system
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human
[Battlestar Galactica RDM] How widespread was FTL in the Twelve Colonies? When was it invented?

We see in Blood and Chrome that early Raptors (at least some of them) didn't have FTL. In the miniseries pilot we see that a lot of Colonial civilian ships don't have FTL. Even Laura Roslin's transport, which does have FTL, opted for a 3 hour sublight flight rather than use it. Galactica's FTL at that point hadn't been used in more than 20 years.

So what's the status of FTL in Colonial society? It's common among military vessels but less widespread among older ones, and in civilian shipping it seems to be pretty random - some ships have it and some ships don't. Some of the ships that do have it include tylium refinery vessels, a prison ship, one habitat vessel (but not another), a smattering of other transport and passenger ships, and probably some others I didn't mention.

We also know from related materials that the Twelve Colonies were scattered throughout a double binary system. Near enough to form a society, especially when you're founded by a spacefaring people already,  but definitely scattered enough that FTL would be the most practical means of keeping the society connected.

So, there might not be a canon answer to this, but what do you think the deal is with FTL in the Twelve Colonies? When was it invented? What are its limitations? How widespread is it?
gpt
FTL is expensive, complicated, and can take a serious toll on a ship. The military uses it because being able to instantly travel to the scene of a battle is of serious tactical relevance. Outside of that it tends to be up to the preference of whoever is making or ordering the ships. If you're just shipping cargo, it's probably not mission-critical to have it there instantly, therefore conventional travel, which the colonies could do quickly relative to current Earth, makes more sense unless you happen to be able to afford installing FTL. Couple that with the fact that FTL travel can cause excessive wear and tear on your ship, and it seems likely to end up costing a great deal for relatively little significance. For transport it quite possibly might be like first class vs coach. If you're first class you can get there today, coach is gonna take you a week.

Also to remember is that many of the more modern ships may have had better FTL technology, but the ability for Cylons to shut down the advanced computer systems prevented them from being used after the invasion. It's possible that the modern FTL drives were better than most of the ones we see traveling with the Galactica.