List of Battlestar Galactica objects

This is a list of notable objects found in Battlestar Galactica, original and new continuities.

Original Continuity

Daggit

Daggits are a class of dog-like Colonial pets. Like Earth dogs, they served as a domesticated pet, watch animal, or tracker; none survived the Cylon holocaust.

In the 1978 pilot episode, "Saga of a Star World", Boxey (Noah Hathaway) loses his pet daggit, Muffit, in the Cylon attack. Boxey is given a replacement pet, a robotic daggit named Muffit II, a prototype intended to replace the lost daggit species' warrior support roles.

Like a real daggit, the new Muffit proves its bravery and dedication to protecting humans during a dangerous fire aboard Galactica ("Fire in Space").

Muffit II made a regular appearance in the original series, and was portrayed by a trained chimp named Evolution ("Evie"). Muffit does not play a role in the 2000s revival of Battlestar Galactica, where it appears that at least one dog survives the Cylon attack on the colonies.

In the reimagined series, dogs are simply called dogs, and unlike the original series, a number of these pets survive the holocaust and proceed to travel with the Fleet.

Pulsar

Pulsars are a class of energy weapons.

Tylium

Tylium is a metallic ore, and is very rare throughout the known universe, but essential for fueling both human and Cylon space ships, including for the purpose of faster than light (FTL) jumps. Tylium is featured in the original Battlestar Galactica's pilot, where it was pronounced "Tie-lium".

In the original 1978 pilot episode/movie, there are references to mining tylium, which implies that it is a solid or is contained within a solid; however, fuel consumption meters on the Colonial Viper instrument panel behave as if the fuel is a fluid.

New Continuity

Arrow of Apollo

The Arrow of Apollo is an ancient artifact; the symbol of the deity Apollo, (one of the Lords of Kobol), and was sought by the Colonial President Laura Roslin. It was written in the scriptures that the arrow be taken to the legendary Tomb of Athena on Kobol, and there it would point the way to the "lost" 13th colony of Earth.

Before its retrieval, the arrow was kept in a museum in the city of Delphi on the colony of Caprica. Starbuck takes the unauthorized mission in her captured Cylon Raider, to go back to Caprica and retrieve the arrow for Roslin. She eventually finds the arrow unscathed in its display case, along with encountering Karl "Helo" Agathon and a copy of the Cylon spy Sharon "Boomer" Valerii.

President Roslin and her opposition group against Commander Adama fled to Kobol to await Starbuck's return. Roslin's spiritual advisor, Elosha, had died during a Cylon attack on the planet when Roslin leads an expedition to find Athena's tomb. Later, they were peacefully reunited with Commander Adama who led a rescue team to find the rogue expedition.

With the unsettling help of the Cylon prisoner, Sharon, the group finally finds the Tomb and used the arrow to activate a "starmap" that showed celestial objects recognized by Adama. Getting his bearings, he decides to follow a course toward a distant nebula cloud which he believes will eventually guide them to Earth.

The arrow is loosely based upon the Liahona in Mormon theology, with which travelers could be directed toward the land where the Lord wished them to go.

DRADIS

DRADIS "Direction, RAnge, and DIStance"^[1] is Battlestar Galactica's version of a remote sensing system akin to SONAR or RADAR. It works in space, can be interfered with by radiation, and has a hard time detecting composite materials. Objects can be specially designed to avoid DRADIS (e.g. Stealthstar). Unlike conventional radar or sonar which only measures direction and distance in two dimensions, DRADIS measures direction in three dimensions - "carom".

Eye of Jupiter

The Eye of Jupiter is a religious artifact left by the thirteenth tribe in the Temple of Five on the Algae Planet that points the way to Earth (according to the scrolls of Pythia). It is a raised mosaic in an alcove (also Eye of Jupiter) on the floor of the Temple of Five, with a hole in the ceiling to let a shaft of natural sunlight illuminate it. The design of the mosaic is based on the Eye of Jupiter Nova. The mosaic is destroyed by a nova reminiscent of the Eye of Jupiter.

During the episode "Rapture" it was stated that the supernova itself was the "Eye of Jupiter", and the mosaic was part of a holographic interface to be used by "The Chosen One" to view the five priests of the temple during the beginning stages of the supernova.

