Easily the most Iconic Space Superiority Fighter ever employed by the Colonial Fleet, The Colonial
Viper Mark II was brought into service a short few months into the First Cylon War, and was
designed to supersede the Mark I Vipers, that previously served as the fleet’s mainstay.
During the war, the fighter earned substantial renown, seeing multiple deployments under
Rear Admiral Lucinda Cain in the early years of the conflict, and later playing a pivotal
role in both the Ghost Fleet Offensive, and Operation Raptor Talon.
The standard Mark II is 8.4 Meters in length and 2.7 Meters high, the fighter’s long,
sleek profile, coupled with its powerful RCS thrusters afford the craft incredible agility,
allowing it to reorient through 180 degrees vertically in 0.35 seconds, and when pushed
to its maximum potential, the ship’s manoeuvrability is limited only by what it’s human pilot
can endure without blacking out.
The three, large rear-facing engines allow the Viper to accelerate at 6-7 G’s, and
its powerful weapons loadout includes 2 30mm Mass Accelerator Cannons and space for 8 Lightning
Javelin Missiles.
The fighter can also be outfitted to carry a single 50 megaton nuclear warhead, should
the situation demand it.
Mark II’s, like all Vipers, are deployed into combat through magnetic launch tubes,
laid into the hull of a Battlestar or smaller warship, allowing squadrons of standby pilots
to be scrambled in seconds if the mothership comes under attack.
Though fully capable of atmospheric flight, the Viper was primarily designed to perform
flawlessly in Zero-Gravity.
The ship’s RCS can be placed under computer control, allowing the fighter to automatically
arrest its momentum and fly as though it were inside a planet’s atmosphere, but this system
is often disabled by pilots in order to perform complex uncoupled manoeuvres.
Using manually controlled RCS, a pilot can build momentum along a particular vector,
before inverting their craft to fire at a pursuing hostile without changing course.
In the tenth year of the Cylon War, the colonial fleet began the slow process of withdrawing
the Mark II from service, gradually replacing the fighter with the newer Viper Mk III, but
the Mark II would see service again 40 years later, at the outbreak of the Second Cylon
War.
80 of the now antiquated Viper Mk II’s survived the Cylon Holocaust in the port flight pod
of the Battlestar Galactica, which had previously been converted into a museum, and after the
Galactica’s Lead Squadron of Viper Mk VII’s was destroyed in a Cylon Cyberwarfare attack,
the older Vipers were liberated from the museum and brought back into working order.
The simple computers and analog controls of the older fighters made them impervious to
the computer viruses employed by the Cylons, and these Mark II’s went on to serve the
fleet with distinction for four years throughout the exodus to Earth, protecting the human
population time and again from Cylon attack.
During the journey, Viper Mk II’s were issued to the majority of Colonial Fleet pilots,
with the sparsely available Viper Mk VII’s being reserved for Captains and senior flight
officers.
After the arrival of the Battlestar Pegasus, the Viper Mk II’s schematics were added
to the Pegasus databanks so that the ships foundries could be used to construct more
fighters, though due to the sparsity of resources, this privilege was normally reserved for the
newer and more advanced Viper Mk VII.
Many Mark II Vipers remained on active duty even to the very end of the journey, taking
part in the final attacks on the Cylon Resurrection Hub and later the Colony itself.
The last remaining Vipers were scuttled along with the rest of the Colonial Fleet upon reaching
earth, with the very last Viper in existence, Viper nebula-seven-two-four-two-constellation,
being ceremonially launched from the Galactica by its wartime pilot Admiral William Adama,
before the fleet
was scuttled.