Battlestar Galactica Destiny Novel By Richard Hatch and Brad Linaweaver (The page numbers come from the 1st printing, paperback edition, published June 2004)

Discovering that many of the hastily rebuilt ships will be incapable of making the continued deep space voyage after their stay on Paradis, the fleet is forced to leave them behind, along with 800 human members.

Notes from the BSG chronology

References in the book place it immediately after the events of Paradis.

Didja Notice?

The back cover of the book suggests that the fleet stayed at Paradis for 2 yahrens in Paradis. But that novel itself makes it sound like a number of months, but still less than a yahren.

The back cover of the book also describes Starbuck's and Cassiopeia's love as "unrequited", but that means "not returned" and this does not exactly describe their relationship. They do love each other and have demonstrated this together many times over the yahrens. They have just not been built for a permanent relationship thus far.

The back cover and copyright page of the book give conflicting information on the cover designer. The back cover says the cover designer was Raul Carvajal, but the copyright page says Jay Vita.

The concept of the Cylons being inside Baltar's head, almost driving him mad, may have been later borrowed by Ron Moore for the Baltar character in BSG2000.

Page 7 reveals that Apollo's son, Koren (adopted between the events of Rebellion and Paradis), is now a teenager. Presumably he turned 13 during the time the fleet was resting at Paradis because he seemed to presented younger in that previous novel.

On page 11, the exodus from the Twelve Colonies is actually referred as "the Exodus".

On page 16, Athena reflects that it seemed as if the children of the Colonies had been the primary targets of the Cylons in the sneak attack in "Annihilation", because children represent the future of the enemy.

Throughout the novel, the amount of time the fleet as been fleeing the Colonies goes back-and-forth from 25 to 30 yahrens. And this is yet different from the figure as stated in the earliest couple of Hatch novels, about 18.5 yahrens (maybe 20 yahrens now if the figure of 2 years on Paradis is accepted). Personally, I think the shorter time periods in all cases make more sense.

Page 27 suggests that Bojay is known as the Magician in his work as a Viper repair engineer.

On page 29, Starbuck compares the Council meeting with eating some "tasty mucoid mugjapes." Armageddon established mugjapes as being similar to maggots and "mucoid" means "slimy" or "sticky" in the glossary of the Hatch novels, so Starbuck is obviously being sarcastic in using the adjective "tasty".

On page 30, Boomer reflects on having known Starbuck for 30 yahrens.

Page 35 mentions the Council meeting being carried throughout the fleet via musiclinks and TransVids. According to the Hatch glossary, these are similar to radio and television.

Coming to the realization that some people will have to be left behind since about 1/3 of the ships will not be able to make the three light-year journey to the next planet on the map, the choices of which members must stay behind comes to be known as the Great Selection.

Cain's second daughter, Rhaya (introduced in Paradis), returns for this novel.

Page 53 reveals that Starbuck doesn't care about finding Earth so much as defeating the Cylons.

Page 53 also mentions Starbuck's "near-death experience" at Kobol and his encounter with the Light Ships (in Resurrection). I'm not sure "near-death experience" is the correct term to use considering he actually did die (and was later brought back to life by the Beings of Light)!

Page 66 reveals that Tigh is also aware of Apollo's secret chamber in the Commander's quarters.

Page 69 implies that Sire Rigginbok of the Council of Twelve secretly worships the slime god of Nerglahd. Nerglahd has not been mentioned in BSG before or since.

The back cover of the book states that 1/3 of the fleet must be left behind. On page 77, Apollo announces that 15 ships have been determined to be unfit for a deep-space voyage. If 15 ships is supposed to be 1/3 of the fleet, then the fleet was only at 45 ships (now 30)! This does not tally with descriptions of the fleet in the previous novels implying a higher number, even with an unknown number of ships having been lost in recent battles. On the following page, Apollo states the abandonment of these vessels will involve leaving 800 people behind.

On page 78, Apollo mentions the use of new telematic sensors. Presumably these were invented during the fleet's stay at Paradis. "Telematic" is simply a term for the use of technology to transmit information over long distances.

On page 80, Apollo declares martial law on the fleet when the Council tries to exempt itself from consideration in being among the fleet members left behind.

