Jamming

[peter noble]

We know the Cylons have the ability to jam Colonial transmissions and scanners.

As the Cylons are completely electronic, surely the Cylons themselves can be disrupted by jamming or some sort of EMP?

[Darrell Lawrence]

I'd say so. Didn't Apollo use some type of a remote on that Cylon in "Baltar's Escape"?

If so, then they can be affected by transmissions (ie, jamming, radio (rock & roll!), remote, 5 speed (oops. wrong transmission type) )

[martok2112]

I know that in Reciprocity, I wrote that the Cylons could be jammed by microwave weapons (and apparently even microwave ovens)

Respectfully,
Martok2112

[Shatter]

That's a very interesting idea to speculate on. One wonders if the concept might not prove central to the Cylons' final defeat. Perhaps involving a few intrepid Colonial Warriors infiltrating Cylon basestars and planting the transmitters, ala "The Hand of God".

[gmd3d]

In the books the warrior Cylons had one brain ,, the Commanders had two brains (with ecm built it) and the leader had the third brain.. as far as I remember

[TwoBrainedCylon]

Jamming of communication and jamming of circuitry (fiber-optic wires) is an entirely different thing. Electronics usually work best with super high frequencies. Long-range communications on Earth use lower frequencies because the higher ones break apart when they hit pressures in the air, mountains, etc. Generally, the higher the frequency the greater the data, which would indicate that the Cylons use super-high frequencies inside. Our space communications use higher freqs for these same reasons and rely on the fact that in our solar system, there isn't much interference.

In a space society, this wouldn't be the case. You'd use lower freqs because of things like gas belts and the sheer distance. On Earth, we use the VHF/UHF band to punch through the atmosphere since the lower freqs bounce off it and run around the Earth a few times, making for better long range. Above this, the beams just scatter apart.

Something like an EMP pulse would affect them if they weren't grounded and didn't have protected coils. Vehicles are taken out this way because of this. If the Cylons sent themselves through radiation rich space and never came up with the idea of shiedling themselves then they'd be pretty stupid. The G80 episode, "The Night the Cylons Landed" indicated that they are indeed that stupid, if you consider G80 to be an extention of Galactica.

However, having said that, the amount of power needed to send out an effective pulse like this would be immense. This is why they come out of nuclear explosions. If you had that much energy at hand, you'd be far better off using it to blast the crap out of the machines than disabling them, unless capturing them were your objective.

IOW, its complicated but it can be done.


Sandy

[peter noble]

I'm proposing that if the Cylons ever got to Earth, that the whole planet should be behind a minefield of microwave ovens!

[Tabitha]

Well, if nothing else, we could ALWAYS just send them a tight beam tramsmission of endless repeats of Barney and friends. If they dont surrender, then we submit them to days of nothing but The Weather Channel till they scream, heads blow up, much pain, babbling insanely....

tabbi

[martok2112]

Originally Posted by peter noble

I'm proposing that if the Cylons ever got to Earth, that the whole planet should be behind a minefield of microwave ovens!

That was going to be my next story, Peter.

"Battlestar Galactica: The Quasar Solution"

Irreverently,
Martok2112