Comments on: Here's your frakkin' map

Here's your frakkin' map

Brandon Blatcher — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:01:53 -0800

Ever wondered how the Twelve Colonies of Battlestar Galatica fit around a single star? Then gaze upon a lovely map of star clusters that is the BSG universe, designed by writer Jane Espenson and science advisor Kevin Grazier

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:11:59 -0800

How many angels can dance on a pin?

By: rtha

rtha — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:13:49 -0800

Oh wow.

By: rtha

rtha — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:17:14 -0800

And in case anyone is wondering, the series bible can be found here (.pdf, less than awesome scan).

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:17:50 -0800

Confession Time: When naming cities in Civ V I tend to use ...uh versions of the BSG colony names according to what resources are nearby Arleon for farmland, Picon for fish, Canceri for metal.... feels good to get that off my chest.

By: IjonTichy

IjonTichy — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:18:43 -0800

What I would really like the science advisor to explain is why the robots' spines can glow red and why they can connect to computers by inserting metal plugs into their arms when they are indistinguishable from humans at the cellular level.

By: adipocere

adipocere — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:19:06 -0800

So, let me get this straight: Caprica and Gemenon orbit a common barycenter, that barycenter goes around Helios Alpha. Helios Alpha shares a barycenter with Helios Beta, and that barycenter in turn goes around the barycenter of two other stars and a fistful of other planets and their moons? Or this map? Unstable as all hell, especially with Ragnar there. No wonder the show wasn't on long, everyone would die from planets scattering about into the dark or plunging into any of the handy suns.

By: Cool Papa Bell

Cool Papa Bell — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:20:07 -0800

So say we ... holy shit this is cool.

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:20:50 -0800

Ophiucha would be full of snakes. So, anyway, you know what makes less sense than this, planets and distances wise? Empire Strikes Back. And then of course there's Firefly.

By: KGMoney

KGMoney — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:23:36 -0800

The Facebook page for the 12 colonies currently has 49 friends, as of this writing. Did you create that profile for this post, Brandon Blatcher?

By: ricochet biscuit

ricochet biscuit — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:35:41 -0800

That is a purdy image. Unstable as all hell, especially with Ragnar there. No wonder the show wasn't on long, everyone would die from planets scattering about into the dark or plunging into any of the handy suns. Only has to last a couple of millennia.

By: bewilderbeast

bewilderbeast — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:42:56 -0800

♥ This image makes me positively joyful. My SO and I are kicking around the idea of setting up a Diaspora game, and one night we sat down and put together a cluster just to see how it worked, and it took every ounce of restraint I possess to not just make it an elaborate copy of the BSG universe. Apparently I am desperate to watch the show again.

By: Justinian

Justinian — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:43:07 -0800

And then of course there's Firefly. Gotta be the worst. Whedon either doesn't know or doesn't care about the difference between a solar system and a galaxy.

By: rmd1023

rmd1023 — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:45:36 -0800

re; the series bible: a combination of series arcs, multi-episode arcs, and episode arcs has never been attempted in science fiction? JMS, please call your office on Babylon 5.

By: kmz

kmz — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:51:00 -0800

Whedon either doesn't know or doesn't care about the difference between a solar system and a galaxy. I would say both. Firefly is about as far from hard sci-fi as you can get. But at least it still got the no sound in space thing right. (If all else fails, a wizard did it.)

By: Cironian

Cironian — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:53:31 -0800

Only has to last a couple of millennia. Not if you want to give the planets time to turn from dust clouds through molten rock to something you can stand on. Unless God interferes. Again.

By: angrycat

angrycat — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:58:36 -0800

what I still don't get is the algae planet. So the final five stopped off there to make a gaudy temple for themselves, then whizzed off?

