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.