(Part 2) Top products from r/BSG

You can try the following books:

Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy: Knowledge Here Begins Out There
> What’s the point of living after your world has been destroyed? This is one of many questions raised by the Sci-Fi Channel’s critically acclaimed series Battlestar Galactica. More than just an action-packed “space opera,” each episode offers a dramatic character study of the human survivors and their Cylon pursuers as they confront existential, moral, metaphysical, theological, and political crises.

> This volume addresses some of the key questions to which the Colonials won’t find easy answers, even when they reach Earth: Are Cylons persons? Is Baltar’s scientific worldview superior to Six’s religious faith? Can Starbuck be free if she has a special destiny? Is it ethical to cut one’s losses and leave people behind? Is collaboration with the enemy ever the right move? Is humanity a “flawed creation”? Should we share the Cylon goal of “transhumanism”? Is it really a big deal that Starbuck’s a woman?

Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy: Mission Accomplished or Mission Frakked Up?
> In attempting to retain her "human" side, does Sharon really have free will? Is killing a Cylon murder or garbage disposal? These are some of the questions addressed in this thoughtful collection of writings on the philosophical underpinnings of Battlestar, Galactica. The book includes a brief analysis of the original 1970s and 80s series but concentrates primarily on the episodes, characters, and issues from the entirely reimagined current series (including its fourth and final season, scheduled for airing in early 2008) as well as the two-hour TV movie and direct-to-DVD release Razor.

Battlestar Galactica and International Relations (Popular Culture and World Politics)
> Looking at a television franchise like Battlestar Galactica (BSG) is no longer news within the discipline of International Relations. A growing number of scholars in and out of IR are studying the importance of cultural artifacts – popular or otherwise – for the phenomena that make up the core of our discipline.

>The genre of science fiction offers the analyst an opportunity that cannot be matched by more mimetic genres, namely the chance to look at how sets of widely-circulating expectations of the social serve to constrain authors as they work to introduce as yet unexplored problematiques, the fantasy aspect in much of science fiction storytelling is premised simply on a material difference. As such, while the physical setting of a science fiction tale might appear novel, its imaginative life world will likely retain many elements of the world we already live in and which we can readily recognize as similar to our own. For Critical IR scholarship then, BSG presents an opportunity to examine how these purported homologies or elements of redundancy between the fantastic and the real have been drawn and perhaps to consider, too, whether the show can teach us things about world politics, its various logics and structures, which we might not otherwise be sensitive to. Tackling some of the key contemporary issues in IR, the writers of BSG have taken on a range of important political themes and issues, including the legitimacy of military government, the tactical utility of genocide, and even the philosophical implications of artificial intelligence technologies for the very category of what it means to be 'human'. The contributors in this book explore in depth the argument that one of the most important aspects of popular culture is to naturalize or normalise a certain social order by further entrenching the expectations of social behaviour upon which our mentalities of rule are founded.

>This work will be of interest to student and scholars of international relations, popular culture and security studies.

So Say We All: An Unauthorized Collection of Thoughts and Opinions on Battlestar Galactica
> The science-fiction television series Battlestar Galactica is known for raising thought-provoking questions concerning martial law, artificial intelligence, power and corruption, and ultimately what it means to be human. What ethical complexities come into play when one mistake could mean the anihilation of the human race? How do you maintain faith in the Gods when you're involved in an Armageddon of your own creation? What is the distinction between a terrorist and a freedom fighter? These questions are given an intelligent and insightful examination in this engaging collection of essays.

I'd recommend buying the soundtracks. I listen to them all the time while I'm writing.

SPOILERS BELOW IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE ENTIRE SERIES



Miniseries

Richard Gibbs is the primary on this one and Bear McCreary assists. The twinkling bells of Six's theme may seem repetitious at first, but the seeds of BSG's sounds can be found here.

Season One

Great stuff, without question. "Passacaglia" and "Shape of Things to Come" are truly beautiful.

Season Two

Thanks to the arrival of Pegasus and the attack on the Resurrection Ship, the action drums of this album are fantastic.

Philip Glass' "Metamorphosis One"

Thanks to Starbuck's dad, I had to buy this. A truly great piece. Without it, my Season Two sounds empty.

Razor/The Plan

Since these are both Season Two based movies, I placed the tracks here. "Apocalypse" kicks ass.

As far as watching The Plan (I'm assuming you already saw Razor), I would suggest waiting until you watch the series for a second time. Pop it in right after the scene in "Lay Down Your Burdens" wherein in Roslin passes sentence on the duplicate Cylons in the brig.

Season Three

The lead up to "Watchtower" is magnificent and I always crank the volume for the New Caprica action sequences.

Season Four

With "Watchtower" fully revealed, it gets used to great lengths. Includes the full, haunting version of Gaeta's song. Plus, "Kara Remembers" floors me every time and the full orchestral sounds of "Daybreak" are worth rattling the speakers.

Jimi Hendrix - "All Along the Watchtower"

Of course, I have to cap off the BSG experience with Hendrix's version. I mean, c'mon.

Caprica pilot

Lastly, for completeness' sake, I have this one in the playlist, too. I only hope they can release the rest of Bear's great work on this show in the future.

