Miniseries, Night 1

After 40 years of peace with their creations, the Cylons, humanity finds itself a victim of a genocidal attack.

"Miniseries, Night 1" An episode of the Re-imagined Series
Special Episode
Writer(s)	Ronald D. Moore Christopher Eric James
Story by	Glen A. Larson
Director	Michael Rymer
Assistant Director
Special guest(s)	See Night 2 of the Series
Production No.	Pilot
Nielsen Rating	3.2 (Night One)
US airdate	8 December 2003
CAN airdate	{{{CAN airdate}}}
UK airdate	17 February 2004
DVD release	28 December 2004 US 1 March 2004 UK
Population	survivors
Additional Info
Episode Chronology
		Next
	Miniseries, Night 1	Miniseries, Night 2
Related Information
Continuity Errors Present – View
[[IMDB:tt{{{imdb}}}|IMDb entry]]
Listing of props for this episode
Related Media
			@ BW Media
Promotional Materials
Online Purchasing
Amazon: Standard Definition | High Definition
iTunes: [{{{itunes}}} USA]

Backstory

• The Cylons were created by the Colonials as a labor and military force. Approximately 52 years prior, the Cylons turned on their human creators and the Cylon War ensued. After an armistice was declared, the Cylons left the Colonies, apparently to form a homeworld of their own.
• The Colonials maintain the Armistice Station as a place where Cylon and Colonials can maintain diplomatic relations. However, the Cylons have never sent a representative. No one has seen an Cylon since the end of the Cylon War.

