Battlestar Galactica Does anyone know...

[Rhydderch Hael]

Missles just show a more primative type of technology. yes, yes, our missles now-a-days kick major butt, and can strike with pinpoint accuracy, but the show is supposed to be about a more futuristic time. Missles are like out of place there.

As opposed to, what, laser guns that you actually have to aim with and get in close enough on the target's tail in order to shoot them?

How is that superior to the point+click+kill-ness of seeker missiles or nuclear-tipped antiship torpedoes?

Ever played Escape Velocity: Override? In the storyline, the baddie aliens that humanity's been fighting has superior gun technology— their energy cannons deliver greater destructive power than human energy guns. Trouble for the baddies, though, was that they were, you know, guns. The human fleets developed a high-impact seeking missile that allowed human carriers to stand off at a safe distance and lob a continual stream of hunter missiles with near-impunity at the bad guys, giving the humans enough of an edge to stave off an overwhelming defeat.

[Supreme Commander Thor]

As opposed to, what, laser guns that you actually have to aim with and get in close enough on the target's tail in order to shoot them?

How far away was the Death Star when its energy cannon blew up planets? It wasn't close. It was quite a ways off. Thousands and thousands of miles. Targeting can be acheived from a great distance, and one would hope in the future that it would be even more greatly enhanced. Guns do not have to be close, not even today. Look at far howitzers and ships guns can fire, and how accurate they can be. If these types of 'non-futuristic' weapons can be far away, so could laser / light weapons. Realize we are not talking hand guns here.

Light speed weapons are much faster than missles, especially as the missles were portrayed in battlestar. Missles can be shot down even today with great proficiency. How would you stop a light speed blast of energy? Hopefully sheilds right? (BTW - You would have to have a hell of a sheild to keep the deathstar sized energy cannon from blowing up your planet.). How did the Tolan hold off the Gou'ald so long (before Anubus' better sheilds)? They had Ion cannons (an energy weapon which could be fired from great distances). These types of weapons are more 'futuristic' to me.

The missles the cylons used in Battlestar galactica against ships we launched from very close, and were not light speed. If they wouldnt have been able to Jam the colonists defenses, their entire attack would have been way less effective because defense grids would have shot most down. Futuristic means more 'energy' type weapons than missles to me. If you strap a light speed engine to a missle THEN they would be more efficient killers in the future.

But my point was I wasnt impressed by the use of missles in battlestar, which was in my opinion supposedto be about a futuristic group of folks. I will still of course watch the show. Iloved it as a kid. I just hope we see some cooler stuff in show.

[Benj]

I just bought the DVD of the 2003 mini-series and i am extremely impressed, no superbly blown out of my mind impressed. Its like Babylon 5 meets the Terminator/Bladerunner/Blackhawk down. The use of missiles which are superior to lasers anyway is an inspired move. Lasers cannot hold nuclear warheads for a start and cannot track enemies and follow them. This is how sci-fi should really now be done. The CGI is incredible and i'm not really a SFX person but i was agasp in awe and amazement. The Cylons are superb and a mixture of Terminators and the Replicants of Bladerunner. Now i'm not hoping Atlantis has as quite as dark and serious tone as this but half-way there would be nice. I cannot recommend this enough/ does anyone know what budget this had because the battles have i would imagine leave George Lucas reeling if he saw them. Stargate is a mixture of intelligent sci-fi and Indiana Jones style adventure which i love. But this i think if the series carries on at this level could equal stargate for enjoyability and quality. One to look out for. If you live in the UK please buy the DVD, its only around £10 and i promise it will be worth it.

[KorbenDirewolf]

I personally think the new Battlestar Galactica would have been good had they called it something else and changed all of the proper names.. As something that's supposed to be related to the former series, I didn't care too much for it.

[Happy Fun Ball]

...refuses to acknowledge the existence of Battlestar Galactica 1980...

[Mr Prophet]

How far away was the Death Star when its energy cannon blew up planets? It wasn't close. It was quite a ways off. Thousands and thousands of miles. Targeting can be acheived from a great distance, and one would hope in the future that it would be even more greatly enhanced.

Thing about planets; they don't jink. You can plot their orbits for thousands of years in advance. This makes them very easy to target.

