FROM TABA TO TYLIUM
TABA
(Anthony deLongis) Taba is a young and impulsive nomen who disgraced Maga and Bora by drawing his laser boles at the wrong time,
endangering the blood trail against Chameleon. His name, according to Maga, was to be stricken
from the Roster of the Nomen and he was to be punished, a punishment so severe that his
chances of survival were not great (MN). In a scene edited from “Baltar’s
Escape,” Taba promised never to fail Maga again, and evidently redeemed himself.
TAGS A pilot reported killed by Starbuck in “Living Legend.”
TALK SHOP When Apollo was missing on Equellus, Starbuck promised to treat Boxey to a night in the bachelor officer’s quarters during which they’d play pyramid and talk shop (LW). Talking shop is a favorite avocation of military pilots everywhere.
TALLON PLANT An important food plant for the fleet. The woman on the Gemini freighter informed Count Iblis that when you have only one tallon plant to last a secton, two such plants would be a miracle, giving Iblis another opening to produce one of his phony miracles (WG).
TANYA Daughter of Robber and his wife, about seven or either years old, her one possession is a rough, homemade doll (LP).
TAPE CODER Colonial term for a tape recorder, although they presumably use nothing so primitive as magnetic tape for recording. Thane told the Cylons who captured him that he was carrying a tape coder that contained the information they wanted about the fleet, but in fact it was a hand mine (GI).
TAURA One of the Twelve Colonies.
TAUREAN WOMAN (Randi Oakes) Silly female intercepted by Starbuck and Boomer coming out of the chancery on Carillon; Starbuck recognized her as being Taurean by her accent. She informed them that the place was perfectly legal… “Isn’t it?” and continually brushed the two confused warriors in the face with her feathered headdress. She went off to take a moonlight cruise and Boomer decided, probably accurately, that she’d been smoking plant vapors (P).
TECH LEVELS Area aboard the Galactica where weaponry and electronics are maintained. Starbuck got Corporal Komma out of the computer room by claiming that the female viper pilots were touring the tech levels (LG).
TECHNOCRAT Sarah referred to Michael thus in an attempt to insult him but he clearly was not impressed (GE).
TELECOM Internal communications system aboard the Galactica, disabled by the Cylon kamikaze attack (FS).
TELEMETRY Signals reporting the condition of a spacecraft. After the Cylons attacked the mission to Arkta, Tigh reported to Adama that the telemetry from Killian’s viper indicated total destruct, while the telemetry from the shuttle indicated heavy damage (GI).
TENNA (Britt Ekland) One of the small, blonde, attractive female clones on Arkta, who helped the Colonials in their attempt to destroy the pulsar cannon. Starbuck, naturally, wanted to take three of them home with him (GI).
TERMINATION Colonial term for death. Starbuck was charged with the termination of Ortega (MR).
TERMINATION WEAPON Sire Solon referred to Starbuck’s sidearm as such before Dr. Wilker tested it, much to Starbuck’s displeasure (MR).
TERRA Gemonese for “earth.” Also the home planet of the Eastern Alliance and the Nationalists, described by Michael as having once been a world of many nations that eventually polarized into East vs. West. Without confirmation from Glen Larson it’s not possible to be certain of his intention, but Terra probably was meant to be a colony of our Earth, far in the future, judging by the names of the Terrans, the political situation, the use of earth measures such as hours, minutes, and kilometers, and even the cross Sarah’s father is buried under (GE, ET).
TESTING DRONES Disturbed by Dr. Wilker’s announced intention to experiment on one of the hibernation capsules in the “Earth” ship, Adama accused him of planning to use the encapsulated people as “human testing drones” (GE).
TEXTILE SHIP One of the three industry ships put under the overall command of Kronus, along with the parts ship and the Celestra (TC). Obviously a ship on which cloth and clothing for the people of the fleet is produced.
THANE (James Olson) Thane was a member of Croft’s band who was an expert in alien environments. “I can take you through land, air, fire, and water,” he boasted to Starbuck. Thane was extremely aggressive and difficult to control and used a tiny knockout capsule to incapacitate a warrior he fought with during the loading of the shuttle. Later, assigned to ride on top of the snowram with Haals, the two quarreled and Haals’ laser pistol shorted out the snowram’s powerpack. Thane planned to escape with Wolfe and Leda but when they decided to wait until they were on the mountain to make their break he snuck off into the clone village. He knocked out a clone and stole his clothing but was quickly identified as an intruder since he looked nothing like the burly, bearded male worker clones. To his credit Thane died courageously without revealing the mission, passing off a hand mine as a tape coder containing information about the fleet. A curious Cylon pressed the button and blew itself, several fellow Cylons, and Thane up (GI).
THETA CLASS LIFE FORMS The clones prefer to be referred to as Theta class life forms (GI).
THIRTEENTH TRIBE One of the thirteen tribes of Kobol which, instead of migrating with the other twelve, reportedly went to the legendary planet Earth—possibly well before the other tribes (LG). The Colonials now seek the lost Thirteenth Tribe in the hope that they will find in them allies in their struggle against the Cylons (P). In several later episodes it was mentioned that traces of the Thirteenth Tribe’s migration had been found, giving Adama hope that the fleet was on the right path.
THORN FOREST Wilderness area on Caprica where Starbuck and thousands of other children were found wandering after the Cylon destruction of Umbra, which was located on its edge (MN).
