Battlestar Galactica Frequently Asked Questions

General questions relating to Battlestar Galactica

Questions relating to the episodes and the Battlestar Galactica universe

Questions relating to books, periodicals and Internet resources

Questions relating to the show's creators and stars

The Galactica bridge was estimated at $850,000. The computer hardware giant Tektronix donated $3 million worth of high tech computer hardware to dress up the set. Television monitors totaling $35,000 were used. The six-foot long model of the Galactica, which weighed 60 pounds, cost $50,000. In 1990, this model was restored for the purpose of a Battlestar Galactica display at Universal Studios Florida, in Orlando. 35 Cylon Centurion costumes, at $3,400 a piece, were created.

Some of the costs are very visible in the episodes themselves, including "Lost Planet of the Gods," part of which was shot on location with doubles at the Egyptian ruins at Luxor. In many ways, the special effects (especially in the premiere) surpass those of Star Wars.

Prior to the lawsuit, Fox had leased its soundstage and John Dysktra's special effects personnel to Universal. The agreement was beneficial to both parties, for Dykstra's Industrial Light and Magic, later renamed Apogee, was not working on any projects at the moment. To not infringe on the prerogatives of Star Wars, Glen Larson had an agreement with Star Wars producer Gary Kurtz not to do several things in the Galactica series, including laser streaks coming out of the pistols.

George Lucas himself had seen the first three hours of Galactica and informed Variety that he did think that Galactica infringed on the prerogatives of Star Wars, but that since the property was owned by Fox, he couldn't be a party to the suit if he wanted to. However, according to Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas, 20th Century Fox initiated the first lawsuit at the urging of Star Wars creator George Lucas. One Universal executive remarked at the time that this was like the first Western movie ever made suing the second. One possible reason for the lawsuit was Universal's decision to release the premiere theatrically in Canada, the same summer 20th Century Fox had planned to rerelease Star Wars.

Universal countersued, claiming that R2D2 was based on the Huey, Duey and Louie robots in its 1973 release, Silent Running (Universal lost the countersuit in 1980.) In response, Fox filed a suit attempting to prevent marketing of Galactica toys and merchandise. Universal countersued, asking Fox for damages because of a violation of the California business and professional code. The lawsuit that started it all was decided on August 22, 1980, when Los Angeles Federal court judge Irving Hill ruled in Universal's favor, stating that the two films were very different when viewed as a whole. Glen Larson commented on the differences between the two in Science Fantasy Film Classics (October 1978):

Battlestar Galactica is quite different. When it comes to who are our characters and what our story is, I would have to say that if you were trying to compare Shane to Gunfight at the OK Corral, you'd say, "Yes, they're both westerns," but I doubt if you'd find many parallels beyond that.

The second unrelated lawsuit concerns the December 31, 1978 death of a four year old boy in Atlanta after the misuse of one of the Galactica toys. The child aimed a Colonial Viper toy into his mouth and launched one of the projectile missiles, inadvertently choking himself to death. On January 11, Mattel issued a recall order for the Viper and three other vehicles. It also issued a missile mail-in for those who had had already purchased a missile-firing version of the toys. In exchange for the little red missiles, Mattel provided a Hot Wheels toys, "for the loss in play value." Mattel redesigned the vehicle line to have non-firing missiles.

The boy's death triggered a national outcry to remove projectiles from all toys. On March 23, the boy's parents sued Mattel. The judge presiding over the case singled out Star Wars space toys as the culprit (which upset Lucas very much.) The controversy had an impact on Kenner's Star Wars' toy line, as it delayed the shipment of its Boba Fett dolls. The action figure -- whose character would star in The Empire Strikes Back sequel -- was part of a mailaway offer on the backs of other Star Wars figurines. Although Boba Fett's original design and promotion included a rocket-firing backpack, this mechanism was removed from its design. No rocket-firing Boba Fett's ever rolled off the line, and only a handful of the unpainted prototypes exist.

One of the earliest names associated with the project was the renowned science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. Just prior to Galactica's cancelation, Asimov had agreed to work as an advisor on a story bible for Galactica's second season (which would never be.) In an interview in Epi-Log Journal #14 (Spring 1994), Glen Larson explained Asimov's association with Galactica 1980:

In our talks with Asimov, we discussed a lot of ideas, and none of them had anything to do with discovering Earth. That was just sort of a hype that made it possible for us to get in business with ABC again. It was all to attract that young seven o'clock audience.

