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Battlestar Galactica

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. 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 somewhere beyond the heavens...

At the end of a long, genocidal war between the twelve colony worlds of humanity and a race of robots called the Cylons, there finally appears to be a hope for peace. But the supposed end of the war is nothing more than a trap; humanity is almost completely wiped out when Cylon treachery (and a human traitor) catches them almost completely unawares. The survivors gather together to form a "rag-tag fleet" of refugees under the protection of the last remaining battlestar (the humans' most powerful class of space battleship), and flee Cylon-controlled space. Their goal is a legend — a lost thirteenth colony world, known as "Earth", which they hope can help them stand against the pursuing cybernetic enemy.

Television's first attempt to cash in on the popularity of Star Wars (and it was so obvious that Lucasfilm sued). Originally called Adam's Ark, this 1978 Glen Larson production fused a Wagon Train To The Stars gimmick to an unhealthily large dose of Von Danikenite "Ancient Astronauts" atmosphere and a dash of Mormon theology. The result was a Space Opera with unsupported pretensions to a Myth Arc that was noteworthy for a number of television firsts: first ripoff of Star Wars, first SF series set in a spacecraft with sets that didn't look like they were built from cardboard and drywall, first TV series to cost a million dollars per episode, and the first primetime series to recycle Stock Footage so much that everyone noticed it. It also had the requisite annoying kid, a robot dog played by chimp in a suit, and every fighter pilot stereotype you ever saw in an WWII movie (but IN SPACE!).

Although its first few episodes showed a certain amount of promise, the series quickly descended into a series of one Planet Of Hats after another, many of them merely recycled plots from popular westerns. Its viewership ratings were high, but the TV Network executives of the time had not yet embraced the notion of a million-dollar-an-episode series, so it was cancelled after one season. Then it was promptly resurrected as Galactica 1980. This revival proved grossly unpopular and was cancelled after only a handful of episodes. To this day, fans of the original series prefer to treat Galactica 1980 as though it had never existed, and novels and comics based on the original series continuity ignore it.

(Scroll down for the re-imagined series)

This show provides examples of:

The Cylons were created by man. They rebelled. They evolved. They look - and feel - human. Some are programmed to believe they are human. There are many copies. And they have a plan.

Twelve Cylon models. Seven are known. Four live in secret. One will be revealed.

In 2003, the Sci-Fi Channel revived the program in a four-hour miniseries, followed in 2005 by a regular series which ran four seasons before concluding in 2009. The new program, considerably darker and more adult-themed than the original, discarded the original series continuity and retooled many of the main characters while keeping many of the original show's themes and technology. Despite initial protests from fans of the original series (including original series star Richard Hatch, who had long hoped to relaunch the series and reprise his role as Apollo), the new series quickly became one of the most popular programs in Sci-Fi's history. Even Hatch eventually changed his tune, joining the show's cast as political dissident Tom Zarek.

The 2000s series picks up forty years after the end of the first war between the humans and Cylons, in this continuity sentient machines created as soldiers by the human race. As the story begins, the Cylons, now led by a group of artificial humans, launch a surprise nuclear attack that obliterates almost the entire human race. Like the original series, the survivors form a fleet led by Galactica in search of the lost thirteenth colony, Earth, with the subversion that whether Earth even exists or not is completely unknown to the fleet. Religious symbolism and revelation play a great role in the new series, as the fleet follow signs and omens that may lead them to Earth while wondering whether or not they're just wasting their time. The polytheistic religion of the humans, based on classical Greek/Roman mythology, also comes into conflict with the monotheistic, vaguely Christian faith of the humanoid Cylons, with the occasional dropped hint that both groups are receiving revelation from the same source. After more than three years of searching, , "Earth" is revealed to be a real place, and the fleet arrives and sets foot on it - only to find that it has been depopulated by a nuclear war fought between an earlier generation of artificial humans and their mechanical slaves. In the end, this Earth also turns out to be real, the fleet arrives and sets foot on it 150,000 years in our past, and 'Colonial' humans, Cylons, and ancient man interbreed to become the forebears of the modern human race.

The new series has been favorably compared to Babylon 5 and Firefly for its character-driven storylines and for attempting to portray space physics in a realistic manner despite the occasional excess. It has even been the subject of a panel discussion at the UN.

The newer series avoided some obvious space opera cliches (such as Space Clothes, Teleporters And Transporters, Lasers, even communicators).

This series has a character sheet.

Notable trope-based episodes in the remake include:

