whats the deal with the octagonal stationery?

[slimjim]

wouldn't it waste paper & take more machinery to make stationery in a non tessellating many sided shape?

[Ukko]

These are people who build space ships, FTL drives, can colonise other worlds and birthed a race sentient machines. I doubt the difficulties of octagonal paper is much of a bother to them.

[slimjim]

These are people who build space ships, FTL drives, can colonise other worlds and birthed a race sentient machines. I doubt the difficulties of octagonal paper is much of a bother to them.

it be pretty easy for use two....yet we don't do it because how ever minimal the extra effort required is it's still exstra and still pointless

[Ukko]

There are many pointless and wasteful things we do.

[DigiFluid]

It's a series in-joke. They had to make the miniseries work on a limited budget, and found themselves endlessly talking about cutting corners. As a joke, someone did it with the papers that were to be used in a scene and it just stuck.

[slimjim]

There are many pointless and wasteful things we do.

I'll bet the sort of things your thinking of where done for either aesthetic, ritualistic or religious reasons

[slimjim]

It's a series in-joke. They had to make the miniseries work on a limited budget, and found themselves endlessly talking about cutting corners. As a joke, someone did it with the papers that were to be used in a scene and it just stuck.

it's still a bit odd in universe

[DigiFluid]

It is.

From what I understand they really liked it at first as a unique universe quirk, hence why they made it a regular feature. But as the show went on, they they got really annoyed with it because it meant having to cut the corners off pages every time they needed someone to have paper on screen.

[Ukko]

I'll bet the sort of things your thinking of where done for either aesthetic, ritualistic or religious reasons

And you know all there is to know about the NBSGverse to say that its not for any of those reasons? (Ignoring Fozzie's answer) If every little detail was going to be explained, they'd need to write out a set of encyclopaedias like the Britannica. So they have different shaped paper; its another culture on another world 150.000 years before our own modern day and far more advanced than us.

[Ukko]

It is.

From what I understand they really liked it at first as a unique universe quirk, hence why they made it a regular feature. But as the show went on, they they got really annoyed with it because it meant having to cut the corners off pages every time they needed someone to have paper on screen.

Look on the bright side. I bet they never ran out of little paper triangles.

[DigiFluid]

If every little detail was going to be explained, they'd need to write out a set of encyclopaedias like the Britannica.

Which is, of course, anathema to how they ran the show.

They were interested in characters and story, and very deliberately eschewed going into technical detail unless they absolutely had to.

[slimjim]

It is.

From what I understand they really liked it at first as a unique universe quirk, hence why they made it a regular feature. But as the show went on, they they got really annoyed with it because it meant having to cut the corners off pages every time they needed someone to have paper on screen.

which is exactly why I find it hard to believe an entire civilisation would choose to do this without a very good reason

[thekillman]

uh the entire civilization didn't do this. it was used on Galactica, but i distinctly remember a regular A-4 on Caprica

[Aussie_86]

Man I just think that they would have avoided the Algae Planet if they didn't cut all the corners off the paper.

They went to the Algae Planet because they were low on food. People resorted to eating Paper. Then they stopped, as evidenced by Saul Tigh, because there was a "Paper Shortage". think of all the extra bellies those corners could have fed if they didn't cut them off!!!! Wasteful!