Acronyms[edit]
- AAU: Anti-aircraft Unit, a weapon emplacement used to destroy aerial units (Fragged)
- BSG: Battlestar Group (Water)
- CAG: Commander Air Group, i.e. the senior pilot
- CAP: Combat Air Patrol
- CBDR: Constant Bearing, Decreasing Range, i.e. a collision course (Final Cut, Pegasus)
- CF: Colonial Fleet (Final Cut)
- CFR: Colonial Fleet Reserve (Final Cut)
- CIC: Combat Information Center
- CMC: Colonial Marine Corps (Final Cut)
- CMCR: Colonial Marine Corps Reserve (Final Cut)
- CMO: Chief Medical Officer
- CNP: Command Navigation Program. Central computer program used on Colonial Fleet vessels (Miniseries)
- CO: Commanding Officer
- DC: Damage Control
- ECO: Electronic Countermeasures Officer
- EMP: Electro-Magnetic Pulse; typically accompanies a nuclear explosion
- FTL: Faster Than Light
- IFF: Identification Friend Foe (Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II)
- LSO: Landing Signal Officer
- OOD: Officer of the Deck (Scattered)
- RFN: Right Frakking Now (Valley of Darkness)
- SAR: Search and Rescue (Fragged)
- XO: Executive Officer
Military Jargon[edit]
- Actual: the commanding officer. Used in wireless transmissions
- Bird Farm: colonial pilot jargon for battlestars
- ball: visual indicator used in a battlestar's Instrument Landing System (Miniseries, Act of Contrition, Final Cut)
- code blue: a term used by an officer who has identified a Cylon agent (Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II)
- conn: literally the navigation controls, but also used to refer to command in general (The Captain's Hand)
- fire team: a small unit of military personnel, typically Marines or soldiers (Valley of Darkness)
- five-'graph order: five paragraph operation order. A basic command tool taught to officer candidates (Fragged)
- genny: power generator. Tyrol asked Cally to "find the genny" to power up the lights on Ragnar Anchorage (Miniseries)
- klick: one kilometer
- knuckle dragger: inoffensive slang for a mechanic
- nugget: a pilot in training (Act of Contrition, Scar)
- Mark One Eyeball: the unaided eye (You Can't Go Home Again, Scar)
- Old Man: slang for the commanding officer
- rook': "rookie" (Miniseries)
- Sierra Alpha: "suspicious activity" (Scattered)
- sitrep: "situation report"
- swallow: decoy drone deployed by Raptors (Miniseries)
- snipe: engineer (The Captain's Hand)
Other Colloquialisms[edit]
- beast, the: nickname for Pegasus (The Captain's Hand)
- Big G: nickname for Galactica
- bucket, the: nickname for Galactica (The Captain's Hand)
- bullet-head: slang for a Cylon Centurion (Downloaded)
- frak: Colonial version of "fuck"
- freight monkey: term for crewmen on Colonial freighters (Scattered, deleted scene)
- 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 (Downloaded)
- stump: derogatory term for a prisoner in a labor camp (Bastille Day)
- toaster: derogatory term for Cylons in general
- toaster shopping: searching and destroying Cylons (Valley of Darkness)
Battlestar Galactica Specific Terms[edit]
- ambrosia: a type of alcoholic beverage
- carom: term used in conjunction with a Dradis Contact read; analogous to the term "mark"
- chamalla: hallucinogenic plant used in religious ceremonies and medical treatments
- cubit: unit of currency
- Dradis: Colonial equivalent of radar
- fumarella leaf: tobacco or a type of tobacco (Water)
- G-4: a type of explosive similar to modern C-4 (Water)
- krypter: Colonial version of "mayday" (Miniseries)
- morpha: Colonial equivalent of morphine (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 (Miniseries, Pegasus (Extended Version))
- stims: stimulants or a type of stimulants (33, Final Cut)
- Triad: card game similar to Poker
- tylium: mineral that can be refined to a powerful fuel
- wireless: radio