[NGTM-1R]

Originally posted by ZylonBane

You can't calculate a jump to known coordinates unless you're physically sitting where the jump was calculated in the first place? WTF??

This seems pretty damn obvious. You have to know where you start to get to the other end correctly.

You ever tried starting from an unknown point on a map and heading to a landmark you can't see?

[ZylonBane]

Your analogy is inapplicable. They knew exactly where they were. They knew exactly where they were before that. They knew exactly where the fleet jumped to. And yet, for some technobabble hand-waving reason, they couldn't jump to where the fleet was from their current position.

I can understand why they might have had to re-crunch the jump calculations (apparently hyperspace jumps involve a lot of math), but they should have been able to do it from their new position because -- and I'm going to repeat this -- they knew EXACTLY where the fleet had jumped to. After all, they were the ones who calculated the fleet's jump in the first place!

[Unknown Target]

Yea, but they already had the coordinates - couldn't they just punch them into the computer?

Anyway, maybe by networking all the computers together, they opened it to attack because in standalone mode, only, say, the communications array is open to a Cylon virus - and that's not worth/capable of being hacked. But if everything's networked together, then the Cylons can find a weakness in one system and access all the systems at once.

[Hunter]

They probably auto-erase previous jump coordinates for security, such as a Cylon agent determining their next jump.

[ZylonBane]

Originally posted by Unknown Target
Anyway, maybe by networking all the computers together, they opened it to attack because in standalone mode, only, say, the communications array is open to a Cylon virus

The "communications array" was a big thick cable. They showed it on screen several times.

It's like nobody ever told the writer that, no matter how sh!t-hot a hacker you are, you simply CANNOT hack a system that you can't access. Since they depicted a purely physical network, that means a Cylon would require physical access to hack it. And apparently every computer being networked was on the bridge, so no, there couldn't have been a Cylon infiltrator doing the hacking.

[vyper]

All that technology and no WiFi.

[WMCoolmon]

The justification given in the show for the whole mess with the jumps was that every few hours, the Galactica would send an update to the rest of the fleet to compensate for stellar drift. So the plan was to go back, compare the star charts, and extrapolate the fleet's position from that.

Going by that, I'm guessing that the FTL must need hyperaccurate data about the position of large gravitational forces, or they didn't have enough power to successfully compute where everything would be precisely enough to make the jump.

As for the network thing, the only justification I can think of is that in 'networked' mode, the computers accept/maintain connections, whereas otherwise they'd be completely closed, and that vulnerability was just enough to give the Cylons a certain amount of access to them. Considering the Cylons are sentient computers, it's not a bad guess that they're inasanely brilliant computer hackers.

But overall, I'm gonna have to go with "plot device" and "consultants were out to lunch" on this one as well.

Really, it's about as plausible as squeezing icky tubes to conduct interplanetary travel in a spacecraft meant to house only a brain.

[Admiral LSD]

I think the computers are vulnerable to Cylon attack whether they're networked or not but keeping them seperate limits the amount of control the Cylons can get over the ship ...or something.

In any case though it's probably not a good idea to think about it to much as it's a pretty important plot device in the new series. Galactica and the Mk. 2 Vipers survived the initial Cylon attack because the Baltar/Number 6 navigation program wasn't able to gain control of and disable them completely.

[MatthewPapa]

t it to much as it's a pretty important plot device in the new series. Galactica and the Mk. 2 Vipers survived the initial Cylon attack because the Baltar/Number 6 navigation program wasn't able to gain control of and disable them completely. [/B]

Wait, where did you hear that?

[ZylonBane]

The miniseries.

Anyway, according to what was shown this week, the Galactica should NEVER be able to calculate a jump back to Caprica, because wow look at how many jumps they've made since then!

[Liberator]

they could, it would just take a long time

[ZylonBane]

Assuming the "it would take a long time" theory, then they could have taken a long time to calculate a direct jump to the fleet's current position from where they were without having to jump back.

That's the insane thing in this episode. They said it was IMPOSSIBLE to calculate a jump to the fleet from where they were. It's absurd.

[BlackDove]

It's also fiction!

Not that stupid stuff should be ignored, but there should be a little leeway.

[Admiral LSD]

Originally posted by WMCoolmon
The justification given in the show for the whole mess with the jumps was that every few hours, the Galactica would send an update to the rest of the fleet to compensate for stellar drift. So the plan was to go back, compare the star charts, and extrapolate the fleet's position from that.

After watching the ep again this seems to make some sort of sense. They couldn't jump directly to the fleet because they didn't know where the fleet was exactly. They had to jump back to Kobol to get a "star fix" in order to calculate the fleets location. Presumably, if they'd calculated the new coordinates from where they were they would have risked jumping into the middle of nowhere. It's still quite messy when you factor in how Starbuck was able to jump from Kobol straight back to Caprica at the end of the last season but it's TV.

[Sandwich]

Just watched it. Perhaps the jump thing isn't "plug in the destination coordinates and go", but "plug in heading and time to travel and go". That method of travel would make the need to return to the previous step before chosing a different path slightly less insane, especially if they don't have perpetual star charts... which doesn't make sense, but it's the only thing I can think of.

[Rictor]

Maybe it's just me, but it bugs me that 100+ Cylon raiders and a Basestar go up against Galactica and no more than a dozen Vipers, and not a single Viper is lost.

Anyway, great episode.

[NGTM-1R]

Nobody ever said the Cylons were good. They did have to use their computer-infiltration skills to knock out the Colonial Military, after all.

And I think there were more then a dozen Vipers...

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by Rictor
Maybe it's just me, but it bugs me that 100+ Cylon raiders and a Basestar go up against Galactica and no more than a dozen Vipers, and not a single Viper is lost.

Anyway, great episode.

Why does that bug you? It's the most realistic thing of the whole show! I mean, when you're multiplaying FS with a bunch of mates, how many AI (flying fighters of equivalent performace) would you feel comfortable taking on?

[Rictor]

Well, if they're computer controled, much less if they're highly advanced computers, they should be able to at least match any human pilot, though likely outperform them. Even by today's standards, an AI can beat a human in navigation, accuracy and all the other stuff required to fly a space fighter.

[Hunter]

But an AI is limited to its programming. Humans adapt slowly, but more effectively, and thus the end result being the human able to predict the behaviour of the AI.

As for Starbuck jumping to Caprica in a Cylon raider, don't forget to consider it was said their jump engines are far more advanced. Also, the coordinates for places such as planets is obviously going to be in a database so that's not an issue. As for why a raider can jump that far and not Galactica, well... Maybe its not an issue of how powerful the engine is, but how precise it is over distance. Think Hyperspace in B5, Earth jump engines were far less precise than Minbari ones (ref In The Beginning).