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Battlestar Pegasus is a Mercury-class Battle ship on the reimagined series Battlestar Galactica. The ship was captained by Admiral Helena Cain.

Overview

Before the fall of the Twelve Colonies, the Pegasus had just docked at the Scorpion Fleet Shipyards where it was due for a three-month overhaul. Many of the ship's systems were offline, including the Command Navigation Program that the Cylons used to disable Colonial defenses during their attack. The Cylons' opening wave hit the shipyard with several nuclear warheads, destroying five ships, including two Battlestars. The Pegasus lost over 700 crew members but survived the attack by performing a blind FTL jump, a jump in which the ship's FTL drive was activated without inputting any coordinates. This blind jump resulted in the ship escaping immediate destruction, but risked the Battlestar's possible reappearance inside a star or planetary atmosphere at the end of the jump.

Technical Details

As a Mercury-class Battlestar, the Pegasus is substantially newer, larger and more powerful than the Galactica. It is nearly twice the size ("Pegasus" episode (Extended Edition)) but only possesses around half the crew due to greater automation. The Pegasus possessed approximately 1,753 crew members at the time it encountered Galactica.

The Pegasus possessed vastly superior weapons, flight decks, and armor compared to the Galactica. Its forward weapons battery can devastate a Cylon basestar with a single salvo. It is armed with large anti-ship KEWs, anti-fighter/missile batteries and nuclear weapons. It possesses much larger flight decks than Galactica, two on each side of the ship. The Pegasus had four fully operational squadrons of Vipers at the time it encountered Galactica and automation systems that allowed the production of new Vipers to help replace Galactica's losses. Unlike Galactica, Pegasus had flight simulators on board to facilitate the training of new pilots.

Destruction

Pegasus is destroyed in action during the third-season episode "Exodus, Part 2". Disobeying orders from Commander Adama to protect the civilians that first escape the Cylon occupation in the second season episode "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part 2", Apollo leaves all of Pegasus's Viper squadrons with the civilian ships, along with most of the crew. FTL Jumping to New Caprica, Apollo is able to divert the attention of the four Cylon Basestars attacking the Galactica as the older Battlestar attempts to cover the evacuation of the New Caprican colonists. This distraction allows time for Galactica's FTL drives to be repaired and the planet-bound colonists to reach their ships and escape.

One Cylon Basestar is critically damaged by Pegasus' forward main batteries as it enters the fray, drawing the fire from the Basestars. After Galactica jumps away, Pegasus is locked into a suicide course, weapons systems firing automatically. The crew is evacuated to several Raptors, just before Pegasus rams a Basestar, destroying it. The explosion causes the Battlestar to fragment with the starboard hangar pod colliding with and destroying another Basestar.