Battlestar Galactica (2003) / Fridge

As a Fridge subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

Fridge Brilliance

In the miniseries, Galactica is specifically stated to not have any munitions onboard for her point defense guns and main batteries, yet still has munitions for her Vipers onboard. This makes sense; Galactica's primary munitions would be the first to be offloaded and transferred, in order to ensure she can't be hijacked and used offensively, but since the decommissioning is incomplete at the time of the Cylon attack, her Viper munitions stores would be the last things offloaded (following the departure of her last Viper Mark 7 squadron) before the ship is fully decommissioned and turned over to the Ministry of Education.
Galactica has two flight pods and two sets of launch tubes for her Vipers, yet even when the Fall of the Twelve Colonies happens and she has to return to combat duty, only the port side tube is used, even when returning the starboard pod to operational status would greatly benefit everyone. It's highly likely that during the early stages of Galactica's decommissioning, the mechanisms and systems for the starboard flight deck's launch sequence were either removed or permanently disabled, so civilians that would have visited the museum (and gift shop that was built in the starboard flight deck) couldn't have wandered in to the launch tubes, accidentally activated the launch sequence and spaced someone. It's the sci-fi equivalent of a WW2 battleship museum disabling it's weapons systems and fire control mechanisms; tourists frequently like to wander in to places they're not allowed to.
A small but significant moment in the miniseries; contrary to later accusations of her as a power-hungry despot, when Laura Roslin takes the oath to be sworn in as President, when the oath said that she would "take the office of President", Roslin said that she would accept the office, demonstrating that she instinctively considers her taking the position as shouldering responsibility rather than taking power for the sake of power.
In the miniseries, how did 50-60 civilian ships navigate through the storm surrounding Ragnar Anchorage? It's specifically stated to be difficult to maneuver through, which allows the Anchorage to be hidden. Captain Adama was aboard Colonial One, the lead ship of the civilian convoy. Likely Colonial training requires knowledge of Ragnar Anchorage and its unique environment, and how to maneuver through it should it be necessary to head to the outpost. He likely used Colonial One as a guide ship, allowing the convoy to enter the storm safely.
- The civilian ships are also much much smaller than the Galactica, which gives them a lot more room for error.
In the Season 4 episode "Guess What's Coming to Dinner", the Rebel baseship jumps right into the middle of the Fleet, with panic ensuing and Galactica quickly scrambling Vipers and moving to engage it, and the baseship's communications being down means they can't notify the Colonials of their friendly intentions (the Demetrius was supposed to jump back with it and inform the Fleet of the whole situation, but suffered an FTL malfunction whilst the baseship jumped alone). At the last second, Colonel Tigh orders weapons hold on the targeted baseship, as the Demetrius finally jumps in and defuses the situation. At first it seems like blind faith that Colonel Tigh gave the order, but looking at the encounter closer, a few things become clear:
- The baseship jumped right smack into the middle of the Fleet, which gave it the perfect opportunity to launch missiles and nukes alongside Raiders and destroy multiple Fleet ships almost immediately. Yet it didn't do anything, just sat there as the panicked Fleet ships desperately maneuvered to avoid colliding with it.
- The baseship also didn't launch any of its Raiders, which is the standard course of action whenever a baseship jumps within weapons range of Galactica and the Fleet.
- A solitary baseship jumped in with no support; baseships always operated in either pairs or groups, relying on their numbers to offset their disadvantage against a battlestar. One baseship jumping in alone is oddly suspicious. Baseships also do not conduct solitary recon missions to locate the Fleet, they would send a Raider instead.
- Baseships usually do not jump in such close range, as unlike Galactica they are built for standoff ranges and using missiles; close-range combat would lead to them getting annihilated by Galacticas main batteries and superior armor.
