Computers in the Re-imagined Series

A battlestar such as Galactica has several computers dedicated to many critical ship functions. Several specific computers have been mentioned in the Mini-Series and regular series. This list is not inclusive; an original battlestar like Galactica is still a very complex spacecraft. Advanced battlestars such as Pegasus, with its networked computers, may have more or fewer computers or distributed functionality.

Battlestar Computers

Navigation Computer

Also known as the "Nav" computer. Manages spatial coordinates of the battlestar, handles sublight travel and RCS translations. It is very likely that DRADIS sensor information is obtained and managed by the Navigation Computer and passed on to the Tactical Officer and the Command & Control Center in the CIC.

FTL Computer

The FTL computer manages the complex calculations necessary for a FTL Jump. Information for these Jumps on a more advanced battlestar such as Pegasus would be transmitted from the Navigation Computer by the battlestar's network. On Galactica, however, the FTL computer receives the spatial coordinates manually from Lieutenant Gaeta or Petty Officer Dualla. The FTL Computer also generates a series of emergency Jump coordinates for the Fleet. This information is relayed by the Tactical Officer to other ships regularly. It is likely that the flight pods are also controlled through the FTL computer as they must be retracted prior to a Jump.Template:Ref

DC Computer

The Damage Control computer relays information to the CIC on malfunctioning or damaged areas of the battlestar, presumably from various sensors or devices throughout the ship. The DC computer also has access to radiation sensors in the event of nuclear attack to warn against dangerous radiation levels that could harm the crew.Template:Ref

Fire Control Computer

The Fire Control computer manages a battlestar's primary offensive weapons, the central flak turret and smaller port and starboard turrets along the length of each side of the ship. It is presumed that the Fire Control computers report to crewmembers responsible for the upkeep of ammunition on the guns when to reload an particular turret. The Fire Control computer can target individual bogeys with the flak turret guns, which, in tandem with the smaller turrets, make even Galactica, an old original battlestar from the first Cylon War, a formidable foe to encounter.Template:Ref

Mainframe Computer

This computer likely manages secondary functions of the ship, such as communications. The mainframe likely provides extra calculating power for other ship tasks when required, and may also serve as the ship's library for tactical information.Template:Ref

Computer History

Partially to tradition from the Cylon War, and partially to his own experience in the Cylon War, Commander William Adama has maintained the order that none of these or other computers on Galactica may be networked at any time. This order had surely saved Galactica and her crew when the Cylon Attack occurred. Although Galactica received the tainted Command Navigation Program along with every other Colonial unit from Fleet Headquarters, Galactica could not use it as her computers were never networked; in fact, it was never loaded into a computer at allTemplate:Ref. While other battlestars were practically disabled as if a switch were flipped during the Fall of the Twelve Colonies, Galactica remained up and running. However, since her munitions were destroyed as part of her expected decommissioning, the battlestar was initially defenseless in the opening salvo, calling on her Navigation computer to perform evasive manueuvers in the first attack (Mini-Series).

The evasive actions were not successful as Galactica suffered a kiloton nuclear missile strike on her forward port flight pod. The Damage Control computer determined the extent of fires and other damage, but luckily reported that very little radiation was seeping through, thanks to Galactica's thick outer hullTemplate:Ref. The Damage Control computer likely provided damage information to damage control crews in coordination or by instruction of CIC as many crewmember donned fire gear to battle the blazes. However, the blazes were too intense and threatened to ignite the ship's fuel lines. Colonel Saul Tigh activated the vents throughout the port flight pod from the CIC's damage control console, releasing its atmosphere into space to extinguish the fires. Sadly, this required action also caused the deaths of 85 crewmembers.

With no munitions, Galactica's Tactical Officer began to plot a Jump through the FTL computer to Ragnar Anchorage, a Colonial munitions dump situated just inside the upper atmosphere of a large gas giant. Despite the ship not performing a Jump of any significance in 20 yearsTemplate:Ref, the event was successful, and Galactica offloaded a large cache of ordinance from the station.

