I absolutely LOVE the 'battered and beaten Pegasus' idea. That would have made the situations involving it way more believable and interesting.

I am actually with you on the idea of making the Pegasus a wounded giant and show it almost looking like Galactica from Season 4, I also think that if it's sacrifice going out guns blazing to have been a planned distraction rather than a surprise rescue would have felt better narratively. Galactica doing the whole Adama Maneuver while the Pegasus is going 1v6 with the Cylons providing a ticking clock before it is destroyed and the Cylons come to whip out Galactica and the escaping colony ships. Also yeah, could have been a moment of redemption for Cain if she had lived that long

I, too, like your "wounded Pegasus" idea. They could have even used it as an emotional hammer-blow when it appeared. Imagine the vipers move in towards the Pegasus. There are some battle scars visible, but the ship mostly looks intact. "It's like a dream." "It is a dream." And then the vipers pass to the opposite side, and there is the massive nuclear crater in a burned-out flight pod. The armor on that side is tattered with dozens of impacts from where the Cylons have been focusing their attacks against the compromised defenses. Hull frames are visible where armor has been stripped from less critical sections to plate back over strikes to the main hull. The music turns ominous and the camera zooms in to the pilots' faces, their expressions of joy turning to horror at the state of the ship. Nobody has to say it - it's not a dream, it's a nightmare. If they wanted to make it REALLY ominous, some of the plating over battle damage could have had recognizable markings similar to some of the civilian ships in the Rag Tag Fleet, strongly implying what we later learned about Cain's actions.

you brought up some good points i hadn’t considered before. i think the whole suicide run over new caprica would have been a lot less stupid if the ship had already been on its last legs, then it could have been properly part of the rescue plan and not some spur of the moment decision.

My checklist for how I'd use the Pegasus. 1 make it newer but comparable to the Galactiga. 2 have damage and limits for its capabilities. 3 have it's fate unknown. Either the ship disappears during the battle ( or destroyed with heroic sacrifice by it's crew) or it's fate is unknown by virtue of the fleet leaving the colony during the battle. Either way limits are it's greatest strength here.

if they had upgraded Galactica and "pulled a HMS Hood" where Lee was not on board it would be better. the lucky shot no one saw coming.

Another way to handle the destruction of the Pegasus is *random bad luck* by having a BaseStar _accidentally_ jump in directly in its path and the collision cripple the Pegasus. That gives the "if only" _they could have won this_ if the ship had been a hundred metres to the side. Have Apollo use a sound strategy and be winning the battle up until that moment when the dice just landed the wrong way and he got snake eyes. He's lined up the BaseStars on approach so that they are in a line obscuring each other from him and can't bring their full firepower to bear because they're blocking each other (having been focused on Galactica in a perpendicular firing line formation to pound Galactica with concentrated fire) and he's taking them out one by one with everything Pegasus has got. Such as firing nukes with a simultaneous salvo of regular missiles to soak up the AA, through the gaps to detonate near BaseStars further back in the line formation to take out their raiders and mess with their systems _as his opening move._ .... Or a couple of nuke armed Raptors jumping in and going 'suprise' while also launching drones ect to confuse the Cylons for a few seconds. Basically a clever strategy so the fans don't want Apollo court-martialled. Apollo's plan is working, the Cylons have been put in a bad position and his misdirection (the hallmark of all the BSG wins against the odds) is working. Remember the Cylons expected to take on both BattleStars at once, they would have a lot of firepower there, that's why Galactica is taking such a hit. Then the BaseStar reserves jump in but Apollo had planned for that as it was only two BaseStars ... "Watch the countdown clock, the two BaseStars guarding the far side of the planet will jump in blind in _X_ (nods to Sharon). Have the tubes reloaded with nukes by then. Remember we can take them as long as we take down at least _Y_ BaseStars already here beforehand." It's working, the first BaseStar went up straight away with bullseyes on its central junction, and others are variously damaged and crippled as they get hit with overshots from the first BaseStar. They stop firing on Galactica as they desperately manoeuvre to try and get clear shots at Pegasus while false drone readings have them confused. Raptors had created fake Pegasus readings opposite side from Galactica and then on the far side of the firing line of BaseStars, so the Cylons assumed the readings of the real Pegasus were another fake until the BaseStar first in line could see it directly, which was the same moment it started taking hits. Have it a showcase of how Raptors as scouts and EW platforms (and stand off launchers) are useful in harrassment if used intelligently. They've thrown the Cylons into disarray and inflicted enough damage to the BaseStars present that the reinforcements can be handled. Except when the two BaseStars jump in one is in a direct collision course and it's not a deliberate kamikaze strategy by the Cylons - the BaseStar also tries to evade but its too late for both ships. The BaseStar actually does more damage by trying to get out of the way as one of its spires impacts behind the armoured head of Pegasus, hitting the flank of the ship that's not as reinforced and going in deep, maybe hitting the engine clusters. [this is to explain while later on Galactica can ram the station, the prow of the ship is tough enough, in _this case_ it was a offside hit]. It could also jump in with its spires entangled or whatever, but that might give the impression it was deliberate. This wasn't superior Cylon planning, this was a fluke. The BaseStar is completely destroyed and Pegasus is now a write off, it's never going to jump again (at least not with battlefield repairs). *How the dialogue could play out.* "Frack..damage report" "The lower brace [sound of horror] _is gone,_... we even get the jump drives back online, we're splitting in two." Apollo makes the call to abandon ship and is smart about that as well. Over the PA: "Raptors launch at your call, the shuttles jump from inside the flight pods once the Raptors are gone [foreshadowing the _final_ battle]. It doesn't matter anymore. There's nothing that can save her. (Save yourselves, we still need you for Galactica.)" Then to the Bridge crew "Is Galactica going to make it? We need to buy them the time" Looks at Pegasus "The cost has already been too high, let's at least make it worth it." Minor character(s) from Pegasus "Galactica's starting to spool up its jump drives. We can set everything here to automatic. Galactica needs you too sir, go. We'll leave _when we're able."_ Apollo understands "you sure...?" and salutes them with tears in the corners of his eyes. And then runs like hell for his Raptor. The minor characters as they aim Pegasus to inflict maximum damage on the remaining BaseStars "Y'know we almost had this. Luck is .... well luck." [What about the second BaseStar that jumped in near but didn't collide? The remaining crew could wait till everyone's clear and then fire all the nukes at too close a range at it] Then Pegasus's sacrifice isn't like the death of a character in the Aliens franchise, ie down to their own stupidity. It's fate cruelly taking down a magnificent character when they had so much potential left, but they still make a damn good accounting of themselves. It's a heroic death.

