Battlestar Galactica (2003) Miniseries Explained: Plot Summary and Ending

The Battlestar Galactica miniseries is the three-hour, two-night pilot that started the reimagined series in December 2003. The Cylons, machines humanity built and then fought, return after 40 years of silence and destroy the Twelve Colonies in a single day. An old warship on the day of its retirement, Galactica, ends up leading what's left of the human race away from home. Everything in the series builds on what happens here. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries))

Plot#

The attack. Forty years after the armistice that ended the Cylon War, the Colonial officer at the Armistice Station got the first visitors the Cylons had ever sent: two Centurions and a woman who asked him if he was alive. She kissed him as a basestar destroyed the station. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries))

Galactica, meanwhile, was being decommissioned and turned into a museum. Commander William Adama was writing his retirement speech. Kara Thrace was in the brig for hitting Saul Tigh over a card game. Adama's son Lee, who still blamed his father for the death of his brother Zak, flew in for the ceremony. On Caprica, Roslin was told she had breast cancer, then boarded the transport carrying her to the ceremony. Adama turned down her request to put a student computer network aboard, because Galactica's commanders had never allowed one. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries))

Baltar's lover was a Number Six. She had used him to reach the defence systems and plant a back door in his navigation program. On the morning of the attack she told him what she was. Then the bombs fell, and she shielded him from the blast that destroyed his house. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries))

Across the Colonies, nuclear strikes hit the cities. Colonial ships and Vipers running the compromised software lost power and were picked off. Galactica, with no network to infect, fought back with a squadron of old Mark II Vipers from its museum display. One nuke still hit the port flight pod, and Tigh vented burning sections to save the ship, killing 85 of the crew. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries))

Two escapes. Sharon Valerii and Karl Agathon set their damaged Raptor down on Caprica and were mobbed by refugees. They held a lottery for the last seats. Helo recognised Baltar in the crowd and gave up his own place to him, staying behind on the ruined planet. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries))

On the transport, Roslin learned that the president and everyone above her in the line of succession was dead. She was sworn in by the priest Elosha, and the ship became Colonial One. Lee, escorting it in his father's old Viper, used Galactica's old pulse generators in the cargo hold to stop a nuclear strike, making the Cylons think the ship was gone. Adama, reading the telemetry, believed his son was dead. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries))

Ragnar. Adama took Galactica to Ragnar Anchorage, a munitions depot inside a gas giant's radiation cloud. Roslin gathered civilian ships, but when a Cylon scout found them she ordered every ship with an FTL drive to jump, leaving the sublight ships, including a botanical cruiser with a little girl aboard, to be destroyed. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries))

On the station Adama met Leoben Conoy, who claimed to be an arms dealer. Leoben grew sick, which he blamed on allergies, and Adama worked out that the radiation was hurting him because he was a Cylon that looked human. Leoben attacked him, and Adama beat him to death with a torch. Baltar, guided by a Six only he could see, found a strange device on a CIC console and accused the government press officer Aaron Doral of being a Cylon agent. He had no real evidence, but Doral was left behind on Ragnar. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries))

Kara scouted the edge of the cloud and found basestars waiting. Adama wanted to fight. Roslin argued that the only thing left to do was run and start having babies, and in the end he agreed. Galactica sat just outside the cloud and shielded the civilian ships while they jumped. Lee's Viper lost power in the fighting, and Kara jammed her Viper's nose into his and flew both into the landing bay as Galactica jumped. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries))

The ending explained#

At the funeral for the dead, Adama told the crew he knew where Earth, the lost home of the Thirteenth Tribe, was, and that they would find it. In private, Roslin asked him why he'd lied, since the late president never believed Earth existed. Adama said surviving wasn't enough, and people needed something to live for. They agreed to split the job: he would run the military and she would run the government. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries))

Back in his quarters, Adama found a printed note: there were only 12 Cylon models. Who left it is never explained. Then, on Ragnar, copies of Six, Leoben and Doral came for the Doral left behind, proving Baltar's lucky guess right. The last Cylon to walk in was a copy of Sharon Valerii. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries))

The ending sets out the show's terms. The Cylons can look human and can be anywhere, including the crew. The fleet is running towards a place its own commander doesn't believe in. And Boomer, one of the most likeable people on Galactica, is a Cylon who doesn't know it. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries); Battlestar Galactica, "Water")

What it reveals#

The miniseries recasts the 1978 premise. These Cylons were made by humans, rebelled, and came back with a religion of their own. Six talks about God, and Leoben lectures Adama about whether humanity deserves to survive. Adama's own retirement speech said something close: humanity never took responsibility for what it made. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries))

It also explains why Galactica, of all ships, survived. Adama's refusal to network his computers looked like an old man's stubbornness in the first hour. It's the only reason he still has a ship. Baltar learns that Galactica received his navigation program but never installed it. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries))

Baltar's inner Six starts here too. She appears to him after the attack, at times when he's alone and at times when he's surrounded by people, and only he can see her. Her hold over him drives his story for the rest of the series. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries); Battlestar Galactica, "33")

Characters#

• William Adama: Galactica's commander, who takes command of what's left of the fleet and chooses to run.
• Laura Roslin: education secretary turned president, newly diagnosed with cancer.
• Lee Adama: Apollo, estranged from his father, who saves Colonial One.
• Kara Thrace: Starbuck, let out of the brig to fly the museum Vipers.
• Saul Tigh: Adama's XO, who vents the burning flight pod.
• Gaius Baltar: the scientist whose access let the Cylons in.
• Number Six: Baltar's lover, the Cylon agent behind the breach, who then appears in his head.
• Sharon Valerii: Boomer, who flies refugees off Caprica and is revealed as a Cylon.
• Karl Agathon: Helo, who gives his seat to Baltar.
• Leoben Conoy: the "arms dealer" on Ragnar.
• Aaron Doral: the press officer Baltar accuses.
• Galen Tyrol, Felix Gaeta, Anastasia Dualla, Billy Keikeya and Elosha round out the crews of Galactica and Colonial One.

(Battlestar Galactica (miniseries))

Continuity#

• The full attack, ship by ship, is covered in the Fall of the Twelve Colonies, and the escape in the Battle of Ragnar Anchorage. (Battlestar Galactica (miniseries))
• Season 1 opens with the fleet some five days into a chase, the Cylons finding it every 33 minutes and Helo still alone on Caprica. See "33". (Battlestar Galactica, "33")
• Boomer's hidden programming surfaces straight away, starting with sabotage of the water tanks, and ends with her shooting Adama. (Battlestar Galactica, "Water"; Battlestar Galactica, "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II")
• Doral and Leoben come back. A Doral blows himself up on Galactica, and another Leoben is captured and questioned by Kara. (Battlestar Galactica, "Litmus"; Battlestar Galactica, "Flesh and Bone")
• The Six who shielded Baltar downloads into a new body and sees a Baltar only she can see, the mirror of his Six. See "Downloaded". (Battlestar Galactica, "Downloaded")
• The Plan replays the attack and the escape from the Cylon side. (Battlestar Galactica: The Plan)
• The finale goes back to the days before the attack in flashbacks, with Adama's retirement and Roslin's life on Caprica. (Battlestar Galactica, "Daybreak, Part I")