Galactica

Galactica was a Jupiter-class battlestar that served in the Colonial Fleet for almost its entire existence, from the Cylon War until the day humanity reached the planet that would become Earth. One of the first twelve battlestars, it was instrumental in the survival of the human race following the Fall of the Twelve Colonies, the Battle of New Caprica, and the Battle of the Colony. Under the command of William Adama, it protected the last fifty thousand survivors of the Cylons' genocidal attack. Worn beyond repair by years of combat without resources or time for refit, it was ultimately piloted into a star. (Battlestar Galactica, miniseries; Battlestar Galactica, "Daybreak, Part II")

Origins in the Cylon War#

Galactica's origins lay with the Cylon War, the conflict between the Twelve Colonies of Kobol and the Cylons, the machines humanity had built and that had rebelled. Because the Cylons were expert at hacking networked computers, the battlestars of that era were designed to rely on separate, individually crewed systems rather than networks. These vessels served multiple roles, providing heavy firepower while launching fighter craft. (Battlestar Galactica, miniseries)

Galactica was one of the first twelve battlestars, each representing one of the twelve colonies, with the ship itself representing Caprica. Corners were cut when it was built, a weakness that came back to haunt it decades later. Little is recorded of Galactica's wartime service, though Commander Silas Nash commanded it while a young William Adama flew from its decks, and late in the war it fought in the operation in which its sister ship Columbia was lost. (Battlestar Galactica, miniseries; Battlestar Galactica, "No Exit"; Battlestar Galactica: Razor; Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome)

The long peace and decommissioning#

In the decades after the armistice Galactica was outlived by its sister ships and overtaken by newer, networked battlestars, but it stayed in service, by the end the last of its kind. Its FTL drives went unused for some twenty years before the attack, and it was finally due to be decommissioned and turned into a museum to the Cylon War. (Battlestar Galactica, miniseries)

In the lead-up to decommissioning most of its crew and fighters were being transferred off. Commander William Adama had earlier commanded the battlestar Valkyrie before taking Galactica, with Saul Tigh as his executive officer and Chief Petty Officer Galen Tyrol running the hangar deck. (Battlestar Galactica, miniseries; Battlestar Galactica, "Hero")

The Fall of the Twelve Colonies#

The decommissioning ceremony coincided with a massive Cylon offensive across the Colonies, catching Galactica with its munitions already offloaded. Its last squadron of Viper Mark VIIs was disabled when Cylon Raiders exploited the Command Navigation Program to shut them down remotely. That program had never been installed on Galactica, because Adama forbade networking, leaving the ship itself impervious to the exploit. (Battlestar Galactica, miniseries)

Adama began preparing to join the Fleet's counteroffensive, but Galactica first needed weapons and had to jump to the munitions depot at Ragnar Anchorage. Before it could leave it fought off a Raider attack with the Mark II Vipers from its museum and took a nuclear hit to its flight pod. By the time word came that Atlantia had been destroyed, the battle was lost, and Adama asserted de facto command of what remained of the Fleet. (Battlestar Galactica, miniseries)

Exodus and the road to Kobol#

In the first days after the colonies were abandoned, Galactica and its convoy were tracked by Cylon forces that jumped to the fleet's coordinates every thirty-three minutes, apparently using the civilian liner Olympic Carrier. When the Carrier returned out of contact and carrying a nuclear warhead, Roslin ordered it destroyed, and two of Galactica's Vipers shot it down, leaving the fate of those aboard a mystery. (Battlestar Galactica, "33")

A cell of Humanoid Cylons who had evacuated with the fleet formed aboard Galactica itself, with a Number One, "Galactica-Cavil," posing as a priest. Over the following weeks the cell sabotaged the ship: Valerii blew the water tanks with stolen explosives, forcing the fleet to search for water, and a Number Five set off a suicide vest aboard Galactica in an attempt to kill Adama. A Number Six named Shelly Godfrey tried to discredit Doctor Gaius Baltar with forged evidence before vanishing from the ship. (Battlestar Galactica, "Water"; Battlestar Galactica, "Litmus"; Battlestar Galactica, "Six Degrees of Separation"; Battlestar Galactica: The Plan)

