History NightmareFuel / BattlestarGalactica2003

* The Cylon attack on the colonies in the original miniseries bothered me to no end. I think it might have been the orbital view of the mushroom clouds silently bursting over the whole planet, knowing that everyone you knew who wasn't ''right there with you'' is now dead. Similarly, the scene where the vipers go dead during a Cylon attack and the pilots are trapped in hunks of metal, dead in space, helpless, waiting to be killed.

* The BodyHorror segments of the new ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'' movie ''Razor'' are not as disturbing as the Hybrid, especially compared to the [[ShoutOut Minority Report]] hybrids already seen: an old man, responsible for the aforementioned BodyHorror, talking cryptically and accurately about events still to come, about a main character being the root of everyone's doom, all while sitting in a tub of goo with cables going in and out, and finally reminding us, "All of this has happened before, all this will happen again. Again. Again. Again. Again," before calmly dying.

* Being informed you and [[CloningBlues everyone like you]] will be [[HumanPopsicle boxed]] [[NeverSayDie indefinitely]].

** Then there's the prelude to that: Athena was living for years with the trauma of having had stillborn daughter, only to find out that her president / head of state ''faked Hera's death,'' hid her from them, and had gotten Hera kidnapped by their mortal enemies / in-laws. And on top of that? Helo and Athena's only chance to get Hera back is for Helo to kill Athena and ''pray'' any of a million things do not go wrong '''and''' she's able to rescue her. All of which, mind, on top of the possibility Helo might be tried or courtmartialed. Roslin was ''lucky'' Adama was in the room to cool things off after she started berating Helo for "putting the fleet at risk" given she was responsible for 90% of that mess and being completely insensitive and hypocritical about it.

* President Roslin has assembled a fleet of over 60 civilian ships, stranded in space lanes when the Colonies came under attack. The makeshift fleet is in formation and plans are in motion to transfer passengers off the non-FTL capable ships, when suddenly a Raider jumps in, scans them and jumps away. Faced with an imminent Cylon attack, President Roslin makes the gut-wrenching decision to have all FTL capable ships jump away, abandoning the sublight only ships. The pleading cries of the ship captains being left behind are absolutely horrific to hear. Imagine being on one of those ships, unable to escape, watching others jump away, and then four Raiders jump in...

* The Cylon attack on the colonies in the original miniseries bothered me to no end. I think it might have been the orbital view of the mushroom clouds silently bursting over the whole planet, knowing that everyone you knew who wasn't ''right there with you'' is now dead. Similarly, the scene where the vipers go dead during a cylon attack and the pilots are trapped in hunks of metal, dead in space, helpless, waiting to be killed.
** The depiction of what was going on planetside in the feature length episode ''The Plan'' was pretty grim too. Highlights include a montage of various Colonies (some of which we had ''never'' seen before) being depicted as burning ruins, Tory and Ellen Tigh being hit by the blast wave, the Centurions roaming the streets killing survivors and, for extra nightmare fuel, charred corpses of those too close to the blasts. The whole holocaust in general qualifies as HONF, and plays upon the (quite rational) fear of nuclear war.

* The [[CyberCyclops Centurions]] boarding ''Galactica'' in "Valley of Darkness", particularly the very first time the characters run into one. Flyboy, Kat and Apollo are walking merrily through a darkened corridor, unaware of any problems beside the loss of power, when suddenly Kat screams, and Flyboy ''runs right into'' a seven foot steel monster. The thing flexes its hand briefly before tearing through Flyboy's chest with its metal claws (spraying Apollo with blood in the process), and then swatting him aside before he can even finish bleeding to death.
* The ''Pegasus'' approach to interrogating Cylons, be it the tortured, raped and DrivenToSuicide Number Six Gina, or especially the scene in which officers from the ''Pegasus'' attempt to rape an unsuspecting ''and pregnant'' Sharon Agathon.
* The moment Admiral Cain JumpedOffTheSlipperySlope. Badly outnumbered during a Cylon attack she orders her XO, Colonel Belzen to launch the Viper wing held in reserve. Belzen, a loyal officer who has known her for years, objects because he knows it's a SuicideMission and their only chance is to retreat. Cain orders him to hand over his sidearm as if she is relieving him of duty. Instead, when he gives it to her she shoots him right between the eyes ''in the middle of the CIC''. Cain then calls for the next officer in line (Colonel Fisk), tells him that he is the new XO and repeats her order to launch Vipers.

