Battle of Ragnar Anchorage

The successful breakthrough by the Galactica of the Cylons' blockade around Ragnar Anchorage. (Mini-Series)

Battlestar Galactica is the only known surviving capital ship able to mount a counter-attack against the Cylons after the devastating attack that led to the Fall of the Twelve Colonies. After getting word that many battlestars, including flagship battlestar Atlantia and its fleet admiral, were destroyed, Commander William Adama assumes command of any remaining Colonial forces and instructs them over wireless to rendezvous with his ship at a munitions depot, Ragnar Anchorage for counterattack preparation. Orbiting within the tenuous upper atmosphere of the gas giant Ragnar, the ammunition station held critical ordinance needed by Galactica, which had destroyed its own munitions earlier as part of its scheduled decommissioning. The depot's location offers effective cover against Cylon attack as a particular form of electromagnetic radiation generated by the planet's upper atmosphere causes damage to Cylon technology with sufficient exposure, and also jams any DRADIS detection, making attacking within the cloud threshold problematic at best.

Galactica is joined by a fleet of faster-than-light capable civilian ships rescued from throughout the spacelanes near Caprica, led by new President Laura Roslin. Commander Adama intends to attack the Cylons in a counter-offensive on his own. However, after persuasion by Roslin, Adama realizes that the ship was in a no-win battle situation: the Colonies are destroyed, Galactica is massively outnumbered, the human race was near extinction, and he was surrounded by nearly 50,000 of the only known survivors. Adama decides to take the rag-tag fleet away from the home solar system of the Colonies, never to return.

Lt. Kara Thrace discovers at least two Cylon basestars and their fighters outside of the cloud during a reconnaissance mission. With an avoidance of attack made impossible since a Jump within the cloud would like distort the FTL calculations with fatal results, Galactica leaves the storm and orients itself as a shield for the remainder of the Fleet to safely Jump from behind the battlestar and to its new coordinates. With her weapons now fully armed, Galactica creates a defense perimeter against two basestars while her Vipers engage any Cylon Raiders that attempt to move around Galactica and to her fleet. A third basestar later appears and threatens to pummel Galactica with successive missiles.

Once the last civilian ship is away and the last of the Vipers return to the flight pod, Galactica Jumps to escape the onslaught.

After the battle ends at Ragnar, approximately 1 day later, the Cylons continue tracking and pursuing the remnant of the Colonial Fleet, appearing every 33 minutes for five consecutive days and over 240 Jumps (33). A passenger liner, the Olympic Carrier, fails to jump with the Fleet in a recent escape. The Cylons also fail to attack in the next 33-minute interval as well. When the Carrier suspiciously reappears a a short time later, Adama commands the 33-minute countdown to resume immediately. Adama's fears about the Carrier were confirmed when the Cylons appeared 33 minutes after the Carrier's return, indicating the Carrier was used to track the fleet throughout that time. When Galactica detects a radiological signature from the Olympic Carrier, suggesting it was boarded by Cylons and now carried a nuclear warhead, Vipers are dispatched to destroy the Carrier. After the fleet Jumps once more, the Cylons are no longer able to immediately track them.