My Big, Bad Battlestar Galactica Post, part 2
[part 1]
How Did Baltar Survive Getting Nuked?
Easy. He ducked and covered.
Bert the Turtle wasn’t lying. Why else do you suppose that all that nuclear war literature in the fifties told people to lie down and cover their head?
Forget about the science fiction you’ve seen. Nukes are nothing more than big, firey bombs. They blow stuff apart, set things on fire, and the radiation makes people die after a few days (something which the Colonials have a treatment for). It is scary, but not unsurvivable.
When a nuke hits, the electromagnetic burst travels away from the epicenter much faster than the compression wave does (kind of like lightning). We know that Baltar’s house is some distance from ground zero as the EM flash precedes the compression wave by many seconds. Six has more than enough time to explain her resurrection before the edge of the compression wave hits.
At this range, having your body crushed or getting set on fire is less of a concern than getting hit by debris picked up by the (now declining in power) compression wave. Sure, a planetary-scale nuke is going to crush your body and set it on fire at ground zero, but ground zero around even a 50MT warhead is less than 100 kilometres wide. But with blast overpressure decreasing in power in accordance with the inverse square law, one can be fairly certain that a nuke won’t flay the flesh from your bones if you are far enough away to actually notice the flash. Baltar survived the blast by simply not being in the way of all the of the flying glass. Six didn’t.
I think maybe the special effects guys in the miniseries got a little too enthusiastic with their special effects, and maybe it’s because they figured that they had a lot of audience expectation to live up to. Likewise, I think the makeup folks weren’t enthusiastic enough. One would have expected Baltar to have serious lacerations on his hands and arms from the shattering glass (assuming he lied down and covered his head). But could he have survived the nuclear blast at that apparent range? Of course.
Caprica City Seems To Be In Pretty Good Shape After Getting Nuked
Compared to Baltar’s house, Caprica City seems to have faired well. A little bit rough around the edges, but most of the buildings are standing.
I’m working with the assumption that a planetary-scale nuke is in the 50MT range, kind of like the Tsar Bomba. Blast overpressure from such a weapon would destroy most buildings around it for maybe 30km, and cause fires for another 30km beyond. One would expect the cities on Caprica to be reduced to rubble.
But as we discover in Downloaded, the Cylons intend to resettle Caprica. So to reduce the amount of surface damage, my thinking is that they used very high altitude enhanced radiation weapons (eg. neutron bombs). You detonate these at very high altitudes, over flat terrain or bodies of water. Much of the compression energy of the weapon is lost, but lethal doses of radiation are spread over a much larger area. You pepper the planet with a bunch of these and wait. Most of the people will eventually die, yet many of the structures will remain relatively intact. If you want to move in, all you would have to do is clean up the bodies and sweep up the litter.
This contradicts what happened to Baltar’s house somewhat, but again, I think the special effects folks were overly enthusiastic with that scene.
Next post: there is more to Cylon society than meets the eye.
[...] Of course, the main puzzle on every geek’s mind is who will turn out to be the final 12th cylon model. My friend Jen Segrest IM’d me the other night to get my thoughts on the matter, which I was all too happy to volunteer. After about a 20 minute debate on the topic, we decided to make a geeky bet about our predictions. She picked Roslin (and you can make your choice in the online poll I created), but for me, there can only be one choice. Over the last four years I’ve wavered on who was and who wasn’t a Cylon, but one name keeps coming back to me – Gaius Baltar. I know you’re thinking that he’s too obvious a choice to be the 12th Cylon, but deep down it makes perfect sense, and here’s why: • That pesky nuclear explosion – Waaay back at the start of the Galactica mini-series, Gaius Baltar somehow managed to survive an almost ground-zero nuclear blast that not only destroyed his home, but also killed the very first Six. The scene is in the opening credits of every episode and the series has never successfully explained how Gaius managed to come through this devastation with only a single scratch on his forehead. • Religious symbolism – More than any other character, Baltar has wrestled with the existence of “God” in the BSG universe. At times he’s thought he was God’s instrument, at other times he’s abandoned God. Moore and the show’s directors love to depict him in religious poses even going so far as to make his appearance look like that of Jesus himself. It would be fitting if Baltar turned out to be the so-called “god” of the Cylons. • The Razor Prophecy – Consider the words of the First Hybrid from the extended DVD version of Razor: “Soon there will be four glorious new awakenings, struggling with the knowledge of their true selves, the pain of revelation bringing new clarity. And in the midst of confusion they will find that enemies are brought together by an awesome sense of belonging. Enemies now joined as one. The way forward, the once unthinkable, yet inevitable. And the fifth is still is in shadow, drawn toward the light, hungering for redemption, that will only come in the howl of terrible suffering. I can see them all – the seven, now six, self-described machines who believe themselves are of no sin, but in time it is sin that will consume them. They will know enmity, bitterness, the wrenching agony of the one splintering into many. And then they will join the promised land, gathered on the wings of an angel. Not an end, but a beginning.” Hat tip to Brad Templeton for this. • He fills “the big shoes” – Some fans have speculated that the final model will be Dualla or Gaeta, or even Doc Cottle, but none of these characters have what it takes to make the final reveal dramatic enough for Ron Moore. No, the only characters that would fullfill those requirements are Adama, Roslin, Baltar and possibly either Starbuck or Cain. At this point I don’t see it being Starbuck because we’ve already been there and done that. Moore also loves the Roslin character too much to make her a Cylon, and if Adama was a Cylon, then his children would be too and we’d have more than 12 models. We’re left with either Baltar or Cain. There are aspects to Cain’s character that makes her a good choice, but Baltar, IMHO trumps her dramatically. [...]
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