Adama reprised the role as Commander, and Boomer is now Colonel, taking over the role played by Tigh. The remainder of the cast was entirely new, as most of the original crew were unavailable at the time of its filming. In fact, the roles for Troy and Dillon were originally written for Starbuck and Apollo. Xavier's role was originally written for Baltar (as president of the Council of the Twelve!) Why did the Galactica discover Earth? According to Larson, "we needed an event and certainly, Galactica discovering Earth was an event that would bring people back to the tube for a fresh sampling." (Starlog #36)

Three factors, however, were stacked against Galactica 1980's favor. They were working with a whole new cast, at a vastly reduced budget, and FCC regulations stipulated that the time slot (7 PM Sunday EST) was to be set aside for younger audiences. Kent McCord ("Troy") discussed some of these problems in Starlog #162:

ABC felt it was too good an idea to let go. They really wanted to make it work, but they needed a way to economize, and so, when they came up with the idea for Galactica 1980, they decided to let us find Earth so they wouldn't have to spend much money on sets. Glen's idea was to do something along the lines of The Day the Earth Stood Still, in which Barry Van Dyke and I were these peacemakers who come to Earth with the knowledge and powers to create either a peaceful or warlike situation. I felt a show with that premise was really worth doing.

ABC jumped back into it and started demanding that we put kids in the show so that we could attract a young audience. I told anybody who would listen that we made Adam 12 in a way that kids picked up on it without having to do things to attract a kid audience. But the network wouldn't listen, and I felt, by the time it got to the point where we saw alien kids playing baseball ["Spaceball"], that much of the show's original premise had been stolen from us.

McCord and others believed that the response to the pilot had guaranteed Galactica 1980 as a regular series in the Fall 1980 lineup. However, ABC wanted the series rushed into production just three weeks after the pilot episode aired. One Galactica 1980 writer, who wished to remain anonymous, remarked in Starlog #37 (August, 1980):

I have the greatest amount of respect for Glen Larson. The fact that Galactica 1980 made it on the air at all is a tribute to that man's dedication and hard work. He was up against incredible odds. The audience reaction to the three-hour "Galactica Finds Earth" movie was tremendous. And ABC made a wonderful decision -- do a series. But they wanted it in three weeks. There was no time for preproduction, which can mean death for a science fiction show.

The same writer revealed that during the filming of the episodes, one would have seen scripts being written during filming, several episodes being aired at the same time, scenes shot on Friday and Saturday to air on Sunday, with production costs close to the original $1 million per hour. As McCord recalls:

There was one day that was just nuts. We were shooting on a soundstage with about 50 extras, and they came down at noon with eight pages of dialog and told us we had to learn these pages and be on another soundstage at 4 PM to shoot scenes from another episode that had nothing to do with the scenes we had been shooting. It was a mess.

Since then there have been separate failed attempts to revive the series -- Glen Larson / Todd Moyer (2000), Tom DeSanto / Bryan Singer (2001), along with a trailer produced by Richard Hatch (2000) which he has shown at science fiction conventions. Richard Hatch has been agitating to revive the series since at least 1994, when it was first revealed that he had written a trilogy of Galactica scripts. He has since put out several Galactica novels including Armageddon (1997), Warhawk (1998), and Resurrection (2001). Tom DeSanto's project -- a continuation of the existing storyline -- was actually in preproduction in Vancouver when it was shut down in the wake of the 9/11 tragedy in New York. As a result, he lost his main director as well as financing from the Fox network, and Studios USA chose a different creative team to revive the property, that of producers David Eick and Star Trek scribe Ronald D. Moore.

There are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the universe, with tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians, or the Toltecs, or the Mayans. That they may have been the architects of the great pyramids, or the lost civilizations of Lemuria or Atlantis. Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man who even now fight to survive far, far away, amongst the stars.

From the regular episodes:

There are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the universe, with tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians, or the Toltecs, or the Mayans. Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man, who even now, fight to survive, somewhere beyond the heavens.

An all-new narration was used in Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack:

In the seventh millenium of time, a tribe of humanoids engaged in a terrifying conflict against a race of machines. The humans lost. Now, led by their last surviving warship, the mighty Battlestar Galactica, a handful of survivors moves slowly across the heavens in search of their ancestral brothers, a tribe of humans known through ancient records to be located somewhere on a distant shining planet, a planet called Earth.

