Battlestar Pegasus
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The Battlestar Pegasus is a fictional spacecraft that appears in the original Battlestar Galactica television series, and its subsequent ongoing re-imagining, in which it first appears in the second season episode, "Pegasus".
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[edit] Battlestar Galactica (1978)
The Battlestar Pegasus appears in the original series two-part episode, "The Living Legend".
The Battlestar Pegasus spent its earlier life patrolling the edges of Colonial space under Commander Cain. Cain was a renowned Colonial warrior and had been referred to often as "the living legend". Later, the Pegasus took part in the battle of Jol'Trata in which the ship was badly damaged. After the battle she was found by the Battlestar Athenia and towed back to Caprica for repair and re-fitting. Two years before the destruction of the Twelve Colonies the Pegasus was involved in the battle of Molokai with the Cylon forces. The battle was a complete disaster for the Colonial forces and the entire fifth fleet, except the Pegasus, was destroyed. The Pegasus managed to slip away from the battle and, realising that the route back home would be crawling with Cylons, made its way into deep space.
After the destruction of the Twelve Colonies, two of the Galactica's Vipers are discovered while on patrol by the Pegasus, the two Battlestars meet and take part in a fierce battle against the Cylons. Towards the end of the battle, the Pegasus moves into point-blank range of two Cylon Basestars and manages to destroy them. After the "dust" has settled from the attack there is no sign of the Pegasus.
Commander Cain's daughter, Lieutenant Sheba, a pilot of the Pegasus remains with the Galactica after the Pegasus's disappearance.
[edit] Movie project
Glen Larson, producer of Battlestar Galactica, attempted a revival in the late 1990s with a feature film project using Commander Cain and the Battlestar Pegasus.[1][2]
[edit] Battlestar Galactica (2004)
| Battlestar Pegasus | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| First appearance | "Pegasus" |
| Last appearance | "Exodus, Part 2" |
| Status | Destroyed |
| Affiliation | Colonial Fleet |
| General Characteristics | |
| Class | Mercury class |
| Fighters | Colonial Vipers |
| Auxiliary craft | Colonial Raptors |
| Armaments | Kinetic energy weapons |
| Propulsion | FTL drives Sublight engines |
The Pegasus first appears in the re-imagined series episode "Pegasus" and remains part of the series from then until the episode "Exodus, Part 2", playing a major role in the episodes "Resurrection Ship" and "The Captain's Hand".
The Battlestar Pegasus is a Mercury Class Battlestar, assigned to Battlestar Group 62 of the Colonial Fleet, and commanded by Admiral Helena Cain at the time of the Cylon attack on the Twelve Colonies. Thought to have been destroyed during the attack on the colonies, Pegasus escapes, and encounters the Battlestar Galactica and the last survivors of the Twelve Colonies around six months after the escape from Ragnar Anchorage.
Before the fall of the Twelve Colonies, the Pegasus had just docked at the Scorpion Fleet Shipyards where it was due for a three-month overhaul. Many of the ships systems were offline, including the Command Navigation Program that the Cylons used to disable Colonial defences during their attack. The Cylons' opening wave hit the shipyard with several nuclear warheads, destroying five ships, including two Battlestars. The Pegasus lost over 700 crew members. Pegasus survives the attack on the shipyards having performed a blind FTL jump, a jump in which the ship's FTL drive was activated without inputting any coordinates. This blind jump resulted in the ship escaping immediate destruction, but risked the Battlestar's possible reappearance inside a star or planetary atmosphere at the end of the jump.
As a result of the Cylons' devastating attack on the Twelve Colonies, Admiral Cain became increasingly iron-fisted. Pegasus's Executive Officer, Colonel Jack Fisk, tells his Galactica counterpart, Colonel Tigh, of an incident in which Admiral Cain shot the original XO in the head in front of the entire crew for refusing to implement her order to attack a heavily-defended Cylon base. Fisk then made it appear as if this claim were a "joke".
It is later revealed that Pegasus had acquired a small civilian fleet, which Cain subsequently cannibalized for spare parts. She also forced civilians to join her crew at gunpoint, which led to two families being murdered under Cain's orders. Eventually, she abandoned the fifteen-ship fleet to fend for itself, without any FTL drives.
After the Pegasus escaped from the shipyards, and before meeting the Galactica, the Pegasus had been performing repeated hit-and-run attacks upon Cylon forces. Pegasus had trailed a large Cylon fleet which jumped between systems with natural resources. In one of these jumps, Pegasus discovers the escaping fleet of Colonial ships protected by the Galactica.
The initial rejoicing in the rag-tag fleet following the Pegasus's meeting with the Galactica does not last long. As the senior surviving Colonial officer, Admiral Cain assumes command of the fleet, replacing Galactica's Commander William Adama. While at first assuring Adama that she would not interfere with Galactica's operations, Cain soon orders crew reassignments, withholds the delivery of supplies to the civilian fleet and sends her so-called "Cylon interrogator", Lieutenant Thorne, to question Galactica's Cylon prisoner. Lt. Thorne's interrogation and attempted rape of the Cylon model known as Sharon results in his accidental death after he is interrupted and attacked by two of the Galactica's crew, Chief Petty Officer Galen Tyrol and Lieutenant Karl "Helo" Agathon, both of whom had had relations with Cylon copies of Sharon.
