Military Science Fiction

[Gaidin]

That is not what I am talking about, I am about about the craft resisting the air being exposed after the hull is breached. These are 2 different things.

As for the lack of danger lets agree to disagree.

He's not saying there's no danger. It's friggin' space. He's just saying you're overstating it like all hell. If you wanted to really armor a ship you'd only armor sections anyway. You'd armor the engines, the magazine, the CIC, the sick bay, and other very important sections, and then leave the others flimsy enough that enemy fire flies right through, but can still be easily repaired relatively speaking. The targets have been and will always be something that causes a bigger boom or would cause confusion. Engines, magazine, or CIC.

Actually all sections could and should be manned, but it doesn't mean they should be pressurized.

You have a decent idea for having a combat protocol for having those on combat repair teams to be in pressure suits. You're flying off the rails for having ship standard design to have entire sections not be pressurized. There's no reason at all not to do that.

That is a completely different issue.

No it isn't, considering that were we to actually consider a realistic design for a spaceship you'd have something a helluva lot more enclosed than shows like BSG or Star Trek would have us believe. That shell that penetrates would cause a lot of local damage, and everyone in the room easily would be dead.

[GreyFox]

Actually all sections could and should be manned, but it doesn't mean they should be pressurized.

I doubt all sections would be manned. If there was to be high-G manoeuvering (anything more than say 2G), then the crew isn't going to be doing anything other than be in acceleration couches hoping they aren't turned to paste or break bones because they are at an awkward angle.

I kind of agree with many sections being unpressurised, however a face mask wouldn't be enough. there are designs for spacesuits which are unpressurised bar the helmet, with the suit being skin tight with no air spaces to prevent the body from expanding. This is practical today. You'd just have to build in some sort of cooling system and deal with possible radiation exposure.

Regarding the targets, the heat radiators would be the best target - nice and big and flimsy - they can't be armoured if you want to dump waste heat.

[Menelik_I]

He's not saying there's no danger. It's friggin' space.

He said that hanging to something with your bare hands will not get you sucked into space.

If you wanted to really armor a ship you'd only armor sections anyway. You'd armor the engines, the magazine, the CIC, the sick bay, and other very important sections, and then leave the others flimsy enough that enemy fire flies right through, but can still be easily repaired relatively speaking. The targets have been and will always be something that causes a bigger boom or would cause confusion. Engines, magazine, or CIC.

Varied armoring is also standard military design protocol, just looking at a any tank would prove that so I agree.

This comes to a premium in space because lack of friction means that you need power to move and stop, so weight reduction to economize fuel is a big item to watch for.

You have a decent idea for having a combat protocol for having those on combat repair teams to be in pressure suits. You're flying off the rails for having ship standard design to have entire sections not be pressurized. There's no reason at all not to do that.

First of all lets make it clear that I am talking Condition One here, the BSG scenario where We are all going to die moment occurs.

There are some good reasons here :

1- it negates explosive decompression as a viable tactic for the enemy. Puncturing the pressure hull just damages a perfectly good ship for no material gain, subverted if they want to kill you anyway.

2- Depressurizing whole sections prevents loss of material or personnel by being sucked into space.

3- Designing whole sections to withstand hard vacuum as Standard allows for the ship interior to be exposed to hard vacuum and still remain functional. So the crew can still operate a critically damaged ship.

4- reduce the ship overall weight, as you reduce the quantity of inert gas you have to carry around to concoct a breathable atmosphere.

5- Reduce radiator requirements as you reduce the amount of atmo that need heating up. Might help improve stealth at long distance, because even IR sensor have resolution.

No it isn't, considering that were we to actually consider a realistic design for a spaceship you'd have something a helluva lot more enclosed than shows like BSG or Star Trek would have us believe. That shell that penetrates would cause a lot of local damage, and everyone in the room easily would be dead.

It depends on the design of the ship itself, for example what if the room that is hit is connect to other rooms ? the bigger volume of air involved the more violent the decompression.

Maybe people in these other rooms are not affected by the shell/missile, but die because of the decompression. Also being sucked in space is not the only danger : Between being jerked into a wall and breaking your skull, there is also hard vacuum and asphyxiation

Would you design a ship where inter-section divisions and doors could wistand decompression ? Doesn't that add up to the ship weight ?

