In 2003, Battlestar Galactic was reimagined/rebooted/remade into a mini series and then TV series.  Loosely based on the original show, the series made a critical impact and sustained good ratings unlike the original show which lasted one season.  One plot difference was that the Cylons were actually robots built by humans that rebelled and wanted to take over/wipe out humanity rather than alien robots.

The one thing the producers did was to redesign the Battlestar Galactica to a 00s perspective.  The “new” Galactica retained enough of the look of the 70s original version to be immediately recognizable as the Battlestar Galactica.

From Wiki:

Galactica entered service in the early years of the first Cylon War, under the command of Commander Nash. During her service, Galactica formed a part of Battlestar Group 75 (BSG 75), a Colonial force described by series creator Ronald D. Moore as a mixed force of vessels somewhat similar to a US Navy carrier strike group.

Like any of her sister ships, which may have survived the original Cylon War, Galactica underwent refits and upgrades (for example, at the end of her career, she was equipped with the latest Mark VII Viper space superiority fighter). However, the computer systems were neither networked nor integrated during these refits due to the fears of its commander William Adama.

Due to this lack of network integration at the time of the Cylon attack, Galactica was unaffected by the infiltration program used by the Cylons to disable Colonial vessels and defense systems, using the Command Navigation Program (CNP), developed by Dr. Gaius Baltar and subverted by Cylon operative Number Six as a back door into such systems.

Galactica took heavy damage during its raid on New Caprica, and her hull was now clearly darker with burn marks and missile hits, the most notable marks are the three large holes in the top of the ship where its armor was weakest.

The starboard hangar pod (and possible also the deck) had been converted into a museum prior to Galactica's intended decommissioning. The starboard hangar deck was used to house civilian refugees from New Caprica after the evacuation, and earned the nickname "Camp Oilslick".  In "A Measure of Salvation", which followed "Torn", Major Lee Adama informs Galactica that their Raptor was on approach to the starboard landing deck, which indicated that the starboard flight pod had started flight operations again.  However, this is likely a dialogue error because in the finale it was still shown to be a museum and Oilslick was never moved.

Due to the ship's age, battle damage and cheaper materials used in her construction, Galactica eventually begins to show signs of severe metal fatigue. Attempts to seal the ship's multiple stress fractures with Cylon resins fail, and Adama orders the ship to be abandoned and stripped of weapons and supplies. The discovery of the Cylon colony gives Galactica a brief reprieve, and a skeleton crew embarks on a mission to rescue the Cylon/human child Hera.

The crew of volunteers is supplemented by Cylon centurions from the rebel base ship as well as a small number of civilians including Laura Roslin, Gaius Baltar, and Tory Foster. Samuel Anders, a Cylon left in a vegetative state due to brain damage, is connected to the ship's systems, effectively becoming the battlestar's version of a Cylon hybrid.

Galactica jumps to within point blank firing range of the colony, making it impossible for missiles or nukes to be utilized, and sustains more damage in the exchange of gunfire. Anders successfully disrupts the colony's systems and shuts down their weapons. A flight of Raptors jumps from Galactica's starboard landing bay, destroying it in the process, and the battlestar is rammed into the colony. Marine and centurion assault teams from the raptors and from Galactica are successful in rescuing Hera, but a counter-assault by the remaining Cylon forces in the colony results in a standoff. A truce is negotiated, but hostilities resume when the Final Five fail to transmit the plans for Cylon resurrection to the colony. The colony is hit by several nukes accidentally fired from a disabled raptor, and begins plunging into a nearby black hole. Kara Thrace jumps the Galactica without retracting the landing pods, resulting in severe structure fractures along its length, effectively breaking the ship's back and rendering Galactica incapable of jumping again.

Thrace uses co-ordinates derived from the musical notes of a song that has haunted both her and the Final Five Cylons, resulting in the ship arriving at the planet that will eventually become modern-day Earth. A raptor is sent to rendezvous with the fleet, and the survivors of the Twelve Colonies settle on the planet along with the remaining Cylon rebels. Galactica and the other ships in the fleet are abandoned. Admiral Adama flies the last viper off the ship, and the battlestar and its fleet are scuttled by Samuel Anders, who piloted them directly into the Sun.

The Moebius Galactica comes with 52 parts in buff colored plastic, instructions and a small decal sheet of 6 decals.  The detail of the parts isn’t bad for injected plastic and has very little flash.  The landing bay deck pieces were kind of warped in my copy.  It also comes with a fairly stable stand and metal support rod.

