List of terms (RDM)

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Battlestar Galactica Terminology


This is a listing of acronyms, jargon and terminology used in the Re-imagined Series.

Acronyms[edit]

Military Jargon[edit]

  • Actual: the commanding officer. Used in wireless transmissions
  • ball: visual indicator used in a battlestar's Instrument Landing System (Miniseries, "Act of Contrition", "Final Cut", "Black Market")
  • bandit: confirmed hostile contact. Usually in reference to fighter and shuttle sized craft (Final Cut)
  • basic: initial skills training. Can refer to basic military indoctrination, and arms and ground training (Fragged); and basic flight training (Miniseries).
  • bent bird: damaged fighter craft (Occupation)
  • bingo fuel: having no fuel left or just enough fuel to return to the mothership ("You Can't Go Home Again", "Scar")
  • bird farm: Colonial pilot jargon for a battlestar (Final Cut)
  • bug out: to abort an attack when the enemy is deemed superior (Valley of Darkness)
  • chatter: to fire on an enemy during a fighter engagement (Valley of Darkness), also used as slang for active communications between ships or people
  • code blue: an internal security term used by an officer requesting assistance, after said officer identifies a possible Cylon agent ("Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II", Podcast:Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II)
  • command authority: the senior person/persons in command of a military unit, such as an Admiral ("Pegasus", "Precipice")
  • conn: literally the navigation controls, but also used to refer to command in general (The Captain's Hand)
  • "dress and cover": military term for personnel to form an ordered rank-and-file formation during ceremonies. Derived from "dress right" and "cover down" (Pegasus)
  • ell-tee: phonetic pronunciation of "Lt.", i.e. Lieutenant. Used as a nickname by junior personnel, but still retaining military protocol and respect. ("Valley of Darkness", "Fragged")
  • eyeball run: Likely refers to targeting or aiming missiles manually, without the use of targeting computers (Home, Part I)
  • fire team: a small unit of military personnel, typically Marines or soldiers (Valley of Darkness)
  • five-'graph order: five paragraph operation order. A basic command tool taught to officer candidates (Fragged)
  • genny: power generator. Tyrol asked Cally to "find the genny" to power up the lights on Ragnar Anchorage (Miniseries)
  • hack: the brig
  • hard deck: the threshold in a massive gas planet's dense atmosphere below which the atmospheric density and pressure becomes too great for a Viper to be able to reach orbit again and maintain structural integrity (Maelstrom); adapted from the original definition of minimum safe altitude.
  • jock smock: flight suit (He That Believeth In Me)
  • jump: 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
  • klick: one kilometer
  • knuckle dragger: inoffensive slang for a mechanic or deckhand
  • nugget: student pilot ("Act of Contrition", "Scar")
  • Mark One Eyeball: the unaided eye ("You Can't Go Home Again", "Scar")
  • no joy: no success in establishing visual contact with the target. Opposite of "tally". Can also mean no success in general ("The Hand of God", "Maelstrom")
  • Old Man: slang for Commander William Adama (33)
  • press: directive to continue the attack (Maelstrom)
  • recovery line: the point at which it becomes unlikely that a fighter will be able to safely return to base (33)
  • rook: "rookie" (Miniseries)
  • shooter: slang for launch officer (Miniseries, Night 1)
  • Sierra Alpha: "suspicious activity" (Scattered)
  • sitrep: "situation report"
  • skids up: "take off" or "launch". Often used by the CAG to end a mission briefing.
  • skosh (ammo): radio code meaning "out of ammunition", analagous to modern-day NATO brevity code "winchester". Skosh is also a real NATO brevity term meaning "Aircraft is out of or unable to employ active radar missiles" (The Captain's Hand)
  • sparrow: slang for a Cylon Raider (Maelstrom)
  • spinner: engineering component of a battlestar's FTL drive (The Captain's Hand)
  • swallow: decoy drone deployed by Raptors (Miniseries)
  • snipe: engineer (The Captain's Hand)
  • spooch: Contraction of "screwed the pooch," describing a serious pilot error (Scar)
  • tally: the sighting of a target, non-friendly craft, landmark, or enemy position ("The Hand of God", "Scattered", "Maelstrom")
  • trap: mechanism in a battlestar's landing bay which arrests the forward motion of either a Viper, Raptor or other small craft (Final Cut)
  • Two Alpha: designation for an extremely risky and voluntary mission (Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I)
  • turkey: slang for a Cylon Heavy Raider (Maelstrom)
  • unrep: short for Underway Replenishment. Refueling and replenishment between ships away from dock, usually during flight. Taken from the contemporary term for the resupply of military vessels at sea while enroute. ("Water", "Maelstrom")
  • weapons free: weapon control order indicating weapons systems may be fired at any target not positively recognized as friendly (Resurrection Ship, Part I)
  • weapons hot: weapons status indicating that safeties are off and weapons systems are armed (Final Cut)
  • wilco: "will comply"

Other Colloquialisms[edit]

Battlestar Galactica Specific Terms[edit]

References[edit]

  1. The actual process is called a "jump".
  2. Whether the Cylons have a download facility on the planet or in orbit, Seelix uses "Download City" as a figure of speech, which is confirmed by Bradley Thompson on the Official Communiques page.