Aft damage control

The door of Aft Damage Control.

The Aft Damage Control room presumably controls shipboard bulkheads, vents, and other life-sustaining aspects on Galactica. In the event of fire or other hazards, the room could be used to adjust controls that manage fires or prevent smoke and other toxins from permeating the remainder of the ship. It is likely that this room is used only if the command crew in CIC are dead or incapacitated, or unable to perform the D.C. task from CIC's Damage Control station.

It is unclear in Valley of Darkness if 06-B9 AFT DAMAGE CONTROL is a computer, or if it just refers to the closet where manual controls for life-support are - or perhaps it's just a closet with some lights in it.

Colonel Saul Tigh knew from experience that the use of such damage control rooms was a Cylon Centurion boarding tactic (TRS: "Valley of Darkness"). By gaining control of these rooms, a Cylon could vent the atmosphere of a battlestar into space, suffocating the crew, or open bulkheads and airlocks to eject the crew into space. The Cylons would also attempt to control Auxiliary Fire Control to use the battlestar's own batteries against other Colonial ships--in this case, to fire on the civilian Fleet.

Captain Lee Adama and others are able to stop two Centurions from accessing Aft Damage Control while other crew elsewhere are able to stop the assault on Auxiliary Fire Control (TRS: "Valley of Darkness").

Notes

• In a deleted flashback scene from "Valley of Darkness", Saul Tigh trades stories from the Cylon War with William Adama, and reveals where he got his knowledge about the Cylons' tactics. When Tigh served on the Brenik Centurions boarded the ship and a vicious battle for its control ensued.

• In Razor, Admiral Cain also shows knowledge about the exploitation of these backup Damage Control systems as a Cylon tactic when she recognizes Secondary Damage Control as being the likely target of a Centurion boarding party on Pegasus during the original attack on the Scorpion Fleet Shipyards and orders Fisk to immediately dispatch the Emergency Response Team directly to their version of backup damage control system similar to Aft Damage Control on Galactica - it isn't mentioned how much of Pegasus this damage control station has access to or if it is an improvement on the much older Galactica system, but it seems be a necessary Battlestar design feature and is capable of shipwide atmospheric venting, making Human control of Pegasus nearly impossible and killing any of her crew not in pressurized suits and helmets

• It is rumored that AFT DAMAGE CONTROL was later used as a joke among the Galactica crew in that every time something bad happened anywhere on the ship, they would say how angry the AFT DAMAGE CONTROL closet was going to be when it found out.