I think Mr. Hatch isn’t saying that within the confines of the BSG:Reimagining Cain made the right decision.
He was saying had the show been even more realistic about a bunch of lost people in a very hostile environment, they probably couldn’t have taken every civilian.
That’s why he used the Moses and the exodus wondering in the desert for 40 years for an example. In a realistic world, it’d be difficult to move just 20 people across the desert in the shortest amount of time. Imagine how realistic is it if Moses really had “ALL” of the Egypt’s Jewish slaves with him.
How are they going to find water? For all those people, in the desert, being lost at the same time?
But of course that wasn’t a realistic story and god was aiding Moses. In real world if someone got any group of people lost in the desert for more than a year, I think there’d be some kind of serious rear kicking going on.
Putting that in the BSG universe, it would have been difficult enough to run with a group of civilians. But Cain wasn’t even planning to make an escape. She had no illusion of Earth, and she didn’t plan to lie to her people that Earth existed like Adama did. She planned to turn and fight the Cylons, and how realistic is it to have a civilian fleet with her?
In her mind those civilians would have died going with or without her.
In a more well know by the west era of Chinese history, called the Romance of 3 Kingdoms, there was a famous battle called the Battle of the Long Bridge Hill. Where Liu Bei lost his city to Cao Cao’s advancing troops and decided to make a run for it down the Yangzi River. With 5,000 of Cao Cao’s elite cavalry chased down Liu Bei’s 2,000 retreating infantry, a group 10,000 civilians came in front of Liu Bei and begged him to take them with him.
Against everyone’s objection, Liu Bei agreed and promised to take them along, and when the 5,000 cavalry arrived, Liu Bei’s infantry crumbled and Liu fled for his dear life, deserting his wifes and only son.
Guess what happened to the 10,000 civilians…