Tropes used by the remake in general are:
  • A Form You Are Comfortable With: The messengers.
  • A God Am I ( What the Cavil model known as John wants to be and why he hates the Final Five for giving him a human form.)
  • Absent Aliens: Edward James Olmos said early on that he would quit the show if aliens started showing up.
    • Arguably this premise is violated in the finale when you add some Fridge Logic in the equation. The proto-humans on (our)Earth evolved independantly. Compatible as they are, they are not the same species as the Colonial Humans. Result: Either the proto-Humans on Earth or the Colonial Humans (who originated from Kobol) should be considered "aliens". Ridiculously Human Aliens but aliens nevertheless.
      • And then Edward James Olmos quit.
  • Absentee Actor (The various non main cast Cylons and a few humans are absent in some episodes due to the large cast and budget constraints.)
  • Acting For Two ('copies' of the Cylon models, significantly Boomer/Athena and Gina/Caprica-Six/Natalie; but just plain mysterious with hallucinatory Head-Six and Head-Baltar.
  • Adam And Eve Plot (Helo and Athena have some parallels when they conceive Hera, the first (known) Cylon/Human Hybrid, after the Fall of Caprica. In the finale, it's revealed that Hera is "mitochondrial Eve," the person from whom all modern day humans are descended. Which is true, but Not In The Way The Writers Think It Means.
  • Affably Evil (The Cavils, at least during their early appearances. As the series progresses they become more evil and less affable.)
  • AI Is A Crapshoot (The Cylons rebelled and fought humanity. Then the Final Five came to help the Cylons overcome the endless cycle of violence. They built the Cavils, who exterminated one of the other models, sealed away the memories of his creators while sending them to live amongst humanity so they will learn Humans Are Bastards, very likely instigated the subjugation of the metallic Cylons and spearheaded the plan to exterminate humanity, and has most definitely been at the forefront of putting down any potential opposition to the plans to wipe out humanity, with the boxing of the 3s, the Raider lobotomies, and the Cylon Civil War, which paved the way to the permanent destruction of many of the 2s, 6s, and 8s.)
    • All this will happen to us if we aren't nice to our AIs!
  • Angel Unaware: Implied to be the entities behind the hallucinations of the "Head people." Mostly Baltar's virtual Six, but also Six's virtual Baltar, Leoben and Dreilide Thrace and Socrata Thrace to Kara, Elosha to Roslin, and possibly even Lampkin's cat...)
  • Anyone Can Die (And how can they ever.)
    • Almost every recurring and secondary character had been killed off by the end of the show, presumably so the minimum amount of people would get closure, not to mention a happy ending.)
  • Anvilicious while morally ambiguous enough to avoid being preachy, The War On Terror subtext is far from subtle.
  • Ancient Astronauts
  • And Then What?: Apollo to Zarek in Bastille Day.
  • Apocalypse How
  • Arc Words ("All this has happened before, and will happen again".)
  • Artificial Gravity
  • Ape Shall Never Kill Ape (Part of the Cylons Cultural Posturing about why they are better than Humanity. To begin with anyway. They're also full of it. Especially Cavil.)
  • Artificial Human (The Cylons)
  • Ascend To A Higher Plane Of Existence ( Starbuck in season 3, though she doesn't realize it until the finale)
  • Attempted Rape (Cally and Sharon, although it's tragically averted, in the sense of being actual rape, in Sharon's case in the deleted/extended scene. Good thing it's not canon.)
  • Author Filibuster (The very end of the finale; All of this has happened before, and will happen to us if we aren't careful with our technology.)
  • A Wizard Did It (God was behind it all. Yes, that God.)
    • You know it doesn't like that name...
  • Back From The Dead ( Kara Thrace was killed, then mysteriously returned (complete with a shiny new Viper). Then Long after Ellen Tigh was killed by her husband for collaborating with the cylons on New Caprica, it turns out she was a cylon herself and shortly resurrected on a base ship, where she's been for the past 18 months.)
    • Not to mention all the Cylons who are killed, but those don't really count because of their resurrection technology.
  • Back Story (Quite a lot)
  • Bathroom Stall Of Overheard Insults (How Baltar got to be Vice President. Guess it should be Overheard promotions)
  • Beard Of Sorrow (Saul Tigh, Galen Tyrol, and William Adama on New Caprica. Gaius Baltar during his trial. Adama had a mustache but it followed the trope exactly the same.)
  • Becoming The Mask (What happens to Athena when she impersonates Boomer in the first season)
  • Being Good Sucks (And how! Then again, Being Evil Sucks too. Just ask Cavil.)
  • Beta Couple (Helo and Athena to Apollo and Starbuck, although the problems they face are on a whole different level)
  • Bi The Way (The female Cylons, at least. Also Gaeta.)
  • Big Applesauce (The ruins of the first Earth. Plus, the final scene takes place in modern Times Square.)
  • Big Bad ( The Cylons Cavil is closer to it than anyone else.)
  • Big Damn Villains (Gina does humanity a favor by shooting Admiral Cain.)
  • Bloodless Carnage (Averted, people get covered in blood after the slightest of injuries, most notably the characters on Kobol who are still bloody in the 3rd episode of the 2nd season from a raptor crash in the penultimate episode of the previous season.)
  • Brain Uploading (the Cylon means of immortality)
  • Break Out The Museum Piece: The Galactica was in the process of being converted into a museum when the Cylon attack caused it to be pressed back into service. Also, the fact that Cylons can disable linked computer systems means that cutting-edge ships and fighters are useless against them, so older ones have to be used.
    • At least until they adapted the newer ships at later points in the series.
    • Hilariously, Edward James Olmos actually breaks a museum piece in an awesome bit of adlib acting.
  • Break The Cutie (Boomer. Things just take a downward turn for her in the first season and the series keeps running with it until the inevitable snap. Arguably, this has happened to any female of either race, even driving one into suicide)
    • Then again, this basically happens to everyone, female or otherwise. After all, it's a pretty dark show.
      • The Earth arc is essentially a Break The Cutie attempt against the audience.
  • Cain And Abel ( The Ones/Cavils wiped out the Sevens/Daniels because their parents favored them)
  • Call A Rabbit A Smeerp (DRADIS, "carom", "krypter krypter krypter")
  • Captains Log
  • Capulet Counterpart (Athena was an agent for the Cylon race. Then she met Helo...)
  • Character Development (Baltar gets plenty.)
  • Chekhovs Gun Racetrack's Nukes: (Cally's murder by Tory loads the chambers missile racks. The bullets figurative missiles are fired at the same time the literal and titular nukes are.)
  • The Chris Carter Effect (it would be nice if the Cylons shared their plan with the writers. Or admitted if their plan has been totally derailed by now. Or how the lost cylons became lost. Or what the significance of the Final Five were in the grand scheme of things. Or everything else.)
    • Somewhat turned on its head halfway through season four when it's suggested the 'plan' is the final five's plan, not the significant seven's.
      • And the plan has finally been revealed a few episodes before the series ends. It turns out that there were two plans vague sets of goals; the Final Five were trying to break the Cycle Of Revenge between humans and cylons, and John was out to convince the Final Five that humans weren't worth saving.
  • Cliff Hanger: The occasional two-parter, such as The Oath used this very well.
  • Coming In Hot (It's an aircraft carrier in space, of course they will have a crash landing or two...so they get one out of the way right off the bat in the Mini Series. Boomer is constantly blamed for her rough landings.)
  • The Complainer Is Always Wrong (Zarek actually brings up a valid point when he argues that the government is pretty much a joint-dictatorship between Roslin and Admiral Adama. Of course, not only is he a former terrorist and wants that power for himself, but he also crossed the Moral Event Horizon by ordering the Quorum's execution. It doesn't exactly give him the moral high ground.)
  • Complete Monster (While Cavil is introduced as an amusing Deadpan Snarker, as the series goes on you come to learn what a twisted psychotic piece of work he truly is. And you'll hate him for it.)