The end narration was spoken by Lorne Greene (Adama):

Fleeing from the Cylon tyranny, the last Battlestar, Galactica, leads a rag-tag, fugitive fleet, on a lonely quest -- for a shining planet known as Earth.

Regular Cast

The twelve human Colonies in space bore names that are easily recognizable on Earth... Caprica, Gemoni, Canceria, Piscon, Sagitara, Leo, Libra, Aquaria, Virgon, Aeriana, Taura, Scorpio -- all are similar to the names that Earth humans have given to the constellations visible in their night sky, the only twelve that the star appears to pass through during the span of a year.

Our recorded history tells us we descended from a mother civilization [Kobol], a race that went out into space to establish colonies. Those of us here assembled now represent the only known surviving Colonists, save one. A sister world, far out in the universe, remembered to us only through ancient writings... I wish I could tell you that I know precisely where it is, but I can't. However, I do know that it is beyond our system, in a galaxy very much like our own, on a planet called... Earth.

The Book of the Word described the journey of the tribes of Man away from Kobol.

After their home planet Kobol was known to be doomed, the people set forth across a Great Void, which seemed endless until a bright shining star appeared as if from nowhere and guided them to safety.

After passing through the Void -- a seemingly endless magnetic sea -- the Galactica, guided by a bright star, rediscovered the lost planet of Kobol. Lucifer called the Void a magnetic abyss and a navigational inferno. Baltar, perhaps quoting from scripture, described it as "the endless black Void and the majestic star in the heavens."

We did not initiate a conflict with the Cylons until we helped our neighbors, who the Cylons wish to enslave. And until we helped the Hasaris get back their nation, taken by force by the Cylons.

Thus began the thousand-yahren war. Why were the Cylons willing to exterminate some races, like the humans and the Delphian Empire, when they were willing to subjugate others like the Ovions? According to Adama:

They hate us with every fiber of their existence. We love freedom, we love independence -- to feel, to question, to resist oppression. To them, it's an alien way of existing they will never accept.

On Carillon in the premiere, Apollo explained the Cylons to Boxey:

It's not what we did to them [which began the Cylon war]. It's what they fear we could do. They're not like us. They're machines created by living creatures a long, long time ago... a race of reptiles called Cylons. After a while the Cylons discovered humans were the most practical form of creature in this system. So they copied our bodies, but they built them bigger and stronger than we are. And they can exchange parts so they can live forever... There are no more real Cylons. They died off thousands of yahrens ago, leaving behind a race of super-machines, but we still call them Cylons.

A dialog between Count Iblis and the imprisoned Baltar in "War of the Gods" suggests a more sinister theory behind the original Cylons demise, that the biological Cylons made a pact with Count Iblis before their machine servants overthrew their masters and spread out across the universe.

Baltar: I know you.
Iblis: Do you?
Baltar: I remember that voice, the voice of the Cylon Imperious Leader.
Iblis: The Cylon is a machine.
Baltar: Now. But once they were a race of beings who allowed themselves to be overcome by their own technology.
Iblis: And when did this happen?
Baltar: A thousand yahrens ago, at the onset of the thousand yahren war against the humans.
Iblis: And for my voice to be the voice of Imperious Leader, it would have to be transcribed into machine leader a thousand yahrens ago. I'd have to be a thousand yahrens old.

In "The Man with Nine Lives," the Maitre D' made a reference to "before the War," indicating that for many people, it referred only to the final intensification of the conflict, something that was relatively recent. The attack on the Thorn Forest on Caprica in 7322 in Starbuck's youth was one of the first times in living memory that the Cylons had directly attacked a Colony. This was the environment under which the Cylons "sued for peace" prior to the peace conference at Cimtar.

There are several kinds of Cylons seen in Battlestar Galactica:

Imperious Leader - The leader of all the Cylons, Imperious Leader is the only Cylon who physically resembles the original biological Cylons.

Cylon Centurions - A humanform Cylon warrior. Most Centurions have silver armor, though senior officers, such as Vulpa from "Gun on Ice Planet Zero," have golden armor.

IL-series Cylons - Lucifer and Spectre are IL-series Cylons, and resemble walking light bulbs. These Cylons are more intelligent then Centurions, and have personalities. The current Imperious Leader is also an IL-series Cylon. The phrase is a play on words for John Dykstra's Industrial Light and Magic, which provided special effects for Galactica's initial episodes.

