Adama only in combat once?

[Upham]

I just got around to watching the Razor flashbacks. Adama says that he has never been in combat before, everyone is calling him rook, and the war ends later that very day.

Can this be right? How can a Commander cum Admiral that canny, experienced, and well known (enough that Tyrol and company fix up his old Viper, at least) have only had one shot at combat?

Remember when he gave Lee that lighter? How he said he always felt nervous before a big op? I just can not buy the idea that this was his only dog fight.

What is going on??

[Seanathin]

Humans kill each other at an alarming rate, I'm sure he was in firefights along the way aginst insergants rogue factions etc. And clearly they couldn't have referbished his Cylon war Viper because that was blown away.

[Upham]

In the mini-series Adama clearly recognizes the serial number of his old fighter; and, later, the soon-to-be-dead Jolly (then CAG on Galactica) states to Apollo that Apollo will have the honor of flying the Viper his father had flown in the war.

Sure there have been hints about other problems in the colonies, no question about it, but the point is that it makes no sense for Admiral Adama to have seen that little service in the first Cylon war.

[Seanathin]

In the end its probably just a bit of ret-con errors, its bound to happon when you have a story this complex that isn't completly spelled out from the start.

[Joe Beaudoin Jr.]

It's a continuity issue, but one that can easily be glossed over since it isn't that pivotal to the story.

[Seanathin]

My view is the whole flash back with Adam in Razor was kind of blech, especaly it being his first day, removing that one line would have made things better through and through.

[ThPrime]

http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/5195/razor1104nctr3.jpg



In the Razorettes, Husker's ill-fated Viper is 1104NC. In a collision with a Raider, the Viper's vertical fin is sheared off. Husker ejects safely.

Forty one years later, in the miniseries Commander Adama is presented with a restored N7242C, presumably the replacement to 1104NC and the last Viper of his pilot career. Apollo leaves his Mk VII parked and flies N7242C in the decomissioning ceremony.

Starbuck gets a gift shop Mk II, 8547NC, enduring three aborted launches due to a faulty pressure rate valve. There is no spare for a replacement and in a risky move the deck crew bypasses the valve. Returning from her battle, the trailing edge of the vertical fin is missing and the top engine is damaged.

The battle damage to 8547NC is evidently rapidly repaired, because Starbuck flies it for her Ragnar reconnaissance mission.

Apollo flies his father's restored N7242C in the Battle of Ragnar. He loses his port wing and engine to Raider fire. Starbuck singlehandedly defends Apollo's crippled Viper against swarming Raiders, rams into it with her own, and flies both entangled Vipers back to Galactica's hangar.

8547NC must have been on the fritz again. Because for some reason, Starbuck is flying a different Mk II from the gift shop...

http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/2216/starbuck1104ncmp7.jpg


1104NC, Husker's first, and last, Viper from the first Cylon war. Two Vipers, two generations of Adamas, the ghost of Zack looking on I'm sure, and the girl hero that loves them, Vipers and Adamas all.

That's not just continuity, that's Battlestar poetry :)

[Seanathin]

http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/5195/razor1104nctr3.jpg



In the Razorettes, Husker's ill-fated Viper is 1104NC. In a collision with a Raider, the Viper's vertical fin is sheared off. Husker ejects safely.

Forty one years later, in the miniseries Commander Adama is presented with a restored N7242C, presumably the replacement to 1104NC and the last Viper of his pilot career. Apollo leaves his Mk VII parked and flies N7242C in the decomissioning ceremony.

Starbuck gets a gift shop Mk II, 8547NC, enduring three aborted launches due to a faulty pressure rate valve. There is no spare for a replacement and in a risky move the deck crew bypasses the valve. Returning from her battle, the trailing edge of the vertical fin is missing and the top engine is damaged.

The battle damage to 8547NC is evidently rapidly repaired, because Starbuck flies it for her Ragnar reconnaissance mission.

Apollo flies his father's restored N7242C in the Battle of Ragnar. He loses his port wing and engine to Raider fire. Starbuck singlehandedly defends Apollo's crippled Viper against swarming Raiders, rams into it with her own, and flies both entangled Vipers back to Galactica's hangar.

8547NC must have been on the fritz again. Because for some reason, Starbuck is flying a different Mk II from the gift shop...

http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/2216/starbuck1104ncmp7.jpg


1104NC, Husker's first, and last, Viper from the first Cylon war. Two Vipers, two generations of Adamas, the ghost of Zack looking on I'm sure, and the girl hero that loves them, Vipers and Adamas all.