Tyrol and Agathon are arrested by Pegasus Marines and charged with killing Lt. Thorne. Cain sentences both to death after a summary trial. Receiving the news of his men's death sentences, Commander Adama orders a strike team of Colonial Marines to be sent to the Pegasus to retrieve his crew. An armed stand-off between Pegasus and the ship's compliment of Mark VII Vipers against Galactica's own Mark II and Mark VII Vipers ends when Lieutenant Starbuck reappears from her (unauthorized) recon mission aboard the stealth Blackbird with photos of a mysterious Cylon ship being guarded by two Basestars. Interrogation of the Pegasus' Cylon prisoner (a Number Six model named Gina) reveals that the mysterious ship is a "Resurrection Ship", a vessel that gives new bodies to dead Cylons, effectively making the Cylons fearless of death. Although Adama and Cain declare an uneasy truce in order to coordinate an attack on the Cylons, they make plans to assassinate each other, which are called off after the Resurrection Ship is destroyed. Gina escapes with the help of Baltar and kills Admiral Cain.
Colonel Jack Fisk is promoted and named Commander of the Pegasus after Cain's death; he is murdered by members of a black market organization shortly thereafter. Engineering chief Barry Garner replaces Commander Fisk as commander of the Pegasus. Commander Garner, who is stated as an excellent engineer, but unused to command, allows the Pegasus to be drawn into an ambush by three Cylon Basestars. The Pegasus suffers damage to her FTL jump drive cooling system, thus preventing her from escaping with an FTL jump. Commander Garner sacrifices his life to repair the damage, allowing the Pegasus to jump to safety.
Newly promoted Admiral Adama promotes his son, Major Lee Adama, to the rank of Commander, and gives him command of the Pegasus. Soon thereafter, the fleet discovers a habitable world and begins to colonize it, naming their new home "New Caprica". The Pegasus and the Galactica, with skeleton crews, form an orbital defence network over the new colony, but when the colony is discovered a year later by a Cylon fleet, they are forced to abandon the colony and jump away.
[edit] Destruction
Pegasus is destroyed in action during the third-season episode "Exodus, Part 2". Disobeying orders from Admiral Adama to protect the civilians that first escape the Cylon occupation in the second season episode "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part 2", Apollo leaves all of Pegasus's Viper squadrons with the civilian ships, along with most of the crew. FTL Jumping to New Caprica, Apollo is able to divert the attention of the four Cylon Basestars attacking the Galactica as the older Battlestar attempts to cover the evacuation of the New Caprican colonists. This distraction allows time for Galactica's FTL drives to be repaired and the planet-bound colonists to reach their ships and escape.
One Cylon Basestar is critically damaged by Pegasus' forward main batteries as it enters the fray, drawing the fire from the Basestars. After Galactica jumps away, Pegasus is locked into a suicide course, weapons systems firing automatically. The crew is evacuated to several Raptors, just before Pegasus rams a Basestar, destroying it. The explosion causes the Battlestar to fragment with the starboard hangar pod colliding with and destroying another Basestar.
[edit] Technical Information
As a Mercury-class Battlestar, the Pegasus is substantially newer, larger and more powerful than the Galactica. It is nearly twice the size ("Pegasus" episode (Extended Edition) but only possesses around half the crew due to greater automation. The Pegasus possessed approximately 1,753 crewmembers at the time it encountered Galactica.
The Pegasus possessed vastly superior weapons, flight decks, and armor compared to the Galactica. Its forward weapons battery can devastate a Cylon basestar with a single salvo[1]. It is armed with large anti-ship KEWs, anti-fighter/missile batteries and nuclear weapons. It possesses much larger flight decks than Galactica, two on each side of the ship. The Pegasus had four fully-operational squadrons of Vipers at the time it encountered Galactica and automation systems that allowed the production of new Vipers to help replace Galactica's losses. Unlike Galactica, Pegasus had flight simulators on board to facilitate the training of new pilots[2].
[edit] Season Four
Ronald D. Moore announced that as part of the deal for the fourth season of the new Battlestar Galactica, they would be making a made-for-TV movie that would tell the story of the Pegasus from the time of the Cylon attack on the colonies, up to the time it discovered the Galactica. The film will air at some point prior to the start of the fourth season of the series.
[edit] External links
- 1978 Pegasus (Battlestar Wiki)
- Re-imagined Pegasus (Battlestar Wiki)
- Mercury class battlestar (Battlestar Wiki)
[edit] References
| Battlestar Galactica spaceships | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Colonial Military | |||
| Battlestar (Original | Re-imagined) | Military Vessels | ||
| Galactica | Pegasus | Valkyrie | Viper | Raptor | Blackbird | Stealthstar | ||
| "The Fleet" | |||
| Astral Queen | Colonial One | Cloud 9 | other.. | |||
| Cylon Vessels | |||
| Basestar | Raider | Heavy Raider | Resurrection Ship | |||
