Hello and welcome to Who Are You? This is a reasonably well done sci fi watch cast hosted by two friends who are currently watching 2004's Battlestar Galactica. I'm Trafair.

And I'm Laura.

And we've got the second episode of the 2003 miniseries that launches this reboot today.

This is a good opener for the show.

It's real strong.

Mm hmm.

I, I think I said it. Well before we started recording this. The best episode of this show is the third episode of this show.

Aaron says the same thing. So I'm super excited. Sure.

gotta, we gotta get this down. And this isn't even bad. And I will say like, We watch sci fi shows, right? Sci fi shows last seasons. There's a, there's a history there of them typically not being great. Even if they stick the landing,

hmm.

last season, she usually got some stinkers. Um, but a lot of these shows their first it's either the first season or like they're one of their first three is just phenomenal. This first season is like. A plus prestige television. Just banger after banger of memory serves. So it's, it's real top heavy on the really, really good episodes. And so I think not, I don't want to like set you up for like disappointment or

Sure. Yeah.

think that uh, I don't think it's like watching season five of Babylon five after watching season three and four.

Sure. Yeah.

not as good. It doesn't, that doesn't mean it's bad. Although some of it is bad and there is a boxing episode mixed in here somewhere.

Aaron has already informed me of the obligatory 90s to early aughts boxing episode in Battlestar Galactica. So looking forward to that.

Yeah. But that's all way down the line. We got, we got this mini series to finish off here before we get to the show, but you've seen the mini series now you haven't seen any of the TV show.

Uh Huh.

How excited are you for this?

I'm pretty excited. There's so many questions. I can't wait to get the Ja'far face, like, five more times in this episode.

it's going to be a thing. That's fine. Um, I mean, I will say this show, I'm going to get yelled at here by someone in our audience. This show is really good at giving us answers.

Oh, okay.

they're not always the best answers. They don't always make sense. And there are like two big ins that are kind of left open at the end.

Sure.

But I mean. I don't know. I, especially these first couple of seasons, like there's lots of stuff. There's lots of things that are set up for later. And so as someone who's seen it, I'm like seeing little, super minute detail stuff that it's just like, Oh, they did that for this. Oh, they did that for this. Oh, that's so good. um, I mean, obviously you've seen the ending of this episode now. Right. So you know that Doral is a Cylon.

Correct. I was actually the whole time that, you know, from, from the moment Jacques Hughes to him actually being outed as a Cylon. I was like, he wasn't it. He wasn't it. He wasn't it.

Yeah.

Like, I was convinced that they just had the wrong guy. It was good. He was going to just die. And there's somebody else, but it was both things.

It was both. Um, like, when Adama is giving his speech about the sins of humanity past, he reacts completely differently than everyone in the audience. Yeah,

Wow.

not the only one.

Oh man, I'm gonna have to go back and re watch that just to,

You won't guess. It's fine, though. it's, it's, I mean, that's just like the, the kind of storytelling that this show does. and so I'm really excited for you, and I'm just wondering, like, the amp level is high. We're excited. Do you regret not watching this earlier? Is that, like, your instant thought?

hmm, no, I'm not sure that I would have the, like, emotional context to appreciate it on the level that I'm appreciating it now, if that makes

No, that, no, that's totally fair. you know, we're different people in a different time than 20 years ago.

uh Huh, yeah, uh huh, Yeah, and I mean, I don't think it would take anything away from this re watch activity. But I think about, like, watching Babylon 5, you know, almost 30 ish years ago. And I just had such a child's one dimensional read on that show. And coming back to it, it's much more nuanced than I originally realized. So,

Yeah.

And I don't want that for this show. Like, I'm not sure that at the time this came out, when I was graduating high school. That I could have gotten a deeper than one dimensional read on anything happening, if that makes sense.

No, no, I mean, you're your brain isn't fully formed for another, you

Nope.

seven years at that point. Like you got time.

And I think mine took a little longer even than that to bake, so

that I feel that in my bones.

yeah. So no regrets. I'm happy to be doing this here now with you.

Yeah. No, this is good. I'm glad I get to share this with you. This is this is going to be a lot of fun.

Mm hmm.

Spirits are high, they won't be for forever because, man, some dark shit happens in this show.

I can already tell. Yeah.

but yeah. Alright, well.

yeah. So set the scene for me. Where did we start? Part two.

We start part two with Adama, who is just like, taking a moment because the president and his son just died. Like, he didn't really know the president. He, you know, he met her like an hour ago.

did really know his son though,

he he did pretty well know his son and it's, you know, his other son is dead a year and a half ago. Like, the wound is still fresh. I think they say the funeral was about a year ago last episode. So, you know, that's, that's rapid succession. I can't imagine a parent having to bury a child, let alone two in consecutive years. That has to fuckin suck in ways that I can't fathom. So he takes a minute before he kinda composes himself and then goes back into commander mode because everyone here will die if he loses his shit. And he knows that. So, they continue FTL prep. down in the docks, Starbuck lands without an engine.

Yeah. Starbuck is like some sort of feral creature. She's just, throwin shit at the wall and seeing what sticks, and I love it. I'm here for it.

Yeah, um, man, what a terrible haircut they Sackhoff in this season, though.

Mm, yeah, I don't love the haircut. I think there was one point, there was one point where I think for camera angle reasons we're kind of looking at the back of her head, and I was like, this isn't even, like, even. And it's not, like, layered in a nice way, either. What did they do to her?

it is the definition of rough. It is the haircut that I get, and then I look at it, and then I go drive to a different barber shop and get another haircut immediately.

Exactly, yeah.

Starbuck learns of Lee's death in this moment as well, and then she asks about Sharon. She does not ask about Lee. Hilo or any of the other pilots who are all dead.

Ope.

only wants to know if /Sharon's okay. after Starbuck asks about Sharon, that's when we cut over to Sharon on the Raptor. We see everyone hiding out back there, Gaius sees 6BT on the Raptor briefly as the Galactica prepares to jump to Ragnar Station. We get the fun little zoom out effect before the jump.