    • Which makes his death all the more satisfying. This Troper nearly blew a load when he saw that scene, mostly due to everything else that was going on.
    • Solidifed in The Plan, as mentioned under Moral Event Horizon. A child has been coming to, and generally getting shooed out of Cavil's chapel throughout the film. Cavil almost seems to be warming up to the kid... until he runs a knife through him
  • Continuity Reboot (The entire new series is a reboot of the franchise)
  • Contractual Immortality (Adama, Starbuck)
  • Convenient Miscarriage (Caprica-Six and Tigh's son (Wil)Liam, either when Ellen tries to Hannibal Lecture the kid to death or Tigh switches affections back to Ellen)
    • or because she got jumped by hooligans in Dogtown at the beginning of the episode
  • Cool Ship: Subverted with the Galactica, which survives thanks to being an obsolete old bucket (while remaining very cool indeed) and played straight with the Pegasus and the Cylon Basestars.
  • Cryptic Conversation (much of Head Six's conversations with Baltar)
  • Crowning Moment Of Awesome (go and look at the examples)
  • Crowning Music Of Awesome: Bear McCreary is a Jedi Master.
    • Not just awesome, but a tear jerker too. In fact, I DEFY anyone to listen to this piece of music and not cry.
  • Crapsack World: Mo' like Crapsack universe. Everything sucks for everybody almost all the time.
  • Crystal Ball (Rather, the pool of water used by the prophetess in New Caprica)
  • Cultural Posturing (Used by both sides at times to some degree)
  • Cyber Punk Is Techno The prequel Caprica. The clothing is given a 50s look, but the music is techno.
  • Cycle Of Revenge ("This has happened before and it will happen again.")
  • Dead All Along ( Starbuck as of Season 4.)
  • Deadline News (In the miniseries, when the bombs go off)
  • Death Glare (Helo to Roslin, after she berates him for trying to rescue his daughter by killing immortal Athena. Adama to a good many people.)
  • Depopulation Bomb (The series starts after the Cylons launched a surprise nuclear attack that reduced the human population from around 50 billion to a little less then 50,000.)
  • Deus Ex Machina ( In the finale, Kara assumes the role of this trope in its classical literary meaning, by simply puffing out of sight, just after confirming her journey was over and that felt good. And that is not-so-just after she doped out the coordinates of our Earth from a Cylon-song, being someone once went to another one and died there, and simply returned. She came out be a some sort of instrument for God's mysterious ways. And I still don't get What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic)
  • Did Not Get The Girl: Poor Apollo and Tyrol. Apollo lost Starbuck to Anders, Dualla to herself, and Starbuck disappears into thin air. Not to mention he had a pregnant fiancee Gianne on Caprica before it went boom. And Tyrol never got to live in that house with Boomer, or even had that kid with Cally.
  • Dis Continuity (Some fans pretend Black Market, Hero, and especially The Woman King never happened.)
  • Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
  • Double Vision
  • Draco In Leather Pants (Baltar is an insufferable, irritating, self-proclaimed "genius", and is arguably one of the major villains for a couple of seasons, but still the ladies swoon over his macho stubble. In show as well given his successes. Though this is helped by him being amusing, oddly sympathetic despite his narcissism, hugely charismatic and genuinely a genius, if out of his depth in the circumstances he finds himself in. And mad.)
    • In the series finale, Baltar makes the leap from being Draco In Leather Pants to being a Crouching Moron Hidden Badass by being Cincinnatus at the Bridge in his defense against the Cylon borders. Thus, he finally did something that, as Apollo demanded, didn't even indirectly benefit Gaius Baltar.
      • It's Horatius at the bridge, not Cincinnatus. This troper did Latin at school and had to translate the story, so he KNOWS.
      • Aside from proving Apollo wrong, which has got to be satisfying on SOME level.
  • Driven To Suicide (Boomer and Apollo, both prevented by forces outside their control, Gina, successfully, also Upon return from the nuked Earth(?), Dualla kills herself after she rekindles her romance with Apollo. D'Anna passively commits suicide by staying behind. Cavil, hilariously, in the series finale.)
  • Driving Question - Who are the Cylons? What's causing Baltar's visions? Fourth Season only: How did Kara come back to life?
  • Earth That Was (Kobol and Earth, both of whose locations were lost)
  • The End Of The World As We Know It
  • Enemy Civil War (The Cylon Civil War in the fourth season, although we began to see differences between Cylon models as early as Season 2.)
  • Epileptic Trees: (It was widely speculated that Daniel was Starbuck's father and that he taught her "All Along The Watchtower". But this was never the plan, and the episodes were finished long before they were seen. Other speculations about Daniel include that he was Baltar, father of Baltar AND Starbuck, Zak, Gaeta, or responsible for the Head Characters.)
    • To say nothing of the theories surrounding the identity of the Fifth Cylon. Earth, the Galactica, all of humanity (as in Neon Genesis Evangelion), the audience...
    • In fact, the series has brought out the crazy theories since Season One. For example, that Boomer was not a Cylon and everything happening on Cylon-Occupied Caprica was a Dream Sequence.
  • Estrogen Brigade Bait: Apollo, Helo, Anders
    • In-show, Baltar has the most undeserved and incredible luck. The man not only gets to survive a nuclear holocaust he's accidentally responsible for, he gets to sleep with countless human women, five Cylons, and an angel. And still, he manages to have complaints.
  • Eternal Recurrence: "All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again." The Cylon attack that destroyed the colonies was the third such event.
  • Everybody Is Single (...which stops being true around the end of the second season)
  • Evilly Affable (As a dark, edgy show, only extremely-evil Cavil has much propensity for humor. He's without question one of the funniest characters on the show.)
  • Evil Is Sexy (The female Cylons.)
  • Evil Overlord List (In the Grand Finale, after Boomer brings Hera to the rescue team and tells them their Raptor has been destroyed, Athena starts to say something about the Raptor not being the "exit strategy"; Starbuck cuts her off with, "Can we not tell her the plan?"
  • Executive Veto (Sci Fi Channel explicitly told Ron Moore and David Eick that they couldn't show any live people on board the Olympic Carrier when it's destroyed, so they didn't. However, every time the ghost of the ship is brought up it usually comes with a pointed reference that, yes, there was people on it when it was shot down even if we didn't see them.)
  • Face Heel Turn (Gaeta, who decides Adama is being too cozy with the Cylons, and launches a mutiny.
  • Fake American (Jamie Bamber, who plays Lee/Apollo, is British. Most of the cast, though, are Canadians, so they sound almost like Americans. However, Canadian English occasionally creeps in, such as Tricia Helfer's pronunciation of "resources" as "ree-zources." At the end of Final Cut, Lucy Lawless, who otherwise used her natural Kiwi accent, affected a Canadian/American accent for the Number Three in the cinema.) This Trouper would disagree with them being fake Americans as none of the characters are "American" (or even Earthican).
  • Fan Nickname (The Tattooed Pilot's unofficial call sign among fans is "Dragon" due to his dragon tattoo; Layne Ishay is "Nurse Bedside Manner" for her notable lack of any.)
  • Fantastic Racism: (From both sides, especially human to "toaster")
  • Fetish Fuel Station Attendant: There should be a whole page dedicated to this. For example, Number Six comes in blonde glasses-wearing secretary and brunette chains-and-leather hooker versions in The Plan alone.
  • The Fettered: For awhile there, Helo was pretty much the sanest human left alive.
  • Finger Twitching Revival
  • Framing The Guilty Party
  • Fridge Logic
  • Gainax Ending
  • Gangsta Style+Guns Akimbo: Starbuck's preferred method of combat. She does this cool "X" thing with her arms.
  • Gecko Ending (A rare live action example. Pretty much everything post-New Caprica was the writers desperately trying to paint themselves out of the corner they stranded themselves in and plug as many plot holes as they could along the way. Also, the original series had no real ending (Galactica 1980 was de-canonized by both the fans and The Powers That Be) so the writers had to make of their own ending.)
