Battlestar Galactica (1978)

Lorne Greene: Commander Adama

Quotes 

• Commander Adama : [closing narration]  Fleeing from the Cylon Tyranny, the last battlestar Galactica leads a ragtag fugitive fleet on a lonely quest: a shining planet known as Earth.

• Commander Adama : Mr. President, a wall of unidentified craft is closing in on the fleet.

  Count Baltar : Possibly a Cylon welcoming committee.

  Commander Adama : Sir, might I suggest we launch a welcoming committee of our own?

  Count Baltar : Mr. President, there remain many hostile feelings amongst our warriors. The likelihood of an unfortunate incident with all those pilots in the sky at once?

  President Adar : Did you hear that, Commander?

  Commander Adama : Sir, did Count Baltar suggest that our forces sit here, totally defenseless?

  President Adar : My friend, we are on a peace mission. The first peace man has known in a thousand years.

• Colonel Tigh : Captain, we have to know how many base ships we're dealing with.

  Captain Apollo : No base ships.

  Colonel Tigh : You must be mistaken, Captain! Fighters couldn't function this far from Cylon without base ships; they don't carry enough fuel!

  Captain Apollo : I said no base ships! Just fighters, maybe a thousand.

  Commander Adama : How do you count for that, Apollo?

  Captain Apollo : I don't know. They...! We picked up an empty tanker on our scanner. It's my guess the Cylons used it to refuel for the attack after flying to that point from wherever their base ships are.

  Colonel Tigh : Well, why operate this far from Cylon without base ships when it isn't necessary? They would have been well out of our range at the old moon!

  Commander Adama : [realizing]  Unless it *was* necessary... for them to be somewhere else! Get me the President!

• President Adar : I see the party is not a huge success with all my children.

  Commander Adama : What awaits us out there is what troubles me.

  President Adar : Surely, you don't cling to your suspicions about the Cylons. They *asked* for this armistice. They *want* peace.

  Commander Adama : Forgive me, Mr. President, but they hate us with every fiber of their existence. We love freedom. We love independence to feel, to question, to resist oppression. To them, it's an alien way of existing they will never accept.

  President Adar : But they *have*. Through Baltar, they have sued for peace.

  Commander Adama : [unconvinced]  Yes... of course, you're right.

• Commander Adama : Mr. President, I request permission to leave the fleet. I have reason to suspect our home planets may face imminent attack.

  [Cylon raiders blast away at the bridge of the Atlantia and portions of the bridge explode] 

  Commander Adama : Maintain contact!

  [the communication image of President Adar distorts, then clears] 

  President Adar : [horror-stricken]  How could I have been so completely wrong? I have led the entire human race to ruin!

  Commander Adama : [reassuringly]  Mr. President, it wasn't your fault. You didn't lead us to this disaster. We were *led*!

  President Adar : [last words]  Baltar! I don't believe it...

  [a Cylon raider blasts one of the Atlantia's anti-assault batteries and the explosion surges into the bridge, knocking out communications] 

  Commander Adama : [alarmed]  Mr. President!

• Serina : It's true, then. We are defeated. Doomed.

  Boxey : [to Apollo]  Can I ride in your ship, sir?

  Captain Apollo : Fighter planes are no place for little boys.

  Serina : They're going to have to be if our people are going to survive. We must fight back.

  Commander Adama : Yes, we are going to fight back. But not here. Not now. Not in the Colonies. Not even in this star system. Let the word go forth to every man woman and child who survived this holocaust. Tell them to set sail at once in every assorted vehicle that will carry them.

• Commander Adama : [narrating]  And the word went forth to every outpost of human existence, and they came: the Aries, the Gemons, the Virgos, the Scorpios, the Pisceans and the Sagittarians. In all, 220 ships representing every colony, color and creed in the star system. The human race might have one more chance. But first, it would have to survive the alliance, the elements and the unknown dark and sinister threats that would lie ahead.

• Lieutenant Athena : Commander, we're picking up some attack signals between Purple and Orange Squadrons. We don't *have* Purple and Orange Squadrons.

  Commander Adama : Purple and Orange?

  Colonel Tigh : Starbuck and Apollo?

  Commander Adama : Lord help them both!

• Commander Adama : We gather here as representatives of each ship in our fleet to answer that single question: Where will we go? Our recorded history tells us that we descended from a mother civilization, a race that went out into space to established colonies. Those of us here assembled now represent the only known surviving colonies, save one. A sister world, far out in the universe, remembered to us only through ancient writings. It is my intention to seek out that remaining colony, that last outpost of humanity in the whole universe.

  Serina : Commander Adama? This thirteenth colony, this other world. Where is it and what's it called?

  Commander Adama : I wish I could tell you that I know precisely where it is, but I can't. However, I do know that it lies beyond out star system, in a galaxy very much like our own. On a planet called... Earth.

• Colonel Tigh : [monitoring two Vipers under armed attack and the Galactica is not allowed to respond]  Still no word from our fighters, Sir. Their transmission is being deliberately jammed. If we don't launch...

  Commander Adama : We cannot launch. It's been expressly forbidden. However, this might be a very good time for battle-stations drill. Sound the alert, Colonel.

  Colonel Tigh : [enthusiastically]  Yes, Sir!

• Commander Adama : We've come so far, so quickly. There's been little time for reason. What is the curious secret behind the existence of this outpost on the outer rim of our star system? There are many such oasis for intergalactic travelers, but none so far off the known arteries of trade, and none so curiously close a tylium mine. Fuel has begun to arrive from the Ovion mines, but in curiously small quantities. Now I feel the growing need for extraordinary measures of precaution. The ships continue to hover over the planet, supported by small maintenance crews whose spirits are depleted as their numbers. Everyone seems to have forgotten our flight from the Cylons. The beauty and wiles of Carillon hold our people spellbound.