Not Thousands of years.......

Television, Movies Games and Books BSG-2003
#1

OK i’m ready for anyone that can prove this wrong or inaccurate…

Stay with me…

the FF (from a planet the relied on reproduction to resurection)
the Five were the only surviors, and the FIRST to make use of resurection. so they lived their lives from chilhood until the nuclear war in ‘normal’ time.
For Ellen and Saul that would be, lets say 50 some years.

they resurected on their ship at that same age, and proceed to the colony’s at near light speed…“time slowed for us”

With time distortion 2000 years passed for the rest of the galaxy but only a small amount of time passed for them. ( if the disortion was 1 day for them is 1 year for us ) then only 6 years passed for them(approx 2000 days)

So Ellen and Saul have been married for a “normal” amount of time in their own personal time lines. they don’t have thousands of years of memories or marrage.

the person I feel bad for is Sam. for six years …Ellen and Saul had each other and Galen and Tori had each other but Sam was alone… I guess flying the ship…
Let me know what you think…

#2

The amount of subjective time that passed for the FF really depends on how fast their ship was travelling.

Just some quick numbers here.
If they were travelling at 50% of the speed of light, their clocks would “tick” at about 87% the rate of a stationary observer, so only 1740 years would have gone by for the FF.

At 99.9% of the speed of light, 89.4 years would pass for the FF.

Both of the speeds I used are highly unrealistic due to the incredible amount of energy that would be needed to reach those speeds. A more reasonable speed would be something like 10% lightspeed which leaves the FF experiencing 1990 years on their ship.

My understanding of the story so far is the the FF didn’t invent resurrection technology, they re-invented it from an existing device.

#3

My theory has been that they weren’t to know how reztech worked when they departed from Kobol, but they figured out the process on Erf.

#4

Yes. they did re-invent it. But were the first to use it after the re-invention.
I still feel bad for Sam… Play 'watchtower" for the women he loved but didn’t get to take her with… or was it Tori? and Galen is going to find out that Sam took his lady and then his Ex-girlfrien killed his wife…

It really seemed to me that when Sam was saying that time slowed for them, he was saying that some time passed but not a lot… So I was trying to come up with a theory ’ within the BSG universe’ that beared that out.

I am going to miss this show.

#5

Even if that’s the case, we know they didn’t age 80 years. So either the writers are sloppy with this stuff (again) or the FF put themselves in some kind of stasis. Or of course, they could just say they were using something like warp where you can ignore relativity because you’re not traveling through normal space exactly.

But regardless, I agree with the original post. Ellen and Saul’s relationship is not “thousands of years old”. It’s about the same as their relationship when they thought they were human.

#6

Here is something to consider to the discussion. Could a starship function for thousands of years. Unless of course the ship could be resurrected. Just a little food for thought.

#7

Don’t forget, they have magical Tylium fuel, so presumably energy (and mass, don’t forget relativistic mass, which increases as much as time slows, making acceleration more difficult) isn’t a problem. (Hell, if it can power FTL drives, what can’t it do?)

#8

here’s a possible continuity break. this might be hard to follow; apologies.

i’m under the impression that the final five (and all of the cylons from earth) age normally, like any human. right? so going backwards… Tigh lives among the humans for aprox. 30 years. during that time he ages. so at the time he is boxed by cavil, he should be 30 years younger. which means that when he arrived at the 12 colonies, he should have been about 40 years younger. then if we say that their 2000 year journey from earth to the colonies only felt like 6 years to them, then at the time earth was nuked, tigh is about 46 years younger than he is on the battlestar galactica.

so then in the flashback’s to earth we see in sometimes a great notion, why does he look exactly the same???

you could do the same thing with any of the other final five. i would have to assume that they did not age when cavil boxed them.

error? or are we missing something here.

#9

I still find it funny that the “PC Guy” was responsible for giving Sam the “blue window of death”. It seems he will “reboot” for this upcoming episode.

#10

Obviously we have to allow for some creative license, but it is clear that there are bodies that pre-exist, and I can only assume that Cavil re-downloaded them before unleashing them on the 12 Colonies. I think the only big hole in the theory is the Erf flashbacks, which I’m sure we can chalk up as simply a memory of themselves with their mind’s eyes not really aging themselves correctly.

