kalvasflam

That was SEED Destiny. Everything went according to plan. Hail Chairman Lacus. 377778[/snapback] One modest alteration, barely noticeable. Iron fist in a soft velvet glove.

"but Mr. Frodo, sum times things just happen cause they happen... ain't nothin the good folks can do about it." So says the shrieking hobbit.

Oh well, I guess that means this is it for GS. Too bad, it had promise too. 3x15 minute OVAs... I wonder why they even bothered and didn't just send that thing off to the Gundam Evolve series.... it would've been better that way.

No offense, but somewhere I read that you were 18. I guess it's a part of the maturing process that you'd be able to take criticisms on rather stupid ideas and then recognize that in fact those are stupid ideas. Or better yet, see that some people are trying to give you some reasonable opinions on why the idea doesn't work at all... just off the top of my head, there were a few like on this thread: - not aerodynamically feasible - not in the interest of Japan as a country - not financially judicious Again, all these are reasons that the average 18 year old don't tend to grasp. Heck, there are 40 year olds out there who still think all their real life problems will magically vanish if they just wished hard enough. It's not wrong... per se... it's just that their beliefs tend not to coincide with reality. On the other hand, may be we're all wrong, and may be Japan should be building a fighter based on anime design. Hey, you're young, feel free to prove everyone who disagreed with you wrong. Show that it makes sense economically, politically, militarily, and of course in engineering terms too. You know, it's just like that Apple commercial a few years ago: "THINK DIFFERENT" and may be you'll succeed like Steve Jobs.

Oh I remember those... Breast missiles... woot.... And there was an endless supply of those too.

Well, there isn't a good reason why the F-15J couldn't be more capable than the American variant. In fact, there is no reason at all why Japanese heavy industries could manufacture a state of the art fighter that more than rivals the Americans. Take WWII for example, when they started WWII, the IJN had the best carrier borne fighter around. The Zero could fly circles around the Wildcats, and laughed at anything the British had at the time. It did have serious deficiencies still, for example, it was a flying death trap that couldn't take a hit, didn't have much of a punch either. But all things aside, until the Hellcats and the Corsairs came along, the Zeros pretty much dominated the air in the Pacific. The only reason is that Japan has chosen (very intelligently I might add) not to piss off the rest of Asia again. Why bother building up a gigantic military when you have the world's largest military allied with you and protecting you by having some bases on your soil. Besides, there was this little thing called WWII where Japan ran rampant and made enemies out of just about every Asian country at the time. No Asian country (especially China) would tolerate the Japanese arming themselves again to that extent. Finally, I'm betting Japanese weapons engineers aren't paid nearly as well as PS3 engineers. So, guess where the best engineers are going to.

Sad, I wished JMS could've gotten a couple more stand alones from B5 verse going. Between Andreas and Peter (the guy who played Londo), they brought a good level of dramatic acting to scifi I think. They played off of each other well. It's too bad that there could never be another G'Kar in the series if they ever decide to start up that universe again.

Bauer's bag? I say about 22 at the end of the day. So far, I think he has accounted for about 5. But he has been relatively tame in a couple of episodes. Heh heh.

Interesting note, I think the information so far shows the Basestar more along the line of an aircraft carrier type ship than a ship of the line. The Battlestars on the other hand seem to be a gigantic hybrid. But not nearly as many fighters as a basestar. Too bad we'll never fully appreciate the various types that the colonial navy had. After all, the concept of just having a battlestar doesn't make much sense. There has to be smaller type military vessels out there beyond Raptor and Vipers.

Wow, Jack must know all the shortcuts given the LA commute. I think he essentially went from downtown LA (?) to Ontario airport in less than 30 minutes. How he managed that without a speeding ticket is just a mystery... But I like the fact that after "18 months" Jack is still ruthless, but I suppose he was being nice taking out Palmer's assassin, he could've let the guy bleed out through a gut wound, that would've really hurt. Although I wished the whole thing was a little more personal in that someone is after Jack again like in Season 1. Whatever they do, I hope they don't pull a Marwan style multiple plot thing again this season. But the brutal axing of the original cast was pretty interesting. I think this pretty much accounts for all the characters in season 1 and 2. Just need to put down Kim, Chloe, and Chloe's boyfriend, and that'll take care of season 3 too. And speaking of Chloe, someone has been taking lessons with pistols. She shot the poor guy in the gut.

