Battlestar Galactica

Thought you knew everything about the show? Guess again...

• Battlestar Galactica
• by Mark F. Heiman
• mheiman@carleton.edu
• Some sound files

attlestar Galactica. It never quite hit the big time and will always be in the shadow of Star Trek and the Star Wars saga, but it's still a science fiction legend that deserves a hot Web site. And it has one.

The Battlestar Galactica site run by Mark F. Heiman is broken down into various parts: The Archives, The Gallery, Sound Bytes, Creativity, Software, The Future and On The Net.

The Archives is perhaps the most interesting part of this site, including a section for a FAQ or, "Your first stop for answers to all those pesky questions about the series." Here users can find out such seemingly mundane facts as, "What is Battlestar Galactica?" While this question appears to be for those who just wandered in, the answer might prove enlightening even to veterans of the show. The FAQ also contains answers to more demanding questions such as, "What are the names of the twelve homeworlds?"

As in many other Web pages dedicated to television shows, this site has a sampling of picture and audio files. While not extensive, there are enough to invoke fond memories of watching the show. For example, Adama saying, "Oh my god!" is satisfying to hear yet again.

The Creativity section has fan fiction, excellent 3-D artwork and some silly stuff, such as a Battlestar Galactica Filk song. A sampling from this is: "Centares, cylons, imperious leaders, If you were a book, you would lose all your readers. Great loards (sic) of COBOL have lead you astray. Don't you know Earth is the opposite way?"

This site has already garnered commendations such as Point's Top 5% of All Web Sites, and it's easy to see why. Heiman has a judicious, and humorous, eye for what and what not to include. While the look of Heiman's pages is not as slick as other Battlestar sites, this is very much the fan's ultimate resource. It carries such obscurities as a detailed analysis of the Colonial collar insignia and descriptions of unshot scripts for Battlestar Galactica.

The inclusion of Battlestar Galactica fonts and even a Battlestar arcade game to download is also a nice touch. Some of these things would otherwise escape all notice. (Whether deservedly or not, this reviewer will let the reader decide.)

Complete and quirky, the Battlestar Galactica Web site takes itself in the right spirit. As Heiman says in his About This Site page, "The show was often somewhat silly and occasionally even campy, but it's still good fun. That's more than you can say for a lot of TV." He could be talking about his own site.

Definitely worth the trip. -- Alex

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