Once again, the continuity between the novels (and even the TV series) takes a beating! During Baltar's "dream" discussion with the Imperious Leader on pages 83-90, Count Iblis and his followers are described as having been exiled to Kobol instead from it. There, they discovered primitive reptilian natives upon whom Iblis began to perform genetic engineering to breed them into the finest warriors in the universe, combined with human DNA to make them somewhat more controllable. In Resurrection, Iblis was described as having been exiled to Cylon, where he found the reptilians, which certainly makes more sense.

Page 85 reveals that during their exile, Count Iblis developed his followers into his own religion with himself as almost a god.

On page 85, Imperious Leader reminds Baltar of the time the human fleet was nearly out of fuel and the Cylons were close to destroying them with Baltar's help, until the Pegasus under Commander Cain came to the rescue. This is a reference to the events of the 2-part episode "The Living Legend".

Page 86 reveals that the pure, reptilian Cylons seek to eliminate not only humans, but also all traces of human DNA from the Cylon species itself.

Page 87 reveals that the pure, reptilian Cylons have developed their own 3-brained leader, analogous to the Imperious Leader. They call theirs the Alpha Leader and some have even taken to derogatively referring to the Imperious Leader as Omega Leader (as in the last of his kind).

On page 88, Imperious Leader tells Baltar the Cylons now have an immensely powerful ray weapon which can be directed through a space-time warp to other parts of the galaxy to destroy entire worlds. He claims this is what they have done to cause Paradis to destroy itself.

On page 89, Baltar begins to believe he has spent so much time trapped in his nightmarish dream state that he could no longer tell a mugjape from an ogliv. As mentioned earlier in the study, a mugjape is a maggot-like insect. An ogliv is a sweet, prickly-skinned fruit according to the Hatch glossary.

On page 91, Apollo tells Athena and Tigh, "Let the word go forth to every man, woman, and child that their vote counts for something..." The beginning of the sentence is the same as that used by Adama at the end of "Annihilation" in declaring that they will gather survivors of the Twelve Colonies and flee elsewhere to escape the Cylons: "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."

On page 93, Ryis lights up a fumarello and enjoys the nicotine flooding his system. In "Maytoria" it's implied that "ticophine" is the Colonial word for nicotine.

On page 96, Gar'Tokk is playing a game in the rec room with another Noman named H'Mal. H'Mal also appeared briefly in Paradis.

On page 97, Gar'Tokk explains to Koren that the gambling game he'd been playing was invented by H'Mal and was called veyguhs. Obviously, this is a play on "Vegas", as in the U.S. city and gambling mecca known as Las Vegas.

Page 102 describes word of the latest council meeting travelling at nearly 186,000 miles per second. This is a reference to the speed of light, which is, rounded down, 186,000 miles per second (actual figure closer to 186,282 miles per second).

Starting in Chapter 11 and throughout the rest of the book, Sire Rigginbok is referred to as Sire Riggbok.

On page 104, Sire Uri refers to the civilian patriots who always side with Commander Apollo as "nova-bums".

Page 105 reveals that Cassiopeia's baby has blue eyes.

Page 105 also refers to Cassie's baby boy as her only child. This is obviously not true, as Dalton is the daughter of her and Starbuck.

Page 108 has Apollo leaving his quarters to go to his father's secret sanctuary. But the sanctuary has always been described as located within the Commander's quarters!

Page 109 reveals that Adama left a series of hologram recordings in the computer in the sanctuary, programmed to play for Apollo during critical junctures of the fleet's journey, even though Adama should have had no way of knowing when those would occur. Yet, the advice and knowledge imparted on those occasions is uncannily appropriate for the situation.

On page 112, one of the fleet's civilians seems to have two names instead of just one, Da'veed Lindsay.

On page 113, Lindsay quotes the great council member Sire DeChancie back on the home worlds as saying, "Life becomes a drawn out struggle to defend a Castle perilous." The Sire's name and his reference to "a Castle perilous" is likely a nod by Linaweaver to the author of the Castle Perilous series of fantasy books by John DeChancie. Given this, it is possible the character Da'veed Lindsay is a reference to Scottish author David Lindsay (1876-1945), best known for his 1920 philosophical science-fiction novel, A Voyage to Arcturus. Another character in the same scene called Etoohey may be a reference to yet another author, but I'm not sure who (non-fiction authors David E. Toohey or Richard E. Toohey are possibilities).

