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The Battlestar Galactica, title ship of the movie and series of the same name, is a base ship -- a fictional space vehicle designed for hard combat, to accommodate a large crew, to launch and retrieve fighter spacecraft (analogous to modern day aircraft carriers and Battleships). Unlike aircraft carriers of today, which bear few self-defense armaments, the Galactica boasts a large number of gun turrets in addition to its fighters. The Twelve Colonies of Man built a number of Battlestars during their thousand-year war with the Cylons, whose base ships are known as Base Stars.
Battlestar Galactica (1978)
Battlestar Galactica (2003) One of the first twelve Battlestars built, the Galactica represents the Colonial planet Caprica. The Galactica entered service in the early years of the Cylon War, under the command of one Commander Nash. During her service, the Galactica formed a part of Battlestar Group 75 (BSG 75), a Colonial force described by series creator Ronald D. Moore as a mixed-force of vessels somewhat similar to a US Navy Carrier Battle Group. While the exact composition of such a group is uncertain, it has been speculated that more than one battlestar operated within each group. Like any of her sister ships which may have survived the original Cylon War, the Galactica underwent refits and upgrades (for example, at the end of her career she was equipped with the latest Mark VII Viper space superiority fighter). However, her computer systems were neither networked nor integrated by any of her commanding officers, up to and including her final commander, William Adama. Due to this lack of network integration at the time of the Cylon attack, the Galactica was immune to the infiltration program used by the Cylons to disable Colonial vessels and defence systems, using the Command Navigation Program (CNP), developed by Dr. Gaius Baltar and subverted by Cylon operative Number Six as a backdoor into such systems. At the time of the Cylon Attack, Galactica was 50 years old and she was undergoing formal decommissioning from the Colonial fleet following her retirement as an operational vessel. She had been due to become a museum ship; a combined living museum commemorating the Cylon War and educational centre. Due to its age, the ship was unofficially known as the The Bucket by the crews of both the Pegasus and Galactica. Since the Cylon attack, in keeping with the concept of the original 1978 series, the Galactica has become both protector and provider to a small fleet of civilian vessels searching for the legendary planet Earth. Sidenote: Galactica took heavy damage during its raid on New Caprica, and its hull is now clearly darker with burn marks and missile hits. | ||||||||||
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