Battlestar Galactica Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
This Battlestar Galactica trivia quiz has 98 free questions with answers and covers both the 1978 original and Ronald D. Moore's 2004 reimagining. The classic-era questions take in Glen A. Larson's Mormon influences, the Star Wars lawsuit, Lorne Greene and Dirk Benedict, John Dykstra's effects and the ill-fated Galactica 1980. The reimagined series gets the bulk: the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, the 50,000 survivors, Adama's callsign, Roslin's swearing-in, why Starbuck became a woman, Baltar's betrayal and presidency, the Number Six in his head, the 33-minute jumps, New Caprica, Razor and the Pegasus, the Final Five and the Bob Dylan song that carried the fleet to Earth. There are also questions on the cast (Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, Katee Sackhoff), Bear McCreary's score, the Peabody and Hugo awards, the United Nations retrospective, and the spin-offs Caprica and Blood & Chrome. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia pages for the series, characters and episodes, and each explanation adds one detail worth remembering. So say we all.
30 of 98 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who created the original 1978 Battlestar Galactica?
Glen A. Larson
Glen A. Larson, a Latter-day Saint, wove Mormon ideas into the show, from a ruling council of twelve to marriages 'sealed' for eternity.
Q 02Which Bonanza star played Commander Adama in the original 1978 Battlestar Galactica?
Lorne Greene
Lorne Greene, Bonanza's Ben Cartwright, had been nicknamed Canada's 'Voice of Doom' for reading grim war news on CBC radio during World War II.
Q 03In June 1978, which studio sued Universal claiming Battlestar Galactica had stolen 34 ideas from Star Wars?
20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox listed 34 alleged similarities; Universal countersued, claiming Star Wars had itself borrowed from its 1972 film Silent Running and the 1939 Buck Rogers serial.
Q 04Which made-up swear word do Battlestar Galactica's characters use in place of the F-word?
Frak
Frak began as 'frack' in the 1978 original; the 2004 revival dropped the c so it would literally be a four-letter word.
Q 05In the original 1978 Battlestar Galactica, who created the Cylons?
An extinct reptilian species
An extinct reptilian species built the original Cylons as robot servants before dying out; the 2004 reimagining flipped this, making the Cylons humanity's own creation.
Q 06Who developed the 2004 'reimagined' Battlestar Galactica?
Ronald D. Moore
Ronald D. Moore got his TV break when Star Trek: The Next Generation bought his first script, 'The Bonding', and hired him onto its writing staff.
Q 07Which illness does President Laura Roslin battle in Battlestar Galactica?
Breast cancer
Breast cancer: Roslin learns it is terminal on the day of the Cylon attack, and while taking the drug chamalla she has visions that convince her she is fulfilling an ancient prophecy.
Q 08Roughly how many humans survive the Cylon attack on the Colonies?
About 50,000
About 50,000 survived, and that was after Roslin ordered the ships with FTL drives to jump away, abandoning thousands aboard slower ships to the Cylons.
Q 09Why did Galactica survive the Cylons' crippling attack?
It was an old ship about to become a museum
It was an old ship about to become a museum, and its computers had never been networked, so the Cylon sabotage that disabled newer ships couldn't reach it.
Q 10Which actor plays Commander William Adama in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica?
Edward James Olmos
Edward James Olmos wore blue contact lenses as Adama so he would look more like Jamie Bamber, who played his son Lee.
Q 11What was Adama's callsign as a young Viper pilot?
Husker
Husker was young Adama's callsign, given by his first co-pilot, and he earned a commendation for shooting down a Cylon on his very first combat mission.
Q 12Before the attack, President Laura Roslin held which cabinet post?
Secretary of Education
As Secretary of Education she was 43rd in the line of succession, yet she became president because every official above her had been killed.
Q 13Mary McDonnell, who plays Roslin, was Oscar-nominated for playing Stands With A Fist in which film?
Dances with Wolves
Dances with Wolves: Stands With A Fist, a white woman taken in by the Sioux as a girl after her family was killed, still remembers enough English to interpret for Dunbar.
