Battle for the Tylium Asteroid

Battle before: Skirmish over the Red Moon
Battle after: Battle of Kobol

Apollo flying away from the Cylon tylium mine as it begins to explode
Battle of the Tylium Asteroid
Conflict	Second Cylon war
Date	Day 36
Place	Asteroid field in interstellar space, specific location unknown
Result	Colonial victory. Resupply of Tylium ore for fuel reserves.
Combatants Remnants of the Colonial Fleet Cylons Commanders Commander William Adama Unknown Strength Battlestar Galactica 2 Raptors, pilots Boomer, Stubbs Strike Force One: At least 7 Vipers, incl. Fireball, Hot Dog Strike Force Two: 12 vipers, incl. Apollo, Stepchild, Chuckles 140 Raiders Fixed anti-aircraft emplacements Casualties 4, incl. Fireball, Stepchild, Chuckles Complete destruction of Cylon forces

Battlestar Galactica and her fleet are in desperate need of refueling and liberate a tylium ore refinery from the Cylons. (The Hand of God)

After exhausting much of its fuel reserves from its initial fleeing from the Cylon forces (33) and after a difficult rescue of Kara Thrace (You Can't Go Home Again), Battlestar Galactica sent its Raptors to outlying star systems in search of the mineral tylium, used as a fuel for all ships in the fleet.

They locate an asteroid rich with tylium, but also occupied by the Cylons and fortified with Raider squadrons to defend it. Adama decided to take the asteroid with a daring plan, utilizing the unconventional thinking of the recovering Kara Thrace to lead the attack plan and pilot Lee Adama to lead the Viper crews.

Galactica pulls a double-feint; it first used a cargo freighter to lure the Cylons, which soon saw a squad of Vipers that were approaching the asteroid from the opposite location. The Cylons believed the freighter to be a diversion.

Shortly after they broke off their approach to the freighter and turned to engage the first wave of Vipers, a second squad of Vipers emerged from hiding from inside the freighters to attack the base. When they reach the surface and begin their approach of the refinery, the Vipers encountered heavy anti-aircraft fire that destroyed 4 of the fighters. Lee Adama commanded the other fighters to hold back as he successfully flew through the refinery processing area to destroy the unstable tylium-precursor container on the refinery's surface.

The destruction of the tylium-precursor container ignited the refinery's stores and destroyed the entire Cylon base with an explosion equivalent to a three kiloton nuclear warhead in magnitude. This made the Cylon Raiders incredibly disoriented and directionless, as well as unable to re-arm or refuel. Galactica and her Vipers proceeded to destroy any remaining Cylon Raiders with ease, before they could alert reinforcements.

Subsequently, ships from the civilian fleet mined a large amount of tylium from the asteroid (gathered by the mobile Mining Ship and processed on a Refinery Ship). This resulted in the remnant of the Colonial fleet led by the Galactica gaining enough tylium fuel reserves to last for several years.

As the entire first season of "Battlestar Galactica" actually took place in less than two months, this means that that Fleet probably won't run into another fuel shortage for the rest of the series' run (barring some form of accident).

Re-imagined Series definition: mineral that can be refined to a powerful fuel, see: tylium

Original Series definition: a highly combustible fuel (see: tylium) ^{(TOS: "Fire in Space")}