Hello hello, today my hotest take on the BSG remastered series. The pegasus was a mistake, and a whole lot of wasted potential. It was poorly implimented and ultimately left the audiance unsatasfied, angry and worst of all. Often unwilling to keep watching the show. So settle in as i explain why the pegasus was handdled terrible and how i think it could have been done better.
If you’d like to support Science Insanity check out our patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/ScienceInsanity
If you’d like to join the discord, click here:
https://discord.com/invite/HyNC2CTH7g
source
I haven't watched the new series aside from clips, but the closest to surviving I can see the pegasus is in a crippled or salvage state, where now you would have a militant wing of people to incorporate, but no full capable ship, makes for a faction point I find missing, that of the true military hardline, the ultimate pragmatist.
good point
What is this bafoonish incoherent rambling ? ^^
The Pegasus was only meant to serve as a "mirror Galactica" to show a what if scenario where the military had made all the decisions and there would be no civilian leadership in place.
After that it was served off in a cool spectacular way and safed the day when its story was done and no longer needed.
All this foaming but the production capabilitesy yadayada is just nerdy over the top. Don't get me wrong I like consistency in my settings and rules but what you are doing here is just waaay over board …
8:27 Damn, Galactica with full armour plating sure look beautiful. Second to the Blood & Chrome version Galactica, of course.
One idea I like would if they had to cannibalized Pegasus to save Galatica. It would have been cool.
Imagine if Barry Garner was still alive and acting captain of the Pegasus, and the ships last battle was her suffering extensive damage to her midsection, but retaining the ability to do FTL, if her front section was intact.
It would be interesting to see Garner's ark moved here, where instead of dying saving the ship, his ark would culminate with him deciding that the crew is more important than the ship, and choosing to use explosives to separate the rear with the FTL from the front sections.
With this the explosion would allow what remains of Pegasus and its crew to FTL out, but also render the ship no longer combat worthy, or as useful as an industrial producer.
This way you'd take its relevance of the plot table, and avoid the final battle debacle.
It would it seems take a long time and a wall of text to show all the ways you are wrong about the Pegasus. It clearly had to be in the remake but to try to keep it simple (aka I will make a BIGGER WALL OF TEXT):
1. It is a cannon ship and with so many changes not having her is really less then Useful. I mean they already tossed out the Cylons creator species, the Angel species and all the freaky other aliens because Mr Almos said he would pass out and leave if they showed up…can’t 86 the Pegasus too.
2. She makes pushes home a contrast with the Galactica from crew to appearance. (Seriously. Adama v Cain, the command area and so much more). The Galactica was humanity trying to make it and cope with the situation without loosing it’s soul to anger, hate, despair and most seriously … vengeance . Wanting to go back and making them pay is human but we see in the Pegasus the result of giving into that dark impulse.
3. She pushes home the idea that the fleet is alone. The more advanced ship that should have found survivors easier then a museum ship drives home no other hope is coming. Yes she is powerful, but understaffed and while she should have many times the fighters and crew of the Galactica, she clearly doesn’t. She brings a verification to the show that they are alone with Cylons that want to kill them. It is a nice ship but the fleet had hundreds of Battlestars and stealth stars and they couldn’t stop the end. So what can one of them under crewed, led by lesbian Ahab going to really do? They can pull off a stunt but ultimately the math is no different then before.
4. The Pegasus is the answer as to why the Cylons could not simply keep a pin on the Galactica and kill them at will. Consider the Cylons had enough ships to wipe out the colonies and their defenses all at once. Note that even their billions of fighters can jump. The fully operational Pegasus fighting a one ship war on the Cylons keeping them in the back foot helps here. The Pegasus not requiring any support and with very powerful dives means they can’t just ignore that threat. It explains why the Galactica only had that first episode only once. The main Cylon fleet had to defense against the threat of the Pegasus.
5. The Pegasus WAS broken. It was not just Cain. The crew acted in unprofessional ways. I know I pointed this out before but it bares thinking about very seriously. Cain’s were scared of their shadow or cruel in the extreme. They had become good fighters but lost touch with their humanity and the core military structure they has swore to uphold. They literally were willing to take commands shoot fellow officers! And the command staff was of filled with followers and not leader quality. Cain was not just an Ahab character but her crew were messed up as well.