Uh Huh.

the little camera work to make you feel like you're shrinking a little bit.

Like, when we're inside, we feel like, The people are zooming. Yeah. yeah. This is interesting. I know everybody, every sci fi series has to like, do their own thing to indicate like, faster than light travel, like Star Trek. Yeah. We got Star Trek. We got the uh, stars streaking by in lines. Is that Star Trek or is that Star Wars or is it both?

It's both.

Okay.

Not what would happen, really, but That's fine. Heh

of, a lot of signals that we have in these sci fi series are not things that would really happen with physics.

Yeah, like, Okay. Like, if you think about it, like, how far away those stars are, right? For them to be streaking past you, that means you're traveling all the way past them faster than the light can catch up, which is so absurdly fast. It's so much faster than light, you'd have to be going so obscenely fast for that to happen. Because, like, if you think about, like, us and, like, our nearest star is ten light years away, right? And so it's just, like, that one star. Heading away from Earth to make a streak across the sky like that until it's gone. Also in Star Wars they like stick around. They like start as streaks and then they just become streaks and they don't go away when you go past them. Which is also kind of weird but like if you're ever watching an old Star Wars before they read some of the special effects just look at the end of the stars that don't move. You're in for a ride.

This is a nifty thing I haven't really seen, you know, in our faster than light travels. Babylon 5, it's like a whole, you know, jump gate thing and streaks and stars and other things and this is just kind of like, we zoom out a little bit and then we pop up somewhere else. Like, so neat.

You just appear somewhere else. It's a jump, and it is like a jump. You just land somewhere else.

Yeah. And apparently you have to calculate it with, like, real calculus on paper in this universe, and that's fun.

Yeah, well they don't trust those computers. So.

But we did it. We got to Ragnar.

They successfully jumped to Ragnar. We go back to the colonial one where everyone is fucked up but still alive. Lee had set off an EMP which fooled the Cylons.

Wow. So, he took this off of Galactica, or they took it off of Galactica

took it off of Galactica.

okay.

Um, because it wasn't, it's like, I think it's some type of Mew. They don't really say what it is.

Oh, it is kind of like a weapon, and we're turning this thing into a museum, so we're getting

Yeah, all the munitions gotta get removed from Galactica. I mean, it would make sense, if you're fighting Robits, to have an EMP based weapon.

Sure. Yeah. That

Turn off the computers, launch the thing, turn the computers back on to move the ship around. Good to go.

Yeah. Yeah. Smart. So that's the thing that he set off. It did make it look like they exploded, like there was a nuclear explosion, but the explosion wasn't them, it was the robots.

So there, well, there was no It's the, it looked like, just The aftermath in Dratus looked like a nuclear explosion, but it was just the EMP because the EMP would stop any electric signal and a nuke would make

missile that was coming at them?

That would have got disabled by the EMP.

Okay, so it wasn't the robots got disabled, but their missile did.

Yeah, their missiles got disabled. Okay, I've done so much legwork. Ron Moore, you officially owe me a beer.

We could talk to him about it at next STLV.

Piss off another content creator. Alright, so.

Yeah. No

No problems. Galactica goes into the space station. There's like this storm surrounding the station.

Yeah. So cool. So

Yeah, it's real cool. Starbucks says a little prayer for the lost. And as they enter Ragnar station, they find it unexpectedly slightly inhabited.

Yeah. We got a weirdo on the station.

So, I don't think they said his name during the thing. I asked you, you said you saw it in the closed captioning.

Yeah. For sure. If they didn't say it aloud, it is in the closed

So we know this is Leoben uh, and I'm not spoiling that. I'm not, his name, it's not a spoiler anyways, but.

Yeah. No. He's a rough looking dude at this point. He claims that he is a arms smuggler

Yeah.

and he was here to just get some stuff.

Yeah, I'm just, just taking some

Just stealing.

Yeah, people have the right to bear arms. That includes nuclear missiles, right?

know, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, Hmm, cause they've painted these 12 colonies almost with a little utopian brush like here at the very beginning, which, you know, we often find out in science fiction, when we have a little utopia top coat on everything but like underneath there's like seedy shit everywhere and he's like, well, you know these nuclear arms would have brought a great price and it's like So we peeling back the ulitopia paint there a little bit

Fucks up in this show. R repeatedly. I mean, Adama says it at the very beginning, you know. Were we worth saving? That question, I don't think ever gets answered. Not really. Not in a meaningful way.

Yeah. I don't know if it's been answered Here. So, yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Anyways Baltar gets brought to Rosalyn as Boomer gets orders to jump around and find survivors and bring them back. We cut over to Tyrell, who de escalates the situation on Anchorage as Gaius tries to ignore She reveals the bug to shut down the ships was in the computer's nav systems. And, yes. Yeah, his nav systems, his algorithms, that's how they got into everything.

Bad, Gaius. Not sure it does.

And she reaffirms that she might have been on a mission, but he was more than that to her.

Huh.

How do we feel about this?

I'm so confused by Six. And I have a feeling I'm supposed to be, and this is going to persist for a while.

Yes.

Because, you know, she is, like, fond of Gaius, and in his head somehow, if that's really her, or maybe his brain is just doing things to him, but, but you've kind of alluded that She is really there. Or maybe it was Aaron that alluded it. Maybe it wasn't you.

I don't think I would have alluded that. That sounds pretty spoiler ly. Like, I think I would have given you the face.

Okay. Well, it has been alluded that perhaps it is really her because of a physical interaction she had with Gaius as the explosions were happening.

Well, she had said that because he's like, Oh, you're a hallucination. And she's all like, Maybe I put a chip in your brain. I'm actively beaming myself into you right now.

Uh Huh.

Because I'm not done fucking with you.

