By Joshua Tyler
| Revealed
A critically acclaimed, little-watched, canceled after one-season tv sequence within the 70s, became a beloved obsession when producer Ronald Moore debuted his reboot of Battlestar Galactica in 2004. There are such a lot of issues to like about each the 70s and the 2004 model of BSG that we might write endlessly concerning the subject (and doubtless will). One massive benefit the 2004 sequence had over the 70s model was the expertise wanted to make massive-sized fleet battles right into a actuality.
Whereas the Nineteen Seventies model truly had particular results far forward of anything on tv on the time, the 2004 reboot does it higher. Not solely did the Ronald Moore model ship one of the best battles within the historical past of Battlestar Galactica as a franchise, but in addition a number of the finest in all the historical past of science fiction.
Launch your Viper and prepare to Frak up some Cylons. These are one of the best house battles of Battlestar Galactica.
4. Battle of the Tylium Asteroid in Season 1’s “The Hand of God”
The Colonial fleet is operating out of gas. The one method to get it’s on an asteroid already being mined by the Cylons.
Commander Adama is aware of he wants outdoors the field considering to get the job accomplished. So, he duties Kara “Starbuck” Thrace to give you a plan that may permit them to take the asteroid. She does, and the fleet springs into motion.
The plan Adama and Starbuck lay out to each the President and the viewers is a deception. This implies what occurs is a complete shock to everybody. That’s a part of the enjoyable.
A bunch of civilian freighters bounce into the system not removed from the Cylon base and faux to be engaged in a mining operation. The concept is to lure the Cylons into sending ships to research. They seem to take the bait and a bunch of Raiders depart the bottom.
Galactica launches Strike Drive One, a bunch of Colonial fighters led by long-time pilot Scorching Canine. Nearly instantly, issues go badly and it seems just like the plan didn’t work. The Cylon base launches 50 extra fighters, this time on an intercept course to cease Strike Drive One.
Strike Drive One takes a beating. Starbuck, who designed the operation however isn’t properly sufficient to take part in it, stands subsequent to Adama within the Wardroom. She’s a nervous wreck, however Adama is unaffected.
Commander Adama calmly recollects Strike Drive One again to base. The operation looks like a failure, and worse, the opposite Raiders, which had been investigating the faux mining operation, have modified course and are additionally heading straight at Galactica and the retreating Strike Drive One.
Starbuck’s nervousness vanishes. She smirks. She appears relieved.
Baltar, who, as ordinary, is generally anxious about his personal security, asks once they’ll launch the ship’s reserve fighters to defend them towards this incoming risk. Adama informs him they don’t have any reserve fighters. The whole lot is on the board.
As an alternative of planning a protection or an escape, Commander Adama turns issues over to a now very calm Starbuck. She sends a message to Lee Adama, aka Apollo, who has been conspicuously absent from this engagement till now.
That’s when the true plan is revealed.
The civilian freighters the Cylons determined to disregard as a result of they have been decoys turned out to not be decoys in any respect. In truth, hidden inside them is the actual Galactica strike drive.
Apollo leads his fighters in an assault on the Cylon base, a base now empty of Raiders. That doesn’t imply it’s completely undefended, although, and closely fortified mounted emplacements assault Apollo’s Viper strike drive.
Their missiles are being jammed, they usually can’t hit their goal. They start taking heavy losses.
Apollo decides to go outdoors his consolation zone and improvise. He dives his Viper right into a canyon alone. There, he finds an undefended tunnel and takes his ship in, hoping it’ll lead him to his goal. It really works.
There aren’t many actually glad moments in Battlestar Galactica. Even their wins typically find yourself feeling like losses. This one, this one, was a second of pure happiness and celebration. An actual win in a sea of distress and loss of life. One of many few instances, perhaps even the final time, the individuals of the Colonial fleet and the viewers obtained to style victory.
One final second of pleasure. One final second of pleasure. Earlier than the struggling, the fear, and the wrestle start once more.
3. Battle of the Colony in Season 4’s “Dawn, Half 2 & 3”
Galactica is dying. The heroic Battlestar was due for retirement when the Cylon battle began. Now, after years standing watch, her time is over. The Galactica’s superstructure is starting to crumble. Her armor is all however gone, and her again is damaged. She is past restore.
