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A basestar is a large capital warship of the Cylon Alliance.
Basestars are immense vehicles that, like their Colonial counterparts, the battlestars, serve as a combination of aircraft carrier and capital warship. They are capable of carrying and supporting over three hundred Raiders. Armed with missiles, over one hundred defensive laser turrets, and two long-range mega pulsar weapons, the capital warship of the Cylon Alliance is more than a match for any unprepared or unaware battlestar (TOS: "The Hand of God").
Basestars are also designed for orbital bombardment of a planet, and, true to their name, also serve as a moving base of operations. Four complete squadrons of Raiders comprise a typical basestar's complement (TOS: "The Living Legend, Part II").
Basestars and their fighters are the key in the Cylons' genocidal destruction of the Twelve Colonies and the battlestar fleet. To fool the Colonials, the Cylons split up their fleet into two destructive units: a massive Raider fleet is sent to the Cimtar Peace Accord rendezvous, while the basestars are deployed separately to attack the Twelve Colonies. Apollo encounters a Cylon Tanker near a gas cloud, which had been used (in lieu of the elsewhere basestars) to give extended fuel reserves that enable the Raiders to reach Cimtar. Apollo finds the Raiders soon after discovering the tanker and unsuccessfully tries to warn the battlestar fleet in time.
Only the battlestar Galactica is initially known to survive the holocaust and gathers an odd assortment of civilian spacecraft with the remnants of Humanity, leaving the dead Colonies behind in search of the lost 13th Colony, Earth.
Following the flight from the death trap at Carillon, the succeeding Imperious Leader sends a basestar under Baltar's command to seek out the Fleet. Baltar's basestar is able to follow the Fleet, yet stay outside Galactica's scanning range (TOS: "Lost Planet of the Gods, Part I"), suggesting that basestar scanners have a longer range than their Colonial counterparts.
This basestar class existed in the Re-imagined Series continuity, if only in appearance, and likely with a different command and crew structure. A model of an Original Series basestar is displayed in Galactica's new museum in the Miniseries, as well as appearing in flashbacks in Razor. However, because the new series does not use the same weapons as the Original Series, it is not really the same ship, as the the basestars in the Re-imagined Series rely on missiles for defensive and offensive engagements.
According to Encyclopedia Galactica, a non-canonical piece of merchandise published in 1979:
The basestar is modeled after the Colonial battlestar, however they are not highly maneuverable and thus rely on their shields and Raiders for defense. The shields themselves are incapable of withstanding repeated strikes from laser torpedoes, which can be delivered by a squadron Vipers, should they break through the Raider's defense.[1] Furthermore, the ship is armed with turbo-lasers and nutron cased laser torpedoes for space warfare and wide-angle space-to-ground laser generators for planetary bombardment.[2]
The core of a baseship is said to be "specifically sealed and shielded"[1], as it is the location from which IL series Cylons, in addition to the Imperious Leader, command from. The core can be jettisoned from the ship in case of severe hull damage and can travel up to ten light-yahren.
A third of the basestars are dedicated to the repair and maintenance of Centurions, but are not constructed aboard ship unless circumstances require it. The section is also dedicated to recycling parts from Cylons who are irreparably damaged; such parts are melted down and forged into all new parts.
In addition to the Raiders, basestars contain a "full complement of armored landing craft used for planetary subjugation".[2]
A basestar (known interchangeably as a "baseship") is the most prominent example of the Cylon military presence. As the capital ship of the Cylons, the basestar appears in four forms in the Re-imagined Series.
The basestars in service during the 12-year Cylon War consisted of two flattened cones connected at the center by a thick pylon, giving them a conical saucer-like appearance[1](TRS: "Razor Flashbacks").
Much like its modern counterpart, this model utilized chemically-propelled missiles (with both nuclear and conventional warheads) as the main form of offensive weaponry. Raiders were deployed from access points (totaling 8 in number) throughout a basestar's hull to provide defense. This design, as with later iterations, was capable of operating within an atmosphere (TRS: "Blood and Chrome").
The origins of the initial basestars are unclear. However, as Cylons were a creation of man in the early days before the war, it is probable that man himself (through the efforts of various colonies) designed the various ships and weapons used by the Cylons for the use in intra-colonial wars prior to the Articles of Colonization.
A second variant Basestar was deployed by Cylon forces sometime before the 10th year of the War. This class represents a small evolutionary step from the 1st variant to the Guardian Basestar, suggesting it wasn't a one-off design. This line of Basestars can then be linked to the modern design seen after the fall of the Colonies.
This configuration features two y-shaped hulls in tandem alignment, with a 1st variant-like top and bottom hull. Missile launchers are located in between the arms of the ship, along the central axis ("Blood and Chrome").
