Colonial Military (2004)
The Colonial Armed Forces are the unified defense forces of the Twelve Colonies, and appear to be made of at least two components:
- The Colonial Fleet operated a force of about 120 Battlestars and several support vessels. The Colonial Fleet was organized around "Battlestar Groups", such as Battlestar Group 75 (from which Galactica receives its BSG-75 designator). These groups were possibly composed of a single Battlestar protected and supported by smaller vessels, including, but not limited to, Viper and Raptor squadrons. The Colonial Fleet has a mixed Navy/Marine Corps rank system: Admiral; Rear Admiral; Commander; Colonel; Lieutenant Colonel; Major; Captain; Lieutenant; Lieutenant, j(unior) g(rade); Ensign. Non-commissioned officers and enlisted personnel also have a mixed Navy/Marine Corps rank system, referred to as a "Naval-style rank system" as detailed by Ronald D. Moore (a former Marine Option Midshipman) in his blog: Master Chief Petty Officer, Chief Petty Officer, Petty Officer 1st and 2nd Class, Specialist, Deckhand and Recruit. There are also ranks used in the U.S. Army, specifically Specialist, the technical equivalent to Corporal.
- The Colonial Marine Corps, a specialized ship-based ground force operating on board the ships of the Colonial Fleet. Marines are used for strike actions and for security purposes such as repelling boardings and maintaining a ship's brig. The role the Marine Corps may have played in planetary defense is still not known, or even if there was a separate Colonial Army for that role. Marine non-commissioned and enlisted personnel use regular Marine rank titles; whether their officers use the same mixed rank structure as Colonial Fleet officers is not certain as only two Marine officers, an unnamed lieutenant in the episode Escape Velocity and Lieutenant Terry Burrell in Sacrifice, have so far been shown.
- It is unclear if there is a separate Colonial Army, Navy, or Air Force responsible for ground-based defense.
Due to a lack of a police force within the fleet, both Colonial Fleet and Marine personnel also serve as law enforcement officials as necessary. According to Ronald D. Moore's own podcast commentary for the episode "Kobol's Last Gleaming," the plainclothed Presidential Security Force is intentionally separate from the military, with its members culled from any and all surviving police officers within the fleet.
Read more about this topic: Twelve Colonies
Famous quotes containing the words colonial and/or military:
“In colonial America, the father was the primary parent. . . . Over the past two hundred years, each generation of fathers has had less authority than the last. . . . Masculinity ceased to be defined in terms of domestic involvement, skills at fathering and husbanding, but began to be defined in terms of making money. Men had to leave home to work. They stopped doing all the things they used to do.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“In all sincerity, we offer to the loved ones of all innocent victims over the past 25 years, abject and true remorse. No words of ours will compensate for the intolerable suffering they have undergone during the conflict.”
—Combined Loyalist Military Command. New York Times, p. A12 (October 14, l994)