I want to believe that when the Pegasus showed up, which was also being hunted by Cylon Basestars, that the two perusing Cylons fleets combined which is why we see the Basestar fleets just simply balloon in size.

An interesting question that has bugged me for a while. Is why didn't the Colonies refurbished Galactica's unused flight pod into a version of The Pegasus's fabrication matrices. The same fabrication matrices could build something as complex as a Viper mark 7, There is no way they couldn't reprogram them to fabricate the components for a new one. Especially with the colonization of New Caprica. During the first few months when the Colonias were breaking ground. That would have been the best place to start increasing the colonial's industrial capacity needed for the next stage of colonization of the planet. Then again maybe that's just the Factorio player in me talking.

It is a glorious ship and i will allow no slander of the Pegasus Slander of its captains On the other hand will be endorsed and the decision to sacrifice it was moronic

Part of this is, I think, due to Moore's habit of introducing things into the story without having a clear idea of how they resolve going forward. The problem with the Pegasus on its introduction to the reboot series is not the ship itself, but that Admiral Caine and her crew have broken in a bad way morally and that Caine outranks Adama. The original series Caine was not a bad person, but a glory hound and very charismatic over Adama's cautiousness on preserving the remnant of known humanity. Once the reboot series gets rid of Caine, without losing the Pegasus with her, they had written themselves into a bit of a corner with a now OP ship with the human problem somewhat mitigated. Also, the battle scarred Pegasus idea could have been introduced anytime after she joins the fleet, especially during the incident where Lee is forced to take command of the Pegasus.

I think that the problem with the Pegasus is that it was too far advanced in comparison to the Galactica. If it had been the same model (as it was in the original show) as the Galactica or a single generation ahead it would have been a lot more balanced. However, with a lack of visible damage, not using its capabilities during a deadly fight and it being a far more capable platform than the ship it was sacrificing itself for the episode where it is destroyed just seems so nonsensical that I would rather go back to the original series where it got lost trying to divert some Cylon base-stars away from the Colonial fleet.

We can't talk about the Pegasus without mentioning Razor. That movie should have been incorporated into seasons 3 and 4 in the form of a series of flashbacks. Would have made the later seasons (that had too many filler episodes anyway) on par with season 1. That, and make the Pegasus equal in strength to the Galactica. That way it doesn't seem so illogical for Adama to keep his flag on the Galactica instead of moving it to the more modern and more valuable battlestar.

4 minutes in and I already have images of upgunned and uparmored Galactica thanks to Pegasus fabricating new components for her. Oh, what could've been. From season 3 onwards Galacitca could've easily had both her flight pods operational. But the show as is is still the best s-f that graced our television ever. Well, perhaps joint number 1 with The Expanse.

If I remember TOS correctly, after escaping the genocide, the Galactica was in desperate need of rebuilding its Viper corps, but what they actually needed was more pilots, not more Vipers as they had plenty of latter and lacked the former, leading to a Cylon pilot whining about how human tactics suddenly turned bizarre and they couldn't turkey-shoot them anymore. The implication, I think, was that they could always build more Vipers. This was actually backed up by several episodes. In one, it was stated that they needed a month on a suitable planet to replenish the fleet's food stocks, their agriculture was that good, which spoke of a high technological level. They built/established the agro ship because they couldn't afford the month, what with the Cylons chasing them. And then, in a later episode they revealed the Delta Flyer before the Delta Flyer was a thing with an upgraded recon Viper that included a fully functional AI. So their manufacturing ability was high but not omnipotent. In one episode, they permanently lost Long Scan, forcing them to use more and longer-ranged patrols, which increased overall fuel consumption. But that was all years ago and I don't know if I'm remembering everything right.

I agree with what you're saying about a broken down Pegasus would have been a better intro to the ship. But honestly I think that the events of Razor could have happened in the series proper and given the Pegasus the out that the original ship had. Or having the Hybrid Basestar showing up around New Caprica and getting a Razor Part Deux and that's where we lose the girl, it'd give the setup more meaning and tie things together.

I loved the final battle of the reboot Pegasus. It was a hybrid with a little bit of the last battle of the Pegasus seen in the original TV series mixed with a lot of the ship's final battle in the Richard Hatch post original series novels.

Somebody once said that the Galactica herself (not the President) was the dying leader from the prophesy.

I do agree that the Pegasus was waisted but only provisionally. The only reason for its appearance was to resupply the Galactica with pilots , Raptors and Vipers. As far as the story goes there’s no other reason for it to be there.

I wish a "the other batttlestar" line could of made it into the episodes.

3:24 that is incorrect. There is a scene where Adamma and Roselin are talking and one of them states that the manufacturing on Pegasus just turned out their first Viper MK.VII. and the other replies, "we are starting to rebuild" or something. It was well after Cains death etc. After that, i dont remember the manufacturing being mentioned.

It would have worked better regarding the Pegasus if she had been just as old as Galactica or even the same class of ship. Maybe have her be even more worn down than Galactica was. The sacrifice of Pegasus could have easily been accepted for me if that had been the case.

I despised the way Caine was handled in the reboot. She was a Military Officer, as written by a civilian that has clue zero , about how a real Military works.

