Action stations

Ship alerts on battlestar Galactica are known as action stations. These alerts are given to prepare Colonial battlestar crews for battle. The alerts are typically by voice as well as by a klaxon in the following format:

"Action stations, action stations. Set condition one throughout the ship. This is not a drill."listen

The three states of readiness are:

Condition One: Attack is present, or imminent. This alert places the ship at its highest state of readiness. All crews go to their combat posts. Bulkhead doors are closed in case of decompression. Additional Viper pilots are scrambled to supplement the Combat Air Patrol and flight support crews man their stations. The CIC is locked down and the ship's Commander is on station.

Condition Two: Threat probable, but not present. Crew readiness is somewhat more relaxed than full readiness, and crewmen actually take sleep shifts (which is impossible in Condition One, as seen in the episode "33").

Condition Three: This is the "all clear" alert, returning crews to their normal, day-to-day non-combat duties after Conditions One or Two. This is normal cruising during wartime. Weapons are partially manned, but the ship is at less than full readiness.

Notes

• Condition One and Two are similar to the famous "Red Alert" and "Yellow Alert" used throughout the Star Trek television series.
• The three known Conditions seem to follow the same Condition template that the US Navy (USN) does for Conditions One to Three. Ron D. Moore has been known to base much of the terminology in the Colonial Fleet on real-world terminology from the USN. If the Action Station system is the same in both, "Condition Four" would be normal peacetime cruising (which we may never see because they have been living "in wartime" since the Miniseries), and "Condition Five" would be normal peacetime condition while in port.
• The term "Action Stations", a term from the Royal Navy, is equivalent to "General Quarters" in the USN. Both replace the outdated "Battlestations."