So what does this say for our place in the cosmos? Large-scale TV broadcasting really started on Earth in the 1950s. There’s now a bubble around Earth, nearly sixty light-years in radius, containing the carrier signals of all our TV shows from Kukla, Fran and Ollie to the Battlestar Galactica finale. With European television in the process of going all-digital, and with Asia still working out the details to go all-digital sometime in the 2020s, it’s possible that by, say, 2050 Earth will cease to spew any analog broadcast TV into the cosmos.
So maybe Bostrom’s filter is a cognitive one, based on the switch from analog to digital. Maybe there are advanced civilizations hiding on the other side of the digital filter, waiting for us to stop our 100 years of analog yammering. They could be looking for that special lack of a signal that tells them we’re worth talking to.
AFTERWORD
By now you’ve probably already concluded that science did play an important role for Ron Moore and the writers of Battlestar Galactica. Unlike so many other science fiction movies and programs, BSG used science not as a veneer, but as a key thematic component for driving many of the character stories—whether it was Chief Tyrol surviving the death-defying journey out the airlock, or the way craft were shown maneuvering through space, the writers artfully used physics to anchor and accentuate the dramatic possibilities and create a realistic context for the show. BSG didn’t shy away from science and take the lazy man’s way out, but, rather, used it to build context and to heighten and emphasize the dramatic themes, which is the art of science fiction in my opinion.
Richard Hatch as Tom Zarek.
We now live in a world of fusion where the past, present, and future can all blend together, creating even more exciting and powerfully moving dramatic options, and BSG certainly is at the forefront of building a bridge between contemporary drama and the unpredictable world of future possibilities in science fiction. Although the science and physics of the future can be fascinating to many of us and a vitally important aspect to any well-written science fiction program, those of us who have loved the genre for decades will tell you that the best has always been about exploring both theoretical technical and scientific possibilities and the mysteries of the human heart—as any good character-driven drama does.
With courage, healthy audacity and, thank gods, the support of the Syfy Channel, BSG was successfully able to blend and integrate the very best of science fiction with more conventional themes; moving from the black-and-white dramatic scenarios of the past to the more honest, ambiguous, and morally conflicted themes to which we, in this more illuminated world of today, can relate. Battlestar reminded us not only of our deepest flaws and fallibilities, but of our humanity as well. It is rare when a science fiction series not only can entertain, but inspire, expand our viewpoint of the world, and be socially and politically relevant to the times in which we live. The series not only mirrored much of what has been going on in the world over the past several years, but amplified and focused penetrating insight into how we human beings deal with catastrophic life-and-death events.
The show portrayed complex and yet simple human beings dealing with the sociological, political, and physiological challenges of surviving catastrophic change, which we in this world of today are also facing. When familiar dramatic themes are seen in the light of future possibilities, new windows of perception are opened up. Given that the historical topography of the series was only one step removed from our present-day reality, the writers were able to delve into the show’s much darker apocalyptic scenarios with a great deal more honesty and integrity and with less fear of alienating their audience than they would were the show in a modern-day setting. The show found a populist appeal and fans who had never watched, or been interested in, such a “geeky” genre were converted and assimilated in droves as Battlestar moved at an ever-accelerating pace to its final chapter and closure.
As for me, I will never see BSG as having ended or in its final resting place, only suspended for a short while until the Powers That Be recognize how many fans across genres love and support this amazing story. Battlestar has not only managed to redefine science fiction in the eyes of viewers and critics alike, but pushed the limit of dramatic possibilities. May Battlestar Galactica live forever in our hearts and in our imagination!
So Say We All!!
Richard Hatch
NOTES
Introduction: Moore’s Law
1 From the lyrics of “Mystery Science Theater 3000 Love Theme” by Joel Hodgson and J. Elvis Weinstein, used by permission.
1. Are You Alive?
1 One interesting side note: As we examine more and more primitive life forms and the more primitive areas of current genomes, we find that older organisms and older genes rely on those amino acids that can be most easily created in Miller-Urey-type experiments. This hints, but does not prove, that the genetic code for early organisms was biased toward a smaller number of amino acids—the amino acids that can be found in a world like Stanley Miller’s ocean flask.
5. How Can Cylons Download Their Memories?
1 Issue 16.07: Infoporn: Tap into the 12-Million-Teraflop Handheld Megacomputer: http://www.wired.com/special_multimedia/2008/st_infoporn_1607.
