What Modern Militaries Can Learn From Battlestar Galactica 272
An anonymous reader writes "Modern warfare these days is all about a 'networked environment.' But what happens when such things that make a modern military work breakdown? How would America's armed forces fight if their computers crashed, could not communicate, or were hit with massive viruses? What then? 'There's wisdom in science fiction. The conceit behind the reboot of the sci-fi epic Battlestar Galactica was that networking military forces exposes them to disaster unless commanders and weapons designers think ahead to the repercussions should an enemy exploit or break the network. The mechanical Cylons, arch foes of humanity, are able to crush the humans' battle fleet and bombard their home worlds with nukes by insinuating viruses into networked computers. They sever contact between capital ships and their fighter forces, and they shut down the fleet's and planets' defenses. Having lost the habit of fighting without networked systems, human crews make easy pickings for Cylon predators.'"
what? (Score:5, Insightful)
wtf? get the frack out of here. Comparing battlestar galactica to the modern military.... might as well compare NCIS to police work or star trek to nasa. What can fiction tell us about anything? nothing, because it's not based on real life.
What does abraham lincoln vampire hunter tell us about colonial life? Lots apparently.
Re: what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. If they took down our networks we would... not care and keep working?
People have no idea how little actual military stuff is actually networked.
Re: what? (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly. If they took down our networks we would... not care and keep working?
People have no idea how little actual military stuff is actually networked.
This is less and less true every year. Without networking, forget about using Predator or Reaper drones, for one thing. Forget about chain of command as well, forget about intelligence...moving in either direction. Most importantly, forget about logistics too.
Re: what? (Score:5, Interesting)
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More worrying, what about instead of taking out satellites and drone control towers, an enemy takes over them with a virus.
Sure the average foot soldier might not use or encounter very many networked devices. But what if the guidance system in every smart bomb was redirected back at our own troops, ever Predator drone was reprogrammed to search and destroy all humans.
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More worrying, what about instead of taking out satellites and drone control towers, an enemy takes over them with a virus.
Sure the average foot soldier might not use or encounter very many networked devices. But what if the guidance system in every smart bomb was redirected back at our own troops, ever Predator drone was reprogrammed to search and destroy all humans.
What about military people also watching Battle Star Galactica? You spoze they ever did?
NAH, that could never happen!
Re: what? (Score:5, Interesting)
"The single biggest issue is GPS. How many 'smart' things simply stop working when our satellites are taken out "
Smart things? Our Pilots cant fly without GPS, they do not train them to navigate. Honestly it is mind blowing that the powers that be are that incompetent.
Squadron of F-22's Lost Crossing the Date Line (Score:5, Informative)
From wikipedia. [wikipedia.org] The references are:
230 "F-22 Squadron Shot Down by the International Date Line." [defenseindustrydaily.com] Defense Industry Daily, 1 March 2007. Retrieved: 31 August 2011.
231 "This Week at War". [cnn.com] CNN, 24 February 2007.
232 Johnson, Maj. Dani. "Raptors arrive at Kadena." [af.mil] US Air Force, 19 February 2007. Retrieved: 9 May 2010.
Re:Squadron of F-22's Lost Crossing the Date Line (Score:5, Insightful)
The software glitch was a one time thing, in a brand new aircraft. Fixed within 36 hours.
But yes. Let's continue the theme that the pilots suck, the aircraft are useless, and up until recent times, each and every deployment (be it people or a new machine) went perfectly.
Re: what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even without all the geewiz toys the military trains to operate in a low tech environment. A classic example of which is the fact that we've had laser range finders for decades, and we still train our snipers to use the mil system and we give them the math necessary to figure out how to place rounds on targets at unknown distances. Pretty much every soldier learns in basic training how to read a map and use a compass, pilots use maps and terrain features to navigate aided by AWACS and air traffic control, even if the RADAR is being jammed, a good pilot will know where they're at by the terrain around them, and fighting over the ocean or a vast desert is the only places where there aren't enough terrain features to navigate by eye. So I say "meh" to the OP's "OMGsorzS the TOYZ are BROKESESSes",
Here's the bottom line, the toys are helpful when they work, and a hindrance when they don't, you use them in addition to your base proficiency skills. We had a unknown range cold bore fire exercise one year where the local authorities were allowed to participate, a couple of them came in with laser range finders and were heavily reliant upon them to do their jobs. The shoot was on a rainy day with stupid high humidity, they couldn't get solid numbers from their range finders due to refraction from the high moisture content and ended up missing all their targets. In their defense they said they train for tops a 200 meter shot with the average urban engagement being well under 50 meters so they never really mess with the scope much outside of zeroing it.
