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Hi, all - been reading a really good book recently - "The Science of Battlestar Galactica" by Patrick Di Justo and Kevin Grazier. Long and short, it talks about how the world of BSG fits into our real-world universe from a scientific basis. It is a little science-heavy, but it is well written and tries to summarize much of the science for a lay-person who may be reading the book without dumbing it down. Anyways, in the section where it talks about mass and energy, on page 87, it makes the following statement:

"According to the visual effects artist who designed the Galactica, a Jupiter-class battlestar is 1,371 meters (4,500 feet) in length..."

Now, I have to wonder, is this the real class name given to the Galactica that nobody ever knew about, or is this something that the authors of the book made up? Anyone have any clues? As far as I know, no official class name has even been given to Galactica (or, at least, mentioned on-screen).

This doesn't necessarily mean it's not true, though. In the Star Trek universe, Mike Okuda mentioned that the USS Reliant was of the Miranda class, the Grissom was an Oberth class, etc. Hell, I don't even think that the TOS Enterprise was ever called "Constitution Class" onscreen until TNG's "Relics" episode when Picard joined Scotty on the holodeck recreation of the bridge (could be wrong about this one). All considered official canonical names, but never mentioned on-screen. Any thoughts?

Kevin Graizer was the science advisor for the show and also a back ground actor on the show and brought real life science to the show. As for the class of ships I am not aware if ever mentioned on the show or off screen in production. I can send off an email or two and find out what the story is and if there ever was actual foot given in length. That I believe was because time was given to map out details like that over the original that was done on the fly each episode c

Another cool topic to ponder, 137th Gebirg! I LOVE IT.

If you go off of the same setup as Star Trek then the first Battlestar of the Jupiter Class should have been named the Jupiter. For the Colonial setup and use of names - that just seems out-of-place/odd. Jupiter is to unique to Earth histroy and our names - not so much the Colonial "other world" differences the show held fast to (i.e. Yarhens instead of Years). They wanted the Colonials to be clearly different than humans on Earth.

Plus to be named Jupiter would clash bad with the Jupiter 2 of Lost In Space. I think producers would try to avoid it. That would be like me making a sci-fi show and calling my ship the Enterprise 2 (same lame rip-off as it were, and very confusing ).

Unfortunately I don't think there is a official canonical source for a classic BSG Battlestar class name. It just was never mentioned in the show... and I view ONLY what is in the broadcast shows to truly be classic BSG canon. Do you all think the same way? What is canon? I think a Battlestar class will always fall into the extended universe realm.


Maybe BSG season two would have fleshed out such details. *cries* We'll never know.

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As for the Enterprise / Constitution Class, I found this fun bit of info:
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constituti ... s_starship)
Constitution-class was the only major ship class seen in the original series. Other Starfleet capital ship types include the Miranda class of the live-action films, and the older design of Bonaventure, seen in the animated episode "The Time Trap".

Though now understood as such, the class was never named Constitution in the original series; Enterprise's bridge dedication plaque declares her a 'Starship' class vessel, and it was also referred to as a "Starship" in the episode " The Enterprise Incident". The designation "Constitution-Class" debuted in 1975 in Franz Joseph Schnaubelt's Star Fleet Technical Manual. Its subsequent usage in show creator Gene Roddenberry's novelization of the first film cemented its usage in Trek fandom thereafter. (His novel also set K't'inga as the Klingon class name for the film's refinement of the venerated D7 battlecruiser.) The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Naked Now" tags the original Enterprise as a Constitution class ship, fixing it in canon; a diagram seen in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country puts Enterprise A in the Constitution-class as well.

The Next Generation episode "Relics" puts a Constitution-class vessel in the Starfleet museum.

The novelizations of the second, third, and fourth Star Trek films, written by Vonda N. McIntyre, identified the Enterprise as a "Constellation-class" heavy cruiser. This was overridden by the Next Generation episode "The Battle", in which the USS Stargazer was listed as Constellation-class, rather than Constitution.

