Battlestar Galactica Classic 0

This article has a separate continuity. This article is in the Dynamite Comics separate continuity, which is related to the Original Series. Be sure that your contributions to this article reflect the characters and events specific to this continuity only.

Battlestar Galactica Classic #0 An issue of the Dynamite series.
Issue No.	0
Writer(s)	John Jackson Miller
Illustrator(s)	{{{illustrator}}}
Penciller(s)	Daniel HDR
Inker(s)
Colorist(s)	Natalia Marques
Letterer(s)	Taylor Esposito
Editor(s)	Anthony Marques
Collection Design	{{{designer}}}
Cover Artist(s)	Sean Chen & Cris Peter (Cover A) Diego Galindo (Cover B) Marco Rudy (Cover C) Daniel HDR & Natalia Marques (Cover D)
Adaptation of
Published	3 October 2018
Collects
Collected in	Battlestar Galactica Classic: Counterstrike
Reprints
Reprinted as
Pages	{{{pages}}}
ISBN	725130273451
Population	0 Survivors
Special	{{{special}}}
Chronology
Previous		Next
Classic Battlestar Galactica Vol. 3 #5	Battlestar Galactica Classic #0	Battlestar Galactica Classic #1
Purchase
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Available at Amazon.com – [[amazon:{{{amazon}}}|Purchase]]
Available at Amazon.co.uk – Purchase
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Commander Adama and the remnants of humanity discover a second fugitive fleet, fleeing a different mortal enemy. Can the two armadas join forces, making common cause against the dreaded Cylons? And what would success mean for the quest for Earth? New York Times bestselling author and comics writer JOHN JACKSON MILLER (Star Wars, Star Trek, Halo) joins Dynamite for a miniseries timed for Battlestar Galactica's 40th anniversary year!

Plot

• Commander Adama records his log regarding their passage through the Empyrean Expanse, noting that such places were rarely seen during their lives on the Twelve Colonies of Man. He then notes that they have left the Cylons behind at the cost of much fuel, and ends with a note that they're doing "something wrong" that day.
• In core command, the berating voice of the Kiernu Chancellor admonishes Adama as a liar whilst repeatedly telling the Fleet to stop trespassing their space. Adama tells Athena to not return the hail, while Tigh informs Adama that Viper squadrons engage the Kiernu as anticipated. The standing order is to prevent harm to all parties while in transit.
• Starbuck incredulously questions the order, leading to chastisement from Apollo on informality. Boomer reports that their pursuers are fully focused on the Viper squadron.
• Rigel shares this report with Adama, while another officer confirms that the last ship is about to leave the corridor leading out from Kiernu space.
• Adama finally takes the chancellor's hail, where he receives the verbal harangue over violating their sovereignty. They rehash the arguments of the past: the Fleet would not have enough fuel to circumnavigate the space and it was only "an hour" (sic) to transit, while the chancellor reiterates their xenophobia of visitors for millennia, alluding to previous issues with visitors.
• Adama offers his apology to the chancellor after Tigh confirms that the entire fleet has cleared Kiernu space, and swears that the humans will never return. Given Adama's actions, the chancellor offers an incredulous observation on the worth of the human's word.
• Later, Tigh vists Adama in his quarters, where they discuss their trespass. While the decision was one borne of desperation due to diminishing supply, and the fact that no trace of tylium has since been found in the expanse, Adama questions their decision on an ethical level. He empathizes with the Kiernu given the dangers of the universe, and fears that the worst is yet to come.
• En route back to the Fleet, Blue Squadron slowly makes their way to the Fleet to conserve fuel. Starbuck brusquely comments that all they do is run from fights, and given how slow they're going, they may as well turn and fight. Apollo reminds Starbuck that, even during the days of the Thousand-Yahren War, they could only fight the Cylons to a draw. Further, even when Pegasus briefly joined the Fleet they could only manage a battle. Starbuck quips about the "history lesson" and the desire to smoke a fumarello to light the engines.
• The pilots intercept a distress call, but not from a Fleet ship. Starbuck hopes that they're Cylons involved since he could "go for a fight where I actually get to shoot something!"
• Three Raiders appear to pursue (but not fire upon) a craft never before encountered by the Fleet's denizens, and the Vipers dispatch the enemy with aplomb.
• Apollo establishes contact with the pursued ship, learning that they appear to have assisted a species known as Okaati, namely Parrin and her co-pilot Grust.
• Parrin dispels Apollo's belief that no enemies remain, as Boomer experiences a warning shot across his bow.
• The Comitat make themselves known with a frigate flanked by bladeships. Apollo orders them to engage in a screening formation, aiming to be careful not to make any further enemies out in the expanse.
• Discovering that adroitness of the bladeships, Parrin confirms that the ships are unoccupied and remotely controlled, so no lives will be lost in destroying them. After engaging the bladeships, the Comitat declare that the "interlopers" have chosen wrongly and that the transgression will not be forgotten.
• Parrin's ship and the impromptu Viper escort venture further into the cloud, where even the Otaaki's sensors are rendered ineffectual. They are brought before a large fleet of ships similar to Parrin's, where Parrin pointedly asks "You humans don't think you're the only fugitive fleet running through the cosmos, did you?"
• Apollo notes the size of the fleet being similar in size to the Colonial's rag-tag, fugitive fleet, the difference being that each Okaati ship is well-armed. Starbuck then proffers his belief that they could counterstrike against the Cylons once the Fleets conjoin.