What if your most realistic SF spaceship design ?

I doubt all sections would be manned. If there was to be high-G manoeuvering (anything more than say 2G), then the crew isn't going to be doing anything other than be in acceleration couches hoping they aren't turned to paste or break bones because they are at an awkward angle.

Probably the Bridge would look more like a Roman orgy with people laying down in acceleration couches than Saul Tight standing and ordering a nuclear strike.

But by manned I mean that the crew could go to even unpressurized sections and use manual controls if it came to that. Space is too big to have your crew depending only on neat computer screens.

I kind of agree with many sections being unpressurised, however a face mask wouldn't be enough. there are designs for spacesuits which are unpressurised bar the helmet, with the suit being skin tight with no air spaces to prevent the body from expanding. This is practical today. You'd just have to build in some sort of cooling system and deal with possible radiation exposure.

Maybe each person would carry a 30 minutes portable O2/Cooling pack with them, and there would be around the ship "air stations" where you could plug so to allow you long endurance to work on whatever you need.

Regarding the targets, the heat radiators would be the best target - nice and big and flimsy - they can't be armoured if you want to dump waste heat.

We could call that Heatsink endurance : How long can a spaceship work with its radiators down.

Of course you could make the radiators retractable and be hidden below armor during combat to avoid combat. In Mass Effect they addressed that with a system of Heat sink that were charged up and dumped during battle to allow for the heat to be dissipated.

Another way of doing that would be to use the use armored hull as a heat sink

[Gaidin]

First of all lets make it clear that I am talking Condition One here, the BSG scenario where We are all going to die moment occurs.

There are some good reasons here :

1- it negates explosive decompression as a viable tactic for the enemy. Puncturing the pressure hull just damages a perfectly good ship for no material gain, subverted if they want to kill you anyway.

2- Depressurizing whole sections prevents loss of material or personnel by being sucked into space.

3- Designing whole sections to withstand hard vacuum as Standard allows for the ship interior to be exposed to hard vacuum and still remain functional. So the crew can still operate a critically damaged ship.

4- reduce the ship overall weight, as you reduce the quantity of inert gas you have to carry around to concoct a breathable atmosphere.

5- Reduce radiator requirements as you reduce the amount of atmo that need heating up. Might help improve stealth at long distance, because even IR sensor have resolution.

What you've got are protocols for a ship that is designed as such that it is a ship that gets between the enemy and other ships. Battlestars are literally military firewalls as much as they are aircraft carriers. Depressurization is an all or nothing problem for a battlestar. Minor hits will cause minor leaks and damage repair teams can fix those as the series demostrates. Major hits in the absolute wrong spot will break the ship in half anyway. That said, there's no reason to depressurize sections as a combat protocol with the armor that thing is carrying, and they already close bulkheads in Condition One. This is demonstrated in the miniseries when a nuke goes off and doesn't cause depressurization, but they instead do leak the oxygen to put the fires out. You need to match your solutions to the ships you're suggesting them for and the technology on hand. If we were talking some of the lesser armored military ships, the supply ships say, you might be on to something. But the battlestar is designed to take these hits.

As far as stealth improvement, forget it. You're not improving that for a ship that size. Ever. Too much heat radiation comes off that ship even in what we'd call a low energy consumption stage to consider stealth an option. And if you don't let the heat come radiate off the ship it stays there, cooking the crew. Killing them. Literally. You can direct where it goes via heatsink so it possibly might not be detected if you're lucky, but it's gotta go. The only time stealth was ever a tactical option was when there was some environment around that interfered with DRADIS functionality until cylons were right on top of the Battlestar.

[removeduser_4536284751384]

Regarding the targets, the heat radiators would be the best target - nice and big and flimsy - they can't be armoured if you want to dump waste heat.

Well, a radiator can be a lot of things. You entire armour shell could be your radiator.

But more importantly, in a world of direction energy weapons, I can't imagine why you waste that extra energy by emitting it randomly into space. I imagine an efficient ship would use it to boil a volatile substance to add to the ship's energy reources. Sure, it's inefficient, but it's more efficient than not doing it, and it could be done very cheaply.

[GreyFox]

Well, a radiator can be a lot of things. You entire armour shell could be your radiator.

