This Battlestar Galactica trivia quiz has 50 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 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who created the original 1978 Battlestar Galactica?
Glen A. Larson
A Latter-day Saint, he wove Mormon ideas into the show: a council of twelve, a lost thirteenth tribe and a planet called Kobol, an anagram of Kolob.
Q 02Which Bonanza star led the cast of the 1978 series as Commander Adama?
Lorne Greene
Richard Hatch played Apollo and Dirk Benedict played Starbuck; Hatch returned to the reimagined series as the terrorist-turned-politician Tom Zarek.
Q 03In June 1978, which studio sued Universal claiming Battlestar Galactica had stolen 34 ideas from Star Wars?
20th Century Fox
Universal countersued, claiming Star Wars had itself borrowed from its 1972 film Silent Running and the Buck Rogers serials.
Q 04After how many episodes was the original series cancelled due to high costs and falling ratings?
24
ABC tried a cheaper follow-up, Galactica 1980, which lasted ten episodes; Richard Hatch turned down a script for it.
Q 05In the 1978 series, who created the Cylons?
An extinct reptilian species
The reimagined series flipped this: its Cylons are humanity's own creation, which is the whole point of the show.
Q 06Who developed the 2004 'reimagined' Battlestar Galactica?
Ronald D. Moore
A Star Trek veteran, he ran it with David Eick after the three-hour December 2003 miniseries and won a Peabody for it.
Q 07The humans of the reimagined series live on a group of planets known as what?
The Twelve Colonies of Kobol
Kobol is the ancestral homeworld the colonists left; the fleet later finds it and its Tomb of Athena on the way to Earth.
Q 08Roughly how many humans survive the Cylon attack on the Colonies?
About 50,000
The running tally on Roslin's whiteboard became one of the show's grimmest recurring images.
Q 09Why did Galactica survive the attack when the rest of the fleet was crippled?
It was an old ship about to become a museum
Its outdated, un-networked computers were immune to the Cylon virus that disabled the newer battlestars.
Q 10Which actor plays Commander William Adama in the reimagined series?
Edward James Olmos
An Oscar nominee for Stand and Deliver, he was Blade Runner's Gaff and Miami Vice's Lieutenant Castillo before taking the bridge.
Q 11What was Adama's callsign as a young Viper pilot?
Husker
The web series Blood & Chrome follows the young Adama during the First Cylon War.
Q 12Before the attack, President Laura Roslin held which cabinet post?
Secretary of Education
She was 43rd in line; her swearing-in aboard Colonial One deliberately echoed Lyndon Johnson's after the Kennedy assassination.
Q 13Mary McDonnell, who plays Roslin, was Oscar-nominated for playing Stands With A Fist in which film?
Dances with Wolves
Her second nomination was for Passion Fish; she was also the First Lady in Independence Day.
Q 21Which four of the Final Five are revealed in the season three finale 'Crossroads'?
Tigh, Tyrol, Tory Foster and Anders
The fifth, Ellen Tigh, is resurrected in 'No Exit' with her memories as creator of the numbered models restored.
Q 22In the first regular episode, '33', how often must the fleet jump to stay ahead of the Cylons?
Every 33 minutes
The crew go days without sleep and finally have to destroy one of their own ships; the episode won the 2005 Hugo Award.
Q 23Baltar wins the presidency from Roslin by promising to do what?
Settle the fleet on New Caprica
Q 14Which actress plays Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace?
Katee Sackhoff
The gender switch drew a backlash, including from original Starbuck Dirk Benedict; she later played Bo-Katan in The Mandalorian.
Q 15According to a prophecy, Starbuck is the 'Harbinger of Death' who will do what?
Lead humanity to its end
She dies, comes back inexplicably, and in the finale leads the fleet to a new planet before vanishing.
Q 16Which scientist unwittingly gives the Cylons access to the Colonial defence mainframe?
Gaius Baltar
James Callis plays him; a Number Six later produces photos of him carrying a device into the mainframe on Caprica.
Q 17Which actress plays Six, the blonde humanoid Cylon who seduces Baltar?
Tricia Helfer
The copy who compromised the colonies is nicknamed 'Caprica Six' and treated as a hero by other Cylons.
Q 18Grace Park plays the Eight model, whose copies include Boomer and which other Raptor pilot?
Athena
Athena marries Helo and their daughter Hera becomes the key to the whole series.
Q 19Which slur do some humans use for the Cylon Centurions?
Toasters
'Skinjob' is reserved for the humanoid models, borrowed from Blade Runner, in which Olmos also appeared.
Q 20Brother Cavil, the priest played by Dean Stockwell, is which numbered Cylon model?
Number One
Dean Stockwell plays him; he hides the identities of the Final Five from the other models.
The settlement is a disaster: the Cylons arrive, occupy the planet, and season three opens as an allegory of Iraq.
Q 24Which second surviving battlestar, commanded by Admiral Helena Cain, joins the fleet in season two?
Pegasus
Michelle Forbes played Cain, and the 2007 TV movie Razor told the ship's story before it met Galactica.
Q 25Which two-hour TV movie about Admiral Cain's battlestar took up the first two slots of the season four order?
Razor
It aired in November 2007 and got a limited cinema run; the rest of the season was split in two by the writers' strike.
Q 26Which composer scored more than 70 episodes of the reimagined series?
Bear McCreary
Richard Gibbs did the miniseries; the score used taiko drums, duduk, erhu and bansuri, and even spawned a ballet in Hagen, Germany.
Q 27Which Dylan song, in a Hendrix arrangement, plays over the closing montage of 'Daybreak'?
All Along the Watchtower
Its notes turn out to be the jump coordinates that Starbuck enters to take the fleet to Earth.
Q 28In the finale, the fleet's survivors settle on a new planet and do what with their ships?
Fly them into the Sun
The surviving Centurions get the last Basestar and jump away; the planet turns out to be our Earth 150,000 years ago.
Q 29The 'Daybreak' rescue mission is launched to retrieve which child from the Cylon colony?
Hera Agathon
The half-human, half-Cylon girl 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 the very last scene?
Modern-day New York City
They watch robots and gadgets and repeat the show's refrain: all of this has happened before, but does it have to happen again?