Re: what? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: what? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, and I used to TEACH celestial navigation at the USAF navigator school. Which is now closed.
GPS is too easy, too inexpensive, and too accurate, so NOBODY actually uses celestial navigation any more. But cel nav requires practice, and it is a "Use It Or Lose It!" skill.
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The original article's premise was "The US military may be vulnerable to a cyber-attack, perhaps vaguely similar to the one depicted in Battlestar:Galactica." I was replying to a comment saying, in effect, "we learned how to navigate by the stars at NROTC, so we don't really NEED our fancy GPS systems." I'm saying "Celestial navigation is a great fallback navigation method for when everything else goes to hell, but it takes continuous practice that I don't think people are getting these days."
DO they still
Already working that (Score:3)
Re: what? (Score:4, Informative)
Exactly. If they took down our networks we would... not care and keep working?
People have no idea how little actual military stuff is actually networked.
This is less and less true every year. Without networking, forget about using Predator or Reaper drones, for one thing. Forget about chain of command as well, forget about intelligence...moving in either direction. Most importantly, forget about logistics too.
True, the drones and various functions would be disabled. However, the US Military is by design able to function without access to the chain of command - one thing that has been one of our greatest strengths throughout history.
So losing the network will have some issues, but will not cripple the US Military in any fashion.
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Re: what? (Score:5, Interesting)
There was a story in one of the Iraq books I read, Rise of the Vulcans or something like that where an amsemtrical warfare game sponsored by the US military was stopped when the Marine commander running the "bad guy team" used things like mopeds to move data rendering all the cool e-warfare shit we had useless. Basically the blue team guys thought they could disrupt and destroy a low tech enemy but it didn't work. Old age and treachery will over come youth and enthusiasm every time.
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Re: what? (Score:5, Informative)
You're looking for USMC Lt. General Paul Van Riper and his unorthodox response to the 2002 Millennium Challenge [wikipedia.org] wargame.
Re: what? (Score:5, Informative)
A similar thing happened in Operation Millenium in 2002. The US commander, General van Riper, in charge of the "red" team (i.e. middle-eastern nation, i.e. Iran) opted to use non tradiational attacks. In effect he launched every available missle on day one at the "blue" fliceet, overwhelming US missle defense systems, and then proceeded to use skifs and speed boats in suicide attacks to avoid any head on engagements. The "blue" team was overwhelemed on the first day and on the second day US command ordered the war game restarted, with much more tight contraints on egagement and tactics. In effect, General van Riper showed that the US was not ready to engage in asymetric warfare in the middle east, and rather than conceding that, they changed and "rigged" the game to show that the US would achieve an easy an descive vicoty. General van Riper resigned in the middle of the game in protest.
Never Underestimate 'em (Score:5, Funny)
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a fleet moped riders wearing backpacks full of flashdrives.
Back in my day it took tapes and stationwagons
Re: what? (Score:5, Interesting)
People have no idea how little actual military stuff is actually networked.
I think they also have no idea how non-critical a lot of the technology is. When I was in the service, were were constantly training for "what if" scenarios. If our radios were jammed, we would communicate with flares, smoke grenades, semaphore flags, signal mirrors, etc. Once a month we would have a "vehicle appreciation day" where we would move every piece of gear in our battalion for twenty clicks (km) using only our LPCs (leather personnel carriers (boots)). Heck, we even trained for a lack of breathable air. There are few things more difficult than trying to sleep with a gas mask on. A "network failure" is not going to stop the US military.
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Which, when fighting a superior force is exactly what you want to do...and is exactly what our enemies would be facing and thus want to do.
I'm sure it's
Re: what? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would agree with you, but sometimes the sum of the pieces is greater than the total. I.e. you can test widget/process A for all manner of failures and B, C, D as well. But testing ALL of them for simultaneous failures simply isn't possible. And while I also agree that it won't 'stop' the military, it will significantly degrade it's effectiveness.
Even complete failured it trained of equipment is trained for. The military is taught not to rely on equipment to get the job done. Multiple failures are expected, and can easily happen in any combat situation.
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testing for simultaneous failure of everything? what's there to test, in that case wizards did it and you might just as well give up. if the mechanical, by wire and the multiple parallel electronic methods of communication break up then it was the wizards and the aliens in alliance and it's best to dig a hole and stay there and hope nobody panics and launches the nukes(oh wait couldn't do it with simul-mega-break).
btw. it's the other armies of the world that should train for it than the US, because it's mos
Re:what? (Score:5, Funny)
I learned a lot of things from Sci-Fi before I learned them in real life.