I like the idea of a damaged Pegasus, one that’s structural members are shot and jumps are limited. It would give more impetus to stay on New Caprica and when she sacrificed herself it was with the knowledge she would likely never jump again anyway. It would have also provided more impact to the compound damage that Galactica was taking over the later series.

Whilst not mentioned in the show, I think it kinda obvious that as Adama Older left for his suicide mission, he left all the nukes for Adama Younger. And again when Adama Younger left for his suicide mission, he again left the nukes for the Vipers as the Vipers would basically hapless knocking out Basestars with kinetics and chemicals only when protecting the small fleet for jump prep.

As a lot of others are saying, I too agree that the idea of the Pegasus being a battered wounded and torn up leviathan that has limped its way to the fleet would of done wonders for the issues. At that point it not some over powered super ship, it would provide some help and be useful yet as you stated be something that is clearly dying a slow and painful death. It would also of made the worse lady ever's choices to start stripping civi-ships for materials made more sense, cause I mean still stupid as hell but at least then it adds a layer of the psycho trying to get enough material to get her revenge boat back up to snuff. And it would of made the Pegasus's death more well interesting and cool, instead of a super ship just getting tossed aside or lost for idiotic reasons. It is a ship and crew doing a final stand, a one final voyage to make a difference. A ship going down with a fight, instead of dying with a whimper.

In universe, what if _one_ of the reasons that the Cylons attacked was because the newest BattleStars were so overpowered versus BaseStars? The Cylons had modelled that the Colonial fleet would soon be able to beat the Cylon fleet in a straight shooting match. Add that to the Bulldog storyline and the Cylons came up with The Plan out of fear.

I really like the idea of the networking and hacking being more of an issue and leading to the ship's ultimate downfall. While the whole "death by a thousand cuts" idea sounds really cool, I think having the Pegasus and Cain initially appear to be anything other than the model of peak colonial military does too much to weaken its initial arc. The impossibility of victory and Cain's blatant superiority over Adama in rank, armament, and seemingly discipline brings a lot both to the stakes, and to shine a light on the very human flaws and sins of the characters aboard. Cain and crew didn't turn cruel because they were forced to entirely by circumstance and the need to survive; they did it because it was ultimately a very human thing to do, and that doesn't really work if it shows up looking like it just flew through "Year of Hell". I think the networking could fix the severe amount of ass pull needed to cause the ship to lose, while making Lee's decision still somewhat stupid, but not unbelievably so. It'd still feel like an ass pull, but basically any way of killing the Pegasus would. Also a deus ex machina isn't always a storytelling mistake.

The best solution is to make them sacrifice the pegasus for the civilian fleet, not just Galactica. For example: Jumping from the atmosphere is dangerous and can damage a ship therefore civilian ships need a couple of minutes to get high enough to jump without breaking after the jump. Now that the additional 4 basestarts did jump there is a lot of raider heading for the civilian fleet. One of the ships jumps from the atmosphere to inform the pegasus what is happening and we can see that ship breaking in half and suffering massive damage. Then Pegasus jumps in and takes a nuke that destroys its FTL.

Pegasus being such a beast was actually a huge problem until the death of Cain. The problems with her death are problems with the writing of Cain's death, not the Pegasus. Once new Caprica became settled both ships were equally worthless with inadequate skeleton crews thanks to President Baltar. BSG had a lot of great writing and some bad writing; the decision to give the audience the beast only to take it away was great writing and timed to happen at the same time as losing 1/5th of the human race at the same time was a powerful combination and falls under great writing.

6:42 the issue is how it was removed It was only destroyed because lee had Avoided using any tactical sense during the battle of new caprica, not to mention he left his vipers behind. While, you can argue that it was to defend the civilian ships. I can tell you that the moment a baseship was deployed. All those viper pilots would die screaming And the civilian ships not long after A better option would Be to make it appear as if they had been taken out in battle. But rather have it be an emergency jump This could split the narrative Making it so lee has to learn how to command it in. The absence of his father And still giving the fleet the same amount of hopelessness and the necessity of cooperating with the rebels You could have a season finale of them. Finally meeting up. A great reunion between the two ships I am also biased I think the mercury class is cooler than tree jupiter class

actually OG cain took off into deep space trying to draw some of the cylons with him

My mom got me the BSG Collector's Edition for Christmas (no idea where she managed to find that) and ive been watching an episode or two every day. Just finished Season 1 and im a bit anxious to continue. Such an amazing cliffhanger.

Pegasus was brought in for one reason only. in the original series that was one of the most popular arcs. But the original story wasn't that Galactica was being decommissioned, it was the Capricia Flagship. so in the original finding a second of the 12 Battlestars was a big thing. The remake made it worse for them. Instead of a old but fully functional Battlestar they were in a borderline gutted ship. A museum and gift shops in place of a flight pod no real armaments, it was very much implied that the only reason Galactica survived was because it wasn't worth prioritizing as a target. for Pegasus it was a desperate call for a blind jump and grandfathered "tactical genius" of General Cain that resulted in the Pegasus avoiding the Cylon fleet. Admiral Cain then begins to plan for revenge very much as Adama had planned and stopped because Lee said the president was alive? It's kinda weird to compare original and reboot as the original Adama seemed like he was a council member and the military commander so chairman of the joint chiefs type. where in the reboot Adama was just one commander among many which required the President role to fill the gap of what the character design of this Adama lacked.

Did you know, that the German actress Nastassia KInski was rumored to have been offered the part of Admiral Kane, but she declined. I personally think she would have made an awesome, and evil, Admiral Kane.