- The baseship also jumped right into the middle of the Fleet, not behind it or near it, which suggests it wasn't a random jump in pursuit of the Colonials, but a deliberate one as if the baseship intended to arrive there and knew/was given the Fleet's coordinates.
- The baseship had significant battle damage - an odd choice for a surprise raid, considering how large the Cylon armada seemed to be; sending a damaged basestar completely flies in the face of known Cylon tactics.
Pegasus lacks dorsal and ventral batteries, unlike Galactica. All of its batteries are concentrated on the upper alligator head's underside and between the flight pod halves. This makes sense from a combat standpoint; Galactica faces its opponents by placing its ventral or dorsal sides towards the enemy and establishes a flak barrage to keep enemy fighters and missiles at bay. Pegasus on the other hand relies on ECM jamming and angling its side toward the enemy, presenting a smaller target overall.
- More bluntly, Galactica is designed as a multi-role warship, capable of both assault and civilian escort. The latter role would require that the Galactica place its largest cross-section in between the Cylons and the civilian ships it was escorting, and provide heavy fire from that position... Just as it did at the escape from Ragnar.^note The Pegasus is a purely assault-oriented ship, with no care for the protection of civilians... which is exactly what IT'S commander had in mind.
- To add on to this, Pegasus's design reflects this; it isn't designed for defense, but is oriented more for offense. Its battery placement reflects this as well, it's designed to sit back and pummel enemy forces, or to charge straight in and deliver a devastating blow with its forward anti-ship guns.
Why is there such a resource shortage following New Caprica? A lot of critical supplies and equipment were left behind on New Caprica, such as ships, weapons, food and basic settlement resources. It's entirely possible most of the ships that escaped had a lot of stuff offloaded, so they wouldn't have that many supplies left on board when it came time to leave, which would cause problems down the road.
Both Galactica and Pegasus have large hangar decks, but we never see the full complement of Vipers and Raptors in either case, and neither's hangar decks are large enough to store the multiple vehicles (Pegasus even more so, as she is stated to carry 200 Vipers and 50 Raptors). It is incredibly likely the majority of Vipers and Raptors are kept stored in the center of the ship (as crew facilities are in the alligator head, and there would be sufficient room between the engineering section and the alligator head) and are transferred as needed to the flight pods (Galactica's flight pods retract, which would allow for this, and Pegasus's aft-most flight pod arms are angled differently as well, suggesting they are for craft transfer), and the hangar decks are only stocked with whatever is needed.
Some offhand comments from Head!Six in Season One actually make sense after watching the finale. Off the top of my head I can think of Baltar's comments when he first sets foot on the remains of Kobol in the season 1 finale. "I've been here before" answered with "Of course you have" by Head!Six. He's been there before because he's been in the CIC in the Galactica, which turned out to be the opera house in the finale.
Battlestar Pegasus and Galactica both have the Colonial seal on their dorsal structures. However, Pegasus' seal is red and the seal's points are towards the stern of the ship, while Galactica's seal is yellow and points toward the bow of the ship. How the seals are positioned interestingly also reflects the mindsets of their respective commanders; Pegasus's commander seeks to go back and fight the Cylons, Galactca's commander is more forward thinking and wants to protect the remnants of humanity and seek out a new home, not go back to the ruined Colonies and fight a hopeless battle.
If you think about it, humans evolving separately on our Earth isn't that farfetched. The colonies had animals like modern dogs, and elephants (Boomer's elephant statues in "Downloaded" and The Plan). It's very unlikely that there were actual elephants on the Galactica. Along with most other species on Earth, humans evolved separately and identical to those on the Colonies and Kobol. Humans are actually more likely considering the colonials crossbred with the proto humans.
- Given the relative proximity of our Earth to the 13th Tribe's "Earth", it is also possible that the world had been seeded with life from Kobol by the 13th Tribe at some distant point. If not, then by some predecessor human civilization from an early incarnation of the cycle. Of course, with literal divine intervention involved, it is also possible that it literally did evolve twice.