It could be that. It could be that Gaius is just like having some sort of psychotic break and is manifesting. His own thoughts as her I don't know why she would be so sympathetic to him, but we have seen With the, the scene with the baby, as awful as that was, that she has some complicated feelings

Yeah.

And it's not exactly at this point, but she leads Gaius to like, hey That device right there is a problem.

Yeah.

Up in the ceiling. That projector That IT installed last week.

Yeah, that Wi Fi router. Bad news.

Yeah, so I am so confused. And I don't have enough yet to be conclusive about 6 and whose side 6 is really on. And, well, not to jump to the end of the episode, but we see a whole bunch of 6s.

Yeah.

All at once. Do they have any individuation? Like, could it be that 1 6

Do the Cylons have individuation?

I don't know.

It's a mystery.

Mm hmm. Yeah, so I don't, I don't know what to think about 6 yet. I don't have a formed opinion. I only have observations.

Can I go on a very brief tangent?

How spoilery is your tangent?

It's not about Battlestar Galactica at all.

Okay, then let's have a tangent.

Um, do you watch anything on Paramount Plus that is not Star Trek?

Nope.

There is a lovely little sitcom called Ghosts that I highly recommend, and Ghosts is like a comedy, and in the first episode, it's this couple inherits this old ass mansion in New England, and they decide to turn it into a B& B.

Of course.

And one of them falls down the stairs, almost dies, and can now see all of the ghosts that are haunting this, this mansion.

Oh, fun.

And so there's a bunch of different ghosts. It's not just, like, all one. There was, like, a Revolutionary War battle there. So there's a couple, there's, like, a Union guy, there's a couple British soldiers, there's, like, a Viking there's a Native American, and there's, like Her great great grandmother or something like for more generations back than that. There's like a jazz singer. It's there's a Boy Scout from the 80s. There's like a Wall Street bro from the 80s. It's fun. The show is fun. But I watched an interview with some of the cast and it's all of the ghosts interact with the wife, right? The husband can't see any of the ghosts.

Cool.

there was a thing where he was just all like, Oh, I'm going to have a chance. Like there was like a spoiler or something that he was going to be able to interact with the ghosts somehow this season for a little bit. Right. And he's like, I get to actually hang out with my coworkers. Like I don't get to actually work with any of my coworkers. I can never acknowledge their presence. I just have to be in scenes while they're all acting and they can see me, but I can't see them and how shitty that is. As an actor to not be able to respond to people in a comedy when they make jokes, like nothing is going on, like the other characters are allowed to laugh and he is not.

that is weird.

And that interview is sticking with me for Tricia Helfer's performance here, where she is in scenes with groups of other people and only Baltar can react to her.

that is especially some of the provocative stuff she starts doing.

Yeah, like around people. I just like, Oh my God.

Yeah.

anyways, that's what I was thinking about while watching this earlier. And also watch ghosts. It's fun.

the interactions that Six has with Gaius just like escalate and escalate and escalate.

Just wait. Um, So the yeah, the crews loading munitions onto the Galactica. Oh, Dama goes in and talks to the stowaway. This is when he reveals himself as an arms dealer. There is a munitions accident. Some bomb spills out. They jump into a like, hallway and the door gets melted shut around them. So they have to go the long way around.

Yeah. I really was thinking about what you said in our last recording about the not battle tested soldier. I was like, these chuckle fucks

Yeah.

being rushing and not being careful enough with the munitions and we just dropped some, like a box of grenades and they start to explode like, Oh my,

Yeah.

got a lot of learning to do and not a lot of runway to do it.

Yep. Colonial One has started a flotilla here, several ships. We see these botanical garden ship. So pretty to render. Must be very expensive.

Oh, yeah. It was very neat. And Laura Roslin is there at this point talking to their leadership and meets a little girl.

Mm hmm. Yep.

girl's lost her mom and dad. She's traveling with her grandparents who are, like, having a heart issue due to the shock of everything. Oh, my. Oh, my. Oh, my. Oh, my.

it's going to be a bad time. They, we do know they found a refinery ship, so they have the ability to make fuel.

Good. Mm

Uh, that is one of the most important things to happen in this episode.

Yeah, we're going to be needing that for a while.

Yeah. They note that was it like 40 percent of these ships don't have FTL. And so, Lee suggests moving them off of those ships immediately, because if they need to run, they're going to have to be doing it using FTL drive.

not fast enough, though.

Nope, because they're having this conversation, a Cylon Raider jumps in real quick, scans, and then leaves.

yeah,

So they start spinning up the drives immediately to leave.

yeah, Billy points out to President Rosalind that, that Pretty Botanical Gardens does not have FTL. They cannot get any more people off in this short amount of time, and the little girl she met is going to die. Okay.

Yep. Yep, and we see that happen. The FTL ships all jump out. We see them jumping off in the, like, background of the botanical garden as little girls, they're playing with her bunny

Cries for help overlaid over the scene in the background other Ships cursing the FTL ships, yeah,

as it just goes to bright white as they all get nuked. Yep, the uh, fleet does jump to Ragnar though.

I just realized something.

Yeah?

So, the PR guy, who is later outed. I say PR, he's like a reporter or something. Doral.

he is like a government employee.

Sure, okay, let's call him PR then.

Yeah.

Isn't he one of them who's like, No, we can't leave people behind.

Yeah.

We can't let all these people die.

Yeah.

He wanted all of them to stay there longer and die.

Yes, he did. He knew exactly what was happening. Little things. Lots of characters actions. Sometimes you think they're for one thing, really they're for something else.

Yeah.

It's what makes this such a compelling watch.

He has his own incentives in that moment that have nothing to do with what you think they do.

Yep. We cut over to Ragnar. Our arms dealer is waxing philosophical on God, not gods. I don't know if you caught that.

Yeah.

the Cylon, we know six is monotheistic, and that is weird. Every, all the humans are polytheistic.

Uh Huh.