Nice episode. I was disappointed with the poor battle sequence, but I suppose that was too much to expect. But it did put Cain and Adama both in better light. I would rather think better light on Cain than Adama, Adama had to have his son and Sharon to help him realize that he wasn't just an animal and out for survival. We don't know what Cain's thought process is, but it seems she thought things through mostly on her on. She doesn't seem like the type to talk to others about things. And she gave Starbuck good advice more than anything else. I rather think having Six kill Cain was a poor way out for the creators. Had Cain lived, things would've been interesting, because I rather think they would've worked things out in the end rather than go through with extreme measures. Oh well.... Wished there was more actually fighting than what little we saw. But I did find the last part with Roslyn annoying as hell. There she goes: "I'm cementing my power base.... my only other rival is dead... woohoo." Love those politicians... anything for power.

That would be nice.... I can't really think of any series that has anything close to this though, which is too bad. The sad part is though, BSG is not as likely to show this just because they don't have the force necessary to have this kind of battle. Heh heh, I'd love to see it though. Conversion into military types would not be a bad idea.... but then again, neither is the concept of having a long term plan that involves actual thought beyond let's find Earth and hope the Cylons get tired of hunting us down.

No, you don't understand, we're not saying Cain is the only part of society, we're saying she needs to be included, because she does add value. You tend not to see things from her point of view because it's just so easy to villify her. OMG, she killed civilians, she must be evil. (OMG, the U.S. dropped an A-bomb and killed civilians, they must be evil, OMG, the allies fire bombed Dresden and killed all those civilians, they must be evil) So, that's that. Yep, as it is, Cain is out of control, but that doesn't mean Adama and Roslyn are any less out of control with what they're doing.

Cain's personality is that of fighting a war, Deathhammer gave a better explanation on why her type is needed. Consider WWII, you had a guy like Patton, who if you look at it through the lens of modern media is a complete a-hole. But guess what, you sure need someone like that fighting your wars. This is why Cain is integral to society, she is the one doing the fighting, and seemingly a pretty good job of it to. As for feeding her war machine, you know what... in case you didn't notice, the cylons are still trying to kill them, so there is some necessity to feeding her war machine. There is still a war, whether or not Adama and company believes it. Cain is fighting that war, she is fighting from a limited point of view that she has to continue to try to kill the Cylons. What she lacks is proper direction on what the long term strategy should be. She does not have a larger picture in mind. (the one she gave to Starbuck is BS) You can say this because she didn't think about what happens in the long term after she is done stripping away all the parts and has no more supply source. But she definitely has her place, if she didn't, she wouldn't have gotten the admiral's rank in the first place. Roslyn and Adama (more Roslyn) is equally at fault, I don't think anywhere in the show has Roslyn tried to explain to Cain the plan, the fact that Cain doesn't accept Roslyn as a legitimate leader doesn't help much, but that's almost as much Roslyn's fault. Because you look at Roslyn the entire first season and most of second season, she is a religious nutjob. So, from Cain's point of view, you have an ex secretary of education running around playing president, and all she doesn't have a long term plan either, reads the ship logs and finds Adama and Roslyn has been at odds, and even Adama doesn't respect her. Not difficult to see why Cain pays no respect to Roslyn at all.

Hilter was on the Eastern Front WW1, so yah, he was kicking butt, and WW2, he used treaties and lightning-fast invasions to expand his empire, so who does that sound like? 359532[/snapback] Dumb blind luck. Yeah, thanks to his commanders, he did very well, but you know what, he still lost at the end didn't he? The little corporal might have been lucky at first, but by 1941, his strategy started sliding toward hope, and the incompetence of his enemies, which were primarily Russians. Some prime examples: He believed ol Herman about bombing the Brits to submission. Let's hope we can demoralize the Brits enough. He believed he was right in overruling his generals on the drive to Moscow, hey, I know better, let's change directions, go after Stalingrad. The 6th army, you'll hold out until I tell you, no retreat, no surrender.... oh... oops, that didn't work out. His strategies were based on folly and hope as the war progressed. Don't try to turn facts into political BS. Hitler was just easy to pick on because he is a recent example, and is full of easy mistakes. There are also examples with Imperial Japan, Napolean, Cornwall, the Kwarazam Shah, etc, etc. In the same vein, Adama and Roslin are out of their minds to only a certain extent, they are hoping that Earth can be found, hoping that Earth can help them against the Cylons, and worst of all, hoping that the Cylons will eventually get tired and leave them alone. Hope is a poor strategy. Deathhammer is absolutely right, you need both sets and Cain in a complete society, there are places for all of them. If BSG is supposed to in some way resemble reality, then it needs to show that fighting a war is a dirty business. It's not antiseptic nintendo crap you see on TV. Cain hasn't gone off her rockers, she is doing what she thinks is right, which is fighting a war against an overwhelming enemy. Doing what she can with what she's got.

