"Pegasus": Battlestar Galactica season 2 episode 10 explained

"Pegasus" is the episode where the fleet finds out Galactica isn't the last battlestar. Pegasus jumps in under Rear Admiral Helena Cain, who outranks William Adama, takes over the fleet and turns out to run a ship where Cylon prisoners are tortured and officers who argue get shot. It ends with Galactica and Pegasus pointing Vipers at each other. It's the midpoint of season 2 and the start of a three-part story that runs through "Resurrection Ship". (Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus")

Plot#

A ship jumped into the middle of the fleet, and Galactica went to action stations expecting Cylons. It was Pegasus, a Mercury-class battlestar, newer and better armed than Galactica. The crews celebrated. Admiral Cain explained that her ship had been in dock at the Scorpion Fleet Shipyards when the Cylons struck, and had escaped with a blind jump. Since then it had been hitting Cylon targets on its own. (Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus")

Cain was a rear admiral and Adama a commander, so she took command of both battlestars. She promised to leave Galactica's crew alone, then broke the promise almost at once, moving Lee Adama and Kara Thrace to Pegasus and complaining about Galactica's discipline. The survivor count went up from 47,853 to 49,605 when the Pegasus crew was added to it. (Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus")

Pegasus's executive officer, Colonel Jack Fisk, got friendly with Saul Tigh over drinks. He let slip that Cain had shot her previous XO in the CIC for refusing an order. Tigh took the story straight to Adama. (Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus")

Gaius Baltar got to see Pegasus's own Cylon prisoner. In the brig he found a Number Six, Gina Inviere, chained to the floor, filthy and beaten, barely responding. Head Six, who had spent the series taunting Baltar, was horrified. (Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus")

Cain wanted the same treatment for Galactica's Cylon prisoner, the pregnant Sharon Agathon, and sent her interrogator, Lieutenant Alastair Thorne, across. Karl Agathon and Galen Tyrol heard drunken Pegasus crewmen bragging about raping Gina and ran for Galactica's brig, where Thorne was starting to assault Sharon in her cell. In the fight that followed, Tyrol threw Thorne against a bulkhead and killed him. (Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus")

Cain had Helo and Tyrol taken to Pegasus. Adama was angry that the case would be heard on Pegasus, not on Galactica where it happened, and Cain refused to hand the men back. Hours later she decided the case herself and sentenced both men to death. (Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus")

Adama wouldn't let it happen. He ordered Vipers and a Raptor of Marines launched to bring his men back. Cain launched her own Vipers to stop them. The two battlestars faced each other with guns trained and fighters in space. The episode ended with Adama and Cain each waiting for the other to blink. (Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus")

What it reveals#

Pegasus is a mirror of Galactica. Both ships survived the Fall by luck, both were left alone with the war. Galactica took on the civilians. Pegasus fought. The episode asks what the fleet would have become without Roslin and without Adama's restraint, and the answer is the brig where Gina is kept. (Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus")

Cain herself is not played as a villain at first. She's competent, decisive and popular with her crew, and she's right that Galactica is ragged. The cracks show in the small things: the broken promise about crew transfers, Fisk's story about the dead XO, the state of her prisoner. By the end she's ready to shoot the people she was sent to protect. (Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus")

The episode is also the first time Baltar, and the audience, see the Cylons treated as things. Sharon's treatment on Galactica has been harsh, but Gina's cell is something else, and it changes how Baltar sees the Six in his head. Gina's story isn't over: she goes on to kill Cain. (Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus"; Battlestar Galactica, "Resurrection Ship, Part II")

Pegasus's past, only hinted at here, is told in full in the TV film Razor. That covers the blind jump, Cain shooting Colonel Jurgen Belzen, how Gina was caught, and the civilian ships Pegasus stripped and left behind. (Battlestar Galactica: Razor)

Characters#

• Helena Cain: Rear Admiral commanding Pegasus, who takes over the fleet and sentences Helo and Tyrol to death.
• William Adama: demoted to second in command, and ready to fight Pegasus to save his crew.
• Saul Tigh: learns from Fisk what kind of commander Cain is.
• Jack Fisk: Pegasus's XO, friendly over a bottle and loyal to Cain when it counts.
• Alastair Thorne: Pegasus's interrogator, killed while assaulting Sharon.
• Gina Inviere: the Number Six held in Pegasus's brig.
• Gaius Baltar: visits Gina and is shaken by what he finds.
• Number Six: as Head Six, she reacts to Gina's state with horror.
• Sharon Agathon: Galactica's pregnant Cylon prisoner.
• Karl Agathon and Galen Tyrol: stop the assault and are sentenced to death for it.
• Lee Adama and Kara Thrace: moved to Pegasus by Cain.
• Laura Roslin: already wary of a military leader who answers to nobody.

(Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus")

Continuity#

• The standoff is defused in the next episode, but Adama and Cain each plan to have the other killed during the strike on the Cylon Resurrection Ship. Neither order is carried out. (Battlestar Galactica, "Resurrection Ship, Part I")
• Baltar frees Gina, and she shoots Cain dead. Roslin promotes Adama to admiral after the Battle of the Resurrection Ship. (Battlestar Galactica, "Resurrection Ship, Part II")
• Fisk takes command of Pegasus and is murdered over the black market. (Battlestar Galactica, "Black Market")
• His successor, Barry Garner, dies in his first mission, and Lee is given command of Pegasus. (Battlestar Galactica, "The Captain's Hand")
• Gina ends up on Cloud 9, where she detonates a nuclear warhead in the season 2 finale, "Lay Down Your Burdens". (Battlestar Galactica, "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II")
• Pegasus is lost ramming a basestar during the Exodus from New Caprica. (Battlestar Galactica, "Exodus, Part II")
• Razor tells Pegasus's side of the story, set while Lee commands it. (Battlestar Galactica: Razor)