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Battlestar Galactica

Started by Grallon, March 10, 2009, 07:28:45 AM

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grumbler

Quote from: Neil on February 04, 2010, 08:32:57 PM
Quote from: Grinning_Colossus on February 04, 2010, 08:24:52 PM
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?  :(
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!

Grinning_Colossus

Quote from: Neil on February 04, 2010, 08:32:57 PM

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.
Quis futuit ipsos fututores?

garbon

There are fun things to do on planets.
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

ulmont

Quote from: garbon on February 04, 2010, 08:51:32 PM
There are fun things to do on planets.

Everything's better in zero-g.

Neil

Quote from: grumbler on February 04, 2010, 08:34:51 PM
Quote from: Neil on February 04, 2010, 08:32:57 PM
Quote from: Grinning_Colossus on February 04, 2010, 08:24:52 PM
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'.
I do not hate you, nor do I love you, but you are made out of atoms which I can use for something else.

Darth Wagtaros

Quote from: ulmont on February 04, 2010, 08:52:37 PM
Quote from: garbon on February 04, 2010, 08:51:32 PM
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.

PDH!

Darth Wagtaros

Quote from: Neil on February 04, 2010, 08:32:57 PM
Quote from: Grinning_Colossus on February 04, 2010, 08:24:52 PM
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.
PDH!

Neil

Quote from: Grinning_Colossus on February 04, 2010, 08:42:47 PM
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.
I do not hate you, nor do I love you, but you are made out of atoms which I can use for something else.

Neil

#338
Quote from: ulmont on February 04, 2010, 08:52:37 PM
Quote from: garbon on February 04, 2010, 08:51:32 PM
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.
I do not hate you, nor do I love you, but you are made out of atoms which I can use for something else.

Darth Wagtaros

PDH!

Grinning_Colossus

Quote from: Neil on February 04, 2010, 09:09:33 PM
Quote from: Grinning_Colossus on February 04, 2010, 08:42:47 PM
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.
Quis futuit ipsos fututores?

Neil

Quote from: Grinning_Colossus on February 04, 2010, 11:05:12 PM
Quote from: Neil on February 04, 2010, 09:09:33 PM
Quote from: Grinning_Colossus on February 04, 2010, 08:42:47 PM
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.
I do not hate you, nor do I love you, but you are made out of atoms which I can use for something else.

Agelastus

Quote from: Neil on February 04, 2010, 09:09:33 PM
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.
"Come grow old with me
The Best is yet to be
The last of life for which the first was made."

viper37

Quote from: grumbler on February 03, 2010, 03:10:19 PM
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.


QuoteWhy 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.

Quote
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.

I don't do meditation.  I drink alcohol to relax, like normal people.

If Microsoft Excel decided to stop working overnight, the world would practically end.

Josquius

QuoteIn 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?
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