Thing about space battles; space is really big. Look at Andromeda, one of the better SF series for space battles. In most of the ship-to-ship battles, they can't even see each other. Even if you can see the enemy, at interplanetary distances they probably aren't actually there any more. If if you correctly assess where they are, by the time even a light-speed energy weapon - and SF energy weapons are really slow - reaches the target coordinates, the enemy won't be there anymore!

Now, you're right that missiles can be shot down, which is why you'd need lots of them; and fighters, mostly likely fighter-bombers. If capital ships wanted to duke it out, they'd have to pull in really close to each other - a few hundred miles at least - and blast away like tall ships pounding each other with cannon.

Oh; and the new Battlestar Galactica is really annoying. The characters are such a pack of cliched, whinging wasters and the tacked on pathos (e.g., small child getting nuked) just annoyed me. Moreover, I hate shows where everyone keeps getting nekkid with each other; it smacks of desperation, as though they think no-one will stay watching if they go an hour without bad movie sex.

[Rhydderch Hael]

How far away was the Death Star when its energy cannon blew up planets? It wasn't close. It was quite a ways off. Thousands and thousands of miles. Targeting can be acheived from a great distance, and one would hope in the future that it would be even more greatly enhanced.

1) The Death Star does not appear in the Battlestar Galactica canon.
2) The Death Star targetted and nailed a planet, not a three-man Cylon heavy fighter. In Return of the Jedi, the Death Star does target and destroy large capital ships, but those were in very close proximity. Your argument with the Death Star doesn't work.

Guns do not have to be close, not even today. Look at far howitzers and ships guns can fire, and how accurate they can be. If these types of 'non-futuristic' weapons can be far away, so could laser / light weapons. Realize we are not talking hand guns here.

1) Traditional army tube artillery— your howitzers— are limited by ranges that rocket and missile artillery can exceed. One rocket artillery launcher can salvo a large number of rounds in a given time that one tube artillery piece cannot match. Ground-based anti-aircraft guns have not demonstrated the same efficiency or lethality of SAMs.
2) A battleship's main guns do shoot at ranges that exceed land-based artillery. They also happen to be very large and heavy pieces that still cannot hit a target much farther than 50 miles away. Sitting nearby an Iowa's 16-inch main guns aborad ship— the very much smaller tube launchers for the BGM-109 missiles. The Tomahawks. Which can go farther, take up less space aboard the ship, and guide in on its own target without needing the mothership to paint the target with a laser designator.

Light speed weapons are much faster than missles, especially as the missles were portrayed in battlestar. Missles can be shot down even today with great proficiency. How would you stop a light speed blast of energy? Hopefully sheilds right? (BTW - You would have to have a hell of a sheild to keep the deathstar sized energy cannon from blowing up your planet.). How did the Tolan hold off the Gou'ald so long (before Anubus' better sheilds)? They had Ion cannons (an energy weapon which could be fired from great distances). These types of weapons are more 'futuristic' to me.

Your cited examples have the fallacy of not applying to your point: light-speed energy weapons. The funny thing is, the energy weapons you've given us here were not beam-type energy weapons that traveled at light-speed! They were pulse-type energy weapons, where the fired bolt had to traverse space at a discernible velocity.

How do you evade missile fire? Countermeasures. How do you evade gunfire (even in this day and age?) You manuever. Distance, vectors, aiming deflection. All those have to come together at the right values to put a gun's shot in a point of space that just happens to be occupied by your target at that same moment. You manuver to dodge the aim of flak. You jink to avoid AA gunfire. And you pull out of effective gun range to save yourself from a fighter's cannons.

The missles the cylons used in Battlestar galactica against ships we launched from very close, and were not light speed. If they wouldnt have been able to Jam the colonists defenses, their entire attack would have been way less effective because defense grids would have shot most down. Futuristic means more 'energy' type weapons than missles to me. If you strap a light speed engine to a missle THEN they would be more efficient killers in the future.

But my point was I wasnt impressed by the use of missles in battlestar, which was in my opinion supposedto be about a futuristic group of folks. I will still of course watch the show. Iloved it as a kid. I just hope we see some cooler stuff in show.

Energy weapons have the problems of trying to deliver enough damaging energy with a direct hit, on the hope that the shot is a direct hit. So, is all the energetic potential of your gun system concentrated into a single shot?

If "Yes", then you better pray that that one shot is either close enough or lucky enough to hit your target— especially if your target is a small, jinking fighter.
If "No", and you've spaced out the total energy of your gun system in a burst of rapid shots, then logically your individual shots aren't quite as powerful as you'd hope. And there's still that nagging lack of being able to: 1) seek out a target indepently of the launching ship; 2) correcting for the launch ship's bad aim; 3) compensating for the target's evasive maneuvering.

