Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome
Syfy in conjunction with Machinima Prime is releasing Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome as a series of webisodes on youtube. All 10 parts are now available on the Machinima Prime channel, or just watch the playlist in this post to see everything that happens.
"The First Cylon War has been raging for ten years. William "Husker" Adama, a recent graduate from the Academy has been assigned to the newest Colonial Battlestar, Galactica. His first assignment seems like such a simple thing; transport a civilian off the Galactica, but things turn out to be anything but the Milk Run that was expected."
The 8 to 10 minute episodes have been interesting so far with decent acting and the exceptional effects provided by Zoic studios; the same company that did the effects for all five seasons of the remake of Battlestar Galactica.
Spoilers follow. Don’t read past here if you want to watch the series first.
Effects and minor issues:
The Raptors of the fleet appear to be the same while the Vipers have been reverted to the look of the old series, yet have all the apparent firepower and maneuverability of the Mark VII models from the 2003 series. Adama, the same who will later command the Galactica on its journey to Earth, is only an Ensign, and yet he’s a pilot in the fleet. Normally pilots are at least officers in most militaries.
The war has been raging for 10 years, but it isn’t apparent yet if the fleet has taken to not networking the various systems aboard their ships. Training seems to be conducted with networked virtual simulator systems, much like we’ve been using today. Of course a hardwired and hardened network should be nearly impossible to hack from outside the physical machinery.
The story so far:
Bill “Husker” Adama, an ensign fresh out of the Academy has been assigned to the Battlestar Galactica. His first assignment aboard the Galactica, pilot of a Raptor, even though his scores put him at the top of his class for handling Vipers. His copilot, Lieutenant “Coker” Fasiovik, is nearly at the end of his second tour and is looking forward to getting out of the fleet in just a month or so. In fact, he’s cleaning out the Raptor of the remains of his previous pilot as Adama comes up. They are assigned a simple Milk Run. Take cargo to the Scorpion shipyards and return with spare parts for the Galactica. The cargo, a civilian software engineer, changes everything once they get clear of the sensors of the Colonial Fleet. Instead of going to the shipyards, they are sent to rendezvous with a Heavy Cruiser sitting right on the edge of Cylon-controlled space.
On arriving at the coordinates they find the graveyard of the ship and are chased by several Raiders through the wreckage. Adama loses the Raiders with some hotshot daring maneuvers, then, following the orders of the civilian, they are given a new set of coordinates inside Cylon space where they find a fleet of Colonial ships composed of vessels that had all been reported lost or missing from other battles.
After landing aboard the Cruiser Osiris (appropriately named as it has risen from the dead) Adama volunteers himself and his Raptor, along with Coker, to continue the mission with the civilian. Their next destination is a drop to a Cylon world where Colonial Marines will meet them at their drop point to take the scientist the rest of the way to her destination. The Osiris jumps in and shortly after their arrival a Basestar appears. The Osiris, after being badly damaged in the ensuing fight, rams the Basestar and sacrifices all aboard by manually detonating nuclear warheads that they couldn’t launch due to damage.
The Raptor with an escort of two Vipers heads planet-side and after an aerial dogfight, only the Raptor manages to make it down, but not in flying condition. Adama, Fasiovik and the scientist head off across the landscape to meet up with the marines. Instead of finding a full squad, they find the dead bodies of a number of marines and are attacked by a strange snake-like creature. Coker is injured in the fight, but they are saved by the sole surviving marine. The creature turns out to be a mix of organic and machine life, a cyborg created by the Cylons. Against the Sergeant’s better instincts the team heads out to continue the vital mission.