 |
Battlestar Galcatica
"Dice With Death"
Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack (Grandreams)
Author Unknown
Artist Unknown |
On a food gathering mission, Apollo,
Starbuck, and Athena are captured by the native humans of the
planet Lonn.
Story Summary
Apollo, Starbuck, and Athena land on an agriculturally rich
world called Lonn in a shuttle to gather fruit and plant
specimens for the fleet's hydroponic growth tanks. They take
their samples from a seemingly wild orchard 35 miles away from
the nearest town. Nonetheless, they are besieged by men borne
upon giant eagles. Nets are thrown down upon them and the three
are quickly captured and taken to the town to be tried as
thieves, the penalty for which is death.
The guardsmen who have arrested them are astounded at the act of
thievery, as the population of Lonn seems to be conspicuously
honest in all dealings, at least within the lifetimes of the
inhabitants. As they are taken through the town to the local
jail (which has been maintained despite the lack of crime),
Starbuck sees that a great number of the buildings are dedicated
to gambling...honest gambling, which seems to be the
national pastime. While the three warriors are held in a cell
pending trial, Starbuck cooks up a scheme and bets their jailer,
Miram, that he can out-roll him in dice for a chance at freedom
or admissions of guilt. Miram agrees, bringing out six dice,
which Starbuck inspects for defects. Agreeing to the dice,
Starbuck rolls first, a straight sequential numbering of
one, two, three, four, five, six...meaning he wins.
As the freed trio fly back to the fleet in their shuttle, Athena
asks Starbuck how he did it. He shows her how he used slight of
hand to swap Miram's six dice for his own. Since the Lonnians
are so honest, Miram had no concept of loaded dice!
THE END
Didja Know?
This story appeared in the British book
Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack, a book of short stories
and articles all about BSG,
geared towards kids. The title of the book is derived from a
1979 theatrical release in Europe which combined the episodes
"The Living Legend" Parts 1 and 2 and
"Fire in Space" into one
movie.

Notes from the BSG Chronology
Since the planet Lonn in this story is populated by humans who
apparently speak a language similar to the Colonial standard
used by Apollo, Starbuck, and Athena,
and the fleet is still searching for additional crop foods for
the fleet, I
have placed this story as taking place shortly after the events
of "The Magnificent Warriors" in which the fleet loses two of
its three agro ships.
Didja Notice?
On page 1 of the story, Starbuck uses the term "miles" instead
of some Colonial unit of equivalence (admittedly, there is no
known equivalent to "mile" in the recorded terms of Colonial
speech).
Once again, the native humans of the planet Lonn speak a
language recognizable to our heroes.
Why are the relatively technologically primitive humans of Lonn
seemingly not interested in the Colonial shuttle when they
capture our three warriors? They make no mention of it even
though the narrative describes it as only a hundred yards away,
at the edge of the orchard.
On page 5 of the story, Starbuck rolls the six dice to come up
with one, two, three, four, five, six, which he says is referred
to as a Colonial flush. In Earth terminology though, a flush is
a hand (in cards) of all the same suit, not a set of numbers in
sequential order; that would be a straight. So, you would think
Starbuck's roll of the dice would be called a Colonial straight.
Gee, it's awfully lucky Starbuck just happened to be carrying
his loaded dice on a mission! And it's doubly lucky his dice
apparently look exactly like the ones in Miram's possession.
Back to Episode Studies