Soon after, Galactica led the first assault on Cylon forces since the Fall, destroying a tylium refinery. Raptor scouts later located the habitable world of Kobol, humanity's ancestral planet. A Cylon force there shot down a Raptor expedition and stranded several survivors, including Tyrol and Baltar. A plan to plant a nuclear warhead aboard an orbiting basestar using a captured Raider went ahead without its pilot, Kara Thrace, after President Laura Roslin persuaded her to jump to Caprica instead; Sharon Valerii delivered the bomb and destroyed the basestar. (Battlestar Galactica, "The Hand of God"; Battlestar Galactica, "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I"; Battlestar Galactica, "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II")

Following the shooting of Adama, a Cylon attack forced an urgent departure that separated Galactica from the civilian ships. Galactica's computers were networked to calculate the correct coordinates, an act that let the Cylons slip a virus into the ship's systems, and a Heavy Raider crashed into the flight pod and put a squad of Centurions aboard. (Battlestar Galactica, "Scattered"; Battlestar Galactica, "Valley of Darkness")

New Caprica#

After the fleet discovered and colonized the world named New Caprica, Galactica and Pegasus remained in orbit for roughly a year with reduced crews. When a Cylon fleet found the colony, the battlestars were forced to jump away and abandon the population. In the rescue that followed, Galactica jumped into the planet's atmosphere to launch its Vipers and took heavy damage. When Pegasus was destroyed covering the evacuation, its surviving crew transferred to Galactica. (Battlestar Galactica, "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II"; Battlestar Galactica, "Exodus, Part II")

The continued search for Earth#

The starboard hangar pod had been converted into a museum ahead of the planned decommissioning. After the evacuation it was pressed into service to house civilian refugees, earning the nickname "Camp Oilslick," and later "Dogsville" as still more passengers arrived and were treated by civilian medical staff. A makeshift bar called "Joe's" sprang up aboard. During passage through a star cluster the ship sheltered fleet passengers while their own vessels ran on skeleton crews. (Battlestar Galactica, "Torn"; Battlestar Galactica, "The Passage"; Battlestar Galactica, "The Woman King")

Metal fatigue and final days#

The punishment told in the end. During the mutiny a large crack appeared in an interior wall, and closer inspection revealed hairline fractures and structural damage throughout, aggravated by corners cut during the ship's original construction. Tyrol proposed sealing the hull with a Cylon organic resin that would bond to and strengthen the metal; Adama refused until cracks reached his own quarters, then permitted it. The repairs went poorly, and Boomer's escape jump close to the bow caused a spatial distortion that worsened the damage. (Battlestar Galactica, "Blood on the Scales"; Battlestar Galactica, "No Exit"; Battlestar Galactica, "Someone to Watch Over Me")

A mutiny led by Tom Zarek and Felix Gaeta split the crew, and in the aftermath Adama accepted Cylon Heavy Raiders from the rebel basestar to help fly patrols. (Battlestar Galactica, "The Oath"; Battlestar Galactica, "Blood on the Scales"; Battlestar Galactica, "Deadlock")

With efforts to seal the stress fractures failing, Adama ordered the ship abandoned and stripped. The discovery of the Cylon colony's location granted a reprieve, and a volunteer skeleton crew, joined by rebel Cylons and Centurions, embarked to rescue the Cylon-human child Hera. Samuel Anders, left in a vegetative state, was wired into the ship's systems to serve as Galactica's own version of a Cylon hybrid. (Battlestar Galactica, "Islanded in a Stream of Stars"; Battlestar Galactica, "Daybreak, Part I")

The last jump#

Galactica jumped to point-blank range of the colony, taking still more damage in the gunnery exchange. Anders disrupted the colony's systems and shut down its weapons, Raptors jumped straight into the battle, and Galactica rammed the colony so assault teams could rescue Hera. A truce collapsed when nukes fired from a dead pilot's Raptor struck the colony, which began to be drawn toward a nearby black hole. Kara Thrace jumped Galactica clear, the jump breaking the ship's back and leaving it unable to jump again. The coordinates she used, derived from the notes of a song that had haunted her and the Final Five, brought the ship to the world that would become modern-day Earth. The survivors of the Twelve Colonies and the remaining Cylon rebels settled the planet, Admiral Adama flew the last Viper off the ship, and Galactica and the rest of the fleet were piloted into the sun by Samuel Anders. (Battlestar Galactica, "Daybreak, Part II")