    • Considering that the original is basically The Book Of Mormon in space, they did a very nice job and may actually what the original director intended.
  • Gender Flip (Starbuck, Boomer, and Cain were males in the original, females in this one)
  • General Ripper (Admiral Cain)
  • Grand Finale (Daybreak)
  • Distant Finale (150,000 years later...)
  • Glasses Pull (Roslin, Adama, and Lampkin are rather fond of this one.)
  • Good All Along: The rebel faction of Cylons, much to the disbelief and anger of many humans. They "evolve" into individuals and switch sides to help the fleet. It's not a smooth transition, and it doesn't excuse their genocide of the colonies, but it comes a long way towards ending the Cycle Of Revenge between man and machine.
  • Grey And Gray Morality (Everyone has a reason for doing what they do, no matter how morally questionable. As a result, only one two major characters have crossed the Moral Event Horizon during the show's run.
  • Guide Dang It: Sometimes it is hard to keep track of individuals within a Cylon's model without going to an episode guide. See Loads And Loads Of Characters.
  • Half Human Hybrid (Hera Agathon (Cylon mother, human father))
    • We thought that Nicholas Tyrol, Cally's son, was a hybrid with a human mother and Cylon father, but he turned out to be not the biological son of Galen Tyrol, but of a human pilot.
  • Happy Place (Baltar and his lakehouse, Lee in the Resurrection Ship battle, Adama during his anniversary, supposedly, Boomer in her and Tyrol's dream house with their imaginary kid. She even drags Tyrol along a few times before abandoning Galactica, which probably makes this an inversion in his case.)
  • Heel Face Turn (Caprica-Six and Athena)
    • Lt. Kelly after Zarek orders the Quorum's execution.
  • Heel Face Revolving Door (Boomer. First she's Cylon Manchurian Agent, then she doesn't want to be one, then she fails to overcome her programming and shoots Admiral Adama. Then she tries to make peace between cylons and humans and, failing that, she tries to kill her counterpart's daughter and betrays her model number, causing a civil war. Then she escapes with the Final Cylon when the others want surgically to remove her brain. But wait, there's more! She emotionally manipulates Tyrol into freeing her and then gets back at Athena by sleeping with her unknowing husband and kidnapping their daughter who she uses as a hostage in her plan to escape, a plan which ultimately cripples Galactica. Then she starts having second thoughts when she starts bonding with Hera and realizes exactly what she's just done. Make up your mind, woman!
    • She does: she gives Hera back to Athena in what she feels is her "last decision"; Athena then makes sure of it.
    • The other Cylons seem to think this is a characteristic of the Eights in general. Even Athena calls them on it; in fact her at-times fanatical loyalty to the Colonials may be an attempt to compensate for this perceived weakness in herself.
  • Heroic BSOD (Adama has a big one after Saul Tigh reveals that he's a Cylon and an even bigger one after Dualla kills herself added on to the stress of finding Earth.
    • Athena has one when she realizes the totality of Boomer's revenge against her.
  • Hey Its That Guy: Archie Kennedy In SPACE.
  • High Octane Nightmare Fuel (A few moments in the show might qualify as general Nightmare Fuel, but Dualla's sudden, shocking and violent suicide after pretending to be happy is probably not something you should show to anyone struggling with depression and will leave a mark on even the well-adjusted.)
    • This troper has a degree in Psychology; that is a common way to commit suicide, (wrap things up, have a great last day, end it)- to the point that I've known someone who nearly "Pulled a Dee" but was shocked enough to be caught and talked out of it by Sometimes a Great Notion.
  • Hilarious In Hindsight (President Roslin's adorably naive aide Billy had a bridge dropped on him because the actor who played him decided to leave the show to pursue a role on a more mainstream show. A year and a half later, said show never even made it past the pilot stage, and the character who replaced Billy becomes a Cylon central to the show's mythology... Go figure.)
  • Hollywood Atheist: Averted with Adama, a humanist who views humanity as flawed and capable of great evil, but also capable of great good. Initially played straight with Baltar, whose atheism is largely tied to his own self-importance, but twisted in a completely different direction after he finds religion and comes to consider himself a prophet.
  • Honor Before Reason (Helo, to the point where he's pretty much the Anthropomorphic Personification of a conscience.)
    • Helo's last name Agathon indicates that the show's producers intended him to embody honor and nobility.
  • Hot Shoujo Dad: Helo
  • Humans Are Bastards (Highlighted in certain episodes and the justification Cylons use in their quest to exterminate all human life)
  • I Got Better (Starbuck)
  • I See Them Too (several examples in the final season)
  • Immortality (The Cylons resurrect in identical bodies)
  • Immortal Life Is Cheap (Eventually, even Cylons take to killing each other dead if it's convienient)
  • Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy - The new Centurions are hardly expert shots, but it is the Raiders who, with one notable exception, fit this trope. Consider how many are usually shown in combat and how relatively light Colonial casualties are compared to what they should be.
  • Important Haircut (Adama's mustache in season 3, Tyrol shaving his head in Season 4)
  • Incredibly Obvious Bug
    • Justified/Lampshaded as being Hidden In Plain Sight; everyone just assumed that it was something that was supposed to be there as part of the museum and ignored it, until Baltar asked what it was.
  • Infant Immortality: Averted oh so many many times.
  • Infinite Supplies: Aversions were attempted as multiple episodes focus on gaining supplies such as water and fuel, but there is no accounting for how the Galactica could keep shooting off so much ordinance in "33", to name just one example.
  • Interspecies Romance: Helo/Sharon, Baltar/Six, Anders/Starbuck, Tyrol/Cally, Starbuck/Lee, assuming "angel" is a different species....
  • Irony
    • Admiral Cain tells Starbuck not to flinch from ruthless acts, after Starbuck has been ordered to carry out Cain's assassination.
    • Or possibly Cain's realisation of how she'd become a Complete Monster and wanted to end it. She knew (or at least, strongly suspected) that Starbuck was an assassin as she'd sent her own hit squad to get Adama.
    • Season 3 finale: Boomer and Chief are both Cylons, neither of them knew it, and they were frakking each other.
    • Same finale: Of the six reliable people that was going to extract mob-justice to the Cylon-collaborators on New Caprica, three were Cylons. Sorry, that is just funny.
    • When Tyrol is rescued from Kobol in season 2, he's arrested, put in the brig and beaten about by Tigh, who gets enraged after Tyrol lists the ships he's served on. Of course, they're both Cylons. Delicious ironing.
    • Tyrol being excited to have a Raider to figure out in season 1, when he may well have designed them himself.
    • Tigh kills Ellen for collaborating with the Cylons on New Caprica. However, both Tigh and Ellen turn out to be Cylons themselves. Ellen gets better and comes back though, and she and Tigh end up living happily ever after.
    • Intentional irony: Cally suspecting that Tyrol and Tory are having an affair, when they're not, but they were engaged in a past life.
      • Tyrol later kills Tory specifically for what she did to Cally.
    • Starbuck bitching at Helo for being stupid enough to fall in love with a Cylon, when she's about to do the same thing.
    • Tigh: "Thank the gods I didn't have kids." He did, and they've been nuking people. Actually, the fact that Saul and Ellen Tigh are the "parents" of the other Cylons explains a lot.
      • In fact, you can easily turn this into a Drinking Game. Watch an early episode, take a drink every time there is something hilariously ironic involving one of the Final Five.
    • Adama hands over command to Tigh in Sine Qua Non. When Tigh points out that his last time as fleet commander was a total frak-up, Adama replies, "You've changed a lot since then." The "You have no frakking idea" expression on Tigh's face is just hilarious.
    • Roslin telling Helo that he's not married to "the entire production line", after a Sharon has just told Helo that she'd downloaded his wife's memories, so there's nothing stopping every other Sharon model from becoming 'Athena' too.
