List of terms (RDM)

Part of the series on Battlestar Galactica Terminology

Original Series Separate Continuity and Unproduced Scripts Richard Hatch's Continuation Novels Steampunk Battlestar Galactica 1880 Galactica 1980 Re-imagined Series Separate Continuity (Books, Comics, Video Games, et al.)

This is a listing of acronyms, initialisms, jargon and terminology used in both the Re-imagined Series and its prequel, Caprica.

Abbreviations, Acronyms and Initialisms

• AAA: Anti-aircraft artillery (pronounced "Triple-A"), such as a battlestar's point defense batteries (TRS: "He That Believeth In Me").
• AAU: Anti-aircraft unit. Weapons emplacement used to destroy aerial targets (TRS: "Fragged").
• ACM: Air combat maneuver. The positioning of a plane to acquire a firing solution on an adversary; a required skill taught to Viper pilots during flight training (TRS: "He That Believeth In Me").
• AI: Artificial Intelligence, research into such technology was deemed illegal by the Colonies after the First Cylon War (TRS: Miniseries).
• ASAP As soon as possible. Usually pronounced "a-sap."
• BSG: A Battlestar Group (TRS: "Water"). It also doubles as an acronym for the television series itself.
• CAG: Commander Air Group: the senior pilot on a battlestar.
• CAP: Combat Air Patrol
• CBDR: Constant Bearing, Decreasing Range. Indicates object on a collision course ("Final Cut", "Pegasus").
• CF: Colonial Fleet (TRS: "Final Cut")
• CFR: Colonial Fleet Reserve (TRS: "Final Cut")
• CIC: Combat Information Center, the nerve center or "bridge" of a battlestar.
• CMC: Colonial Marine Corps (TRS: "Final Cut")
• CMCR: Colonial Marine Corps Reserve (TRS: "Final Cut")
• CMO: Chief Medical Officer
• CNP: Command Navigation Program: Computer operating system on military and civilian ships exploited by the Cylons (TRS: Miniseries, Night 1).
• CO: Commanding Officer
• DC: Damage Control, generally related to the CIC station and related locations.
• DCT: Damage Control Team; typically consisting of deckhands and other NCOs (TRS: Miniseries, Night 1).
• DRADIS: "Direction, Range, and Distance". Colonial equivalent of radar.
• ECO: Electronic Countermeasures Officer
• EMI: Electromagnetic interference. High-energy electromagnetic radiation from binary stars is known to interfere with DRADIS (TRS: "The Captain's Hand")
• EMP: Electromagnetic pulse. A powerful electrically-disruptive surge that typically accompanies a nuclear detonation.
• FTL: Faster Than Light. A descriptive term referring to technologies that enable travel across distances faster than the speed of light would permit.
• GDD: Global Defense Department (CAP: Pilot, et al).
• IFF: Identification Friend or Foe. A system using transponders to positively identify friendly spacecraft (TRS: "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II").
• KIA: Killed in Action (TRS: "Sacrifice")
• LSO: Landing Signal Officer
• MCP: Meta-cognitive processor, used by Dr. Daniel Graystone in the integration of the sentient AI that Zoe Graystone created into the U-87 (CAP: Pilot).
• NCP: New Caprica Police (TRS: "Occupation")
• OD: Overdose (TRS: "Faith")
• OOD: Officer of the Deck (TRS: "Scattered")
• PTF: Playing the Field, an advice column on dating in the Twelve Colonies (The Caprican: "Playing the Field: A Guide to Love in the Colonies", et al).
• RFN: Right Frakking Now (TRS: "Scattered", "Valley of Darkness")
• SAR: Search and Rescue (TRS: "Fragged")
• STO: Soldiers of the One, a monotheistic terrorist organization in existence for more than a decade prior to 58 BCH (CAP: Pilot, et al).
• SU: Distance measurement similar to "astronomical unit". Speculated to stand for "solar unit" (TRS: "The Captain's Hand").
• XO: Executive Officer