By: vorfeed

vorfeed — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 16:01:12 -0800

what I still don't get is the algae planet. So the final five stopped off there to make a gaudy temple for themselves, then whizzed off? DUH NO GOD DID IT

By: vorfeed

vorfeed — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 16:05:54 -0800

My favorite part is the way the map refers to Terraforming as "Koboliforming". And it has the names of all the Pyramid teams! /nerd

By: adipocere

adipocere — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 16:06:41 -0800

Uh, while they were never all that direct about it in the show, Firefly and Serenity take place in one solar system with dozens of planets and hundreds of moons, the most suitable of which were terraformed. The colonists arrived in generation ships and no Faster-Than-Light travel took place. This puts all of the travel done by the Serenity between moons and planets over days and weeks, which is still pretty damned fast but not anywhere near as implausible as most other space opera. The terraforming (gravity aside) was not perfect, leading to a number of locations where mineral deficiencies could occur amongst the colonists too far from the supply chain located in the more civilized worlds. Mutant Enemy got the solar system business right, it's just the terraforming would be such an arduous and lengthy business that it would hardly be worth it, especially for anything outside of a habitable zone, but then that seems fairly common to space opera in general.

By: killdevil

killdevil — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 16:12:18 -0800

Ooh. Here's hoping that this new BSG prequel gets made and turns into a series...

By: deadmessenger

deadmessenger — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 16:22:40 -0800

Frak me, this is just entirely too cool.

By: bicyclefish

bicyclefish — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 16:32:32 -0800

"Jane Espenson, Colonial Deputy Secretary of Education." Nicest touch.

By: bwg

bwg — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 16:34:09 -0800

So if we terraform Mars we have to rename it Marson? 'Cause that doesn't work for me.

By: hal_c_on

hal_c_on — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 16:41:00 -0800

That is totally badass how Caprica and Gemenon share a mutual orbit. Nice metaphor.

By: itstheclamsname

itstheclamsname — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 16:44:49 -0800

Their horoscopes must be hellishly complicated.

By: Legomancer

Legomancer — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 17:13:19 -0800

I like that they have a planet named for Cancer, which is also a disease in their world. I'm imagining one of our doctors telling a patient: "The tests came back. I'm sorry, you have Nebraska."

By: schmod

schmod — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 17:22:32 -0800

What I would really like the science advisor to explain is why the robots' spines can glow red Spoilers ahead. The writers repeatedly expressed regret for that scene in the pilot. For all intents and purposes, it was non-canon. The communicating-through-the-arms thing could possibly be explained by the Cylons having a particularly advanced nervous system that happened to almost exactly resemble our own. Remember that the series made it clear that the Cylons were not indistinguishable from humans to a trained scientist -- Baltar's Cylon detector worked, but wasn't used or trusted for a variety of reasons.

By: Navelgazer

Navelgazer — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 17:27:06 -0800

I too was concerned about the orbits as they seemed to be ripe for collision, but I see it as highly compressed (i.e. not to scale) with a few overlapping orthogonal ellipses. Also, as a Scorpio, I was happy to find that Scorpia was the paradise vacation planet of religious tolerance. Double also: The Whelk - me too.

By: obiwanwasabi

obiwanwasabi — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 17:37:00 -0800

*knock knock* "Who is it?" "It's...it's me." "B...Battlestar? You've got a lot of nerve coming back here." "No, wait, just give me a minute!" "Why should I? You give me one goddamned reason why I should listen to anything you have to say." "You're still angry? I know it ended badly between us, but I...look, just forget it..." "No, I said I'd hear you out, so let's have it." "I made you this. It's a map. I...I hoped it might, you know...that things might be better - I mean, it's been so long, and I thought..." "It's not enough, Battlestar. I'm sorry. I'm...look, thanks for trying, and I didn't mean to shout at you just now, but...it's just too late. I think we both know it's too late." "But you said you'd give me a second chance! You promised!" "And we tried, I know we did. But Caprica...I...it was just never going to work. You couldn't expect me to just forget..." "One thing! It was just that one thing, one silly little thing..." "FUCKING SPACE ANGELS?!...no, don't cry, I'm sorry. I can't help it...that's not an excuse, I know, I'm not angry at you anymore, I just...Look, I don't want things to be messy for us again. Can't we just go our separate ways?" "The map...just look at the map...we could just be friends again and see what happens..." "I can't. You know why. It wouldn't be good for either of us." "We can make this work!" "Please. Please, just...just go." *click*

By: ubernostrum

ubernostrum — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 17:37:13 -0800

This is nice. Few things that make me wince (we're going out of our way to say "libration points" instead of "Lagrangian points" to avoid the Earth terminology, but we're still going to refer to "Trojans" orbiting there?). But still very nice, and well-done.