6. The Pegasus did not have replicators. It had small factories that could make things they were built and programmed to make. Repairs on the 30 civilian ships and the should have been mothballed Battlestar was not in the mix and that makes a lot of sense. In the modern context we can all but strip and build any ship in the US fleet. Heck we have HDMI’s ships cut in half and we put them beck together and send them back on patrol but if you told them to repair the USS Maryland (one of the ships not to sink at Pearl Harbor) of the damage she had taken on that faithful day, you would be right out of luck. Same thing.
7. The problem was not that the ship was going to be around and needed to stay around- it was how to write it off. The writers thought it was cool to have it going out guns blazing but THAT was the stupid call. The ship needed to go off like the original did. The base at the end of the 2K series was (according to the voice of god) not the Cylons colony (even if it was referred to as such). The ship should have headed off to draw fire from the Galactica and attack and raid the seat of Cylon power and just disappear. Then you have the results of the Cylons’s inability to defeat it and the major damage it has done as having triggered the internal Cylon civil war. This writes itself!
There are lots of other things I disagree with that you said but these were the high points. And even if YT tried to get me to stop typing at you by unsubscribing me, you are not getting off that easy. I resumed so not you can expect more modified walls of text in your future.
Interesting. I had no idea that its inclusion created issues with some fans. I guess its true that there is ALWAYS a group of people who will be pissed at any given thing.
The entire New Caprica plot line was crapola. It was shoved in due to a requirement to make political commentary on a war in the real world at the time. It could have been a much cooler sequence of episodes, with the colonial forces being worn down over time until Galactica had to escape with the refugee fleet while the Pegasus was left behind to cover the retreat. This would have reinforced the inability of the Colonial forces to defeat the Cylons, due to the Cylons' ability to reinforce and resupply much better than the diminished Colonials.
Ah well, bad decisions made due to politics.
I like the idea of a damaged Pegasus, one that’s structural members are shot and jumps are limited. It would give more impetus to stay on New Caprica and when she sacrificed herself it was with the knowledge she would likely never jump again anyway.
It would have also provided more impact to the compound damage that Galactica was taking over the later series.
Well answer to your question about the fabrication capabilities, what stops the Pegasus from being able to manufacture more armor for Galactica is size and scale…..Do you have what amounts to an advanced 3-D printer that can build Raptors and vipers, but it was never designed to be able to replace massive thousand ton chunks of battle armor…..And even then this isn’t a star trek replicator that can just make the stuff out of thin air, they need the raw materials which would have to be mined and mining would require the fleet to sit still for a long enough period of time to get the right elements necessary and being chased by the silence all the time would prohibit that. Decent writing could explain the limitations of the fabrication technology fairly well. A single ship with the lifeline to be able to maintain the constantly damaged fleet Actually makes a lot of negative sense. It becomes more difficult as the series goes on to justify the civilian fleet always being able to jump away without taking damage. If Pegasus exists the fleet can continue to take damage in Close encounters and the ships can be at least partially repaired and made serviceable.
Pegasus was brought in for one reason only. in the original series that was one of the most popular arcs. But the original story wasn't that Galactica was being decommissioned, it was the Capricia Flagship. so in the original finding a second of the 12 Battlestars was a big thing. The remake made it worse for them. Instead of a old but fully functional Battlestar they were in a borderline gutted ship. A museum and gift shops in place of a flight pod no real armaments, it was very much implied that the only reason Galactica survived was because it wasn't worth prioritizing as a target. for Pegasus it was a desperate call for a blind jump and grandfathered "tactical genius" of General Cain that resulted in the Pegasus avoiding the Cylon fleet. Admiral Cain then begins to plan for revenge very much as Adama had planned and stopped because Lee said the president was alive?
It's kinda weird to compare original and reboot as the original Adama seemed like he was a council member and the military commander so chairman of the joint chiefs type. where in the reboot Adama was just one commander among many which required the President role to fill the gap of what the character design of this Adama lacked.
I would change story for that:
Adama was once an Admiral and in charge of Pegasus for decade before fall of Twelve Colonies, during tests of Stealthstar he ordered to shoot on Novacek, but he autodestruct Stealthstar before that and ejected himself into space.
