[newman]

While the technologies developped by any soiety will eventually coincide, the chances of exact design being matched is inconcievably low.  I know they have a budget to watch, but they are losing credibility.

That's my point exactly. To be clear, I don't find this reason enough to either hate or love the show, it's just something that I see as a mistake and find the show would be more believable without.
As for mrs. Graystone character, I'm not sure why but she's actually one of my favorite characters in the show. For some reason I can't stand either Zoe or Lacey. Not to mention that sister Clarice character.. ack.

[The E]

#You do know that, given budget constraints, it's easier to pick bits and pieces of technology off the shelves than to go to the trouble of having your art department design these things?

Just saying that, while these things might be immersion breakers for you, for me, they actually enhance the "ten minutes into the future" thing the show is going for.

[newman]

Depends on what you're redesigning and how smart are you in doing it. Even real cars can be modified to look unique and fit a sci fi setting better for not that big a cost. A custom made bsg-ish magnetic tape would cost a few hundred $ at most assuming you already have an art department that handles the props.
Also, colonizing 12 worlds (most of which would require terraforming, as I doubt there's a single star system that contains 12 planets of equal or almost equal gravitational and atmospheric conditions), having developed civilian and military space travel, and being able to perform instant FTL jumps is hardly 10 minutes into the future.

[StarSlayer]

Depends on what you're redesigning and how smart are you in doing it. Even real cars can be modified to look unique and fit a sci fi setting better for not that big a cost. A custom made bsg-ish magnetic tape would cost a few hundred $ at most assuming you already have an art department that handles the props.
Also, colonizing 12 worlds (most of which would require terraforming, as I doubt there's a single star system that contains 12 planets of equal or almost equal gravitational and atmospheric conditions), having developed civilian and military space travel, and being able to perform instant FTL jumps is hardly 10 minutes into the future.

Though it depends on if they technologically regressed.  They might have had the technology to terraform and colonize before they left Kobol and lost it after they landed.  Not to mention the 12 Colonies aren't exactly a Federation utopia, there's a lot of nationalism and bigotry and I get the impression, that while Caprica might be on the cutting edge some of the other planets are probably dirt poor and underdeveloped.  While the Graystones might have a pad out of Sharper Image the everyday folk might not have access to all the fancy tech.  Not to mention over in the States we don't have Citroens, they can roll on all the Astra Diesels, Peugeots or whatever else and they look alien to us

Tough to be honest I am a little in the middle it did break continuity for a second for me when they pulled out the Betamax but overall I haven't been to miffed. I mean Adama's quarters on Galactica are like condensed a national history museum.  Heck maybe we are just genetically predisposed to build HMMWVs and Roman Legionary Helmets

[FraktuRe]

Just to clarify, the twelve colonies are spread across 3 star systems. Also, despite the fact they have spaceships (and have had them for thousands of years), they are really only a couple decades in front of us, not centuries.

[Fish]

the twelve colonies are spread across 3 star systems.

Wikipedia quotes RDM saying they're all in the one system - although implausible - as a nod to the original series. The link to the original source seems to have been eaten by the SciFi/SyFy website being rejiggered.

[karajorma]

Good. Let's hope they never find it again.

[FraktuRe]

The plan states that 'the twelve colonies of the 3 suns have been something something'.

[Fish]

Oh gosh What takes precedent when it's canon vs word of god? 

[karajorma]

Canon, cause god must have been drunk when he said they were all in the same system.

[newman]

You do realize that the colonies can be around 3 stars and still all be in the same system? It's called a trinary system, would have been a lot larger then our own but still technically one system.

[The E]

Trinary systems, generally do not have that many planets, let alone habitable ones.
The habitable zone of any star system is rather narrow; adding more suns into the mix will not increase it.

[newman]

I'm pretty sure you can't find a single system anywhere with all 12 planets in the goldilocks zone. They would need to have terraformed most of them. As for planet counts, well.. depends on a definition of a planet (mind you they never said all 12 colonies are planets - some could be on planetoids, big built-on asteroids or huge space installation. I think Jane Espensen of Caprica even hinted towards something like that recently). A trinary system may not have 12 habitable planets or 12 planets at all but it's gravitational field could capture a lot of stuff. Not to mention a single gas giant could easily have like 60+ moons, some of which could be colonies.. The main thing here is that not necessarily all colonies fit the astronomical definition of a planet. When you take that into account 12 colonies stop sounding so implausible.

Here's what battlestar wiki has to say:

The Twelve Colonies of Kobol are located in the star system Cyrannus.

During the Cylon attack one Hybrid indicates that the Colonies orbit three stars (The Plan). It is also known that at least some of the Colonies share their orbits (Caprica Pilot, TV version).

While Elosha stated that the Tribes settled onto "twelve worlds", the exact definition of "world" remains ambiguous. Although the Colonies are defined as independent, habitable celestial bodies, it is not known, whether they only include major planets or other astronomical objects such as moons, minor planets or even asteroids.

http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/The_Twelve_Colonies_%28RDM%29

[FraktuRe]

I think that the 12 colonies are full planets, but there is probably other smaller colonies on moons and such. Troy was one such 'colony'.

[Snagger]

I have never seen anything that suggests three insependent systems - I must ahve missed something.  I had just assumed the 12 colonies were a mixture of  a few planets and several habitable moons orbiting them, just as in Firefly.

[jdjtcagle]

One of the things I have trouble swallowing is that Tamara Adama exists 'at all.'  It's really frustrating and it doesn't make any sense.

[Angreifer]

One of the things I have trouble swallowing is that Tamara Adama exists 'at all.'  It's really frustrating and it doesn't make any sense.

Care to elaborate why?

[jdjtcagle]

One of the things I have trouble swallowing is that Tamara Adama exists 'at all.'  It's really frustrating and it doesn't make any sense.

Care to elaborate why?

How do you get an entire person full of their memories without access to said memories?  It's been a while since I watched the pilot but isn't the whole process consist of looking at glorified dental records?

I also don't understand how a person can exist and be self aware on a private server somewhere but... it's just a show.

[Angreifer]

One of the things I have trouble swallowing is that Tamara Adama exists 'at all.'  It's really frustrating and it doesn't make any sense.

Care to elaborate why?

How do you get an entire person full of their memories without access to said memories?  It's been a while since I watched the pilot but isn't the whole process consist of looking at glorified dental records?

I also don't understand how a person can exist and be self aware on a private server somewhere but... it's just a show.

The way that it's explained I believed is that the AI is basically an algorithm that recreates personality and memories based on the digital "footprint" that a person leaves over the course of their life. It's assumed that on Caprica, technology and digital records are even more prevailent than they are in our lives, so a person leaves a pretty big data trail.

As for how a person can be self aware on a computer server...well, it's not actually that person. It's just a very good copy. It's basically a self aware computer program. And a computer program can certainly operate without a person around...when you leave your computer on, plenty of programs continue to run in the background. So why not an AI?

[jdjtcagle]

Good point I like your explanation, it's not completely satisfying to me but I'll give it another shot.  But then again it still doesn't make sense to me how a teenage girl managed to "crack" the code on artificial intelligence. Her father still can't figure it out and he has a "cognitive processor."