In Star Trek: TNG, for example, I (through the Klingons) learned that Blacks are violent. I also learned that Ferengi (Jews) are greedy. And that women who study Psychology (Counselor Troi) are all ditzy sluts who like to codify common sense through their cleavage. Then, through Voyager's Janeway, I learned that all women over thirty-five are nagging bitches who enjoy being difficult to their families.
Then, through Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and comic books, I learned that nerd humor is pretty much gay humor - excessively chatty with the only controversy being that all the men wear underwear on the outsides of their clothes.
Yep, Sci-Fi. I tossed it all in the trash or out the window. Then I got a skateboard and started playing football, then got a girlfriend; and have been a real man ever since.
-- Ethanol-fueled
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Thats funny because we always thought Ferengi were Muslims ( oppression of women ) or Roman Catholic ( the funny hats ). The mistake your are making is mistaking tropes or "planets of hats" with ideologies that the show producers were trying to comment on. They were not portraying actual groups of people in stereotypical ways.
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...I also learned that Ferengi (Jews) are greedy...
Gene Rodenberry, William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy were all of the Jewish faith. Go listen to Adam Sandler's Happy Hanukkah song for proof.
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Reminds me of the Onion article about the multiverse of possibilities from the US Election results. "What if your fighting machines break?"
Dont forget to ask "What if your battleships get trapped under a force field?"
And finish up with "What if you need to throw a ring away really bad, like *really* bad, but the ring itself doesn't want to be and can control YOU???"
So many irrelevant questions, so much time to waste...
Re:what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Battlestar Galactica also posited that connecting two computers together with an ethernet cable instantly makes them completely vulnerable to long-distance wireless hacking because "now it's a network and the cylons can hack networks", so I'd take the whole thing with a grain of salt.
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The side that loses will be the one that breaks first. This is pretty much how it always goes. The vulnerability of your communications isn't nearly as important as how your troops will react when it inevitably fails.
Are your troops like the Ko-Dan armada or are they more like the IDF?
If you need to reserve your best troops to ensure that your average units remain on the line, then you are already at a severe disadvantage.
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Someone just discovered Battlestar Galactica I see (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone just discovered Battlestar Galactica I see. Old news, militaries already aware of this, nothing to see here, move along.
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If that's true, I envy them. I'm currently watching BSG (the remake series, sorry puritans) for the 5th time.
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Damn! Someone, maybe a military research project group, should invent a robust networking system resistant to outages and automatically rerouting through many other connections. It could connect various military networks, and if any site goes down due to a bomb, rerouting is instantaneous.
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Aren't we the cylons? (Score:5, Insightful)
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In Battlestar Galactica, the humans are facing the Cylons technologically superior force with advanced cyberweaponry. Doesn't that make us (the USA) the Cylons? Sure China is a threat, but I haven't heard of any damage from any Chinese 'attack.' I have, however, heard of Stuxnet, which had real economic, political and technological consequences.
I think our society mirrors the society of caprica prior the first cylon war. We might not have jump drives or VR that is as "real" but we are working on fixed wing drones that can kill without human intervention. Scary stuff. The UN is recommending a ban on autonomous drones with lethal weapons.
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In Battlestar Galactica, the humans are facing the Cylons technologically superior force with advanced cyberweaponry. Doesn't that make us (the USA) the Cylons? Sure China is a threat, but I haven't heard of any damage from any Chinese 'attack.' I have, however, heard of Stuxnet, which had real economic, political and technological consequences.
I think our society mirrors the society of caprica prior the first cylon war. We might not have jump drives or VR that is as "real" but we are working on fixed wing drones that can kill without human intervention. Scary stuff. The UN is recommending a ban on autonomous drones with lethal weapons.
A ban that will never happen as long as the US or at least one other country on the Security Council think that autonomous drones with lethal capabilities are useful. (Hint: It only takes one Security Council member to veto nearly anything in the UN, especially where weapons are concerned.)
Never RELY on any one point of failure (Score:4, Insightful)
Any one point of failure that can render your entire force useless is a problem. A network should be treated as an AID to military forces, not a necessity. Soldiers should, of course, know how to still function if it goes down.