10:19 There is another option have the cylons field another form of base ship in deadlock the cylons regularly role out counters to the colonials with the argos and cratus class basestars

How I'd have handled it: keep the arrival of the Pegasus as is. It's the newest version of a Battlestar, has all the bells and whistles. By end of the two parter over the Resurrection Ship, she's taken a beating, but her fabricators are fine, and both she and Galactica are brought back to their "base specs", but there's underlying issues with the subframe of Pegasus that they got during that battle that will limit things, and they have to keep on top of - things that they cannot fix "on the fly" without a dry dock. They get to New Caprica and think, "Great: we can dry dock the Beast AND then the Bucket to fix the big things in the Beast, and retrofit the Bucket with some fabs." They ACTUALLY put a small fabricator onto Galactica first, something to allow for SMALL scale production, in the sealed off unused launch wing, as bringing THAT back to spec would have taken too long and been needless with the overguned and staffed Pegasus. They get this done and dusted, launch Galactica back up to orbit, then are about to bring down Pegasus (who was on guard) when the Cylons find New Caprica. Both Battlestars fly away with half the warriors of the fleet, and the show continues to the end of that situation as it did IN the shown episodes. Except that the Pegasus is used more completely IN the rescue, holding off the Basestars, and when it comes time to leave, BOTH manage to FTL away. However, on arrival with the rescued rag-tag fleet, the spine of Pegasus breaks (al la what WILL happen to Galactica in the future... basically, show us a forshadowing without being too in your face). They strip down Pegasus, and manage to save a lot of it's parts and bits - even manage to build a SMALL fabricator ship out of part of it. By the end, Pegasus "died a heroes death" and with two SMALL fabricator ships (one Galactica herself) for repairing and making new Vipers, maybe Raptors, but not to wholesale reclad the outside of Galactica again, and the other being for spare parts and Fleet repairs... it would allow the show to retain it's "if we take TOO much damage we're done", rather than "if we continue to gain damage we're done", but not have it be the same refrain over and over. We have a new ship made from Pegasus, maybe two... they might have been able to salvage enough to have a "flying wing" Carrier for more Viper launches, but it wouldn't be a tankie ship like it was... add some versitility to Galactica, and allow for the writers to no longer need to focus QUITE so much on "repairs are an issue". That part would come back as a big problem in the last season when the Cylon Rebels discover that Galactica has the beginnings of her own "broken back" issue.

A lot of your points are ill thought-out. 1) The Pegasus construction systems aren't replicators, they need resources that require a full mining team because it's one thing to mine an ice-like substance, something else entirely to dig into a planet's crust to extract minerals that themselves then need to be refined. There's a whole process before you get to construction. 2) Re-arming and Re-armouring Galactica would require a dry dock, that isn't something you can do in the field, especially when the Cylons are hunting you. 3) A sneak attack could have finished off the Cylons for good just as easily as a brute force attack from Pegasus. The decision not to was based upon a moral code rather than a military code so the outcome would be no different. 4) Costs. An entirely spurious critique given that's part of a show runner's job. 5) Not killing off Galactica because the titular ship. This is precisely what RDM wanted to do to Voyager in Star Trek Voyager. I get that you didn't like it and that's your opinion but don't make spurious arguments to justify your dislike.

Adding on to everyone else, I'm loving the idea of a catered barely limping giant, a shell of what was the hopes of colonial fleet.

Thank you. I had already realised none of the fan proposed solutions and name of the show meant the Pegasus had to go. I just had no clue how to do this convincingly. You gave a great solution. Plus it solved a minor red flag in my mind concerning Pegasus history - the failed attack on the cylons that Cain launched early on should have degraded Pegasus much more than was shown, given statements made in episode. RDM did an "episode reset" - which ironically is claimed to be his biggest criticism of ST:Voyager and why he left that show almost instantly.

I think a better idea would have balanced it out with the Pegasus is to make it a resource hog. This ship was made post-Cylon War and was built with the industrial might of the colonials to back it up. Give it enough times (ten years or so) and people will forget logistics and think just having a big enough gun will win wars (looking at you Russia). Meanwhile, the Galactica was made during the Cylon War when resources were more scarce, therefore it was made to be more self-reliant. Therefore the Pegasus is more powerful than the Galactica but it burns through resources faster than the Galactica and will only be able to fight a few battles before having to refuel and rearm while the Galactica is able to fight. Therefore, instead of a weird sacrifice, the Colonials sent it to its death trying to take as many Cylons with it as they could not afford to keep it as it brought the fleet in the red due to the amount of resources it was burning through. (Though this only works if the show slowly converts the civilian fleet and modifies them to support manufacturing facilities to support each other and the fleet. Like repair ships to modified workshops and hospital ships).

Yeah, the sacrifice of the Pagasus was stupid in the miniseries the way it was handled. They introduced this highly advanced ship, eventually solved the loyality issues by killing Caine way too early - for my taste - and then they had this ship and did not know what to do with it. From a logical standpoint it would have made much more sence to move most of the staff and the civilians to the Pegasus und when they tried to settle on New Caprtica they could have salvaged the way more damaged Galactica for parts to bulld up the colony. And when the Cylons returned they could have used the now almost useless Galactica for the distraction suicide run. Making the Pegasus the same class as the Galactica, like in the orginal show - or using the wounded giant approach would have made it more believable.

Whenever you get to the second part with your rewrite, here's a thought: not only have her come in beaten and bruised, limping and licking her wounds... Have them having to make the decision to juggle using their fabrication and other resources focused on not ONLY the Pegasus AND the Galactica... But trying to keep the civilian vessels I'm sure could use some help, too. Death by a thousand cuts.

To fix the fabrication issue, have Pegasus with a self repair system and a cache of Vipers they had secured. The self repair system was one of the many new features which made Galactica obsolete, and the Vipers, well, are self explanatory.

Discovering a battered Pegasus resolves the issue of its eventual demise while also still allowing the fun storytelling of Adama suddenly being second-in-command.

8:27 Damn, Galactica with full armour plating sure look beautiful. Second to the Blood & Chrome version Galactica, of course.

I agree the battered pegasus would make a lot more sense. A story plot of we are always getting hacked so have to keep running and couldn't save all the civillians we could. Then trying to fix the hacking problems only to have them fail during a battle. Would really keep to the theme of the show and just not have every fix onboard. The influx in trained pilots and crew would allow the addition of a bunch of cast memebers and also solved some training issues. perhaps some crew that know how to fabricate. Instead of a machine its a group of dedicated engineers that can keep old galatica afloat easier as its not relying on the networking tech they aren't as good as fabricating but pits them against baltar to solve the computer issues.