Civilian Cylons - The Cylon outpost on Gamoray in "The Living Legend, Part II" introduces for the first time several new types of Cylons, in addition to the first three.

In a conversation with Apollo, Commander Adama suggested that Count Iblis and the light entities are members of an advanced civilization. He speculated that they could in some way have been responsible for the original founding of Kobol.

Adama: The ancient ones, the Lords who first settled our Kobol, spoke of visitations from what they in their primitive way referred to as angels.
Apollo: Angels...
Adama: Think of them as custodians of the universe, advanced beings, very highly advanced, whose mandate it is to make certain that their powers are never abused by any one of their own kind.
Apollo: And they're watching him [Iblis], meaning he's one of them.
Adama: Or was.

Answering questions from Starbuck and Sheba aboard the Ship of Lights, they revealed their nature and mission to him:

Sheba: I think maybe we're dead.
Starbuck: Is that right? We're dead and you're angels?
Entity: Oddly enough, there is some truth to your speculation.

And later on:

Starbuck: Why are you doing all this?
Entity: Because we fight a common foe, the forces of darkness and evil throughout the stars.
Starbuck: But why are you bothering with us? We come from a simple handful of human survivors.
Entity: Because, as you are now, we once were. As we are now, you may become.
Starbuck: When?
Entity: After you've seeded and nurtured new civilizations, after you've evolved.
Starbuck: On Earth?
Entity: Perhaps.
Starbuck: Will you show us the way?
Entity: Perhaps we can give you a beginning.
Starbuck: And what about Count Iblis, is he one of you?
Entity: He now uses his powers to corrupt and lead others away from the truth.
Sheba: Why can't you stop him?
Entity: Because we cannot interfere with freedom of choice. His, yours, anyone's.

Even Count Iblis is bound by these laws. In his final confrontation with Apollo on the red planet, Apollo revealed his true identity:

Apollo: You command no one who does not willingly give you dominion. You have no power over me.
Iblis: You know who I am.
Apollo: Yes, I finally know. Sheba, think back to the ancient records. The names Mephistopheles, Diabolis, the Prince of Darkness.

In this same scene, Iblis promised to return:

Iblis: There will come another time, another place we will meet again.

Members of this mysterious race include John ("Experiment in Terra") and Angela (from Galactica 1980's "The Return of Starbuck.")

• Borays - Pig-like race who ride in herds
• Borellians - Warrior-like race, not unlike Star Trek's Klingons
• Delphians - Centered on Gamoray, once a "society of 50 million beings"
• Hasaris - The Cylon-human war began when the humans took the Hasaris' side
• Orions - Trading partners of the Colonials
• Ovions - Insectivoid six-armed inhabitants of Carillon
• Tucanas - Four-eyed, two-lipped hermaphrodite race, the "Space Supremes"

1. Time units and their closest Earth equivalents

• micron(s) - second
• centon (sen'-tawn) - minute
• centar, centares (sen'-tar, sen-tar'-ays) - hour
• secton(s) (sek'-tawn) - week
• yahren (yah'-rain) - year
• millenium - 1000 years

It's Love, Love Love

CHORUS
It won't matter where you go
It won't matter what you do
'Cause something's always after you
It's love, love, love, love
It's love, love, love, love
It's love, love, love, love, love

You run, you can't get away
If you go or if you're staying
'Cause love is here, love is there
Love is almost everywhere

CHORUS

There will be another beat
One you may not tire of singing
Love surrounds you, love's around you
Love is almost everywhere

CHORUS

In an interview in Starlog #138, John Colicos (Baltar), discussed the evolution of the Baltar character between the two versions of the premiere:

Initially, I was only going to be in the pilot. Then, Glen [Larson] decided he liked the character and the work that I was doing, so he decided to keep Baltar as a running character. He redirected the pilot's final scene himself, so that when the sword came down to cut me head off, he stopped it at the last second and I was spared if I would betray the human race.