I like this... moral superiority and fairness. I'm morally superior and fair, therefore I'm entitled to win a war. Funny stuff. Sure, the humans are "better" than Cylons, but let's see who has been kicking whose ass so far. Morally superior or winning.... hmmm, let's see what's more important. Again, let's base our strategy on hope, not real facts. Let's hope Earth can help us and is more technologically advanced. One colony is better than the original twelve. Let's hope the cylons don't follow us and wipe out Earth too. Boy, I'd love to be the military commander on the other side those who use hope as a strategy. I'd have fun kicking their ass all day long. Hey, you know, I know someone who was basing their strategy on hope, there was this little corporal by the name of Hitler, heard of him?

You mean Kat is going to undergo surgery? Yikes. I didn't think the fleet has the proper... uh.... equipment. Is old Doc Cottle that kind of surgeon too? As far as the right strategy question, like I pointed out earlier, neither Cain nor Adama/Roslyn have the right solution. They need to put in a long term objective at some point that's a bit more rational than "let's find Earth, and hope that the Cylons don't come after us again."

Adama and Roslyn wins? What did they win? A trip to Vegas? A five night stay at New York, New York? A swift kick in the ass? You misunderstand the obvious choices that are necessary in war. Cain has obviously taken on the belief that all measures are needed to win a war against an intractable enemy. History is replete with such examples. Is it the correct way to win? I don't think so. Cain is only narrowing her scope to the military, it isn't wrong, but it's not looking at the long term big picture. She is looking at the short term tactical solutions, which might work well in the near term, but will kill her in the long run. Adama and Roslyn has no semblence of planning at all. Their plan in a nutshell, run from Cylons, find Earth, and hope the Cylons don't come after us. If you think that's a workable plan for the long term big picture, that's just flawed. It's like saying: "I just got kicked in the balls, I'm going to go run and hide now, and hope that the same person isn't going to come after me and kick me in the balls again." If that's what you pass for a plan... fantastic, there are all kinds of ways that others can take advantage of you. And what is this "larger Galactica thesis," now I'm mildly curious.

Difficult? Ha, try impossible, which is why it seems so easy for everyone to dismiss Cain as a nutjob because she wants to keep fighting. But the 50K humans are only looking at one side of the picture. Very characteristic of short term thinking without the ability to look at the larger picture over a long time period. Sooner or later, the humans better think about how to kill all the Cylons. Because it's the same wishful thinking that the Cylons would leave them alone that got them into this mess in the first place. If these humans place the vain hope that the Cylons will consider themselves to be so powerful that they'll eventually ignore the humans, then they are doomed. Hope is not a military strategy or a realistic option. Realistic to retreat for now, definitely a correct course, but in due time (it might be centuries given what's happened), they need to think about going after the cylons and wiping them out. The issue with Adama and Roslyn is that as leaders they aren't looking at the long term. No hint of that at all. Their plan to get to Earth is a good start. But if the Cylons follow them there, then they're screwed. They need to think about how to find Earth without having the Cylons following them, and they need to think about how to build up Earth while in hiding and eventually get the Cylons later, even if it take centuries. But there is no evidence they're thinking along those lines. Hence, if Cain is a nutjob with a flawed concept, then Adama and Roslyn doesn't seem much better. The Kobolt experience should've taught them something, namely that the Cylons are relentless.

Saving their life is one thing, it's believable. But the problem is as a society, the idiot humans are doomed if they don't get it through their head at one point that the Cylons won't stop until they're all dead. That's the whole point behind flight, run away and hope the Cylons can't find us. It's the same failure to learn the lessons of the colonies where they all died because they kept wanting peace with the Cylons. There is some sense to it, run away long enough to get strong and come back and fight. Cain is right after a fashion, survival lies in the destruction of the Cylons. The problem is she is unrealistic as to the timing from this. They need a real force if they have a chance to go after the Cylons, which is why the civies are important and couldn't be sacrificed needlessly. Ha ha, they needed to have looked at the Cylon situation like a game of age of empires. Plan: - flush out all cylon agents in fleet. - split off Galatica and part of civvie fleet (ideally minimally populated with worst ships around) and have them lead the Cylons on a merry chase. Prolong the chase, and give Galactica nukes to take down as many Cylons as possible. - Have Pegasus and the rest of the ships set up a base of operation, rebuild, even if it takes forever. - Then start attacking Cylons again when the time is ready. Take the colonies. - Then find Cylon homeworld, and destroy it. See, easy, like a game of Age of Empires.

