Could Earth have helped the fleet?

[skippercollecto]

In 30-plus years of loving BG, I have NEVER seen this topic discussed.
Adama was leading the fleet to Earth in the hopes that not only would his people find a new home to settle, but also to find assistance in fighting the Cylons.
It was always in my head that, if the series had continued, that the fleet would eventually find Earth (I'm ignoring Galactica 1980). If BG had continued airing for another two or three years and the fleet had reached Earth, say, in 1981, would Earth have been able to handle Adama's quest?
Would there have been room for the additional people? Would Earth have been able to develop the weaponry (with the fleet's help) to fight the Cylons?
I had also always assumed that the answer would have been "no" the first question. Adama & Co. would have eventually packed up and left and gone looking for another new home. But where they go is another topic altogether.
Mary

[Charybdis]

Given the advancement in technology that the Colonials had over our tech in 1981, we definitely would not have been any help to the fleet. And while they helped us advance the weaponry, the Cylons would attack just as seen in the pilot of G80...

[Reaper]

The big question in all of this would be time. How long would the fleet have had to bring us up to a level of tech where we could help.

Would we have had a chance of learning about these upgrades? How big of a learnign curve is there between a Viper and a Jet Fighter? How fast can we start producing Vipers? How ineffective would be Jet Fighters against Cylons? Could modern Missles (even those of 1981) Lock on and destroy a Raider? How would Surface to Air missles do against them?

One thign Galactica 1980 lacked, and this is because they used stock footage of an earthquake disaster movie to show the Cylon attach (ironically Earthquake Starred Lorne Greene), is Earth Fighting back.

Think Independance Day. Only The fighters of BSG never showed anythign to suggest the use of electronic shields. Is the thrust of a Raider hot enough to lock a heat seaking missle onto? My guess is yes. The question is warhead yeild on the missle verses the construction of the raider. But enough hits will work.

The raiders would not be much of a threat from space. They aren't orbital bombarders. The baseships then become the problem. This is where Earth would have little or no defense.

[AJMarks]

I would have to say yes. History has shown repeatedly that humans can adapt quickly to new technology. The biggest question in my mind isn't technology, but mindset of the people. Could the people of Earth work together against such a thread.

[packard400]

Although I've been a member for a long time, this is my first post.
I think there is a major flaw with the time-line assumptions that
have been put forward so far. They don't take into account the
civilization on Terra. The people of that planet used Earth derived
time measurement (hours, minutes, seconds), and distance (kilometers).
The inhabitants of Terra obviously descended from an earlier,
spacefaring, Earth based civilization which they themselves seem
to have forgotten. Just my 2 cents.

Mark

[jewels]

Mark, I've never thought about Terra that way. It's an interesting hypothesis. It would go with the way that the 12 Colonies fled Kobol and basically started over with their technological development once they settled in the Colonies.

I always thought that the Terrans were 13th Tribe member descendants who were separated from the earth colonists mid-journey to Earth. Perhaps a ship became unable to finish the journey or to support all of those originally on board.

[WarMachine]

Ooooooooooo, good one Jewels - That got the juices flowing!

First, we need to look at the time frame the RTF would have arrived at Earth.

For the purposes, let's say that HoG occurs contiguous with the Apollo 11 landing, and that Apollo and company were able to catch the transmission via a technobabble fluke of nature (wandering wormhole, eddy's in Dark Matter waves...whatever).

So: End of episode 'HoG' = July 20, 1969

First question: How long will the Gal/RTF take to reach Earth, following the coordinates given by the BoL?

Answer: No telling. We have no realistic way of judging the distances involved, so all we can do is estimate.

Next question: Is Gal/80 canonical? This is a vital question, because in re G80, only one of three things can be true:

a) G80 is completely bogus, and is to be ignored -- which puts us back to Square 1

b) The RTF passed through some weird, Star Trek-ish 'technobabble' time warp, because Troy/Boxey is FAR more than a mere twelve years older than he was in 1969. (Sorry Kent!)

c) We say that Troy/Boxey, et al, are canonical in their relative ages upon arrival at Earth, but G80 just got the rest of the G80 story, including the date of arrival, wrong.