Notes

Releases

• Issue 0 was priced at $0.35 USD in keeping with the nostalgia factor influenced by the Battlestar Galactica Marvel comics.
• The Battlestar Galactica logo is a nod to the Marvel comics and, up until this issue and the others in this series, only used for those comics and other merchandise from the late 1970s CE.

Nods

• While not explicitly mentioned in the comic, this installment takes place following the Battle at Galaxy's Edge depicted in Original Series' "The Hand of God".

Errata

• Adama refers to the term "hour" to describe the length of time taken to cross Kiernu space, instead of "centar."

Creative

• John Jackson Miller shared notes on this installment via his website, of note:
  • The double-page spread on pages 8 and 9 were crafted to be read properly were they segmented, allowing for the realities of digital comics and the insertion of possible automated advertisements in comic book reader programs.
  • He compliments Daniel HDR's direction, liking the visual introduction to Parrin and Grust on page 10.
  • While eschewing various "alternate" terminologies for common places items or verbiage, noting that he retired the term "refresher" (bathroom) from the Star Wars Expanded Universe's lexicon, he elected to retain them in his Galactica stories. (With a few exceptions that could be attributed to "slip-ups," see the errata section.)

Visual

• Corporal Rigel wears the officer's blue uniform, instead of the tan. While this originally began as a mistake, it is explained in the third issue as a characterization point.
• The coloration of the Viper stripes is keeping in line with the Original Series' orange, and not the red of the Re-imagined Series' Vipers. The mix-up had been a repeated issue in earlier Dynamite installments.

Analysis

• The Okaati and Comitat are the first space-fairing races depicted in Dynamite's Original Series stories. Further, they appear to rival both Colonial and Cylons on a technical level. The question on how either could be intertwined with the Cylons, if at all, is left nebulous at this juncture. This is in keeping with the established lore, where a majority of the aliens encountered in the Original Series' canon were either subjugated by the Cylons, or were aliens known to the Colonials and the disconnected far-flung colonies (vis a vis Sectar and its Boray population from "The Magnificent Warriors."
• While Starbuck's itching to go on the offensive is in keeping with his character, the forcefulness of his near insubordination appear discordant with the fact that Galactica just participated in a direct offensive confrontation with a lone basestar. This makes the dialogue shoe-horned set-up for the "counterstrike" moment at the end of the issue, which is interwoven throughout the rest of the series. Although, perhaps, it can be argued that such blatant foreshadowing is in keeping with the Original Series' mythology.
• Adama's pathos in questioning his decision to violate another race's sovereignty is in keeping with his character, as in "Saga of a Star World" he questions his burden of leading the human race to Earth. In this issue, it leads him to question what happens in their wake, which is something not truly touched on in the series proper. As would later come to pass, the Cylons engage in genocide of the Kiernu for their failure to thwart the Fleet's travel through the Expanse. It then leads one to wonder what other species and cultures have fallen to the Cylon as a direct result of their pursuit of the Fleet.

