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Galactica FTL drive


tar1901
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I star trek we have the warp drive as the main ftl propulsion. This warps space around the ship.

 

Then we have hyperspace in stargate, babylon 5.

 

In Battlestar Galactica the ftl moves( jumps) a ship from one point to another. Is that somekind of teletrasport tech?

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Thank the Lord they don't even bother trying to explain. We don't want another Star Trek on our hands:

 

"Re-route the warp plasma through the main deflector, via the EPS manifold"

"Engage the anti-graviton generator and re-route the anyone who can write a good story to their graves, we don't need them, we've got TREKNOBABBLE!"

 

They go from one place to another, it's useful, that's all we need know.

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Yeah, it's probably some kind of magnet thingy but like Steveo says, why bother explaining it?

 

Trek spent a lot of its time trying to be technical and all it amounted to was people spewing forth words that meant NOTHING. You can tell in TNG that Patrick Stewart LOATHED it and I can't blame him.

 

In BSG, the FTL is either working or it isn't and no one ever fixes things by talking a lot and then pushing three buttons. It means that there's more time for actual drama and such.

 

Hence the actual method of FTL is unimportant - to the point of irrelevance.

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I think the instantaneousness of it might be a useful way to not need to have to be another show to nick the term 'inertial dampeners,' to explain why they don't end up as stains on the wall. They did do some reverse zoom technique in the miniseries to suggest that there is some kind of buildup, but this aspect seems to have been dropped, if it is seen that they actually spend zero time travelling at any FTL velocity, there is no need for further tech.

 

Gravity is another matter, there is at least one ship in the fleet that spins, like in B5, to create gravity, I think I read somewhere that it is supposed to be that older ships required this and newer ones do not.

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Actually, if they're using their thrusters when they come out of FTL, that might imply they're being VERY realistic. as if you jump a substantial distance the relative velocity of the galaxy will be different. Or something. Peter F. Hamilton mentions it as being an issue in any big voyager, as the galaxy does whiz around at a fair old speed.

 

And yes, I remember reading that the spinning ship is older. I mean, gravity plating was pretty much the first (and most robust) piece of technology humans developed in Star Trek ;)

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Constant weightlessness or a steady interchange between gravity and weightlessness would be annoying and tedious anyways.

 

The FTL drives in BSG work through the use of folded space by making a connection of sorts between two points (a wormhole or Einstein-Rosen Bridge). So they aren't actually traveling faster than light, they are just traveling an incredibly shortened distance compared to the actual distance they would have to travel using conventional propulsion alone.

 

The laws of physics are safe and unviolated by technobabble.

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  • 1 month later...

Technobable just slows the episode I think - and just makes them look smug.

 

Lookie I know big words - arn't I clever.

 

Thats one of the reasons why I like the part in Serenity with all the Reavers coming out the cloud. No one says

"Sir sensors are detecting a massive subspace anomly heading in our direction, I cant seem to localise the disruption, but its huge, nearly 2 pa##ecs in diameter" (Obviously a pa##ec is huge - just used for an example).

 

Whereas what does the Alliance Operative do - he looks out the window, soils his pants and orders everything to start shooting. What makes for a better scene.

 

Thats what is nice about Battlestar - its more realistic because you dont care how or in what method that its being detected, merely that its there and that you need to react to it. Otherwise your dead before you have the time to say all the bull c##p  :D (unless its related to the plot - in which case they sometimes bend that rule - but not to the same extent as Trek, or SG1 with Samantha Carter).

 

 

(for some reason it won't allow Par-sec even though its a unit of Measurement - lol)

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  • 2 weeks later...

if the ship isnt going faster than light why call it an FTL drive? it could be some sort of teleportation tho, when the human raider ships take New Caprica one of the raiders FTL's 'inside the mountain' this would imply to me some kind of teleportation principal at work.

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They could have called it anything but then it would not have been "special" and indendent. I also agree lets not waste prescious show time figuring out how a piece of technolgy works. Lets just call it voodoo and watch the backs of the other cylons that they refuse to show us. They are quite shiny  ;D.

 

- Zebin

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The FTL drives in BSG work through the use of folded space by making a connection of sorts between two points (a wormhole or Einstein-Rosen Bridge).  So they aren't actually traveling faster than light, they are just traveling an incredibly shortened distance compared to the actual distance they would have to travel using conventional propulsion alone.

 

The laws of physics are safe and unviolated by technobabble.

 

"Travelling without Moving"........(I just got hold of the extended version of DUNE (the 1984 version) )

 

Perhaps there's a navigator on board ;)

 

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folding space is all well and good until you consider the effects of such distortions of the time space continuum have, the ripples caused by such an event would destroy galaxies  :o if the people of BSG have such a devastating weapon at their hands then why do they use nuclear weapons as the big deterrant surely threatening to ripple the space time continuum would be more effective!

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Lets all remember that this is ALL theoretical. I mean in all honesty we dont even know if the space time continuum exists. Hell we can make a warp core in a week if we just had anti-matter, or even knew what it was! All we know for sure is that we can make good guesses.

 

- Zebin

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