For the sake of this argument, I have to go with C, since it is the least painful:

Troy was c.8 Earth years old in 1969, and is c.40 Earth years old upon arrival at Earth. (Kent McCord was born in 1942, and was 38 during the filming of G80.)

Translation: The RTF is "on the road" for 25-30 Earth years when they arrive.....Which,if we take the maximum time of 30 years, and fudge it to 31, means that the RTF pulls into the Sol System in 2000, which makes for a nice segue.


So. The questions are:

1. If the RTF shows up at Earth in the Year 2000, would Earth be of help to them?

2. Would Earth, with the RTF's technical know-how, be able to defend itself against a preemptive Cylon attack, and possibly make a limited counter-offensive to secure the local stellar neighborhood?


Answer: Maybe.

In 2000, there were approximately 6 Billion Humans on Earth. Crunching my personal numbers, there were approximately 200 Million troops under arms at that time (not necessarily "in uniform"). Assuming that some not-inconsiderable unpleasantness would need to occur to get everyone on board for the big win against that whole "Kill All Humans!" thing that the Cylons have going, we could probably spin up about 300 Million troops in fairly short order (for those in the US who are under 45 y/o, see US Code, Title 10, Chapter 13, Sect. 311).....That 300 Million figure is 5% of the total world population, which is the population percentage that the US had under arms in WW2.

Question here is: Can we keep the Cylons from attacking Earth?

Answer: Probably not initially - but if the Gal and/or the Peg are present, there won't be a knockout blow - just a lot of dead Terrans...and a lot more Terrans fightin' mad -- think 9/11 happening to the entire planet, all at once.

There would likely be no more than 3 - 6 Base Ships available to the Cylons in the short term, so while there would probably be a gods-awful space battle near Jupiter (cue the B5 Battle of the Line), that would likely leave the Gal a near-hulk...but would still leave us a prototype to work from.

Now, it's a flat-out race: How long will it take us to ramp to "close enough" to Colonial/Cylon tech to build a fleet capable of holding the line?

Answer: Hard to say - it depends on how much manufacturing gear the Colonials have with them, how hard is it to find Tylium and Solium and how long it takes to build a Battlestar.

Given good answers to those questions, if we can get five solid years under our belts, I think we could hold the line....After that? Read on.

I base that 5 year time frame on the fact that in CBSG, I don't see a great deal of "gee-whiz": the weaponry and drives, to be sure, and the med-tech, certainly, but their demonstrated computer technology is waaaaaay behind ours, even in 2000. I have a sneaking suspicion that their manufacturing tech may have lagged as well. (That is strictly a WAG on my part.)

After that 5 year window closes, I think you're going to see a slow advance begin across space, with us Terrans looking for a fight. Why? Because the Cylons will have strung themselves out piecemeal all the way back to the Colonies -- in effect, it won't matter for some while how big their fleet is, because we can engage and destroy 3 to 6 Basestars at a time, right up to the point where they can mass against us...and following standard naval doctrine, that's the time when we make and end-run around them, into their base areas, and sever their massed fleet's lines of communication...

...And remember, we didn't lose everything -- we just had our Pearl Harbor, and have ten of thousands of wet-navy officers itching to prove how cool they really are...


All in all, if the RTF arrives around 2000-2010, we'll make it - and maybe even start our way back - as long as we have a little luck and some breathing room at the start.

If the RTF arrives in 1980? Nope - Adama will likely do what he did in G80...

...Kinda puts the whole "triangular-shaped UFOs" in a different light, don't it?

[spcglider]

I'm just addressing the base question here: If the fleet arrived at Earth (lets assume in the year 1980), could we "help"?

My answer is ABSOLUTELY YES.

Starting with just raw materials. Food. Manpower. A place to settle the people of the fleet.

Technology? Probably not. But it isn't like we (and our planet) would be worthless to them.


-G

[Damocles]

Originally Posted by Reaper

The big question in all of this would be time. How long would the fleet have had to bring us up to a level of tech where we could help.

To break the language barrier, ten years. To understand each other, another thirty years.

Would we have had a chance of learning about these upgrades? How big of a learning curve is there between a Viper and a Jet Fighter? How fast can we start producing Vipers? How ineffective would be Jet Fighters against Cylons? Could modern Missiles (even those of 1981) Lock on and destroy a Raider? How would Surface to Air missiles do against them?