And Lioban here is also talking about God in the singular,

Yeah.

which is a clue for the watcher, the eagle eared watcher, that this is a Cylon.

the Monotheism seems like a weird oddity in humans, not like a total impossibility

They're not, yeah, there's not a lot of them, but

Yeah. And it's sort of like, look at those weirdos rather than like, oh, you could be dangerous because you believe in one God.

Mm hmm.

Yeah. Um, he is looking rougher. He looks the worse in this hallway.

Yeah, they're going down the hallway. Things are not going well. did you know he was a Cylon at this point? Were you suspicious at all?

was a bit suspicious. But mostly I was picking up signals that like this person is bad and I wasn't sure like Cylon bad, or are we going to introduce like Like, other type of human who is bad like, you know, the human who doesn't actually care about the collective nature or anything, and is doing his own thing. And I was very, very, very concerned when he insists that Adama go first. Walk in front for a while, I was like, no, no, no,

Do I have to? Um, I think I've got the gun. Rosalyn comes on board the Galactica here and gives Tai Hal. But they do get him to turn over some supplies. Lee is made the senior pilot. While Valeri and Tyrell are reunited. Which is Sharon and the Chief.

Okay,

Douala kisses Billy.

Huh, okay, so I didn't even pick up. That they were like a little flirtatious in part one

Mm hmm.

and the whole time in this episode Because you know, we've been kind of alluded to like there is a Cylon somewhere on Galactica, right? I was like, it's her. It's her. She's acting weird. It's her

Mm hmm.

and I was subverted on that I guess.

Man, I will I will confer with Aaron. But maybe at the end of the season, we can give you a yes or no on one character is a Cylon or not.

Oh, okay. Cool

If you, if, if, does that sound fun? Do you think that would ruin it? I don't know. I don't

I I, I'll think on it. It sounds fun. It sounds like something that I would be interested in, but yeah, no, I, the whole, like, every interaction she had with Billy, and maybe this is just my, like, tendency toward neurotypicalness showing through. I have tendencies of both, I think, but I was like, she's, she's not doing this right. She's not doing affection right. She's got to be the robot. And people are allowed to. Show affection in different ways, but in this I was like, are they telling me she's a robot?

They really go out of their way to make some characters kind of feel more suspicious than others.

Uh Huh. And now, now like having a better understanding of some like neurodiversity traits and such, I'm like, are they a robot or are they just autistic? Like,

Lee goes to see Kara here as well. And then we cut back to Leoban and Adama here, and Leoban is looking like every single frat boy at 3am on Halloween, the year The Dark Knight came out.

oof.

is just painted white and sick as hell.

Yeah, for sure. We get some answers about why he's been So rapidly declining. He jokingly referred to it as allergies earlier. And it seems like maybe it is a kind of allergy.

Mhm. Yeah.

the robot kind.

Yeah, Odama Odama's just like, he knows what the fuck is going on here. He's all like, the silica pathways in your brain can't handle this fucking storm, bitch. This is why we hid here. He just, like, he knows. And he opens like, oh, this was a fucking trap, wasn't it? Oops.

Man, so that makes me wonder about what the Cylons knew. in the previous history that we don't see.

Yeah.

Because it feels like Leoben should have already known, like the Cylon should have already known that these storms were not good.

I mean, if if it was a station that was just tucked away that they never messed with, right? Yeah. If there's never any fight there and no one who went there came back during active war, you know, and if they popped in for a visit, like to drop him off, you have to stick around. That's one of the things is it gets worse over time.

yeah,

So

And it seems like it's a, it's not like an hour or two kind of time, but it's

it seems like an eight hour thing. Mm

yeah, yeah. Yep, so he is one of the 12 models of Cylon.

hmm.

And he's breaking down but he's still got some fight left in him.

Yeah.

He picks on Adama and we see that even though he is falling apart, he is still magnificently strong.

Yeah. Yeah. He one arms throws fucking. Yeah. Real data strength here.

Uh Huh.

Just that android power. but Adama fights back and eventually gets him. Over in CIC, Baltar tells Gaeta the weakness in the computers. He's going to purge it from Galactica's main computers while the lieutenant handles the new Vipers. But not before he turns the knife with 6BT rubbing salt in the wound. 6BT points out that device in CIC that we were talking about earlier, that is Cylon in origin, meaning that another Cylon is aboard the ship.

Hmm. And it's on the DRADIS console, right? Which seems to be a navigation device. Which maybe is designed, this thing is trying to like give away their position.

That would make

be found faster.

Or maybe hide things from the console.

Oh yeah, like if the console's supposed to detect Cylon ships, it won't.

Yeah, or if it's supposed to detect 20, it detects 1.

Mm hmm.

You know.

Yeah.

That kind of stuff.

Not good.

This is when Baltar decides to throw Doral under a bus.

Mm hmm. And then I was screaming at the TV that it wasn't him.

Yeah, well, and even 6BT is all like, I don't know, I didn't see him at any of the Cylon parties.

Yeah. What a weird thing to say. Like,

honestly, this, I think it's one of the most telling lines about the nature of Six and Baltar.

yeah.

to say anything else about it, but I think it's very, it, it, it kind of puts a spin, a dimension on. What's going on there?

Mm hmm. Yeah. And I could see it spinning either way. Like, yes, she is in his head, but she's being a jackass about it. Or B, no, she is like a figment of his trauma. And, yeah. He can't, he can't actually fill in that gap, and so she's just being a jackass to him in his brain.

Adama Uh, Adama, uh, comes back here too. Bringing the news of the humanoid Cylon. Luckily for Baltar. But he goes to see Lee first. They hug and decide that they can be mad at each other later.

yeah.

Baltar gets assigned to figuring out who the humanoid Cylons are. Starbuck owns some culpability in Zack's death. Doral, Yeah, Doral is arrested. And Baltar gets Tai interested in the Cylon device in CIC. All that happens very rapidly. Uh huh.

I was having vibes when Starbuck and Apollo are having their discussion. And maybe this is just me also not being able to, like, read people and cues and stuff.

