Battlestar Galactica (2003)

:This article is about the 2003 miniseries and subsequent television series; for other versions, see Battlestar Galactica (disambiguation).

Miniseries (2003)

Synopsis

The Twelve Colonies of Kobol ("Heaven" in ancient Persian) long ago created the Cylons as machine worker drones for humanity. These machines became independent after fighting in wars between the Colonies, rose in rebellion, created their own empire, and launched war on their masters. Forty years before the series takes place, a ceasefire was declared, the war ended and the Cylons all but disappeared. However, unknown to the Colonies, they had been evolving into more human form, becoming machine-created biological beings who seek to exterminate true biological humans. Following the nuclear destruction of the Colonies, the Cylons pursued the Galactica and its companion fleet, fearing that the surviving humans would someday return to take revenge on the Cylons.

Related Topics:
Twelve Colonies - Kobol - Machine - Humanity - Rebellion - Empire - War - Exterminate

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The Cylons use a human scientist, Dr. Gaius Baltar, to help one of their infiltrators (known as Number Six) to penetrate the Colonies' master defense mainframes. The Number Six android covertly assists Baltar in developing the Command Navigation Program, or CNP, which is eventually deployed on almost all Colonial spacecraft. Baltar is reluctant, but smitten with Number Six, who appears as a woman of seemingly insatiable sexual desire. The result of their affair is a nuclear sneak-attack which rapidly annihilates billions of people on the Colonies and the fleet deployed for their protection. The CNP had backdoors written into it that allowed Cylon fighters to shut down the power and weapons systems of battlestars and other ships during the attack, leaving them defenseless and easy to destroy.

Related Topics:
Scientist - Defense - Mainframes - Sexual - Nuclear - Fleet - Backdoor

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One ship, however, survives; a less advanced battlestar designated Galactica, part of Battlestar Group 75, which had been scheduled for decommissioning and conversion into a museum to honor its role in the first Cylon war. After the presumed destruction of their fleet headquarters and nearly 120 other battlestars and support ships in the Colonial fleet, Galactica's commanding officer, Commander Adama, assumes leadership of whatever surviving fleet remains.

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Galactica's first task in its new life as sole remaining battlestar is to refill its munitions, which were destroyed as part of the ship's decommissioning ceremony. After an FTL jump to avoid Cylon forces, the ship arrives at the Ragnar Anchorage depot, a space station located deep within the upper atmosphere of a gas giant. The location of the station was chosen because the storm was known by Colonial fleet to emit radiation that caused Cylon technology to malfunction, and also provided cover for any ships residing within the storm.

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Education Secretary Laura Roslin is designated by a Colonial government "doomsday" contingency computer program as President of the Twelve Colonies after the deaths of all other more-senior government officials. She convinces Commander Adama of the futility of continuing to fight and the importance of escaping with the last 50,000 humans from the Colonies who were fortunate to have been in space on FTL-capable ships during the attack. The Galactica must now lead the surviving humans on a quest for a new homeworld on which to rebuild humanity.

Related Topics:
Laura Roslin - Homeworld

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Galactica holds back three Cylon basestars and their Raiders while the civilian ships jump away from Ragnar to a new location and to the void of space. After the escape, during the funeral for the dead crew on the ship, Adama inspires his crew by pretending to know the location of the legendary thirteenth colony known as "Earth." In the end, we see that the humans are not out of danger yet?Number Six warns Baltar (and the audience) that Cylon agents, who may even believe that they are human, could still be within the fleet. Adama finds a cryptic message in his quarters reading simply, "There are only 12 Cylon models," while on Ragnar, a group of Cylons rescue Aaron Doral. One of them is an exact copy of Lt. Sharon Valerii, revealing that Valerii is a Cylon.

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Mini-series air dates

• 8 December 2003: Sci Fi Channel (United States)
• 17 January 2004: (Canada)
• 17 February 2004: Sky One (United Kingdom)
• 9 January 2005: NBC (United States) (edited)
• 11 February 2005: Network Ten (Australia)
• 2 July 2005: Universal Channel (Brazil) (note: the mini-series actually premiered after the entire first season of the regular series had already been shown on TNT Latin America
• 14 July 2005: MNet Movies, DSTV (South Africa)