** Special mention to the scenes of Kara being imprisoned by Leoben. She's stuck living with what essentially is her ''stalker'', who's stronger than her, a religious nut who goes on about how God's plan involves them being together, and no matter how many times she kills him, he just ''keeps coming back''.

* From the ''Razor Flashbacks'', the destruction of ''Columbia'', specifically the screaming of her crew over the radio ''after'' the ship has already exploded, until it finally cuts out.

* Leoben Conoy snapping his chains and turning over a steel table like it was nothing before attacking Starbuck. If You look closely, there's a brief moment after he breaks his cuffs that the battle-hardened Starbuck, who has been laughing at him the whole time, jumps back and starts looking genuinely terrified.
* Dualla's sudden, shocking and violent suicide after pretending to be happy will leave a mark on even the most well-adjusted.

* Athena's shooting dead one of the Sixes out of a mistaken belief that she intends to kidnap Hera. Not only is it unnerving how she screams at the Six and threatens to shoot her (and even Tigh when he orders her to stand down) if she so much moves a muscle, but the way that she puts another bullet in the already mortally-wounded Six while she's on the ground just takes things from what could at least be construed as an act of panic into an outright ''execution''. And the kicker? When Adama gives Athena a WhatTheHellHero speech at the start of the following episode, she's completely unrepentant at having effectively murdered an innocent woman for absolutely no reason, only showing remorse at the possibility that she may have jeopardized the fledgeling alliance between the colonials and rebel Cylons, and then looking about ready to kill Adama with her bare hands when he orders her thrown in the brig, with no access to Hera.
** Then there's the prelude to that: Athena was living with the trauma of stillborn daughter for years, only to find out that her president / head of state ''faked Hera's death'', hid her from them, and had gotten Hera kidnapped by their mortal enemies / in-laws. And on top of that? Helo and Athena's only chance to get Hera back is for Helo to kill Athena and ''pray'' any of a million things do not go wrong '''and''' she's able to rescue her. All of which, mind, on top of the possibility Helo might be tried or courtmartialed. Roslin was ''lucky'' Adama was in the room to cool things off after she started berating Helo for "putting the fleet at risk" given she was responsible for 90% of that mess and being completely insensitive and hypocritical about it.

* Athena's]shooting dead one of the Sixes out of a mistaken belief that she intends to kidnap Hera. Not only is it unnerving how she screams at the Six and threatens to shoot her (and even Tigh when he orders her to stand down) if she so much moves a muscle, but the way that she puts another bullet in the already mortally-wounded Six while she's on the ground just takes things from what could at least be construed as an act of panic into an outright ''execution''. And the kicker? When Adama gives Athena a WhatTheHellHero speech at the start of the following episode, she's completely unrepentant at having effectively murdered an innocent woman for absolutely no reason, only showing remorse at the possibility that she may have jeopardized the fledgeling alliance between the colonials and rebel Cylons, and then looking about ready to kill Adama with her bare hands when he orders her thrown in the brig, with no access to Hera.

* The ''whole'' miniseries. What started out as a normal day in Colonial life, falls apart extremely rapidly as the Cylons attack and utterly decimate the Colonies. Ships filled with passengers, cargo transports, mining ships are all left stranded as the Colonies fall. The whole atmosphere is one of dread and horror as the reality of what is happening sets in for everyone who survived. It evokes the horror of 9/11 very well; the same uncertainty, lack of information and chaos is present.

* In the finale, [[spoiler:the look on Tyrol's face when he finds out what happened to Cally. He's thoughtful, working through it, then you see his nostrils flare and he just goes '''O_o''' and promptly breaks Tory's neck. Remember, [[BewareTheNiceOnes this is one of the nicest, friendliest characters in the series]].]]

* [[spoiler:Dualla]]'s sudden, shocking and violent suicide after pretending to be happy will leave a mark on even the most well-adjusted.
* In season 4.0, even though she was TheScrappy, [[spoiler:Cally]]'s death by airlock (in front of her son no less) is absolutely chilling. Even worse, before Tory showed up, there was every indication that [[spoiler:Cally]] planned to throw herself out the airlock, along with the aforementioned '''infant''' son. Let's repeat: a baby, being subjected to all the horrible things empty space does to you before killing you. Thankfully, the writers didn't take it that far; just dangling the possibility was horrifying enough.