That's not just continuity, that's Battlestar poetry :)

That is to much free fraking time on your hands there my friend. ;)

[JDS]

Well the tail numbering is cool, but that still doesn't explain the discrepancy of the scene claiming that Adama is going on his first combat mission...you would have thought that maybe the guy who bothered to drag out the DVDs from the miniseries to get a tail number might have also noticed that whole inconsistency...

[Joe Beaudoin Jr.]

Right, there's a discrepancy there... But then again, the BSG people tend to play fast and loose with the continuity anyway. Sometimes with horrible results, e.g. "Hero".

[james968]

Major continuity frack up.

Unless there was a Major Civil War/Insurrection (which we haven't heard about), it doesn't match up with all of the 'so called' combat experience he had.

[Bossman]

I agree, it is a bad continuity frak up.

The Razor Flashbacks clearly establish that William Adama was a rook and had never flown combat until the last day of the Cylon War. Therefore, we can only assume that he had been previously assigned to ground forces (highly unlikely) or that he was later involved in campaigs against Colonial insurrections or Cylons who somehow didn't know that an armistice had been declared. If you recall, he also supposedly served aboard the Atlantia (Act of Contrition). In my opinion, it would have been better had they presented Lt. William Adama as an established Viper jock who had recently transferred to Galactica from Atlantia.

[JDS]

There's entirely another answer to this problem. It's not a pretty one, but I think it works best...

These are Adama's flashbacks. It happened decades ago and he was under a lot of stress then and he's under a lot of stress now. He's confusing two memories, the memory of his first day in combat and the memory of the last day of the war. If he were telling somebody the story and somebody pointed out, "Hold on Bill, your girlfriend got killed eight months before the end of the war" he would say, "Oh yeah, you're right...it all just felt like it happened at once..." or something along those lines.

If we pressed RDM about it, I think he'd say something similar...but until he says something, this is what I'm gonna choose to believe :D

[Upham]

I think that's the closest thing to a favorite explination I've heard so far; that Adama is just having some memor issues (likely related to that stuff he smoked on New Caprica). Still though, the whole thing sticks in my craw.

As per his time on the Atlantia, there is always the chance that he started out as a member of the CIC staff (Gaeta with a tougher voice, for example) or in some other non-directly-combat related position, and then transferred into flying at some point. Still though, his comments on being concerned that the war would end before he got a chance to get out and get a crack at the Cylons would seem to contradict this.

A friend of mine (hi Fen, if you're reading this) suggested that he may have seen furthur active combat fighting Cylon hold-outs after the peace was signed - after all, there clearly were some. Who knows.

I just don't want them to take away this great image of the first war Adama being some sort of hot-shot fighter jock like Starbuck.

[Bossman]

As per his time on the Atlantia, there is always the chance that he started out as a member of the CIC staff (Gaeta with a tougher voice, for example) or in some other non-directly-combat related position, and then transferred into flying at some point. Still though, his comments on being concerned that the war would end before he got a chance to get out and get a crack at the Cylons would seem to contradict this.

I just don't want them to take away this great image of the first war Adama being some sort of hot-shot fighter jock like Starbuck.

Well, in Act of Contrition it was stated that Adama did his 1000th landing aboard Atlantia, so obviously he was a pilot. It's hard to imagine a Viper pilot making his or her 1000th landing without seeing some kind of combat, unless the majority of Adama's flight time was spent on patrol. Then again, for all we know he could have been a shuttle pilot.:D

One can easily dismiss all this if one accepts that Bill Adama is getting senile in his old age, but I refuse to buy into the whole "problems with his memory" thing. One can further assume that much of Adama's combat experience was gained after the Cylon War on some other campaigns, but either way you slice it, this was a total continuity frak up on the part of the writers.

[JDS]

You don't have to be going senile to misremember things. I do it all the time.

[Aset]

I don't think that helps your case JDS! ;)

[Joe Beaudoin Jr.]

It's clearly a contradiction on the part of the writer, who thought that people wouldn't have noticed.

It's already been established that he had more involvement in the Cylon War as a fighter pilot, particularly since he, Tigh, and others were let go after the military reduction. Of course, when precisely all this happened, that's not entirely set in stone either.

[JDS]

I don't think that helps your case JDS! ;)Shhh, don't question your superior officers' mental capacity, no matter how lacking it may be, rookie :D