[continued from previous message]   
      
   > to work this out.)   That does mean that it's light-hours between the two gas   
   > giants.  But if the attack came when they were all close it could work.   
      
   The orbits of the planets in our Solar System are not coincidental. For   
   example, Earth and Venus are in an almost exact 3:2 resonance, meaning   
   for every 3 orbits of Venus, there will be 2 orbits of Earth. Saturn and   
   Jupiter are in an almost exact 5:2 resonance. These weren't their   
   original orbits, they migrated to these positions after much tugging at   
   each other.   
      
   It was suggested that Jupiter through Neptune were much closer to each   
   other at formation than they are now. Jupiter and Saturn were in fact in   
   a 3:2 resonance with each other like Earth and Venus are now, but these   
   two planets are so massive that they started to elongate each other's   
   orbits. Saturn got pushed out to the stabler 5:2 position, because   
   everytime it aligned with Jupiter at the 3:2 position, it got boosted   
   out. Similarly, Neptune and Uranus were the victims of the Saturn and   
   Jupiter tug of war; they got pushed out much further too.   
      
   What this shows is that if there are two massive gas giants with the   
   temperate zone, they won't stay there much longer. They'll push each   
   other out.   
      
   Also a star that is so big that it has a big temperate zone is usually a   
   star that will die out very quickly compared to the Sun. The Sun will   
   live altogether 10 billion years. But a star just 2x as big as the Sun   
   only has a lifespan of 1.5 billion years. A star 3x as big has a   
   lifespan of only 650 million years. Not a lot of time to evolve life and   
   sustain it, even if you are terraforming it.   
      
   >> Yeah, but they were specifically talking about separate planets per   
   >> colony. Even if you have continental colonies rather than planetary   
   >> colonies, with their level of technology, they could easily fly from one   
   >> continent to another inside the atmosphere, don't need spaceships for that.   
   >   
   > The original script treatment has 12 colonies all on the same planet (named   
   > Kobol) but they moved from that.  However, until this map I never saw   
   anything   
   > that overtly confirmed that colony == planet.   However, in external notes,   
   > producers did say they were thinking that way even though they realized it   
   was   
   > not possible -- they decided to inherit it from BSG:1978 which had no   
   concept of   
   > space and geometry at all.   
      
   The original script of this series wanted to have continental colonies?   
   Where did you hear that?   
      
   As for BSG-78, they didn't even explain if the 12 colonies were in the   
   same star system. That would've been the best solution, 12 separate star   
   systems, each with its one single habitable planet. Since there was no   
   prohibition from BSG-78, they should've just gone with that. We knew   
   they had FTL drives, so they must've been trading with each other, no   
   matter how far apart their star systems were.   
      
   >> I think if we assume FTL communications is possible with their   
   >> technology, then it all makes sense.   
   >   
   > In that case you don't need any of the colonies to be in the same system, you   
   > just make it a close star cluster perhaps.   
      
   Yes. That would've worked.   
      
      
   	Yousuf Khan   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)