But more importantly, in a world of direction energy weapons, I can't imagine why you waste that extra energy by emitting it randomly into space. I imagine an efficient ship would use it to boil a volatile substance to add to the ship's energy reources. Sure, it's inefficient, but it's more efficient than not doing it, and it could be done very cheaply.

An active cooling system is a red queen race. The refrigeration systems generates more heat than it dumps.

[Mangalore]

He said that hanging to something with your bare hands will not get you sucked into space.

Because you won't. You'll get sucked into space because without gravity you do not hold to anything by default. You won't get sucked into space when you can hold to something. You made it sound like the depressurization would be brutal when it is solely 1G of atmospheres depressurizing which will happen within seconds and then end. Humans can counter the effects of 1G of air trying to pull on them rather easily provided they are not stuck in a squeaky clean corridor with no handles.

There's obviously worry to be had about heating up and suffocating.

I would assume given current advancement there would be only a single (or in big ships two or three) inhabited control rooms while the rest like repairs during battle would be done by robots. Overall I wouldn't expect much of the ship to have an atmosphere to begin with.

[Menelik_I]

Because you won't. You'll get sucked into space because without gravity you do not hold to anything by default. You won't get sucked into space when you can hold to something. You made it sound like the depressurization would be brutal when it is solely 1G of atmospheres depressurizing which will happen within seconds and then end. Humans can counter the effects of 1G of air trying to pull on them rather easily provided they are not stuck in a squeaky clean corridor with no handles.

That is not how pressure works, it ain't because you have one atmo that somehow the force exerted by venting the tube is going to be 1G.

Have you ever seen a pressurized canister go off ?

I would assume given current advancement there would be only a single (or in big ships two or three) inhabited control rooms while the rest like repairs during battle would be done by robots. Overall I wouldn't expect much of the ship to have an atmosphere to begin with.

We can at least agree on that.

[GreyFox]

Because you won't. You'll get sucked into space because without gravity you do not hold to anything by default. You won't get sucked into space when you can hold to something. You made it sound like the depressurization would be brutal when it is solely 1G of atmospheres depressurizing which will happen within seconds and then end. Humans can counter the effects of 1G of air trying to pull on them rather easily provided they are not stuck in a squeaky clean corridor with no handles.

There's obviously worry to be had about heating up and suffocating.

Dont forget the bends

[Gaidin]

We can at least agree on that.

Anybody that wants to make these suggestions in the context of BSG should damn well know repairs are never going to be done by robots. And they should know why.

[Menelik_I]

Anybody that wants to make these suggestions in the context of BSG should damn well know repairs are never going to be done by robots. And they should know why.

Don't fear the Cylons ... they just want to have casual sex with you as they genocide the entire human race

Is it just me but why does every single Sex scene in BSG involve a Cylon ?

Also in a more serious not Damage by battle fire will be too random for pre-programed robots to handle, so either you have humans in space suits or you have some kind of remote controlled robot so it is under human control.

[Gaidin]

Humans, partially because the Cylons can still hack the remote control wireless signal and screw with the repairs, mostly because you're not sending a repair bot much less a human into an active enemy firing solution anyway.

[Menelik_I]

Humans, partially because the Cylons can still hack the remote control wireless signal and screw with the repairs, mostly because you're not sending a repair bot much less a human into an active enemy firing solution anyway.

Considering that the enemy firing solution target vital ship components that are essential to keep you alive, you better send in someone to do the repairs. "They took down the FTL, we are stuck" to quote Saul Tight

Taking the discussion a slightly different direction, what are the active defense systems a space ship could be using realistically ? Of my head I would say that point defense would be a good candidate.

How do you defend yourself from laser weapons ? Missiles ? or rail-gun launched slugs ?

Of course there is the infinite loop of what if they target the defense first, so lets just forget that for a second ok. "They have done a overide of the our overide of their overide!" Fascape style

[Gaidin]

Considering that the enemy firing solution target vital ship components that are essential to keep you alive, you better send in someone to do the repairs. "They took down the FTL, we are stuck" to quote Saul Tight

If they managed to punch through that heavy armor and hit your FTL, you're not sending people out to repair the armor. You're sending people in to repair the FTL. Take note. You don't care about the armor right now. Not while flak is flying. You care about getting the hell out of there.

