Pegasus (TRS)
- For the second-season episode, see Pegasus (episode). For the Original Series Pegasus, see Pegasus (TOS).
Pegasus is a Mercury class battlestar commanded by Admiral Helena Cain, that was stationed at the Scorpion Fleet Shipyards during the Cylon attack. Presumed lost with the rest of the Colonial military fleet, Pegasus actually managed to escape the destruction of the Colonies when Cain ordered a blind jump. While saving the battlestar, about 700 of her crew died in the initial attack. Although the Pegasus was advanced enough to have the Command Navigation Program which the Cylons used as a backdoor, Pegasus had just checked in for a three-month refit at the time of the Cylon attack, and as such, almost all of its networked computer systems were offline.
At some point, a Cylon infiltrator was discovered onboard - a woman named Gina. She killed seven men when apprehended, and was then incarcerated, brutally interrogated and gang-raped by many of the crew.
After the Fall of the Twelve Colonies, Pegasus occupied itself with hit-and-run attacks on various Cylon assets. It participated in a bold assault on a staging area filled with fifteen squadrons of Raiders. When Cain's long-time Executive officer expressed hesitancy to launch the ships' fighters against such odds, Cain publically executed him on the bridge and promoted Colonel Jack Fisk to replace him. This, according to Colonel Fisk, who told this story (and later recanted) while drunk to Colonel Tigh, which Tigh believed to be true when he recounted it to Commmander William Adama.
Some time later, Pegasus discovered that a Cylon fleet it was tracking appeared to be following a specific target. The battlestar accidentally encountered the fleet led by sister battlestar Galactica when Pegasus jumped ahead to scout the Cylon target. Cain assumed command of the fleet and began transferring supplies and many personnel between the two battlestars, including Captain Lee Adama and Lieutenant Kara Thrace. Cain appeared unconcerned with the needs of the civilians and their ships, a problem noted to Commander Adama by President Laura Roslin.
Chief Tyrol mentioned during his interrogation by Colonel Saul Tigh that he served aboard a number of battlestars in his military career, including Pegasus (Resistance). If Admiral Cain ever knew him during this time, she made no mention of it, and had no reservations sentencing him and Karl Agathon to death when they inadvertently killed Lieutenant Thorne, Cain's chief "Cylon interrogator". William Adama, commander of Galactica, refused to permit the execution, precipitating an armed standoff between the two ships (Pegasus).
Notes
According to David Eick's video blog, it would have been impossible to afford creating new sets for the entire interior of Pegasus on the budget of an episodic television show. This expense was circumvented when a year beforehand Ron D. Moore and David Eick bought (for next to nothing) the abandoned sets of the failed pilot for the FOX network's "Lost In Space" remake, directed by John Woo. The production team then held onto the sets hoping to find some later use for them, until later using them for Pegasus. The sets were then radically redesigned and painted to give them the aesthetic look of Galactica, but sleeker and more advanced.
Links
- Pegasus (from Wikipedia)