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"Fire in the Sky"
Battlestar Galactica: Season III #3 (Realm Press)
Written by James A. Kuhoric
Illustrated by Robert Scott and Christopher G. Scalf
Cover by Robert Scott
September 1999 |
An all-out battle issue featuring humans,
Domians, Cylons, more Cylons, Apshaidians, and the
ever-treacherous Baltar!
Story Summary
Picking up from "Hades Hath No Fury", the Domians are phasing
out of their stone prisons and attacking the human settlement. The
phased bodies of the aliens seem impervious to the laser fire of
the Colonial Warriors who attempt to protect the rest of the
humans. They realize that the stone monoliths may be the key to
subduing the aliens and Sire Obob recklessly grabs the controls
of the escape shuttle from Boomer and begins firing at the
monoliths, resulting
in an explosion that seriously injures Starbuck.
Simultaneously, in orbit, Jolly's patrol returns, escorting an
alien shuttle carrying a representative of the Cylons' ancient
enemy...a member of a surviving population of the original
reptilian Cylons!
Finally, the humans at the settlement are rescued and return to
the fleet, the unconscious Starbuck being immediately placed in
a life pod and taken to the life center.
Meanwhile, a new command Cylon named Cyrus is brought online at
a Cylon recycling facility and a spider-like intruder on the
Galactica claims a victim.
As the humans are licking their wounds, the Imperious Leader launches his latest attack against
the fleet with three basestars and their associated Raider
squadrons. During the pitched battle, the Apshaidians, "led" by
Baltar, also enter the fray, attacking Cylon and human forces
alike with organic technology. Commander Adama decides to pull
his forces out of the battle in the hopes that the fleet can
escape while the Cylons and Apshaidians are occupied with each
other.
Didja Know?
This was the final published issue of
Battlestar Galactica: Season III. Realm Press published
a few more BSG specials shortly after this and then folded,
leaving numerous uncompleted storylines.
Didja Notice?
The stars in between the
two figures on
Cover A form the constellation of Orion as visible from Earth.
Many ancient astronaut theorists believe that the Orion
constellation is significant in the symbology of Earth's ancient
cultures' (and modern secret societies') connection to
extraterrestrial visitors in human civilization's distant past.

Page 7 seems to confirm (as hinted at in
past TV episodes and novels) that the large afro hairstyle worn
by the Imperious Leader is actually a circuitized helmet
mounted to his throne. In the early novelizations, it is said he
wore a helmet that fed him communications and other data, for
processing by his three brains.
Page 10 gives us our first full
look at the original Cylon
species in reptilian form. It is
similar to the image seen in the
BSG TV-movie called
Experiment in Terra (a
packaging of the BSG episode
"Experiment in Terra" and
the
Galactica 1980
episode
"The Return of
Starbuck", as well as snippets
from other episodes of both
series, and a new prelude of an
Earth astronaut discovering a
written log book from the
Galactica, floating through
space). |
 |
 |
Reptilian
Cylon as seen in this issue |
Reptilian
Cylon from
Experiment in Terra TV
movie |
On page 13, a centurion is being refitted at
a Cylon recycling facility to become one of the gold command
Cylons. Upon reactivation, the Cylon announces his name as
Centurion Commander Cyrus. "Cyrus" is the name
of a Cylon centurion repaired by Starbuck in the
later
Galactica 1980 episode
"The Return of
Starbuck"
and Starbuck calls him Cy for short;
in the episode, Starbuck and Cy become friends (after some
initial difficulties). Since the
Galactica 1980 series is now considered non-canonical
by almost everybody (including creator Glen A. Larson!), Cyrus'
introduction here may be Realm Press' attempt to bring
the popular character from the otherwise almost unwatchable
sequel series into the "mainstream" BSG universe. A few years
prior to this publication, Maximum Press (which had the BSG
comic book license at the time) began it's own storyline that
seemingly was intended to bring Cy into the mainstream BSG
universe (see
"The Rebirth of Cy"). In both cases, the stories were never published beyond
their initial introductions.
On page 22, Cree's Viper is hit by a Cylon
Raider during the battle. It's not clear if his ship was
destroyed or just damaged. Cree is the cadet who was captured by
the Cylons (and later rescued by Apollo's strike team) in
"The Gun on Ice
Planet Zero" Part 1.
As the Apshaidians join the space battle
near the end of the issue, we see that their weapons appear to
transform the struck portion of the Cylon targets into an
organic patch which then spreads and morphs the entire ship and
crew into organic versions of themselves, with Apshaidian
characteristics. This is somewhat similar to the organic-type
attack that IL-series Cylon Belial creates in the form of the
nano-cybrid seen in the Cylon Apocalypse mini-series
later published by Dynamite Entertainment. Continuity-wise, it might be argued
that Belial based his nano-cybrid on studies of the Apshaidian
technology used here.
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