By: Navelgazer

Navelgazer — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 17:40:21 -0800

obiwanwasabi's conversation apparently began at the door and ended on the phone. I think that's proof enough of space angels.

By: SNWidget

SNWidget — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 17:46:03 -0800

I blew up this map, trying to read every little detail on it. It made me irrationally happy, mainly because I'm a sucker for these kinds of details. Sure, Battlestar sort of spun out at the end. But you know what? It was damn good television, and I have to admit, I enjoyed the entire crazy ride. I never watched Caprica, but now that it's in the bin, I'll probably pick it up - and I'm definitely going to watch Blood and Chrome. I don't know, I love scifi, and this series hit about every right note for me (last 30 minutes notwithstanding). It even managed to pull my wife, who was both burned by the last 3 years of the X-Files and not a scifi fan, into the show. All that being said, I wish the Canceron Hydras luck this year in the Pyramid league.

By: obiwanwasabi

obiwanwasabi — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 17:46:50 -0800

The court order said I wasn't allowed to slam the door on her anymore*, so I only ever open it a crack and leave the chain hooked up. *Or stand outside her window and holler obscenities*. *Like "fucking sellout incoherent whore."

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 17:49:07 -0800

I always just figured the show had move-to-the-next-scene-drives and didn't worry too much about how it all made sense. Like how in the original BSG they'd find random inhabited planets out there they had no record of. Like somehow you have this huge goddamned space-faring civilization that can't keep the most basic records of where the jails are. But the map is cool, sure.

By: jiawen

jiawen — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 18:18:19 -0800

"The tests came back. I'm sorry, you have Nebraska." There's only one thing to say to that: Belgium!

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 18:28:54 -0800

Sure, Battlestar sort of spun out at the end. But you know what? It was damn good television, and I have to admit, I enjoyed the entire crazy ride. I said it before and I'll say it again, I just assume New Caprica became a shitty occupied settlement and everything after that (like the part where they go for the tactic simply marked BOO!) is fiction written by an author in the colony.

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 18:35:09 -0800

Double also: The Whelk - me too. Using my own names cause the canon names over use the -ion ending, I use the following names to know which cities in Civ games are near which resources Caprica - Capitol Arleon - Food production Picon - Fish, pearls Aquaris - Major sea port, clams Libris - Science, culture Virga - Luxury goods Leonid - pack animals, along a river Scorpio - Military production Geminon - Gems, gold, banks, etc Canceri - Metal works, heavy industry Saggiter - Horses, population center Tau - Catch all, ideally oil. If it expands after all you go the Firefly names, Sidon, Whitehall, etc.

By: Brandon Blatcher

Brandon Blatcher — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 18:55:39 -0800

So, anyway, you know what makes less sense than this, planets and distances wise? Empire Strikes Back. And then of course there's Firefly. Firefly makes total sense once you realize that the monolith turned a gas giant system into a star. ALL THESE GORRAM WORLDS ARE YOURS, EXCEPT THE ONE THAT SPAWNED THE REAVERS. WE'D RECOMMEND YOU AVOID THAT ONE. SERIOUSLY, JUST LET IT GO. NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG. OK, WHATEVER, BUT DON'T SAY WE DIDN'T WARN YOU.

By: Deflagro

Deflagro — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 20:02:40 -0800

rtha: "And in case anyone is wondering, the series bible can be found here (.pdf, less than awesome scan)." I was prepared to "So say we all," but I was disappointed when that was not the type of bible you were talking..

By: Navelgazer

Navelgazer — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 20:03:04 -0800

The Whelk - my list is pretty similar to yours, but with Scorpia being my non-coastal gold-hub and Gemenon as my first iron source. (I'm playing on Civ IV still, so the mechanics are probably different, but I use every city with decent production as a military center when needed.)

By: Navelgazer

Navelgazer — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 20:14:14 -0800

Oh, and Tauron is for cows, obviously. Obviously.

By: angrycat

angrycat — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 21:48:32 -0800

i wonder what happened with caprica. it was like Moore went a little bonkers

By: unigolyn

unigolyn — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 02:00:21 -0800

What's with the Firefly hate? It's the only show without FTL. I think "a very large solar system with multiple habitable/terraformable planets and moons" is less of a stretch than Jump Drives.

