Movies - Basestar

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The Basestar is the premier warship in the Cylon Alliance's fleet in the science fiction movie and the 1978 television show Battlestar Galactica. A different version is featured in the reimagined 2003 miniseries and 2004 series.

Battlestar Galactica (1978) & Galactica 1980

Basestars are considerably larger than battlestars. They are about 5100 feet (0.97 miles) in diameter. They can hold 300 Cylon raiders each and are able to enter the lower atmosphere of a planet. They are propelled by a reactionless drive that appears to make the ship spin slowly on its axis while engaged.

The basestar has also been called a "baseship" and a "Cylon battlestar" in one episode, but "basestar" conforms to the Colonial ship naming system. Unlike a combat-oriented battlestar, a basestar is intended to be a roving Cylon base that can perform planetary assault missions along with carrying fighters and ship-to-ship combat.

Armament

Cylons use the idea of quantity over quality in their dealings with the Colonies. The basestar's considerable array of weapons reflects this design philosophy.

Pulsars

:In the episode "The Hand of God", the basestar is revealed to have two of these fearsome weapons on the upper saucer. Pulsars are a beam weapon considerably more powerful than the average laser turret and meant purely for capital ship slugging matches. Battlestars usually attempt to approach basestars from the lower saucer to avoid these weapons.

Laser Turrets

:Like a battlestar, basestars have laser turrets that resemble the weapons of their fighters but on a larger scale. The laser turrets on basestars are located at the tips of the "spokes" on both saucers and are considerably more powerful than the Colonial design.

:Note: The lasers used in Battlestar Galactica are not true lasers. They move slower than light and are visible in the vacuum of space, which is impossible for real world lasers.

Missile Turrets

:These turrets were mentioned in "The Living Legend Part 2" and they are located on the inner surfaces of both saucers. They are meant for close range work only, because the point defense weaponry on battlestars would make quick work of missiles at a longer range.

Battlestar Galactica (2003-2006)

The Basestar is the primary Cylon capital ship identified in the series, comparable to a colonial Battlestar. Exactly how Basestars and Battlestars match up is debatable. On the one hand, Basestars appear to carry more fighters and perhaps heavier ordnance, and the presence of a Basestar is generally enough to make Galactica decline battle.

On the other hand, in the Season 2 episode "Resurrection Ship, Part 2", with both sides' fighter fleets engaged elsewhere, the Battlestars Galactica and Pegasus are able to engage and destroy at least one Basestar in ship to ship combat. Based on the battle sequence in that episode, it appears Basestars have only long range missiles as an offensive weapon, and are designed to stay on the back lines of battles, providing tactical support to their fleet and firing missiles at other capital ships. Robbed of their Raider fleet (which is much larger than a Battlestar's viper complement), they appeared to be no match for the Battlestars.

Basestars are designed to make FTL jumps and equipped to deploy large-scale strikes with high yield nuclear ordnance. They carry at least 250 Raiders on their exterior service pods, and an indeterminate number of additional fighters inside. Although the staggering number of Raiders they can deploy at a moment's notice suggests an enormous crew, it is suspected that much of a Basestar's internal workings may be automated. They are themselves biomechanical entities, with fleshy "hangars" to house Raiders. Basestars are, however, capable of carrying other Cylon models within them.

The considerably different Basestar form seen above (from the Original Series) is featured briefly in the first portion of the Miniseries, as the camera pans past a series of museum displays aboard the Galactica. A pair of miniature "original series basestar" are shown in such a display.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Basestar ]

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