The Battlestar Valkyrie was a Colonial Battlestar constructed at the start of the First Cylon
War, and assigned to the 41st Battlestar Group.
The Valkyrie took part in the Battle of Canceron Prime and later the Ghost Fleet Offensive
and became a long-serving veteran of the First Cylon War.
The Valkyrie was a smaller configuration of Battlestar than some of its predecessors but
still packed extensive versatility and impressive firepower into its smaller frame.
These factors led to Battlestars of the Valkyrie’s Class going on to make up a large portion
of the Colonial Fleet, with the ship still being a common sight in Colonial Space by
the outbreak of the Second Cylon War.
The Battlestar Valkyrie was 649 Meters long and 235 Meters high, like most Colonial Battlestars,
the ship’s main hull was flanked by a pair of long Flight Pods.
These pods housed the Flight Decks, Hanger Bays and Repair Shops for the vessel’s Viper
and Raptor Squadrons, as well as six magnetic launch tubes to allow flights of Vipers to
be deployed rapidly.
Much like the later Mercury Class Battlestar, the Valkyrie was capable of jumping to FTL
without needing to retract its flight pods.
The Valkyrie was propelled by an array of 4 large sublight engines for forward motion,
and 13 Reaction Control Thrusters to aid in sublight manoeuvring.
The ship was also equipped with a Hyper-light FTL Drive to allow for Superluminal travel,
but due to the Valkyrie’s small frame, the FTL Drive was prominently exposed on the underside
of the vessel, meaning the ship would rely heavily on Viper Protection and evasive manoeuvres
to avoid being disabled in combat.
Ships of the Valkyrie-Type carried more weapons per square-meter than any other ship in the
Colonial Fleet, Equipped with 20 Small Dual Gun Batteries and 33 Larger Batteries, the
ship was very heavily armed.
Much like the Mercury Class, the Valkyrie relied heavily on Missiles, carrying several
small anti-fighter missile batteries and 6 large ship-to-ship missile silos.
Like almost all Colonial Warships, the Valkyrie was also equipped with a Close-in-Weapons-System
or CIWS, this provided a grid of point defence fire used to eliminate hostile fighter craft
and ordnance before they present a threat to the Battlestar herself.
In the tenth year of the First Cylon War, the Battlestar Valkyrie suffered serious damage
in the Battle of Canceron Prime and was presumed destroyed, in actuality the Colonial Admiralty
had used Valkyrie as part of an elaborate plan to trick the Cylons.
The Valkyrie and several other ships presumed destroyed had actually been moved to form
a Concealed Colonial Fleet hiding behind Cylon Lines, when finally activated as part of the
so called Ghost Fleet Offensive the Valkyrie and her sister ships successfully struck every
Cylon base across five sectors, dealing a critical blow to the Cylon Forces.
Decades later, six years before the outbreak of the Second Cylon War, the Valkyrie, under
the command of William Adama was ordered by the Admiralty to engage in a top secret covert
operation to deploy a Colonial Stealthstar Reconnaissance ship over the Cylon Armistice
Line, in order to test the resolve of Cylon Forces and gather intelligence on their activities.
During the operation the Stealthstar was detected and disabled by Cylon Fighters and the Valkyrie
was forced to destroy the Stealthstar using its ship-to-ship missiles in order to prevent
its capture, and by extension, the outbreak of full scale war.
When the Cylon invasion of the colonies finally came, the Battlestar Valkyrie and her sister
ship the Battlestar Yashuman, engaged the Cylon invasion fleet over Caprica, unfortunately
both ships fell victim to Gaius Baltar’s Command Navigation Program, causing them to
lose power before being overwhelmed and destroyed by
the Cylons.