines.  The reason for having nuclear power in submarines is because the submarine uses the nuclear reactor, so it is entirely unlike the FTL drives on Colonial ships that never leave the system where the Twelve Colonies are located..

In the original series, the BSG also had an FTL drive.

And we know the Cylons weren't in the same star system, nor do we know when they discovered FTL travel.  It's possible it came shortly prior to the last Cylon war.  It's also possible the 12 colonies had started to explore surrounding star systems but found nothing worthwhile there.  Sort of like the beginning of exploration for Earth.  The Romans could have gone to colonize many places, but they didn't, because they had what they needed closer to home.  Same with the Feudal lords, actually.  Once they ran out of land in Europe, they went on to conquer the Middle East.  Once they were thrown out of there, they started to seek alternate ways to get what they need.

Yet, they had boats that could cross the oceans.

Why would the government put FTL in a small, short-ranged vessal to begin with?

For the same reason newer small cars may have ABS breaks while older, bigger cars may not?

And as I remember the pilot, the FTL drive on that ship wasn't entirely functionnal, as Lee Adama had to go to the cargo bay to activate it.

An ocean-liner vessal might be explained as wanting to take tourists outside the system (even though no one ever went outside the system, apparently) but not the equivalent of an airplane.  A nuclear reactor on Air force One makes less sense than one on the Queen Victoria.

Well, the liner could be an older model, and the owning company never judged it relevant to retrofit it with nuclear drives seeing they only offer cruises around the 12 planets.
And there's no nuclear reactor on Air Force One because the tech has not evolved enough to be safe there.
Just as we would have nuclear powered cars&trucks&trains if the tech was evolved enough to be safe and practicle.

[Josquius]

In the original series, the BSG also had an FTL drive.

I can't remember that.
Didn't original BSG just have the ships go very very fast?