9. Energy Matters
1 Called BIPM (the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures) by the French.
11. Special Relativity
1 Einstein, Albert. “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies.” Annalen der Physik 17: 891-921 (1905). In the original German, if you’re feeling ambitious. English translations are readily available online, at http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www/, for example. The math isn’t too difficult, if you’re up on your algebra.
12. General Relativity and Real Gravity
1 In SI units, the value is 6.674 × 10—11 m3/kgs2.
14. The Effects of Nuclear Weapons
1 Some elements of this list come from the Web page “Types of Nuclear Weapons,” http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq1.html, by Carey Sublette.
15. Our Galaxy
1 There is another, larger, catalogue used by astronomers called the New General Catalogue (NGC). The Andromeda Galaxy, M31, is also known as NGC 224. The Colonials obviously have something similar. In the episode “A Measure of Salvation” Lee refers to the “New Colonial Database.”
2 Some recent estimates range as high as a trillion.
16. A Star Is Born
1 The actual formula is L/Ls = (M/Ms)3.5, in which L and M are the luminosity and mass of a star, and Ls and Ms are the luminosity and mass of our Sun. The great thing about this formula is that you don’t need to know the actual values of the mass of the Sun or the other star. Simply state that the mass and luminosity of the Sun are both equal to 1, and the mass or luminosity of the other star is equal to some multiple of solar values: 10 times the Sun, 1/5 the Sun, etc.
18. Black Holes
1 These quotes and other great observations about black holes can be found in “Monster of the Milky Way,” an episode of the PBS series NOVA.
20. Water
1 We would find life claustrophobically limited if all of our chemical processes only took place when the ambient temperature was between 65 and 73 degrees Fahrenheit.
2 Most likely on the tyllium mining ships.
CREDITS
All photographs © NBC Universal Photo with the exception of those listed below:
Page 47, bottom: Image courtesy of CERN
Pages 109, 143, 240, 242: Image courtesy of NASA/JPL/Caltech
Page 110: Figure courtesy of NASA
Page 146: Image courtesy of NASA/StSci
Page 295, bottom: Peggy Sue Davis
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Patrick Di Justo
When not writing about Battlestar Galactica, Patrick Di Justo is a contributing editor for Wired magazine and has written for Popular Science, Scientific American, New York magazine, and New York Times Circuits. He has been an astrophysics lecturer at New York’s Hayden Planetarium, a
robot programmer for the Federal Reserve Bank, the Son of Sam’s paper boy, and a standup comedian. He designed and built experiments that flew on Space Shuttle Flight STS-107.
Pretending to represent Gemenon at the United Nations panel on Battlestar Galactica.
Dr. Kevin R. Grazier
Dr. Kevin Grazier served as the Science Advisor for all four seasons of Battlestar Galactica and is currently in that role on the SyFy Channel series Eureka and the NBC animated series The Zula Patrol. He has also consulted on numerous other books, movies, and television series, including several currently in various stages of production.
Dr. Grazier is a Research Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, currently working on both the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and Titan and the Constellation program. At JPL he has written mission planning and analysis software that won both JPL- and NASA-wide awards. He worked previously at the RAND Corporation, processing data from the Viking missions in support of the Mars Observer mission.
On the CIC set in Vancouver, Canada.
He has BS degrees in computer science and geology from Purdue University and another in physics from Oakland University. His doctoral research was in planetary physics at UCLA, where he performed long-term large-scale computer simulations of early solar system evolution dynamics, and chaos—research that he continues to this day. In what passes for his spare time, Dr. Grazier teaches at both UCLA and Santa Monica College—classes in basic astronomy, planetary science, cosmology, the science of science fiction, and the search for extraterrestrial life.
Dr. Grazier was the recipient of Oakland University’s 2009 Odyssey Award for the alumnus whose life exemplifies Oakland University’s motto: “Seek virtue and knowledge.”