Okay.

But I was like, did he have thoughts for her? And was maybe a little jealous of his brother? I wonder.

There's a little bit of will they won't they with Starbuck and Lee, um, that I won't say anything else about. But you did not miss, there was nothing, I don't want to say this, you did not read something that wasn't there.

Okay.

What, what you, what the vibe you felt was placed there on purpose. Yes.

like, making something up into the scene, as I have done before and will do again.

Yeah.

This time, not that. Uh, Yeah, Starbuck admits, basically, that she was too infatuated or influenced by her relationship with Zack. And she should have failed him. from his basic flight course, or whatever it was. And she didn't fail him and let him continue on, and for that he lost his life. Man,

Yep.

humans are messing up all over the place in this show, right off the bat.

This is, of all of the mess ups humans make, this is probably really low on the scale.

Well, yeah, I mean it's like low on the the, ranking of mess ups, but at the same time you think about it. And you just, if you just categorize it at a higher level of, like, relationship over duty, that can become a much bigger mess up.

Yeah.

This is an inter, interpersonal one, in where it's like, two, two humans individually cause it, and one of them pays for it but, It could be done on a much larger scale in other ways, perhaps later. I don't know. I will see.

Yeah. They removed that device in C I N C and C I C. In Battlestar it is C I C.

Oh, we're going to call it C C. so much, aren't

In ba in Babylon. Five. It is CNC.

Where we just lived for like the last two years. So

I

forgive us a few

in the expanse too. Yeah. It's gonna ha it's gonna happen a ton. It'll, it will happen more than me saying Sinclair, when I met Sheridan. So, they removed the device. They look for other one while Starbuck pops out of the Ragnar storm to find a Cy fleet Just waiting.

Just so many of them, just nothing but ships, wall of ships.

two big ol base stars. All kinds of other stuff.

Yeah, so interesting. We call them base stars. That's kind of like a mothership, yes?

Yeah, it's Cylon Base Stars and Colonial Battle Stars.

Yeah, that's not going to be confusing at all.

That is straight from the original terminology that they kept, and, you know.

Uh Huh. Yep, it happens.

Yep.

Speaking of words, we're going to mess up throughout this series.

Adam and Rosalyn talk. About a wave forward here and one isn't really found here. Uh, The commander wants to go back and fight this war, and Rosalind holds that this war is already over. So,

Like, I don't know if they've said, like, put a number on, Um, How many humans were on these 12 colonies of Cobol?

billions,

Uh Huh.

definitely billions with a B, um, and that's 40 years after a devastating war. That's not enough time to recoup from that. Um, the kind of losses that they suffered. So,

And, to our knowledge, we have 50, 000 survivors?

Um, we have a number from before any of the non FTL ships get blown up.

Mm hmm.

We don't get a number of after until the opening credits of the next episode.

Oh, good. Oh,

that's part of the thing with this show is we get a running total of how many humans are left alive in the credits

Jesus. not going to be stressful at all. My point being though you know, once we get into this fraction where we have, you know, billions on the bottom being the original total and tens of thousands left on the top give or take a 10, 000 doesn't really matter to me. Like, the, the point is that fraction is insane. Right.

Yeah.

Right. So, materially, another 10, 000 or so doesn't move the needle. Doesn't matter.

It would be, was it a thousandth of a percent or something?

yeah, I, I don't even know.

Well, we don't, I don't know if we get a number on how many billions, because that factor of 10 will also change things.

Yeah. So, Adon Adama is maybe still a little bit in, like, his trauma feelings of fight, fight, fight. And Rosalind has moved over to flight, flight, flight, because. Looking at, at her high level view, she's doing like mental math about we have tens of thousands of humans. This is it. And we need to start multiplying or we will not have enough to continue anywhere in the universe.

Yeah. The lack of genetic diversity in the remaining populace.

Already probably not good, yeah?

Not great. Um, it does seem to be pretty like. Multicultural.

Yeah.

Um, it's not like a ship of a thousand was like one giant family or something. it could be worse. But it is, it is not good. And will be a plot point in the future.

And in this scene, it starts out with, you know, discussion of, it turns out, one of these ships that they managed to gather of survivors has a bunch of prisoners on it. They were, like, transferring prisoners from one colony to another or something or to a, some sort of prison colony maybe

We, we get to that very soon.

Ah,

That, that, that is That is going to be a thing. Um, actually uh, that's the episode that Scott from Gray17 is going to be joining

Oh, lovely. I cannot wait for his take, because this is such a complicated situation. You know, you've gone from, we talked about the fraction, the billions, to the tens of thousands. Now you have people who have like broken the social contract in some way, it, such that they are, were to be punished, well, now you don't have as many resources to, one, enact that punishment. And two, take, like, jeans out of your pool.

Yeah.

So,

And there's also a whole side about, like, prison life and prisons in society and What that's like here, you know, and that's also something I want to talk to Scott about. Um, and then there's a whole other thing with that episode and a guest star that is also something that we want to talk with Scott about, but you don't know about it yet.

Ugh, So interesting. Just, just this premise being planted here in this miniseries, I'm like, this is so complicated, and I, Don't envy anyone who ever has to think about this, like, like in a serious way, you know, it's a thought experiment for us. It's a little art exploration for Ronald D. Moore and the creators of the show, but it's not a serious thing we have to grapple with. Whew.

over in CIC, The commander, the XO, the captain, and the lieutenant discuss the options for FTL jumps. And it's at this point that Billy is over there talking to Douala.

Again.

and again, and Adama sees them, and is all like, Gotta start having babies. Like, he sees that, he understands what is actually at stake at this point, and decides that they need to run.

Yep. He is converted to flight.

Yep. Adama has gated up, planned the largest recorded jump in history. Which they don't, they don't reference, they don't say it a ton, but they're just going into completely uncharted space. They're going out past where any ship has ever been.

