Battlestar Galactica (fictional spacecraft)

Battlestar Galactica

Battlestar Galactica (BS-75)
First appearance	Miniseries, Part 1
Affiliation	Colonial Fleet
References	Miniseries, Part 2 The Eye of Jupiter
General characteristics
Auxiliary craft	Colonial Raptors, Colonial Vipers
Armaments	Primary KEWs Point defense KEWs Ship-to-ship missiles Nuclear weapons
Propulsion	FTL drives Sublight engines
Length	1,445 m/4,740 ft

The Battlestar Galactica is a space battleship in the original and re-imagined science fiction television series Battlestar Galactica.

The Twelve Colonies built approximately 120 Battlestars during their thousand year war with the Cylons, whose own battleships are known as Basestars. Each ship is assigned to a Battlestar group, hence the prefix "BSG."

One of a twelve Battlestars constructed by the Twelve Colonies of Man, Galactica represents the Colonial planet Caprica, and is crewed mostly by Capricans. Galactica was launched more than 500 yahren before the close of the Thousand Yahren War (and the start of the pilot film). It is believed to be the only Battlestar to survive the destruction of the Twelve Colonies, until Battlestar Pegasus is found. Galactica is commanded by Commander Adama.

In the pre-Holocaust Colonial Service, battlestars like the Galactica operated as the flagships of numbered naval fleets (e.g. the Fourth Fleet), with each fleet assigned one battlestar and led by that battlestar's commander. A typical fleet comprised 600 fighting ships, and operated independently from other fleets. Since the Holocaust, the Galactica is the military's sole capital ship of any kind (except, briefly, for the Pegasus).

The Galactica is capable of hyper jump travel, although while escorting the refugee fleet she must limit her speed to that of the slowest ship. She has a complement of about 150 Vipers: 25 surviving fighters from her own pre-Holocaust squadrons, 42 from the other battlestars at the Peace Conference, and the remainder being transfers from the Pegasus. The Galactica also has a complement of shuttles. Unlike similar civilian models, these transport craft include military gear for detecting electronic emissions from other spacecraft, and drop chutes for paratroop assaults. In addition, the Galactica has armored, tracked ground vehicles known as "landrams" and "snowrams." These are armed with a single heavy laser cannon in an open turret on the roof, and are landed by shuttles. The Galactica carries a large number of manually aimed laser batteries, both for anti-aircraft defense against fighters and for engaging other capital ships. As to purely defensive measures, the Galactica is protected by both "electronic shields" and a heavy metal double-pocket hatch shield that covers its panoramic bridge viewport; the latter is closed in "positive shield" state and open in "negative shield" state. However, while these might provide limited protection, they are insufficient to guard against suicide ramming runs by Cylon raiders or pulsar-cannon fire from Cylon base ships. The Galactica also has the ability to project a broad cone of energy, wide enough to cover much of one hemisphere of an Earth-sized planet, that is powerful enough to destroy ballistic missiles and their nuclear warheads.