-Since we would be doing most of the building we would do most of the learning-using the Conquistador/Aztec model about twenty years to transfer tech from stone age to space age.
-Huge learning curve.
-We wouldn't. It would be more like a ball and hammer single ship or a Buck Rogers ground to orbit interceptor .
-Our fighters would be effective in the troposphere.
-Depends on how effective our radar is.
-DEADLY.

One thing Galactica 1980 lacked, and this is because they used stock footage of an earthquake disaster movie to show the Cylon attach (ironically Earthquake Starred Lorne Greene), is Earth Fighting back.

-Shrug. Footfall.

Think Independance Day. Only The fighters of BSG never showed anything to suggest the use of electronic shields. Is the thrust of a Raider hot enough to lock a heat seaking missle onto? My guess is yes. The question is warhead yield on the missle verses the construction of the raider. But enough hits will work.

RADAR! The SARH principle hasn't gone anywhere.

The raiders would not be much of a threat from space. They aren't orbital bombarders. The baseships then become the problem. This is where Earth would have little or no defense.

They are like the Ga'ould; meat on the table to a REAL military. We'll have them recycled in six decades after we achieve space capable propulsion. I need a new toaster anyway.

[Damocles]

Originally Posted by WarMachine

Ooooooooooo, good one Jewels - That got the juices flowing!

First, we need to look at the time frame the RTF would have arrived at Earth.

For the purposes, let's say that HoG occurs contiguous with the Apollo 11 landing, and that Apollo and company were able to catch the transmission via a technobabble fluke of nature (wandering wormhole, eddy's in Dark Matter waves...whatever).

So: End of episode 'HoG' = July 20, 1969

First question: How long will the Gal/RTF take to reach Earth, following the coordinates given by the BoL?

Answer: No telling. We have no realistic way of judging the distances involved, so all we can do is estimate.

Next question: Is Gal/80 canonical? This is a vital question, because in re G80, only one of three things can be true:

a) G80 is completely bogus, and is to be ignored -- which puts us back to Square 1

b) The RTF passed through some weird, Star Trek-ish 'technobabble' time warp, because Troy/Boxey is FAR more than a mere twelve years older than he was in 1969. (Sorry Kent!)

c) We say that Troy/Boxey, et al, are canonical in their relative ages upon arrival at Earth, but G80 just got the rest of the G80 story, including the date of arrival, wrong.


For the sake of this argument, I have to go with C, since it is the least painful:

Troy was c.8 Earth years old in 1969, and is c.40 Earth years old upon arrival at Earth. (Kent McCord was born in 1942, and was 38 during the filming of G80.)

Translation: The RTF is "on the road" for 25-30 Earth years when they arrive.....Which,if we take the maximum time of 30 years, and fudge it to 31, means that the RTF pulls into the Sol System in 2000, which makes for a nice segue.


So. The questions are:

1. If the RTF shows up at Earth in the Year 2000, would Earth be of help to them?

2. Would Earth, with the RTF's technical know-how, be able to defend itself against a preemptive Cylon attack, and possibly make a limited counter-offensive to secure the local stellar neighborhood?


Answer: Maybe.

In 2000, there were approximately 6 Billion Humans on Earth. Crunching my personal numbers, there were approximately 200 Million troops under arms at that time (not necessarily "in uniform"). Assuming that some not-inconsiderable unpleasantness would need to occur to get everyone on board for the big win against that whole "Kill All Humans!" thing that the Cylons have going, we could probably spin up about 300 Million troops in fairly short order (for those in the US who are under 45 y/o, see US Code, Title 10, Chapter 13, Sect. 311).....That 300 Million figure is 5% of the total world population, which is the population percentage that the US had under arms in WW2.

Question here is: Can we keep the Cylons from attacking Earth?

Answer: Probably not initially - but if the Gal and/or the Peg are present, there won't be a knockout blow - just a lot of dead Terrans...and a lot more Terrans fightin' mad -- think 9/11 happening to the entire planet, all at once.

There would likely be no more than 3 - 6 Base Ships available to the Cylons in the short term, so while there would probably be a gods-awful space battle near Jupiter (cue the B5 Battle of the Line), that would likely leave the Gal a near-hulk...but would still leave us a prototype to work from.