#11

how about this…

the way the FF “resurect” is different then the rest of the Skin jobs. Maybe the First time they downloaded from ERF to their ship they “youthened” themselves, but after that due to some lack of resources, they download into bodies that are the age they were when they died. So Ellen did not youthen this time.

so Saul, was as we see him now, when the ERF was destroyed and was Resurected 30 years younger? (or whatever)

it would have been better if in the flashback on ERF they had made Saul look like he look in the scene when he met Bill.

#12

That’s hilarious. I called into the ‘cast last week and said the exact same thing about Anders. Po’ Sam, wearing out his hands having some Bunktime.

#13

How did the final five manage to exist in a “normal” colonial society not having birth certificates, families, histories, etc. It’s one thing to plant childhood memories into them so that they think they grew up normaly, but how did Tigh manage to join the military at age 30 with no background, history, birth records, etc? Are we to assume that Cavil set them up with fake papers? You can ask that with everybody. Sam was a famous pyramid player, did anybody ever wonder what high school he played for? Chief, also in the Military.

So, the question is, were they placed in the colonies as infants, or as adults with fake papers. Were they artificially inseminated into their mothers?

If they were placed as infants, does all the timing work out?

Timing (I need to put more thought into this, but here’s my initial thoughts)
The first cylon war ended about 40 years ago. Then, as we now know, the war ended because the f5 showed the old school centurions how to make skin jobs. It would make sense to assume that that process took a few years, so there wouldn’t be any skin jobs with more than 40 years (and more likely 30) of life experience. But, if they age, then most of the S7 make sense age-wise, most of them are under 40. Cavil, and maybe Simon are the only ones that look like they might be older than 40 years.

So, other than Cavil, and maybe Simon, it could be possible that when the s7 were first created, they were created as infants, and when they resurect, they come back at their running linear age. Maybe the bodies are already in the tubs, growing and aging, just waiting for a consciousness to be put into them. We havn’t known them long enough to really see if they age or not. Saul has clearly aged, but he’s the only one who there is photos of from the past.

OK, that’s a ramble of ideas, but I had to get em out.

#14

I’m new here so I hope you don’t mind if I jump in!

I noticed that Ellen said something about thousands of years of marriage - maybe she was just kidding? Because I think, as others have said too, that time outside their spaceship was thousands of years but for them (for whatever science-type reason) it was only a handful of years.

As for their ages… If they downloaded themselves onto a ship from Earth, maybe they had created new “youthened” bodies for themselves. Why not?? I would if I were them!

Ok, but the real reason I wanted to respond to this thread is that I wanted to say … who ever said Anders was all by himself during that time? Ellen made a point of saying that they (the ff) were all close. And they way she touched them, their faces? I was a little weirded out by that. I love Ellen, she’s a great character, but c’mon - she sleeps around!

#15

Welcome aboard, glare.

I think her comment was to non-relativistic time (she does tend toward hyperbole.)

#16

Maybe they just resurected over and over again for two thousand years. That would make sense, they had the technology, but then the comment about time slowing down, wouldn’t really make sense. On the other hand, a lot of what he was saying didn’t make sense, like calling Ellen a Gazelle. Maybe he meant to say that it seemed to take forever.

Or, they could have been in stasis, which I think somebody else has already mentioned. In a way, that would constitute time slowing down. If you look at hybernation in bears, they sort of slow down time, so they can get through the winter. So, maybe they slowed themselves down, not time, so it would seem like a few years, but it was really two thousand. Or, maybe the writers didn’t expect us to figure out the math concerning the space time continuum ratios.

#17

Maybe, they just boxed themselves aboard their ship with its computers programmed to unbox and download them at key points of their journey so they could observe certain galactic signposts to ensure they remained on track until they came within distance of the colonies. Cavil did box Dianna shortly after she downloaded, and it was the FF that taught the Cavils about boxing and downloading, so it is possible for them to box, download and box at will! It would explain food, water, and air conservation.

#18

Well done John. This also seems most plausible to me. Plus they had to have been on a more meandering course to Erf, because it only took the colonials 3 years (1 year on New Craprica) to get to Erf and they only had the signposts and Pythian texts left to them.

#19

Heh, maybe. My theory was that maybe Sam was pulling a Baltar/HeadSix with the head figure that came to warn him…same general idea, just a little more fun for Sam. :wink:

#20

Good questions !
Yes, I think Cavil sent them with fake papers.