The problem with the kit is that the “reel” model of the Galactica is covered with that damned Aztec style surface detail so the model looks like quite empty without it.  Also there are rather large gaps in the landing bay recesses that are hard to fill/sand and the Galactica’s weaponry isn’t as detailed as it could be.  Thanks to my obsession to capture as much detail as the “reel” model, I purchased the Acreation Decal Set, Paragrafix PE Museum Set, PE Main Hull Inserts and Timeslip Resin Replacement Guns for this model.

The Battlestar Galactica (BSG) is pretty easy to put together if you follow the instructions for the most part.  The main hull was built in sub assemblies with the bow, bow lower “jaw”, engine pods and main hull done with the landing bay interiors done first before being assembled.

I left off the lower jaw till the decals were added because it needed to be sanded and filled due to the large gaps.  I thought I wouldn’t have to do anything, but the problem is that the gaps were obvious and needed to be fixed.  I ended up sanding off the rib detail in the process.  I used some plastic strip cut to various lengths to replace the lost detail.

The engine pods were easy to assemble and I did not fill/sand the gaps as they would be mostly covered up by the decals.  I left the engine nozzles off till I painted the interiors of the clear engine inserts and glued them into place.  Meanwhile I had the hardest time with the landing bays because the decks were warped and needed a lot of work to get them to fit in place.  Again, I did not sand/fill the gaps because they would be covered by decals.

There were a lot of seams in areas of the main hull where the landing bays retract but I used the Paragrafix PE inserts to cover up the gaps.  These were glued in with CA glue and proved to be more work than I thought as I had to work them into place.  I also added the PE Galactica raised letter name plates to the outside of the launch bays.

The engine pods were added after painting but before adding decals, but not the landing bays as I would not assemble the complete model till I finished adding the decals to the areas that would be obscured by the landing bays.

I sprayed everywhere a combination of XF-56 Metallic Grey and XF-24 Dark Grey.  Let it  cure and then sprayed on a coat of Tamiya Clear Gloss for the decals.  The interior of the landing bays was sprayed XF-80 Royal Grey.

The clear pieces were masked off and painted the same combination of XF-56 and XF-24 while I sprayed the interior of the clear parts clear blue.

The kit decals are very simple, but the BSG looks funny without all those (sigh) Aztec like deck panels so I used the very comprehensive decal sheets from Acreaction Models that added fine details that could not be painted by hand unless you want to lose your mind.

Oh... wow.  There are around 700-800 decals on this beast.  Thanks to the fact the decal sheet was ALPS which meant that each decal had to be cut out individually.  I will just say that this extremely tedious and frustrating task took many months (years even) to do.  I tried to be smart and do small sections of decals in an effort to cut down on the tedium but it did not go well.  I made some mistakes, but I was very fortunate that I was sent a 2nd set of decals by accident.

The one thing I did screw up was the alignment of the landing bay landing strip decals.  I wasn’t really happy about that.

If I had been smarter I would have painted and decaled the interior PE parts for the recessed hull sections before attaching them into the recessed bays.  I did not and had to cut up each large decal into smaller ones after I nearly ruined a couple of them doing it the hard way.

Thanks to all the bumps and lumps, I had to use Microset, Microsol and Solvaset (1/2 a bottle!) to get them to snuggle down over the detail.

I did not do a wash as it wouldn’t help such a small scale kit (1/4105!) and just sprayed on two thin coats of Vallejo flat varnish.

I did not add the launch bays until after I added the decals on the landing bays that faced the recessed bays and would be impossible to do if I attached them first.  The clear engine face was glued on when it was painted.

Next up, the 24 Paragrafix resin gun batteries of the BSG were added.  Each piece was removed off the resin casting block, cleaned up and then a mounting peg cut from the original Moebius weaponry was glued on.  They were painted RLM-66.

I painted and added the three tiny detail parts supplied with the kit.  I did not add the Paragraphix PE Museum windows as I wanted to the Galactica pre series configuration which was as a fully active warship.

The stand was primed and painted gold then the details/wording were hand painted and the model was stuck on.  I finally finished my Battlestar Galactica.

I admit that I went overboard with this model by using two PE sets, resin guns and decal set.  If I hadn’t added the extra details then this kit would have been a simple easy build (I figured that the basic model would have taken 3 days to finish.)  However, I happen to be a fan of the show and I like to add as much detail as I can to a model to make it look a lot closer to the “reel” thing.

I recommend this kit for BSG fans of all skill levels.  If you just want a simple representation of the BSG then you can avoid all the work I had to do with it.  Makes things a lot easier.  However, if you are kind of nuts and like a well detailed model then be prepared for a lot of $$$ and tedious work to get there.

Dan Lee