Now, it's a flat-out race: How long will it take us to ramp to "close enough" to Colonial/Cylon tech to build a fleet capable of holding the line?

Answer: Hard to say - it depends on how much manufacturing gear the Colonials have with them, how hard is it to find Tylium and Solium and how long it takes to build a Battlestar.

Given good answers to those questions, if we can get five solid years under our belts, I think we could hold the line....After that? Read on.

I base that 5 year time frame on the fact that in CBSG, I don't see a great deal of "gee-whiz": the weaponry and drives, to be sure, and the med-tech, certainly, but their demonstrated computer technology is waaaaaay behind ours, even in 2000. I have a sneaking suspicion that their manufacturing tech may have lagged as well. (That is strictly a WAG on my part.)

After that 5 year window closes, I think you're going to see a slow advance begin across space, with us Terrans looking for a fight. Why? Because the Cylons will have strung themselves out piecemeal all the way back to the Colonies -- in effect, it won't matter for some while how big their fleet is, because we can engage and destroy 3 to 6 Basestars at a time, right up to the point where they can mass against us...and following standard naval doctrine, that's the time when we make and end-run around them, into their base areas, and sever their massed fleet's lines of communication...

...And remember, we didn't lose everything -- we just had our Pearl Harbor, and have ten of thousands of wet-navy officers itching to prove how cool they really are...


All in all, if the RTF arrives around 2000-2010, we'll make it - and maybe even start our way back - as long as we have a little luck and some breathing room at the start.

If the RTF arrives in 1980? Nope - Adama will likely do what he did in G80...

...Kinda puts the whole "triangular-shaped UFOs" in a different light, don't it?

We had 14,000,000 under arms in WWII out of a population of 140,000,000=10%.

Better figure a generation. Not only do we have to learn a whole new language, but we have to tear down physics and rebuild it.

[Senmut]

Originally Posted by jewels

Mark, I've never thought about Terra that way. It's an interesting hypothesis. It would go with the way that the 12 Colonies fled Kobol and basically started over with their technological development once they settled in the Colonies.

I always thought that the Terrans were 13th Tribe member descendants who were separated from the earth colonists mid-journey to Earth. Perhaps a ship became unable to finish the journey or to support all of those originally on board.

That Was my take as well, jewels. Drop-outs from the trip to Earth, developing along similar lines to Earth, in terms of language and culture.

[gmd3d]

My answer is No. No chance at all if it was the 1980 or now, IMHO. I think story wise is should have been in a future time. a better spin off series could then have been developed

[WarMachine]

Originally Posted by Damocles

We had 14,000,000 under arms in WWII out of a population of 140,000,000=10%.

Better figure a generation. Not only do we have to learn a whole new language, but we have to tear down physics and rebuild it.

Incorrect emphasis on my part - sorry.

I think the actual figure was c.13 M out of c.150+ M, but recall that the economy was a near-wreck after 5 years of war-footing and 10% mobilization. 5% (300 M out of 6 B) is more sustainable in the long run, since it is not much higher than what the US maintained during the height of the Cold War (c.4 M (counting reserves and "paramilitaries") out of c.250 M), and we have a much higher degree of industrial automation planet-wide than in the 30's-40's.

And don't discount the "Foster Effect":

Alan Dean Foster wrote a trilogy in the early 90's about First Contact. What struck me about it was the tag line: "The aliens thought their war was hell...then they met us."

The basic premise of the Foster Effect is that Humanity has slowly been getting more peaceful as time passes, because we're all getting sick of killing our neighbors every generation or two.

The flip side of Foster's coin is the introduction of B.E.M.'s - the "Bug-Eyed Monsters": If, as Ronald Reagan once famously speculated to the UN, an extraterrestrial threat ever really showed up, Humanity would happily - even gleefully - turn its "six thousand years of recorded battle" (kudos to "Renegade Legion") loose on whoever was stupid enough to show up.

Unlike most sci-fi of the last couple of decades, CBSG Colonials are not "puny Humans" - they just got unlucky. The Cylons have a hard enough time dealing with a single Battlestar and c.200,000 Humans as it is -- what happens when they're at the end of their lines, with no more than three Baseships, facing a Battlestar or three and a planet crammed with 6 Billion+ Humans itching for a fight?