The Colonials want Galactica another time, for one final battle.
Admiral Adama concocts a seemingly insane plan to assault an invincible Cylon fortress. Their objective is the rescue of the kid Hera. Survival is unlikely, so Adama asks for volunteers. The grim-faced colonials and their new Cylon insurgent allies stand shoulder to shoulder and go to work.
The Cylon fortress is certain inside the gravity of a black gap. There’s just one place any ship can survive in that mess, and that’s the place it’s. This implies the Galactica’s solely choice is to leap in at point-blank vary. So it does.
The Cylon response is violent and brutal. The Galactica is instantly attacked from all sides, pounded by huge quantities of gunfire. She’s being ripped to shreds.
Their secret weapon is Sam, beforehand transformed right into a Cylon pc. He interfaces with the large Cylon base’s personal system and shuts down its weapons.
That received’t preserve them protected. The Cylon base begins launching Raiders. Galactica launches its personal fighters, figuring out they’ll be horrifically outnumbered.
The Galactica’s long-disused flight pod, which had been transformed right into a fleet museum, lastly has a use. They’ve used it as a staging space for his or her Raptors which, whereas nonetheless contained in the ship, activate their FTL drives and transport to the opposite facet of the Cylon fortress.
Adama orders his ship to maneuver ahead, and the Galactica collides with the Cylon fortress, punching a gap in its facet. The collision is catastrophic. Galactica groans and cracks beneath the stress. She’s falling aside. It doesn’t matter. Her life was over earlier than this battle began.
The assault on Galactica resumes. She’s being boarded. Her uncovered again is being pummeled whereas the crippled ship and her fighter squadrons attempt to combat again. In the meantime, the Raptors Galactica launched out of the fleet museum have taken losses. One in all them drifts, forgotten and powerless, amidst the particles.
Assault groups have been despatched into the bottom to rescue Hera they usually carry her again to Galactica. There’s a pause within the battle for a momentary truce, but it surely doesn’t final. Chaos reigns and every little thing is falling aside.
That one lone Raptor, broken within the preliminary assault, nonetheless drifts within the cloud of particles surrounding the station. Her pilot, Kat, on the verge of loss of life, decides on one remaining act. She fires the nuclear warheads her Raptor carries. They affect and destroy the Cylon fortress.
To flee, Adama orders Starbuck to leap the ship. She does, and the coordinates she enters take them to their new house. A spot that may sometime be known as Earth.
2. The Resurrection Ship Battle in Season 2’s “Resurrection Ship Half 1 and a pair of”
With the Battlestar Pegasus becoming a member of the Colonial fleet and greater than doubling their firepower, the fleeing people see a uncommon alternative to go on the offensive towards the Cylons. Their goal is a resurrection ship, one of many key services the place killed Cylons are introduced again to life.
Apollo and Starbuck collaborate in devising a plan that may lure away the 2 Baseships guarding the Resurrection Ship. A part of the rationale the battle finally ends up being a lot enjoyable to observe is the clear and concise means they clarify it to the viewers beforehand. Apollo and Starbuck lay out every little thing to the command employees, after which when it occurs, the viewers has a prepared guidelines in its head to comply with every little thing because it occurs, in each element.
The Galactica and a bunch of civilian vessels will bounce into a close-by system and faux a mining operation. Sure, this is similar plan they used to assault the Tylium mining operation in season one. Final time the Cylons believed the Civilian vessels have been a faux, and ignored them. They have been improper they usually misplaced. Meaning they will now not danger ignoring a civilian fleet like this, and Galactica is relying on it.
When the ships are detected, the Baseships ship their Raiders to assault. The Galactica and a lot of the civilian ships bounce away, with one civilian ship remaining behind, pretending to have a malfunction with its bounce drive.
With the Basestars stripped of their fighter safety, Galactica and Pegasus bounce in and assault the 2 Baseships. On the similar time, Apollo jumps in with a stealth ship and, undetected by the Cylon fleet, destroys the FTL drive on the Resurrection ship. Now it’s a sitting duck and can’t escape.
