Battlestar Galactica: Technical Manual (2005) | Hacker News Reader

Battlestar Galactica: Technical Manual (2005)

tecr.com

69 pointsTomte59 comments

2004 series matched the post 9/11 sentiment in the US. As an European, it always baffled me how religious it was. Although was more about Mormonism, not Christianity, most Americans didn't seem to notice. (Kobol/Kolob, Quorum of twelve, 13 lost tribes, 101 Mormonism)

Ronald D. Moore's another space epic, "For All Mankind" 2019- also matches the sentiment in the US now. What I really like is the attempt at hard-scifi. Many of the designs were in the drawing board once.

Really? I thought that was pretty widely known about the original (which the 2000s series then imported wholesale).

Most of humanity is religious and it appears that's been the case throughout history. Why is it surprising that this would be reflected in a show about humans?

Because in Europe religion is either less prevalent (in some countries) or something people don't usually talk about (other countries).

Being overt about religion is uncommon, and most religious people are non-practicing.

Have you been to Bavaria?

Europe is just as varied as the U.S. in terms of attitudes towards religion. I don't think you can generalize either the entire continent or all the states.

The show had an overly emotional faux-religious intensity similar to Neon Genesis Evangelion. It marked the beginning of the fanatical audience. A lot of pseudo-political crowdsourced promotional rhetoric was born from 2004 Battlestar. For example Laura Roslin is the prototype for characters like Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo from Star Wars.

Neon Genesis is moreso Christianity as an aesthetic.

It’s faux-Christian aesthetic. Hideaki Anno has explained it in interviews. Anno has no knowledge of Judaism or Christianity, he said he tacked it on to distinguish it from other kaiju shows at the time. Similarly, Battlestar makes zero sense, it’s just meant to be provocative.

I find that religion adds an interesting dimension to space sci-fi - Dune, The Expanse, and even some of the Riddick movies feature religion in varying degrees.

It can. Religion can be used well either philosophically, explain motivations, explore humanity, or as a social commentary. Kurt Vonnegut or PKD for example. PKD was genuinely spiritual in weird but interesting way.

In Galactica a its near constant in the dialogue and its bad. They just repeat religious phrases without any substance and do it a lot. It's like everybody is an atheist playing religious role playing game. Just platitudes.

And all these instances of distractingly bad uses are in my thoughts and prayers.

> As an European, it always baffled me how religious it was.

RDM managed to combine all aspects pretty well and it's shame that universe wasn't explored further. While there was Caprica series that took on pre-war Colonies, apparently it wasn't what people wanted to see.

I'm from Europe as well and I always find quite fascinating that setting. Colonials polytheism, Cylons monotheism, the mystic element of the Messengers Baltar and later Caprica Six saw; so the technology of that world felt unique yet close to real one. Tho, the octagonal themes on few occasions were way too silly, especially the 8-sided compact disks equivalents. Luckily there was no aliens like in the 80s series - Olmos' requirement for the role was that show wouldn't include these

I remember being 'mocked' (ok not really) by friends for NOT having watched ANY of the Battlestar Galactica. So in one summer I binged the whole thing (I found the correct watch-order online, collected everything, and started watching maniacally).

It was definitely worth watching, I was pleasantly surprised about the cast - so many faces I've seen before. Good sci-fi stuff!

For reference, I'm a Trekkie, and I've watched the 'whole' things (all movies, all series - even the boring ones such as "Enterprise") x5 in my life (in the correct order ofc). Last time it was in 2016, so it's been a while and now there are even more to watch.

>started watching maniacally

Portlandia had a skit about a couple who discovers BSG and end up unable to stop watching it until they made it all the way through. Probably a common phenomenon with people who got access to the series after it all had been produced.

"One Moore Episode"

You’re 100% correct. Portlandia was a fairly accurate satire of 2010 transplants. Locals didn’t like it because it reflected all the corporate attention Portland was getting at the time.

> I was pleasantly surprised about the cast - so many faces I've seen before

and before, and before, and... The Cylon wage savings certainly made for some happy accountants.

Love the classic old-school internet design aesthetic -- looks like it was made using Macromedia Dreamweaver. Internet Archive has snapshots for this fansite as old as 2000, which helps explain the lack of references to the reimagined 2004 series.

As a 12 year old I wrote an aerogramme (airmail letter) to the studio asking for the plans to the Battlestar, and probably a few more things too.

It was probably the closest I came to writing a letter to Santa Claus, I didn’t get a reply, they probably hadn’t thought in depth about the exact ship plans for a Battlestar, although people have had a stab at Star Wars, and Star Trek, Star {Trek, Wars}?

I never could get my head around Boxy, as robot dogs go, I couldn’t understand how anyone could connect to it over a really life dog.

It's interesting to see how well plausible ship schematics are created within the limits of what a show has already confined a design and technology to be. I'm sure there are some logical and engineering flaws but in general, the creativity to make the small scale details work with the large scale design ques from the shows is impressive.

the 2004 series was so good. it was the main reason i got ADSL internet so i could torrent episodes as they came out

It's even more politically relevant today. It's on Prime Video, I'm currently re-watching it.

It’s pretty much one of the best TV sci-fi ever made.

I love BSG2K, but I‘d still give that title to Babylon 5. it doesn‘t have the modern political references, but its got a coherent vision and incredible world building.

The Expanse for me.

They aren't in competition, both the expanse and the new Battlestar were excellent sci fi shows. I wish they would make more shows like this.

