By Joshua Tyler
| Published
A critically acclaimed, little-watched, canceled after one-season television series in the 70s, turned into a beloved obsession when producer Ronald Moore debuted his reboot of Battlestar Galactica in 2004. There are so many things to love about both the 70s and the 2004 version of BSG that we could write endlessly about the topic (and probably will). One big advantage the 2004 series had over the 70s version was the technology needed to make massive-sized fleet battles into a reality.
While the 1970s version actually had special effects far ahead of anything else on television at the time, the 2004 reboot does it better. Not only did the Ronald Moore version deliver the best battles in the history of Battlestar Galactica as a franchise, but also some of the best in the entire history of science fiction.
Launch your Viper and get ready to Frak up some Cylons. These are the best space battles of Battlestar Galactica.
4. Battle of the Tylium Asteroid in Season 1’s “The Hand of God”
The Colonial fleet is running out of fuel. The only way to get it is on an asteroid already being mined by the Cylons.
Commander Adama knows he needs outside the box thinking to get the job done. So, he tasks Kara “Starbuck” Thrace to come up with a plan that will allow them to take the asteroid. She does, and the fleet springs into action.
The plan Adama and Starbuck lay out to both the President and the audience is a deception. This means what happens is a total surprise to everyone. That’s part of the fun.
A group of civilian freighters jump into the system not far from the Cylon base and pretend to be engaged in a mining operation. The idea is to lure the Cylons into sending ships to investigate. They appear to take the bait and a group of Raiders leave the base.
Galactica launches Strike Force One, a group of Colonial fighters led by long-time pilot Hot Dog. Almost immediately, things go badly and it looks like the plan didn’t work. The Cylon base launches 50 more fighters, this time on an intercept course to stop Strike Force One.
Strike Force One takes a beating. Starbuck, who designed the operation but isn’t well enough to participate in it, stands next to Adama in the Wardroom. She’s a nervous wreck, but Adama is unaffected.
Commander Adama calmly recalls Strike Force One back to base. The operation seems like a failure, and worse, the other Raiders, which had been investigating the fake mining operation, have changed direction and are also heading straight at Galactica and the retreating Strike Force One.
Starbuck’s nervousness vanishes. She smirks. She seems relieved.
Baltar, who, as usual, is mostly worried about his own safety, asks when they’ll launch the ship’s reserve fighters to defend them against this incoming threat. Adama informs him they have no reserve fighters. Everything is on the board.
Instead of planning a defense or an escape, Commander Adama turns things over to a now very calm Starbuck. She sends a message to Lee Adama, aka Apollo, who has been conspicuously absent from this engagement until now.
That’s when the true plan is revealed.
The civilian freighters the Cylons decided to ignore because they were decoys turned out not to be decoys at all. In fact, hidden within them is the real Galactica strike force.
Apollo leads his fighters in an attack on the Cylon base, a base now empty of Raiders. That doesn’t mean it’s totally undefended, though, and heavily fortified fixed emplacements attack Apollo’s Viper strike force.
Their missiles are being jammed, and they can’t hit their target. They begin taking heavy losses.
Apollo decides to go outside his comfort zone and improvise. He dives his Viper into a canyon alone. There, he finds an undefended tunnel and takes his ship in, hoping it’ll lead him to his target. It works.
There aren’t many truly happy moments in Battlestar Galactica. Even their wins often end up feeling like losses. This one, this one, was a moment of pure happiness and celebration. A real win in a sea of misery and death. One of the few times, maybe even the last time, the people of the Colonial fleet and the audience got to taste victory.
One last moment of joy. One last moment of pride. Before the suffering, the terror, and the struggle begin again.
3. Battle of the Colony in Season 4’s “Daybreak, Part 2 & 3”
Galactica is dying. The heroic Battlestar was due for retirement when the Cylon war started. Now, after years standing watch, her time is over. The Galactica’s superstructure is beginning to crumble. Her armor is all but gone, and her back is broken. She is beyond repair.
The Colonials need Galactica one more time, for one last battle.
Admiral Adama concocts a seemingly insane plan to assault an invincible Cylon fortress. Their goal is the rescue of the child Hera. Survival is unlikely, so Adama asks for volunteers. The grim-faced colonials and their new Cylon rebel allies stand shoulder to shoulder and go to work.
The Cylon fortress is bound within the gravity of a black hole. There’s only one place any ship can survive in that mess, and that’s where it is. This means the Galactica’s only option is to jump in at point-blank range. So it does.
The Cylon response is violent and brutal. The Galactica is immediately attacked from all sides, pounded by massive amounts of gunfire. She’s being ripped to shreds.
Their secret weapon is Sam, previously converted into a Cylon computer. He interfaces with the massive Cylon base’s own system and shuts down its weapons.
That won’t keep them safe. The Cylon base begins launching Raiders. Galactica launches its own fighters, knowing they’ll be horrifically outnumbered.
The Galactica’s long-disused flight pod, which had been converted into a fleet museum, finally has a use. They’ve used it as a staging area for their Raptors which, while still inside the ship, activate their FTL drives and transport to the other side of the Cylon fortress.
Adama orders his ship to move forward, and the Galactica collides with the Cylon fortress, punching a hole in its side. The collision is catastrophic. Galactica groans and cracks under the stress. She’s falling apart. It doesn’t matter. Her life was over before this battle started.
The attack on Galactica resumes. She’s being boarded. Her exposed back is being pummeled while the crippled ship and her fighter squadrons try to fight back. Meanwhile, the Raptors Galactica launched out of the fleet museum have taken losses. One of them drifts, forgotten and powerless, amidst the debris.
Assault teams were sent into the base to rescue Hera and they bring her back to Galactica. There’s a pause in the battle for a momentary truce, but it doesn’t last. Chaos reigns and everything is falling apart.
