OT: BSG Discussion

[Fyron]

geoschmo said:
As far as I know they never say clearly that they mean the constellations mark the positions of the colonies.

The rest of the conversation explicitly refers to it as a literal map to follow, however. It would be simple to use them as such, but the plot doesn't call for simplicity.

[Fyron]

"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

"I don't know what good its gonna do us though; what are we supposed to do, search the entire galaxy for one particular star pattern?" - Starbuck

"There, Scorpio. I've seen that before. Thats the Lagoon Nebula." - Apollo

"Thats astral body M-8. Thats a long way from here." - Adama

"Yeah. But at least now we have a map and a direction." - Apollo

- cut to speech at podium -

(emphasis added)

=0=

Doesn't seem very metaphorical to me to refer to abstract pictures as a map and a direction to search for in the entire galaxy. The characters (at least Starbuck and Apollo) are interpreting the scriptures literally here, not seeing the map as metaphorical or representative.

[geoschmo]

All of which proves my point I believe. Starbuck talks about looking for star patterns. That tells me they don't know exactly what stars they are looking at, which they would if the colonies were in the constellations. The constellations are metaphors. The only way the map is useful is by comparing the view form different planets to find one that matches the view shown on the map.

The Lagoon nebulae is the only specific object they recognized. But you can't triangulate a position from one point and a bearing. You need at least two known points with bearings to them. That would give you two possible locations for earth. A third known point and bearing would give you the exact location.

What the Lagoon nebulae does give them is an general idea of the part of the galaxy to look in. Since they know they need to look for a planet where the Lagoon nebulae would be visible, that gives them a point and a distance. From that you can't triangulate an exacpt position, but you can plot of sphererical area of space in which to search.

Everything you've posted here agrees with my idea that the constellations are simply patterns that represent the colonies, and not actually locations of the colonies themselves.

[geoschmo]

geoschmo said:
You need at least two known points with bearings to them. That would give you two possible locations for earth.

This part wasn't quite right. I was thinking about plotting locations in two dimensions, like on the surface of a planet. Traveling through space in 3 dimensions two known points and bearings would allow you to plot a circle perpendicular to a line connecting the two points and bisecting the line. It would be way more then two locations, but it would cut down tremendously on the number of systems you had to check as it would be way less then all points in the galaxy.

Three points should give you all you need though to reduce that to two possible points. And if you had twelve points, it should be easy to narrow it down to one location. A trained navigator or pilot should be able to do it almost without a computer.

[geoschmo]

Imperator Fyron said:
but the plot doesn't call for simplicity.

While I disagree with your literal interpretation on the other stuff, this is one thing we can definetly agree on. If this were real and not a tv drama, the observatory on Kobol wouldn't be a starfield as seen from earth with vague referances to the other twelve colonies and little or no frame of referance to plot a course. It would be a simple map like you find in every shopping mall. "You are here. Go this way to Earth."

[Fyron]

We can only go on what they say and do. We could extrapolate all sorts of hidden meanings and metaphors, but then we would be little more than English majors (in the literary sense, not language per se) needlessly ruining a work by dissecting it into tiny little pieces, thus missing the whole point, and get nowhere.

They were talking about using the map as a (not so) simple mall guide map, though. They did not speak of metaphorical representations of the colonies, but of looking for that pattern in the "sky." Whether or not that makes any sense or will get them anywhere in the long run, that is what they were doing. What we think about this doesn't really change the fact that it happened. Maybe they will use them metaphorically in future episodes, but they have not said anything about finding the meaning of the symbols yet.

[geoschmo]

But you are missing the point Fyron, that is the entire point.

They do not say the constellations mark the positions of the colonies in any quote the you have provided. They do not say the colonies are in the constellations. They do not say any of the stars in the contellations are the stars which the colonies orbit. You may be right that they do state these things in some scene that I can't remember and that you have not quoted, and if that's the case I will reevaluate my position. But with the quotes that you have provided, and in the scenes that I can recall myself, I am the one going by what they actually say, not you. You are the one adding your interpretation to their actual statements.

Sorry if I'm coming off as pedantic here, but hey it's been a while since we've wasted a bunch of time on a pointless disagreement. I appreciate any opportunity to tell you when you are wrong.

[Fyron]

I think we have been talking about totally different things here... I do see that I made an erroneous assertion about the planets being in the constellations several hours ago, but I wasn't even thinking of that in the last few posts. I was only talking about using the constellations as a means to determine a fixed viewing point based on observing the "sky," responding to posts in a similar vein.

[geoschmo]

Imperator Fyron said:
I was only talking about using the constellations as a means to determine a fixed viewing point based on observing the "sky," responding to posts in a similar vein.

well, that's what I've been saying all along. I guess we agree then. Glad that settled.

[Azselendor]

The funny part is that the constellations are not viewable all at the same time, thus they couldn't be on earth. But this implies something significant.

At some point, people on earth would have journeyed back to Kobol or prior to the Exodus, Earth was already visited. This is perhaps one of the few ways that a map to earth would exist on kobol as depicted. It may also imply that the settlers to earth didn't know where the 12 colonies settled, but hoped the 12 colonies would know where kobol was as well.

Downloaded was supposed to have a scene dealing with next stop in the journey, looks like it got cut.