Assuming you have the type of armor that can be repaired outside of drydock anyway....which is a big assumption.

[Col. Tartleton]

Gah! BSG is stupid. It's less stupid then the other sci fi, but god it's all awful.

I feel like if they catastrophically disable the mechanism that allows you to disrupt things like mass and space-time using a weapon there might be some sort of side effect. I'm not sure what the effect would be, but doesn't it make sense that breaking the FTL would... I don't know, everything.

I mean if the magazine on a ship goes up you're talking about some serious fireworks. I don't know how *insert setting*'s FTL works but it's probably dangerous. I suspect it would have some sort of relationship to the power source for the ship as well, so I'm guessing that one of those two things is going to explode catastrophically and kill everyone aboard in a brilliant white flash.

I mean hell, I'd kind of think you might get some sort of space-time implosion or warp bubble popping.

[Gaidin]

I mean if the magazine on a ship goes up you're talking about some serious fireworks. I don't know how *insert setting*'s FTL works but it's probably dangerous. I suspect it would have some sort of relationship to the power source for the ship as well, so I'm guessing that one of those two things is going to explode catastrophically and kill everyone aboard in a brilliant white flash.

I mean hell, I'd kind of think you might get some sort of space-time implosion or warp bubble popping.

A magazine going up and breaking a ship's FTL are two different things, if you don't mind an analogy. One's like taking a baseball bat to a computer(magazine) and everything breaks, the other, when it happens, is in such a typically sensitively protected area that when it's hit it's like 'crap, PC fan died but I can fix it and the rest will work'. Which is usually what you see when sci fi does it. Examples being where they have to fix the FTL's coolant system so that they can jump without the damn thing exploding and destroying the ship. If you manage to punch hard enough into the FTL system to actually destroy the entire system, usually there's no ship left for the same reason there's no ship left when you hit the magazine. But not because destroying the FTL destroys the ship, but more because you did that much damage in the process.

[Menelik_I]

If they managed to punch through that heavy armor and hit your FTL, you're not sending people out to repair the armor. You're sending people in to repair the FTL. Take note. You don't care about the armor right now. Not while flak is flying. You care about getting the hell out of there.

Assuming you have the type of armor that can be repaired outside of drydock anyway....which is a big assumption.

I was talking about stuff such as the FTL, propulsion, life support, weapons etc. Not armor, as you said it is the last thing you care about in combat.

I was only assuming that if the enemy targeting solution is set on your component, it is dangerous to go repair it because the armor ceding is a matter of time.

Realistic armor repair in space without a dry dock or a whole massive support ship is put fiction really, which if you take into account the environment would mean massive retrofitting of ships after each tour.

Gah! BSG is stupid. It's less stupid then the other sci fi, but god it's all awful.

I feel your pain, BSG is indeed stupid at times:

1- Only 50 000 people out of 60 Billions survive ... right

2- This supposedly spacefaring civilization barely has anyone engaging in actual space travel, you would think that more ships would be stranded in space. I was hoping they could find some kind of renegade or neutral faction in fact that was hiding from the Cylon but refused to be associated with the clearly incompetent Colonial Fleet that let down the colonies. Space miners ? For a scifi show space is very empty. Even if I buy that they are in uncharted territory, but when you have 60 Billion people in an spacefaring society, at least 100 000 nutters would be dumb enough to venture out in the uncharted territories even if it is just for lulz or because they are outcasts.

3- The Colonial Fleet lack of any credible second strike capabilities. Which kind of dumb-ass fleet Admiral don't put a task force in constant patrol ? Pearl Harbor anyone ?

4- The fact that Ragnar Anchorage somehow only has enough weapons to fit ONE Battlestar ... I mean it is a strategic weapons depots in a planet invulnerable to the Cylons, stock pile more weapons there you moron. While I understand the technical difficulties at end, it is unforgivable that none of the civilian ships is ever converted into an armed merchant vessel to assist the Galactica . Heck Why aren't there more Battlestar permanently assigned to Ragnar ?

5- The whole go back to the land thing in the final episode ... Nature, I am not dumping my FTL equipment ship into the sun to have sex with monkeys. Bring the monkeys in my ship and lets have the orgy there.

