Gaeta’s “Butterfingers” Pen

In Season 3’s “Taking a Break From All Your Worries“—after Gaius Frakking Baltar unceremoniously returns from the algae planet in a body bag—he is given a welcome home celebration of interrogation, drugs, threats of being airlocked… and stabbed with a pen by his previous aide de camp, Felix Gatea.

Fortunately for the viewing audience, one of the greatest characters in history is not taken out by a whimpy pen, as Admiral William Adama punches Gaeta, thereby allowing Cottle to prevent any further damage. Still, once Baltar is safe, he manages a comical dig into Gaeta during Baltar’s trial in “Crossroads, Part II” when bringing up the fact that Gaeta tried to kill him with a pen: “And you missed, butterfingers!”

These metal pens measure 7 1/2″ in length, with the pen tip portion of the item capable of retracting into the hollowed out tube. The pen cap, attached at the end here, cannot be removed.

Colonel Tigh’s Flask

One of Colonel Saul Tigh’s well-known vices is alcohol, which he falls back upon in tough situations—such as taking command of the Fleet after Commander Adama is shot twice by Cylon agent Sharon “Boomer” Valerii, or losing the fleet.

Originally, Colonel Tigh poured alcohol in a metal cup, as seen in the Miniseries. However, later on he resorts to hiding his alcohol needing tendencies by hiding his flask in a holster around his left leg, just above his boot.

The flask, which also features a small area for Tigh to put a few cigarettes in, is a 5.5 oz bottle capable of handling ambrosia or the like.

There are stunt rubber versions of this flask, which were used in scenes when the prop had to be thrown, such as down one of the corridors in Season 2’s “Resistance” after interrogating Galen Tyrol.

Unknown Soldier photo

Forgive us for being a bit delinquent on the posts, however we have been in the process of—and finished—relocating to our warehouse with a mind-boggling amount of awesome Battlestar Galactica items.

In the hopes of working into a rythym of adding new posts on a daily basis, I’m going to kick off this party with one of the most iconic pieces from the series. It’s a small little picture introduced in Season 1’s “33” and is the photo of the unknown soldier seen in Laura Roslin’s office on Colonial One and the pilot briefing rooms on Galactica.

This iconic piece is explained in a deleted scene in “33″, when Roslin asks Billy Keikeya what is in the package on her cluttered desk. As he briefly searches for the note that came with the package, Keikeya informs her that the package was delivered by one of the ship captains. Finding this note, he he reads the following to her: “President Roslin, please accept this on the behalf of the people of Aerilon. It was taken on the capital of our colony during the attack.”

After this, she reflects on the significance of this photo and tries to figure out where to hang it in her new office. While the picture from this scene survived, the frame did not.

This iconic photo was actually taken on the helicopter pad on top of Battlestar Galactica’s production offices at the Vancouver Film Studios, which is where Battlestar Galactica was filmed when it went to series. The person in the photo is none other than production manager and director Wayne Rose, who directed all the webisodes for the series and the episodes “Dirty Hands” and “Guess What’s Coming to Dinner?“. At Rose’s left side is also the second appearance of the “futuristic” assault rifle that Galactica’s security and Aaron Kelly use when apprehending Aaron Doral in the Miniseries.

New Caprica Police Academy graduation certificate

In the ending scenes of the third season opener, “Occupation“, Tucker “Duck” Clellan and James “Jammer” Lyman are about to become full-fledged members of the New Caprica Police force set up by the Cylon Occupation Authority. As they are handed their diplomas at the graduation ceremony, Clellan detonates his suicide bomb. In the following scenes, half-burnt and distressed diplomas can be seen floating around landing on the dead bodies at the ceremony, thus ending the episode.

As usual, we are the first to show you what those diplomas look like in crystal-clear detail.

Crashdown’s notepad

After crashing on Kobol, Lieutenant Alex “Crashdown” Quartararo finds himself in charge of the survivors of Raptor 1. As he and the survivors attempt to survive their pursuers, they discover that the Cylons later abandon their pursuit in favor of setting up anti-aircraft batteries, which can be used to take down any ship attempting to rescue them.

As a result, Crashdown decides to attack these emplacements, so that any rescue attempt from Galactica can be successful. In planning it, he uses a technique taught during basic training called the “five-’graph order”, which he outlines on a notepad and presents to the survivors, who will be the ones executing his attack plan.

Despite the by-the-book planning, the attack does not end well, particularly when Crashdown has to threaten people at gunpoint so that it may be executed.

Transfer Orders

After being discovered by Pegasus in Season 2’s “Pegasus“, members of the Fleet and Galactica are initially joyed to see another battlestar survive the attack on the Colonies. That is until Admiral Helena Cain makes many decisions that include ignoring the civilian fleet to having officers transferred between the surviving battlestars. After reviewing Commander William Adama’s logs, Cain decides that having Lee Adama as CAG and Kara Thrace as a pilot on Galactica is a mistake.

When presented with the transfer orders in Commander Adama’s office, Kara Thrace and Lee Adama react unfavorably to the orders, but ultimately follow them. The orders themselves are never seen on screen as they are being held in their hands, until now.

 

Cally’s deckhand helmet

Deckhands on Galactica, and any other battlestar worth its weight in salt, will typically wear helmets with their deckhand outfits. Each jumpsuit has its own accompanying helmet. These helmets come with goggles (which are Oakleys), earmuffs (which are actually JVC headsets, obviously modifed aesthetically), and the panelling/sections.

We’ll focus on Cally, since she’s dead. As seen in the picture below, she’s wearing a helmet (along with Prosna and Chief Tyrol) when repairing Starbuck’s Viper.

Adama’s reinstatement letter

In the flashback scenes from “Scattered” that show Saul Tigh and William Adama’s lives 20 years in the past, Tigh recalls Adama’s reinstatement in the Colonial Fleet. Onboard the tramp freighter they both serve on, Tigh reads a letter that Adama received from the Colonial Fleet about his reinstatement, thanks to Carolanne’s father’s friend in the defense sub-committee. That letter, in all its glory, is below.

Munitions Key

In the Miniseries, a scene that is later deleted has Commander Adama destroying Galactica’s munitions as part of the decommissioning ceremony. When shot, Adama uses the munitions key in the Weapons Room (off the CIC) to remotely detonate the munitions.

However, it would not be until Season 3’s “The Eye of Jupiter” until this prop sees the light of day, as Adama opens the munitions key storage box and removes the key before arming the nuclear weapons, themselves aimed at the algae planet.

Here are the contents that are inside that box. Note that while the munitions key and the FTL key look similar, the FTL key is one piece without any glowing lights. And no, when you go to bid on the prop, just remember that it won’t arm any nukes. Sorry.

Colonial Raptor flight manual

Here’s a pretty cool prop that you’ve never seen on screen, or at least up close—or in whole. It’s a Colonial Raptor flight manual that was created in the Miniseries. Below is a photo of the cover for the small handbook.

And for the more astute fan, you’ll note that after the attack in the Miniseries, Boomer asks Helo to tear pages from her flight manual. This is the untorn version, obviously.

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