There's one very simple change I'd make to balance Galactica vs Pegasus: Galactica was made to work with minimal automation, Pegasus wasn't. Sure, Pegasus has more raw brute force available but with its automated systems compromized, it's a lot less efficient running on its fallback solutions, needs more personnel per horsepower so to speak. A few lines added here or there how they tried to reactivate automated systems and they went haywire from trojans re-emerging from who knows where into systems thought to be running on clean code. About how hard it was to manually reload the improvized magazines shoved into lobotomized autoloaders, manually input firing solutions with far too few juryrigged old systems bolted into places they never were made for. And bingo, as long as there's unity, Pegasus is the big bad toastershredder we know and love, but throw some (inner?) conflict into the situation and Pegasus grinds to a screeching halt while Galactica barely changes.

From what I remember, wasn’t new tech supposed to be more vulnerable than legacy which is why the Galactica and old vipers survived. Analogous to vacuum tubes vs integrated circuitry in a nuclear war. Would’ve been more internally consistent if the writers wrote Pegasus out using the premise they setup from the get go. OP vs Galactica, vulnerable vs Cylons. By the end of the show, wasn’t everyone a Cylon?

This video answers its own questions very capably. So a lot of this is just bad criticism. On some of the other points: > First moments of unquestionable hope This is already a misreading. You Can't Go Home Again, Hand of God, Colonial Day, Home Part 2, Final Cut and Flight of the Pheonix all have extremely strong moments of hope and payoff in the series. Also I don't like engaging with "plot hole" criticisms unless they're massive plot holes (which I don't think this ship presents), but what the hell, let's do it on a couple points. > Fabricating new armor panels If we take as read that "fabricating new vipers" necessarily means the Pegasus has sufficient capacity to repair itself (not clear and not established; fixing the damage of the nuke from Scorpia isn't shown and could just as well mean "fixing the electronic wiring and nuclear shielding" as it could "making gigantic new armor panels"). Also, I'd note that the pegasus doesn't turn out its first viper for weeks after it's introduced into the fleet, implying that its manufacturing capacities are slower than you give it credit for or that it doesn't have the manpower sans Galactica to effectively replace its losses. > If there was more ambiguity about the capacity of the ship There is, see above. The show only mentions the Pegasus's manufacturing abilities a couple of times; most of its power comes from its initial introduction in the Pegasus extended cut, where they show the technicians and spare parts being given to Galactica or the software upgrades it has, which are one-time things. Other than that the most we see of its abilities are in its guns, which are nice, but at the point when it's destroyed, we've mostly moved past every encounter with a Cylon basestar being a shooting war. > What if the ship had shown more damage when it was found? This a fair criticism, and I'd welcome it. It would also work with Cain's extreme militarism where she keeps picking fights she can't win. So, point. > Pegasus showing up is a deus ex machina This is simply wrong. Lee's tendency to disobey orders is well-established at this point, it's clearly within jump range, the Galactica's exfil of New Caprica being hopeless is well-established, and it only solves one problem with its destruction: the Galactica needs to get away, the Pegasus allows it that open door. This simply isn't what DEM actually means, which is a hallmark of bad internet criticism. > Literal character assassination 1. Not what "character assassination" means, literally or figuratively. 2. Cain being the authoritarian who runs the ship is also well-established, and when authoritarians disappear, it's not that far of a stretch to say that the militarism they bring with them disappears or is mitigated too. Hell, the militarism isn't even totally gone: Cain's XO runs the ship pretty heavy-handedly until he's murdered for being a corrupt prick, and some of the Pegasus's officers and pilots in later S2 episodes still act more militaristically than Galactica's service members. 3. Pegasus-Six being extremely competent with weapons and knowing the Pegasus's layout is established in Razor (which, sure, you could say was a retcon, although I wouldn't, but it's there regardless), and the payoff of Cain being murdered by a lover she abused and tortured because she couldn't see her humanity is appropriate for that character.

I always wish they would've let the original Galactica get destroyed as a season finale, and move the flag to the Pegasus (maybe a battered one... great huge battle with damage, maybe still even the New Caprica line, just done differently), and rename it Galactica. the "factory" opens up the storyline, etc. However, given they were limiting seasons, it really wasn't necessary. But one could dream... :) I do agree with your analysis about character and such, my version would've been a different show, and I do love the show, it did have to go.

A beaten Pegasus would also instill into the audience that there’s no fighting the Cylons in a stand-up fight, and that there’s no going back. Also, if Cain is still hellbent on her revenge trip-that she’s literally in charge of something that’s falling apart because of it, it makes her out to be more of an Ahab like character

About the fabrication, what about making the new vipers with parts salvaged during the Great Cylon Turkey Shoot? A viper with Cylon engines and guns would really show how desperate the colonials are to get something up and running.

Dude this argument literally popped up in a Facebook group I was in the other day.

Eh... he's right. I hate to admit it, but he's right. Another class of Battlestar showing up, like one of the other main-line Battlestars, would have worked out better for plot reasons.

I generally agree with everything you say though i do irk a little with the Deus Ex Machina being a negative. Yes it can be done poorly and has been done poorly on numerous occasions but I get a little annoyed at the assumption that it's always a bad thing. It's fine if used appropriately. I personally had no issues with the introduction of Pegasus. I'm more annoyed that they barely used it to any good affect in show. Largely just relegated to examples of poor command structure and the occasional side story. Least we can all agree the death of Pegasus was bloody horrendous.

Pegasus in many ways was a Mary Sue ship of the series. It seemed that no matter how much damage the Cylons threw at it, it just seemed to make her angrier and stronger. Unlike Galactica which slowly fell apart with every engagement.