Missiles may not be the perfect weapon, but arguing that guns are the superior alternative has all those above flaws speaking against you.

[DOIKECARTER]

I thought the fact that missiles were used made this BG version more real and much more interesting than campy loud beam weapons of the old show. This BG version is excellent and made in a style that resembles Anime.........it really was brilliant!

I think the authors wanted us to believe this new version as a "possible future" one, nearer to our own experience. They are sending us mixed signals. FTL looks futuristic...a nuke looks definitely older...but apocalyptic, because everyone after the World War II knows about a nuke´s effects. That´s the way I take the idea of nuclear bombs in BG. They want us to feel what extinction means. We would loose everything and everyone. It is disturbing because they are in a lifeboat and at the moment there´s nothing else and nobody else, no rescue, nowhere to go. I don´t remember much about the original but I see this new version as a darker one, less heoric, more tragic...and I love it. That´s the reason I loved Mary mcDonnell...sheis dying, everthong fell apart and she is there because ther is nobody else to do what she has to do and she will do it. For me it is more emotional than big gestures.

Sure, there were disturbing elements....why FTL in the Galactica was such ¿...? and nobody looked more anxious in the other ships? Uniforms could be more attractive, but in general I took the series as a "possible future-like" and not just as usual SF with beams and effects, nearer to us than the old version.

[Supreme Commander Thor]

1) The Death Star does not appear in the Battlestar Galactica canon.
2) The Death Star targetted and nailed a planet, not a three-man Cylon heavy fighter. In Return of the Jedi, the Death Star does target and destroy large capital ships, but those were in very close proximity. Your argument with the Death Star doesn't work.

Of course it works. I didnt say the death star was shooting down fighters. And of course it is applicable because the whole argument is that the missles used in BSG were NOT futuristic enough for my taste. So when comparing the show to other scifi I can say surely compare them to BSG.

How do you evade missile fire? Countermeasures. How do you evade gunfire (even in this day and age?) You manuever. Distance, vectors, aiming deflection. All those have to come together at the right values to put a gun's shot in a point of space that just happens to be occupied by your target at that same moment. You manuver to dodge the aim of flak. You jink to avoid AA gunfire. And you pull out of effective gun range to save yourself from a fighter's cannons.

Again, we are talking "futuristic". The missles will have to be moving MUCH faster then they are now or will be toast before they are anywhere near a target. TOO SLOW.

If "Yes", then you better pray that that one shot is either close enough or lucky enough to hit your target— especially if your target is a small, jinking fighter.
If "No", and you've spaced out the total energy of your gun system in a burst of rapid shots, then logically your individual shots aren't quite as powerful as you'd hope. And there's still that nagging lack of being able to: 1) seek out a target indepently of the launching ship; 2) correcting for the launch ship's bad aim; 3) compensating for the target's evasive maneuvering.

Again, this is about "futuristic" technology. There is NO reason to assume you only have one type of enery cannon. Even ships today have different types of weapons. Bigger, more powerful energy weapons for large targets, smaller more rapid energy weapons for smaller ones. This is NOT that hard to envision.

Missiles may not be the perfect weapon, but arguing that guns are the superior alternative has all those above flaws speaking against you.

They are still to slow, and do NOT seem futuristic to me at all. Until you speed them up, they are boring. Energy weapons are much more interesting.

[TechnoBoY]

Any idea on when Scifi is going to air the new series?

Here is an idea, energy consumption. You have a ship that needs to feed energy to life support, engines, lighting, all that crap. Maybe its just easier to use missles then to shoot lasers which drain tons of energy. Lasers arent much use in atmospheres either. With a laser about 90% of all enerdy used is wasted and dissapated as heat.

[Darren]

Last I heard the new Galactica probably won't start until January 2005.

[epiphany]

Last I heard the new Galactica probably won't start until January 2005.

I've seen some of the script sides though and it looks like it will be well worth the wait. The one with Richard Hatch as guest star looks to be fantastic. Also it starts in the UK first(part of their deal with SKY to finance the show, the UK gets to see it first), so it may be starting 2 or 3 months sooner there .

Episode 3 is called Bastille Day and Episode 4 is called Acts of Contrition.