Galactica was surrounded by at least two basestars and hundreds of Cylon Raiders at Ragnor. Fortunately, the electromagnetic storm covering the station, Galactica, and a civilian fleet of 50,000 survivors from the Colonies prevented the basestars from making a direct attack. Now armed, Galactica led the fleet of ships out of the storm, using itself as a shield while the civilian ships made Jumps to escape the attack. The Fire Control computer and the remaining primary computers came into play at once to coordinate damage control, calculate best attack vectors, target bogeys, and plotting Jumps for all civilians and the battlestar itself.

Despite the no-networking order, Galactica found itself in a situation where the FTL, Nav, DC, and Fire Control computersTemplate:Ref had to be networked to greatly accelerate the needed calculations to find the civilian fleet, which had Jumped to a different set of coordinates than the battlestar (Scattered). Without the network, Galactica would take 12 hours to calculate the proper coordinates--and it would certain that the basestar in orbit around Kobol would destroy them before the calculations were complete. Lieutenant Gaeta created firewalls between the series of computers to resist an expected Cylon virus incursion. While the effort was successful, one of the computers did contract a Cylon virus (Valley of Darkness). Shortly after, the virus began to shutdown many systems throughout the ship, but was fortunately stopped and removed--or so the crew believed.

Weeks later, the Cylon virus reappeared in the form of a Logic bomb that had taken time to test and learn the ship's weaknesses (Flight of the Phoenix). When the next Cylon attack occurred, the Logic bomb would take over all ship computers and could vent the battlestar's atmosphere to kill the crew, or direct and fire the battlestar's guns at the civilian fleet. Unfortunately, cleaning the computers would require a more direct approach in the form of erasing the hard drives of each of the computers, later restoring them with backups made prior to the war. This would take time and leave Galactica a sitting duck for several minutes--time enough for the Cylon force to destroy the Fleet.

Commander Adama decided to fight one computer system with another in the form of the cooperative Caprica copy of the Cylon infiltrator Sharon Valerii. While Sharon appeared wholly human, her cells were apparently light-reactive; she cut her forearm and stuck a fiber-optic cable into it, allowing her Cylon-designed brain/computer to access the ship's communication channels and access the processing power (and the Cylon code inside of) Galactica's mainframe computerTemplate:Ref. As Galactica erased her computer hard drives, Valerii modified the Cylon logic bomb/virus code within herself, releasing it in a broadcast to the hundreds of Cylon fighters ready to overwhelm Galactica. The broadcast contained a version of the Cylon virus that disabled all the enemy's fighters, leaving Galactica's Vipers to destroy them with ease.

Sources

• Template:Note One of Gaeta's responsibilities is to monitor DRADIS contacts. To navigate, a battlestar must use some way to determine its location relative to other objects, so the Navigation and DRADIS connection must exist.
• Template:Note Gaeta: "...But we network the FTL computer with the Nav, DC, and Fire Control computers. Once they're linked, we'll o­nly need ten minutes to complete the calculations." (Scattered)
• Template:NoteWhile Colonel Tigh was on a handset ordering the retraction of the pods as the battlestar began its escape from Ragnar Anchorage, many events within the ship must be coordinated (bulkheads closing, motors for the pod movement activated, etc.) While there was likely a person in CIC or elsewhere that flips a switch or types in a computer command, there must still be a computer used to coordinate these events as they are too many to manage in a limited amount of time (Mini-Series).
• Template:NoteWilliam Adama: "Radiation levels within norms -- the hull plating kept out most of the hard stuff." (Mini-Series)
• Template:NoteGalactica's flak turret guns are seen directly targeting specific missiles during the Battle of Ragnar Anchorage (Mini-Series).
• Template:NoteSharon Valerii: "Mr. Gaeta, can you set me up with a fiber-optic com link? I need broadcast to all frequencies and direct link to the mainframe." (Flight of the Phoenix)
• Template:NoteColonel Tigh tries to discourage Adama from a Jump, inferring that Galactica had not made a Jump in over 20 years (Mini-Series).
• Template:Note Gaeta: "Well, you can see we do have your CNP navigation program here on Galactica, but it's never been loaded into primary memory or even test run." (Mini-Series)