Yeah. So I think they referenced

They call it the Red Line.

Ah, okay. And I was trying to figure out, like, is the red line, like, just a, a boundary in space or is it like we're trying to jump past a Cylon fleet or a Cylon something? Like I, I didn't, wasn't sure.

You know, that would make sense. If the Red Line was like, Cylon territory. Given. The silence and the red eye thing. Um, but I believe it's just I think it's just where a ship has been. It's just explored space.

Okay. Beyond the rim.

Yeah. Um, they're gonna keep the destination quiet because they don't know who they can trust.

Yeah.

the Battlestar, they're gonna do all the calculations and then just send them to the fleet.

Yeah. And just be like, go here.

Yep. Go here, go now.

It makes you wonder as well. How many of these other ships could be infected with the Cylon? Ha ha ha ha ha. Hmm. But, so here's the other thing.

Alright.

We only have 12 models of Cylon.

Mhm.

And we are getting very close to seeing that the models that That we know about the Lioban, the Six, the Doral. They all look exactly the same.

Mhm.

So when you have a population of billions, again, it would be extremely easy to hide one of twelve models anywhere you want. Now we have a much smaller population.

Mhm.

It seems like it's not as easy to embed Cylons in places anymore.

Yeah, well, The fleet right now knows Leoben, right?

Uh Huh.

And if they see another Doral, they'll know because they left him at Ragnar.

Right. I guess the fleet does not know Six. Gaius Baltar knows Six.

Baltar knows Six. Yes. And that's it for what any human knows.

Yeah.

So there's still plenty of mystery to be had.

Now, I don't think this is a spoilery question, and I think I did pose it to Erin when they say 12 models of Cylon, that is the 12 humanoid models? Because I was thinking, like, the little battle bots? are a model. So I was thinking, okay, we know BattleBots, we know Doral, we know Leoben. And Aaron was saying, no, that's, the BattleBots is outside of that.

So this is the question you asked me last episode and I gave you the face for.

Did I ask this last episode?

You asked this last episode, but apparently Aaron has answered it. So it is, there are 12 humanoid Cylon models.

That's, that was Aaron's impression as well. So that is an established thing in the series. Okay.

Yes, whether or not you're supposed to know it at this point, I don't think so. But,

Yeah. And I wasn't like, I don't know. I wasn't like, agonizing over the question. I was just like, well, if the battle bots are one and it seems like the ships might be their own model of Cylon, like, doesn't, mean that, you know, if we have robots, right? We, our ships don't need a pilot. The ship is the pilot. So that would be a model of Cylon. Like I was just kind of taking it off in my head, like, well then, but that doesn't make for a very interesting show, does it? If we tick off like five of them

but it does. Well, I will say the ships being robots themselves is a compelling plot point. So,

assumed that they would be robots themselves. They would be their own individual thing. So,

We finally get to see what an armed Galactica can do here. So, they've restocked, they're planning the jump, the Battlestar's gonna go out and hold the line while all the civilians leave the storm to safely jump away, and then they will follow.

Yeah, we've got to hold the line and let the innocent civilians escape.

Yeah.

And this makes me wonder, you know, we're in a munitions universe, right? We don't have PPU lasers and we had to jump to Ragnar to get all this munitions.

hmm.

At some point you're going to have to either, Make more munitions or figure out other things that you can throw in your guns and cannons to shoot holes and stuff.

I I do not have a perfect memory of this, but if I had to compare it to something, it is Voyager and Shuttles. It is a plot point when it needs to be, and it is completely ignored the rest of the time. I could be mistaken, but I do think that's how it's handled.

Mean that could that's the thing like you could make some episodes out of that of like us trying to find something to jam in our guns

Well, it's just like, so, when you see a bullet in space, right? Indeed. Like when you see, when there's a bullet with a streak, just, it's probably operates a lot like how that works here on earth, which those are tracer rounds you put in fully automatic weapons because you use those to aim. And depending on how fast your gun is firing, it is somewhere between one in 10 to one in a hundred bullets being fired that is visible. So keeping that in mind. Future technology, big ol guns, right? We see these guns, they're massive guns. Where the fuck are all these bullets? Because I feel like Galactica fires enough bullets to empty the inside of it entirely. Like, if the entire ship was filled with just bullets, it would be empty after this fight.

right

Like, part of

where are we storing the bullets?

wants to sit and count. Like, okay, if we assume 1 in 100 is a visible round, and we see A hundred thousand bullets get fired out of Galactica. We are now at a hundred million bullets fired. If they are the size of the cannons, right? Like, where, physically, how much space does this take up? And everything we see them load on is tiny, right?

Mm hmm.

Like, there's big cases full of stuff, but everything we see opened up is tiny. So, I don't know,

Maybe we've hit the portion of Galactica storyline where we're supposed to just gloss over it a

just stop asking questions. maybe, Maybe I'll do a little research because we're recording these two pretty back to back. The next one we probably won't record for another week some. maybe, maybe I can see if anyone else was complaining about this on the internet. There is no Midwinter, as far as I know, for Battlestar Galactica, so.

Oh, if there is, someone's gonna tell us.

Yeah, which, awesome, I want to know. I did get the book.

Oh, neat.

There, there is a book that was collected by people interviewing people while the show was being made. About all kinds of fun stories about the show being made. And every good article that I've ever read about Battlestar Galactica getting made references a story from this book.

Oh, neat.

And it's, it's called, so say we all, and it's by the guys who do all the Star Trek books, like the, the 50 year history, Star Trek, like series that came out, the oral histories of Star Trek. It's the same guys. So I got to read that anyways. We see a lot of vipers get blown up here. But Starbuck saves Apollo, the fighters all return but we have a tense moment with Starbuck who rams Apollo, catches his wing, and brings him back to the barn as the Battlestar jumps away and rejoins the fleet.

This is wild.

This is so cool!

