Ragnar Anchorage

Ragnar Anchorage (credit: Zoic Studios, 2003)

Ragnar Anchorage is a Colonial munitions dump suspended in the upper atmosphere of the gas giant Ragnar (Mini-Series).

When the Cylons launch their surprise attack on the Twelve Colonies, battlestar Galactica was caught without any munitions for her main and point-defense batteries, having dumped them as part of her decommissioning ceremonies prior to the battle. Colonel Tigh determines that Ragnar Anchorage offers the best opportunity for re-arming the ship, even though it is some 3 days' travel from Galactica's position at sublight speeds. His decision may well be based on the sound reasoning that the Anchorage, suspended in the stormy upper atmosphere of the planet Ragnar, offers Galactica the best opportunity to re-arm while reducing the risk of the Cylons finding them and renewing their planned attack before the ship can defend herself. The Colonial Fleet learned that the atmosphere of the planet Ragnar emitted a kind of radiation that adversely affected Cylon technology and cloaked ships residing within the storm.

While at Ragnar Anchorage, Galactica obtains enough munitions to completely re-arm her guns, and she also collects a number of Class-D warheads. Her crew also encounter Leoben Conoy, posing as an arms trader, who eventually gives the Colonials their first discovery of humanoid Cylon infiltrators.

While at Ragnar, Galactica is joined by a civilian fleet of survivors gathered by new President Laura Roslin. When they arrive, Adama is persuaded to alter his original plan to bring Galactica into the fight against the Cylons into one of flight, protecting the fleet as they make a Jump from Ragnar, heading for the Promar Sector, well beyond the "Red Line".

Notes

To minimise the time needed to get to Ragnar, Commander Adama orders Galactica's FTL drive systems prepared for use, which prompts a comment from Tigh that an FTL jump hasn't been made in some 20 years. However, given the fact that so many vessels within the fleet are FTL-capable, and the jumps are undertaken with considerable accuracy (Galactica arriving precisely in synchronous orbit above Ragnar Anchorage station, for example, suggest this cannot be the case. Rather, it may be the case that Tigh was referring to Galactica's FTL drive systems not having been used in 20 years.

Another possible explanation could be that, given the strong gravity well and electromagnetic field that a gas giant such the one at Ragnar would possess, plotting a jump to emerge at close proximity to the Anchorage would be an extremely risky measure only to be undertaken in emergency situations.

The name "Ragnar" is used allegorically by the show writers to remind the viewer of Ragnarok, the apocalyptic battle of the gods of Norse mythology.

The destruction of Galactica's munitions was shown in a deleted scene of the Mini-Series DVD set as part of the decommissioning ceremonies.

See Also

The Battle of Ragnar Anchorage details the battle and provides links to successive Cylon encounters.

Re-imagined Series definition: technology enabling travel across distances faster than the speed of light would permit, see: FTL

Re-imagined Series definition: the process of using the FTL engines to make an near-instantaneous apparent faster-than-light transport of a ship from one point in space to another