In the party-like atmosphere of people choosing to celebrate life before the results of the lottery come in on page 120, Sire Uri observes, in horror, some young people using cubits to light fumarellos. On the TV series, cubits were always presented as gold-colored coins, but it is logical to assume that something like paper money also exists within the fleet.

    This book seems to refer to the celestial chamber (first introduced in "The Hand of God") as the star chamber. But, it's described as rather large, not small as in the episode, and is said to be located near the bridge and command center, not near the engines as in the earlier episode. Later, in "Journey's End" Part 1, Commander Apollo records in his journal that the original celestial chamber of the Galactica was destroyed during a battle with the Cylons "7 yahrens ago" (about 4 or 5 yahrens before this story); he had it rebuilt and the chamber as presented in "Journey's End" Part 1 is quite a bit larger than the one seen in originally in the aforementioned episode; possibly Apollo simply ordered a larger version of the original constructed, possibly to allow more visitors inside at once.
   Page 196 infers that the star chamber is the same room as the Commander's sanctuary (which is supposed to be built into Adama's quarters, as revealed way back in Armageddon!).

When Baltar finally awakens from his coma-like sleep, he tells Apollo that he believes that Imperious Leader is allowing the human fleet to survive and continue its quest in order to track them to the location of the Thirteenth Tribe, part of the original race of humanity that exiled Count Iblis. Iblis wanted revenge against them and therefore the Cylons do, too.

After fighting down both civilians and renegade Council security forces with their bare knuckles on page 168, Starbuck and Boomer are referred to as the "dynamic duo". This may be a reference to the DC Comics characters Batman and Robin, who themselves are frequently referred to colloquially as the Dynamic Duo.

In a letter to her mother, Rhaya reveals her name has been drawn in the lottery as one of the people to be left behind. She urges her mother to remain in the fleet with her sister, Elke, only 6 yahrens old. Is Elke also a daughter of Commander Cain? Or does she have a different father? Also, though the sentence in the letter is vague, Rhaya may have a lesbian lover named Retime.

Page 174 reveals that, though Imperious Leader has tortured Baltar with the Cylon mind link, Baltar's mind has also infected the Leader's.

Page 176 reveals that Imperious Leader has a graveyard of enemy spaceships (human and otherwise) orbiting the sun of a lifeless system. He looks at images of the ships and the frozen carcasses of crew aboard to give himself a little pep-up now and then.

On page 181, Sire Opis puts in "his two cubits worth". This is obviously a reference to the English colloquialism, "two cents worth".

On page 184, Baltar laments his increasing hallucinations of another Baltar visiting him and of other worlds appearing around him, thinking, Every day, in every way, it was getting worse. This phrase is a twist on the Coué method expression, "Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better," from the work of French psychologist Émile Coué (1857-1926).

Page 192 reveals that Commander Cain had a rare blood type and his daughters, Sheba and Rhaya, have it as well.

The holographic recordings of Adama that present themselves to Apollo in the sanctuary and answer his questions are similar to those of Jor-El which answer his son Superman's questions in the 1978 film Superman: The Movie.

This book several times mentions the Warriors using the Warriors' handshake, but doesn't describe how it differs from a normal handshake.

This novel seems to ignore the relationship that had been developing between Sheba and Bojay in the previous couple of novels.

Page 212 reveals that Baltar's personal ship from the Colonies, a freighter called the Rising Sun, just happened to be one of the ships of the fleet and it's the ship he commandeers, with the former Council of Twelve on board, for his destructive rendezvous with the Cylons. (Ironically, the name Rising Sun has almost the same meaning as the luxury cruiser of the fleet, the Rising Star.)

As Baltar sacrifices himself (and the former Council) to destroy the Cylon fleet, Apollo thinks of the Great Traitor as a Great Patriot. 

Unanswered Questions

Is there a duplicate Baltar brain, created by the Cylons, out there somewhere as he feared?