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Originally Posted by Kester Pelagius
What I meant was you've created a scene just for the sake of putting these character into it. As such, IMO, it feels somewhat forced.
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Actually, the intent was to clear up a plot contrivance that gets created later on in "Murder On The Rising Star." We find out in that episode that Charybdis sabotaged things, and that Ortega knew him, but there was never any explanation of how they knew each other. I felt it was essential to take care of that detail during the story where those events take place, since one thing I do in subsequent episodes leading into MOTRS is to keep Ortega as a background figure (and setting the stage for his animosity with Starbuck). At the same time, Charybdis had to have a substantive role in this story IMO, because it required having scenes with Baltar that not only further explained the nature of their plotting together but also to establish their relationship and why ultimately at the climax of MOTRS, Baltar decides not to trust Charybdis and instead saves Apollo's life.
In general though, I think your point about keeping certain foreshadowings to a minimum of exposition is valid, depending on the storyline being foreshadowed. Later on, I just as a throwaway introduce Chameleon (Starbuck's father) by having his name among those getting logged in among the survivors, but with no extra scene explaining right here who he is, and likewise Starbuck's ex-girlfriend Aurora of "Take The Celestra." But because Ortega-Charybdis deals also with a bigger issue that should have been asked in Saga in the first place, such as why were the defense scanners for the Colonies not operating at the time of the attack, I felt it required the extra expansion.
"Perfectly reasonable, but what I was thinking was the idea of, rather than killing her off, maybe going with the idea that she was able to gather a group of survivors together, patch up some old cruiser or something, and. . . ??"
Well, that's the kind of storyline that I think would be better suited to a completely original fanfic story set after the original series episodes (like in a proposed season 2) and that when one does Saga, they should at least keep the door open for that kind of story to possibly happen. So long as you don't have Adama see her dead body or write a scene of her dying on Caprica, the door will always remain open to anyone who wants to run with that intriguing idea.
"On Baltar... are you sure his colonial origins were never explained? It's odd, now that I think about it, but aside from the episode where he appeared with a medallion like Adama wore and revealed himself to have been a member of the Quorum of Twelve there really wasn't a lot of info on Baltar was there?"
The original novelization established his occupation as that of a merchant/trader, which I did retain, and there seems to be a general consensus on that. He certainly didn't seem to have any military background of note, and I think the giveaway there is that he is wearing Council robes and not a military dress uniform as Adama does even at a Council meeting. As for the particular planet he came from, that indeed was never mentioned anywhere, not even in the novelizations.
"Keep up the good work!"
Thank you!
And I do appreciate all of your comments, including the criticisms which have been raised fairly. In doing that, it touches again on how in this forum all of us can express our ideas on how we'd reimagine these episodes and see a lot of interesting variations emerge.
