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"Armistice"
Battlestar Galactica: Origins #5 (Dynamite)
Pages 11-22
Writer: Robert Place Napton
Pencils: Jonathan Lau
2008 |
After the end of the first Cylon War, Lt.
Adama is assigned to a special task force.
Read the story summary of this issue at the Battlestar Wiki
Notes from the BSG
chronology
This story opens on the last
day of the first Cylon War, day 4,571, placing it after
"The Lab".
Didja Know?
Battlestar Galactica: Origins
was an 11-issue mini-series published by Dynamite
Entertainment, covering the origins of several characters of
BSG2000. Issues 5-8 featured a young William "Husker" Adama
during the first Cylon War and its aftermath.
I've broken this issue into two stories since pages 1-10 place
about 6 months before
"The Lab" ("Stealth
Mission"). The second half of the issue is our current study
and opens immediately after "The Lab".
Characters appearing in this story
Lt. Bill Adama
Banzai (Lt. Stuart Bachanal)
Lt. Jaycie
McGavin
(flashback)
Cavendish (mentioned only)
Galactica commander (unnamed, possibly Commander Nash)
Annihilators (Cylon suicide cells)
Prisoners on the unnamed ice planet (flashback)
Admiral Jennings (mentioned only)
Lucky (flashback)
Captain Alexa Cain
Slapshot (a Viper pilot)
Joseph Adama (mentioned only)
Didja Notice?
As the story opens on page 11, Adama is disturbed by his failure
to perform a mercy killing on Lucky six months earlier (in
"Stealth Mission").
This is because he has just seen examples of what the Cylons
have been doing with captured prisoners on the ice planet (and
probably elsewhere) in "The Lab".
On page 12, Adama talks to Banzai. Banzai previously appeared in
"The Lab".
Page 12, panels 2 and 4 are flashbacks of Jaycie from
"The Lab". Here, it's
revealed that she died from the injuries she suffered early in
"The Lab".
On page 13, Adama tells the Galactica
commander he doesn't drink, but the commander tells him to
start. Adama is known to drink on occasion in later stories.
The commander of the Galactica here goes
unnamed. Possibly, it would still be Commander Nash, introduced
in Blood and Chrome,
set about two years earlier, but the character drawn here looks
dissimilar (of course, the comic was published years before
actor Brian Markinson was cast as Nash for
Blood and Chrome).
On page 13, panel 5, what looks like a globe can
be seen in the background in the commander's quarters. Possibly,
it is a globe of Caprica since the
Galactica
is that colony's representative battlestar in the
Colonial fleet. In the same panel, a painting of a sailing ship
similar to a galleon is seen on the wall.
The commander congratulates Adama on his
commendation for his first Cylon kill on his first combat
mission. This refers to events in
"The Lab". But then the commander goes
on to say that it may have been Adama's first combat mission of
record, but he's had Cylons on his tail before and mentions the
god Argus, known as the watchman. He is obliquely
referring to the secret stealth battlestar Argus on
which Adama served for a secret mission, as detailed in
"Stealth Mission". Of course,
he also dealt with Cylons two years earlier in
Blood and Chrome, again,
a retroactive continuity story released years after this comic
was published.
This story introduces the concept of
Annihilators, suicide cells of Cylon centurions programmed to
act independently of command and strike at random Colonial targets.
Even now that the armistice has been signed, Cylon command has
no means of recalling them. The Galactica is assigned
to hunting down and destroying these cells by Admiral Jennings.
Page 15, panel 5 is a flashback to the prisoners
Adama found in a locked cell and was forced to leave behind near
the end of
"The Lab".
The commander warns Adama that the new CAG has
the fleet record for combat kills and she won't like it if a
nugget gives her a run for her money.
CAG stands for Commander, Air Group; the term is also used in
the U.S. Navy. "Nugget" is Colonial military slang for a pilot
trainee; though Adama is years past being a trainee, the
commander is probably implying that the new CAG will think of
him that way; she even calls him nugget after he fails to "kill"
her in a combat evaluation flight.
The new CAG is Captain Alexa Cain, call sign
Pugnacious. She is revealed in
"The Hard Six" to be the mother of Helena Cain, who
later is seen to have become an admiral in the Colonial military
in episodes of the TV series. However, in "Razor", Helena Cain's
mother is said to be Saundra Cain, who died during the Battle of
Tauron, one of the last battles of the first Cylon War and no
mention of an Alexa is made. For continuity's sake, we could
possibly imagine that Alexa is Saundra Cain's sister and aunt of
Helena.
On page 18, Captain Cain calls her aviators to
action stations. "Action Stations" is the military term used on
Colonial warships to call crewmembers to ready for battle. The
term is also used by the U.S. and British navies.
In Adama's letter to his father at the end of
this issue, he laments that his time aboard the Galactica
may be worse than on the last ship. This seems to imply that he
has only recently been assigned to
Galactica. Again,
Blood and Chrome
retroactively places him on Galactica two years
previous. As far as the other ship, he must be thinking of
Argus; presumably he doesn't mention the name because it
and his time aboard are still classified. Then again, we later
learn in
"Endings and Beginnings" that all the
letters he's written to his father over the years of his service
were never sent because they were filled with classified
information which would have been heavily censored, so he didn't
bother.
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