The Number 3 models share the creative and religious characteristics with Ellen Tigh. One of the skinjobs five creators. Ellen was a monotheist and sketched drawings of Colonel Tigh while she was prisoner to Cavil. Number 3/D'anna did the same when she was 'addicted' to suicide to see visions of the Final Five in the opera house. Also very religious.
- The post-series (and non-canonical) comic book entitled The Final Five agrees, to an extent. Cavil/One was created to be the skeptic and Leoben/Two to be the believer, with D'Anna/Three in between as the doubtful believer.
- The reason why all of the Significant Seven (except for Number Six) had individual names (John/Cavil, Leoben, Simon, Sharon, etc.) was revealed when Anders revealed that they had been created by the Final Five when they arrived from original-Earth to end the Colonials' war with the Cylons. Apparently, the Final Five crafted each of their "children" in the image of someone they knew. Cavil/One is explicitly created in the image of Ellen's father, maybe Simon was Anders's childhood physician and D'Anna was a priestess Tory was friends with—that's all fan-fic fodder. But that left the question of why the Sixes had a variety of names: Shelly, Gina, Lida, Natalie, etc. But we forgot something else that Anders said: that certain members of the Final Five saw "messengers," just like the visions that Baltar sees of Head!Six. The Sixes have no "basic" name—because the physical image upon which she is based—the Angel—had none, unlike John Cavil. This also explains why the Angel/Messenger appeared to Baltar in the "guise" of Six. It wasn't a matter of A Form You Are Comfortable With, because the Messenger doesn't appear as Six—Six looks like the Messenger because she was created in the Messenger's image.
  - This may explain why the Six model has the most potential for personal growth, as she has less pre-programmed existing personality—as opposed to, say, the Eights/Sharons, who were, aside from Athena, considered weak by others and lacked loyalty in lieu of try-to-please-everyone allegiance shifting. The only thing that all the Sixes share (aside from physical form) is a tendency to use sexuality as a tool or weapon; this is also the defining characteristic of Head!Six—the Messenger.
  - Why did Baltar look like Head!Baltar then? Was he created in Head!Balthar's image?
It took several people repeat viewings to realize that Caprica-Six viewed the death of the infant in the Battlestar Galactica miniseries as a mercy killing, and the point of the scene was deeper than "Look how evil the Cylons are."
- Another interpretation is that she accidentally killed the baby out of pure curiosity. She was stress testing the child's neck when she accidentally snapped it. This serves to emphasis the non-human nature of the Cylons, despite appearances.
  - Also, regardless of how human they have become, they cannot reproduce with each other and are simply reincarnated into adult bodies upon death. Thus, it's safe to assume that very few Cylons have ever seen a baby before.
- Alternatively, Caprica Six and all of the other Cylons (excepting Cavil) were still very child-like their understanding of life and death. She knew she was killing the baby, but she didn't fully understand what that meant. (Similar to the reason we try children differently than adults, because they don't fully comprehend the consequences of their actions yet.)
  - Tricia Helfer said that the motivation wasn't given in the script or direction but she played it as a mercy killing.
The spreading-the-work-around started in "Dirty Hands" will be good practice for life on Earth.
I know a lot of people were disappointed in the finale, and it had its problems, but the reveal of the famous "Plan" makes sense to me thematically. The series was always about how the course of a society is affected by the choices and weaknesses of individual people. In the end, Cavil's plan wasn't really so much about conquest or immortality, but about simple things like envy, and anger.
Also on this show: with the Grand Finale, the ultimate symbolism of Bill Adama, Lee and Kara turns out to be eerily similar to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Word of God acknowledges this, too.
- But Bill is an atheist...
- Perhaps God believes in him.
