Classic BG Season 2 Timeline
This is a short timeline that utilises the known unused scripts and synopses for Classic Battlestar Galactica. Even possessing copies of all of the scripts and the Battlestar Galactica Year II (denoted by * -the Year II episode summaries are direct quotes from that document), putting together such a timeline is somewhat unwieldy.
The order of the episodes in the Year II document is upset by the presence of Sheba in Two for Twilly. Sheba dies in The Return of the Pegasus, which means Two for Twilly has to be used as the season opener instead. After that, this virtual season proceeds as planned in the Year II document, although this only gives a short number of episodes.
Another character to be written out of the series is Baltar (although he makes a return in the Galactica Discovers Earth script), but placing the Beta Pirates script immediately after A Queen’s Ransom allows for his scene with the Imperious Leader to be interpreted in a new way. An early first season script, Beta Pirates was to have followed on in the footsteps of other two-hour episodes such as the pilot, Lost Planet of the Gods and Gun on Ice Planet Zero. Baltar’s discussion with the Imperious Leader makes sense if it comes after either the pilot, or as his first episode of the second season, where he has returned to the Cylons again.
Athena also features prominently in the Year II episodes, an emphasis also found in the early scripts, albeit for completely different reasons. In that document, her character alters from the passive bridge officer to a more dynamic character in the planned second season, an echo of her original character in the earlier scripts. The thinking behind this in the original Year II proposal was more dubious, though.
Other issues include recurring events such as Boxey’s stowing away on ships, which borders on the recidivist! The scripts that are not used are Fire in Space, and The Ultimate Weapon (the former being an early version of the episode of the same, resembling Murder on the Rising Star in places as well: the latter being early versions of Gun on Ice Planet Zero). However, The Nari of Sentinel 27/Crossfire have enough ideas different to their descendant (Gun on Ice Planet Zero) for them to warrant at least an outline of a plotline. The name of the script for the Galactica 1980 episode, Return of Starbuck, was originally called Starbuck’s Greatest Adventure, which was based on a script for the original series. Rumour has it that this Calssic BG script was called Final Flight, but that remains unconfirmed. The story also appeared in an edited form (closer to the original script) in the Experiment in Terra telemovie. Either way, the story has been appropriated for this Year II timeline. The last part of our Year II has first contact between the Colonials and the Thirteenth Tribe, but not quite how either may have imagined this happening. The Battle of Galactica theme ride has been appropriated for this end and it fits in nicely with some elements running through our virtual season: the Cylon battleship now carries aliens other than Cylons, an expansion on the Ovion role in The Beta Pirates. Finally, the aborted Moyer/Larson revival of the series has been incorporated as a basic idea: the Galactica finds the ancient Battlestar Atlantis buried on Earth.
The Galactica Discovers Earth script would have been a nice ending to the season. But there are problems, not least of all with Baltar’s presence on the Council of Twelve. Rather than releasing him, in this script, Adama goes back on his word and keeps the traitor incarcerated for some time after The Hand of God. Also, many of the unused scripts seem to mention either somewhat recent traces of the Thirteenth Tribe’s journey (colonies (Island in the Sky) or ships (Showdown)), or artefacts from Earth itself (the gold coin from I Have Seen Earth). These elements seem to contradict the state of Earth as seen in the Galactica Discovers Earth script. A final thought on this topic and Galactica 1980 in general: if the Galactica did find Earth in 1980, the maximum distance they would have travelled since The Hand of God is 11 light years. The signal from the moon landing left Earth in 1969 and, travelling at the speed of light, could only reach a maximum distance of 11 light years by 1980, when the fleet found the planet. It seems unlikely that the fleet (or the Cylons) would have missed Earth if it were so near. The signal was very old as well, as observed by the crew of the Galactica.
The actual state of Earth, then, is uncertain, but clues can be gathered from the extra footage from the Experiment in Terra Telemovie prologue sequence. Using this as a season opener for Year II, it establishes Earth as being similar to the technological level of its sister colony, Terra. The civilisation has spacefaring craft, but they are slow. The sequence states that expeditions have been exploring the solar system in search of habitable planets. However, it seems unlikely that these would just be in our solar system, as we already know that there are no worlds that mirror the conditions on Earth, one of the mission goals stated by the narrator in this sequence. Thus, it seems likely that they have interstellar capability. This may explain how the Silent One from The Long Patrol ended up on Proteus, and how the coin in I Have Seen Earth may have gotten so far from home. Of course, the problem with all this is that the Thirteenth Tribe itself last travelled from Kobol to Earth one thousand years before the Galactica (as stated in Showdown): this does not mean it was the first expedition, but it does presents a problem with what is told in the prologue and Earth history in general.
Concept art (Ralph McQuarrie, no less), a few bits from Galactica 80 and other official-but-non-canonical sources have been used to support various parts of the site.
Finally, what happened to the Galactica? If the prologue is to be believed, the battlestar is no more ... or so it would seem. Looking at the narrated sequence, it gives an interesting history of the Cylons, then carries on to detail the history up until the Galactica travelling to Carillon. In other words, this is one of Adama's logs. How it got to Earth is another matter, but there seems to be at least intermittent travel between Kobol and Earth.
Usual blurb: Content copyright 2008. Battlestar Galactica is copyright Universal Studios: no attempt is made to infringe these rights or those of any other holders of these copyrights.
The images on the main timeline page have been made in Celestia , using the 3D models by ScyBladeghost, downloaded from the Celestia Motherload.
Battlestar Pegasus archive of BSG scripts
Battlestar Pegasus archive of BSG Year Two Proposal
Battle of Galactica script images
