Absence of aliens

[Darth Marley]

Any thoughts on this?

I would like to see a universe with just the humans and Cylons.

It would be poor form,IMO, to have loads of alien cultures turn up in a series spin off from the mini.

[The Rain]

Species/planet of the week would definitely not be good. BUT on rare occasion, if there was a race that could point them to a place "that sounds kinda like Earth" that may not be too bad... maybe. Plot matters. Moore could pull it off.

[Darth Marley]

If there were other alien races in contact with humans (or Cylon) then the military/diplomatic situation would have changed.

The fleet could set course for a civilized alien culture iso earth.

Something must be done about food and supplies though.Will plant life be prevalent through their route?

[BST]

While agree that "species / planet of the week" would not be a good thing, if you have the ships, both Colonial and Cylon travelling through interstellar space and passing by various planetary systems, how can you avoid NOT meeting new "life forms"?

Properly written, it could work very well but, it has to be done in a way that does not look orchestrated. Very interesting storylines could be developed to include other cultures. The problem that RDM might run into by introducing other cultures is, how to define them. You wouldn't want to have them ALL defined as "survivors of previous Cylon attacks". Some yes but, not all. This would invite comparison to ST and "suvivors of previous Borg attacks".

If the show does go to series then, it can be and should be done, IMO, it just won't be easy. :)

BST

[Darth Marley]

You can avoid the issue by fiat claim that the is no sentient life but human and its Cylon creation.

If the humans knew of other sentient forms,they would appeal to them for help rather than go searching for earth.
In TOS of course,the lifeforms were typically not advanced enough to be of help,and I suppose they could follow that thinking.

[sihirvyth2]

It would worry me if they start introducing humanoid aliens. I'm not sure why Moore would want to do what he's already done in his involvement with Star Trek. Plus I don't see how the alien of the week concept really fits in with what Moore said what he was trying to do, to create a gritty drama based on the interaction between the characters.

The core of the original story is the retelling of th Exodus. With the exception of the Ship of Lights and Count Iblis, I'm not sure how aliens really fit into the BSG concept. I think Moore has gotten too far away from what everyone loved in the original already.

[Darth Marley]

I don't think the humanoid aliens made much sense in TOS.

[BST]

Regarding the other humans from TOS, some were from the original 12 colonies, i.e., the folks on the prison planet in The Long Patrol. The folks introduced in The Magnificent Warriors, The Lost Warrior, The Young Lords, and Greetings from Earth, could have been descendants of the 13th tribe.

The humanoid aliens like the Borays, who knows where they came from, unless it was their planet and the humans just moved in.

[Darth Marley]

The humans I understand.
Humanoid ALIENS though,why woundn't the evil Cylons want to destoy them as well?
Ya,I know the Cylons let some cultures live as slaves.

My main contention is: in a universe replete with diverse sentient life contact would be made,and alliances formed that adversly effect storyline.
Just like it was amazing how often in ST (any incarnation) the heroes made first contact.Aren't any others exploring the surrounding space?

Drifting off a bit.

I hope in the miniverse aliens are kept to a min.

[BST]

I hope in the miniverse aliens are kept to a min.

This would probably be for the best otherwise, the primary storyline would be lost or overrun. At the same time, like I mentioned above, if they are travelling through, for them, unexplored parts of the galaxy, they could reasonably "expect" to find other cultures. This will, if kept at a minimum, like you said, be of benefit the show overall. The "us and them" only (with the humans and Cylons) could get a little boring after a while.

[Oscar]

Moore is going for realism. There will be no people with stupid prosthetic facial bumps, and speaking english, pretending to be aliens.
All statements so far indicate that if aliens do ever show up it will only be occassionally.
That's the plan at this stage but no one can predict if the premise of the show will change to something less ambitious and more generic and stupid later on.

[lordpenquin]

A major blow to the "rag tag fleet" was the loss of the botanical cruiser. They could have used that to produce food and oxygen for the entire fleet. It was in TOS fleet, but it did not survive in the remake. This loss of one ship may dynamically effect the entire supply line. But then again, if Moore was responsible for any voyager episodes, this might be neglected. I always thought it was odd that voyager was cut off and isolated from everything, with limited supplies, and yet ever 3rd episode involved the use of the holodeck. The holodeck would have used HUGE amounts of resources and would have been unwise to use once, let alone twice a month or so.

[Westy]

I always wondered what happened to the humanoid cultures that the Galactica encountered after the colonials left. With the Cylons close behind, wouldn't they exterminate those human cultures? None of them were near the colonial's level of technology, so it'd be easy for the Cylons to exterinating them as well. They looked human enough, the Cylons probably considered them all human anyways.

[Oscar]

The 'humanoids' encountered in TOS were all true humans, they were either outposts originating from the Great Colonies or people who'd originated from the 13th tribe. It was suggested that even the ships of lights / Iblis were ultra-advanced humans.