FTL Drive

The FTL, or "Faster Than Light", drive is a propulsion technology that allows spaceships to achieve superluminal travel. It functions along the basic principles of a jump drive, with a ship disappearing from its initial location and reappearing instantaneously in a new location.

In the Miniseries, some crewmembers are shown reacting with nausea and/or vertigo when undergoing a jump, though no harm appears to come to living beings even after many jumps. Making a jump eventually proves damaging to the ship's armor and structure in later episodes, after several years of continual combat and metal fatigue have taken their toll on the elderly ship. An FTL jump can be executed in the gravity well of a planet (indeed, Galactica jumps in and out of a planet's atmosphere in the episode "Exodus, Part II"). Nonetheless, it is preferred not to jump too close to a planet, not necessarily because of any physical limitations, but because if the coordinates are calculated wrong there is a risk that a ship might jump too close to the planet and crash into it, or reappear within the planet (This happens to a Raptor in the episode "Lay Down Your Burdens"). Further, a BSG FTL drive can theoretically travel anywhere in the galaxy; the limiting factor is not the drive itself, but the finite distance that the navigation computer is able to safely calculate a jump trajectory; more advanced computers are able to calculate longer range jumps (e.g. the Cylons have better computers and have an effective jump range at least three times that of the Colonials). The extreme distance that a safe jump can be plotted is called "the Red Line", and while a vessel might jump a theoretically infinite distance beyond that, it is possible the vessel could end up colliding with a star, asteroid, or other space debris.

Tylium

Tylium is a metallic ore, and is very rare throughout the known universe, but essential for fueling both human and Cylon space ships, including for the purpose of FTL jumps. Tylium is the focus of episode 10, season one, and is pronounced "till-ium", or occasionally "Tylinium".

In the re-imagined series, raw Tylium ore appears as a yellow, sand-like substance before it is refined into a golden liquid similar in appearance to motor oil; however it flows quickly like gasoline. In the episode "Dirty Hands", it is shown that the raw Tylium is stored in massive silos aboard the fleet's Refinery Ship where it is poured (by hand) onto conveyor belts and heated in ovens. It was never specified how this process actually converts the raw Tylium to a liquid state, however it is stated that "hot" Tylium is highly unstable, and if the carefully controlled process is interrupted it could "go critical" and explode.

In the episode "The Hand of God", Gaius Baltar mentions in dialog that the enthalpy of refined Tylium is $5 \times 10^{14} \text{J/kg}$ (the enthalpy of combustion of gasoline is $4.7 \times 10^{5} \text{J/kg}$ by comparison). Tylium is unstable and has a strong exothermic reaction if sufficiently heated, especially the less stable refined Tylium precursor. It is also mentioned that Tylium will become useless if subjected to strong radiation, which renders the ore inert.

Vehicles

COLONIAL SHIPS:

Battle Star Galactica: The only military vessel in the fleet, and is a combined "Battleship" and "Fighter Carrier". It deserves its own page as we learn much of how the ship works.

Colonial 1: The home of the President

Cloud 9: A beautiful civilian ship with an on board green house. The ship was destroyed by a Six.

Olympic Carrier: The Olympic Carrier was a civilian vessel destroyed by Adama in fear of a Nuclear attack by the Cylons. During the early stages of the flight from Caprica, the fleet was forced to make FTL jumps every 33 minutes due to Cylon attack. During one of the final jumps, the Olympic Carrier fell behind. It reappeared a number of days later. Because its location was unknown during this time, would not communicate with Galactica, and seem to have a nuclear radiation signature, Adama, much to the protest of the President, ordered his son to destroy it.

Tylium Refinery: The site of a major strike within the fleet, it employed people of all ages and truly brought to light the segregation of the different tribes within the fleet.

Viper: The primary attack fighter for the fleet.

Raptor: The search, rescue, bomber, troop deployment, and any other odd job multi use vessel of the fleet.

Viper Mark IV: A newer version of the Viper that Apollo and Starbuck fly later in the series

The Stealth Ship: A carbon composite ship built by the chief and used successfully on an attack on a Resurrection ship before its quick demise.

CYLON VESSELS

Base Ship

Raider

Heavy Raider

Resurrection Ship

References

1. ^ The "Direction, RAnge, and DIStance" breakdown of the acronym "DRADIS" was listed in an early manuscript of the first half of the Miniseries.