That one lone Raptor, damaged in the initial assault, still drifts in the cloud of debris surrounding the station. Her pilot, Kat, on the verge of death, decides on one final act. She fires the nuclear warheads her Raptor carries. They impact and destroy the Cylon fortress.
To escape, Adama orders Starbuck to jump the ship. She does, and the coordinates she enters take them to their new home. A place that will someday be called Earth.
2. The Resurrection Ship Battle in Season 2’s “Resurrection Ship Part 1 and 2”
With the Battlestar Pegasus joining the Colonial fleet and more than doubling their firepower, the fleeing humans see a rare opportunity to go on the offensive against the Cylons. Their target is a resurrection ship, one of the key facilities where killed Cylons are brought back to life.
Apollo and Starbuck collaborate in devising a plan that will lure away the two Baseships guarding the Resurrection Ship. Part of the reason the battle ends up being so much fun to watch is the clear and concise way they explain it to the audience beforehand. Apollo and Starbuck lay out everything to the command staff, and then when it happens, the audience has a ready checklist in its head to follow everything as it happens, in every detail.
The Galactica and a group of civilian vessels will jump into a nearby system and fake a mining operation. Yes, this is the same plan they used to attack the Tylium mining operation in season one. Last time the Cylons believed the Civilian vessels were a fake, and ignored them. They were wrong and they lost. That means they can no longer risk ignoring a civilian fleet like this, and Galactica is counting on it.
When the ships are detected, the Baseships send their Raiders to attack. The Galactica and most of the civilian ships jump away, with one civilian ship remaining behind, pretending to have a malfunction with its jump drive.
With the Basestars stripped of their fighter protection, Galactica and Pegasus jump in and attack the two Baseships. At the same 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 cannot escape.
While Galactica and Pegasus slug it out with the Basestars, their Vipers attack and destroy the Resurrection ship. The plan works perfectly, giving the Colonial fleet a rare, clear victory against their Cylon foes.
1. The Battle of New Caprica in Season 3’s “Exodus Part 2”
The Battle of New Caprica happens because of an error. An error made by the humans of the survivor fleet. Despite warnings from wiser heads, the remnants of humanity decide to abandon their flight and settle on a harsh planet they name New Caprica.
They believe they’ll be safe there, with the planet hidden inside a gaseous anomaly. Of course, they aren’t. The Cylons soon find them and occupy New Caprica. The survivors of the Colonial fleet are now slaves to the Cylons, living dirtside in refugee camps.
When the Cylons arrived, the Battlestars Galactica and Pegasus fled. They were outnumbered and had no way to fight off the Cylons. Months later, they’ve been lurking out there in hiding, planning a rescue of their family and friends.
Their biggest problem is that they’re undermanned. Both ships lost most of their crew to the New Caprica settlement and barely had enough to keep things running, let alone mount a legitimate assault.
Admiral William Adama is, as always, in command of the Galactica. His son, Lee Adama, is now commander of the Pegasus. The elder Adama comes up with a brilliant plan to save their people. His plan both works, and fails, at the same time.
Admiral Adama orders Lee to stay behind with the Pegasus and the remnants of the colonial fleet. The Galactica waits in hiding for its moment.
Adama uses Raptors and a series of drones to fool the Cylons into thinking both the Pegasus and the Galactica have jumped into orbit. When the Cylons send Raiders to investigate, Adama’s Raptors flee, luring the Raiders away from their Basestars and the planet.
It’s then that Adama does something so unthinkable that it has since been named The Adama Maneuver. He executes a hyperspace jump with an exit point inside the atmosphere of New Caprica.
Jumping a ship inside an atmosphere is viewed as all but suicide. No one would expect it, and no one would consider doing it. Adama does it.
The Galactica is not designed to operate in an atmosphere and begins falling immediately, burning up as it drops. Galactica launches all of her fighters in mid-fall, wreathed in fire and plummeting towards her doom.
This rescue always had one significant obstacle. How can they get their people off the planet without them being mowed down by ground-based Cylons or strafed by airborne Raiders? The Adama maneuver is the solution to that problem. Galactica’s fighters go to work wiping out the Cylon forces on the ground.
Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. The Galactica must jump back out of the atmosphere before she crashes into the ground. She does.
The Galactica, now in orbit around the planet, is heavily damaged and without fighter support. Her job is to keep the Cylon Basestars busy long enough for the ground-based Colonials to escape. Adama does not expect to survive, which is why he left the Pegasus behind.
Two Baseships are closing in, and two more have just jumped into orbit. On her own, the Galactica might have been able to hold off two. Four is hopeless. Admiral Adama and his crew are ready to die.
That’s when the Pegasus arrives.
Lee Adama, unwilling to stand by and watch his father commit suicide, has violated his orders. He brings the Pegasus into the battle.
Like the Galactica, the Pegasus is without fighter coverage. Lee left his birds behind to guard the civilian fleet, but she’s a newer Battlestar and totally undamaged. Pegasus lays into the Cylon Basestars with gusto, ripping them to shreds and prying them off the back of the wounded Galactica.
It’s not what Admiral Adama wanted, but he’s left with no choice but to go along with Lee’s modification to his plan. The Galactica crew scrambles to get the ship’s jump drive back online while the Pegasus attempts to take on four Basestars.
The Pegasus does a lot of damage, but it’s too much for her. Lee Adama abandons ship with his skeleton crew, and in a final act of defiance, the Pegasus rams a Basestar, destroying them both and then in the aftermath, destroying a second Cylon mothership.
The Pegasus’s death bought the colonials enough time to escape the planet and bought Galactica enough time to repair her jump drive. The Galactica jumps to safety, and the battle is over. The Colonists are saved but at a tremendous cost.