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Also those networks should be redundant and decentralized this way its harder to take down an entire network. Even if its treated as only an aid, the side with the aid may have a distinct advantage over the side without. This is were having your network consist of many technologies and generations of hardware is nice. One shouldn't phase out old hardware that still works just because its "obsolete" falling back to networks of short wave radio's when your satellites and drop ships get knocked out of the sky
Re:Never RELY on any one point of failure (Score:4, Informative)
. Soldiers should, of course, know how to still function if it goes down.
. . . and more importantly, commanders. Von Clausewitz wrote the importance of not relying on information and command chain systems. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Clausewitz [wikipedia.org] :
While Clausewitz was intensely aware of the value of intelligence at all levels, he was also very skeptical of the accuracy of much military intelligence: "Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false, and most are uncertain.... In short, most intelligence is false." This circumstance is generally described as the fog of war. Such skeptical comments apply only to intelligence at the tactical and operational levels; at the strategic and political levels he constantly stressed the requirement for the best possible understanding of what today would be called strategic and political intelligence. His conclusions were influenced by his experiences in the Prussian Army, which was often in an intelligence fog due partly to the superior abilities of Napoleon's system but even more to the nature of war. Clausewitz acknowledges that friction creates enormous difficulties for the realization of any plan, and the fog of war hinders commanders from knowing what is happening. It is precisely in the context of this challenge that he develops the concept of military genius, whose capabilities are seen above all in the execution of operations.
So you need an army where units can function independently. Even if you have a great military plan: "No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy".
Not really new thinking, at all.
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OK, but what happens when the Borg Cube goes up against the Death Star? What then?!
Reciprocity. (Score:5, Interesting)
What's strange about the whole concept of Battlestar Galactica and the nature of the attack by the Cylons is how one-sided it was. The humans seemed to have an awareness of what cyber warfare is (they reference firewalls and viruses in the series), yet they never seemed to develop any more than a rudimentary defensive capability (CND, in military parlance) and no intelligence or attack capabilities (CNE and CNA) whatsoever. This, despite the fact that their adversary was entirely cybernetic in nature. Um...yeah, no, I don't buy it. Makes for a good story device, yes (and I loved the series), but I don't buy it as actually realistic. Think about the long-distance communication needed for resurrection, for example...WOW. Get access via that, and think of the incredible damage you could do to Cylons...heck, just a denial of service attack would drastically alter the priorities of an attacking Cylon force, since their losses would be magnified in significance.
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This was at least partially explained by the Cylon's disappearance for decades. How do you build systems to fight and defend against an enemy you haven't seen in 40 years, but who have also infiltrated your society and military? They know your weaknesses while you can only guess at theirs, with zero time to adapt due to the surprise assaults.
An excellent question, and I'm glad you asked it. Simply...the way the Cylons did with humans. You aren't at war with them, but that doesn't mean you go totally off the grid as far as the other is concerned. This, too, is an inaccuracy of what an armistice looks like. North and South Korea skirmish, raid, and spy. NATO and Warsaw Pact...same thing. In this case, it'd be easier for the humans, because again, CNE is incredibly effective against an opponent that is entirely electronic in nature and 100%
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Did you watch the series?
Long distances mean no resurection. Destroy the resurrection ship, and they suddenly fear death.
It was done.
Re:Reciprocity. (Score:4, Interesting)
Moreover, there was the episode where the Cylons were dying of an encephalitis virus which was incurable and had a 100% fatality rate and which was so virulent, that it would infect the resurrection ship if any victims resurrected since it would be carried over.
Lee Adama put 2 and 2 together and hatched a plan to commit genocide against the Cylons, but Helo "Goody-Twoshoes" Agathon killed the captive Cylon victims before they could carry out the plan.
What I want to know is why Agathon was not blown out an airlock for that piece of mutiny that resulted in casualties against the humans due to an aborted attack.
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They were screwed because the enemy had thoroughly infiltrated the operating system that powered all of their (current-gen) ships. If not for that, it could have actually been a fight, rather than a slaughter.
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I think the point of the opening miniseries was that humans had become complacent in their defenses, since they hadn't even seen any Cylons for 40 years. And in those 40 years, the cylons had advanced far beyond what humans ever expected them to.
And during the course of the series, they did develop some defenses (discovering/attacking Resurrection ships and adapting the cylon virus to use as a weapon themselves, for example). But it's hard to do a lot of R&D when you're running for your lives and just t
Looking back instead - Wargames, from 1983 (Score:3)
This is not very new:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086567/?ref_=ttqt_qt_tt [imdb.com]
"a back door into a military central computer in which reality is confused with game-playing, possibly starting World War III"
So where is the news, except the setting?