I feel like if they catastrophically disable the mechanism that allows you to disrupt things like mass and space-time using a weapon there might be some sort of side effect. I'm not sure what the effect would be, but doesn't it make sense that breaking the FTL would... I don't know, everything.

I mean if the magazine on a ship goes up you're talking about some serious fireworks. I don't know how *insert setting*'s FTL works but it's probably dangerous. I suspect it would have some sort of relationship to the power source for the ship as well, so I'm guessing that one of those two things is going to explode catastrophically and kill everyone aboard in a brilliant white flash.

I mean hell, I'd kind of think you might get some sort of space-time implosion or warp bubble popping.

That is a fair point, you would think they could use the FTL engine as some kind of weapon at some point. Of course there is the caveat of knowing how unstable is the FTL they are using

[Gaidin]

I'm not really talking sci-fi here, just the BSG things:

I feel your pain, BSG is indeed stupid at times:

1- Only 50 000 people out of 60 Billions survive ... right

More did. These are just the number on the ships that got away with the Galactica. This got addressed quite a bit during Season 2. Were we watching the same show?

2- This supposedly spacefaring civilization barely has anyone engaging in actual space travel, you would think that more ships would be stranded in space. I was hoping they could find some kind of renegade or neutral faction in fact that was hiding from the Cylon but refused to be associated with the clearly incompetent Colonial Fleet that let down the colonies. Space miners ? For a scifi show space is very empty. Even if I buy that they are in uncharted territory, but when you have 60 Billion people in an spacefaring society, at least 100 000 nutters would be dumb enough to venture out in the uncharted territories even if it is just for lulz or because they are outcasts.

The cylons were as a general rule sweeping the system and killing the humans. They didn't care about factions. It was xenocide. Experimentation came later for the little towns out in the wilderness. Not everyone died. As for nuts crazy enough to explore uncharted territory, well, there's effectively 360^2 different vectors to travel. The odds of finding any single one of these nuts without a tracker is slim. As noted that for every time the cylons find the Fleet it's usually due to some sleeper agent. Were we watching the same show?

3- The Colonial Fleet lack of any credible second strike capabilities. Which kind of dumb-ass fleet Admiral don't put a task force in constant patrol ? Pearl Harbor anyone ?

There was one on constant patrol. The command navigation program back door was pretty damn insane. Their fleet, including their reserve fleets, were networked and open to the cyber attack. That's what made Galactica so tactically important for the civilian ships that got away. Galactica was an ancient ship from the days when everything was done by hand due to the fear of such cyber attacks. Were we watching the same show?

4- The fact that Ragnar Anchorage somehow only has enough weapons to fit ONE Battlestar ... I mean it is a strategic weapons depots in a planet invulnerable to the Cylons, stock pile more weapons there you moron. While I understand the technical difficulties at end, it is unforgivable that none of the civilian ships is ever converted into an armed merchant vessel to assist the Galactica . Heck Why aren't there more Battlestar permanently assigned to Ragnar ?

It's not really implied how much Ragnar has or doesn't have. What is explicitly said, however, is that the Galactica takes only what she needs as she only has so much space, and space is at a premium on any ship, as you no doubt know. Were we watching the same show?

Aside: as to conversions, munitions is one thing, armaments another. Some of the ships did have what relatively call small arms on the scale of ship to ship combat.

5- The whole go back to the land thing in the final episode ... Nature, I am not dumping my FTL equipment ship into the sun to have sex with monkeys. Bring the monkeys in my ship and lets have the orgy there.

The galactica was falling apart. No way in hell was that ship staying around and they had no time to take any of its equipment out of its frame. If it did it would only be to rain debris down on the planet. And if they did try to bring any of the tech along they wouldn't have any of the lesser tech and machinery needed to really make use of it. Were we watching the same show?

[Menelik_I]

Were we watching the same show?

Yes we were although I did a marathon last week and I did not watch Chrome & Blood and the miniseries. I started by when the fleet is attacked by the Cylons every 33 minutes, and the thing I know about Ragnar is only from checking the wiki.

I'm not really talking sci-fi here, just the BSG things:More did. These are just the number on the ships that got away with the Galactica. This got addressed quite a bit during Season 2. Were we watching the same show?