I agree with Wolf about Six. Because Helfer as you see her is just as sexy, but she is stereotyped into that model role on Galactica. But I think it's very deliberate in that you get the message that evil can come in very pretty packages some times. Lots of religious overtones if you use Adam and Eve analogy for Six and Baltar. Going beyond the sexiness of Helfer, we move to the conflict between Cain and Roslyn/Adama. It is fundamentally a difference of opinion. Whereas Cain might actually see hope (however unrealistic) of beating the Cylons and retaking their homes, Roslyn/Adama thinks of themselves from that loser perspective. (i.e. we've lost, let's run away and hope the other guys don't come after us) It's realistic given the military situation but absolutely defeatist, because it is based on a hope (completely false) that the Cylons will eventually lose interest. The biggest rub is who is right. You can argue both sides of the story. Cain is not "mental" because she wants to go back to take the colonies. Her biggest problem is her inability to face the reality that the colonies are lost and her enemies are insurmontable at the moment. But she is a typical aggressive commander, and in her view, she doesn't want to admit defeat, if it takes stripping supply ships and knocking off a few annoying civvies to supply her war effort, so be it, it's war, and the enemy is intractable. (There are ample precedents of this type of actions in war, even if people in the U.S. think these type of military actions are barbaric, it's more the norm throughout most of human history than the exception) In Cain's defense, she is taking this step that is for her absolutely necessary to ensure victory. On the flip side, I see Adama/Roslyn as the realists, but set up in a way that is a bit disturbing. Their view, and rightly justified is how will the human race survive, for them there is no such thing as a victory against the Cylons. Survival is the same thing as victory for them. But as leaders, they can be criticized for focusing on the short term and not even thinking about the long term. Which eventually is to wipe the Cylons as a race out of existence. It may not even happen in their grand children's lifetime, but it's a necessity. They fundamentally ignored the lessons that the Cylons taught them, which is there can be no peace with an enemy like the Cylons. Their predecessors stopped the war in a vain hope to make peace with the Cylons, and the result is they got a genocide for their efforts. The opening monologue said as much, the colonies weren't going on a war. By running away, they (Roslyn/Adama) are hoping to be able to run far enough so that the Cylons won't be able to track them down. Fundamentally, it's like standing up to a bully, but picking the right time to do it. So far, Adama/Roslyn solution is to run away and hope the bully lose interest. Cain's solution is to immediately hit back when they aren't ready. Both sets are wrong. Worst of all, Rosyln still doesn't quite see this as a war that humans eventually must win. (note there isn't a particular instance where I think she treats the fleet like a nation at war, she treats it like her personal fifedom that she has to save and just squirrel away somewhere)

Well, it's like myk said, if you were Baltar, sitting there in your robes in your condo on the lake, and you had six in bed "covered" by that tiny little sheet, you'd examine before giving the boot... examine very seriously that is.

Ha ha ha ha, you mean the battlestar Loveboat? I don't mind the romance stuff, but more cylons, more death, and more naked Six please... yeah. naked Six *DROOLS*

What an interesting episode. I liked Roslyn in this episode, her first private words with Adama, "we have to kill her." It was nice and direct. It is very nice, because even as she is dying, the character has taken on some steel during her short term as president. All I know about Cain is that when she is done, I'm going to miss her. She might be a bitch, but damn, she is pretty decisive. Starbuck gets CAG, Adama dies, all of it showed a decisive leader. Her methods were cold and quite brutal. In my reading of military leaders, Genghis Khan comes to mind in terms of what she has done. Distasteful, but she is more than willing to do these things to get her job done. In all fairness to her, she is following her training rigidly and not adapting to civilians... to her, there is an enemy, she'll kill them, but will not think one bit of what happens after the war ends. To her, the war can be won. Something that Adama and Roslyn do not believe at all. I can't wait for next week's episode. One question I had, when did the Blackbird acquire FTL drive?

FMA was a good series, watched through the whole thing, and it was a pretty well written storyline. I think the end was a bit too rushed, but in terms of story telling, it was far better than most. I can't wait for the movie to come out at some point. It was released in the summer at Japan, and from the little I read, it really puts a closure to the series. The only part that was a bit annoying was the fact that Mustang and his crew never did encounter the Homonculus all that much with exception of the final fight against Pride.