Questions

Answered Questions

• Why did the Cylons not appear to attack Parrin's Okaati ship? (Answer)
• If Raiders have penetrated the nebula, how far behind is the main Cylon force? (Answer)
• Who leads the Cylon forces pursuing the Fleet at this juncture? (Answer)
• What other species inhabit the expanse? (Answer)
• Who are the Comitat and what is their motivation regarding the Okaati? (Answer)
• Why are the Okaati a renegade fleet? (Answer)
• Why are the Kiernu xenophobic? (Answer)
• Have other races and civilizations fallen, or otherwise been harmed, due to the Fleet's travels?

Noteworthy Dialogue

• Adama shares his anguish over violating the sovereignty of the Kiernu's space.

  Tigh: We had no choice, Commander. This nebula has stars and species galore--but almost no tylium to be found. We could never have skirted their entire territory. The Kiernu were being unreasonable!

  Adama: Were they, Tigh? You know the dangers of this universe. Would we fault anyone for being careful? We have crossed a line here, literally and figuratively, and my greatest fear--besides the Cylons--is that this is only the beginning.

• Starbuck receives a history lesson after being told to conserve fuel.

  Starbuck: We run from fights all the time--us, and the whole fleet! Now we're told to run, but not that fast. We might as well turn and fight.

  Apollo: Starbuck, when we had the resources of the homeworlds, we could only fight the Cylons to a draw. And when Pegasus was beside us, all we could manage was one battle. No, finding Earth is the only--

  Starbuck: Here comes the history lesson. Forget I said anything.

Official Statements

• John Jackson Miller discusses the origins of the book series.
  I’d been looking to do something for Galactica for a long time; I even had written a script that was intended for one of the old Realm Press Galactica titles back in the late 1990s, long before I did any other professional work. In between, there was the reimagined series, and of course I did all my comics and novel work for licenses like Star Wars and Star Trek. But I remained interested — and when Nick Barrucci and I began discussing licenses that Dynamite had that I might be interested in, I immediately said the original Galactica was right up my street. I proposed a series to editor Anthony Marques, and then we were off.
• Miller touches upon the confusion on depictions for ships, characters, and other visual cues between the Original Series and its Re-imagined counterpart.
  Whether it’s for Star Wars, Mass Effect, Halo, or any of the other franchises I’ve written comics for, I always try to include footnotes for the artist when ships and characters appear, to make sure that the correct versions appear. It’s particularly important with Battlestar Galactica, because variant versions of many things exist from the 2003 “reimagined series.” Nobody would confuse Dirk Benedict with Katee Sackhoff, but things like the ships of the fleet can be trickier!

Related Imagery

Covers

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  Cover A by Sean Chen.

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  Cover B by Diego Galindo.

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  Cover C by Marco Rudy.

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  Cover D by Daniel HDR (art) and Natalia Marques (color).

Preview Pages

Please Note: These are used for promotional purposes by the publisher, and are provided here in the same vein.

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  Page 1

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  Page 2

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  Page 3

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  Page 4

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  Page 5

External links

• Dynamite.com - BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (CLASSIC) #0 (web.archive.org backup link)
• THE STORIES BEHIND THE STORIES: Battlestar Galactica: Counterstrike #0 (web.archive.org backup link)