So maybe the title of the submission should be (Score:2)
"What Modern Militaries Can Learn from Science-Fiction Television Show Writers"
It wouldn't have been any less sophomoric - just more accurate regarding the point being proposed.
Ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Modern war - that is, every war the US has fought in the last decade, has been fought largely by infantrymen, light armor and close air support. All of which function just fine without a networked environment.
Maybe you learn the difference between sci fi and reality.
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There is a motive for the military to use those nice computers and network infrastructure they have, my good sir, and if you want a hint it it is not as paperweight.
Only sheer ignorance can justify your failure to give the due importance to communication and information acquisition in any military conflict.
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Yes, they are networked. In Afghanistan, right now, there is probably a soldier on the ground looking through the Sniper Pod on a B-1 above him/her to help the B-1 take out bad guys.
Re:Ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Infantry, and even light armor, perhaps. Close air support, not so much. The technical term for close air support that's not in proper communication with the ground troops is "friendly fire."
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I guess close air support must work by telepathy.
In any case, every war the US has fought in the last decade has been fought largely by infantrymen, etc., because each has been an asymmetric conflict, where the main difficulty is locating and identifying the enemy while avoiding ambush. Command and control (i.e., networking) is more critical in this kind of anti-in
Re:Ridiculous (Score:4, Interesting)
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How do you expect to get close air support without communication (and thus network) ?
According to every movie I have ever seen about the Vietnam war, the best way is to have your newly appointed Lieutenant shout his own map coordinates at a hand cranked radio and hope that the pilots will figure out what he meant.
Just like copy protection/DRM schemes (Score:2)
Hard ware Network Kill switches (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah... (Score:2)
Contingency planning (Score:2)
That's all our military does in peace time. They even develop contingency plans *for* their contingency plans. Hell, even the CDC has a contingency plan for zombies!
But maybe the enemy is running Windows XP (Score:2)
So we can send Jeff Goldblum up to their mothership and infect them with a virus.
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Be sure to bring a Mac though. Aliens don't use Windows.
I don't know... (Score:2)
... mayhaps the Navy could learn to design hatches to make a cricket sound when opened?!?
ITS A TV SHOW, the cylons should have won (Score:3)
the whole point of tech in the military is to shorten the decision making cycle. most times you don't know where the enemy is, so you have scouts looking for him. once they sight the enemy it has to be reported to the highest levels command so that the general and everyone below him has a clear picture of the battle.
in the old days it was done by radio and scouts on feet and wheels. now its done by drones, cameras and the data is networked to everyone. this allows you to make decisions where to attack faster.
since the humans in BSG were so far behind the cylons technologically, they should have been exterminated in the first few episodes. but you need lots of episodes to make money and the good guys to win to make people watch
scientifically it was a dumb show. robots using eyes instead of heat, sonar, radar and other sensors to find humans hiding on the planet and out in space
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in the old days it was done by radio
So that's how Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo.
The argument suffers a bit for referencing fiction (Score:3, Insightful)
I completely agree with the premise that you want to design weapons platforms from the ground up assuming a broad spectrum of threats. Be those direct physical attacks or more subtle network intrusions.
War.
What will one human mind do to overcome the machinations of another hostile human mind? Anything. Everything.
Be prepared for anything. Biological. Nuclear. Chemical. Hackers. Sexy honey pot assassins. Everything is on the table.
Let your guard down anywhere and you've told the enemy how to kill you.
There's a bigger conceit (Score:2)
The bigger conceit in Battlestar: Galactica and many other TV shows is that any computer or networked system can be *always* hacked in an *arbitrarily short amount of time* if the plot demands it. For dramatic purposes, computers are stationary targets.
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Just like encryption will always be broken a few seconds before the plaintext is required.
Actually, (Score:5, Insightful)
What I learned from BSG (Score:2)
Always do it doggy-style the first time.
Next up on Slashdot.... (Score:2)
What Congress can learn from Watching PokeMon Cartoons....
Re:Next up on Slashdot.... (Score:5, Funny)
What Congress can learn from Watching PokeMon Cartoons....
Always repeat your name as often as possible so you're more likely to get chosen.
NEXT!
It wasn't the networks, it was OUTER SPACE (Score:2)
Unlike robot Cylons, humans can't live in outer space without an absurd amount of technical automation. The same argument can be made if you replace 'networks' and 'computers' with 'air'.
