Botanical Cruiser

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Botanical Cruiser
Race	Colonial
Type	Civilian
FTL	Some models
Propulsion
Crew
Capacity
CO	{{{co}}}
XO	{{{xo}}}
Role	Botanical greenhouse; Civilian transport; Vacation spot
Weapons	{{{weapons}}}
Armaments	{{{arm}}}
Status	Destroyed in Cylon attack. Surviving Fleet ships, flown into Earth's sun.
Other Images	More images...
Dimensions
Length	{{{length}}}
Width	{{{width}}}
Height	{{{height}}}
Weight	{{{weight}}}
Wingspan	{{{wingspan}}}
Other	{{{otherdi}}}

Botanical Cruisers are ships with bio domes that serve as civilian transports, possible vacation spots, or are used as greenhouses for specialty food or plant-matter production.

Contents 1 Sublight Cruiser 2 FTL Cruiser 3 Notes 4 Related Imagery

Sublight Cruiser

Newly-inaugurated President Laura Roslin visited the sublight-capable Botanical Cruiser while gathering a caravan from surviving civilian ships surrounding the colony of Caprica. There she meets with the ship's captain and crew to determine their needs, and also meets a young girl named Cami and her grandmother who are traveling on the ship with many others, bound for Caprica City. However, the ship that Roslin visits lacks an FTL drive, and the FTL capable part of President Roslin's caravan of refugee ships are forced to leave Botanical Cruiser and many other sublight ships behind when Cylon Raiders discover and attack the caravan. It is destroyed along with the other left behind sublight ships (Miniseries).

FTL Cruiser

Another Botanical Cruiser, this one equipped with an FTL drive, survives the attacks and joins Galactica's Fleet (33).

Several months following the escape from New Caprica, it is successfully escorted to the algae planet through a dangerous star cluster on the fifth and final jump, although it appears the biota did not fare so well in the presence of so much ionizing radiation (The Passage).

It would survive the Battle of the Ionian Nebula and later jumped away when the Rebel baseship jumped in ahead of the sewage recycling freighter Demetrius (He That Believeth In Me, Guess What's Coming to Dinner).

The vessel would still remain with the fleet until the finding of Earth, where it, along with the other remaining vessels in the fleet would be sent into the sun. It is the last vessel seen by Adama as his Viper exits the launch tube (Daybreak, Part II).

Notes

• The Botanical Cruiser was an homage to the Agro Ships from the original Battlestar Galactica, which themselves were re-used models from the botanical spacecraft from the movie Silent Running, a Universal/MCA movie that special effects guru John Dykstra worked on a few years prior to the Original Series.

• There are also at least two vessels of similar design, though missing the botanical greenhouse domes, in Galactica's fleet seen orbiting New Caprica in Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II. One is destroyed in the Cloud 9 disaster. The surviving vessel is regularly seen in the fleet throughout the Fourth Season. It is unclear if these vessels are related.

Related Imagery

The ill-fated sublight Botanical Cruiser, 5 hours from Caprica.	FTL capable Botanical Cruiser, flying formation with Galactica.	The Botanical Cruiser sees Galactica off, as she prepares to jump away to the Cylon Colony.	The final moments of the Botanical Cruiser, and surviving fleet.
Closeup of the Botanical Cruiser, as seen from a Viper cockpit.