Here is one view of how Cain survived the assault, from Justin Collins (see Battlestar Galactica Digest #7):

I always thought the Pegasus survived at the end of "The Living Legend." The Pegasus sustained considerable damage at the hands of the Cylon fighters before Baltar ordered them to break off the attack. However, when Starbuck and Apollo asked about the damage, Cain said she (the Pegasus) would be ready to do the job. By the time the Pegasus reached the basestars the fire was put out. Cain had also ordered the ship to proceed at "full speed" to intercept the basestars and for its electronic defense shields to be brought to "maximum power." Judging from the dialog leading up to the final battle, I think the Pegasus was battle worthy by the time it reached the baseships.

Starbuck and Apollo inflicted considerable damage on the weapons systems of the two basestars before they could cause the Pegasus serious harm. Remember when they knocked out the flank missile launchers on both basestars?

I don't recall a chain reaction blowing up the second basestar. My copy of LL shows a close-up of the weapons panel on Pegasus bridge after the first basestar was destroyed, followed by a second volley of missiles being launched at the remaining basestar. I agree with Starbuck, Cain probably jumped to light speed and headed into deep space just like he did before.

You have agreed on three tests of my strength. The first is to deliver your enemy [Baltar]. The second is to accurately plot your course to Earth. The third you cannot agree on. Some of you want to know who I am, where I come from. The others are satisfied to accept me because of my works and are willing to follow me blindly providing I guarantee your safety.

Apollo: Everything is pretty well vaporized. Whatever hit this thing must have had the power of a sun.

Apollo stops dead in his tracks, looks down. He seems to shutter.

Apollo: Starbuck!

Starbuck looks over and sees the sober look on Apollo's face. He moves over and looks down as Apollo begins to put on some tight fitting gloves. A piece of metallic surface, highly scorched but out of which protrudes a foot-like extremity, except that it's tip is clearly in the shape of a cloven hoof. Apollo and Starbuck exchange heavy looks. Apollo bends down and tries to life the metal. As they lift it off, tossing it aside, they grimace in horror. Under the wreckage is the figure of a devil, a demon.

The networks decided to drop the scene with the cloven hoof for two reasons. The scene might be scary to younger audiences, and there were religious implications behind the scene (i.e. "satanic".) For audience members, the absence of the scene wrongly suggested that the warriors had peered inside the wreckage of Commander Cain's Battlestar Pegasus. As Count Iblis told Sheba, "Your father, you will see him again."

The Galactica sent out a Viper patrol to investigate the local system, which passed by the first three planets. Starbuck investigated the third planet, where he passed what looked like Earth's moon to find a dead planet. Hiding behind that planet was a Cylon basestar.

The Viper patrol found five planets in fairly widespread orbits. The first planet was a giant, composed of 80% compressed hydrogen and 12% helium. The second planet was almost entirely composed of compressed carbon dioxide gas. The third planet had no atmosphere, just barren rock. Contrasted to our own solar system, our first four planets are in relatively close orbit, and Mercury, our first planet, is small, with almost no atmosphere.

The transmissions did not come from the local system, but from another, whose time and distance from the Galactica is unknown. In short, it is unknown therefore how near or far the Galactica was from Earth.

[ Incidentally, there is an 11 year gap between the Apollo moon landing and the time frame of Galactica 1980, yet the show itself is based on the assumption that there is a 30 year gap between the discovery of Earth and the destruction of the Colonies. ]

If I have my way, Galactica 1980 would certainly be Starbuck's nightmare, and we'd go back to the original concept. I guess if Dallas could turn a whole season into a dream we could make Starbuck wake up in the middle of the night after having had a nightmare about discovering Earth.

More likely, he argued, the series could be explained away as a computer projection of what the discovery of Earth could be like if they're not careful, not unlike the simulated Cylon attack sequence in the Galactica 1980 pilot.

It should nevertheless be taken as given that the Galactica would eventually find its destination. Earth's location was revealed to the Galacticans in "War of the Gods":

Earth -- quadrant alpha, 19 million sectars by Epsilon vector 22 on a circular reckoning course of 000 point 9 in a star system of nine plants and one sun.

If the transmissions of the Apollo moon landing in the "Hand of God" are to have any meaning, it is that the Galactica was certainly on the right track.

In the three-hour premiere, "Galactica Discovers Earth," the Galactica had at last found Earth (c. 1980). Unfortunate for Adama and company was the discovery that the Cylons had been following them all across the galaxy. The Galactica found Earth's technology was so backward that colonization of Earth would be impossible, until Earth could raise it to a level where it could defend itself against the Cylons.