Military Jargon

• Actual: the commanding officer. Used in wireless transmissions.
• ball: visual indicator used in a battlestar's Instrument Landing System (TRS: Miniseries, "Act of Contrition", "Final Cut", "Black Market")
• bandit: confirmed hostile contact, typically either or both a fighter and shuttle sized craft (TRS: "Final Cut", "Razor")
• basic: initial skills training; can refer to basic military indoctrination, and arms and ground training (TRS: "Fragged"); and basic flight training (TRS: Miniseries)
• bent bird: damaged fighter craft (TRS: "Occupation")
• bingo fuel: minimum fuel level required to safely return to base (TRS: "You Can't Go Home Again", "Scar")
• bird farm: Colonial pilot jargon for a battlestar (TRS: "Final Cut")
• bug out: retreat, usually hastily and disordered (TRS: "Valley of Darkness")
• callsign: a nickname used as a substitute for an aviator's given name in wireless communications and in conversation
• chatter: to fire on an enemy during a fighter engagement (TRS: "Valley of Darkness"); active wireless communications traffic
• code blue: request for assistance due to potential Cylon agent sighting (TRS: "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II", Podcast:Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II)
• command authority: the senior rank in a command, such as an Admiral (TRS: "Pegasus", "Precipice")
• conn: literally the navigation controls, but also used to refer to command in general (TRS: "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" (TRS: "Pegasus")
• ell-tee: informal phonetic abbreviation for Lieutenant (LT) (TRS: "Valley of Darkness", "Fragged")
• eyeball run: likely refers to targeting or aiming missiles manually, without the use of targeting computers (TRS: "Home, Part I")
• fire team: basic fighting element used in small-unit ground tactics (TRS: "Valley of Darkness")
• five-'graph order: five paragraph operation order, the standard format taught in basic training (TRS: "Fragged")
• genny: power generator. Tyrol asked Cally to "find the genny" to power up the lights on Ragnar Anchorage (TRS: 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 (TRS: "Maelstrom"); adapted from the original definition of minimum safe altitude.
• intra-atmos entry: a jump maneuver that places the ship within a planetary body's atmosphere, in either powered flight (TRS: "Home, Part II") or free fall (TRS: "Exodus, Part II")
• jock smock: flight suit (TRS: "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 (TRS: "Act of Contrition", "Scar")
• Mark One Eyeball: the unaided eye (TRS: "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 (TRS: "The Hand of God", "Maelstrom")
• Old Man: slang for Commander William Adama (TRS: "33")
• press: directive to continue the attack (TRS: "Maelstrom")
• recovery line: imaginary boundary within which a fighter can return to a landing bay within a given time (TRS: "33")
• rook: "rookie". Typically refers to those on their first tour of duty after initial training. (TRS: Miniseries)
• shooter: slang for launch officer (TRS: Miniseries, Night 1)
• Sierra Alpha: "suspicious activity" (TRS: "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" (TRS: "The Captain's Hand")
• sparrow: slang for a Cylon Raider (TRS: "Maelstrom")
• spinner: engineering component of a battlestar's FTL drive (TRS: "The Captain's Hand")
• swallow: decoy drone deployed by Raptors (TRS: Miniseries)
• snipe: engineer (TRS: "The Captain's Hand")
• spooch: Contraction of "screwed the pooch," describing a serious pilot error (TRS: "Scar")
• tally: Abbreviation of tally-ho; the sighting of an enemy target, such as a craft, landmark, or position (TRS: "The Hand of God", "Scattered", "Maelstrom").
• trap: a battlestar landing bay mechanism which arrests a landing Viper, Raptor or other small craft (TRS: "Final Cut")
• Two Alpha: designation for an extremely risky and hence voluntary mission (TRS: "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I")
• turkey: slang for a Cylon Heavy Raider (TRS: "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. (TRS: "Water", "Maelstrom")
• weapons free: weapon control order indicating weapons systems may be fired at any target not positively recognized as friendly (TRS: "Resurrection Ship, Part I")
• weapons hot: weapons status indicating that safeties are off and weapons systems are armed (TRS: "Final Cut")
• wilco: "will comply"

