Battlestar Galactica is what Voyager should have been

[Kegek]

"Terrorism at large" is an abstraction and a non-existent entity. Terrorism is nothing more than a means of warfare, however objectionable. It has no aims of its own. The terrorism in the Israel-Palestine situation is born directly from the conflict in that area.

The Cylons, and the Japanese, are different: They're a third party to the proceedings with a clear agenda and a significant tactical advantage to the other two parties, making an alliance against this threat a neccessity.

 

[Aragorn]

Malcom said:
I just don't really find the characters in BG compelling at all.

And it was stupid the way they brought back a lead character after killing her off. Kind of like Dallas's Ewing being in the shower all those years.

Yes, if BSG would only take the high road by constantly bringing back everyone who ever died with... time travel.

 

[Anwar]

I don't recall Trek ever bringing back anyone permenantly that they had prior killed off with Time Travel other than Tasha Yar, and even then she was pretty much killed again by the end of the episode.

Anyone else killed and then brought back, was obviously not meant to stay dead and was always meant to come back ("Year of Hell").

Anywho, one thing I've wondered was why everyone on VOY kept complaining that the VOY crew kept encountering the Kazon and they should've left them behind, yet in nuBSG it's okay for them to keep running into the Cylons without anyone wondering why the Galactica can't simply jump beyond the Cylon's tracking capability.

 

[Caprica_Six]

Anwar said:
I don't recall Trek ever bringing back anyone permenantly that they had prior killed off with Time Travel other than Tasha Yar, and even then she was pretty much killed again by the end of the episode.

Anyone else killed and then brought back, was obviously not meant to stay dead and was always meant to come back ("Year of Hell").

Anywho, one thing I've wondered was why everyone on VOY kept complaining that the VOY crew kept encountering the Kazon and they should've left them behind, yet in nuBSG it's okay for them to keep running into the Cylons without anyone wondering why the Galactica can't simply jump beyond the Cylon's tracking capability.

I never had any problem with the Kazon.

But as far as the cylons are concerned they are chasing the fleet so jumping away from them completely isn't really a possibility. The only time they thought that could happen is when they were on New Caprica and they believed the planet was hidden from detection.

 

[Anwar]

The Kazon (Cullah's group at least) was chasing them too, so it doesn't make sense that the VOY audience complained that the Kazon shouldn't have been on VOY's tail for so long, while the BSG audience think it's okay for the Cylons to always be on them.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Because the kazon were significantly less advanced than Voyager. They had slower ships that had to look after huge populations. The nuCylon basestars on the other hand are significantly More advanced that Galactica which is an old ship to begin with before you even consider how much more advanced the Cylon jump technology is that distance is irrelevant.

BSG is serial. Voyager is episodic. Apples and oranges.

Voyager could have been serial if it felt like it but that would have been changing the marketing model for the product, which would be confusing, because each method of story telling is targetting a different demographic. Episodic allows people to miss a week, or miss a season and not worry about being confused of being bogged down allowing for casual viewers to not be turned off because they're lazy. Serial is like crack. You're (*&^ed if you miss one week.

Farscape is better than nuBSG and it runs on the same model as nuBSG and it was made around the same time as Voyager, but that doesn't really matter.

 

[Anwar]

Farscape was made about 4-5 years after VOY began, actually.

I'd say LEXX is closer to when VOY debuted.

 

[Aragorn]

Anwar said:
I don't recall Trek ever bringing back anyone permenantly that they had prior killed off with Time Travel other than Tasha Yar, and even then she was pretty much killed again by the end of the episode.

Anyone else killed and then brought back, was obviously not meant to stay dead and was always meant to come back ("Year of Hell").

Starbuck was never meant to stay dead in BSG, so I'm not sure how you're defending Malcom's analogy that missed the mark by a continent.

Episodes like Year of Hell, on the other hand, are just copouts.

 

[14thDoctor]

Clym said:
a desperate crew overcoming huge obstacles while heading for Earth.

Voyager simply pales in comparison with new BSG. Ron Moore pissed all over Voyager with DS9, and he's doing it again...

pathetic!

Indeed, it is pathetic when the only comment some of us have is "show A sucks, show B is awesome!"

Voyager is not BSG. DS9 is not Babylon 5. Enterprise is not Lost. Heroes is not Jericho. Coke is not Pepsi. Thigns are what things are. Whining about how you prefer other things is pointless. If you enjoy something, enjoy it.

I see no need for you to dump on others to validate what you enjoy.

 

[Akiraprise]

Voyager - An advanced fully crewed Federation starship hunting renegade terrorists is thrown far from home and must work together with their Maquis prey or else perish. They know where they are and set a course for Earth. The crews put aside their differences as it doesn't make much sense to fight amongst one another when everyone's goal is the same, to get home. After an arduous journey they make it home.

BSG - An old run down battleship set to be decommissioned ends up being the defenders of a fleet full of the last humans in the galaxy, after their Cylon enemies commit genocide destroying the 12 colonies of man. The Cylons then proceed to attack and harass the fleet on occasion. Earth is a mythical planet and when BSG started nobody had a clue where it was or if it existed. Galactica's fleet fights amongst themselves even though this makes no logical sense as everyone should be working together to survive.