As for watching Caprica, I do recommend it. It starts slow, no question, but it picks up in the last six or so episodes and by the end, you'll be cursing SyFy's name (yet again) for not giving the show another season.

Now if only they'd release a Blu-ray of the series ...

Maybe try cross posting this to r/cosplay? I will see what I can find later when I get home, but in the mean time maybe someone over there might be able to help you out :)


Okay, I'm home now. I actually saw one of the original flight suits from the show at Dragon*Con last year. They are amazing, and I have absolutely no idea how they are made. They are shiny, but not in a tacky way. Insane. I'd recommend going with just Helo tags with their casual clothes. These pants. Maybe this belt with the clasp painted that bronze/gold sort of color theirs are. I think they just wear black boots. I'm not sure that they are anything special. I don't know what your budget is or what your sewing skills are. If you get the jacket you will have to do some modifications to make it look accurate like Camrade mentioned. If you don't get a jacket, people will still recognize your costume and know who you are supposed to be. I didn't wear a jacket with mine and I was still easily recognized, so I imagine your costume would be the same.

The Battlestar Board Game is a lot of fun and highly rated too. It's in the $40 range.

I also love these retro propaganda posters. I think those were a little cheaper at $31ish.

They also recently came out with some Funko Pop figures for both the old and new BSG and usually run under $10.

I hope that helps!

The casting they used looks like they just ripped off the Hasbro Titanium series. Amazon

Source: Looking at the mini on my desk.

Battlestar Galactica: The Final Five from Diamond Comics.

Yeah.

Amazon UK has the DVD for £29.99, which would be roughly $47.

Or you could get it from Zavvi for £24.99, or roughly $40.

Shipping would probably be an additional ~$5. Maybe more.

Its not a flight jacket, but here ya go:
Female and Male

I've got a book somewhere that was written circa 2009 which is an academic appraisal of all the good and bad things about BSG. It has lots of analysis on BSG and post 9/11 USA.

edit: there is even a book called 'cylons in america'
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cylons-America-Critical-Battlestar-Galactica/dp/0826428487

ELIA(dult):

Stereo

If we assume you're listening in stereo, there are two distinct channels of audio: Left and Right. Dialogue, music, and effects come out of both speakers.

Your computer/tv has no way to remove a "section" (just the dialog, for instance) of the audio without seriously effecting the remaining sections. Imagine you wanted to remove just the kick/bass drum from a song with your car stereo. You could turn the bass knob down, but that would affect the bass guitar as well (or tuba, double basses, synth bass, or the big jug in Hillbilly Bob's All Jug and Tambourine Band or whatever crazy shit you're in to). Your computer/tv suffer from the same limitations.

>But /u/Sysop_2400! My cousin has this Karaoke machine that can remove vocals from songs.

Press play on this Buffalo Springfield song from the early days of stereo and carry on reading:

Think of the left channel and the right channel as completely separate audio streams. In general, sounds aren't panned as "hard" left or right as they are in our example song. The sound usually exists in both channels. A sound that is panned to the left will be louder in the left channel (and thus the left speaker) than it is in the right.

Some sounds are equal in both channels. They sound like they're right in the center. Using a bit of magic, you can subtract one channel from the other^1. Sounds that are equal in both channels (panned dead center) will completely disappear. Anything panned (even a little bit) left or right will not go away completely. The volume of anything panned all the way left or right will remain unchanged.

In most modern music, vocals are panned dead center, thus, are able to be removed with this little trick. The downside is, anything else in the song panned dead center is gotten rid of also. This is why "vocal remover" magic boxes make the rest of the song sound "weird".

This can happen with TV shows as well (it's exceedingly rare). If something goes terribly wrong somewhere in the file conversion process over at Netflix, your software is having a bad day for some reason, or more than likely one of your wires or connectors is damaged, you may end up with a home brew vocal remover. This would not, however, account for the total removal of dialog, as dialog is generally panned around as the actors move around on screen.

To diagnose: Pan all the way to either side, or better yet, try using only one channel of audio. If it's still just the dialog missing, the problem is not on your end.

5.1 Surround Sound

This is a much simpler situation. Battlestar Galactica has been released in a variety of formats, including Season 4 in Dolby Surround 5.1.

When dialog is mixed for 5.1, depending on the show, episode, or even scene, it may be only in the center channel. Music and sound effects are commonly left/right, and surround left/surround right respectively.

If the audio stream for the center channel is fucked up, you may very well be missing all the dialog while the majority of the rest of the audio sounds fine.

To diagnose: Listen only to your center channel (move your noggin close to it, or unplug the other speakers). If there is no audio at all coming from the center channel, shit's fucked up. If it's only half an episode, the problem is not on your end.

1: Basically, "flip" one channel upside-down so that what was positive is now negative and vice versa. If we flip the left channel (phase invert) and then recombine it with the right channel, the portion of the signal that was equal now cancels itself out (phase cancellation).

source: audio professional for 15 years

Warning: IMDB pages may contain spoilers. For the record, "Faith" is season 4, episode 6. S04E07 is "Guess What's Coming to Dinner".

Tl;DR: Netflix fucked up.