conuly

Ending was still sappy as hell, all that handshaking going on. Better if the ship had failed to work the first time, or something. *shrugs*

Moving on, I think this episode really proves that Colonial society, before the invasion, was technologically in a state of decline. Maybe they were going through an artistic renaissance or something, but technologically...?

We already know, of course, that their technology is inferior to the way it was when they were colonized. We know this first because Moore has said so, and secondly because of little hints dropped all through the show - the turning of history into religion, Adama's collection of model ships, that sort of thing. But it also seems clear that their technology is declining, or at least not advancing, from where it was only a little while ago.

When we look at the ships, and see that the technology there isn't *all* that advanced, we can explain it by saying "Well, they're older ships, from a time when people "looked to the past for safety", and anyway, military ships do tend to be conservative in many design elements (but not all, as I'll get to) because new technology doesn't always work". And that's true, too - think of how many Star Trek episodes involve people being stuck in rooms and turbolifts because the damn doors don't work, and nobody thought to provide some way to escape a room when the door decided to stop working.

And when we see Caprica, and we see that the city has overhead powerlines, well, we can say "Oh, maybe it's a design choice, everybody loves to look to the past". Underground powerlines are neater, and, I believe, safer, but maybe people just liked the old fashioned look, or it's a very old city that nobody's ever remodeled. Who knows?

But when Tyrol is designing his ship... Remember the comment made at the end? "Hell of an idea, using carbon composites." Everybody was going nuts trying to find metal for the skin, because... no ship didn't use metal? Given that the carbon composites don't show up on the DRADIS, you'd expect *somebody* to have thought of that before. Somebody here means "the military". Even though it's clear that it's steadily being decommissioned and put out of business, you don't expect the military to just overlook a crucial tactical advantage, do you? Or what about terrorist movements like we know exist? Or criminals? Nobody thought of this before? It's not explicitly said, but that's the implication of all the praise and sappiness being heaped on Helo.

And when they just had the frame up, Apollo goes and says "It'll never fly, because the cockpit is too far back". It's not even a big change from the basic viper design, but nobody's thought of building it this way for speed? Or they've thought of it and haven't done it, because that's not how ships are built?

You look at ships in the fleet, they come in a wide variety. Some people even claim to have seen a Firefly :P With such variety, you'd expect that new ship designs would be given more leeway, especially when they're only modifications of existing designs. But think more about the ships we saw. I remember one was *rotating*. Rotating? Like, to create gravity? But Galactica appears to have artificial gravity. So do quite small shuttles. If they have artificial gravity, why do they need to have rotating ships? A Firefly, of course, will last you forever....

I'm wondering if maybe most of those ships were quite old, and if newer design was perhaps very conservative - only a few basic patterns, and not much deviation from that.

When Tyrol suggested building this ship, Apollo said it would never fly. His own deck crew said it would be impossible to build it. Why? Why would we expect that intelligent, competant people who repair Vipers for a living wouldn't be able to build a new one? They had blueprints, even! And originally, nobody knew about building a new type of ship. It just seemed clear that they'd be building another Viper - something they work on so much, they should know like their own minds. Obviously Vipers *do* get built. And the Cylons aren't doing it anymore....

But the attitude instead is that it's just Not Possible. There's no reason for it not to be possible - unless knowledge of this sort of building is becoming less and less common, and more an area for specialists. Don't say "assembly lines used everywhere", please - everything I use was made in an assembly line, but I still believe that individuals can build computers and cars from scratch, or from old computers and cars. I know people who've done it. I don't consider that knowledge incredibly esoteric, even though I don't happen to possess it.

Then there's their computers. We know that research into artificial intelligence was banned, for good reasons. But I'm wondering if other computer-related research was also banned. Linked computers automatically present a threat. Why? That doesn't make much sense. Just linking a set of computers shouldn't make them more prone to viruses unless one of them has a flaw that leaves it open for attack. But instead of realizing that and finding (and fixing) the flaws that made them open for attack, they slowed down their computers by leaving them unlinked...? Or they linked them, and ignored the flaws that they apparently never really fixed. Not much of a prize either way.

I could say that in each case, somebody dropped the ball. However, I think the answer is wider and deeper. In each case, the knowledge which might've eased the problems was simply forgotten. Probably not actually lost, just... forgotten.

Even when it comes to medicine. They still kill cancer the same way we do, by making the body as sick as possible. People have commented that Laura doesn't look sick enough to be almost dead of cancer, that's because the cancer won't make you look that sick until you're almost dead. What makes you feel miserable and causes your hair to fall out is the treatment. Not a very good one, either, but the only one we have at the moment.