    • The Number Four Cylon conducting Adama's lie detector test before the war. One of the baseline questions (used to assess the reliablity of the other questions) is "Are you a Cylon?"
  • Is That What He Told You (Bulldog, in his stand-alone episode, after which he's never heard from again.)
    • He was meant to become recurring, but scheduling and travel distance got in the way.
  • It Got Worse (A whole lot of episodes do this, but holy hell, the last episode of season "4.0" and the first of season "4.5" take the cake. The show gets very bleak.)
  • It Was His Sled (It's all God's will. Also, watch out for Cavil. Sometimes tropers even forget to tag this.
  • Jigsaw Puzzle Plot
  • Just A Machine
  • Karma Houdini - Gaius Baltar and Caprica Six, the people responsible for this whole mess, are the only couple, other than Helo and Athena and Saul and Ellen, that everything works out for.
  • Killed Off For Real (Numerous characters, including Starbuck. She really did die when her Viper exploded. She just returned as an unknowing, corporeal messenger of God.
  • Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better - One big thing that made this reboot standout from the original. Almost all of the small arms are exactly like ours, or dressed up slightly. No Frickin Laser Beams here, even on the ships.
  • Knight In Sour Armor - Lee Adama becomes this over the course of the series.
  • La Resistance (Sam Anders and the Caprica Buccaneers, and later, the Darker And Edgier resistance movement on New Caprica, suicide bombers and all; later still Gaeta, Vice President Zarek, and an unknown but certainly large portion of the fleet. Things go south after Zarek massacres the Quorum.)
  • Les Collaborateurs - On New Caprica, many get killed by a suicide bomber in the first episode of season 3.
  • Lights Off Their Eyes - Badly damaged Centurions.
  • Loads And Loads Of Characters (So many much of the final season was spent giving the established recurring (surviving!)characters closure.)
  • Love Hurts (Adama/Roslin; Lee/Kara)
  • Love Martyr (Adama)
  • Love Redeems (Athena, who switches allegiances due to her love for Helo and their unborn child)
  • Ludd Was Right: As of the series Finale, apparently all technology is evil, because it leads to humans building sentient robots.
    • Actually, the podcast for the episode mentions that rather than promoting a luddhist agenda, the destruction of the fleet is supposed to show the commitment of the survivors to their new world.
  • Macross Missile Massacre (The Cylons love to use missiles, yes, but the best 3M goes to Racetrack's Raptor in the finale. It destroys the Cylon colony with a nuclear version of this trope.)
  • Mad Oracle (The Hybrids. Evolve the little toe.)
  • Magical Negro (Elosha, even more blatantly when she appears in Roslin's visions telling her to love. Interestingly, Word Of God via the podcasts reveal the initial person giving the message in the visions was going to Billy but the actor was unavailable and the role altered with much of the dialog remaining the same, with the producer stating it actually fits Elosha better.
  • Magnificent Bastard (Baltar, Cavil, Zarek)
    • Arguably Ron Moore for creating a kick-ass story arc that plays on human emotions like a piano (though due to self-admitted asspulls in tying up the series, Your Mileage May Vary by the last episode).
  • Mama Bear (Athena is very... protective of her daughter, Hera.)
  • The Man Behind The Man: The Cavils, particularly the one called John.
  • Manchurian Agent (Boomer, at the end of the first season Cliff Hanger, when she shoots Adama, although obviously non-fatally.)
  • Manipulative Bastard (The Cavil model known as John and possibly his entire line as a whole. Turns out that the current Cycle Of Revenge was spearheaded by this guy, who not only wants bloody revenge on humanity but wiped the Five's memories and gave them front row seats to the apocalypse as payback.)
  • Mars Needs Women (And men. The Cylon breeding programs or "Farms" that were set up to create a Cylon/human hybrid)
  • The Masochism Tango (Kara and anyone else, literally masochistic in Leoben's case)
  • Matrix Raining Code (The Cylon Hybrid chambers feature raining red faux-Chinese characters)
  • Mauve Shirt (Helo, who upgraded from Red Shirt and later on into the main cast, and pretty much all of the Viper/Raptor pilots)
  • Meaningful Name (Apart from Adama, which is derived from the name Adam which means "human", there is also the example of Kara Thrace, which sounds similar to "carry the race", which is exactly what she does in the series finale; Helo's full name [Karl Agathon] is a deliberate allusion to the Greek phrase, kalon k'agathon, which means "the good and beautiful" or "the noble" [i.e., the ideal]; Anders means Man ( or Android), a Cavil is an irrelevant quip in conversation, Inviere is Old Gemenese [in-show] for Resurrection, etc.)
    • The last name of Natalie, the Number Six Cylon who forms an Enemy Mine alliance with the Colonials, is revealed to be 'Faust'.
  • Mental Fusion
  • Mexican Standoff (The bad blood between the humans and rebel Cylons has them doing this for no apparent reason, really, in the mid-season 4 finale)
  • Mind Frak (Head Six, Head Baltar, anything involving "All Along the Watchtower", and whatever the frak Kara's been since her return.)
  • Mining Accident On Troy (Trope namer; Boomer's plausible cover story. Presumably the Final Five have similar "biographies" to go with their Fake Memories. Although this is odd in the case of Sam, who was a frakkin' celebrity.)
  • Mission From God Head Six, Head Baltar, and an unknowing Kara.
  • The Momo: Averted. Boxey was in the pilot miniseries and Bastille Day, but cut from Water and Kobol's Last Gleaming, then vanished into the ether. So no Muffit whatsoever!
  • Mood Whiplash: Dear Lord, this series has it down to an art form. Best when done intentionally, as in season 4.5 when a happy Dualla rekindles the romance with her ex-husband, has an uplifting talk with her friend, then puts a gun to her head and commits suicide.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Tom Zarek crosses the horizon when he orders the Quorum killed.
    • "John" pretty much lives on the far side of said horizon.
    • John recently got one more hit with The Plan, where he kills a young boy he'd been "befriending" up until then, all because he found friends to be too dangerous. The careless way he tosses the body aside just adds to the squicky bad-ness.
    • While she should have crossed it when she tried to kill Hera, Boomer finally joins Zarek on the other side when, after emotionally manipulating Tyrol into freeing her, she brutalizes Athena, has sex with an unknowing Helo, then kidnaps their daughter and uses her as a hostage as she knowingly risks destroying Galactica in her escape attempt.
    • Admiral Cain is clearly straddling the moral event horizon from the moment she first appears onscreen, but she crosses it fully when she orders Athena, who is pregnant at the time, to be raped in order to get information about the resurrection ships out of her.
  • Motive Decay (Fans of Boomer complain that she has been character derailed from being defiantly human to being upset by, but not stopping, the horrors of New Caprica to attempted niece-infanticide to siding with Cavil against the better elements of Cylon society without enough time devoted to what's going on in her head)
    • For further annoyance: scenes about Boomer's motivations do exist, they were just deleted from the aired episodes.
    • Well how much explanation do people need? This is a woman who's been seriously frakked by Fate.
  • Misguided Missile
  • Mixed Marriage (Four of them: Helo and Athena, Starbuck and Anders, Cally and Tyrol, and Giana and Simon.)
  • The Moriarty Effect: Cavil
  • Ms Fanservice (Six.)
  • Multitasked Conversation: Many involving Baltar and Head-Six. Incompetently on Baltar's part.
  • Mythology Gag (Zarek is played by Richard Hatch, Apollo from the original series. The early model Cylons that rebelled in the first Cylon War are identical in design to the original series Cylons, and appear in all their glory in Razor, complete with synthesized voices and the Catch Phrase "By your command". The design of the Pegasus is meant to echo the original Galactica, with the longer head and three arms connecting each flight pod to the body. "Razor" also has the First War-era costumes and equipment similar to that of the old show.)
    • Felgercarb, a cuss word in the original series, is a brand of toothpaste in the new series.
    • Speaking of cuss words, Adama uses an Ikea Fräck shaving mirror.
