Cylon Raider (BSG:TRS)

**Cylon Raider (BSG:TRS)**

 ***Cylon Raider (BSG:TRS)** is an Article stub. You can help the On Screen Fighter Craft Wiki by expanding it.*
*This article is about the Re-imagined Series Raider fighter craft. For the Original Series version, see Cylon Raider (BSG:TOS).*

The **Raider** is the primary air/space superiority fighter used by the Cylons against the peoples of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. This is the second of at least two designs used since the outbreak of hostilities between the two powers.

# Details

The modern Raider, called **sparrow** in Colonial military jargon, radically redesigned but still resembling its past incarnation as a giant flying wing, is first encountered 40 years after the Cylon War, when the Cylons launch their devastating surprise attack on the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. During this attack, Raiders transmit commands to Colonial vessels utilizing the Command Navigation Program (CNP). Compromised prior to the attack, the CNP was programmed with backdoors that permitted the Cylons to cut the power of any ship carrying the program..

This incarnation of the Raider is initially thought to be wholly mechanical in design, with a high-level AI controlling it. However, from inspection of a damaged Raider forced down in a firefight and recovered by Lieutenant Kara Thrace, the craft is found to be bio-mechanical in nature, incorporating a number of large organs in its design, including a central brain. Raiders require an oxygen-nitrogen mix for their biological functions, and thus oxygen tanks are located somewhere onboard. In effect, a modern Raider is a creature in itself.

Though Raiders are self-aware, their intelligence level is less than that of a humanoid Cylon, and more like a trained animal. Nonetheless, they are capable of independent thought and action, and can refuse to follow orders if they choose. Much like the humanoids, the bio-mechanical Raider's consciousness resurrects in a new "body" if it is destroyed. While this allows the Raider to "learn" from its previous mistakes and become a more proficient killing machine, it can cause Raiders to develop what can be described as a desire for revenge after repeated deaths. *Galactica*'s Viper pilots are regularly outnumbered and survive, indicating that Cylon Raiders are generally not matches for skilled human pilots.

The Raider is equipped with an FTL drive system. Following tests on the Raider captured by *Galactica*, this FTL system is found to be far more efficient in jump calculations than Colonial FTL systems. The drive shows its accuracy when Lt. Thrace takes the Raider from a point somewhere near the vicinity of Kobol back to Caprica in a single jump.

It is armed with conventional and nuclear missiles carried in internal wing bays and two pairs of kinetic energy weapons of different calibers mounted under the leading edge of the wings. Curiously, the only times the Raiders have been seen using their missiles are during the Fall of the Twelve Colonies and the Battle of The Colony. This may indicate that Raiders are not normally armed with missiles.

Like its counterpart, the Colonial Viper Mk VII, the Raider is capable of atmospheric operations, and retains an aerodynamic shape.

During the Battle of the Ionian Nebula, a Raider identifies one of the Final Five after their activation, causing all of them to refuse to fight further and forces the Cylons to retreat.  Cavil (a Number One) concludes that the Raiders exceeded their programming, and to regain control over them the humanoid Cylons must reconfigure the Raiders' neural architecture and shave down their heuristic responses, essentially lobotomizing them and "dumbing them down." This decision leads to a violent split among the Cylons. This split further leads to the Battle of the Resurrection Hub, resulting in the destruction of the resurrection technology used by both the Humanoid Cylons and the Raiders.

Heuristically-reconfigured Raiders participate in the Battle of The Colony against *Galactica*'s Vipers. For the first time since the Miniseries, Raiders are outfitted with missiles and, using these weapons, destroy one of *Galactica's* gun batteries in the battle.

With the destruction of The Colony and the Cylon forces lead by Cavil, as well as the loss of the resurrection technology, it is a foregone conclusion that the biological Raiders have gone extinct.

## Notes

* In an homage to the Cylon Raider (BSG:TOS), the weapons fire of the Re-imagined Series Cylon Raiders is blue-white. Given the use of conventional weaponry only in the series, these are muzzle flashes and tracer rounds, and not energy weapons like in the Original Series.
* As of "Razor", a new exterior design is being used for the modern Raider. This version displays a more reflective outer armor, and has a flatter face with a sharper jaw line. Overall, this affords the Raider a closer resemblance to the Centurion foot-soldier.

Raider, fore.Raider, aft.Raider missiles.Raiders docked within a baseshipRedesigned Raider cockpitTransmiting CNP Virus in The PlanRaider on Galactica's hangar deck.Internal workings.The Brain.Brain - Anterior view.Starbuck in brain cavity.
## References

1. ↑ BSG:TRS Episode Maelstrom
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 BSG:TRS Miniseries
3. ↑ BSG:TRS Episode Act of Contrition
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 BSG:TRS Episode You Can't Go Home Again
5. ↑ BSG:TRS Episode Six Degrees of Separation
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 BSG:TRS Episode Six of One
7. ↑ BSG:TRS Episode Scar
8. ↑ BSG:TRS Episode Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I
9. ↑ BSG:TRS Episode He That Believeth In Me
10. ↑ BSG:TRS Episode The Ties That Bind
11. ↑ BSG:TRS Episode The Hub
12. ↑ BSG:TRS Episode Sine Qua Non
13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 BSG:TRS Episode Daybreak, Part II
14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Raider\_%28RDM%29
15. ↑ http://www.modelermagic.com/?p=219
16. ↑ BSG:TRS Razor
17. ↑ BSG:TRS Episode Torn