The concern with the Pegasus fabrication facilities being considered a Star Trek replicator could be easily resolved by a simple lack of raw materials to make things with. I would also have liked the Peg, when it initially appeared, to be fairly undamaged but unarmed. It was in dock after all, the story could be that it’s armament was offloaded during the attack. Cain then ordering Adama “Give me all your bullets” setting up the first confrontation.

Imagine what a fleet of Mercury class battlestars could have done to the cylinder.

IIRC the cast and crew even had a large banner made “Save the Pegasus” when filming was being done for the first few episodes of season 3.

i think they could have let the Pegasus hang around, even get Galatica destroyed and in honour, they rename the Pegasus, after a time the production facilities get damaged beyond repair by a virus or sabotaged, maybe in the mutiny and they could only produce ammunition.

I love the introduction of Pegesus. It is a great scene. I love that it stuck around because it sticks a finger in the eye of status quo is god trope. You are correct it is over the top in terms of ability like fabrication. They could have had it escape with half the crew and missing viper pilots. I like the idea of the wounded beast because, as you said, it required stupidity to kill off the ship vs a loss that doesn't make people look stupid. Imagine Cain wanting to transfer her flag to Galactica because it was the better ship. Imagine the oh shit when the assessment is done and the better ship on paper is revealed to be worse off than Galactica. More fights and more bad hits. The sacrifice play makes more sense when Pegesus is on borrowed time anyway. I do disagree with what you say about disposing of plot elements once the story is done because it makes for bad continuity. Character has sibling is shown once never again. Makes it look like the writers forgot. Its good to revisit those stories for b plots that continue through the show.

I felt the pegasus was brought in to fool the audience into thinking the fleet finally had a real chance at surviving due to its ability to produce new weapons/ships then its destruction brought this whole feeling of complete hopelessness, but thats just my opinion

Imagine if Barry Garner was still alive and acting captain of the Pegasus, and the ships last battle was her suffering extensive damage to her midsection, but retaining the ability to do FTL, if her front section was intact. It would be interesting to see Garner's ark moved here, where instead of dying saving the ship, his ark would culminate with him deciding that the crew is more important than the ship, and choosing to use explosives to separate the rear with the FTL from the front sections. With this the explosion would allow what remains of Pegasus and its crew to FTL out, but also render the ship no longer combat worthy, or as useful as an industrial producer. This way you'd take its relevance of the plot table, and avoid the final battle debacle.

What I would have liked instead is that the Pegasus looses their engines but it's FTL malfunctions and jumps to a random point or back to the refugee fleet badly damaged, and the evacuation on NC still worked, and then the next episode is to scuttle or salvage the Pegasus, and give Galactica a rough retro fit look for the ending.

Fabricators without raw materials would be useless the problems would shift to getting enough raw materials. The vast amounts of parts and equipment needed to keep the refugee fleet operational could easily balance out the existence of the Pegasus's production.

There are so many ways to fix the sacrifice of the Pegasus over New Caprica: They could have always planned to take both ships in, but one would jump first, alert the Cylons, then lead them off while the other jumped directly into atmosphere to recieve the evacuees. The Pegasus could have been ship 1 either because it was tougher and more likely to survive the pounding it would take (only to not quite make it), or because the oler Battlestars from the first Cylon war might have been designed with atmospheric entry in mind, making Galactica the only option for that role Or both ships could have jumped in to engage the Cylons directly, and the Cylons chose to focus on Pegasus as the more significant threat. Hoping that if Pegasus was destroyed, Galactica wouldn't last much passed that, or that if only one ship could be destroyed before the other jumped out, they'd rather down the more powerful of the two Alternatively, the Galactica could have taken on Religious significance as the vessel chosen by the gods to deliver the people to their new home, and so Pegasus, despite being a more powerful asset, could have been the more bearable psycological loss And those are just what I came up with. I'm sure other folks have even better ideas

That Palpatine tie in was well played 😅

The original Pegasus flew in during a crucial battle, assisted Galactica, then flew off, drawing a big part of the cylon fleet with her.

I agree, I think the Pegasus was poorly introduced, poorly used, and poorly executed, literally executed. If it would have come in damaged but brining some much needed supply, crew, and production capacity and over the time the Pegasus was in BSG it was actively in the background resupplying and repairing the Galactica. Then when the time came to kill it, it would have been a blow but, the fleet overall was improved by it's presence.

I would change story for that: Adama was once an Admiral and in charge of Pegasus for decade before fall of Twelve Colonies, during tests of Stealthstar he ordered to shoot on Novacek, but he autodestruct Stealthstar before that and ejected himself into space. Without Stealthstar missiles aimed and destroyed Cylon Raiders. That gives Cylons green light to begin The Plan. Adama is disgraced by Colonial Fleet and he is demoted to Commander during martial court. Fleet prosecutor Major Helena Cain wants death sentence for him but due to recent death of Zack Adama, jury puts William in charge of Battlestar Galactica along with his crew as honorable discharged from active duty as "Flagship" officer. Here comes Cain who is promoted in place of Adama and given command of Pegasus. Later it would be shown through flashback (for example in Razor) that Cain with Gina Inviere (Number Six seduced president) were blackmailing Adar to push Admirals to promote her to rank of Admiral and Gina to head of IT of Modernizing the Fleet. So Adama would not only face again a woman that destroyed his life, wanted to take it (twice, sic!) now on his place with his old ship in command.

Being that I was a kid who got my family to watch the original due to a Smithsonian article on IML, I knew as soon as I saw that big beautiful ship she was doomed and tried to remain emotionally unattached to her; I knew her fate. Still, a shame but yeah, if ya knew ya knew and just prepped for the day she left or was destroyed.

Once you get to Earth, be sure to stop by any of the rivers to quench your thirst, jump up several feet to snatch fruit from a tree, and most importantly bring a spare Pegasus incase you need to smash a couple of wayward Basestars.