    • In a flashback scene in "Daybreak", Baltar mentions that if anyone catches him commiting treason he'll have his head cut off. Which was the original fate of Baltar in the 1978 pilot, before he was resurrected for the series.
  • Nakama: dysfunctional as it is. Adama and Roslin are clearly Team Dad and Team Mom.
    • So much so that Mom'n'Dad is the ship name and has been since season 1.
  • Namedar: Baltar coins the term "Final Five" to refer to the Cylon models who were unknown to the fleet at the time, and who the other Cylons had been programmed not to think about. The name sticks and comes to be used by the Final Five themselves, even after it turns out that "First Five" would have been a more appropriate name.
  • Narm: Although the series generally avoids this, two instances come to mind. One is Kara's "I just want to frak" dialogue. Substitute the REAL swear word there; does it sound any less ridiculous? No.
    • The other example is Tyrol. The best example is in the series finale, when the Final Five are interfacing together, whereupon Galen "Angry Face" Tyrol [1]◊ stares daggers at Tory after learning she killed Cally, and immediately strangles her. While this troper understands the intense anger during that scene, he and his friend laughed for a solid minute after seeing the sheer ridiculousness of Tyrol's facial expression. The shaved head Tyrol arc was ridiculously emo; another event that built towards his Angst Dissonance. But, by this time he had become something of a hateable Butt Monkey anyway, and had generally went from the Unlucky Every Dude of the first two seasons to an object of loathing (especially when he let Boomer go, taking Hera with her).
  • The Neutral Zone: the Armistice Line
  • New Old Flame: "Sweet" Eight
  • Nice Job Breaking It Hero: Pretty much the theme of series to include most every character and humanity in general.
    • Nice job killing your wife aka the Final Cylon on New Caprica, Saul Tigh.
    • Nice job building a Complete Monster (actually, an army of him) who tried to wipe out humanity and is only two Cylon models away from qualifying as an Omnicidal Maniac, Final Five.
    • Nice job waking up and beating the woman who loves you into a pulp, Tyrol.
    • Nice job helping Boomer kidnap a little girl, Tyrol.
    • Nice job killing Tory on the spot and losing Resurrection technology and the deal with Cavil's faction, Tyrol.
    • Nice job planting the only people who could rebuild Resurrection for you in human society without the benefit of their memories, Cavil.
    • Nice job wasting the Pegasus, Lee.
  • Nightmare Fuel: Plenty of moments for the viewers, but a humorous in-universe example occurs when Baltar sees Head Baltar and is clearly only restrained from wigging out by remembering he's in public.
  • Nobody Poops: Averted with "alarming regularity".
  • No Mr Bond I Expect You To Dine (Leoben's imprisonment of Starbuck on New Caprica is an unusually prolonged example of this.)
  • No Plans No Prototype No Backup (The Resurrection Hub - a single failure point for the whole resurrection system)
    • The Final Five that created it fail Rule Twenty Seven of the Evil Overlord List. To be fair, they weren't Evil Overlords. But the first thing Cavil should have done when he had them in his power was to force the Five to build more Hubs, then bother with the overly elaborate amnesia and revenge plan.
  • Not Blood Siblings (The Cylons call each other "brother" and "sister", but there have been sexual relationships between them. Presumably only copies of the same model are blood siblings.)
  • Not So Different (Humans and Cylons as of Season 4)
  • Oedipus Complex ( Cavil and Ellen. In several ways, 'cause Ellen created Cavil, she did so in the image of her father, and then (mind-wiped of her past) she had sex with him/one of them. Worse, Ellen keeps referring to the humaniform Cylons as the Final Five's "children", because the Five helped the Centurions create the humanoid models. Which makes Cavil her "son" in the guise of her late father.)
    • Tigh and Six, as pointed out twice by Ellen, also have an Oedipal relationship, and like Oedipus (Six) and Jocasta (Tigh) they were unaware of their relation when they started doing it. They almost had a little Antigone (Liam).
    • And, of course, Cavil works on the other half of this trope by gouging out Tigh's eye.
  • The Oner (Director Michael Rhymer is know for his unusually long cuts of scenes, such as the post-cold open for the miniseries; a three and a half minute continuous moving camera shot that goes around and through the CIC and introduces no less than eight major characters.)
  • One Scene Wonder (The Tattooed Pilot, Romo Lampkin)
  • Our Angels Are Different (Head Six, Head Baltar and Kara)
  • Out Of Character Moment
  • Overdrawn At The Blood Bank
  • Planet Of The Apes Ending (The fleet finds Earth - millenia after a nuclear war apparently wiped out the inhabitants.)
    • In the season finale They find our Earth about 150,000 years ago. Yes. Two Earths. Not in the Star Trek identical planet sense, but in the sense of our planet being named after another.
  • Personal Effects Reveal
  • Plot Armor (Laura Roslin has cancer throughout the entire series, and she JUST. WON'T. DIE.
  • Plucky Girl (Starbuck, Cally, Athena, ... hell, even Roslin.)
  • POV Sequel The Plan.
  • The Power Of Love (Despite numerous attempts by the Cylons to create a Cylon/Human hybrid, the conception of the first successful one was attributed to the love her parents have for each other.)
    • The above is the implied reason Caprica-Six ultimately miscarried. Not only did Ellen Tigh make her doubt Saul's love for her, but the first signs of miscarriage showed up the moment when Saul fraked his wife.
  • Previously On Battlestar Galactica... (often with the voice of someone who dies in the episode)
  • Prophecy Twist: Two of them: Kara Trace is "the harbinger of death and will lead them all to their end." She helps destroy the Cylons' resurrection capability, making them all mortal individuals; she also plays a hand in destroying Cavil's Cylon Colony and leads everyone to (our) Earth, ending Human-Cylon hostility and blending the separate races of Colonial-humans, Human-Cylons, and Earth-humans into modern humans. Laura Roslin is "the dying leader who will find "promised land" but die before setting foot on it." She reaches both Earths (and walks on them), but on our Earth she dies during a sight-seeing flight, thus dying before reaching the spot where Adama builds the cabin he promised her.
  • Rage Against The Heavens: John is basically pissed at the entire universe because his forebears were slaves and he's a flawed humanoid, and his genocidal schemes are an extension thereof.
  • Rage Quit (While lots of people kill themselves over the course of the series, Cavil is the only one to do it out of pure anger and spite.)
  • Ramming Always Works
    • The Pegasus manages to knock out two basestars in the Battle of New Caprica by doing this.
      • To be fair, you'd expect nothing less from such a mother fraking awesome ship.
    • Galactica also does this in the Grand Finale in order to punch a hole in the colony for her assault teams to board.)
  • Redemption Equals Death (Kendra Shaw, Boomer)
  • Redshirt Army (The Colonial Marines)
    • Your mileage may vary. This troper recalls seeing them kick Centurion ass on numerous occasions. A more valid example would be: Every battlestar except Galactica and Pegasus.
  • Rape As Drama (Gina-Six, Athena)
  • Reality Is Unrealistic (After "Notion", some fans protested that it was unrealistic for Dualla to be happy right before killing herself. People who have interacted with those who have committed suicide say that there's usually a sharp upswing in mood right before the actual event, possibly due to knowing "it'll be over" soon. In the Navy, this troper was trained that a sudden unexplained cheerfulness after a long period of depression is a very important warning signal of probable suicidal intentions in a shipmate and was to be reported immediately. People who call suicide hotlines haven't committed, and are therefore sad.)
  • Recycled In Space (Hmm... the twelve tribes colonies, originated from Eden Kobol, was forced to move from their homeland to find a promised land Earth that only was known from legend, all due to the actions of a certain man, who after receiving visions and power from a higher being, eventually become the founder and leader of Judaism Christianity a monothestic religion and preach about grace, and after wandering around the desert space for forty four years, manage to arrive on a lush green place planet that is eventually OUR Earth, all according to the plan of the higher being. Hmm, sounds like a familiar book...)
