OT: BSG Discussion

[Azselendor]

I made a minor mistake, What I ment to say is that at no time are all the constellations all viewable at the same time at any point on earth. Thus the map is not accurate on distances or locations.

Don't think of the map in terms of a map, but a puzzle game. In order to proceed to eachs tage of the puzzle, you must solve the prior. The Map on Kobol depicts the 12 constellations humans drew to represent the 12 colonies. This, however, contains as many landmarks and locations that the Colonials might recognize and thus be able to plot a course to earth based upon comparing relative distances between known objects depicted in the Map on Kobol to their down starcharts.

[Suicide Junkie]

Q) What does visibility (to the naked eye) have to do with anything?

First of all, we are talking interstellar spaceage tech here.
Making a map of the sky has already been done now. 3D maps, no less.

[Azselendor]

Actually it means a lot as the map on kobol does not represent the true star locations thus cannot be used accurately for stellar navigation and the measurement of distances.

However, what makes the map useful is 2 things

1.) Known landmarks such as the lagoon nebulae.
2.) Stellar Constellations can be used to verify if the planet is earth or not.

The problem is galactica doesn't know about #2.

[Azselendor]

Another quick observation I found in the wikipedia that I'll summerize a bit,

M-8 (Lagoon Nebulae) isn't located in Scorpio but Sagittarius. While RDM has acknowledged this mistake, it may indicate kobol's relationship to earth in space.

Also, the position of the nebulae is important, it may indicate that earth is somewhere along the path to the Lagoon Nebulae. If so, Kobol & Galactica could very well be located in the Cygnus Arm of this galaxy if you draw a line from the Lagoon Nebulae to earth and extend it in that direction.

[Randallw]

correct me if I'm wrong, but don't constellations change as time goes by. I may be going off in the wrong direction but it would be harder for them to find the exact position of earth if the stars have moved.

[Suicide Junkie]

Map making is a simple matter of using a telescope, taking pictures and writing things down.

Add in long term observation to take note of velocities, and you can plot the map long into the future.

[Hunpecked]

Randallw: "... don't constellations change as time goes by."

Depends on the constellation and the time period. As seen from Earth, in 50,000 years Cassiopeia will change significantly, Orion hardly at all.

http://www.astro.ubc.ca/~scharein/applets/#ProperMotion

As I recall from the series, the Twelve Tribes supposedly left Kobol about 2,000 (Earth?) years ago. Assuming the Thirteenth Tribe left at the same time, it would have to reach Earth and send back a sky map before Kobol fell into ruins, i.e. no more than 2,000 years ago. So the constellations should still be recognizable from the vicinity of Sol. If the Thirteenth Tribe left before the others, then all bets are off.

On the other hand, real-world paleontological evidence and the Colonial racial mix make it pretty clear that humanity originated on Earth. That means that humans voyaged from Earth to Kobol (bringing their sky map) some unknown time before the migration of the Twelve Tribes, and we have no way of knowing if Earth's constellations are still recognizable. BTW, Earth-to-Kobol migration is consistent with the Colonials' discoveries on Kobol: apparently there are no sky maps from any of the Twelve Colonies, meaning that Kobol's inhabitants considered Earth more important for some reason.

[Azselendor]

True stars do move, but we are talking about stellar drift of only 3000-4000 years (date of the scrolls of pythia). Something that the Galactica would be equipped to do. We know the galactica has to generate new star fixes every time she jumps, so I would assume they are trying to use those star fixes to figure out where earth is.

Humpecked brings up the valid point that humans originated on earth. Perhaps we need to stop looking at the new BSG as something running in our past/present like the original series and something that might be running in out future.

At some point, Earth was abandoned for Kobol, we repeated our crap on earth, and moved on to the 12 colonies while a group went back to earth. You never know.

[Black_Knyght]

I just caught up with my TiVo, and after watching the one of the most recent episodes a stunning thing hit me concerning the show.

Now I'd always just assumed that the "Number 6" in Baltar's mind was either a Cylon mindfrak or some type of implant they had in him intended to moniter him and the escaping humans. Then his original "Number 6", after getting BLASTED on Caprica, gets reborn and a couple of NEW mysteries pop up -

1) she and the one in his head aren't the same, or even inter-connected.

2) she has a little Baltar of her own frakking around with her sanity.

3) neither "persona spiritus" acts like their REAL conterpart, and each seems to have their own agendas.

Anybody else think that maybe this isn't a Cylon thing, but that someone, something, else is doing this ??? Some as yet unknown third party, perhaps ???

Just an interesting thought, IMHO....

[Atrocities]

I am sure it will be explained as at some point as a mutual download curruption link that some how mixed both of them together. That or Baltar is a cyclon.... who really knows at this point. Good show, it keeps you guessing and wanting more.

I just hope that they don't blow up or sacrifice the BEAST. That is one cool ship.