One plot element involved Galacticans contacting Earth's top scientists to help Earth bring its technology up to the Galactica's standards. An additional time travel element involved Xavier, who traveled back in time to help out Nazi Germany's rocket plan in his attempt to improve Earth technology. These elements were generally ignored in the short-lived series that followed.

The remainder of the episodes were disappointing at best, hindered by both its time slot and lower budget. Themes ranged from pollution ("The Super Scouts") to racism ("Space Croppers"). Another storyline had Cylons crashing in New York on Hallowe'en ("The Night the Cylons Landed"), and even costarred Wolfman Jack. One of the ongoing storylines had a group of super-powered children from the Galactica stranded on Earth. Their "powers" were a result of Earth's lower gravity, and the super-kids used them to their full extent to win a baseball game in "Spaceball."

The only memorable episode in the series was its final one ("The Return of Starbuck"), which revealed the origin of Dr. Zee and his connection with Starbuck.

The show closely follows the plot of Barry Longyear's novella Enemy Mine, which is a science fiction retelling of the 1968 war film Hell in the Pacific. In it, Starbuck and Cy are forced to help each other for mutual survival. After Starbuck cheats at pyramids, Cy runs off, and later returns with the body of a pregnant woman, Angela. In the course of the show, Angela delivers her child (the future Dr. Zee), and Starbuck and Cy put together parts from both the Raider and Viper to send the mother and child (the future Dr. Zee) off to safety.

At the end of the episode, another Cylon Raider lands on the planet, and its three occupants start attacking Starbuck. Out of loyalty to his new friend, Cyrus confronts and kills two Cylons, and in the process, he himself is destroyed. Starbuck finishes off the third Cylon, and is once again alone.

Does Starbuck escape? On his own, probably not. In "The Hand of God," it is revealed that Cylon raiders require a minimum of two pilots to ride it. Unless Starbuck revives one of the Cylons (perhaps Cyrus), or jury-rigs the Raider to run with one pilot, Starbuck will remain stranded.

[ One of the unfilmed scripts of Galactica 1980, "Wheels of Fire", revolves around the idea that Starbuck, found "worthy" in this episode, is rescued by Angela and the Ship of Lights (from "War of the Gods"), and that he becomes an angel himself. ]

1. In Battlestar Galactica, twelve tribes of man founded the Twelve Colonies after departing from Kobol. A lost thirteenth colony colonized Earth. In The Book of Mormon, around 600 BC, the prophet Lehi took a remnant of the tribe of Joseph from Jerusalem to ancient America, during the time of the Babylonian captivity and the scattering of the twelve tribes of Israel.

2. In "Lost Planet of the Gods," it is revealed that the mankind originated on Kobol, the mother world of all humans. Kobol is a rearranging of the word Kolob, which is the star "nearest unto the throne of God" (see The Book of Abraham, Ch. 3, found in The Pearl of Great Price.) The "Star Kobol" was also the ship on which armistice talks between the Colonials and the Cylons were held.

3. The episode "War of the Gods," with starred Count Iblis and the Ship of Lights, introduces viewers to various elements of LDS teachings. The universe is under the law of Free Agency: "We cannot interfere with freedom of choice. His, yours, anyone's." Even Count Iblis (Satan) is bound by these laws, for he has only control over those who had "freely given him dominion." Those who accepted Iblis' words were willing to follow him blindly provided he guaranteed their safety. According to the Mormon account of creation (The Book of Moses, Ch. 4, found in The Pearl Of Great Price), one of the reasons God cast Satan out of heaven was because he "sought to destroy the agency of man."

4. The beings on the Ship of Lights are highly evolved brothers of man, and may also have founded Kobol. The phrase "As you are now, we once were; as we are now, you may become" is a rewording of a quote from Lorenzo Snow: "As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become." This is an important component of the doctrine of Eternal Progression. According to LDS beliefs, all humans are children of God, who is Himself an exalted man. By following God's laws, a believer can enter the path to godhood.

5. In their sealing ceremony, Adama sealed Apollo and Serina with these words: "A union between this man and this woman not only for now but for all the eternities." In a Latter-day Saint temple marriage, a couple is sealed for "time and all eternity."

6. There is a similarity in the political structures of the Colonies and the Latter-day Saint church. Both bodies have a Council (or Quorum) of the Twelve, and a President.

