OT: BSG Discussion

[geoschmo]

You all seem to be assuming that the twelve colonies are in one star system. I had always assumed they were in different, but nearby systems. Is there something in the show that says one way or the other?

One star system is pretty unbelievble. Even if you are talking about terraformed worlds. For there to be twelve suitable workds they'd have to either be so close together they'd be interfering with each others orbits, or so far apart that most of them would be outside the range of tolerable conditions for human life. I guess a few could be moons, but it's pretty hard to imagine a system with enough moons that are large enough to hold human-life supporting atmospheres in the proper range of distance form the sun.

I'm not saying the show isn't intending us to believe the twelve colonies are in one system, although I don't remember actually hearing that, but it's not very feasible.

[Fyron]

There is not a need for assumption, as they are clearly shown to be in different _constellations_ entirely in the episode where they open the ancient observatory in the tomb of Athena.

[geoschmo]

Imperator Fyron said:
There is not a need for assumption, as they are clearly shown to be in different _constellations_ entirely in the episode where they open the ancient observatory in the tomb of Athena.

I don't think that was saying the constellations were the actual star charts of the locations of the twelve colonies, although it's been a while. I'll have to pay more attention when they rerun that episode. My recollection was just that the constellations were representative of the twelve colonies, and if they could find the planet who's starfield matched the constellations in the observatory they would have found earth.

I believe the Zodiac constellations are scattered accross our sky. If they were star charts of the Twelve Colonies then we would be located in the midst of them, not at the end of a long journey as they seem to present in the series, would we not?

[Fyron]

The whole point was to get a map to earth. The map is pretty useless if it has no bearing on the real galaxy. I do recall them saying that they would find earth when they found the position in space where the sky looked like what it did in the observatory.

"The scriptures say that when the 13th tribe landed on Earth, they looked up into the heavens and saw their 12 brothers." - Starbuck

"There is a place where you can look up into the sky and see the consellations of the 12 colonies." - President

Then there is talk of Lagoon nebula and having a map and a direction.

[geoschmo]

I still think you are being too literal. Those quotes don't state unequivically that the constellations mark the positions of the colonies.

It's like the 13th colony gets to earth and looks at the stars. They see a grouping that looks like a bull and one that looks like two fish and they say, "Hey, that's our brothers Leo and Pices." That doesn't nessecarily mean that those constellations are where the colonies are located. Just that they found shapes in the sky that were representative of the other colonies.

Someone stading on earth looking at the twelve zodiac constellations would be closer to some of those stars then some of those stars are to each other. If the colonies are actually in those constellations they shold have found Earth already. For that matter they should have never lost it.

[Fyron]

They were very literal in the episode... I'm just going by what all of them said, not applying any interpretation. Did you see the quotes I edited in before you posted?

[ZeroAdunn]

The problem is, assuming that they were speaking literally, that means the colonies are spread out all over the galaxy, and thus the "way past the readline" quote from the miniseries doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

And of course, why would you take scripture literally?

[geoschmo]

Imperator Fyron said:
They were very literal in the episode... I'm just going by what all of them said, not applying any interpretation. Did you see the quotes I edited in before you posted?

Yes I saw the quotes. They don't literally say the colonies are in the constellations. They "saw their 12 bothers" could be taken to mean shapes that reminded them of the other colonies. Rosalinds quote about "the constellations of the twelve colonies" could also mean constellations that are representative of the twelve colonies. Nothing in those quotes can only be interpreted in the way that you are are interpreting it. As far as I know they never say clearly that they mean the constellations mark the positions of the colonies.

[geoschmo]

Something else that just occured to me. If the constellations actually mark the positions of the colonies then the observatory map gives them all the information they need to locate earth. Looking at the map would give them a bearing to each colony from earth. Since obviously they know the positions of the twelve colonies, even without distances you could triangulate the exact position of earth.

Even if you assume they weren't able to record the images they saw, Adama, Starbuck and Appolo are all trained as pilots. You would have to assume that even with a brief glance at the starmap they could recall enough to sketch it again fairly reliably.

That pretty conclusivly proves the constellations in the starfield on earth are merely metaphors for the colonies. It is an accurate representation of the view of the stars from earth, so it is useful to verify earth once they find it. But it's not helpful in finding earth unless you can relate the stars in that perspective to the perspective seen from Kobol or the colonies.

If you have accurate charts of all the stars in the galaxy, and a precise copy of the observatory map you could probably run a computer simulation that could compare the starfields from every spot in the galaxy. But that might take longer then any of them would be alive, even for a computer. And you'd have to assume they recorded the observatory view and aren't just going by memory.

[Renegade 13]

My interpretation of that episode (just saw it for the first time last night!) was that the constellations they saw were representative of the 12 colonies, but not indicative of their actual physical locations.

Think of it this way: If the constellations were actually indicative of the locations of the colonies, it would be extremely simple using some basic math to determine an approximate volume of space to search for Earth. After all, you have the point of view of Earth (presumably) and the locations of 12 points that are visible from Earth. Easy enough to find.

I think they were just saying "Hey, if we can find where these constellations appear to us as they appear here, Earth will be near!" Noting also certain landmarks such as the Lagoon Nebula. Though that particular sighting bothered me a lot, since the Lagoon nebula is not anywhere near that bright nor large in the sky...on the contrary, I don't think it's even visible to the naked eye...bad science!

My biggest question from that episode is; how the hell did they get out of where they were when they saw the constellations? There was no visible exit point!