Telencephalic Inhibitor

In Season 4′s “Six of One“, a device called the telencephalic inhibitor is introduced. As hinted to in an early Season 3 episode, “Precipice“, the Significant Seven Cylons had ensured that their own robotic servants would not rise up against them. The means of this accomplishment is this inhibitor, which prevents centurions higher brain functions, and thus ensures that they’ll never rise up and kill their masters.

In a dangerous move, Natalie‘s faction—which advocates further pursuit of the verboten Final Five—removes this inhibitor, which allows the centurions to make up their own minds about Cavil‘s lobotomization of the Raiders. (This came about after the Raiders recognized Samuel Anders as a Cylon, and broke off the battle at the Ionian Nebula of their own volition.)

Anyway, now that you’ve looked at another cool prop, we’re going to start “paperwork week” starting Sunday night. (At least it’s Sunday night in Vancouver. Gotta love those time-zones!)

We’ve got a lot of cool paperwork-type props to show you, so don’t despair! Besides, the trees were already dead. It was just made useful. Deal with it.

And, of course, if you have a specific request on something you’d like to see featured in a future blog, we’re now taking requests. (Read: Joe will take your requests, since he writes 99% of the content you see daily on the site, anyway.) Simply join our shiny new forums and hit this thread.

Good hunting!

Raptor relay

In Season 4′s “Escape Velocity“, Chief Galen Tyrol—who is suffering from the loss of his wife in the previous episode—is emotionally distraught and forgets to replace a relay in Racetrack and Skulls‘ Raptor. This failure results in the crash of the Raptor, from which both officers fortunately survive.

However this incident, and a very vocal confrontation with the Old Man at Joe’s Bar later on, result in Tyrol’s demotion to a mere specialist… which sees him painting bulkheads (hey, you can’t kill anyone painting!), doing jump rope in his quarters, and taking away young children from violent situations before said children’s mother simply goes Tarantino on a friendly rebel Cylon.

Mathias’s spacewalk equipment

In the Season 4 episode, “The Road Less Traveled“, Sergeant Erin Mathias performs a spacewalk of a damaged Heavy Raider from a Cylon rebel faction. As she does so, we see her scaling the hull of the ship with magnetic hand holds, attached by a tether line that hooks into a buckle on her spacesuit‘s belt.

Now the actual prop itself is made from rubber and metal materials, with small magnets on the “bottom” of the prop that aid in the illusion of magnetism. The magnets themselves are obviously not strong enough to attach to anything and bear the weight of a person in tandem, so for those people who buy this prop… don’t hang off the side of a truck and try that Hollywood stuff. You’ll just end up injured. Or dead, like Mathias.

Medal of Distinction

In Season 3′s “Hero“, Admiral William Adama accepts the Medal of Distinction after 45 years of distinguished service in the Colonial Fleet. After President Laura Roslin is presented with Adama’s resignation letter—an act spurred by his ill-gotten belief that he may have been responsible for the Fall of the Twelve Colonies—Roslin instead makes him receive this medal as penance for what believes he has done, since she strongly believes that the Fleet needs a hero to look up to.

Forums moved

A technical update for all you folks.

We’ve decided to use a new bulletin board system, the IP.Board by Invision.

As it is difficult and time consuming to convert the users (which there are only 30 at this point) and posts (which there are roughly 50) to be read and used by the new system, we’re asking people to resubscribe to the new board. We promise this is the last time we do this. But the system is leagues ahead of our previous system, and thus justified this move, since the forums will soon explode. And not in a nuclear-blast-will-destroy-your-civilization way.

Here’s a link to the new forums. Sign up and post away.

Cylon Resurrection ship model

Who says officers in the Colonial Fleet can’t play with toys? And by toys, we don’t mean guns. We mean models. Small scale models.

One such model is that of the Cylon Resurrection ship that Kara Thrace took pretty pictures of with a certain camera attached to a certain ship. Of course, based on that someone on the ship—ok, the props department—whipped a model up so the bored people in the situation room can play with it. And they have to move it with sticks, since touching of the models by hand are verboten. (Except if your the Old Man, then you can throw the models around in frustration, particularly if you’re planning a rescue op from Cylon-occupied New Caprica.)