* [[spoiler:Athena's]] shooting dead one of the Sixes out of a mistaken belief that she intends to [[spoiler:kidnap Hera]]. Not only is it unnerving how she screams at the Six and threatens to shoot her (and even Tigh when he orders her to stand down) if she so much moves a muscle, but the way that she puts another bullet in the already mortally-wounded Six while she's on the ground just takes things from what could at least be construed as an act of panic into an outright ''execution''. And the kicker? When Adama gives [[spoiler:Athena]] a WhatTheHellHero speech at the start of the following episode, she's completely unrepentant at having effectively murdered an innocent woman for absolutely no reason, only showing remorse at the possibility that she may have jeopardized [[spoiler:the fledgeling alliance between the colonials and rebel Cylons]], and then looking about ready to kill Adama with her bare hands when he orders her thrown in the brig, with no access to [[spoiler:Hera]].

* The moment Admiral Cain JumpedOffTheSlipperySlope. Badly outnumbered during a Cylon attack she orders her XO, Colonel Belzen to launch the Viper wing held in reserve. Belzen, a loyal officer who has known her for years, objects because he knows it's a SuicideMission and their only chance is to retreat. Cain orders him to hand over his sidearm as if she is reliving him of duty. Instead, when he gives it to her she shoots him right between the eyes ''in the middle of the CIC''. Cain then calls for the next officer in line (Colonel Fisk), tells him that he is the new XO and repeats her order to launch Vipers.

* New Caprica. ALL OF IT! Although the end of the arc has heavy doses of [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome awesomeness.]] During some of the parts with Kara, if you listen ''very'' carefully to seconds without music or dialogue, you can ''hear people screaming.''

* In season 4.0, even though she was TheScrappy, [[spoiler:Cally]]'s death by airlock (in front of her son no less) is absolutely chilling. Even worse, before Tory showed up, there was every indication that [[spoiler:Cally]] planned to throw herself out the airlock, along with the aforementioned '''''infant''''' son. Let's repeat: a baby, being subjected to all the horrible things empty space does to you before killing you. Thankfully, the writers didn't take it that far; just dangling the possibility was horrifying enough.

** A specific scene in the miniseries doubles as extreme HighOctaneNightmareFuel. President Roslin has assembled a fleet of over 60 civilian ships, stranded in space lanes when the Colonies came under attack. The makeshift fleet is in formation and plans are in motion to transfer passengers off the non-FTL capable ships, when suddenly a Raider jumps in, scans them and jumps away. Faced with an imminent Cylon attack, President Roslin makes the gut-wrenching decision to have all FTL capable ships jump away, abandoning the sublight only ships. The pleading cries of the ship captains being left behind are absolutely horrific to hear. Imagine being on one of those ships, unable to escape, watching others jump away, and then four Raiders jump in...

* The ''Pegasus'' approach to interrogating Cylons, be it the tortured, raped and DrivenToSuicide Number Six Gina, or especially the scene in which officers from the ''Pegasus'' attempt to rape an unsuspecting ''and pregnant'' Sharon Agathon in a scene I can't watch without feeling physically ill. * shudders*

* New Caprica. ALL OF IT! Although the end of the arc has heavy doses of [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome awesomeness.]]
** During some of the parts with Kara, if you listen ''very'' carefully to seconds without music or dialogue, you can ''hear people screaming.''

* The moment Admiral Cain JumpedOffTheSlipperySlope. Badly outnumbered during a Cylon attack, she orders the ''Pegasus'' to launch the Viper wing held in reserve. Her XO, a loyal officer who has known her for years, objects because he knows it's a SuicideMission and their only chance is to retreat. Cain orders him to hand over his sidearm, then when he gives it to her she shoots him right between the eyes ''in the middle of the CIC''. Cain then calls for the next officer in line, tells him that he is the new XO and repeats her order to launch Vipers.

* The BodyHorror segments of the new ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|Reimagined}}'' movie ''Razor'' are not as disturbing as the Hybrid, especially compared to the [[ShoutOut Minority Report]] hybrids already seen: an old man, responsible for the aforementioned BodyHorror, talking cryptically and accurately about events still to come, about a main character being the root of everyone's doom, all while sitting in a tub of goo with cables going in and out, and finally reminding us, "All of this has happened before, all this will happen again. Again. Again. Again. Again," before calmly dying.

* The first episode, "33", where the Cylons relentlessly appear and attack every 33 minutes - pure 200 proof nightmare fuel.