Supply problems plague BSG as their tech tree is not as sophisticated as Voyager's. On a Federation starship the majority of supplies are recycled and able to be made into other items through the magic of replicators. Fuel is entirely different between the shows. BSG requires refined Tylium ore which is like gasoline. This cannot be made on Galactica so they magically have a refinery ship in the fleet. BSG does not have replicators so they require food stuffs, they just happen to have a ship in the fleet devoted to growing plants etc. Voyager's energy is primarily created in the warp core using a controlled matter/antimatter explosion. This energy powers the replicators, hence they don't have nearly as many supply issues as on BSG. I never understood why the writers insisted in the beginning of Voyager on the replicator rations etc, and I was glad when they dropped it later on in the series. . Kind of absurd if you stop and think just a little bit about how the tech in Star Trek works. Also, remember on Star Trek their ships are designed to function for an extended period of time away from space dock.

These two shows are entirely different if you ask me. Can't really compare them to one another, and I like them both.

 

[Malcom]

14thDoctor said:
I see no need for you to dump on others to validate what you enjoy.

Exactly. Gee whiz! If I don't like a show, I understand that that is my opinion. I don't feel compelled to say that "X show is crap." I'm willing to admit that I just because I don't like it, doesn't mean it's crap [Bach, Tolstoy] and just because I like it doesn't mean it's great.

 

[exodus]

Caprica_Six said:

Anwar said:
I don't recall Trek ever bringing back anyone permenantly that they had prior killed off with Time Travel other than Tasha Yar, and even then she was pretty much killed again by the end of the episode.

Anyone else killed and then brought back, was obviously not meant to stay dead and was always meant to come back ("Year of Hell").

Anywho, one thing I've wondered was why everyone on VOY kept complaining that the VOY crew kept encountering the Kazon and they should've left them behind, yet in nuBSG it's okay for them to keep running into the Cylons without anyone wondering why the Galactica can't simply jump beyond the Cylon's tracking capability.

I never had any problem with the Kazon.

But as far as the cylons are concerned they are chasing the fleet so jumping away from them completely isn't really a possibility. The only time they thought that could happen is when they were on New Caprica and they believed the planet was hidden from detection.

Space goes on forever in every direction, it's that vast. It makes no sence to keep running into the same people over and over again every season, unless they traveling in a circle. Even the Borg don't cover that much space.

 

[nickyboy]

I agree, voyager promised so much but delivered so little

 

[LightningStorm]

exodus said:
Space goes on forever in every direction, it's that vast. It makes no sence to keep running into the same people over and over again every season, unless they traveling in a circle. Even the Borg don't cover that much space.

Unfortunately this argument isn't quite that simple. The reason is because neither the Battlestar Galactica, nor the USS Voyager are actually traveling around then entirety of the infinite Universe. Similarly they were both heading in a specific direction, and being chased by intelligent life.

Let's bring this down to a more understandable scale.

First a quick story (it'll be relevant later in my argument)... A friend of mine who lives in a suburb of my city (about 10 miles south of downtown) saw a Kia Spectra with a big ass grill-guard on it, thought "WTF" and took a picture of it showed it to me and we laughed about it. A week and a half later I saw the exact same car on my way home from work in North Kansas City (about 5 miles north of downtown). My point with this story? I live in a city that it should be rather unlikely that I'd run into the same perfect stranger, but I did on pure random chance. Now, if I was actively looking for and following that guy, I guarantee you I could do so no matter where he went, even if he left the city for say New York. Now, let's say he went clear over to London, that'd be harder to track, but I could still do it, because I'm actively tracking him.

The reason the argument doesn't hold (still using the small case) would be if I were following him then completely lost him over a time frame that would allow him to travel only a specific distance, but (like the Kazon or Cylons) I know where he's headed. I'd have a much harder time finding him, but I wouldn't need to wonder where in the entire world he was, because he couldn't have left a certain area (air planes and such not withstanding -- since Voyager and BSG have only one means of traveling through space and definitely couldn't have made it 100000000 billion light years away). Even if he was actively trying to lose me and not heading to a specific location, I'd still have a small area that is smaller than the whole planet to search to find him.

So back to the huge example of the universe.

The Kazon knew where Voyager was headed, knew about how far they could have traveled given the time and tech they had, so determining approximately where they are wouldn't be 1 in infinity, it'd be more like 1 in 10 or 20 (random number, but you get the point). And same all goes for the Cylons and their chase.

Now, don't get me wrong, there are other problems with the Kazon being able to keep up with Voyager, but the "infinite universe" problem isn't one of them.

 

[Blueicus]

Well, considering that Voyager probably wasn't travelling at maximum warp (if they were going at even warp 9 non-stop they probably would've gone back in about 30 years, according to the TNG tech manual... assuming its numbers are canon-enough, and partially confirmed by 'canon' values.) chances are the Kazon had plenty of time to catch up with Voyager. Also, Voyager probably wasn't laying a direct course to Earth and was making various stops (even 'backwards') to pick up various supplies and trade with various cultures after getting damaged by an anomaly or a particularly bad run of relations with various species.