The model itself is made of plastic, with a clear plastic stand, durable enough to take being moved repeatedly by bored officers whose recreational activities are rapidly dwindling in the face of equally dwindling supplies. (Not everyone is a pyramid or a card player, you know.)

As you see it on screen…

Cylon boxing receptacle

After D’Anna‘s “messianic quest” for the Final Five culminates into seeing their faces at the Temple of Five, the other “Significant Seven” Cylons agree that D’Anna/Number Three’s entire line should be boxed. In order to implement this process, a small hand-sized “boxing recepticle” is plugged into the resurrection tub’s machinery, where the D’Anna’s are placed. This device retains the entire personality of each individual member of a model line.

The prop, which is a metal block with machined designs, first appears in Season 3′s “Rapture” and again in Season 4′s “The Hub“, when D’Anna is resurrected by Cavil in order to stop the Cylon Civil War.

Blue Duty Uniform from “Razor Flashbacks”

During the “Razor Flashbacks” depicting the events of the Cylon War over 40 years before, you will see—for brief instances in the background—of uniformed crew members who are wearing blue uniforms that look quite similar to something you’d see from the 1978 Battlestar Galactica. Of course, despite the fact that “Razor” is on DVD, there have not been very good shots of this BDU.

Until now.

This BDU is basically a sleeveless shirt thrown over your regular uniform jacket. The silver stripe design around the neck and cuffs, as well as the general look of the vest are nods to Jean-Pierre Dorléac’s design for the blue command uniforms from the 1978 series. The 1978 blue uniforms were worn by characters like Commander Adama (Lorne Greene) and Colonel Tigh (Terry Carter).

The Adama from the 1978 series wearing the blue uniform.

The uniform’s tunic. The vest is an overlay from the standard BDU jacket used in the “contemporary” events of the series.

The collar embroidery used in the 1978 series. Picture above is of Colonel Tigh from the old BSG. Note the lack of inebriation, the presence of hair, and the lack of an eyepatch.

The neck of the sleeveless shirt.

The general cuff design from the 1978 series blue uniform.

The cuff design.

Wireless walkie-talkie

As part of William Adama‘s gear, which is stowed away in a bag, he has a wireless walkie-talkie that he uses to communicate to Galactica after the Guardian baseship leaves the planet.

The walkie-talkie has seen uses well before “Razor“, and is used when portable communication is needed. One of the earliest appearances of this device is in Season 1′s “You Can’t Go Home Again“, when Kara Thrace is forced down on a planet after tangling with eight Cylon Raiders in the previous episode, only to find it smashed upon landing. Later, in Season 2′s “Valley of Darkness“, Lieutenant Gaeta attempts to warn the other ships that they’ve been boarded by Cylons using a similar walkie-talkie. Further, Thrace (her again!) uses this walkie-talkie on Cloud Nine, when terrorists hold Lee Adama, Anastasia Dualla, Billy Keikeya and Ellen Tigh hostage in the episode “Sacrifice“. There are a few other instances of this prop showing up throughout the series, but you’ll have to hunt for those…

Gaeta uses the walkie-talkie in “Valley of Darkness”.

Kara Thrace using the walkie-talkie in “Sacrifice”.

Young Adama using the walkie-talkie, learning that the Cylon War has ended.

The walkie-talkie from its rarely seen front-view.

There’s also more information on Future-Past.com about this prop. Check it out!

Pilot suit parachute

In keeping with the whole Young Adama from “Razor” motif, we’re featuring the parachute that Adama uses when he ejects from his Viper during Operation Raptor Talon. Of course, the actual prop isn’t a full-fleged parachute, but it’s pretty cool.

Young Adama free falling, before deploying the parachute.

The front of the parachute.

The back of the parachute with rip cord and straps.

Stay tuned tomorrow for more cool “Young Adama” stuff… some of it you may have seen used in the series before! Same Battlestar time, same Battlestar wireless channel.

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