Towards the end of the first Cylon War, the Cylons built a prototype basestar that had roughly the same shape as the modern basestar. The first hybrids were developed for use with this model.
It is explained by Athena that a group of Centurions calling themselves Guardians fractured from the Cylon majority with such a basestar. The belief is that they escaped to the far reaches of space to avoid being shut-down in favor of their modernized, non-sentient successors(TRS: "Razor"). The only basestar of this type known to exist was destroyed by Colonial forces shortly after its discovery.
Modern basestars, built sometime before the Fall of the Twelve Colonies, are the same size as a Colonial battlestar, but are considered by the Cylons to be weaker than battleships in the Colonial Fleet. The shape of the newer basestar reflects its name, with two offset Y-shaped hulls attached at their centers by a single pylon, the warship has a distinctive "star" shape, which can rotate into a tandem-Y configuration for entry into a planetary atmosphere (TRS: "The Plan").[3]
General layout of a Cylon basestar.
The most unique aspect of a modern baseship is its organic nature. Composed of organic resin, and a large flesh-like interior, the baseship could be considered an individual organism in itself, and just like any other "injured" organism, the basestar is able to heal its wounds (battle damage) over time (TRS: "Guess What's Coming to Dinner?"). The organics are all connected the the ship's "brain," known as a Hybrid, which can control the ship's functions from firing weapons, down to performing an FTLjump.
They are equipped with a superior jump system and no visible means of sublight propulsion, lacking any engine pods or nacelles, but remain capable of chasing down a battlestar (TRS: "Exodus, Part II").
Baseships possess several conventional rooms and hallways, which are sleek but generally bland. Lighting plays a large role in the aesthetics and some rooms are furnished with clearly human objects, such as beds and couches. Humanoid Cylons project different surroundings to navigate ship corridors more easily, and to provide them with an individually pleasing environment (such as a lush forest). Data and other functions (such as analyzing visual information) are handled within a liquid computer interface that resembles a stream of water flowing over a luminous glass surface. Cylons can interact with the main computer by placing their hands in these basins (TRS: "Torn").
A basestar is operated by many humanoid Cylons. Up to all seven models of them issue commands for the basestar from a central command and control center. Consensus amongst models is the typical procedure, as such the process of deliberation and voting on decisions may cause the basestar to react more slowly than a battlestar's command and control in a CIC.
A basestar has a datastream, or computer network, which interfaces with the Hybrid and all aspects of the basestar's operation.
A typical Cylon basestar is moderately armed, and relies on unconventional means for military strength. Generally, a basestar is armed with 220[4][5][6] missile launchers located on the central spire, and on the arms of the vessel, which are capable of carrying nuclear or conventional tipped ship to ship, or long-range ballistic (with Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicle payloads) missiles to their targets. Ballistic missiles are able to strike planetary targets from high orbit (TRS: "The Plan"). Ship to ship missiles are easily defended against by Colonial electronic countermeasures, which lends the Cylons to rely more on the basestar's Raider compliment for for both offensive and defensive purposes.
A basestar can carry up to (and maybe even more[7]) 434 Raiders, launched from storage bays located on each arm of the ship.[8][9] Upon launch, they set out to swarm the enemy target (almost like insects), while the basestar covers them with an opening salvo of ship to ship missiles. This tactic, suggests a reliance on overwhelming force to destroy a foe, since a basestar does not appear to have point-defense batteries, or heavy armoring.[10] Cylon basestars appear quite vulnerable to Colonial battlestars in close-range combat when fighter support is not prominent (TRS: "Resurrection Ship, Part II"). From this, it can be theorized that basestars are designed primarily as carriers for the massive fleet of Raiders they carry, rather than as a front-line main battleship. Their reliance on long-distance attacks with missiles and their complement of Raiders, as well as their overall fragility seem to support this (TRS: Miniseries, "33," "Razor," "The Plan").
Beginning with the episode "Collaborators," a new exterior design is used for the basestars, bearing a sharper, more mechanical look than they previously had. This was apparently an upgrade by the visual effects crew to make the exterior reflect the interior design, which is seen for the first time in that episode.
This new design reduces the amount of Raider bays from 792 to 434, and also adds identifiable missile launch platforms.
↑The following was posted by Lee Stringer on StarshipBuilder.com forums, which are no longer available: "Width: 1030.69m Length: 856.1m (two arm side) + 1039.87m (single arm side) Height: 132.586m (Each Piece), 265.172m Total". Because of its ratio to the stated width, the overall length must have been measured on one of the three-arm pieces, meaning the full ship is slightly longer.
Re-imagined Series definition: the process of using the FTL engines to make an near-instantaneous apparent faster-than-light transport of a ship from one point in space to another
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