Yes there is the fleet that meet with the Pegasus and the rebels on Caprica. But this is completely forgotten afterwards, you would think going back to Caprica to any of the other 12 colonies to scoop out any survivors after the war ended would be a priority.

The cylons were as a general rule sweeping the system and killing the humans. They didn't care about factions. It was xenocide. Experimentation came later for the little towns out in the wilderness. Not everyone died. As for nuts crazy enough to explore uncharted territory, well, there's effectively 360^2 different vectors to travel. The odds of finding any single one of these nuts without a tracker is slim. As noted that for every time the cylons find the Fleet it's usually due to some sleeper agent. Were we watching the same show?

I know that the farther you go from the Colonial space the volume and chance of finding someone grow as a cubic function, but the Pegasus did meet some civilian ships and if Adama had the idea of going beyond the red line then someone else might have had the same idea, a person with the same problems of Adama and because planets with valuable resources are scarce the chances even out.

As you said the Cylons had sleepers agents, but they couldn't have had them in every single ship in the galaxy, so someone must have escaped. I just mean that because we are talking of a population of 60 Billion people which happen to be part of a space-faring civilization there should be way more space traffic and activity than there is in the series. Just imagine the size of Earth merchant navies with 6 billions people and extrapolate to 60 Billions and 12 planets. Less than 50 ships escaping is not probable.

There was one on constant patrol. The command navigation program back door was pretty damn insane. Their fleet, including their reserve fleets, were networked and open to the cyber attack. That's what made Galactica so tactically important for the civilian ships that got away. Galactica was an ancient ship from the days when everything was done by hand due to the fear of such cyber attacks. Were we watching the same show?

I can't disagree that the plan was perfect.

It's not really implied how much Ragnar has or doesn't have. What is explicitly said, however, is that the Galactica takes only what she needs as she only has so much space, and space is at a premium on any ship, as you no doubt know. Were we watching the same show?

Aside: as to conversions, munitions is one thing, armaments another. Some of the ships did have what relatively call small arms on the scale of ship to ship combat.

Ragnar is said to be inside a Gas giant magnetosphere that kills Cylons, the place should be stocked out to the maximum, unless strategic doesn't mean what we think it means.

AFAIK none of the civilians ships is ever armed or seen to take part in any kind of armed activity, if you exclude Starbucks hiding Vipers inside containers of one civilian ships.

If I remember it correctly the Civilian fleet show up at Ragnar under Adama orders, so why aren't the weapons loaded up on them and then some civilian ships equipped with some of the weapons ?

Point defenses, missiles, maybe some form of sensors ? Some improvisation would provide some auxiliary defenses to the fleet.

Armed merchant ship

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
The term armed merchant ship may describe a number of similar ship modifications intended for significantly different missions. The term armed merchantman is generally used.

• East Indiaman describes late 18th and early 19th-century sailing ships engaged in trade while carrying guns similar to contemporary warships.
• Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships were civilian-manned cargo ships carrying a small number of military personnel to operate an anti-submarine gun and anti-aircraft machine guns during the world wars of the early 20th century.[1]
• Auxiliary cruisers were cargo ships commissioned as naval vessels with a military crew, converted to carry the guns of a light cruiser, and sometimes used as Merchant raiders.[2]
• Armed merchant cruisers were fast passenger liners commissioned as naval vessels with a military crew and converted to carry the guns of a light cruiser.[3]
• Naval trawlers were fishing trawlers commissioned as naval vessels with a military crew and equipped for minesweeping or anti-submarine escort.[4]
• Q-ships were small civilian ships commissioned as naval vessels with a military crew, but retaining their original appearance while carrying concealed anti-submarine weapons.[5]
• Armed boarding steamers were merchant steamers converted by the United Kingdom for boarding enemy vessels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_merchant_ship

The galactica was falling apart. No way in hell was that ship staying around and they had no time to take any of its equipment out of its frame. If it did it would only be to rain debris down on the planet. And if they did try to bring any of the tech along they wouldn't have any of the lesser tech and machinery needed to really make use of it. Were we watching the same show?

The other ships were not falling apart, at that point the fleet has at least 20 ships in their numbers.