Without Stealthstar missiles aimed and destroyed Cylon Raiders. That gives Cylons green light to begin The Plan. Adama is disgraced by Colonial Fleet and he is demoted to Commander during martial court.
Fleet prosecutor Major Helena Cain wants death sentence for him but due to recent death of Zack Adama, jury puts William in charge of Battlestar Galactica along with his crew as honorable discharged from active duty as "Flagship" officer.
Here comes Cain who is promoted in place of Adama and given command of Pegasus.
Later it would be shown through flashback (for example in Razor) that Cain with Gina Inviere (Number Six seduced president) were blackmailing Adar to push Admirals to promote her to rank of Admiral and Gina to head of IT of Modernizing the Fleet.
So Adama would not only face again a woman that destroyed his life, wanted to take it (twice, sic!) now on his place with his old ship in command.
The Pegasus problem requires a FINAL SOLUTION 🤣
I remember when watching BSG, as soon as Cain appeared I thought, Yep, she's the antagonist, she's going to get murderised by Six. The crew of the Pegasus were not portrayed as professional military, just about every single one of them was a eff up and/or a terrible person.
It was obvious at the time the writers didn't have the wherewithal to deal with Pegasus in a good way, we were all expecting it to get blown up since doing The Beast properly was something it seemed the writers were incapable of doing. Instead they were in their "Oppressed people attacking the invaders" / "We need more soap opera" phase, they did mention the colony sequence was supposed to be a direct metaphor for the American and allies in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I would have been fine with a beaten Pegasus finding the fleet, the ship needs a safe harbour for a while, the crew and command are worn ragged after fighting for x period of time. Change Cain so she is messed up but not the ahole she was in the series and film. Perhaps she did what Adama wanted to do in the mini series.
Imagine thinking you really are the last remnants of humanity, all you have left is revenge. Suddenly you find traces of what might be a Cylon trap or might be salvation, an organised fleet, with escorts ships, civilians. Building up again. Then you find Galactica and the rag tag fleet and think "What the frack?"
The two crews don't really get along, one is hardened and messed up with constant combat while Galactica's crew is seen as having 'got off easy' or as 'cowards who ran away' compared to Pegasus. It could have been interesting to see Galactica's crew from the perspective of people who have been living variants of the episode 33 for ages.
How to get rid of The Pegasus . Have both ships fly together for a while, Pegasus updating and repairing Galactica as they go, have some mention of cracking / fatigue in her hull. Both ships healing their hurts. Do the colony being found by Cylons shtick. During the battle Galactica manages to jump out either leaving Pegasus as a rearguard or Pegasus goes off in a different direction either with ships of the fleet or decoys. There is some vague plan to meet up again but the ship never shows up.
Give us some hope!
Nope, you are wrong. If the Pegasus was beat up like the Galactica, people would have sympathy for the ship and her crew. They had to be the bad guys.
The best solution is to make them sacrifice the pegasus for the civilian fleet, not just Galactica. For example:
Jumping from the atmosphere is dangerous and can damage a ship therefore civilian ships need a couple of minutes to get high enough to jump without breaking after the jump. Now that the additional 4 basestarts did jump there is a lot of raider heading for the civilian fleet. One of the ships jumps from the atmosphere to inform the pegasus what is happening and we can see that ship breaking in half and suffering massive damage. Then Pegasus jumps in and takes a nuke that destroys its FTL.
About the fabrication, what about making the new vipers with parts salvaged during the Great Cylon Turkey Shoot? A viper with Cylon engines and guns would really show how desperate the colonials are to get something up and running.
1. Pegasus subplot was far better than ending 2. First of all, Original Series had better resolution of Pegasus Arc – came out of nothing, provided glimpse of what might have been, dissapeared inconclusively into nothing. 3. Even CGI artists had huge poster "Save the Pegasus!". Anyway, except of attrocious way of removal of Pegasus (and wasted opportunities of doing so) *there was nothing wrong with the sublot – it was terrific*. It showed how modern colonial fleet looked like (remember Galactica was about to be decomissioned), it showed ….different way of survival and rubbed some of anxiety and loosened discipline back into Galactica. Allowed Fleet to carry one for some time and regenerate (suspension od disbelief) , but not enough to change outcome or character of the show. In any case – it looked GREAT and even in stupid battle the last thing visible name of the ship on flight pod, just before it hits the base star….. what you proposed was just Original Series "Make it another Galactica".
