- For the frequently-used counterparts to lightspeed in the Re-imagined Series, see Propulsion in the Re-imagined Series.
Lightspeed is the term for a Colonial battlestar accelerating to the speed of light or faster. No other ship in Galactica's rag-tag Fleet had lightspeed ability, so normally the battlestar moved no faster than the slowest ship in the Fleet during its exodus from the destroyed Twelve Colonies.
Commander Cain brings Pegasus to lightspeed in order to outflank Baltar's attack force, though Cain earlier commented that such a maneuver would result in using half of Pegasus's fuel (The Living Legend, Part I).
Commander Adama orders Colonel Tigh to take Galactica to lightspeed, despite Tigh's objections that suggest that it had been some time since the battlestar was ordered to accelerate that fast (Experiment in Terra).
Sublight Spacecraft in the Original Series
In the Original Series, Battlestar Galactica was the only spacecraft in the refugee Colonial fleet with lightspeed ability (Experiment in Terra). Normally, Galactica would only travel as fast as the slowest sublight vessel in its rag-tag Fleet. Unlike its Re-imagined counterpart, however, Galactica apparently accelerated to lightspeed through its engines and did not perform any hyperdimensional movement.
Note
While the Re-imagined Series attempts to ground its technology to plausible theories regarding apparent FTL travel, the Original Series was less scientific. The mechanism and theory of lightspeed travel in the Original Series was never explained.