One major problem with The Expanse is that none of the alien influences were investigated in any detail. They really just served as plot devices.

The last three books provide exactly that. We'll probably never see them on the screen, but the source material is there.

"The Grandmothers?"

The plot just falls apart.

You can argue it never made sense in the first place before the big reveal.

That didn't stop me from enjoying it.

That is rather of of how I think the books as well. Alien space magic exists. Every once and a while a researcher discovers some mini Cthulhu, how do the humans respond?

It is a book about human drama. If you lean too heavily on space magic, the human component becomes uninteresting because there can always be some unknowable deus ex machina that flips the world on its head.

I imagine this is how contact with abandoned alien technology would play out. Chances are it’s totally incomprehensible to humans and if you are unlucky enough to turn it on, it’ll bite you in unpredictable ways.

Think Dave Bowman activating Big Brother.

I was enjoying The Expanse until the Marco Inaros arc started. From that point onwards the show felt rushed, mostly repeating the formula of so many other shows, and sidestepped all the alien bits that could have been interesting.

I much preferred BSG, even though it had plenty of boring "west wing in space" episodes.

> boring "west wing in space" episodes.

I thought the political episodes were some of the most interesting ones. I love how Apollo grew up to challenge the attempted coup and ultimately became President as the series wound down. Also loved Richard Hatch's Tom Zarek character and the religious cult formed around Gaius Baltar.

All in all, I really enjoy all the moral greys in the series.

It’s unfortunate since it all ties together at the end and hints at more, which you can read about in the books.

BSG could’ve easily been two seasons, the filler was mediocre and IIRC the part on the planet was just bad. I’ve enjoyed it all in all, though.

Does Babylon 5 hold up compared to modern prestige television? Always heard great things.

Story? Yes?

Graphic effects? The remaster is okay to watch, but a few sequences are painfully old.

All in all? YES!

Just don‘t listen to people who claim there is a fifth season.

The deconstruction of falling stars.. the jailbreak plot device was implausible to me when I was younger, somewhat plausible when I was introduced to VMs, and now with LLMs we're probably already there.

Don't miss the 2nd half of S5

S1 isn’t great, it’s more adventure of the week to get used to the characters, life on the ship etc. is not bad but it’s pretty dated. But it sets the backdrop for 3 seasons that changed TV reaching out even today - planned multi season story arcs.

Prepare to work for it. Series were longer back then, and all of season 1 is slow. Later season 2 starts to reward this effort. There are a couple of episodes in S3 & S4 that aren't great. Otherwise - S3 and S4 are absolute top notch. They blow the shit out of any TV made before or after, on every level and in every way. Be prepared for B5 to set a standard everything else fails to meet by a very, very, very long way. Try to avoid spoilers.

ahem it has a non USA political bent...ask Canadians!

Both were indeed great. It is a shame that B5 is so terribly underrated. Michael O’Hare as the commander was its one big negative - he was so wooden it was painful. Then Bruce Boxleitner came on board and he was amazing.

BSG2K still gets the nod from me though. It was next level.

At the time Michael O’Hare was having paranoid delusions, which probably wasn't helping. JMS agreed to keep it a secret until O'Hare passed away.

Fsck. You just wasted my coming month. Thank you, and not.

You had the perfect opportunity to say frak instead!

Unless they are a Cylon...

Just a heads up, the frackin' toasters at Prime Video inexplicably left out the excellent Razor movie, which came out between seasons 3 and 4. Also missing the Resistance webisodes from between seasons 2 and 3. Looks like Razor is rentable on Google for a fee, and The Resistance might be on Youtube, not sure of quality or completeness though.

Aside from those omissions, they do have the mini-series (as one long stream), 4 main seasons, and the Plan movie, all free with Prime Video, at least in the US.

The Blood & Chrome prequel movie can be streamed for a fee, and ditto for the single-season Caprica spin-off series.

I remember enjoying it a lot until the end, which I found stupid and contrived.

Hm. I actually can’t bring myself to watch the series through again because I know I won’t enjoy the end.

I remember I was living with my roommate at the time and we’d watch the show religiously as episodes came out. At the end we both couldn’t help but laugh at how bad it became, haha. We really didn’t want it to be true, but… It was cheesy as hell. I won’t watch it again.

Otherwise an absolutely awesome show, though.

Pleasantly surprised to see this relates to the 1979 series. The cast photos section really needs to include some of the highlights of the show though: Jane Seymour, Maren Jensen, and Anne Lockhart ;)

I wonder which came first? This site or https://www.b5tech.org/ ? Both sites clearly use the same templates.

I think this is just what a lot of websites looked like back then :-)

My wife is generally not into science fiction at all and she loved this show. Not sure how it would hold up today but at the time it was incredibly captivating and well made.

It’s a space soap opera with some of the first sci-fi “girl-boss” characters. It was a magnet for Joss Whedon fans. It’s emotionally compelling but it’s got plot holes you can drive a truck through.

It was all pretty consistent and logical until the New Caprica story arc ended. After that, they went nuts.

I still think it’s laughably ridiculous that the Secretary of Education became President. If the human race was an endangered species the military or a clandestine agency would be running everything.

I liked it, I did think it went a little off the rails after the time skip or whatever it was. I did not like the end.

I like tv shows and movies that make little to no sense too but I don’t frantically pretend like they do. I’ve met a lot of diehard Battlestar fans that treat casual criticism about the show like it’s popular political blasphemy.

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