Religious terminology

• Apotheosis: a belief held by members of the STO, including Clarice Willow, with various view points (CAP: "The Reins of a Waterfall"). Willow believes that the STO can prevail if they use Zoe Graystone's program to offer real eternal life to their members in the form of holographic avatars. One of the Hybrids also uses this term during the Fall of the Colonies, stating "Apotheosis was the beginning before the beginning" (TRS: "The Plan").
• temple group: a religious group similar to a "church group". Lacy Rand tries telling a security guard that her temple group missed their flight to Picon. (CAP: "Retribution")
• trinity: a being in three different states; Zoe-R considers herself to be a trinity, as she is "Zoe, and the avatar, and the robot" (CAP: "Rebirth").

Other Colloquialisms

• The Beast: nickname for Pegasus given by Galactica's crew (TRS: "The Captain's Hand")
• Big G: nickname for Galactica
• The Bucket: nickname for Galactica given by Pegasus's crew (TRS: "The Captain's Hand")
• bullet-head: slang for a Cylon Centurion (TRS: "Downloaded")
• clanker: slang for a Cylon Centurion
• chrome job: slang for a Cylon Centurion (TRS: "The Resistance")
• companionway: a set of steps leading from a ship's deck down to a cabin or lower deck (TRS: "Valley of Darkness")
• derez: de-resolve, in which a holographic avatar loses cohesion or is deleted from the Virtual World (CAP: "Pilot", "There is Another Sky", "The Imperfections of Memory", "End of Line", "Unvanquished", "False Labor").
• cube: equivalent of "square," a socially awkward person (CAP: "The Imperfections of Memory")
• Download City: a term used by Diana Seelix to describe the unknown or figurative place where humanoid Cylons are resurrected on New Caprica (TRS: "Exodus, Part I")
• frak: Colonial version of "fuck"
• freight monkey: term for crewmen on Colonial freighters (TRS: "Scattered, deleted scene")
• hard six: taking large risks; literally, rolling 2 threes with a pair of dice
• Heavy: used to signify a civilian transport vessel over a certain gross weight/mass, i.e. Colonial Heavy 798
• skin job: derogatory term for humanoid Cylons. Homage to the movie Blade Runner (TRS: "Downloaded")
• stump: derogatory term for a prisoner in a labor camp (TRS: "Bastille Day")
• toaster: derogatory term for Cylons in general
• toaster shopping: searching and destroying Cylons (TRS: "Valley of Darkness")
• "Go Panthers!" and "C-Bucs Rule": Used as a passphrase between Sharon Agathon and Samuel Anders respectively (TRS: "Exodus, Part I")

Battlestar Galactica Specific Terms

• ambrosia: a type of alcoholic beverage
• carom: term used in conjunction with a DRADIS contact read; analogous to the term "mark"
• chamalla: a hallucinogenic plant used in religious ceremonies and medical treatments
• cubit: unit of currency
• Dradis: Colonial equivalent of radar. Technically an acronym for "Direction, Range, and Distance"
• fumarella leaf: tobacco or a type of tobacco (TRS: "Water")
• G-4: a type of explosive similar to modern C-4 (TRS: "Water")
• JP: a unit of measure for liquid, approximately 1 pint (TRS: "Water")
• krypter: Colonial version of "mayday". In practice, the term is usually repeated three times (TRS: Miniseries, "Hero")
• morpha: Colonial equivalent of morphine (TRS: "Valley of Darkness", "Epiphanies")
• Pyramid: popular Colonial ball game
• Red Line: a point in space behind which an accumulative error creeps into FTL jump calculations (TRS: Miniseries, "Pegasus (Extended Version)")
• stims: stimulants or a type of stimulants (TRS: "33", "Final Cut")
• Triad: card game similar to Poker
• tylium: mineral that can be refined to a powerful fuel
• wireless: Colonial equivalent of radio