Q 21Which four Final Five Cylons are revealed in Battlestar Galactica's 'Crossroads'?
Tigh, Tyrol, Tory Foster and Anders
Tigh, Tyrol, Tory Foster and Anders are drawn together by a song only they can hear; the fifth, Ellen Tigh, is revealed in season four and resurrected in 'No Exit'.
Q 22In the first regular episode, '33', how often must the fleet jump to stay ahead of the Cylons?
Every 33 minutes
Every 33 minutes the Cylons reappear, so the crew goes five days without sleep and finally has to destroy one of its own ships; the episode won the 2005 Hugo Award.
Q 23Baltar wins the presidency from Roslin by promising to do what?
Q 14Which actress plays Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace?
Katee Sackhoff
Katee Sackhoff's casting as a female Starbuck led the actor who had played the original Starbuck to publish an essay attacking the change.
Q 15According to a prophecy, Starbuck is the 'Harbinger of Death' who will do what?
Lead humanity to its end
A Cylon Hybrid tells her she will lead humanity to its end, yet she guides the fleet to a new Earth and then vanishes, as if she were a ghost.
Q 16Which Colonial system did Six help Gaius Baltar design, planting backdoors the Cylons later exploited?
The navigation program
The navigation program ran on Colonial fighters and warships, so when the Cylons attacked they used its backdoors to disable those ships.
Q 17Which actress plays Six, the blonde humanoid Cylon who seduces Baltar?
Tricia Helfer
Tricia Helfer was discovered by a modelling scout at 17 while waiting in a movie-ticket line, and she modelled for a decade before acting.
Q 18Grace Park plays the Eight model, whose copies include Boomer and which other Raptor pilot?
Athena
Athena marries Helo and is sworn in as a Galactica officer despite being a Cylon.
Q 19Which slur do some humans use for the Cylon Centurions?
Toasters
'Toasters' mocks the chrome Centurions; 'skinjob', reserved for the humanoid models, is borrowed from Blade Runner's term for replicants.
Q 20Brother Cavil, the priest played by Dean Stockwell, is which numbered Cylon model?
Number One
Number One was built by the Final Five, and Cavil later boxes D'Anna to stop her revealing who they are.
Settle on a newly found planet
His promise to settle on a newly found planet proves a disaster when the Cylons arrive a year later and occupy it.
Q 24Which second surviving battlestar, commanded by Admiral Helena Cain, joins the fleet in season two?
Pegasus
Pegasus had escaped the attack under Admiral Cain, who had the families of civilians resisting conscription shot until the rest gave in.
Q 25Which Battlestar Galactica TV movie flashes back to Admiral Cain's first days after the Cylon attack?
Razor
Razor takes its title from Cain's lesson that to survive a war you have to become a razor.
Q 26Which composer scored the reimagined Battlestar Galactica from its first weekly episode onward?
Bear McCreary
Bear McCreary had assisted Richard Gibbs on the miniseries, then took over when Gibbs chose not to commit to the weekly show.
Q 27Which Bob Dylan song plays over the closing montage of Battlestar Galactica's finale, 'Daybreak'?
All Along the Watchtower
All Along the Watchtower's notes turn out to be the jump coordinates that Starbuck enters to take the fleet to Earth; the Hendrix arrangement closes the show.
Q 28In Battlestar Galactica's finale, what do the survivors do with their fleet?
Fly them into the Sun
Fly them into the Sun: the survivors chose to give up their advanced technology and start afresh among early humans.
Q 29The 'Daybreak' rescue mission is launched to retrieve which child from the Cylon colony?
Hera Agathon
Hera Agathon, the half-human, half-Cylon daughter of Helo and the Eight, is being studied for how Cylons might reproduce; the Colony sits beside a black hole.
Q 30Where are the angelic Baltar and Six walking in Battlestar Galactica's very last scene?
Modern-day New York City
In modern-day New York City they debate whether this Earth will repeat past mistakes, as the show ends on footage of real robots.