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Old June 9th, 2004, 04:22 PM   #16
Antelope
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The colonies would have to be somewhere inside the Milky Way galaxy. There is I believe a reference in Hand of God that the colonials are leaving their galaxy (I am not sure--DVD friends--Is that correct?). This reference has to be a continuity error are a semantic script mistake. Throughout TOS the only ships that move at "light speed" are the Battlestars. As such it would be impossible for the rag tag fleet to EVER traverse the distances between two galaxies. Without knowing where Earth is it would also be insane to attempt a trans-galactic voyage. Assumming that this is an error therefor the colonies and Earth lay in the same galaxy.

During Battlestar TOS I don't remember them ever making reference to travelling beyond light speed so I will assume for the sake of a hypothesis that at most the Galactica is travelling at the speed of one light year per year. If we assume that the original colonist from Kobol reached Earth in just a couple years and that they are the ancestors of Egyptian civilization (and everything we know about evolution is not true <unless Earth is really also Kobol>) then roughly 7,000 years ago Kobol and Earth were probably only 2 to 3 light years apart. If we assume the colonies were in the opposite direction they were probably about 4 to six light years from Earth. However since stars orbit the galactic center of mass in different orbits and may be moved over time by chance encounters with other stars it is likely the distance between Earth, Kobol, and the 12 colonies have been separating ever since. Since no star is moving faster than light speed and all stars tend to move around the center of the milky way in the same general direction it is likely that the colonies and Earth are separated by at most 1,000 light years. Although this does not seem far on the grand scheme of things it would mean the colonials would need probably 500-1,500 years to reach Earth.

Since we know they received transmissions of the Apollo moon landing and that it could have originated either fairly recently if they are actually close by or up to 1,000 years in the future, Earth technology could be anywhere from our current level up to a 1,000 years advanced from today.

My personal guess is that Kobol, Terra, Earth, and the colonies are in the same local group of stars in the spiral arm of the milky Way Galaxy we reside in. We probably orbit a common center of gravity in our local group and travel at similar speeds about the galaxy. As such the colonials and cylons are probably no more than 50 light years away at most. The Earth during TOS is probably any time from 1975-2025. If they actually headed straight here they would probably make it to Earth anywhere in the 1980-2040 time frame.

Something for TOS actor fans to cheer. No matter how far away the Galactica is, as it's speed approaches light speed, time relative to the Galactica and the warriors slows down. It is possible that the colonials could travel a vast distance like 300-400 light years on a 500 year trip but age to the point that the actors as they appear today would be scientifically conceivable as they age only 35-50 years. You could have the current crew of Galactica finding Earth after a supposed "24 yahren" trip and find the Earth in the year 2244 located 200 light years from the colonies. As long as the colonies can move at .9 light years they could cover a distance of 600 light years but seem to themselves to cover the distance in two generations.

Once you spread this much time and distance between you and the cylons all possibilities become open. A chasing cylon fleet could end up fighting the Earth forces and the colonial remnants 600 years in the future, return to the cylon homeworld to report the status of the conflict only to find out the cylon empire collapsed hundreds of years earlier. The effects of time dilation seem to make interstellar wars beyond about 10 light years logistically impossible to sustain from a homeworld.
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