Colonial Fleet: 120 battlestars

The Colonial Fleet, together with the Colonial Fleet Reserve, was the main armed service of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, operating alongside the Colonial Marine Corps. It was already fighting in the Cylon War, and afterwards its main peacetime role was as a deterrent against any Cylon return. At the time of the attack it numbered some 120 battlestars. A single Cylon software exploit helped reduce that force to the battlestars Galactica and Pegasus on the day of the Fall of the Twelve Colonies. (Battlestar Galactica (2003 miniseries); Battlestar Galactica, "Final Cut"; Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus")

Founding and the battlestar#

The show never gives a founding date for the Colonial Fleet, but it was already fighting the Cylons in the Cylon War. That war shaped the fleet's ships: the Cylons proved able to infiltrate networked computer systems, so Galactica was built without networked computers, a precaution William Adama kept in force decades later. (Battlestar Galactica (2003 miniseries); Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome)

Galactica was one of the original twelve battlestars, each representing one of the colonies, and Galactica's colony was Caprica. By the tenth year of the war, battlestars operated in groups with escorts and other support ships, and older battlestar types served alongside newer ones. (Battlestar Galactica (2003 miniseries); Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome)

Postwar service#

The war ended with an armistice, after which the Cylons vanished, but the fleet stayed on guard for some forty years. Newer battlestars such as the Mercury class entered service over that time, while most older ships were retired. Galactica, one of the last of the old battlestars still in service, was due to be decommissioned and turned into a museum on the day the Cylons returned. (Battlestar Galactica (2003 miniseries); Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus")

In the years before the Fall, the defence researcher Gaius Baltar developed the Command Navigation Program, which linked the systems of most ships in the fleet, from battlestars to Mark VII Vipers. The project drew the attention of Humanoid Cylon spies, and the agent Caprica Six used her relationship with Baltar to get access to the defence mainframe and plant a backdoor in the program, which let the Cylons shut down Colonial ships. (Battlestar Galactica (2003 miniseries); Battlestar Galactica: The Plan)

The Fall#

On the day of the Fall of the Twelve Colonies, basestars jumped in over the colonies. Colonial warships and Vipers moved to intercept, but the backdoor in the Command Navigation Program shut them down, leaving them drifting and helpless, and thirty battlestars, a quarter of the fleet, were lost in the opening attack. With the fleet crippled, the Cylons bombarded the colonies largely unopposed, and they also struck the Scorpion Fleet Shipyards, where Pegasus barely escaped. (Battlestar Galactica (2003 miniseries); Battlestar Galactica: The Plan; Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus")

With Fleet Headquarters on Picon destroyed in the first wave, Admiral Nagala was killed when his flagship Atlantia was lost, and Commander William Adama of Galactica took command of whatever was left, ordering it to regroup at Ragnar Anchorage. By the end of the attack the Colonial Fleet had been reduced to Galactica and the missing Pegasus. The fleet continued under Admiral Helena Cain and later Admiral Adama, but after Pegasus was destroyed during the exodus from New Caprica, Galactica was its only warship until the end. (Battlestar Galactica (2003 miniseries); Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus"; Battlestar Galactica, "Exodus, Part II"; Battlestar Galactica, "Daybreak, Part II")

Weaponry#

Colonial warships relied mainly on kinetic weapons: battlestars carried heavy guns and dense point-defence batteries that threw up a flak barrage against incoming Raiders and missiles, and Vipers fired kinetic rounds from nose-mounted guns. The fleet also kept nuclear warheads, and battlestar commanders had the battlefield authority to use them. Fleet personnel and the Marines carried sidearms and assault rifles. (Battlestar Galactica (2003 miniseries); Battlestar Galactica, "The Eye of Jupiter")

Composition#

At the Fall the fleet numbered roughly 120 battlestars, a figure that comes from Adama's report that thirty were lost in the opening attack and Kara Thrace's reply that this was a quarter of the fleet. The battlestars included the old Galactica type, the newer Mercury class of Pegasus and the Valkyrie class, backed by smaller support ships such as those lost alongside two battlestars at the Scorpion shipyards. (Battlestar Galactica (2003 miniseries); Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus"; Battlestar Galactica: The Plan)