Summary

• At the Armistice Station, the Armistice Officer, with pictures of his family on his desk, is dozing off when the unexpected happens: Two Cylon Centurion senter the station and take guard at the Cylon entrance. These Cylons appear familar to the expected Cylon Centurion Model 0005, but are distinctively taller and more menacing.
• The Colonial officer is further surprised with the entrance through the Cylon entrance of what appears to be a strikingly beautiful human female. Instead of sitting at the negotiation table, the woman walks over to the officer in a seductive fashion, leads over to his face to examine him, and asks, "Are you alive?"
• The woman kisses the Colonial officer when the station shakes from the impact of a Cylon missile, fired from a basestar , a massive fortress that dwarfs the tiny station.
• The woman restrains the officer. "It has begun," she says as she forcefully kisses him as the Armistice Station is destroyed.
• Some distance from the colony of Caprica, Battlestar Galactica, one of the last relics from the Cylon War, is preparing for its decommissioning ceremony. Instead of being scrapped, the ship is slated to be turned into a museum.
• Aaron Doral, a P.R. representative for the government, provides a tour of the battlestar to the press as life goes on in the battlestar. Kara Thrace jogs through the corridors.
• Commander William Adama prepares his speech for the ceremony. Lieutenant Gaeta, the ship's Watch Officer, notifies him of various bits of Fleet housekeeping news, including a request asking any available battlestar to visit Armistice Station, as the officer there is overdue from his mission there. Adama notes that the decommissioning ceremonies that day would make Galactica a bit too busy to aid there.
• The hangar deck crew, led by Galen Tyrol, gives Adama a parting gift for the retiring battlestar and its commander. The crew has found and refurbished Adama's old Viper Mark II from the Cylon War, and has readied it for flight. Specialist Prosna also gives Adama a picture from the Colonial Fleet archives that shows a young Adama with his two sons, Lee Adama and Zak Adama. When Adama sees the picture, he appears shaken. Adama's youngest son was killed two years before, which has caused a rift in his relationship with his older son, a captain in the Colonial Fleet.
• Famed scientist Gaius Baltar gives a remote television interview with reporter Kellan Brody at his home. While Baltar speaks in the interview, a woman enters his home with the familarity of someone who has entered the home many times. The woman looks exactly like the blonde woman seen on the Armistice Station.
• Baltar and the young blonde woman have sexual intercourse. As she gyrates atop Baltar, the spine of the young woman glows a bright red color.
• On Caprica, Secretary of Education Laura Roslin sits in a doctor's office. The doctor arrives with grim news. She has breast cancer and it has spread aggressively.
• Roslin later boards the government-chartered civilian transport, Colonial Heavy 798 as the government representative that will attend Galactica's decommissioning ceremonies. She is joined by a government aide, Billy Keikeya, who briefs her on the events. Roslin, however, is too distracted by the news of her illness to fully absorb Keikeya's notes.
• Later, Baltar and his blonde girl friend discuss the success of his Command Navigation Program. He boasts that her involvement with the project should help her later in future work with the government, but the woman tells him cryptically that future government work wasn't the reason for her help. She leaves Baltar to meet another person, whose identity is not shown.
• Lieutenant Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, a Viper pilot, is locked in the brig after striking Colonel Saul Tigh, who starts a fight during a card game.
• Captain Lee "Apollo" Adama arrives in his Viper Mark VII as part of the decommissioning ceremonies. He appears ambivalent about his role, given the rift between he and Commander Adama, his father. He questions the use of manual landings for Galactica, which Chief Tyrol explains as standard procedure on the old battlestar.
• Colonial Heavy 798 arrives. Secretary Roslin meets with Commander Adama, who denies her request to add a student computer network in the battlestar. Unlike her sister battlestars, Galactica has a tradition where its commanders have never allowed networked computers in the ship.
• The next morning, Baltar's young blonde woman ejects another woman that Baltar is found in bed with, and tells the man the truth of her existence, and her mission. She explains, to Baltar's disbelief, that she is a Cylon agent that has used him to access critical Colonial Fleet facilities to, among other things, compromise his CNP. When Baltar becomes upset, denies involvement and reaches for his phone to call his lawyer, the blonde woman tells Baltar not to worry, since in a few hours, no one will be alive to accuse him of any crime. The flash of a distant nuclear explosion appears outside Baltar's scenic windows.
• Commander Adama completes his address at the decommissioning ceremony. Just before, Captain Adama and the last Viper squadron flew overhead the port flight pod, where the new museum is located and the ceremonies take place.
• As Colonial Heavy 798 flies back to Caprica, passengers and crew hear news that the Colonies are under attack. The chaos and intermittent wireless contact make confirmation of the news difficult. Captain Lee Adama flies escort with the starliner in his father's old Viper.
• Commander Adama is notified of the attacks by Lt. Gaeta and calls the battlestar to action stations. Most of the crew are caught off guard; very few of them have ever assumed battlestations except in drills, especially on a battlestar that hasn't any usable weapons or even a Viper squadron remaining aboard.
• Commander Adama tells his crew of the attack, and that Admiral Nagala, on battlestar Atlantia is leading the attack after Picon Fleet Headquarters was destroyed.
• On Caprica, the young blonde explains that she cannot die, and that her consciousness will download into a new body. She also tells Baltar that there are twelve human Cylon models: She is "Number Six." The Cylon protects Baltar as a shockwave from a nuclear bomb rips through Baltar's home, destroying it.
• Galactica's last Viper squadron, led by Jackson Spencer, enroute to Caprica for reassignment, receives the attack news and moves to intercept a Cylon fighter group. As their support Raptor, piloted by Lt. Sharon "Boomer" Valerii, moves away, Spencer moves his group into attack range. The Vipers find only two newly-designed Cylon Raiders, but before the Vipers can attack, the Cylons access the backdoor programming of the Vipers' CNP and disable every Colonial fighter. The Cylons launch missiles and obliterate the squadron while Boomer's Raptor retreats, the Cylons in pursuit.
• Communications officer Anastasia Dualla receives disturbing news that many battlestars are suffering complete system shutdowns as they attempt to attack the Cylons.
• With no ordinance for the main guns, Commander Adama orders the deployment of the museum-based squadrons of Viper Mark IIs from the museum. Soon after, the Cylons find Galactica and engage. While the battlestar performs evasive maneuvers, the Vipers attack. Unlike the newer Mark VIIs, however, the older Mark II Vipers cannot be compromised by the Cylons.
• Starbuck manages to down two of three nuclear-tipped missiles launched by a Raider, but a third strikes Galactica in her forward port flight pod, causing severe fires and internal damage. The battlestar is safe from immediate Cylon attacks, but is now in a slow uncontrolled spin.
• Chief Tyrol and Captain Aaron Kelly work from the Damage Control console to control the damage, but it is too severe to manage. Colonel Tigh orders decompression of sections of the flight pod to prevent the battlestar's fuel lines from being caught in the flre, which would destroy the ship. The decompression works, but 85 crewmembers are killed in the process.
• Boomer and Helo, her ECO, manage to shake off two Cylon missiles, but not without damage. They make an emergency landing on Caprica for repairs. The planet is surrounded by basestars and the wreckage of battlestars and fighters.
• On Colonial Heavy 798, Laura Roslin succeeds in confirming the news of Caprica's plight. After informing the starliner's passengers officially, she manages to contact a fellow official about the attack, including the whereabouts of President Richard Adar. Before she can get more news, a Cylon missile is detected approaching the ship. Captain Adama is able to decoy and destroy the missile, but his Viper is disabled and soon recovered in 798's cargo bay.
• Boomer and Helo are surrounded by Colonial citizens desperate to get off the planet. They create a lottery to save a few people, including a child named Boxey. Realizing that Gaius Baltar is in the crowd, Helo gives up his seat on the Raptor so that the scientist can join Galactica, believing that Baltar was more important than a mere Raptor ECO.
• The battle continues to go very badly for the Colonials. Adama tells the crew that many battlestars have been destroyed, including Admiral Nagala's. As the only senior officer remaining, Commander Adama assumes fleet command and issues orders to all Colonial Fleet to rendezvous at Ragnar Anchorage for counterattack preparations. The depot also may hold desperately needed munitions for the unarmed battlestar.
• Colonial Heavy 798 discovers an automated government message. Laura Roslin instructs the pilot to respond to the message with her government identification. Soon, a response returns from the automated message: Roslin is the only government official alive, and is now assigned the duties of President of the Twelve Colonies by emergency succession. Roslin immediately begins rescue operations of civilian vessels that are stranded around Caprican space.
• Colonial One rescues Boomer's Raptor and offloads her survivors.
• Later, as Roslin's transport, renamed Colonial One, begins a rescue of several civilian ships, two Cylon Raiders launch nuclear missiles at the Colonial ships. Roslin refuses to leave the area, but Lee Adama activates Galactica's old electric pulse generators stored in Colonial One's cargo hold.
• Galactica Actual was in communication with Colonial One and is able to get a remote telemetry of the attack. Their telemetry picks up what appears to be a nuclear explosion as the signal disappears. Commander Adama mourns the less of another son, but orders that jump preparations to Ragnar continue.