    • The original series was heavily influenced by the Book of Mormon. Most of these points are echoes of that, since the general plot and mythology is the same, although the execution, and final resolution, differed greatly.
  • Red Herring
  • Reentry Scare (Averted, leading to a fan-favourite moment: The Adama Maneuver.)
  • Reincarnation Romance (Played straight Saul and Ellen and heavily averted Galen and Tory)
  • Restraining Bolt (The humanoid Cylons keep control over the Centurions with Telencephalic Inhibitors that keep them from becoming truly sentient. The Twos, Sixes, and Eights later remove them, much to the dismay of the other Cylons.
  • Resuscitate The Dog (Twice (at least). First with Helo after shooting the "turn coat" Sharon he had fallen in love with, later with Roslin choosing to save Baltar)
  • Retcon
  • The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized (La Resistance in New Caprica. Felix Gaeta's coup d'etat.)
  • The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified (La Resistance in old Caprica. The Cylon rebels.)
  • Ridiculously Human Robots: The Skinjob Cylons. Originally they seemed to be made as infiltrators but later seasons reveal that the original intent was simply to be as human as possible.
  • Robots Enslaving Robots (The Skinjob Cylons and the robotic Centurions)
  • Robotic Spouse (Athena)
  • See The Whites Of Their Eyes - Even nukes are deployed at spitting distance.
  • Scars Are Forever - Tigh's eye, Gaeta's leg, Anders' mind/body
  • Scary Dogmatic Aliens (unusual variant; the Cylons are Scary Dogmatic Robots who believe in God)
  • Scenery Gorn - Cylon Occupied Caprica, Galactica herself as the series dragged on, the first Earth.
  • Scenery Porn - the second Earth
  • Sci Fi Writers Have No Sense Of Scale: One million light-years, the alleged distance from the Colonies to Earth, is well outside the Milky Way. In fact, it's about 40% of the way to our nearest galactic neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy.
    • The science advisor weighed in: Adama was using hyperbole.
  • Schrodingers Gun (Who is a Cylon? No named character is safe! ...Although all the bullets in that particular gun are fired by the middle of season four.)
    • Is any given deleted scene canon? That's for RDM to decide later on.
  • Screwed By The Network (While Sci Fi was nothing but supportive of the show during its production, they had some strange ideas when it came to broadcasting it, such as allowing the UK to air the first season six months ahead of North America, splitting the DVD releases of seasons two and four in half, fiddling with the show's time slot for the forst three years, mandating the opening sequence be curtailed to make room for more commercials (this one was eventually vetoed by a fan outcry), and airing the two halves of season four a full year apart to eke out a de facto fifth season.)
  • Screw The Rules I Have Connections (There is an argument to be made that Lee has benefited from this, even if he does not blatantly utilize it)
  • Ship Sinking (Kara/Lee, as of the termination of the season 3 love-quadrangle Romantic Plot Tumor.)
  • Shoot The Dog
  • Shoot The Shaggy Dog (The Season 4 mid-season finale, and after all the scenes of partying too!)
  • Shooting Gallery: A very creepy one with Boomer's face as targets
  • Soaperizing
  • Shout Out (Serenity from Firefly can be seen landing on Caprica in the first episode. Additionally, the Solar Queen may be a Shout Out to Science Fiction writer Andre Norton.) Naming the deceased Cylon model "Daniel" seems to be a shout out to the Isaac Asimov android R. Daneel Olivaw. Also, the room in which the members of the final five meet, after realizing their species but before doing anything about it, is 1701-D. The term "skinjob" is also used in Blade Runner, which has been openly admitted as an influence.
    Marvin: I suppose I should go stick my head in a bucket of water.
    • In "Sacrifice" a shadowy silhouetted picture of "alleged Cylon prisoner Sharon Valeri" is seen in the terrorist's Roomfull Of Crazy, possibly a reference to the similar "Photo believed to be Col. W. E. Kurz". A similar Apocalypse Now shout out is the Shore Patrol picking up a drunken Tigh for his assignment (including the "What are the charges?" line).
    • The origional Enterprise appears as part of the rag tag fleet in the miniseries, and in the openings of seasons 1 and 2 due to recycled footage.
  • Space Does Not Work That Way (Largely averted. With some exceptions, ships largely behave according to actual physics) Largely. Some exceptions.
  • Space Is Noisy: Averted: While this version does have sound in space, said sounds are usually muted (as if being heard underwater) to give the impression that it's what the pilots/crew are hearing.
  • Space Opera (With it's own Space Opera House)
  • Spin Off (The upcoming Caprica, a family drama set fifty years prior to its parent series)
  • Spirit Advisor (Head Six to Gaius Baltar; and in a surprising reveal, Head Baltar to Caprica Six, and now Head Baltar to Real Baltar)
  • Squick (Ellen has (hate)sex with a Cavil in "Precipice". Gross enough. The squick really sets in in "No Exit", when we learn that Ellen created Cavil in her father's image, and considered him as a son, making this all kinds of incestuous. Unlike Ellen, Cavil knew all along, perhaps proving that he's a Complete Monster.)
    • Heck, Boomer/Cavil. Cavil/anyone is kinda Squicky, be it middle-aged cougars or hot young chicks.
      • The audience heard about the Cylons moving human corpses on the Twelve Colonies into massive incinerators after the attack. When we see it in The Plan, the physical image will be guaranteed to give you Nightmare Fuel, at the absolute least.
    • While filming The Plan actor-turned-director Edward James Olmos decided to test the limits of the term "unrated DVD" by engineering an all nude scene in Galactica's unisex head and covertly trying to get a shot of an actor's penis. And it worked.
  • Star Crossed Lovers (Kara and Lee's tumultuous relationship/non-relationship.)
    • Technically, via hidden Back Story, Tyrol and Tory: they were engaged lovers on Earth. Since they never met after beginning their lives in the Colonies, they never fell in love again. Ultimately, Tory kills Tyrol's wife and in the Grand Finale Tyrol gets his revenge.
    • And of course Tyrol and the Heel Face Revolving Door posterchild Boomer. Apparently in the end, Tyrol just wants to be alone.
  • The Starscream (Tom Zarek)
  • Straw Civilian (averted, mainly due to the Roslin/Adama dynamic)
  • Stealth In Space (The Blackbird)
  • Stock Footage (Footage of the Viper launches and landings.)
  • Sunglasses At Night (Romo Lampkin)
  • Sure Why Not (After stumbling across a fanfic that teased with the idea of a Helo/Racetrack pairing, the actress portraying the Raptor pilot decided to incorporate the unrequited feelings for Helo and the jealousy towards his wife into her character's backstory.)
  • Survival Mantra "Fear gets you killed. Anger keeps you alive."
  • Sympathetic POV (This gets used a lot, especially with the Cylons and with Gaeta when he spearheads a failed mutiny. He's ultimately executed for this role, but he's far more sympathetic than his co-conspirator Zarek, and the viewers get the sense that he was trying to do what he thought was the right thing.
  • Take Off Every Zig
  • Tear Jerker (Quite a few them, the most recent one being the scene where Caprica-Six has a miscarriage and the Grand Finale.)
    • Also in the end of Daybreak Part II when the Fleet (including Galactica) sets out on its final voyage into our solar system's sun.
  • Techno Babble (Military jargon more than SFisms. Lampshaded when Tigh accuses Baltar of "weaselly technobabble". An accurate accusation, as Baltar's first "Cylon detection method" was entirely made up. There is deliberate avoidance on the writers' part of "this works because of the Cylon hypersilly system" and so on.)
  • Third Line Some Waiting (Plot threads are picked up again at the writers convincingness, if they're ever picked up at all.)
  • Thirteen Is Unlucky (Twelve tribes of man who founded the Twelve Colonies... plus one that "got lost" and inspired the survivors to go on a wild goose chase In Space to find a planet called Earth. Twelve human-Cylons... plus a dead one named Daniel who may or may not be Starbuck's dad.
  • Theme Naming (Completely unintentional, but: The names of the Final Five all have prominent T sounds in them: Saul and Ellen Tigh, Galen Tyrol, Tory Foster, and Samuel T. Anders.)
  • There Is Another (As in the original series, the battlestar Pegasus is discovered. The reunion wasn't *quite* as happy as you might imagine...)