INDEX
Note: Page numbers in italics refer to photos and illustrations.
accretion disk
acetylcholine
actuators
Adama, Admiral William
astronomy and
defining life and
genetic research and
memory and
pharmacopeia and
physics and
“silica pathways” and
technology and
Adama, Lee “Apollo,”
Colonials as humans and
genetic research and
physics and
technology and
adenine (A)
adenosine
adenosine triphosphate (ATP)
Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile (AARGM)
AF (After the Fall), defined
Agathon, Hera
Mitochondrial Eve and
pharmacopeia and
Agathon, Karl “Helo,”
Cylons as men vs. machines
physics and
“silica pathways” and
technology and
Agathon, Sharon “Athena,”
physics and
technology and
agents
air, radiation and
airborne transmission, of disease
Alcubierre, Miguel
algae
Algae Planet
alleles
Alpha Centauri A
Alpha Centauri B
alpha rays
Altair (Forbidden Planet)
aluminosilicate minera
amino acids
ammonia (NH3)
ammonium cyanide
ammonium perchlorate composite propellant (APCP)
amnesia
amphetamines
analog transmission
Anders, Ensign Samuel
astronomy and
Cylons as men vs. machines
physics and
“silica pathways” and
technology and
Andromeda (M31)
Angel Baltar
Angel Six
antennae
antibodies
antidepressants
antigen patterns
anti-radiation medication
ants, intelligence and
apes, intelligence and
Arabs, rocket history and
arcjet rocket engines
Aries
artificial gravity
artificial intelligence
Astral Queen
Astronomical Units (AU)
astronomy
black holes
colored gas of nebulae
Milky Way Galaxy
planets
stars
water and
atmosphere
moons and
“one atmosphere” rule
atoms
Baah Pakal
back door schemes
Baltar, Dr. Gaius
Cylon detector of
Cylons as men vs. machines
humanity and
intelligence and
memory and
pharmacopeia and
technology and
barrage jamming
barriers
Battlestar Galactica
humanity and
as science fiction show with/without science
technology and
See also Battlestar Galactica (miniseries); Battlestar Galactica (1978 television series); Caprica (television series); individual names of battlestars; individual names of characters; individual names of civilizations; individual names of episodes
Battlestar Galactica (miniseries)
Cylon infiltration of Colonial computer infrastructure
electronic warfare and
memory and
physics and
rocket technology and
Battlestar Galactica (1978 television series)
on “galaxy,” “star systems,” and “universe,”
Special Theory of Relativity and
technology and
battlestars
directed energy weapons and
launching vipers from(See also vipers)
raptors and(See also raptors)
See also individual names of battlestars
bees, intelligence and
Being
Belarus
“bends,”
beryllium
beta rays
BF (Before the Fall), defined
Biers, D’Anna
Cylons as men vs. machines
nuclear weapons and
binary star systems
BioBricks
bittamucin
Blackbird
black dwarfs
Blade Runner (film)
blast damage, from nuclear weapons
bloodstopper
blood types
blue stars
Bohr, Neils
Bohr Model of atom
Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC)
Bostrom, Nick
brain
memory and data transfer
mind and
morphine and
sentience and
brane cosmology
Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program (NASA)
breeding, Cylons and
bubble chambers
Bulk
caffeine
Cain, Admiral Helena
Cylons as men vs. machines
physics and
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
Calley, Specialist
Callisto, water and
Cameron, A. G. W.
Canis Major
“capitalistic growth,”
Caprica City
Caprica (planet)
nuclear weapons and
pharmacopeia and
planets and
technology and
Caprica Six
Caprica (television series)
“Captain’s Hand, The” (Battlestar Galactica)
carbon dioxide (CO2)
carbon monoxide (CO)
Cartesian coordinate system
Cassini
Catalogue des Nébuleus
es et de Amas d’étoiles (Messier)
cats, intelligence and
CAT scans
Cavil, Brother John
Cylons as men vs. machines
memory and
physics and
celeritas (c), defined
Celestial Sphere
Centaurus
Centers for Disease Control
centrifugal force
centripetal force
Centurions
Ceres, water and
chaff
charge-to-mass ratio
Chernobyl nuclear reactor
chimpanzees, intelligence and
China, rocket history and
CIA
Cinescape
circumstellar disk
Cloud Nine
clouds
cobalt-60
cocaine
cognition. See also brain
Cohen, Sam
Cold War
collective intelligence
Colonial One
Colonials
brains of
Cylons as men vs. machines
defined
defining life and
genetic research and
as humans
memory and
physical makeup of Cylons vs.
physics and water
sacred scrolls of
technology and
color, of nebulae
comets
Comet Halley
of Kobol
water and
Command Navigation Program (CNP)
Command of the Air, The (Douhet)
communications intelligence (COMINT)
compiling
computer viruses
back door schemes and
compiling and
The Science of Battlestar Galactica Page 25
