| Battle for the Tylium Asteroid | |||||||||||||||||||||
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| Apollo flying away from the Cylon tylium mine as it begins to explode | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Summary | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Conflict: | Second Cylon war | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Date: | Day 36 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Related Episode(s): | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Place: | Asteroid field in interstellar space, specific location unknown | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Result: | Colonial victory. Resupply of Tylium ore for fuel reserves. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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2 Raptors, pilots Boomer, Stubbs Strike Force One: At least 7 Vipers, incl. Fireball, Deadbolt, Spinner, Buzzer, Hot Dog Strike Force Two: Viper 2220, Viper 7961, 10 other Viper Mk IIs140 Raiders Fixed anti-aircraft emplacements"
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| [[Colonial battles chronology ({{{series}}})|Battle Chronology]] | |||||||||||||||||||||
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The Battle of the Tylium Asteroid was a battle which occured when Battlestar Galactica and her fleet were in desperate need of refueling and liberated a tylium ore refinery from the Cylons, marking the first time that Galactica stopped simply running from the Cylons, but turned around to make an offensive strike (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 located 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 pulled a double-feint; it first used a cargo freighter to lure away the Cylon Raiders, 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 and turned the Raiders away from the freighter to descend on Galactica, as well as releasing all of their base's reserve Raiders to attack Galactica as well.
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 began their approach of the refinery, the Vipers encountered heavy anti-aircraft fire that destroyed 3 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, and subsequent space travel between this episode an the colonization of New Caprica lasted less than 8 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).