Whereas Galactica and Pegasus slug it out with the Basestars, their Vipers assault and destroy the Resurrection ship. The plan works completely, giving the Colonial fleet a uncommon, clear victory towards their Cylon foes.
1. The Battle of New Caprica in Season 3’s “Exodus Half 2”
The Battle of New Caprica occurs due to an error. An error made by the people of the survivor fleet. Regardless of warnings from wiser heads, the remnants of humanity determine to desert their flight and decide on a harsh planet they title New Caprica.
They imagine they’ll be protected there, with the planet hidden inside a gaseous anomaly. In fact, they aren’t. The Cylons quickly discover them and occupy New Caprica. The survivors of the Colonial fleet are actually slaves to the Cylons, dwelling dirtside in refugee camps.
When the Cylons arrived, the Battlestars Galactica and Pegasus fled. They have been outnumbered and had no method to combat off the Cylons. Months later, they’ve been lurking on the market in hiding, planning a rescue of their household and mates.
Their largest downside is that they’re undermanned. Each ships misplaced most of their crew to the New Caprica settlement and barely had sufficient to maintain issues operating, not to mention mount a respectable assault.
Admiral William Adama is, as all the time, in charge of the Galactica. His son, Lee Adama, is now commander of the Pegasus. The elder Adama comes up with a superb plan to avoid wasting their individuals. His plan each works, and fails, on the similar time.
Admiral Adama orders Lee to remain behind with the Pegasus and the remnants of the colonial fleet. The Galactica waits in hiding for its second.
Adama makes use of Raptors and a sequence of drones to idiot the Cylons into considering each the Pegasus and the Galactica have jumped into orbit. When the Cylons ship Raiders to research, Adama’s Raptors flee, luring the Raiders away from their Basestars and the planet.
It’s then that Adama does one thing so unthinkable that it has since been named The Adama Maneuver. He executes a hyperspace bounce with an exit level contained in the ambiance of New Caprica.
Leaping a ship inside an environment is considered as all however suicide. Nobody would anticipate it, and nobody would take into account doing it. Adama does it.
The Galactica just isn’t designed to function in an environment and begins falling instantly, burning up because it drops. Galactica launches all of her fighters in mid-fall, wreathed in hearth and plummeting in direction of her doom.
This rescue all the time had one important impediment. How can they get their individuals off the planet with out them being mowed down by ground-based Cylons or strafed by airborne Raiders? The Adama maneuver is the answer to that downside. Galactica’s fighters go to work wiping out the Cylon forces on the bottom.
In the meantime, the clock is ticking. The Galactica should bounce again out of the ambiance earlier than she crashes into the bottom. She does.
The Galactica, now in orbit across the planet, is closely broken and with out fighter help. Her job is to maintain the Cylon Basestars busy lengthy sufficient for the ground-based Colonials to flee. Adama doesn’t anticipate to outlive, which is why he left the Pegasus behind.
Two Baseships are closing in, and two extra have simply jumped into orbit. On her personal, the Galactica may need been capable of maintain off two. 4 is hopeless. Admiral Adama and his crew are able to die.
That’s when the Pegasus arrives.
Lee Adama, unwilling to face by and watch his father commit suicide, has violated his orders. He brings the Pegasus into the battle.
Just like the Galactica, the Pegasus is with out fighter protection. Lee left his birds behind to protect the civilian fleet, however she’s a more moderen Battlestar and completely undamaged. Pegasus lays into the Cylon Basestars with gusto, ripping them to shreds and prying them off the again of the wounded Galactica.
It’s not what Admiral Adama wished, however he’s left with no alternative however to go together with Lee’s modification to his plan. The Galactica crew scrambles to get the ship’s bounce drive again on-line whereas the Pegasus makes an attempt to tackle 4 Basestars.
The Pegasus does a number of injury, but it surely’s an excessive amount of for her. Lee Adama abandons ship together with his skeleton crew, and in a remaining act of defiance, the Pegasus rams a Basestar, destroying them each after which within the aftermath, destroying a second Cylon mothership.
The Pegasus’s loss of life purchased the colonials sufficient time to flee the planet and purchased Galactica sufficient time to restore her bounce drive. The Galactica jumps to security, and the battle is over. The Colonists are saved however at an incredible price.