- Having learned in Caprica that Tauron culture puts a high priority on vengeance, a lot of the actions of Admiral Cain, who is from Tauron, make a lot more sense. Her guerrilla war against the Cylons at the price of executing officers who refuse to carry out risky orders and plundering civilian ships for supplies and crew is an act of revenge against the Cylons for the Fall of the Twelve Colonies and probably for the disappearance of her sister during the First Cylon War, while her ordering the gang-rape and torture of the Cylon saboteur Gina by her crew is revenge for a personal betrayal by someone she loved, and who she believed loved her in return.
In the miniseries, Billy mentions that the Astral Queen has five hundred prisoners in their cargo hold, whereas a few episodes later would establish the ship as having fifteen hundred prisoners and being a full-fledged prison transport. This minor continuity error can be explained away as Billy trying to process way too much information at once, especially since "33" would show they're finally done tallying how many people are in the fleet.
The scene in the miniseries where Chief Tyrol and Colonel Tigh argue over whether or not to seal off the burning hangar pod and vent it to space (saving the ship at the cost of the lives of many of Tyrol's men) is very interesting in retrospect, considering that both Tyrol and Tigh are later revealed to be Cylons, left to determine the fate of their human crewmates by an unwitting Commander Adama, another human.
This bit of throwaway banter from early in the first season becomes Hilarious in Hindsight when you learn that Tigh is a Cylon and has no parents.
Tigh: Where's your mommy?
Boxey: Dead. Where's yours?
- As it turns out, the Final Five did have Cylon parents back on the first Earth. But Tigh's mom has been dead for about two thousand years at the time of this exchange.
When Cally and Galen get trapped in the airlock and escape by jumping into the Raptor without spacesuits, there's a really good reason why Galen is in much better shape afterwards than Cally and recovers more quickly - because he's a Cylon.
Gina tells Baltar what the Resurrection Ship is with no coercing because she doesn't want to remember being tortured and gang raped. If she gets downloaded to a new body, she'll remember everything from her time on the Pegasus, so taking out the Resurrection Ship would be the easiest way to prevent it.
It makes a lot of sense for the opera house to turn out to be Galactica's CIC. After all, the CIC is the "stage" from which the space opera that carries the name of the ship it belongs to is conducted, more or less. This makes even more sense given that a running theme in the series is how William Adama governs the fleet with far more power than the Quorum or the President.
The "Final Five" moniker is actually still relevant in light of the revelation that they were actually the first five Cylons, as they are still the final five survivors from the first Earth, and thus the final five members of their original race.
The fact that Anders had a case of pneumonia at the end of "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II" that was so bad Starbuck feared he might die from it seems a little odd in light of the revelation that he's a Cylon and they've been stated by Baltar to be more resistant to disease than humans... until you consider the fact that he recovered from it.
The showrunners said that the seemingly empty place in the "Last Supper" picture is where the Final Cylon sits. With the revelation that the Final Cylon is Ellen Tigh, it makes sense that she's seated in front of a cup and next to Colonel Tigh, who's looking directly at her. It also makes sense that Natalie is pointing accusingly in Athena's direction.
Why were attempts by Cylons to forcibly produce viable Human/Cylon hybrid offspring unsuccessful? The human subjects they tried to forcibly reproduce with were all irradiated by nuclear fallout, which adversely affects their reproductive systems.
In Hero we learn that the Colonial Fleet Admiralty authorized a stealth recon mission into Cylon space because they believed President Adar and humanity had grown too complacent and were unprepared for a renewal of hostilities. Turns out they were correct... but due to the unforeseen use of humanoid Cylon saboteurs the Fleet was also surprised and overwhelmed when the attack did come.
"A Day In The Life" reveals that William Adama, while he genuinely loved his wife Carolanne, had a very rocky relationship with her even before their divorce. A flashback in "Scattered" suggests another motive for the marriage: Bill mentioning to Saul Tigh that his father-in-law's friend in the government had arranged his reinstatement to the Colonial Fleet, and Tigh replying that "the new wife comes through." If Carolanne was convinced, rightly or wrongly, that she was nothing but a means to an end for Bill's career, it's no wonder she never loved Bill and eventually divorced him.