Questions

• What happened to the Cylons over the course of their 40 year exile?
• What events transpired that made the Cylons hate their human masters? When did this occur?
• Where is the Cylon homeworld?

Spoiler follows, highlight to read.
Recently, in Now Playing Magazine, Moore is quoted, "another major thing that’s going to happen in the third season is we’re going to do an ongoing Cylon story where we’re going to be cutting over to the Cylon world for the first time and running a complete arc within the Cylon." [1] The exact meaning of this is unclear, as 'world' can actually mean the Cylon homeworld itself.

Analysis

See the series article, Battlestar Galactica (RDM), for analysis of the miniseries and the central differences between the Re-imagined miniseries and the Original Series.

Noteworthy Dialogue

• Adama's Speech at Galactica's Decommissioning Ceremony:

The Cylon War is long over, yet we must not forget the reasons why so many sacrificed so much in the cause of freedom. The cost of wearing the uniform can be high, but --

Sometimes it's too high.

You know, when we fought the Cylons, we did it to save ourselves from extinction. But we never answered the question, why? Why are we as a people worth saving? We still commit murder because of greed, spite, jealousy. And we still visit all of our sins upon our children. We refuse to accept the responsibility for anything that we've done.

Like we did with the Cylons. We decided to play God, create life. When that life turned against us, we comforted ourselves in the knowledge that it really wasn't our fault, not really. You cannot play God then wash your hands of the things that you've created. Sooner or later, the day comes when you can't hide from the things that you've done anymore.

Related Topics

• Soundtrack (Miniseries)
• Battlestar Galactica: The Lowdown (Miniseries)
• The Miniseries novelization

External Links

• Miniseries at scifi.com
• Battlestar Galactica Miniseries at IMDB.com

Re-imagined Series definition: in military parlance, directive to continue the attack; otherwise used to refer to journalists ^{(TRS: "Maelstrom")}

Re-imagined Series definition: used to signify a civilian transport vessel over a certain gross weight/mass, i.e. Colonial Heavy 798

Galactica 1980 definition: Troy attempts to use a phone booth near a gas station prior to their first run-in with Jamie Hamilton ^{(1980: "Galactica Discovers Earth, Part I")}.

Re-imagined Series definition: operating system on military and civilian ships exploited by the Cylons ^{(TRS: "Miniseries, Night 1")}

crew member handling electronic countermeasures of a craft; ECOs are standard crew aboard Raptors (see: ECO)