Battlestar Galactica "The Magnificent Warriors" Written by Glen A. Larson Directed by Christian I. Nyby II

Two of the agro ships are destroyed and the third damaged in a Cylon attack, so the fleet must seek new seed stock on a nearby planet.

Read the episode summary at the Battlestar Wiki

Didja Know?

The story of this episode was inspired by the 1960 western film, The Magnificent Seven, in which seven gunfighters are hired to protect a small village from a band of bandits. In our story here, the seven Colonials who travel to the planet Sectar find themselves protecting the small agricultural town of Serenity.

The footage of the three agro ships are re-used shots from the 1972 Universal film, Silent Running.

Constable Farnes is played by Rance Howard, father of actor/director Ron Howard.

Didja Notice?

The tracking alert screen in Boomer's Viper shows the cruise speed and acceleration of the Cylon Raiders on the scope.

At 4:42 on the DVD, a shot of the park-like interior of one of the bio-domes on the first agro ship shows a brief glimpse of actor Bruce Dern from Silent Running entering the scene from the left! (I suppose we can assume here that he's just one of the fleet's caretakers of the agro ship.) Notice also that, visible through the dome in the background is the planet Saturn, in orbit of which is where the botanical freighters are stationed in Silent Running (although a ringed planet also appears in the night sky of Sectar later on, possibly intended as an explanation of a ringed planet's appearance through the bio-dome).

Two of the three agro ships are destroyed by the Cylons in their attack. This brings the fleet down to 215 ships (previously at 217 in "The Last Hiding Place").

The wall just inside the door of Adama's quarters has changed yet again! In the early-filmed episodes of the "Saga of a Star World" 3-parter and "The Gun on Ice Planet Zero" 2-parter, there is a picture of the Galactica hanging there. In the "Lost Planet of the Gods" 2-parter, the wall is blank. Now, here, there are two video screens inset into the wall!

Apollo mentions that the old energizer owned by Siress Belloby was made on Orion and Tigh seems thrilled at that, commenting, "Well, that's perfect! No one would know it's from the Colonies." This suggests that Orion was a human inhabited planet relatively near the Colonies, but not part of them. You have to wonder if the Galactica sent warning to Orion about the Cylon attack at the armistice. Or did the Cylons hit it as well? Not to mention all the human-inhabited outposts the fleet later runs across in its attempt to escape the Cylons. Are the Cylons destroying these worlds as they chase the ragtag fleet across star systems and at least one more galaxy? Or perhaps the Cylons are not out to destroy all humans so much as to destroy all remnants of the 12 Colonies with whom they were actually at war?

Siress Belloby tells Adama that it should be obvious that "after all these years...I...want...you." She should have said "yahrens" instead of "years".

Adama tells Apollo he has been cooped up on the Galactica for 16 quatrons. A quatron is an unknown measure of Colonial time. (Some sources list a quatron as being a Colonial month.)

Adama tells Apollo that if they don't have seeds, they don't have food. But, according to "Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair", they have enough food from the fruit paste obtained from Jungleworld to feed the fleet for years. Perhaps it is simply that the fruit paste, despite its high nutritional content (as revealed in "Ape and Essence"), is not a complete enough nutritional source to satisfy all of the human body's demands.

The planet in this episode is called Sectar. The word "sectar" seems to also be a unit of both distance and time measurement throughout the series.

Wherefrom is this view of the planet Sectar at 12:48 on the DVD? It is not explained, but must be the view from the "windshield" of the shuttle, though it seems oddly shaped.

At 13:57 on the DVD, Dipper sees a full moon in the sky of Sectar. Yet, earlier, at 13:13, the sky shows only a sliver of a moon! Perhaps Sectar has another moon on almost the opposite horizon?

Notice that the full moon of Sectar seen here is actually an image of Earth's own moon!

Why is Dipper (and the others when he tells them) shocked to see the full moon this night? Don't the inhabitants of Serenity know how to predict the cycles of the moon?! My no-prize explanation is that this portion of the planet is usually cloud-covered, covering up the view of the moon, and so, the Borays do not attack when they cannot see at night to make their raid (there is a wisp of cloud seen in front of the moon).

Constable Farnes complains that his rifle wouldn't stop a hedge-hopper. Presumably a hedge-hopper is an animal on Sectar (perhaps a crop pest similar to a rabbit?).

The Borays, who terrorize the town of Serenity, are bipedal, boar-like creatures of at least some intelligence. Somehow, it seems that the Colonies were familiar with the Borays in that they have been known to use the epithet "Borays of humanity" ("Exodus"). Perhaps the term "borays" was already in use in the Colonial language and later applied to these boar-like creatures by the human émigrés to Sectar.

While Bogon's men are in the process of stealing the powersled and energizer from them, Starbuck refers to the men as "galmonging thieves" and Boomer calls them "dirty, rotten crasoneys". "Galmonging" and "crasoneys" appear to be expletives in Colonial parlance.

Bogon pays Dipper and his men 25 quantums for stealing the powersled and energizer from Starbuck and Boomer. A quantum appears to be a monetary unit used on Sectar (in this case presented in coinage).

Bogon tells Starbuck that seed (generic seed, I guess!) goes for 12 quantums a lexon. "Lexon" must be some unit of measurement by either weight or volume. Starbuck complains that 12 quantums a lexon is kind of high.

"Chancery" seems to be a Colonial term for "casino".

In the night shot at 27:41 on the DVD, the lights of a ground vehicle are moving across the screen in the distance.

Below is a look at the constable's shield badge, won by Starbuck in a game of pyramid. Bogon comments that the inscriptions on it are in the ancient tongue of the people who first colonized Sectar.

The gaming wheel seen at 30:48 on the DVD, appears to have pyramid cards around its circumference.

Commander Adama introduces himself to Bogon as "Squire Adama, Lord of Bellarium". Presumably he intends Bogon to believe that Bellarium is a region of Sectar.

Siress Belloby refers to the Borays as "odorous vermin" when she hasn't even met them yet. Is she just using a euphemism? Or are Borays known on other human inhabited worlds as well?

Borays appear to ride camel-like creatures, though, at times, a horse's head (or hooves) appears in galloping scenes.

When tracking the Borays, our Colonial Warriors track them into a cave and then suddenly seem to be in a canyon at the creatures' camp. Perhaps it was a cave tunnel that opens on a hillside and then exits into a canyon on the other side of the hill. 

Unanswered Questions

It is implied that Commander Adama knows Siress Belloby from his past. What is their history? 

Are the Boray beings seen here the same creatures that inspired the "boray" epithet spoken of in "Exodus"?