Basestar Type-D: the modern Cylon baseship

The Basestar Type-D, also known as the Modern Basestar or simply the Baseship, was the primary capital ship of the Cylons at the time of the Fall of the Twelve Colonies and the war that followed. It filled a role comparable to that of the Colonial Fleet's battlestars, serving as an armoured fleet carrier and battleship in one hull. Unlike the machines of the first Cylon War, the Type-D was built of hardened organic matter and run not by a crew at consoles but by a Hybrid, a living Cylon wired into the vessel itself.

Origins#

The Type-D was developed at some point after the end of the Cylon War, replacing the earlier generations of ship that had carried the basestar name through that conflict. Its lineage could be traced through those predecessors. The Type-A of the war years had already mounted its principal armament as multiple missile launchers dotted along its circumference, an arrangement the modern ship retained. The Type-B introduced the Y-shaped structure that became the type's signature. The Type-C, fielded in the closing years of the war, closely resembled the modern ship in form, though it kept an industrial look, and it was the first known basestar placed under the control of a Hybrid rather than conventional command.

The Type-D carried both inheritances to their conclusion. Where earlier Cylon vessels had been machines in the plainest sense, the modern basestar was constructed from hardened organic matter, a ship that was in part a living thing, and the Hybrid ceased to be an experiment and became the standard mode of command across the type.

Design and the Hybrid#

As with most Cylon technology built after the Cylon War, the Type-D was organic in origin. Damage to the ship could be repaired in the manner of a wound regenerating, the hull closing over injury rather than waiting on shipyard labour. Within the central section of the vessel lay habitation spaces for the Humanoid Cylons and their Centurion servants, together with a computer chamber housing the Hybrid. Integrated directly into the ship's mainframe, the Hybrid was the personification of the basestar, the vessel's mind made flesh, and it was through the Hybrid that the ship was operated rather than through any conventional crew.

Hangar decks and air wing#

Above and below the central section turned two rotating structures, each extending three wings in a Y-shape. These sections were the ship's hangar decks. Raiders, of which the type carried a complement of some 434, sat embedded within the wings awaiting launch. The wings could also be entered from outside to reach the hangar deck proper, which was pressurised. In these inner reaches the organic elements of the ship lay exposed. During one Colonial mission to destroy a basestar with a nuclear bomb, the Raptor carrying the device had to set down directly on the flesh of the ship. A separate bay for Heavy Raiders may also have existed, since Colonial officers preparing for the attack on the Resurrection Hub did not encounter that exposed flesh in their planning.

Armament and resilience#

The Type-D was heavily armed. An estimated 168 launchers allowed a single basestar to fire a multitude of missiles of different kinds, from conventional warheads to nuclear weapons to MIRVs. What it carried in firepower it lacked in protection: the basestar was not nearly as armoured as its Colonial counterparts. Its regenerative hull, however, offset the difference in practice. A damaged battlestar could require several months in drydock, while a wounded baseship simply healed.

The Fall of the Twelve Colonies#

Basestars saw considerable action during the Fall of the Twelve Colonies, the offensive toward which the Cylon military had been building for years. Though the type was not as armoured as the battlestars it faced, the Cylons' exploit of the CNP, the navigation program then coming online across most Colonial vessels, meant that few if any basestars were destroyed in the attack. Colonial ships were disabled by the compromised software before their guns could tell.

After the Colonies fell, a fleet of basestars continued to harass the Battlestar Galactica and the civilian refugee convoy that had gathered around it, though much of the Cylon fleet was spread out elsewhere.

The pursuit of the refugee fleet#

Individual Type-D basestars appeared again and again along the refugees' flight. Over Kobol, Lieutenant Sharon Valerii completed a successful nuclear strike against a basestar orbiting the planet, the mission on which a Raptor was forced to land on the ship's living tissue to deliver its bomb.

At the Battle of the Resurrection Ship, two basestars stood escort over the resurrection ship attached to the pursuing Cylon fleet. Galactica and Pegasus jumped in together, encircled one basestar and subjected it to close-proximity fire before turning on the second. Though the battlestars were struck repeatedly by missile fire, their electronic countermeasures sent many of the incoming missiles off course, and the resurrection ship itself was destroyed by a Viper wing.

Later in the exodus, a lone basestar searching for the temple that held a roadmap to Earth confronted the refugees over the algae planet. A standoff between the two forces held for hours, until the nearby star went supernova and destroyed the planet beneath them.

The Cylon Civil War and the rebel basestar#

In the months after the Exodus from New Caprica, the Cylon Civil War began, and the Type-D fleet turned its missiles on itself. Ships under the control of the Number One, Four, and Five models fought those crewed or commandeered by the Twos, Sixes, and Eights. The fighting led to the apparent destruction of much of the Cylon fleet.

One vessel of the type, the rebel basestar, crossed the line entirely and joined the human Fleet. Its crews offered to upgrade the Colonial FTL drives, work that promised to triple the Fleet's jump accuracy and distance, and the ship carried the alliance through the pursuit and destruction of the Resurrection Hub. In time the rebel ship was granted a place in the reorganized Quorum, its representative, Sonja, elected alongside the delegates of the human ships.

Following the destruction of The Colony, it was uncertain how many basestars survived the war at all. The only known surviving vessel of the type was crewed by Centurions who had been liberated from their servitude by the Twos, Sixes, and Eights. After the Battle of the Colony, those freed Centurions were given full control of the rebel basestar and jumped away into deep space to pursue a destiny of their own.