Fridge Horror

The entire idea of the Fleet. The ships that make up the remnants of humanity are a mish-mash of civilian vessels; some are passenger liners that were caught between destinations when the attacks began, others were industrial or commercial shipping vessels transporting goods, even others were luxury ships hosting events. Suddenly, all of these ships are thrust into roles they were not designed for, housing hundreds of people long term in makeshift accommodations and journeying far into uncharted space, with no repair or maintenance options available save for those already on board. As the years went on, it's hard not to imagine the captains of those ships being terrified not just of the Cylons, but of their ships' systems breaking down or the jump drives glitching and sending their ships to a completely different point than the others, stranding them in deep space.
Jump drives in general. The idea that you can instantaneously transport your ship from one point to another, in essence moving faster than light, is scary mainly because said jump drives are prone to malfunctions or errors in jump coordinates. Every jump could result in a navigational error rather than a successful jump, stranding a ship alone in space, or the drive could break down and doom the ship. It can even be as simple as keying in emergency jump coordinates incorrectly due to fatigue or stress, and suddenly instead of jumping with the Fleet, a ship ends up stranded, with no hope of rescue or a way back...
The adults were having a hard time with the lack of sleep in the episode "33". Imagine the poor children!
- A baby was born on the Rising Star that morning. Hell is being 10cms dilated and jumping every half an hour.
- Presumably the adults aren't so cruel as to force the children to stay awake the entire time just because they need to. What's more, anyone who has nothing to do with the flying or maintaining the fleet, that being everyone not important enough to be a character in the show, are probably a bit more rested than the main cast.
  - You forget that every 33 minutes, the ship's command officers announce over the PA when they're about to perform an FTL jump. Even if they didn't intend to allow the kids to be awake, they may have unintentionally waking up kids every 33 minutes when they make the announcement for the jumps.
- Given Cally's reaction in the miniseries, jumps seem to cause an unpleasant sensation. It is possible that someone simply can't sleep through a jump.
What happened to humans who just happened to bear a passing resemblance to known humanoid Cylons?
- Even more frightening: What about identical twins who happen to survive the initial attacks? The moment any human survivors see multiple Cylon copies, any human twins will be instantly labeled as Cylons because they're identical.
In the dinner scene in "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down", Ellen Tigh gooses Apollo and the scene is played for laughs, but given the expression on Apollo's face, it is clearly a sexual assault, isn't it? This is a great example of Double Standard Rape: Female on Male.
Cavil has access to mindless spare bodies of the Final Five, and is a perverted sadist. He could easily do unspeakable things with blank copies of Ellen, or pose the five of them for faux tea parties or something.
All the people on the Twelve Colonies who had no surviving friends or relatives and thus no one alive remembers they ever existed. For that matter, all the people the Final Five knew on Earth whom they forgot when Cavil futzed with their memories, so now no one alive remembers they ever existed, except those who were known to Ellen, since Sam is dead and the others never regained their memories.

Fridge Logic

Athena is the one who communicates with the Demetrius from the rebel Basestar at the end of "Faith" and with the Galactica at the beginning of "Guess What's Coming to Dinner?". Even though another Number Eight could easily impersonate her over the wireless.
Tory's suggestion to rebuild a pure Cylon society in "Deadlock" because Tigh and Caprica-Six were able to conceive is full of holes. One pure Cylon baby represents exactly that: one pure Cylon baby. Unless they can replicate the feat, it does not a civilization make. The Significant Seven Cylons tried for years to conceive amongst themselves without success and there's no reason to believe that would suddenly change. At most, this seems to indicate that the Final Five (sans Ellen, who's apparently barren given that she and Saul could never have kids) could possibly have more children with the Twos, Sixes and Eights, but this would require the four of them to do a lot of breeding in order to produce a large enough population, and even then the genetic diversity for future generations would be extremely low, what with there being effectively only seven parent individuals in the mix (since copies of the same model have identical DNA) so most people would be half-siblings one way or another. Even with her new pro-Cylon attitude, you'd think Tory would be smart enough to see these problems. Also, there's no way comatose Anders would be taken off Galactica except over Starbuck's dead body.
- However, it's implied that due to her subtle Sanity Slippage from finding out the truth of herself being one of the Final Five, Tory is slipping into any excuse to justify divorcing herself from the idea of being human and, unlikely as it is, even the possibility of a single pure Cylon offspring is enough to further her Transhuman Treachery. So it's likely not based on any rationale whatsoever, but out of emotional desperation from Tory's mental state at the time.
Cavil's plan to show the Final Five "what humans are really like" would have been more effective if the suffering they were experiencing had actually been at the hands of humans, ala the torture of Gina, and not meted out by the Cylons. Obviously making them victims of the Cylons' holocaust was only going to embitter them towards the latter. If anything, instead of taking pains to keep them or anyone else from realizing their identities, it would have been to his benefit to arrange for them to be exposed earlier on, so that their friends would turn on them.

Fridge / Battlestar Galactica (2003)

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Fridge Brilliance

Fridge Horror

Fridge Logic