Great Cylon Turkey Shoot
More languages
More actions
| Great Cylon Turkey Shoot | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Powered down Raider fleet being massacred by Galactica's Vipers | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Summary | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Conflict: | Second Cylon war | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Date: | Roughly two weeks after Day 84 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Related Episode(s): | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Place: | Interstellar space, specific location unknown | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Result: | Decisive Colonial victory | ||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||
| [[Colonial battles chronology ({{{series}}})|Battle Chronology]] | |||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||
The Great Cylon Turkey Shoot was a battle in which battlestar Galactica turned the Cylon's own computer virus against them to completely power down a massive fleet of hundreds of Raiders and Heavy Raiders in a reversal of the Cylon's use of it in the Fall of the Twelve Colonies.
For several weeks, Galactica suffered system failures and malfunctions throughout the ship. Watch Officer Lieutenant Gaeta and Dr. Gaius Baltar determined that the Cylon virus which infected the ship shortly after the Fleet reunited (Scattered) and downed several ship functions for a time (Valley of Darkness) had returned. Apparently the virus had a latent element that hid itself, slowly emerging throughout ship computers, testing and probing for weaknesses and vulnerabilities.
Lt. Karl Agathon then showed analysis of the virus to the incarcerated Caprica copy of Sharon Valerii, who determined that this logic bomb was a prelude to a Cylon attack. They determined a way to remove the bomb by erasing all ship computer hard drives, then reloading the computers from backups made before the war. However, this would leave the ship completely vulnerable for several minutes. If the logic bomb was "detonated", the virus would likely turn Galactica against itself and her fleet.
Commander Adama elected to use Caprica-Valerii to aid them. She interfaced her body to the ship's mainframe and communication systems via a fiber-optic link placed inside her left forearm. A massive Cylon force arrived to attack, and all Vipers were scrambled. As Galactica erased its hard drives, Valerii apparently copied the logic bomb code into herself and manipulated it. She released the altered code through the communication channels, transmitting it to the Cylon attackers. In an amazing reversal of historic events, the entire Cylon fleet was disabled as Caprica-Valerii's version of the virus disabled every Cylon ship, much like Colonial ships were shut down by the Cylons during the Fall of the Colonies. Many out-of-control Cylon ships were destroyed simply from crashing into each other.
Commander Adama and Colonel Saul Tigh ordered Galactica's Vipers to destroy all of the disabled Cylon fighters. Galactica's Vipers proceeded to tear through the jumbled Cylon formations, destroying the disproporationately larger Cylon force in its entierty, without losing a single Colonial ship in the process (Flight of the Phoenix).
The presence of numerous Heavy Raiders (troop transport vessels, never before seen in such numbers) indicates that the Cylons intended to board Galactica and possibly other ships in the Colonial fleet after the virus had rendered the battlestar helpless.
Notes
- According to Ron D. Moore's podcast for "Flight of the Phoenix", this battle was specifically inspired by the "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot" of World War II. This page is named in light of that reference.
- Number of Cylon Raiders present was given on the Scifi.com official site's episode description.
- Visually, there are at least 42 Vipers on screen, but there is a strong possibility that this is a visual effects mistake: Apollo said in "Act of Contrition" that there were only 40 Vipers left. On top of this, several Vipers have been lost since then (see Galactica). The current count leaves only 34 Vipers: 1 lost in "Act of Contrition", 4 lost in "The Hand of God", and 1 lost in "Final Cut". This doesn't take into account Tyrol's retirement of unserviceable craft, worn down by wear and tear. Furthermore, Galactica is severely limited by the number of pilots they have on hand - in this episode, no more than 22.
- RDM admitted in an interview (see "Flight of the Phoenix") that this was probably a visual effects gaffe. Number of Vipers was thus more probably 34 at the most.
- Interestingly, the Blackbird appears in the Great Cylon Turkey Shoot, yet the Blackbird had not been finished by the time the Cylons were disabled.