I've loved reading and seeing the many suggestions about how the Pegasus twist in BSG could have gone so much better. She comes in as a very definite Mary Sue with the only visible drawback being her CO which everyone who say the original series knew was going to be some kind of issue.

About the fabrication thing. Well I could imagne you say you don't have the resources. I could imagne that being on the run could prevent you from mining or gather resources other ways. Still I agree it could have been used in a lot of ways. I like the idea you present with the Pegasus being heavly damaged.

When I was watching the show way back when - I thought another colonial surviving Battlestar arrived to save Galactica (alerted by the same nuke that the cylons saw over new caprica). It would have also been awesome if Lee Adama vanished like commander Cain and fate of Pegasus unknown

yeahhh so I guess it wasnt just me that realized a nearly intact pegasus being bodied was pretty fucking odd.

Giving Pegasus the broken back idea that Galactica suffered in the finale would've made the sacrifice "sensible", plus enabled transfer of all the good stuff coulda been good storyline for couple of episodes.

your story points are well presented.

I always kinda wondered why Lee didn't fire every nuke the Beast had when entering the new Caprica system. Fold in, nuke, fight her way out. Lee isn't that stupid, At the very least he could have transferred the Nukes to other ships before Folding out and leaving the fleet defenseless. Fuck it, that's my new head cannon. Lee transferred them all, just like he did with his Viper squadrons.

If the writers keeped with the orignal Pegasus and a true war hero for commander, the Pegasus would of be awesome. I mean in the orginal we never knew if Cain and the Pegasus survived while Galactic and civi fleet escaped. Oh and Cain in the orginal was smart and a great war strategist, unlike the Cain in reboot.

I like the crippled ship idea. Or my bad fanfic, let the OG Galactica be destroyed. And because the stain of Cain, Pegasus is rechristened Galactica and in the Old Ship's honor and the name continues on. And most of the story beats cam still happen.

I remember when watching BSG, as soon as Cain appeared I thought, Yep, she's the antagonist, she's going to get murderised by Six. The crew of the Pegasus were not portrayed as professional military, just about every single one of them was a eff up and/or a terrible person. It was obvious at the time the writers didn't have the wherewithal to deal with Pegasus in a good way, we were all expecting it to get blown up since doing The Beast properly was something it seemed the writers were incapable of doing. Instead they were in their "Oppressed people attacking the invaders" / "We need more soap opera" phase, they did mention the colony sequence was supposed to be a direct metaphor for the American and allies in Iraq and Afghanistan. I would have been fine with a beaten Pegasus finding the fleet, the ship needs a safe harbour for a while, the crew and command are worn ragged after fighting for x period of time. Change Cain so she is messed up but not the ahole she was in the series and film. Perhaps she did what Adama wanted to do in the mini series. Imagine thinking you really are the last remnants of humanity, all you have left is revenge. Suddenly you find traces of what might be a Cylon trap or *might* be salvation, an organised fleet, with escorts ships, civilians. Building up again. Then you find Galactica and the rag tag fleet and think "What the frack?" The two crews don't really get along, one is hardened and messed up with constant combat while Galactica's crew is seen as having 'got off easy' or as 'cowards who ran away' compared to Pegasus. It could have been interesting to see Galactica's crew from the perspective of people who have been living variants of the episode 33 for ages. How to get rid of The Pegasus . Have both ships fly together for a while, Pegasus updating and repairing Galactica as they go, have some mention of cracking / fatigue in her hull. Both ships healing their hurts. Do the colony being found by Cylons shtick. During the battle Galactica manages to jump out either leaving Pegasus as a rearguard or Pegasus goes off in a different direction either with ships of the fleet or decoys. There is some vague plan to meet up again but the ship never shows up. Give us *some* hope!

I think another good idea could of been to make the Pegasus a nother old battle star maybe even an Artemis class as a nod to the old series and giving the og Pegasus a spiritual one last gun hoe hurra

I agree that if the Pegasus came in bruised, battered and vulnerable to EW and virus attacks and was overall equally flawed as the Galactica it would have worked so much better. If the second episode with Pegasus was everyone agreeing to gut one to repair/upgrade the other and basically Adama and Cain arguing over who gets their ship scrapped for parts it would be clear to the audience Pegasus isn't staying but it would still be a shot in the arm to the fleet but not the silver bullet it was. You could have Cain spending the time before the final decision playing politics and sweet talking to get support while Adama does not bother to or need to as his work speaks for itself, it would highlight the difference between the two commanding officers and mirror the tow battlestars with Cain and Pegasus bringing benefits but a whole new set of problems while Adama and Galactica will get the job done in a simple and direct way. Pegasus being damaged and more susceptible to hacks can also limit what Galactica and the fleet can be upgraded with, they could discuss what to install on Galactica or other ships in the fleet and when bringing up a comms/computer system Adama just straight up rejects it as idiocy for making the fleet less cyber-secure. The damage can also be used to limit the capability of the fabrication facilities, if you say a massive amount of blueprints and fabrication capability was lost when 2/3rds of the facilities took a nuke you can explain why they never run out (as long as they can feed the machines) of viper parts and and ammo but all the large machines for battlestar plating where destroyed so it cant be used to indefinitely repair Galactica. Over the Pegasus arc it can be gutted and galactica gets repaired with a few but not many toys and then when you kill the Pegasus it can be the logical point of there isnt any value left in it at this point rather than the weird convoluted emotional reasons we got. Having them literally ram a base because that is the only method left for pegasus to do damage after it is stripped would give a better end to it IMO, let it go on its last battle with everyone knowing it isnt coming back and is just going to die causing as much damage as possible would be better than its given end.

Had Pegasus survived, would the fleet even needed to have found another planet to colonize? Build some space colonies and new fabrication facilities in the middle of nowhere, and every generation or two build another small group of habs and fabrication facilities somewhere else as a sort of civilizational von Neumann probe.

i thought i was going to disagree with this. I Didnt, you raised many good points. Great video

Pegasus's last battle, nukes wouldn't have worked against the cylons as anti ship and fighter defence would have taken out the nukes (razor). When the Pegasus turned up one of the engineering crew says that the pegasus stripped a civilian fleet for part and left them, Caine wasn't a nice person, there were lots of flawed characters in the series.