7. In the Galactica 1980 episode "The Super Scouts," Dillon uses the phrase "The glory of the universe is intelligence," a rewording of a passage in Doctrines and Covenants #93: "The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth." In "Experiment in Terra," aboard the Ship of Lights, the "angel" John tells Apollo "I have no physical body, as you know it." Apollo, pointing to John's "body", asks him "What do you call that?" "A reflection of intelligence. My spirit, if you will." Later on in "The Super Scouts," Dillon remarked that he was admiring "this choice land." This is a variation of the Book of Mormon description of the Americas "This land is choice above all other lands" (1 Nephi, Ch. 2 et al.)

The words "Fuck Off" can be clearly seen spelled out in the lights of Caprica about thirty minutes into the [pilot] movie. Watch closely just after Serina's news broadcast is cut off by the sound of laser fire. The next scene shows four Cylon fighters swarming over the city and when the third fighter reaches the center of the TV screen, the offending words can be seen to its immediate right. They are even clearer in the Battlestar Galactica photonovel published by Berkley.

1. Official Publications

In total, Berkley/Ace released fourteen Battlestar Galactica pocket books. The first ten were adaptations of the episodes, and the last four were all new stories. They are all out of print. If you are lucky, your local used book store may have a some on their shelves.

Glen Larson is credited as coauthor on all fourteen books. The list of authors includes: Robert Thurston¹, Michael Resnick², Nicolas Yermakov³ and Ron Goulart⁴.

Here is the Berkley book list and the episodes they adapt:

BOOK	ADAPTS	YEAR
Battlestar Galactica1	Battlestar Galactica pilot	1978
BG 2: The Cylon Death Machine1	"Gun on Ice Planet Zero"	1979
BG 3: The Tombs of Kobol1	"Lost Planet of the Gods"	1979
BG 4: The Young Warriors1	"The Young Lords"	1980
BG 5: Galactica Discovers Earth2	Galactica 1980 pilot	1980
BG 6: The Living Legend3	"The Living Legend"	1982
BG 7: War of the Gods3	"War of the Gods"	1982
BG 8: Greetings From Earth4	"Greetings from Earth"	1983
BG 9: Experiment in Terra4	"Experiment in Terra", "Baltar's Escape"	1984
BG 10: The Long Patrol4	"The Long Patrol"	1984
BG 11: The Nightmare Machine1	(new)	1985
BG 12: "Die, Chameleon!"1	(new)	1986
BG 13: Apollo's War1	(new)	1987
BG 14: Surrender the Galactica!1	(new)	1988

2. Battlestar Galactica: The Photostory (Berkley, 1978)

3. The Official Battlestar Galactica Scrapbook (Grosset & Dunlap, 1978), by James Neyland

Released the same time as the series, this book is an invaluable resource on the show and its creators and stars.

4. Encyclopedia Galactica: From the Fleet Library Aboard the Battlestar Galactica (E.P. Dutton, 1979), by Bruce Kraus

A short illustrated encyclopedia of persons, places and things from the Galactica universe. Poorly edited, and with some conflicts with the series (especially the timeline). Pleasant illustrations.

5. The Battlestar Galactica Storybook (G.P. Putnam, 1979)

An illustrated storybook of the premiere. Excerpts of text from the pilot novelization by Robert Thurston.

6. Stan Lee Presents: Battlestar Galactica (Ace, 1978)

Pocket book version of Marvel Super Special #8 comic adaptation.

7. Stan Lee Presents: Battlestar Galactica Vol. II (Ace, 1979)

Pocket book version of issues #4-#6 of Marvel's BSG comic.

8. The Official Battlestar Galactica Blueprints (Today Press)

Ten blueprints of the Battlestar Galactica, Colonial Vipers, Basestars and Cylon Raiders.

9. Battlestar Galactica Soundtrack - 25th Anniversary Edition (Geffen 0249861180, originally MCA 3051)

Reissued in 2003, this is the 25th anniversary edition of the original soundtrack, and also includes a disco version of the main theme. For years it was also available as an import CD from Germany (Edel TSC 104-2). In 1999, Varèse Sarabande re-recorded their own version with the Scottish National orchestra (VSD 5949).

10. The Stu Phillips Anthology: Battlestar Galactica (SPCD 01/04)

Special 4-CD collection of episode theme music, by Stu Phillips, released in 1996.

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