THOUSAND YAHREN WAR The war against the Cylons, started when the Colonials intervened to save the Hasaris and finished by the Cylon surprise attack on the Colonies. Although it lasted a thousand yahrens, we can assume that there were various phases in the war, some more intense than others.
THREE LEVEL PYRAMID Starbuck got a three level pyramid in his game with Dipper and Duggy. Evidently a rare combination, as Duggy had never seen one before (MW).
TIGH, COLONEL
(Terry Carter) The executive officer of the Galactica and a close personal friend
of Commander Adama. Tigh and Adama flew together in their
younger days (P). An able and talented officer, Colonel Tigh is always ready to help Adama
in any way possible even when he’s not sure what the Commander is getting at. Unlike
Adama, who is deeply religious, Tigh is clearly somewhat skeptical (LG). Tigh is a quick
thinker; when caught by Starbuck and Boomer stealing uniforms from the warriors’
quarters he quickly recovered from his surprise and covered up the raid as a “flash
inspection” (P).
Usually a very upright officer, Tigh
occasionally permits himself to display human emotions. He wept on the bridge watching the
destruction of the Colonies (P). He is willing to help the pilots unbend by more or less
condoning the theft of rations from the officer’s mess for Apollo’s party (LG)
and during the tense situation when the Council was debating how to deal with the Alliance Enforcers permitted the sympathetic pilots to
buy him a drink (BE).
Two times in the series, Colonel Tigh
took command; as Cain’s replacement when Adama relieved
him of his command (LL), and when Adama was severely wounded during the Cylon suicide
attack (FS).
TINCANS Kyle and the other children on Attila refer to the Cylons thus (YL).
TINHEADS Bojay derisively refers to the Cylons thus (LL).
TINIA, SIRESS (Ina Balin) Siress Tinia was a member of the Council of Twelve at the time when the Eastern Alliance Enforcers were captured. When the Council voted to end the State of Emergency and return to civilian government she was assigned as Commander Adama’s Council aide, with, unbelievably, the power to overrule his decisions. An overly idealistic woman, she changed her tune rapidly after Baltar, the nomen, and the Enforcers took the Council hostage, and agreed with Adama’s plan for an immediate military assault to rescue them; she also bravely agreed to join Adama as a hostage in order to buy Dr. Wilker more time to get Baltar’s pilots operational. By the end of the episode she was obviously quite friendly with Commander Adama (BE).
TIP BARGE Ship in the fleet on which Apollo claimed to have found some valcron (LG).
TODD (G. Eric Larson) The middle of Sarah’s three children; Glen Eric Larson is Glen Larson’s son (GE).
TOLEN, COLONEL (Rod Haase) The tall, rather young executive officer of the Pegasus, steady and loyal to Cain. His position as Cain’s exec is probably not to be envied (LL).
TOP PRIORITY SCRAMBLED CODE Colonial security precaution for important transmissions (LL).
TRANS-STELLAR SPACELINES The company that owned and operated the Rising Star (P).
TRAVELATOR Colonial term for a travel agent. The silly Taurean woman on Carillon informed Starbuck and Boomer that her travelator had arranged the trip for her (P).
TRIAD A rough Colonial game played by two two-man teams on a triangular court. The object of the game is to score points by placing a silver ball into a small goal while preventing the other team from doing so. The game consists of two periods and all sorts of roughhousing, legal and otherwise, go on. The game seems to be broadly based on early Mayan ball games with a touch of Rollerball thrown in. Apollo and Starbuck are the macho Triad champions of the fleet (WG, MR).
TRIBUNAL Colonial court, perhaps specifically Colonial military court. When Starbuck was charged with Ortega’s murder the tribunal was held only 10 centares later. Adama served as president of the tribunal; two other command-grade officers were also members, an older black man wearing a blue uniform and an older gray-haired white man also wearing a blue uniform (MR).
TRIBUTE Payola, protection money. Lacerta had been forcing the citizens living in and near the town controlled by him to pay him tribute by threatening them with Red-Eye; he took a certain, usually very large, percentage of whatever the people produced. In the case of Bootes his men confiscated over half his ovines (LW),
TURBODYNE Some sort of device related to a ship’s propulsion system. The mutinous Celestra crewmen sabotaged the ship’s No. 4 turbodyne so it blew a laser sequence, forcing the ship to drop back behind the fleet. The repair usually takes about two centares, though Kronus confidently informed Adama that with his crew it would likely take less (TC).
TURBOFLUSH Colonial term for toilet (BE).
TURBO LASER Term used occasionally to refer to the laser cannon fitted to the vipers.
TURBOWASH Colonial term for shower. After being thrown out of the game along with Ortega, Starbuck went to the turbowash, not without a stop along the way to scuffle (MR).
TWELVE COLONIES See Colonies, Twelve
21st PLANET The eight crewmen who planned to flee the Celestra wanted to land on the 21st planet of the system the fleet was near at the time, as it had the best climate, plenty of food, and a suitable landing field (TC).
TYLINIUM According to the Rising Star’s maitre d’, an exceptionally rare substance (LP). The transparent navigational dome is made of clear tylinium, according to Apollo (HG).
TYLIUM Fuel used by the Colonial form of star drive. The fuel is refined from an ore found on very few planets, one of which is Carillon. Tylium is very dangerous stuff—fuel fires seem to be the usual cause of a battlestar’s destruction—and the planet Carillon was blown to pieces after the tylium mines caught fire (P).
�1987, 1999 by Susan J. Paxton
A, B, C, D, E & F, G & H, I, J & K, L, M & N, O, P & Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z