I absolutely despise where the reboot BSG ended up, so I'm not especially sympathetic to even more effectively gutting the Colonial's hopes. Though I do think you've made quite a few decent points for some version of BSG that didn't end up with a doomed people meandering to their pointless deaths out into those Smilodon infested grasslands. As for the reboot sticking to story beats from the original BSG, I'd argue that the original continuity did NOT lead to a hopeless outcome. It depicted a Fleet which had survived well enough to build at least that one new generation vessel - the one similar to the Ship of Light vessel. Something I've taken as the Colonials being on an ascendant path, whereas the reboot took a path of oblivion.

As cool as the Mercury class is, they should have either made Pegasus a crippled mercury, or a pristine smaller Battlestar to justify keeping the Galactica as flagship. A Valkyrie would have been perfect for the role of a reinforcing ship if we are willing to skip the Mercury. The Valkyrie is more aggressively designed than the Galactica with a aggressive turret placement, and high speed. That said, her guns aren't as big as the big ships, and the fast speed and heavy guns come at the expense of armor. If the Jupiter is a battleship, the Valkyrie is a heavy cruiser. Cruisers were often escourt ships for carriers and battleships in real life. By using a Valkyrie as Pegasus, you can get a more modern ship with more limited capabilities. While it is a design from the end of the First Cylon War, the Valkyrie was still produced long after in updated forms. An intact Valkyrie can provide that sleek, modern feel of a more advanced ship, but she's obviously got more staying power. Sacrificing a Valkyrie to save a Jupiter is an optimal play, but it's also a horribly painful one given the inability of the ship's to be replaced. That's just my thought though.

The Pegasus should have had some specific weakness that Lee failed to recognize, and then have him make a misjudged decisions that plays into a Cylon trap. Have the Cylons _outplay_ Lee Adama not by their own ingenuity but by Lee making a mistake. Even better, you can then have that situation harm the Galactica in doing so.

I am pretty sure that if the Pegasus wasn't destroyed then they'd side with Zarek/Gaeta's faction in the mutiny. The Pegasus crew was already overrepresented on Gaeta's side IIRC and obviously they'd be far less likely to compromise with Cylons.

🤔 Yeah, I can see where you're coming from. They also could have made the Pegasus a Valkyrie class; smaller ship with built in limitations. Still...the Mercury class Peggy was a seksi deus ex machina.

The waste of Admiral Cain/Pegasus/Pegasus crew was IMO when the series started going off the rails. Instead of using the introduction of a new ship/crew/Admiral to create political problems for Roslin by having another colony challenge Caprica's power and have Adama deal with a rival commander with a different approach to warfare. And adding a second Battlestar could've been a dilemma for the fleet as it would've strained already limited resources. If there's a re-re-boot in say, 30 years this a good angle to explore.

“The skin jobs did an excellent, EXCELLENT job of raising paranoia” … to the point that in 2006, our S2 (intel officer) joked that we should report the number of soldiers in our battalion we’d tested to see if they were secretly cylons. 😅 it’s one of my fonder memories of my active duty days and I rather wish we’d dared to do that just once.

I may have missed this so maybe it did not happen, but I think you can tell how bad an idea like the Pegasus was when there is no lasting impact. On the original BSG when the Pegasus was gone you had Sheba and Bojay(sp?) So, the Pegasus being there had a continued impact. But on the new one (again assuming I did not miss anything) the Pegasus is gone and "let us never speak of it again." But I guess a lot of television shows do this. I think I first noticed this on the Dukes of Hazzard t.v. show. Bo and Luke were written out of the show, so they brought in two other guys who were supposed to be cousins who I guess grew up with the other Dukes or something. When the new guys left, they drove away over a hill, and we never heard another word about them. Same thing with the Pegasus. Its gone, we move on, no biggie. It's absence should have been felt more. But it wasn't because it was an idea that was done badly. IMO

A more battle damaged Pegasus could also arrive with a more rounded out fleet. I feel it stattistically improbable that only 2 ships would survive out of the massive battlefleet, I'd have preferred it to be battle damaged but not alone, and to spread out more of its capabilities accross a small fleet. Pegasus shouldnt have onboard foundaries, that could have been another ship. Some kind or fleet logistical support vessel dedicated to the role. A few smaller colonial vessels could also make up for the extensively battle damged Pegasus's gaps in its defense grid and offensive armament The reason that I think splitting up what Pegasus could do benefits the show, is that these assets arent all or nothing, they could keep the fleet logistics ship and smaller ships by making the active choice to sacrifice Pegasus in the critical battle.

The real issue with replacing Vipers lost in combat should have been replacing the pilots. There was one episode early in the first season that addressed this, and then they just dropped the thread. Even if they had the materials onboard Pegasus to fabricate new fighters by the squadron, who's going to fly them when almost every lost Viper is also a dead pilot? The pilot quality should have been a steady decline, kind of like the pilot quality of the Japanese as WWII progressed; by the end of 1942 they had very few veterans left, and the ones they had were increasingly relegated to training because they were too valuable to risk in combat.

You also forgot to explain that the set for the Pegasus was the same one that they used for the Battlestar Valkyrie scene when William Adama was commanding it during that black-op. They reused the same set and just added and removed stuff. I would like to point out that this is unfortunately not too uncommon with sci-fi sets. In the case of the Expanse the bridge of both the Donnager class battleship and the Scirocco-class assaukl cruiser are both small do to them having very few scenes with them in it. While the Truman-class battleship had a larger bridge do to t having more. Hell the Scirocco-class bridge is just a reuse of the machine room form the Rocinante.

Moore's BSG came about when hollywood was beginning to openly no longer care how piss-poor their writers were becoming.