The only genuine aliens I can think of were the Cylons, Borays and Ovions.

[BST]

Originally posted by Oscar
Moore is going for realism. There will be no people with stupid prosthetic facial bumps, and speaking english, pretending to be aliens.

Thank the Lords. We wouldn't want to cast doubt about Earth being the center of the universe. Of course, every "alien" that is encountered, in space travel, will look exactly like us.

All statements so far indicate that if aliens do ever show up it will only be occassionally.

Why bother.

That's the plan at this stage but no one can predict if the premise of the show will change to something less ambitious and more generic and stupid later on.

I wouldn't consider expansion of the storyline to be "less ambitious", "more generic", or "stupid". In fact, it may actually serve to enhance the storyline by introducing alien cultures.

[Darth Marley]

"I wouldn't consider expansion of the storyline to be "less ambitious", "more generic", or "stupid". In fact, it may actually serve to enhance the storyline by introducing alien cultures."

Like Larson's lovable androids Hector and Vector.That really enhacned the storyline of TOS.

[Dennis]

To maintain the series' fairly successful but fragile sense of similitude I'd rather that they never met any aliens that they can communicate with at all.

Any evidence of other intelligence should be treated in somewhat the same way as in "2001: A Space Odyssey" -- something that the Colonials must infer from phenomena they encounter but with which there's no possibility of meaningful communication.

Now, there are at least a few stories one can tell about the discovery of life on other worlds that don't involve the discovery of intelligent aliens.

Suppose that when their supplies are low they happen across a planet with a biosphere including what appear to be consumable carbohydrates? Suppose, given their limited time and ability to do adequate testing on the stuff they have to accept that it might cause serious mid or long-term illness, genetic damage etc? Suppose Adama and Roslin disagree about the risks of distributing it?

[Dogface]

Originally posted by BST
While agree that "species / planet of the week" would not be a good thing, if you have the ships, both Colonial and Cylon travelling through interstellar space and passing by various planetary systems, how can you avoid NOT meeting new "life forms"?

That's easy--if they don't exist to meet in the first place!

:devil:


After all, what evidence do we have that they do or don't exist? Can you point to anything we've seen so far that they must exist at all. For all we know, it's humanity and nothing else.

[Antelope]

I would stick with TOS when it comes to aliens. The only aliens we met were not humans or "humanoid" and we couldn't speak to them without a computer translator. If you believe in the Drake equation on the possibility of extraterrestrial life it is likely only the "first" colonizing space culture would ever exist. Everyone else would be their descendant or primitives. I think TOS did that concept well and now that cylons are a product of man it is even better and more realistic. Since we don't know the path of the 13th colonist we can have an unlimited variety of human cultures on the way without the need for fake noses, ears etc. I would think that they would need to speak a foreign language however.

[dec5]

SG1..has successfully avoided the fake and campy Star Trek look when it comes to Aliens......no plastic bumps on the nose...... SG1 aliens always looked really cool.

[Dennis]

It's not just a matter of the "look" though -- it's the resort to over-used sf tropes that this version of BSG pretty much successfully avoided in favor of a greater sense of reality and identification with the people in the drama. That was successful for the miniseries -- it's one reason so many folks actually noticed and are talking up the show out on the internet and IRL the last week or so -- and I'd like to see them stick to it.

This may wind up as a second miniseries or series of telefilms or something other than a weekly series. From a completely creative POV, I think that would be ideal -- maintaining the writing quality, texture and direction of the property as a series of connected but discrete stories over several years would be more achievable, I think (though it has its commercial downsides).

I'm afraid that to satisfy the core of skiffy fans that will tune into a show week after week these things seem these days to inevitably turn to macaroni-and-cheese stories and melodrama.

[BST]

Originally posted by BST
While I agree that "species / planet of the week" would not be a good thing, if you have the ships, both Colonial and Cylon travelling through interstellar space and passing by various planetary systems, how can you avoid NOT meeting new "life forms"?


Originally posted by Dogface
That's easy--if they don't exist to meet in the first place!

:devil:


After all, what evidence do we have that they do or don't exist? Can you point to anything we've seen so far that they must exist at all. For all we know, it's humanity and nothing else.

What evidence is there to indicate that life does not exist elsewhere in the cosmos? None of us know the answer. Our exploration, via drone spacecraft have just now begun exploring areas beyond the solar system and our "manned" exploration has not gone beyond the moon - approx. 250,000 miles away.

We are hardly in a position to state whether or not life exists elsewhere -- we haven't even left our own backyard.

[Darth Marley]

True,but since it is fiction,it could be stipulated that life is not abundant in the universe.
There is total license in regard to this.

[Hito]

If they were to introduce a non humanoid alien species it should prolly take them a lot of episodes to set it up.