By: nowonmai

nowonmai — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 04:10:32 -0800

Firefly's system doesn't work because there's only really one distance from any sun at which a planet could have an Earthlike climate. You can't cram dozens of planets in and have a climate that looks exactly like Southern California on all of them. But that's just fine; a suspension of disbelief is necessary for any enjoyment of TV. The system is like this because it's necessary for how the plot's going to be. That's just fine. The mistake far too many science fiction shows and movies make is to try to use implausible pseudoscientific claptrap to explain away these necessary plot devices. To anyone with a greater understanding of science than the scriptwriter, it makes things worse rather than better. I'm cool with the idea that some dude is turning into a monster if that's what the plot of the movie is, but I'm going to stop watching if you peer down a microscope and tell me it's because of a third strand to his DNA. If the science-babble isn't going to be remotely plausible, it's better to leave it out and get on with the entertainment. This rant is in defence of Firefly having an impossible planetary system that serves the plot and not worrying about it, rather than an attack on the BSG map which I don't intend to look at or have an opinion on.

By: juiceCake

juiceCake — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 04:59:08 -0800

Sure, Battlestar sort of spun out at the end. This should be in the dictionary as an example of absolute understatement.

By: blue_beetle

blue_beetle — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 05:46:58 -0800

Lightbox: Simultaneously the best and worst part of images on the web.

By: geekhorde

geekhorde — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 06:20:23 -0800

I asked a relevant question a few years ago on AskMefi. It was in relation to Firefly, though. Gotta say, I still think any system or metasystem with multiple habitable worlds pretty much HAS to be an artificial construct. Which opens up all sorts of ideas for stories. Too bad both BSG and Firefly ignored this obvious conclusion.

By: Brandon Blatcher

Brandon Blatcher — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 06:42:53 -0800

Duh, God made the system and left angels to watch over it.

By: ricochet biscuit

ricochet biscuit — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 08:44:52 -0800

Unless God interferes. Again. Kind of my point. If I had seen only the first year or two of BSG, I would agree that this is exceedingly unlikely. But by the end there was so much yammering about "destiny" and "God's plan" that I can shrug this solar system's arrangement off. Gotta say, I still think any system or metasystem with multiple habitable worlds pretty much HAS to be an artificial construct. Which opens up all sorts of ideas for stories. Too bad both BSG and Firefly ignored this obvious conclusion. Somebody gets it.

By: ricochet biscuit

ricochet biscuit — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 08:49:13 -0800

Sure, Battlestar sort of spun out at the end. This should be in the dictionary as an example of absolute understatement. But still, there was cake. Anyway, I recently rewatched the whole run and it holds up better on a second viewing. Not that it does not go a little slack, but it is not the disaster that many have made it out to be.

By: vorfeed

vorfeed — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 09:15:36 -0800

Anyway, I recently rewatched the whole run and it holds up better on a second viewing. Not that it does not go a little slack, but it is not the disaster that many have made it out to be. Wow, do I ever disagree. My favorite episode was always Downloaded, and I struggled through the rewatch to get to it, only to have to turn it off during the "angel" part at the end. That scene (complete with sappy poetry about ~the powaa of love~) works when it might be a product of Caprica's subconscious, or some weird Cylon thing, or really almost any unspecified cause, but it does not work when you know it's supposed to be VeggieTales: Galactica Edition. It's not funny-ha-ha anymore, it's funny-why-am-I-still-watching-this. A lot of the series is like that, especially if you ever gave two shits about Starbuck and/or the Cylons -- the finale retroactively wrecks the whole show. The rewatch just wasn't worth it for me.

By: juiceCake

juiceCake — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 09:21:32 -0800

but it is not the disaster that many have made it out to be Sure, these things are subjective of course. I'm going with rather disappointing disaster, second only to Russel T. Davies' butchering of Doctor Who and to George Lucas's butchering of the Star Wars franchise (ok, that may be a classic example of overstatement because at least BSG didn't get cute.)

Justinian — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 10:38:09 -0800

V is such a terrible show. If you can't get me to watch your science fiction television, you are doing something wrong.

By: Artw

Artw — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 11:02:46 -0800

Kittens for Breakfast made me watch it. So bad... So terribly bad...