[Lt.Cannonfodder]

http://io9.com/5742034/a-detailed-map-of-battlestar-galacticas-twelve-colonies

I suppose that puts and end to a few arguments.

[FraktuRe]

Shame that it's not quite large enough to read most of the details, but it's still pretty cool.

It does go against one line in BSG that said the 12 worlds of the 3 suns though, but oh well.

[Fish]

That is fantastic! With a bit of zoom and some squinting, I can (and just did) read every word. Good to finally have a canon source on this

I can't help but think it'd be fun to play a Sins of a Solar Empire mod on this

[YIIMM]

So it's a binary binary (quaternary?) star system.

Good find.


Edit: One of the comments suggested having the Mass Effect galaxy map music playing whilst reading

[Angreifer]

Not gonna lie, this gave me a bit of a nerdgasm. Always bugged me that they squished 12 habitable planets into (what I thought was) a single star system. This map makes a lot more sense though, and it's good to see it has basis in actual astronomy. Curious to see how much the layout of the Twelve Colonies plays into B&C.

[newman]

So it's a binary binary (quaternary?) star system.

Quaternary. Take another look. You got Helios Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta stars in a quaternary system comprised of what can easily be described as a double binary system. 4 stars, 12 habitable worlds (Though I doubt 12 were habitable from scratch, they likely still had to terraform).
I wonder where Cylon space was during the 40 year Armistice. Didn't bother to read the small text, maybe they made a reference. They said Tauron was close to the Armistice line at some point, but when I look at this map that doesn't seem to make much sense to me. If the Cylons just went to another star system why even have an Armistice line going through the colonial's star system at all?

[YIIMM]

Take another look....

I know, that's more or less what I was getting at

[Ace]

I thought it was Tauron miners/corporations going close to the armistice line and not Tauron itself.

[newman]

Hmm ok that makes sense. Still, I wonder if the Cylons were present in the system or went to a star that wasn't too far.. Basically I'd like to know what exactly "Cylon space" meant during the 40 year cease fire.

[-Norbert-]

I thought the Tauron miners were only an official excuse for the Valkyries presence, when it really was sent to spy.

[newman]

I thought the Tauron miners were only an official excuse for the Valkyries presence, when it really was sent to spy.

Spy on the Cylons. You kinda need to go to them to be able to spy on them So the Tauron miners had to have been close to Cylon space. What exactly was that space is what I'm wondering.

[Fish]

4 stars, 12 habitable worlds (Though I doubt 12 were habitable from scratch, they likely still had to terraform).

Yeah, on the poster one of the minor planet descriptions is that it was 'unresponsive to Kobolforming' or similar wording.

[FreespacePilot2010]

I remember someone saying that scorpion and aqurion were supposed to be actually moons that orbited Ragnar. I guess that got changed. Does anyone have a bigger version to post? Id like to see it up close. I bet this will be really useful for doing campaign missions now.Since we know where the planets and moons are located.

One other thing I just noticed. It says the population of the colonies is 28 billion. But in BSG they said 50 billion. I wonder if this is the population during the 1st Cylon war which BandC willl take place. Mabey the population was higher before the war and the Cylons greatly reduced the human population. Or mabey after the war the colonies had a sudden population increse. Much like the baby boomer generation after WWII.

[Ace]

There's a lot of things Espenson said in an interview for Caprica that are contradicted in this map such as one colony being a debris field with an atmosphere straddled between two other ones. Probably dropped because the science adviser.

Since the map is dated to probably just post Caprica, the 50 billion figure is probably a post-war boom.

As for the armistice line, I figured it's within a few light years. A few years back someone did up where the Colonies were based on the lagoon nebula's appearance, which would make the Colonies and Kobol in a rimward line from Earth. Based on the constellations

Spoiler:

Cylon Earth

and Earth are probably not too far and New Caprica is on a beeline from Kobol towards the Lagoon/Ionian (whatever that is supposed to be).

Space is pretty damn big, so in the end it doesn't matter but it's probably any direction but Kobol.

So probably the overall fan map on battlestar wiki is pretty accurate:
http://media.battlestarwiki.org/images/0/0a/Locations_in_BSG_galaxy.jpg

[FreespacePilot2010]

Since the map is dated to probably just post Caprica, the 50 billion figure is probably a post-war boom.

Or it could be that the map is dated just post 1st Cylon War. That means that the Humans suffered losses of about 20 billion. The 50 billion number might mean that they included those that died in the first war along with the 28 billion who were killed in the attacks.

[FraktuRe]

In other interesting news, the BSG bible is now available to read:

http://www.harvardwood.org/resource/resmgr/hwp-pdfs/battlestar_galactica_series.pdf

[Snagger]

So, if Caprica and Geminon are orbiting each other , they must be very close.  How come the planets are habitable?  What happened to tidal forces ripping the surface crusts apart, with volcanos spewing and massive earthquakes on a continuous cycle?

[newman]

So, if Caprica and Geminon are orbiting each other , they must be very close.  How come the planets are habitable?  What happened to tidal forces ripping the surface crusts apart, with volcanos spewing and massive earthquakes on a continuous cycle?

Subspace.

[David cgc]

So, if Caprica and Geminon are orbiting each other , they must be very close.  How come the planets are habitable?  What happened to tidal forces ripping the surface crusts apart, with volcanos spewing and massive earthquakes on a continuous cycle?

Earth and the Moon are orbiting each other, and that doesn't happen. Granted, Gemenon is a bit bigger than the moon, but it's also a bit farther away from Caprica, so it probably all averages out.

[NGTM-1R]

So, if Caprica and Geminon are orbiting each other , they must be very close.  How come the planets are habitable?  What happened to tidal forces ripping the surface crusts apart, with volcanos spewing and massive earthquakes on a continuous cycle?

So basically one of them is the size of Jupiter and the other's smaller than Io? Tidal mechanics Do Not Work That Way.