I have exactly zero investment in BSG. I just admire that this fledgling channel is willing not only to touch a touchy subject but throw in a cold opening to boot. It's like going to Little St. James and bragging about who you did there.
I love the introduction of Pegesus. It is a great scene. I love that it stuck around because it sticks a finger in the eye of status quo is god trope.
You are correct it is over the top in terms of ability like fabrication. They could have had it escape with half the crew and missing viper pilots.
I like the idea of the wounded beast because, as you said, it required stupidity to kill off the ship vs a loss that doesn't make people look stupid.
Imagine Cain wanting to transfer her flag to Galactica because it was the better ship. Imagine the oh shit when the assessment is done and the better ship on paper is revealed to be worse off than Galactica. More fights and more bad hits. The sacrifice play makes more sense when Pegesus is on borrowed time anyway.
I do disagree with what you say about disposing of plot elements once the story is done because it makes for bad continuity. Character has sibling is shown once never again. Makes it look like the writers forgot. Its good to revisit those stories for b plots that continue through the show.
My opinion about why Galactica will survive until the end of the show and the Pegasus no is not that the show is called Battlestar Galactica (even if it's the most obvious). No, the reason why she survived was because the Prophecy. It was said that a dying leader will bring the people to Earth. Well, Galactica was the the first ship of her class, so the leader, and she was old and slowly wearing out in each chapter more and more to the point of her end.
I think a better idea would have balanced it out with the Pegasus is to make it a resource hog. This ship was made post-Cylon War and was built with the industrial might of the colonials to back it up. Give it enough times (ten years or so) and people will forget logistics and think just having a big enough gun will win wars (looking at you Russia). Meanwhile, the Galactica was made during the Cylon War when resources were more scarce, therefore it was made to be more self-reliant. Therefore the Pegasus is more powerful than the Galactica but it burns through resources faster than the Galactica and will only be able to fight a few battles before having to refuel and rearm while the Galactica is able to fight.
Therefore, instead of a weird sacrifice, the Colonials sent it to its death trying to take as many Cylons with it as they could not afford to keep it as it brought the fleet in the red due to the amount of resources it was burning through. (Though this only works if the show slowly converts the civilian fleet and modifies them to support manufacturing facilities to support each other and the fleet. Like repair ships to modified workshops and hospital ships).
There are so many ways to fix the sacrifice of the Pegasus over New Caprica:
They could have always planned to take both ships in, but one would jump first, alert the Cylons, then lead them off while the other jumped directly into atmosphere to recieve the evacuees. The Pegasus could have been ship 1 either because it was tougher and more likely to survive the pounding it would take (only to not quite make it), or because the oler Battlestars from the first Cylon war might have been designed with atmospheric entry in mind, making Galactica the only option for that role
Or both ships could have jumped in to engage the Cylons directly, and the Cylons chose to focus on Pegasus as the more significant threat. Hoping that if Pegasus was destroyed, Galactica wouldn't last much passed that, or that if only one ship could be destroyed before the other jumped out, they'd rather down the more powerful of the two
Alternatively, the Galactica could have taken on Religious significance as the vessel chosen by the gods to deliver the people to their new home, and so Pegasus, despite being a more powerful asset, could have been the more bearable psycological loss
And those are just what I came up with. I'm sure other folks have even better ideas
I may have missed this so maybe it did not happen, but I think you can tell how bad an idea like the Pegasus was when there is no lasting impact. On the original BSG when the Pegasus was gone you had Sheba and Bojay(sp?) So, the Pegasus being there had a continued impact. But on the new one (again assuming I did not miss anything) the Pegasus is gone and "let us never speak of it again." But I guess a lot of television shows do this. I think I first noticed this on the Dukes of Hazzard t.v. show. Bo and Luke were written out of the show, so they brought in two other guys who were supposed to be cousins who I guess grew up with the other Dukes or something. When the new guys left, they drove away over a hill, and we never heard another word about them. Same thing with the Pegasus. Its gone, we move on, no biggie. It's absence should have been felt more. But it wasn't because it was an idea that was done badly. IMO
I was actually traumatized by the destruction of the Pegasus. As far as I'm concerned, they should have kept her for the entire run of the series.