Dedroidify: Battlestar Galactica 78: Saga of a Star World

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Battlestar Galactica 78: Saga of a Star World

Humanity lived on twelve colony worlds in a far distant star system. They fought a thousand-year war with the Cylons, warrior robots created by a reptilian race which expired long ago—presumably destroyed by their own creations. Having never been commanded to cease fire, these warrior robots continuously waged war against the colonials. Mankind was defeated in a sneak attack on their homeworlds conceived by these robotic servants, now referred to as Cylons, and carried out with the help of Count Baltar (John Colicos). Protected by the last surviving warship, a "battlestar" called Galactica, the survivors fled in any ship that could fly. The Commander of the Galactica, Adama (Lorne Greene), led this "rag-tag fugitive fleet" of 220 ships in search of a new home on a legendary planet called Earth. The episodes dealt with the fleet's struggle to survive the Cylon threat and to find Earth.
The era in which this exodus took place is never clearly stated in the series itself. The implication of the final aired episode, "The Hand of God", was that the original series took place after the Apollo 11 moon landing in July 1969, almost certainly centuries later, allowing for the time necessary for the propagation at light-speed of television images of the landing to be received by the Galactica. In "Saga of a Star World" the President of the 12 Tribes states "as we approach the seventh millennium of time..." The later Galactica 1980 series is expressly set in 1980.

"There are those who believe that life here began out there. Far across the universe with tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians or the Toltecs or the Mayans. They may have been the architects of the great pyramids, or the lost civilizations of Lemuria, or Atlantis. Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man who even now fight to survive somewhere beyond the heavens." Opening narrative

Illuminated Triangle

The Original Starbuck, A-Team's Face instead of Kara Thrace.

Is this for a Pilot or a Pharaoh?!

Speaking of Pharaohs, the Pyramid ball sport of the new BSG
was a Pyramid card game in the original series.

"A perfect Pyramid."

"How could I've been so completely wrong? I led the entire human race to ruin!"
Last words of President Adar aboard the Battlestar Atlantia, moments before it's destruction. (This earlier screenshot shows him with Baltar, who misled him like a Grima Wormtongue who sells out his own people for power. Except of course, when you deal with evil, evil doesn't stick to the deal. Silly Baltar. Other politicians are not helpful later in the episode either and could have again caused the end of humanity by wanting all pilots at a banquet, but Adama was prepared and replaced them with other men while having the pilots ready.

Peace and the checkered floor pattern.

Obelisk, checkered floor, pyramid buildings, hello.

When Cylons attack...

Instead of Peace, she's just a pea.

Please miss, the building's gonna topple!

Some human harvesting, always nice. You know how the aliens do it? They entertain humans in a casino above to distract them, and an elevator leads unsuspecting users down into a trap.
From the wiki: After initially escaping the Cylons, across a massive star field called the Magniton Nova Field, because of its extremely dangerous, hot environment and Cylon mines the Galactica and its "ragtag fugitive fleet" find brief respite on the resort planet of Carillon, where they hope to find food and fuel for their journey. As much of the fleet's food supplies were contaminated by pluton bombs during the Cylon attack, the fleet is in desperate straits and must find a food source soon or face starvation, and Carillon has plenty.
It quickly becomes apparent that there is more to Carillon than meets the eye. The fact that Carillon has more than enough food and fuel for the fleet's needs makes Adama wary. It is also apparently the largest tylium (fighter fuel) mining facility in that part of the galaxy, but nobody has ever heard of the place. Adama questions where the Ovions are getting their food and what the connection is between the resort on the surface and the underground mining operations. Starbuck is pleased that he is winning so much at the gaming tables, but begins to suspect that something is wrong because the gamblers never lose their money.
Adama grows increasingly suspicious and does some research on the Carillon outpost. He discovers that Baltar was responsible for performing the initial Carillon survey and reported that tylium was too minimal for mining. He immediately smells a Cylon trap.
Indeed, the Ovions, Carillon's indigenous insectoid inhabitants, are in league with the Cylons and the resort on the surface is a trap. The Ovions use humans as food for their young in nesting areas deep underground. Apollo (Richard Hatch, Tom Zarek in the new series) and Starbuck investigate the disappearance of some of their comrades and discover the conspiracy. Starbuck suspects that the Ovions are supplying the Cylons with tylium for their military and suggests to set fire to it with his laser pistol in order to blow the planet apart and deprive the Cylons of a major source of fighter fuel.

With the Twelve Colonies gone, humanity has to move

Colonial movers

We move anywhere

Heavenly Beams

Small difference with the new Battlestar series, in the original the Cylons were not created by man, but by an alien reptilian race. Heh! Those lizzies are everywhere.