  • They Changed It Now It Sucks (What several fans of the original think of this version, especially when a certain gender fact about Starbuck and Boomer first came to light.)
    • Being a show full of ongoing mysteries and major plot upheavals (some of them overt and flashy, some of them small but significant twists, some of them constituting games of Chicken with hype and fan expectation), the new version leaves itself frequently vulnerable to this criticism.
  • They Do: Adama and Roslin. About time!
  • This Is Not A Drill
  • Throw It In (Edward James Olmos contributed a ton of these through ad libbing, particularly one memorable scene were in a fit of grief and rage over Starbuck's death he destroys the model ship Adama had been repairing for the past three years. The ship was a loaner from a maritime museum and was worth over $100,000, unbeknown to Olmos.)
  • Together In Death (As of the Grand Finale, presumably Kara and Anders' ultimate fate. Since he said he'd "See her on the other side." Afterlife FanFic has become unsurprisingly popular.)
  • Tomato In The Mirror (Boomer, plus four other characters as of the S3 finale.)
    • Kara may be a whole 'nother veggie (fruit, whatever) altogether.
  • Tomato Surprise (Happens twice: Once with Tigh, Tyrol, Tory, and Anders, then again with Ellen.)
  • Too Soon (Completely Inverted: The show is fearless about taking on sensitive topical subjects)
    • Except for homosexuality, which didn't happen until Razor. Word Of God is that the writers didn't think of it when initially planning how to set up the show, and then as a consequence, couldn't figure out how to work it in without it being a huge neon sign. Razor can be seen as a validation of this problem, as it even spends time addressing another character's surprise that Cain and Gina are an item. The second webisode series seems to have done a better job of it with Gaeta and Hoshi, where the look on Tigh's face when he realizes the relationship exists and his ensuing actions suggest he is more bothered by the mental image than the actual relationship. Considering homosexuality has been around approximately as long as biological sexuality itself, this may be stretching the application of "Too Soon" slightly.
  • Transhuman Treachery (Tory Foster; she pays for it in the finale)
    • Conversely, Ellen goes out of her way to try and save humanity once she realizes she's a Cylon.)
  • Trash The Set (In Season 4.5, the Galactica has been showing quite a bit of damage.)
  • Trauma Conga Line (Tyrol, later on.)
  • Trial Balloon Question (Athena to Helo, on if she were a Cylon. Anders to Starbuck, on if he were a Cylon.)
  • Used Future (Only, not the future.)
  • Unusual Euphemism (frak)
  • Unusual User Interface (How Cylons interact with technology)
  • Wagon Train To The Stars
  • Wall Banger (The blatant Possession Sue Helo episode "The Woman King" is hated with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. The decision in the Grand Finale to abandon all technology and "go native" met with a similar fandom cry of "Bullshit!")
    • Also see the La Resistance above.
    • The finale gained even heavier scorn for ending the series, answering all the questions, and resolving the main conflict with Deus Ex Machina.
    • Lets not forget how all the proper Reveals came at once in one episode, in the form of an Info Dump, meaning you would have to watch the episode several times to get the whole plot.
  • We Will Use Manual Labor In The Future (the original Cylons being intended as manual laborers and soldiers before they rebelled. The scarcity of advanced equipment means humans in the fleet getting worked to the bone, too.)
  • Well Intentioned Extremist (The Cylons' main motivation, shading over into Knight Templar in some cases. And then there's the anti-Cylon New Caprican suicide bombers.)
  • Wham Episode: Used frequently throughout, but after the humans find a destroyed earth, every episode after that hits you harder than the last, taking the shock value into Beyond The Impossible territory.
  • What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic (Too many to list..)
    • The numbers 5 (Final Five Cylons, 5 priests of the unnamed God, etc.) and 12 (12 Colonies of Kobol, 12 models of human Cylons, 12 Lords of Kobol) keep popping up, the twelve being a reference to twelve signs of the Zodiac which also inspire the names of the colonies. Not to mention Gaius Baltar, who is absolutely convinced he's the Messiah. In "The Hand of God," at the end, he leans backward on a balcony, stares up at the sky, and says "I am an instrument of God." Then, in "Torn," he is imprisoned on a Cylon basestar, grows out his hair and beard, and wanders around in a white robe.
    • The 12 colonies (despite their names) were pretty much meant to symbolize the 12 tribes of Israel. It borrowed from Mormon theology, which posits a lost 13th tribe; in the Galactica mythos they're looking for the lost 13th colony, which of course is Earth.
    • And then the symbolism gets cranked up in Season 4. Gaius Baltar, still with beard, becomes the leader of a religious cult that preaches love and tolerance. In the Grand Finale, Baltar brokers peace between humans and Cylons and gets to be with Number Six, his angel. And to top it off, Baltar is played by a Jewish actor named James Callis.
    • As mentioned before, it is a Recycled In SPACE Book of Exodus.
  • What Happened To The Mouse (The reaction fans had with Helo during the miniseries and why the writers ultimately retconned his off screen death.)
  • What Measure Is A Nonhuman Done over and over again between the humans and Cylons of all types. The standard philosophical debate is complicated by attempted genocide against one side and slavery of the other in the backstory, so each side has a reason to hate and fear the other, and also by the bizarre bio...mecha...chemistry of the Cylons.
  • Why Don't You Marry It (The initial reaction to Helo and Athena's courtship. Eventually, he does marry her.)
  • Will They Or Wont They (Kara/Lee, Adama/Roslin)
    • In fact we saw Kara/Lee doing it back on New Caprica in one of the early episodes of season three, covering some flashbacks of the first days of that colony.
  • With Due Respect (The standard preface to anything guaranteed to piss Adama off.)
  • The Woobie (Many characters, but especially Boomer. Felix Gaeta is a good Woobie in season 4 after losing his leg and singing. If Cally avoided Woobiedom, it's only through lack of screen-time — what little she got tended towards the brutal. Or it could be because she was just an unpleasant person.)
    • Felix is less of The Woobie when, motivated by his suffering, he spearheads a brutal mutiny. Then got a few decent Woobie points back right before he was executed.
  • World Of Cardboard Speech: Lee delivers a now famous one in the season 3 finale.
  • Xanatos Speed Chess: Cavil is a master of this. Nearly every one of his plans spectacularly explodes in his face, yet he's quick enough on the rebound with a with a backup plan to make you think he almost planned it that way. He manages to hold things together until his last viable option goes up in smoke and then, well... FRAK!
  • You Cant Go Home Again: series trope and also episode title
  • You Fail Biology Forever: The Grand Finale gives us a dollop of science-term-misappropriation: Mitochondrial Eve is the most recent female common ancestor of all humans living at a given time. Who that was can actually change retroactively, and even if they somehow sequenced all of Hera's mtDNA, there's no way they could identify her as the current Mitochondrial Eve. Or differentiate hers from her own mother's.
    • This trooper feels that the whole premise of humanoid cylons falls not only under this category, but also fails general logic and reason alltogether. Why?Cylons physical capabilities are different than those of a human. Which means their internal makeup must be cleary different than that of humans, ergo, easily detectable...after all, when's the last time you saw a human with a built-in transmitter powerfull enough for interstellar communication..or optical cable interface?
      • This troper thinks it's well justified. It's been made clear that the humanoid Cylons are not really machines any more than we're machines. The optical interface and the transmission must be achieved by biological means, such as tapping into a nerve.
      • Except that there is no possible way for any biological mechanism to support interstellar communication. There's a reason transmitters are made of the materials we make them out of. Anything else would melt or burn from the sheer power needed for a transmission powerful enough to go interstellar.

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