-1, Stupid Article
Okay, that's one down, two to go. (Score:2)
So that covers Battlestar Galactica; What of Beets, and Bears?
But.... (Score:2)
Re:Lesson one: don't re-reboot (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but the Battlestar Galactica reboot was FAR superior to the original. And I say that as someone who was a huge fan of the original. It should be the textbook case for how to do a reboot right.
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Personally I only got half-way through the first episode before I decided I couldn't be bothered to watch a soap opera set in space. Did it get any better (I gather that the ending was a huge let-down)?
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That would be the one where Baltar was reduced to a middle manager having waking wet dreams? The one where the level of tech made Baltar irrelevant despite all of his unwarranted guilt?
The one where they made their military systems extra vulnerable to computer attacks despite the fact that their last war was against robots?
The power of a Death Star main canon is nothing compared to stupidity of that magnitude.
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Re:Lesson one: don't re-reboot (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lesson one: don't re-reboot (Score:5, Insightful)
DS9 was the best ST series
I was beginning to think I was the only one who thought that. It was the only ST series, to me, that seemed even remotely realistic. All the others were set in some bullshit socialist utopia where no one needed or wanted money; the Federation was a bunch of flawless boy scouts; greed, lust, deceit, and religion were nonexistent; and no one thought it even remotely strange that crewmen were bringing their families aboard battleships. The characters on DS9 felt much more like real human beings (and aliens).
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DS9 was the best overall. But the main villain, antagonist (what have you). Gull Ducat was so one dimensional and shallow it was very irritating to watch main story arc episodes were he basically sat there on screen and went "Mwhahahaha I'm DELUSIONAL!!! 11111!!!!111..."
Other then that it had some of the better stand alone episodes and the best character development.
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Not only did they show a world beyond the federation where money and greed were still present, but they showed the seedy underbelly of the federation. The main characters sometimes engaged in unethical behavior. There was the whole deal with Bashir being genetically engineered. There were assassinations. There was section 31.
It was also one of the earliest shows of its type to frequently have multi-episode (even multi-season) plot-lines. They had a whole season where they had to flee the station and c
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DS9 was the best ST series
I was beginning to think I was the only one who thought that. It was the only ST series, to me, that seemed even remotely realistic. All the others were set in some bullshit socialist utopia where no one needed or wanted money; the Federation was a bunch of flawless boy scouts; greed, lust, deceit, and religion were nonexistent; and no one thought it even remotely strange that crewmen were bringing their families aboard battleships. The characters on DS9 felt much more like real human beings (and aliens).
DS9 was more of a direct social commentary. The remainder of the Star Trek series are set in a post-scarcity culture. In fact one of the recurring themes in Star Trek TNG was bullshit reasons why they couldn't magic up the parts that they required. Think about it. Their power sources are orders of magnitude greater than required to sustain life functions (to the point where they convert pure energy back into mass for stupid shit like tea-cups and guitars), so anything that your neighbor has that you mig
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What's so special about BattleStar Galactica? Why is this on /. to begin with?
It's covered under the Nerds part. Why are you on this site again?
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I don't think the basic premise of BattleStar Galactica is particularly nerdy. Sci-Fi is full of technological over-reliance causing apocalyptic disasters when it fails. I don't think it's something nerds would talk about as a BattleStar-centric theme. I mean, Dr. Strangelove is a far better example of the theme, as is Forbidden Planet. Heck, even Frankenstein is arguably a better example of the theme, although the consequences of Dr. Frankenstein's experiments were not as destructive. Seriously, what m
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> It could just have easily been that Cylon agents had been able to infiltrate all active starships, but they neglected to consider the BattleStar Galactica because she was decommissioned and being converted into an inactive museum ship.
BATTLESHIP!
Now that's a comparison that the neo-galactica fans won't like.
Although the "infiltration" bit overlooks the problem of only having a small number of physical variations. How can you actually infiltrate like that? It's bound to get noticed.
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Batlestar Galactica not relevant on /. ?
Hi, you must be new here.
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In the new series, the ships WERE individual cylons. Made a lot more sense than the original.
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When you can churn them out like sausages, you might not be so concerned about the wasteful aspects of the situation. Just make 500 more and throw them at the enemy.
Although it would make sense to make systems redundant whether that's at the pilot level or within the pilot itself.
Re:History also teaches (Score:4, Informative)
Huh? Ever heard of kampfgruppe? Germany probably had the least rigid command system of all WW2 participants, unless you count various partisan groups.
Or did you mean Japan and the Soviets?
Re: (Score:3)