Battlestar Galactica: A Closed-System Fictional World

Abstract

This paper deals with the way the science fiction series Battlestar Galactica (Syfy, 2003-2009) creates a fictional world that can be conceived as focused on a closed system, the Colonial Fleet. It analyses how the series maintains a perpetual crisis inside a universe designed as vast and empty, with no other antagonistic force than the Cylons. The evolution of the general design of the Fleet, a nodal point of the establishing shots, is a major feature of the series’ aesthetics of entropy, along with the survivor count. The paper concludes with an exploration of the consequences of this closed system on a thematic level, highlighting the ambiguous divide between the physical “prison” of the Fleet and the characters’ dreams and visions.

Keywords

• Battlestar Galactica
• closed system
• design
• entropy
• fictional world
• narration