Yeah. I do love that our little vipers, you know, they sort of have like almost an X wingy kind of feel to them. We don't have the big like wings, but we have that big long nose thing going on. And our little noses have, like, little maneuvering thruster things on them, and the space physics I'm, I'm happy with. Enjoying that.

Yes. It's not quite the Starfury. But, But, Viper is probably, especially the Viper in these, where they went out of their way to make a design that wouldn't necessarily be the best in space, but it's also designed for atmospheres, as we see. Um, so,

Yeah. Yeah. And is she back in a regular Viper, like a modern Viper at this point, or is she still

I think they're gonna be in the old ones for a long ass time.

Okay.

I don't think they get any new ones as a restock. You know, like it's, all the new ones got wiped out, so they just got a

Yeah.

hanging around right

I thought they had some, some of the new ones left, and they were purging the software from them, or

They make reference of that, but I don't think we see them for a minute.

Yeah. Yeah. So she's flying around in just a, an old one and then Apollo has his dad's old Viper, right? Okay. But yeah, they both get they both take a little bit of damage here in this maneuvering process.

Yeah. Uh, They land, the fleet jumps away, And then we get what is the defining moment of the miniseries, Adama's call to find Earth. So, fun fact,

Uh Huh.

he was supposed to say, so say we all once. It

so that is all just like improvising.

It was not, originally planned as a call and response like this.

Uh Huh.

So they started shooting this in like October 2001. This is one of the first scenes that they shot. And whenever you hear anyone talking about it, it's just like everyone on set this day was just a fucking mess. Everyone was fucking tired. Everyone was broken.

Yeah.

so, I don't know the exact timing, but it whenever Edward James Olmos talks about it, he talks about the, the 9 11 was looming present. And On the set that day, maybe it was a year after and it was the anniversary or something, but uh, so this, so say we all was like, both him as an actor and him portraying the character, trying to rally the characters, but also the actors,

Mm

um, and turning it into that call and response because, like, that first one came out kind of weak. And everyone was kind of bummed, and so he just kept going. And then he brings it back at the end, too. And it's so fucking good. It's so powerful. This scene.

This is the start of, like, the emotion. here at the end that was so profound, um, and maybe it started earlier. Maybe it started when Laura Roslin put Adama in his place a little bit with like, these people need to have babies. Um, but gosh, it's so deep. And there was something I noticed about the music here at the end that was so well done. It seems a little bit more like minimalist. than you would get from, for example, Star Trek. But it just really pulled at me and my emotions and my heart.

Yeah, it's uh, it's heavy. It's a lot. It's supposed to be heavy. It's supposed to be a lot. but. This is like, this is the thing that, like, when I think about this show, I think about this speech.

Mm hmm.

You know, this, this is, this is the call to hope despite not having any reason to have hope.

Yeah.

that resonates right now. Yeah,

with this

Yeah, right? Like, this sounds pretty great right now. So, that's cool.

So he, he's calling 13th colony, Earth.

Yeah, the lost 13th colony.

We have this beautiful moment, an Edward James Olmos speech, and almost immediately, Laura Roslin comes in and kicks us in the nuts and reminds us that, or informs us that Adama's a liar, there is no earth, and he's just flying by the seat of his pants

Yep. He doesn't give a fuck. Let him be mad tomorrow. But they need to, they need to have a reason to not give up today. Yeah.

this is what I have to sell, I'm going to sell it.

Let them, let them hate me for eternity. That's fine. If, if, if Adama does this with the full knowledge that it is entirely possible that in a thousand years people will be cursing his name as the greatest liar in human history, and he will sleep easy because there are humans alive in a thousand years.

Right. Yeah.

He does not give a solitary fuck.

there are people alive to hate me, so mission accomplished.

Yep, it was worth it. Whatever the cost, it was worth

Yeah. Yeah. But we couldn't possibly end this miniseries without, like, a little more

Yeah.

mystery button. Mm hmm. And Adama returns to his quarters to find a Lovely little slip of like, dot matrix printer paper, just a little tiny slip though with the special corners that says, there are only 12 Cylon models.

Yep.

Who would, who would leave this note? Who would know

Man, does the ship not have CCTV? Like, did you not have to key card in? Like,

Great point. Great point.

how do you not know who this is immediately based off of just solely ship security? Access to the commander's room you'd think would be closed enough where this would be super easy to find out.

Well, well maybe they slipped it under the door and then the maid came in and she put it on the desk. Like, yeah. obviously, right?

Okay.

Galactica has maids, right? Yeah?

for sure.

course.

Um, we get A couple of things here. Uh, 6PT tells us that some Cylons might not even know they are Cylons.

Yeah.

Hmm. They're sleepers. Little Talia Winters in disguise.

Yeah. Well, and that makes, mm, I guess I was gonna say that it makes me wonder about Doral, like did he just not bust until he got to be left on? Mm hmm. Anchorage, but the, the moment I had earlier in the episode where I realized that he was trying to encourage them to stay makes me think, no, he wasn't, not, he was not asleep. He was

is so good. Like. God, I want to tell you about a scene so bad. Okay, I'm going to be super non spoiler y with this because you already know Doral is a Cylon. There is a scene where they find a Doral, right?

Uh Huh. That's

You can't possibly know I'm a Cylon. You know, like, I'm a human. What are you guys going on? There's no way. You know, like, this is all bullshit. You have to let me go. And as they're doing it, they walk in another Doral. And the other Doral sees the other Doral. And he's just like, Well, shit. That's, that's something I, that's something to look forward to without any other context around the scene.

Yeah. You can't waste an opportunity like that. Yeah,

Um,

Yeah. So some might be asleep though. And we're gonna see an army of Cylons here, a little, little tiny army.

Yeah, we see Dorals, Leobans, Sixes, and a Sharon. Dun dun dun!

And that's it.

Yep, that's the end of it.

Mini series complete.

Yep.

