Command Navigation Program

Developed by Dr. Gaius Baltar, the Command Navigation Program (CNP) is a operating system utilized by the Colonial Fleet and some civilian spaceships in the Twelve Colonies. Installed in the central computers of Vipers and Raptors and in the navigation computers of almost all battlestars, the CNP was more than two years in the making.

Unbeknownst to Baltar, his lover and a cowriter of the CNP turned out to be a version of the Cylon agent known as Number Six. She programmed backdoors into the program so that the Cylon attack force could break through the Colonial firewalls. Vipers with the CNP that received a command from attacking Cylon ships would be shut down "as if a switch were flipped." Communications officer Dualla describes reports of "system failures" throughout the Fleet and how at least one battlestar lost power when the attack began, which indicate the Cylons used the CNP to damage and, in at least one case, disable capital ships as well (Miniseries).

The CNP was previously received by battlestar Galactica, but the program was never loaded into the primary memory of the ship's navigation computer, although her last squadron of Mark VII Vipers received the upgrade. As a result, the squadron is massacred by two Raiders on their way back to Caprica.

Lieutenant Felix Gaeta has the program code purged from the mainframe on Baltar's suggestion, and the program is also retrograded on the flight systems of surviving Mark VII Vipers, Raptors, and civilian ships (Miniseries).

Note

The CNP is not a virus, nor is it a worm or Trojan Horse. The Cylon's use of the CNP is an example of backdoor exploiting of an secured computer system through a secreted password or other hidden access in order to gain command privileges. This cyberwarfare tactic differs from the Cylon's older method used in the Cylon War of using their computers to seek exploits within and forcibly enter ("crack") a Colonial computer, whereby the attacked computer is infected with a virus that causes havoc on the Colonial computer. A similar premise is used with a military computer by the central character in the movie, Wargames.

The Command Navigation Program was an actual operating system that worked as designed, but the work of Number Six added the compromises that allowed Cylons to later control it. Galactica herself is spared from Cylon computer attacks for two reasons: The CNP is not loaded on any of her computers to allow the backdoor attempt, nor were her computers networked in the Cylon Attack to allow a virus cracking attempt. Galactica's last CNP-equipped Viper Mark VII squadron, however, perished in the early salvos of the Cylon Attack.

Re-imagined Series definition: operating system on military and civilian ships exploited by the Cylons (TRS: "Miniseries, Night 1")

Re-imagined Series definition: operating system on military and civilian ships exploited by the Cylons (TRS: "Miniseries, Night 1")