I ha­ve been wa­tching Ga­lac­ti­ca (the newer one) on and off for a few mon­ths. And the­re is one sma­ll thing that dri­ves me nu­ts eve­ry ti­me I see it. It th­ro­ws me off the sto­r­y, and com­ple­te­ly breaks the worl­d-­buil­ding tha­t's going on.

Oc­to­go­nal pa­pe­r.

Wh­y? Be­cau­se pa­per is squa­re for func­tio­nal and ma­nu­fac­tu­ring rea­son­s. You take a spool of pa­pe­r, you cut it, you end up wi­th rec­tan­gu­lar pie­ce­s.

Are you ma­nu­fac­tu­ring li­nen pa­pe­r? Then you need to build fra­mes to do it, and making oc­to­go­nal fra­mes is mu­ch har­de­r.

To make oc­to­go­nal pa­per shee­ts you need to cut eve­ry one of them from squa­re shee­ts. That is stu­pi­d.

Oh, it ge­ts wor­se. In the BSG uni­ver­se, they ha­ve oc­to­go­nal *trac­tor pa­pe­r*.

What sort of idiot ca­me up wi­th tha­t? How can that even wo­rk!

So, a fun se­ries but eve­ry ti­me I see a pie­ce of pa­per I want to screa­m.