The could conceivably dismantle equipment from some of the ships and land them on the planet with the same ships that could land as seen in the New Caprica arc.

Power-plants, machinery such as the ones used to produce the bullets, the drilling equipment, the medical equipment, the algae processing plants, and much more. All of that is perfectly usable and valuable equipment they threw away.

It was all about a metamessage from the show director, not realistic technical difficulties that dictated the ending.

Now more to the point, the concept of a flying deck or Runway in space does make a lot of sense because it makes docking much less complicated as your target goes from an airlock to a wide rectangle so you can execute the maneuvre even in case of emergency or enemy fire.

[Gaidin]

Yes there is the fleet that meet with the Pegasus and the rebels on Caprica. But this is completely forgotten afterwards, you would think going back to Caprica to any of the other 12 colonies to scoop out any survivors after the war ended would be a priority.

They did. They went back and got all parties they knew of. Granted it was only one group that they knew of. But I'm starting to think you skipped the second season altogether. Shocker. Moving on.

I know that the farther you go from the Colonial space the volume and chance of finding someone grow as a cubic function, but the Pegasus did meet some civilian ships and if Adama had the idea of going beyond the red line then someone else might have had the same idea, a person with the same problems of Adama and because planets with valuable resources are scarce the chances even out.

As you said the Cylons had sleepers agents, but they couldn't have had them in every single ship in the galaxy, so someone must have escaped. I just mean that because we are talking of a population of 60 Billion people which happen to be part of a space-faring civilization there should be way more space traffic and activity than there is in the series. Just imagine the size of Earth merchant navies with 6 billions people and extrapolate to 60 Billions and 12 planets. Less than 50 ships escaping is not probable.

This is where you learn something about writing. The show's not about them. The show's about the Galactica and the civilian fleet she's escorting. That's where the limited screen time goes.

Ragnar is said to be inside a Gas giant magnetosphere that kills Cylons, the place should be stocked out to the maximum, unless strategic doesn't mean what we think it means.

It was for all we know. That doesn't mean the Galactica is going to take every inch of ammunition in there. She's only going to take what she can carry and what she needs.

If I remember it correctly the Civilian fleet show up at Ragnar under Adama orders, so why aren't the weapons loaded up on them and then some civilian ships equipped with some of the weapons ?

Point defenses, missiles, maybe some form of sensors ? Some improvisation would provide some auxiliary defenses to the fleet.

Ostensibly, they don't have the engineering cability to jury rig the weapons, targeting computers, ammo delivery, and all sorts of other logistics that a warship has on hand right into a civilian ship as quickly as you want them to be able to. Stop thinking this is an easy thing to do. It isn't. Also, the Galactica wants to be the primary target. You start having civilian ships fire military level ammo without military level armor to back it up, that turns them into a priority target and people start dying by the thousands. The reason that number stayed above 40,000 for so long was because the Cylons had to go after the Galactica every damn time while the civilians used her as a firewall.

The other ships were not falling apart, at that point the fleet has at least 20 ships in their numbers.

The could conceivably dismantle equipment from some of the ships and land them on the planet with the same ships that could land as seen in the New Caprica arc.

Power-plants, machinery such as the ones used to produce the bullets, the drilling equipment, the medical equipment, the algae processing plants, and much more. All of that is perfectly usable and valuable equipment they threw away.

They have no way to maintain any of that equipment long term. That stuff falls apart inside five years with how much use they put it through during the second cylon war.

It was all about a metamessage from the show director, not realistic technical difficulties that dictated the ending.

Say metamessage all you want, it doesn't really matter. Any engineer will tell you the same thing. 99% of that equipment was useless five years down the road because they don't have the logistics in place to maintain it no matter what you want to say. They're an agrarian society now no matter what they do. They can fight it or they can embrace it. They embraced it.

Now more to the point, the concept of a flying deck or Runway in space does make a lot of sense because it makes docking much less complicated as your target goes from an airlock to a wide rectangle so you can execute the maneuvre even in case of emergency or enemy fire.

Problem being you run into the same issues you do on any landing deck. You need anything to slow your speed as you have zero air resistance. Note the scared out of her mind look on starbuck's face when she landed in the miniseries battle at the speed she did. Those two had no right to walk away from that landing.