The robots' fighting skills in the final episode (or lack thereof)

That whole scene was terrible. It took 10 minutes to take out like 5 guys.

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two reasons.

the main one, the scene was put together quickly as the show was cancelled and they wanted to show an ending.

the other one, it wasn't robots firing it was a girl inside there as well. the human aspect accounts for their poor shots because most humans don't actually want to fire on people. milltary studies show soldiers will miss on purpose. hence the need for basic training and turning the de-humanising the enemy.

it is also implied they "learn" so it is possible they are learning to be better, of course that doesn't really fit in with some aspects of the show. take it as more an observation, they won't be "perfect" they should be far more effective however I agree.
they have excellent eye sight, can hold the weapon without movement etc. so yes they should be hitting with tight grouping all but fast moving targets.


shooting positions, good point. never thought of that. i'd put it down to the first point i made and also what the audience expects to see. but practically - yeh I agree.

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You did a good job of highlighting the problems with this scene. However, it's too bad that the animators for this sequence didn't realize what kind of capabilities that these military robots would have, and probably relied too much on human motion capture actors.

Maybe a more realistic version would simply have the Cylon Marines assemble in a central location where they could see all the bombers, and Daniel orders them to take the suicide bombers out with one shot each. The Cylon Marines then "take a pose" (actually they are taking aim) and fire, killing almost all of the bombers.

However, one bomber realizes that the Cylons are targeting him as they "take a pose", and hides behind the cheering crowd just before the rest of the Cylon Marines open fire. The Cylon Marine responsible for taking out the remaining bomber moves to fire at the bomber who is using the crowd as human shields, but Daniel interrupts it, typing in new priorities for the Cylon Marine Squad:

NO non-terrorist casualties permitted.
MINIMIZE any collateral damage.

The Cylon Marines then lower their rifles but advance towards the surviving bomber in an attempt to isolate the bomber from his targets and to use their own bodies to contain the explosion (sometimes real IEDs are safely detonated with lots of sandbags around it to contain the explosion). They corner the bomber away from his targets and he detonates his suicide vest, destroying the Cylon Marine squad, but their bodies absorb most of the blast, resulting in the bomb destroying a much smaller portion of the Atlas Arena than it would have done otherwise.

Would that have been better for you?

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As per the machine stance, I had thought that similar principles would work for the machines - steadying aim, reducing recoil, smaller profile, etc. They might not need it as much as humans (or perhaps the weapons were heavier than standard issue rifles) but it would still assist.

I remember hearing that those stances and motions (they used hand signals, didn't they?) may have been to help them integrate with biological soldiers, who would see the stance and such and immediately know what it meant.

Jake Meridius Conhale, at your service!
"Old Man" of the BSG (RDM) boards.

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I think the Cylons did fire at once, mostly. It was a little confusing from the editing, but for most of the shots, the bystanders were not panicking and running about. This would indicate that they hadn't seen other shots or commotion. So wouldn't this mean that most of the shots occurred pretty quickly?

As for the shooting positions, it probably does have to do with the animators thinking of traditional human soldiers. But if you wanted to explain it away, you could say that the early Cylon models were not that sturdy and balanced, so maybe they did need to kneel. Or they were using weapons that were much more powerful than those that a typical human would carry, so the recoil would have an effect on their heavy bodies. Or maybe it had something to do with the long-range aim. When aiming at a target that far away, even a slight deviation or jarring would throw off the accuracy of the shot. It's not like shooting at someone 5 feet away. So if even that small recoil would be enough to throw off the aim, then it could make sense that the Cylons would have to kneel for a long-range shot.

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They had almost all the same sequences in BSG. The rebel cylon robots even took orders from humans the same way. Although they took orders from the humanoid cylons without any signals.

Also another scene was showing the robots praying. And in BSG listening to gospel or human propaganda from Balthazar on why they are equal to humans.

C I Am Not a 'Chicken shiet'

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1/10

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I was just about to say "Does it matter... they're learning..... you're calling a show up five years after it ended."

The you said the hand signals... oh boy... I remember flipping out about that at the time. The hand signals were cringe worthy. And they're so AMERICAN. I know it's a US TV show, and I know you can in a very distant way explain away the 'all of this has happened before' to why certain things repeat themselves. You know, a knife will always be invented like a knife as it needs to function in a way that is logical.

But the hand signals and the way they act are just to appeal to an American audience, not to really build that this a distance place a long time ago.

Terrible scene.

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