depends: which TIE we talking about? baseline model? TIE Improved (Vader's X-1 from Death Star trench scene)?, the "tricked-out" triple sail TIE Defender (with shields)? As for Cylon raiders, are we talking the classic TV series version? Or the newer "modular" robo-models from the upcoming new TV series (Sci Fi, Jan 2005. The mini-series premier was last December)? .

If we're comparing apples and apples (the original version in each case, I mean) the TIE is the closest analog to the "Fishbed". It's a cheap, fairly rugged, highly-maneuverable single-seat "day" fighter with minimal avionics (for its time) intended as a point-defense interceptor with a (very) secondary close-support role'. The Cylon "fighter" is in fact a long-range strike platform intended for attacking hard targets with disposable ordnance, that carries a three-"man" crew and has a pair of cannon mainly for strafing and self-defense. The "Raider's" closest analog would be something along the lines of the old Douglas TBD Devastator, Grumman/General Motors TBF/TBM Avenger, or the Nakajima "Kate" torpedo-bombers of WW II. Since they were up against the equivalent of Wildcats or Corsairs, it's no wonder they were getting killed in job lots even with ten-to-one numerical advantages. The Cylons badly needed some actual fighters to fly top cover for their strike packages. (Of course, it's all moot, as what the "Star Wars" and "Cattlecar Galaxative" people all needed was a high-school physics course, but what do I know?). :-).

I would say neither--the MiG-21 can actually take a hit. Eon, I like your comparison of the Cylon Raider to the SBD or the Kate. Anyone remember the old BSG episode where the Cylons launched a kamikaze attack on the Galactica? I remember it ignited a fire in the hangar bay and trapped a good deal of the crew--very similar to the experience of the USS Franklin and Bunker Hill off Okinawa.

Thanks for the compliment, sentinel. "Fire in Space was one of the few episodes of BSG that I actually liked. Although the histrionics scaled new heights even by BSG standards. They had a similar problem in the SFC remake pilot, and solved it faster, and more cruelly realistically- by sealing off the section and venting the atmosphere. Goodbye fire, and ditto the DC crew that was trapped by said fire. Tough call, but it has happened in real life, at least once during WW II, if memory serves..

They did it on Star Trek once as well, but because it was TNG, nobody died.

eon that's a very interesting bit of analysis. made my day reading it.

Thanks to you, too, Ehran. I tend to view the "Star Wars generation" of movie/TV sci-fi "epics" as mainly "Westerns in outer space", with heavy leavenings of WW I movies. For instance, George Lucas himself admitted once that the "Death Star Trench" sequence in SW IV; New Hope was lifted almost bodily from the 1965 movie, "633 Squadron" (one of my personal favorites, BTW). And the initial Cylon attack in "Saga Of A Star World" (the actual title of the BSG original pliot movie) was basically lifted from the 1975 film "Midway", according to Glen Larson, the executive producer and co-writer. The difference is, this time, the Colonial fleet was playing the Imperial Japanese Navy's role'in the actual battle........

I meant "WW TWO" movies, not WW I. Finger malfunction!

how does it go "there is nothing new under heaven or earth". something that used to really annoy me was the trek series DS 9. they in the last season used to have large space battles with dozens or even hundreds of rather large ships zipping about madly in very close proximity. i would have thought the losses to collisions would have handily outweighed enemy action. looked nice which i guess was the point but it made the rational part of me just cringe to watch.

I only saw a few of those. It looked to me like they were trying to "Star Wars" the series, thereby completely negating the (relative) scientific accuracy that had always been ST's hallmark (compared to, say, "Space 1999"). If they wanted to stage grand space battles, they should have skipped the Lucasfilm "epics" and gone straight to the original sources: E.E. "Doc" Smith, John W. Campbell, Jack Williamson, and Edmond Hamilton- all of whose gargantuan star-dreadnaughts obeyed the laws of physics, and kept formation, with nary a "star-fighter" in sight..