Oh, so Sharon's gotta be asleep, right? Because she picked up all those humans and she was real busted up about it when Hilo stayed on the planet. And Ja'far's giving me the face, but I can't. Unless, unless Boomer has some, like, six complicated feelings going on

I mean, she did save Gaius.

Oh, Boomer?

Yeah.

Yeah.

she did land, she did land exactly by Gaius's house. When they went to Caprica. Just happened to be right next to it. That's a crazy coincidence.

Hmm. It still seems like

Hmm.

I don't know. I I, I still can't buy off on her being awake

I only ask the questions that I feel the show wants you to ask.

Sure. And, I mean, just because they're not awake, I would imagine there is still some sort of mechanism that the other Cylons have for making them do what they want, like little little radio beams or

It sounds, it sounds like you're asking me if Cylons have Individuation. Which is a question I'm not going to answer.

It reminds me of, um, you know, the whole telepath thing from Babylon 5, which we just mentioned about the Talia Winters situation and stuff. If you had a person that Mind manipulated in that way. I believe that the Babylon five universe was saying like the controllers could get them to do stuff without them knowing they were doing it

Oh yeah, well, they'd send the, the the 90s scrambled TV. The cable signal you're not supposed to be watching. The HBO without the cable box. Yeah.

Yeah, to get you to go be in a place or do the thing. Yeah, so It's not out of the realm of possibility. This could exist in Battlestar Galactica as well for these robots.

Mm hmm. So. On a scale of 1 to 12 colonies, how'd you feel about this episode?

I'm bought in I'm sold like I want to know more The speech was beautiful and fun. I do like Laura Roslin's like fanatical realism like she is She seems to have a decent head on her shoulders, at least for now. Maybe that's going to get wacky. But, you know, she immediately put the kibosh on the captain of the prisoner ship, doing anything bad to the prisoners. She reoriented Captain Adama very quickly, Commander Adama. With the reality of the situation and the reality of the fraction. man, I'm wondering where all these freaking Cylons are and if that's, I don't know, like, if we're going to get to Earth now, because we've brought up the possibility of Earth. Like, I have so much to look forward to and so many questions and I know it's silly to give it another, like, 12 out of 12, but. I'm really buying into the premise and so that's, that's where I'm at with this is like I am itching to know more, raring to go, and I'm just loving it. 12 out of 12.

Hell yeah. I'm glad you enjoyed the miniseries so much. It's good. I like the second half more than the first half. But a lot of that is just the weight of exposition is slightly lifted off of the shoulders. And it lets it do a little bit more.

The religion thing got some space to breathe, too. Like, I can see that they're setting this up to be something important.

Yeah. So I'm gonna give this one a 9 out of 12.

Okay.

Okay.

can't remember what you gave the last one. Was

eight? Yeah. So, next up, season one, episode one, thirty three. Ben from Last Time On is going to be joining us. One of many guest stars we have coming up this season. All the cool girls will be joining us for an episode.

I'm just now seeing that everyone apparently has seen Battlestar Galactica except me.

So, Ben and Glo watched it after Babylon 5. Like a couple of years ago.

Okay. So they did what we did. They went straight from Babylon 5 to this.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think, I think we had already decided at that point. So we might have nudged that decision a little. Um, but. Beth will be joining. Glow will be joining. Ryan from Yum Yum is going to be joining us for an episode.

Yeah.

Gray 17 is going to be joining us for an episode. Vic. To Mini Media Television and also of Last Time On, it's going to be joining us for an episode.

We'll try to get Aaron on as well, like, that is a little bit more of a logistical hassle, believe it or not, listener, than uh, just getting somebody even in another time zone across the ocean just because, like, We have two children, and someone must be watching them, so

Yeah. Yeah, we're, I mean, what are we going to record that on like a Saturday afternoon when you can hand them off? You're going to have to

Yeah,

Like, and then, like, also, Um, I mean obviously this is, you know this because you record with me, and then you also record Cool Girls Don't Look at Explosions with my partner Beth. Our office is shared. Her desk is on the video camera right now behind me. And so when we're in the same room, like when we did the, the script readings, it's a whole thing. Where we have to coordinate muting. So, we'll figure it out. It's much easier to record with people in other locations than it is in person, logistically. Which is, God, the internet. But, a bunch of guest spots. Would love to have Aaron on as well. Um, but this first one, Ben, when I first said we're doing Battlestar to Ben, he's like, I'm guesting on 33. Like before I had written a spreadsheet before we were in season three of Babylon five, Bennett called dibs on this episode.

Well, we can't pry it away from him, then can

Now you're ready for this episode description.

Hit me, yeah.

This is, so I have two because the one on the streaming service I'm watching on was like two and a half paragraphs that tells you everything that happens.

Damn.

And then I just checked on Amazon prime and Amazon's is. Two sentences. So we're going to roll with that. The crew is put to the test, has sleep deprivation, mixes with the gloomy reality of a Cylon apocalypse. They have just 33 minutes to make a jump and elude the Cylons.

sleep

episode is crazy.

Okay, I'm excited.

You should be. I'm so excited for this. I haven't, I haven't watched this episode in years. I'm real excited to go back and watch it. Just like I'm real excited to say thank you to Jeremy Siegel for composing our lovely theme music. Thank you, Jeremy. You just do all the themes here, except for last time on, but

All themes everywhere.

everywhere. Thank you so much. We really appreciate you putting together. You can find more of Jeremy's work at JeremySegal42. bandcamp. com and on streaming services as Nuclear Jaguar.

and thank you to Angry Duck Time Machine on Instagram for the podcast artwork.

Aaron, thank you so much for editing this podcast. I know you're going to take like 10 minutes out of the sky of me repeating myself. So, everyone appreciates that.

Don't we? Yes.

Heh heh.

And hey, listener, if you want to join the Battlestar spoiler conversation, which I am not in, you can join us on our Discord. And Ja'far will let you into that one. He just won't let me in. And I can be found in other parts of the Discord just having a good time.

Yep. Alright, we'll see you next week, Internet.

bye!