GoldCylon wrote:Kevin Graizer was the science advisor for the show and also a back ground actor on the show and brought real life science to the show. As for the class of ships I am not aware if ever mentioned on the show or off screen in production. I can send off an email or two and find out what the story is and if there ever was actual foot given in length. That I believe was because time was given to map out details like that over the original that was done on the fly each episode c

Makes sense. I'm personally inclined to believe that the name may have possibly come from "the visual effects artist who designed the Galactica" during the interview for this part of the book. Many of those guys cut their teeth on various Trek-related projects prior to BSG, like Lee Stringer and Gabe Koerner from Zoic, and later Gary Hutzel and Doug Drexler. Having lived deep in the world of Treknology (where every ship seems to have been required to have a class name assigned to it) and it stands to reason that one of them may have coined the class name somewhere along the way; totally unofficial, totally in-house, but a curious choice nonetheless.

Cylon-Knight wrote:Another cool topic to ponder, 137th Gebirg! I LOVE IT.

If you go off of the same setup as Star Trek then the first Battlestar of the Jupiter Class should have been named the Jupiter. For the Colonial setup and use of names - that just seems out-of-place/odd. Jupiter is to unique to Earth histroy and our names - not so much the Colonial "other world" differences the show held fast to (i.e. Yarhens instead of Years). They wanted the Colonials to be clearly different than humans on Earth.

Plus to be named Jupiter would clash bad with the Jupiter 2 of Lost In Space. I think producers would try to avoid it. That would be like me making a sci-fi show and calling my ship the Enterprise 2 (same lame rip-off as it were, and very confusing ).

Unfortunately I don't think there is a official canonical source for a classic BSG Battlestar class name. It just was never mentioned in the show... and I view ONLY what is in the broadcast shows to truly be classic BSG canon. Do you all think the same way? What is canon? I think a Battlestar class will always fall into the extended universe realm.


Maybe BSG season two would have fleshed out such details. *cries* We'll never know.

Thanks much! It definitely piqued my interest. Remember, though, in NuBSG (about which the book was written), the Colonials derive their culture from Greco-Roman mythology, as opposed to TOS's more Egyptian-themed mythology. Jupiter definitely falls within that established pantheon.

As for the Enterprise / Constitution Class, I found this fun bit of info:
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constituti ... s_starship)
Constitution-class was the only major ship class seen in the original series. Other Starfleet capital ship types include the Miranda class of the live-action films, and the older design of Bonaventure, seen in the animated episode "The Time Trap".

Though now understood as such, the class was never named Constitution in the original series; Enterprise's bridge dedication plaque declares her a 'Starship' class vessel, and it was also referred to as a "Starship" in the episode " The Enterprise Incident". The designation "Constitution-Class" debuted in 1975 in Franz Joseph Schnaubelt's Star Fleet Technical Manual. Its subsequent usage in show creator Gene Roddenberry's novelization of the first film cemented its usage in Trek fandom thereafter. (His novel also set K't'inga as the Klingon class name for the film's refinement of the venerated D7 battlecruiser.) The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Naked Now" tags the original Enterprise as a Constitution class ship, fixing it in canon; a diagram seen in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country puts Enterprise A in the Constitution-class as well.

The Next Generation episode "Relics" puts a Constitution-class vessel in the Starfleet museum.

The novelizations of the second, third, and fourth Star Trek films, written by Vonda N. McIntyre, identified the Enterprise as a "Constellation-class" heavy cruiser. This was overridden by the Next Generation episode "The Battle", in which the USS Stargazer was listed as Constellation-class, rather than Constitution.

AH! So it was first canonically established in "The Naked Now". Forgot about that one. I knew about its Franz Joseph origins, just couldn't remember when it was first spoken/shown on-screen. Thanks for that.

As BSG continuity in such matters plays a little more fast-and-loose than the rigidity of the Trek universe, I suspect "Jupiter" to be as good a name as any, in light of the evidence. Would love to have substantiation from an insider, if possible - looks like GoldCylon is working that angle...

OH! The Jupiter was for nuBSG. That makes more sense... they had "the eye of Jupiter" etc.

Cool stuff.